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THEAPPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY

BY PROF. RALPH BARTON PERRY

 THE FREE MAN AND THE SOLDIER THE MORAL ECONOMY THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

THE APPROACH TOPHILOSOPHY

BY

RALPH BARTON PERRY, PH. D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON

COPYRIGHT, 1905, BYCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Printed in the United States of AmericaF

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO

MY FATHER

AS A TOKEN OF MY LOVE AND ESTEEM

PREFACE

In an essay on "The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time, "Professor Edward Caird says that "philosophy is not a first venture intoa new field of thought, but the rethinking of a secular and religiousconsciousness which has been developed, in the main, independently ofphilosophy. "[vii:A] If there be any inspiration and originality in thisbook, they are due to my great desire that philosophy should appear inits vital relations to more familiar experiences. If philosophy is, asis commonly assumed, appropriate to a phase in the development of everyindividual, it should _grow out_ of interests to which he is alreadyalive. And if the great philosophers are indeed never dead, this factshould manifest itself in their classic or historical representation ofa perennial outlook upon the world. I am not seeking to attach tophilosophy a fictitious liveliness, wherewith to insinuate it into thegood graces of the student. I hope rather to be true to the meaning ofphilosophy. For there is that in its stand-point and its problem whichmakes it universally significant entirely apart from dialectic anderudition. These are derived interests, indispensable to the scholar, but quite separable from that modicum of philosophy which helps to makethe man. The present book is written for the sake of elucidating theinevitable philosophy. It seeks to make the reader more solicitouslyaware of the philosophy that is in him, or to provoke him to philosophyin his own interests. To this end I have sacrificed all else to the taskof mediating between the tradition and technicalities of the academicdiscipline and the more common terms of life. 

The purpose of the book will in part account for those shortcomings thatimmediately reveal themselves to the eye of the scholar. In Part Ivarious great human interests have been selected as points of departure. I have sought to introduce the general stand-point and problem ofphilosophy through its implication in practical life, poetry, religion, and science. But in so doing it has been necessary for me to dealshortly with topics of great independent importance, and so risk thedisfavor of those better skilled in these several matters. This isevidently true of the chapter which deals with natural science. But theproblem which I there faced differed radically from those of theforegoing chapters, and the method of treatment is correspondinglydifferent. In the case of natural science one has to deal with a body ofknowledge which is frequently regarded as the only knowledge. To write achapter about science from a philosophical stand-point is, in thepresent state of opinion, to undertake a polemic against exclusivenaturalism, an attitude which is itself philosophical, and as such iswell known in the history of philosophy as _positivism_ or_agnosticism_. I have avoided the polemical spirit and method so far aspossible, but have, nevertheless, here taken sides against a definitephilosophical position. This chapter, together with the Conclusion, istherefore an exception to the purely introductory and expositoryrepresentation which I have, on the whole, sought to give. Therelatively great space accorded to the discussion of religion is, in myown belief, fair to the general interest in this topic, and to theintrinsic significance of its relation to philosophy. 

I have in Part II undertaken to furnish the reader with a map of thecountry to which he has been led. To this end I have attempted a briefsurvey of the entire programme of philosophy. An accurate and fullaccount of philosophical terms can be found in such books as Külpe's"Introduction to Philosophy" and Baldwin's "Dictionary of Philosophy, "and an attempt to emulate their thoroughness would be superfluous, evenif it were conformable to the general spirit of this book. The scope ofPart II is due in part to a desire for brevity, but chiefly to the hopeof furnishing an epitome that shall follow the course of the _naturaland historical differentiation_ of the general philosophical problem. 

Finally, I have in Part III sought to present the tradition ofphilosophy in the form of general types. My purpose in undertaking sodifficult a task is to acquaint the reader with philosophy in theconcrete; to show how certain underlying principles may determine thewhole circle of philosophical ideas, and give them unity and distinctiveflavor. Part II offers a general classification of philosophicalproblems and conceptions independently of any special point of view. ButI have in Part III sought to emphasize the point of view, or theinternal consistency that makes a _system of philosophy_ out of certainanswers to the special problems of philosophy. In such a division intotypes, lines are of necessity drawn too sharply. There will be manyhistorical philosophies that refuse to fit, and many possibilitiesunprovided for. I must leave it to the individual reader to overcomethis abstractness through his own reflection upon the intermediate andvariant stand-points. 

Although the order is on the whole that of progressive complexity, Ihave sought to treat each chapter with independence enough to make itpossible for it to be read separately; and I have provided a carefullyselected bibliography in the hope that this book may serve as a stimulusand guide to the reading of other books. 

The earlier chapters have already appeared as articles: Chapter I in the_International Journal of Ethics_, Vol. XIII, No. 4; Chapter II in the_Philosophical Review_, Vol. XI, No. 6; Chapter III in the _Monist_, Vol. XIV, No. 5; Chapter IV in the _International Journal of Ethics_, Vol. XV, No. 1; and some paragraphs of Chapter V in the _Journal ofPhilosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol. I, No. 7. I amindebted to the editors of these periodicals for permission to reprintwith minor changes. 

In the writing of this, my first book, I have been often reminded thata higher critic, skilled in the study of internal evidence, couldprobably trace all of its ideas to suggestions that have come to me frommy teachers and colleagues of the Department of Philosophy in HarvardUniversity. I have unscrupulously forgotten what of their definite ideasI have adapted to my own use, but not that I received from them themajor portion of my original philosophical capital. I am especiallyindebted to Professor William James for the inspiration and resourceswhich I have received from his instruction and personal friendship. 

 RALPH BARTON PERRY. 

CAMBRIDGE, March, 1905. 

FOOTNOTES:

[vii:A] Edw. Caird: _Literature and Philosophy_, Vol. I, p. 207. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY PAGE

CHAPTER I. THE PRACTICAL MAN AND THE PHILOSOPHER 3

 § 1. Is Philosophy a Merely Academic Interest? 3 § 2. Life as a Starting-point for Thought 4 § 3. The Practical Knowledge of Means 8 § 4. The Practical Knowledge of the End or Purpose 10 § 5. The Philosophy of the Devotee, the Man of Affairs, and the Voluptuary 12 § 6. The Adoption of Purposes and the Philosophy of Life 17

CHAPTER II. POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 24

 § 7. Who is the Philosopher-Poet? 24 § 8. Poetry as Appreciation 25 § 9. Sincerity in Poetry. Whitman 27 § 10. Constructive Knowledge in Poetry. Shakespeare 30 § 11. Philosophy in Poetry. The World-view. Omar Khayyam 36 § 12. Wordsworth 38 § 13. Dante 42 § 14. The Difference between Poetry and Philosophy 48

CHAPTER III. THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 53

 § 15. The Possibility of Defining Religion 53 § 16. The Profitableness of Defining Religion 54 § 17. The True Method of Defining Religion 56 § 18. Religion as Belief 59 § 19. Religion as Belief in a Disposition or Attitude 62 § 20. Religion as Belief in the Disposition of the Residual Environment, or Universe 64 § 21. Examples of Religious Belief 66 § 22. Typical Religious Phenomena. Conversion 69 § 23. Piety 72 § 24. Religious Instruments, Symbolism, and Modes of Conveyance 74 § 25. Historical Types of Religion. Primitive Religions 77 § 26. Buddhism 78 § 27. Critical Religion 79

CHAPTER IV. THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF RELIGION 82

 § 28. Résumé of Psychology of Religion 82 § 29. Religion Means to be True 82 § 30. Religion Means to be Practically True. God is a Disposition from which Consequences May Rationally be Expected 85 § 31. Historical Examples of Religious Truth and Error. The Religion of Baal 88 § 32. Greek Religion 89 § 33. Judaism and Christianity 92 § 34. The Cognitive Factor in Religion 96 § 35. The Place of Imagination in Religion 97 § 36. The Special Functions of the Religious Imagination 101 § 37. The Relation between Imagination and Truth in Religion 105 § 38. The Philosophy Implied in Religion and in Religions 108

CHAPTER V. NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 114

 § 39. The True Relations of Philosophy and Science. Misconceptions and Antagonisms 114 § 40. The Spheres of Philosophy and Science 117 § 41. The Procedure of a Philosophy of Science 120 § 42. The Origin of the Scientific Interest 123 § 43. Skill as Free 123 § 44. Skill as Social 126 § 45. Science for Accommodation and Construction 127 § 46. Method and Fundamental Conceptions of Natural Science. The Descriptive Method 128 § 47. Space, Time, and Prediction 130 § 48. The Quantitative Method 132 § 49. The General Development of Science 134 § 50. The Determination of the Limits of Natural Science 135 § 51. Natural Science is Abstract 136 § 52. The Meaning of Abstractness in Truth 139 § 53. But Scientific Truth is Valid for Reality 142 § 54. Relative Practical Value of Science and Philosophy 143

PART II

THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER VI. METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 149

 § 55. The Impossibility of an Absolute Division of the Problem of Philosophy 149 § 56. The Dependence of the Order of Philosophical Problems upon the Initial Interest 152 § 57. Philosophy as the Interpretation of Life 152 § 58. Philosophy as the Extension of Science 154 § 59. The Historical Differentiation of the Philosophical Problem 155 § 60. Metaphysics Seeks a Most Fundamental Conception 157 § 61. Monism and Pluralism 159 § 62. Ontology and Cosmology Concern Being and Process 159 § 63. Mechanical and Teleological Cosmologies 160 § 64. Dualism 162 § 65. The New Meaning of Monism and Pluralism 163 § 66. Epistemology Seeks to Understand the Possibility of Knowledge 164 § 67. Scepticism, Dogmatism, and Agnosticism 166 § 68. The Source and Criterion of Knowledge according to Empiricism and Rationalism. Mysticism 168 § 69. The Relation of Knowledge to its Object according to Realism, and the Representative Theory 172 § 70. The Relation of Knowledge to its Object according to Idealism 175 § 71. Phenomenalism, Spiritualism, and Panpsychism 176 § 72. Transcendentalism, or Absolute Idealism 177

CHAPTER VII. THE NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND THE PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 180

 § 73. The Normative Sciences 180 § 74. The Affiliations of Logic 182 § 75. Logic Deals with the Most General Conditions of Truth in Belief 183 § 76. The Parts of Formal Logic. Definition, Self-evidence, Inference, and Observation 184 § 77. Present Tendencies. Theory of the Judgment 187 § 78. Priority of Concepts 188 § 79. Æsthetics Deals with the Most General Conditions of Beauty. Subjectivistic and Formalistic Tendencies 189 § 80. Ethics Deals with the Most General Conditions of Moral Goodness 191 § 81. Conceptions of the Good. Hedonism 191 § 82. Rationalism 193 § 83. Eudæmonism and Pietism. Rigorism and Intuitionism 194 § 84. Duty and Freedom. Ethics and Metaphysics 196 § 85. The Virtues, Customs, and Institutions 198 § 86. The Problems of Religion. The Special Interests of Faith 199 § 87. Theology Deals with the Nature and Proof of God 200 § 88. The Ontological Proof of God 200 § 89. The Cosmological Proof of God 203 § 90. The Teleological Proof of God 204 § 91. God and the World. Theism and Pantheism 205 § 92. Deism 206 § 93. Metaphysics and Theology 207 § 94. Psychology is the Theory of the Soul 208 § 95. Spiritual Substance 209 § 96. Intellectualism and Voluntarism 210 § 97. Freedom of the Will. Necessitarianism, Determinism, and Indeterminism 211 § 98. Immortality. Survival and Eternalism 212 § 99. The Natural Science of Psychology. Its Problems and Method 213 § 100. Psychology and Philosophy 216 § 101. Transition from Classification by Problems to Classification by Doctrines. Naturalism. Subjectivism. Absolute Idealism. Absolute Realism 217

PART III

SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER VIII. NATURALISM 223

 § 102. The General Meaning of Materialism 223 § 103. Corporeal Being 224 § 104. Corporeal Processes. Hylozoism and Mechanism 225 § 105. Materialism and Physical Science 228 § 106. The Development of the Conceptions of Physical Science. Space and Matter 228 § 107. Motion and its Cause. Development and Extension of the Conception of Force 231 § 108. The Development and Extension of the Conception of Energy 236 § 109. The Claims of Naturalism 239 § 110. The Task of Naturalism 241 § 111. The Origin of the Cosmos 242 § 112. Life. Natural Selection 244 § 113. Mechanical Physiology 246 § 114. Mind. The Reduction to Sensation 247 § 115. Automatism 248 § 116. Radical Materialism. Mind as an Epiphenomenon 250 § 117. Knowledge. Positivism and Agnosticism 252 § 118. Experimentalism 255 § 119. Naturalistic Epistemology not Systematic 256 § 120. General Ethical Stand-point 258 § 121. Cynicism and Cyrenaicism 259 § 122. Development of Utilitarianism. Evolutionary Conception of Social Relations 260 § 123. Naturalistic Ethics not Systematic 262 § 124. Naturalism as Antagonistic to Religion 263 § 125. Naturalism as the Basis for a Religion of Service, Wonder, and Renunciation 265

CHAPTER IX. SUBJECTIVISM 267

 § 126. Subjectivism Originally Associated with Relativism and Scepticism 267 § 127. Phenomenalism and Spiritualism 271 § 128. Phenomenalism as Maintained by Berkeley. The Problem Inherited from Descartes and Locke 272 § 129. The Refutation of Material Substance 275 § 130. The Application of the Epistemological Principle 277 § 131. The Refutation of a Conceived Corporeal World 278 § 132. The Transition to Spiritualism 280 § 133. Further Attempts to Maintain Phenomenalism 281 § 134. Berkeley's Spiritualism. Immediate Knowledge of the Perceiver 284 § 135. Schopenhauer's Spiritualism, or Voluntarism. Immediate Knowledge of the Will 285 § 136. Panpsychism 287 § 137. The Inherent Difficulty in Spiritualism. No Provision for Objective Knowledge 288 § 138. Schopenhauer's Attempt to Universalize Subjectivism. Mysticism 290 § 139. Objective Spiritualism 292 § 140. Berkeley's Conception of God as Cause, Goodness, and Order 293 § 141. The General Tendency of Subjectivism to Transcend Itself 297 § 142. Ethical Theories. Relativism 298 § 143. Pessimism and Self-denial 299 § 144. The Ethics of Welfare 300 § 145. The Ethical Community 302 § 146. The Religion of Mysticism 303 § 147. The Religion of Individual Coöperation with God 304

CHAPTER X. ABSOLUTE REALISM 306

 § 148. The Philosopher's Task, and the Philosopher's Object, or the Absolute 306 § 149. The Eleatic Conception of Being 309 § 150. Spinoza's Conception of Substance 311 § 151. Spinoza's Proof of God, the Infinite Substance. The Modes and the Attributes 312 § 152. The Limits of Spinoza's Argument for God 315 § 153. Spinoza's Provision for the Finite 317 § 154. Transition to Teleological Conceptions 317 § 155. Early Greek Philosophers not Self-critical 319 § 156. Curtailment of Philosophy in the Age of the Sophists 319 § 157. Socrates and the Self-criticism of the Philosopher 321 § 158. Socrates's Self-criticism a Prophecy of Truth 323 § 159. The Historical Preparation for Plato 324 § 160. Platonism: Reality as the Absolute Ideal or Good 326 § 161. The Progression of Experience toward God 329 § 162. Aristotle's Hierarchy of Substances in Relation to Platonism 332 § 163. The Aristotelian Philosophy as a Reconciliation of Platonism and Spinozism 335 § 164. Leibniz's Application of the Conception of Development to the Problem of Imperfection 336 § 165. The Problem of Imperfection Remains Unsolved 338 § 166. Absolute Realism in Epistemology. Rationalism 339 § 167. The Relation of Thought and its Object in Absolute Realism 340 § 168. The Stoic and Spinozistic Ethics of Necessity 342 § 169. The Platonic Ethics of Perfection 344 § 170. The Religion of Fulfilment and the Religion of Renunciation 346

CHAPTER XI. ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 349

 § 171. General Constructive Character of Absolute Idealism 349 § 172. The Great Outstanding Problems of Absolutism 351 § 173. The Greek Philosophers and the Problem of Evil. The Task of the New Absolutism 352 § 174. The Beginning of Absolute Idealism in Kant's Analysis of Experience 354 § 175. Kant's Principles Restricted to the Experiences which they Set in Order 356 § 176. The Post-Kantian Metaphysics is a Generalization of the Cognitive and Moral Consciousness as Analyzed by Kant. The Absolute Spirit 358 § 177. Fichteanism, or the Absolute Spirit as Moral Activity 360 § 178. Romanticism, or the Absolute Spirit as Sentiment 361 § 179. Hegelianism, or the Absolute Spirit as Dialectic 361 § 180. The Hegelian Philosophy of Nature and History 363 § 181. Résumé. Failure of Absolute Idealism to Solve the Problem of Evil 365 § 182. The Constructive Argument for Absolute Idealism is Based upon the Subjectivistic Theory of Knowledge 368 § 183. The Principle of Subjectivism Extended to Reason 371 § 184. Emphasis on Self-consciousness in Early Christian Philosophy 372 § 185. Descartes's Argument for the Independence of the Thinking Self 374 § 186. Empirical Reaction of the English Philosophers 376 § 187. To Save Exact Science Kant Makes it Dependent on Mind 377 § 188. The Post-Kantians Transform Kant's Mind-in-general into an Absolute Mind 380 § 189. The Direct Argument. The Inference from the Finite Mind to the Infinite Mind 382 § 190. The Realistic Tendency in Absolute Idealism 385 § 191. The Conception of Self-consciousness Central in the Ethics of Absolute Idealism. Kant 386 § 192. Kantian Ethics Supplemented through the Conceptions of Universal and Objective Spirit 388 § 193. The Peculiar Pantheism and Mysticism of Absolute Idealism 390 § 194. The Religion of Exuberant Spirituality 393

CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION 395

 § 195. Liability of Philosophy to Revision Due to its Systematic Character 395 § 196. The One Science and the Many Philosophies 396 § 197. Progress in Philosophy. The Sophistication or Eclecticism of the Present Age 398 § 198. Metaphysics. The Antagonistic Doctrines of Naturalism and Absolutism 399 § 199. Concessions from the Side of Absolutism. Recognition of Nature. The Neo-Fichteans 401 § 200. The Neo-Kantians 403 § 201. Recognition of the Individual. Personal Idealism 404 § 202. Concessions from the Side of Naturalism. Recognition of Fundamental Principles 405 § 203. Recognition of the Will. Pragmatism 407 § 204. Summary and Transition to Epistemology 408 § 205. The Antagonistic Doctrines of Realism and Idealism. Realistic Tendency in Empirical Idealism 409 § 206. Realistic Tendency in Absolute Idealism. The Conception of Experience 410 § 207. Idealistic Tendencies in Realism. The Immanence Philosophy 412 § 208. The Interpretation of Tradition as the Basis for a New Construction 413 § 209. The Truth of the Physical System, but Failure of Attempt to Reduce all Experience to it 414 § 210. Truth of Psychical Relations but Impossibility of General Reduction to them 415 § 211. Truth of Logical and Ethical Principles. Validity of Ideal of Perfection, but Impossibility of Deducing the Whole of Experience from it 415 § 212. Error and Evil cannot be Reduced to the Ideal 417 § 213. Collective Character of the Universe as a Whole 419 § 214. Moral Implications of Such Pluralistic Philosophy. Purity of the Good 420 § 215. The Incentive to Goodness 422 § 216. The Justification of Faith 423 § 217. The Worship and Service of God 425 § 218. The Philosopher and the Standards of the Market-Place 425 § 219. The Secularism of the Present Age 427 § 220. The Value of Contemplation for Life 428

BIBLIOGRAPHY 431

INDEX 441

PART I

APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OFPHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER I

THE PRACTICAL MAN AND THE PHILOSOPHER

[Sidenote: Is Philosophy a Merely Academic Interest?]

§ 1. Philosophy suffers the distinction of being regarded as essentiallyan academic pursuit. The term _philosophy_, to be sure, is used incommon speech to denote a stoical manner of accepting the vicissitudesof life; but this conception sheds little or no light upon the meaningof philosophy as a branch of scholarship. The men who write the books on"Epistemology" or "Ontology, " are regarded by the average man ofaffairs, even though he may have enjoyed a "higher education, " withlittle sympathy and less intelligence. Not even philology seems lessconcerned with the real business of life. The pursuit of philosophyappears to be a phenomenon of extreme and somewhat effete culture, withits own peculiar traditions, problems, and aims, and with little ornothing to contribute to the real enterprises of society. It is easy toprove to the satisfaction of the philosopher that such a view isradically mistaken. But it is another and more serious matter to bridgeover the very real gap that separates philosophy and common-sense. Suchan aim is realized only when philosophy is seen to issue from somespecial interest that is humanly important; or when, after starting inthought at a point where one deals with ideas and interests common toall, one is led by the inevitableness of consistent thinking into thesphere of philosophy. 

[Sidenote: Life as a Starting-point for Thought. ]

§ 2. There is but one starting-point for reflection when all men areinvited to share in it. Though there be a great many special platformswhere special groups of men may take their stand together, there is onlyone platform broad enough for all. This universal stand-point, or commonplatform, is _life_. It is our more definite thesis, then, thatphilosophy, even to its most abstruse technicality, is rooted in life;and that it is inseparably bound up with the satisfaction of practicalneeds, and the solution of practical problems. 

Every man knows what it is to live, and his immediate experience willverify those features of the adventure that stand out conspicuously. Tobegin with, life is our birthright. We did not ask for it, but when wegrew old enough to be self-conscious we found ourselves in possessionof it. Nor is it a gift to be neglected, even if we had the will. As istrue of no other gift of nature, we must use it, or cease to be. Thereis a unique urgency about life. But we have already implied more, in sofar as we have said that it must be _used_, and have thereby referred tosome form of movement or activity as its inseparable attribute. Tolive is to find one's self compelled to do something. To do_something_--there is another implication of life: some outerexpression, some medium in which to register the degree and form of itsactivity. Such we recognize as the environment of life, the real objectsamong which it is placed; which it may change, or from which it maysuffer change. Not only do we find our lives as unsolicited activepowers, but find, as well, an arena prescribed for their exercise. Thatwe shall act, and in a certain time and place, and with reference tocertain other realities, this is the general condition of things that isencountered when each one of us discovers life. In short, to live meansto be compelled to do something under certain circumstances. 

There is another very common aspect of life that would not at firstglance seem worthy of mention. Not only does life, as we have justdescribed it, mean opportunity, but it means self-conscious opportunity. The facts are such as we have found them to be, and as each one of ushas previously found them for himself. But when we discover life forourselves, we who make the discovery, and we who live, are identical. From that moment we both live, and know that we live. Moreover, such isthe essential unity of our natures that our living must now express ourknowing, and our knowing guide and illuminate our living. Consider theallegory of the centipede. From the beginning of time he had manipulatedhis countless legs with exquisite precision. Men had regarded him withwonder and amazement. But he was innocent of his own art, being acontrivance of nature, perfectly constructed to do her bidding. One daythe centipede discovered life. He discovered himself as one who walks, and the newly awakened intelligence, first observing, then foreseeing, at length began to direct the process. And from that moment thecentipede, because he could not remember the proper order of his going, lost all his former skill, and became the poor clumsy victim of his ownself-consciousness. This same self-consciousness is the inconvenienceand the great glory of human life. We must stumble along as best wecan, guided by the feeble light of our own little intelligence. Ifnature starts us on our way, she soon hands over the torch, and bids usfind the trail for ourselves. Most men are brave enough to regard thisas the best thing of all; some despair on account of it. In either caseit is admittedly the true story of human life. We must live as separateselves, observing, foreseeing, and planning. There are two things thatwe can do about it. We can repudiate our natures, decline theresponsibility, and degenerate to the level of those animals that neverhad our chance; or we can leap joyously to the helm, and with all thestrength and wisdom in us guide our lives to their destination. But ifwe do the former, we shall be unable to forget what might have been, andshall be haunted by a sense of ignominy; and if we do the second, weshall experience the unique happiness of fulfilment andself-realization. 

Life, then, is a situation that appeals to intelligent activity. Humanlyspeaking, there is no such thing as a situation that is not at the sametime a theory. As we live we are all theorists. Whoever has anymisgivings as to the practical value of theory, let him remember that, speaking generally of human life, it is true to say that there is nopractice that does not issue at length from reflection. That which isthe commonest experience of mankind is the conjunction of these two, thethought and the deed. And as surely as we are all practical theorists, so surely is philosophy the outcome of the broadening and deepening ofpractical theory. But to understand how the practical man becomes thephilosopher, we must inquire somewhat more carefully into the manner ofhis thought about life. 

[Sidenote: The Practical Knowledge of Means. ]

§ 3. Let anyone inspect the last moment in his life, and in allprobability he will find that his mind was employed to discover themeans to some end. He was already bent upon some definite achievement, and was thoughtful for the sake of selecting the economical andeffectual way. His theory made his practice skilful. So through life hisknowledge shows him how to work his will. Example, experience, and bookshave taught him the uses of nature and society, and in his thoughtfulliving he is enabled to reach the goal he has set for the next hour, day, or year of his activity. The long periods of human life are spentin elaborating the means to some unquestioned end. Here one meets thecurious truth that we wake up in the middle of life, already makingheadway, and under the guidance of some invisible steersman. When firstwe take the business of life seriously, there is a considerable stock intrade in the shape of habits, and inclinations to all sorts of thingsthat we never consciously elected to pursue. Since we do not begin atthe beginning, our first problem is to accommodate ourselves toourselves, and our first deliberate acts are in fulfilment of plansoutlined by some predecessor that has already spoken for us. The samething is true of the race of men. At a certain stage in theirdevelopment men found themselves engaged in all manner of ritual andcustom, and burdened with concerns that were not of their own choosing. They were burning incense, keeping festivals, and naming names, all ofwhich they must now proceed to justify with myth and legend, in order torender intelligible to themselves the deliberate and self-consciousrepetition of them. Even so much justification was left to the few, andthe great majority continued to seek that good which social usagecountenanced and individual predisposition confirmed. So every man of usacts from day to day for love's sake, or wealth's sake, or power'ssake, or for the sake of some near and tangible object; reflecting onlyfor the greater efficiency of his endeavor. 

[Sidenote: The Practical Knowledge of the End or Purpose. ]

§ 4. But if this be the common manner of thinking about life, it doesnot represent the whole of such thought. Nor does it follow that becauseit occupies us so much, it is therefore correspondingly fundamental. Like the myth makers of old, we all want more or less to know the_reason of our ends_. Here, then, we meet with a somewhat different typeof reflection upon life, the reflection that underlies the adoption of alife purpose. It is obvious that most ends are selected for the sake ofother ends, and so are virtually means. Thus one may struggle for yearsto secure a college education. This definite end has been adopted forthe sake of a somewhat more indefinite end of self-advancement, and fromit there issues a whole series of minor ends, which form a hierarchy ofsteps ascending to the highest goal of aspiration. Now upon the face ofthings we live very unsystematic lives, and yet were we to examineourselves in this fashion, we should all find our lives to be marvels oforganization. Their growth, as we have seen, began before we wereconscious of it; and we are commonly so absorbed in some particularflower or fruit that we forget the roots, and the design of the whole. But a little reflection reveals a remarkable unitary adjustment ofparts. The unity is due to the dominance of a group of central purposes. Judged from the stand-point of experience, it seems bitter irony to saythat everyone gets from life just what he wishes. But a candid searchingof our own hearts will incline us to admit that, after all, the way wego and the length we go is determined pretty much by the kind and theintensity of our secret longing. That for which in the time of choice weare willing to sacrifice all else, is the formula that defines the lawof each individual life. All this is not intended to mean that we haveeach named a clear and definite ideal which is our chosen goal. On thecontrary, such a conception may be almost meaningless to some of us. Ingeneral the higher the ideal the vaguer and less vivid is itspresentation to our consciousness. But, named or unnamed, sharp orblurred, vivid or half-forgotten, there may be found in the heart ofevery man that which of all things he wants to be, that which of alldeeds he wants to do. If he has had the normal youth of dreaming, hehas seen it, and warmed to the picture of his imagination; if he hasbeen somewhat more thoughtful than the ordinary, his reason has definedit, and adopted it for his vocation; if neither, it has been present asan undertone throughout the rendering of his more inevitable life. Hewill recognize it when it is named as the desire to do the will of God, or to have as good a time as possible, or to make other people as happyas possible, or to be equal to his responsibilities, or to fulfil theexpectation of his mother, or to be distinguished, wealthy, orinfluential. This list of ideals is miscellaneous, and ethicallyreducible to more fundamental concepts, but these are the terms in whichmen are ordinarily conscious of their most intimate purposes. We mustnow inquire respecting the nature of the thought that determines theselection of such a purpose, or justifies it when it has beenunconsciously accepted. 

[Sidenote: The Philosophy of the Devotee, the Man of Affairs, and theVoluptuary. ]

§ 5. What is most worth while? So far as human action is concerned thisobviously depends upon what is possible, upon what is expected of us byour own natures, and upon what interests and concerns are conserved bythe trend of events in our environment. What I had best do, presupposeswhat I have the strength and the skill to do, what I feel called upon todo, and what are the great causes that are entitled to promotion at myhands. It seems that practically we cannot separate the ideal from thereal. We may feel that the highest ideal is an immediate utterance ofconscience, as mysterious in origin as it is authoritative inexpression. We may be willing to defy the universe, and expatriateourselves from our natural and social environment, for the sake of theholy law of duty. Such men as Count Tolstoi have little to say of thepossible, or the expedient, or the actual, and are satisfied to standalmost alone against the brutal facts of usage and economy. We all havea secret sense of chivalry, that prompts, however ineffectually, to alike devotion. But that which in such moral purposes appears to indicatea severance of the ideal and the real, is, if we will but stop toconsider, only a severance of the ideal and the apparent. The martyr ismore sure of reality than the adventurer. He is convinced that thoughhis contemporaries and his environment be against him; the fundamentalor eventual order of things is for him. He believes in a spiritual worldmore abiding, albeit less obvious, than the material world. Thoughevery temporal event contradict him, he lives in the certainty thateternity is his. Such an one may have found his ideal in the voice ofGod and His prophets, or he may have been led to God as thejustification of his irresistible ideal; but in either case theselection of his ideal is reasonable to him in so far as it isharmonious with the ultimate nature of things, or stands for the promiseof reality. In this wise, thought about life expands into someconception of the deeper forces of the world, and life itself, inrespect of its fundamental attachment to an ideal, implies some beliefconcerning the fundamental nature of its environment. 

But lest in this account life be credited with too much gravity andimport, or it seem to be assumed that life is all knight-errantry, letus turn to our less quixotic, and perhaps more effectual, man ofaffairs. He works for his daily bread, and for success in his vocation. He has selected his vocation for its promise of return in the form ofwealth, comfort, fame, or influence. He likewise performs suchadditional service to his family and his community as is demanded of himby public opinion and his own sense of responsibility. He may have acertain contempt for the man who sees visions. This may be his manner oftestifying to his own preference for the ideal of usefulness andimmediate efficiency. But even so he would never for an instant admitthat he was pursuing a merely conventional good. He may be largelyimitative in his standards of value, recognizing such aims as are commonto some time or race; nevertheless none would be more sure than he ofthe truth of his ideal. Question him, and he will maintain that his isthe reasonable life under the conditions of human existence. He maymaintain that if there be a God, he can best serve Him by promoting thetangible welfare of himself and those dependent upon him. He maymaintain that, since there is no God, he must win such rewards as theworld can give. If he have something of the heroic in him, he may tellyou that, since there is no God, he will labor to the uttermost for hisfellow-men. Where he has not solved the problem of life for himself, hemay believe himself to be obeying the insight of some one wiser thanhimself, or of society as expressed in its customs and institutions. Butno man ever admitted that his life was purely a matter of expediency, orthat in his dominant ideal he was the victim of chance. In thebackground of the busiest and most preoccupied life of affairs, theredwells the conviction that such living is appropriate to the universe;that it is called for by the circumstances of its origin, opportunities, and destiny. 

Finally, the man who makes light of life has of all men the mosttransparent inner consciousness. In him may be clearly observed therelation between the ideal and the reflection that is assumed to justifyit. 

 "A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste Of Being from the Well amid the Waste-- And Lo!--the phantom Caravan has reach'd The Nothing it set out from-- . . . "

 "We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the Sun-illumin'd Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show. "

Where the setting of life is construed in these terms, there is but onenatural and appropriate manner of life. Once believing in the isolationand insignificance of life, one is sceptical of all worth save such asmay be tasted in the moment of its purchase. If one's ideas andexperiences are no concern of the world's, but incidents of a purelylocal and transient interest, they will realize most when they realizean immediate gratification. Where one does not believe that he is amember of the universe, and a contributor to its ends, he does well tominimize the friction that arises from its accidental propinquity, andto kindle some little fire of enjoyment in his own lonely heart. This isthe life of abandonment to pleasure, accompanied by the conviction thatthe conditions of life warrant no more strenuous or heroic plan. 

[Sidenote: The Adoption of Purposes and the Philosophy of Life. ]

§ 6. In such wise do we adopt the life purpose, or justify it whenunconsciously adopted. The pursuit of an ideal implies a belief in itseffectuality. Such a belief will invariably appear when the groundworkof the daily living is laid bare by a little reflection. And if ouranalysis has not been in error, there is something more definite to beobtained from it. We all believe in the practical wisdom of ourfundamental ideals; but we believe, besides, that such wisdom involvesthe sanction of the universe as a whole. The momentousness of anindividual's life will be satisfied with nothing less final than anabsolutely wise disposition of it. For every individual, his life is allhis power and riches, and is not to be spent save for the _greatest goodthat he can reasonably pursue_. But the solution of such a problem isnot to be obtained short of a searching of entire reality. Every lifewill represent more or less of such wisdom and enlightenment; and in theend the best selection of ideal will denote the greatest wealth ofexperience. It is not always true that he who has seen more will livemore wisely, for in an individual case instinct or authority may bebetter sources of aspiration than experience. But we trust instinct andauthority because we believe them to represent a comprehensiveexperience on the part of the race as a whole, or on the part of God. Hewhose knowledge is broadest and truest would know best what is finallyworth living for. On this account, most men can see no more reasonableplan of life than obedience to God's will, for God in the abundance ofhis wisdom, and since all eternity is plain before him, must see withcertainty that which is supremely worthy. 

We mean, then, that the selection of our ideals shall be determined bythe largest possible knowledge of the facts pertaining to life. We meanto select as one would select who knew all about the antecedents andsurroundings and remote consequences of life. In our own weakness andfinitude we may go but a little way in the direction of such aninsight, and may prefer to accept the judgment of tradition orauthority, but we recognize a distinct type of knowledge as alone worthyto justify an individual's adoption of an ideal. That type of knowledgeis the knowledge that comprehends the universe in its totality. Suchknowledge does not involve completeness of information respecting allparts of reality. This, humanly speaking, is both unattainable andinconceivable. It involves rather a conception of the _kind_ of realitythat is fundamental. For a wise purpose it is unnecessary that we shouldknow many matters of fact, or even specific laws, provided we areconvinced of the inner and essential character of the universe. Some ofthe alternatives are matters of every-day thought and speech. One cannottell the simplest story of human life without disclosing them. To livethe human life means to pursue ideals, that is, to have a thing in mind, and then to try to accomplish it. Here is one kind of reality and power. The planetary system, on the other hand, does not pursue ideals, butmoves unconscious of itself, with a mechanical precision that can beexpressed in a mathematical formula; and is representative of anotherkind of reality and power. Hence a very common and a very practicalquestion: Is there an underlying law, like the law of gravitation, fundamentally and permanently governing life, in spite of its apparentdirection by ideal and aspiration? Or is there an underlying power, likepurpose, fundamentally and permanently governing the planetary systemand all celestial worlds, in spite of the apparent control of blind andirresistible forces? This is a practical question because nothing couldbe more pertinent to our choice of ideals. Nothing could make moredifference to life than a belief in the life or lifelessness of itsenvironment. The faiths that generate or confirm our ideals always referto this great issue. And this is but one, albeit the most profound, ofthe many issues that arise from the desire to obtain some conviction ofthe inner and essential character of life. Though so intimatelyconnected with practical concerns, these issues are primarily thebusiness of thought. In grappling with them, thought is called upon forits greatest comprehensiveness, penetration, and self-consistency. Bythe necessity of concentration, thought is sometimes led to forget itsorigin and the source of its problems. But in naming itself philosophy, thought has only recognized the definiteness and earnestness of itslargest task. Philosophy is still thought about life, representing butthe deepening and broadening of the common practical thoughtfulness. 

We who began together at the starting-point of _life_, have now enteredtogether the haven of _philosophy_. It is not a final haven, but onlythe point of departure for the field of philosophy proper. Neverthelessthat field is now in the plain view of the man who occupies thepractical stand-point. He must recognize in philosophy a kind ofreflection that differs only in extent and persistence from thereflection that guides and justifies his life. He may not consciouslyidentify himself with any one of the three general groups which havebeen characterized. But if he is neither an idealist, nor a philistine, nor a pleasure lover, surely he is compounded of such elements, and doesnot escape their implications. He desires something most of all, eventhough his highest ideal be only an inference from the gradation of hisimmediate purposes. This highest ideal represents what he conceives tobe the greatest worth or value attainable in the universe, and itsadoption is based upon the largest generalization that he can make orborrow. The complete justification of his ideal would involve a trueknowledge of the essential character of the universe. For such knowledgehe substitutes either authority or his own imperfect insight. But ineither case his life is naturally and organically correlated with a_thought about the universe in its totality, or in its deepest andessential character_. Such thought, the activity and its results, isphilosophy. Hence he who lives is, _ipso facto_, a philosopher. He isnot only a potential philosopher, but a partial philosopher. He hasalready begun to be a philosopher. Between the fitful or prudentialthinking of some little man of affairs, and the sustained thought of thedevoted lover of truth, there is indeed a long journey, but it is astraight journey along the same road. Philosophy is neither accidentalnor supernatural, but inevitable and normal. Philosophy is not properlya vocation, but the ground and inspiration of all vocations. In thehands of its devotees it grows technical and complex, as do all effortsof thought, and to pursue philosophy bravely and faithfully is toencounter obstacles and labyrinths innumerable. The general problem ofphilosophy is mother of a whole brood of problems, little and great. Butwhether we be numbered among its devotees, or their beneficiaries, anequal significance attaches to the truth that philosophy is continuouswith life. 

CHAPTER II

POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY

[Sidenote: Who is the Philosopher-Poet?]

§ 7. As the ultimate criticism of all human interests, philosophy may beapproached by avenues as various as these interests. Only whenphilosophy is discovered as the implication of well-recognized specialinterests, is the significance of its function fully appreciated. Forthe sake of such a further understanding of philosophy, those who findeither inspiration or entertainment in poetry are invited in the presentchapter to consider certain of the relations between poetry andphilosophy. 

We must at the very outset decline to accept unqualifiedly the poet'sopinion in the matter, for he would not think it presumptuous toincorporate philosophy in poetry. "No man, " said Coleridge, "was everyet a great poet without being at the same time a great philosopher. "This would seem to mean that a great poet is a great philosopher, andmore too. We shall do better to begin with the prosaic and matter offact minimum of truth: some poetry is philosophical. This will enableus to search for the portion of philosophy that is in some poetry, without finally defining their respective boundaries. It may be that alltrue poetry is philosophical, as it may be that all true philosophy ispoetical; but it is much more certain that much actual poetry is farfrom philosophical, and that most actual philosophy was not conceived orwritten by a poet. The mere poet and the mere philosopher must betolerated, if it be only for the purpose of shedding light upon thephilosopher-poet and the poet-philosopher. And it is to thephilosopher-poet that we turn, in the hope that under the genial spellof poetry we may be brought with understanding to the more forbiddingland of philosophy. 

[Sidenote: Poetry as Appreciation. ]

§ 8. Poetry is well characterized, though not defined, as aninterpretation of life. The term "life" here signifies the humanpurposive consciousness, and active pursuit of ends. An interpretationof life is, then, a selection and account of such values in humanexperience as are actually sought or are worth the seeking. For the poetall things are good or bad, and never only matters of fact. He isneither an annalist nor a statistician, and is even an observer onlyfor the sake of a higher design. He is one who appreciates, andexpresses his appreciation so fittingly that it becomes a kind of truth, and a permanently communicable object. That "unbodied joy, " theskylark's song and flight, is through the genius of Shelley sofaithfully embodied, that it may enter as a definite joy into the livesof countless human beings. The sensuous or suggestive values of natureare caught by the poet's quick feeling for beauty, and fixed by hiscreative activity. Or with his ready sympathy he may perceive the valueof some human ideal or mastering passion, and make it a reality for ourcommon feeling. Where the poet has to do with the base and hateful, hisattitude is still appreciative. The evil is apprehended as part of adramatic whole having positive moral or æsthetic value. Moral ideas mayappear in both poetry and life as the inspiration and justification ofstruggle. Where there is no conception of its moral significance, therepulsive possesses for the poet's consciousness the æsthetic value ofdiversity and contrast. Even where the evil and ugly is isolated, as incertain of Browning's dramatic monologues, it forms, both for the poetand the reader, but a part of some larger perception of life orcharacter, which is sublime or beautiful or good. Poetry involves, then, the discovery and presentation of human experiences that aresatisfying and appealing. It is a language for human pleasures andideals. Poetry is without doubt a great deal more than this, and onlyafter a careful analysis of its peculiar language could one distinguishit from kindred arts; but it will suffice for our purposes tocharacterize and not differentiate. Starting from this most generaltruth respecting poetry, we may now look for that aspect of it wherebyit may be a witness of philosophical truth. 

[Sidenote: Sincerity in Poetry. Whitman. ]

§ 9. For the answer to our question, we must turn to an examination ofthe intellectual elements of poetry. In the first place, the commondemand that the poet shall be accurate in his representations issuggestive of an indispensable intellectual factor in his genius. As wehave seen, he is not to reproduce nature, but the human appreciativeexperience of nature. Nevertheless, he must even here be true to hisobject. His art involves his ability to express genuinely and sincerelywhat he himself experiences in the presence of nature, or what he cancatch of the inner lives of others by virtue of his intelligentsympathy. No amount of emotion or even of imagination will profit apoet, unless he can render a true account of them. To be sure, he neednot define, or even explain; for it is his function to transfer theimmediate qualities of experience: but he must be able to speak thetruth, and, in order to speak it, he must have known it. In all this, however, we have made no demand that the poet should see more than onething at a time. Sincerity of expression does not require what isdistinctly another mode of intelligence, _comprehensiveness of view_. Itis easier, and accordingly more usual, to render an account of themoments and casual units of experience, than of its totality. There arepoets, little and great, who possess the intellectual virtue ofsincerity, without the intellectual power of synthesis andreconciliation. This distinction will enable us to separate theintelligence exhibited in all poetry, from that distinct form ofintelligence exhibited in such poetry as is properly to be calledphilosophical. 

The "barbarian" in poetry has recently been defined as "the man whoregards his passions as their own excuse for being; who does notdomesticate them either by understanding their cause or by conceivingtheir ideal goal. "[28:1] One will readily appreciate the application ofthis definition to Walt Whitman. What little unity there is in thispoet's world, is the composition of a purely sensuous experience, "The earth expending right hand and left hand, The picture alive, every part in its best light, The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted. "

In many passages Whitman manifests a marvellous ability to discover andcommunicate a fresh gladness about the commonest experiences. We cannotbut rejoice with him in all sights and sounds. But though we cannot denyhim truth, his truth is honesty and not understanding. The experiencesin which he discovers so much worth, are random and capricious, and donot constitute a universe. To the solution of ultimate questions hecontributes a sense of mystery, and the conviction

 "That you are here--that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. "

His world is justly described by the writer just quoted as "aphantasmagoria of continuous visions, vivid, impressive, but monotonousand hard to distinguish in memory, like the waves of the sea or thedecorations of some barbarous temple, sublime only by the infiniteaggregation of parts. "[30:2]

As is Walt Whitman, so are many poets greater and less. Some who haveseen the world-view, exhibit the same particularism in their lyricmoods; although, generally speaking, a poet who once has comprehendedthe world, will see the parts of it in the light of that wisdom. ButWalt Whitman is peculiarly representative of the poetry that can betrue, without being wise in the manner that we shall come shortly tounderstand as the manner of philosophy. He is as desultory in his poetraptures as is the common man when he lives in his immediateexperiences. The truth won by each is the clear vision of one thing, orof a limited collection of things, and not the broad inclusive vision ofall things. 

[Sidenote: Constructive Knowledge in Poetry. Shakespeare. ]

§ 10. The transition from Whitman to Shakespeare may seem somewhatabrupt, but the very differences between these poets serve to mark outan interesting affinity. Neither has put any unitary construction uponhuman life and its environment. Neither, as poet, is the witness of anyworld-view; which will mean for us that neither is a philosopher-poet. As respects Shakespeare, this is a hard saying. We are accustomed to thecritical judgment that finds in the Shakespearian dramas an apprehensionof the universal in human life. But though this judgment is true, it isby no means conclusive as respects Shakespeare's relation to thephilosophical type of thought. For there can be universality withoutphilosophy. Thus, to know the groups and the marks of the vertebrates isto know a truth which possesses generality, in contradistinction to theparticularism of Whitman's poetic consciousness. Even so to know wellthe groups and marks of human character, vertebrate and invertebrate, isto know that of which the average man, in his hand to hand struggle withlife, is ignorant. Such a wisdom Shakespeare possessed to a uniquedegree, and it enabled him to reconstruct human life. He did not merelyperceive human states and motives, but he understood human nature sowell that he could create consistent men and women. Moreover, Shakespeare's knowledge was not only thus universal in being a knowledgeof general groups and laws, but also in respect of its extensity. Hisunderstanding was as rich as it was acute. It is true, then, thatShakespeare read human life as an open book, knowing certainly themanner of human thinking and feeling, and the power and interplay ofhuman motives. But it is equally true, on the other hand, that hepossessed no unitary conception of the meaning and larger relations ofhuman life. Such a conception might have been expressed either by meansof the outlook of some dominating and persistent type of personality, orby a pervading suggestion of some constant world-setting for thevariable enterprise of mankind. It could appear only provided the poet'sappreciation of life in detail were determined by an interpretation ofthe meaning of life as a whole. Shakespeare apparently possessed no suchinterpretation. Even when Hamlet is groping after some larger truth thatmay bear upon the definite problems of life, he represents but one, andthat a strange and unusual, type of human nature. And Hamlet'sreflections, it should be noted, have no outcome. There is noShakespearian answer to the riddles that Hamlet propounds. The poet'sgenius is not less amazing for this fact; indeed, his peculiardistinction can only be comprehended upon this basis. Shakespeare put noconstruction upon life, and by virtue of this very reserve accomplishedan art of surpassing fidelity and vividness. The absence of philosophyin Shakespeare, and the presence of the most characteristic quality ofhis genius, may both be imputed by the one affirmation, that _there isno Shakespearian point of view_. 

This truth signifies both gain and loss. The philosophical criticism oflife may vary from the ideal objectivity of absolute truth, to thesubjectivity of a personal religion. Philosophy aims to correct thepartiality of particular points of view by means of a point of view thatshall comprehend their relations, and effect such reconciliations ortransformations as shall enable them to constitute a universe. Philosophy always assumes the hypothetical view of omniscience. Thenecessity of such a final criticism is implicit in every scientific itemof knowledge, and in every judgment that is passed upon life. Philosophymakes a distinct and peculiar contribution to human knowledge by itsheroic effort to measure all knowledges and all ideals by the standardof totality. Nevertheless it is significant that no human individual canpossibly possess the range of omniscience. The most adequate knowledgeof which any generation of men is capable, will always be that which isconceived by the most synthetic and vigorously metaphysical minds; butevery individual philosophy will nevertheless be a premature synthesis. The effort to complete knowledge is the indispensable test of theadequacy of prevailing conceptions, but the completed knowledge of anyindividual mind will shortly become an historical monument. It willbelong primarily to the personal life of its creator, as thearticulation of his personal covenant with the universe. There is asound justification for such a conclusion of things in the case of theindividual, for the conditions of human life make it inevitable; but itwill always possess a felt unity, and many distinct features, that areprivate and subjective. Now such a projection of personality, with itscoloring and its selection, Shakespeare has avoided; and very largely asa consequence, his dramas are a storehouse of genuine human nature. Ambition, mercy, hate, madness, guilelessness, conventionality, mirth, bravery, deceit, purity--these, and all human states and attributes savepiety, are upon his pages as real, and as mysterious withal, as they arein the great historical society. For an ordinary reader, these statesand attributes are more real in Hamlet or Lear than in his own directexperience, because in Hamlet and Lear he can see them with the eye andintelligence of genius. But Shakespeare is the world all over again, and there is loss as well as gain in such realism. Here is human life, no doubt, and a brilliant pageantry it is; but human life as varied andas problematic as it is in the living. Shakespeare's fundamentalintellectual resource is the historical and psychological knowledge ofsuch principles as govern the construction of human natures. The goodsfor which men undertake, and live or die, are any goods, justified onlyby the actual human striving for them. The virtues are the old winningvirtues of the secular life, and the heroisms of the common conscience. Beyond its empirical generality, his knowledge is universal only in thesense that space and time are universal. His consciousness _contains_its representative creations, and expresses them unspoiled by anytransforming thought. His poetic consciousness is like the very stage towhich he likens all the world: men and women meet there, and thingshappen there. The stage itself creates no unity save the occasion andthe place. Shakespeare's consciousness is universal because it is a fairfield with no favors. But even so it is particular, because, though eachmay enter and depart in peace, when all enter together there is anarchyand a babel of voices. All Shakespeare is like all the world seenthrough the eyes of each of its inhabitants. Human experience inShakespeare is human experience as everyone feels it, as comprehensiveas the aggregate of innumerable lives. But human experience inphilosophy is the experience of all as thought by a synthetic mind. Hence the wealth of life depicted by Shakespeare serves only to pointout the philosopher's problem, and to challenge his powers. Here he willfind material, and not results; much to philosophize about, but nophilosophy. 

[Sidenote: Philosophy in Poetry. The World-View. Omar Khayyam. ]

§ 11. The discussion up to this point has attributed to poetry verydefinite intellectual factors that nevertheless do not constitutephilosophy. Walt Whitman speaks his feeling with truth, but in generalmanifests no comprehensive insight. Shakespeare has not only sincerityof expression but an understanding mind. He has a knowledge not only ofparticular experiences, but of human nature; and a consciousness fulland varied like society itself. But there is a kind of knowledgepossessed by neither, the knowledge sought by coördinating all aspectsof human experience, both particular and general. Not even Shakespeareis wise as one who, having seen the whole, can fundamentally interpret apart. But though the philosopher-poet may not yet be found, we cannotlonger be ignorant of his nature. He will be, like all poets, one whoappreciates experiences or finds things good, and he will faithfullyreproduce the values which he discovers. But he must _justify himself inview of the fundamental nature of the universe_. The values which heapprehends must be harmonious, and so far above the plurality of goodsas to transcend and unify them. The philosopher-poet will find realityas a whole to be something that accredits the order of values in hisinner life. He will not only find certain things to be most worthyobjects of action or contemplation, but he will see why they are worthy, because he will have construed the judgment of the universe in theirfavor. 

In this general sense, Omar Khayyam is a philosopher-poet. To be surehis universe is quite the opposite of that which most poets conceive, and is perhaps profoundly antagonistic to the very spirit of poetry; butit is none the less true that the joys to which Omar invites us are suchas his universe prescribes for human life. 

 "Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum. "

Herein is both poetry and philosophy, albeit but a poor brand of each. We are invited to occupy ourselves only with spiritual cash, because theuniverse is spiritually insolvent. The immediately gratifying feelingsare the only feelings that the world can guarantee. Omar Khayyam is aphilosopher-poet, because his immediate delight in "youth'ssweet-scented manuscript" is part of a consciousness that vaguely sees, though it cannot grasp, "this sorry scheme of things entire. "

 "Drink for you know not whence you come, nor why; Drink for you know not why you go, nor where. "

[Sidenote: Wordsworth. ]

§ 12. But the poet in his world-view ordinarily sees other thandarkness. The same innate spiritual enterprise that sustains religiousfaith leads the poet more often to find the universe positivelycongenial to his ideals, and to ideals in general. He interprets humanexperience in the light of the spirituality of all the world. It is toWordsworth that we of the present age are chiefly indebted for suchimagery, and it will profit us to consider somewhat carefully thephilosophical quality of his poetry. 

Walter Pater, in introducing his appreciation of Wordsworth, writes that"an intimate consciousness of the expression of natural things, whichweighs, listens, penetrates, where the earlier mind passed roughly by, is a large element in the complexion of modern poetry. " We recognize atonce the truth of this characterization as applied to Wordsworth. Butthere is something more distinguished about this poet's sensibility eventhan its extreme fineness and delicacy; a quality that is suggested, though not made explicit, by Shelley's allusion to Wordsworth'sexperience as "a sort of thought in sense. " Nature possessed for him notmerely enjoyable and describable characters of great variety andminuteness, but an immediately apprehended unity and meaning. It wouldbe a great mistake to construe this meaning in sense as analogous to thecrude symbolism of the educator Froebel, to whom, as he said, "the worldof crystals proclaimed, in distinct and univocal terms, the laws ofhuman life. " Wordsworth did not attach ideas to sense, but regardedsense itself as a communication of truth. We readily call to mind hisunique capacity for apprehending the characteristic flavor of a certainplace in a certain moment of time, the individuality of a situation. Nowin such moments he felt that he was receiving intelligences, none theless direct and significant for their inarticulate form. Like the boyon Windermere, whom he himself describes, "while he hung Loitering, a gentle shock of mild surprise Has carried far into his heart the voice Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene Would enter unawares into his mind, With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received Into the bosom of the steady lake. "

For our purpose it is essential that we should recognize in thisappreciation of nature, expressed in almost every poem that Wordsworthwrote, a consciousness respecting the fundamental nature of the world. Conversation, as we know, denotes an interchange of commensurablemeanings. Whatever the code may be, whether words or the most subtleform of suggestion, communication is impossible without community ofnature. Hence, in believing himself to be holding converse with theso-called physical world, Wordsworth conceives that world asfundamentally like himself. He finds the most profound thing in all theworld to be the universal spiritual life. In nature this life manifestsitself most directly, clothed in its own proper dignity and peace. Butit may be discovered in the humanity that is most close to nature, inthe avocations of plain and simple people, and the unsophisticateddelights of children; and, with the perspective of contemplation, even"among the multitudes of that huge city. "

So Wordsworth is rendering a true account of his own experience ofreality when, as in "The Prelude, " he says unequivocally:

 "A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides, And in the heart of man; invisibly It comes to works of unreproved delight, And tendency benign; directing those Who care not, know not, think not, what they do. "

Wordsworth is not a philosopher-poet because by searching his pages wecan find an explicit philosophical creed such as this, but because allthe joys of which his poet-soul compels him to sing have their peculiarnote, and compose their peculiar harmony, by virtue of such anindwelling consciousness. Here is one who is a philosopher in andthrough his poetry. He is a philosopher in so far as the detail of hisappreciation finds fundamental justification in a world-view. From theimmanence of "the universal heart" there follows, not through anymediate reasoning, but by the immediate experience of its propriety, aconception of that which is of supreme worth in life. The highest andbest of which life is capable is contemplation, or the consciousness ofthe universal indwelling of God. Of those who fail to live thusfittingly in the midst of the divine life, Walter Pater speaks forWordsworth as follows:

 "To higher or lower ends they move too often with something of a sad countenance, with hurried and ignoble gait, becoming, unconsciously, something like thorns, in their anxiety to bear grapes; it being possible for people, in the pursuit of even great ends, to become themselves thin and impoverished in spirit and temper, thus diminishing the sum of perfection in the world at its very sources. "[42:3]

The quiet and worshipful spirit, won by the cultivation of the emotionsappropriate to the presence of nature and society, is the mark of thecompletest life and the most acceptable service. Thus for Wordsworth themeaning of life is inseparable from the meaning of the universe. Inapprehending that which is good and beautiful in human experience, hewas attended by a vision of the totality of things. Herein he has had todo, if not with the form, at any rate with the very substance ofphilosophy. 

[Sidenote: Dante. ]

§ 13. Unquestionably the supreme philosopher-poet is Dante. He is notonly philosophical in the temper of his mind, but his greatest poem isthe incarnation of a definite system of philosophy, the most definitethat the world has seen. That conception of the world which in thethirteenth century found argumentative and orderly expression in the"Summa Theologiæ" of Thomas of Aquino, and constituted the faith of thechurch, is visualized by Dante, and made the basis of an interpretationof life. 

The "Divina Commedia" deals with all the heavens to the Empyrean itself, and with all spiritual life to the very presence of God. It derives itsimagery from the cosmology of the day, its dramatic motive from theChristian and Greek conceptions of God and his dealings with the world. Sin is punished because of the justice of God; knowledge, virtue, andfaith lead, through God's grace and mercy manifested in Christ, to aperpetual union with Him. Hell, purgatory, and paradise give place andsetting to the events of the drama. But the deeper meaning of the poemis allegorical. In a letter quoted by Lowell, Dante writes:

 "The literal subject of the whole work is the state of the soul after death, simply considered. But if the work be taken allegorically the subject is man, as by merit or demerit, through freedom of the will, he renders himself liable to the reward or punishment of justice. "[43:4]

In other words, the inner and essential meaning of the poem has to donot with external retribution, but with character, and the laws whichdetermine its own proper ruin or perfection. The punishments describedin the "Inferno" are accounts of the state of guilt itself, implicationsof the will that has chosen the part of brutishness. Sin itself isdamnable and deadening, but the knowledge that the soul that sinnethshall die is the first way of emancipation from sin. The guidance ofVirgil through hell and purgatory signifies the knowledge of good andevil, or moral insight, as the guide of man through this life ofstruggle and progress. The earthly paradise, at the close of the"Purgatorio, " represents the highest state to which human character canattain when choice is determined by ordinary experience, intelligence, and understanding. Here man stands alone, endowed with an enlightenedconscience. Here are uttered the last words of Virgil to Dante, theexplorer of the spiritual country:

 "Expect no more or word or sign from me. Free, upright, and sane is thine own free will, and it would be wrong not to act according to its pleasure; wherefore thee over thyself I crown and mitre. "[44:5]

But moral self-reliance is not the last word. As Beatrice, the image oftenderness and holiness, comes to Dante in the earthly paradise, andleads him from the summit of purgatory into the heaven of heavens, andeven to the eternal light; so there is added to the mere human, intellectual, and moral resources of the soul, the sustaining power ofthe divine grace, the illuminating power of divine truth, and thetransforming power of divine love. Through the aid of this higherwisdom, the journey of life becomes the way to God. Thus the allegoricaltruth of the "Divina Commedia" is not merely an analysis of the moralnature of man, but the revelation of a universal spiritual order, manifesting itself in the moral evolution of the individual, and aboveall in his ultimate community with the eternal goodness. 

 "Thou shouldst not, if I deem aright, wonder more at thy ascent, than at a stream if from a high mountain it descends to the base. A marvel it would be in thee, if, deprived of hindrance, thou hadst sat below, even as quiet by living fire in earth would be. "[45:6]

Such, in brief, is Dante's world-view, so suggestive of the freeridealistic conceptions of later thought as to justify a recentcharacterization of him as one who, "accepting without a shadow of adoubt or hesitation all the constitutive ideas of mediæval thought andlife, grasped them so firmly and gave them such luminous expression thatthe spirit in them broke away from the form. "[46:7]

But it must be added, as in the case of Wordsworth, that Dante is aphilosopher-poet not because St. Thomas Aquinas appears and speaks withauthority in the Thirteenth Canto of the "Paradiso, " nor even because aphilosophical doctrine can be consistently formulated from his writings, but because his consciousness of life is informed with a sense of itsuniversal bearings. There is a famous passage in the Twenty-second Cantoof the "Paradiso, " in which Dante describes himself as looking down uponthe earth from the starry heaven. 

 "'Thou art so near the ultimate salvation, ' began Beatrice, 'that thou oughtest to have thine eyes clear and sharp. And therefore ere thou further enterest it, look back downward, and see how great a world I have already set beneath thy feet, in order that thy heart, so far as it is able, may present itself joyous to the triumphant crowd which comes glad through this round ether. ' With my sight I returned through each and all the seven spheres, and saw this globe such that I smiled at its mean semblance; and that counsel I approve as the best which holds it of least account; and he who thinks of other things maybe called truly worthy. "

Dante's scale of values is that which appears from the starry heaven. His austere piety, his invincible courage, and his uncompromising hatredof wrong, are neither accidents of temperament nor blind reactions, butcompose the proper character of one who has both seen the world fromGod, and returned to see God from the world. He was, as Lowell has said, "a man of genius who could hold heartbreak at bay for twenty years, andwould not let himself die till he had done his task"; and his power wasnot obstinacy, but a vision of the ways of God. He knew a truth thatjustified him in his sacrifices, and made a great glory of his defeatand exile. Even so his poetry or appreciation of life is the expressionof an inward contemplation of the world in its unity or essence. It isbut an elaboration of the piety which he attributes to the lesser saintsof paradise, when he has them say:

 "Nay, it is essential to this blessed existence to hold ourselves within the divine will, whereby our very wills are made one. So that as we are from stage to stage throughout this realm, to all the realm is pleasing, as to the King who inwills us with His will. And His will is our peace; it is that sea whereunto is moving all that which It creates and which nature makes. "[47:8]

[Sidenote: The Difference between Poetry and Philosophy. ]

§ 14. There now remains the brief task of distinguishing thephilosopher-poet from the philosopher himself. The philosopher-poet isone who, having made the philosophical point of view his own, expresseshimself in the form of poetry. The philosophical point of view is thatfrom which the universe is comprehended in its totality. The wisdom ofthe philosopher is the knowledge of each through the knowledge of all. Wherein, then, does the poet, when possessed of such wisdom, differ fromthe philosopher proper? To this question one can give readily enough thegeneral answer, that the difference lies in the mode of utterance. Furthermore, we have already given some account of the peculiar mannerof the poet. He invites us to experience with him the beautiful andmoving in nature and life. That which the poet has to express, and thatwhich he aims to arouse in others, is an appreciative experience. Herequires what Wordsworth calls "an atmosphere of sensation in which tomove his wings. " Therefore if he is to be philosophical in intelligence, and yet essentially a poet, he must find his universal truth inimmediate experience. He must be one who, in seeing the many, sees theone. The philosopher-poet is he who visualizes a fundamentalinterpretation of the world. "A poem, " says one poet, "is the very imageof life expressed in its eternal truth. "

The philosopher proper, on the other hand, has the sterner and lessinviting task of rendering such an interpretation articulate to thought. That which the poet sees, the philosopher must define. That which thepoet divines, the philosopher must calculate. The philosopher must digfor that which the poet sees shining through. As the poet transcendsthought for the sake of experience, the philosopher must transcendexperience for the sake of thought. As the poet sees all, and all ineach, so the philosopher, knowing each, must think all consistentlytogether, and then know each again. It is the part of philosophy tocollect and criticise evidence, to formulate and coördinate conceptions, and finally to define in exact terms. The reanimation of the structureof thought is accomplished primarily in religion, which is a generalconception of the world made the basis of daily living. 

For religion there is no subjective correlative less than life itself. Poetry is another and more circumscribed means of restoring thought tolife. By the poet's imagination, and through the art of his expression, thought may be sensuously perceived. "If the time should ever come, "says Wordsworth, "when what is now called Science, thus familiarized tomen, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh, and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, andwill welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate ofthe household of man. "[50:9] As respects truth, philosophy has anindubitable priority. The very sternness of the philosopher's task isdue to his supreme dedication to truth. But if validity be the merit ofphilosophy, it can well be supplemented by immediacy, which is the meritof poetry. Presuppose in the poet conviction of a sound philosophy, andwe may say with Shelley, of his handiwork, that "it is the perfect andconsummate surface and bloom of all things; it is as the odor and thecolor of the rose to the texture of the elements which compose it, asthe form and splendor of unfaded beauty to the secrets of anatomy andcorruption. " "Indeed, " as he adds, "what were our consolations on thisside of the grave--and our aspirations beyond it--if poetry did notascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where theowl-winged faculty of calculation dare not ever soar?"[51:10]

The unity in outlook, attended by differences of method and form, whichmay exist between poet and philosopher, is signally illustrated by therelation between Goethe and Spinoza. What Goethe saw and felt, Spinozaproved and defined. The universal and eternal substance was to Spinoza, as philosopher, a theorem, and to Goethe, as poet, a perception and anemotion. Goethe writes to Jacobi that when philosophy "lays itself outfor division, " he cannot get on with it, but when it "confirms ouroriginal feeling as though we were one with nature, " it is welcome tohim. In the same letter Goethe expresses his appreciation of Spinoza asthe complement of his own nature:

 "His all-reconciling peace contrasted with my all-agitating endeavor; his intellectual method was the opposite counterpart of my poetic way of feeling and expressing myself; and even the inflexible regularity of his logical procedure, which might be considered ill-adapted to moral subjects, made me his most passionate scholar and his devoted adherent. Mind and heart, understanding and sense, were drawn together with an inevitable elective affinity, and this at the same time produced an intimate union between individuals of the most different types. "[51:11]

It appears, then, that some poets share with all philosophers thatpoint of view from which the horizon line is the boundary of all theworld. Poetry is not always or essentially philosophical, but may be so;and when the poetic imagination restores philosophy to immediacy, humanexperience reaches its most exalted state, excepting only religionitself, wherein God is both seen and also served. Nor is the part ofphilosophy in poetry and religion either ignoble or presumptuous, for, humanly speaking, "the owl-winged faculty of calculation" is the onlysafe and sure means of access to that place on high, "Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, trancèd thing, But a divine melodious truth; Philosophic numbers smooth; Tales and golden histories Of heaven and its mysteries. "

FOOTNOTES:

[28:1] George Santayana, in his _Poetry and Religion_, p. 176. 

[30:2] Santayana: _op. Cit. _, p. 180. 

[42:3] _Appreciations_, p. 59. 

[43:4] Letter to Can Grande. See Lowell's _Essay on Dante_, p. 34. 

[44:5] _Purgatorio_, Canto XXVII. Translation by Norton. 

[45:6] _Paradiso_, Canto I. 

[46:7] Edward Caird, in his _Literature and Philosophy_, Vol. I, p. 24. 

[47:8] _Paradiso_, Canto III. 

[50:9] Observations prefixed to the second edition of _Lyrical Ballads_. 

[51:10] _A Defence of Poetry. _

[51:11] Quoted by Caird in his _Literature and Philosophy_, Vol. I, p. 60. 

CHAPTER III

THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

[Sidenote: The Possibility of Defining Religion. ]

§ 15. The least religious experience is so mysterious and so complexthat a moderate degree of reflection upon it tends to a sense ofintellectual impotence. "If I speak, " says Emerson, "I define andconfine, and am less. " One would gladly set down religion among theunspeakable things and avoid the imputation of degrading it. It iscertain that the enterprise of defining religion is at present indisrepute. It has been undertaken so often and so unsuccessfully thatcontemporary students for the most part prefer to supply a list ofhistorical definitions of religion, and let their variety demonstratetheir futility. Metaphysicians and psychologists agree that in view ofthe differences of creed, ritual, organization, conduct, and temperamentthat have been true of different religions in different times andplaces, one may as well abandon the idea that there is a constantelement. 

But on the other hand we have the testimony afforded by the namereligion; and the ordinary judgments of men to the effect that itsignifies something to be religious, and to be more or less religious. There is an elementary logical principle to the effect that a group nameimplies certain common group characters. Impatience with abstract oreuphemistic definitions should not blind us to the truth. Even thepsychologist tends in his description of religious phenomena to singleout and emphasize what he calls a _typical_ religious experience. Andthe same applies to the idealist's treatment of the matter. [54:1]Religion, he reasons, is essentially a development of which the truemeaning can be seen only in the higher stages. The primitive religion istherefore only implicit religion. But lower stages cannot be regarded asbelonging to a single development with higher stages, if there be notsome actual promise of the later in the earlier, or some element whichendures throughout. It is unavoidable, then, to assume that in dealingwith religion we are dealing with a specific and definable experience. 

[Sidenote: The Profitableness of Defining Religion. ]

§ 16. The profitableness of undertaking such a definition is anothermatter. It may well be that in so human and practical an affair asreligion, definition is peculiarly inappropriate. But is there not ahuman and practical value in the very defining of religion? Is there nota demand for it in the peculiar relation that exists between religionand the progress of enlightenment? Religion associates itself with thehabits of society. The progress of enlightenment means that more or lessall the time, and very profoundly at certain critical times, societymust change its habits. The consequence is that religion is likely to beabandoned with the old habits. The need of a new religion is therefore achronic one. The reformer in religion, or the man who wishes to be bothenlightened and religious, is chiefly occupied with the problem ofdisentangling religion pure and undefiled from definite discreditedpractices and opinions. And the solution of the problem turns upon someapprehension of the essence of religion. There is a large amount ofnecessary and unnecessary tragedy due to the extrinsic connectionbetween ideas and certain modes of their expression. There can be nomore serious and urgent duty than that of expressing as directly, and soas truly as possible, the great permanent human concerns. The men towhom educational reform has been largely due have been the men who haveremembered for their fellows what this whole business of education isafter all for. Comenius and Pestalozzi served society by strippingeducational activity of its historical and institutional accessories, and laying bare the genuine human need that these are designed tosatisfy. There is a similar virtue in the insistent attempt todistinguish between the essential and the accessory in religion. 

[Sidenote: The True Method of Defining Religion. ]

§ 17. Although declining to be discouraged by the conspicuousness ofpast failures in this connection, one may well profit by them. Theamazing complexity of religious phenomena must somehow be seen to beconsistent with their common nature. The religious experience must notonly be found, but must also be reconciled with "the varieties ofreligious experience. " The inadequacy of the well-known definitions ofreligion may be attributed to several causes. The commonest fallacy isto define religion in terms of a religion. My definition of religionmust include my brother's religion, even though he live on the otherside of the globe, and my ancestor's religion, in spite of hisprehistoric remoteness. Error may easily arise through the attempt todefine religion in terms of my own religion, or what I conceive to bethe true religion. Whatever the relation between ideal religion andactual religion, the field of religion contains by common consent cultsthat must on their own grounds condemn one another; religions that arebad religions, and yet religions. 

A more enlightened fallacy, and a more dangerous one, is due to thesupposition that religion can be defined exclusively in terms of somedepartment of human nature. There have been descriptions of religion interms of feeling, intellect, and conduct respectively. But it is alwayseasy to overthrow such a description, by raising the question of itsapplication to evidently religious experiences that belong to some otheraspect of life. Religion is not feeling, because there are manyphlegmatic, God-fearing men whose religion consists in good works. Religion is not conduct, for there are many mystics whose very religionis withdrawal from the field of action. Religion is not intellection, for no one has ever been able to formulate a creed that is common to allreligions. Yet without a doubt one must look for the essence of religionin human nature. The present psychological interest in religion hasemphasized this truth. How, then, may we describe it in terms ofcertain constant conditions of human life, and yet escape theabstractness of the facultative method? Modern psychology suggests ananswer in demonstrating the interdependence of knowledge, feeling, andvolition. [58:2] The perfect case of this unity is _belief_. Thebelieving experience is cognitive in intent, but practical and emotionalas well in content. I believe what I take for granted; and the object ofmy belief is not merely known, but also felt and acted upon. _What Ibelieve expresses itself in my total experience. _

There is some hope, then, of an adequate definition of the religiousexperience, if it be regarded as belonging to the psychological type ofbelief. [58:3] Belief, however, is a broader category than religion. There must be some _religious type_ of believing. An account of religionin terms of believing, and the particular type of it here in question, would, then, constitute the central stem of a psychology of religion, and affords the proper conceptions for a description of the religiousexperience. Even here the reservation must be made that belief is alwaysmore than the believing _state_, in that it means to be _true_. [59:4]Hence to complete an account of religion one should consider its object, or its cognitive implications. But this direct treatment of the relationbetween religion and philosophy must be deferred until in the presentchapter we shall have come to appreciate the inwardness of the religiousconsciousness. To this end we must permit ourselves to be enlightened bythe experience of religious people as viewed from within. It is not ouropinion of a man's religion that is here in question, but the contentand meaning which it has for him. 

 "I would have you, " says Fielding, in his "Hearts of Men, " "go and kneel beside the Mahommedan as he prays at the sunset hour, and put your heart to his and wait for the echo that will surely come. . . . I would have you go to the hillman smearing the stone with butter that his god may be pleased, to the woman crying to the forest god for her sick child, to the boy before his monks learning to be good. No matter where you go, no matter what the faith is called, if you have the hearing ear, if your heart is in unison with the heart of the world, you will hear always the same song. "[59:5]

[Sidenote: Religion as Belief. ]

§ 18. The general identification of religion with belief is made withoutserious difficulty. The essential factor in belief, is, as we have seen, the reaction of the whole personality to a fixed object or acceptedsituation. A similar principle underlies common judgments about a man'sreligion. He is accounted most religious whose religion penetrates hislife most intimately. In the man whose religion consists in the outerexercise of attendance upon church, we recognize the sham. He _appears_to be religious. He does one of the things which a religious man woulddo; but an object of religious faith is not the constant environment ofhis life. He may or may not feel sure of God from his pew, but God isnot among the things that count in his daily life. God does not enterinto his calculations or determine his scale of values. Again, discursive thinking is regarded as an interruption of religion. When Iam at pains to justify my religion, I am already doubting; and forcommon opinion doubt is identical with irreligion. In so far as I amreligious, my religion stands in no need of justification, even though Iregard it as justifiable. In my religious experience I am takingsomething for granted; in other words I act about it and feel about itin a manner that is going to be determined by the special conditions ofmy mood and temperament. The mechanical and prosaic man acknowledges Godin his mechanical and prosaic way. He believes in divine retribution ashe believes in commercial or social retribution. He is as careful toprepare for the next world as he is to be respectable in this. The poet, on the other hand, believes in God after the manner of his genius. Though he worship God in spirit he may conduct his life in an irregularmanner peculiar to himself. Difference of mood in the same individualmay be judged by the same measure. When God is most real to him, broughthome to him most vividly, or consciously obeyed, in these moments he ismost religious. When, on the other hand, God is merely a name to him, and church a routine, or when both are forgotten in the dailyoccupations, he is least religious. His life on the whole is said to bereligious in so far as periods of the second type are subordinated toperiods of the first type. Further well-known elements of belief, corollaries of the above, are evidently present in religion. A certain_imagery remains constant_ throughout an individual's experience. Hecomes back to it as to a physical object in space. And although religionis sporadically an exclusive and isolated affair, it tends strongly tobe social. The religious object, or God, is a social object, common tome and to my neighbor, and presupposed in our collective undertakings. This reduction of religion to the type of the believing state shouldthus provide us with an answer to that old and fundamental questionconcerning the relative priority of faith and works. The test of thefaith is in the works, and the works are religious in so far as they arethe expression of the faith. Religion is not the doing of anything northe feeling of anything nor the thinking of anything, but the reactingas a whole, in terms of all possible activities of human life, to someaccepted situation. 

[Sidenote: Religion as Belief in a Disposition or Attitude. ]

§ 19. We may now face the more interesting but difficult question of thespecial character of religious belief. In spite of the fact that inthese days the personality of God is often regarded as a transientfeature of religion, that type of belief which throws most light uponthe religious experience is the _belief in persons_. Our belief inpersons consists in the practical recognition of a more or lesspersistent disposition toward ourselves. The outward behavior of ourfellow-men is construed in terms of the practical bearing of theattitude which it implies. The extraordinary feature of such belief isthe disproportion between its vividness and the direct evidence for it. Of this we are most aware in connection with those personalities whichwe regard as distinctly friendly or hostile to ourselves. We are alwaysmore or less clearly in the presence of our friends and enemies. Theirwell-wishing or their ill-wishing haunts the scene of our living. Thereis no more important constituent of what the psychologists call our"general feeling tone. " There are times when we are entirely possessedby a state that is either exuberance in the presence of those who loveus, or awkwardness and stupidity in the presence of those whom webelieve to suspect and dislike us. The latter state may easily becomechronic. Many men live permanently in the presence of an accusingaudience. The inner life which expresses itself in the words, "Everybodyhates me!" is perhaps the most common form of morbid self-consciousness. On the other hand, buoyancy of spirits springs largely from a constantfaith in the good-will of one's fellows. In this case one is filled witha sense of security, and is conscious of a sympathetic reinforcementthat adds to private joys and compensates for private sorrows. And thissense of attitude is wonderfully discriminating. We can feel thepresence of a "great man, " a "formidable person, " a superior orinferior, one who is interested or indifferent to our talk, and all thesubtlest degrees of approval and disapproval. 

A similar sensibility may quicken us even in situations where no directindividual attitude to ourselves is implied. We regard places andcommunities as congenial when we are in sympathy with the prevailingpurposes or standards of value. We may feel ill at ease or thoroughly athome in cities where we know no single human soul. Indeed, in amisanthrope like Rousseau (and who has not his Rousseau moods!) the mereabsence of social repression arouses a most intoxicating sense oftunefulness and security. Nature plays the part of an indulgent parentwho permits all sorts of personal liberties. 

 "The view of a fine country, a succession of agreeable prospects, a free air, a good appetite, and the health I gain by walking; the freedom of inns, and the distance from everything that can make me recollect the dependence of my situation, conspire to free my soul, and give boldness to my thoughts, throwing me, in a manner, into the immensity of things, where I combine, choose, and appropriate them to my fancy, without restraint or fear. I dispose of all nature as I please. "[64:6]

[Sidenote: Religion as Belief in the Disposition of the ResidualEnvironment, or Universe. ]

§ 20. In such confidence or distrust, inspired originally by the socialenvironment, and similarly suggested by other surroundings of life, wehave the key to the religious consciousness. But it is now time to addthat in the case of religion these attitudes are concerned with theuniversal or supernatural rather than with present and normal humanrelationships. Religious reactions are "total reactions. "

 "To get at them, " says William James, "you must go behind the foreground of existence and reach down to that curious _sense of the whole residual cosmos as an everlasting presence_, intimate or alien, terrible or amusing, lovable or odious, which in some degree everyone possesses. This _sense of the world's presence_, appealing as it does to our peculiar individual temperament, makes us either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, gloomy or exultant about life at large; and our reaction, involuntary and inarticulate and often half unconscious as it is, is the completest of all our answers to the question, 'What is the character of this universe in which we dwell?'"[65:7]

This _residual environment_, or profounder realm of tradition andnature, may have any degree of unity from chaos to cosmos. For religionits significance lies in the idea of original and far-reaching powerrather than in the idea of totality. But that which is at first only"beyond, " is _practically_ the same object as that which comes in thedevelopment of thought to be conceived as the "world" or the "universe. "We may therefore use these latter terms to indicate the object ofreligion, until the treatment of special instances shall define it moreprecisely. Religion is, then, _man's sense of the disposition of theuniverse to himself_. We shall expect to find, as in the socialphenomena with which we have just dealt, that the manifestation of thissense consists in a general reaction appropriate to the disposition soattributed. He will be fundamentally ill at ease, profoundly confident, or will habitually take precautions to be safe. The ultimate nature ofthe world is here no speculative problem. The savage who could feel somejoy at living in the universe would be more religious than the sublimestdialectician. It is in the vividness of the sense of this presence thatthe acuteness of religion consists. I am religious in so far as thewhole tone and temper of my living reflects a belief as to what theuniverse thinks of such as me. 

[Sidenote: Examples of Religious Belief. ]

§ 21. The examples that follow are selected because their differencesin personal flavor serve to throw into relief their common religiouscharacter. Theodore Parker, in describing his own boyhood, writes asfollows:

 "I can hardly think without a shudder of the terrible effect the doctrine of eternal damnation had on me. How many, many hours have I wept with terror as I lay on my bed, till, between praying and weeping, sleep gave me repose. But before I was nine years old this fear went away, and I saw clearer light in the goodness of God. But for years, say from seven till ten, I said my prayers with much devotion, I think, and then continued to repeat, 'Lord, forgive my sins, ' till sleep came on me. "[67:8]

Compare with this Stevenson's Christmas letter to his mother, in whichhe says:

 "The whole necessary morality is kindness; and it should spring, of itself, from the one fundamental doctrine, Faith. If you are sure that God, in the long run, means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if happy, surely you should be kind. "[67:9]

Here is destiny frowning and destiny smiling, but in each case so real, so present, as to be immediately responded to with helpless terror andwith grateful warm-heartedness. 

The author of the "Imitatio Christi" speaks thus of the daily living ofthe Christian:

 "The life of a Christian who has dedicated himself to the service of God should abound with eminent virtues of all kinds, that he may be really the same person which he is by outward appearance and profession. Indeed, he ought not only to be the same, but much more, in his inward disposition of soul; because he professes to serve a God who sees the inward parts, a searcher of the heart and reins, a God and Father of spirits: and therefore, since we are always in His sight, we should be exceedingly careful to avoid all impurity, all that may give offence to Him whose eyes cannot behold iniquity. We should, in a word, so far as mortal and frail nature can, imitate the blessed angels in all manner of holiness, since we, as well as they, are always in His presence. . . . And good men have always this notion of the thing. For they depend upon God for the success of all they do, even of their best and wisest undertakings. "[68:10]

Such is to be the practical acknowledgment of God in the routine oflife. The more direct response to this presence appears abundantly inSt. Augustine's conversation and reminiscence with God. 

 "How evil have not my deeds been; or if not my deeds my words; or if not my words my will? But Thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and Thy right hand had respect unto the profoundness of my death, and removed from the bottom of my heart that abyss of corruption. And this was the result, that I willed not to do what I willed, and willed to do what thou willedst. . . . How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the delights of trifles! And what at one time I feared to lose, it was now a joy to me to put away. For Thou didst cast them away from me, Thou true and highest sweetness. Thou didst cast them away, and instead of them didst enter in Thyself--sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mysteries; more exalted than all honor, but not to the exalted in their own conceits. Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting. . . . And I babbled unto Thee my brightness, my riches, and my health, the Lord my God. "[69:11]

In these two passages we meet with religious conduct and with thesupreme religious experience, the direct worship of God. In each casethe heart of the matter is an individual's indubitable conviction of theworld's favorable concern for him. The deeper order of thingsconstitutes the real and the profoundly congenial community in which helives. 

[Sidenote: Typical Religious Phenomena: Conversion. ]

§ 22. Let us now apply this general account of the religious experienceto certain typical religious phenomena: _conversion_; _piety_; andreligious _instruments_, _symbolisms_, _and_ modes of _conveyance_. Although recent study of the phenomenon of _conversion_ has brought tolight a considerable amount of interesting material, there is somedanger of misconceiving its importance. The psychology of conversion isprimarily the psychology of crisis or radical alteration, rather thanthe psychology of religion. For the majority of religious men and womenconversion is an insignificant event, and in very many cases it neveroccurs at all. Religion is more purely present where it is normal andmonotonous. But this phenomenon is nevertheless highly significant inthat religion and irreligion are placed in close juxtaposition, and thecontribution of religion at its inception thereby emphasized. In generalit is found that conversion takes place during the period ofadolescence. But this is the time of the most sudden expansion of theenvironment of life; a time when there is the awakening consciousness ofmany a new presence. This is sometimes expressed by saying that it is aperiod of acute self-consciousness. Life is conscious of itself as overagainst its inheritance; the whole setting of life sweeps into view. Some solution of the life problem, some coming to terms with theuniverse, is the normal issue of it. Religious conversion signifies, then, that in this fundamental adjustment a man defines and accepts forhis life a certain attitude on the part of the universe. The examplescited by the psychologists, as well as the generalizations which theyderive, bear out this interpretation. 

 "General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, considers that the first vital step in saving outcasts consists in making them feel that some decent human being cares enough for them to take an interest in the question whether they are to rise or sink. "[71:12]

The new state is here one of courage and hope stimulated by the glow offriendly interest. The convert is no longer "out in the cold. " He istold that the world wishes him well, and this is brought home to himthrough representations of the tenderness of Christ, and through thedirect ministerings of those who mediate it. But somehow the convertmust be persuaded to realize all this. He must _believe_ it before itcan mean anything to him. He is therefore urged to pray--a proceedingthat is at first ridiculous to him, since it involves taking for grantedwhat he disbelieves. But therein lies the critical point. It is peculiarto the object in this case that it can exist only for one who alreadybelieves in it. The psychologists call this the element of"self-surrender. " To be converted a man must somehow suffer hissurroundings to put into him a new heart, which may thereupon confirmits object. Such belief is tremendously tenacious because it so largelycreates its own evidence. Once believe that "God, in the long run, meanskindness by you, " and you are likely to stand by it to the end--the moreso in this case because the external evidence either way is to theaverage man so insufficient. Such a belief as this is inspired in theconvert, not by reasoning, but by all the powers of suggestion thatpersonality and social contagion can afford. 

[Sidenote: Piety. ]

§ 23. The psychologists describe _piety_ as a sense of unity. One feelsafter reading their accounts that they are too abstract. For there aremany kinds of unity, characteristic of widely varying moods and states. Any state of rapt attention is a state of unity, and this occurs in themost secular and humdrum moments of life. Nor does it help matters tosay that in the case of religion this unity must have been preceded by astate of division; for we cannot properly characterize any state of mindin terms of another state unless the latter be retained in the former. And that which is characteristic of the religious sense of unity wouldseem to be just such an overcoming of difference. There is a recognitionof two distinct attitudes, which may be more or less in sympathy withone another, but which are both present even in their fullest harmony. Were I to be taken out of myself so completely as to forget myself, Ishould inevitably lose that sense of sympathy from which arises thepeculiar exultation of religious faith, a heightened experience of thesame type with the freedom and spontaneity that I experience in thepresence of those with whom I feel most in accord. The further gracesand powers of religion readily submit to a similar description. My senseof positive sympathy expresses itself in an attitude of well-wishing;living in an atmosphere of kindness I instinctively endeavor topropagate it. My buoyancy is distinctly of that quality which to alesser degree is due to any sense of social security; my power is thatof one who works in an environment that reënforces him. I experience theobjective or even cosmical character of my enterprises. They have amomentum which makes me their instrument rather than their perpetrator. A paradoxical relation between religion and morality has alwaysinterested observers of custom and history. Religion is apparently ascapable of the most fiendish malevolence as of the most saintlygentleness. Fielding writes that, "When religion is brought out or into daily life and used as a guide or a weapon in the world it has no effect either for good or evil. Its effect is simply in strengthening the heart, in blinding the eyes, in deafening the ears. It is an intensive force, an intoxicant. It doubles or trebles a man's powers. It is an impulsive force sending him headlong down the path of emotion, whether that path lead to glory or to infamy. It is a tremendous stimulant, that is all. "[74:13]

Religion does not originate life purposes or define their meaning, butstimulates them by the same means that works in all corporate and socialactivity. To work with the universe is the most tremendous incentivethat can appeal to the individual will. Hence in highly ethicalreligions the power for good exceeds that of any other social andspiritual agency. Such religion makes present, actual, and real, thatgood on the whole which the individual otherwise tends to distinguishfrom that which is good for _him_. In daily life the morally valid andthe practically urgent are commonly arrayed against one another; but theethical religion makes the valid urgent. 

[Sidenote: Religious Instruments, Symbolism, and Modes of Conveyance. ]

§ 24. The _instruments_ of religion are legion, and it is in order hereonly to mention certain prominent cases in which their selection wouldseem to have direct reference to the provocation and perpetuation ofsuch a sense of attitude as we have been describing. This is true in ageneral way of all _symbolism_. There is no essential difference betweenthe religious symbol and such symbols as serve to remind us of humanrelationships. In both cases the perceptual absence of will iscompensated for by the presence of some object associated with thatwill. The function of this object is due to its power to revive andperpetuate a certain special social atmosphere. But the most importantvehicle of religion has always been personality. It is, after all, topriests, prophets, and believers that religious cults have owed theirlong life. The traits that mark the prophet are both curious andsublime. He is most remarkable for the confidence with which he speaksfor the universe. Whether it be due to lack of a sense of humor or to aprofound conviction of truth, is indifferent to our purpose. The powerof such men is undoubtedly in their suggestion of a force greater thanthey, whose designs they bring directly and socially to the attention ofmen. The prophet in his prophesying is indeed not altogetherdistinguished from God, and it is through the mediation of a directlyperceptible human attitude that a divine attitude gets itself fixed inthe imagination of the believer. What is true of the prophet is equallytrue of the preacher whose function it is not to represent God in hisown person, but to depict him with his tongue. It is generallyrecognized that the preacher is neither a moralizer nor a theologian. But it is less perfectly understood that it is his function to suggestthe presence of God. His proper language is that of the imagination, andthe picture which he portrays is that of a reciprocal socialrelationship between man and the Supreme Master of the situation oflife. He will not define God or prove God, but introduce Him and talkabout Him. And at the same time the association of prayer and worshipwith his sermon, and the atmosphere created by the meeting together of abody of disciples, will act as the confirmation of his suggestions ofsuch a living presence. 

The _conveyance_ of any single religious cult from generation togeneration affords a signal illustration of the importance in religionof the recognition of attitude. Religions manage somehow to survive anyamount of transformation of creed and ritual. It is not what is done, orwhat is thought, that identifies the faith of the first Christians withthat of the last, but a certain reckoning with the disposition of God. The successive generations of Christians are introduced into thespiritual world of their fathers, with its furnishing of hopes and fearsremaining substantially the same; and their Christianity consists intheir continuing to live in it with only a slight and gradualrenovation. To any given individual God is more or less completelyrepresented by his elders in the faith in their exhortations andministerings; and through them he fixes as the centre of his system animage of God his accuser or redeemer. 

[Sidenote: Historical Types of Religion. Primitive Religions. ]

§ 25. The complete verification of this interpretation of the religiousexperience would require the application of it to the differenthistorical cults. In general the examination of such instances isentirely beyond the scope of this chapter; but a brief consideration maybe given to those which seem to afford reasonable grounds for objection. 

First, it may be said that in _primitive religions_, notably infetichism, tabooism, and totemism, there is no recognition of a cosmicalunity. It is quite evident that there is no conception of a universe. But it is equally evident that the natural and historical environment inits generality has a very specific practical significance for theprimitive believer. It is often said with truth that these earliestreligions are more profoundly pantheistic than polytheistic. Manrecognizes an all-pervading interest that is capable of being directedto himself. The selection of a deity is not due to any specialqualification for deification possessed by the individual object itself, but to the tacit presumption that, as Thales said, "all things are fullof gods. " The disposition of residual reality manifests to the believerno consistency or unity, but it is nevertheless the most constant objectof his will. He lives in the midst of a capriciousness which he mustappease if he is to establish himself at all. 

[Sidenote: Buddhism. ]

§ 26. Secondly, in the case of _Buddhism_ we are said to meet with areligion that is essentially atheistic. 

 "Whether Buddhas arise, O priests, or whether Buddhas do not arise, it remains a fact and the fixed and necessary constitution of being, that all its constituents are transitory. "[78:14]

The secret of life lies in the application of this truth:

 "O builder! I've discovered thee! This fabric thou shalt ne'er rebuild! Thy rafters all are broken now, And pointed roof demolished lies! This mind has demolition reached, And seen the last of all desire!"[78:15]

The case of Buddha himself and of the exponents of his purely esotericdoctrine, belong to the reflective type which will presently be givenspecial consideration. But with the ordinary believer, even where anextraneous but almost inevitable polytheism is least in evidence, thereligious experience consists in substantially the same elements thatappear in theistic religions. The individual is here livingappropriately to the ultimate nature of things, with the ceaselessperiods of time in full view. That which is brought home to him is theillusoriness and hollowness of things when taken in the spirit of activeendeavor. The only profound and abiding good is nothingness. Whilenature and society conspire to mock him, Nirvana invites him to itspeace. The religious course of his life consists in the use of suchmeans as can win him this end. From the stand-point of the universe hehas the sympathy only of that wisdom whose essence is self-destruction. And this truth is mediated by the imagination of divine sympathy, forthe Blessed One remains as the perpetual incarnation of his ownblessedness. 

[Sidenote: Critical Religion. ]

§ 27. Finally there remains the consideration of the bearing of thisinterpretation upon the more refined and disciplined religions. Thereligion of the critically enlightened man is less naive and credulousin its imagery. God tends to vanish into an ideal or a universal, intosome object of theoretical definition. Here we are on that borderlandwhere an assignment of individual cases can never be made with anycertainty of correctness. We can generalize only by describing theconditions that such cases must fulfil if they are properly to bedenominated religious. And there can be no question of the justice ofderiving such a description from the reports of historical andinstitutional religions. An idealistic philosophy will, then, be areligion just in so far as it is rendered practically vivid by theimagination. Such imagination must create and sustain a socialrelationship. The question of the legitimacy of this imagination isanother matter. It raises the issue concerning the judgment of truthimplied in religion, and this is the topic of the next chapter. At anyrate the religious experience _may be_ realized by virtue of themetaphorical or poetical representation of a situation as one ofintercommunication between persons, where reflective definition at thesame time denies it. The human worshipper may supply the personality ofGod from himself, viewing himself as from the divine stand-point. Butwhatever faculty supplies this indispensable social quality of religion, he who defines God as the ultimate goodness or the ultimate truth, hascertainly not yet worshipped Him. He begins to be religious only whensuch an ideal determines the atmosphere of his daily living; when heregards the immanence of such an ideal in nature and history as theobject of his will; and when he responds to its presence in the spiritof his conduct and his contemplation. 

FOOTNOTES:

[54:1] Cf. Caird: _The Evolution of Religion_, Lectures II, III. 

[58:2] Cf. Leuba: _Introduction to a Psychological Study of Religion_, _Monist_, Vol. XI, p. 195. 

[58:3] Cf. Leuba: _Ibid. _

[59:4] Cf. § 29. 

[59:5] P. 322. 

[64:6] Rousseau: _Confessions_, Book IV, p. 125. 

[65:7] William James: _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 35. The italics are mine. I am in the present chapter under constantobligation to this wonderfully sympathetic and stimulating book. 

[67:8] Chadwick: _Theodore Parker_, p. 18. 

[67:9] Stevenson: _Letters_, Vol. I, p. 229. 

[68:10] Thomas à Kempis: _Imitation of Christ_, Chap. XIX. Translationby Stanhope, p. 44. 

[69:11] St. Augustine: _Confessions_, Book I, Chap. I. Translation inSchaff: _Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers_, Vol. I, p. 129. 

[71:12] James: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 203. 

[74:13] Fielding: _op. Cit. _, p. 152. 

[78:14] Warren: _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 14. 

[78:15] _Ibid. _, p. 83. 

CHAPTER IV

THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF RELIGION

[Sidenote: Résumé of Psychology of Religion. ]

§ 28. It has been maintained that religion is closely analogous to one'sbelief in the disposition toward one's self of men or communities. Inthe case of religion this disposition is attributed to the more or lessvaguely conceived residual environment that is recognized as lyingoutside of the more familiar natural and social relations. After therise of science this residual environment tends to be conceived as aunity which is ultimate or fundamental, but for the religiousconsciousness it is more commonly regarded as a general source ofinfluence practically worthy of consideration. Such a belief, like allbelief, is vitally manifested, with such emphasis upon action, feeling, or intellection as temperament and mood may determine. 

[Sidenote: Religion Means to be True. ]

§ 29. But if the psychology of belief is the proper starting-point for adescription of the religious experience, it is none the less suggestiveof the fact that religion, just because it _is_ belief, is not wholly amatter for psychology. For religion _means to be true_, and thus submitsitself to valuation as a case of knowledge. The psychological study ofreligion is misleading when accepted as a substitute for philosophicalcriticism. The religious man takes his religion not as a narcotic, butas an enlightenment. Its subjective worth is due at any rate in part tothe supposition of its objective worth. As in any case of insight, thatwhich warms the heart must have satisfied the mind. The religiousexperience purports to be the part of wisdom, and to afford only suchhappiness as increasing wisdom would confirm. And the charm of truthcannot survive its truthfulness. Hence, though religion may bedescribed, it cannot be justified, from the stand-point of therapeutics. Were such the case it would be the real problem of religious leaders tofind a drug capable of giving a constantly pleasant tone to theirpatient's experience. [83:1] There would be no difference between priestsand physicians who make a specialty of nervous diseases, except that theformer would aim at a more fundamental and perpetual suggestion ofserenity. Now no man wants to be even a blessed fool. He does not wantto dwell constantly in a fictitious world, even if it be after his ownheart. He may from the cynical point of view actually do so, but if hebe religious he thinks it is reality, and is satisfied only in so far ashe thinks so. He regards the man who has said in his heart that there isno God as the fool, and not because he may have to suffer for it, butbecause he is cognitively blind to the real nature of things. Piety, onthe other hand, he regards as the standard experience, the mostveracious life. Hence, it is not an accident that religion has had itscreeds and its controversies, its wars with science and its appeals tophilosophy. The history of these affairs shows that religion commonlyfails to understand the scope of its own demand for truth; but they haveissued from the deep conviction that one's religion is, implicitly, atleast, in the field of truth; that there are theoretical judgments whosetruth would justify or contradict it. 

This general fact being admitted, there remains the task to which thepresent discussion addresses itself, that of defining the kind of_theoretical judgment_ implied in religion, and the relation to thiscentral cognitive stem of its efflorescences of myth, theology, andritual. It is impossible to separate the stem and the efflorescence, orto determine the precise spot at which destruction of the tissue wouldprove fatal to the plant, but it is possible to obtain some idea of therelative vitality of the parts. 

[Sidenote: Religion Means to be Practically True. God is a Dispositionfrom which Consequences May Rationally be Expected. ]

§ 30. The difficulty of reaching a definite statement in this matter isdue to the fact that the truth in which any religious experience centresis a practical and not a scientific truth. A practical truth does notcommit itself to any single scientific statement, and can often survivethe overthrow of that scientific statement in which at any given time ithas found expression. In other words, an indefinite number of scientifictruths are compatible with a single practical truth. An instance of thisis the consistency with my expectation of the alternation of day andnight, of either the Ptolemaic or Copernican formulation of the solarsystem. Now expectation that the sun will rise to-morrow is an excellentanalogue of my religious belief. Celestial mechanics is as relevant tothe one as metaphysics to the other. Neither is overthrown until acentral practical judgment is discredited, and either could remain truethrough a very considerable alteration of logical definition; butneither is on this account exempt from theoretical responsibility. In sofar as religion deliberately enters the field of science, and definesits formularies with the historical or metaphysical method, thisdifficulty does not, of course, exist. Grant that the years ofMethuselah's life, or the precise place and manner of the temptation ofJesus, or the definition of Christ in the terms of the Athanasian Creed, are constitutive of Christianity, and the survival of that religion willbe determined by the solution of ordinary problems of historical ormetaphysical research. But the Christian will very properly claim thathis religion is only externally and accidentally related to suchpropositions, since they are never or very rarely intended in hisexperience. As religious he is occupied with Christ as his saviour orwith God as his protector and judge. The history of Jesus or themetaphysics of God essentially concern him only in so far as they may ormay not invalidate this relationship. He cares only for the power anddisposition of the divine, and these are affected by history andmetaphysics only in so far as he has definitely put them to such proof. 

For my religion is my sense of a practical situation, and only whenthat has been proved to be folly has my religion become untrue. My Godis my practical faith, my plan of salvation. My religion is overthrownif I am convinced that I have misconceived the situation and mistakenwhat I should do to be saved. The conception of God is very simplepractically, and very complex theoretically, a fact that confirms itspractical genesis. My conception of God contains _an idea of my owninterests_, _an idea of the disposition of the universe toward myinterests_, and _some working plan for the reconciliation of these twoterms_. These three elements form a practical unity, but each is capableof emphasis, and a religion may be transformed through the modificationof any one of them. It appears, then, as has always been somewhatvaguely recognized, that the truth of religion is ethical as well asmetaphysical or scientific. My religion will be altered by a change inmy conception of what constitutes my real interest, a change in myconception of the fundamental causes of reality, or a change in myconception of the manner in which my will may or may not affect thesecauses. God is neither an entity nor an ideal, but always a relation ofentity to ideal: _reality regarded from the stand-point of itsfavorableness or unfavorableness to human life, and prescribing for thelatter the propriety of a certain attitude_. 

[Sidenote: Historical Examples of Religious Truth and Error. TheReligion of Baal. ]

§ 31. The range of historical examples is limitless, but certain ofthese are especially calculated to emphasize the application of acriterion to religion. Such is the case with Elijah's encounter with theprophets of Baal, as narrated in the Old Testament. 

 "And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If Yahweh be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. . . . And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of Yahweh: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. . . . And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. . . . And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them. . . . But there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. "[88:2]

The religion of the followers of Baal here consists in a belief in thepractical virtue of a mode of address and form of ritual associated withthe traditions and customs of a certain social group. The prophets ofthis cult agree to regard the experiment proposed by Elijah as a crucialtest, and that which is disproved from its failure is a plan of action. These prophets relied upon the presence of a certain motivity, fromwhich a definite response could be evoked by an appeal which they werepeculiarly able to make; but though "they prophesied until the time ofthe offering of the evening oblation, " there was none that regarded. 

[Sidenote: Greek Religion. ]

§ 32. An equally familiar and more instructive example is the refutationof the Greek national religion by Lucretius. The conception of lifewhich Lucretius finds unwarranted is best depicted in Homer. There wehear of a society composed of gods and men. Though the gods, on the onehand, have their own history, their affairs are never sharply sunderedfrom those of men, who, on the other hand, must constantly reckon withthem, gauge their attitude, and seek their favor by paying tribute totheir individual humors and preferences. In the Ninth Book of the"Iliad, " Phoenix addresses himself to the recalcitrant Achilles asfollows:

 "It fits not one that moves The hearts of all, to live unmov'd, and succor hates for loves. The Gods themselves are flexible; whose virtues, honors, pow'rs, Are more than thine, yet they will bend their breasts as we bend ours. Perfumes, benign devotions, savors of offerings burn'd, And holy rites, the engines are with which their hearts are turn'd, By men that pray to them. "[90:3]

Here is a general recognition of that which makes sacrifice rational. Itis because he conceives this presupposition to be mistaken, thatLucretius declares the practices and fears which are founded upon it tobe folly. It is the same with all that is practically based upon theexpectation of a life beyond the grave. The correction of the popularreligion is due in his opinion to that true view of the world taught byEpicurus, whose memory Lucretius thus invokes at the opening of theThird Book of the "De Rerum Natura":

 "Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks. . . . For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice, to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation throughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed and their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake nor clouds drench with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round. Nature too supplies all their wants and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind. But on the other hand the Acherusian quarters[91:4] are nowhere to be seen, though earth is no bar to all things being descried, which are in operation underneath our feet throughout the void. "[91:5]

In another passage, after describing the Phrygian worship of Cybele, hecomments as follows:

 "All which, well and beautifully as it is set forth and told, is yet widely removed from true reason. For the nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns; since exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers, strong in its own resources, not wanting aught of us, it is neither gained by favors nor moved by anger. . . . The earth however is at all time without feeling, and because it receives into it the first-beginnings of many things, it brings them forth in many ways into the light of the sun. "[91:6]

If the teaching of Epicurus be true it is evident that those whooffered hecatombs with the idea that they were thereby mitigating anger, or securing special dispensation, were playing the fool. They wereappealing to a fictitious motivity, one not grounded in "the nature ofthings. " To one for whom the walls of the world had parted asunder, sucha procedure was no longer possible; though he might choose to "call thesea Neptune" and reverence the earth as "mother of the gods. "[92:7]

[Sidenote: Judaism and Christianity. ]

§ 33. The history of religion contains no more impressive and dramaticchapter than that which records the development of the religion of theJews. Passing over its obscure beginnings in the primitive Semitic cult, we find this religion first clearly defined as tribal self-interestsanctioned by Yahweh. [92:8] God's interest in his chosen peopledetermines the prosperity of him who practices the social virtues. 

 "The name of Yahweh is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. "

 "He that is steadfast in righteousness shall attain unto life. "

 "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice. "[93:9]

But in time it is evident to the believer that his experience does notbear out this expectation. Neither as a Jew nor as a righteous man doeshe prosper more than his neighbor. He comes, therefore, to distrust thevirtue of his wisdom. 

 "Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walketh in darkness: and yet I perceived that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also was vanity. For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remembrance forever; seeing that in the days to come all will have been already forgotten. And how doth the wise man die even as the fool! So I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me: for all is vanity and a striving after wind. "[93:10]

It is evident that he who expects the favor of fortune in return forhis observance of precept is mistaken. The "work that is wrought underthe sun" makes no special provision for him during his lifetime. Unlessthe cry of vanity is to be the last word there must be areinterpretation of the promise of God. This appears in the new ideal ofpatient submission, and the chastened faith that expects only the loveof God. And those whom God loves He will not forsake. They will come totheir own, if not here, then beyond, according to His inscrutable butunswerving plan. 

 "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. "

 "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. "[94:11]

In this faith Judaism merges into Christianity. [94:12] In the wholecourse of this evolution God is regarded as the friend of his people, but his people learn to find a new significance in his friendship. Thatwhich is altered is the conduct which that friendship requires and theexpectation which it determines. The practical ideal which therelationship sanctions, changes gradually from that of prudence to thatof goodness for its own sake. God, once an instrument relevant to humantemporal welfare, has come to be an object of disinterested service. 

No such transformation as this was absolutely realized during the periodcovered by the writings of the Old Testament, nor has it even yet beenrealized in the development of Christianity. But the evolution of bothJudaism and Christianity has taken this direction. The criterion of thisevolution is manifestly both ethical and metaphysical. A Christian avowsthat he rates purity of character above worldly prosperity, so that theformer cannot properly be prized for the sake of the latter. Furthermore, he shares more or less unconsciously such philosophical andscientific opinions as deny truth to the conception of specialinterferences and dispensations from a supernatural agency. Therefore helooks for no fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice. But his religionis nevertheless a practical expectation. He believes that God is good, and that God loves him and sustains him. He believes that there obtainsbetween himself, in so far as good, and the universe _sub specieeternitatis_, a real sympathy and reciprocal reenforcement. He believesthat he secures through the profoundly potent forces of the universethat which he regards as of most worth; and that somewhat is added tothese forces by virtue of his consecration. The God of the Christianscannot be defined short of some such account as this, inclusive of anideal, an attitude, and an expectation. In other words the God of theChristians is to be known only in terms of the Christlike outlook uponlife, in which the disciple is taught to emulate the master. When moraland intellectual development shall have discredited either its scale ofvalues, or its conviction that cosmical events are in the end determinedin accordance with that scale of values, then Christianity must eitherbe transformed, or be untenable for the wise man. If we have conceivedthe essence of Christianity too broadly or vaguely, it does not muchmatter for our present purposes. Its essence is, at any rate, some suchinwardness of life resolving ideality and reality into one, and drawingupon objective truth only to the extent required for the confirming ofthat relation. 

[Sidenote: The Cognitive Factor in Religion. ]

§ 34. We conclude, then, our attempt to emphasize the cognitive factorin religion, with the thesis that every religion centres in a practicalsecret of the universe. _To be religious is to believe that a certaincorrelation of forces, moral and factual, is in reality operative, andthat it determines the propriety and effectiveness of a certain type ofliving. Whatever demonstrates the futility, vanity, or self-deception ofthis living, discredits the religion. And, per contra, except as theydefine or refute such practical truth, religion is not essentiallyconcerned with theoretical judgments. _

[Sidenote: The Place of Imagination in Religion. ]

§ 35. But neither religion nor any other human interest consists inessentials. Such a practical conviction as that which has been definedinevitably flowers into a marvelous complexity, and taps for itsnourishment every spontaneity of human nature. If it be said that onlythe practical conviction is essential, this is not the same as to saythat all else is superfluous. There may be no single utterance that myreligion could not have spared, and yet were I to be altogether dumb myreligion would, indeed, be as nothing. For if I believe, I accept apresence in my world, which as I live will figure in my dreams, or in mythoughts, or in my habits. And each of these expressions of myself willhave a truth if it do but bear out my practical acceptance of thatpresence. The language of religion, like that of daily life, is not thelanguage of science except it take it upon itself to be so. There isscarcely a sentence which I utter in my daily intercourse with men whichis not guilty of transgressions against the canons of accurate anddefinite thinking. Yet if I deceive neither myself nor another, I amheld to be truthful, even though my language deal with chance andaccident, material purposes and spiritual causes, and though I vow thatthe sun smiles or the moon lets down her hair into the sea. Science is aspecial interest in the discovery of unequivocal and fixed conceptions, and employs its terms with an unalterable connotation. But no suchalgebra of thought is indispensable to life or conversation, and itslack is no proof of error. Such is the case also with that eminentlyliving affair, religion. I may if I choose, and I will if my reasoningpowers be at all awakened, be a theologian. But theology, like science, is a special intellectual spontaneity. St. Thomas, the mastertheologian, did not glide unwittingly from prayer into the _quæstiones_of the "Summa Theologiæ, " but turned to them as to a fresh adventure. Theology is inevitable, because humanly speaking adventure isinevitable. For man, with his intellectual spontaneity, every object isa problem; and did he not seek sooner or later to define salvation, there would be good reason to believe that he did not practically reckonwith any. But this is _similarly_ and _independently_ true of theimagination, the most familiar means with which man clothes and vivifieshis convictions, the exuberance with which he plays about them anddelights to confess them. The imagination of religion, contributing whatMatthew Arnold called its "poetry and eloquence, " does not submit itselfto such canons as are binding upon theology or science, but exists andflourishes in its own right. 

The indispensableness to religion of the imagination is due to thatfaculty's power of realizing what is not perceptually present. Religionis not interested in the apparent, but in the secret essence or thetranscendent universal. And yet this interest is a practical one. Imagination may introduce one into the vivid presence of the secret orthe transcendent. It is evident that the religious imagination herecoincides with poetry. For it is at least one of the interests of poetryto cultivate and satisfy a sense for the universal; to obtain animmediate experience or appreciation that shall have the vividnesswithout the particularism of ordinary perception. And where a poetelects so to view the world, we allow him as a poet the privilege, andjudge him by the standards to which he submits himself. That upon whichwe pass judgment is the _fitness of his expression_. This expression isnot, except in the case of the theoretical mystic, regarded asconstituting the most valid form of the idea, but is appreciatedexpressly for its fulfilment of the condition of immediacy. The samesort of critical attitude is in order with the fruits of the religiousimagination. These may or may not fulfil enough of the requirements ofthat art to be properly denominated poetry; but like poetry they are thetranslation of ideas into a specific language. They must not, therefore, be judged as though they claimed to excel in point of validity, but onlyin point of consistency with the context of that language. And _thelanguage of religion is the language of the practical life_. Suchtranslation is as essential to an idea that is to enter into thereligious experience, as translation into terms of immediacy isessential to an idea that is to enter into the appreciativeconsciousness of the poet. No object can find a place in my religionuntil it is conjoined with my purposes and hopes; until it is taken forgranted and acted upon, like the love of my friends, or the courses ofthe stars, or the stretches of the sea. 

[Sidenote: The Special Functions of the Religious Imagination. ]

§ 36. The religious imagination, then, is to be understood and justifiedas that which brings the objects of religion within the range of living. The central religious object, as has been seen, is an _attitude_ of theresiduum or totality of things. To be religious one must have a sensefor the _presence of an attitude_, like his sense for the presence ofhis human fellows, with all the added appreciation that is proper in thecase of an object that is unique in its mystery or in its majesty. Itfollows that the religious imagination fulfils its function in so far asit provides the object of religion with properties similar to thosewhich lend vividness and reality to the normal social relations. 

The presence of one's fellows is in part the perceptual experience oftheir bodies. To this there corresponds in religion some extraordinaryor subtle appearance. The gods may in visions or dreams be met with intheir own proper embodiments; or, as is more common, they may beregarded as present for practical purposes: in some inanimate object, as in the case of the fetish; in some animal species, as in the case ofthe totem; in some place, as in the case of the shrine; or even in somehuman being, as in the case of the inspired prophet and miracle worker. In more refined and highly developed religions the medium of God'spresence is less specific. He is perceived with

 "--a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. "

God is here found in an interpretation of the common and the natural, rather than in any individual and peculiar embodiment. And here thepoet's appreciation, if not his art, is peculiarly indispensable. 

But, furthermore, his fellows are inmates of "the household of man" inthat he knows their history. They belong to the temporal context ofactions and events. Similarly, the gods must be historical. The sacredtraditions or books of religion are largely occupied with this history. The more individual and anthropomorphic the gods, the more local andepisodic will be the account of their affairs. In the higher religionsthe acts of God are few and momentous, such as creation or specialprovidence; or they are identical with the events of nature and humanhistory when these are _construed_ as divine. To find God in this latterway requires an interpretation of the course of events in terms of somemoral consistency, a faith that sees some purpose in their evidentdestination. 

There is still another and a more significant way in which men recognizeone another: the way of address and conversation. And men haveinvariably held a similar intercourse with their gods. To this categorybelong communion and prayer, with all their varieties of expression. Ihave no god until I address him. This will be the most direct evidenceof what is at least from my point of view a social relation. There canbe no general definition of the form which this address will take. Theremay be as many special languages, as many attitudes, and as muchplayfulness and subtlety of symbolism as in human intercourse. But, onthe other hand, there are certain utterances that are peculiarlyappropriate to religion. In so far as he regards his object as endowedwith both power and goodness the worshipper will use the language ofadoration; and the sense of his dependence will speak in terms ofconsecration and thanksgiving. 

 "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, In a dry and weary land, where no water is. So have I looked upon thee in the sanctuary, To see thy power and thy glory. For thy loving-kindness is better than life; My lips shall praise thee. "

These are expressions of a hopeful faith; but, on the other hand, Godmay be addressed in terms of hatred and distrust. 

 "Who is most wretched in this dolorous place? I think myself; yet I would rather be My miserable self than He, than He Who formed such creatures to his own disgrace. 

 "The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou From whom it had its being, God and Lord! Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred, Malignant and implacable. "[104:13]

In either case there may be an indefinite degree of hyperbole. Thelanguage of love and hate, of confidence and despair, is not thelanguage of description. In this train of the religious consciousnessthere is occasion for whatever eloquence man can feel, and whateverrhetorical luxuriance he can utter. 

[Sidenote: The Relation between Imagination and Truth in Religion. ]

§ 37. Such considerations as these serve to account for the exercise andcertain of the fruits of the religious imagination, and to designate thegeneral criterion governing its propriety. But _how is one to determinethe boundary between the imaginative and the cognitive_? It is commonlyagreed that what religion says and does is not all intended literally. But when is expression of religion only poetry and eloquence, and whenis it matter of conviction? If we revert again to the cognitive aspectof religion, it is evident that there is but one test to apply:_whatever either fortifies or misleads the will is literal conviction_. This test cannot be applied absolutely, because it can properly beapplied only to the intention of an individual experience. However I mayexpress my religion, that which I express, is, we have seen, anexpectation. The degree to which I literally mean what I say is then thedegree to which it determines my expectations. Whatever adds no item tothese expectations, but only recognizes and vitalizes them, is pureimagination. But it follows that it is entirely impossible from directinspection to define any given _expression_ of religious experience asmyth, or to define the degree to which it is myth. It submits to suchdistinctions only when viewed from the stand-point of the concretereligious experience which it expresses. Any such given expression couldeasily be all imagination to one, and all conviction to another. Consider the passage which follows:

 "And I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon, called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems; and he hath a name written, which no one knoweth but he himself. And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name is called The Word of God. "[106:14]

Is this all rhapsody, or is it in part true report? There is evidentlyno answer to the question so conceived. But if it were to express my ownreligious feeling it would have some specific proportion of literal andmetaphorical significance, according to the degree to which its detailcontributes different practical values to me. It might then be myguide-book to the heavens, or only my testimony to the dignity andmystery of the function of Christ. 

The development of religion bears in a very important way upon this lastproblem. The factor of imagination has undoubtedly come to have a moreclearly recognized role in religion. There can be no doubt that what wenow call myths were once beliefs, and that what we now call poetry wasonce history. If we go back sufficiently far we come to a time when theliteral and the metaphorical were scarcely distinguishable, and thisbecause science had not emerged from the early animistic extension ofsocial relations. Men _meant_ to address their gods as they addressedtheir fellows, and expected them to hear and respond, as they looked forsuch reactions within the narrower circle of ordinary intercourse. Theadvance of science has brought into vogue a description of nature thatinhibits such expectations. The result has been that men, continuing touse the same terms, essentially expressive as they are of a practicalrelationship, have come to regard them as only a general expression oftheir attitude. The differences of content that are in excess of factorsof expectation remain as poetry and myth. On the other hand, it isequally possible, if not equally common, for that which was onceimagined to come to be believed. Such a transformation is, perhaps, normally the case when the inspired utterance passes from its author tothe cult. The prophets and sweet singers are likely to possess anexuberance of imagination not appreciated by their followers; and forthis reason almost certainly misunderstood. For these reasons it ismanifestly absurd to fasten the name of myth or the name of creed uponany religious utterance whatsoever, unless it be so regarded from thestand-point of the personal religion which it originally expressed, orunless one means by so doing to define it as an expression of his ownreligion. He who defines "the myth of creation, " or "the poetical storyof Samson, " as parts of the pre-Christian Judaic religion, exhibits atotal loss of historical sense. The distinction between cognition andfancy does not exist among objects, but only in the _intending_experience; hence, for me to attach my own distinction to any individualcase of belief, viewed apart from the believer, is an utterly confusingprojection of my own personality into the field of my study. 

[Sidenote: The Philosophy Implied in Religion and in Religions. ]

§ 38. Only after such considerations as these are we qualified to attackthat much-vexed question as to whether religion deals invariably with apersonal god. It is often assumed in discussion of this question that"personal god, " as well as "god, " is a distinct and familiar kind ofentity, like a dragon or centaur; its existence alone beingproblematical. This is doubly false to the religious employment of suchan object. If it be true that in religion we mean by God a practicalinterpretation of the world, _whatsoever be its nature_, then thepersonality of God must be a derivative of the attitude, and not of thenature of the world. Given the practical outlook upon life, there is nodefinable world that cannot be construed under the form of God. My godis my world practically recognized in respect of its fundamental orultimate attitude to my ideals. In the sense, then, conveyed by thisterm _attitude_ my god will invariably possess the characters ofpersonality. But the degree to which these characters will coincide withthe characters which I assign to human persons, or the terms of anylogical conception of personality, cannot be absolutely defined. Anthropomorphisms may be imagination or they may be literal conviction. This will depend, as above maintained, upon the degree to which theydetermine my expectations. Suppose the world to be theoreticallyconceived as governed by laws that are indifferent to all humaninterests. The practical expression of this conception appears in thenaturalism of Lucretius, or Diogenes, or Omar Khayyam. Living in thevivid presence of an indifferent world, I may picture my gods as leadingtheir own lives in some remote realm which is inaccessible to mypetitions, or as regarding me with sinister and contemptuous cruelty. Inthe latter case I may shrink and cower, or return them contempt forcontempt. I mean this literally only if I look for consequencesfollowing directly from the emotional coloring which I have bestowedupon them. It may well be that I mean merely to regard myself _subspecie eternitatis_, in which case I am _personifying_ in the sense offree imagination. In the religion of enlightenment the divine attitudetends to belong to the poetry and eloquence of religion rather than toits cognitive intent. This is true even of optimistic and idealisticreligion. The love and providence of God are less commonly supposed towarrant an expectation of special and arbitrary favors, and have comemore and more to mean the play of my own feeling about the generalcentral conviction of the favorableness of the cosmos to my deeper ormoral concerns. But the factor of personality cannot possibly beentirely eliminated, for the religious consciousness _creates_ a socialrelationship between man and the universe. Such an interpretation oflife is not a case of the pathetic fallacy, unless it incorrectly_reckons with_ the inner feeling which it attributes to the universe. Itis an obvious practical truth that the total or residual environment issignificant for life. Grant this and you make rational a recognition ofthat significance, or a more or less constant sense of coincidence orconflict with cosmical forces. Permit this consciousness to stand, andyou make some expression of it inevitable. Such an expression may, furthermore, with perfect propriety and in fulfilment of human nature, set forth and transfigure this central belief until it may enter intothe context of immediacy. 

Thus any conception of the universe whatsoever may afford a basis forreligion. But there is no religion that does not virtually make a moredefinite claim upon the nature of things, and this entirelyindependently of its theology, or explicit attempt to define itself. Every religion, even in the very living of it, is naturalistic, ordualistic, or pluralistic, or optimistic, or idealistic, or pessimistic. And there is in the realm of truth that which justifies or refutes thesedefinite practical ways of construing the universe. But no historicalreligion is ever so vague even as this in its philosophicalimplications. Indeed, we shall always be brought eventually to theinner meaning of some individual religious experience, where no generalcriticism can be certainly valid. 

There is, then, a place in religion for that which is not directlyanswerable to philosophical or scientific standards. But there isalways, on the other hand, an element of hope which conceives the natureof the world, and means to be grounded in reality. In respect of thatelement, philosophy is indispensable to religion. The meaning ofreligion is, in fact, the central problem of philosophy. There is avirtue in religion like that which Emerson ascribes to poetry. "The poetis in the right attitude; he is believing; the philosopher, after somestruggle, having only reasons for believing. " But whatever may be saidto the disparagement of its dialectic, philosophy is the justificationof religion, and the criticism of religions. To it must be assigned thetask of so refining positive religion as to contribute to the perpetualestablishment of true religion. And to philosophy, with religion, belongs the task of holding fast to the idea of the universe. There isno religion except before you begin, or after you have rested from, yourphilosophical speculation. But in the universe these interests have acommon object. As philosophy is the articulation and vindication ofreligion, so is religion the realization of philosophy. In philosophythought is brought up to the elevation of life, and in religionphilosophy, as the sum of wisdom, enters into life. 

FOOTNOTES:

[83:1] As Plato interprets the scepticism of Protagoras to mean that onestate of mind cannot be more _true_ than another, but only _better_ orworse. Cf. _Theætetus_, 167. 

[88:2] Quoted with some omissions from _I Kings_, 18:21-29. The Hebrewterm _Yahweh_, the name of the national deity, has been substituted forthe English translation, "the Lord. "

[90:3] _Iliad_, Book IX, lines 467 _sq. _ Translation by Chapman. 

[91:4] The supposed abode of departed spirits. 

[91:5] Lucretius: _De Rerum Natura_, Book III, lines 1 _sq. _ Translatedby Munro. 

[91:6] _Ibid. _, Book II, lines 644 _sq. _

[92:7] It would be interesting to compare the equally famous criticismof Greek religion in Plato's _Republic_, Book II, 377 _sq. _

[92:8] Cf. W. Robertson Smith's admirable account of the Semiticreligions:

"What is requisite to religion is a practical acquaintance with therules on which the deity acts and on which he expects his worshippers toframe their conduct--what in II Kings, 17:26 is called the 'manner, ' orrather the 'customary law' (_mishpat_), of the god of the land. This istrue even of the religion of Israel. When the prophets speak of theknowledge of God, they always mean a practical knowledge of the laws andprinciples of His government in Israel, and a summary expression forreligion as a whole is 'the knowledge and fear of Jehovah, ' _i. E. _, theknowledge of what Jehovah prescribes, combined with a reverentobedience. " _The Religion of the Semites_, p. 23. 

[93:9] _Proverbs_, 18:10; 11:19; 21:3. 

[93:10] _Ecclesiastes_, 2:13 _sq. _

[94:11] _Psalms_, 51:17; _Isaiah_, 57:15. 

[94:12] In this discussion of Judaism I am much indebted to MatthewArnold's _Literature and Dogma_, especially Chapters I and II. 

[104:13] James Thomson: _The City of Dreadful Night_. Quoted by James, in _The Will to Believe, etc. _, p. 45. 

[106:14] _Revelation_, 19:11-13. 

CHAPTER V

NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

[Sidenote: The True Relations of Philosophy and Science. Misconceptionsand Antagonisms. ]

§ 39. In the case of natural science we meet not only with a specialhuman interest, but with a theoretical discipline. We are confronted, therefore, with a new question: that of the relation within the body ofhuman knowledge of two of its constituent members. Owing to the militanttemper of the representatives of both science and philosophy, this haslong since ceased to be an academic question, and has frequently beenmet in the spirit of rivalry and partisanship. But the true order ofknowledge is only temporarily distorted by the brilliant success of aspecial type of investigation; and the conquests of science are now soold a story that critical thought shows a disposition to judge of theissue with sobriety and logical highmindedness. 

In the seventeenth century a newly emancipated and too sanguine reasonproposed to know the whole of nature at once in terms of mathematicsand mechanics. Thus the system of the Englishman Hobbes was scienceswelled to world-proportions, simple, compact, conclusive, andall-comprehensive. Philosophy proposed to do the work of science, but inits own grand manner. The last twenty years of Hobbes's life, spent inrepeated discomfiture at the hands of Seth Ward, Wallis, Boyle, andother scientific experts of the new Royal Society, certifiedconclusively to the failure of this enterprise, and the experimentalspecialist thereupon took exclusive possession of the field of naturallaw. But the idealist, on the other hand, reconstructed nature to meetthe demands of philosophical knowledge and religious faith. Thereissued, together with little mutual understanding and less sympathy, onthe one hand _positivism_, or exclusive experimentalism, and on theother hand a rabid and unsympathetic transcendentalism. Hume, whoconsigned to the flames all thought save "abstract reasoning concerningquantity or number, " and "experimental reasoning concerning matter offact and existence"; Comte, who assigned metaphysics to an immaturestage in the development of human intelligence; and Tyndall, who reducedthe religious consciousness to an emotional experience of mystery, aretypical of the one attitude. The other is well exhibited in Schelling'sreference to "the blind and thoughtless mode of investigating naturewhich has become generally established since the corruption ofphilosophy by Bacon, and of physics by Boyle. " Dogmatic experimentalismand dogmatic idealism signify more or less consistently the abstractisolation of the scientific and philosophical motives. 

There is already a touch of quaintness in both of these attitudes. We ofthe present are in the habit of acknowledging the autonomy of science, and the unimpeachable validity of the results of experimental researchin so far as they are sanctioned by the consensus of experts. But at thesame time we recognize the definiteness of the task of science, and thevalidity of such reservations as may be made from a higher criticalpoint of view. Science is to be transcended in so far as it isunderstood as a whole. Philosophy is critically empirical; empirical, because it regards all _bona fide_ descriptions of experience asknowledge; critical, because attentive to the conditions of both generaland special knowledge. And in terms of a critical empiricism so defined, it is one of the problems of philosophy _to define and appraise thegenerating problem of science_, and so to determine the valueassignable to natural laws in the whole system of knowledge. 

[Sidenote: The Spheres of Philosophy and Science. ]

§ 40. If this be the true function of philosophy with reference toscience, several current notions of the relations of the spheres ofthese disciplines may be disproved. In the first place, philosophy willnot be all the sciences regarded as one science. Science tends to unifywithout any higher criticism. The various sciences already regard theone nature as their common object, and the one system of interdependentlaws as their common achievement. The philosopher who tries to be allscience at once fails ignominiously because he tries to replace the workof a specialist with the work of a dilettante; and if philosophy beidentical with that body of truth accumulated and organized by thecoöperative activity of scientific men, then philosophy is a name andthere is no occasion for the existence of the philosopher as such. Secondly, philosophy will not be the assembling of the sciences; forsuch would be a merely clerical work, and the philosopher would muchbetter be regarded as non-existent than as a book-keeper. Nor, thirdly, is philosophy an auxiliary discipline that may be called upon inemergencies for the solution of some baffling problem of science. Aproblem defined by science must be solved in the scientific manner. Science will accept no aid from the gods when engaged in her owncampaign, but will fight it out according to her own principles ofwarfare. And as long as science moves in her own plane, she canacknowledge no permanent barriers. There is then no need of anysuperscientific research that shall replace, or piece together, orextend the work of science. But the savant is not on this account inpossession of the entire field of knowledge. It is true that he is notinfrequently moved to such a conviction when he takes us about to viewhis estates. Together we ascend up into heaven, or make our beds insheol, or take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost partsof the sea--and look in vain for anything that is not work done, or workprojected, by natural science. Persuade him, however, to _define_ hisestates, and he has circumscribed them. In his definition he must employconceptions more fundamental than the working conceptions that heemploys within his field of study. Indeed, in viewing his task asdefinite and specific he has undertaken the solution of the problem ofphilosophy. The logical self-consciousness has been awakened, and thereis no honorable way of putting it to sleep again. This is preciselywhat takes place in any account of the generating problem of science. Todefine science is to define at least one realm that is other thanscience, the realm of active intellectual endeavor with its own propercategories. One cannot reflect upon science and assign it an end, and amethod proper to that end, without bringing into the field of knowledgea broader field of experience than the field proper to science, broaderat any rate by the presence in it of the scientific activity itself. 

Here, then, is the field proper to philosophy. The scientist _qua_scientist is intent upon his own determinate enterprise. The philosophercomes into being as one who is interested in observing what it is thatthe scientist is so intently doing. In taking this interest he hasaccepted as a field for investigation that which he would designate asthe totality of interests or the inclusive experience. He can carry outhis intention of defining the scientific attitude only by standingoutside it, and determining it by means of nothing less than anexhaustive searching out of all attitudes. Philosophy is, to be sure, itself a definite activity and an attitude, but an attitude required bydefinition to be conscious of itself, and, if you please, conscious ofits own consciousness, until its attitude shall have embraced in itsobject the very principle of attitudes. Philosophy defines itself andall other human tasks and interests. None have furnished a clearerjustification of philosophy than those men of scientific predilectionswho have claimed the title of agnostics. A good instance is furnished bya contemporary physicist, who has chosen to call his reflections"antimetaphysical. "

 "Physical science does not pretend to be a _complete_ view of the world; it simply claims that it is working toward such a complete view in the future. The highest philosophy of the scientific investigator is precisely this _toleration_ of an incomplete conception of the world and the preference for it, rather than an apparently perfect, but inadequate conception. "[120:1]

It is apparent that if one were to challenge such a statement, the issueraised would at once be philosophical and not scientific. The problemhere stated and answered, requires for its solution the widestinclusiveness of view, and a peculiar interest in critical reflectionand logical coördination. 

[Sidenote: The Procedure of a Philosophy of Science. ]

§ 41. One may be prepared for a knowledge of the economic and socialsignificance of the railway even if one does not know a throttle from apiston-rod, provided one has broad and well-balanced knowledge of theinterplay of human social interests. One's proficiency here requires oneto stand off from society, and to obtain a perspective that shall be aslittle distorted as possible. The reflection of the philosopher ofscience requires a similar quality of perspective. All knowledges, together with the knowing of them, must be his object yonder, standingapart in its wholeness and symmetry. Philosophy is the least dogmatic, the most empirical, of all disciplines, since it is the onlyinvestigation that can permit itself to be forgetful of nothing. 

But the most comprehensive view may be the most distorted and false. Thetrue order of knowledge is the difficult task of logical analysis, requiring as its chief essential some determination of the scope of theworking conceptions of the different independent branches of knowledge. In the case of natural science this would mean an examination of themethod and results characteristic of this field, for the sake ofdefining the kind of truth which attaches to the laws which are beinggradually formulated. But one must immediately reach either the one orthe other of two very general conclusions. If the laws of naturalscience cover all possible knowledge of reality, then there is left tophilosophy only the logical function of justifying this statement. Logicand natural science will then constitute the sum of knowledge. If, onthe other hand, it be found that the aim of natural science is such asto exclude certain aspects of reality, then philosophy will not berestricted to logical criticism, but will have a cognitive field of itsown. The great majority of philosophers have assumed the latter of thesealternatives to be true, while most aggressive scientists have intendedthe former in their somewhat blind attacks upon "metaphysics. " Althoughthe selection of either of these alternatives involves us in the defenceof a specific answer to a philosophical question, the issue isinevitable in any introduction to philosophy because of its bearing uponthe extent of the field of that study. Furthermore there can be nobetter exposition of the meaning of philosophy of science than anillustration of its exercise. The following, then, is to be regarded ason the one hand a tentative refutation of _positivism_, or the _claim ofnatural science to be coextensive with knowable reality_; and on theother hand a programme for the procedure of philosophy with referenceto natural science. 

[Sidenote: The Origin of the Scientific Interest. ]

§ 42. Science issues through imperceptible stages from organic habitsand instincts which signify the possession by living creatures of apower to meet the environment on its own terms. Every organism possessessuch a working knowledge of nature, and among men the first scienceconsists in those habitual adjustments common to men and infra-humanorganisms. Man is already practising science before he recognizes it. As_skill_ it distinguishes itself early in his history from lore, oruntested tradition. Skill is familiarity with general kinds of events, together with ability to identify an individual with reference to akind, and so be prepared for the outcome. Thus man is inwardly preparedfor the alternation of day and night, and the periods of the seasons. Hepractically anticipates the procession of natural events in thecountless emergencies of his daily life. But science in the strictersense begins when skill becomes _free_ and _social_. 

[Sidenote: Skill as Free. ]

§ 43. Skill may be said to be _free_ when the essential terms of theaction have been abstracted from the circumstances attending them inindividual experiences, and are retained as ideal plans applicable toany practical occasion. The monkey who swings with a trapeze from hisperch on the side of the cage, counts upon swinging back again withoutany further effort on his own part. His act and its successful issuesignify his practical familiarity with the natural motions of bodies. Wecan conceive such a performance to be accompanied by an almost entirefailure to grasp its essentials. It would then be necessary for nearlythe whole situation to be repeated in order to induce in the monkey thesame action and expectation. He would require a similar form, color, anddistance. But he might, on the other hand, regard as practicallyidentical all suspended and freely swinging bodies capable of affordinghim support, and quite independently of their shape, size, time, orplace. In this latter case his skill would be applicable to the widestpossible number of cases that could present themselves. Having adiscerning eye for essentials, he would lose no chance of a swingthrough looking for more than the bare necessities. When thephysicist describes the pendulum in terms of a formula such ast = 2pi[squareroot(l/g)] he exhibits a similar discernment. He hasfound that the time occupied by an oscillation of any pendulum may becalculated exclusively in terms of its length and the acceleration dueto gravity. The monkey's higher proficiency and the formula alikerepresent a knowledge that is free in the sense that it is contained interms that require no single fixed context in immediacy. The knowledgeis valid wherever these essential terms are present; and calculationsmay be based upon these essential terms, while attendant circumstancesvary _ad infinitum_. Such knowledge is said to be _general_ or_universal_. 

There is another element of freedom, however, which so far has not beenattributed to the monkey's knowledge, but which is evidently present inthat of the physicist. The former has a practical ability to deal with apendulum when he sees it. The latter, on the other hand, knows about apendulum whether one be present or not. His knowledge is so retained asalways to be available, even though it be not always applicable. Hisknowledge is not merely skill in treating a situation, but thepossession of resources which he may employ at whatever time, and inwhatever manner, may suit his interests. Knowing what he does about thependulum, he may act from the idea of such a contrivance, and with theaid of it construct some more complex mechanism. His formulas are hisinstruments, which he may use on any occasion. Suppose that a situationwith factors _a_, _b_, and _c_ requires factor _d_ in order to become_M_, as desired. Such a situation might easily be hopeless for anorganism reacting directly to the stimulus _abc_, and yet be easily metby a free knowledge of _d_. One who knows that _l_, _m_, and _n_ willproduce _d_, may by these means provide the missing factor, complete thesum of required conditions, _abcd_, and so obtain the end _M_. Suchindirection might be used to obtain any required factor of the end, orof any near or remote means to the end. There is, in fact, no limit tothe complexity of action made possible upon this basis; for since it isavailable in idea, the whole range of such knowledge may be brought tobear upon any individual problem. 

[Sidenote: Skill as Social. ]

§ 44. But knowledge of this free type becomes at the same time _social_or _institutional_. It consists no longer in a skilful adaptation of theindividual organism, but in a system of terms common to allintelligence, and preserved in those books and other monuments whichserve as the articulate memory of the race. A knowledge that is socialmust be composed of unequivocal conceptions and fixed symbols. Themathematical laws of the exact sciences represent the most successfulattainment of this end so far as form is concerned. Furthermore, theamount of knowledge may now be increased from generation to generationthrough the service of those who make a vocation of its pursuit. Naturalscience is thus a cumulative racial proficiency, which any individualmay bring to bear upon any emergency of his life. 

[Sidenote: Science for Accommodation and Construction. ]

§ 45. Such proficiency as science affords is in every case theanticipation of experience. This has a twofold value for mankind, thatof _accommodation_, and that of _construction_. Primitively, where meresurvival is the function of the organism as a whole, the value ofaccommodation is relatively fundamental. The knowledge of what may beexpected enables the organism to save itself by means of its owncounter-arrangement of natural processes. Construction is here for thesake of accommodation. But with the growth of civilization constructionbecomes a positive interest, and man tends to save himself for definiteends. Accommodation comes to take place for the sake of construction. Science then supplies the individual with the ways and means wherewithto execute life purposes which themselves tend to assume an absolutevalue that cannot be justified merely on the ground of science. 

[Sidenote: Method and Fundamental Conceptions of Natural Science. TheDescriptive Method. ]

§ 46. If natural science be animated by any special cognitive interest, this motive should appear in the development of its method andfundamental conceptions. If that interest has been truly defined, itshould now enable us to understand the progressive and permanent inscientific investigation as directly related to it. For the aim of anydiscipline exercises a gradual selection from among possible methods, and gives to its laws their determinate and final form. 

The _descriptive method_ is at the present day fully established. Aleading moral of the history of science is the superior usefulness of anexact account of the workings of nature to an explanation in terms ofsome qualitative potency. Explanation has been postponed by enlightenedscience until after a more careful observation of actual processes shallhave been made; and at length it has been admitted that there is no needof any explanation but perfect description. Now the practical use ofscience defined above, requires no knowledge beyond the actual order ofevents. For such a purpose sufficient reason signifies only sufficientconditions. All other considerations are irrelevant, and it is properto ignore them. Such has actually been the fate of the so-calledmetaphysical solution of special problems of nature. The case of Kepleris the classic instance. This great scientist supplemented his laws ofplanetary motion with the following speculation concerning the agenciesat work:

 "We must suppose one of two things: either that the moving spirits, in proportion as they are more removed from the sun, are more feeble; or that there is one moving spirit in the centre of all the orbits, namely, in the sun, which urges each body the more vehemently in proportion as it is nearer; but in more distant spaces languishes in consequence of the remoteness and attenuation of its virtue. "[129:2]

The following passage from Hegel affords an interesting analogy:

 "The moon is the waterless crystal which seeks to complete itself by means of our sea, to quench the thirst of its arid rigidity, and therefore produces ebb and flow. "[129:3]

No scientist has ever sought to refute either of these theories. Theyhave merely been neglected. 

They were advanced in obedience to a demand for the ultimateexplanation of the phenomena in question, and were obtained by applyingsuch general conceptions as were most satisfying to the reasons of theirrespective authors. But they contributed nothing whatsoever to apractical familiarity with the natural course of events, in this casethe times and places of the planets and the tides. Hence they have notbeen used in the building of science. In our own day investigators havebecome conscious of their motive, and do not wait for historicalselection to exclude powers and reasons from their province. Theydeliberately seek to formulate exact descriptions. To this end theyemploy symbols that shall serve to identify the terms of nature, andformulas that shall define their systematic relationship. These systemsmust be exact, or deductions cannot be made from them. Hence they tendultimately to assume a mathematical form of expression. 

[Sidenote: Space, Time, and Prediction. ]

§ 47. But science tends to employ for these systems only suchconceptions as relate to _prediction_; and of these the most fundamentalare _space_ and _time_. The first science to establish its method wasthe science of astronomy, where measurement and computation in terms ofspace and time were the most obvious means of description; and thegeneral application of the method of astronomy by Galileo and Newton, orthe development of mechanics, is the most important factor in theestablishment of modern science upon a permanent working basis. Thepersistence of the term _cause_, testifies to the fact that science isprimarily concerned with the determination of _events_. Its definitionsof objects are means of identification, while its laws are dynamical, _i. E. _, have reference to the conditions under which these objectsarise. Thus the chemist may know less about the properties of water thanthe poet; but he is preëminently skilled in its production fromelements, and understands similarly the compounds into which it mayenter. Now the general conditions of all anticipation, whereby itbecomes exact and verifiable, are spacial and temporal. A predictableevent must be assigned to what is here now, or there now; or what ishere then, or there then. An experimentally verifiable system mustcontain space-time variables, for which can be substituted the here andnow of the experimenter's immediate experience. Hence science dealsprimarily with calculable places and moments. The mechanical theory ofnature owes its success to a union of space and time through itsconceptions of _matter_ and _motion_. [132:4] And the projected theory ofenergetics must satisfy the same conditions. 

[Sidenote: The Quantitative Method. ]

§ 48. But, furthermore, science has, as we have seen, an interest infreeing its descriptions from the peculiar angle and relativity of anindividual's experience, for the sake of affording him knowledge of thatwith which he must meet. Science enlightens the will by acquainting itwith that which takes place in spite of it, and for which it must holditself in readiness. To this end the individual benefits himself in sofar as he eliminates himself from the objects which he investigates. Hisknowledge is useful in so far as it is valid for his own indefinitelyvarying stand-points, and those of other wills recognized by him in hispractical relations. But in attempting to describe objects in termsother than those of a specific experience, science is compelled todescribe them in terms of one another. For this purpose _thequantitative method_ is peculiarly serviceable. With its aid objectspermit themselves to be described as multiples of one another, and asoccupying positions in relation to one another. When all objects aredescribed strictly in terms of one another, they are expressed in termsof arbitrary units, and located in terms of arbitrary spacial ortemporal axes of reference. Thus there arises the universe of thescientific imagination, a vast complexity of material displacements andtransformations, without color, music, pleasure, or any of all that richvariety of qualities that the least of human experiences contains. Itdoes not completely rationalize or even completely describe suchexperiences, but formulates their succession. To this end they arereduced to terms that correspond to no specific experience, and for thisvery reason may be translated again into all definable hypotheticalexperiences. The solar system for astronomy is not a bird's-eye view ofelliptical orbits, with the planets and satellites in definite phases. Nor is it this group of objects from any such point of view, or from anynumber of such points of view; but a formulation of their motions thatwill serve as the key to an infinite number of their appearances. Or, consider the picture of the ichthysauria romping in the mesozoic sea, that commonly accompanies a text-book of geology. Any such picture, andall such pictures, with their coloring and their temporal and spacialperspective, are imaginary. No such special and exclusive manifolds canbe defined as having been then and there realized. But we have ageological knowledge of this period, that fulfils the formal demands ofnatural science, in so far as we can construct this and countless otherspecific experiences with reference to it. 

[Sidenote: The General Development of Science. ]

§ 49. Science, then, is to be understood as springing from the practicalnecessity of anticipating the environment. This anticipation appearsfirst as congenital or acquired reactions on the part of the organism. Such reactions imply a fixed coördination or system in the environmentwhereby a given circumstance determines other circumstances; and scienceproper arises as the formulation of such systems. The requirement thatthey shall apply to the phenomena that _confront_ the will, determinestheir spacial, temporal, and quantitative form. The progress of scienceis marked by the growth of these conceptions in the direction ofcomprehensiveness on the one hand, and of refinement and delicacy on theother. Man lives in an environment that is growing at the same timericher and more extended, but with a compensatory simplification in theever closer systematization of scientific conceptions under the form ofthe order of nature. 

[Sidenote: The Determination of the Limits of Natural Science. ]

§ 50. At the opening of this chapter it was maintained that it is afunction of philosophy to criticise science through its generatingproblem, or its self-imposed task viewed as determining its province andselecting its categories. The above account of the origin and method ofscience must suffice as a definition of its generating problem, andafford the basis of our answer to the question of its limits. Enough hasbeen said to make it clear that philosophy is not in the field ofscience, and is therefore not entitled to contest its result in detailor even to take sides within the province of its special problems. Furthermore, philosophy should not aim to restrain science by theimposition of external barriers. Whatever may be said of the sufficiencyof its categories in any region of the world, that body of truth ofwhich mathematics, mechanics, and physics are the foundations, must beregarded as a whole that tends to be all-comprehensive in its own terms. There remains for philosophy, then, the critical examination of theseterms, and the appraisal as a whole of the truth that they may express. 

[Sidenote: Natural Science is Abstract. ]

§ 51. The impossibility of embracing the whole of knowledge withinnatural science is due to the fact that the latter is _abstract_. Thisfollows from the fact that natural science is governed by a selectiveinterest. The formulation of definitions and laws in exclusivelymechanical terms is not due to the exhaustive or even preëminent realityof these properties, but to their peculiar serviceableness in averifiable description of events. Natural science does not affirm thatreality is essentially constituted of matter, or essentiallycharacterized by motion; but is _interested_ in the mechanical aspect ofreality, and describes it quite regardless of other evident aspects andwithout meaning to prejudice them. It is unfortunately true that thescientist has rarely been clear in his own mind on this point. It isonly recently that he has partially freed himself from the habit ofconstruing his terms as final and exhaustive. [137:5] This he was ableto do even to his own satisfaction, only by allowing loose rein to theimagination. Consider the example of the atomic theory. In order todescribe such occurrences as chemical combination, or changes in volumeand density, the scientist has employed as a unit the least particle, physically indivisible and qualitatively homogeneous. Look for the atomin the body of science, and you will find it in physical laws governingexpansion and contraction, and in chemical formulas. There the realresponsibility of science ends. But whether through the need of popularexposition, or the undisciplined imagination of the investigatorhimself, atoms have figured in the history of thought as roundcorpuscles of a grayish hue scurrying hither and thither, and armed withspecial appliances wherewith to lock in molecular embrace. Although thisis nonsense, we need not on that account conclude that there are noatoms. There are atoms in precisely the sense intended by scientificlaw, in that the formulas computed with the aid of this concept are trueof certain natural processes. The conception of ether furnishes asimilar case. Science is not responsible for the notion of a quiveringgelatinous substance pervading space, but only for certain laws that, _e. G. _, describe the velocity of light in terms of the vibration. It istrue that there is such a thing as ether, not as gratuitously roundedout by the imagination, with various attributes of immediate experience, but just in so far as this concept is employed in verified descriptionsof radiation, magnetism, or electricity. Strictly speaking scienceasserts nothing about the existence of ether, but only about thebehavior, _e. G. _, of light. If true descriptions of this and otherphenomena are reached by employing units of wave propagation in anelastic medium, then ether is proved to exist in precisely the samesense that linear feet are proved to exist, if it be admitted that thereare 90, 000, 000 x 5, 280 of them between the earth and the sun. And toimagine in the one case a jelly with all the qualities of texture, color, and the like, that an individual object of sense would possess, is much the same as in the other to imagine the heavens filled withfoot-rules and tape-measures. There is but one safe procedure in dealingwith scientific concepts: to regard them as true so far as theydescribe, and no whit further. To supplement the strict meaning whichhas been verified and is contained in the formularies of science, withsuch vague predicates as will suffice to make entities of them, is mereineptness and confusion of thought. And it is only such asupplementation that obscures their abstractness. For a mechanicaldescription of things, true as it doubtless is, is even more indubitablyincomplete. 

[Sidenote: The Meaning of Abstractness in Truth. ]

§ 52. But though the abstractness involved in scientific description isopen and deliberate, we must come to a more precise understanding of it, if we are to draw any conclusion as to what it involves. In his"Principles of Human Knowledge, " the English philosopher Bishop Berkeleyraises the question as to the universal validity of mathematicaldemonstrations. If we prove from the image or figure of an isoscelesright triangle that the sum of its angles is equal to two right angles, how can we know that this proposition holds of all triangles?

 "To which I answer, that, though the idea I have in view whilst I make the demonstration be, for instance, that of an isosceles rectangular triangle whose sides are of a determinate length, I may nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles, of what sort or bigness soever. And that because neither the right angle, nor the equality, nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned in the demonstration. It is true the diagram I have in view includes all these particulars; but then there is not the least mention made of them in the proof of the proposition. "[140:6]

Of the total conditions present in the concrete picture of a triangle, one may in one's calculations neglect as many as one sees fit, and workwith the remainder. Then, if one has clearly distinguished theconditions used, one may confidently assert that whatever has been foundtrue of them holds regardless of the neglected conditions. These may bemissing or replaced by others, provided the selected or (for any giveninvestigation) essential conditions are not affected. That which is trueonce is true always, provided time is not one of its conditions; thatwhich is true in one place is true everywhere, provided location is notone of its conditions. But, given any concrete situation, the morenumerous the conditions one ignores in one's calculations, the lessadequate are one's calculations to that situation. The number of itsinhabitants, and any mathematical operation made with that number, istrue, but only very abstractly true of a nation. A similar though lessradical abstractness appertains to natural science. Simple qualities ofsound or color, and distinctions of beauty or moral worth, together withmany other ingredients of actual experience attributed therein to theobjects of nature, are ignored in the mechanical scheme. There is asubstitution of certain mechanical arrangements in the case of the firstgroup of properties, the simple qualities of sense, so that they may beassimilated to the general scheme of events, and their occurrencepredicted. But their intrinsic qualitative character is not reckonedwith, even in psychology, where the physiological method finallyreplaces them with brain states. Over and above these neglectedproperties of things there remain the purposive activities of thought. It is equally preposterous to deny them and to describe them inmechanical terms. It is plain, then, that natural science calculatesupon the basis of only a fraction of the conditions that presentthemselves in actual experience. Its conclusions, therefore, though trueso far as they go, and they may be abstractly true of everything, arecompletely true of nothing. 

[Sidenote: But Scientific Truth is Valid for Reality. ]

§ 53. Such, in brief, is the general charge of inadequacy which may beurged against natural science, not in the spirit of detraction, but forthe sake of a more sound belief concerning reality. The philosopherfalls into error no less radical than that of the dogmatic scientist, when he charges the scientist with untruth, and attaches to his conceptsthe predicate of unreality. The fact that the concepts of science areselected, and only inadequately true of reality, should not be taken tomean that they are sportive or arbitrary. They are not "devices" orabbreviations, in any sense that does not attach to such symbolism asall thought involves. Nor are they merely "hypothetical, " though likeall thought they are subject to correction. [142:7] The scientist doesnot merely assert that the equation for energy is true if nature'scapacity for work be measurable, but _that such is actually the case_. The statistician does not arrive at results contingent upon thesupposition that men are numerable, but declares his sums and averagesto be categorically true. Similarly scientific laws are true; only, tobe sure, so far as they go, but with no condition save the conditionthat attaches to all knowledge, viz. , that it shall not need correction. The philosophy of science, therefore, is not the adversary of science, but supervenes upon science in the interests of the ideal of finaltruth. No philosophy of science is sound which does not primarily seekby an analysis of scientific concepts to understand science on its owngrounds. Philosophy may understand science better than scienceunderstands itself, but only by holding fast to the conviction of itstruth, and including it within whatever account of reality it may beable to formulate. 

[Sidenote: Relative Practical Value of Science and Philosophy. ]

§ 54. Though philosophy be the most ancient and most exalted of humandisciplines, it is not infrequently charged with being the mostunprofitable. Science has amassed a fortune of information, which hasfacilitated life and advanced civilization. Is not philosophy, on theother hand, all programme and idle questioning? In the first place, noquestioning is idle that is logically possible. It is true thatphilosophy shows her skill rather in the asking than in the answering ofquestions. But the formal pertinence of a question is of the greatestsignificance. No valid though unanswered question can have a purelynegative value, and especially as respects the consistency orcompleteness of truth. But, in the second place, philosophy with all itslimitations serves mankind as indispensably as science. If sciencesupplies the individual with means of self-preservation, and theinstruments of achievement, philosophy supplies the ideals, or theobjects of deliberate construction. Such reflection as justifies theadoption of a fundamental life purpose is always philosophical. Forevery judgment respecting final worth is a judgment _sub specieeternitatis_. And the urgency of life requires the individual to passsuch judgments. It is true that however persistently reflective he maybe in the matter, his conclusion will be premature in consideration ofthe amount of evidence logically demanded for such a judgment. But hemust be as wise as he can, or he will be as foolish as conventionalityand blind impulse may impel him to be. Philosophy determines for societywhat every individual must practically determine upon for himself, themost reasonable plan of reality as a whole which the data and reflectionof an epoch can afford. It is philosophy's service to mankind tocompensate for the enthusiasm and concentration of the specialist, aservice needed in every "present day. " Apart from the philosopher, public opinion is the victim of sensationalism, and individual opinionis further warped by accidental propinquity. It is the function ofphilosophy to interpret knowledge for the sake of a sober and wisebelief. The philosopher is the true prophet, appearing before men inbehalf of that which is finally the truth. He is the spokesman of themost considerate and comprehensive reflection possible at any stage inthe development of human thought. Owing to a radical misconception offunction, the man of science has in these later days begun to regardhimself as the wise man, and to teach the people. Popular materialism isthe logical outcome of this determination of belief by natural science. It may be that this is due as much to the indifference of thephilosopher as to the forwardness of the scientist, but in any case theresult is worse than conservative loyalty to religious tradition. Forreligion is corrected surely though slowly by the whole order ofadvancing truth. Its very inflexibility makes it proof against anover-emphasis upon new truth. It has generally turned out in time thatthe obstinate man of religion was more nearly right than the adaptableintellectual man of fashion. But philosophy, as a critique of sciencefor the sake of faith, should provide the individual religious believerwith intellectual enlightenment and gentleness. The quality, orderliness, and inclusiveness of knowledge, finally determine itsvalue; and the philosopher, premature as his synthesis may some dayprove to be, is the wisest man of his own generation. From him the manof faith should obtain such discipline of judgment as shall enable himto be fearless of advancing knowledge, because acquainted with itsscope, and so intellectually candid with all his visions and hisinspirations. 

FOOTNOTES:

[120:1] Ernst Mach: _Science of Mechanics_. Translation by McCormack, p. 464. No one has made more important contributions than Professor Mach toa certain definite modern philosophical movement. Cf. § 207. 

[129:2] Whewell: _History of the Inductive Sciences_, Vol. I, p. 289. Quoted from Kepler: _Mysterium Cosmographicum_. 

[129:3] Quoted by Sidgwick in his _Philosophy, its Scope and Relations_, p. 89. 

[132:4] The reader is referred to Mr. Bertrand Russell's chapters on_matter_ and _motion_ in his _Principles of Mathematics_, Vol. I. Material particles he defines as "many-one relations of all times tosome places, or of all terms of a continuous one-dimensional series _t_to some terms of a continuous three-dimensional series _s_. " Similarly, "when different times, throughout any period however short, arecorrelated with different places, there is motion; when different times, throughout some period however short, are all correlated with the sameplace, there is rest. " _Op. Cit. _, p. 473. 

[137:5] That the scientist still permits himself to teach the people aloose exoteric theory of reality, is proven by Professor Ward's citationof instances in his _Naturalism and Agnosticism_. So eminent a physicistas Lord Kelvin is quoted as follows: "You can imagine particles ofsomething, the thing whose motion constitutes light. This thing we callthe luminiferous ether. That is the only substance we are confident ofin dynamics. One thing we are sure of, and that is the reality andsubstantiality of the luminiferous ether. " Vol. I, p. 113. 

[140:6] Berkeley: _Principles of Human Knowledge_, Introduction. Editionof Fraser, p. 248. 

[142:7] The reader who cares to pursue this topic further is referred tothe writer's discussion of "_Professor Ward's Philosophy of Science_" inthe _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods_, Vol. I, No. 13. 

PART II

THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OFPHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER VI

METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY

[Sidenote: The Impossibility of an Absolute Division of the Problem ofPhilosophy. ]

§ 55. The stand-point and purpose of the philosopher define his task, but they do not necessarily prearrange the division of it. That the taskis a complex one, embracing many subordinate problems which must betreated _seriatim_, is attested both by the breadth of its scope and thevariety of the interests from which it may be approached. But thiscomplexity is qualified by the peculiar importance which here attachesto unity. That which lends philosophical quality to any reflection is asteadfast adherence to the ideals of inclusiveness and consistency. Hence, though the philosopher must of necessity occupy himself withsubordinate problems, these cannot be completely isolated from oneanother, and solved successively. Perspective is his most indispensablerequisite, and he has solved no problem finally until he has providedfor the solution of all. His own peculiar conceptions are those which_order_ experience, and reconcile such aspects of it as other interestshave distinguished. Hence the compatibility of any idea with all otherideas is the prime test of its philosophical sufficiency. On thesegrounds it may confidently be asserted that the work of philosophycannot be assigned by the piece to different specialists, and thenassembled. There are no special philosophical problems which can befinally solved upon their own merits. Indeed, such problems could nevereven be named, for in their discreteness they would cease to bephilosophical. 

The case of _metaphysics_ and _epistemology_ affords an excellentillustration. The former of these is commonly defined as the theory ofreality or of first principles, the latter as the theory of knowledge. But the most distinctive philosophical movement of the nineteenthcentury issues from the idea that knowing and being areidentical. [150:1] The prime reality is defined as a knowing mind, andthe terms of reality are interpreted as terms of a cognitive process. Ideas and logical principles _constitute_ the world. It is evident thatin this Hegelian philosophy epistemology embraces metaphysics. Indefining the relations of knowledge to its object, one has alreadydefined one's fundamental philosophical conception, while _logic_, asthe science of the universal necessities of thought, will embrace thefirst principles of reality. Now, were one to divide and arrange theproblems of philosophy upon this basis, it is evident that one would nothave deduced the arrangement from the general problem of philosophy, butfrom a single attempted solution of that problem. It might serve as anexposition of Hegel, but not as a general philosophical programme. 

Another case in point is provided by the present-day interest in what iscalled "_pragmatism_. "[151:2] This doctrine is historically connectedwith Kant's principle of the "primacy of the practical reason, " in whichhe maintained that the consciousness of duty is a profounder though lessscientific insight than the knowledge of objects. The current doctrinemaintains that thought with its fruits is an expression of interest, andthat the will which evinces and realizes such an interest is moreoriginal and significant than that which the thinking defines. Such aview attaches a peculiar importance to the springs of conduct, and inits more systematic development[152:3] has regarded _ethics_ as thetrue propædeutic and proof of philosophy. But to make ethics thekey-stone of the arch, is to define a special philosophical system; forit is the very problem of philosophy to dispose the parts of knowledgewith a view to systematic construction. The relation of the provinces ofmetaphysics, epistemology, logic, and ethics cannot, then, be definedwithout entering these provinces and answering the questions proper tothem. 

[Sidenote: The Dependence of the Order of Philosophical Problems uponthe Initial Interest. ]

§ 56. Since the above terms exist, however, there can be no doubt butthat important divisions within the general aim of philosophy haveactually been made. The inevitableness of it appears in the variety ofthe sources from which that aim may spring. The point of departure willalways determine the emphasis and the application which the philosophyreceives. If philosophy be needed to supplement more special interests, it will receive a particular character from whatever interest it sosupplements. He who approaches it from a definite stand-point will findin it primarily an interpretation of that stand-point. 

[Sidenote: Philosophy as the Interpretation of Life. ]

§ 57. There are two sources of the philosophical aim, which areperennial in their human significance. He, firstly, who begins with thedemands of life and its ideals, looks to philosophy for a reconciliationof these with the orderly procedure of nature. His philosophy willreceive its form from its illumination of life, and it will be anethical or religious philosophy. Spinoza, the great seventeenth-centuryphilosopher who justified mysticism after the manner ofmathematics, [153:4] displays this temper in his philosophy:

 "After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. "[153:5]

In pursuance of this aim, though he deals with the problem of being inthe rigorous logical fashion of his day, the final words of his greatwork are, "Of Human Freedom":

 "Whereas the wise man, in so far as he is regarded as such, is scarcely at all disturbed in spirit, but, being conscious of himself, and of God, and of things, by a certain eternal necessity, never ceases to be, but always possesses true acquiescence of his spirit. If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. "[154:6]

[Sidenote: Philosophy as the Extension of Science. ]

§ 58. On the other hand, one who looks to philosophy for the extensionand correction of scientific knowledge will be primarily interested inthe philosophical definition of ultimate conceptions, and in the methodwherewith such a definition is obtained. Thus the philosophy of thescientist will tend to be logical and metaphysical. Such is the casewith Descartes and Leibniz, who are nevertheless intimately related toSpinoza in the historical development of philosophy. 

 "Several years have now elapsed, " says the former, "since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences. "[155:7]

Leibniz's mind was more predominantly logical even than Descartes's. Hesought in philosophy a supreme intellectual synthesis, a science of theuniverse. 

 "Although, " he says retrospectively, "I am one of those who have worked much at mathematics, I have none the less meditated upon philosophy from my youth up; for it always seemed to me that there was a possibility of establishing something solid in philosophy by clear demonstrations. . . . I perceived, after much meditation, that it is impossible to find the _principles of a real unity_ in matter alone, or in that which is only passive, since it is nothing but a collection or aggregation of parts _ad infinitum_. "[155:8]

[Sidenote: The Historical Differentiation of the Philosophical Problem. ]

§ 59. Though these types are peculiarly representative, they are by nomeans exhaustive. There are as many possibilities of emphasis as thereare incentives to philosophical reflection. It is not possible toexhaust the aspects of experience which may serve as bases from whichsuch thought may issue, and to which, after its synthetic insight, itmay return. But it is evident that such divisions of philosophyrepresent in their order, and in the sharpness with which they aresundered, the intellectual autobiography of the individual philosopher. There is but one method by which that which is peculiar either to theindividual, or to the special position which he adopts, may beeliminated. Though it is impossible to tabulate the empty programme ofphilosophy, we may name certain special problems that have appeared _inits history_. Since this history comprehends the activities of manyindividuals, a general validity attaches to it. There has been, moreover, a certain periodicity in the emergence of these problems, sothat it may fairly be claimed for them that they indicate inevitablephases in the development of human reflection upon experience. Theyrepresent a normal differentiation of interest which the individualmind, in the course of its own thinking, tends to follow. It is truethat it can never be said with assurance that any age is utterly blindto any aspect of experience. This is obviously the case with thepractical and theoretical interests which have just been distinguished. There is no age that does not have some practical consciousness of theworld as a whole, nor any which does not seek more or less earnestly touniversalize its science. But though it compel us to deal abstractlywith historical epochs, there is abundant compensation in thepossibility which this method affords of finding the divisions ofphilosophy in the manifestation of the living philosophical spirit. 

[Sidenote: Metaphysics Seeks a Most Fundamental Conception. ]

§ 60. To Thales, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, is commonlyawarded the honor of being the founder of European philosophy. If hedeserve this distinction, it is on account of the question which heraised, and not on account of the answer which he gave to it. Aristotleinforms us that Thales held "water" to be "the material cause of allthings. "[157:9] This crude theory is evidently due to an interest in thetotality of things, an interest which is therefore philosophical. Butthe interest of this first philosopher has a more definite character. Itlooks toward the definition in terms of some single conception, of _theconstitution_ of the world. As a child might conceivably think the moonto be made of green cheese, so philosophy in its childhood thinks hereof all things as made of water. Water was a well-known substance, possessing well-known predicates. To define all nature in terms of it, was to maintain that in spite of superficial differences, all thingshave these predicates in common. They are the predicates which qualifyfor reality, and compose a community of nature from which all theindividual objects and events of nature arise. The successors of Thaleswere evidently dissatisfied with his fundamental conception, because ofits lack of generality. They seized upon vaguer substances like air andfire, for the very definiteness of the nature of water forbids theidentification of other substances with it. But what is so obviouslytrue of water is scarcely less true of air and fire; and it appeared atlength that only a substance possessing the most general characters ofbody, such as shape, size, and mobility, could be thought as trulyprimeval and universal. In this wise a conception like our modernphysical conception of matter came at length into vogue. Now the problemof which these were all tentative solutions is, in general, the problemof _metaphysics_; although this term belongs to a later era, arisingonly from the accidental place of the discussion of first principles_after physics_ in the system of Aristotle. _The attempt to secure amost fundamental conception which attaches some definite meaning to thereality including and informing every particular thing, is metaphysics. _

[Sidenote: Monism and Pluralism. ]

§ 61. It must not be supposed that metaphysics is dogmatically committedto the reduction of all reality to a unity of nature. It is quiteconsistent with its purpose that the parts of reality should be found tocompose a group, or an indefinite multitude of irreducibly differententities. But it is clear that even such an account of things deals withwhat is true of all reality, and even in acknowledging the variety ofits constituents, attributes to them some kind of relationship. Thedegree to which such a relationship is regarded as intimate andessential, determines the degree to which any metaphysical system is_monistic_, [159:10] rather than _pluralistic_. But the significance ofthis difference will be better appreciated after a furtherdifferentiation of the metaphysical problem has been noted. 

[Sidenote: Ontology and Cosmology Concern Being and Process. ]

§ 62. It has already been suggested that the test of Thales's conceptionlay in the possibility of deriving nature from it. A world principlemust be fruitful. Now an abstract distinction has prevailed more or lesspersistently in metaphysics, between _the general definition of being_, called _ontology_, and the study of the processes wherewith being isdivided into things and events. This latter study has to do primarilywith the details of experience enumerated and systematized by thenatural sciences. _To reconcile_ these, _or the course of nature, withthe fundamental definition of being_, is the problem of _cosmology_. Cosmology is the construing of the _prima facie_ reality in terms of theessential reality. It is the proof and the explanation of ontology. Since the most familiar part of the _prima facie_ reality, the partalmost exclusively noticed by the naive mind, is embraced within thefield of the physical sciences, the term cosmology has come moredefinitely to signify the _philosophy of nature_. It embraces such anexamination of space, time, matter, causality, etc. , as seeks to answerthe most general questions about them, and provide for them in the worldthought of as most profoundly real. Such a study receives itsphilosophical character from its affiliation with ontology, as thelatter would find its application in cosmology. 

[Sidenote: Mechanical and Teleological Cosmologies. ]

§ 63. But in addition to the consideration of the various parts ofnature, cosmology has commonly dealt with a radical and far-reachingalternative that appeared at the very dawn of metaphysics. Differencesmay arise within a world constituted of a single substance or a smallgroup of ultimate substances, by changes in the relative position andgrouping of the parts. Hence the virtue of the conception of motion. Thetheory which explains all differences by motions of the parts of aqualitatively simple world, is called _mechanism_. Another source ofchange familiar to naive experience is _will_, or the action of livingcreatures. According to the mechanical theory, _changes occur on accountof the natural motions of the parts of matter_; according to the latteror _teleological_ conception, _changes are made by a formative agencydirected to some end_. Among the early Greek philosophers, Leucippus wasan exponent of mechanism. 

 "He says that the worlds arise when many bodies are collected together into the mighty void from the surrounding space and rush together. They come into collision, and those which are of similar shape and like form become entangled, and from their entanglement the heavenly bodies arise. "[161:11]

Anaxagoras, on the other hand, was famed for his doctrine of the Nous, or Intelligence, to whose direction he attributed the whole process ofthe world. The following is translated from extant fragments of hisbook, "περὶ φύσεως":

 "And Nous had power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small beginning; but the revolution now extends over a larger space, and will extend over a larger still. And all the things that are mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all known by the Nous. And Nous set in order all things that were to be and that were, and all things that are not now and that are, and this revolution in which now revolve the stars and the sun and the moon, and the air and the ether that are separated off. "[162:12]

[Sidenote: Dualism. ]

§ 64. It is clear, furthermore, that the doctrine of Anaxagoras not onlynames a distinct kind of cause, but also ascribes to it an independenceand intrinsic importance that do not belong to motion. Whereas motion isa property of matter, intelligence is an originative power working outpurposes of its own choosing. Hence we have here to do with a newontology. If we construe ultimate being in terms of mind, we have adefinite substitute for the physical theories outlined above. Such atheory is scarcely to be attributed to any Greek philosopher of theearly period; it belongs to a more sophisticated stage in thedevelopment of thought, after the rise of the problem of epistemology. But Anaxagoras's sharp distinction between the material of the world onthe one hand, and the author of its order and evolution on the other, isin itself worthy of notice. It contains the germ of a recurrentphilosophical _dualism_, which differs from pluralism in that it findstwo and only two fundamental divisions of being, the physical, material, or potential on the one hand, and the mental, formal, or ideal on theother. 

[Sidenote: The New Meaning of Monism and Pluralism. ]

§ 65. Finally, the alternative possibilities which these cosmologicalconsiderations introduce, bear directly upon the general question of theinterdependence of the parts of the world, a question which has alreadyappeared as pertinent in ontology. Monism and pluralism now obtain a newmeaning. Where the world process is informed with some singleness ofplan, as teleology proposes, the parts are reciprocally necessary, andinseparable from the unity. Where, on the other hand, the processes arerandom and reciprocally fortuitous, as Leucippus proposes, the world asa whole is an aggregate rather than a unity. In this way uniformity inkind of being may prevail in a world the relations of whose parts aredue to chance, while diversity in kind of being may prevail in a worldknit together by some thorough-going plan of organization. Thus monismand pluralism are conceptions as proper to cosmology as to ontology. 

But enough has been said to demonstrate the interdependence of ontologyand cosmology, of the theory of being and the theory of differentiationand process. Such problems can be only abstractly sundered, and thedistinctive character of any metaphysical system will usually consist insome theory determining their relation. Philosophy returns to thesemetaphysical problems with its thought enriched and its methodcomplicated, after becoming thoroughly alive to the problems ofepistemology, logic, and ethics. 

[Sidenote: Epistemology Seeks to Understand the Possibility ofKnowledge. ]

§ 66. _Epistemology is the theory of the possibility of knowledge_, andissues from criticism and scepticism. If we revert again to the historyof Greek philosophy, we find a first period of enterprising speculationgiving place to a second period of hesitancy and doubt. This phase ofthought occurs simultaneously with the brilliantly humanistic age ofPericles, and it is undoubtedly true that energy is withdrawn fromspeculation largely for the sake of expending it in the more lively andengaging pursuits of politics and art. But there are patent reasonswithin the sphere of philosophy itself for entailment of activity andtaking of stock. For three centuries men have taken their philosophicalpowers for granted, and used them without questioning them. Repeatedattacks upon the problem of reality have resulted in no consensus ofopinion, but only in a disagreement among the wise men themselves. Agreat variety of mere theories has been substituted for the oldunanimity of religious tradition and practical life. It is natural underthese circumstances to infer that in philosophy man has overreachedhimself. He would more profitably busy himself with affairs that belongto his own sphere, and find a basis for life in his immediate relationswith his fellows. The sophists, learned in tradition, and skilled indisputation, but for the most part entirely lacking in originality, arethe new prophets. As teachers of rhetoric and morals, they represent thepractical and secular spirit of their age; while in their avoidance ofspeculation, and their critical justification of that course, theyexpress its sceptical philosophy. 

[Sidenote: Scepticism, Dogmatism, and Agnosticism. ]

§ 67. In their self-justification certain of the sophists attachedthemselves to a definite doctrine maintained by those of theirpredecessors and contemporaries who were atomists, or followers of thatsame Leucippus whom we have quoted. This doctrine was the result of anattempt to construe perception in terms of the motion of atoms. Outerobjects were said to give off fine particles which, through themediation of the sense organs, impinged upon the soul-atom. But it wasevident even to the early exponents of this theory that according tosuch an account, each perceiver is relegated to a world peculiar to hisown stand-point. His perception informs him concerning his own states asaffected by things, rather than concerning the things themselves. Uponthis ground the great sophist Protagoras is said to have based hisdictum: Πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος, --"Man is the measure of allthings. " This is the classic statement of the doctrine of relativity. But we have now entered into the province of epistemology, and variousalternatives confront us. Reduce thought to perception, defineperception as relative to each individual, and you arrive at_scepticism_, or _the denial of the possibility of valid knowledge_. Plato expounds this consequence in the well-known discussion ofProtagoras that occurs in the "Theætetus. "

 "I am charmed with his doctrine, that what appears is to each one, but I wonder that he did not begin his book on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other yet stranger monster which has sensation, is the measure of all things; then he might have shown a magnificent contempt for our opinion of him by informing us at the outset that while we were reverencing him like a God for his wisdom, he was no better than a tadpole, not to speak of his fellow-men--would not this have produced an overpowering effect? For if truth is only sensation, and no man can discern another's feelings better than he, or has any superior right to determine whether his opinion is true or false, but each, as we have several times repeated, is to himself the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, why, my friend, should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom? . . . The attempt to supervise or refute the notions or opinions of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of folly, if to each man his own are right; and this must be the case if Protagoras's Truth is the real truth, and the philosopher is not merely amusing himself by giving oracles out of the shrine of his book. "[167:13]

This is the full swing of the pendulum from _dogmatism_, or theuncritical conviction of truth. A modified form of scepticism has beendeveloped in these later days under the influence of natural science, and is called _agnosticism_ or _positivism_. It accepts the Protagoreandoctrine only in the sense of attributing to human knowledge as a wholean incapacity for exceeding the range of perception. Beyond this realmof natural science, where theories can be sensibly verified, lies theunknowable realm, more real, but forever inaccessible. 

[Sidenote: The Source and Criterion of Knowledge According to Empiricismand Rationalism. Mysticism. ]

§ 68. It is important to note that both scepticism and agnosticism agreein regarding _perception as the essential factor in knowledge_. So farat any rate as our knowledge is concerned, the certification of beingconsists in perceivability. Knowledge is coextensive with actual andpossible human experience. This account of the source and criterion ofknowledge is called _empiricism_, in distinction from the counter-theoryof _rationalism_. 

The rationalistic motive was a quickening influence in Greek philosophylong before it became deliberate and conspicuous in Socrates and Plato. Parmenides, founder of the Eleatic School, has left behind him a poemdivided into two parts: "The Way of Truth" and "The Way ofOpinion. "[168:14] In the first of these he expounds his esotericphilosophy, which is a definition of being established by dialecticalreasoning. He finds that being must be single, eternal, and changeless, because otherwise it cannot be thought and defined withoutcontradiction. The method which Parmenides here employs presupposes thatknowledge consists in understanding rather than perception. Indeed, heregards the fact that the world of the senses is manifold and mutable asof little consequence to the wise man. The world of sense is theprovince of vulgar opinion, while that of reason is the absolute truthrevealed only to the philosopher. The truth has no concern withappearance, but is answerable only to the test of rationality. _Thatworld is real which one is able by thinking to make intelligible. _ Theworld is what a world must be in order to be possible at all, and thephilosopher can deduce it directly from the very conditions of thoughtwhich it must satisfy. He who would know reality may disregard whatseems to be, provided he can by reflective analysis discover certaingeneral necessities to which being must conform. This is rationalism inits extreme form. 

The rationalism of Socrates was more moderate, as it was more fruitfulthan that of Parmenides. As is well known, Socrates composed nophilosophical books, but sought to inculcate wisdom in his teaching andconversation. His method of inculcating wisdom was to evoke it in hisinterlocutor by making him considerate of the meaning of his speech. Through his own questions he sought to arouse the questioning spirit, which should weigh the import of words, and be satisfied with nothingshort of a definite and consistent judgment. In the Platonic dialoguesthe Socratic method obtains a place in literature. In the "Theætetus, "which is, perhaps, the greatest of all epistemological treatises, Socrates is represented as likening his vocation to that of the midwife. 

 "Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs, but differs in that I attend men, and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labor, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And, like the midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just; the reason is that the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit. . . . It is quite clear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. "[171:15]

The principle underlying this method is the insistence that aproposition, to be true of reality, must at least bespeak a mind that istrue to itself, internally luminous, and free from contradiction. Thatwhich is to me nothing that I can express in form that will conveyprecise meaning and bear analysis, is so far nothing at all. Being isnot, as the empiricist would have it, ready at hand, ours for thelooking, but is the fruit of critical reflection. Only reason, overcoming the relativity of perception, and the chaos of popularopinion, can lay hold on the universal truth. 

A very interesting tendency to clothe the articulations of thought withthe immediacy of perception is exhibited in _mysticism_, whichattributes the highest cognitive power to an experience that transcendsthought, an ineffable insight that is the occasional reward of thoughtand virtuous living. This theory would seem to owe its great vigor tothe fact that it promises to unite the universality of the rationalobject with the vivid presence of the empirical object, though itsacrifices the definite content of both. The mystic, empiricist, andrationalist are in these several ways led to revise their metaphysicsupon the basis of their epistemology, or to define reality in termsdictated by the means of knowing it. 

[Sidenote: The Relation of Knowledge to its Object According to Realism, and the Representative Theory. ]

§ 69. But within the general field of epistemology there has arisenanother issue of even greater significance in its bearing uponmetaphysics. The first issue, as we have seen, has reference to thecriterion of knowledge, to the possibility of arriving at certaintyabout reality, and the choice of means to that end. A second questionarises, concerning _the relation between the knowledge and its object orthat which is known_. This problem does not at first appear as anepistemological difficulty, but is due to the emphasis which the moraland religious interests of men give to the conception of the self. Myknowing is a part of me, a function of that soul whose welfare andeternal happiness I am seeking to secure. Indeed, my knowing is, so thewise men have always taught, the greatest of my prerogatives. Wisdomappertains to the philosopher, as folly to the fool. But though myknowledge be a part of me, and in me, the same cannot, lightly at anyrate, be said of what I know. It would seem that I must distinguishbetween the knowledge, which is my act or state, an event in my life, and the known, which is object, and belongs to the context of the outerworld. _The object of knowledge_ would then be quite _independent of thecircumstance that I know it_. This theory has acquired the name of_realism_, [173:16] and is evidently as close to common sense as anyepistemological doctrine can be said to be. If the knowledge consists insome sign or symbol which in my mind stands for the object, but isquite other than the object, realism is given the form known as the_representative theory_. This theory is due to a radical distinctionbetween the inner world of consciousness and the outer world of things, whereby in knowledge the outer object requires a substitute that isqualified to belong to the inner world. Where, on the other hand, nospecific and exclusive nature is attributed to the inner world, realismmay flourish without the representative theory. In such a case theobject would be regarded as itself capable of entering into any numberof individual experiences or of remaining outside them all, and withouton either account forfeiting its identity. This view was taken forgranted by Plato, but is elaborately defended in our own day. During theintervening period epistemology has been largely occupied withdifficulties inherent in the representative theory, and from thatdiscussion there has emerged the theory of _idealism_, [175:17] the greatrival theory to that of realism. 

[Sidenote: The Relation of Knowledge to its Object According toIdealism. ]

§ 70. The representative theory contains at least one obviousdifficulty. If the thinker be confined to his ideas, and if the realitybe at the same time beyond these ideas, how can he ever verify theirreport? Indeed, what can it mean that an idea should be true of thatwhich belongs to a wholly different category? How under suchcircumstances can that which is a part of the idea be attributed withany certainty to the object? Once grant that you know only your ideas, and the object reduces to an unknown _x_, which you retain to accountfor the outward pointing or reference of the ideas, but which is notmissed if neglected. The obvious though radical theory of idealism isalmost inevitably the next step. Why assume that there is any objectother than the state of mind, since all positive content belongs to thatrealm? The eighteenth century English philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, wasaccused by his contemporaries of wilful eccentricity, and even madness, for his boldness in accepting this argument and drawing this conclusion:

 "The table I write on I say exists; that is, I see and feel it: and if I were out of my study I should say it existed; meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odor--that is, it was smelt; there was a sound--that is, it was heard; a color or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the _absolute_ existence of unthinking things, without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their _esse_ is _percipi_; nor is it possible that they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking thing which perceives them. "[176:18]

[Sidenote: Phenomenalism, Spiritualism, and Panpsychism. ]

§ 71. In this paragraph Berkeley maintains that it is essential tothings, or at any rate to their qualities, that they _be perceived_. This principle when expressed as an epistemological or metaphysicalgeneralization, is called _phenomenalism_. But in another phase of histhought Berkeley emphasizes the _perceiver_, or _spirit_. The theorywhich maintains that the only real substances are these active selves, with their powers and their states, has been called somewhat vaguely bythe name of _spiritualism_. [176:19] Philosophically it shows a strongtendency to develop into either _panpsychism_ or _transcendentalism_. The former is radically empirical. Its classic representative is theGerman pessimist Schopenhauer, who defined reality in terms of willbecause that term signified to him most eloquently _the directly feltnature of the self_. This immediate revelation of the true inwardness ofbeing serves as the key to an "intuitive interpretation" of thegradations of nature, and will finally awaken a sense of the presence ofthe universal Will. 

[Sidenote: Transcendentalism, or Absolute Idealism. ]

§ 72. _Transcendentalism_, or _absolute idealism_, on the other hand, emphasizes the _rational activity_, rather than the bare subjectivity, _of the self_. The term "transcendental" has become associated with thistype of idealism through Kant, whose favorite form of argument, the"transcendental deduction, " was an analysis of experience with a view todiscovering the categories, or formal principles of thought, implied inits meaning. From the Kantian method arose the conception of a standardor _absolute mind_ for the standard experience. This mind istranscendental not in the sense of being alien, but in the sense ofexceeding the human mind in the direction of what this means and strivesto be. It is the ideal or normal mind, in which the true reality iscontained, with all the chaos of finite experience compounded andredeemed. There is no being but the absolute, the one all-inclusivespiritual life, in whom all things are inherent, and whose perfection isthe virtual implication of all purposive activities. 

 "God's life . . . Sees the one plan fulfilled through all the manifold lives, the single consciousness winning its purpose by virtue of all the ideas, of all the individual selves, and of all the lives. No finite view is wholly illusory. Every finite intent taken precisely in its wholeness is fulfilled in the Absolute. The least life is not neglected, the most fleeting act is a recognized part of the world's meaning. You are for the divine view all that you know yourself at this instant to be. But you are also infinitely more. The preciousness of your present purposes to yourself is only a hint of that preciousness which in the end links their meaning to the entire realm of Being. "[178:20]

The fruitfulness of the philosopher's reflective doubt concerning hisown powers is now evident. Problems are raised which are not merelyurgent in themselves, but which present wholly new alternatives to themetaphysician. Rationalism and empiricism, realism and idealism, aredoctrines which, though springing from the epistemological queryconcerning the possibility of knowledge, may determine an entirephilosophical system. They bear upon every question of metaphysics, whether the fundamental conception of being, or the problems of theworld's unity, origin, and significance for human life. 

FOOTNOTES:

[150:1] The post-Kantian movement in Germany--especially in so far asinfluenced by Hegel. See Chap. XII. 

[151:2] Cf. § 203. 

[152:3] _E. G. _, the system of Fichte. Cf. § 177. 

[153:4] See Chap. XI. 

[153:5] Spinoza: _On the Improvement of the Understanding_. Translationby Elwes, p. 3. 

[154:6] Spinoza: _Ethics_, Part V, Proposition XLII. Translation byElwes, p. 270. 

[155:7] Descartes: _Meditations_, I. Translation by Veitch, p. 97. 

[155:8] Leibniz: _New System of the Nature of Substances_. Translationby Latta, pp. 299, 300. 

[157:9] Burnet: _Early Greek Philosophy_, p. 42. 

[159:10] No little ambiguity attaches to the term "monism" in currentusage, because of its appropriation by those who maintain that theuniverse is unitary and homogeneous in _physical terms_ (cf. § 108). Itshould properly be used to emphasize the unity of the world in anyterms. 

[161:11] Burnet: _Op. Cit. _, p. 358. 

[162:12] Burnet: _Op. Cit. _, p. 284. 

[167:13] Plato: _Theætetus_, 161. Translation by Jowett. References toPlato are to the marginal paging. 

[168:14] Burnet: _Early Greek Philosophy_, pp. 184, 187. 

[171:15] Plato: _Theætetus_, 150 B. Translation by Jowett. 

[173:16] Much ambiguity attaches to the terms "realism" and "idealism"in current usage. The first had at one time in the history of philosophya much narrower meaning than that which it now possesses. It was used toapply to those who, after Plato, believed in the independent reality ofideas, universals, or general natures. _Realists_ in this sense wereopposed to _nominalists_ and _conceptualists_. Nominalism maintained theexclusive reality of individual substances, and reduced ideas toparticular signs having, like the _name_, a purely symbolical ordescriptive value. Conceptualism sought to unite realism and nominalismthrough the conception of mind, or an individual substance whosemeanings may possess universal validity. Though this dispute was offundamental importance throughout the mediæval period, the issuesinvolved have now been restated. Realism in the old sense will, if held, come within the scope of the broader epistemological realism definedabove. Nominalism is covered by empirical tendencies, and conceptualismby modern idealism. 

The term _idealism_ is sometimes applied to Plato on account of hisdesignation of ideas as the ultimate realities. This would be a naturaluse of the term, but in our own day it has become inseparably associatedwith the doctrine which attributes to being a dependence upon theactivity of mind. It is of the utmost importance to keep these twomeanings clear. In the preferred sense Plato is a realist, and soopposed to idealism. 

The term _idealism_ is further confused on account of its employment inliterature and common speech to denote the control of ideals. Althoughthis is a kindred meaning, the student of philosophy will gain little orno help from it, and will avoid confusion if he distinguishes the termin its technical use and permits it in that capacity to acquire anindependent meaning. 

[175:17] See _note_, p. 173. 

[176:18] Berkeley: _Principles of Human Knowledge_, Part I, Fraser'sedition, p. 259. 

[176:19] To be distinguished from the religious sect which bears thesame name. 

[178:20] Quoted from Professor Josiah Royce's _The World and theIndividual, First Series_, pp. 426-427. 

CHAPTER VII

THE NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND THE PROBLEMS OF RELIGION

[Sidenote: The Normative Sciences. ]

§ 73. There are three sets of problems whose general philosophicalimportance depends upon the place which metaphysics assigns to the_human critical faculties_. Man passes judgment upon that which claimsto be _true_, _beautiful_, or _good_, thus referring to ideals andstandards that define these values. Attempts to make these idealsexplicit, and to formulate principles which regulate their attainment, have resulted in the development of the three so-called _normativesciences_: _logic_, _æsthetics_, and _ethics_. These sciences are saidto owe their origin to the Socratic method, and it is indeed certainthat their problem is closely related to the general rationalisticattitude. [180:1] In Plato's dialogue, "Protagoras, " one may observe themanner of the inception of both ethics and logic. The question at issuebetween Socrates and the master sophist Protagoras, is concerning thepossibility of teaching virtue. Protagoras conducts his side of thediscussion with the customary rhetorical flourish, expounding in setspeeches the tradition and usage in which such a possibility isaccepted. Socrates, on the other hand, conceives the issue quitedifferently. One can neither affirm nor deny anything of virtue unlessone knows _what is meant by it_. Even the possession of such a meaningwas scarcely recognized by Protagoras, who was led by Socrates'squestions to attribute to the various virtues an external groupinganalogous to that of the parts of the face. But Socrates shows thatsince justice, temperance, courage, and the like, are admittedly similarin that they are all virtues, they must have in common some essence, which is virtue in general. This he seeks to define in the terms, _virtue is knowledge_. The interest which Socrates here shows in thereduction of the ordinary moral judgments to a system centering in somesingle fundamental principle, is the ethical interest. But this is atthe same time a particular application of the general rationalisticmethod of definition, and of the general rationalistic postulate thatone knows nothing until one can form unitary and determinateconceptions. The recognition which Socrates thus gives to criteria ofknowledge is an expression of the logical interest. In a certain sense, indeed, the whole labor of Socrates was in the cause of the logicalinterest. For he sought to demonstrate that belief is not necessarilyknowledge; that belief may or may not be true. In order that it shall betrue, and constitute knowledge, it must be well-grounded, andaccompanied by an understanding of its object. Socrates thus set theproblem of logic, the discovery, namely, of those characters by virtueof the possession of which belief is knowledge. 

[Sidenote: The Affiliations of Logic. ]

§ 74. Logic deals with the ground of belief, and thus distinguishesitself from the psychological account of the elements of the believingstate. [182:2] But it is not possible sharply to sunder psychology andlogic. This is due to the fact that the general principles which makebelief true, may be regarded quite independently of this fact. They thenbecome the _most general truth_, belonging to the absolute, archetypalrealm, or to the mind of God. [182:3] When the general principles ofcertainty are so regarded, logic can be distinguished from metaphysicsonly by adding to the study of the general principles themselves, thestudy of the special conditions (mainly psychological) under which theymay be realized among men. In the history of human thought the name oflogic belongs to the study of this _attainment_ of truth, as the termsæsthetics and ethics belong to the studies of the attainment of beautyand goodness. [183:4] It is evident that logic will have a peculiarimportance for the rationalist. For the empiricist, proposing to reportupon things as they are given, will tend on the whole to maintain thatknowledge has no properties save those which are given to it by itsspecial subject-matter. One cannot, in short, define any absoluterelationship between the normative sciences and the other branches ofphilosophy. 

[Sidenote: Logic Deals with the Most General Conditions of Truth inBelief. ]

§ 75. _Logic is the formulation, as independently as possible of specialsubject-matter, of that which conditions truth in belief. _ Since logicis concerned with truth only in so far as it is predicated of belief, and since belief in so far as true is knowledge, logic can be defined asthe formulation of the most general principles of knowledge. Theprinciples so formulated would be those virtually used to _justify_belief or to disprove the imputation of error. 

[Sidenote: The Parts of Formal Logic. Definition, Self-evidence, Inference, and Observation. ]

§ 76. What is called _formal logic_ is animated with the hope ofextracting these formulations directly from an analysis of the procedureof thought. The most general logical principles which have appeared inthe historical development of formal logic are _definition_, _self-evidence_, _inference_, and _observation_. Each of these has beengiven special study, and each has given rise to special issues. 

_Definition_ has to do with the _formation of concepts_, or determinateand unequivocal meanings. The universality of such concepts, and theirconsequent relation to particular things, was, as we have seen, investigated at a very early date, and gave rise to the greatrealistic-nominalistic controversy. [184:5] A large part of the logicaldiscussion in the Platonic dialogues is an outgrowth of the earlier"eristic, " a form of disputation in favor with the sophists, andconsisting in the adroit use of ambiguity. [184:6] It is natural that inits first conscious self-criticism thought should discover the need ofdefinite terms. The perpetual importance of definition has been largelydue to the great prestige in modern philosophy of the method ofgeometry, which was regarded by Descartes and Spinoza as the model forsystems of necessary truth. 

_Self-evidence_ is the principle according to which _conviction of truthfollows directly from an understanding of meaning_. In the practice ofhis intellectual midwifery, Socrates presupposed that thought is capableof bringing forth its own certainties. And rationalism has at all timesregarded truth as ultimately accredited by internal marks recognizableby reason. Such truth arrived at antecedent to acquaintance withinstances is called _a priori_, as distinguished from _a posteriori_knowledge, or observation after the fact. There can be no principles ofself-evidence, but logicians have always been more or less concernedwith the enumeration of alleged self-evident principles, notably thoseof _contradiction_ and _identity_. A philosophical interest in themathematical method has led to a logical study of axioms, but with aview rather to their fruitfulness than their intrinsic truth. Indeed, the interest in self-evident truth has always been subordinate to theinterest in systematic truth, and the discovery of first principles mostcommonly serves to determine the relative priority of definiteconcepts, or the correct point of departure for a series of inferences. 

The greater part of the famous Aristotelian logic consists in a study of_inference_, or _the derivation of new knowledge from old knowledge_. Aristotle sought to set down and classify every method of advancing frompremises. The most important form of inference which he defined was the_syllogism_, a scheme of reasoning to a conclusion by means of twopremises having one term in common. From the premises "all men aremortal" and "Socrates is a man, " one may conclude that "Socrates ismortal. " This is an instance not only of the syllogism in general, butof its most important "mood, " the subsumption of a particular case undera general rule. Since the decline of Aristotle's influence in philosophythere has been a notable decrease of interest in the different forms ofinference; though its fundamental importance as the very bone and sinewof _reasoning_ or _deductive thinking_ has never been challenged. Itsloss of preëminence is in part due to the growth of empiricism, stimulated by the writings of Lord Bacon in the seventeenth century, andfostered by the subsequent development of experimental science. 

_Observation_ is the fundamental logical principle of empiricism. For aradical empiricism, knowledge would consist of descriptivegeneralizations based upon the summation of instances. That branch oflogic which deals with _the advance from individual instances to generalprinciples_, is called _inductive logic_. It has resulted in theannouncement of canons of accuracy and freedom from preconception, andin the methodological study of hypothesis, experiment, and verification. Rules for observation directed to the end of discovering causes, constitute the most famous part of the epoch-making logic of J. S. Mills. [187:7]

[Sidenote: Present Tendencies. Theory of the Judgment. ]

§ 77. There are two significant tendencies in contemporary logic. _Theories of the judgment_ have arisen in the course of an attempt todefine the least complexity that must be present in order that thoughtshall come within the range of truth and error. It is evident that noone either knows or is in error until he takes some attitude which laysclaim to knowledge. Denoting by the term _judgment_ this minimum ofcomplexity in knowledge, an important question arises as to the sense inwhich the judgment involves the subject, predicate, and copula that arecommonly present in its propositional form. 

[Sidenote: Priority of Concepts. ]

§ 78. But a more important logical development has been due to therecent analysis of definite accredited systems of knowledge. The studyof the fundamental conceptions of mathematics and mechanics, togetherwith an examination of the systematic structure of these sciences, furnishes the most notable cases. There are two senses in which suchstudies may be regarded as logical. In the first place, in so far asthey bring to light the inner coherence of any body of truth, the kindof evidence upon which it rests, and the type of formal perfection whichit seeks, they differ from formal logic only in that they derive theircriteria from cases, rather than from the direct analysis of theprocedure of thought. And since formal logic must itself makeexperiments, this difference is not a radical one. The study of casestends chiefly to enrich _methodology_, or the knowledge of the specialcriteria of special sciences. In the second place, such studies serve todefine the relatively few simple truths which are common to therelatively many complex truths. A study of the foundations of arithmeticreveals more elementary conceptions, such as _class_ and _order_, thatmust be employed in the very definition of number itself, and so areimplied in every numerical calculation. It appears similarly that theaxioms of geometry are special axioms which involve the acceptance ofmore general axioms or indefinables. [189:8] Logic in this sense, then, is the enumeration of conceptions and principles in the order of theirindispensableness to knowledge. And while it must be observed that themost general conceptions and principles of knowledge are not necessarilythose most significant for the existent world, nevertheless the carefulanalysis which such an enumeration involves is scarcely less fruitfulfor metaphysics than for logic. 

[Sidenote: Æsthetics Deals with the Most General Conditions of Beauty. Subjectivistic and Formalistic Tendencies. ]

§ 79. _Æsthetics is the formulation, as independently as possible ofspecial subject-matter, of that which conditions beauty. _ As logiccommonly refers to a judgment of truth, so æsthetics at any rate_refers_ to a judgment implied in appreciation. But while it isgenerally admitted that truth itself is by no means limited to the formof the judgment, the contrary is frequently maintained with referenceto beauty. The aphorism, _De gustibus non est disputandum_, expresses acommon opinion to the effect that beauty is not a property belonging tothe object of which it is predicated, but a property generated by theappreciative consciousness. According to this opinion there can be nobeauty except in the case of an object's presence in an individualexperience. Investigators must of necessity refuse to leave individualcaprice in complete possession of the field, but they have in many casesoccupied themselves entirely with the _state of æsthetic enjoyment_ inthe hope of discovering its constant factors. The opposing tendencydefines certain _formal characters which the beautiful object mustpossess_. Evidently the latter school will attribute a more profoundphilosophical importance to the conception of beauty, since for them itis a principle that obtains in the world of being. This was the firstnotable contention, that of Plato. But even with the emphasis laid uponthe subjective aspect of the æsthetic experience, great metaphysicalimportance may be attached to it, where, as in the case of the GermanRomanticists, reality is deliberately construed as a spiritual lifewhich is to be appreciated rather than understood. 

As in the case of logic, a strong impulse has manifested itself inæsthetics to deal with groups of objects that lie within its province, rather than directly with its concepts and principles. The first specialtreatise on æsthetics, the "Poetics" of Aristotle, belongs to this typeof inquiry, as does all criticism of art in so far as it aims at theformulation of general principles. 

[Sidenote: Ethics Deals with the Most General Conditions of MoralGoodness. ]

§ 80. _Ethics_, the oldest and most popular of the normative sciences, _is the formulation, as independently as possible of specialsubject-matter, of that which conditions goodness of conduct_. Ethics iscommonly concerned with goodness only in so far as it is predicated ofconduct, or of character, which is a more or less permanent dispositionto conduct. Since conduct, in so far as good, is said to constitutemoral goodness, ethics may be defined as the formulation of the generalprinciples of _morality_. The principles so formulated would be thosevirtually employed to _justify_ conduct, or to disprove the imputationof immorality. 

[Sidenote: Conceptions of the Good. Hedonism. ]

§ 81. The student of this science is confronted with a very considerablediversity of method and differentiation of problems. The earliest andmost profound opposition of doctrine in ethics arose from thedifferences of interpretation of which the teaching of Socrates iscapable. His doctrine is, as we have seen, verbally expressed in theproposition, _virtue is knowledge_. Socrates was primarily concerned toshow that there is no real living without an understanding of thesignificance of life. To live well is to know the end of life, the goodof it all, and to govern action with reference to that end. Virtue istherefore the practical wisdom that enables one to live consistentlywith his real intention. But what is the real intention, the end or goodof life? In the "Protagoras, " where Plato represents Socrates asexpounding his position, virtue is interpreted to mean prudence, orforesight of pleasurable and painful consequences. He who knows, possesses all virtue in that he is qualified to adapt himself to thereal situation and to gain the end of pleasure. All men, indeed, seekpleasure, but only virtuous men seek it wisely and well. 

 "And do you, Protagoras, like the rest of the world, call some pleasant things evil and some painful things good?--for I am rather disposed to say that things are good in as far as they are pleasant, if they have no consequences of another sort, and in as far as they are painful they are bad. "[192:9]

According to this view painful things are good only when they leadeventually to pleasure, and pleasant things evil only when their painfulconsequences outweigh their pleasantness. Hence moral differences reduceto differences of skill in the universal quest for pleasure, and_sensible gratification is the ultimate standard of moral value_. Thisancient doctrine, known as _hedonism_, expressing as it does a part oflife that will not suffer itself for long to be denied, is one of thegreat perennial tendencies of ethical thought. In the course of manycenturies it has passed through a number of phases, varying itsconception of pleasure from the tranquillity of the wise man to thesensuous titillations of the sybarite, and from the individualism of thelatter to the universalism of the humanitarian. But in every case itshows a respect for the natural man, praising morality for itsdisciplinary and instrumental value in the service of such human wantsas are the outgrowth of the animal instinct of self-preservation. 

[Sidenote: Rationalism. ]

§ 82. But if a man's life be regarded as a truer representation of hisideals than is his spoken theory, there is little to identify Socrateswith the hedonists. At the conclusion of the defence of his own life, which Plato puts into his mouth in the well-known "Apology, " he speaksthus:

 "When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, --then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. "[194:10]

It is plain that the man Socrates cared little for the pleasurable orpainful consequences of his acts, provided they were worthy of the highcalling of human nature. A man's virtue would now seem to possess anintrinsic nobility. If knowledge be virtue, then on this basis it mustbe because knowledge is itself excellent. Virtue as knowledgecontributes to the good by constituting it. We meet here with the_rationalistic_ strain in ethics. It praises conduct for the _inherentworth which it may possess if it express that reason_ which the Stoicscalled "_the ruling part_. " The riches of wisdom consist for thehedonist in their purchase of pleasure. For the rationalist, on theother hand, wisdom is not coin, but itself the very substance of value. 

[Sidenote: Eudæmonism and Pietism. Rigorism and Intuitionism. ]

§ 83. Rationalism has undergone modifications even more significantthan those of hedonism, and involving at least one radically new groupof conceptions. Among the Greeks rationalism and hedonism alike are_eudæmonistic_. They aim to portray _the fulness of life_ that makes"the happy man. " In the ethics of Aristotle, whose synthetic mind weavestogether these different strands, the Greek ideal finds its mostcomplete expression as "the high-minded man, " with all his powers andtrappings. But the great spiritual transformation which accompanied thedecline of Greek culture and the rise of Christianity, brought with it anew moral sensibility, which finds in man no virtue of himself, but onlythrough the grace of God. 

 "And the virtues themselves, " says St. Augustine, "if they bear no relation to God, are in truth vices rather than virtues; for although they are regarded by many as truly moral when they are desired as ends in themselves and not for the sake of something else, they are, nevertheless, inflated and arrogant, and therefore not to be viewed as virtues but as vices. "[195:11]

The new ideal is that of renunciation, obedience, and resignation. Ethically this expresses itself in _pietism_. Virtue is good neither initself nor on account of its consequences, but because it isconformable to the will of God. The extreme inwardness of this ideal ischaracteristic of an age that despaired of attainment, whether ofpleasure or knowledge. To all, even the persecuted, it is permitted toobey, and so gain entrance into the kingdom of the children of God. Butas every special study tends to rely upon its own conceptions, pietism, involving as it does a relation to God, is replaced by _rigorism_ and_intuitionism_. The former doctrine defines virtue in terms of the innerattitude which it expresses. It must be done in the spirit ofdutifulness, _because one ought_, and through sheer respect for the lawwhich one's moral nature affirms. _Intuitionism_ has attempted to dealwith the source of the moral law by defining conscience as a _specialfaculty_ or sense, qualified to pass directly upon moral questions, anddeserving of implicit obediences. It is characteristic of this wholetendency to look for the spring of virtuous living, not in a good whichsuch living obtains, but in a law to which it owes obedience. 

[Sidenote: Duty and Freedom. Ethics and Metaphysics. ]

§ 84. This third general ethical tendency has thus been of the greatestimportance in emphasizing the _consciousness of duty_, and has broughtboth hedonism and rationalism to a recognition of its fundamentalimportance. Ethics must deal not only with the moral ideal, but alsowith the ground of its appeal to the individual, and his obligation topursue it. In connection with this recognition of moral responsibility, the problem of human _freedom_ has come to be regarded in the light ofan inevitable point of contact between ethics and metaphysics. Thatwhich is absolutely binding upon the human will can be determined onlyin view of some theory of its ultimate nature. On this account therationalistic and hedonistic motives are no longer abstractly sundered, as in the days of the Stoics and Epicureans, but tend to be absorbed inbroader philosophical tendencies. Hedonism appears as the sequel tonaturalism; or, more rarely, as part of a theistic system whose moralityis divine legislation enforced by an appeal to motives of pleasure andpain. Rationalism, on the other hand, tends to be absorbed inrationalistic or idealistic philosophies, where man's rational nature isconstrued as his bond of kinship with the universe. 

Ethics has exhibited from the beginning a tendency to universalize itsconceptions and take the central place in metaphysics. Thus with Platogood conduct was but a special case of goodness, the good being the mostgeneral principle of reality. [198:12] In modern times Fichte and hisschool have founded an ethical metaphysics upon the conception ofduty. [198:13] In these cases ethics can be distinguished frommetaphysics only by adding to the study of the good or of duty, a studyof the special physical, psychological, and social conditions underwhich goodness and dutifulness may obtain in human life. It is possibleto attach the name of ethics, and we have seen the same to be true oflogic, either to a realm of ideal truth or to that realm wherein theideal is realized in humanity. 

[Sidenote: The Virtues, Customs, and Institutions. ]

§ 85. A systematic study of ethics requires that the _virtues_, or typesof moral practice, shall be interpreted in the light of the centralconception of good, or of conscience. _Justice_, _temperance_, _wisdom_, and _courage_ were praised by the Greeks. Christianity added_self-sacrifice_, _humility_, _purity_, and _benevolence_. These andother virtues have been defined, justified, and co-ordinated with theaid of a standard of moral value or a canon of duty. 

There is in modern ethics a pronounced tendency, parallel to thosealready noted in logic and æsthetics, to study such phenomena belongingto its field as have become historically established. A veryconsiderable investigation of _custom_, _institutions_, and other socialforces has led to a contact of ethics with anthropology and sociologyscarcely less significant than that with metaphysics. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The Problems of Religion. The Special Interests of Faith. ]

§ 86. In that part of his philosophy in which he deals with faith, thegreat German philosopher Kant mentions God, Freedom, and Immortality asthe three pre-eminent religious interests. Religion, as we have seen, sets up a social relationship between man and that massive drift ofthings which determines his destiny. Of the two terms of this relation, God signifies the latter, while freedom and immortality are prerogativeswhich religion bestows upon the former. Man, viewed from the stand-pointof religion as an object of special interest to the universe, is said tohave a soul; and by virtue of this soul he is said to be free andimmortal, when thought of as having a life in certain senses independentof its immediate natural environment. The attempt to make this faiththeoretically intelligible has led to the philosophical disciplinesknown as _theology_ and _psychology_. [199:14]

[Sidenote: Theology Deals with the Nature and Proof of God. ]

§ 87. _Theology_, as a branch of philosophy, deals with _the proof andthe nature of God_. Since "God" is not primarily a theoreticalconception, the proof of God is not properly a philosophical problem. Historically, this task has been assumed as a legacy from Christianapologetics; and it has involved, at any rate so far as Europeanphilosophy is concerned, the definition of ultimate being in suchspiritual terms as make possible the relation with man postulated inChristianity. For this it has been regarded as sufficient to ascribe tothe world an underlying unity capable of bearing the predicates ofperfection, omnipotence, and omniscience. Each proof of God has definedhim pre-eminently in terms of some one of these his attributes. 

[Sidenote: The Ontological Proof of God. ]

§ 88. The _ontological_ proof of God held the foremost place inphilosophy's contribution to Christianity up to the eighteenth century. This proof _infers the existence from the ideal_ of God, and soapproaches the nature of God through the attribute of perfection. Itowes the form in which it was accepted in the Middle Ages andRenaissance to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury at the close of theeleventh century. He argued from the idea of a most perfect being to itsexistence, on the ground that non-existence, or existence only in idea, would contradict its perfection. It is evident that the force of thisargument depends upon the necessity of the idea of God. The argument wasaccepted in Scholastic Philosophy[201:15] largely because of the virtualacceptance of this necessity. Mediæval thought was under the dominanceof the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and through themrationalism had come to be the unquestioned starting-point for allthought. For Plato reality and rationality meant one and the same thing, so that the ultimate reality was the highest principle of rationality, which he conceived to be the idea of the good. In the case of Aristotlethe ideal of rationality was conceived to determine the course of thecosmical evolution as its immanent final cause. But in itself it wasbeyond the world, or transcendent. For Plato perfection itself isreality, whereas for Aristotle perfection determines the hierarchicalorder of natural substances. The latter theory, more suitable to theuses of Christianity, because it distinguished between God and theworld, was incorporated into the great school systems. But both theoriescontain the essence of the ontological proof of God. In thought oneseeks the perfect truth, and posits it as at once the culmination ofinsight and the meaning of life. The ideal of God is therefore anecessary idea, because implied in all the effort of thought as theobject capable of finally satisfying it. St. Anselm adds little to theforce of this argument, and does much to obscure its real significance. 

In stating the ontological argument the term perfection has beenexpressly emphasized, because it may be taken to embrace both truth andgoodness. Owing to a habit of thought, due in the main to Plato, it waslong customary to regard degrees of truth and goodness asinterchangeable, and as equivalent to degrees of reality. The _ensrealissimum_ was in its completeness the highest object both of thefaculty of cognition and of the moral will. But even in the scholasticperiod these two different aspects of the ideal were clearly recognized, and led to sharply divergent tendencies. More recently they have beendivided and embodied in separate arguments. _The epistemological_argument _defines God in terms of that absolute truth which is referredto in every judgment_. Under the influence of idealism this absolutetruth has taken the form of a universal mind, or all-embracing standardexperience, called more briefly the absolute. The _ethical_ argument, onthe other hand, conceives God as _the perfect goodness implied in themoral struggle, or the power through which goodness is made to triumphin the universe_ to the justification of moral faith. While the formerof these arguments identifies God with being, the latter defines God interms of the intent or outcome of being. Thus, while the epistemologicalargument does not distinguish God and the world, the latter does so, assuming that independent reality can be attributed to the stages of aprocess and to the purpose that dominates it. 

[Sidenote: The Cosmological Proof of God. ]

§ 89. The _cosmological_ proof of God approaches him through theattribute of creative omnipotence. The common principle of causalexplanation refers the origin of natural events to similar antecedentevents. But there must be some _first cause_ from which the whole seriesis derived, a cause which is ultimate, sufficient to itself, and theresponsible author of the world. Because God's function as creator was apart of the Christian teaching, and because explanation by causes ishabitual with common sense, this argument has had great vogue. But inphilosophy it has declined in importance, chiefly because it has beenabsorbed in arguments which deal with the _kind_ of causality proper toa first cause or world-ground. The argument that follows is a case inpoint. 

[Sidenote: The Teleological Proof of God. ]

§ 90. The _teleological_ proof argues that the world can owe its originonly to an _intelligent first cause_. The evidence for this is furnishedby the cunning contrivances and beneficent adaptations of nature. Thesecould not have come about through chance or the working of mechanicalforces, but only through the foresight of a rational will. This argumentoriginally infers God from the character of nature and history; and theextension of mechanical principles to organic and social phenomena, especially as stimulated by Darwin's principle of natural selection, hastended greatly to diminish its importance. When, on the other hand, fornature and history there are substituted the intellectual and moralactivities themselves, and the inference is made to the ideal which theyimply, the teleological argument merges into the ontological. But theold-fashioned statement of it remains in the form of religious faith, and in this capacity it has had the approval even of Hume and Kant, thephilosophers who have contributed most forcibly to its overthrow as ademonstration of God. They agree that the _acknowledgment_ of God innature and history is the sequel to a theistic belief, and an inevitableattitude on the part of the religious consciousness. 

[Sidenote: God and the World. Theism and Pantheism. ]

§ 91. Another group of ideas belonging to philosophical theologyconsists of three generalizations respecting God's relation to theworld, known as _theism_, _pantheism_, and _deism_. Although, theoretically, these are corollaries of the different arguments for God, two of them, theism and pantheism, owe their importance to their rivalryas religious tendencies. _Theism_ emphasizes that attitude to God whichrecognizes in him an historical personage, in some sense distinct fromboth the world and man, which are his works and yet stand in an externalrelationship to him. It expresses the spirit of ethical and monotheisticreligion, and is therefore the natural belief of the Christian. _Pantheism_ appears in primitive religion as an animistic orpolytheistic sense of the presence of a divine principle diffusedthroughout nature. But it figures most notably in the history ofreligions, in the highly reflective Brahmanism of India. In sharpopposition to Christianity, this religion preaches the indivisible unityof the world and the illusoriness of the individual's sense of his ownindependent reality. In spite of the fact that such a doctrine is aliento the spirit of Christianity, it enters into Christian theology throughthe influence of philosophy. The theoretical idea of God tends, as wehave seen, to the identification of him with the world as its most realprinciple. Or it bestows upon him a nature so logical and formal, and sofar removed from the characters of humanity, as to forbid his enteringinto personal or social relations. Such reflections concerning God findtheir religious expression in a mystical sense of unity, which has inmany cases either entirely replaced or profoundly modified the theisticstrain in Christianity. In current philosophy pantheism appears in theepistemological argument which identifies God with being; while thechief bulwark of theism is the ethical argument, with its provision fora distinction between the actual world and ideal principle of evolution. 

[Sidenote: Deism. ]

§ 92. While theism and pantheism appear to be permanent phases in thephilosophy of religion, _deism_ is the peculiar product of theeighteenth century. It is based upon a repudiation of supernaturalismand "enthusiasm, " on the one hand, and a literal acceptance of thecosmological and teleological proofs on the other. Religions, like allelse, were required, in this epoch of clear thinking, to submit to thecanons of experimental observation and practical common sense. Theseauthorize only a _natural religion_, the acknowledgment in pious livingof a God who, having contrived this natural world, has given it over tothe rule, not of priests and prophets, but of natural law. Theartificiality of its conception of God, and the calculating spirit ofits piety, make deism a much less genuine expression of the religiousexperience than either the moral chivalry of theism or the intellectualand mystical exaltation of pantheism. 

[Sidenote: Metaphysics and Theology. ]

§ 93. The systematic development of philosophy leads to the inclusion ofconceptions of God within the problem of metaphysics, and thesubordination of the proof of God to the determination of thefundamental principle of reality. There will always remain, however, anoutstanding theological discipline, whose function it is to interpretworship, or the living religious attitude, in terms of the theoreticalprinciples of philosophy. 

[Sidenote: Psychology is the Theory of the Soul. ]

§ 94. _Psychology is the theory of the soul. _ As we have already seen, the rise of scepticism directs attention from the object of thought tothe thinker, and so emphasizes the self as a field for theoreticalinvestigation. But the original and the dominating interest in the selfis a practical one. The precept, γνῶθι σεαυτόν, has its deepestjustification in the concern for the salvation of one's soul. Inprimitive and half-instinctive belief the self is recognized inpractical relations. In its animistic phase this belief admitted of suchrelations with all living creatures, and extended the conception of lifevery generally to natural processes. Thus in the beginning the self wasdoubtless indistinguishable from the vital principle. In the firsttreatise on psychology, the "περὶ Ψυχῆς" of Aristotle, thisinterpretation finds a place in theoretical philosophy. For Aristotlethe soul is the _entelechy_ of the body--that function or activity whichmakes a man of it. He recognized, furthermore, three stages in thisactivity: the nutritive, sensitive, and rational souls, or thevegetable, animal, and distinctively human natures, respectively. Therational soul, in its own proper activity, is man's highestprerogative, the soul to be saved. By virtue of it man rises abovebodily conditions, and lays hold on the divine and eternal. But Plato, who, as we have seen, was ever ready to grant reality to the ideal apartfrom the circumstances of its particular embodiment, had alreadyundertaken to demonstrate the immortality of the soul on the ground ofits distinctive nature. [209:16] According to his way of thinking, thesoul's essentially moral nature made it incapable of destruction throughthe operation of natural causes. It is evident, then, that there werealready ideas in vogue capable of interpreting the Christian teachingconcerning the existence of a soul, or of an inner essence of mancapable of being made an object of divine interest. 

[Sidenote: Spiritual Substance]

§ 95. The immediate effect of Christianity was to introduce intophilosophy as one of its cardinal doctrines the theory of a spiritualbeing, constituting the true self of the individual, and separable fromthe body. The difference recognized in Plato and Aristotle between thedivine spark and the appetitive and perceptual parts of human nature wasnow emphasized. The former (frequently called the "spirit, " todistinguish it from the lower soul) was defined as a _substance_ havingthe attributes of thought and will. The fundamental argument for itsexistence was the immediate appeal to self-consciousness; and it wasfurther defined as indestructible on the ground of its being utterlydiscontinuous and incommensurable with its material environment. Thistheory survives at the present day in the conception of pure activity, but on the whole the attributes of the soul have superseded itssubstance. 

[Sidenote: Intellectualism and Voluntarism. ]

§ 96. _Intellectualism and voluntarism_ are the two rival possibilitiesof emphasis when the soul is defined in terms of its known activities. Wherever the essence of personality is in question, as also occurs inthe case of theology, thought and will present their respective claimsto the place of first importance. _Intellectualism would make willmerely the concluding phase of thought, while voluntarism would reducethought to one of the interests of a general appetency. _ It is evidentthat idealistic theories will be much concerned with this question ofpriority. It is also true, though less evident, that intellectualism, since it emphasizes the general and objective features of the mind, tends to subordinate the individual to the universal; while voluntarism, emphasizing desire and action, is relatively individualistic, and so, since there are many individuals, also pluralistic. [211:17]

[Sidenote: Freedom of the Will. Necessitarianism, Determinism, andIndeterminism. ]

§ 97. The question of the _freedom of the will_ furnishes a favoritecontroversial topic in philosophy. For the interest at stake is no lessthan the individual's responsibility before man and God for his good orbad works. It bears alike upon science, religion, and philosophy, and isat the same time a question of most fundamental practical importance. But this diffusion of the problem has led to so considerable acomplication of it that it becomes necessary in outlining it to definetwo issues. In the first place, the concept of freedom is designed toexpress generally the distinction between man and the rest of nature. Tomake man in all respects _the product and creature of his naturalenvironment_ would be to deny freedom and accept the radically_necessitarian_ doctrine. The question still remains, however, as to thecauses which dominate man. He may be free from nature, and yet be ruledby God, or by distinctively spiritual causes, such as ideas orcharacter. Where in general the will is regarded as submitting only to a_spiritual causation_ proper to its own realm, the conception is bestnamed _determinism_; though in the tradition of philosophy it is held tobe a doctrine of freedom, because contrasted with the necessitarianismabove defined. There remains _indeterminism_, which attributes to thewill a spontaneity that makes possible the _direct presence to it ofgenuine alternatives_. The issue may here coincide with that betweenintellectualism and voluntarism. If, _e. G. _, in God's act of creation, his ideals and standards are prior to his fiat, his conduct isdetermined; whereas it is free in the radical or indeterministic senseif his ideals themselves are due to his sheer will. This theory involvesat a certain point in action the absence of cause. On this account thefree will is often identified with _chance_, in which case it loses itsdistinction from nature, and we have swung round the circle. 

[Sidenote: Immortality. Survival and Eternalism. ]

§ 98. There is similar complexity in the problem concerning_immortality_. Were the extreme claims of naturalism to be established, there would be no ground whatsoever upon which to maintain theimmortality of man, mere dust returning unto dust. The philosophicalconcept of immortality is due to the supposition that the quintessenceof the individual's nature is divine. [213:18] But several possibilitiesare at this point open to us. The first would maintain the survivalafter death of a recognizable and discrete personality. Another wouldsuppose a preservation after death, through being taken up into the lifeof God. Still another, the theory commonly maintained on the ground ofrationalistic and idealistic metaphysics, would deny that immortalityhas to do with life after death, and affirm that it signifies theperpetual membership of the human individual in a realm of eternitythrough the truth or virtue that is in him. But this interpretationevidently leaves open the question of the immortality of that which isdistinctive and personal in human nature. 

[Sidenote: The Natural Science of Psychology. Its Problems and Method. ]

§ 99. So far we have followed the fortunes only of the "spirit" of man. What of that lower soul through which he is identified with the fortunesof his body? When philosophy gradually ceased, in the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries, to be "the handmaid of religion, " there arose arenewed interest in that part of human nature lying between the strictlyphysiological functions, on the one hand, and thought and will on theother. Descartes and Spinoza analyzed what they called the "passions, "meaning such states of mind as are conditioned by a concern for theinterests of the body. At a later period, certain English philosophers, following Locke, traced the dependence of ideas upon the senses. Theirmethod was that of _introspection_, or the direct examination by theindividual of his own ideas, and for the sake of noting their origin andcomposition from simple factors. The lineal descendants of these sameEnglish philosophers defined more carefully the process of_association_, whereby the complexity and sequence of ideas are broughtabout, and made certain conjectures as to its dependence upon propertiesand transactions in the physical brain. These are the three mainphilosophical sources of what has now grown to be the separate _naturalscience of psychology_. It will be noted that there are twocharacteristics which all of these studies have in common. They dealwith the experience of the individual as composing his own privatehistory, and tend to attribute the specific course which this privatehistory takes to bodily conditions. It is only recently that theseinvestigations have acquired sufficient unity and exclusiveness of aimto warrant their being regarded as a special science. But such is now sofar the case that the psychologist of this type pursues his way quiteindependently of philosophy. It is true his research has advancedconsiderably beyond his understanding of its province. But it isgenerally recognized that he must examine those very _factors ofsubjectivity_ which the natural scientist otherwise seeks to evade, and, furthermore, that he must seek to _provide for them in nature_. Hetreats the inner life in what Locke called "the plain historicalmethod, " that is to say, instead of interpreting and defining its ideas, he analyzes and reports upon its content. He would not seek to justify amoral judgment, as would ethics, or to criticise the cogency of thought, as would logic; but only to describe the actual state as he found it. Inorder to make his data commensurable with the phenomena of nature, hediscovers or defines bodily conditions for the subjective content whichhe analyzes. His fundamental principle of method is the postulate of_psycho-physical parallelism_, according to which he assumes a _state ofbrain or nervous system for every state of mind_. But in adopting aprovince and a method the psychologist foregoes finality of truth afterthe manner of all natural science. He deals admittedly with an aspect ofexperience, and his conclusions are no more adequate to the nature ofthe self than they are to the nature of outer objects. An admirablereference to this abstract division of experience occurs in Külpe's"Introduction to Philosophy":

 "For the developed consciousness, as for the naive, every experience is an unitary whole; and it is only the habit of abstract reflection upon experience that makes the objective and subjective worlds seem to fall apart as originally different forms of existence. Just as a plane curve can be represented in analytical geometry as the function of two variables, the abscissæ and the ordinates, without prejudice to the unitary course of the curve itself, so the world of human experience may be reduced to a subjective and an objective factor, without prejudice to its real coherence. "[215:19]

[Sidenote: Psychology and Philosophy. ]

§ 100. The problems of psychology, like those of theology, tend todisappear as independent philosophical topics. The ultimate nature ofthe self will continue to interest philosophers--more deeply, perhaps, than any aspect of experience--but their conception of it will be acorollary of their metaphysics and epistemology. The remainder of thefield of the old philosophical psychology, the introspective andexperimental analysis of special states of mind, is already theprovince of a natural science which is becoming more and more free fromthe stand-point and method of philosophy. 

[Sidenote: Transition from Classification by Problems to Classificationby Doctrines. Naturalism. Subjectivism. Absolute Idealism. AbsoluteRealism. ]

§ 101. Reminding ourselves anew that philosophical problems cannot betreated in isolation from one another, we shall hereinafter seek tobecome acquainted with general stand-points that give systematic unityto the issues which have been enumerated. Such stand-points are notclearly defined by those who occupy them, and they afford no clear-cutclassification of all historical philosophical philosophies. Butsystem-making in philosophy is commonly due to the moving in anindividual mind of some most significant idea; and certain of theseideas have reappeared so frequently as to define more or less clearlymarked tendencies, or continuous strands, out of which the history ofthought is forever weaving itself. Such is clearly the case with_naturalism_. From the beginning until now there have been men whosephilosophy is a summation of the natural sciences, whose entire thoughtis based upon an acceptance of the methods and the fundamentalconceptions of these disciplines. This tendency stands in the historyof thought for the conviction that the visible and tangible world whichinteracts with the body is veritable reality. This philosophy isrealistic and empirical to an extent entirely determined by its beliefconcerning being. But while naturalism is only secondarilyepistemological, _subjectivism_ and _absolute idealism_ have their verysource in the self-examination and the self-criticism of thought. Subjectivism signifies the conviction that the knower cannot escapehimself. If reality is to be kept within the range of possibleknowledge, it must be defined in terms of the processes or states ofselves. _Absolute idealism_ arises from a union of this epistemologicalmotive with a recognition of what are regarded as the logicalnecessities to which reality must submit. Reality must be both knowledgeand rational knowledge; the object, in short, of an absolute mind, whichshall be at once all-containing and systematic. This rationalisticmotive was, however, not originally associated with an idealisticepistemology, but with the common-sense principle that being isdiscovered and not constituted by thought. Such an _absolute realism_is, like naturalism, primarily metaphysical rather thanepistemological; but, unlike naturalism, it seeks to define reality asa logical or ethical necessity. 

Under these several divisions, then, we shall meet once more with thespecial problems of philosophy, but this time they will be ranged in anorder that is determined by some central doctrine. They will appear asparts not of the general problem of philosophy, but of some definitesystem of philosophy. 

FOOTNOTES:

[180:1] Cf. § 68. 

[182:2] The Socratic distinction between the logical and thepsychological treatment of belief finds its best expression in Plato's_Gorgias_, especially, 454, 455. Cf. Also § 29. 

[182:3] Thus, e. G. Hegel. See § 179. Cf. Also §§ 199, 200. 

[183:4] Cf. § 84. 

[184:5] See § 69, _note_. 

[184:6] The reader will find a good illustration of eristic in Plato's_Euthydemus_, 275. 

[187:7] The reader can find these rules, and the detail of thetraditional formal logic, in any elementary text-book, such as, e. G. , Jevons: _Elements of Logic_. 

[189:8] What is called "the algebra of logic" seeks to obtain anunequivocal symbolic expression for these truths. 

[192:9] Plato: _Protagoras_, 351. Translation by Jowett. 

[194:10] Plato: _Apology_, 41. Translation by Jowett. 

[195:11] Quoted by Paulsen in his _System of Ethics_. Translation byThilly, p. 69. 

[198:12] Cf. § 160. 

[198:13] Cf. § 177. 

[199:14] Concerning the duty of philosophy to religion in these matters, cf. Descartes: _Meditations_, _Dedication_. Translation by Veitch, p. 81. 

[201:15] The school-philosophy that flourished from the eleventh to thefifteenth century, under the authority of the church. 

[209:16] Especially in the _Phædo_. 

[211:17] Schopenhauer is a notable exception. Cf. §§ 135, 138. 

[213:18] It is interesting, however, to observe that currentspiritualistic theories maintain a naturalistic theory of immortality, verifiable, it is alleged, in certain extraordinary empiricalobservations. 

[215:19] Translation by Pillsbury and Titchener, p. 59. 

PART III

SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER VIII

NATURALISM[223:1]

[Sidenote: The General Meaning of Materialism. ]

§ 102. The meaning conveyed by any philosophical term consists largelyof the distinctions which it suggests. Its peculiar quality, like thephysiognomy of the battle-scarred veteran, is a composite of thecontroversies which it has survived. There is, therefore, an almostunavoidable confusion attendant upon the denomination of any early phaseof philosophy as _materialism_. But in the historical beginnings ofthought, as also in the common-sense of all ages, there is at any ratepresent a very essential strand of this theory. The naive habit of mindwhich, in the sixth century before Christ, prompted successive Greekthinkers to define reality in terms of water, air, and fire, is in thisrespect one with that exhibited in Dr. Samuel Johnson's smiting theground with his stick in curt refutation of Bishop Berkeley'sidea-philosophy. There is a theoretical instinct, not accidental orperverse, but springing from the very life-preserving equipment of theorganism, which attributes reality to _tangible space-filling thingsencountered by the body_. For obvious reasons of self-interest theorganism is first of all endowed with a sense of contact, and the moredelicate senses enter into its practical economy as means ofanticipating or avoiding contact. From such practical expectationsconcerning the proximity of that which may press upon, injure, ordisplace the body, arise the first crude judgments of reality. And theseare at the same time the nucleus of naive philosophy and the germinalphase of materialism. 

[Sidenote: Corporeal Being. ]

§ 103. The first philosophical movement among the Greeks was a series ofattempts to reduce the tangible world to unity, and of these theconception offered by Anaximander is of marked interest in its bearingupon the development of materialism. This philosopher is remarkable forhaving _defined_ his first principle, instead of having chosen it fromamong the different elements already distinguished by common-sense. Hethought the unity of nature to consist in its periodic evolution fromand return into one infinite sum of material (τὸ ἄπειρον), which, muchin the manner of the "nebula" of modern science, is conceived as bothindeterminate in its actual state and infinitely rich in itspotentiality. The conception of matter, the most familiar commonplace ofscience, begins to be recognizable. It has here reached the point ofsignifying a common substance for all tangible things, a substance thatin its own general and omnipresent nature is without the special marksthat distinguish these tangible things from one another. And in so farthe philosophy of Anaximander is materialistic. 

[Sidenote: Corporeal Processes. Hylozoism and Mechanism. ]

§ 104. But the earliest thinkers are said to be _hylozoists_, ratherthan strict materialists, because of their failure to make certaindistinctions in connection with the _processes_ of matter. The termhylozoism unites with the conception of the formless material of theworld (ὕλη), that of an animating power to which its formations andtransformations are due. Hylozoism itself was not a deliberate synthesisof these two conceptions, but a primitive practical tendency touniversalize the conception, of life. Such "animism" instinctivelyassociates with an object's bulk and hardness a capacity for locomotionand general initiative. And the material principles defined by thephilosophers retain this vague and comprehensive attribute as a matterof course, until it is distinguished and separated through attempts tounderstand it. 

That aspect of natural process which was most impressive to Greek mindsof the reflective type was the alternation of "generation and decay. " Infull accord with his more ancient master, Epicurus, the Latin poetLucretius writes:

 "Thus neither can death-dealing motions keep the mastery always, nor entomb existence forevermore; nor, on the other hand, can the birth and increase giving motions of things preserve them always after they are born. Thus the war of first beginnings waged from eternity is carried on with dubious issue: now here, now there, the life-bringing elements of things get the mastery and are o'ermastered in turn: with the funeral wail blends the cry which babies raise when they enter the borders of light; and no night ever followed day, nor morning night, that heard not, mingling with the sickly infant's cries, wailings of the attendants on death and black funeral. "[226:2]

In a similar vein, the earliest conceptions of natural evolutionattributed it to the coworking of two principles, that of Love or unionand that of Hate or dissolution. The process is here distinguished fromthe material of nature, but is still described in the language ofpractical life. A distinction between two aspects of vital phenomena isthe next step. These may be regarded in respect either of the motion andchange which attend them, or the rationality which informs them. Life isboth effective and significant. Although neither of these ideas everwholly ceases to be animistic, they may nevertheless be applied quiteindependently of one another. The one reduces the primitive animisticworld to the lower end of its scale, the other construes it in terms ofa purposive utility commensurable with that of human action. Now it iswith _mechanism_, the former of these diverging ways, that thedevelopment of materialism is identified. For this philosophy a thingneed have no value to justify its existence, nor any acting intelligenceto which it may owe its origin. Its bulk and position are sufficient forits being, and the operation of forces capable of integrating, dividing, or moving it is sufficient for its derivation and history. In short, there is no rhyme or reason at the heart of things, but only actualmatter distributed by sheer force. With this elimination of the elementof purposiveness from the hylozoistic world, the content and process ofnature are fitted to one another. Matter is that which is moved byforce, and force is the determining principle of the motions of matter. Materialism is now definitely equipped with its fundamental conceptions. 

[Sidenote: Materialism and Physical Science. ]

§ 105. The central conceptions of materialism as a philosophical theorydiffer from those employed in the physical sciences only in what isdemanded of them. The scientist reports upon physical phenomena withoutaccepting any further responsibility, while those who like Lucretiusmaintain a physical metaphysics, must, like him, prove that "the minutebodies of matter from everlasting continually uphold the sum of things. "But, though they employ them in their own way, materialists and allother exponents of naturalism derive their central conceptions from thephysical sciences, and so reflect the historical development throughwhich these sciences have passed. To certain historical phases ofphysical science, in so far as these bear directly upon the meaning ofnaturalism, we now turn. 

[Sidenote: The Development of the Conceptions of Physical Science. Spaceand Matter. ]

§ 106. From the earliest times down to the present day the groundwork ofmaterialism has most commonly been cast in the form of an _atomictheory_. Democritus, the first system-builder of this school, adoptedthe conception of indivisible particles (ἄτομοι), impenetrable intheir occupancy of space, and varying among themselves only in form, order, and position. To provide for the motion that distributes them heconceived them as separated from one another by empty space. From thisit follows that the void is as real as matter, or, as Democritus himselfis reputed to have said, "thing is not more real than no-thing. "

But atomism has not been by any means universally regarded as the mostsatisfactory conception of the relation between space and matter. Notonly does it require two kinds of being, with the different attributesof extension and hardness, respectively, [229:3] but it would also seemto be experimentally inadequate in the case of the more subtle physicalprocesses, such as light. The former of these is a speculativeconsideration, and as such had no little weight with the Frenchphilosopher Descartes, whose divisions and definitions so profoundlyaffected the course of thought in these matters after the sixteenthcentury. Holding also "that a vacuum or space in which there isabsolutely no body is repugnant to reason, " and that an indivisiblespace-filling particle is self-contradictory, he was led to _identifyspace and matter_; that is, to make matter as indispensable to space asspace to matter. There is, then, but one kind of corporeal being, whoseattribute is extension, and whose modes are motion and rest. The mostfamous application of the mechanical conceptions which he bases uponthis first principle, is his theory of the planets, which are conceivedto be embedded in a transparent medium, and to move with it, vortexfashion, about the sun. [230:4]

But the conception of the space-filling continuity of material substanceowes its prominence at the present time to the experimental hypothesisof _ether_. This substance, originally conceived to occupy theintermolecular spaces and to serve as a medium for the propagation ofundulations, is now regarded by many physicists as replacing matter. "Itis the great hope of science at the present day, " says a contemporaryexponent of naturalism, "that hard and heavy matter will be shown to beether in motion. "[231:5] Such a theory would reduce bodies to therelative displacements of parts of a continuous substance, which wouldbe first of all defined as spacial, and would possess such furtherproperties as special scientific hypotheses might require. 

Two broadly contrasting theories thus appear: that which defines matteras a continuous substance coextensive with space; and that which definesit as a discrete substance divided by empty space. But both theories areseriously affected by the peculiarly significant development of theconception of force. 

[Sidenote: Motion and its Cause. Development and Extension of theConception of Force. ]

§ 107. In the Cartesian system the cause of motion was pressure within aplenum. But in the seventeenth century this notion encountered thesystem of Newton, a system which seemed to involve action at a distance. In the year 1728 Voltaire wrote from London:

 "When a Frenchman arrives in London, he finds a very great change, in philosophy as well as in most other things. In Paris he left the world all full of matter; here he finds absolute vacua. At Paris the universe is seen filled up with ethereal vortices, while here the same space is occupied with the play of the invisible forces of gravitation. In Paris the earth is painted for us longish like an egg, and in London it is oblate like a melon. At Paris the pressure of the moon causes the ebb and flow of tides; in England, on the other hand, the sea gravitates toward the moon, so that at the same time when the Parisians demand high water of the moon, the gentlemen of London require an ebb. "[232:6]

But these differences are not matters of taste, nor even rivalhypotheses upon an equal footing. The Newtonian system of mechanics, theconsummation of a development initiated by Galileo, differed from thevortex theory of Descartes as exact science differs from speculation andunverified conjecture. And this difference of method carried with iteventually certain profound differences of content, distinguishing theNewtonian theory even from that of Democritus, with which it had so muchin common. Although Democritus had sought to avoid the element ofpurposiveness in the older hylozoism by referring the motions of bodiesas far as possible to the impact of other bodies, he neverthelessattributed these motions ultimately to _weight_, signifying thereby acertain _downward disposition_. Now it is true that in his generalbelief Newton himself is not free from hylozoism. He thought of themotions of the planets themselves as initiated and quickened by a poweremanating ultimately from God. They are "impressed by an intelligentAgent, " and

 "can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever-living Agent who, being in all places, is more able by his will to move the bodies within his boundless uniform _sensorium_, and thereby to form and reform the parts of the universe, than we are by our will to move the parts of our own bodies. "[233:7]

But by the side of these statements must be set his famous disclaimer, "_hypotheses non fingo_. " In his capacity of natural philosopher he didnot seek to explain motions, but only to describe them. Disbelieving ashe did in action at a distance, he saw no possibility of explanationshort of a reference of them to God; but such "hypotheses" he thought tobe no proper concern of science. As a consequence, the mathematicalformulation of motions came, through him, to be regarded as the entirecontent of mechanics. The notion of an efficient cause of motion isstill suggested by the term _force_, but even this term within thesystem of mechanics refers always to a definite amount of motion, ormeasurement of relative motion. And the same is true of _attraction_, _action_, _reaction_, and the like. The further explanation of motion, the definition of a virtue or potency that produces it, first aneglected problem, then an irrelevant problem, is finally, for anaturalistic philosophy in which this progression is completed, aninsoluble problem. For the sequel to this purely descriptive procedureon the part of science is the disavowal of "metaphysics" by those whowill have no philosophy but science. Thus the scientific conservatism ofNewton has led to the positivistic and agnostic phase of naturalism. Buta further treatment of this development must be reserved until the issueof epistemology shall have been definitely raised. 

A different emphasis within the general mechanical scheme, attachingespecial importance to the conceptions of force and energy, has led to arival tendency in science and a contrasting type of naturalism. Themechanical hypotheses hitherto described are all of a simple and readilydepicted type. They suggest an imagery quite in accord with common-senseand with observation of the motions of great masses like the planets. Material particles are conceived to move within a containing space; themotions of corpuscles, atoms, or the minute parts of ether, differingonly in degree from those of visible bodies. The whole physicaluniverse may be represented in the imagination as an aggregate of bodiesparticipating in motions of extraordinary complexity, but of one type. But now let the emphasis be placed upon the determining causes ratherthan upon the moving bodies themselves. In other words, let the bodiesbe regarded as attributive and the forces as substantive. The result isa radical alteration of the mechanical scheme and the transcendence ofcommon-sense imagery. This was one direction of outgrowth from the workof Newton. His force of gravitation prevailed between bodies separatedby spaces of great magnitude. Certain of the followers of Newton, notably Cotes, accepting the formulas of the master but neglecting hisallusions to the agency of God, accepted the principle of action at adistance. _Force_, in short, _was conceived to pervade space of itself_. But if force be granted this substantial and self-dependent character, what further need is there of matter as a separate form of entity? Fordoes not the presence of matter consist essentially in resistance, itself a case of force? Such reflections as these led Boscovich andothers to the radical departure of defining material particles _ascentres of force_. 

[Sidenote: The Development and Extension of the Conception of Energy. ]

§ 108. But a more fruitful hypothesis of the same general order is dueto the attention directed to the conception of _energy_, or capacity forwork, by experimental discoveries of the possibility of reciprocaltransformations without loss, of motion, heat, electricity, and otherprocesses. The principle of the conservation of energy affirms thequantitative constancy of that which is so transformed, measured, forexample, in terms of capacity to move units of mass against gravity. Theexponents of what is called "energetics" have in many cases come toregard that the quantity of which is so conserved, as a substantialreality whose forms and distributions compose nature. A contemporaryscientist, whose synthetic and dogmatic habit of mind has made himeminent in the ranks of popular philosophy, writes as follows:

 "Mechanical and chemical energy, sound and heat, light and electricity, are mutually convertible; they seem to be but different modes of one and the same fundamental force or _energy_. Thence follows the important thesis of the unity of all natural forces, or, as it may also be expressed, the 'monism of energy. '"[236:8]

The conception of energy seems, indeed, to afford an exceptionalopportunity to naturalism. We have seen that the matter-motion theorywas satisfied to ignore, or regard as insoluble, problems concerning theultimate causes of things. Furthermore, as we shall presently see tobetter advantage, the more strictly materialistic type of naturalismmust regard thought as an anomaly, and has no little difficulty withlife. But the conception of energy is more adaptable, and hence betterqualified to serve as a common denominator for various aspects ofexperience. The very readiness with which we can picture the corpuscularscheme is a source of embarrassment to the seeker after unity. Thatwhich is so distinct is bristling with incompatibilities. The mostaggressive materialist hesitates to describe thought as a motion ofbodies in space. Energy, on the other hand, exacts little if anythingbeyond the character of measurable power. Thought is at any rate in somesense a power, and to some degree measurable. Recent discoveries of thedependence of capacity for mental exertion upon physical vitality andmeasurements of chemical energy received into the system as food, andsomehow exhausted by the activities of thought, have lent plausibilityto the hypothesis of a universal energy of which physical and"psychical" processes are alike manifestations. And the conception ofenergy seems capable not only of unifying nature, but also of satisfyingthe metaphysical demand for an efficient and moving cause. This term, like "force" and "power, " is endowed with such a significance by commonsense. Indeed, naturalism would seem here to have swung round toward itshylozoistic starting-point. The exponent of energetics, like the naiveanimistic thinker, attributes to nature a power like that which he feelswelling up within himself. When he acts upon the environment, like meetslike. Energetics, it is true, may obtain a definite meaning for itscentral conception from the measurable behavior of external bodies, anda meaning that may be quite free from vitalism or teleology. But in hisextension of the conception the author of a philosophical energeticsabandons this strict meaning, and blends his thought even with a phaseof subjectivism, known as _panpsychism_. [238:9] This theory regards theinward life of all nature as homogeneous with an immediately feltactivity or appetency, as energetics finds the inner life to behomogeneous with the forces of nature. Both owe their philosophicalappeal to their apparent success in unifying the world upon a directempirical basis, and to their provision for the practical sense ofreality. 

Such, in brief, are the main alternatives available for a naturalistictheory of being, in consequence of the historical development of thefundamental conceptions of natural science. 

[Sidenote: The Claims of Naturalism. ]

§ 109. We turn now to an examination of the manner in which naturalism, equipped with working principles, seeks to meet the special requirementsof philosophy. The conception of the unity of nature is directly in theline of a purely scientific development, but naturalism takes the boldand radical step of regarding nature so unified as coextensive with thereal, or at any rate knowable, universe. It will be remembered thatamong the early Greeks Anaxagoras had referred the creative andformative processes of nature to a non-natural or rational agency, whichhe called the _Nous_. The adventitious character of this principle, theexternal and almost purely nominal part which it played in the actualcosmology of Anaxagoras, betrayed it into the hands of the atomists, with their more consistently naturalistic creed. Better, these maintain, the somewhat dogmatic extension of conceptions proved to be successfulin the description of nature, than a vague dualism which can serve onlyto distract the scientific attention and people the world withobscurities. There is a remarkable passage in Lucretius in which atomismis thus written large and inspired with cosmical eloquence:

 "For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of things station themselves each in its right place guided by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to say what motions each should assume, but because many in number and shifting about in many ways throughout the universe, they are driven and tormented by blows during infinite time past, after trying motions and unions of every kind at length they fall into arrangements such as those out of which our sum of things has been formed, and by which too it is preserved through many great years, when once it has been thrown into the appropriate motions, and causes the streams to replenish the greedy sea with copious river waters, and the earth, fostered by the heat of the sun, to renew its produce, and the race of living things to come up and flourish, and the gliding fires of ether to live: all which these several things could in no wise bring to pass, unless a store of matter could rise up from infinite space, out of which store they are wont to make up in due season whatever has been lost. "[240:10]

The prophecy of La Place, the great French mathematician, voices thesimilar faith of the eighteenth century in a mechanical understandingof the universe:

 "The human mind, in the perfection it has been able to give to astronomy, affords a feeble outline of such an intelligence. Its discoveries in mechanics and in geometry, joined to that of universal gravitation, have brought it within reach of comprehending in the same analytical expressions the past and future states of the system of the world. "[241:11]

As for God, the creative and presiding intelligence, La Place had "noneed of any such hypothesis. "

[Sidenote: The Task of Naturalism. ]

§ 110. But these are the boasts of Homeric heroes before going intobattle. The moment such a general position is assumed there arise sundrydifficulties in the application of naturalistic principles to specialinterests and groups of facts. It is one thing to project a mechanicalscheme in the large, but quite another to make explicit provision withinit for the origin of nature, for life, for the human self with itsideals, and for society with its institutions. The naturalistic methodof meeting these problems involves a reduction all along the line in thedirection of such categories as are derived from the infra-organicworld. That which is not like the planetary system must be construed asmechanical by indirection and subtlety. 

[Sidenote: The Origin of the Cosmos. ]

§ 111. The origin of the present known natural world was the firstphilosophical question to be definitely met by science. The general formof solution which naturalism offers is anticipated in the most ancienttheories of nature. These already suppose that the observed mechanicalprocesses of the circular or periodic type, like the revolutions androtations of the stars, are incidents in a historical mechanical processof a larger scale. Prior to the present fixed motions of the celestialbodies, the whole mass of cosmic matter participated in irregularmotions analogous to present terrestrial redistributions. Such motionsmay be understood to have resulted in the integration of separatebodies, to which they at the same time imparted a rotary motion. It issuch a hypothesis that Lucretius paints in his bold, impressionisticcolors. 

But the development of mechanics paved the way for a definite scientifictheory, the so-called "nebular hypothesis, " announced by La Place in1796, and by the philosopher Kant at a still earlier date. Largelythrough the Newtonian principle of the parallelogram of forces, thepresent masses, orbits, and velocities were analyzed into a moreprimitive process of concentration within a nebulous or highly diffusedaggregate of matter. And with the aid of the principle of theconservation of energy this theory appears to make possible thederivation of heat, light, and other apparently non-mechanical processesfrom the same original energy of motion. 

But a persistently philosophical mind at once raises the question of theorigin of this primeval nebula itself, with a definite organization anda vast potential energy that must, after all, be regarded as a part ofnature rather than its source. Several courses are here open tonaturalism. It may maintain that the question of ultimate origin isunanswerable; it may regard such a process of concentration as extendingback through an infinitely long past;[243:12] or, and this is thefavorite alternative for more constructive minds, the historicalcosmical process may be included within a still higher type of periodicprocess, which is regarded as eternal. This last course has beenfollowed in the well-known synthetic naturalism of Herbert Spencer. "Evolution, " he says, "is the progressive integration of matter anddissipation of motion. " But such a process eventually runs down, and maybe conceived as giving place to a counter-process of devolution whichscatters the parts of matter and gathers another store of potentialmotion. The two processes in alternation will then constitute a cosmicalsystem without beginning or end. 

In such wise a sweeping survey of the physical universe may be thoughtin the terms of natural science. The uniformitarian method in geology, resolving the history of the crust of the earth into known processes, such as erosion and igneous fusion;[244:13] and spectral analysis, withits discoveries concerning the chemical constituents of distant bodiesthrough the study of their light, have powerfully reënforced this effortof thought, and apparently completed an outline sketch of the universein terms of infra-organic processes. 

[Sidenote: Life. Natural Selection. ]

§ 112. But the cosmos must be made internally homogeneous in these sameterms. There awaits solution, in the first place, the serious problem ofthe genesis and maintenance of life within a nature that is originallyand ultimately inorganic. The assimilation of the field of biology andphysiology to the mechanical cosmos had made little real progress priorto the nineteenth century. Mechanical theories had, indeed, beenprojected in the earliest age of philosophy, and proposed anew in theseventeenth century. [245:14] Nevertheless, the structural and functionalteleology of the organism remained as apparently irrefutable testimonyto the inworking of some principle other than that of mechanicalnecessity. Indeed, the only fruitful method applicable to organicphenomena was that which explained them in terms of purposiveadaptation. And it was its provision for a mechanical interpretation ofthis very principle that gave to the Darwinian _law of naturalselection_, promulgated in 1859 in the "Origin of Species, " so profounda significance for naturalism. It threatened to reduce the laststronghold of teleology, and completely to dispense with the intelligentAuthor of nature. 

Darwin's hypothesis sought to explain the origin of animal species bysurvival under competitive conditions of existence through thepossession of a structure suited to the environment. Only the mostelementary organism need be presupposed, together with slight variationsin the course of subsequent generations, and both may be conceived toarise mechanically. There will then result in surviving organisms agradual accumulation of such variations as promote survival under thespecial conditions of the environment. Such a principle had beensuggested as early as the time of Empedocles, but it remained for Darwinto establish it with an unanswerable array of observation andexperimentation. If any organism whatsoever endowed with the power ofgeneration be allowed to have somehow come to be, naturalism nowpromises to account for the whole subsequent history of organicphenomena and the origin of any known species. 

[Sidenote: Mechanical Physiology. ]

§ 113. But what of life itself? The question of the derivation oforganic from inorganic matter has proved insoluble by direct means, andthe case of naturalism must here rest upon such facts as the chemicalhomogeneity of these two kinds of matter, and the conformity ofphysiological processes to more general physical laws. Organic matterdiffers from inorganic only through the presence of proteid, a peculiarproduct of known elements, which cannot be artificially produced, butwhich is by natural means perpetually dissolved into these elementswithout any discoverable residuum. Respiration may be studied as a caseof aerodynamics, the circulation of the blood as a case ofhydrodynamics, and the heat given off in the course of work done by thebody as a case of thermodynamics. And although vitalistic theories stillretain a place in physiology, as do teleological theories in biology, onthe whole the naturalistic programme of a reduction of organic processesto the type of the inorganic tends to prevail. 

[Sidenote: Mind. The Reduction to Sensation. ]

§ 114. The history of naturalism shows that, as in the case of life, soalso in the case of _mind_, its hypotheses were projected by the Greeks, but precisely formulated and verified only in the modern period ofscience. In the philosophy of Democritus the soul was itself an atom, finer, rounder, and smoother than the ordinary, but thoroughly a part ofthe mechanism of nature. The processes of the soul are construed asinteractions between the soul and surrounding objects. In sensation, thething perceived produces images by means of effluxes which impinge uponthe soul-atom. These images are not true reports of the outer world, butmust be revised by thought before its real atomic structure emerges. For this higher critical exercise of thought Democritus devised nospecial atomic genesis. The result may be expressed either as theinvalidity of such operations of mind as he could provide for in hisuniverse, or the irreducibility to his chosen first principles of thevery thought which defined them. Later naturalism has generallysacrificed epistemology to cosmology, and reduced thought to sensation. Similarly, will has been regarded as a highly developed case ofinstinct. Knowledge and will, construed as sensation and instinct, maythus be interpreted in the naturalistic manner within the field ofbiology. 

[Sidenote: Automatism. ]

§ 115. But the actual content of sensation, and the actual feelingswhich attend upon the promptings of instinct, still stubbornly testifyto the presence in the universe of something belonging to a whollydifferent category from matter and motion. The attitude of naturalism inthis crucial issue has never been fixed and unwavering, but there hasgradually come to predominate a method of denying to the inner life allefficacy and real significance in the cosmos, while admitting itspresence on the scene. It is a strange fact of history that Descartes, the French philosopher who prided himself on having rid the soul of alldependence on nature, should have greatly contributed to this method. But it is perhaps not so strange when we consider that every dualism is, after all, symmetrical, and that consequently whatever rids the soul ofnature at the same time rids nature of the soul. It was Descartes whofirst conceived the body and soul to be utterly distinct substances. Thecorollary to this doctrine was his _automatism_, applied in his ownsystem to animals other than man, but which those less concerned withreligious tradition and less firmly convinced of the soul's originatingactivity were not slow to apply universally. This theory conceived thevital processes to take place quite regardless of any innerconsciousness, or even without its attendance. To this radical theorythe French materialists of the eighteenth century were especiallyattracted. With them the active soul of Descartes, the distinctspiritual entity, disappeared. This latter author had himself admitted adepartment of the self, which he called the "passions, " in which thecourse and content of mind is determined by bodily conditions. Extendingthis conception to the whole province of mind, they employed it todemonstrate the thorough-going subordination of mind to body. LaMettrie, a physician and the author of a book entitled "L'HommeMachine, " was first interested in this thesis by a fever delirium, andafterward adduced anatomical and pathological data in support of it. Theangle from which he views human life is well illustrated in thefollowing:

 "What would have sufficed in the case of Julius Cæsar, of Seneca, of Petronius, to turn their fearlessness into timidity or braggartry? An obstruction in the spleen, the liver, or the _vena portae_. For the imagination is intimately connected with these viscera, and from them arise all the curious phenomena of hypochondria and hysteria. . . . 'A mere nothing, a little fibre, some trifling thing that the most subtle anatomy cannot discover, would have made two idiots out of Erasmus and Fontenelle. '"[250:15]

[Sidenote: Radical Materialism. Mind as an Epiphenomenon. ]

§ 116. The extreme claim that the soul is a physical organ of the body, identical with the brain, marked the culmination of this militantmaterialism, so good an instance of that over-simplification andwhole-hearted conviction characteristic of the doctrinaire propagandismof France. Locke, the Englishman, had admitted that possibly thesubstance which thinks is corporeal. In the letters of Voltaire thisthought has already found a more positive expression:

 "I am body, and I think; more I do not know. Shall I then attribute to an unknown cause what I can so easily attribute to the only fruitful cause I am acquainted with? In fact, where is the man who, without an absurd godlessness, dare assert that it is impossible for the Creator to endow matter with thought and feeling?"[251:16]

Finally, Holbach, the great systematizer of this movement, takes theaffair out of the hands of the Creator and definitively announces that"a sensitive soul is nothing but a human brain so constituted that iteasily receives the motions communicated to it. "[251:17]

This theory has been considerably tempered since the age of Holbach. Naturalism has latterly been less interested in identifying the soulwith the body, and more interested in demonstrating its dependence uponspecific bodily conditions, after the manner of La Mettrie. Theso-called higher faculties, such as thought and will, have been relatedto central or _cortical_ processes of the nervous system, processes ofconnection and complication which within the brain itself supplement theimpulses and sensations congenitally and externally stimulated. Theterm "epiphenomenon" has been adopted to express the distinctness butentire dependence of the mind. Man is "a conscious automaton. " The realcourse of nature passes through his nervous system, while consciousnessattends upon its functions like a shadow, present but notefficient. [252:18]

[Sidenote: Knowledge, Positivism and Agnosticism. ]

§ 117. Holbach's "Système de la Nature, " published in 1770, marks theculmination of the unequivocally materialistic form of naturalism. Itsepistemological difficulties, always more or less in evidence, havesince that day sufficed to discredit materialism, and to foster thegrowth of a critical and apologetic form of naturalism known as_positivism_ or _agnosticism_. The modesty of this doctrine does not, itis true, strike very deep. For, although it disclaims knowledge ofultimate reality, it also forbids anyone else to have any. Knowledge, itaffirms, can be of but one type, that which comprises the verifiablelaws governing nature. All questions concerning first causes arefutile, a stimulus only to excursions of fancy popularly mistaken forknowledge. The superior certainty and stability which attaches tonatural science is to be permanently secured by the savant's steadfastrefusal to be led away after the false gods of metaphysics. 

But though this is sufficient ground for an agnostic policy, it doesprove an agnostic theory. The latter has sprung from a closer analysisof knowledge, though it fails to make a very brave showing forthoroughness and consistency. The crucial point has already been broughtwithin our view. The general principles of naturalism require thatknowledge shall be reduced to sensations, or impressions of theenvironment upon the organism. But the environment and the sensations donot correspond. The environment is matter and motion, force and energy;the sensations are of motions, to be sure, but much more conspicuouslyof colors, sounds, odors, pleasures, and pains. Critically, this may beexpressed by saying that since the larger part of sense-perception is sounmistakably subjective, and since all knowledge alike must be derivedfrom this source, knowledge as a whole must be regarded as dealing onlywith appearances. There are at least three agnostic methods progressingfrom this point. All agree that the inner or essential reality isunfathomable. But, in the first place, those most close to the traditionof materialism maintain that the most significant appearances, theprimary qualities, are those which compose a purely quantitative andcorporeal world. The inner essence of things may at any rate be_approached_ by a monism of matter or of energy. This theory isepistemological only to the extent of moderating its claims in the hopeof lessening its responsibility. Another agnosticism places all sensequalities on a par, but would regard physics and psychology ascomplementary reports upon the two distinct series of phenomena in whichthe underlying reality expresses itself. This theory is epistemologicalto the extent of granting knowledge, viewed as perception, as good astanding in the universe as that which is accorded to its object. Butsuch a dualism tends almost irresistibly to relapse into materialisticmonism, because of the fundamental place of physical conceptions in thesystem of the sciences. Finally, in another and a more radical phase ofagnosticism, we find an attempt to make full provision for thelegitimate problems of epistemology. The only datum, the only existentaccessible to knowledge, is said to be the sensation, or state ofconsciousness. In the words of Huxley:

 "What, after all, do we know of this terrible 'matter' except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness? And what do we know of that 'spirit' over whose threatened extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, . . . Except that it is also a name for an unknown and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness?"[255:19]

The physical world is now to be regarded as a construction which doesnot assimilate to itself the content of sensations, but enables one toanticipate them. The sensation signifies a contact to which science canprovide a key for practical guidance. 

[Sidenote: Experimentalism. ]

§ 118. This last phase of naturalism is an attempt to state a pure andconsistent experimentalism, a workable theory of the routine ofsensations. But it commonly falls into the error of the vicious circle. The hypothetical cause of sensations is said to be matter. From thispoint of view the sensation is a complex, comprising elaborate physicaland physiological processes. But these processes themselves, on theother hand, are said to be analyzable into sensations. Now two suchmethods of analysis cannot be equally ultimate. If all of reality isfinally reducible to sensations, then the term sensation must be usedin a new sense to connote a self-subsistent being, and can no longerrefer merely to a function of certain physiological processes. The issueof this would be some form of idealism or of the experience-philosophythat is now coming so rapidly to the front. [256:20] But while it is truethat idealism has sometimes been intended, and that a radically newphilosophy of experience has sometimes been closely approached, those, nevertheless, who have developed experimentalism from the naturalisticstand-point have in reality achieved only a thinly disguisedmaterialism. For _the very ground of their agnosticism ismaterialistic_. [256:21] Knowledge of reality itself is said to beunattainable, because knowledge, in order to come within the order ofnature, must be regarded as reducible to sensation; and becausesensation itself, when regarded as a part of nature, is only aphysiological process, a special phenomenon, in no way qualified to beknowledge that is true of reality. 

[Sidenote: Naturalistic Epistemology not Systematic. ]

§ 119. Perhaps, after all, it would be as fair to the spirit ofnaturalism to relieve it of responsibility for an epistemology. It hasnever thoroughly reckoned with this problem. It has deliberatelyselected from among the elements of experience, and been so highlyconstructive in its method as to forfeit its claim to pure empiricism;and, on the other hand, has, in this same selection of categories and inits insistence upon the test of experiment, fallen short of athorough-going rationalism. While, on the one hand, it defines andconstructs, it does so, on the other hand, within the field ofperception and with constant reference to the test of perception. Theexplanation and justification of this procedure is to be found in theaim of natural science rather than in that of philosophy. It is thisspecial interest, rather than the general problem of being, thatdetermines the order of its categories. Naturalism as an account ofreality is acceptable only so far as its success in satisfying specificdemands obtains for it a certain logical immunity. These demands areunquestionably valid and fundamental, but they are not coextensive withthe demand for truth. They coincide rather with the immediate practicalneed of a formulation of the spacial and temporal changes that confrontthe will. Hence naturalism is acceptable to common-sense as an accountof what the every-day attitude to the environment treats as its object. Naturalism is common-sense about the "outer world, " revised and broughtup to date with the aid of the results of science. Its deepest spring isthe organic instinct for the reality of the tangible, the vitalrecognition of the significance of that which is on the plane ofinteraction with the body. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: General Ethical Stand-point. ]

§ 120. Oddly enough, although common-sense is ready to intrust tonaturalism the description of the situation of life, it prefers to dealotherwise with its ideals. Indeed, common-sense is not without a certainsuspicion that naturalism is the advocate of moral reversion. It isrecognized as the prophecy of the brute majority of life, of thoseconsiderations of expediency and pleasure that are the warrant for itssecular moods rather than for its sustaining ideals. And that strand oflife is indeed its special province. For the naturalistic method ofreduction must find the key to human action among those practicalconditions that are common to man and his inferiors in the scale ofbeing. In short, human life, like all life, must be construed as theadjustment of the organism to its natural environment for the sake ofpreservation and economic advancement. 

[Sidenote: Cynicism and Cyrenaicism. ]

§ 121. Early in Greek philosophy this general idea of life waspicturesquely interpreted in two contrasting ways, those of the Cynicand the Cyrenaic. Both of these wise men postulated the spiritualindifference of the universe at large, and looked only to the _contact_of life with its immediate environment. But while the one hoped only tohedge himself about, the other sought confidently the gratification ofhis sensibilities. The figure of the Cynic is the more familiar. Diogenes of the tub practised self-mortification until his dermal andspiritual callousness were alike impervious. From behind his protectivesheath he could without affectation despise both nature and society. Hecould reckon himself more blessed than Alexander, because, with demandreduced to the minimum, he could be sure of a surplus of supply. Havingrenounced all goods save the bare necessities of life, he could neglectboth promises and threats and be played upon by no one. He was securelyintrenched within himself, an unfurnished habitation, but the citadel ofa king. The Cyrenaic, on the other hand, did not seek to make imperviousthe surface of contact with nature and society, but sought to heightenits sensibility, that it might become a medium of pleasurable feeling. For the inspiration with which it may be pursued this ideal has nowherebeen more eloquently set forth than in the pages of Walter Pater, whostyles himself "the new Cyrenaic. "

 "Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

 To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstacy, is success in life. . . . While all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colors, and curious odors, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. "[261:22]

[Sidenote: Development of Utilitarianism. Evolutionary Conception ofSocial Relations. ]

§ 122. In the course of modern philosophy the ethics of naturalism hasundergone a transformation and development that equip it much moreformidably for its competition with rival theories. If the Cynic andCyrenaic philosophies of life seem too egoistic and narrow in outlook, this inadequacy has been largely overcome through the modern conceptionof the relation of the individual to society. Man is regarded as sodependent upon social relations that it is both natural and rational forhim to govern his actions with a concern for the community. There was atime when this relation of dependence was viewed as external, a barterof goods between the individual and society, sanctioned by an impliedcontract. Thomas Hobbes, whose unblushing materialism and egoismstimulated by opposition the whole development of English ethics, conceived morality to consist in rules of action which condition thestability of the state, and so secure for the individual that "peace"which self-interest teaches him is essential to his welfare. 

 "And therefore so long a man is in the condition of mere nature, which is a condition of war, as private appetite is the measure of good and evil: and consequently all men agree on this, that peace is good, and therefore also the ways or means of peace, which, as I have showed before, are 'justice, ' 'gratitude, ' 'modesty, ' 'equity, ' 'mercy, ' and the rest of the laws of Nature, are good; that is to say, 'moral virtues'; and their contrary 'vices, ' evil. "[262:23]

Jeremy Bentham, the apostle of utilitarianism in the eighteenth century, defined political and social sanctions through which the individualcould purchase security and good repute with action conducive to thecommon welfare. But the nineteenth century has understood the matterbetter--and the idea of an evolution under conditions that select andreject, is here again the illuminating thought. No individual, evolutionary naturalism maintains, has survived the perils of lifewithout possessing as an inalienable part of his nature, congenital likehis egoism, certain impulses and instinctive desires in the interest ofthe community as a whole. The latest generation of a race whoseperpetuation has been conditioned by a capacity to sustain socialrelations and make common cause against a more external environment, _is_ moral, and does not adopt morality in the course of a calculatingegoism. Conscience is the racial instinct of self-preservation utteringitself in the individual member, who draws his very life-blood from thegreater organism. 

[Sidenote: Naturalistic Ethics not Systematic. ]

§ 123. This latest word of naturalistic ethics has not won acceptanceas the last word in ethics, and this in spite of its indubitable truthwithin its scope. For the deeper ethical interest seeks not so much toaccount for the moral nature as to construe and justify its promptings. The evolutionary theory reveals the genesis of conscience, anddemonstrates its continuity with nature, but this falls as far short ofrealizing the purpose of ethical study as a history of the naturalgenesis of thought would fall short of logic. Indeed, naturalism showshere, as in the realm of epistemology, a persistent failure toappreciate the central problem. Its acceptance as a philosophy, we areagain reminded, can be accounted for only on the score of its genuinelyrudimentary character. As a rudimentary phase of thought it is bothindispensable and inadequate. It is the philosophy of instinct, whichshould in normal development precede a philosophy of reason, in which itis eventually assimilated and supplemented. 

[Sidenote: Naturalism as Antagonistic to Religion. ]

§ 124. There is, finally, an inspiration for life which this philosophyof naturalism may convey--atheism, its detractors would call it, butnone the less a faith and a spiritual exaltation that spring from itssumming up of truth. It is well first to realize that which isdispiriting in it, its failure to provide for the freedom, immortality, and moral providence of the more sanguine faith. 

 "For what is man looked at from this point of view? . . . Man, so far as natural science by itself is able to teach us, is no longer the final cause of the universe, the Heaven-descended heir of all the ages. His very existence is an accident, his story a brief and transitory episode in the life of one of the meanest of the planets. Of the combination of causes which first converted a dead organic compound into the living progenitors of humanity, science, indeed, as yet knows nothing. It is enough that from such beginnings famine, disease, and mutual slaughter, fit nurses of the future lords of creation, have gradually evolved, after infinite travail, a race with conscience enough to feel that it is vile, and intelligence enough to know that it is insignificant. . . . We sound the future, and learn that after a period, long compared with the individual life, but short indeed compared with the divisions of time open to our investigation, the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. 'Imperishable monuments' and 'immortal deeds, ' death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. Nor will anything that _is_ be better or be worse for all that the labor, genius, devotion, and suffering of man have striven through countless generations to effect. "[265:24]

[Sidenote: Naturalism as the Basis for a Religion of Service, Wonder, and Renunciation. ]

§ 125. But though our philosopher must accept the truth of this terriblepicture, he is not left without spiritual resources. The abstractreligion provided for the agnostic faithful by Herbert Spencer does not, it is true, afford any nourishment to the religious nature. He wouldhave men look for a deep spring of life in the negative idea of mystery, the apotheosis of ignorance, while religious faith to live at all mustlay hold upon reality. But there does spring from naturalism a positivereligion, whose fundamental motives are those of service, wonder, andrenunciation: service of humanity in the present, wonder at the naturaltruth, and renunciation of a universe keyed to vibrate with humanideals. 

 "Have you, " writes Charles Ferguson, "had dreams of Nirvana and sickly visions and raptures? Have you imagined that the end of your life is to be absorbed back into the life of God, and to flee the earth and forget all? Or do you want to walk on air, or fly on wings, or build a heavenly city in the clouds? Come, let us take our kit on our shoulders, and go out and build the city _here_. "[265:25]

For Haeckel "natural religion" is such as

 "the astonishment with which we gaze upon the starry heavens and the microscopic life in a drop of water, the awe with which we trace the marvellous working of energy in the motion of matter, the reverence with which we grasp the universal dominance of the law of substance throughout the universe. "[266:26]

There is a deeper and a sincerer note in the stout, forlorn humanism ofHuxley:

 "That which lies before the human race is a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to the State of Nature, the State of Art of an organized polity; in which, and by which, man may develop a worthy civilization, capable of maintaining and constantly improving itself, until the evolution of our globe shall have entered so far upon its downward course that the cosmic process resumes its sway; and, once more, the State of Nature prevails over the surface of our planet. "[266:27]

FOOTNOTES:

[223:1] PRELIMINARY NOTE. --By _naturalism_ is meant that system ofphilosophy which defines the universe in the terms of _natural science_. In its dogmatic phase, wherein it maintains that _being is corporeal_, it is called _materialism_. In its critical phase, wherein it makes thegeneral assertion that the natural sciences constitute the only_possible knowledge_, whatever be the nature of reality itself, it iscalled _positivism_, _agnosticism_, or simply _naturalism_. 

[226:2] Lucretius: _De Rerum Natura_, Bk. II, lines 569-580. Translationby Munro. 

[229:3] The reader will find an interesting account of these opposingviews in Locke's chapter on _Space_, in his _Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding_. 

[230:4] Descartes distinguished his theory from that of Democritus inthe _Principles of Philosophy_, Part IV, § ccii. 

[231:5] Pearson: _Grammar of Science_, pp. 259-260. Cf. _ibid. _, Chap. VII, entire. 

[232:6] Quoted in Ueberweg: _History of Philosophy_, II, p. 124. 

[233:7] Quoted from the _Opticks_ of Newton by James Ward, in his_Naturalism and Agnosticism_, I, p. 43. 

[236:8] Haeckel: _Riddle of the Universe_. Translation by McCabe, p. 254. 

The best systematic presentation of "energetics" is to be found inOstwald's _Vorlesungen über Natur-Philosophie_. Herbert Spencer, in hiswell-known _First Principles_, makes philosophical use of both "force"and "energy. "

[238:9] Cf. Chap. IX. 

[240:10] Lucretius: _Op. Cit. _, Bk. I, lines 1021-1237. 

[241:11] Quoted from La Place's essay on _Probability_ by Ward: _Op. Cit. _, I, p. 41. 

[243:12] An interesting account and criticism of such a theory(Clifford's) is to be found in Royce's _Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, Lecture X. 

[244:13] This method replaced the old theory of "catastrophes" throughthe efforts of the English geologists, Hutton (1726-1797) and Lyell(1767-1849). 

[245:14] Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, publishedin 1628, was regarded as a step in this direction. 

[250:15] From the account of La Mettrie in Lange: _History ofMaterialism_. Translation by Thomas, II, pp. 67-68. 

[251:16] Quoted from Voltaire's London _Letter on the English_, byLange: _Op. Cit. _, II, p. 18. 

[251:17] Quoted by Lange: _Op. Cit. _, II, p. 113. 

[252:18] The phrase "psycho-physical parallelism, " current inpsychology, may mean automatism of the kind expounded above, and mayalso mean dualism. It is used commonly as a methodological principle tosignify that no causal relationship between mind and body, but one of_correspondence_, is to be looked for in empirical psychology. Cf. § 99. 

[255:19] Quoted by Ward: _Op. Cit. _, I, p. 18. 

[256:20] There are times when Huxley, _e. G. _, would seem to be on theverge of the Berkeleyan idealism. Cf. Chap. IX. 

[256:21] For the case of Karl Pearson, read his _Grammar of Science_, Chap. II. 

[261:22] Pater: _The Renaissance_, pp. 249-250. 

[262:23] Hobbes: _Leviathan, _ Chap. XV. 

[265:24] Quoted from Balfour: _Foundations of Belief_, pp. 29-31. 

[265:25] Ferguson: _Religion of Democracy_, p. 10. 

[266:26] Haeckel: _Op. Cit. _, p. 344. 

[266:27] Huxley: _Evolution and Ethics_, p. 45. _Collected Essays_, Vol. IX. 

CHAPTER IX

SUBJECTIVISM[267:1]

[Sidenote: Subjectivism Originally Associated with Relativism andScepticism. ]

§ 126. When, in the year 1710, Bishop Berkeley maintained the thesis ofempirical idealism, having rediscovered it and announced it with ajustifiable sense of originality, he provoked a kind of criticaljudgment that was keenly annoying if not entirely surprising to him. Inrefuting the conception of material substance and demonstrating thedependence of being upon mind, he at once sought, as he did repeatedlyin later years, to establish the world of practical belief, and so toreconcile metaphysics and common-sense. Yet he found himself hailed as afool and a sceptic. In answer to an inquiry concerning the reception ofhis book in London, his friend Sir John Percival wrote as follows:

 "I did but name the subject matter of your book of _Principles_ to some ingenious friends of mine and they immediately treated it with ridicule, at the same time refusing to read it, which I have not yet got one to do. A physician of my acquaintance undertook to discover your person, and argued you must needs be mad, and that you ought to take remedies. A bishop pitied you, that a desire of starting something new should put you upon such an undertaking. Another told me that you are not gone so far as another gentleman in town, who asserts not only that there is no such thing as Matter, but that we ourselves have no being at all. "[268:2]

There can be no doubt but that the idea of the dependence of real thingsupon their appearance to the individual is a paradox to common-sense. Itis a paradox because it seems to reverse the theoretical instinctitself, and to define the real in those very terms which disciplinedthought learns to neglect. In the early history of thought the nature ofthe thinker himself is recognized as that which is likely to distorttruth rather than that which conditions it. When the wise man, thedevotee of truth, first makes his appearance, his authority isacknowledged because he has renounced himself. As witness of theuniversal being he purges himself of whatever is peculiar to his ownindividuality, or even to his human nature. In the aloofness of hismeditation he escapes the cloud of opinion and prejudice that obscuresthe vision of the common man. In short, the element of belief dependentupon the thinker himself is the dross which must be refined away inorder to obtain the pure truth. When, then, in the critical epoch of theGreek sophists, Protagoras declares that there is no belief that is notof this character, his philosophy is promptly recognized as scepticism. Protagoras argues that sense qualities are clearly dependent upon theactual operations of the senses, and that all knowledge reducesultimately to these terms. 

 "The senses are variously named hearing, seeing, smelling; there is the sense of heat, cold, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, and many more which are named, as well as innumerable others which have no name; _with each of them there is born an object of sense_, --all sorts of colors born with all sorts of sight and sounds in like manner with hearing, and other objects with the other senses. "[269:3]

If the objects are "born with" the senses, it follows that they are bornwith and appertain to the individual perceiver. 

 "Either show, if you can, that our sensations are not relative and individual, or, if you admit that they are individual, prove that this does not involve the consequence that the appearance becomes, or, if you like to say, is to the individual only. "[270:4]

The same motif is thus rendered by Walter Pater in the Conclusion of his"Renaissance":

 "At first sight experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action. But when reflexion begins to act upon those objects they are dissipated under its influence; the cohesive force seems suspended like a trick of magic; each object is loosed into a group of impressions--color, odor, texture--in the mind of the observer. . . . Experience, already reduced to a swarm of impressions, is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every one of these impressions is the impression of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world. "

The Protagorean generalization is due to the reflection that allexperience is some individual experience, that no subject of discourseescapes the imputation of belonging to some individual's privatehistory. The individual must start with his own experiences and ideas, and he can never get beyond them, for he cannot see outside his ownvision, or even think outside his own mind. The scepticism of thistheory is explicit, and the formulas of Protagoras--the famous "_Man isthe measure of all things_, " and the more exact formula, "_The truth iswhat appears to each man at each time_"[271:5]--have been the articlesof scepticism throughout the history of thought. 

[Sidenote: Phenomenalism and Spiritualism. ]

§ 127. There is, therefore, nothing really surprising in the receptionaccorded the "new philosophy" of Bishop Berkeley. A sceptical relativismis the earliest phase of subjectivism, and its avoidance at once becomesthe most urgent problem of any philosophy which proposes to proceedforth from this principle. And this problem Berkeley meets with greatadroitness and a wise recognition of difficulties. But his sanguinetemperament and speculative interest impel him to what he regards as theextension of his first principle, the reintroduction of the conceptionof substance under the form of spirit, and of the objective order ofnature under the form of the mind of God. In short, there are twomotives at work in him, side by side: the epistemological motive, restricting reality to perceptions and thoughts, and themetaphysical-religious motive, leading him eventually to the definitionof reality in terms of perceiving and thinking spirits. And from thetime of Berkeley these two principles, _phenomenalism_ and_spiritualism_, have remained as distinct and alternating phases ofsubjectivism. The former is its critical and dialectical conception, thelatter its constructive and practical conception. 

[Sidenote: Phenomenalism as Maintained by Berkeley. The ProblemInherited from Descartes and Locke. ]

§ 128. As _phenomenalism_ has its classic statement and proof in thewritings of Berkeley, we shall do well to return to these. The fact thatthis philosopher wished to be regarded as the prophet of common-sensehas already been mentioned. This purpose reveals itself explicitly inthe series of "Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. " The form in whichBerkeley here advances his thesis is further determined by the manner inwhich the lines were drawn in his day of thought. The world ofenlightened public opinion was then threefold, consisting of God, physical nature, and the soul. In the early years of the seventeenthcentury Descartes had sharply distinguished between the twosubstances--mind, with its attribute of thought; and body, with itsattribute of extension--and divided the finite world between them. Godwas regarded as the infinite and sustaining cause of both. Stated in theterms of epistemology, the object of clear thinking is the physicalcosmos, the subject of clear thinking the immortal soul. The realm ofperception, wherein the mind is subjected to the body, embarrasses theCartesian system, and has no clear title to any place in it. And withoutattaching cognitive importance to this realm, the system is utterlydogmatic in its epistemology. [273:6] For what one substance thinks, mustbe assumed to be somehow true of another quite independent substancewithout any medium of communication. Now between Descartes and Berkeleyappeared the sober and questioning "Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding, " by John Locke. This is an interesting combination (theycannot be said to blend) of traditional metaphysics and revolutionaryepistemology. The universe still consists of God, the immortal thinkingsoul, and a corporeal nature, the object of its thought. But, except forcertain proofs of God and self, knowledge is entirely reduced to theperceptual type, to sensations, or ideas directly imparted to the mindby the objects themselves. To escape dogmatism it is maintained thatthe real is what is _observed to be present_. But Locke thinks thequalities so discovered belong in part to the perceiver and in part tothe substance outside the mind. Color is a case of the former, a"secondary quality"; and extension a case of the latter, a "primaryquality. " And evidently the above empirical test of knowledge is notequally well met in these two cases. When I see a red object I know thatred exists, for it is observed to be present, and I make no claim for itbeyond the present. But when I note that the red object is square, I amsupposed to know a property that will continue to exist in the objectafter I have closed my eyes or turned to something else. Here my claimexceeds my observation, and the empirical principle adopted at theoutset would seem to be violated. Berkeley develops his philosophy fromthis criticism. His refutation of material substance is intended as afull acceptance of the implications of the new empirical epistemology. Knowledge is to be all of the perceptual type, where what is known isdirectly presented; and, in conformity with this principle, being is tobe restricted to the content of the living pulses of experience. 

[Sidenote: The Refutation of Material Substance. ]

§ 129. Berkeley, then, beginning with the threefold world of Descartesand of common-sense, proposes to apply Locke's theory of knowledge tothe discomfiture of corporeal nature. It was a radical doctrine, becauseit meant for him and for his contemporaries the denial of all finiteobjects outside the mind. But at the same time it meant a restoration ofthe homogeneity of experience, the reëstablishment of the qualitativeworld of every-day living, and so had its basis of appeal tocommon-sense. The encounter between Hylas, the advocate of thetraditional philosophy, and Philonous, who represents the authorhimself, begins with an exchange of the charge of innovation. 

 _Hyl. _ I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I heard of you. 

 _Phil. _ Pray, what were those?

 _Hyl. _ You were represented, in last night's conversation, as one who maintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mind of man, to wit, that there is no such thing as _material substance_ in the world. 

 _Phil. _ That there is no such thing as what _philosophers_ call _material substance_, I am seriously persuaded: but if I were made to see anything absurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion. 

 _Hyl. _ What! can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common-Sense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as _matter_?

 _Phil. _ Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who hold there is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintain more paradoxes and repugnances to Common-Sense, than I who believe no such thing?[276:7]

Philonous now proceeds with his case. Beginning by obtaining from Hylasthe admission that pleasure and pain are essentially relative andsubjective, he argues that sensations such as heat, since they areinseparable from these feelings, must be similarly regarded. And he isabout to annex other qualities in turn to this core of subjectivity, when Hylas enters a general demurrer:

 "Hold, Philonous, I now see what it was deluded me all this time. You asked me whether heat and cold, sweetness and bitterness, were not particular sorts of pleasure and pain; to which I answered simply that they were. Whereas I should have thus distinguished:--those qualities as perceived by us, are pleasures or pains; but not as existing in the external objects. We must not therefore conclude absolutely, that there is no heat in the fire, or sweetness in the sugar, but only that heat or sweetness, as perceived by us, are not in the fire or sugar. "[276:8]

[Sidenote: The Application of the Epistemological Principle. ]

§ 130. Here the argument touches upon profound issues. Philonous nowassumes the extreme empirical contention _that knowledge applies only toits own psychological moment, that its object in no way extends beyondthat individual situation which we call the state of knowing_. The fullimport of such an epistemology Berkeley never recognized, but he isclearly employing it here, and the overthrow of Hylas is inevitable solong as he does not challenge it or turn it against his opponent. This, however, as a protagonist of Berkeley's own making, he fails to do, andhe plays into Philonous's hands by admitting that what is known only inperception must for that reason _consist_ in perception. He frankly owns"that it is vain to stand out any longer, " that "colors, sounds, tastes, in a word, all those termed _secondary qualities_, have certainly noexistence without the mind. "[277:9]

Hylas has now arrived at the distinction between primary and secondaryqualities. "Extension, Figure, Solidity, Gravity, Motion, and Rest" arethe attributes of an external substance which is the cause ofsensations. But the same epistemological principle readily reduces thesealso to dependence on mind, for, like the secondary qualities, theircontent is given only in perception. Hylas is then driven to defend ageneral material substratum, which is the cause of ideas, but to whichnone of the definite content of these ideas can be attributed. In short, he has put all the content of knowledge on the one side, and admittedits inseparability from the perceiving spirit, and left the being ofthings standing empty and forlorn on the other. This amounts, asPhilonous reminds him, to the denial of the reality of the known world. 

 "You are therefore, by your principles, forced to deny the _reality_ of sensible things; since you made it to consist in an absolute existence exterior to the mind. That is to say, you are a downright sceptic. So I have gained my point, which was to show your principles led to Scepticism. "[278:10]

[Sidenote: The Refutation of a Conceived Corporeal World. ]

§ 131. Having advanced the direct empiricist argument for phenomenalism, Berkeley now gives the rationalistic motive an opportunity to expressitself in the queries of Hylas as to whether there be not an "absoluteextension, " somehow abstracted by thought from the relativities ofperception. Is there not at least a _conceivable_ world independent ofperception?

The answers of Philonous throw much light upon the Berkeleyan position. He admits that thought is capable of separating the primary from thesecondary qualities in certain _operations_, but at the same time deniesthat this is forming an idea of them as separate. 

 "I acknowledge, Hylas, it is not difficult to form general propositions and reasonings about those qualities, without mentioning any other; and, in this sense, to consider or treat of them abstractedly. But, how doth it follow that, because I can pronounce the word _motion_ by itself, I can form the idea of it in my mind exclusive of body? or, because theorems may be made of extension and figures, without any mention of _great_ or _small_, or any other sensible mode or quality, that therefore it is possible such an abstract idea of extension, without any particular size or figure, or sensible quality, should be distinctly formed, and apprehended by the mind? Mathematicians treat of quantity, without regarding what other sensible qualities it is attended with, as being altogether indifferent to their demonstrations. But, when laying aside the words, they contemplate the bare ideas, I believe you will find, they are not the pure abstracted ideas of extension. "[279:11]

Berkeley denies that we have ideas of pure extension or motion, because, although we do actually _deal_ with these and find them intelligible, wecan never obtain a state of mind in which they appear as the content. Heapplies this psychological test because of his adherence to the generalempirical postulate that knowledge is limited to the individual contentof its own individual states. "It is a universally received maxim, " hesays, "that _everything which exists is particular_. " Now the truth ofmathematical reckoning is not particular, but is valid wherever theconditions to which it refers are fulfilled. Mathematical reckoning, ifit is to be particular, must be regarded as a particular act or state ofsome thinker. Its truth must then be construed as relative to theinterests of the thinker, as a symbolism which has an instrumentalrather than a purely cognitive value. This conclusion cannot be disputedshort of a radical stand against the general epistemological principleto which Berkeley is so far true, the principle that the reality whichis known in any state of thinking or perceiving is the state itself. 

[Sidenote: The Transition to Spiritualism. ]

§ 132. This concludes the purely phenomenalistic strain of Berkeley'sthought. He has taken the immediate apprehension of sensible objects ina state of mind centring about the pleasure and pain of an individual, to be the norm of knowledge. He has further maintained that knowledgecannot escape the particularity of its own states. The result is thatthe universe is composed of private perceptions and ideas. Strictly onthe basis of what has preceded, Hylas is justified in regarding thisconclusion as no less sceptical than that to which his own position hadbeen reduced; for while he had been compelled to admit that the real isunknowable, Philonous has apparently defined the knowable as relative tothe individual. But the supplementary metaphysics which had hithertobeen kept in the background is now revealed. It is maintained thatthough perceptions know no external world, they do nevertheless reveal aspiritual substance of which they are the states. Although it hashitherto been argued that the _esse_ of things is in their _percipi_, this is now replaced by the more fundamental principle that the _esse_of things is in their _percipere_ or _velle_. The real world consistsnot in perceptions, but in perceivers. 

[Sidenote: Further Attempts to Maintain Phenomenalism. ]

§ 133. Now it is at once evident that the epistemological theory whichhas been Berkeley's dialectical weapon in the foregoing argument is nolonger available. And those who have cared more for this theory than formetaphysical speculation have attempted to stop at this point, and so toconstrue phenomenalism as to make it self-sufficient on its owngrounds. Such attempts are so instructive as to make it worth our whileto review them before proceeding with the development of thespiritualistic motive in subjectivism. 

The world is to be regarded as made up of sense-perceptions, ideas, orphenomena. What is to be accepted as the fundamental category whichgives to all of these terms their subjectivistic significance? So farthere seems to be nothing in view save the principle of relativity. Thetype to which these were reduced was that of the peculiar or unsharableexperience best represented by an individual's pleasure and pain. Butrelativity will not work as a general principle of being. It consignsthe individual to his private mind, and cannot provide for the validityof knowledge enough even to maintain itself. Some other course, then, must be followed. Perception may be given a psycho-physical definition, which employs physical terms as fundamental;[282:12] but this flagrantlycontradicts the phenomenalistic first principle. Or, reality may beregarded as so stamped with its marks as to insure the proprietorship ofthought. But this definition of certain objective entities of mind, ofbeings attributed to intelligence because of their intrinsicintelligibility, is inconsistent with empiricism, if indeed it does notlead eventually to a realism of the Platonic type. [283:13] Finally, andmost commonly, the terms of phenomenalism have been retained after theiroriginal meaning has been suffered to lapse. The "impressions" of Hume, _e. G. _, are the remnant of the Berkeleyan world with the spiritstricken out. There is no longer any point in calling them impressions, for they now mean only elements or qualities. As a consequence thisoutgrowth of the Berkeleyanism epistemology is at present merging into arealistic philosophy of experience. [283:14] Any one, then, of thesethree may be the last state of one who undertakes to remain exclusivelyfaithful to the phenomenalistic aspect of Berkeleyanism, embodied in theprinciple _esse est percipi_. 

[Sidenote: Berkeley's Spiritualism. Immediate Knowledge of thePerceiver. ]

§ 134. Let us now follow the fortunes of the other phase ofsubjectivism--that which develops the conception of the perceiver ratherthan the perceived. When Berkeley holds that

 "all the choir of heaven and furniture of the Earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a Mind, "

his thought has transcended the epistemology with which he overthrew theconception of material substance, in two directions. For neither mind ofthe finite type nor mind of the divine type is perceived. But the firstof these may yet be regarded as a direct empirical datum, even thoughsharply distinguished from an object of perception. In the thirddialogue, Philonous thus expounds this new kind of knowledge:

 "I own I have properly no _idea_, either of God or any other spirit; for these being active, cannot be represented by things perfectly inert, as our ideas are. I do nevertheless know that I, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my ideas exist. Farther, I know what I mean by the terms _I_ and _myself_; and I know this immediately or intuitively, though I do not perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a color, or a sound. "[284:15]

The knowledge here provided for may be regarded as empirical becausethe reality in question is an individual present in the moment of theknowledge. Particular acts of perception are said directly to reveal notonly perceptual objects, but perceiving subjects. And the conception ofspiritual substance, once accredited, may then be extended to accountfor social relations and to fill in the nature of God. The latterextension, in so far as it attributes such further predicates asuniversality and infinity, implies still a third epistemology, andthreatens to pass over into rationalism. But the knowledge of one'sfellow-men may, it is claimed, be regarded as immediate, like theknowledge of one's self. Perceptual and volitional activity has a sensefor itself and also a sense for other like activity. The self is bothself-conscious and socially conscious in an immediate experience of thesame type. 

[Sidenote: Schopenhauer's Spiritualism, or Voluntarism. ImmediateKnowledge of the Will. ]

§ 135. But this general spiritualistic conception is developed with lesssingleness of purpose in Berkeley than among the _voluntarists_ and_panpsychists_ who spring from Schopenhauer, the orientalist, pessimist, and mystic among the German Kantians of the early nineteenth century. His great book, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, " opens with thephenomenalistic contention that "the world is my idea. " It soon appears, however, that the "my" is more profoundly significant than the "idea. "Nature is my creation, due to the working within me of certain fixedprinciples of thought, such as space, time, and causality. But nature, just because it is my creation, is less than me: is but a manifestationof the true being for which I must look _within_ myself. But this innerself cannot be made an object of thought, for that would be only tocreate another term of nature. The will itself, from which such creationsprings, is "that which is most immediate" in one's consciousness, and"makes itself known in a direct manner in its particular acts. " The term_will_ is used by Schopenhauer as a general term covering the wholedynamics of life, instinct and desire, as well as volition. It is thatsense of life-preserving and life-enhancing appetency which is theconscious accompaniment of struggle. With its aid the inwardness of thewhole world may now be apprehended. 

 "Whoever has now gained from all these expositions a knowledge _in abstracto_, and therefore clear and certain, of what everyone knows directly _in concreto_, _i. E. _, as feeling, a knowledge that his will is the real inner nature of his phenomenal being, . . . And that his will is that which is most immediate in his consciousness, . . . Will find that of itself it affords him the key to the knowledge of the inmost being of the whole of nature; for he now transfers it to all those phenomena which are not given to him, like his own phenomenal existence, both in direct and indirect knowledge, but only in the latter, thus merely one-sidedly as _idea_ alone. "[287:16]

The heart of reality is thus known by an "intuitive interpretation, "which begins at home in the individual's own heart. 

[Sidenote: Panpsychism. ]

§ 136. The panpsychist follows the same course of reflection. There isan outwardness and an inwardness of nature, corresponding to theknower's body on the one hand, and his feeling or will on the other. With this principle in hand one may pass down the whole scale of beingand discover no breach of continuity. Such an interpretation of naturehas been well set forth by a contemporary writer, who quotes thefollowing from the botanist, C. V. Naegeli:

 "Sensation is clearly connected with the reflex actions of higher animals. We are obliged to concede it to the other animals also, and we have no grounds for denying it to plants and inorganic bodies. The sensation arouses in us a condition of comfort and discomfort. In general, the feeling of pleasure arises when the natural impulses are satisfied, the feeling of pain when they are not satisfied. Since all material processes are composed of movements of molecules and elementary atoms, pleasure and pain must have their seat in these particles. . . . Thus the same mental thread runs through all material phenomena. The human mind is nothing but the highest development on our earth of the mental processes which universally animate and move nature. "[288:17]

According to panpsychism, then, physical nature is the manifestation ofan _appetency or bare consciousness generalized from the thinker'sawareness of his most intimate self_. Such appetency or bareconsciousness is the essential or substantial state of that whichappears as physical nature. 

[Sidenote: The Inherent Difficulty in Spiritualism. No Provision forObjective Knowledge. ]

§ 137. We must now turn to the efforts which this doctrine has made tomaintain itself against the sceptical trend of its own epistemology. Forprecisely as in the case of phenomenalism its dialectical principlethreatens to be self-destructive. Immediate presence is still the testof knowledge. But does not immediate presence connote relativity andinadequacy, at best; an initial phase of knowledge that must besupplemented and corrected before objective reality and valid truth areapprehended? Does not the individuality of the individual thinkerconnote the very maximum of error? Indeed, spiritualism would seem tohave exceeded even Protagoreanism itself, and to have passed fromscepticism to deliberate nihilism. The object of knowledge is no longereven, as with the phenomenalist, the thinker's thought, but only his_thinking_. And if the thinker's thought is relative to him, then thethinker's act of thinking is the very vanishing-point of relativity, thenegative term of a negating relation. How is a real, a self-subsistentworld to be composed of such? Impelled by a half-conscious realizationof the hopelessness of this situation, the exponent of spiritualism hassought to universalize his conception; to define an _absolute orultimate spirit_ other than the individual thinker, though known in andthrough him. But it is clear that this development of spiritualism, likeall of the speculative procedure of subjectivism, threatens to exceedthe scope of the original principle of knowledge. There is a strongpresumption against the possibility of introducing a knowledge of God bythe way of the particular presentations of an individual consciousness. 

[Sidenote: Schopenhauer's Attempt to Universalize Subjectivism. Mysticism. ]

§ 138. Schopenhauer must be credited with a genuine effort to accept themetaphysical consequences of his epistemology. His epistemology, as wehave seen, defined knowledge as centripetal. The object of realknowledge is identical with the subject of knowledge. If I am to knowthe universal will, therefore, I must in knowing become that will. Andthis Schopenhauer maintains. The innermost heart of the individual intowhich he may retreat, even from his private will, is--the universal. Butthere is another way of arriving at the same knowledge. In contemplationI may become absorbed in principles and laws, rather than be diverted bythe particular spacial and temporal objects, until (and this ispeculiarly true of the æsthetic experience) my interest no longerdistinguishes itself, but coincides with truth. In other words, abstractthinking and pure willing are not opposite extremes, but adjacent pointson the deeper or transcendent circle of experience. One may reach thispart of the circle by moving in either of two directions that at thestart are directly opposite: by turning in upon the subject or byutterly giving one's self up to the object. Reality obtains nodefinition by this means. Philosophy, for Schopenhauer, is rather aprogramme for realizing the state in which I will the universal and knowthe universal will. The final theory of knowledge, then, is mysticism, reality directly apprehended in a supreme and incommunicable experience, direct and vivid, like perception, and at the same time universal, likethought. But the empiricism with which Schopenhauer began, the appeal toa familiar experience of self as will, has meanwhile been forgotten. Theidea as object of my perception, and the will as its subject were in thebeginning regarded as common and verifiable items of experience. Butwho, save the occasional philosopher, knows a universal will? Nor haveattempts to avoid mysticism, while retaining Schopenhauer's firstprinciple, been successful. Certain voluntarists and panpsychists haveattempted to do without the universal will, and define the world solelyin terms of the many individual wills. But, as Schopenhauer himselfpointed out, individual wills cannot be distinguished except in terms ofsomething other than will, such as space and time. The same is true iffor will there be substituted inner feeling or consciousness. Withinthis category individuals can be distinguished only as points of view, which to be comparable at all must contain common objects, or bedefined in terms of a system of relations like that of the physicalworld or that of an ethical community. The conception of pure will orpure feeling inevitably attaches to itself that of an undivided unity, if for no other reason because there is no ground for distinction. Andsuch a unity, a will or consciousness that is no particular act or idea, can be known only in the unique experience which mysticism provides. 

[Sidenote: Objective Spiritualism. ]

§ 139. The way of Schopenhauer is the way of one who adheres to thebelief that what the thinker knows must always be a part of himself, hisstate or his activity. From this point of view the important element ofbeing, its very essence or substance, is not any definable nature but animmediate relation to the knower. The consequence is that the universein the last analysis can only be defined as a supreme state or activityinto which the individual's consciousness may develop. Spiritualism has, however, other interests, interests which may be quite independent ofepistemology. It is speculatively interested in a kind of being which itdefines as spiritual, and in terms of which it proposes to define theuniverse. Such procedure is radically different from theepistemological criticism which led Berkeley to maintain that the_esse_ of objects is in their _percipi_, or Schopenhauer to maintainthat "the world is my idea, " or that led both of these philosophers tofind a deeper reality in immediately intuited self-activity. For now itis proposed to _understand_ spirit, discover its properties, and toacknowledge it only where these properties appear. I may now know spiritas an object; which in its properties, to be sure, is quite differentfrom matter, but which like matter is capable of subsisting quiteindependently of my knowledge. This is a metaphysical spiritualism quitedistinct from epistemological spiritualism, and by no means easily madeconsistent therewith. Indeed, it exhibits an almost irrepressibletendency to overstep the bounds both of empiricism and subjectivism, anhistorical connection with which alone justifies its introduction in thepresent chapter. 

[Sidenote: Berkeley's Conception of God as Cause, Goodness and Order. ]

§ 140. To return again to the instructive example of Bishop Berkeley, wefind him proving God from the evidence of him in experience, or the needof him to support the claims of experience. 

 "But, whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on _my_ will. When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view: and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of _my_ will. There is therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them. 

 The ideas of Sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of the Imagination; they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excited at random, as those which are the effects of human wills often are, but in a regular train or series--the admirable connection whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules, or established methods, wherein the Mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of Sense, are called _the laws of nature_. "[294:18]

Of the attributes of experience here in question, independence or"steadiness" is not regarded as _prima facie_ evidence of spirit, butrather as an aspect of experience for which some cause is necessary. Butit is assumed that the power to "produce, " with which such a cause mustbe endowed, is the peculiar prerogative of spirit, and that this causegives further evidence of its spiritual nature, of its eminentlyspiritual nature, in the orderliness and the goodness of its effects. 

 "The force that produces, the intellect that orders, the goodness that perfects all things is the Supreme Being. "[294:19]

That spirit is possessed of causal efficacy, Berkeley has in an earlierpassage proved by a direct appeal to the individual's sense of power. 

 "I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than _willing_, and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way for another. This making and unmaking of ideas doth very properly denominate the mind active. Thus much is certain and grounded on experience: but when we talk of unthinking agents, or of exciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse ourselves with words. "[295:20]

Although Berkeley is here in general agreement with a very considerablevariety of philosophical views, it will be readily observed that thisdoctrine tends to lapse into mysticism whenever it is retained in itspurity. Berkeley himself admitted that there was no "idea" of suchpower. And philosophers will as a rule either obtain an ideacorresponding to a term or amend the term--always excepting the mysticalappeal to an inarticulate and indefinable experience. Hence pure powerrevealed in an ineffable immediate experience tends to give place tokinds of power to which some definite meaning may be attached. Theenergy of physics, defined by measurable quantitative equivalence, is acase in point. The idealistic trend is in another direction, powercoming to signify ethical or logical connection. Similarly, in the laterphilosophy of Berkeley himself, God is known by the nature of hisactivity rather than by the fact of his activity; and we are said "toaccount for a thing, when we show that it is so best. " God's power, inshort, becomes indistinguishable from his universality attended with theattributes of goodness and orderliness. But this means that the analogyof the human spirit, conscious of its own activity, is no longer thebasis of the argument. By the divine will is now meant ethicalprinciples, rather than the "here am I willing" of the empiricalconsciousness. Similarly the divine mind is defined in terms of logicalprinciples, such as coherence and order, rather than in terms of the"here am I thinking" of the finite knower himself. But enough has beensaid to make it plain that this is no longer the stand-point ofempirio-idealism. Indeed, in his last philosophical writing, the"Siris, " Berkeley is so far removed from the principles of knowledgewhich made him at once the disciple and the critic of Locke, as topronounce himself the devotee of Platonism and the prophet oftranscendentalism. The former strain appears in his conclusion that"the _principles_ of science are neither objects of sense norimagination; and that intellect and reason are alone the sure guides totruth. "[297:21] His transcendentalism appears in his belief that suchprinciples, participating in the vital unity of the Individual Purpose, constitute the meaning and so the substantial essence of the universe. 

[Sidenote: The General Tendency of Subjectivism to Transcend Itself. ]

§ 141. Such then are the various paths which lead from subjectivism toother types of philosophy, demonstrating the peculiar aptitude of theformer for departing from its first principle. Beginning with therelativity of all knowable reality to the individual knower, itundertakes to conceive reality in one or the other of the terms of thisrelation, as particular state of knowledge or as individual subject ofknowledge. But these terms develop an intrinsic nature of their own, andbecome respectively _empirical datum_, and _logical_ or _ethicalprinciple_. In either case the subjectivistic principle of knowledge hasbeen abandoned. Those whose speculative interest in a definableobjective world has been less strong than their attachment to thisprinciple, have either accepted the imputation of scepticism, or hadrecourse to the radical epistemological doctrine of mysticism. 

[Sidenote: Ethical Theories. Relativism. ]

§ 142. Since the essence of subjectivism is epistemological rather thanmetaphysical, its practical and religious implications are various. Theethical theories which are corollary to the tendencies expounded above, range from extreme egoism to a mystical universalism. The closeconnection between the former and relativism is evident, and the form ofegoism most consistent with epistemological relativism is to be foundamong those same Sophists who first maintained this latter doctrine. Ifwe may believe Plato, the Sophists sought to create for their individualpupils an _appearance_ of good. In the "Theaetetus, " Socrates isrepresented as speaking thus on behalf of Protagoras:

 "And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no existence; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils which are and appear to a man, into goods which are and appear to him. . . . I say that they (the wise men) are the physicians of the human body, and the husbandmen of plants--for the husbandmen also take away the evil and disordered sensations of plants, and infuse into them good and healthy sensations as well as true ones; and the wise and good rhetoricians make the good instead of the evil seem just to states; for whatever appears to be just and fair to a state, while sanctioned by a state, is just and fair to it; but the teacher of wisdom causes the good to take the place of the evil, both in appearance and in reality. "[299:22]

As truth is indistinguishable from the appearance of truth to theindividual, so good is indistinguishable from a particular seeming good. The supreme moral value according to this plan of life is the agreeablefeeling tone of that dream world to which the individual is foreverconsigned. The possible perfection of an experience which is "reduced toa swarm of impressions, " and "ringed round" for each one of us by a"thick wall of personality" has been brilliantly depicted in the passagealready quoted from Walter Pater, in whom the naturalistic andsubjectivistic motives unite. [299:23] If all my experience is strictlymy own, then my good must likewise be my own. And if all of myexperience is valid only in its instants of immediacy, then my best goodmust likewise consist in some "exquisite passion, " or stirring of thesenses. 

[Sidenote: Pessimism and Self-denial. ]

§ 143. But for Schopenhauer the internal world opens out into theboundless and unfathomable sea of the universal will. If I retire fromthe world upon my own private feelings, I am still short of the truelife, for I am asserting myself against the world. I should seek a senseof unison with a world whose deeper heart-beats I may learn to feel andadopt as the rhythm of my own. The folly of willing for one's privateself is the ground of Schopenhauer's pessimism. 

 "All _willing_ arises from want, therefore from deficiency, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish ends it; yet for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten which are denied. Further, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite; the satisfaction is short and scantily measured out. But even the final satisfaction is itself only apparent; every satisfied wish at once makes room for a new one, both are illusions; the one is known to be so, the other not yet. No attained object of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting gratification; it is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. . . . The subject of willing is thus constantly stretched on the revolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the Danaids, is the ever-longing Tantalus. "[300:24]

The escape from this torture and self-deception is possible through thesame mystical experience, the same blending with the universe thatconditions knowledge. 

[Sidenote: The Ethics of Welfare. ]

§ 144. But though pleasant dreaming be the most consistent practicalsequel to a subjectivistic epistemology, its _individualism_ presentsanother basis for life with quite different possibilities of emphasis. It may develop into an aggressive egoism of the type represented by thesophist Thrasymachus, in his proclamation that "might is right, justicethe interest of the stronger. "[301:25] But more commonly it is temperedby a conception of social interest, and serves as the champion of actionagainst contemplation. The gospel of action is always individualistic. It requires of the individual a sense of his independence, and of thereal virtue of his initiative. Hence those voluntarists who emphasizethe many individual wills and decline to reduce them, after the mannerof Schopenhauer, to a universal, may be said to afford a directjustification of it. It is true that this practical realism threatensthe tenability of an epistemological idealism, but the two have beenunited, and because of their common emphasis upon the individual suchprocedure is not entirely inconsequential. Friedrich Paulsen, whosepanpsychism has already been cited, is an excellent case in point. Theonly good, he maintains, is "welfare, " the fulfilment of those naturaldesires which both distinguish the individual and signify hiscontinuity with all grades of being. 

 "The goal at which the will aims does not consist in a maximum of pleasurable feelings, but in the normal exercise of the vital functions for which the species is predisposed. In the case of man the mode of life is on the whole determined by the nature of the historical unity from which the individual evolves as a member. Here the objective content of life, after which the will strives, also enters into consciousness with the progressive evolution of presentation; the type of life becomes a conscious ideal of life. "[302:26]

Here, contrary to the teaching of Schopenhauer, the good consists inindividual attainment, the extension and fulfilment of the _distinct_interests that arise from the common fund of nature. To be and to do tothe uttermost, to realize the maximum from nature's investment in one'sspecial capacities and powers--this is indeed the first principle of amorality of action. 

[Sidenote: The Ethical Community. ]

§ 145. But a type of ethics still further removed from the initialrelativism has been adopted and more or less successfully assimilated bysubjectivistic philosophies. Accepting Berkeley's spirits, with theirindefinite capacities, and likewise the stability of the idealprinciples that underlie a God-administered world, and morality becomesthe obedience which the individual renders to the law. The individual, free to act in his own right, coöperates with the purposes of thegeneral spiritual community, whose laws are worthy of obedience thoughnot coercive. The recognition of such a spiritual citizenship, entailingopportunities, duties, and obligations, rather than thraldom, partakesof the truth as well as the inadequacy of common-sense. 

[Sidenote: The Religion of Mysticism. ]

§ 146. As for religion, at least two distinct practical appreciations ofthe universe have been historically associated with this chapter inphilosophy. The one of these is the mysticism of Schopenhauer, thereligious sequel to a universalistic voluntarism. Schopenhauer's ethics, his very philosophy, is religion. For the good and the true are alikeattainable only through identification with the Absolute Will. Thisconsummation of life, transcending practical and theoreticaldifferences, engulfing and effacing all qualities and all values, islike the Nirvâna of the Orient--a positive ideal only for one who hasappraised the apparent world at its real value. 

 "Rather do we freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abolition of will is for all those who are still full of will certainly nothing; but, conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, this our world, which is so real, with all it's suns and milky-ways--is nothing. "[304:27]

[Sidenote: The Religion of Individual Coöperation with God. ]

§ 147. From the union of the two motives of voluntarism andindividualism springs another and a more familiar type of religion, thatof coöperative spiritual endeavor. In the religion of Schopenhauer thesoul must utterly lose itself for the sake of peace; here the soul mustpersist in its own being and activity for the sake of the progressivegoodness of the world. For Schopenhauer God is the universal solution, in which all motions cease and all differences disappear; here God isthe General of moral forces. The deeper and more significant universe is

 "a society of rational agents, acting under the eye of Providence, concurring in one design to promote the common benefit of the whole, and conforming their actions to the established laws and order of the Divine parental wisdom: wherein each particular agent shall not consider himself apart, but as the member of a great City, whose author and founder is God: in which the civil laws are no other than the rules of virtue and the duties of religion: and where everyone's true interest is combined with his duty. "[304:28]

But so uncompromising an optimism is not essential to this religion. Its distinction lies rather in its acceptance of the manifest pluralityof souls, and its appeal to the faith that is engendered byservice. [305:29] As William James has said:

 "Even God's being is sacred from ours. To coöperate with his creation by the best and rightest response seems all he wants of us. In such coöperation with his purposes, not in any chimerical speculative conquest of him, not in any theoretical drinking of him up, must lie the real meaning of our destiny. "[305:30]

FOOTNOTES:

[267:1] PRELIMINARY NOTE. By _Subjectivism_ is meant that system ofphilosophy which construes the universe in accordance with theepistemological principle that _all knowledge is of its own states oractivities_. In so far as subjectivism reduces reality to _states ofknowledge_, such as _perceptions_ or _ideas_, it is _phenomenalism_. Inso far as it reduces reality to a more _internal active principle_ suchas _spirit_ or _will_, it is _spiritualism_. 

[268:2] Berkeley: _Complete Works_, Vol. I, p. 352. Fraser's edition. 

[269:3] Plato: _Theaetetus_, 156. Translation by Jowett. The italics aremine. 

[270:4] Plato: _Op. Cit. _, 166. 

[271:5] ἀληθὲς ὃ ἑκάστῳ ἑκάστοτε δοκεῖ. 

[273:6] For another issue out of this situation, cf. §§ 185-187. 

[276:7] Berkeley: _Op. Cit. _, Vol. I, pp. 380-381. 

[276:8] _Ibid. _, p. 389. 

[277:9] _Ibid. _, p. 397. 

[278:10] _Ibid. _, p. 418. 

[279:11] _Ibid. _, pp. 403-404. 

[282:12] Cf. Pearson: _Grammar of Science_, Chap. II. See above, § 118. 

[283:13] See Chap. XI. Cf. Also § 140. 

[283:14] The same may be said of the "permanent possibilities ofsensation, " proposed by J. S. Mill. Such possibilities outside of actualperception are either nothing or things such as they are known to be_in_ perception. In either case they are not perceptions. 

In Ernst Mach's _Analysis of Sensations_, the reader will find aninteresting transition from sensationalism to realism through thesubstitution of the term _Bestandtheil_ for _Empfindung_. (SeeTranslation by Williams, pp. 18-20. ) See below, § 207. 

[284:15] Berkeley: _Op. Cit. _, p. 447. 

[287:16] Schopenhauer: _The World as Will and Idea_. Translation byHaldane and Kemp, Vol. I, p. 141. 

[288:17] Quoted from Naegeli: _Die Mechanisch-physiologische Theorie derAbstammungslehre_, by Friedrich Paulsen, in his _Introduction toPhilosophy_. Translation by Thilly, p. 103. 

[294:18] Berkeley: _Op. Cit. _, p. 273. 

[294:19] _Op. Cit. _, Vol. I, pp. 272-273. 

[295:20] _Op. Cit. _, Vol. III, p. 278. 

[297:21] _Op. Cit. _, Vol. III, p. 249. 

[299:22] Plato: _Theaetetus_, 167. Translation by Jowett. 

[299:23] See § 121. 

[300:24] Schopenhauer: _Op. Cit. _ Translation by Haldane and Kemp, Vol. I, pp. 253-254. 

[301:25] See Plato: _Republic_, Bk. I, 338. 

[302:26] Paulsen: _Op. Cit. _, p. 423. 

[304:27] Schopenhauer: _Op. Cit. _ Translation by Haldane and Kemp, p. 532. 

[304:28] Berkeley: _Op. Cit. _, Vol. II, p. 138. 

[305:29] For an interesting characterization of this type of religion, cf. Royce: _Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, p. 46. 

[305:30] James: _The Will to Believe_, p. 141. 

CHAPTER X

ABSOLUTE REALISM[306:1]

[Sidenote: The Philosopher's Task, and the Philosopher's Object, or theAbsolute. ]

§ 148. No one has understood better than the philosopher himself that hecannot hope to be popular with men of practical common-sense. Indeed, ithas commonly been a matter of pride with him. The classic representationof the philosopher's faith in himself is to be found in Plato's"Republic. " The philosopher is there portrayed in the famous cave simileas one who having seen the light itself can no longer distinguish theshadows which are apparent to those who sit perpetually in the twilight. Within the cave of shadows he is indeed less at his ease than those whohave never seen the sun. But since he knows the source of the shadows, his knowledge surrounds that of the shadow connoisseurs. And hisequanimity need not suffer from the contempt of those whom heunderstands better than they understand themselves. The history ofphilosophy is due to the dogged persistence with which the philosopherhas taken himself seriously and endured the poor opinion of the world. But the pride of the philosopher has done more than perpetuate thephilosophical outlook and problem; it has led to the formulation of adefinite philosophical conception, and of two great philosophicaldoctrines. The conception is that of the _absolute_; and the doctrinesare that of the _absolute being_, and that of the _absolute self_ or_mind_. The former of these doctrines is the topic of the presentchapter. 

Among the early Greeks the rôle of the philosopher was one ofsuperlative dignity. In point of knowledge he was less easily satisfiedthan other men. He thought beyond immediate practical problems, devotinghimself to a profounder reflection, that could not but induce in him asense of superior intellectual worth. The familiar was not binding uponhim, for his thought was emancipated from routine and superficiality. Furthermore his intellectual courage and resolution did not permit himto indulge in triviality, doubt, or paradox. He sought his own with afaith that could not be denied. Even Heraclitus the Dark, who was alsocalled "the Weeping Philosopher, " because he found at the very heart ofnature that transiency which the philosophical mind seeks to escape, felt himself to be exalted as well as isolated by that insight. But thissentiment of personal aloofness led at once to a division of experience. He who knows truly belongs to another and more abiding world. As thereis a philosophical way of thought, there is a philosophical way of life, and _a philosophical object_. Since the philosopher and the common mando not see alike, the terms of their experience are incommensurable. InParmenides the Eleatic this motive is most strikingly exhibited. Thereis a _Way of Truth_ which diverges from the _Way of Opinion_. Thephilosopher walks the former way alone. And there is an object of truth, accessible only to one who takes this way of truth. Parmenides findsthis object to be the content of pure affirmation. 

 "One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, that _It is_. In it are very many tokens that what is, is uncreated and indestructible, alone, complete, immovable, and without end. Nor was it ever, nor will it be; for now _it is_, all at once, a continuous one. "[308:2]

The philosophy of Parmenides, commonly called the Eleatic Philosophy, is notable for this emergence of the pure concept of _absolute being_ asthe final object of knowledge. The philosopher aims to discover thatwhich is, and so turns away from that which is not or that which ceasesto be. The negative and transient aspects of experience only hinder himin his search for the eternal. It was the great Eleatic insight torealize that the outcome of thought is thus predetermined; that theanswer to philosophy is contained in the question of philosophy. Thephilosopher, in that he resolutely avoids all partiality, relativity, and superficiality, must affirm a complete, universal, and ultimatebeing as the very object of that perfect knowledge which he means topossess. This object is known in the history of these philosophies asthe _infinite_ or _absolute_. [309:3]

[Sidenote: The Eleatic Conception of Being. ]

§ 149. The Eleatic reasons somewhat as follows. The philosopher seeks toknow what is. The object of his knowledge will then contain as itsprimary and essential predicate, that of being. It is a step further to_define_ being in terms of this essential predicate. 

Parmenides thinks of being as a power or strength, a positiveself-maintenance to which all affirmations refer. The remainder of theEleatic philosophy is the analysis of this concept and the proof of itsimplications. Being must persist through all change, and span allchasms. Before being there can be only nothing, which is the same as tosay that so far as being is concerned there is no before. Similarlythere can be no after or beyond. There can be no motion, change, ordivision of being, because being will be in all parts of every division, and in all stages of every process. Hence being is "uncreated andindestructible, alone, complete, immovable, and without end. "

The argument turns upon the application to being as a whole of themeaning and the implications of _only being_. Being is the affirmativeor positive. From that _alone_, one can derive only such properties aseternity or unity. For generation and decay and plurality may belong tothat which is _also_ affirmative and positive, but not to that which isaffirmative and positive _only_. The Eleatic philosophy is due, then, tothe determination to derive the whole of reality from the bare necessityof being, to cut down reality to what flows entirely from the assertionof its only known necessary aspect, that of being. We meet here in itssimplest form a persistent rationalistic motive, the attempt to derivethe universe from the isolation and analysis of its most universalcharacter. As in the case of every well-defined philosophy, this motiveis always attended by a "besetting" problem. Here it is the accountingfor what, empirically at least, is alien to that universal character. And this difficulty is emphasized rather than resolved by Parmenides inhis designation of a limbo of opinion, "in which is no true belief atall, " to which the manifold of common experience with all itsirrelevancies can be relegated. 

[Sidenote: Spinoza's Conception of Substance. ]

§ 150. The Eleatic philosophy, enriched and supplemented, appears manycenturies later in the rigorous rationalism of Spinoza. [311:4] WithSpinoza philosophy is a demonstration of necessities after the manner ofgeometry. Reality is to be set forth in theorems derived fromfundamental axioms and definitions. As in the case of Parmenides, thesenecessities are the implications of the very problem of being. Thephilosopher's problem is made to solve itself. But for Spinoza thatproblem is more definite and more pregnant. The problematic being mustnot only be, but must be _sufficient to itself_. What the philosopherseeks to know is primarily an intrinsic entity. Its nature must beindependent of other natures, and my knowledge of it independent of myknowledge of anything else. Reality is something which need not besought further. So construed, being is in Spinoza's philosophy termed_substance_. It will be seen that to define substance is to affirm theexistence of it, for substance is so defined as to embody the veryqualification for existence. Whatever exists exists under the form ofsubstance, as that "which is in itself, and is conceived through itself:in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independentlyof any other conception. "[312:5]

[Sidenote: Spinoza's Proof of God, the Infinite Substance. The Modes andthe Attributes. ]

§ 151. There remains but one further fundamental thesis for theestablishment of the Spinozistic philosophy, the thesis which maintainsthe exclusive existence of the one "absolutely infinite being, " or God. The exclusive existence of God follows from his existence, because ofthe exhaustiveness of his nature. His is the nature "consisting ininfinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infiniteessentiality. " He will contain all meaning, and all possible meaning, within his fixed and necessary constitution. It is evident that if sucha God exist, nothing can fall outside of him. One such substance must bethe only substance. But upon what grounds are we to assert God'sexistence?

To proceed further with Spinoza's philosophy we must introduce two termswhich are scarcely less fundamental in his system than that ofsubstance. The one of these is "attribute, " by which he means _kind_ orgeneral property; the other is "mode, " by which he means _case_ orindividual thing. Spinoza's proof of God consists in showing that nosingle mode, single attribute, or finite group of modes or attributes, can be a substance; but only an infinite system of all modes of allattributes. Translated into common speech this means that neither kindsnor cases, nor special groups of either, can stand alone and be ofthemselves, but only the unity of all possible cases of all possiblekinds. 

The argument concerning the possible substantiality of the case orindividual thing is relatively simple. Suppose an attribute or kind, _A_, of which there are cases _am_{1}, _am_{2}, _am_{3}, etc. Thenumber of cases is never involved in the nature of the kind, as is seenfor example in the fact that the definition of triangle prescribes nospecial number of individual triangles. Hence _am_{1}, _am_{2}, _am_{3}, etc. , must be explained by something outside of their nature. Their being cases of _A_ does not account for their existing severally. This is Spinoza's statement of the argument that individual events, suchas motions or sensations, are not self-dependent, but belong to acontext of like events which are mutually dependent. 

The question of the attribute is more difficult. Why may not anattribute as a complete domain of interdependent events, itself beindependent or substantial? Spinoza's predecessor, Descartes, hadmaintained precisely that thesis in behalf of the domain of thought andthe domain of space. Spinoza's answer rests upon the famous ontologicalargument, inherited from scholasticism and generally accepted in thefirst period of modern philosophy. The evidence of existence, hedeclares, is clear and distinct conceivability. 

 "For a person to say that he has a clear and distinct--that is, a true--idea of a substance, but that he is not sure whether such substance exists, would be the same as if he said that he had a true idea, but was not sure whether or no it was false. "[314:6]

Now we can form a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely infinitebeing that shall have all possible attributes. This idea is awell-recognized standard and object of reference for thought. But it isa conception which is highly qualified, not only through its clearnessand distinctness, but also through its abundance of content. It affirmsitself therefore with a certainty that surpasses any other certainty, because it is supported by each and every other certainty, and even bythe residuum of possibility. If any intelligible meaning be permitted toaffirm itself, so much the more irresistible is the claim of thisinfinitely rich meaning. Since every attribute contributes to itsvalidity, the being with infinite attributes is infinitely or absolutelyvalid. The conclusion of the argument is now obvious. If the beingconstituted by the infinite attributes exists, it swallows up allpossibilities and exists exclusively. 

[Sidenote: The Limits of Spinoza's Argument for God. ]

§ 152. The vulnerable point in Spinoza's argument can thus be expressed:that which is important is questionable, and that which isunquestionable is of doubtful importance. Have I indeed a clear anddistinct idea of an absolutely infinite being? The answer turns upon themeaning of the phrase "idea of. " It is true I can add to such meaningas I apprehend the thought of possible other meaning, and suppose thewhole to have a definiteness and systematic unity like that of thetriangle. But such an idea is problematic. I am compelled to use theterm "possible, " and so to confess the failure of definite content tomeasure up to my idea. My idea of an absolutely infinite being is likemy idea of a universal language: I can think _of_ it, but I cannot_think it out_, for lack of data or because of the conflicting testimonyof other data. If I mean the infinity of my being to be a term ofinclusiveness, and to insist that the all must be, and that there can benothing not included in the all, I can scarcely be denied. But it isreasonable to doubt the importance of such a truth. If, on the otherhand, I mean that my infinite being shall have the compactness andorganic unity of a triangle, I must admit that such a being is indeedproblematic. The degree to which the meaning of the part is dependentupon the meaning of the whole, or the degree to which the geometricalanalogy is to be preferred to the analogy of aggregates, like the eventswithin a year, is a problem that falls quite outside Spinoza'sfundamental arguments. 

[Sidenote: Spinoza's Provision for the Finite. ]

§ 153. But the advance of Spinoza over the Eleatics must not be lostsight of. The modern philosopher has so conceived being as to providefor parts within an individual unity. The geometrical analogy is a mostilluminating one, for it enables us to understand how manyness may beindispensable to a being that is essentially unitary. The triangle astriangle is one. But it could not be such without sides and angles. Theunity is equally necessary to the parts, for sides and angles of atriangle could not be such without an arrangement governed by the naturetriangle. The whole of nature may be similarly conceived: as thereciprocal necessity of _natura naturans_, or nature defined in respectof its unity, and _natura naturata_, or nature specified in detail. There is some promise here of a reconciliation of the _Way of Opinion_with the _Way of Truth_. Opinion would be a gathering of detail, truth acomprehension of the intelligible unity. Both would be provided forthrough the consideration that whatever is complete and necessary mustbe made up of incompletenesses that are necessary to it. 

[Sidenote: Transition to Teleological Conceptions. ]

§ 154. This consideration, however, does not receive its most effectiveformulation in Spinoza. The isolation of the parts, the actualseveralty and irrelevance of the modes, still presents a grave problem. Is there a kind of whole to which not only parts but fragments, or partsin their very incompleteness, are indispensable? This would seem to betrue of a _progression_ or _development_, since that would require bothperfection as its end, and degrees of imperfection as its stages. Spinoza was prevented from making much of this idea by his rejection ofthe principle of _teleology_. He regarded appreciation or valuation as aprojection of personal bias. "Nature has no particular goal in view, "and "final causes are mere human figments. " "The perfection of things isto be reckoned only from their own nature and power. "[318:7] Thephilosophical method which Spinoza here repudiates, the interpretationof the world in moral terms, is _Platonism_, an independent andprofoundly important movement, belonging to the same general realistictype with Eleaticism and Spinozism. Absolute being is again thefundamental conception. Here, however, it is conceived that being isprimarily not affirmation or self-sufficiency, but the _good_ or_ideal_. There are few great metaphysical systems that have not beendeeply influenced by Platonism; hence the importance of understanding itin its purity. To this end we must return again to the early Greekconception of the philosopher; for Platonism, like Eleaticism, is asequel to the philosopher's self-consciousness. 

[Sidenote: Early Greek Philosophers not Self-critical. ]

§ 155. Although the first Greek philosophers, such men as Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles, were clearly aware of theirdistinction and high calling, it by no means follows that they were goodjudges of themselves. Their sense of intellectual power wasunsuspecting; and they praised philosophy without definitely raising thequestion of its meaning. They were like unskilled players who try allthe stops and scales of an organ, and know that somehow they can make amusic that exceeds the noises, monotones or simple melodies of those whoplay upon lesser instruments. They knew their power rather than theirinstrument or their art. The first philosophers, in short, wereself-conscious but not self-critical. 

[Sidenote: Curtailment of Philosophy in the Age of the Sophists. ]

§ 156. The immediately succeeding phase in the history of Greekphilosophy was a curtailment, but only in the most superficial sense acriticism, of the activity of the philosopher. In the Periclean Agephilosophy suffered more from inattention than from refutation. Thescepticism of the sophists, who were the knowing men of this age, wasnot so much conviction as indisposition. They failed to recognize theold philosophical problem; it did not _appeal_ to them as a genuineproblem. The sophists were the intellectual men of an age of _humanism_, _individualism_, and _secularism_. These were years in which the circleof human society, the state with its institutions, citizenship with itsmanifold activities and interests, bounded the horizon of thought. Whatneed to look beyond? Life was not a problem, but an abundant opportunityand a sense of capacity. The world was not a mystery, but a place ofentertainment and a sphere of action. Of this the sophists were faithfulwitnesses. In their love of novelty, irreverence, impressionism, elegance of speech, and above all in their praise of individualefficiency, they preached and pandered to their age. Their public, though it loved to abuse them, was the greatest sophist of themall--brilliant and capricious, incomparably rich in all but wisdom. Themajority belonged to what Plato called "the sight-loving, art-loving, busy class. " This is an age, then, when the man of practicalcommon-sense is preëminent, and the philosopher with his dark sayingshas passed away. The pride of wisdom has given way to the pride of powerand the pride of cleverness. The many men pursue the many goods of life, and there is no spirit among them all who, sitting apart incontemplation, wonders at the meaning of the whole. 

[Sidenote: Socrates and the Self-criticism of the Philosopher. ]

§ 157. But in their midst there moved a strange prophet, whom theymistook for one of themselves. Socrates was not one who prayed in thewilderness, but a man of the streets and the market-place, who talkedrather more incessantly than the rest, and apparently with less right. He did not testify to the truth, but pleaded ignorance in extenuation ofan exasperating habit of asking questions. There was, however, a humorand a method in his innocence that arrested attention. He was aformidable adversary in discussion from his very irresponsibility; andhe was especially successful with the more rhetorical sophists becausehe chose his own weapons, and substituted critical analysis, questionand answer, for the long speeches to which these teachers werehabituated by their profession. He appeared to be governed by aninsatiable inquisitiveness, and a somewhat malicious desire to discreditthose who spoke with authority. 

But to those who knew him better, and especially to Plato, who knew himbest, Socrates was at once the sweetest and most compelling spirit ofhis age. There was a kind of truth in the quality of his character. Hewas perhaps _the first of all reverent men_. In the presence of conceithis self-depreciation was ironical, but in another presence it was mostgenuine, and his deepest spring of thought and action. This otherpresence was his own ideal. Socrates was sincerely humble because, expecting so much of philosophy, he saw his own deficiency. Unlike theunskilled player, he did not seek to _make_ music; but he loved music, and knew that such music as is indeed music was beyond his power. On theother hand he was well aware of his superiority to those in whomself-satisfaction was possible because they had no conception of theideal. Of such he could say in truth that they did not know enough evento realize the extent of their ignorance. The world has long beenfamiliar with the vivid portrayal of the Socratic consciousness which iscontained in Plato's "Apology. " Socrates had set out in life with theopinion that his was an age of exceptional enlightenment. But as hecame to know men he found that after all no one of them really knew whathe was about. Each "sight-loving, art-loving, busy" man was quite blindto the meaning of life. While he was capable of practical achievement, his judgments concerning the real virtue of his achievements wereconventional and ungrounded, a mere reflection of tradition and opinion. When asked concerning the meaning of life, or the ground of hisopinions, he was thrown into confusion or aggravated to meaninglessreiteration. Such men, Socrates reflected, were both unwise andconfirmed in their folly through being unconscious of it. Because heknew that vanity is vanity, that opinion is indeed mere opinion, Socrates felt himself to be the wisest man in a generation of doggedunwisdom. 

[Sidenote: Socrates's Self-criticism a Prophecy of Truth. ]

§ 158. It is scarcely necessary to point out that this insight, howevernegatively it be used, is a revelation of positive knowledge. Heraclitusand Parmenides claimed to know; Socrates disclaimed knowledge _forreasons_. Like all real criticism this is at once a confounding of errorand a prophecy of truth. The truth so discovered is indeed not ordinarytruth concerning historical or physical things, but not on that accountless significant and necessary. This truth, it will also be admitted, isvirtually rather than actually set forth by Socrates himself. He knewthat life has some meaning which those who live with conviction desireat heart to realize, and that knowledge has principles with which thosewho speak with conviction intend to be consistent. There is, in short, arational life and a rational discourse. Furthermore, a rational lifewill be a life wisely directed to the end of the good; and a rationaldiscourse one constructed with reference to the real natures of things, and the necessities which flow from these natures. But Socrates did notconclusively define either the meaning of life or the form of perfectknowledge. He testified to the necessity of some such truths, and histestimony demonstrated both the blindness of his contemporaries and alsohis own deficiency. 

[Sidenote: The Historical Preparation for Plato. ]

§ 159. The character and method of Socrates have their best foil in thesophists, but their bearing on the earlier philosophers is for ourpurposes even more instructive. Unlike Socrates these philosophers hadnot made a study of the task of the philosopher. They _were_philosophers--"spectators of all time and all existence"; but they wereprecritical or dogmatic philosophers, to whom it had not occurred todefine the requirements of philosophy. They knew no perfect knowledgeother than their own actual knowledge. They defined being andinterpreted life without reflecting upon the quality of the knowledgewhose object is being, or the quality of insight that would indeed bepractical wisdom. But when through Socrates the whole philosophicalprospect is again revealed after the period of humanistic concentration, it is as an ideal whose possibilities, whose necessities, are conceivedbefore they are realized. Socrates celebrates the rôle of thephilosopher without assigning it to himself. The new philosophicalobject is the philosopher himself; and the new insight a knowledge ofknowledge itself. These three types of intellectual procedure, dogmaticspeculation concerning being, humanistic interest in life, and theself-criticism of thought, form the historical preparation for Plato, the philosopher who defined being as the ideal of thought, and upon thisground interpreted life. 

There is no more striking case in history of the subtle continuity ofthought than the relation between Plato and his master Socrates. Thewonder of it is due to the absence of any formulation of doctrine onthe part of Socrates himself. He only lived and talked; and yet Platocreated a system of philosophy in which he is faithfully embodied. Theform of embodiment is the dialogue, in which the talking of Socrates isperpetuated and conducted to profounder issues, and in which his life isboth rendered and interpreted. But as the vehicle of Plato's thoughtpreserves and makes perfect the Socratic method, so the thought itselfbegins with the Socratic motive and remains to the end an expression ofit. The presentiment of perfect knowledge which distinguished Socratesfrom his contemporaries becomes in Plato the clear vision of a realm ofideal truth. 

[Sidenote: Platonism: Reality as the Absolute Ideal or Good. ]

§ 160. Plato begins his philosophy with the philosopher and thephilosopher's interest. The philosopher is a lover, who like all loverslongs for the beautiful. But he is the supreme lover, for he loves notthe individual beautiful object but the Absolute Beauty itself. He is alover too in that he does not possess, but somehow apprehends his objectfrom afar. Though imperfect, he seeks perfection; though standing likeall his fellows in the twilight of half-reality, he faces toward thesun. Now it is the fundamental proposition of the Platonic philosophythat reality is the sun itself, or the perfection whose possession everywise thinker covets, whose presence would satisfy every longing ofexperience. The real is that beloved object which is "truly beautiful, delicate, perfect, and blessed. " There is both a serious ground for suchan affirmation and an important truth in its meaning. The ground is theevident incompleteness of every special judgment concerning experience. We understand only in part, and we know that we understand only in part. What we discover is real enough for practical purposes, but evencommon-sense questions the true reality of its objects. Specialjudgments seem to terminate our thought abruptly and arbitrarily. Wegive "the best answer we can, " but such answers do not come as thecompletion of our thinking. Our thought is in some sense surely aseeking, and it would appear that we are not permitted to rest and besatisfied at any stage of it. If we do so we are like thesophists--blind to our own ignorance. But it is equally true that ourthought is straightforward and progressive. We are not permitted toreturn to earlier stages, but must push on to that which is not less, but more, than what we have as yet found. There is good hope, then, ofunderstanding what the ideal may be from our knowledge of the directionwhich it impels us to follow. 

But to understand Plato's conception of the progression of experience wemust again catch up the Socratic strain which he weaves into everytheme. For Socrates, student of life and mankind, all objects wereobjects of interest, and all interests practical interests. One isignorant when one does not know the good of things; opinionative whenone rates things by conventional standards; wise when one knows theirreal good. In Platonism this practical interpretation of experienceappears in the principle that the object of perfect knowledge is _thegood_. The nature of things which one seeks to know better is the goodof things, the absolute being which is the goal of all thinking is thevery good itself. Plato does not use the term good in any merelyutilitarian sense. Indeed it is very significant that for Plato there isno cleavage between theoretical and practical interests. To be morallygood is to know the good, to set one's heart on the true object ofaffection; and to be theoretically sound is to understand perfection. The good itself is the end of every aim, that in which all interestsconverge. Hence it cannot be defined, as might a special good, in termsof the fulfilment of a set of concrete conditions, but only in terms ofthe sense or direction of all purposes. The following passage occurs inthe "Symposium":

 "The true order of going or being led by others to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upward for the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. "[329:8]

[Sidenote: The Progression of Experience toward God. ]

§ 161. There is, then, a "true order of going, " and an order that leadsfrom one to many, from thence to forms, from thence to morality, andfrom thence to the general objects of thought or _the ideas_. In the"Republic, " where the proper education of the philosopher is inquestion, it is proposed that he shall study arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and dialectic. Thus in each case mathematics is the firstadvance in knowledge, and dialectic the nearest to perfection. Most ofPlato's examples are drawn from mathematics. This science replaces thevariety and vagueness of the forms of experience with _clear_, _unitary_, _definite_, and _eternal_ natures, such as the number andthe geometrical figure. Thus certain individual things are approximatelytriangular, but subject to alteration, and indefinitely many. On theother hand the triangle as defined by geometry is the fixed andunequivocal nature or idea which such experiences suggest; and thephilosophical mind will at once pass to it from these. But themathematical objects are themselves not thoroughly understood whenunderstood only in mathematical terms, for the foundations ofmathematics are arbitrary. And the same is true of all the so-calledspecial sciences. Even the scientists themselves, says Plato, "only dream about being, but never can behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a conventional statement will ever become science?"[330:9]

Within the science of dialectics we are to understand the connectionsand sequences of ideas themselves, in the hope of eliminating everyarbitrariness and conventionality within a system of truth that is pureand self-luminous rationality. To this science, which is the greatinterest of his later years, Plato contributes only incomplete studiesand experiments. We must be satisfied with the playful answer withwhich, in the "Republic, " he replies to Glaucon's entreaty that "heproceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain, anddescribe that in like manner": "Dear Glaucon, you will not be able tofollow me here, though I would do my best. "

But a philosophical system has been projected. The real is that perfectsignificance or meaning which thought and every interest suggests, andtoward which there is in experience an appreciable movement. It is thissignificance which makes things what they really are, and whichconstitutes our understanding of them. In itself it transcends the stepswhich lead to it; "for God, " says Plato, "mingles not with men. " But itis nevertheless the meaning of human life. And this we can readilyconceive. The last word may transform the sentence from nonsense intosense, and it would be true to say that its sense mingles not withnonsense. Similarly the last touch of the brush may transform aninchoate mass of color into a picture, disarray into an object ofbeauty; and its beauty mingles not with ugliness. So life, when itfinally realizes itself, obtains a new and incommensurable quality ofperfection in which humanity is transformed into deity. There is franklyno provision for imperfection in such a world. In his later writingsPlato sounds his characteristic note less frequently, and permits theideal to create a cosmos through the admixture of matter. But in hismoment of inspiration, the Platonist will have no sense for theimperfect. It is the darkness behind his back, or the twilight throughwhich he passes on his way to the light. He will use even the beautiesof earth only "as steps along which he mounts upward for the sake ofthat other beauty. "

[Sidenote: Aristotle's Hierarchy of Substances in Relation toPlatonism. ]

§ 162. We have met, then, with two distinct philosophical doctrineswhich arise from the conception of the _absolute_, or the philosopher'speculiar object: the doctrine of the _absolute being_ or _substance_, and that of the _absolute ideal_ or _good_. Both doctrines are realisticin that they assume reality to be demonstrated or revealed, rather thancreated, by knowledge. Both are rationalistic in that they develop asystem of philosophy from the problem of philosophy, or deduce adefinition of reality from the conception, of reality. There remains athird doctrine of the same type--the philosophy of Aristotle, the mostelaborately constructed system of Greek antiquity, and the most potentinfluence exerted upon the Scholastic Philosophy of the long mediævalperiod. This philosophy was rehabilitated in the eighteenth century byLeibniz, the brilliant librarian of the court of Hanover. Theextraordinary comprehensiveness of Aristotle's philosophy makes it quiteimpossible to render here even a general account of it. There isscarcely any human discipline that does not to some extent draw upon it. We are concerned only with the central principles of the metaphysics. 

Upon the common ground of rationalism and realism, Plato and Aristotleare complementary in temper, method, and principle. Plato's is thegenius of inspiration and fertility, Aristotle's the genius oferudition, mastery, and synthesis. In form, Plato's is the gift ofexpression, Aristotle's the gift of arrangement. Plato was born and bredan aristocrat, and became the lover of the best--the uncompromisingpurist; Aristotle is middle-class, and limitlessly wide, hospitable, andpatient in his interests. Thus while both are speculative and acute, Plato's mind is intensive and profound, Aristotle's extensive andorderly. It was inevitable, then, that Aristotle should find Platoone-sided. The philosophy of the ideal is not worldly enough to be true. It is a religion rather than a theory of reality. Aristotle, however, would not renounce it, but construe it that it may better provide fornature and history. This is the significance of his new terminology. Matter, to which Plato reluctantly concedes some room as a principle ofdegradation in the universe, is now admitted to good standing. _Matter_or material is indispensable to being as its potentiality or that out ofwhich it is constituted. The ideal, on the other hand, loses itsexclusive title to the predicate of reality, and becomes the _form_, orthe determinate nature which exists only in its particular embodiments. The being or _substance_ is the concrete individual, of which these arethe abstracted aspects. Aristotle's "form, " like Plato's "idea, " is ateleological principle. The essential nature of the object is itsperfection. It is furthermore essential to the object that it shouldstrive after a higher perfection. With Aristotle, however, the realityis not the consummation of the process, the highest perfection in andfor itself, but the very hierarchy of objects that ascends toward it. The highest perfection, or God, is not itself coextensive with being, but the final cause of being--that on account of which the wholeprogression of events takes place. Reality is the development with allof its ascending stages from the maximum of potentiality, or matter, tothe maximum of actuality, or God the pure form. 

[Sidenote: The Aristotelian Philosophy as a Reconciliation of Platonismand Spinozism. ]

§ 163. To understand the virtue of this philosophy as a basis for thereconciliation of different interests, we must recall the relationbetween Plato and Spinoza. Their characteristic difference appears tothe best advantage in connection with mathematical truth. Both regardedgeometry as the best model for philosophical thinking, but for differentreasons. Spinoza prized geometry for its necessity, and proposed toextend it. His philosophy is the attempt to formulate a geometry ofbeing, which shall set forth the inevitable certainties of the universe. Plato, on the other hand, prized geometry rather for its definition oftypes, for its knowledge of pure or perfect natures such as the circleand triangle, which in immediate experience are only approximated. Hisphilosophy defines reality similarly as the absolute perfection. Applied to nature Spinozism is mechanical, and looks for necessary laws, while Platonism is teleological, and looks for adaptation andsignificance. Aristotle's position is intermediate. With Plato heaffirms that the good is the ultimate principle. But this very principleis conceived to govern a universe of substances, each of which maintainsits own proper being, and all of which are reciprocally determined intheir changes. Final causes dominate nature, but work through efficientcauses. Reality is not pure perfection, as in Platonism, nor theindifferent necessity, as in Spinozism, but the system of beingsnecessary to the complete progression toward the highest perfection. TheAristotelian philosophy promises, then, to overcome both the hardrealism of Parmenides and Spinoza, and also the supernaturalism ofPlato. 

[Sidenote: Leibniz's Application of the Conception of Development to theProblem of Imperfection. ]

§ 164. But it promises, furthermore, to remedy the defect common tothese two doctrines, the very besetting problem of this whole type ofphilosophy. That problem, as has been seen, is to provide for theimperfect within the perfect, for the temporal incidents of nature andhistory within the eternal being. Many absolutist philosophers havedeclared the explanation of this realm to be impossible, and havecontented themselves with calling it the realm of opinion or appearance. And this realm of opinion or appearance has been used as a proof of theabsolute. Zeno, the pupil of Parmenides, was the first to elaborate whathave since come to be known as the paradoxes of the empirical world. Most of these paradoxes turn upon the infinite extension anddivisibility of space and time. Zeno was especially interested in thedifficulty of conceiving motion, which involves both space and time, and thought himself to have demonstrated its absurdity andimpossibility. [337:10] His argument is thus the complement ofParmenides's argument for the indivisible and unchanging substance. Nowthe method which Zeno here adopts may be extended to cover the wholerealm of nature and history. We should then be dialectically driven fromthis realm to take refuge in absolute being. But the empirical world isnot destroyed by disparagement, and cannot long lack champions evenamong the absolutists themselves. The reconciliation of nature andhistory with the absolute being became the special interest of Leibniz, the great modern Aristotelian. As a scientist and man of affairs, hewas profoundly dissatisfied with Spinoza's resolution of nature, thehuman individual, and the human society into the universal being. Hebecame an advocate of individualism while retaining the general aim andmethod of rationalism. 

Like Aristotle, Leibniz attributes reality to individual substances, which he calls "monads"; and like Aristotle he conceives these monads tocompose an ascending order, with God, the monad of monads, as itsdominating goal. 

 "Furthermore, every substance is like an entire world and like a mirror of God, or indeed of the whole world which it portrays, each one in its own fashion; almost as the same city is variously represented according to the various situations of him who is regarding it. Thus the universe is multiplied in some sort as many times as there are substances, and the glory of God is multiplied in the same way by as many wholly different representations of his works. "[338:11]

The very "glory of God, " then, requires the innumerable finiteindividuals with all their characteristic imperfections, that theuniverse may lack no possible shade or quality of perspective. 

[Sidenote: The Problem of Imperfection Remains Unsolved. ]

§ 165. But the besetting problem is in fact not solved, and is one ofthe chief incentives to that other philosophy of absolutism whichdefines an absolute spirit or mind. Both Aristotle and Leibniz undertaketo make the perfection which determines the order of the hierarchy ofsubstances, at the same time the responsible author of the wholehierarchy. In this case the dilemma is plain. If the divine form or thedivine monad be other than the stages that lead up to it, these lattercannot be essential to it, for God is by definition absolutelyself-sufficient. If, on the other hand, God is identical with thedevelopment in its entirety, then two quite incommensurable standards ofperfection determine the supremacy of the divine nature, that of thewhole and that of the highest parts of the whole. The union of these twoand the definition of a perfection which may be at once the developmentand its goal, is the task of absolute idealism. 

[Sidenote: Absolute Realism in Epistemology. Rationalism. ]

§ 166. Of the two fundamental questions of epistemology, absoluterealism answers the one explicitly, the other implicitly. As respects_the source of the most valid knowledge_, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza are all agreed: true knowledge is the work of reason, of pureintellection. Plato is the great exponent of dialectic, or thereciprocal affinities and necessities of ideas. Aristotle is the founderof deductive logic. Spinoza proposes to consider even "human actions anddesires" as though he were "concerned with lines, planes, and solids. "Empirical data may be the occasion, but cannot be the ground of thehighest knowledge. According to Leibniz, "it seems that necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics, and especially in arithmetic and geometry, must have principles whose proof does not depend upon instances, nor, consequently, upon the witness of the senses, although without the senses it would never have come into our heads to think of them. "[340:12]

[Sidenote: The Relation of Thought and its Object in Absolute Realism. ]

§ 167. The answers which these philosophies give to the question of _therelation between the state of knowledge and its object_, divide theminto two groups. Among the ancients reason is regarded as the means ofemancipation from the limitations of the private mind. "The sleepingturn aside each into a world of his own, " but "the waking"--the wisemen--"have one and the same world. " What the individual knows belongs tohimself only in so far as it is inadequate. Hence for Plato the ideasare not the attributes of a mind, but that self-subsistent truth towhich, in its moments of insight, a mind may have access. Opinion is "myown, " the truth is being. The position of Aristotle is equally clear. "Actual knowledge, " he maintains, "is identical with its object. "

Spinoza and Leibniz belong to another age. Modern philosophy began witha new emphasis upon self-consciousness. In his celebrated argument--"Ithink, hence I am" (_cogito ergo sum_)--Descartes established theindependent and substantial reality of the thinking activity. The "Ithink" is recognized as in itself a fundamental being, known intuitivelyto the thinker himself. Now although Spinoza and Leibniz are finallydetermined by the same motives that obtain in the cases of Plato andAristotle, they must reckon with this new distinction between thethinker and his object. The result in the case of Spinoza is thedoctrine of "parallelism, " in which mind is defined as an "infiniteattribute" of substance, an aspect or phase coextensive with the wholeof being. The result in the case of Leibniz is his doctrine of"representation" and "preëstablished harmony, " whereby each monadicsubstance is in itself an active spiritual entity, and belongs to theuniverse through its knowledge of a specific stage of the development ofthe universe. But both Spinoza and Leibniz subordinate such conceptionsas these to the fundamental identity that pervades the whole. WithSpinoza the attributes belong to the same absolute substance, and withLeibniz the monads represent the one universe. And with both, finally, the perfection of knowledge, or the knowledge of God, isindistinguishable from its object, God himself. The epistemologicalsubtleties peculiar to these philosophers are not stable doctrines, butrender inevitable either a return to the simpler and bolder realism ofthe Greeks, or a passing over into the more radical and systematicdoctrine of absolute idealism. 

[Sidenote: The Stoic and Spinozistic Ethics of Necessity. ]

§ 168. We have met with two general motives, both of which aresubordinated to the doctrine of an absolute being postulated and soughtby philosophy. The one of these motives leads to the conception of theabsolutely necessary and immutable substance, the other to theconception of a consummate perfection. There is an _interpretation oflife_ appropriate to each of these conceptions. Both agree in regardinglife seriously, in defining reason or philosophy as the highest humanactivity, and in emphasizing the identity of the individual's good withthe good of the universe. But there are striking differences of tone andspirit. 

Although the metaphysics of the Stoics have various affiliations, theStoic code of morality is the true practical sequel to theEleatic-Spinozistic view of the world. The Stoic is one who has set hisaffections on the eternal being. He asks nothing of it for himself, butidentifies himself with it. The saving grace is a sense of reality. Thevirtuous man is not one who remakes the world, or draws upon it for hisprivate uses; even less one who rails against it, or complains that ithas used him ill. He is rather one who recognizes that there is but onereally valid claim, that of the universe itself. But he not only submitsto this claim on account of its superiority; he makes it his own. Thediscipline of Stoicism is the regulation of the individual will to theend that it may coincide with the universal will. There is a part of manby virtue of which he is satisfied with what things are, whatever theybe. That part, designated by the Stoics as "the ruling part, " is thereason. In so far as man seeks to understand the laws and natures whichactually prevail, he cannot be discontented with anything whatsoeverthat may be known to him. 

 "For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is true: wherefore, in so far as we have a right understanding of these things, the endeavor of the better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole. "[344:13]

In agreement with this teaching of Spinoza's is the famous Stoic formulato the effect that "nothing can happen contrary to the will of the wiseman, " who is free through his very acquiescence. If reason be the proper"ruling part, " the first step in the moral life is the subordination ofthe appetitive nature and the enthronement of reason. One who is himselfrational will then recognize the fellowship of all rational beings, andthe unitary and beneficent rationality of the entire universe. Thehighest morality is thus already upon the plane of religion. 

[Sidenote: The Platonic Ethics of Perfection. ]

§ 169. With Spinoza and the Stoics, the perfection of the individual isreduced to what the universe requires of him. The good man is willing tobe whatever he must be, for the sake of the whole with which throughreason he is enabled to identify himself. With Plato and Aristotle theperfection of the individual himself is commended, that the universe mayabound in perfection. The good man is the ideal man--the expression ofthe type. And how different the quality of a morality in keeping withthis principle! The virtues which Plato enumerates--temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice--compose a consummate human nature. He is thinkingnot of the necessities but of the possibilities of life. Knowledge ofthe truth will indeed be the best of human living, but knowledge is notprized because it can reconcile man to his limitations; it is the veryoverflowing of his cup of life. The youth are to

 "dwell in the land of health, amid fair sights and sounds; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will visit the eye and ear, like a healthful breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul even in childhood into harmony with the beauty of reason. "[345:14]

Aristotle's account of human perfection is more circumstantial and moreprosaic. "The function of man is an activity of soul in accordance withreason, " and his happiness or well-being will consist in the fulness ofrational living. But such fulness requires a sphere of life that willcall forth and exercise the highest human capacities. Aristotle franklypronounces "external goods" to be indispensable, and happiness to betherefore "a gift of the gods. " The rational man will acquire a certainexquisiteness or finesse of action, a "mean" of conduct; and this virtuewill be diversified through the various relations into which he mustenter, and the different situations which he must meet. He will be notmerely brave, temperate, and just, as Plato would have him, but liberal, magnificent, gentle, truthful, witty, friendly, and in allself-respecting or high-minded. In addition to these strictly moralvirtues, he will possess the intellectual virtues of prudence andwisdom, the resources of art and science; and will finally possess thegift of insight, or intuitive reason. Speculation will be his highestactivity, and the mark of his kinship with the gods who dwell in theperpetual contemplation of the truth. 

[Sidenote: The Religion of Fulfilment, and the Religion ofRenunciation. ]

§ 170. Aristotle's ethics expresses the buoyancy of the ancient world, when the individual does not feel himself oppressed by the eternalreality, but rejoices in it. He is not too conscious of his sufferingsto be disinterested in his admiration and wonder. It is this whichdistinguishes the religion of Plato and Aristotle from that of theStoics and Spinoza. With both alike, religion consists not in making theworld, but in contemplating it; not in coöperating with God, but inworshipping him. Plato and Aristotle, however, do not find anyantagonism between the ways of God and the natural interests of men. Goddoes not differ from men save in his exalted perfection. Thecontemplation and worship of him comes as the final and highest stage ofa life which is organic and continuous throughout. The love of God isthe natural love when it has found its true object. 

 "For he who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty--and this, Socrates, is that final cause of all our former toils, which in the first place is everlasting--not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; in the next place not fair in one point of view and foul in another, . . . Or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, nor existing in any other being; . . . But beauty only, absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. "[347:15]

The religion of Spinoza is the religion of one who has renounced thefavor of the universe. He was deprived early in life of every benefit offortune, and set out to find the good which required no specialdispensation but only the common lot and the common human endowment. Hefound that good to consist in the conviction of the necessity, madeacceptable through the supremacy of the understanding. The like faith ofthe Stoics makes of no account the difference of fortune between Marcusthe emperor and Epictetus the slave. 

 "For two reasons, then, it is right to be content with that which happens to thee; the one because it was done for thee and prescribed for thee, and in a manner had reference to thee, originally from the most ancient causes spun with thy destiny; and the other because even that which comes severally to every man is to the power which administers the universe a cause of felicity and perfection, nay even of its very continuance. For the integrity of the whole is mutilated, if thou cuttest off anything whatever from the conjunction and the continuity either of the parts or of the causes. And thou dost cut off, as far as it is in thy power, when thou art dissatisfied, and in a manner triest to put anything out of the way. "[348:16]

FOOTNOTES:

[306:1] By _Absolute Realism_ is meant that system of philosophy whichdefines the universe as the _absolute being_, implied in knowledge asits final object, but assumed to be independent of knowledge. In the_Spinozistic_ system this absolute being is conceived under the form of_substance_, or self-sufficiency; in _Platonism_ under the form of_perfection_; and in the _Aristotelian_ system under the form of a_hierarchy of substances_. 

[308:2] Burnet: _Early Greek Philosophy_, p. 185. 

[309:3] When contrasted with the temporal realm of "generation anddecay, " this ultimate object is often called the _eternal_. 

[311:4] Holland, 1632-1677. 

[312:5] Spinoza: _Ethics_, Part I. Translation by Elwes, p. 45. 

[314:6] _Ibid. _, p. 49. 

[318:7] _Ibid. _, pp. 77, 81. 

[329:8] Plato: _Symposium_, 211. Translation by Jowett. 

[330:9] Plato: _Republic_, 533. Translation by Jowett. 

[337:10] See Burnet: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 322-333. 

[338:11] Leibniz: _Discourse on Metaphysics_. Translation by Montgomery, p. 15. 

In so far as the monads are spiritual this doctrine tends to besubjectivistic. Cf. Chap. IX. 

[340:12] Leibniz: _New Essays on the Human Understanding_. Translationby Latta, p. 363. 

[344:13] Spinoza: _Op. Cit. _, Part IV. Translation by Elwes, p. 243. 

[345:14] Plato: _Op. Cit. _, 401. 

[347:15] Plato: _Symposium_, 210-211. Translation by Jowett. 

[348:16] Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: _Thoughts_. Translation by Long, p. 141. 

CHAPTER XI

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM[349:1]

[Sidenote: General Constructive Character of Absolute Idealism. ]

§ 171. Absolute idealism is the most elaborately constructive of all thehistorical types of philosophy. Though it may have overlooked elementarytruths, and have sought to combine irreconcilable principles, it cannotbe charged with lack of sophistication or subtlety. Its great virtue isits recognition of problems--its exceeding circumspection; while itsgreat promise is due to its comprehensiveness--its generous provisionfor all interests and points of view. But its very breadth andcomplexity render this philosophy peculiarly liable to the equivocal useof conceptions. This may be readily understood from the nature of thecentral doctrine of absolute idealism. According to this doctrine it isproposed to define the universe as an _absolute spirit_; or a beinginfinite, ultimate, eternal, and self-sufficient, like the being ofPlato and Spinoza, but possessing at the same time the distinguishingproperties of spirit. Such conceptions as self-consciousness, will, knowledge, and moral goodness are carried over from the realm of humanendeavor and social relations to the unitary and all-inclusive reality. Now it has been objected that this procedure is either meaningless, inthat it so applies the term spirit as to contradict its meaning; orprejudicial to spiritual interests, in that it neutralizes theproperties of spirit through so extending their use. Thus one maycontend that to affirm that the universe as a whole is spirit ismeaningless, since moral goodness requires special conditions andrelations that cannot be attributed to the universe as a whole; or onemay contend that such doctrine is prejudicial to moral interests becauseby attributing spiritual perfection to the totality of being itdiscredits all moral loyalties and antagonisms. The difficulties thatlie in the way of absolute idealism are due, then, to the complexity ofits synthesis, to its complementary recognition of differences andresolution of them into unity. But this synthesis is due to the urgencyof certain great problems which the first or realistic expression ofthe absolutist motive left undiscovered and unsolved. 

[Sidenote: The Great Outstanding Problems of Absolutism. ]

§ 172. It is natural to approach so deliberate and calculating aphilosophy from the stand-point of the problems which it proposes tosolve. One of these is the epistemological problem of the relationbetween the state of knowledge and its object. Naturalism and absoluterealism side with common-sense in its assumption that although the realobject is essential to the valid state of knowledge, its being known isnot essential to the real object. Subjectivism, on the other hand, maintains that being is essentially the content of a knowing state, oran activity of the knower himself. Absolute idealism proposes to acceptthe general epistemological principle of subjectivism; but to satisfythe realistic demand for a standard, compelling object, by setting up an_absolute knower_, with whom all valid knowledge must be in agreement. This epistemological statement of absolute idealism is its most maturephase; and the culminating phase, in which it shows unmistakable signsof passing over into another doctrine. We must look for its pristineinspiration in its solution of another fundamental problem: that of therelation between the absolute and the empirical. Like absolute realism, this philosophy regards the universe as a unitary and internallynecessary being, and undertakes to hold that being accountable for everyitem of experience. But we have found that absolute realism is besetwith the difficulty of thus accounting for the fragmentariness andisolation of the individual. The contention that the universe mustreally be a rational or perfect unity is disputed by the evidentmultiplicity, irrelevance, and imperfection in the foreground ofexperience. The inference to perfection and the confession ofimperfection seem equally unavoidable. Rational necessities andempirical facts are out of joint. 

[Sidenote: The Greek Philosophers and the Problem of Evil. The Task ofthe New Absolutism. ]

§ 173. Even Plato had been conscious of a certain responsibility formatters of fact. Inasmuch as he attached the predicate of reality to theabsolute perfection, he made that being the only source to which theycould be referred. Perhaps, then, he suggests, they are due to the verybounteousness of God. 

 "He was good, and no goodness can ever have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as possible. "[352:2]

Plotinus, in whom Platonism is leavened by the spirit of an age whichis convinced of sin, and which is therefore more keenly aware of thepositive existence of the imperfect, follows out this suggestion. Creation is "emanation"--the overflow of God's excess of goodness. Butone does not readily understand how goodness, desiring all things to belike itself, should thereupon create evil--even to make it good. TheAristotelian philosophy, with its conception of the gradation ofsubstances, would seem to be better equipped to meet the difficulty. Adevelopment requires stages; and every finite thing may thus be perfectin its way and perfect in its place, while in the absolute truth or Godthere is realized the meaning of the whole order. But if so, there isevidently something that escapes God, to wit, the meaningless andunfitness, the error and evil, of the stages in their successiveisolation. Nor is it of any avail to insist (as did Plato, Aristotle, and Spinoza alike) that these are only privation, and therefore not tobe counted in the sum of reality. For privation is itself an experience, with a great variety of implications, moral and psychological; and thesecannot be attributed to God or deduced from him, in consideration of hisabsolute perfection. 

The task of the new absolutism is now in clear view. The perfect mustbe amended to admit the imperfect. The absolute significance must be soconstrued as to provide for the evident facts; for the unmeaning thingsand changes of the natural order; for ignorance, sin, despair, and everyhuman deficiency. The new philosophy is to solve this problem bydefining a _spiritual absolute_, and by so construing the life ordynamics of spirit, as to demonstrate the necessity of the veryimperfection and opposition which is so baffling to the realist. 

[Sidenote: The Beginning of Absolute Idealism in Kant's Analysis ofExperience. ]

§ 174. Absolute idealism, which is essentially a modern doctrine, doesnot begin with rhapsodies, but with a very sober analysis of familiartruths, conducted by the most sober of all philosophers, Immanuel Kant. This philosopher lived in Königsberg, Germany, at the close of theeighteenth century. He is related to absolute idealism much as Socratesis related to Platonism: he was not himself speculative, but employed acritical method which was transformed by his followers into ametaphysical construction. It is essential to the understanding both ofKant and of his more speculative successors, to observe that he beginswith the recognition of certain non-philosophical truths--those of_natural science_ and _the moral consciousness_. He accepts the order ofnature formulated in the Newtonian dynamics, and the moral orderacknowledged in the common human conviction of duty. And he isinterested in discovering the ground upon which these commonaffirmations rest, the structure which virtually supports them as typesof knowledge. But a general importance attaches to the analysis becausethese two types of knowledge (together with the æsthetic judgment, whichis similarly analyzed) are regarded by Kant as coextensive withexperience itself. The _very least experience_ that can be reported uponat all is an experience of nature or duty, and as such will be informedwith their characteristic principles. Let us consider the former type. The simplest instance of nature is the experience of the singleperceived object. In the first place, such an object will be perceivedas in space and time. These Kant calls the _forms of intuition_. Anobject cannot even be presented or given without them. But, furthermore, it will be regarded as substance, that is, as having a substratum thatpersists through changes of position or quality. It will also beregarded as causally dependent upon other objects like itself. Causality, substance, and like principles to the number of twelve, Kantcalls the _categories of the understanding_. Both intuition andunderstanding are indispensable to the experience of any objectwhatsoever. They may be said to condition the object in general. Theirprinciples condition the process of making something out of the manifoldof sensation. But similarly, every moral experience recognizes what Kantcalls _the categorical imperative_. The categorical imperative is thelaw of reasonableness or impartiality in conduct, requiring theindividual to act on a maxim which he can "will to be law universal. " Nostate of desire or situation calling for action means anything morallyexcept in the light of this obligation. Thus certain principles ofthought and action are said to be implicit in all experience. They areuniversal and necessary in the sense that they are discovered as theconditions not of any particular experience, but of experience ingeneral. This implicit or virtual presence in experience in general, Kant calls their transcendental character, and the process ofexplicating them is his famous _Transcendental Deduction_. 

[Sidenote: Kant's Principles Restricted to the Experiences which theySet in Order. ]

§ 175. The restriction which Kant puts upon his method is quiteessential to its meaning. I deduce the categories, for example, just inso far as I find them to be necessary to perception. Without them myperception is blind, I make nothing of it; with them my experiencebecomes systematic and rational. But categories which I so deduce mustbe forever limited to the rôle for which they are defined. Categorieswithout perceptions are "empty"; they have validity solely withreference to the experience which they set in order. Indeed, I cannoteven complete that order. The orderly arrangement of parts of experiencesuggests, and suggests irresistibly, a perfect system. I can even definethe ideas and ideals through which such a perfect system might berealized. But I cannot in the Kantian sense attach reality to it becauseit is not indispensable to experience. It must remain an ideal whichregulates my thinking of such parts of it as fall within the range of myperception; or it may through my moral nature become the realm of myliving and an object of faith. In short, Kant's is essentially a"critical philosophy, " a logical and analytical study of the specialterms and relations of human knowledge. He denies the validity of theseterms and relations beyond this realm. His critiques are an inventoryof the conditions, principles, and prospects of that cognition which, although not alone ideally conceivable, is alone possible. 

[Sidenote: The Post-Kantian Metaphysics is a Generalization of theCognitive and Moral Consciousness as Analyzed by Kant. The AbsoluteSpirit. ]

§ 176. With the successors of Kant, as with the successors of Socrates, a criticism becomes a system of metaphysics. This transformation iseffected in the post-Kantians by _a generalization of the humancognitive consciousness_. According to Kant's analysis it contains amanifold of sense which must be organized by categories in obedience tothe ideal of a rational universe. The whole enterprise, with itsproblems given in perception, its instruments available in theactivities of the understanding, and its ideals revealed in the reason, is an organic spiritual unity, manifesting itself in theself-consciousness of the thinker. Now in absolute idealism this veryenterprise of knowledge, made universal and called the _absolute spirit_or _mind_, is taken to be the ultimate reality. And here at length wouldseem to be afforded the conception of a being to which the problematicand the rational, the data and the principles, the natural and theideal, are alike indispensable. We are now to seek the real not in theideal itself, but in that spiritual unity in which appearance is theincentive to truth, and natural imperfection the spring to goodness. This may be translated into the language which Plato uses in the"Symposium, " when Diotima is revealing to Socrates the meaning of love. The new reality will be not the loved one, but love itself. 

 "What then is Love? Is he mortal?"

 "No. "

 "What then?"

 "As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but is a mean between them. "

 "What is he then, Diotima?"

 "He is a great spirit, and like all that is spiritual he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal. "[359:3]

Reality is no longer the God who mingles not with men, but that powerwhich, as Diotima further says, "interprets and conveys to the gods theprayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and rewards ofthe gods. "

In speaking for such an idealism, Emerson says:

 "Everything good is on the highway. The middle region of our being is the temperate zone. We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, of spirit, of poetry. . . . The mid-world is best. "[359:4]

The new reality is this highway of the spirit, the very course andraceway of self-consciousness. It is traversed in the movement andself-correction of thought, in the interest in ideals, or in thesubmission of the will to the control of the moral law. 

[Sidenote: Fichteanism, or the Absolute Spirit as Moral Activity. ]

§ 177. It is the last of these phases of self-consciousness that Fichte, who was Kant's immediate successor, regards as of paramount importance. As Platonism began with the ideal of the good or the object of life, sothe new idealism begins with the conviction of duty, or _the story oflife_. Being is the living moral nature compelled to build itself anatural order wherein it may obey the moral law, and to divide itselfinto a community of moral selves through which the moral virtues may berealized. Nature and society flow from the conception of an absolutemoral activity, or ego. Such an ego could not be pure and isolated andyet be moral. The evidence of this is the common moral consciousness. Myduty compels me to act upon the not-self or environment, and to respectand coöperate with other selves. Fichte's absolute is this moralconsciousness universalized and made eternal. Moral value being itsfundamental principle the universe must on that very account embraceboth nature, or moral indifference, and humanity, or moral limitation. 

[Sidenote: Romanticism, or the Absolute Spirit as Sentiment. ]

§ 178. But the Romanticists, who followed close upon Fichte, weredissatisfied with so hard and exclusive a conception of spiritual being. Life, they said, is not all duty. Indeed, the true spiritual life isquite other, not harsh and constrained, but free and spontaneous--awealth of feeling playing about a constantly shifting centre. Spirit isnot consecutive and law-abiding, but capricious and wanton, seeking thebeautiful in no orderly progression, but in a refined and versatilesensibility. If this be the nature of spirit, and if spirit be thenature of reality, then he is most wise who is most rich in sentiment. The Romanticists were the exponents of an absolute sentimentalism. Andthey did not prove it, but like good sentimentalists they felt it. 

[Sidenote: Hegelianism, or the Absolute Spirit as Dialectic. ]

§ 179. Hegel, the master of the new idealism, set himself the task ofconstruing spirit in terms as consecutive as those of Fichte, and ascomprehensive as those of the Romanticists. Like Plato, he found indialectic the supreme manifestation of the spiritual life. There is acertain flow of ideas which determines the meaning of experience, andis the truth of truths. But the mark of the new prophet is this: theflow of ideas itself is _a process of self-correction due to a sense oferror_. Thus bare sensation is abstract and bare thought is abstract. The real, however, is not merely the concrete in which they are united, but the very process in the course of which through knowledge ofabstraction thought arrives at the concrete. The principle of negationis the very life of thought, and it is _the life of thought_, ratherthan the outcome of thought, which is reality. The most general form ofthe dialectical process contains three moments: the moment of _thesis_, in which affirmation is made; the moment of _antithesis_, in which theopposite asserts itself; and the moment of _synthesis_, in which areconciliation is effected in a new thesis. Thus thought is theprogressive overcoming of contradiction; not the state of freedom fromcontradiction, but the act of escaping it. Such processes are morefamiliar in the moral life. Morality consists, so even common-senseasserts, in the overcoming of evil. Character is the resistance oftemptation; goodness, a growth in grace through discipline. Of such, forHegel, is the very kingdom of heaven. It is the task of the philosopher, a task to which Hegel applies himself most assiduously, to analyze thebattle and the victory upon which spiritual being nourishes itself. Andsince the deeper processes are those of thought, the Hegelian philosophycentres in an ordering of notions, a demonstration of that necessaryprogression of thought which, in its whole dynamical logical history, constitutes the _absolute idea_. 

[Sidenote: The Hegelian Philosophy of Nature and History. ]

§ 180. The Hegelian philosophy, with its emphasis upon difference, antagonism, and development, is peculiarly qualified to be a philosophyof nature and history. Those principles of spiritual development whichlogic defines are conceived as incarnate in the evolution of the world. Nature, as the very antithesis to spirit, is now understood to be thefoil of spirit. In nature spirit alienates itself in order to returnenriched. The stages of nature are the preparation for the reviving of aspirituality that has been deliberately forfeited. The Romanticists, whether philosophers like Schelling or poets like Goethe and Wordsworth, were led by their feeling for the beauty of nature to attribute to it amuch deeper and more direct spiritual significance. But Hegel and theRomanticists alike are truly expressed in Emerson's belief that thespiritual interpretation of nature is the "true science. "

 "The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain or meadow of space was strown with these flowers we call suns and moons and stars; why the great deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought. "[364:5]

The new awakening of spirit which is for Hegel the consummation of thenatural evolution, begins with the individual or _subjective_ spirit, and develops into the social or _objective_ spirit, which is moralityand history. History is a veritable dialectic of nations, in the courseof which the consciousness of individual liberty is developed, andcoördinated with the unity of the state. The highest stage of spiritincarnate is that of _absolute_ spirit, embracing art, religion, andphilosophy. In art the absolute idea obtains expression in sensuousexistence, more perfectly in classical than in the symbolic art of theOrient, but most perfectly in the romantic art of the modern period. Inreligion the absolute idea is expressed in the imagination throughworship. In Oriental pantheism, the individual is overwhelmed by hissense of the universal; in Greek religion, God is but a higher man;while in Christianity God and man are perfectly united in Christ. Finally, in philosophy the absolute idea reaches its highest possibleexpression in articulate thought. 

[Sidenote: Résumé. Failure of Absolute Idealism to Solve the Problem ofEvil. ]

§ 181. Such is absolute idealism approached from the stand-point ofantecedent metaphysics. It is the most elaborate and subtle provisionfor antagonistic differences within unity that the speculative mind ofman has as yet been able to make. It is the last and most thoroughattempt to resolve individual and universal, temporal and eternal, natural and ideal, good and evil, into an absolute unity in which theuniversal, eternal, ideal, and good shall dominate, and in which allterms shall be related with such necessity as obtains in the definitionsand theorems of geometry. There is to be some absolute meaning which isrational to the uttermost and the necessary ground of all the incidentsof existence. Thought could undertake no more ambitious and exactingtask. Nor is it evident after all that absolute idealism enjoys anybetter success in this task than absolute realism. The differencebetween them becomes much less marked when we reflect that the former, like the latter, must reserve the predicate of being for the unity ofthe whole. Even though evil and contradiction belong to the essence ofthings, move in the secret heart of a spiritual universe, the reality isnot these in their severalty, but that life within which they fall, thestory within which they "earn a place. " And if absolute idealism hasdefined a new perfection, it has at the same time defined a newimperfection. The perfection is rich in contrast, and thus inclusive ofboth the lights and shades of experience; but the perfection belongsonly to the composition of these elements within a single view. It isnot necessary to such perfection that the evil should ever be viewed inisolation. The idealist employs the analogy of the drama or the picturewhose very significance requires the balance of opposing forces; or theanalogy of the symphony in which a higher musical quality is realizedthrough the resolution of discord into harmony. But none of theseunities requires any element whatsoever that does not partake of itsbeauty. It is quite irrelevant to the drama that the hero shouldhimself have his own view of events with no understanding of theirdramatic value, as it is irrelevant to the picture that an unbalancedfragment of it should dwell apart, or to the symphony that the discordshould be heard without the harmony. One may multiply without end theinternal differences and antagonisms that contribute to the internalmeaning, and be as far as ever from understanding the externaldetachment of experiences that are not rational or good in themselves. And it is precisely this kind of fact that precipitates the wholeproblem. We do not judge of sin and error from experiences in which theyconduct to goodness and truth, but from experiences in which they arestark and unresolved. 

In view of such considerations many idealists have been willing toconfess their inability to solve this problem. To quote a recentexpositor of Hegel, "We need not, after all, be surprised at the apparently insoluble problem which confronts us. For the question has developed into the old difficulty of the origin of evil, which has always baffled both theologians and philosophers. An idealism which declares that the universe is in reality perfect, can find, as most forms of popular idealism do, an escape from the difficulties of the existence of evil, by declaring that the universe is as yet only growing towards its ideal perfection. But this refuge disappears with the reality of time, and we are left with an awkward difference between what philosophy tells us must be, and what our life tells us actually is. "[368:6]

If the philosophy of eternal perfection persists in its fundamentaldoctrine in spite of this irreconcilable conflict with life, it isbecause it is believed that that doctrine _must_ be true. Let us turn, then, to its more constructive and compelling argument. 

[Sidenote: The Constructive Argument for Absolute Idealism is Based uponthe Subjectivistic Theory of Knowledge. ]

§ 182. The proof of absolute idealism is supposed by the majority of itsexponents to follow from the problem of epistemology, and moreparticularly from the manifest dependence of truth upon the knowingmind. In its initial phase absolute idealism is indistinguishable fromsubjectivism. Like that philosophy it finds that the object of knowledgeis inseparable from the state of knowledge throughout the whole range ofexperience. Since the knower can never escape himself, it may be setdown as an elementary fact that reality (at any rate whatever realitycan be known or even talked about) owes its being to mind. 

Thus Green, the English neo-Hegelian, maintains that "an object whichno consciousness presented to itself would not be an object at all, " andwonders that this principle is not generally taken for granted and madethe starting-point for philosophy. [369:7] However, unless the very term"object" is intended to imply presence to a subject, this principle isby no means self-evident, and must be traced to its sources. 

We have already followed the fortunes of that empirical subjectivismwhich issues from the relativity of perception. At the very dawn ofphilosophy it was observed that what is seen, heard, or otherwiseexperienced through the senses, depends not only upon the use ofsense-organs, but upon the special point of view occupied by eachindividual sentient being. It was therefore concluded that theperceptual world belonged to the human knower with his limitations andperspective, rather than to being itself. It was this epistemologicalprinciple upon which Berkeley founded his empirical idealism. Believingknowledge to consist essentially in perception, and believing perceptionto be subjective, he had to choose between the relegation of being to aregion inaccessible to knowledge, and the definition of being in termsof subjectivity. To avoid scepticism he accepted the latter alternative. But among the Greeks with whom this theory of perception originated, itdrew its meaning in large part from the distinction between perceptionand reason. Thus we read in Plato's "Sophist":

 "And you would allow that we participate in generation with the body, and by perception; but we participate with the soul by thought in true essence, and essence you would affirm to be always the same and immutable, whereas generation varies. "[370:8]

It is conceived that although in perception man is condemned to aknowledge conditioned by the affections and station of his body, he maynevertheless escape himself and lay hold on the "true essence" ofthings, by virtue of thought. In other words, knowledge, incontradistinction to "opinion, " is not made by the subject, but is thesoul's participation in the eternal natures of things. In the moment ofinsight the varying course of the individual thinker coincides with theunvarying truth; but in that moment the individual thinker is ennobledthrough being assimilated to the truth, while the truth is no more, noless, the truth than before. 

[Sidenote: The Principle of Subjectivism Extended to Reason. ]

§ 183. In absolute idealism, the principle of subjectivism is extendedto reason itself. This extension seems to have been originally due tomoral and religious interests. From the moral stand-point thecontemplation of the truth is a _state_, and the highest state of theindividual life. The religious interest unifies the individual life anddirects attention to its spiritual development. Among the Greeks of themiddle period life was as yet viewed objectively as the fulfilment ofcapacities, and knowledge was regarded as perfection of function, theexercise of the highest of human prerogatives. But as moral andreligious interests became more absorbing, the individual lived more andmore in his own self-consciousness. Even before the Christian era theGreek philosophers themselves were preoccupied with the task of winninga state of inner serenity. Thus the Stoics and Epicureans came to lookupon knowledge as a means to the attainment of an inner freedom fromdistress and bondage to the world. In other words, the very reason wasregarded as an activity of the self, and its fruits were valued fortheir enhancement of the welfare of the self. And if this be true of theStoics and the Epicureans, it is still more clearly true of theneo-Platonists of the Christian era, who mediate between the ancientand mediæval worlds. 

[Sidenote: Emphasis on Self-consciousness in Early ChristianPhilosophy. ]

§ 184. It is well known that the early period of Christianity was aperiod of the most vivid self-consciousness. The individual believedthat his natural and social environment was alien to his deeperspiritual interests. He therefore withdrew into himself. He believedhimself to have but one duty, the salvation of his soul; and that dutyrequired him to search his innermost springs of action in order touproot any that might compromise him with the world and turn him fromGod. The drama of life was enacted within the circle of his ownself-consciousness. Citizenship, bodily health, all forms ofappreciation and knowledge, were identified in the parts they playedhere. In short the Christian consciousness, although renunciation wasits deepest motive, was reflexive and centripetal to a degree hithertounknown among the European peoples. And when with St. Augustinetheoretical interests once more vigorously asserted themselves, this newemphasis was in the very foreground. St. Augustine wished to begin hissystem of thought with a first indubitable certainty, and selectedneither being nor ideas, but _self_. St. Augustine's genius wasprimarily religious, and the "Confessions, " in which he records thestory of his hard winning of peace and right relations with God, is hismost intimate book. How faithfully does he represent himself, and theblend of paganism and Christianity which was distinctive of his age, when in his systematic writings he draws upon religion for his knowledgeof truth! In all my living, he argues, whether I sin or turn to God, whether I doubt or believe, whether I know or am ignorant, in all _Iknow that I am I_. Each and every state of my consciousness is a stateof my self, and as such, sure evidence of my self's existence. If onewere to follow St. Augustine's reflections further, one would find himreasoning from his own finite and evil self to an infinite and perfectSelf, which centres like his in the conviction that I am I, but isendowed with all power and all worth. One would find him reflecting uponthe possible union with God through the exaltation of the humanself-consciousness. But this conception of God as the perfect self is somuch a prophecy of things to come, that more than a dozen centurieselapsed before it was explicitly formulated by the post-Kantians. Wemust follow its more gradual development in the philosophies ofDescartes and Kant. 

[Sidenote: Descartes's Argument for the Independence of the ThinkingSelf. ]

§ 185. When at the close of the sixteenth century the Frenchman, RenéDescartes, sought to construct philosophy anew and upon securefoundations, he too selected as the initial certainty of thought thethinker's knowledge of himself. This principle now received its classicformulation in the proposition, _Cogito ergo sum_--"I think, hence Iam. " The argument does not differ essentially from that of St. Augustine, but it now finds a place in a systematic and criticalmetaphysics. In that my thinking is certain of itself, says Descartes, in that I know myself before I know aught else, my self can never bedependent for its being upon anything else that I may come to know. Athinking self, with its knowledge and its volition, is quite capable ofsubsisting of itself. Such is, indeed, not the case with a finite self, for all finitude is significant of limitation, and in recognizing mylimitations I postulate the infinite being or God. But the relation ofmy self to a physical world is quite without necessity. Human nature, with soul and body conjoined, is a combination of two substances, neither of which is a necessary consequence of the other. As a resultof this combination the soul is to some extent affected by the body, andthe body is to some extent directed by the soul; but the body couldconceivably be an automaton, as the soul could conceivably be, and willin another life become, a free spirit. The consequences of this dualismfor epistemology are very grave. If knowledge be the activity of aself-subsistent thinking spirit, how can it reveal the nature of anexternal world? The natural order is now literally "external. " It istrue that the whole body of exact science, that mechanical system towhich Descartes attached so much importance, falls within the range ofthe soul's own thinking. But what assurance is there that it refers to aprovince of its own--a physical world in space? Descartes can onlysuppose that "clear and distinct" ideas must be trusted as faithfulrepresentations. It is true the external world makes its presence knowndirectly, when it breaks in upon the soul in sense-perception. ButDescartes's rationalism and love of mathematics forbade his attachingimportance to this criterion. Real nature, that exactly definable andpredictable order of moving bodies defined in physics, is not knownthrough sense-perception, but through thought. Its necessities are thenecessities of reason. Descartes finds himself, then, in the perplexingposition of seeking an internal criterion for an external world. Theproblem of knowledge so stated sets going the whole epistemologicalmovement of the eighteenth century, from Locke through Berkeley and Humeto Kant. And the issue of this development is the absolute idealism ofKant's successors. 

[Sidenote: Empirical Reaction of the English Philosophers. ]

§ 186. Of the English philosophers who prepare the way for theepistemology of Kant, Hume is the most radical and momentous. It was hewho roused Kant from his "dogmatic slumbers" to the task of the"Critical Philosophy. " Hume is one of the two possible consequences ofDescartes. One who attaches greater importance to the rationalnecessities of science than to its external reference, is not unwillingthat nature should be swallowed up in mind. With Malebranche, Descartes's immediate successor in France, nature is thus provided forwithin the archetypal mind of God. With the English philosophers, on theother hand, externality is made the very mark of nature, and as aconsequence sense-perception becomes the criterion of scientific truth. This empirical theory of knowledge, inaugurated and developed by Lockeand Berkeley, culminates in Hume's designation of the _impression_ asthe distinguishing element of nature, at once making up its content andcertifying to its externality. The processes of nature are successionsof impressions; and the laws of nature are their uniformities, or theexpectations of uniformity which their repetitions engender. Hume doesnot hesitate to draw the logical conclusion. If the final mark of truthis the presence to sense of the individual element, then science canconsist only of items of information and probable generalizationsconcerning their sequences. The effect is observed to follow upon thecause in fact, but there is no understanding of its necessity; thereforeno absolute certainty attaches to the future effects of any cause. 

[Sidenote: To Save Exact Science Kant Makes it Dependent on Mind. ]

§ 187. But what has become of the dream of the mathematical physicist?Is the whole system of Newton, that brilliant triumph of the mechanicalmethod, unfounded and dogmatic? It is the logical instability of thisbody of knowledge, made manifest in the well-founded scepticism of Hume, that rouses Kant to a reëxamination of the whole foundation of naturalscience. The general outline of his analysis has been developed above. It is of importance here to understand its relations to the problem ofDescartes. Contrary to the view of the English philosophers, naturalscience is, says Kant, the work of the mind. The certainty of the causalrelation is due to the human inability to think otherwise. Hume ismistaken in supposing that mere sensation gives us any knowledge ofnature. The very least experience of objects involves the employment ofprinciples which are furnished by the mind. Without the employment ofsuch principles, or in bare sensation, there is no intelligible meaningwhatsoever. But once admit the employment of such principles andformulate them systematically, and the whole Newtonian order of natureis seen to follow from them. Furthermore, since these principles orcategories are the conditions of human experience, are the veryinstruments of knowledge, they are valid wherever there is anyexperience or knowledge. There is but one way to make anything at allout of nature, and that is to conceive it as an order of necessaryevents in space and time. Newtonian science is part of such a generalconception, and is therefore necessary if knowledge is to be possible atall, even the least. Thus Kant turns upon Hume, and shuts him up to thechoice between the utter abnegation of all knowledge, including theknowledge of his own scepticism, and the acceptance of the whole body ofexact science. 

But with nature thus conditioned by the necessities of thought, what hasbecome of its externality? That, Kant admits, has indeed vanished. Kantdoes not attempt, as did Descartes, to hold that the nature which mindconstructs and controls, exists also outside of mind. The nature that isknown is on that very account phenomenal, anthropocentric--created byits cognitive conditions. Descartes was right in maintaining thatsense-perception certifies to the existence of a world outside the mind, but mistaken in calling it nature and identifying it with the realm ofscience. In short, Kant acknowledges the external world, and names itthe _thing-in-itself_; but insists that because it is outside of mind itis outside of knowledge. Thus is the certainty of science saved at thecost of its metaphysical validity. It is necessarily true, but only of aconditioned or dependent world. And in saving science Kant has at thesame time prejudiced metaphysics in general. For the human ornaturalistic way of knowing is left in sole possession of the field, with the higher interest of reasons in the ultimate nature of being, degraded to the rank of practical faith. 

[Sidenote: The Post-Kantians Transform Kant's Mind-in-general into anAbsolute Mind. ]

§ 188. The transformation of this critical and agnostic doctrine intoabsolute idealism is inevitable. The metaphysical interest was bound toavail itself of the speculative suggestiveness with which the Kantianphilosophy abounds. The transformation turns upon Kant's assumption thatwhatever is constructed by the mind is on that account phenomenon orappearance. Kant has carried along the presumption that whatever is actor content of mind is on that account not _real_ object or_thing-in-itself_. We have seen that this is generally accepted as trueof the relativities of sense-perception. But is it true of thought? Thepost-Kantian idealist maintains that _that depends upon the thought_. The content of private individual thinking is in so far not real object;but it does not follow that this is true of such thinking as isuniversally valid. Now Kant has deduced his categories for thought ingeneral. There are no empirical cases of thinking except the humanthinkers; but the categories are not the property of any one humanindividual or any group of such individuals. They are the conditions of_experience in general_, and of every possibility of experience. Thetransition to absolute idealism is now readily made. _Thought ingeneral_ becomes the _absolute mind_, and experience in general itscontent. The thing-in-itself drops out as having no meaning. Theobjectivity to which it testified is provided for in the completenessand self-sufficiency which is attributed to the absolute experience. Indeed, an altogether new definition of subjective and objectivereplaces the old. The subjective is that which is only insufficientlythought, as in the case of relativity and error; the objective is thatwhich is completely thought. Thus the natural order is indeedphenomenal; but only because the principles of science are not thehighest principles of thought, and not because nature is the fruit ofthought. Thus Hegel expresses his relation to Kant as follows:

 "According to Kant, the things that we know about are _to us_ appearances only, and we can never know their essential nature, which belongs to another world, which we cannot approach. . . . The true statement of the case is as follows. The things of which we have direct consciousness are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature; and the true and proper case of these things, finite as they are, is to have their existence founded not in themselves, but in the universal divine idea. This view of things, it is true, is as idealist as Kant's, but in contradistinction to the subjective idealism of the Critical Philosophy should be termed Absolute Idealism. "[382:9]

[Sidenote: The Direct Argument. The Inference from the Finite Mind tothe Infinite Mind. ]

§ 189. Absolute idealism is thus reached after a long and devious courseof development. But the argument may be stated much more briefly. Plato, it will be remembered, found that experience tends ever to transcenditself. The thinker finds himself compelled to pursue the ideal ofimmutable and universal truth, and must identify the ultimate being withthat ideal. Similarly Hegel says:

 "That upward spring of the mind signifies that the being which the world has is only a semblance, no real being, no absolute truth; it signifies that beyond and above that appearance, truth abides in God, so that true being is another name for God. "[382:10]

The further argument of absolute idealism differs from that of Plato inthat the dependence of truth upon the mind is accepted as a firstprinciple. The ideal with which experience is informed is now _the stateof perfect knowledge_, rather than the system of absolute truth. Thecontent of the state of perfect knowledge will indeed be the system ofabsolute truth, but none the less _content_, precisely as finiteknowledge is the content of a finite mind. In pursuing the truth, I whopursue, aim to realize in myself a certain highest state of knowledge. Were I to know all truth I should indeed have ceased to be the finiteindividual who began the quest, but the evolution would be continuousand the character of self-consciousness would never have been lost. Imay say, in short, that God or being, is my perfect cognitive self. 

The argument for absolute idealism is a constructive interpretation ofthe subjectivistic contention that knowledge can never escape the circleof its own activity and states. To meet the demand for a final andstandard truth, a demand which realism meets with its doctrine of abeing independent of any mind, this philosophy defines a _standardmind_. The impossibility of defining objects in terms of relativity to afinite self, conducts dialectically to the conception of the _absoluteself_. The sequel to my error or exclusiveness, is truth orinclusiveness. The outcome of the dialectic is determined by thesymmetry of the antithesis. Thus, corrected experience implies a lastcorrecting experience; partial cognition, complete cognition; empiricalsubject, transcendental subject; finite mind, an absolute mind. Thefollowing statement is taken from a contemporary exponent of thephilosophy:

 "What you and I lack, when we lament our human ignorance, is simply a certain desirable and logically possible state of mind, or type of experience; to wit, a state of mind in which we should wisely be able to say that we had fulfilled in experience what we now have merely in idea, namely, the knowledge, the immediate and felt presence, of what we now call the Absolute Reality. . . . There is an Absolute Experience for which the conception of an absolute reality, _i. E. _, the conception of a system of ideal truth, is fulfilled by the very contents that get presented to this experience. This Absolute Experience is related to our experience as an organic whole to its own fragments. It is an experience which finds fulfilled all that the completest thought can conceive as genuinely possible. Herein lies its definition as an Absolute. For the Absolute Experience, as for ours, there are data, contents, facts. But these data, these contents, express, for the Absolute Experience, its own meaning, its thought, its ideas. Contents beyond these that it possesses, the Absolute Experience knows to be, in genuine truth, impossible. Hence its contents are indeed particular, --a selection from the world of bare or merely conceptual possibilities, --but they form a self-determined whole, than which nothing completer, more organic, more fulfilled, more transparent, or more complete in meaning, is concretely or genuinely possible. On the other hand, these contents are not foreign to those of our finite experience, but are inclusive of them in the unity of one life. "[385:11]

[Sidenote: The Realistic Tendency in Absolute Idealism. ]

§ 190. As has been already intimated, at the opening of this chapter, the inclusion of the whole of reality within a single self is clearly aquestionable proceeding. The need of avoiding the relativism ofempirical idealism is evident. But if the very meaning of theself-consciousness be due to a certain selection and exclusion withinthe general field of experience, it is equally evident that therelativity of self-consciousness can never be overcome through appealingto a higher self. One must appeal _from_ the self to the realm of thingsas they are. Indeed, although the exponents of this philosophy use thelanguage of spiritualism, and accept the idealistic epistemology, theirabsolute being tends ever to escape the special characters of the self. And inasmuch as the absolute self is commonly set over against thefinite or empirical self, as the standard and test of truth, it is theless distinguishable from the realist's order of independent beings. 

[Sidenote: The Conception of Self-consciousness Central in the Ethics ofAbsolute Idealism. Kant. ]

§ 191. But however much absolute idealism may tend to abandon itsidealism for the sake of its absolutism within the field of metaphysics, such is not the case within the field of ethics and religion. Theconception of the self here receives a new emphasis. The sameself-consciousness which admits to the highest truth is the evidence ofman's practical dignity. In virtue of his immediate apprehension of theprinciples of selfhood, and his direct participation in the life ofspirit, man may be said to possess the innermost secret of the universe. In order to achieve goodness he must therefore recognize and express_himself_. The Kantian philosophy is here again the starting-point. Itwas Kant who first gave adequate expression to the Christian idea of themoral self-consciousness. 

 "_Duty!_ Thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest submission, and yet seekest not to move the will by threatening aught that would arouse natural aversion or terror, but merely holdest forth a law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, . . . A law before which all inclinations are dumb, even though they secretly counterwork it; what origin is there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations . . . ? It can be nothing less than a power which elevates man above himself, . . . A power which connects him with an order of things that only the understanding can conceive, with a world which at the same time commands the whole sensible world, and with it the empirically determinable existence of man in time, as well as the sum total of all ends. "[387:12]

With Kant there can be no morality except conduct be attended by theconsciousness of this duty imposed by the higher nature upon the lower. It is this very recognition of a deeper self, of a personality thatbelongs to the sources and not to the consequences of nature, thatconstitutes man as a moral being, and only such action as is inspiredwith a reverence for it can be morally good. Kant does little more thanto establish the uncompromising dignity of the moral will. In moralaction man submits to a law that issues from himself in virtue of hisrational nature. Here he yields nothing, as he owes nothing, to thatappetency which binds him to the natural world. As a rational being hehimself affirms the very principles which determine the organization ofnature. This is his _freedom_, at once the ground and the implicationof his duty. Man is free from nature to serve the higher law of hispersonality. 

[Sidenote: Kantian Ethics Supplemented through the Conceptions ofUniversal and Objective Spirit. ]

§ 192. There are two respects in which Kant's ethics has been regardedas inadequate by those who draw from it their fundamental principles. Itis said that Kant is too rigoristic, that he makes too stern a businessof morality, in speaking so much of law and so little of love andspontaneity. There are good reasons for this. Kant seeks to isolate themoral consciousness, and dwell upon it in its purity, in order that hemay demonstrate its incommensurability with the values of inclinationand sensibility. Furthermore, Kant may speak of the principle of theabsolute, and recognize the deeper eternal order as a law, but he maynot, if he is to be consistent with his own critical principles, affirmthe metaphysical being of such an order. With his idealistic followersit is possible to define the spiritual setting of the moral life, butwith Kant it is only possible to define the antagonism of principles. Hence the greater optimism of the post-Kantians. They know that thehigher law is the reality, and that he who obeys it thus unites himselfwith the absolute self. That which for Kant is only a resoluteobedience to more valid principles, to rationally superior rules foraction, is for idealism man's appropriation of his spiritual birthright. Since the law is the deeper nature, man may respect and obey it asvalid, and at the same time act upon it gladly in the sure knowledgethat it will enhance his eternal welfare. Indeed, the knowledge that thevery universe is founded upon this law will make him less suspicious ofnature and less exclusive in his adherence to any single law. He will bemore confident of the essential goodness of all manifestations of auniverse which he knows to be fundamentally spiritual. 

But it has been urged, secondly, that the Kantian ethics is too formal, too little pertinent to the issues of life. Kant's moral law imposesonly obedience to the law, or conduct conceived as suitable to auniversal moral community. But what is the nature of such conduct inparticular? It may be answered that to maintain the moralself-consciousness, to act dutifully and dutifully only, to beself-reliant and unswerving in the doing of what one ought to do, is toobtain a very specific character. But does this not leave theindividual's conduct to his own interpretation of his duty? It was justthis element of individualism which Hegel sought to eliminate throughthe application of his larger philosophical conception. If that whichexpresses itself within the individual consciousness as the moral law beindeed the law of that self in which the universe is grounded, it willappear as _objective spirit_ in the evolution of society. For Hegel, then, the most valid standard of goodness is to be found in thatcustomary morality which bespeaks the moral leadings of the generalhumanity, and in those institutions, such as the family and the state, which are the moral acts of the absolute idea itself. Finally, in therealm of _absolute spirit_, in art, in revealed religion, and inphilosophy, the individual may approach to the self-consciousness whichis the perfect truth and goodness in and for itself. 

[Sidenote: The Peculiar Pantheism and Mysticism of Absolute Idealism. ]

§ 193. Where the law of life is the implication in the finiteself-consciousness of the eternal and divine self-consciousness, therecan be no division between morality and religion, as there can be nonebetween thought and will. Whatever man seeks is in the end God. As theperfect fulfilment of the thinking self, God is the truth; as theperfect fulfilment of the willing self, God is the good. The finiteself-consciousness finds facts that are not understood, and so seeks toresolve itself into the perfect self wherein all that is given hasmeaning. On the other hand, the finite self-consciousness finds idealsthat are not realized, and so seeks to resolve itself into that perfectself wherein all that is significant is given. All interests thusconverge toward

 "some state of conscious spirit in which the opposition of cognition and volition is overcome--in which we neither judge our ideas by the world, nor the world by our ideas, but are aware that inner and outer are in such close and necessary harmony that even the thought of possible discord has become impossible. In its unity not only cognition and volition, but feeling also, must be blended and united. In some way or another it must have overcome the rift in discursive knowledge, and the immediate must for it be no longer the alien. It must be as direct as art, as certain and universal as philosophy. "[391:13]

The religious consciousness proper to absolute idealism is bothpantheistic and mystical, but with distinction. Platonism is pantheisticin that nature is resolved into God. All that is not perfect is esteemedonly for its promise of perfection. And Platonism is mystical in thatthe purification and universalization of the affections brings one inthe end to a perfection that exceeds all modes of thought and speech. With Spinoza, on the other hand, God may be said to be resolved intonature. Nature is made divine, but is none the less nature, for itsdivinity consists in its absolute necessity. Spinoza's pantheism passesover into mysticism because the absolute necessity exceeds in both unityand richness the laws known to the human understanding. In absoluteidealism, finally, both God and nature are resolved into the self. Forthat which is divine in experience is self-consciousness, and this is atthe same time the ground of nature. Thus in the highest knowledge theself is expanded and enriched without being left behind. The mysticalexperience proper to this philosophy is the consciousness of identity, together with the sense of universal immanence. The individual self maybe directly sensible of the absolute self, for these are one spirituallife. Thus Emerson says:

 "It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power upon which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him; then he is caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible as the plants and animals. The poet knows that he speaks adequately then only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or 'with the flower of the mind'; not with the intellect used as an organ, but with the intellect released from all service and suffered to take its direction from its celestial life. "[393:14]

[Sidenote: The Religion of Exuberant Spirituality. ]

§ 194. But the distinguishing flavor and quality of this religion arisesfrom its spiritual hospitality. It is not, like Platonism, acontemplation of the best; nor, like pluralistic idealisms, a moralknight-errantry. It is neither a religion of exclusion, nor a religionof reconstruction, but a profound willingness that things should be asthey really are. For this reason its devotees have recognized in Spinozatheir true forerunner. But idealism is not Spinozism, though it maycontain this as one of its strains. For it is not the worship ofnecessity, Emerson's "beautiful necessity, which makes man brave inbelieving that he cannot shun a danger that is appointed, nor incur onethat is not"; but the worship of _that which is_ necessary. 

Not only must one understand that every effort, however despairing, isan element of sense in the universal significance;

 "that the whole would not be what it is were not precisely this finite purpose left in its own uniqueness to speak precisely its own word--a word which no other purpose can speak in the language of the divine will";[394:15]

but one must have a zest for such participation, and a heart for thedivine will which it profits. Indeed, so much is this religion a love oflife, that it may, as in the case of the Romanticists, be a love ofcaprice. Battle and death, pain and joy, error and truth--all thatbelongs to the story of this mortal world, are to be felt as the thrillof health, and relished as the essences of God. Religion is an exuberantspirituality, a fearless sensibility, a knowledge of both good and evil, and a will to serve the good, while exulting that the evil will notyield without a battle. 

FOOTNOTES:

[349:1] By _Absolute Idealism_ is meant that system of philosophy whichdefines the universe as the _absolute spirit_, which is the human_moral_, _cognitive_, or _appreciative consciousness_ universalized; oras the _absolute, transcendental mind_, whose state of _completeknowledge_ is implied in all finite thinking. 

[352:2] Plato: _Timæus_, 29. Translation by Jowett. 

[359:3] Plato: _Symposium_, 202. Translation by Jowett. 

[359:4] Emerson: _Essays, Second Series_, pp. 65-66. 

[364:5] Emerson: _Op. Cit. _, p. 25. 

The possibility of conflict between this method of nature study and theempirical method of science is significantly attested by thecircumstance that in the year 1801 Hegel published a paper in which hemaintained, on the ground of certain numerical harmonies, that therecould be no planet between Mars and Jupiter, while at almost exactly thesame time Piazzi discovered Ceres, the first of the asteroids. 

[368:6] McTaggart: _Studies in Hegelian Dialectic_, p. 181. 

[369:7] Green: _Prolegomena to Ethics_, p. 15. 

[370:8] Plato: _The Sophist_, 248. Translation by Jowett. 

[382:9] Hegel: _Encyclopädie_, § 45, lecture note. Quoted by McTaggart:_Op. Cit. _, p. 69. 

[382:10] Hegel: _Encyclopädie_, § 50. Quoted by McTaggart: _Op. Cit. _, p. 70. 

[385:11] Royce: _Conception of God_, pp. 19, 43-44. 

This argument is well summarized in Green's statement that "theexistence of one connected world, which is the presupposition ofknowledge, implies the action of one self-conditioning andself-determining mind. " _Prolegomena to Ethics_, p. 181. 

[387:12] Kant: _Critical Examination of Practical Reason_. Translated byAbbott in _Kant's Theory of Ethics_, p. 180. 

[391:13] Quoted from McTaggart: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 231-232. 

[393:14] Emerson: _Op. Cit. _, pp. 30-31. 

[394:15] Royce: _The World and the Individual, First Series_, p. 465. 

CHAPTER XII

CONCLUSION

[Sidenote: Liability of Philosophy to Revision, Due to its SystematicCharacter. ]

§ 195. One who consults a book of philosophy in the hope of findingthere a definite body of truth, sanctioned by the consensus of experts, cannot fail to be disappointed. And it should now be plain that this isdue not to the frailties of philosophers, but to the meaning ofphilosophy. Philosophy is not additive, but reconstructive. Naturalscience may advance step by step without ever losing ground; itsempirical discoveries are in their severalty as true as they can everbe. Thus the stars and the species of animals may be recordedsuccessively, and each generation of astronomers and zoölogists may takeup the work at the point reached by its forerunners. The formulation ofresults does, it is true, require constant correction and revision--butthere is a central body of data which is little affected, and whichaccumulates from age to age. Now the finality of scientific truth isproportional to the modesty of its claims. Items of truth persist, while the interpretation of them is subject to alteration with thegeneral advance of knowledge; and, relatively speaking, science consistsin items of truth, and philosophy in their interpretation. The liabilityto revision in science itself increases as that body of knowledgebecomes more highly unified and systematic. Thus the present age, withits attempt to construct a single comprehensive system of mechanicalscience, is peculiarly an age when fundamental conceptions are subjectedto a thorough reëxamination--when, for example, so ancient a conceptionas that of matter is threatened with displacement by that of energy. Butphilosophy is _essentially unitary and systematic_--and thus_superlatively liable to revision_. 

[Sidenote: The One Science and the Many Philosophies. ]

§ 196. It is noteworthy that it is only in this age of a highlysystematic natural science that _different_ systems are projected, as inthe case just noted of the rivalry between the strictly mechanical, orcorpuscular, theory and the newer theory of energetics. It hasheretofore been taken for granted that although there may be manyphilosophies, there is but one body of science. And it is still takenfor granted that the experimental detail of the individual science is acommon fund, to the progressive increase of which the individualscientist contributes the results of his special research; there being_rival_ schools of mechanics, physics, or chemistry, only in so far as_fundamental conceptions_ or _principles of orderly arrangement_ are inquestion. But philosophy deals exclusively with the most fundamentalconceptions and the most general principles of orderly arrangement. Hence it is significant of the very task of philosophy that there shouldbe many tentative systems of philosophy, even that each philosophershould project and construct his own philosophy. Philosophy as the truthof synthesis and reconciliation, of comprehensiveness and coördination, must be a living unity. It is a thinking of entire experience, and canbe sufficient only through being all-sufficient. The heart of everyphilosophy is a harmonizing insight, an intellectual prospect withinwhich all human interests and studies compose themselves. Such knowledgecannot be delegated to isolated co-laborers, but will be altogethermissed if not loved and sought in its indivisible unity. There is nomodest home-keeping philosophy; no safe and conservative philosophy, that can make sure of a part through renouncing the whole. There is nophilosophy without intellectual temerity, as there is no religionwithout moral temerity. And the one is the supreme interest of thought, as the other is the supreme interest of life. 

[Sidenote: Progress in Philosophy. The Sophistication or Eclecticism ofthe Present Age. ]

§ 197. Though the many philosophies be inevitable, it must not beconcluded that there is therefore no progress in philosophy. Thesolution from which every great philosophy is precipitated is themingled wisdom of some latest age, with all of its inheritance. The"positive" knowledge furnished by the sciences, the refinements anddistinctions of the philosophers, the ideals of society--these and thewhole sum of civilization are its ingredients. Where there is no singlesystem of philosophy significant enough to express the age, as did thesystems of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, and theothers who belong to the roll of the great philosophers, there exists a_general sophistication_, which is more elusive but not lesssignificant. The present age--at any rate from its own stand-point--isnot an age of great philosophical systems. Such systems may indeed beliving in our midst unrecognized; but historical perspective cannotsafely be anticipated. It is certain that no living voice is known tospeak for this generation as did Hegel, and even Spencer, for the last. There is, however, a significance in this very passing of Hegel andSpencer, --an enlightenment peculiar to an age which knows them, but hasphilosophically outlived them. There is a moral in the history ofthought which just now no philosophy, whether naturalism, ortranscendentalism, realism or idealism, can fail to draw. Thecharacterization of this contemporary eclecticism or sophistication, difficult and uncertain as it must needs be, affords the best summaryand interpretation with which to conclude this brief survey of thefortunes of philosophy. 

[Sidenote: Metaphysics. The Antagonistic Doctrines of Naturalism andAbsolutism. ]

§ 198. Since the problem of metaphysics is the crucial problem ofphilosophy, the question of its present status is fundamental in anycharacterization of the age. It will appear from the foregoing accountof the course of metaphysical development that two fundamentaltendencies have exhibited themselves from the beginning. The one ofthese is naturalistic and empirical, representing the claims of whatcommon sense calls "matters of fact"; the other is transcendental andrational, representing the claims of the standards and ideals which areimmanent in experience, and directly manifested in the great humaninterests of thought and action. These tendencies have on the whole beenantagonistic; and the clear-cut and momentous systems of philosophy havebeen fundamentally determined by either the one or the other. 

Thus materialism is due to the attempt to reduce all of experience tothe elements and principles of connection which are employed by thephysical sciences to set in order the actual motions, or changes ofplace, which the parts of experience undergo. Materialism maintains thatthe motions of bodies are indifferent to considerations of worth, anddenies that they issue from a deeper cause of another order. The veryideas of such non-mechanical elements or principles are here providedwith a mechanical origin. Similarly a phenomenalism, like that of Hume, takes immediate presence to sense as the norm of being and knowledge. Individual items, directly verified in the moment of their occurrence, are held to be at once the content of all real truth, and the source ofthose abstract ideas which the misguided rationalists mistake for realtruth. 

But the absolutist, on the other hand, contends that the thinker must_mean_ something by the reality which he seeks. If he had it for thelooking, thought would not be, as it so evidently is, a purposiveendeavor. And that which is meant by reality can be nothing short of thefulfilment or final realization of this endeavor of thought. To find outwhat thought seeks, to anticipate the consummation of thought and positit as real, is therefore the first and fundamental procedure ofphilosophy. The mechanism of nature, and all matters of fact, must cometo terms with this absolute reality, or be condemned as mere appearance. Thus Plato distinguishes the world of "generation" in which weparticipate by perception, from the "true essence" in which weparticipate by thought; and Schelling speaks of the modern experimentalmethod as the "corruption" of philosophy and physics, in that it failsto construe nature in terms of spirit. 

[Sidenote: Concessions from the Side of Absolutism. Recognition ofNature. The Neo-Fichteans. ]

§ 199. Now it would never occur to a sophisticated philosopher of thepresent, to one who has thought out to the end the whole tradition ofphilosophy, and felt the gravity of the great historical issues, tosuffer either of these motives to dominate him to the exclusion of theother. Absolutism has long since ceased to speak slightingly of physicalscience, and of the world of perception. It is conceded that motionsmust be known in the mechanical way, and matters of fact in thematter-of-fact way. Furthermore, the prestige which science enjoyed inthe nineteenth century, and the prestige which the empirical and secularworld of action has enjoyed to a degree that has steadily increasedsince the Renaissance, have convinced the absolutist of the intrinsicsignificance of these parts of experience. They are no longer reduced, but are permitted to flourish in their own right. From the very councilsof absolute idealism there has issued a distinction which is fastbecoming current, between the World of Appreciation, or the realm ofmoral and logical principles, and the World of Description, or the realmof empirical generalizations and mechanical causes. [402:1] It is indeedmaintained that the former of these is metaphysically superior; but thelatter is ranked without the disparagement of its own proper categories. 

With the Fichteans this distinction corresponds to the distinction inthe system of Fichte between the active moral ego, and the nature whichit posits to act upon. But the _neo-Fichteans_ are concerned to showthat the nature so posited, or the World of Description, is the _realmof mechanical science_, and that the entire system of mathematical andphysical truth is therefore morally necessary. [403:2]

[Sidenote: The Neo-Kantians. ]

§ 200. A more pronounced tendency in the same direction marks the workof the _neo-Kantians_. These philosophers repudiate the spiritualisticmetaphysics of Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel, believing the realsignificance of Kant to lie in his critical method, in his examinationof the first principles of the different systems of knowledge, andespecially in his analysis of the foundations of mathematics andphysics. [403:3] In approaching mathematics and physics from a generallogical stand-point, these neo-Kantians become scarcely distinguishablein interest and temper from those scientists who approach logic from themathematical and physical stand-point. 

[Sidenote: Recognition of the Individual. Personal Idealism. ]

§ 201. The finite, moral individual, with his peculiar spiritualperspective, has long since been recognized as essential to the meaningof the universe rationally conceived. But in its first movement absoluteidealism proposed to absorb him in the indivisible absolute self. It isnow pointed out that Fichte, and even Hegel himself, means the absoluteto be a plurality or society of persons. [404:4] It is commonly concededthat the will of the absolute must coincide with the wills of all finitecreatures in their severalty, that God wills in and through men. [404:5]Corresponding to this individualistic tendency on the part of absoluteidealism, there has been recently projected a _personal idealism_, or_humanism_, which springs freshly and directly from the same motive. This philosophy attributes ultimate importance to the human person withhis freedom, his interests, his control over nature, and his hope of theadvancement of the spiritual kingdom through coöperation with hisfellows. [405:6]

[Sidenote: Concessions from the Side of Naturalism. Recognition ofFundamental Principles. ]

§ 202. Naturalism exhibits a moderation and liberality that is not lessstriking than that of absolutism. This abatement of its claims began inthe last century with agnosticism. It was then conceded that there is anorder other than that of natural science; but this order was held to beinaccessible to human knowledge. Such a theory is essentially unstablebecause it employs principles which define a non-natural order, butrefuses to credit them or call them knowledge. The agnostic is in theparadoxical position of one who knows of an unknowable world. Present-day naturalism is more circumspect. It has interested itself inbringing to light that in the very procedure of science which, becauseit predetermines what nature shall be, cannot be included within nature. To this interest is due the rediscovery of the rational foundations ofscience. It was already known in the seventeenth century that exactscience does not differ radically from mathematics, as mathematics doesnot differ radically from logic. Mathematics and mechanics are now beingsubmitted to a critical examination which reveals the definitions andimplications upon which they rest, and the general relation of these tothe fundamental elements and necessities of thought. [406:7]

[Sidenote: Recognition of the Will. Pragmatism. ]

§ 203. This rationalistic tendency in naturalism is balanced by atendency which is more empirical, but equally subversive of the oldultra-naturalism. Goethe once wrote:

 "I have observed that I hold that thought to be true which is _fruitful for me_. . . . When I know my relation to myself and to the outer world, I say that I possess the truth. "

Similarly, it is now frequently observed that all knowledge is _humanlyfruitful_, and it is proposed that this shall be regarded as the verycriterion of truth. According to this principle science as a whole, evenknowledge as a whole, is primarily a human utility. The nature whichscience defines is an artifact or construct. It is designed to expressbriefly and conveniently what man may practically expect from hisenvironment. This tendency is known as _pragmatism_. It rangesfrom systematic doctrines, reminiscent of Fichte, which seek todefine practical needs and deduce knowledge from them, to themore irresponsible utterances of those who liken science to"shorthand, "[407:8] and mathematics to a game of chess. In any casepragmatism attributes to nature a certain dependence on will, andtherefore implies, even when it does not avow, that will with itspeculiar principles or values cannot be reduced to the terms of nature. In short, it would be more true to say that nature expresses will, thanthat will expresses nature. [408:9]

[Sidenote: Summary, and Transition to Epistemology. ]

§ 204. Such, then, is the contemporary eclecticism as respects thecentral problem of metaphysics. There are _naturalistic_ and_individualistic_ tendencies in _absolutism_; _rationalistic_ and_ethical_ tendencies in _naturalism_; and finally the independent andspontaneous movements of _personal idealism_ and _pragmatism_. 

Since the rise of the Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy, metaphysicsand epistemology have maintained relations so intimate that the presentstate of the former cannot be characterized without some reference tothe present state of the latter. Indeed, the very issues upon whichmetaphysicians divide are most commonly those provoked by the problemof knowledge. The counter-tendencies of naturalism and absolutism arealways connected, and often coincide with, the epistemologicalopposition between empiricism, which proclaims perception, andrationalism, which proclaims reason, to be the proper organ ofknowledge. The other great epistemological controversy does not bear sodirect and simple a relation to the central metaphysical issues, andmust be examined on its own account. 

[Sidenote: The Antagonistic Doctrines of Realism and Idealism. RealisticTendency in Empirical Idealism. ]

§ 205. The point of controversy is the dependence or independence of theobject of knowledge on the state of knowledge; idealism maintaining thatreality _is_ the knower or his content of mind, realism, that beingknown is a circumstance which appertains to some reality, without beingthe indispensable condition of reality as such. Now the sophisticatedthought of the present age exhibits a tendency on the part of theseopposite doctrines to approach and converge. It has been alreadyremarked that the empirical idealism of the Berkeleyan type could notavoid transcending itself. Hume, who omitted Berkeley's active spirits, no longer had any subjective seat or locus for the perceptions to whichBerkeley had reduced the outer world. And perceptions which are not thestates of any subject, retain only their intrinsic character and becomea series of elements. When there is nothing beyond, which appears, andnothing within to which it appears, there ceases to be any sense inusing such terms as appearance, phenomenon, or impression. The termsensation is at present employed in the same ill-considered manner. Butempirical idealism has come gradually to insist upon the importance ofthe content of perception, rather than the relation of perception to aself as its state. The terms _element_ and _experience_, which arereplacing the subjectivistic terms, are frankly realistic. [410:10]

[Sidenote: Realistic Tendency in Absolute Idealism. The Conception ofExperience. ]

§ 206. There is a similar realistic trend in the development of absoluteidealism. The pure Hegelian philosophy was notably objective. Theprinciples of development in which it centres were conceived by Hegelhimself to manifest themselves most clearly in the progressions ofnature and history. Many of Hegel's followers have been led by moral andreligious interests to emphasize consciousness, and, uponepistemological grounds, to lay great stress upon the necessity of theunion of the parts of experience within an enveloping self. But absoluteidealism has much at heart the overcoming of relativism, and theabsolute is defined in order to meet the demand for a being that shallnot have the cognitive deficiencies of an object of finite thought. Soit is quite possible for this philosophy, while maintaining itstraditions on the whole, to abandon the term _self_ to the finitesubject, and regard its absolute as a system of rational and universalprinciples--self-sufficient because externally independent andinternally necessary. Hence the renewed study of categories as logical, mathematical, or mechanical principles, and entirely apart from theirbeing the acts of a thinking self. 

Furthermore, it has been recognized that the general demand of idealismis met when reality is regarded as not outside of or other thanknowledge, whatever be true of the question of dependence. Thus theconception of _experience_ is equally convenient here, in that itsignifies what is immediately present in knowledge, without affirming itto _consist in_ being so presented. [411:11]

[Sidenote: Idealistic Tendencies in Realism. The Immanence Philosophy. ]

§ 207. And at this point idealism is met by a latter-day realism. Thetraditional modern realism springing from Descartes was dualistic. Itwas supposed that reality in itself was essentially extra-mental, andthus under the necessity of being either represented or misrepresentedin thought. But the one of these alternatives is dogmatic, in thatthought can never test the validity of its relation to that which isperpetually outside of it; while the other is agnostic, providing onlyfor the knowledge of a world of appearance, an improper knowledge thatis in fact not knowledge at all. 

But realism is not necessarily dualistic, since it requires only thatbeing shall not be dependent upon being known. Furthermore, sinceempiricism is congenial to naturalism, it is an easy step to say thatnature is directly known in perception. This first takes the form ofpositivism, or the theory that only such nature as can be directly knowncan be really known. But this agnostic provision for an unknown worldbeyond, inevitably falls away and leaves _reality as that which isdirectly known, but not conditioned by knowledge_. Again the term_experience_ is the most useful, and provides a common ground for_idealistic realism_ with _realistic idealism_. A new epistemologicalmovement makes this conception of experience its starting-point. What isknown as the _immanence philosophy_ defines reality as experience, andmeans by experience the subject matter of all knowledge--not defined assuch, but regarded as capable of being such. Experience is conceived tobe _both in and out_ of selves, cognition being but one of the specialsystems into which experience may enter. [413:12]

[Sidenote: The Interpretation of Tradition as the Basis for a NewConstruction. ]

§ 208. Does this eclecticism of the age open any philosophical prospect?Is it more than a general compromise--a confession of failure on thepart of each and every radical and clear-cut doctrine of metaphysics andepistemology? There is no final answer to such a question short of anindependent construction, and such procedure would exceed the scope ofthe present discussion. But there is an evident interpretation oftradition that suggests a possible basis for such construction. 

[Sidenote: The Truth of the Physical System, but Failure of Attempt toReduce All Experience to it. ]

§ 209. Suppose it to be granted that the categories of nature are quiteself-sufficient. This would mean that there might conceivably be astrictly physical order, governed only by mechanical principles, and bythe more general logical and mathematical principles. The body ofphysical science so extended as to include such general conceptions asidentity, difference, number, quality, space, and time, is the accountof such an order. This order need have no value, and need not be known. But reality as a whole is evidently not such a strictly physical order, for the definition of the physical order involves the rejection of manyof the most familiar aspects of experience, such as its value and itsbeing known in conscious selves. Materialism, in that it proposes toconceive the whole of reality as physical, must attempt to reduce theresiduum to physical terms, and with no hope of success. Goodness andknowledge cannot be explained as mass and force, or shown to bemechanical necessities. 

[Sidenote: Truth of Psychical Relations, but Impossibility of GeneralReduction to Them. ]

§ 210. Are we then to conclude that reality is not physical, and lookfor other terms to which we may reduce physical terms? There is no lackof such other terms. Indeed, we could as fairly have _begun_ elsewhere. Thus some parts of experience compose the consciousness of theindividual, and are said to be known by him. Experience so contained isconnected by the special relation of being known together. But thisrelation is quite indifferent to physical, moral, and logical relations. Thus we may be conscious of things which are physically disconnected, morally repugnant, and logically contradictory, or in all of theserespects utterly irrelevant. Subjectivism, in that it proposes toconceive the whole of reality as consciousness, must attempt to reducephysical, moral, and logical relations to that co-presence inconsciousness from which they are so sharply distinguished in their verydefinition. The historical failure of this attempt was inevitable. 

[Sidenote: Truth of Logical and Ethical Principles. Validity of Ideal ofPerfection, but Impossibility of Deducing the Whole of Experience fromit. ]

§ 211. But there is at least one further starting-point, the oneadopted by the most subtle and elaborate of all reconstructivephilosophies. Logical necessities are as evidently real as bodies orselves. It is possible to define general types of inference, as well ascompact and internally necessary systems such as those of mathematics. There is a perfectly distinguishable strain of pure rationality in theuniverse. Whether or not it be possible to conceive a pure rationalityas self-subsistent, inasmuch as there are degrees it is at any ratepossible to conceive of a maximum of rationality. But similarly thereare degrees of moral goodness. It is possible to define with more orless exactness a morally perfect person, or an ideal moral community. Here again it may be impossible that pure and unalloyed goodness shouldconstitute a universe of itself. But that a maximum of goodness, withall of the accessories which it might involve, should be thusself-subsistent, is quite conceivable. It is thus possible to define anabsolute and perfect order, in which logical necessity, the interest ofthought, or moral goodness, the interest of will, or both together, should be realized to the maximum. Absolutism conceives reality underthe form of this ideal, and attempts to reconstruct experienceaccordingly. But is the prospect of success any better than in the casesof materialism and subjectivism? It is evident that the ideal of logicalnecessity is due to the fact that certain parts of knowledge approach itmore closely than others. Thus mechanics contains more that is arbitrarythan mathematics, and mathematics more than logic. Similarly, the theoryof the evolution of the planetary system, in that it requires theassumption of particular distances and particular masses for the partsof the primeval nebula, is more arbitrary than rational dynamics. It isimpossible, then, in view of the parts of knowledge which belong to thelower end of the scale of rationality, to regard reality as a whole asthe maximum of rationality; for either a purely dynamical, a purelymathematical, or a purely logical, realm would be more rational. Thesimilar disproof of the moral perfection of reality is so unmistakableas to require no elucidation. It is evident that even where naturalnecessities are not antagonistic to moral proprieties, they are at anyrate indifferent to them. 

[Sidenote: Error and Evil Cannot be Reduced to the Ideal. ]

§ 212. But thus far no reference has been made to error and to evil. These are the terms which the ideals of rationality and goodness mustrepudiate if they are to retain their meaning. Nevertheless experiencecontains them and psychology describes them. We have already followedthe efforts which absolute idealism has made to show that logicalperfection requires error, and that moral perfection requires evil. Isit conceivable that such efforts should be successful? Suppose a higherlogic to make the principle of contradiction the very bond ofrationality. What was formerly error is now indispensable to truth. Butwhat of the new error--the unbalanced and mistaken thesis, theunresolved antithesis, the scattered and disconnected terms of thought?These fall outside the new truth as surely as the old error fell outsidethe old truth. And the case of moral goodness is precisely parallel. Thehigher goodness may be so defined as to require failure and sin. Thus itmay be maintained that there can be no true success without struggle, and no true spiritual exaltation except through repentance. But what offailure unredeemed, sin unrepented, evil uncompensated and unresolved?Nothing has been gained after all but a new definition of goodness--anda new definition of evil. And this is an ethical, not a metaphysicalquestion. The problem of evil, like the problem of error, is as far fromsolution as ever. Indeed, the very urgency of these problems is due tometaphysical absolutism. For this philosophy defines the universe as aperfect unity. Measured by the standard of such an ideal universe, theparts of finite experience take on a fragmentary and baffling characterwhich they would not otherwise possess. The absolute perfection must bydefinition both determine and exclude the imperfect. Thus absolutismbankrupts the universe by holding it accountable for what it can neverpay. 

[Sidenote: Collective Character of the Universe as a Whole. ]

§ 213. If the attempt to construct experience in the special terms ofsome part of experience be abandoned, how is reality to be defined? Itis evident that in that case there can be no definition of reality assuch. It must be regarded as a collection of all elements, relations, principles, systems, that compose it. All truths will be true of it, andit will be the subject of all truths. Reality is at least physical, psychical, moral, and rational. That which is physical is notnecessarily moral or psychical, but may be either or both of these. Thusit is a commonplace of experience that what has bulk and weight may ormay not be good, and may or may not be known. Similarly, that which ispsychical may or may not be physical, moral, or rational; and that whichis moral or rational may or may not be physical and psychical. There is, then, an indeterminism in the universe, a mere coincidence ofprinciples, in that it contains physical, psychical, moral, logicalorders, without being in all respects either a physical, a psychical, amoral, or a logical necessity. [420:13] Reality or experience itself isneutral in the sense of being exclusively predetermined by no one of theseveral systems it contains. But the different systems of experienceretain their specific and proper natures, without the compromise whichis involved in all attempts to extend some one until it shall embracethem all. If such a universe seems inconceivably desultory and chaotic, one may always remind one's self by directly consulting experience thatit is not only found immediately and unreflectively, but returned to andlived in after every theoretical excursion. 

[Sidenote: Moral Implications of such a Pluralistic Philosophy. Purityof the Good. ]

§ 214. But what implications for life would be contained in such aphilosophy? Even if it be theoretically clarifying, through beinghospitable to all differences and adequate to the multifarious demandsof experience, is it not on that very account morally dreary andstultifying? Is not its refusal to establish the universe upon moralfoundations destructive both of the validity of goodness, and of theincentive to its attainment? Certainly not--if the validity of goodnessbe determined by criteria of worth, and if the incentive to goodness bethe possibility of making that which merely exists, or is necessary, also good. 

This philosophy does not, it is true, define the good, but it makesethics autonomous, thus distinguishing the good which it defines, andsaving it from compromise with matter-of-fact, and logical or mechanicalnecessity. The criticism of life is founded upon an independent basis, and affords justification, of a selective and exclusive moral idealism. Just because it is not required that the good shall be held accountablefor whatever is real, the ideal can be kept pure and intrinsicallyworthy. The analogy of logic is most illuminating. If it be insistedthat whatever exists is logically necessary, logical necessity must bemade to embrace that from which it is distinguished by definition, suchas contradiction, mere empirical existence, and error. The consequenceis a logical chaos which has in truth forfeited the name of logic. Similarly a goodness defined to make possible the deduction from it ofmoral evil or moral indifference loses the very distinguishingproperties of goodness. The consequence is an ethical neutrality whichinvalidates the moral will. A metaphysical neutrality, on the otherhand, although denying that reality as such is predestined tomorality--and thus affording no possibility of an ethicalabsolutism--becomes the true ground for an ethical purism. 

[Sidenote: The Incentive to Goodness. ]

§ 215. But, secondly, there can be no lack of incentive to goodness in auniverse which, though not all-good, is in no respect incapable ofbecoming good. That which is mechanically or logically necessary, andthat which is psychically present, _may be good_. And what can therealization of goodness mean if not that what is natural and necessary, actual and real, shall be also good. The world is not good, will not begood, merely through being what it is, but is or shall be made goodthrough the accession of goodness. It is this belief that the real isnot necessarily, but may be, good; that the ideal is not necessarily, but may be, realized; which has inspired every faith in action. Philosophically it is only a question of permitting such faith to besincere, or condemning it as shallow. If the world be made good throughgood-will, then the faith of moral action is rational; but if the worldbe good because whatever is must be good, then moral action is atread-mill, and its attendant and animating faith only self-deception. Moral endeavor is the elevation of physical and psychical existence tothe level of goodness. 

 "Relate the inheritance to life, convert the tradition into a servant of character, draw upon the history for support in the struggles of the spirit, declare a war of extermination against the total evil of the world; and then raise new armies and organize into fighting force every belief available in the faith that has descended to you. "[423:14]

Evil is here a practical, not a theoretical, problem. It is not to besolved by thinking it good, for to think it good is to deaden the verynerve of action; but by destroying it and replacing it with good. 

[Sidenote: The Justification of Faith. ]

§ 216. The justification of faith is in the promise of reality. Forwhat, after all, would be the meaning of a faith which declares that allthings, good, bad, and indifferent, are everlastingly and necessarilywhat they are--even if it were concluded on philosophical grounds tocall that ultimate necessity good. Faith has interests; faith is faith_in_ goodness or beauty. Then what more just and potent cause of despairthan the thought that the ideal must be held accountable for error, ugliness, and evil, or for the indifferent necessities ofnature?[424:15] Are ideals to be prized the less, or believed in theless, when there is no ground for their impeachment? How much morehopeful for what is worth the hoping, that nature should discern idealsand take some steps toward realizing them, than that ideals should havecreated nature--such as it is! How much better a report can we give ofnature for its ideals, than of the ideals for their handiwork, if it benature! Emerson writes:

 "Suffice it for the joy of the universe that we have not arrived at a wall, but at interminable oceans. Our life seems not present so much as prospective; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this vast-flowing vigor. Most of life seems to be mere advertisement of faculty; information is given us not to sell ourselves cheap; that we are very great. So, in particulars, our greatness is always in a tendency or direction, not in an action. It is for us to believe in the rule, not in the exception. The noble are thus known from the ignoble. So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul or the like, but _the universal impulse to believe_, that is the material circumstance and is the principal fact in the history of the globe. "[425:16]

[Sidenote: The Worship and Service of God. ]

§ 217. If God be rid of the imputation of moral evil and indifference, he may be _intrinsically worshipful_, because regarded under the form ofthe highest ideals. And if the great cause of goodness be in fact atstake, God may both command the adoration of men through his purity, andreënforce their virtuous living through representing to them thatrealization of goodness in the universe at large which both contains andexceeds their individual endeavor. 

[Sidenote: The Philosopher and the Standards of the Marketplace. ]

§ 218. Bishop Berkeley wrote in his "Commonplace Book":

 "My speculations have the same effect as visiting foreign countries: in the end I return where I was before, but my heart at ease, and enjoying life with new satisfaction. "

If it be essential to the meaning of philosophy that it should issuefrom life, it is equally essential that it should return to life. Butthis connection of philosophy with life does not mean its reduction tothe terms of life as conceived in the market-place. Philosophy cannotemanate from life, and quicken life, without elevating and ennobling it, and will therefore always be incommensurable with life narrowlyconceived. Hence the philosopher must always be as little understood bymen of the street as was Thales by the Thracian handmaiden. He has aninnocence and a wisdom peculiar to his perspective. 

 "When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in answer to the civilities of his adversaries, for he knows no scandals of anyone, and they do not interest him; and therefore he is laughed at for his sheepishness; and when others are being praised and glorified, he cannot help laughing very sincerely in the simplicity of his heart; and this again makes him look like a fool. When he hears a tyrant or king eulogized, he fancies that he is listening to the praises of some keeper of cattle--a swineherd, or shepherd, or cowherd, who is being praised for the quantity of milk which he squeezes from them; and he remarks that the creature whom they tend, and out of whom they squeeze the wealth, is of a less tractable and more insidious nature. Then, again, he observes that the great man is of necessity as ill-mannered and uneducated as any shepherd, for he has no leisure, and he is surrounded by a wall, which is his mountain-pen. Hearing of enormous landed proprietors of ten thousand acres and more, our philosopher deems this to be a trifle, because he has been accustomed to think of the whole earth; and when they sing the praises of family, and say that some one is a gentleman because he has had seven generations of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments only betray the dulness and narrowness of vision of those who utter them, and who are not educated enough to look at the whole, nor to consider that every man has had thousands and thousands of progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves, Hellenes and barbarians, many times over. "[427:17]

It is not to be expected that the opinion of the "narrow, keen, little, legal mind" should appreciate the philosophy which has acquired the"music of speech, " and hymns "the true life which is lived by immortalsor men blessed of heaven. " Complacency cannot understand reverence, norsecularism, religion. 

[Sidenote: The Secularism of the Present Age. ]

§ 219. If we may believe the report of a contemporary philosopher, thepresent age is made insensible to the meaning of life throughpreoccupation with its very achievements:

 "The world of finite interests and objects has rounded itself, as it were, into a separate whole, within which the mind of man can fortify itself, and live _securus adversus deos_, in independence of the infinite. In the sphere of _thought_, there has been forming itself an ever-increasing body of science, which, tracing out the relation of finite things to finite things, never finds it necessary to seek for a beginning or an end to its infinite series of phenomena, and which meets the claims of theology with the saying of the astronomer, 'I do not need that hypothesis. ' In the sphere of _action_, again, the complexity of modern life presents a thousand isolated interests, crossing each other in ways too subtle to trace out--interests commercial, social, and political--in pursuing one or other of which the individual may find ample occupation for his existence, without ever feeling the need of any return upon himself, or seeing any reason to ask himself whether this endless striving has any meaning or object beyond itself. "[428:18]

[Sidenote: The Value of Contemplation for Life. ]

§ 220. There is no dignity in living except it be in the solemn presenceof the universe; and only contemplation can summon such a presence. Moreover, the sessions must be not infrequent, for memory is short andvisions fade. Truth does not require, however, to be followed out of theworld. There is a speculative detachment from life which is lesscourageous, even if more noble, than worldliness. Such is Dante'sexalted but mediæval intellectualism. 

 "And it may be said that (as true friendship between men consists in each wholly loving the other) the true philosopher loves every part of wisdom, and wisdom every part of the philosopher, inasmuch as she draws all to herself, and allows no one of his thoughts to wander to other things. "

Even though, as Aristotle thought, pure contemplation be alone proper tothe gods in their perfection and blessedness, for the sublunary worldthis is less worthy than that balance and unity of faculty whichdistinguished the humanity of the Greek. 

 "Then, " writes Thucydides, "we are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there is a real use for it. To avoid poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the State because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not as a harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges, of a policy. The great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance, but hesitate upon reflection. "[429:19]

Thus life may be broadened and deepened without being made thin andineffectual. As the civil community is related to the individual'sprivate interests, so the community of the universe is related to thecivil community. There is a citizenship in this larger community whichrequires a wider and more generous interest, rooted in a deeper and morequiet reflection. The world, however, is not to be left behind, butserved with a new sense of proportion, with the peculiar fortitude andreverence which are the proper fruits of philosophy. 

 "This is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets: Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action. "[430:20]

FOOTNOTES:

[402:1] Cf. Josiah Royce: _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, LectureXII; _The World and the Individual, Second Series_. 

[403:2] Cf. Hugo Münsterberg: _Psychology and Life_. The more importantwritings of this school are: _Die Philosophie im Beginn des zwanzigstenJahrhunderts_, edited by Wilhelm Windelband, and contributed to byWindelband, H. Rickert, O. Liebmann, E. Troeltsch, B. Bauch, and others. This book contains an excellent bibliography. Also, Rickert: _DerGegenstand der Erkenntnis_; _Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichenBegriffsbildung_, and other works. Windelband: _Präludien_; _Geschichteund Naturwissenschaft_. Münsterberg: _Grundzüge der Psychologie_. Eucken: _Die Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart_. 

[403:3] Cf. F. A. Lange: _History of Materialism_, Book II, Chap. I, on_Kant and Materialism_; also Alois Riehl: _Introduction to the Theory ofScience and Metaphysics_. Translation by Fairbanks. The more importantwritings of this school are: Hermann Cohen: _Kant's Theorie derErfahrung_; _Die Logik der reinen Erkenntniss_, and other works. PaulNatorp: _Sozialpädagogik_; _Einleitung in die Psychologie nachkritischer Methode_, and other works. E. Cassirer: _Leibniz' System inseinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen_. Riehl: _Der philosophischeKriticismus, und seine Bedeutung für die Positive Wissenschaft_. Cf. Also E. Husserl: _Logische Untersuchungen_. 

[404:4] Cf. J. M. E. McTaggart: _Studies in Hegelian Cosmology_, Chap. III. 

[404:5] Cf. Royce: _The Conception of God, Supplementary Essay_, pp. 135-322; _The World and the Individual, First Series_. 

[405:6] This movement began as a criticism of Hegelianism in behalf ofthe human personality. Cf. Andrew Seth: _Hegelianism and Personality_;_Man and the Cosmos_; _Two Lectures on Theism_. G. H. Howison: _TheLimits of Evolution_. The important writings of the more independentmovement are: William James: _The Will to Believe_. H. Sturt, editor:_Personal Idealism, Philosophical Essays by Eight Members of OxfordUniversity_. F. C. S. Schiller: _Humanism_. Henri Bergson: _Essai surles données immédiates de la conscience_; _Matière et mémoire_. Thismovement is closely related to that of _Pragmatism_. See under § 203. 

[406:7] Cf. Bertrand Russell: _Principles of Mathematics_, Vol. I. Amongthe more important writings of this movement are the following:Giuseppi Peano: _Formulaire de Mathématique_, published by the _Rivistadi matematica_, Tom. I-IV. Richard Dedekind: _Was sind und wassollen die Zahlen?_ Georg Cantor: _Grundlagen einer allgemeinenMannigfaltigkeitslehre_. Louis Couturat: _De l'Infini Mathématique_, andarticles in _Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale_. A. N. Whitehead: _ATreatise on Universal Algebra_. Heinrich Hertz: _Die Prinzipien derMechanik_. Henri Poincaré: _La Science et l'Hypothèse_. For the bearingof these investigations on philosophy, see Royce: _The Sciences of theIdeal_, in _Science_, Vol. XX, No. 510. 

[407:8] The term used by Karl Pearson in his _Grammar of Science_. 

[408:9] The important English writings of the recent independentmovement known as _pragmatism_ are: C. S. Peirce: _Illustrations of theLogic of Science_, in _Popular Science Monthly_, Vol. XII. W. James:_The Pragmatic Method_, in _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, andScientific Methods_, Vol. I; _Humanism and Truth_, in _Mind_, Vol. XIII, N. S. ; _The Essence of Humanism_, in _Jour. Of Phil. , Psych. , and Sc. Meth. _, Vol. II (with bibliography); _The Will to Believe_. John Dewey:_Studies in Logical Theory_. W. Caldwell: _Pragmatism_, in _Mind_, Vol. XXV. , N. S. See also literature on _personal idealism_, § 201. A similartendency has appeared in France in Bergson, LeRoy, Milhaud, and inGermany in Simmel. 

[410:10] Cf. Ernst Mach: _Analysis of Sensation_. Translation byWilliams. 

[411:11] Cf. F. H. Bradley: _Appearance and Reality_. 

[413:12] Cf. Carstanjen: _Richard Avenarius, and his General Theory ofKnowledge, Empiriocriticism_. Translation by H. Bosanquet, in _Mind_, Vol. VI, N. S. Also James: _Does Consciousness Exist?_ and _A World ofPure Experience_, in _Jour. Of Phil. , Psych. , and Sc. Meth_. , Vol. I;_The Thing and its Relations_, _ibid. _, Vol. II. 

The standard literature of this movement is unfortunately not availablein English. Among the more important writings are: R. Avenarius: _Kritikder reinen Erfahrung_; _Der menschliche Weltbegriff_, and other works. Joseph Petzoldt: _Einführung in die Philosophie der reinen Erfahrung_. Ernst Mach: _Die Analyse der Empfindung und das Verhältniss desPhysischen zum Psychischen, 2. Auff. _ Wilhelm Schuppe: _Grundriss derErkenntnisstheorie und Logik_. Friedrich Carstanjen: _Einführung in die"Kritik der reinen Erfahrung"_--an exposition of Avenarius. Alsoarticles by the above, R. Willy, R. V. Schubert-Soldern, and others, inthe _Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie_. 

[420:13] It is not, of course, denied that there may be other orders, such as, _e. G. _, an æsthetic order; or that there may be definiterelations between these orders, such as, _e. G. _, the psycho-physicalrelation. 

[423:14] Quoted from George A. Gordon: _The New Epoch for Faith_, p. 27. 

[424:15] Cf. James: _The Will to Believe_, essay on _The Dilemma ofDeterminism, passim_. 

[425:16] _Essays, Second Series_, p. 75. 

[427:17] Plato: _Theætetus_, 174-175. Translation by Jowett. 

[428:18] E. Caird: _Literature and Philosophy_, Vol. I, pp. 218-219. 

[429:19] Translation by Jowett. Quoted by Laurie in his _Pre-ChristianEducation_, p. 213. 

[430:20] Bacon: _Advancement of Learning_, Book I. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The references contained in this bibliography have been selected on thescore of availability in English for the general reader and beginningstudent of philosophy. But I have sought wherever possible to includepassages from the great philosophers and men of letters. These areplaced first in the list, followed by references to contemporary writersand secondary sources. 

CHAPTER I, THE PRACTICAL MAN AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 

PLATO: _Republic_, especially Book VII. Translations by Jowett andVaughan. _Theaetetus_, 172 ff. Translation by Jowett. 

ARISTOTLE: _Ethics_, Book X. Translation by Welldon. 

MARCUS AURELIUS: _Thoughts. _ Translation by Long. 

EPICTETUS: _Discourses. _ Translation by Long. 

BACON: _The Advancement of Learning. _

EMERSON: _Representative Men--Plato; or the Philosopher. _ _Conduct ofLife--Culture. _ _Essays, Second Series--Experience. _

 * * * * *

ROYCE, JOSIAH: _Spirit of Modern Philosophy. _ Introduction. 

HIBBEN, J. G. : _Problems of Philosophy. _ Introduction. 

CHAPTER II, POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

PLATO: _Republic_, Books II and III. Translation by Jowett. (Criticismof the poets as demoralizing. )

WORDSWORTH: _Observations Prefixed to the Second Edition of the LyricalBallads. _

SHELLEY: _Defence of Poetry. _

EVERETT, C. C. : _Poetry, Comedy, and Duty. _ (discussion of thePhilosophy of Poetry. ) _Essays, Theological and Literary. _ (On thePoetry of Emerson, Goethe, Tennyson, Browning. )

CAIRD, EDWARD: _Literature and Philosophy. _ (Wordsworth, Dante, Goethe, etc. )

ROYCE, JOSIAH: _Studies of Good and Evil. _ Essay on _Tennyson andPessimism_. 

SANTAYANA, GEORGE: _Poetry and Religion. _ (Philosophy of poetry; GreekPoetry, Shakespeare, etc. )

SNEATH, E. H. : _Philosophy in Poetry: A Study of Sir John Davies's Poem, "Nosce Teipsum. "_

CHAPTERS III AND IV, RELIGION. 

PLATO: _Republic_, Book III. Translations by Jowett and Vaughan. (Criticism of religion from the stand-point of morality and politics. )

ST. AUGUSTINE: _Confessions. _ Translation by Pusey. (Document ofreligious experience. )

THOMAS À KEMPIS: _Imitation of Christ. _ Translation by Stanhope. (Mediæval programme of personal religion. )

SPINOZA: _Theological-political Treatise. _ Translation by Elwes. (One ofthe first great pleas for religious liberty and one of the firstattempts to define the _essential_ in religion. )

KANT: _Critique of Pure Reason--the Canon of Pure Reason_. Translationby Max Müller. _Critique of Practical Reason. _ Translation by Abbott in_Theory of Ethics_. (Defines religion as the province of faith, distinguishes it from knowledge, and relates it to morality. )

SCHLEIERMACHER: _On Religion. _ _Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. _Translation by Oman. (Ponderous, dogmatic in its philosophy, butprofound and sympathetic in its understanding of religion. )

ARNOLD: _Literature and Dogma. _ (On the essence of religion asexemplified in Judaism and Christianity. )

 * * * * *

SABATIER, A. : _Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychologyand History. _ Translation by Seed. _Religions of Authority and theReligion of the Spirit. _ Translation by Houghton. (These books emphasizethe essential importance of the believer's attitude to God. )

JAMES, WILLIAM: _The Varieties of Religious Experience. _ (A richstorehouse of religion, sympathetically interpreted. )

EVERETT, C. C. : _The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith. _ (Astudy in the definition and meaning of religion. )

CAIRD, EDWARD: _Evolution of Religion. _ (Indoctrinated with the author'sidealistic philosophy. )

FIELDING, H. : _The Hearts of Men. _ (A plea for the universal religion. Special feeling for Indian religions. )

HARNACK, A. : _What is Christianity?_ Translation by Saunders. (Attemptto define the _essence_ of Christianity. )

PALMER, G. H. : _The Field of Ethics_, Chapters V and VI. (On therelation of ethics and religion. )

BROWN, W. A. : _The Essence of Christianity. _ (Special study of thedefinition of religion. )

JASTROW, M. : _The Study of Religion. _ (Method of history and psychologyof religion. )

SMITH, W. ROBERTSON: _The Religion of the Semites. _ (Excellent study oftribal religions. )

CLARKE, W. N. : _What Shall We Think of Christianity?_ (An interpretationof Christianity. )

LEUBA, J. H. : _Introduction to a Psychological Study of Religion. _ In_The Monist_, Vol. XI, p. 195. 

STARBUCK, E. D. : _The Psychology of Religion. _

CHAPTER V, THE PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM OF SCIENCE. [434:A]

PLATO: _Republic_, Book VII, 526 ff. Translations by Jowett and Vaughan. _Phaedo_, 96 ff. Translation by Jowett. 

BERKELEY: _Alciphron_, the Fourth Dialogue. _Siris_, especially 234-264. (On the failure of the scientist to grasp the deeper truth respectingcauses and substances. )

DESCARTES: _Discourse on Method. _ Translation by Veitch. 

SPINOZA: _On the Improvement of the Understanding. _ Translation byElwes. 

KANT: _Critique of Pure Reason--Transcendental Æsthetic_ and_Transcendental Analytic. _ Translation by Max Müller. (Studies of theMethod of Science. )

 * * * * *

WARD, JAMES: _Naturalism and Agnosticism. _ (Full but clear account ofrecent development of natural science, and criticism of its use asphilosophy. )

MACH, ERNST: _Science of Mechanics. _ (Historical and methodological. )

JAMES, WILLIAM: _Principles of Psychology_, Vol. II, Chap. Xxviii. (Emphasizes the practical interest underlying science. )

ROYCE, JOSIAH: _The World and the Individual, Second Series, Man andNature. _ (Interpretation of the province of natural science from thestand-point of absolute idealism. )

PEARSON, KARL: _The Grammar of Science. _ (The limits of science from thescientific stand-point. )

CLIFFORD, W. K. : _Lectures and Essays: On the Aims and Instruments ofScientific Thought; The Philosophy of the Pure Sciences; On the Ethicsof Belief. _

HUXLEY, T. H. : _Method and Results. _ (The positivistic position. )

MUENSTERBERG, HUGO: _Psychology and Life. _ (Epistemological limitationsof natural science applied to psychology, from idealistic stand-point. )

FULLERTON, G. E. : _A System of Metaphysics_, Part II. 

TAYLOR, A. E. : _Elements of Metaphysics_, Book III. 

CHAPTERS VI AND VII, THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY. 

PLATO: _Dialogues_, especially _Protagoras_ and _Theaetetus_. Translation by Jowett. (The actual genesis of special problems. )

 * * * * *

KUELPE, OSWALD: _Introduction to Philosophy. _ Translation by Pillsburyand Titchener. (Full and accurate account of the traditional terms anddoctrines of philosophy. )

HIBBEN, J. G. : _Problems of Philosophy. _ (Brief and elementary. )

SIDGWICK, HENRY: _Philosophy, its Scope and Relations. _

PAULSEN, FRIEDRICH: _Introduction to Philosophy. _ Translation by Thilly. 

BALDWIN, J. M. : _Dictionary of Philosophy. _ (Full, and convenient forreference. )

FERRIER, J. F. : _Lectures on Greek Philosophy. _ (Interpretation of thebeginning and early development of philosophy. )

BURNET, J. : _Early Greek Philosophy. _ Translation of the sources. 

FAIRBANKS, A. : _The First Philosophers of Greece. _

GOMPERZ, TH. : _Greek Thinkers_, Vol. I. Translation by Magnus. (On thefirst development of philosophical problems. )

PALMER, G. H. : _The Field of Ethics. _ (On the relations of the ethicalproblem. )

PUFFER, ETHEL: _The Psychology of Beauty. _ (On the relations of theæsthetical problem. )

CHAPTER VIII, NATURALISM. [436:A]

LUCRETIUS: _On the Nature of Things. _ Translation by Munro. (Earlymaterialism. )

HOBBES: _Metaphysical System. _ Edited by Calkins. _Leviathan_, Part I. (Modern materialism. )

 * * * * *

BUECHNER, LOUIS: _Force and Matter. _ Translation by Collingwood. (Nineteenth century materialism. )

JANET, PAUL: _Materialism of the Present Day. _ Translation by Masson. 

LANGE, F. A. : _History of Materialism. _ Translation by Thomas. 

HAECKEL, ERNST: _The Riddle of the Universe. _ Translation by McCabe. ("Monism of Energy. ")

CLIFFORD, W. K. : _Lectures and Essays: The Ethics of Belief; CosmicEmotion; Body and Mind. _ (Positivism. )

HUXLEY, T. H. : _Evolution and Ethics; Prolegomena. _ (Distinguishesbetween the moral and natural. ) _Science and Hebrew Tradition_; _Scienceand Christian Tradition_. (Controversies of the naturalist withGladstone and Duke of Argyle. )

SPENCER, HERBERT: _First Principles. _ (The systematic evolutionaryphilosophy. ) _Principles of Ethics. _ (Ethics of naturalism. ) _The Natureand Reality of Religion. _ (Controversy with Frederick Harrison. )

BALFOUR, A. J. : _Foundations of Belief_, Part I. (On the religious, moral, and æsthetic consequences of naturalism. )

PATER, WALTER: _Marius the Epicurean. _ (Refined hedonism. )

ROMANES, G. J. : _Thoughts on Religion. _ (Approached from stand-point ofscience. )

BENTHAM, J. : _Introduction to the Principles of Morals andLegislation. _ (Utilitarian. )

STEPHEN, L. : _Science of Ethics. _ (Evolutionary and social. )

CHAPTER IX, SUBJECTIVISM. 

PLATO: _Theaetetus. _ Translation by Jowett. (Exposition and criticism ofProtagoras. )

BERKELEY: _Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_; _Principles ofHuman Knowledge_. 

HUME: _An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. _

SCHOPENHAUER: _The World as Will and Idea. _ Translation by Haldane andKemp. 

MILL, J. S. : _An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy_, X-XIII. 

 * * * * *

CLIFFORD, W. K. : _Lectures and Essays: On the Nature of Things inThemselves. _ (Panpsychism. )

DEUSSEN, PAUL: _Elements of Metaphysics. _ Translation by Duff. (Following Schopenhauer and Oriental philosophy. )

PAULSEN, FR. : _Introduction to Philosophy. _ (Panpsychism. )

STRONG, C. A. : _Why the Mind Has a Body. _ (Panpsychism. )

JAMES, WILLIAM: _Reflex Action and Theism_, in _The Will to Believe_. (Morality and religion of individualism. )

CHAPTER X, ABSOLUTE REALISM. 

PARMENIDES: _Fragments. _ Arrangement and translation by Burnet orFairbanks. 

PLATO: _Republic_, Books VI and VII. Translations by Jowett and Vaughan. _Symposium_, _Phædrus_, _Phædo_, _Philebus_. Translation by Jowett. 

ARISTOTLE[437:A]: _Psychology. _ Translations by Hammond and Wallace. _Ethics. _ Translation by Welldon. 

SPINOZA: _Ethics_, especially Parts I and V. Translations by Elwes andWillis. 

LEIBNIZ: _Monadology_, and Selections. Translation by Latta. _Discourseon Metaphysics. _ Translation by Montgomery. 

MARCUS AURELIUS: _Thoughts. _ Translation by Long. 

EPICTETUS: _Discourses. _ Translation by Long. 

 * * * * *

CAIRD, EDWARD: _The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers. _(The central conceptions of Plato and Aristotle. )

JOACHIM: _A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza. _

CHAPTER XI, ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 

DESCARTES: _Meditations. _ Translation by Veitch. 

KANT: _Critique of Pure Reason. _ Translation by Max Müller. _Critique ofPractical Reason. _ Translation by Abbott, in Kant's _Theory of Ethics_. 

FICHTE[437:A]: _Science of Ethics. _ Translation by Kroeger. _PopularWorks: The Nature of the Scholar_; _The Vocation of Man_; _The Doctrineof Religion_. Translation by Smith. 

SCHILLER: _Æsthetic Letters, Essays, and Philosophical Letters. _Translation by Weiss. (Romanticism. )

HEGEL[437:A]: _Ethics. _ Translation by Sterrett. _Logic. _ Translation, with Introduction, by Wallace. _Philosophy of Mind. _ Translation, withIntroduction, by Wallace. _Philosophy of Religion. _ Translation bySpiers and Sanderson. _Philosophy of Right. _ Translation by Dyde. 

GREEN, T. H. : _Prolegomena to Ethics. _

EMERSON: _The Conduct of Life--Fate. _ _Essays, First Series--TheOver-Soul; Circles. _ _Essays, Second Series--The Poet; Experience;Nature. _ (The appreciation of life consistent with absolute idealism. )

WORDSWORTH: _Poems_, _passim_. 

COLERIDGE: _Aids to Reflection. _ _The Friend. _

ROYCE, J. : _Spirit of Modern Philosophy. _ (Sympathetic exposition ofKant, Fichte, Romanticism, and Hegel. ) _The Conception of God. _ (Theepistemological argument. ) _The World and the Individual, First Series. _(Systematic development of absolute idealism; its moral and religiousaspects. )

CAIRD, EDWARD: _The Critical Philosophy of Kant. _ (Exposition andinterpretation from stand-point of later idealism. )

EVERETT, C. C. : _Fichte's Science of Knowledge. _

MCTAGGART, J. M. E. : _Studies in Hegelian Dialectic. _ Studies inHegelian Cosmology. 

FOOTNOTES:

[434:A] For further contemporary writings on this topic, see foot-notesunder §§ 199, 200, 203. 

[436:A] For histories of philosophy, see supplementary bibliography atend. 

[437:A] The Metaphysics of Aristotle, Fichte, and Hegel must be found bythe English reader mainly in the secondary sources. 

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 

I. --GENERAL. 

ROGERS: _Student's History of Philosophy. _ (Elementary and clear;copious quotations. )

WEBER: _History of Philosophy. _ Translation by Thilly. (Comprehensiveand compact. )

WINDELBAND: _A History of Philosophy. _ Translation by Tufts. (Emphasisupon the problems and their development. )

ERDMANN: _History of Philosophy. _ Translation edited by Hough; in threevolumes. (Detailed and accurate exposition. )

UEBERWEG: _A History of Philosophy. _ Translation by Morris and Porter, in two volumes. (Very complete; excellent account of the literature. )

II. --SPECIAL PERIODS. 

FERRIER: _Lectures on Greek Philosophy. _ (Excellent introduction. )

MARSHALL: _Short History of Greek Philosophy. _ (Brief and clear. )

WINDELBAND: _History of Ancient Philosophy. _ Translation by Cushman. (Very accurate and scholarly; also brief. )

ZELLER: _Pre-Socratic Philosophy. _ Translation by Alleyne. _Socrates andthe Socratic Schools. _ Translation by Reichel. (Full and accurate. )

GOMPERZ: _Greek Thinkers. _ Translated by Magnus, in four volumes. (Veryfull; especially on Plato. Goes no further than Plato. )

BURNET: _Early Greek Philosophy. _ (Translations of fragments, withcommentary. )

FAIRBANKS: _The First Philosophers of Greece. _ (Translations offragments, with commentary. )

TURNER: _History of Philosophy. _ (Excellent account of Scholasticphilosophy. )

ROYCE: _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy. _ (Very illuminatingintroductory exposition of modern idealism. )

FALCKENBERG: _History of Modern Philosophy. _

HOEFFDING: _History of Modern Philosophy. _ Translation by Meyer, in twovolumes. (Full and good. )

INDEX

 ABSOLUTE, the, 307, 309, 332, 391, 392, 400, 404; being, 308; substance, 312; ideal, 326; spirit, 349 (_note_), 358 ff. ; mind, 349 (_note_), 358, 380, 322 ff. 

 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM, chap. Xi; general meaning, 177, 349 (_note_), 400; criticism of, 349, 365, 385, 411, 416; epistemology of, 368 ff. ; as related to Kant, 380; direct argument for, 383; ethics of, 386 ff. ; religion of, 390 ff. ; of present day, 402 ff. , 410. 

 ABSOLUTE REALISM, chap. X; general meaning, 306 (_note_), 400; epistemology of, 339; ethics of, 342; religion of, 346; criticism of, 338, 416. 

 ABSTRACT, the, 139. 

 ACTIVITY, 209, 285, 295. 

 ÆSTHETICS, 189. 

 AGNOSTICISM, 168, 252 ff. 

 ANAXAGORAS, 239; quoted, 162. 

 ANAXIMANDER, 224. 

 ANSELM, SAINT, 200. 

 ANTHROPOMORPHISM, 109. 

 APPRECIATION, 25, 402. 

 ARISTOTLE, in formal logic, 186; ethics of, 195, 345; psychology of, 208; philosophy of, 306, 332 ff. ; and Plato, 333, 336; and Spinoza, 336; epistemology of, 339; religion of, 346, 429; on evil, 353. 

 ATOMISM, 166, 229. Also see under LEUCIPPUS, and DEMOCRITUS. 

 ATTITUDE, 62. 

 ATTRIBUTE, in Spinoza, 312 ff. 

 AUGUSTINE, SAINT, on communion with God, 68; on pietism, 195; his conception of self, 372. 

 AUTOMATISM, 248. 

 BAAL, religion of, 88. 

 BACON, FRANCIS, on thought and action, 430. 

 BALFOUR, A. J. , on materialism, 264. 

 BEAUTY, in æsthetics, 189; in Plato, 327, 332. 

 BEING, Eleatic conception of, 308 ff. 

 BELIEF, key to definition of religion, 58; general characters applied to religion, 59 ff. ; in persons and dispositions, 62; examples of religions, 66 ff. ; object of religions, 65, 82, 97; relation to logic, 182, 183. 

 BENTHAM, 262. 

 BERKELEY, on idealism, 176; relation to common-sense, 267; his refutation of material substance, 275 ff. ; epistemology of, 277, 296, 369; theory of mathematics, 279; his spiritualism, 280, 284, 292; his conception of God, 284, 293; ethics of, 302; religion of, 304. 

 BUDDHISM, 78. 

 CAUSE, in science, 131; God as first, 203; of motion, 231 ff. ; spirit as, 293 ff. 

 CHRISTIANITY, persistence of, 76; essence of, 86; development from Judaism, 94; ethics of, 195, 198, 386; idea of God in, 200 ff. , 205; emphasis on self-consciousness in, 372. 

 COMTE, 115. 

 CONTEMPLATION, 428. 

 CONVERSION, 69 ff. 

 CORPOREAL BEING, 224; processes of, 225; Berkeley's critique of, 278; historical conceptions of, 229. 

 COSMOLOGICAL PROOF, the, of God, 203. 

 COSMOLOGY, general meaning of, 159; mechanism in, 161, 225; teleology in, 161. 

 COSMOS, origin of, 242. 

 CRITICAL METHOD, 319 ff. 

 CYNICISM, 259. 

 CYRENAICISM, 259. 

 DANTE, as philosopher-poet, 42 ff. ; general meaning of the _Divine Comedy_, 43; and Thomas Aquinas, 43, 46; his vision of the ways of God, 46; on contemplation, 428. 

 DARWIN, 204. 

 DEISM, 207. 

 DEMOCRITUS, 247. Also see ATOMISM. 

 DESCARTES, on function of philosophy, 154; dualism of, 272, 412; his theory of space and matter, 229; automatism of, 248; epistemology of, 341, 375; his conception of self, 374. 

 DESCRIPTION, as method of science, 128. 

 DIALECTIC, in Plato, 320; in Hegel, 361. 

 DIOGENES, 259. 

 DOGMATISM, 167. 

 DUALISM, general meaning, 162; of Descartes, 272, 412. 

 DUTY, 196, 356, 360, 386. 

 ECLECTICISM, contemporary, 398 ff. , 413. 

 ELEATICS. See under PARMENIDES, and ZENO. 

 EMERSON, on spirit, 359; on nature, 364; on absolute, 392; on necessity, 393; on faith, 424. 

 EMPIRICISM, general meaning, 168; in logic, 187; in naturalism, 252 ff. ; of Locke, 274; of Berkeley, 274 ff. 

 ENERGY, development of, conception of, 236 ff. 

 EPISTEMOLOGY, relation to metaphysics, 150; definition of, 164; fundamental problems of, 168, 172; argument for God from, 202; of naturalism, 248, 252 ff. , 257; of Descartes, 273, 341, 375; of Berkeley, 277, 296; of absolute realism, 339, 351; of Leibniz, 340, 341; of Plato, 340, 341; of Hume, 376; of Aristotle, 340, 341; of absolute idealism, 351, 368 ff. ; of present day, 408 ff. 

 ETERNAL, the, 309. 

 ETHER, 230. 

 ETHICS, relation to metaphysics, 151, 196 ff. , 360; its origin in Socratic method, 181; definition of, 191; special problems and theories in, 191 ff. ; of Socrates, 192, 194; of Aristotle, 195, 345; of naturalism, 258 ff. ; of subjectivism, 298 ff. ; of Schopenhauer, 299; argument for God from, 203; individualism in, 301; pluralism in, 302, 421; of Stoics and Spinoza, 342; Platonic, 342; of Kant, 386; of absolute idealism, 388. 

 EUDÆMONISM, 195. 

 EVIL, PROBLEM OF, 317, 336, 339, 352, 365 ff. ; in Greek philosophy, 352; in absolute idealism, 367, 418. 

 EVOLUTION, of cosmos, 242 ff. ; of morality, 262. 

 EXPERIENCE, 410, 411, 412; analysis of, by Kant, 354. 

 FAITH, 424; special interests of, 199. See also RELIGION and BELIEF. 

 FERGUSON, CHAS. , quoted, 265. 

 FICHTE, 360, 402. 

 FIELDING, H. , quoted on religion, 59, 74. 

 FORCE, development of conception of, 231 ff. 

 FORM, in Aristotle, 334. 

 FREEDOM, in ethics, 196, 388; meanings and theories, 211. 

 GOD, as guarantee of ideals, 18, 425; personality of, 62, 108 ff. ; St. Augustine's communion with, 68; presence of, 68; as a disposition from which consequences may be expected, 85; meaning of, in religion, 87; idea of, in Judaism and Christianity, 92; why historical, 102; social relation with, 103; the ontological proof of, 200; ethical and epistemological arguments for, 202; cosmological proof of, 203; teleological proof of, 204; relation to the world, in theism, pantheism and deism, 205 ff. ; will of, 212; conception of, in Berkeley, 284, 293 ff. ; conception and proof of, in Spinoza, 312 ff. , 392, 393; conception of, in Plato, 331, 352, 391, 393; conception of, in Leibniz, 338, 353. Also see ABSOLUTE. 

 GOETHE, on Spinoza, and on philosophy, 51; on pragmatism, 407. 

 GOOD, the, theories of, in ethics, 191 ff. ; and the real, 326 ff. , 421 ff. 

 GREEK, religion, in Homer and Lucretius, 89; ideals, 195, 198, 429. 

 GREEN, T. H. , quoted, 369, 385 (_note_). 

 HAECKEL, quoted, 236, 266. 

 HEDONISM, 192. 

 HEGEL, on science, 129; philosophy of, 150, 361 ff. ; relation to Kant, 381; on the absolute, 382; ethics of, 390. 

 HERACLITUS, 308. 

 HISTORY, philosophy of, in Hegel, 363. 

 HOBBES, his misconception of relations of philosophy and science, 115; quoted on ethics, 261. 

 Holbach, 251, 252. 

 HOMER, on Greek religion, 90. 

 HUMANISM, 320, 404, 405. 

 HUME, positivism of, 115, 377; phenomenalism of, 283; and Descartes, 376. 

 HUXLEY, quoted, 255, 266. 

 HYLOZOISM, 225. 

 IDEAL, the, in Plato, 326; validity of, 416. 

 IDEALISM, various meanings of term, 173 (_note_); meaning of, as theory of knowledge, 175 ff. , 409; of present day, 409 ff. ; empirical, see SUBJECTIVISM, PHENOMENALISM, SPIRITUALISM; absolute, see ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 

 IDEALS, in life, 10 ff. ; adoption of, 17 ff. 

 IDEAS, the, in Plato, 329. 

 IMAGINATION, in poetry, 99; place of, in religion, 80, 97 ff. ; special functions of, in religion, 101 ff. ; scope of, in religion, 105 ff. ; and the personality of God, 110. 

 IMITATIO CHRISTI, quoted, 68. 

 IMMANENCE THEORY, 412, 413. 

 IMMORTALITY, 212. 

 INDIVIDUALISM, 301, 320, 338, 404. 

 INTUITIONISM, in ethics, 196. 

 JAMES, WILLIAM, quoted on religion, 65, 71, 305. 

 JUDAISM, development of, 92; and Christianity, 94. 

 KANT, his transcendentalism, 177, 356; his critique of knowledge, 354 ff. , 377 ff. ; and absolute idealism, 380; ethics of, 386. 

 KEPLER, quoted, 129. 

 KNOWLEDGE, of the means in life, 8; of the end, 10; in poetry, 27 ff. ; in religion, 82, 85, 97, 105; general theory of, on epistemology, 164 ff. ; problem of source and criterion of, 168 ff. ; problem of relation to its object, 172 ff. , 277, 340, 351, 368 ff. ; relation of logic to, 183 ff. ; account of, in naturalism, 253 ff. Also see EPISTEMOLOGY. 

 LA METTRIE, quoted, 250. 

 LA PLACE, 242; quoted, 241. 

 LEIBNIZ, on function of philosophy, 155; philosophy of, 333, 336 ff. ; epistemology of, 339. 

 LEUCIPPUS, quoted, 161. 

 LIFE, as a starting-point for thought, 3; definition of, 5 ff. ; and self-consciousness, 6; philosophy of 17 ff. , 153; mechanical theory of, 244 ff. ; return of philosophy to, 427 ff. ; contemplation in, 428. 

 LOCKE, epistemology of, 273. 

 LOGIC, origin in Socratic method, 181; affiliations of, 182, 188; definition of, 183; parts of formal, 184 ff. ; present tendencies in, 187 ff. ; algebra of, 189. 

 LUCRETIUS, his criticism of Greek religion, quoted, 89 ff. ; on mechanism, 226, 240. 

 MCTAGGART, J. M. E. , on Hegel, 367; on the absolute, 391. 

 MACH, E. , 283; on philosophy and science, 120. 

 MALEBRANCHE, 376. 

 MARCUS AURELIUS, 348. 

 MATERIALISM, 254, 256; general meaning, 223, 414; development, 224 ff. ; and science, 228; French, 249; theory of mind in, 250. 

 MATHEMATICS, importance in science, 132; logic in, 188; Berkeley's conception of, 279; Plato's conception of, 329, 335; Spinoza's conception of, 311, 335. 

 MATTER, 225, 228; and space, 229; Berkeley's refutation of, 275 ff. ; in Plato and Aristotle, 334. 

 MECHANICAL THEORY, practical significance of its extension to the world at large, 20; in cosmology, 161, 225; of Descartes, 231; of Newton 232; of origin of cosmos, 242; of life, 244; in Spinoza, 336. 

 METAPHYSICS, relation to epistemology, 150; relation to ethics, 151, 196 ff. ; definition of, 158; relation to logic, 188; relation to theology, 207; present tendencies in, 399 ff. , 408. 

 MILL, J. S. , 283 (_note_). 

 MIND, explanation of in naturalism, 237, 247 ff. ; of God, in Berkeley, 284, 294, 296; absolute, 349 (_note_), 358, 382 ff. Also see under SELF, and SOUL. 

 MODE, in Spinoza, 313. 

 MONADS, in Leibniz, 338. 

 MONISM, 159, 163. 

 MORALITY, and religion, 73; grounds of, according to Kant, 356; incentive to, 422. 

 MYSTICISM, general account, 171; Schopenhauer's, 290; types of religions, 391. 

 NAEGELI, C. V. , quoted, 287. 

 NATURAL SCIENCE, true relations of, with philosophy, 116; sphere of, with reference to philosophy, 117 ff. ; philosophy of, its procedure, 121, 135, 142, 154, 401; origin of, as special interest, 123 ff. ; human value of, 126, 127, 143; method and fundamental conceptions of, 406, 128 ff. ; general development of, 134; limits of, because abstract, 136 ff. , 414; validity of, 142; logic and, 188; development of conceptions in, 229 ff. ; grounds of, according to Kant, 355, 377; Hume on, 377; permanence and progress in, 395 ff. 

 NATURAL SELECTION, 204, 245. 

 NATURALISM, chap. Viii; general meaning, 217, 223 (_note_), 399; claims of, 239; task of, 241; criticism of, 117, 257, 263; of present day, 405, 412. Also see under MATERIALISM, and POSITIVISM. 

 NATURE, 160, 244, 337; in Berkeley, 294; in Spinoza, 317, 338; in Hegel, 363; in Kant, 377 ff. ; in contemporary philosophy, 401. Also see NATURAL SCIENCE, and NATURALISM. 

 NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS, 242. 

 NECESSITY, of will, 211; ethics of, 342; religion of, 393. 

 NEO-FICHTEANS, 402, 403 (_note_). 

 NEO-KANTIANS, 403. 

 NEWTON, 232, 235, 242, 355, 377. 

 NORMATIVE SCIENCES, the, 180. 

 OMAR KHAYYAM, quoted, 16; as a philosopher-poet, 36. 

 ONTOLOGICAL PROOF, of God, 200. 

 ONTOLOGY, 159. 

 OPTIMISM, 104, 388, 422, 424. 

 PANPSYCHISM, 176, 238, 285 ff. 

 PANTHEISM, in primitive religion, 78; general meaning, 205; types of, 390. 

 PARKER, THEODORE, quoted on religion, 67. 

 PARMENIDES, and rationalism, 168; philosophy of, 308 ff. , 337; and Aristotle, 336. 

 PATER, WALTER, on Wordsworth, 38; on Cyrenaicism, 260; on subjectivism, 270. 

 PAULSEN, FRIEDRICH, ethics of, quoted, 302. 

 PEARSON, KARL, quoted, 230. 

 PERCEPTION. See SENSE-PERCEPTION. 

 PERSONAL IDEALISM, 404, 405. 

 PERSONALITY, of God, important in understanding of religion, 62; essential to religion? 108 ff. 

 PERSONS, description of belief in, 62; imagination of, 101, 110. 

 PESSIMISM, 104, 299, 424. 

 PHENOMENALISM, general meaning, 176, 267 (_note_); of Berkeley, 272, 275 ff. ; of Hume, 283; various tendencies in, 281. 

 PHILOSOPHER, the practical man and the, chap. I; the rôle of the, 306, 426. 

 PHILOSOPHY, commonly misconceived, 3; of the devotee, 13; of the man of affairs, 14; of the voluptuary, 16; of life, its general meaning, 17 ff. , 153; its relations with poetry, chap. Ii, 112; lack of, in Shakespeare, 33; as expression of personality, 33; as premature, 33; in poetry of Omar Khayyam, 36; in poetry of Wordsworth, 38 ff. ; in poetry of Dante, 42 ff. ; difference between philosophy and poetry, 48 ff. ; in religion, 108 ff. ; compared with religion, 112; true attitude of, toward science, 116; sphere of, in relation to science, 117, 395 ff. ; procedure of, with reference to science, 121, 135, 142, 154, 160; human value of, 143, 426 ff. ; can its problem be divided? 149, 155; origin of, 157; special problems of, chap. Vi, vii; and psychology, 216; peculiar object of, 308; self-criticism in, 319 ff. , 325; permanence and progress in, 395 ff. ; contemporary, 398 ff. 

 PHYSICAL. See CORPOREAL BEING, MATERIALISM, etc. 

 PHYSIOLOGY, 246. 

 PIETY, description and interpretation of, 72; in ethics, 195. 

 PLATO, on Protagoras, 167, 269, 270, 298; quoted, on Socrates, 170, 192, 194; historical preparation for, 324; psychology of, 209; philosophy of, 306, 318, 326 ff. , 382; and Aristotle, 333; and Spinoza, 318, 335; epistemology of, 339; ethics of, 342; religion of, 346, 391, 393; on evil, 352; on spirit, 359; on reason and perception, 370; on the philosopher, 426. 

 PLURALISM, general meaning of, 159, 163, 419; in ethics, 302, 421 ff. ; in religion, 304. 

 POETRY, relations with philosophy, chap. Ii; as appreciation, 25; virtue of sincerity in, 27; the "barbarian" in, 28; constructive knowledge in, 30; difference between philosophy and, 48 ff. 

 POSITIVISM, on relation of philosophy and science, 115, 122; general meaning of, 168, 234, 252 ff. , 412. 

 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE, of means, 8 ff. ; of end or purpose, 10 ff. ; implied in religion, 85, 97; philosophy as, 153. 

 PRACTICAL MAN, the, and the philosopher, chap. I; his failure to understand philosophy, 3; his ideal, 14; virtually a philosopher, 22. 

 PRAGMATISM, 151, 407, 408. 

 PRAYER, 103. 

 PREDICTION, in science, 130. 

 PRESENT DAY, philosophy of the, 398 ff. 

 PROTAGORAS, scepticism of, 166, 271; subjectivism of, 269; ethics of, 298. 

 PSYCHOLOGY, of religion, 58, 82; inadequate to religion, 82; as branch of philosophy, 208 ff. , 216; as natural science, 213; affiliations of, 215; limits of, 415. 

 PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM, 215, 252. 

 PURPOSE, in life, 10 ff. ; adoption of life-purpose, 17 ff. ; practical significance of, in the world at large, 20. Also see TELEOLOGY, IDEAL, etc. 

 QUALITIES, primary and secondary, 254, 274, 277. 

 RATIONALISM, general meaning, 168, 416; in logic, 180, 184; in ethics, 193; of eleatics, 310; of Spinoza, 311; in absolute realism, 339; criticism of, 418. 

 REALISM, various meanings of term, 173 (_note_); meaning of, as theory of knowledge, 172; of Parmenides, 308 ff. ; of Plato and Aristotle, 341; of present day, 409 ff. 

 REASON, 370. See RATIONALISM. 

 RELATIVISM, 166, 267 ff. ; in ethics, 298. 

 RELIGION, chaps. Iii, iv; relation to poetry and philosophy, 49, 52; difficulty of defining, 53; possibility of defining, 54; profitableness of defining, 54; true method of defining, 56; misconceptions of, 56; as possessing the psychological character of belief, 59 ff. ; degree of, in individuals and moods, 60, 61; definition of, as belief in disposition of universe, 64 ff. , 82; and morality, 73; symbolism in, 75; prophet and preacher of, 75; conveyance of, 76; primitive, 77; Buddhism, 78; the critical or enlightened type of, 80; means to be true, 82 ff. ; implies a practical truth, 85; cases of truth and error in, 88 ff. ; of Baal, 88; Greek, 89; of Jews, its development, 92; Christian, 94; definition of cognitive factor in, 97; place of imagination in, 80, 97 ff. ; special functions of imagination in, 101 ff. ; relation of imagination and truth in, 105; philosophy implied in, 108 ff. ; is personal god essential to, 108; compared with philosophy, 112; compared with science, 145; special philosophical problems of, 199 ff. ; of naturalism, 263 ff. ; of subjectivism and spiritualism, 302 ff. ; of Plato and Aristotle, 346, 393; of Stoics and Spinoza, 348, 393; philosophy of, in Hegel, 365; of absolute idealism, 390 ff. 

 RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA, interpretation of, 69 ff. 

 REPRESENTATIVE THEORY, of knowledge, 174, 412. 

 ROMANTICISM, 361. 

 ROUSSEAU, quoted on nature, 64. 

 ROYCE, JOSIAH, quoted on absolute idealism, 178, 384, 394. 

 SANTAYANA, GEORGE, quoted on poetry 28, 29. 

 SCEPTICISM, 166, 267 ff. See under POSITIVISM, and AGNOSTICISM. 

 SCHELLING, misconception of science, 116. 

 SCHOLASTICISM, 333; idea of God in, 201. 

 SCHOPENHAUER, his panpsychism or voluntarism, 177, 285 ff. ; universalizes subjectivism, 290; mysticism of, 290; ethics of, 299; religion of, 303. 

 SCIENCE. Also see under NATURAL SCIENCE, and NORMATIVE SCIENCE. 

 SECULARISM, of Shakespeare, 34; of Periclean Age, 320; of present age, 427. 

 SELF, problem of, 216; proof of, in St. Augustine, 372; proof of, in Descartes, 374; deeper moral of, 387; in contemporary philosophy, 411, 413. Also see SOUL, and MIND. 

 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, essential to human life, 6; development of conception of, 371 ff. ; in absolute idealism, 383; in idealistic ethics, 386. 

 SENSATIONALISM, 247, 255, 269. 

 SENSE-PERCEPTION, 168, 247, 269, 370; being as, in Berkeley, 281. 

 SHAKESPEARE, general criticism of, 30 ff. ; his universality, 31; lack of philosophy in, 33. 

 SHELLEY, quoted on poetry, 50. 

 SOCIAL RELATIONS, belief inspired by, analogue of religion, 62; imagination of, extended to God, 101. 

 SOCRATES, rationalism of, 169; and normative science, 180; ethics of, 192, 194; method of, 321 ff. 

 SOPHISTS, the, epistemology of, 165; scepticism of, 271, 320; ethics of, 298, 301; age of, 320. 

 SOUL, the, in Aristotle, 208; in Plato, 209; as substance, 209; intellectualism and voluntarism in theory of, 210; immortality of, 212; Berkeley's theory of, 284. Also see under MIND, and SELF. 

 SPACE, importance in science, 130; and matter, 229. 

 SPENCER, 236 (_note_), 243, 265. 

 SPINOZA, and Goethe, 51; quoted on philosophy and life, 153; philosophy of, 306, 311 ff. ; criticism and estimate of, 315 ff. ; and Plato, 318, 335; and Aristotle, 336; epistemology of, 339; ethics of, 342; religion of, 348, 392, 393. 

 SPIRIT, the absolute, 358 ff. 

 SPIRITUALISM, general meaning, 176, 267 (_note_); in Berkeley, 280, 292; in Schopenhauer, 285; criticism of, 288; objective, 292. 

 STEVENSON, R. L. , quoted on religion, 67. 

 STOICISM, ethics of, 342; religion of, 348. 

 SUBJECTIVISM, chap. Ix; general meaning, 175, 218, 267 (_note_), 415; in æsthetics, 190; of Berkeley, 275 ff. ; universalization of, in Schopenhauer, 290; criticism of, 297, 415; ethics of, 298 ff. ; in absolute idealism, 368; of present day, 409. 

 SUBSTANCE, spiritual, 209, 284; material, Berkeley's refutation of, 275 ff. ; Spinoza's conception of, 311; the infinite, in Spinoza, 312; Aristotle's conception of, 334; Leibniz's conception of, 338. 

 SYMBOLISM, in religion, 75. 

 TELEOLOGY, in cosmology, 161; proof of God from, 204; Spinoza on, 318; in Plato, 326 ff. , 336; in Aristotle, 336. 

 THEISM, 205. 

 THEOLOGY, relation to religion, 98; in philosophy, 199 ff. ; relation to metaphysics, 207. 

 THOMSON, J. , quoted, 104. 

 THOUGHT, and life, 6 ff. ; as being, in Hegel, 361 ff. 

 THUCYDIDES, on thought and action, 429. 

 TIME, importance in science, 130. 

 TRANSCENDENTALISM, 177, 349 (_note_), 356. See IDEALISM, absolute. 

 TYNDALL, 115. 

 UNIVERSAL, scientific knowledge as, 125, 139. 

 UNIVERSE, the, as object of religious reaction, 64; common object of philosophy and religion, 112; as collective, 419. 

 UTILITARIANISM, 261. 

 VIRTUE, 198, 345. 

 VOLTAIRE, quoted, 231, 251. 

 VOLUNTARISM, in psychology, 210; in Schopenhauer, 285. 

 WHITMAN, WALT, 27 ff. 

 WILL, in psychology, 210; freedom and determination of, 211; in Schopenhauer, 177; as cause, in Berkeley, 293 ff. ; in pragmatism, 407. 

 WORDSWORTH, as philosopher-poet, 38 ff. ; his sense for the universal, 40; quoted on poetry and philosophy, 48, 50. 

 ZENO, 337. 

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Ellipses match the original. 

Numbers in {braces} are subscripted in the original. 

Variations in spelling have been left as in the original. Examplesinclude the following:

 co-ordinated coördinated Kuelpe Külpe's Muensterberg Münsterberg Nirvana Nirvâna Phaedo Phædo pre-eminent preëminent pre-eminently preëminently reenforcement reënforce role rôle Theaetetus Theætetus

The word Phoenix uses an oe ligature in the original. 

The following corrections have been made to the text:

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 Page 196: but in a law to which it{original has its} owes obedience

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 [199:14] religion in these matters, cf. {original has Cf. } Descartes:

 [287:16] Translation by Haldane and Kemp{original has Komp}