TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 B. BOSANQUET 
 
 'A 
 
 GLASGOW 
 ^rinteb at th« Wimbtxsii^ ^xtes bg 
 
 ROBERT MACLEHOSE & CO. LTD. 
 1911 
 
■^-y^ 
 
 s-^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Disclaimer of the " Correspondence" theory of Truth, - - - - 3 
 
 (i) An expression which might be misleading, 4 
 
 (ii) Emphasis on the interest or purpose of the judgment as expressed 
 
 in a progression towards system or individuality, ■ - " 5 
 
 (iii) Immanence of the criterion of coherence. Its relation to com- 
 prehensiveness, ---------- 6 
 
 (iv) De facto correspondence no argument for correspondence being the 
 
 criterion, - 7 
 
 2. View of the present logical situation, --------7 
 
 (i) The movement of the last half century, ------ 7 
 
 (ii) The misconception which governs the movement, - - - - 8 
 
 (iii) Defects of the Genetic Theory according to a recent exposition. 
 
 Dualism, Occasionalism, Adaptationism, ----- g 
 
 (iv) The transition from Psychology to Logic, 13 
 
 (v) Useful emphases in the new theory, and their erroneous limits, - 14 
 
 3. The opposite aspect of the recent movement. The Pluralist Realists. 
 
 Contrast and connection with the Genetic Theory, - - - - - I5 
 
 {a) The problem of " internal " or rather " relevant " relations. Defence 
 
 of relevant relations, - - - - - - - - -15 
 
 {p) Premature though just rejection of Identity in Difference. Absolu- 
 tism of the Plurahst Realists, - - 17 
 
 (f) The conditions of Error ; degree of partiality of truth combined with 
 
 its acceptance as whole truth, - 18 
 
 {d) Source ofthevraisemblance of the Pluralist-realist doctrine. Analysis 
 
 of connection between truth of fact and truth of system, - - 19 
 (i) The lie which is true in fact, ------- 20 
 
 (2) The true conclusion from false premisses, - - - - 21 
 
 (3) The region of current facts, 22 
 
 (4) Even in this region, an admitted dependence on system of 
 
 judging mind, --------- 23 
 
 (5) The higher regions of knowledge. Here "the facts" as simple 
 
 standard destroyed. Critical system is the standard, - - 24 
 
 (6) Transformation of the " facts " — their advance as developed 
 
 into a system of reality ; their influence, importance and 
 consequences are part of them, ------ 25 
 
 A 
 
 n ^: \ i 1 -^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 4. In what sense the standard of coherence fails, 26 
 
 (i) Its one failure consists in its being a theory, i.e. in region of truth or 
 
 discursive thought, 27 
 
 (ii) But there is no truer truth, although truth is not quite true, - - 28 
 (iii) Thus coherence as a theory cannot be judged by correspondence 
 
 to any higher truth, 29 
 
 5. Our apparently solid world— a reservation on the doctrine that thought 
 
 is purely discursive and relational, - - 29 
 
 6. Is not this solid world, then, a standard for truth of correspondence ? No, 
 
 because it is plastic in view of the whole. Coherence the sole test and 
 certainty. Reality not in withdrawal but in advance. The arduousness 
 of reality, 3^ 
 
Truth and Coherence 
 
 [^Adapted frotn Bk. II. Ch. IX. of the forthcoming 2nd edition of the 
 
 author s " Logic."] 
 
 I. The main current doctrines of truth have been conveniently 
 designated in recent discussion as the theory of Coherence and the 
 theory of Correspondence respectively. I should hardly have thought 
 it necessary to explain that I cannot for my own part conceive how 
 the doctrine of Correspondence can be adopted as a serious theory, 
 were it not that in an elaborate criticism ^ of the first edition of my 
 logic it has been urged that I have myself adopted it.^ 
 
 The genetic theorists have discovered the failure of the corre- 
 spondence theory, and believing some of us to be old-fashioned, they 
 attribute it to us and then attack it. But we think, or at least, I 
 think, that no logician really of the first rank, such as those whom I 
 follow, ever held it, and that our critics are belated in awaking to its 
 impossibility. However, whether the misconception is my fault or 
 my critic's, it will be well to make a short restatement of my view. 
 The details of the criticism will all, I think, settle themselves if the 
 radical misconception is explained. But I shall further take occasion 
 to express my own interpretation of the present position in the 
 philosophical world with reference to logical theory, which offers 
 certain highly suggestive antitheses. 
 
 ^ Cf. " Bosanquet's Theory of fudgment" by Miss Thompson, Chicago Decennial Publica- 
 tions, 1903. I may note that for myself I entirely disclaim the epithet ' epistemological ' 
 which Professor Dewey frequently employs in his introductory essay. For I understand it to 
 imply a theory of cognition in which truth and reality are treated as external to one another, 
 in fact, some form of the correspondence theory. He is indeed discussing Lotze, and not any 
 writer with whose views I am in agreement. But I am not sure how far his criticism is 
 meant to stretch, and it is better to guard oneself. 
 
 ^ Under all the circumstances, this supposition recalls to me a vulgar story current in my 
 youth, of a doctor who, finding himself unequal to treating the patient's actual ailment, 
 proposed to inoculate him with a quite different malady, " for," he said, " I'm death on 
 that." 
 
4 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 (i) I will say at once that there is just one expression in my book 
 which in my opinion may have given some sort of colour to what I 
 must call my critic's fundamental error. It is the phrase in which I 
 stated the relation of Reality, as the subject to be defined, to thought 
 as the process of defining it. I said ^ : "It is an essential of the act 
 of judgment that it always refers to a Reality which goes beyond and 
 is independent of the act itself" Such an expression, taken by itself, 
 or in a treatise framed on wholly different lines from my Logic, would 
 not have been inconsistent with a conception of reality as an existent 
 world external to our thinking, in resemblance or dissimilarity to 
 which lay the truth or falsehood of our ideas. But in criticising a 
 work which takes for its watchword the saying that " The truth is the 
 whole," offering this as the solution of the difficulty that a world 
 outside thought cannot be laid hold of by thought, this does seem to 
 me a gratuitous misconception. And further, I think it is one which 
 not only every paragraph of the general theory, but still more the 
 whole progress and structure of the book disowns. 
 
 Reality is independent of the judgment in two senses. There is, of 
 course, an ultimate Reality ; a higher experience than ours ; we must 
 postulate that, if we do not mean to accept e.g. all individuals' worlds 
 of experience as separate and unconnected. When I spoke of this 
 Reality as independent of our act of judgment, as it is in an enormous 
 proportion, I did not mean to exclude the truth that our judgment, 
 in an infinitesimal degree, contributes to sustain it, and forms an 
 element in its life. Of course the two are in this sense not inde- 
 pendent ; but this has nothing to do with Correspondence. 
 
 This Reality then shows itself in our world of experience in a way 
 which is independent of our act of judgment in a second sense. For 
 our immediate experience, our feeling, our possession of a contact 
 with a world, has individuality in a mode which as a mode of experi- 
 ence^ our judgment cannot confer or originate, but can only attempt 
 to restore by a secondary process when its unity is transcended. The 
 contact in feeling has existence and quality together, and primarily is 
 satisfactory and self-contained, though carrying a sense of diversity 
 which challenges analysis in judgment, but is as such independent of 
 interpretation through judgment. 
 
 * Vol. i. page 104. ^ For its content is modifiable. See below, pp. 30 ff. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 5 
 
 I We construct our world as an interpretation which attempts to 
 ■ restore the unity, which the real has lost by our making its diversity 
 I explicit. This construction is our intellectual world. It is a form of 
 reality, possessing some of its characters, and there are other forms, 
 higher and lower. But none of them can be a world external to our 
 thought and yet acting as its standard. The thing is a contradiction 
 in terms, not because of the metaphor of externality, but because of 
 the vital autonomy of the thought-system. 
 
 If we ask, how we know our interpretation to be true or false, to 
 possess or not to possess the character of reality, so far as its 
 discursive form allows, the answer comes from the principle of non- 
 contradiction, which is only another form of words for the principle 
 that the Truth is the whole. This could easily be shown at length.^ 
 The important point is that the principle of non-contradiction is 
 positive and constructive ; its force cannot be evaded by a logical 
 quietism, by saying nothing. For you cannot get away from the 
 world. If you try to say nothing you are in contradiction with a mass 
 of experience, not with a presumed external world, but with what 
 enters into your own being ; and you further leave it in contradiction 
 with itself. 
 
 (ii) Our doctrine of truth is therefore whollyjmmanent. There is 
 no external standard, and, of course, no possibility ot applying it if 
 there were one. The criterion - identifies itself absolutely with that 
 imposed by the doctrine of coherence.^ And the structure and nisus 
 of the treatise is a simple embodiment of this principle. It is a pro- 
 gressive interpretation of the 'this'; the contact with reality in 
 which we possess both existence and quality. It is an advance from 
 one form of individuality to another ; from individuality which has 
 never gone beyond itself to individuality which has experienced 
 
 ^ I hope to go over this ground in much greater detail in a forthcoming work of a more 
 metaphysical character. 
 
 - We have been warned that a criterion is properly a label, extraneous to the character 
 which it indicates. But any such criterion in highly organised matters is a bad, i.e. highly 
 fallible criterion. And it is well to insist that in such matters the only sound criterion is the 
 character itself or some important element of it. 
 
 *See the author's Knowledge and Reality, p. 331 (publ. 1885), for a criticism of the 
 simile of the foundations of knowledge. This criticism is always decisive of a writer's 
 attitude to the correspondence theory. Cf. Bradley, Mind, 71, 335. 
 
/ 
 
 6 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 contradiction and is being approximately restored as an explicit 
 system of non-contradictory content. It is a product of the interest 
 and purpose to explain all that you can ; to push the explanation 
 further and further in response to the demand for removal of contra- 
 diction in the relative whole of experience at every stage. This 
 interest and purpose is the clue pursued by the effort of judgment 
 from beginning to end. It is the special and distinctive cognitive 
 interest. And a treatise like the one in question endeavours to trace 
 in its genesis the system developed by the action of this interest, 
 which is of course inclusive of all more special stimuli and occasions. 
 The whole interpretation, as referred to the individuality that 
 appears solid, but therefore only implicit, in the ' this,' possesses the 
 character of reality, viz. individuality, not perfectly, but in the 
 degree in which the form of finite thought can achieve it.^ We 
 know this by the fact that this character, the character of a syste- 
 matic whole, is the condition of our possessing a world of experience 
 at all. If we let a contradiction stand, we possess so much the less 
 of reality. Something cancels something, and we are the poorer and 
 dissatisfied. 
 
 (iii) Immanence is the absolute condition of a theory of truth. It 
 is this that makes the fundamental contrast between the coherence 
 and the correspondence theory. As I said at the beginning of the 
 Logic, truth is individual.'^ This is only another form of words for the 
 principle of non-contradiction, the principle that the truth is the 
 whole, and the doctrine that coherence is the test of truth and reality. 
 Truth is then its own criterion. That is to say, it can only be tested 
 by the more of itself. Your completest system at the moment cannot 
 be further tested. You can only test it further when you are in a 
 position to make it more complete. Then what interferes with its 
 greater completeness must go. 
 
 Is it necessary to say a word about comprehensiveness ? Sometimes 
 we are told that our criterion is mere formal consistency. This can 
 mean nothing but that the critic has not thought the matter out to the 
 bitter end. By coherence or consistency we mean the consistency, so 
 far as attainable, of the whole body of experience with itself. Nothing 
 
 ' Need I say that errors in the personal thought-process are expected and admitted ? 
 2 Vol. i. p. 3. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 7 
 
 less would satisfy the law of individuality or the necessity of non- 
 contradiction. But in this interpretation of consistency comprehensive- 
 ness is obviously included. 
 
 (iv) One word more about correspondence. If an identical principle 
 operates in different worlds — e.g. in the experiences of different 
 spiritual beings, the products are likely to correspond. And I notice 
 a tendency^ to aid the process of inoculating us with the malady which 
 is not ours, by insisting on this obvious truth. If the fundamental 
 principle of reality is operative in the sphere of finite thought, of 
 course this sphere will show a character that possesses certain common 
 features with those of other spheres or of the ultimate real. But if 
 correspondence,^ ix. identity in certain characters of a system, must 
 result, that is no argument that correspondence is the criterion for 
 either system. If two men add up a sum right and therefore the same, 
 that does not mean that the sums are right because they are the same, 
 or that one man has copied from the other. Of course, there is a 
 reality which is more than an individual's thought. There is, at least, 
 the thought of other individuals. And undoubtedly these will corre- 
 spond, i.e. will show a structure identical in principle but different in 
 details. But that is nothing against the character of both being 
 immanently determined. 
 
 I shall return in a later section to the question in what sense the 
 coherence theory fails. 
 
 2. I will now venture to state what I believe to be the cause and 
 tendency of the peculiar logical movement of to-day. 
 
 (i) It is plain that the last half century has brought to philosophy in 
 general a great revival of interest. This revival has coincided with a 
 marked increase of the tendency, traceable in European thought ever 
 since Rousseau, to emphasise the philosophical value of feeling, of 
 practice and action in the plainest meaning of the words, and of what 
 has come to be called, in an almost technical sense, " life " and " living." 
 The movement has conceived itself as a sort of democratic revolution 
 in the things of the mind, ^ and is obviously connected with the change 
 
 ^ See even Joachim in The Nature of Truth, p. 174. 
 
 "^ On the nature of this correspondence see Essentials of Logic, p. 18. 
 
 ' Cf. the author's Philosophical Theory of the State, Ed. 2. Introd. Nietzsche represents 
 perhaps the " Saviour of Society " who attends upon some democratic movements. 
 
8 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 of affairs in society and politics. A supposed aristocracy of intellec- 
 tualist principles is to be dethroned. Truth is to become more vital, 
 more accessible, its touchstone more obvious and more easily applied. 
 Life, one may say, is to be substituted for thought as the central object 
 and impulse of philosophy. 
 
 All this has had and is having the usual effect of revolutionary 
 demands in philosophy.^ The new theorists are insisting on some- 
 thing which was really vital in the older tradition, and the result of 
 their movement will probably be a certain alteration of balance and 
 emphasis in the formulation of that tradition. One can hardly suppose 
 that a movement so widespread and so popular will bring with it no 
 elements of gain at all. If it brought nothing but its adherents' 
 interest in philosophy it would already have brought a good deal.^ 
 
 (ii) But the movement itself, I am sure, is conducted under a mis- 
 apprehension. It has hold of something very partial, and consequently 
 sees and, as I have pointed out, further produces by its assumptions, a 
 fundamental opposition where there is really nothing but a part unduly 
 contrasted with its whole. 
 
 Let us particularise. Genetic Logic — the treatment of thought as a 
 system, or at least an aggregate, of adaptations evolved in response to 
 the needs of practice, has in principle adopted and popularised the 
 coherence theory of truth. This doctrine, being as we have seen a 
 doctrine of immanence, is essential to all vital philosophy and logic, 
 and, to the best of my belief, no other has in fact been held by any 
 leader of European thought from Plato downwards.^ But by 
 restricting the coherence which is to be the standard, to the coherence 
 of adaptation with external action, at first (as no one can doubt) in the 
 purely normal and everyday usage of the latter term, it has on the one 
 hand voiced a popular demand, but on the other has precluded a real 
 understanding by itself of its own philosophical position. And so it 
 
 * Cf. the analysis. Logic, ii. pp. 228 ff., of the relation of epochs of empiricism to the 
 traditional distinctions of Logic. 
 
 2 As will appear, I believe this to be far the greater part of the gain it will bring. 
 
 ^ See, for example, my remark on Aristotle, Logic, ii. p. 222. I know that this has been 
 adversely criticised, but I believe that when we consider the full meaning of apprehension by 
 vov% as the sort of insight which comes, for instance, by "induction," my view will be seen to 
 hold good. Cf. for example, Burnet's Ethics of Aristotle, pp. xxxvii and xlii. I may say in 
 general that I should have guarded myself much more emphatically against the correspondence 
 theory if I had ever imagined that it could by any mischance be imputed to me. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 9 
 
 strongly tends, as we saw, to assume that in the older philosophy, 
 which it feels to be in some way its antithesis, the view opposed in 
 principle to its own, that of correspondence to an external standard, 
 must be the prevailing one. And it conducts its controversy on this 
 basis, reinforcing its attitude by utilising another popular demand, that 
 for actual individual endeavour and modification of things, which it is 
 unable to unite (the great and ultimate test of a philosophy) with the 
 belief in a perfect and timeless real. And the completer form of its 
 own logical view, the coherence theory of truth, it is apt to stigmatise 
 as a mere formal consistency.^ 
 
 (iii) Thus in a very able statement^ of the contrasted positions 
 of genetic and the older philosophical Logic, I seem to myself to 
 find three connected misconceptions at the very basis of the whole 
 representation. 
 
 First, there is Dualism. Thought is from the beginning conceived 
 in contrast to its occasions. It is taken as reflective, as what arises 
 now and again when we set ourselves consciously to " think." That 
 is to say, this is the limitation of the thought with which the writer 
 deals. Something called Constitutive thought is mentioned in 
 contrast with it ; but whether this is simply the working thought 
 by which we carry on unreflective life, or some theoretical construc- 
 tion of a creative force in the universe, it seems impossible to tell. 
 What is clear is this much, that not merely the limitation of thought 
 as a distinctive form of reality which operates through ideas, but the 
 special limitation of " pale reflective thought " as against " active 
 endeavour," or of " abstract description " as against " living apprecia- 
 tion " are accepted as formulations for the object of the new concep- 
 tion of Logic.^ " Thought arises in response to its own occasion." 
 
 ^ The controversy, I suggest, is thrown completely askew if you take Lotze as typical 
 of philosophical Logic. The whole statement of the issue, as based upon the contrast 
 of thought in general with reality in general (Dewey in Introductory Essays to Chicago 
 University Decennial Publications, 1903) appears to me thus utterly falsified. If we want 
 to deal with a master of philosophical Logic why not select Ilegel or Plato, or even Green ? 
 That is, if one was not going to take the obvious course of considering Mr. Bradley's whole 
 position with regard to Thought and Reality. " Dewey, I.e. 
 
 ^This takes us back to the conception of thought as decaying sense, which, whether right 
 
 or wrong, is sharply opposed to the conception of it in the masters of Idealism. I should 
 
 ] explain that Idealism, in the sense in which I use it for the philosophy, say, of Hegel, is the 
 
 {antithesis of what is called Rationalism. But I know of no other name that would carry the 
 reference. 
 
 A2 
 
lo TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 Then, by removing only the definiteness of the occasion, which ought 
 to be retained, and retaining the dualism of nature between con- 
 structive and discursive thought, which ought to be removed, an 
 antithesis is created against philosophical logic which assigns to it as 
 its characteristic problem the relation of thought in general to reality 
 in general, as the epistemological issue out of which its whole treat- 
 ment springs.^ And an apparent corroboration of this attitude is 
 found by giving a predominant place to an analysis of Lotze's 
 position. 
 
 This idea of the situation — I say it mainly to make my own con- 
 viction clear — seems to me wholly and utterly false. The relation 
 — the nature of the antithesis — is in my view altogether different 
 from this. 
 
 In Logic as I understand it, attempting to follow out at a long 
 interval the practice of the masters, there is no epistemology in the 
 sense supposed,- no treatment of thought in itself as opposed to 
 reality in general, no question of a bridge from the one to other. 
 In analysing the thought-world it holds itself to be analysing the 
 structure of reality, the detailed and articulated responses by which 
 the living body of experience exhibits its endeavour to approxi- 
 mate as a system of ideas to a non-contradictory whole. Of course 
 all these phases could be construed as responses to the environment. 
 But the environment for thought is not the sphere of external action, 
 but the universe of experience. The occasions which evoke responses 
 of thought within specific limitations are merely a fragment of 
 this total environment. The genetic theory, so it seems to me, has 
 merely insisted on an arbitrarily limited fragment of the genuine 
 logical theory. 
 
 From this, therefore, it is separated in degree rather than in kind, 
 by a further error involved in its naive Dualism ; an error for which 1 
 can find no better name than Occasionalism. Thought, we are told, 
 is always within the limits of a specific occasion, a specific purpose. 
 
 ^ lb. p. 6, and cf. Green's refutation of this fallacy, Prolegomena, p. 27. 
 
 '^The explanation on vol. i. p. 3 was intended to guard me against the appearance of 
 dealing with "epistemology " or "a theory of cognition," by which I mean, an examination 
 of the nature of knowledge as something apart from the reality which is then taken as its 
 external standard. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE n 
 
 It is charged against what is treated as general logical theory ^ that it 
 disregards these limits, or only regards them as throwing light on the 
 terms on which thought transacts its business with reality. " But in 
 the end all this is incidental. In the end the one problem holds. 
 How do the specifications of thought as such hold good of reality as 
 such ? In fine, logic is supposed to grow out of the epistemological 
 problem, and to lead up to its solution." ^ 
 
 All this, as I see the situation, is the same old half-truth turned into 
 a complete delusion. There is no discussion of a relation of thought 
 in itself to reality at large. No question arising out of it determines 
 the course of logical investigation. But it is perfectly true that 
 thought (in a way, as we shall see, comparable to life, about which 
 the same error is made) has in all its specific responses and adapta- 
 tions the universe implicitly before it. Its adaptations, like those of 
 an organ in an organism, are controlled throughout by a system of 
 functions which is a response to something continuous in the nature 
 of the environment — as in life, to the conditions of organic existence 
 on our earth's surface ; so in knowledge, to the condition of belonging 
 to a universe. Occasionalism, the insistence on response to specific 
 occasion as the condition of thought, thus misses its underlying and 
 continuous character, as the active form of totality ; the nature by 
 which all experience strives of itself towards the whole. Thought 
 is essentially the nisus of experience as a world to completion of its 
 world. The intervals of conscious reflection are merely one of its forms 
 of advance, and are not, in their paleness and meagreness, character- 
 istic of thought, which is essentially organic, concrete and constructive. 
 In its Occasionalism, again, the genetic theory is saying something so 
 far true, but fragmentary, and is again taking it as the basis of an 
 antithesis which has no existence, except as a relation of a partial to 
 a more comprehensive view. 
 
 And lastly, Dualism and Occasionalism take shape in Adaptation- 
 ism. This is more than a recognition — which would be justified — 
 that all thought may be regarded as a response or adaptation to 
 surroundings. It consists (a) in neglect of the character of thought as a 
 system of functions adapted to the removal of contradiction through- 
 
 ^ It sliould he remembered that this is not accejited as a just title for philosophical logic. 
 -/l>. p. 6. 
 
12 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 out experience and having always this complete systematic function 
 operative in controlling specific responses or adaptations ; and {b) in 
 the suggestion that, considering the complete explanation of evolu- 
 tionary growths to be only possible through regarding them as adap- 
 tations to their environments, each to each, the antithesis of origin 
 and value ought to be treated as superseded, and psychology, for 
 instance, should become, in its aspect of a historical science, a service- 
 able instrument in logical valuation. 
 
 {a) As to the former of these points, it is now I think recognised 
 that to consider a living organism as a mere box of patent ^ contriv- 
 ances, a collection of adaptations to particular situations of environ- 
 ment, is to consider it inadequately. Every adaptation is built on a 
 system, and the system is determined by essential functions, which 
 may be regarded if we like as a great general adaptation. But these 
 functions, as a system, it must be borne in mind, constitute a large 
 proportion of the environment for every specific adaptation. In every 
 adaptation life is there as a whole, and has the whole nature of the 
 environment in view, not as a general abstraction, but as a concrete 
 whole that enters into every specific situation. So with thought. It 
 is, if we like, all developed as responses ; but it is inadequately con- 
 sidered if it is considered as a box of tricks. Thought never really 
 forgets the universe. There is always more in it than its occasion 
 brings, or rather, it makes its occasion more than it is. 
 
 {b) And the idea that evolutionary explanation has disposed of the 
 antithesis between genesis and value seems to me more particularly to 
 invert the real relation. It is true, of course, that natural history is 
 much interested in natural selection ; but the decisive point for 
 logical theory is that natural selection is not in the smallest degree 
 interested in natural history. One may fancy oneself pleading before 
 the court of natural selection. " Only give me time, and I can explain 
 everything ! The fact is, I was not adapted to to-day's environment, 
 but only to yesterday's. That is why I am not equal to the situation." 
 But the court, I take it, replies " My dear sir, in the court of history 
 that would be interesting, but in this court it is wholly irrelevant. We 
 
 ^ The Mendelian theory is not quite this. But even its way of regarding an organism, as, 
 if I grasp the idea rightly, a group of more or less independent factors, seems difficult to 
 accept without further explanation. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 13 
 
 must ask you to deal with the situation of to-day, or ." It is being 
 
 equal to the whole situation that is the criterion for Logic as for 
 Morals, Past adaptations can justify no theory of to-day. Have we 
 or have we not a system which gives the possible maximum of non- 
 contradiction, in the construction which it puts upon the fullest con- 
 ceivable experience. This is our standard for the present, and in it, 
 for the past. And Professor Dewey says what seems to me equivalent 
 to accepting this standard. " The historical point of view explains 
 the sequence; the normative follows the sequence to its conclusion, 
 and then turns back and judges each historical step by viewing it in 
 reference to its own outcome." ^ Yes, but the sanction lies surely not 
 with the history of adaptation, which shows a certain stage to be de 
 facto the outcome ; but with the court of natural selection, which 
 applies the test of adequate or inadequate adaptation, that is, of power 
 or impotence to deal with contradictions, taking the whole body of 
 experience together as constituting the concrete situation. This is 
 the test, the test of coherence and non-contradiction, which philo- 
 sophical Logic accepts; the immanent test of the presence of the 
 character of Reality within the thought-form as one of the many 
 branches or appearances of the real. 
 
 (iv) Psychology, from anthropology upwards, beginning with a 
 natural history conditioned by quite other environments, leads gradu- 
 ally up to a situation in which, as the proper character of mind 
 emerges, the logical test by present adequacy of working supersedes 
 the historical explanation by past adequacy of working in a less com- 
 plete environment. " Working"; that is the apparent watchword, the 
 name accepted on both hands for the test which might bring the two 
 theories together. But to cover the problem of philosophical Logic it 
 must take the environment as the widest conceivable experience, and 
 must recognise the fact and right of cognitive interest.^ 
 
 When once the ultimate criterion is accepted, with the extension of 
 the supposed new view to its natural boundaries, that is from practical 
 working to dealing adequately with experience, I cannot understand 
 how the relation of Psychology to Logic should present a difficulty. 
 
 1 lb. p. 16. 
 
 2 The true type of the relation of Psychology to Logic is in the relation of associated 
 contents— impure universals— to pure logical connections. 
 
14 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 I have observed above that the epistemological attitude which the 
 new theory is attempting to force upon the old is nowhere, so far as I 
 know, accepted by it.^ And in fact the historical method, the explana- 
 tion of past phases in the light of their environment, was not derived 
 by philosophy from the historical or evolutionary sciences, but rather 
 by them from it.^ It is a notable characteristic of Plato, and could 
 hardly have been more prominent than it is in Hegel's Phenomenology 
 and in his Philosophy of Mind, It is unfortunate that there is really 
 no word free from irrelevant suggestions for what we mean by Idealism 
 when we apply it to the philosophy of Plato or of Hegel. But taking 
 " Objective Idealism " as a more or less accepted equivalent, we may 
 say that the history and estimate of thought-adaptation in relation to 
 the environment has always been the peculiar pride and province of 
 objective idealism. Only, the actual test of truth, of the character of 
 reality in the thought-form, was by it always kept separate from the 
 historical estimate of imperfect forms, the justification of which had 
 shown itself, as we may say, doubly relative.^ 
 
 (v) This, then, is one part of the logical situation as I feel obliged 
 to conceive it. It is well to vindicate for Logic the sphere of Life and 
 practice as against an imaginary heaven of ideas — to which, however, 
 no master of thought has relegated it. It is well to bring the develop- 
 ment of thought together with the conception of adapted response, 
 and to apply to it the general idea of natural selection. It is well to 
 vindicate for the individual mind a living share in the self-mainten- 
 ance of Reality as against the idea which Plato repudiated of a statue- 
 like immovable system. All these are attitudes of special emphasis 
 due to the philosophical and semi-philosophical movement of the last 
 fifty years. But if the reforming theorist limits practice to the sphere 
 of external action, adaptation to the history oi de facto success apart 
 from the principle of its determination, and our living concern with 
 Reality to effecting in it ultimate change, in a time which is ultimately 
 real, then his view remains fragmentary, and he has failed to grasp 
 the inheritance which is coming within his reach. 
 
 ' I have explained why I think it misleading to take Lotze as a specimen for criticism. 
 
 ^ A remark of W. Wallace. I have not the reference. 
 
 ' "Relative" as falling short by the standard of our best experience; doubly relative 
 because that standard is itself not absolute. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 15 
 
 3. Complementary to the view of truth which I have just attempted 
 to explain — the view for which thought is an adaptation, and truth 
 along with reality is bona fide in process of being made — is the 
 reassertion of Realism in the modern world. Realism, indeed, however 
 opposed to the conception of a universe in actual genesis, belongs at 
 bottom to the same impulse of modernism. The very same flowing 
 tide which carries with it the demand that truth shall be a mere 
 adaptation to vital needs, brings also the antagonistic requirement 
 that truth shall lie in a relation to simple given fact. On both sides 
 we have the demand for immediacy ; here the immediacy of satisfac- 
 tion, there the immediacy of apprehension. And the second, as 
 we admitted of the first,^ has doubtless, even from our point of view, 
 contributions to offer. The first, we hoped, would bring about a 
 correction of the confusion of idealism with rationalism, and destroy 
 the conception of a pale and meagre thought, identified with decaying 
 sense. The latter, we hope, will undo the unhappy connection with 
 mere psychicalism or mentality,^ and bring into prominence the more 
 robust conceptions of a philosophy which admits true differences of 
 kind within the whole. 
 
 I propose elsewhere to attempt an explanation of the attitude 
 involved, in the theory of truth which has been followed through the 
 Logic, to mental states and the claims of naive realism. 
 
 But here some remarks will be in place concerning a doctrine of 
 truth which, as far as I grasp it, shares on one side only the position 
 of naive realism and simple apprehension, while on another side 
 committing itself to a special theory of existence with which naive 
 realism has directly nothing to do.^ The doctrine of simple appre- 
 hension, and the true meaning of the principle that knowledge makes 
 no difference in what is known, will be spoken of in another place. 
 
 {a) " The world is a world of many things, with relations which are 
 not to be deduced from a supposed nature or scholastic essence of the 
 related things. In this world, whatever is complex is composed of 
 related single things. There is no identity in difference ; there is 
 
 ^ p. 8 above. 
 
 '^See e.g. Mr. Moore's Refutation of Idealism^ cited and commented on in Joachim's 
 Nature of Truth, 6i note. 
 
 ' I think that even in their theory of existence the two have an impulse in common, that 
 of hardening into isolated existence purely relative objects. 
 
I 
 
 i6 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 identity and there is difference, and complexes may have some 
 elements identical and some different, but we are no longer obliged to 
 say of any pair of objects that may be mentioned that they are both 
 identical and different." ^ 
 
 The core of the view, as is well known, is the rejection of what have 
 been called " internal relations," i.e. relations grounded in the nature 
 of the related terms ; and the assertion of mere external relations, i.e. 
 as I understand, the assertion that relations either need not or cannot 
 be so grounded.^ The phrase " internal relations " seems to me not 
 quite satisfactory, as suggesting relations between parts within a given 
 term. At least the view which to me appears reasonable would be 
 better expressed by some such term as " relevant relations," i.e. 
 relations which are connected with the properties of their terms, so 
 that any alteration of relations involves an alteration of properties 
 1 and vice-versa. 
 
 The following reasons for accepting a doctrine of relevant relations 
 appear to me to be unimpeached. 
 
 (i) In a large proportion of cases the relevancy of the relations to 
 the properties of the related terms involves a community of kind. 
 You cannot have a spatial relation between terms which are not in 
 space. You cannot have a moral relation between terms which are 
 not members of a moral world. Why is it absurd to ask for the distance 
 from London Bridge to one o'clock .-* Surely because the one is a 
 term in space and the other in time. This is not a general argument 
 that if the relation were other the terms would be other, from which 
 any possible conclusion might follow.^ It is an analytic determination 
 of a common positive element on which both property and relation 
 depend. 
 
 ^ Russell, Philosophical Essays, p. 169. I do not think it is maintained on our side that 
 relations can be deduced from the properties of single terms which are in relation. I under- 
 stand the point of interest to be that you cannot explain one term of a complex without 
 explaining the rest. By "explaining" I mean describing without self-contradiction. Every 
 complex, it must be remembered, has a special quality of its own, and every term in it a 
 quality relative to that quality. Logic, I. pp. 139-40. 
 
 ^ Op. cit. p. 161. It would be important to know whether it is maintained that they 
 cannot be so grounded, because then we could ask for the author's explanation of the more 
 obvious cases in which they appear to be so. 
 
 3 Op. cit. p. 166. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 17 
 
 (2) There is further no case in which on philosophical scrutiny ^ the 
 relevancy of relations to properties is not perceptible. I do not say 
 that the relation can be reduced to a fact about the one object only 
 together with a fact about the other object only.^ The point of the 
 relevancy of relations, as I understand it, is that each of two or more 
 terms can only be understood if all are understood. "Father" and 
 " Son " is a vulgar traditional instance. But I do not see that it is 
 not a sound one. And in every case, I think, the basis of such a 
 necessity can be shown. This or that observer may not possess the 
 knowledge or the acuteness required to formulate the element which 
 changes with the relation in precise detail. But it can always be 
 shown what sort of thing must be relevant to the relation. So much 
 so, that I cannot think this to be really and totally denied of so-called 
 external relations. And I will pass on to a point of view which 
 raises this question. 
 
 (3) Relations are true of their terms. They express their positions 
 in complexes, which positions elicit their behaviour, their self-main- 
 tenance in the world of things. This is really the all-important 
 argument. And I cannot believe that if the doctrine of mere external 
 relations were completely stated, we should not find the same thing 
 admitted by it, in one way or another.^ If the relations make 
 no difference to the terms, it follows that things do not react or 
 behave with reference to the complexes to which they belong. Yet if 
 Charles I. had died in his bed, he must have died in a different bodily 
 attitude from that in which he died on the scaffold. 
 
 {b) I do not understand relations to be adjectives of their terms, y^^ 
 They are not adjectives, because they involve other terms which are 
 as substantive as any of which we might be inclined to pronounce 
 them adjectives. Relations cannot be reduced to qualities, nor y 
 qualjties to relations. Relations are just the way in which discursive 
 
 ^ I have in mind Mr. Bradley's argument in Appearance and Reality, ed. 2, pp. 572 ff. 
 
 2 Russell, p. 191. 
 
 ^ As I understand the appearance ot this is avoided by connecting the mind with the 
 relation straight, so to speak, and not through the terms. But this seems to me simply a 
 bold omission of a fact in the complex. Does not the conception of a "sense" in a relation 
 like love necessarily admit this? The term A is different, according to the " sense " of the 
 relation of love between A and B. Or take spatial relations in the visual field. When a new 
 object is inserted in the field, every object in it becomes a member of a new pattern, and so 
 necessarily exhibits a new quality. 
 
I 8 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 thought represents the unity of terms which it cannot make adjectives 
 of each other. As Mr. Bradley has said that they are a modus vivendi 
 between predicates of the same subject whose unity we cannot really 
 construe to ourselves, so it might be said they are a modus vivendi 
 between terms in the same universe, of whose unity, in the imperfection 
 of our experience, the same is true. 
 
 None of the objections which have been put forward appear to me 
 to touch these points. ^ 
 
 1 quite understand that on the doctrine offered to us Identity in 
 Difference must go. And I quite see for myself that it must go " in 
 the end," that is to say, in any experience for which objects are self- 
 contained and cease to transcend themselves. What our pluralist 
 realists^ are grasping at is therefore justly anticipated. Undoubtedly 
 the Real is self-complete and self-contained. But I insist on the 
 words " in the end," because it is their repudiation of them ^ that I 
 take to be the root of their failure. They are the extreme Absolutists. 
 They are not content to have the Absolute "in the end," as we more 
 modestly claim it, not meaning after a lapse of time, but in so far as 
 what are fragments for us point out to us a completion beyond them. 
 And there is surely a difference of completeness in different experiences. 
 But they will have the absolute here and now ; and to make it handy 
 and adaptable for everyday use they split it into little bits. A 
 universe of tiny Absolutes; that is really what they offer us.* But if 
 any of these Absolutes imply any term beyond themselves their 
 absolutism breaks down. And we have tried to show that in all 
 relations this is the case, 
 
 j {c) As to error we have only to bear in mind that degree of partiality 
 of the truth asserted must combine with a belief that it is the truth, 
 j the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in constituting the degree 
 j of erroneousness. And also, for practical purposes and within certain 
 [ limits, we let imperfect truth pass as absolute. A repudiation of the 
 
 'Of course I am following Mr, Bradley, Appearance and Reality, I.e., though he is not 
 responsible for what I say. 
 
 ^ I do not wish to use a name that will be disliked. I merely invented an appellation that 
 seemed to be fair, for shortness' sake. 
 
 2 Russell, 159, 163. 
 * I suppose this is a familiar idea in the case of the Atomists and the Eleatics. Burnet, 
 
 Early Greek Philosophy, ed. 2, p. 387. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 19 
 
 phrase "in the end " denies these distinctions. But surely in denying 
 them it denies nearly all the facts of life. Presupposing these reserva- 
 tions, what has been said in satire ^ is surely a plain truth, which only 
 needs complete application to make it obvious. A man who accepts 
 the view that all his judgments have only partial truth is certainly /r<? 
 tanto less wrong in each of them than if he believed he had got in each 
 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But obviously, 
 in this form the principle is only a general warning, and cannot 
 directly amend the actual partiality of what a man judges as truth. 
 For this follows from determinate reasons, and in each case he must 
 judge or not judge. A purely general warning cannot guide his judg- 
 ment. But it can stimulate him to caution and criticism, and this is 
 an obvious excellence in his whole cognitive system, which is excluded 
 by the belief that partial truth can be absolute. A man who has 
 grasped the warning that you must only believe about one half of 
 written history is certainly /r<? tanto, i.e. if both have the same positive 
 knowledge, nearer historical truth than one who thinks he may with 
 safety swallow it all. And though this caution alone will, of course, 
 not tell a man which half to believe, yet it will place his cognitive 
 system in a much truer relation to the facts than that of a man who, 
 making the same judgments as the other, believes them to represent 
 absolute truth. It is the case, no doubt, that you cannot, out of 
 caution, half make a judgment ; you must make it or not. But it is 
 further true that to make an additional judgment, " there is a good 
 deal more to learn about " this or that character or incident, puts your 
 positive judgments in a proportion to the facts which is likely to be 
 much more in harmony with them than if you entertained no such 
 critical principle. 
 
 {d) I believe the truth to be that the doctrine of which we are speaking 
 gains its vraisemblance and its apparent clearness from clinging to just 
 the region of so-called plain and simple fact, the illusory hardness and 
 isolation of which — really a defect of low-grade knowledge ^ — it takes 
 for absoluteness. And in this region it does seem prima facie absurd 
 
 1 Russell, p. 155. 
 
 ^ Of course no one uses the whole of his own experience in his theories. He uses what for 
 some reason has struck him and seemed typical to him. I do not think it is without precedent 
 that men of very high attainments should rely theoretically on very naive types of experience. 
 I think analogies for this are rather common. 
 
%/ 
 
 /. 
 
 20 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 to take error as partial truth. You must be, it appears, either right or 
 wrong. The fact is fixed, and you are in relation with it or are not. 
 There are no degrees of truth, and nothing which is truth in the 
 beginning and not in the end, or in the end and not in the beginning. 
 I will try to show the nature of this delusion, as it seems to me, by a 
 few words on truth of fact and truth of system. 
 
 "It is plain — that the truth or falsehood of a given judgment 
 
 depends in no way upon the person judging [it is common ground that 
 
 there must be a mind to judge], but solely upon the facts about which 
 he judges." "Thus the judgment that two terms have a certain 
 relation R is a relation of the mind to the two terms and the relation 
 R with the appropriate ' sense ' [direction of the relation from A to 
 B, or from B to A] ; the ' corresponding ' complex consists of the two 
 terms related by the relation R with the same ' sense.* The judgment 
 is true when there is such a complex, and false when there is not. 
 The same account, mutatis mutandis, will apply to any other judgment. 
 This gives the definition of truth and falsehood. The complex, it is 
 to be remembered, is composed of single related things." ^ 
 
 / I wish to explain, by a comparison of judgments differently related 
 to " the facts," why it appears to me that, in the first place, truth and 
 falsehood depend on the cognitive system in another and more vital 
 sense than is here admitted, and not on the mere presence or absence 
 
 ' of a complex of entities corresponding to the judgment, and that, in 
 the second place, the facts themselves, though they are real, are not 
 real in the way here asserted, as bits of reality, immediately accessible 
 to apprehension, and corresponding each to each with the terms of 
 our commonplace judgments. 
 
 (i) Let us begin with Charles Reade's mediaeval physician, who, 
 having a grudge against a reluctant patient, tried to have him arrested, 
 laying an information that he intended to fly the country. But "his 
 sincere desire and honest endeavour to perjure himself were baffled 
 by a circumstance he had never foreseen nor indeed thought possible. 
 He had spoken the truth. AND IN AN AFFIDAVIT." For the patient 
 had fled. 
 
 Here the doctor told a lie, but in telling it, he spoke the truth ; if, 
 that is, we judge by correspondence with the facts. One might urge 
 
 ^ Op. cit. pp. 173, 184, 169. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 21 
 
 that his assertion, being contrary to his belief, was not a judgment at 
 all, but a form of words intended to produce action in another. This 
 I think is true.^ But it does not seem to me to destroy the point of 
 the instance. Why could a form of words, corresponding with the 
 facts, be in his mouth nothing but a lie ? Because it was contrary to 
 his belief? But what does that mean ? Belief is not a chance thing, 
 sprung from nowhere. It means that it was contrary to the system of 
 his knowledge as determined by his whole experience at the time. 
 
 (2) Take another case — the so-called true conclusion from one or 
 more false premisses. Here again we have truth, if judged by mere 
 correspondence with the hard fact. For example, on a local railway 
 I know, the signals are down all Sunday. A stranger unaware of this 
 practice might infer that a train is due. And it might well happen, 
 three or four times in the day, that at the moment of speaking a train 
 was in fact due. Judging by hard fact this judgment would be true. 
 But would the man be right in his judgment .'' It is a point on which 
 probably his companions might wrangle with him ad nauseam. He 
 seems to have got a truth which he had no business to have got. If 
 he had known a little more — possessed a little more truth — he would 
 not have got it. And the truth, as he possesses it, is felt to be unsatis- 
 factory, and half or more a falsehood, because its dependence is 
 wrong ; that is, it is judged, as a truth, in part at least, by the system 
 of judgment with which it is connected. And more than this ; it is 
 infected, in its own nature, by the faults of this system. Its logical 
 stability is highly incomplete ; it would be upset by a second trial ten 
 minutes later, or by a most trifling bit of additional knowledge. But 
 logical stability — incapability of being confronted with a contradictory 
 experience — is, we shall see, the very core of truth. 
 
 In the closer tissue of a science, this defect amounts more obviously 
 to actual falsehood. The " true " conclusion participates so definitely 
 in the character of the system from which it issues. Tho.se theorists 
 who held that agriculture is especially and peculiarly a desirable 
 industry held, in this view, I suppose, what corresponded to an indu- 
 bitable fact. But when they deduced it from the view that wealth is 
 not genuinely produced in any other occupation, they connected it 
 with grounds which destroyed its value, and made it a dangerous 
 
 ' See Logic, vol. i. p. 36. 
 
22 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 falsehood, by including in it an unjustified presumption against other 
 forms of industry. 
 
 Strictly speaking, there is no reason for dropping the premisses in 
 stating a conclusion. And if they, being false, are retained, the false- 
 hood of the conclusion, though apart from this corresponding with 
 facts, is exhibited on the face of it. Here again, it is obvious that the 
 truth or falsehood of a judgment depends not merely on corre- 
 spondence to a complex, but on the completeness and comprehensive- 
 ness of the system with which it is connected in the mind.^ Its truth 
 is threatened, we have seen, both if it is at variance with the system, 
 and if this system fails to give true connections, prwia facte outside 
 the judgment directly in question, 
 
 (3) Now let us take the strongest instance in favour of non- 
 dependence on the cognitive system. This, it appears to me, is to be 
 found in the current knowledge of facts currently admitted, forming the 
 stock-in-trade of daily life and conversation, and considered out of the 
 context of science or of any critical analysis.^ " Charles I. died on 
 the scaffold." This judgment most people would describe pretty 
 much in the language cited at the beginning of this section. It is 
 true, they would say, because it corresponds to a complex of terms 
 and their relation, which are or were facts or things. There is or was 
 such a complex of things and such a relation between them, and 
 therefore the judgment which expresses the mind's relation to it is a 
 true judgment. What the facts are or were is taken as a matter of 
 general agreement ; it would be held pedantic to ask where we get at 
 them, how we apprehend them, what precisely they are or were, what 
 meaning the judgment actually carries with it. Our intellectual 
 outfit for everyday use consists of "facts" postulated in this way — the 
 normal furniture of our mind ; what Plato called the world of opinion. 
 We take the material hurriedly from authority and tradition ; or from 
 negligent perception interpreted by authority and tradition.^ We do 
 
 ' You may say there is nothing in this but that one judgment about one complex is true, 
 while another about a larger complex including the first is false. Yes, but what is shown is 
 that correspondence to iis complex is not enough to make the first judgment true. 
 
 '^ It is such facts, I suppose, which another school would consider to have received Social 
 endorsement, and to be made true by answering their purpose. 
 
 * Could even a scholar, for instance, as a rule, exhibit a convincing argument that the 
 works ascribed to the ancient authors were really written at such times and by such persons 
 as is commonly supposed ? 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 23 
 
 not pursue their context. We do not fix their limits or analyse their 
 detail. Thus we let them shrink and harden into isolated counters 
 dealt with by our thought, worn and defaced by rapid and careless 
 exchange. And it is of these current counters that our world of fact 
 is constituted, which we take to be self-existent, independent of 
 our minds, each fact independent of the others, related to them but 
 unaffected by their relation, complexes which are the standard of 
 truth to our judgment. If our judgment corresponds to facts as 
 presented to us in these current counters in which we commonly 
 believe, that is all we ask. 
 
 (4) Now I am not suggesting that these facts are not actual, 
 and that the judgments which correspond to them are not true, 
 in a sense sufficient for their purpose. My contention does not 
 tend to making less of the facts, e.g. to reducing them to mere 
 ideas, but to making more of them, i.e. to showing that as realities 
 they cannot stop at the arbitrary point we have adopted. And, 
 no doubt, it follows that the mind has had much more to do 
 with them already and must have much more to do with them 
 as they proceed. As they stand, they are a selection out of reality 
 for everyday use, carelessly handed down or observed, clipped, 
 worn, their interconnection neglected. But they do well enough 
 as a standard for everyday truth, and our judgments, which we 
 take to " correspond " with them, do well enough as every-day 
 truth. 
 
 But, even within this world of what we conceive as corre- 
 spondence to hard fact, we do acknowledge differences of truth, or, 
 if this language is preferred, degrees of correspondence to fact, 
 according to the furnishing of the mind. " Charles I. died on the 
 scaffold," we commonly assume, is not so true in the mouth of a 
 child who has just learned it by heart as in the mouth of a school- 
 boy who knows something of the history and significance of the 
 17th century. And in neither's mouth is it so true as in that of 
 a historical student to whom the 17th century is a familiar world 
 and a living interest. It is not a thing which is true or false by 
 touching or not touching.^ From the first, it is an appreciation of 
 elements in a system, and of their determination by the system, 
 ^See Aristotle, Metaph. 1072 b. 21. Qi'^ya.viisv Koi voQiv. 
 
24 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 and is a matter of degree. Our ordinary estimate of truth fully 
 admits this to be the case. 
 
 We have been urging so far that the system of the judging mind 
 is an element in truth, and also, in the last paragraph, we come in 
 sight of an inference affecting the actual things or facts which are 
 taken as the standard. 
 
 (5) I will pass to an instance which clinches both these points. 
 When we come to consider the knowledge of any leading historical 
 authority on the period of Charles I., we find two remarkable things. 
 f^ First, quite undoubtedly, and in all common usage, such a man's 
 ^^ judgment " Charles I. died on the scaffold " is far truer than that of 
 the child or the schoolboy or the ordinary conversationalist. This 
 shows how much depends on the mental system of the judging 
 mind. 
 (^^ Secondly, when at this level we begin to look for the single 
 standard of fact which we are accustomed to rely on, it is not to 
 be found.i At first sight it is absorbed into the great historian's 
 knowledge. For us, something picked out of that knowledge is 
 the standard. Our "facts" as we used to call them, now show as 
 little bits or threads of reality, which we or others for us have 
 selected out of the huge web of the world as known by such an 
 authority as this. Of course the facts have not turned into any one's 
 mere mental system. But they seem essentially continuous with 
 mental systems. We do not mean to deny that they — as much of 
 them as is warranted on good authority — are real facts. What we 
 are saying can only mean that he helps us to get at them. That 
 is all very true : but then, when we get at them through his know- 
 ledge they are hardly recognisable for what they seemed when we 
 were readily passing them from hand to hand among each other. 
 Now we see that even in their discovery they are not single or 
 
 1 Compare with this the difficulty which the layman often has in asking a question such as 
 a scientific man can answer. To the layman a fact appears simple or single which to the 
 expert is full of distinctions and reservations. The writer once procured a meteorological 
 record of temperature with a view to its bearing on a stoppage in the building trade. But he 
 found, of course, different readings of several instruments under different conditions, and 
 could not tell, without further enquiry, which of the temperatures was important for his 
 / purpose. The " fact" vanishes as you come nearer, as a headland breaks up into an 
 intricate outline of planes and edges as you approach it in a boat. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 25 
 
 independent. They depend for being discovered and warranted on 
 an enormous constructive work of criticism, starting from present 
 experience, and continued through heaps and heaps of testimony 
 and evidence, all of which is instrumental to that view of facts 
 which will give the highest degree of coherence to the system so 
 constructed.^ Yes, but "the facts," it will be urged. All this is 
 getting at " the facts " ; but the facts were there all the same, however 
 hard to get at ; and when got at, by whatever means, can be and 
 are the standard of truth. Well ; but we must consider the point 
 that the facts, as we currently refer to them, are not to be found 
 simple of themselves, as we incline to imagine in our everyday 
 exchange of them. They are not and cannot possibly be the 
 working standard of first-grade thought. You may copy them in 
 your judgment, when the historian has found them out for you. 
 But the working standard, which determines them, is not themselves, 
 but his immense critical construction. Accounts of eye-witnesses 
 e.g. are nothing but material ; and, as a rule, very contradictory 
 material. 
 
 The facts, then, though bits of reality, are mediated to us by an 
 immense mental construction, and are not really separable from 
 this. They are not and cannot be as simple and isolated as the first- 
 hand statement of truth.^ We may select certain results and make 
 them up into a standard for a certain level of truth, eg. one good 
 enough for examination purposes, and that different for different 
 examinations. But that is simply an artificial extract. 
 \ That is one point. The facts, in history at any rate, are not 
 simply there, so that they can act as a given standard, correspon- 
 i dence to which is truth. The primary working standard is critical 
 j system, or, what is the same thing, scientific investigation. 
 
 (6) But then there is another thing. When we get our facts, 
 our results, what we take to be real, it is something much beyond 
 what we were wont to take as facts. It is a commonplace that 
 in science we get away from what is called fact.^ We may say 
 
 y ^Cf. 'Ei?iA\ey^s Presuppositions 0/ Critical History, Parker, 1874. 
 
 "^ See for an example of what is involved in a simple measurement, if it is to be precise. 
 Knowledge and Reality, 330- 1 . 
 
 ' See Logic, I. pp. 143 ff. 
 
26 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 that our current counters were fact; but they were neither the 
 
 whole fact, nor nothing but the fact. What is the full significance 
 
 and implication of the death of Charles I. ? And could we seriously 
 
 say that a judgment about it is true in which its full significance 
 
 and implication is ignored, more especially as on the other hand 
 
 the picturesque and immediate aspect of the event is certainly not 
 
 affirmed ? The facts are not " in the end " isolated and independent. 
 
 There is a stage when they seem so, but you cannot arrest them 
 
 at that stage. As coherence with a system is the standard by 
 
 ■ which we establish facts, so the part they play in a system of 
 
 ^ reality, their influence and importance in a historical context which 
 
 js imply a further transformation, is the standard by which we judge 
 
 their degree of reality, and therefore the degree of truthfulness of 
 
 ^ the judgments that affirm them. Ultimately, these two systems are 
 
 one, the system of experience, a critical system which is always 
 
 transforming the facts, as we know and rank them, towards a 
 
 higher logical stability. 
 
 Of course these remarks contain nothing that is new.^ But I hope 
 they clearly explain my view about the relative places of correspond- 
 ence and coherence in the meaning of truth, and about the alleged 
 independence, both as regards mind and as regards each other, of the 
 things or facts of the real world. 
 
 4. The standard of system or coherence is a standard applicable to 
 
 discursive thought. It is the standard of truth, which itself does not 
 
 pretend to be the perfect or all-inclusive experience." 
 
 • r* A judgment is true^ as I understand the term, when or in as (ax 
 
 rv I as its self-maintenance as a judgment is perfect. That is, in other 
 
 words, when the whole system of the judgments, which experience 
 
 iforces upon the mind which makes it, contains less contradiction in 
 
 ' The line of the discussion is closely akin to that of Plato's discussion of trueness and 
 reality, which agree in the character of logical stability. See Companion to Plato's Republic, 
 479 ft"-, 509 ff- 
 
 - It is perhaps hardly necessary at this time of day to say that I have now in principle 
 adopted Mr. Bradley's view of the relation of thought to Reality, with which the ideas of my 
 early work. Knowledge and Reality, were more or less in conflict. I shall refer below to 
 a reservation on this view which I still entertain, and which I think is consistent with my 
 present attitude. The point is merely that there is more analogy between the work of 
 y thought and solid and complete reality than Mr. Bradley, treating thought as solely discursive, 
 
 seems to allow. 
 

 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 27 
 
 case of its affirmation than in case of its denial. Such a judgment is 
 " true," because, on the whole, it cannot be denied — not, that is, till 
 there is a change, other than its denial, in the body of experience. — 
 
 (i) Stated in this way, which appears to me to be the right way, the 
 doctrine that truth consists in the self-maintenance of judgments, 
 which again consists in their systematic coherence, does not seem to 
 me to fail quite in the way which has recently been imputed to it.^ 
 Judgment professes to express the nature of the real so far as it can 
 be uttered in a system of predicates and relations. It does not profess 
 or suggest, so far as I can see, that the real is another system of 
 predicates and relations, which that constituted by judgment pretends 
 to reproduce or to resemble. Therefore its failure is one and decisive, 
 simply consisting in the fact that it is not, like the higher experience 
 which we suppose to be the sum and substance of all Reality, solid 
 and immediate as well as perfectly individual and non-contradictory. 
 It does profess to qualify Reality, to tell us about the nature of 
 Reality ; and in as far as it arranges content in a non-contradictory 
 system it does so tell us and qualify Reality. It sets out the content 
 of the real in a shape of special interconnection and emphasis, the 
 definiteness and varied accentuation of which in the diverse worlds of 
 knowledge constructed from different centres, obviously proffers a side 
 of the whole without which the perfect experience would in certain 
 respects fall short of perfection. In the dissociation of the perfect 
 experience involved in finiteness, this side appears alone.^ 
 
 But, so far as thought is discursive, it does not profess to furnish any 
 appearance of Reality but its own, and if it is said to be "about" the 
 " other " of thought,^ that involves no claim to represent the fuller 
 experience in its own character. Reality is operative in truth. The 
 nature of the latter's self-maintenance as tested by the principle of 
 coherence, non-contradiction, or individuality (all of them expressions 
 for the same character), leaves no doubt of that. But the claim to 
 have Reality at work in it, subject to special conditions, involves no 
 appeal to correspondence, though correspondence in a sense must 
 result.^ And, in my view, the fallacy above signalised — a sort of post 
 
 ^Joachim, Nature of Truth. 
 
 '^ That is, markedly distinct in character. No side of experience is ever really alone. 
 
 ^Joachim, pp. 170-2. * See above, p. 7. 
 
28 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 Jioc ergo propter hoc — is involved in the assertion that " current Logic, 
 consciously or unconsciously, employs the nature of truth as corre- 
 spondence, and if that notion is challenged throws the burden of 
 justification on metaphysics."^ 
 
 The failure or limitation of the coherence theory of truth lies then, 
 I urge, simply in the fact that it is a theory, i.e. that judgment, to 
 which it belongs, is an appearance of reality in relational form, doing 
 its best to attain individuality in that form, which up to a certain point 
 it achieves,^ but which, because it is relational and points endlessly 
 beyond itself for completion, it can never thoroughly attain. But it 
 possesses, as we have suggested, merits of its own, clearness, special 
 interconnection, emphasis, apart from which it is easy to divine that 
 the ultimate Reality would lack an element. 
 
 (ii) Thus I suggest that the enquiry I am referring to leaves its own 
 true track in emphasising the impossible demands of perfect coherence^ 
 as an attribute or essential of perfect truth ; instead of adhering 
 throughout to the position that the perfection of truth is not within 
 its own character, but must lie in a reality different in kind. The 
 importance of this point is that in this way an imaginary perfect 
 type of truth and coherence is set up, by their " approximation " to 
 which actual truth and coherence are to be judged. The term 
 approximation, I take it, involves the correspondence theory, to which 
 accordingly at this point the enquiry harks back. Thus we lose the 
 immanent standard, and with it the whole merit of the coherence 
 theory. But reality in all its forms and phases can defend and 
 maintain itself according to the principle of non-contradiction. It 
 
 ^Joachim, pp. 119-20. The suggestion seems to me quite fatal to a working Logic. 
 
 ^ I shall return to this question, in speaking of the reservation above alluded to. 
 
 'See pp. 170-2. "A theory of truth as coherence, if it is to be adequate, must be an 
 intelligible account of the ultimate coherence in which the one significant whole is self 
 revealed " ; and just before, "any partial experience, t.g. human knowledge, is ' true' more 
 or less, according as it exhibits a character more or less approximatmg to the complete 
 coherence." (My italics.) I suggest that the "ultimate or complete coherence" is not an 
 intelligible expression. Coherence is the substitute, possible only in a system of predicates 
 and relations, for the immediate unity, transcending mediateness, which we are compelled lo 
 ascribe to a perfect Reality. I repeat that the affinity of two exhibitions of a principle, or 
 of two kindred principles, has nothing to do with correspondence in the technical sense, 
 meaning correspondence of a copy with the original by which it is to be judged. The 
 application of it in other senses as an explanation of truth involves the fallacy of post 
 hoc ergo propter hoc. See above p. 7. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 29 
 
 never depends for its relative logical stability upon approximation or 
 correspondence to anything else. 
 
 (iii) And further I suggest that it is a confusion to use the con- 
 ception that even truth is not quite true to suggest a recurrence to 
 a correspondence theory.^ The meaning of this conception is very 
 simple when we once have grasped the point that no experience short 
 of perfect reality is altogether itself It is in that sense that even the 
 truest truth, such as the coherence theory of truth, is not quite true ; 
 that is to say its fullest completeness lies in something, a more perfect 
 form of experience, which is beyond itself; and we may call this, to 
 emphasise the relation of transcendence, a truer truth. 
 
 But it is not truth in the form of truth, and there can be no question 
 of truth in its own form possessing correspondence or approximation 
 to its character. Truth stands on its own ground, as a fulfilment 
 under its own conditions of the nature of reality ; and it can be tested 
 as truth under those conditions and under no others, and therefore, as 
 we have seen, by itself only and by nothing else in the universe. 
 There is no meaning in the suggestion that " the coherence-notion of 
 truth on its own admission can never rise above the level of knowledge, 
 which at the best attains to the truth of correspondence." 
 
 The coherence-doctrine is a theory, and so far is only truth. But 
 coherence does not further and doubly fall short not merely by being 
 only truth, but by resting its claim to be truth on imperfect corre- 
 spondence. It rests its claim on the working of reality within it, and 
 not on any correspondence that may result from this; and to 
 get anything truer you would have to pass beyond truth into 
 another form of reality. This may seem a needless subtlety ; but it 
 is important to avoid the implication that truth as such is something 
 away and beyond, which the coherence-notion ought to correspond to, 
 but does not quite succeed. If this is admitted we lose our immanent 
 standard, 
 
 5. One reservation, it seems to me, must be made upon the doctrine 
 
 ^ lb. p. 174. "Since all human discursive knowledge remains thought 'about' an Other, 
 any and every theory of the nature of truth must itself be ' about ' truth as its Other, 
 i.e. the coherence-notion of truth on its own admission can never rise above the level of 
 knowledge, which at the best attains to the ' truth ' of correspondence. Assuming that the 
 coherence-notion of truth is sound, no theory of truth as coherence can itself be completely 
 true, etc." The " truth," which a theory is about, is not truth as such. 
 
30 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 that thought is essentially discursive and relational. It points only to 
 an anticipation of the fuller experience, and, as I am quite aware, not 
 to an achievement of it. But it appears to me suggestive, and more 
 than that, I cannot see my way out of it. 
 
 It is nothing more than the recognition that the worlds we severally 
 live in, with the spatial world of each of us, have been fundamentally 
 transformed and reconstructed by thought working in and on percep- 
 tion and general experience. They are now, as for example our 
 spatial world with its full properties and qualities, worlds all different 
 and peculiar, and yet solid and individual in an appreciable degree, 
 possessing up to a point existence and quality in one. The interest is, 
 that if this is so — and I cannot open my eyes without finding it so — 
 we have created for ourselves by thought originally discursive, a new 
 immediacy, a new "given," a new basis of feeling and object-matter of 
 simple apprehension. Nothing is more various, more relative, more 
 progressive and personal, than the so-called simple apprehension of 
 objects which we roughly postulate to be the same. For if we are 
 to admit such a thing as "simple apprehension," we must take it as 
 purely relative. Its object is a phase of our experience and not a 
 stratum of it.^ Our worlds are all different, and yet all apparently 
 solid, and clothed in inseparable contents, which nevertheless are of 
 our own discrimination and attribution. And these are not, as a rule, 
 taken as predicates. They are taken as belongings of the quasi- 
 subjects, or rather quasi-substantive objects, although we can separate 
 any of these contents and make them into predicates. The objects of 
 our world which are thus admitted as concrete subjects are, of course, 
 afifirmed in the general judgment which sustains the everyday reality 
 which we accept. But they are, as I said just now, not naturally 
 subjects in the sense of dividing themselves according to an SP 
 relation. The judgment which affirms them most naturally takes an 
 impersonal or existential form. 
 
 When treated as subjects, they are not naturally taken as subjects 
 of their nearest habitual predicates. These have qualified and clothed 
 them, and are presupposed, not explicitly affirmed, in judgment. It is 
 only in text books of Logic that we say "Man has two legs," "The 
 grass is green," and the like. All this belongs in usage to the solid 
 
 ' I hope to return to this point in a forthcoming second edition of my Logic. 
 
TRUTH AND COHERENCE 31 
 
 starting-point, not to an SP judgment proper. But these starting- 
 points, though relatively given, are really artificial, and in some degree 
 different for every mind. 
 
 These relative data or quasi-individuals are indeed the so-called 
 subjects which were to count ^ as a plurality of substances. But the 
 interesting point about them is their relativity. Thought has made 
 them, and as may be seen in any criticism of their solidity, can unmake 
 them. And to speak more obviously, and without reference to abstruse 
 speculation, we can see that it is always remaking them. 
 
 This is all I desired to point out ; that a quasi-real world, apparently 
 solid and individual, is always being deposited as part of the work of 
 thought. I draw no general conclusion but this, that thought which 
 can thus deposit an apparent solid individual, is not so far removed 
 from the nature of the fuller experience as an exclusive study of the 
 discursive SP judgment tends to make us suppose. This was the 
 side of thought which, e.g., to Green seemed characteristic and 
 important.^ I do not in the least care to enter into a verbal 
 controversy whether it is more properly called thinking or 
 something else. But that our discursive judgment itself is always 
 building up a world which its operation then presupposes — the world 
 in which each of us lives, and takes it as actual — this, I do think, is 
 an important part of its character and a striking analogy between it 
 and ultimate reality. 
 
 6. One word more. This quasi-real world of our own making is 
 always passing at its edges into the discursive SP process of science 
 and synthetic judgment. And on this ground it may be objected to 
 our view of coherence and correspondence, " But here you have a real 
 and immediate world, actual in your experience, and your synthetic 
 judgments are about it. Does not this mean that your truth is corre- 
 spondence — the right representation of your relatively real and solid 
 world } " And I answer, " Emphatically, no." For our " given " solid 
 immediate and real world, in which all these characters are merely 
 apparent, is absolutely plastic,^ as is all immediate judgment and every 
 object of simple apprehension. It is just as likely that it may have 
 to yield to Science or Speculation as that they may have to yield to 
 
 ^p. 22 above. '-Cf. Works, iii. 144-5. 
 
 ^ /d. This is not plasticity of ultimate Reality, but may perliaps have been mistaken for it. 
 
32 TRUTH AND COHERENCE 
 
 it. Nothing in the whole field is a fixture to which all other elements 
 have to correspond. Nothing is certain except the necessity that the 
 whole should be coherent. 
 
 The bearing of a view like this on the spirit both of Logic and of 
 Science, and even, I would add, of Life,^ is, as I think, obvious, but is 
 not always noted. It suggests that the quest for reality and the 
 standard of truth lie always in the line of further determination, and 
 not in the line of subtraction or abstraction. I am convinced that the 
 recurrence of realism, so far as it is more than a wholesome insistence 
 on the place of externality in experience, is connected with a pessi- 
 mistic and reactionary temper^ which is widely influential to-day. The 
 longing to retire, as it were, upon the security of a hard and given 
 fact-nucleus, involves at bottom a shrinking from the strenuousness 
 belonging to our share in the self-maintenance of a reality conceived 
 as the whole. In continuing the present argument elsewhere I shall 
 insist on this " arduousness of reality " ; and shall endeavour further to 
 point out that the reassertion of realism, while valuable as against 
 mere psychicalism, is undoubtedly destined to reverse itself by fastening 
 upon "things" and "matter'' a continuity with mind as definite as 
 anything held by Hegel, and much better supported. 
 
 ^ It would be easy to point the moral from political phenomena, but it would be out of place 
 in a logical essay. 
 
 '^Then can it belong to the "flowing tide" (p. 15)? Why, yes. The demand for 
 immediacy is always on one side pessimistic and reactionary. 
 
 Glasgow: printed at the university press by Robert maci.ehose and go. ltd. 
 
 
 \ 
 
 0^. 
 
THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 
 
 BY 
 
 G. GALLOWAY, D.Phil., D.D, 
 
 GLASGOW 
 ^rtnteb at the anibcrsitg Iprcas bo 
 
 ROBERT MACLEHOSE & CO. LTD. 
 
 1911 
 
3^ 
 

 Theological Doctrines and Philosophical 
 
 Thought 
 
 It is almost a truism to say that the present time is one of religious 
 perplexity and unrest. The critical study of documents, and the 
 enquiry into historical origins, which were so vigorously pursued 
 during the greater part of last century, have undermined many 
 traditional beliefs. Other beliefs they have placed for us in a fresh 
 setting and under a new light, and so have materially altered their 
 significance. Even the ' plain man ' whom it is usual to invoke, the 
 man without theological or philosophical culture, is more or less 
 aware that the religious outlook is changing. He knows that often 
 where aforetime men of knowledge walked with confidence they now 
 move with hestitating and uncertain steps. Referring to this sense of 
 perplexity in theological matters, Eucken has suggestively indicated 
 its far-reaching character : " At the present day faith, which was to 
 relieve man of all doubts, has itself become an object of doubt." ^ 
 Another thinker, in a recent work, has put it on record that, in his 
 view, " Nothing short of a complete revision of current theological 
 ideas . . . can bring permanent satisfaction to our highly reflective 
 age." 2 Meanwhile the embarrassing feature in the present situation 
 is, that the constructive principles on which the work of revision is to 
 be carried out are not clear and universally accepted. Consequently 
 there is no general agreement on the nature and the amount of change 
 which are necessary. Both in the social and theological world the 
 present discontent is much more patent than the new and better order 
 which is to replace the existing system. 
 
 ^ The Life of the Spit-it, Eng. Trans., 1909, p. 302. 
 
 2 Watson, The Philosophical Basis of Religion, 1907 (Preface). 
 
 7819: « 
 
2 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 The sense of dissatisfaction with the theology of the Churches is 
 experienced keenly by those who approach the study of Theology 
 from the side of Philosophy. In Scotland this is the recognised 
 .me.tbod- of procedure for those looking forward to the service of the 
 Church. ■ Since the Reformation our Scottish universities have in- 
 •cluded a regularly organised Faculty of Theology, while Philosophy 
 has formed an important part of the Arts curriculum. And it may 
 not be out of place to say here that the University of St. Andrews 
 has had the privilege of possessing distinguished teachers in both 
 departments. To mention only those who are no longer with us, one 
 recalls the names of Ferrier, Tulloch, and Flint, men honourably 
 distinguished in Scotland and beyond it for the work they have done. 
 Yet I doubt not the eminent teachers of the past were conscious of 
 the difficulty whose pressure is now felt more acutely. The difficulty, 
 put briefly, is this : philosophical teaching in our Scottish universities 
 is now free and unhampered by tests of any kind, while theological 
 teaching is still fettered by a Confessional system which is no longer 
 in harmony with the enlightened culture of this age. The intelligent 
 student who has passed from the class of Metaphysics to Dogmatic 
 Theology feels the change of attitude and method, and realises he is 
 now pursuing a study under awkward limitations. 
 
 Of course there are historical grounds for the existence of this 
 situation, and there are reasons of expediency why it should continue. 
 And a sort of modus vivendi can be found in the treatment of 
 Dogmatics from a purely historical standpoint. But obviously this is 
 no final solution of the question. The problem must ultimately be 
 decided in one of two ways. Theology may cease to be a Faculty 
 within the universities — the course, I believe, which has been followed 
 in Holland. For many reasons this seems to be undesirable. Or 
 tests may be removed, and theological studies pursued under the same 
 conditions that obtain in the other Faculties of our Scottish uni- 
 versities. On the whole this seems far the better way, the way most 
 in harmony with the idea of a university as a centre of liberal culture 
 and progressive thought. I venture to add that one advantage of a 
 solution on these lines would be, that it would make possible a more 
 sympathetic and fruitful relation of theological and philosophical 
 teaching than obtains at present. The same temper and method 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 3 
 
 would prevail in both departments ; and Dogmatic Theology, instead 
 of confining itself to a historical survey, would develop to meet the 
 needs of the time by becoming a religious philosophy. 
 
 My object in this paper is to indicate the meaning and function of 
 theological doctrines ; then to consider how they come into contact 
 with philosophical thinking, and to what extent they may be legiti- 
 mately influenced by it. I will begin by viewing the problem from the 
 standpoint of historical development. 
 
 All religion, to put it broadly, is an effort on man's part to link 
 himself to an invisible Power or Powers, and thus to find satisfaction 
 for his needs. The psychological condition of religion is human 
 weakness and incompleteness, which imply the constant recurrence of 
 wants and desires for goods. As these needs evolve from the natural 
 to the spiritual, so does the character of the religious relation undergo 
 change. From the first religion is an expression of the whole man, 
 and involves the presence of all the psychical elements : feeling, 
 willing, and thinking. But at the early stages of religious develop- 
 ment the cognitive elements remain very much in the background ; 
 they function at first only in instinctive beliefs, and afterwards in 
 imaginative representations. Growth in culture, however, means 
 growth in self-consciousness, and by way of myth and cosmogony 
 man has passed to the conscious articulation of his religious beliefs in 
 theological doctrines. Theology is not an accidental product : it has 
 a determinate place and office in the logic of religious development. 
 Every living religion which reaches a certain stage of growth will 
 expand into doctrines, just as a tree arrives at a point when it puts 
 forth branches. Theology is the answer to the demand of the 
 developing religious consciousness for an explanation of the acts 
 which are done in the cultus. Around the cultus, which is a 
 relatively stable centre, doctrines gather, and embody the meaning 
 man reads into his religious service. At a more advanced stage 
 of social evolution, when religion interacts with science and phil- 
 osophy, the task of the theologian takes a wider scope and a 
 deeper meaning. Theology broadens into a world-view resting on 
 religious postulates, while its doctrines are systematised so as 
 to express in a connected way the general meaning of religious 
 experience. 
 
4 THEOT.OGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 In the present paper the writer has exclusively in view the theology 
 of the Christian Church, for this is the only system of theology 
 which has a vital interest for the western mind. Christian doctrines 
 had their source in those spiritual experiences which gathered round 
 the life and the teaching of Jesus, They were primarily designed to 
 set forth the cognitive aspect of these experiences, in other words, to 
 express the convictions which were involved in Christian piety. But 
 Christianity was from the first an expansive and missionary religion, 
 and for practical purposes its content required to be stated in a com- 
 municable and a generally intelligible form. So dogmas were framed 
 to be the objective expression of the faith of the Christian Society and 
 the embodiment of its value-judgments. The rise and spread of 
 heresies impelled the Church of the first four centuries to articulate 
 with growing fulness a system of dogma for which the claim of 
 authority and catholicity was made. Quod semper, quod iibique, quod 
 ab omnibus crcdenduin est became the note of Catholic doctrine. The 
 intellectual aspect of faith was more and more accentuated, and the 
 inner side of faith-experience was relatively neglected in consequence. 
 The logical outcome of this tendency was seen in the Mediaeval 
 Church's conception of dogma as forming an absolutely authoritative 
 system, which thought might interpret and explain, but must by no 
 means alter or discard. The motto of Scholastic Theology was fides 
 quaerens intellectuni, but the intellect was denied the right of question- 
 ing or criticising the content of faith. This dualism between the form 
 and matter of thought made fruitful interaction impossible, and the 
 later schoolmen were provoked to find a way out of this impasse by 
 throwing out the theory of the 'double truth.' In fact, the whole 
 Scholastic system had become so formal and artificial that it was doomed 
 to fade before the light of fresh experience and knowledge. The 
 Reformation signalised the deliverance of philosophy from bondage to 
 the dogmas of the Church, and, at the same time, it recalled men's 
 minds to the truth that religious doctrines must stand in some vital 
 relation to Christian experience. Faith, for instance, with Luther is 
 no longer an act of assent to the Church's creed : it is an inward and 
 a soul renewing experience. And while it is true to say that the 
 Reformers did not break with the principle of authority, but transferred 
 the centre of authority from the Church to Scripture, it is also im- 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 5 
 
 portant to remember that they no longer claimed the old infallibility 
 for religious doctrines. To them dogma was only a conditionally 
 valid expression of the Church's knowledge of truth, and it was not 
 exempted from correction and modification.^ At the same time it is 
 impossible to deny that the theology of the Reformed Churches was 
 based on views of Scripture and its interpretation which, in the light 
 of modern knowledge, it has become difficult to defend. And one has 
 to admit that modern liberal theologians, under pressure from the 
 scientific and philosophical culture of the age, would recast the Re- 
 formed Confessions in ways to which the Reformers themselves would 
 never have consented. But if the situation is a perplexing one for the 
 Reformed Churches, it is still more difficult for the Church of Rome. 
 The claim of absolute truth made for the creed of that Church can 
 only be upheld at the cost of ignoring the best fruits of modern 
 scientific and philosophic thought. And though the Roman Catholic 
 Church has a theory of development, the theory is not of a kind which 
 admits of a vital relation between religious doctrines and the growing 
 culture of the time. For development in this case is not organic : it 
 does not allow of inward transformation. The Roman theory is 
 technically known as 'preformation.' In the unalterable 'deposit of 
 faith' — to use the phrase of Newman — which was entrusted to the 
 Church at the beginning, all the features of the later growth were 
 ' preformed ' ; and future progress could only be on the lines of further 
 definition and explication of what was contained in the original matter. 
 Under these stereotyped conditions a real reconstruction of ecclesi- 
 astical dogmas, such as would bring them into harmony with modern 
 knowledge, is impossible. During recent years this truth has received 
 striking recognition within the Roman Catholic Church, and it has 
 produced the important movement termed Modernism. The demand 
 of Modernism, as expressed by its prophets, is for a living instead of 
 an artificial conception of development. To quote the late Father 
 Tyrrell : " A bold contention that all ecclesiastical development is 
 simply a mechanical unpacking of what was given in a tight parcel 
 
 1 So in the Formula of Concord : Symhola non obtinent auctoritatem Judicis, haec eniiii 
 dignitas solis sacris liUris debclur. And Lulher, in connexion with the Articles of Visita- 
 tion, says : Wiewohl wir Solches nicht ah strenge Gebote konnen lassen ausgehen, auf dass 
 wir nicht neue pdpstliche Dekretalen aufwerfen, sondern ah eine Historic, dazu ah ein 
 Zeiigniss und Bekentniss zmseres Glaubens. 
 
6 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 2000 years ago"! In contrast to this he pleads for Modernism as 
 "An expression of an opposite contention, of a belief in time, in 
 growth, in vital and creative evolution." The proclamation of this 
 principle coming from within a Church whose motto is semper eadem, 
 is significant indeed. 
 
 The problem which presses in different degrees on Roman Catholic 
 and Protestant theologians, is that of harmonising the world-view 
 expressed in the ecclesiastical creeds with that which is the common 
 property of modern cultivated minds. The trouble largely arises 
 from the fact that religious doctrines have grown up in a pre-scientific 
 age, and under the influence of philosophical conceptions which have 
 lost their old authority. The doctrines themselves, nevertheless, have 
 an authority derived from tradition and sentiment, and this makes it 
 difficult to mould them freely to suit the needs of the time. So far as 
 religion is matter of pious feeling, of practical life based on trust in a 
 Higher Power, it may be fairly urged that it does not come into 
 conflict with scientific thinking. But in so far as theology sets forth 
 doctrines about the creation of the world, the origin of man, and 
 miraculous interferences with the natural order, and in so far as it 
 inculcates a particular theory concerning the composition of historical 
 documents, it occupies ground where it is open to challenge from 
 science. It is just on these points that there has been keen dispute — 
 dispute growing out of the fact that either side has made demands 
 which the other has refused to concede. If we look, however, beyond 
 the immediate points at issue to the motives which are at work, we can 
 see that the strife is the outcome of two sharply contrasted tend- 
 encies. Science is bent on establishing everywhere the presence of 
 order and necessary connexion within the experienced world : religion 
 is primarily concerned with a transcendent and spiritual world by 
 reference to which it appreciates the facts of the natural world. 
 Differing methods and diverging purposes have led to misunder- 
 standing. So it has seemed that the antagonism between the 
 scientific and the theological point of view might be obviated by a 
 proper delimitation of spheres. On the one side let science keep to 
 its own work, and forbear to question the reality of those spiritual 
 experiences of which dogma is the intellectual expression : on the 
 other side let theology pursue its spiritual task and cease to advance 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 7 
 
 doctrines which are inconsistent with the scientific knowledge of the 
 time. Since the days of Kant this way of reconciling the claims of 
 religious doctrine and scientific knowledge has commended itself to 
 many, and in appearance it seems to do justice to the rights of both. 
 But a closer inspection discloses difficulties. The rigid separation of 
 the two spheres is not possible, for religion demands, and cannot help 
 demanding, that even the facts of the natural world be construed from 
 a spiritual and teleological standpoint. Natural science, again, when 
 it strictly insists that the principles of mechanical connexion and causal 
 explanation are sufficient, leaves no room for the teleological inter- 
 pretation of nature which religion postulates. Concord is not to be 
 expected under the circumstances. The mind desiring to find its own 
 unity in the experienced world is urged beyond the departmental 
 solution towards a coherent world-view in which both science and 
 religion have a place. In fact, the attempt to delimit two spheres 
 involves a movement of the mind beyond them to a comprehensive 
 standpoint. The synoptic mind, the mind which thinks things 
 together, must in some sense pass beyond the spheres which it 
 endeavours to distinguish and relate. Such a point of view is that 
 of the ultimate science, or philosophy, which seeks to organise all 
 the elements of human experience into a coherent and consistent 
 whole. And since religion claims to give a view of the world as a 
 totality, it is inevitable that its doctrines should come into intimate 
 relation with philosophy, which exercises the same comprehensive 
 outlook. Except in some special cases where theology has trans- 
 gressed into the domain of science, the differences between them 
 cannot be settled from a purely scientific standpoint. • The final 
 adjustment must be between theology and philosophy, where the 
 relationship is more intimate and far-reaching. 
 
 What, then, is the kind of relation which should subsist between 
 theology and philosophy ? During last century two interesting and 
 influential efforts were made to settle this question. These efforts 
 were associated with the work of Hegel and of Ritschl, and in spirit 
 and issues they were strongly contrasted. It will prepare the way for 
 a fresh discussion of the problem if I examine briefly the Hegelian 
 and Ritschlian solutions. 
 
 The assumption which underlay the Hegelian system was, that 
 
 A3 
 
8 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 speculative thought was able to grasp the organic unity of things, and 
 to exhibit all stages of experience as moments in the development of 
 the Idea. There went with this assumption the claim that philosophic 
 thinking, in the light of its supreme principle, could critically 
 appreciate and determine the degree of truth in the different phases 
 of experience. Religious doctrines, regarded as the expression of 
 spiritual experience, when tested by this speculative theory, were 
 found to contain the truth only in the form of figurative thinking 
 or imaginative representation ( Vorstellung). Hence they required 
 to be critically purified ere they could be raised to the form of 
 philosophic truth {Begrijf). Much of the German speculative 
 theology in the middle of last century was governed by this principle, 
 and in the work of men like Vatke and his disciple Biedermann it 
 bore interesting fruit. The defects of the method flowed from its 
 initial assumption, that thought could rise to an absolute point of 
 view and evaluate all experience by a single Supreme Principle. 
 Hegelian theologians tended to ignore the question of what experi- 
 ence lay behind Christian doctrines : they often arbitrarily trans- 
 formed doctrines in order to raise them to the level of philosophic 
 thought, and they did not sufficiently consider whether spiritual values 
 were not lost in the process of transformation. Still, the dangers 
 inherent in this method should not bhnd us to the element of truth 
 which it contained. It is quite correct that there is a blending of 
 imagination and thought in the theology of the churches. Figures 
 and analogies are used which a little reflexion shows cannot be 
 strictly and literally true, although they are useful and even legitimate 
 for practical purposes. For example, theological doctrine represents 
 the Supreme Spirit as a Father, construes the Atonement in terms 
 of forensic law, and depicts the final apportionment of rewards and 
 punishments under the image of a Day of Judgment. It must, 
 I think, be granted that such images cannot be literally and exactly 
 true : and we may recognise this, while at the same time we confess 
 that it is not possible for us to formulate the thought-content of such 
 dogmas in a precise and logical form. Moreover, in a practical regard 
 it is easy to see that a figure or an analogy may be the best centre 
 and support of religious emotion and sentiment. Many to whom the 
 image appeals would find no help in the pure thought. The element 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 9 
 
 of right in the theory before us may, I beh'eve, be put thus. 
 Philosophy, the attempt to think out coherently the meaning of the 
 world, enables us to see the defects of partial and figurative statements 
 in theology and elsewhere ; and this may hold good even when we are 
 not able to translate a dogma into a philosophic truth. Philosophy, 
 where it cannot teach us how to reconstruct a dogma, may teach us 
 to use it as a symbol ; and in future the symbolic aspect of religious 
 doctrines is likely to receive fuller recognition. A frank acceptance 
 of the principle of symbolism, when exact dogmatic formulation is 
 impossible, would at least diminish the discord between some of the 
 dogmas of the churches and philosophical thought : it would make 
 possible a better working relation between theology and philosophy. 
 At all events this may be expected, provided that philosophy will 
 recognise that symbols may be legitimate in their own sphere and 
 have an objective reference. But if you treat the symbol as merely 
 the figurative expression of a faith-state whose value is purely 
 subjective, you do injustice to the truth-claim put forward by the 
 religious consciousness. Lotze has some suggestive remarks on 
 the symbolical use of dogma. " Religious truth is valid for all alike. 
 On the contrary, the theoretical expressions which are found for it are 
 all of them inadequate. And just for this reason it is legitimate to 
 agree on a mode of formulation to which each one may give the 
 theoretical interpretation by which he thinks he can best grasp 
 the inmost meaning." A few lines further on he adds : " It is not 
 the concern of religion to find a theoretical expression free from 
 objection for what is transcendent. The point rather is that we 
 have figurative expressions to which the mind can attach the same 
 feelings as are due to the real content." ^ 
 
 The influence of the great movement of speculative thought which 
 culminated in Hegel gradually exhausted itself in Germany. The 
 free handling of religious doctrines in order to elevate them to the 
 philosophic form naturally provoked a reaction. The cry arose for a 
 return from the shadowy realm of speculative concepts to the facts of 
 experience and history. The most noteworthy and influential expon- 
 ent of this reaction in the domain of theology was Albrecht Ritschl. 
 The Ritschlian theology is historical and experimental, and is 
 
 ^ Grundziige der Religionsphilosophie, p. 91. 
 
lo THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 definitely opposed to the intrusion of metaphysics into the sphere of 
 religion. The historical Christian consciousness, it is urged, is an 
 independent fact which rests on the revelation of God in Christ, and 
 carries its own witness in itself. If we interrogate that consciousness, 
 we find that the beliefs which it involves are essentially judgments 
 of value. That Christ is the Son of God, for instance, is not to 
 be taken in the sense of an eternal and metaphysical relationship, but 
 as an expression of the worth of Christ for the souls of Christian 
 people. Hence Ritschl would purge religious doctrines of those meta- 
 physical ideas, which originally found their way into the creeds of the 
 ancient Church through the influence of Greek philosophy. Christian 
 theology must be cleansed from such alien elements, and become the 
 embodiment of those living values which are at the root of Christian 
 faith and life. This anti-metaphysical attitude is illustrated by the 
 remark of a prominent disciple of the Ritschlian school (Herrmann) : 
 " The Metaphysics which seeks to cognise the common ground of the 
 ethical and natural world is not only immoral but irreligious." ^ And 
 this hostility to metaphysics is a note of the Ritschlian School as a 
 whole. 
 
 The Ritschlian theology has substantial merits, although at many 
 points it differs decidedly from the traditional theology. Into its 
 merits or demerits, however, it is not my purpose to enter just now. 
 I shall confine myself to asking how far the Ritschlian denial of the 
 right of philosophical thought to influence religious doctrines is the 
 solution of the problem of this paper.^ 
 
 X It is evident, at the outset, that the Ritschlian theory involves a 
 drastic separation of spheres within experience which raises serious 
 difficulties. The scientific sphere, where strict causal explanations 
 and mechanical connexions rule, is opposed to a sphere of freedom 
 ruled by teleological ideas and spiritual values. I have already 
 
 ^ Ritschl's own attitude was hardly so extreme. He was in the end inclined to admit that 
 theoretical thought might at least attempt the solution of the problem in question, 
 provided it .set out from the Christian idea of God as scientifically valid. 
 
 2 The affinity of Pragmatism, with its theory that truths are values, to Ritschlianism has 
 been frequently noted. But I have not deemed it necessary to say anything about Pragma- 
 tism at this point ; for Pragmatism is not in itself anti-metaphysical, though it rejects an 
 Absolutist metaphysics. Nor have I referred to Eucken's Activism ; for, so far as I can see, 
 Eucken would not quarrel with the theory that speculative thought must translate theological 
 doctrines into a philosophical form. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT n 
 
 referred to the objections which may be urged against this arbitrary 
 division of the harmonious kingdom of human experience into rival 
 states governed by diverse laws. The perplexing point is how things 
 cleft asunder in theory can work together in practice. Judgments of 
 value are set against judgments of fact, and how they come to be 
 connected and unified is not apparent. For they blend in experience, 
 and what is fact in one aspect, in another aspect is value. Are we 
 to suppose, then, that the world of mechanically related things stands 
 over against a world of spiritual ends and values, and that any 
 speculative solution of the difference is impossible ? If spiritual ends 
 are realised in the natural world, and if the natural world subserves 
 the achievement of spiritual ends, surely the attempt to think out the 
 implications of the fact is not a forbidden quest but a reasonable 
 obligation. In the long run the contrast can only be relative, for it 
 is the same human spirit which is active in the fields of science and in 
 the domains of moral action and religious service : and what falls 
 within the unity of the mind cannot be parted in the nature of things. 
 If the theologian persists in the rigid separation of the two provinces, 
 he may be driven to admit that religion is justified in postulating 
 what science is within its rights in rejecting. Miracle, it might be 
 said, ought to be postulated from the point of view of religious value, 
 but denied from the point of view of causal connexion. Such dilemmas 
 can only be met by a philosophy which seeks a ground and principle 
 of coherence between the natural and spiritual realms. 
 "^ There is undoubtedly a difference between the religious and the 
 philosophical standpoints, but Ritschlianism has exaggerated this 
 difference into an antagonism. In religion it is the personal interest 
 which is dominant, while in philosophy it is the theoretical interest 
 which prevails. The former develops its world-view mainly in 
 response to emotional and practical needs. The latter is chiefly 
 prompted by the desire to know and understand ; though it is well 
 also to keep in mind that the personal interest is present in speculative 
 thinking, and the theoretical interest is not absent from the religious 
 attitude. In both cases we have a world-view, though seen from 
 different standpoints : in the one instance the standpoint of rationality, 
 in the other that of value. For theological doctrines, it may be 
 remembered, are the expressions of historic values. They set forth 
 
12 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 the truths men of the past reckoned of most worth, the truths which 
 it seemed to them give meaning to their lives ; and those who accept 
 them now claim that they fulfil the same function in their experience. 
 Now in trying to justify our conviction that speculative reflexion 
 ought to influence religious doctrines, I think our object will be 
 furthered by examining the conception of value, and that especially 
 in its relation to fact and to truth. If it turns out that it is impossible 
 to treat value in abstraction from these other notions, the result will 
 greatly strengthen our theory that religious values must be brought 
 into coherent relations with philosophical thought. The main principle 
 of the Ritschlian theology will be shown to be defective. 
 
 The value-judgments of Ethics and of Religion, it need hardly be 
 said, are not arbitrary products : they have grown gradually out of 
 the historic life. The evolution of spiritual values has proceeded pari 
 passu with that evolution of spiritual needs which marks the develop- 
 ment of persons interacting within a social system. Every judgment 
 of value, however, must have its ground ; and this ground is psychical, 
 that is to say a state of the individual consciousness. Value-judgments, 
 in other words, refer back to value-feelings as their psychological source 
 and condition. We cannot merge value in the act of valuing, for there 
 must first be something to valuate. At the same time a value-feeling 
 can only develop into clear consciousness, and receive general statement, 
 when it is explicated in the judgment : value-feelings must specify 
 themselves in the judgment ere they can become working-values and 
 function as ends for human wills. A value-feeling when thus defined 
 becomes eo ipso an object of desire, for in its very nature it is a desir- 
 able state of consciousness. What on a lower level was mere conative 
 tendency towards satisfying experiences, for the developed conscious- 
 ness becomes an act of will which has for its object an idea of value 
 represented as an end. In the psychological order of progress the 
 end becomes an end for the will because it was first recognised as a 
 value ; the psychological process is unintelligible on the opposite 
 hypothesis.^ As the social order evolves human ends become varied, 
 and the necessity arises for introducing some sort of order and system 
 into them, so that individual purposes may be made consistent and the 
 social life harmonious. This can only be accomplished by some 
 
 1 A point which has been emphasised by Hoffding. Vid. his Religionsphilosophie, p. 1 1. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 13 
 
 method of graduating values, and graduation in turn implies a general 
 standard of value which can be applied to different ends. The standard 
 must be an end or value conceived as ultimate, a standard by reference 
 to which all lesser ends can be evaluated and systematisation can ensue. 
 As a step to the Supreme End every other end becomes a means, while 
 the lesser ends in turn have means which promote their attainment. 
 The system thus takes form as a graduated whole of ends and means, 
 of direct and indirect, or instrumental, values, — a system which gives 
 meaning and interest to human life. It is within such a developing 
 system that ethical laws, or norms of the will, are gradually defined 
 and receive social recognition. They are not a priori principles, 
 unconditionally valid, as Kant imagined, but generalised rules for the 
 will, and their function is to guide men towards the end. They share 
 the plastic character of the growing organism of society, and instead 
 of determining the end they are determined by it. From value to end, 
 and from end to norm, this seems to be the psychological order of 
 progress. 
 
 At this point a question arises which demands careful consideration. 
 Does the whole meaning of value-feelings and value-judgments lie in 
 the fact that they are states or acts of consciousness .-* To put it in a 
 slightly different form, do all the imphcations of value fall within 
 valuing subjects ? Certainly when we speak of the evolution of ethical 
 or spiritual values, we can only find the active centre and source of 
 that process in the developing consciousness of persons. Yet it seems 
 impossible to hold that the whole content of our ideas of value can be 
 derived from the side of the subject. We constantly speak of facts or 
 things, conceived as independent of us, possessing value. Especially 
 in the case of indirect or instrumental values, we refer to them as 
 objects embodying values which we do not make, but discover and 
 turn to profit. No doubt closer analysis shows this is not strictly 
 correct, for the value of the means certainly depends on the purpose 
 we have in view, and what has high worth for one person may be 
 useless in the hands of another. Yet the subject cannot arbitrarily 
 confer a value on any object whatsoever. Not every fact can be a 
 means ; the intrinsic character counts also. The value of a picture lies 
 in the aesthetic feeling it can evoke in the spectator. But this feeling 
 does not depend merely on the presence of the artistic temperament 
 
14 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 in the observer : it depends also on something in the picture which 
 the mind finds and which it does not create. German writers 
 usually designate those objects which have power to elicit value- 
 judgments, goods, and distinguish the doctrine of goods from the 
 doctrine of values. The distinction corresponds to the two aspects of 
 value, according as we see it from the subjective and from the objec- 
 tive side. The need of the distinction is brought home to us by the 
 breakdown of every serious endeavour to make clear how the manifold 
 content of our value-judgments can spring from conditions within the 
 valuing subject. The reference to the subject is essential, we have 
 already granted ; but the subject, as a centre of value, only develops 
 through interaction with a world of objects. It has been truly re- 
 marked that value-feelings and judgments could not arise apart from 
 the stimulus of objectively given facts.^ The world of goods, therefore, 
 contained in any developed social system is the outcome of interaction 
 between man and his environment, and expresses that aspect of facts 
 in virtue of which they function as values for human wills. The 
 system of goods thus grows out of the commerce of subjects with 
 objects, and points to some intrinsic relation between the realm of 
 values and the realm of existences. This relation is not reducible to 
 a strict identity ; for, if facts are values, the fact is not exhausted by 
 its value-aspect. In the last resort the development of spiritual ends 
 or values must be conditioned by the principles and potencies of that 
 larger world of reality within which they develop and to which they 
 refer. 
 
 The conclusion reached in this branch of our enquiry would seem to 
 be, that we can, up to a point, work satisfactorily with the conception 
 of value in Ethics or Theology. We do so by treating as irrelevant to 
 our purpose the deeper issues raised by our use of the category. 
 Ethics in its normative function may draw out the rules of conduct 
 which conduce to the realisation of the Good : Theology likewise can 
 elaborate doctrines whose aim is to define the way which the religious 
 spirit must traverse to attain the higher values. But in either case it 
 is necessary to make postulates which are demands on the real world, 
 and the validity of these demands requires to be explained and 
 defended. For if you claim that Reality is such that it coheres with 
 
 ^ Wundt, Einleiiung in die Fhilosopkie, p. 35. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 15 
 
 and responds to the claims of value, you are surely bound to try to 
 justify the claim. And this is only possible by passing to the higher 
 standpoint of philosophy and striving to think out the connexion of 
 the worlds of fact and value. I shall not attempt now to discuss the 
 lines on which such an enterprise should proceed. But it is not going 
 too far to say that an important use must be made of the teleological 
 idea. Valuing subjects and valued objects must be inwardly adapted 
 the one to the other, — they must be brought into an organic relation 
 by an end immanent in both. The organised value-judgments of 
 human society are not possible save on the assumption of systematic 
 coherence between the elements out of which they are developed. The 
 universe must be an orderly and coherent whole in order that this 
 development should take place within it. In an earlier part of this 
 paper I pointed out that the category of end was psychologically 
 posterior to that of value. But what is va-repov yeuecrei may be Trporepov 
 (pvcrei, and this appears to be true in the case of the category of end. 
 For the psychological working of the notion of value presupposes 
 that the contents of inner and outer experience are co-ordinated and 
 connected by some teleological principle. The psychological process 
 from values to ends is the order of genesis : in the order of reality the 
 idea of end is involved in the inner connexion of facts and values. 
 The ultimate Ground or Source of things, one would say, must be 
 teleological in its activity. Plainly, therefore, the speculative enquiry 
 into the nature and working of this Ground has an intimate bearing on 
 the spiritual values, and on the doctrines in which they have received 
 historic expression. 
 
 It will make our position still clearer if we examine with some care 
 the closely connected problem of the relation of truth to value. Both 
 conceptions are of the first importance in the working of religion, and 
 it is a normal feature of the religious mind that it postulates, not only 
 value, but truth for its doctrines. Here again it is possible to say that, 
 just as facts are values, truths are values ; and there is a sense in which 
 both statements are correct. It is the case that fact and truth alike 
 have a value aspect, but fact, we saw already, could not be merged in 
 value ; and it is the same with truth. But, it may be replied, though 
 faith lays claim to knowledge, though it expresses the conviction that 
 religious doctrines are true, in so doing it does not mean to assert more 
 
i6 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 than that these doctrines have proved practically valuable to religious 
 people. And observe, it will be urged, in putting forward this conten- 
 tion we are not affirming that truth is a purely subjective and individual 
 satisfaction. To validate its claim to truth a proposition has to show 
 itself a normal working-value, and to justify itself before the larger 
 tribunal of historical and social experience. Now there are cases 
 where this argument is not without force, as I will try to explain later. 
 But, when all is said, there is something more in the faith-attitude 
 than seems to be recognised here. Faith has its cognitive aspect, and 
 like every cognitive act it contains a reference to a reality beyond 
 what is given in the act of judging. In claiming truth for a religious 
 belief, we affirm something more than that the consequences of believ- 
 ing it are and have been practically valuable. This something more 
 appears to be the fact that our belief harmonises with an independent 
 order or structure of reality, — a reality which enters into human 
 consciousness and is in turn affected by it, but which has also a nature 
 of its own. This reference to reality is clearly an implication of 
 religious belief in God, for instance. We say that such a belief is true, 
 not primarily because it works, though this may be valuable as a con- 
 firmation, but because our belief refers to a real Being related to us 
 and yet possessing an existence beyond us. The validity of this 
 transsubjective reference is essential to faith : once persuade men that 
 the truth of their religious convictions is nothing more than the 
 reactionary effects of these on their lives, and their faith would wither 
 away. 
 
 Do you then, it may be asked, entirely reject the pragmatic concep- 
 tion of truth, and deny it any religious significance ? By no means. 
 Working-value is a test of truth, not however the sole test, not the 
 exclusive test. The pragmatic theory that truths are values, validated 
 by working, is often an important ground of religious assurance, and 
 sometimes it may not be possible to assign any other ground. Take 
 for instance the Christian belief, that the spirit of God works 
 in man's working while he strives to do the divine will. It is hardly 
 possible to hold that this claim to truth could be verified by us in 
 any other way than that of spiritual experience and practical results. 
 Any form of ' rational proof would fall far short of yielding a 
 conclusion of the kind ; and the individual who has the verification 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 17 
 
 given in life experience neither asks nor desires any such ' proof.' ^ 
 And it cannot be doubted that, in an age when the older apologetic 
 methods are losing their force, the pragmatic theory of working-value 
 is destined to prove a genuine support to religious beliefs which are 
 really vital. The pragmatic test selects and sets in relief those 
 theological doctrines which are central, — which have an intimate 
 bearing on religious life. On the whole we may frankly admit that 
 the writings of James and Schiller have done good service in calling 
 attention to the humanistic aspect of truth, and in challenging the old 
 notion of transcendent truths, existing somewhere in the beyond, and 
 waiting to be recognised. Truth cannot be treated in abstraction from 
 error, and it does not exist as such outside the form of judgment. 
 Nevertheless it is not likely that either philosophy or religion will, in 
 the long run, agree that in translating truths into values we thereby 
 exhaust the implications of truth ; and the principle of working-value 
 is made effective by the fact that we qualify value by a reference to 
 conditions beyond itself which are implied in the term 'working.' 
 The process of selecting truths from truth-claims by applying the 
 test of working-value cannot depend merely on the subject that 
 verifies ; it must also depend on the real context or system within 
 which the value works. For that system goes to test the working. 
 It is just in dealing with this objective reference that the exponents of 
 Pragmatism are least satisfying. Dr. Schiller, for example, says : 
 " The pragmatic theory of knowledge does not start with any antithesis 
 of ' truth ' and ' fact ' but conceives of reality as something which, for 
 our knowledge at least, grows up in the making of truth." He adds : 
 " Initial reality would be sheer potentiality, the mere vkri of what was 
 destined to develop into true reality." ^ The objection to this view is 
 that, if the vKr] is to have a meaning and function, it must possess a 
 nature of its own and will only accept postulates of the subject which 
 harmonise with that nature. If you deny it a nature it becomes a 
 nonentity, and you are committed to the impossible task of showing 
 how the mind builds up the fabric of knowledge out of nothing. 
 
 The point for which we are contending is recognised in the theory 
 
 ^Compare with this the thought of Augustine; Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi ; in 
 interiore homine habitat Veritas (De Vera Religione). 
 ^ Studies in Humanism, pp. 425 and 433. 
 
1 8 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 of truth as correspondence. But that theory suffers from a twofold 
 defect. On the one hand it is not universally applicable, and, on the 
 other hand, when it is applicable it is often stated in a way which can 
 easily be refuted. In regard to the first point, there is a multitude of 
 scientific and historical judgments where the notion of ' corresponding ' 
 to something is unworkable. If I say " The ultimate constituents of 
 matter are electrons," or " Tell is a mythical personage," the only way 
 to test either assertion is to show that it fits into a coherent body of 
 judgments which we are in some sense able to verify. Neither 
 proposition admits of being tested by a simple reference to a ' corre- 
 sponding' fact. Even in the case of perceptive judgments the 
 correspondence theory needs restatement if it is not to collapse under 
 criticism. Thus, if you say that a judgment is true when an idea 
 in the mind corresponds to an object which is independently given, the 
 answer at once follows that, since the mind verifies the correspondence, 
 both object and idea must be embraced and sustained by the activity 
 of the mind. The distinction of corresponding elements falls within 
 consciousness : it cannot be distinction between consciousness and an 
 extra-mental reality. The object given in presentation is an ideal 
 construction, and is not able to function as an independent norm. It 
 is only possible to indicate very briefly here how this difficulty may 
 be met. In judgments of this kind the test is not so much corre- 
 spondence as adequacy of interpretation.. In the object as mental 
 content there is a reference to a reality which is transsubjective, 
 the interaction of which with the subject is a condition of presented 
 objects.^ But presented objects may exist for consciousness with very 
 different degrees of fulness, varying from mere awareness {^^vvafxei) to 
 developed interpretation (euepyeia); and in the transition from the one 
 to the other lies the possibility of error. The tendency of mental 
 belief, as Dr. Stout has pointed out, is to outrun the knowledge of the 
 data, and so it may draw conclusions which will not harmonise with 
 the facts when they are fully known.-^ I see a man coming towards 
 me and I pronounce it to be Smith : on nearer approach I recognise 
 it to be Brown. Had I simply said in the first instance, " That is a 
 
 ^ Meinong's C/c-di:r Annahinen (ed. i.), p. 125 ff. contains suggestive remarks on the subject. 
 A clear distinction is there drawn between Gegenstand and Inhalt. 
 
 -Mind, N.S. xvii. p. 23. In various ways I have profited from Dr. Stout's remarks. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 19 
 
 man," my judgment would have been true. But my judgment 
 outran the data cognised, and when these were explicitly presented I 
 corrected my error. But in all cases of perceptive judgments the test 
 of truth involves something more than the mental content and its 
 arrangement. Whether a judgment is true or no depends on how far 
 that content is an adequate and harmonious expression of the nature 
 of a reality which is for itself as well as for the cognising subject. 
 Such a test might be termed one of working-value, provided the impli- 
 cations of the term * working ' are duly acknowledged. 
 
 The idea of truth as internal coherence is valuable in complement- 
 ing and supporting what, for convenience, may be termed the ' corre- 
 spondence ' notion. It will not work as an absolute and exclusive test 
 just because reality is not exhausted by a coherent system of 
 judgments. If per impossibile this were achieved, the conception of 
 truth would have disappeared ; for the very judgment that the 
 absolute system was true would imply a reference of the system 
 beyond itself. If, however, we do not urge the notion of coherence in 
 this all-embracing sense, but treat it as signifying the development of 
 a connected whole of judgments, starting from experienced data and 
 if possible returning to them again, we fully admit the importance of 
 such a method of proof. It affords a more comprehensive test of 
 validity, and the support which each element has to give the others 
 within the system makes the process of detecting error more sure and 
 searching. The limitation of the method lies in the difificulty of being 
 certain, that all the elements which are necessary to make the 
 construction adequate to reality have been taken into account. Hence 
 the importance of being able to show the system is verified by facts of 
 experience which are immediately certain, or by preceptive judgments. 
 The elaborate mathematical construction which deduced the existence 
 of the planet Neptune from certain disturbances in the orbit of 
 Uranus, and determined the position of the disturbing body, received 
 an invaluable confirmation when Neptune was found by the telescope 
 in the place indicated by Adams and Leverrier. The first astronomi- 
 cal calculations of the times of the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites were 
 found to differ in varying degrees from the observed times. A fact 
 had been ignored, because it was then unknown — the time light takes 
 to travel. These illustrations prove how valuable it is for a connected 
 
20 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 system of judgments to come back on some point of the experienced 
 world for verification. Or take the case of a historical judgment such 
 as ' Caesar crossed the Rubicon.' We test the truth of the proposition 
 by showing that it fits into a coherent whole of historical judgments. 
 But the system of judgments which relate to the Roman Empire and 
 its destinies has a connexion with the existing world, which requires 
 the Roman Empire to explain it. Even in this instance coherence 
 has a point of support in the experienced world. But coherence by 
 itself can never be an absolute test of truth, for internal completeness 
 of system is not attainable. Any system of judgments we can think 
 out will fall within the larger whole of reality ; and to that larger 
 whole it can never be fully adequate. 
 
 The result of the foregoing discussion may be thus summarised. The 
 notions of truth and value alike contain a reference to a real order or 
 system which the experient subject does not make. In the case of 
 value this objective reference is implied in the idea of 'goods,' which 
 represent facts as qualified by the valuations of the subject. But this 
 qualification, of course, presupposes an intrinsic character in the thing 
 qualified. Truth, again, exists in the form of judgment; if you go 
 below or above that form the term ' true ' ceases to have a meaning. 
 The constant implication of truth is reference to a reality which the 
 subject who judges accepts but does not create. The idea of truth 
 signifies a harmonious and adequate relation of the content of ideas to 
 transsubjective reality on the one side, and to the thinking and willing 
 subject on the other. There cannot be a single and exclusive test of 
 truth : different methods of verification must, so far as possible, be 
 made to supplement and support one another. 
 
 If the foregoing line of thought is sound, certain conclusions follow 
 which are of importance to our main subject.")^ Theological doctrines, 
 we have seen, claim to express values and to set forth truths. And 
 in view of what has been said we think it impossible to treat these 
 conceptions as terms which merely denote subjective satisfactions. 
 In laying claim to truth we make a demand on reality, and in 
 positing values to be realised we postulate that the nature of the real 
 world is such that it admits of this realisation. For many religious 
 people the assurance that these demands are met is, and will remain, 
 a matter of faith ; and if the rights of faith are questioned they fall 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 21 
 
 back on authority, The theologian too is often anxious to shun 
 commerce with philosophy on the plea that his dogmas represent 
 truths and values historically guaranteed. But the inherent difficulties 
 and limitations of the purely historical method are very apparent to 
 thoughtful minds : sooner or later they are urged to test by reflective 
 thinking the postulates of religion. This means that we endeavour 
 to bring the world-view which our religious doctrines express into 
 harmonious relation with that deeper and more comprehensive 
 thinking of experience we name philosophy. /Philosophy stands for a 
 more complete solution of the world-problem than the solution given 
 by religion. For its aim is synoptic, and its task is to think out 
 coherently the meaning of experience as a whole. The religious 
 mind reaches its conception of the world by following out the 
 implications of religious experience. For philosophy the development 
 of the religious consciousness is a highly suggestive and important 
 fact ; nevertheless it is only one aspect of experience. There are 
 other aspects that fall to be considered, and it is the business of 
 philosophy from the first to think things together. Subject and 
 object, thought and being, value and fact, these are the contrasted 
 elements of reality whose inner connexion speculative thought seeks 
 to explain by referring them to an ultimate Ground or unifying 
 Principle. The aim of philosophy is system : it strives to show that 
 experience is coherent throughout and satisfies the mind's desire for 
 unity. While the world-view of religion is primarily the expression 
 of faith, that of philosophy is developed by the exercise of reason or 
 synthetic thinking. Hence the ideal of philosophy is systematic 
 order, — the rational articulation of elements within a whole ; and it 
 cannot agree to treat anything as arbitrary or accidental. In a sense 
 philosophy is only carrying out the principle of scientific explanation 
 at a higher level and with a more comprehensive purpose. For the 
 partial synthesis of science it tries to substitute a complete synthesis, 
 in which each element has a determinate place and function in the 
 organised totality. Were this purpose realised, a theological doctrine 
 would have precisely that degree of validity which philosophy 
 assigned to it : in a word; the truth of theology would be philosophy. 
 It is abundantly clear, however, that no complete realisation of the 
 ideal is possible. For one thing the process of experience itself whose 
 
22 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 meaning we try to read is an unfinished process. And we survey the 
 movement from a point within it : we cannot cHmb some mount of 
 vision apart and see all reality sub specie aeternitatis. Moreover the 
 philosophic thinker is constrained to accept immediate data of 
 experience as his starting point, and he can never so carry out his 
 work of construction as to come back on his data and give them their 
 place and meaning in the fully articulated whole. The work of 
 rationalisation is incomplete, and it can never be completed. The 
 development of reason is an aspect of the development of the historic 
 life ; and, so long as the historic process continues, it will continue to 
 set new problems to thought, and the task of reason will be unfinished. 
 It is possible to go a step further, and to point out that the conception 
 of rationality, taken by itself, is an abstraction which will not work. 
 Reason always presupposes that there is something to rationalise, and 
 its exercise is stimulated by the presence of materials calling for 
 explanation. The reasoning process goes back to data which are the 
 object of immediate conviction or faith, and however far we carry the 
 work of rationalisation we always leave off with unrationalised 
 elements on our hands. This non-rational residuum will not vanish, 
 for experience is richer than thought, and thinking as judgment 
 always refers beyond itself. Reason, in the personal life, is constantly 
 qualified by the presence of conation and feeling, nor is it possible to 
 reduce conation and feeling to reason, although there is no inherent 
 contradiction between them. Rationality, we hold therefore, will 
 ever signify an unfinished process for us, — a process which represents 
 in its outcome our most connected, consistent and harmonious reading 
 of our experience. Philosophy is thus partial in its achievement, and 
 the ripest philosophy of an age is the measure of its insight into the 
 meaning of the world. The toil of trying to think things together 
 goes on because it is a permanent need of our nature : the mind is 
 driven to seek the counterpart of its own unity in the world, and 
 incoherency is a challenge to thought. Philosophy, though it never 
 comes to its goal, is a salutary corrective to the departmental spirit, 
 and it helps to free us from the tyranny of abstractions. 
 
 We have now come in view of a question of cardinal importance 
 for our present enquiry.'/' Granted that the aim, scope and outcome 
 of philosophy are such as here described, with what justice can 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 23 
 
 philosophical thought influence theological doctrines ? Is its outlook 
 wide enough, its insight deep enough, to constitute a claim to be 
 heard which the theologian ought not to disregard ? In order to 
 answer this question let us ask how far the speculative thinker can 
 cast light on those questions which, we have seen, are admittedly 
 raised by the theologian without being solved. Broadly regarded the 
 questions referred to are concerned with the relation of the ideal to 
 the real aspect of experience. Spiritual values, as we have seen, are 
 somehow connected with the world of facts through the idea of goods. 
 And there is the claim of religious faith that the values of the personal 
 life are true and harmonise with reality, and that spiritual ends are 
 realised in the real world. The point at issue is not whether philoso- 
 phical thinking can rationally solve the body of problems here 
 involved : in our view no claim of the sort can be made good by 
 philosophy. But the point is whether philosophy, in the form of 
 metaphysics, is able to deal with these problems in a helpful way, and 
 to carry them forward on the road towards a settlement. If it can do 
 so, as we think it can, then, as the expression of man's rational 
 activity, its results should be harmonised with the expression of man's 
 religious faith : for faith and reason, however contrasted, are the 
 reactions of the one human nature upon experience, and cannot be 
 diametrically opposed. 
 
 When we survey the results of metaphysical thought, we find, of 
 course, that it only gives a partial solution of these problems. The 
 philosopher cannot rise to a First Principle of things, and then show 
 deductively how this Principle comes to differentiate itself in the 
 kingdoms of nature and of spirit. He must begin with experience, 
 which is a continuous process of development, and try to make clear 
 by reflexion what is implied in its gradual differentiation into 
 subjective and objective aspects. The speculative thinker, in our 
 view, finds that the experienced world, the world given in presentation, 
 rests on the interaction of individual selves or centres of experience 
 with a system of independent not-selves ; and in this interaction 
 the nature of both factors is manifested. In thinking out the 
 meaning of this interaction, he has to consider whether the contrasts 
 of ideal and real, of value and fact, are not distinctions which fall 
 within the developing system of spiritual beings and represent modes 
 
24 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES AND 
 
 of their interaction. The question then follows, how we are to conceive 
 the source or ground of this interacting system of spiritual factors 
 which includes within it self-conscious and spiritual persons. The 
 conclusions bear vitally on religion, for the Ultimate Reality of 
 metaphysics must correspond to the God of the religious consciousness. 
 Any real discord between the conceptions of philosophy and of 
 religion imposes on us the task of striving towards coherency. 
 In such matters as the nature of the Supreme Spirit, the relation 
 of God to time and to finite spirits, the Divine immanence and 
 transcendence, the theologian must strive, so far as he consistently 
 can, to bring religious doctrines into concord with the issues of 
 philosophical thinking. The religious mind is prone to be anthropo- 
 morphic, and to use analogies freely without examining their validity ; 
 while speculative thought represents a more comprehensive and 
 critical method of trying to understand the universe. Hence it 
 supplies a test — not absolute indeed, but certainly valuable — by which 
 theology may be purged from uncritical assumptions, as well as 
 delivered from one-sided conceptions that cannot be thought out 
 consistently. In making this statement I have deliberately introduced 
 qualifications. The theologian, if he is to conserve the values on 
 which the religious life rests, cannot comply with all the demands 
 philosophy has made in the past, or may make in the future. 
 Philosophy, for instance, might insist that explanation means the 
 reduction of all the differences of experience to an all-embracing 
 identity; it might proclaim (it has done so) that the universe is 
 a single real Being, a timeless Absolute of which all individuals 
 are in the end only unreal appearances. A thorough-going monism 
 of this sort, the theologian may fairly protest, does not explain 
 religious values, but explains them away. In an earlier part of this 
 paper I pointed out the importance of bringing the idea of truth 
 as coherence to the test of direct experience. The support received 
 from data of experience guarantees that a consistent thought-system 
 is objectively valid, and is therefore more than formal. In the 
 present instance it is impossible to doubt that religious doctrines 
 are the expression of spiritual experiences which refuse to harmonise 
 with such a theory of the universe. Spiritual selves claim to be real ; 
 and our consciousness of freedom and our sense of moral evil decline 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT 25 
 
 to be relegated to the category of illusions. Here are experiences 
 
 which do not fit into the universe conceived as a single real and 
 
 timelessly perfect Being. The religious consciousness, by thus 
 
 insisting on its claims to be heard, is able to exercise a wholesome 
 
 influence on philosophical speculation. It reminds the thinker that 
 
 religious experience is at least a fact, a fact which he is bound 
 
 to take into account. A philosophy responsive to this appeal will 
 
 not sacrifice the spiritual values to the interests of a speculative 
 
 monism. It will rather explain the coherence of value and reality 
 
 teleologically, tracing back the whole system of existences to a 
 
 Supreme Will which is their Source and End. A speculative theory, 
 
 which has profited thus by religious experience, is in a position to 
 
 influence theology in its turn by making plain the directions in which 
 
 religious doctrines require modification or development. For we 
 
 have to remember that theological doctrines at best can only claim 
 
 to represent one phase of experience, and they must be harmonised 
 
 with experience as a whole. Philosophy is just the endeavour to 
 
 exhibit the meaning of this wider experience. 
 
 Neither philosophy nor theology can lay claim to finality. No 
 
 theological dogma nor any philosophical theory will be the last word 
 
 on the subject. Out of the onward moving historic life come new 
 
 feelings of value and fresh readings of what experience means. 
 
 A dogma can only be a living form for the present in so far as 
 
 the spiritual life of the present reads into it its own religious values. 
 
 A speculative system marks the insight of an age into the meaning 
 
 of life. But the body of knowledge grows swiftly, and the old 
 
 synthesis soon fails to harmonise the increased materials. The very 
 
 conditions under which man strives to rationalise the world preclude 
 
 more than a partial success : — 
 
 "Veil after veil will lift — but there must be 
 Veil upon veil behind." 
 
 In the circumstances, the philosopher and the theologian, having 
 cast away all pretensions to infallibility, may consult together to 
 advantage. Both offer us a Weltanschauung, but it has been reached 
 from different starting-points and by diverse routes. Yet, since both 
 claim to be true, they should agree with each other. If the two 
 world-views will not blend and harmonise, there is need for mutual 
 
26 THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES 
 
 criticism and counsel. The precise kind of help which the one 
 can render the other will vary at various epochs.y The best service 
 philosophical thought can do for theological doctrines at a particular 
 time may be, by criticism to help to purify them from temporary 
 and accidental elements which do not enter into the substance of the 
 spiritual life. At another time the reality and persistency of Christian 
 experience may be an influence which helps to emancipate philosophy 
 from the impasse of pantheism, and to lead it in the direction of 
 theism. But whether the issue of interaction between theology and 
 philosophy be a critical or a constructive movement, it will be a 
 movement which plays a part in man's spiritual development. Faith 
 and reason, theology and philosophy, are forms in which man gives 
 meaning to his experience, and by their interaction they deepen 
 and enlarge his personal life. The rigid separation of the one from 
 the other lessens the possibilities of spiritual progress, and seems to 
 ignore the unity of the mind. 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVFRSI'lV PRESS BV ROBERT MACl.EHOSIi AND CO. I.TI). 
 
METHOD IN THE STUDY OF 
 
 TOTEMISM 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW LANG 
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 ?«ttt«b at tht anibersits tf^xtee bg 
 
 ROBERT MACLEHOSE & CO., LTD. 
 
 1911 
 

 ^^y 
 
Method in the Study of Toterhism 
 
 Is there any human institution which can be safely called " Totem- 
 ism"? Is there any possibility of defining, or even describing 
 Totemism ? Is it legitimate — is it even possible, with due regard for 
 "methodology" and logic — to seek for the "normal" form of Totem- 
 ism, and to trace it through many Protean changes, produced by 
 various causes, social and speculative ? I think it possible to discern 
 the main type of Totemism, and to account for divergences. 
 
 Quite the opposite opinion appears to be held by Mr. ^. V{. Golden- 
 weizer in his " Totemism, an Analytic Study." ^ This treatise is 
 acutely critical and very welcome, as it enables British inquirers about 
 totemism to see themselves as they appear " in larger other eyes than 
 ours." Our common error, we learn, is this : " A feature salient in the 
 totemic life of some community is seized upon only to be projected 
 into the life of the remote past, and to be made the starting-point of 
 the totemic process. The intermediary stages and secondary features 
 are supplied from local evidence, by analogy with other communities, 
 or ' in accordance with recognised principles of evolution ' [what are 
 they ■'] and of logic. The origin and development, thus arrived at, 
 are then used as principles of interpretation of the present conditions. 
 Not one step in the above method of attacking the problem of totem- 
 ism is logically justifiable." ^ 
 
 As I am the unjustifiable sinner quoted in this extract,^ I may 
 observe that my words are cited from a harmless statement to the 
 effect that a self-consistent " hypothesis," or " set of guesses," which 
 colligates all the known facts in a problem, is better than a self- 
 contradictory hypothesis which does not colligate the facts. 
 
 ^ Journal of American Folk-Lore, April-June, 1910. 
 V- A- F- P- 280. 3 Secret of the Totem, p. 28. 
 
 A 
 
 
2 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 Now the " feature salient in the totemic life of some communities," 
 which I " project into the life of the remote past," and " make the 
 starting-point of the totemic process" is the totemic name, animal, 
 vegetable, or what not, of the totem-kin. 
 
 Jh fiFi.-attempt to construct a theory of the origin of totemism, the 
 
 ^.. choice of thq .totemic name as a starting-point is logically justifiable, 
 
 .'"* beckuse .the-.ppssession of a totemic name is, tiniversally , the mark of a 
 
 totem-kin; or, as most writers prefer to say, "clan." How can you 
 
 know that a clan is totemic, if it is not called by a totemic name? 
 
 The second salient feature in the totemic life of some communities 
 
 which I select as even prior to the totemic name, is the exogamy of 
 
 the " clans " now bearing totemic names. 
 
 ' To these remarks Mr. Goldenweizer would reply (I put his ideas 
 
 briefly) there are (i) exogamous clans without totemic names; and 
 
 there are (2) clans with totemic names, but without exogamy. 
 
 To this I answer (i) that if his exogamous clan has not a totemic 
 name, I do not quite see why it should be discussed in connection with 
 totemism ; but that many exogamous sets, bearing not totemic names, 
 but local names or nicknames, can be proved to have at one time borne 
 totemic names. Such exogamous sets, therefore, no longer bearing 
 totemic names, are often demonstrably variations from the totemic 
 type; and are not proofs that there is no such thing as a totemic 
 type. 
 (9. Secondly, I answer, in the almost unique case of "clans" bearing 
 totemic names without being exogamous, that these " clans " have pre- 
 viously been exogamous, and have, under ascertained conditions, 
 shuffled off exogamy. They are deviations from the prevalent type of 
 clans with totemic names //^^j exogamy. They are exceptions to the 
 rule, and, as such, they prove the rule. They are divergences from the 
 type, and, as such, they prove the existence of the type from which 
 they have diverged. 
 
 So far I can defend my own method : it starts from features that 
 are universal, or demonstrably have been universal in totemism. 
 There is " an organic unity of the features of totemism," — of these two 
 features, the essential features. 
 
 Lastly, Mr. Goldenweizer accuses us " Britishers," as he calls us, of 
 neglecting in our speculations the effects of " borrowing and diffusion. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 3 
 
 of assimilation and secondary associations of cultural elements, in 
 primitive societies." ^ 
 
 This charge I do not understand. There has been much discussion 
 of possibilities of the borrowing and diffusion and assimilation of 
 phratries, exogamy, and of totemic institutions ; and of " ethnic in- 
 fluences," influences of races, in Australia. But the absence of historical 
 information, the almost purely mythical character of tribal legends 
 (in North-West America going back to the Flood, in Australia, to the 
 " Dream Time "), with our ignorance of Australian philology, prevent 
 us in this field from reaching conclusions. 
 
 (Possibly philologists may yet cast some light on "ethnic influences" 
 in Australia. The learned editor of Anthropos, Pere Schmidt, tells 
 me that he has made a study of Australian languages and believes 
 that he has arrived at interesting results.) 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer represents, though unofficially, the studies of many 
 earnest inquirers of North America, whether British subjects, like Mr. 
 Hill Tout, or American citizens such as Dr. Boas. They vary, to be 
 sure, among themselves, as to theories, but they vary also from British 
 speculators. They have personally and laboriously explored and loyally 
 reported on totemism among the tribes of the north-west Pacific coast 
 and Hinterland ; totemism among these tribes has especially occupied 
 them ; whereas British anthropologists have chiefly, though by no means 
 solely, devoted themselves to the many varieties of totemism exhibited 
 by the natives of Australia. These Australian tribes are certainly on 
 perhaps the lowest known human level of physical culture, whereas the 
 tribes of British Columbia possess wealth, " towns," a currency (in 
 blankets), rank (noble, free, unfree), realistic art, and heraldry as a mark 
 of rank, and of degrees of wealth. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer's method is to contrast the North-Western 
 American form of totemism with that prevalent in Central Australia, 
 and to ask, — how, among so many differences, can you discover a 
 type, an original norm } I answer that both in North-Western 
 America and in Central Australia, we find differences which can be 
 proved to arise from changes in physical and "cultural" conditions and 
 from speculative ideas. I have said that in British Columbia the 
 tribes are in a much more advanced state of culture than any 
 
 !/• A. F. p. 281. 
 
4 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 Australian peoples, and their culture has affected their society and 
 their totemism. Wealth, distinctions of rank, realistic art, with its 
 result in heraldry as a mark of rank, and fixed residence in groups of 
 houses are conditions unknown to the Australian tribes, and have 
 necessarily provided divergences in totemic institutions. Mr. Golden- 
 weizer replies " that the American conditions are due to the fact that 
 the tribes of British Columbia are ' advanced ' cannot be admitted." ^ 
 But, admitted or not, it can be proved, as I hope to demonstrate. 
 
 II. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer gives what he supposes some of us to regard as 
 " essential characteristics " or " symptoms " of totemism. He numbers 
 five of these " symptoms." 
 
 1. An exogamous clan.. 
 
 2. A clan name derived from the totem. 
 
 3. A religious attitude towards the totem, as a " friend," " brother," 
 "protector," &c. 
 
 4. Taboos or restrictions against the killing, eating (sometimes 
 touching, seeing) of the totem. 
 
 5. A belief in descent from the totem. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer next, by drawing a contrast between British 
 Columbian and Central Australian totemism, tries to prove, if I 
 understand him, that " the various features of totemism," are, or may 
 be " essentially independent of one another," " historically, or psycho- 
 logically, or both."'-^ 
 
 Now, looking at the five symptoms of totemism, I may repeat 
 (speaking only for myself) that, as to i and 2, I think the exogamous 
 clan, with "a clan name derived from the totem" is an institution of 
 such very wide diffusion that I may blamelessly study it and attempt 
 to account to myself for its existence. But this does not mean that I 
 regard all exogamous social sets as at present totemic ; or as always 
 having borne totem names. Again, sets of people (I cannot call 
 them " clans," for the word " clan " indicates persons claiming common 
 descent from a male ancestor, — say Clan Gilzean, Clan Diarmaid)^ may 
 bear animal or vegetable or other such names, yet not be at present, 
 as such, exogamous. Of these are the Arunta, and the Narran-ga. 
 V- A. F.'^. 287. y. A. F. p. 183. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 5 
 
 3. A religious attitude towards the totem. One cannot discuss this 
 without a definition of religion. " Totemism is not a religion," says 
 Mr. Frazer, with whom I am here in agreement. 
 
 4. Toteviic taboos. These, though extremely general, are not quite 
 universal even in Australia. 
 
 5. A belief in descent from the totem. 
 
 This belief is post-totemic, being merely one of many aetiological 
 myths by which men explain to themselves wJiy they are totemists ; 
 what is the nature of the rapport between them and their totems ; 
 why they bear as a kin (or association) animal or vegetable names. 
 One or another such myth is not an essential part of totemism, for it 
 is, necessarily, post-totemic. 
 
 I am thus left confronting the problems, (i) why are the immense 
 majority of exogamous kins, in societies which we call " totemic," 
 named by animal and other such names ; and (2) why are they 
 exogamous ? 
 
 As for other exogamous social sets, which bear, not animal names, 
 but territorial, or descriptive names, or nicknames, often derisive, it is 
 my business to show, if I can, that these sets, or some of them, have 
 passed, in historical times, out of the stage of totem-kins, owing to 
 circumstances which I shall describe. Next (2) I have to show, if 
 I can, why a few sets of people, bearing, as sets or associations, animal 
 or other such names, are now no longer exogamous. 
 
 If I succeed, I think that I may regard "Totemism " as characterised 
 by exogamous kins bearing totemic names, and as "an integral 
 phenomenon " existing in many various forms.^ 
 
 If I understand Mr. Goldenweizer this attitude and effort of mine 
 must seem to him " methodologically " erroneous, and " logically 
 unjustifiable." " This attitude," he says (namely the attitude of those 
 who hold totemism to be "an integral phenomenon"), "is reflected 
 in the way several authors deal with the so-called 'survivals' of 
 totemism, where from the presence in some region of one or two of 
 the ' symptoms ' of totemism, or of the fragments of such symptoms, 
 
 ^ But I exclude from my treatment of the subject, the "Matrimonial Classes," or "sub- 
 classes" of many Australian tribes, for these are peculiar to Australia, appear to be results of 
 deliberate conscious enactment, and, though they bear animal names (when their names can 
 be translated), have no traceable connection with totemism. 
 
 A 2 
 
 i 
 
6 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 they infer the existence in the past of totemism in its ' typical form,' 
 that is, with all its essential characteristics." ^ 
 
 Thus, for example, from such phenomena as standards bearing 
 animal forms ; or from animal worship, — each animal being adored in 
 its own district, — or from myths of descent from gods in the form of 
 animals ; or from the animal names of some Roman gentes ; or from 
 I animals closely associated with gods (like the Shrew Mouse with 
 Sminthian Apollo) ; or from the presence of beings partly therio- 
 morphic partly anthropomorphic, in art, many writers infer a past of 
 totemism in Italy ; Israel ; Greece Hellenic and Greece Minoan ; in 
 Egypt ; in Ireland ; and so forth. It is not my purpose to treat of 
 such so-called survivals. I am to deal with peoples such as the tribes 
 of Australia, New Guinea, and North-West America, who, if not the 
 rose, have been near the rose : if not always totemic are at least neigh- 
 bours of totemists. 
 
 III. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer tabulates the results of his comparison between 
 the Totemism of British Columbia and that of Central Australia.^ 
 
 V- A. F.Y>. 182. 
 
 ^J. A. F. p. 229. I give the tabular form in this note 
 
 TOTEMISM IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND CENTRAL AUSTRALIA 
 
 British Columbia 
 
 Exoga^ny (i) 
 
 Totonic names (2) .- 
 
 Tahoo (3) / 
 
 Descentjrom the totem f 
 (4) ^ 
 
 Totemic phratries (Tlingit) 
 Totemic clans (Haida, Tsimshian, North- 
 ern Kwakiutl) 
 
 Phratries (Tlingii) 
 Clans (Haida) 
 2 of 4 clans (Tsimshian) 
 Clans (Northern Kwakiutl) 
 
 Non-totemic taboo, common ; totemic, 
 absent 
 
 Absent (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian) 
 Occurs (Kwakiutl and farther South) 
 
 Central Australia 
 
 Phratries 
 Classes 
 
 Totem clans (generally not independent 
 exogamous units) 
 
 All totem clans 
 
 Numerous totemic and non-totemic 
 taboos 
 
 Universal 
 
 Magical ceremonies (s) 
 Reincarnation (6) . . 
 Guardia7i spirits (7) . 
 
 Art (8) 
 
 Rank (9) . . , . . 
 Number of totems (10) 
 
 Not associated with totemism 
 
 Intimately associated with totemism 
 
 Not associated with totemism 
 
 Intimately associated with totemism 
 
 Intimately associated with totemism 
 
 Actively associated with totemism 
 
 Not associated with totemism 
 Passively associated with totemism 
 
 Conspicuous (in individuals and groups) 
 
 Absent 
 
 Small 
 
 Large 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 7 
 
 In the latter region the totemic institutions and myths are not those 
 of South-Eastern Australia. To the totemism of many tribes in 
 South-Eastern Australia that of a great tribe of British Columbia, the 
 Tlingit, bears, — if we may trust some of the evidence, — the closest 
 possible resemblance ; while, if we trust other and conflicting evidence, 
 the resemblance is, on an important point, nearer to the institutions of 
 certain Australian tribes of the furthest south, in Cape Yorke 
 peninsula. The evidence for British Columbian totemism, I shall show, 
 is so wavering as to make criticism difficult. The terminology, too, of 
 some American students has been extremely perplexing. I am sorry 
 to be obliged to dwell on this point, but a terminology which seems 
 to apply five or six separate terms to the same social unit needs 
 reform. 
 
 Dr. Boas is one of the most energetic field-anthropologists of the 
 United States. To him we owe sixteen separate disquisitions and 
 reports on the natives of the North- West Pacific coast and Hinterland, 
 all of them cited by Mr. Goldenweizer in his excellent Bibliography. 
 But Mr. Frazer observes that Dr. Boas variously denominates the 
 kindred groups of the Kwakiutl tribe as "groups," "clans," " gentes," 
 and " families." I must add that he also uses gentes as a synonym for 
 phratries — " Phratries, viz. gentes!' ^ Now a " phratry " is not a gens ; 
 a " group " may be anything you please ; a " family " is not a gens ; — 
 a "gens" is an aggregate of families, — and a " clan " is not a " family." 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer's tabulated form of his comparisons between British 
 Columbia and Australia contains ten categories (see the last footnote 
 of p. 6). Of these, two at least (8) (9) indicate elements which are 
 purely proofs that the B.C. tribes are on a much higher, or later, level 
 of social progress than the Australians. These two are Ra7ik and Art. 
 Had Mr. Goldenweizer added Wealth and Towns to his ten categories 
 he would have given four factors in B.C. culture which affect B.C. 
 totemism, and which do not exist in Central Australia, where realistic 
 art is all but wholly unknown : art being occupied with archaic con- 
 ventional patterns. Thus, in Australia, the bewildering B.C. heraldry 
 — the " crests " — cannot, as in B.C., confuse the statements of observers, 
 perplex their terminology (for they often use " crests " as synonyms of 
 
 1 Franz Boas, Fifth Report of the Committee on the North- Western Tribes of Canada, p. 32, 
 cited in Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iii. p. 319, note 2 ; cf. p. 321. 
 
8 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 " totems "), and disorganise totemism itself. But we can find, not far 
 from Australia, a parallel to this heraldry in New Guinea. For 
 " crests " or badges in Central British New Guinea, see Totemism and 
 Exogamy, vol. ii. pp. 42-44. The people, like the B.C. tribes, are settled 
 in villages. They have " a number of exogamous clans," most clans 
 occupying several villages, and they have paternal descent. " Every 
 clan " (as apparently in some cases in British Columbia) " has a 
 number of badges called Oaoa, which, generally speaking, may only be 
 worn or used by members of the clan." The *'clan" names are 
 geographical or are patronymics, they are not totemic ; the badges 
 either represent birds and mammals, or are " schematised " from some 
 prominent feature of these. The people are not now totemists, even 
 if they have passed through totemism. 
 
 Again (category 5), in British Columbia, "Magical Ceremonies are 
 not associated with Totemism." In Central Australia they are 
 " intimately associated with totemism." Yes, but in South-Eastern 
 Australia they are not, as far as our evidence informs us. Magical 
 ceremonies are not in Mr. Goldenweizer's list of five symptoms or 
 characteristic peculiarities of totemism, so I leave them out of account. 
 
 Again, as to Taboo (category 3), in British Columbia, " non-totemic 
 taboo is common ; totemic, absent." 
 
 As to this "absence," Mr. Frazer has a great deal to say. For 
 example, we have Commander Mayne's book, Four Years in British 
 Columbia, a work of 1862, in which is given information from Mr. 
 William Duncan, a missionary among the Tsimshian tribe. All such 
 evidence given prior to controversies about totemism is valuable. 
 According to this account, the Indians used, as " crests," representations 
 of Whale, Porpoise, Eagle, Raven, Wolf, Frog, etc. Every person was 
 obliged to marry out of the name of the animal represented by his 
 crest, and each " clan " tabooed its animal, " will never kill the animal 
 which he has adopted for his crest, or which belongs to him as his 
 birthright," that is, apparently, his " familiar," and his inherited totem. 
 This is original totemism in North- West America. 
 
 Mr. Frazer says, " So far as I remember, no other writer on these 
 North-Western Indians has mentioned their reluctance to kill their 
 totemic animals. In the course of this work I have repeatedly called 
 attention to the paucity of information on this important side of 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OP' TOTEMISM 9 
 
 totemism in the writings of American ethnologists." ^ Mr. Frazer also 
 finds the usual totemic taboo among the Yuchi, a tribe of the Gulf 
 nations.^ 
 
 In Central Australia are " numerous totemic and non-totemic taboos." 
 But in other parts of Australia there are also tribes where people even 
 kill and eat their totems. The totemic taboo is an extremely common 
 institution, but not a note stantisvel cadentis ecclesiae. 
 
 Another category is (4), " Descent from the Totem." As I have 
 said, the belief in this descent is a mere explanatory myth to account 
 for totemism ; and, like all other such myths, could only arise after 
 men were not only totemic, but wondered why they were totemic. 
 Consequently such myths are not of the essence of totemism, and their 
 varieties are of no importance. 
 
 The belief, or myth, of totemic descent is absent in British Columbia, 
 says Mr. Goldenweizer, in the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes, 
 and present " among the Kwakiutl and further south." In Central 
 Australia descent from the totem is " universal." 
 
 But it is a queer kind of " descent," is not, in the usual sense, descent 
 at all, and, notoriously, is not descent by physical generation. 
 
 Then we have the category (7), " Guardian Spirits, intimately 
 associated with Totemism " in British Columbia, " not associated with 
 it in Central Australia." Yet, in Central Australia, a man's spirit is 
 a totemic spirit. Again (10), "Number of Totems." In British 
 Columbia " small," in Central Australia " large." But it is " small " in 
 such central regions of Australia as those of the Dieri and Urabunna, 
 and in South-Eastern Australia ; and why it is so large among the 
 Arunta no man knows. It is an unexplained peculiarity, and not 
 essential. 
 
 " Reincarnation " (6) is, in British Columbia, " not associated with 
 Totemism," in Central Australia "intimately associated with Totemism." 
 Here, Mr. Strehlow, for the Southern Arunta, reports otherwise; while 
 for the Northern Arunta and other tribes, this " reincarnation " is part 
 of a speculative explanatory myth. The myth, as I can show, 
 explains, at one stroke, how men come to have souls, and why men are 
 
 1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iii. pp. 309-311. 
 
 ^F. G. Speck, Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians, Philadelphia, 1909, pp. 70 J17. Totemism 
 and Exogamy, vol. iv. p. 312, cf. vol. iii. p. 181. 
 
lo METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 totemic. We know the kind of savage philosophy which accounts for 
 this category. 
 
 I have now remarked on eight out of Mr. Goldenweizer's ten cate- 
 gories of differences between British Columbian and South Australian 
 totemism ; all of them, I think, are separable accidents of totemism ; 
 and most of them are easily to be accounted for by actual differences 
 of culture, of social conditions, and by variety of savage taste and 
 fancy in making guesses as to why totemists are totemistic. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We next arrive at the two first of Mr, Goldenweizer's categories. 
 These are concerned with points of such very wide diffusion in the 
 totemic world that I, under correction, take leave to regard them as 
 " normal," while I hold that such variations from the norm as exist 
 can be explained — as aberrations. 
 
 The first of these two categories is announced as : • 
 
 BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 TTotemic phratries (Tlingit). 
 ^ [Totemic clans (Haida, Tsimshian, Northern Kwakiutl). 
 
 CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. 
 rPhratries. 
 
 Exogamy 
 
 (Classes. 
 Totem clans (generally not independent exogamous 
 units). 
 
 This needs explanation ! By " \.o\.q.tc{\c phratries " in the case of the 
 Tlingits, Mr. Goldenweizer means the two main exogamous divisions 
 of the tribe, Wolf and Raven. By " totemic clans" in the case of the 
 Haida, he also means the two main exogamous divisions, Raven and 
 Eagle, which, really, are phratries. But it is also clear that Mr. 
 Goldenweizer is here using the word " clans " as it exists in the 
 peculiar terminology of Dr. Swanton. Mr. Goldenweizer informs us 
 that " Dr. Swanton now fully recognises the strict parallelism of the 
 social units of the Tlingit and Haida, and sanctions the use of 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM n 
 
 'phratry' and clan in both cases." This terminological source of 
 confusion happily disappears. 
 
 We are now, alas, entering a region where the variations of evidence, 
 the confusions of terminology, and the influence of wealth and rank in 
 the creation of heraldry, cause extreme perplexity. Meanwhile, as the 
 Haida "clans" of the category are, in fact, phratries ; on the other 
 hand the " totemic clans " of the Tsimshians and Northern Kwakiutl 
 (Raven, Eagle, Hawk, Wolf), and six " totemic clans " of the Northern 
 Kwakiutl seem destitute of phratries, which, among the Arunta of 
 Central Australia, have also died out. Mr. Goldenweizer, however, 
 assigns phratries to Central Australia, the Arunta have none;^ also 
 " totem clans," where there are none, for the totemically named 
 associations of the Arunta are not "clans," in the normal and usual 
 sense of that word ; they are not kins but associations. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer, in his first category, speaks of Central Australia 
 as possessing totemic " clans " (" generally not independent exogamous 
 units "). If by " Central Australia " he means the Arunta group of 
 tribes, they have, I repeat, no " totemic clans " ; they have only 
 clubs with totemic names, and these associations are not "exo- 
 gamous units." Where phratries with totem kins in them exist, no 
 totem kin is or can be "an independent exogamous unit," except where 
 one totem to one totem marriage prevails, as among certain Australian 
 tribes. But if the phratry rule be dropped, as Morgan says it was 
 among the Iroquois, then people may marry into any totem kin 
 except their own, and each totem kin becomes an "independent 
 exogamous unit."^ 
 
 Thus the first category in Mr. Goldenweizer's list needs a good deal 
 of explanation and criticism. 
 
 The second category is Totemic Navies. Under these, in British 
 Columbia, are : 
 
 " Phratries (Tlingit)." 
 
 "Clans (Haida)." (But these are phratries.) 
 
 " Two of four clans Tsimshian." 
 
 "Clans (Northern Kwakiutl)." 
 
 'That is, the matrimonial classes, eight in all, are divided into two sets of four each, but 
 these sets are nameless. 
 
 '^L. A. Morgan, League of the Iroqttois, pp. 79-S3. 
 
12 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 In place of two animal-named clans out of four, Mr. Frazer assigns 
 four animal-named clans to the Tsimshians ;^ Raven, Eagle, Wolf, and 
 Bear. {T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 307-308.) Mr. Goldenweizer himself^ 
 also assigns these fotir animal-named clans to the Tsimshians. But, in 
 his table,^ he docks two Tsimshian clans of their totem names. He does 
 so also in his p. 190. Thus (p. 187) all of the four Tsimshian "clans" 
 have animal names. But (p. 190), and also in the tabular arrangement, 
 only two of the Tsimshian clans have animal names. Mr. Frazer 
 gives to all four Tsimshian clans the names of animals. Whom are 
 we to believe } * Method is here a little to seek. 
 
 A much more serious puzzle meets us when, in his second category 
 (totemic names), Mr. Goldenweizer assigns no totemic names to the 
 "clans" of the Tlingit, while Mr. F. Boas (whose list is quoted by Mr. 
 Frazer) and Holmberg (1856) do assign totemic names to the Tlingit 
 clans. 
 
 Let us examine this situation. 
 
 If we take a South-East Australian tribe of the Barkinji pattern, we 
 find it divided into two animal-named intermarrying phratries (or 
 
 ^ I may be permitted to note that these four Tsimshian clans look, to me, as if they had 
 
 originally been two pairs of phratries. We find a parallel Australian case in the Narran-ga 
 
 tribe of York's peninsula in South Victoria. Here Mr. Howitt gives us the "classes" (his 
 
 term for phratries) : 
 
 Kayi .... Emu. 
 
 Waui .... Red Kangaroo. 
 
 Wiltu .... Eagle Hawk. 
 
 Wilthathu - - - - Shark. 
 
 Each of these four main divisions had totem kins within it, and, as usual, the same totem 
 
 (all are animals) never occurred in more than one main division. (Howitt, N.T.S.E.A. 
 
 p. 130.) In precisely the same way "crests" of animal name occur in each of the four 
 
 Tsimshian " clans " : 
 
 Raven - - - - Raven, Codfish, Starfish. 
 
 Eagle .... Eagle, Halibut, Beaver, Whale. 
 
 Wolf .... Wolf, Crane, Grizzly Bear. 
 
 Bear .... Killer Whale, Sun, Moon, Stars, Rainbow, 
 
 Grouse, and Sea Monster. 
 
 These "crests," thus arranged, no crest in more than one clan (or phratry?) look like old 
 
 totems in the two pairs of clans, or, as I suspect, of phratries. The Australian parallel 
 
 corroborates the view that the Tsimshian "clans" have been phratries. 
 
 ^J. A. F. p. 187, quoting "Swanton 26th B. E. K., 1904-1905, p. 423." 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 229. 
 
 *The truth seems to be that Mr. Goldenweizer (p. 189) misquotes Mr. Swanton, who 
 
 (26th B. E. R. p. 423) is speaking, not of the Tsimshian but of the Haida. In his p. 190 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer is quoting Dr. Boas, Annual Archceological Report, Toronto, 1905, 
 
 pp. 235-249. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 13 
 
 exogamous intermarrying " classes " or " moieties," I call them 
 " phratries "). In each phratry are totem kins, that is, kins named 
 after animals, vegetables, or other things in nature. The names of 
 phratries and totem kins (I know no other word for them but totem 
 kins or totem clans) descend in the female line. No such totem kin 
 occurs in both exogamous phratries, therefore all these units are 
 necessarily exogamous. 
 
 Two-thirds of the Australian phratry names are untranslated, like 
 those of the Dieri ; the other third, with a single exception (the 
 Euahlayi), are names of animals.^ 
 
 Now turn to the disputable case of the Tlingits of British Columbia. 
 I first examine Mr. Frazer's account of them in Toteniism and 
 Exogamy (vol, iii. pp. 264-278), The Tlingits are divided into two 
 exogamous phratries, or " classes," of animal names, Raven and Wolf 
 (In the north the Wolf "class" is also known as the Eagle.) Phratry 
 exogamy is the rule ; descent is in the female line. Each phratry is 
 subdivided into a number of " clans," which are named after various 
 animals. As no " clan " is represented in both phratries, and as all 
 folk are obliged to marry out of their own phratry, the " clans " are, 
 inevitably, exogamous. 
 
 For purposes of comparison with other British Columbia tribes, I 
 give the list of Tlingit totem kins furnished by Mr. Frazer, " on the 
 authority of Mr. F. Boas"^ : 
 
 Raven Phratry. 
 
 Wolf (Eagle) Phratry 
 
 Raven. 
 
 Wolf. 
 
 Frog. 
 
 Bear. 
 
 Goose. 
 
 Eagle. 
 
 Sea Lion. 
 
 Killer Whale. 
 
 Owl. 
 
 Shark. 
 
 Salmon. 
 
 Auk. 
 
 Beaver. 
 
 Gull. 
 
 Codfish. 
 
 Sparrow Hawk. 
 
 Skate. 
 
 Thunder Bird.^ 
 
 As I found out, and proved, in many Australian tribes the name of 
 each phratry also occurs as the name of a totem kin /« the phratry ; so 
 also it is among the Tlingit — teste Mr F. Boas.^ 
 
 * Thomas, Kinship and Marriage in Australia. ^ T. and E., vol. iii. p. 266, note i. 
 
 '^ T. and E., vol. iii. p. 266, note I. '^ Secret 0/ the Totem, pp. 164-170 
 
 A3 
 
14 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 Thus on every point — female descent,animal-named phratries, animal- 
 named totem kins, and each phratry containing a totem kin of its own 
 name, the Tlingit totemism is absolutely identical with that of many 
 South-Eastern Australian tribes of the most archaic type. 
 
 But the Tlingit, unlike the Australians, live in villages, and " the 
 families or households may occupy one or more houses. The fmnilies 
 actually take their names from places." (I italicise the word 
 "families.") Mr. Frazer's authorities here are Holmberg (1856), Pauly 
 (1862), Petroff ("the principal clans are those of the Raven, the Bear, 
 the Wolf, and the Whale"), Krause (both here undated), Dn Boas 
 (1889), and Mr. Swanton (1908). 
 
 Mr Goldenweizer^ does not mention that the "clans" of the Tlingit 
 have animal names. Quite the reverse ; he says that " the ' clans ' of 
 the Tlingit . . . bear, with a few exceptions, names derived from 
 localities." 2 This is repeated on p. 225. 
 
 At this point, really, the evidence becomes unspeakably perplexing. 
 Mr. Frazer, we see, follows Mr. F. Boas and Holmberg (1856) in declar- 
 ing that the "clans" of the Tlingit bear animal names. Mr. Golden- 
 weizer says that, " with few exceptions," the " clans " of the Tlingit 
 bear " names derived from localities."^ Mr. Goldenweizer's authority 
 is "Swanton, Bur. Eth. Rep., 1904-1905 (1908), p. 398." Mr. Frazer* 
 also quotes that page of Mr, Swanton, but does not say that Mr. 
 Swanton here gives local, not animal, names to the clans of the Tlingit. 
 Mr. Frazer also cites Mr. Swanton's p. 423 sq. Here we find Mr. 
 Swanton averring that Killer Whale, Grizzly Bear, Wolf, and Halibut 
 are in the Wolf phratry, " on the Wolf side," among the Tlingit ; 
 while Raven, Frog, Hawk, and Black Whale are on the Raven side. 
 Here are animal names (not precisely as in Mr. Boas' list) within the 
 phratries. But Mr. Swanton does not reckon these animal names as 
 names of " clans " ; to " clans " he gives local names in almost every 
 case. To his mind these animal names in Tlingit society denote 
 "crests" not ''clans" and with crests we enter a region of confusion. 
 
 I cannot but think that the confusion is caused (apart from loose 
 terminology) by the crests of these peoples. The crests are an ex- 
 crescence, a heraldic result of wealth and rank ; and as such can have 
 
 V- A. F. p. 186. V- A- ^- P- »9o- V- ^- ^- PP- 190-225. 
 
 * T. and E., vol. iii. p. 266, note i. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 15 
 
 nothing to do with early totemism. Scholars sometimes say " totems " 
 when they mean "crests" (and perhaps vice versa), and confusion 
 must ensue. 
 
 I quote, on this point, a letter which Mr. Goldenweizer kindly wrote 
 to me (Jan. 21, 191 1). 
 
 "Since the appearance of Mr. Swanton's studies of the Tlingit and 
 the Haida there remains no doubt whatever that the clans of these 
 two tribes bear (with some few exceptions) names derived from 
 localities. On pp. 398-9-400 of his Tlingit study (26th Report of the 
 Bureau of American Ethnology, 1904-5) he gives a list of the geo- 
 graphical groups, and of the clans with their local names, classified 
 according to the two phratries : Raven and Wolf. It must be remem- 
 bered that to many of these clans he gives the totems [crests] of the 
 Tlingit phratries : then the gentes [clans] of the Stikin tribe are 
 enumerated. Some of the native names are translated as house or 
 local names ; it is pointed out that the raven occurs four times as the 
 crest of four gentes [clans] with different names which, therefore, 
 cannot mean * raven.' 
 
 "The Haida case is quite parallel. Here 'each clan [phratry] was 
 subdivided into a considerable number of families [clans] which 
 generally took their names from some town or camping-place.' And 
 again : ' It would seem that originally each family occupied a certain 
 place or lived in a certain part of a town ' (Swanton, TJie Haida, pp. 
 66, sg.). Now, of course, many clans are represented in several 
 districts. Opposite p. y6 we find a genealogical table of the Raven 
 families [clans] descended from Foam Woman, with their local names. 
 A similar table of the Eagle families [clans] descended from Greatest 
 Mountain, is given on p. 93. Again Professor Boas' account, although 
 fragmentary, is correct. ' The phratries of the Haida are divided into 
 gentes [clans] in the same way as those of the Tlingit, they also take 
 their names, in the majority of cases, from the houses' (R.B.A.A.S., 
 p. 822). The names of the Skidigate-village-people clans are given 
 as an example. 
 
 "As to personal names among the Haida, a curious fact must 
 be noted. Notwithstanding the greater prominence of crests 
 and art among the Haida, their personal names are but seldom 
 derived from animals, as is the rule among the Tlingit, the clans 
 
i6 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 are not now restricted to one village district, but are found in several of 
 the geographical groups. Thus the GanAxAdi (of the Raven 
 phratry) are found in the Tongas, Taku, Chilkat and Yakutat groups, 
 while the Tegoedi (of the Wolf phratry) occur in the Tongas, Sanya, 
 Hutsnuwu and Yakutat groups. The only non-local clan-names in 
 the list are the Kluxinedi (marten people) of Henya; the SAgutenedi 
 (grass people) and NesAdi (salt-water people) of Kake ; the 
 L!uk!nAxAdi (king-salmon people) of Sitka ; and the LugaxAdi 
 (quick people) of Chilkat. Each of these five clans occurs only once 
 in the list, from which we may perhaps infer that they are of relatively 
 late origin (this merely as a suggestion). On the other hand, ' the 
 great majority of Tlingit personal names,' Mr. Swanton tells us, 
 'referred to some animal, especially that animal whose emblem was 
 particularly valued by the clan to which the bearer belonged ' (Bureau, 
 1904-5, pp. 421-2). In the passage you note, viz. 'the transposition 
 of phratries is indicated also by crests and names, for the killer- 
 whale, grizzly bear, wolf, and halibut, are on the Wolf side among 
 the Tlingit and on the Raven side among the Haida, etc.,' the 
 animals cited are the 'crests' while the 'names' referred to are, 
 of course, the personal names which are derived from animals and as 
 a rule change with the crests ; therefore, they are not illustrated in 
 the passage. 
 
 " Professor Boas' list is incomplete but similar in substance (Reports 
 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1889, 
 p. 821). First majority of Haida personal names refer to the pot- 
 latch, property, etc. (Swanton, TJie Haida, pp. 1 19-120.) This is, no 
 doubt, due to the influence of the potlatch which is among these 
 people the central social and ceremonial feature. 
 
 " Holmberg's work I did not see. Probably his list of animals also 
 stands for the crests and not the clan names. . . . 
 
 " Of the Tsimshian clans only two bear animal names. K'anhada 
 and GylspotuwE'da do not, as Professor Boas formerly supposed, 
 mean 'raven' and 'bear' (cf. R.B.A.A.S., 1889, p. 823 and Annual 
 Archaeological Report, Toronto, 1906, p. 239)." 
 
 If I may ask a question about this very perplexing state of affairs, I 
 would say, Is the animal crest of each " clan " supposed to be later 
 than the local designation of the clan } To me it seems that the crest 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 17 
 
 is in origin a heraldic representation of the clan totem, and that, as 
 in Australia, totemic names of clans are older than names derived 
 from localities or " houses." The house, the fixed building, is part 
 of a society later than the first bearing of totemic names by clans. 
 The crest, as a badge of rank and wealth, is later than the totem ; 
 social advance, houses, towns, heraldry, as a mark of rank, appear 
 to me to cause the perplexities, and to place these American tribes 
 outside of the totemism of people without rank, wealth, and houses 
 and heraldry. 
 
 As I understand the case, the Tlingit clans did not originally, as 
 Dr. Swanton seems to suppose, " occupy a certain place or live in a 
 certain quarter of a town," whence they derived the place-names or 
 town-names which they at present bear, according to Dr. Swanton. 
 The Tlingit, now living in towns, and with clans of town-names, may 
 naturally fancy that from the first their clans bore local or town-names. 
 But society that begins in people who, like the Tlingit, have female 
 descent, cannot form a local clan of descent, unless the men go 
 to the homes of the women, which is not here the case. Originally 
 I think their crests, as in Holmberg's report, were effigies of their 
 clan totems, and the clans bore their totem names. But with 
 advance to wealth, houses, and settled conditions, the local or 
 town-names (as in other cases is certain) superseded the totem 
 names of the clans, while the totem badge became, as the crest, 
 a factor in a system of heraldry, to us perplexing. Certainly the 
 facts as given by Dr. Swanton, may be envisaged in this way ; 
 the processes of change are simple, natural and have parallels 
 elsewhere. 
 
 If a totemic clan chooses to wear the image of its totem as a badge, 
 and has no other badge, all is plain sailing. But in British Columbia, 
 as in Central British New Guinea, men, in proportion to their wealth 
 and descent, wear an indefinite number of badges or "crests." 
 "Although referred to by most writers as totems," says Mr. Swanton, 
 speaking of the Haida tribe, " these crests have no proper totemic 
 significance, their use being similar to that of the quarterings in 
 heraldry, to mark the social position of the wearers." ^ Of course 
 Australian totemists have no social position to be indicated by crests 
 
 ' Quoted, T. and E., vol. iii. p. 281. 
 
1 8 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 or badges. Now Dr. Boas speaks of " crests " as " totems," among the 
 Haida/ and we are perplexed among these mixtures of heraldic with 
 totemic terms. 
 
 Next, and this is curious, while Mr. Swanton gives local names to 
 the "clans" of the Tlingit ; to many but not all of his "House 
 Groups " he gives animal names, " Raven, Moose, Grizzly Bear, Killer 
 Whale, Eagle, Frog houses" and so on. All these animals are names 
 of Holmberg's and Mr. F. Boas' totems of clans ; but, according to 
 Mr. Swanton, they are names borne, not by " clans " but by " house 
 groups." 2 Other house groups have local names, or descriptive names, 
 or nicknames, as " gambling house." Thus Mr. Frazer gives animal 
 names to the " clans " of the Tlingit to which Mr. Swanton gives local 
 names, and while many of the houses, or "house groups" of Mr. 
 Swanton's Tlingit bear totemic names, Mr. Frazer says "the families 
 generally take their names from places." ^ There appears to be con- 
 fusion due to imperfect terminology. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer avers that " the intensive and prolonged researches 
 conducted by a number of well trained observers among these tribes of 
 the North Pacific border have shown with great clearness," — some- 
 thing not at present to the point.^ But we regret the absence of clear- 
 ness. Can we rely on Holmberg who described the state of affairs as 
 it was fifty years ago, and who knew nothing, I presume, of Australian 
 phratries and totem kins .'' In his time the Tlingit, like a dozen South- 
 Eastern tribes of Australia, had animal-named kins in animal-named 
 exogamous intermarrying phratries, with female descent. Or was 
 Holmberg (and was Mr. F. Boas in his list of animal-named Tlingit 
 clans) led astray by the " crests " .'' Did each of these inquirers 
 mistake " crests " for totems of clans ? 
 
 One thing is clear, the Tlingit and the other tribes being possessed 
 of wealth, and of gentry, and of heraldry, cause almost inextricable 
 confusion by their use of heraldic badges, named "crests" by some; 
 and " totems " (or both crests and totems at once) by other well trained 
 observers. I am inclined to believe that most of these crests were, 
 originally, representations of the totems of distinct totem kins. My 
 reason is this : Mr. Swanton tells us that " the crests and names which 
 
 1 T. and E., vol. iii. p. 283. '^ Bur. Eth. Report, 1904-1905, pp. 400-407. 
 
 ^T. and E., vol. iii. p. 266. *J. A. F., p. 287. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 19 
 
 among the THngit are on the Wolf side" are "on the Raven side" 
 among the Haida. Among these people, animal names and crests 
 are divided between the two phratries, the same name or crest not 
 occurring in both phratries. This is merely the universal arrangement 
 of totems in phratries. 
 
 Even now, among the Tlingit, says Mr. Swanton, "theoretically the 
 emblems " (crests) " used on the Raven side were different from those on 
 the Wolf or Eagle side',' (precisely as, in Australia, the totems in Eagle 
 Hawk phratry are different from those in Crow phratry), "and although 
 a man of high caste might borrow an emblem from his brother-in-law 
 temporarily, he was not permitted to retain it." (His brother-in-law, 
 of course, was of the phratry not his own.) All this means no more 
 than that occasionally a man of high caste may now impale the arms 
 of his wife.^ With castes and heraldry, born of wealth and rank, we 
 have stepped out of totemism at this point. It has been modified by 
 social conditions. " Some families were too poor to have an emblem," 
 did they also cease to have a totem } Some of the rich " could," it was 
 said, " use anything." Is this because they pile up sixteen quarterings 1 
 " The same crest may be, and is, used by different clans, and any one 
 clan may have several crests. . . ."" Many "clans" now use the 
 same crest, and there are quarrels about rights to this or that " crest." 
 Some members of the Wolf phratry assert a right to the Eagle crest. 
 Mr. Frazer thinks that " such claims are perhaps to be explained by 
 marriages of the members of the clan with members of other clans 
 who had these animals for their crests." ^ 
 
 That is precisely my own opinion. If " crests " were originally mere 
 representations of each person's totem animal they have now become 
 involved, through rank and social degrees, with heraldry, and with 
 badges not totemic, such as a certain mountain. Meanwhile all the 
 Tlingit " clans," if we follow Mr. Swanton's evidence, or almost all the 
 " clans " are now mere local settlements, at least they bear local and 
 other descriptive names. I nearly despair of arriving at Mr. Swanton's 
 theory of what a Tlingit " clan " really is ! But he gives a list of " the 
 geographical groups," the " clans," and the phratry to which each of 
 the clans belonged. . . . 
 
 ' R. B. E., ut supra, p. 415. ^ T. and E., vol. iii. p. 268. 
 
 ^ T. and E,y vol. iii. p. 269. 
 
20 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 Thus we have (i) 
 Phratry Raven. 
 
 Then (2) 
 
 Tongas (I take Tongas to be "a geographical group"). 
 
 Then under ToNGAS GanAXA'di, People of Ga' NAX. 
 
 Phratry Wolf. 
 
 Tongas (Geographical group, apparently). 
 Te' goedi, People of the island Teq°. 
 
 GanAXA'di and Te'-goedi seenn to be " clans," but then clan Te'goedi, 
 " People of the isle Teq°," looks like " a geographical group " ! 
 
 There are fourteen "geographical divisions" of this kind, and 
 sixty-eight " clans " of this kind, with descriptive or local names. The 
 clans " were in a way local groups," says Mr. Swanton. They were 
 also " clans or consanguineal bands," each " usually named from some 
 town or camp it had once occupied." They "differed from the 
 geographical groups . . . being social divisions instead of comprising 
 the accidental occupants of one locality." ^ 
 
 Be it observed that Mr. Swanton speaks of "these geographical 
 divisions or tribes " ; which increases the trouble, for, if the Tlingit be 
 a "tribe," and the geographical divisions of the Tlingit be also 
 "tribes," things are perplexing. 
 
 Once more, the Tlingit reckon descent in the female line. Now 
 how can "a consanguineal band," which reckons descent in the female 
 line, look like " a geographical group " ? A totem kin, with male 
 descent, in Australia and elsewhere, like a Highland clan, say the 
 Maclans, necessarily becomes " a geographical group," say in Glencoe. 
 But how, with female descent (unless the women go to the men's 
 homes), a Tlingit "consanguineal band" can also have a local habita- 
 tion is to me a difficult question. The names of the phratries descend 
 in the female line. Do the local and descriptive names of " the clans 
 or consanguineal bands," also descend in the female line ? I cannot 
 presume to say. Mr. Frazer throws no light on this point believing, 
 as he does, that the "clans" within the Tlingit phratries, are the 
 familiar totem kins, of animal names. If so, the children must inherit 
 the maternal totem "clan" name. 
 
 Only one thing is clear to me, a Tlingit of the Wolf phatry can only 
 
 ^ J?. B. E. ut supra, p. 398. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 21 
 
 marry a bride of the Raven phratry ; a Tlingit of the Raven phratry 
 can only woo a maiden of the Wolf phratry. If totem kins there be 
 in the phratries, these totem kins are exogamous. If there be no 
 totem kins in the phratry, are Mr. Swanton's clans of local names 
 locally exogamous "i May persons marry within the region where 
 they are settled } I know not, but I rather incline to suppose that 
 members of both phratries may be found in Mr. Swanton's clans of 
 local name ; indeed it must be so, and therefore a pair of lovers may 
 perhaps wed within their " clan or consanguineal band," and within 
 their local group, which, thus, is not exogamous. If so, the Tlingit 
 clan is not exogamous. But all this is purely conjectural. 
 
 While, in Mr. Swanton's version, the Tsimshians, with female 
 descent, have two exogamous "clans" with animal names, and two 
 with other names ; while in Mr. Frazer's book they have four animal- 
 named exogamous clans, there is a third story resting on the authority 
 of Mr. William Duncan, a missionary among the Tsimshian from 1857 
 onwards.! ]y[j., Duncan's information Commander Mayne incorporated 
 in his book.2 
 
 According to Commander Mayne, using Mr. Duncan's evidence, in 
 1862, the Tsimshians (as we have seen), carved faces of "Whale, 
 Porpoise, Raven, Eagle, Wolf, Frog, etc.," on roof beams. He calls 
 such effigies "crests." No person may marry another of the same 
 " crest " : the children take their mother's crest, and bear the name of 
 the animal which it represents. None may kill the animal of his 
 crest. All this is exogamy with totem kins, under the phratries, as 
 the exogamous units,^ and with the totemic taboo. If Mayne and 
 Duncan are right, either more recent writers are wrong, or Tsimshian 
 totemism has been much modified since 1862. 
 
 V. 
 
 Further south than the Tsimshian dwell the Kwakiutl, of whom the 
 most southerly are called "the Kwakiutl proper." The northern 
 Kwakiutl are divided, says Dr. Boas, into " septs " and " clans." 
 What a " sept " may be I am not certain. The first tribe has " clans " 
 
 ^ Mayne, Four Years in British Columbia, p. 257 sq. 1862. 
 
 2See T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 309-311. ^ T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 309-3II- 
 
22 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 called Beaver, Eagle, Wolf, Salmon, Raven, Killer Whale : the usual 
 totemic names in this region. These totemic clans are exogamous, 
 like those of Mayne's Tsimshians. Descent is in the female line. In 
 the next tribe we find three exogamous animal-named clans : Eagle, 
 Raven, Killer Whale, Beaver, Wolf, and Salmon have vanished, or 
 have never existed. In these two tribes a child is sometimes placed in 
 the father's, not in the mother's clan, as a Dieri father sometimes "gives" 
 his totem to his son, in addition to the inherited maternal totem.^ 
 
 When we reach the southern Kwakiutl ("the Kwakiutl proper") 
 we are told by Dr. Boas that " patriarchate prevails." This appears 
 to mean that descent is here reckoned not, as in the north, in the 
 female, but in the male line. " We do not find a single clan that has, 
 properly speaking, an animal for its totem ; neither do the clans take 
 their name from their crest, nor are there phratries." ^ As the northern 
 Kwakiutl have animal-named exogamous "clans" with female 
 descent, Dr. Boas now thinks that the northern Kwakiutl " have to a 
 great extent adopted the maternal descent and the division into 
 animal totems of the northern tribes."^ We do not know, elsewhere, 
 that totemism has ever been borrowed by one tribe from another, 
 especially by a tribe so advanced in culture as the Kwakiutl, and we 
 have no example of a tribe in which the men have given up their social 
 prerogatives, and transmitted them to their nephews in the female line. 
 
 Mr. Frazer writes, " The question naturally arises. Are the Kwakiutl 
 passing from maternal institutions to paternal institutions, from 
 mother-kin to father-kin, or in the reverse direction .-*... In one 
 passage Dr. Boas seems to incline to the former member of this alter- 
 native, that is, to the view that the Kwakiutl are passing, or have 
 passed, from mother-kin, or (as he calls it) matriarchate to father-kin 
 or patriarchate, for he says that " the marriage ceremonies of the 
 Kwakiutl seem to show that originally matriarchate prevailed also 
 among them."* Yet he afterwards adopted with great decision the 
 "contrary view." On these very intricate problems I take leave to quote 
 
 * T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 318, 319. 
 
 ^ Fifth Report on N.W. Tribes of Canada, 1890. T. and E., vol. iii. p. 320, note i. 
 ^Twelfth Report on N. VV. Tribes of Canada, 1898, p. 676. T. ajid E., vol. iii. p. 320, 
 note I. 
 
 * T. and E., vol. iii. p. 332, citing Dr. Boas in Fifth Report on N. IV. Tribes of Canada, 
 p. 33. 1889. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 23 
 
 the statement with which Mr. Goldenweizer has been good enough to 
 favour me. 
 
 First, as to descent among the Kwakiutl proper. 
 
 " At first, as Mr. Frazer points out (iii. p. 329 sq.), Dr. Boas believed 
 that the Kwakiutl were passing from maternal to paternal descent. 
 Later investigations conducted by Dr. Farrand (cf. F. Boas, T/ie 
 Mythology of the Bella Coola, Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i. p. 
 121), led to a reversal of that opinion. The main arguments for original 
 paternal descent among the Kwakiutl are three in number, (i) The 
 village communities, which were the original social unit of the Kwakiutl,^ 
 regarded themselves as direct descendants of a mythical ancestor, and 
 not as descendants of the ancestor's sister, which is the case in the legends 
 of the northern tribes, with maternal descent. (Cf F. Boas, TheKwakiutl, 
 etc., p. 335, where a genealogy is also given.) (2) A number of offices 
 connected with the ceremonies of the secret societies, such as master 
 of ceremonies, etc., are hereditary in the male line (F. Boas, Kwakiutl, 
 etc., p. 431). The Secret Societies, with their dances, are a very 
 ancient institution among the Kwakiutl, and the male inheritance of 
 the above offices is a strong argument for the former prevalence of 
 paternal descent among these people, (3) The form taken by the 
 maternal inheritance of rank, privileges, etc., among the Kwakiutl points 
 in the same direction. When a man marries he receives crests, privi- 
 leges, etc., from his father-in-law through his wife, but he himself may 
 not use them but must keep them for his son, who, when of proper age, 
 may sing the songs, perform the dances, use the crest, etc., which he 
 thus receives from his mother through the medium of his father. (Cf. 
 F. Boas, Kwakiutl, etc., p. 334.) When the young man marries he 
 must return his privileges to his father, who then gives them to his 
 daughter when she marries. Thus, son-in-law No. 2 receives the privi- 
 leges, but again may not use them, but keeps them for his son, etc. It 
 appears, then, that the privileges exercised by the young man before 
 marriage are always derived from his mother, but formally he receives 
 them from his father, who acts as a sort of guardian of these privileges 
 until the son is ready for them. Descent here is clearly maternal, but 
 the form of paternal descent is preserved, a plausible condition for a 
 
 * It seems to me impossible to suppose that the village community was ever anywhere " the 
 original social unit." — A. L. 
 
/ 
 
 24 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 people whO; having become maternal, still stick at least in form to the 
 traditional inheritance from the father. If this inference be rejected, 
 the feature becomes quite unaccountable. 
 
 " In the sentence, ' The woman's father, on his part, has acquired his 
 privileges in the same manner through his mother ' (Frazer, vol. iii. p. 
 333, note i), the privileges the woman's father exercised as a young man 
 before marriage are meant. The privileges he later acquired through his 
 wife he, of course, could not use, but had to keep them for his son. 
 The phrase, ' each individual inherits the crest of his maternal grand- 
 father' (Frazer, iii. p. 331, note 2), must be similarly interpreted. The 
 crest the individual uses before marriage is meant. 
 
 " In connection with the foregoing it must be remembered that 
 another mode of acquiring privileges, crests, songs, etc., was common 
 among the Kwakiutl, viz. by killing the owner (cf F. Boas, Kwakhitl, 
 etc., p. 424, and elsewhere). 
 
 " I also cite the actual words of Dr. Boas. He believes that the 
 intricate law by which ' a purely female line of descent is secured, 
 although only through the medium of the husband,' can only be 
 explained ' as an adaptation of maternal laws by a tribe which was on 
 a paternal stage. I cannot imagine that it is a transition of a maternal 
 society to a paternal society, because there are no relics of the former ' 
 (maternal) ' stage beyond those which we find everywhere, and which 
 do not prove that the transition has been recent at all. There is no 
 trace left of an inheritance from the wife's brothers ; the young people 
 do not live with the wife's parents. But the most important argu- 
 ment is that the customs cannot have been prevalent in the village 
 communities from which the present tribal system originated, as in 
 these' (village communities) 'the tribe is always designated as the 
 direct descendants of the mythical ancestor. If the village com- 
 munities had been on the maternal stage, the tribes would have been 
 designated as the descendants of the ancestor's sisters, as is always the 
 case in the legends of the northern tribes.' " ^ 
 
 From all this it appears that Dr. Boas believes the Kwakiutl proper 
 to have been once, " on the maternal stage," of which the usual 
 " relics " survive, but why should all such traces survive .'' Some must 
 disappear, otherwise there could be no transition ! 
 
 ^ Kep. U.S. Nat. Museum, 1897, pp. 334-335. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 25 
 
 Apparently, in the village communities, the existence of a mythical 
 ancestor, not ancestress, is postulated ; while in the northern tribes, 
 with female descent, mythical ancestresses are postulated. But if, 
 among the Kwakiutl proper, male ancestry is now the recognised rule 
 (and it dimly seems to be so), then, as usual, Kwakiutl myth will 
 throw back into the unknown past the institutions of their present 
 state, will say "ancestor," not "ancestress." No argument can be 
 based on traditions which are really explanatory conjectures. There 
 is advanced no valid reason for supposing that the Kwakiutl proper 
 began with descent in the female line, then advanced to the male line, 
 and then doubled back on the female line, and so evolved transmission 
 of crests in the female line, through husbands. 
 
 The waverings of the Kwakiutl between the two lines of descent 
 are, in fact, such as we expect to occur when a people has retained, 
 like the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshians, the system of female descent 
 after reaching a fair pitch of physical culture, and arriving at wealth, 
 rank, and the attribution of children to the paternal stock. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I now come to give my own opinion as to the ways in which 
 Kwakiutl totemism may have attained its existing peculiarities. It is 
 necessary first to defend my view that the essential thing in totemism — 
 surveying the whole totemic field — is the existence of exogamous kins 
 bearing animal and other such names. Here Mr. Goldenvveizer 
 opposes me, saying that " no particular set of features can be taken 
 as characteristic of totemism, for the composition of the totemic com- 
 plex is variable, nor can any particular feature be regarded as 
 fundamental, for not one of the features does invariably occur in con- 
 junction with others ; nor is there any evidence to regard any other 
 feature as primary in order of development, or as of necessity original 
 psychologically." ^ 
 
 I have already remarked that this is true ; we find human associa- 
 tions, which are not kins or clans, bearing animal and other totemic 
 names, while these associations are not exogamous (the Arunta 
 nation) ; and we find exogamous sets, kins, or associations which do 
 
 not bear animal names. 
 
 ^/. A. F. pp. 269, 270. 
 
26 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 But the coexistence of the exogamous kin with the totemic name of 
 that kin is found in such an immense and overwhelming- majority over 
 every other arrangement ; the exogamous " totem clan" is so hugely 
 out of proportion in numbers and width of diffusion over the Arunta 
 animal-named non-exogamous associations and other rare exceptions, 
 that we have a right to ask — Are not the exceptions aberrant varia- 
 tions ? Have not the Arunta, with non-exogamous sets bearing 
 totemic names, and other peoples with exogamous sets not of totemic 
 names, passed through and out of the usual stage of animal-named 
 exogamous kins ? A mere guess that this is so, that the now non- 
 exogamous human sets with totem names have once been exogamous, 
 would be of no value. I must prove, and fortunately I can prove, that 
 it was so. 
 
 It is certain, historically, that some exogamous units which now 
 bear non-totemic names, in the past were ordinary totem kins with 
 totemic names. As we can also demonstrate to a certainty that the 
 Arunta have been in, and, for definite reasons, have passed out of, the 
 ordinary stage of exogamous totem kins, we have a right, I think, to 
 say that, normally, the feature of the totemic name is associated with 
 the feature of exogamy, and that the exceptions really prove the rule, 
 for we can show how the exceptions came to vary from the rule. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer, in a very brief criticism of my own theory of 
 Totemism, given by me in Social Origins (1903), and in The Secret of 
 the r^/^;;/ (1905), writes "Why is the question, How did the early 
 groups come to be named after the plants and animals 1" — the real 
 problem ? Would not Lang admit that other features may also have 
 been the starting point } " (I not only admit but insist that " other 
 features" were among the starting-points of exogamous totemism.) 
 Among " the other features " Mr. Goldenweizer gives " animal taboos, 
 or a belief in descent from an animal, or primitive hunting regulations, 
 or what not } I am sure that Lang, who is such an adept in following 
 the /ogos, could without much effort construct a theory of totemism 
 with any one of these elements to start with — a theory as consistent 
 with fact, logic, and the mind of primitive man, as is the theory of 
 names accepted from without." 
 
 Now as to the last point, I have written " unessential to my system 
 is the question how the groups got animal names, as long as they got 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 27 
 
 them and did not remember how they got them " {et seq.)} I did 
 show how European and other village groups obtained animal names, 
 namely as sobriquets given from without ; and I proved the same 
 origin of the modern names of Siouan " gentes," of two Highland 
 clans ; of political parties, religious sects ; and so forth. 
 
 This mode of obtaining names is a vera causa : that is all : and 
 nobody had remarked on it, in connection with totemism. 
 
 Next I cannot "without much effort" (or with any effort) construct 
 a theory of totemism out of (i) "animal taboos." They are imposed 
 for many known and some unknown reasons, and not all totem kins 
 taboo the totem object. Next (2) as I must repeat that " belief in 
 descent from an animal," is only one out of many post-totemic myths 
 explanatory of totemism ; I cannot possibly use it as the starting- 
 point of totemism. If Mr. Goldenweizer has read the book which 
 he is criticising, he forgets that I wrote ^ "it is an error to look 
 for origins in myths about origins," and that I refused to accept as 
 corroboration of my theory an African myth which agrees with my 
 own view. 
 
 As to (3) " primitive hunting regulations," Mr. Goldenweizer does not 
 tell us what they were. It is a very common " regulation " that no 
 totem kin may hunt its own totem animal, but to suggest that the 
 totem kin was created by the regulation is to mistake effect for cause. 
 
 Finally (4), who can take "or what not" for the starting-point of an 
 investigation .? But every totem kin has a totemic name : if there is 
 no totemic name how can we know that we have before us a totem 
 kin ? If the Tlingit "clans " be exogamous but not named by totemic 
 names (as Mr. Swanton tells us), then the Tlingit clans are not totemic, 
 now, whatever they may have been in the past : and we are not 
 concerned with them. 
 
 Of every totem " clan " the totem name is a universal feature ; 
 and therefore I must begin my study from what is universal — the 
 names. Here (though we must not appeal to authority), I have the 
 private satisfaction of being in agreement with Mr. Howitt. The 
 assumption by men of the names of objects " in fact must have been 
 the commencement of totemism," says Mr. Howitt.^ 
 
 '^ Secret of the Totem, p. 125. • Secret of the Totem, p. 23. 
 
 ^Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 153. 
 
28 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 I start then, from the totem ic names because, — no totemic name, 
 no totemic "clan"! With the totemic name of a social unit in the 
 tribe, I couple exogamy, (though exogamy may exist apart from 
 totemism), because exogamy is always associated with a " clan " of 
 totemic name, except in a very few cases of which the Arunta 
 " nation " is much the most prominent. But it is not to the point, for 
 the Arunta have no totemic clans. Mr. Frazer's latest definition of 
 totemism is " an intimate relation which is supposed to exist between 
 a group of kindred people on the one side and a species of natural or 
 artificial objects on the other. . . ." ^ Now the Arunta associations of 
 animal names are not (I must keep repeating) kindreds, are not 
 " clans," are not composed of persons who are, " humanly speaking," 
 akin. The totem is not inherited from either parent or through any 
 kinsman or kinswoman. The Arunta bearers of the same totem 
 name, in each case, do not constitute a "clan." This puts the so-called 
 Arunta " totem clans," non-exogamous, out of action as proofs that 
 " totem clans " may be non-exogamous. 
 
 Moreover, the non-exogamous Arunta associations bearing totemic 
 names have once been exogamous totem clans. The usages of the 
 Arunta, and their traditions, and the actual facts of their society, 
 prove that their totems were originally hereditary and exogamous.^ 
 
 I use the word " prove " deliberately ; the demonstration is of 
 historical and mathematical certainty. These facts compel me to 
 believe that the Arunta have been in and passed out of normal 
 hereditary totemism, in which the totems are arranged so that no 
 totem occurs in both main exogamous divisions, and all totems are 
 exogamous. In that normal totemic stage the Arunta have at one 
 time been. But they have passed out of it into their present " concep- 
 tional " totemism, with the same totems appearing in both main 
 exogamous divisions, the totems being non-hereditary, and non- 
 exogamous. 
 
 Spencer and Gillen say, " in the Arunta, as a general rule, the great 
 majority of the members of any one totemic group belong to one 
 moiety of the tribe, but this is by no means universal, and in different 
 totemic groups certain of the ancestors are supposed to have belonged 
 
 * T. and E., vol. iv. pp. 3, 4. 
 
 * What follows I have already said in Attlhropos, 1910. 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 29 
 
 to one moiety and others to the other, with the result that of course their 
 living descendants also follow their example."^ (This statement I later 
 compare with others by the same authors.) Now in normal totemism, 
 not "the great majority," but all the members of any one totemic 
 group belong to one or other moiety of the tribe. The totems being 
 hereditary, they cannot wander out of their own into the other phratry, 
 and, as all persons must marry out of their own phratry, they cannot 
 marry into their own totem, for no person of their own totem is in the 
 phratry into which they must marry. 
 
 At present " the great majority " of members of each totem, among 
 the Arunta, are in one phratry or the other. Thus their society is 
 either, (i) in some unknown way, rapidly approximating itself to normal 
 totemism, or (2) has comparatively recently emerged from normal 
 totemism. The former alternative is impossible. Each Arunta obtains 
 his or her totem by sheer chance, by the accident of the supposed 
 locality of his or her conception, and of the totemic erathipa or ratapa 
 which alone haunt that spot.^ Manifestly this present Arunta mode 
 of determining totems cannot introduce the great majority of each 
 totem into one or the other phratry or main exogamous division 
 (Panunga-Bulthara and Purula-Kumara), for these divisions have now 
 no local habitation or limits. Consequently the arrangement by 
 which the great majority of each totem is in one or the other moiety 
 can be due to nothing but the fact that the Arunta have comparatively 
 recently emerged from normal exogamous and hereditary, into con- 
 ceptional, casual, non-hereditary and non-exogamous totemism. Had 
 they emerged long ago, and adopted their present fortuitous method 
 of acquiring the totem, manifestly the totems, by the operation of chance, 
 would now be present in almost equal numbers in both phratries. This 
 would also be the case had Arunta totemism always been conceptional 
 and fortuitous. 
 
 According to Spencer and Gillen, " it is the idea of spirit individuals 
 associated with chiiringa and resident in certain definite spots, that lies 
 at the root of the present totemic system of the Arunta tribe." ^ 
 
 This is certainly true; and the facts prove, we shall see, to demonstra- 
 tion, that this actual " conceptional " state of Arunta totemism is later 
 
 ^Northern Tribes, p. 175. ^ Vol. i. pp. 189-190. Central Tribes, p. 123. 
 
 3 Central Tribes, p. 123. 
 
30 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 than, and has caused the disappearance of the normal hereditary 
 exogamous totemism, among the Arunta. 
 
 It is plain and manifest that if the Arunta nation, from the first, 
 were in their present stage of " conceptional totemism " — the totem of 
 each individual being always determined by sheer chance — when the 
 exogamous division of the tribe was instituted, individuals of each 
 totem would be almost equally distributed between the two main 
 divisions, Purula-Kumara and Bulthara-Panunga. Chance could not 
 put the great majority of the members of every totem name either into 
 one exogamous division or the other. If any one doubts this, let him 
 take four packs of cards (208 cards), and deal them alternately five or 
 six times to two friends, Jones representing the phratry Bulthara- 
 Panunga, and Brown standing for the phratry Purula-Kumara. It 
 will not be found that Brown always holds the great majority of 
 Court cards — Ace, King, Queen and Knave — and the great majority 
 of tens, nines and eights : while Jones holds the great majority of 
 sevens, sixes, and fives, fours, threes, and twos. 
 
 Chance distribution does not keep on working in that way ; and 
 the chance conceptional distribution of totems could not put the great 
 majority of, say. Kangaroos, Hachea Flowers, Wild Cats, and Little 
 Hawks in the Bulthara-Panunga phratry, and the great majority of 
 Emus, Lizards, Wichetty Grubs, and Dogs in the Purula-Kumara 
 division. That is quite impossible. Yet all (or almost all) Arunta 
 totems are thus distributed between the two main exogamous divisions. 
 
 When once the reader understands this fact — insisted on by Spencer 
 and Gillen — he becomes convinced, becomes mathematically certain 
 that the chance distribution of conceptional totemism did not and 
 could not thus array the totems of the Arunta. This present arrange- 
 ment, and this alone, makes the Arunta associations with totemic 
 names non-exogamous. I proceed to give further evidence of Spencer 
 and Gillen. " Whilst every now and then we come across traditions, 
 according to which, as in the case of the Achilpa," (Cats) " the totem is 
 common to all classes ^ we always find that in each totem one moiety 
 
 1 The myth is self-contradictory in the case of the Achilpa. They were in both phratries ; 
 the other totems were confined to one or the other phratry. In the latter case the myth 
 exaggerates the present state of things, and puts all, not the great majority, of each totem in 
 one phratry or the other. In the former case the myth throws the actual stale of things back 
 into the past. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 31 
 
 of the tribe predominates,^ and that, accordinc^ to tradition, many of 
 the groups" (totem groups) "of ancestral individuals consisted origin- 
 ally of men or women or of both men and women, who all belonged to 
 one moiety. Thus in the case of certain Okira or Kangaroo groups 
 we find only Kumara and Purula ; in certain Udnirringita or Wichctty 
 Grub groups we find only Bukhara and Panunga, in certain Achilpa 
 or ' Wild Cat ' (groups) ' a predominance of Kumara and Purula, with 
 a smaller number of Bukhara and Panunga.'^ At the present day no 
 totem is confined to either moiety of the tribe, but in each local centre 
 we always find a great predominance of one moiety, as for example at 
 Alice Springs, the most important centre of the Wichetty Grubs, 
 amongst forty individuals, thirty-five belong to the Bukhara and 
 Panunga and only five to the other moiety of the tribe." ^ 
 
 Here the great majority — thirty-five to five — of the members of the 
 totem belong to one of the two main exogamous divisions. Outside 
 of the Arunta nation and Kaitish all the Grubs would belong to one 
 main exogamous division. It is mathematically certain that chance 
 could not bring thirty-five to five members of a given totem — or, " a 
 great majority " in each case — into one or other phratry. 
 
 Consequently the chance distribution of totems on the present 
 conceptional Arunta system has not caused this uniform phenomenon. 
 It follows that the totems of the Arunta were at one time hereditary, 
 and were arranged, some exclusively in one, some exclusively in the 
 other moiety, so that no person could marry into his or her own totem. 
 The fortuitous system of conceptional distribution then arose out of 
 the Arunta philosophy of spirits and emanations, and out of the 
 cimringa 7ianja usage, and has now detached a small minority of 
 members of each totem from their original phratry and lodged them 
 in the other. Members of every totem can therefore find legal spouses 
 of their own totem in the phratry not their own, and may marry them. 
 And thus these Arunta associations with totemic names are now non- 
 exogamous. But they have been exogamous totem kins. 
 
 ^ By "moiety" the authors mean one of the two main exogamous divisions or phratries. 
 
 ^ Central Tribes, p. I20. In fact out of three Achilpa or Wild Cat sets of wanderers, two, 
 in the legend, are exclusively of one phratry — Purula-Kumara — and one is exclusively of the 
 other, Bulthara-Panunga, op. cii. p. 120. 
 
 ' Central Tribes, p. 120. 
 
32 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 Mr. Frazer finds what he calls totemism without exogamy in parts 
 of Melanesia.^ I need not here repeat my arguments, given in 
 Anthropos, vol. v. (1910) pp. 1092-1108, to prove that the so-called 
 "totems" in this case are only animal or vegetable "familiars" of 
 individuals. Thus the great example of " totem clans " so-called, 
 without exogamy, is put out of action. The Arunta " clans " are not 
 clans, and the Arunta have had exogamous totem clans like other 
 people. 
 
 VII. 
 
 We now turn to cases in which exogamous "clans" bear, not 
 totemic names, but local or descriptive names, like the Tlingit 
 according to Dr. Swanton. In several instances it is easy to prove 
 that exogamous " clans," now bearing local or other descriptive names, 
 have previously borne totemic names. This result has often been 
 attained by the circumstance that witJi male descent of the totem name, 
 a regular local clan is formed. Such a clan then comes to be known 
 by a territorial description (just as lairds were in Scotland) and the 
 totemic name may drop out of use. If so, the clan becomes exoga- 
 mous under a territorial or other name, and is no longer a totem clan. 
 
 But this explanation cannot apply to the Tlingit, with female 
 descent, for with female descent, unless the men go to the women's 
 homes, no local clan of descent is possible, I have shown that I do 
 not pretend to know precisely what are the facts of the Tlingit system, 
 as accounts contradict each other. But in other American cases, as in 
 those of the Apaches and Navahos, the tribes " are divided into a 
 large number of exogamous clans with descent in the female line, but 
 the names of the clans appear to be local, not totemic. . . . " ^ Such 
 names are Lone Tree, Red Flat, House of the Cliffs, Bend in a 
 Canyon, and so forth. Are such names inherited "i Is every child of 
 a woman of Red Flat called " Red Flat " } Persons of the same clan 
 or phratry (from eight to twelve phratries) may not intermarry. The 
 phratries " have no formal names " ; speaking of his phratry a man 
 will often refer to it by the title of its oldest or most numerous clan — 
 and that, it seems, is always a local name. " Dr. Washington 
 Matthews," says Mr. Frazer, " who spoke with authority on the subject, 
 
 ' T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 9, 2S7. ^ 7; and E., vol. iii. p. 243. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 33 
 
 was of opinion that the Navahos clans were originally and indeed till 
 quite recently local exogamous groups and not true clans." What else 
 can they be? But Dr. Washington Matthews found a legend which 
 suggests that the Navahos were once totemic. If this be an explana- 
 tory myth its point is to explain why the clans have now local names, 
 and why do the clans think that the fact needs explanation .-' " It is 
 said that when they set out on their journey each clan was provided 
 with a different pet, such as a bear, a puma, a deer, a snake, and a 
 porcupine, and that when the clans received their local names these 
 pets were set free." ^ That is, place-names ousted totem names. 
 
 It appears to me that when a tribe acquires settled habits and lives 
 in villages, territorial names may oust totem names, and exogamy may 
 become, as among the Navaho, local, just as it becomes local in several 
 Australian tribes with male descent. But nothing in my theory 
 compels me to suppose that every people has passed through totemic 
 exogamy. Exogamy, in my view, was prior to totemism ; totem 
 names were a later way of designating local groups which were already 
 exogamous.2 " The rule would be. No marriage within the local 
 group." The totemic names were a later addition, and I can think of 
 no reason why all peoples should necessarily accept totemic names; 
 only, as it chances, the enormous majority among the lower races have 
 done so. 
 
 Perhaps the Navaho and Apaches never had totemic names for 
 their exogamous local groups. They are not known to exhibit any 
 sign or vestige of totemism beyond the legend or myth of the wild 
 animal pets. 
 
 All such cases of exogamous units bearing non-totemic names, in 
 tribes of female descent, where no vestige of totemism is found, are 
 outside of the field of totemism. Why should we treat people as 
 totemic who have no totems ? If we held the opinion that totemism 
 was the cause of exogamy, the position would be different. At one 
 time I thought that the totem and the totem blood taboo, clinched, as 
 it were, and sanctified a pre-existing exogamy. But as I never found 
 that marriage within the totem was automatically punished by sickness 
 
 ^ T. and E., vol. iii. p. 245, note 5, citing Washington Matthews. /, A. F., iii., 1890, 
 p. 105, and Navaho Legends, p. 31, 1897. 
 ^ Secret 0/ the Totem, pp. 114, 115. 
 
34 METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 or death ; (as, in many tribes, the offence of eating the totem is sup- 
 posed to be); I saw that marriage within the totem was a breach of 
 secular law, punished capitally by "the State." There is no taboo in 
 the case. But as we repudiate the opinion that totemism was the 
 cause of exogamy, in studying totemism we have no concern with 
 peoples who are exogamous but show no trace of having ever been 
 totem ic. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The case of the Tlingit is quite different. Here the phratries have 
 totemic names ; the " clans " in the phratries are said, by early 
 authorities, to have totemic names ; the " crests " (mainly the same 
 animals as those said to give names to the Tlingit "clans") are 
 readily to be explained by totemism evolving into heraldry. 
 
 But, if the Tlingit clans have not totemic names, then it would 
 appear that, among a people of dwellers in towns, local names of local 
 groups have succeeded to totemic names of totemic kins. This can 
 only occur where people have settled habitations, towns or villages, or 
 where totem kins have been localised by male descent. 
 
 We know that, even among some of the Australian tribes with male 
 descent, totem kins become local groups, and thus the predominant 
 totem of each such group becomes attached to a locality, as among 
 the Narran-ga of Yorke Peninsula. They had two pairs of phratries 
 of animal names : 
 
 Emu. Eagle Hawk. 
 
 Red Kangaroo. Shark. 
 
 In each such phratry was a number of totem kins, the same totem 
 never appearing in more than one phratry (or "class" in Mr. Howitt's 
 term). Each class or phratry was limited to a certain territory : Emu 
 to the north, Red Kangaroo to the east. Eagle Hawk to the west, 
 and Shark to the extreme point of the peninsula (south). The 
 totems, passing from father to son, were thus localised. They ceased 
 to be exogamous — obviously because each man, to find a wife 
 eligible on exogamous principles, had to travel to a place incon- 
 veniently remote. Thus the only restriction on marriage was " for- 
 bidden degrees" of consanguinity.^ 
 
 ^Howitt, IV.T.S.E.A., pp. 124, 130, 258, 259. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 35 
 
 All this is easily intelligible. Male descent fixed phratries and 
 totems to localities. By the old rule, if Emu phratry had to marry 
 into Shark phratry, the localities were at the extreme ends of the 
 peninsula, north and south ; the other two phratries were as far 
 asunder as the east of the peninsula is from the west. Consequently, 
 though the old machinery of exogamy existed, the practice of 
 exogamy was dropped : persons might marry within their own 
 totem kins. But we are not told whether all four " classes " inter- 
 married, or each " class " only with one other, because the old rule 
 had fallen into disuse before the coming of Europeans. 
 
 Mr. Howitt gives a case of "the transfer of the prohibition of 
 marriage within the totem, to the totem clan — that is, to the locality." 
 In this case, that of the Narrinyeri, with male descent, most " clans " 
 have a local name, or a nickname, and have totems. But three such 
 units or " clans " out of twenty retain their totem names — Whale, 
 Coot, Mullet — thus indicating that totemic preceded local names. A 
 local " clan " may have as many as three totems, but in thirteen cases 
 out of twenty each local clan had but one totem. Among nicknames 
 are " Gone over there," and " Where shall we go ? " These clans 
 (thirteen out of twenty) having local names, were strictly exogamous. 
 So also, of course, were the totems of the local clans ; though, save in 
 three cases, the name of the place of residence, or a nickname, had 
 superseded the totem name as the title of the clan. It is as if, in 
 place of speaking of the Maclans, we said " the Glencoe men"; instead 
 of speaking of the Stewarts, said " the Appin men " ; in place of 
 speaking of the Camerons, said " the men of Lochaber." 
 
 Thus it by no means follows that if the exogamous "clans" of any 
 tribe of the North-West Pacific have local names, therefore they never 
 had totemic names, as many of them have to this day. The rise of 
 settled towns or village communities yields a new set of conditions, 
 and a new set of non-totemic names for the clans, in some cases ; 
 precisely as the localisation of a totem clan through the operation of 
 male descent causes a local name to take the place, usually but not 
 universally, of a totem clan name in Southern Victoria. 
 
 Consequently Mr. Goldenweizer can make no argumentative use of 
 the alleged local names of the Tlingit clans. If the totemic names of 
 exogamous units — showing connections with totemism in crests and 
 
2(> METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 
 
 totemic phratry names — be absent, that is because, under known 
 conditions, they have been superseded by local names or nicknames. 
 This process is a vera causa in totemic society. 
 
 IX. 
 
 I now give an American case, in which a tribe, the Mandans, 
 exhibit female descent, exogamous clans, and a mixture of totemic 
 clan names with local names or sobriquets. The people were settled, 
 lived in villages or towns, " with houses very commodious, neat, and 
 comfortable." The tribe was agricultural, growing maize, beans, 
 pumpkins, and tobacco. Out of seven clan names four were totemic 
 — Wolf, Bear, Prairie Chicken, Eagle ; two — Flathead and Good Knife 
 — look like nicknames ; High Village is local.^ Here we find other 
 sorts of clan names encroaching on totem names. 
 
 Among the Crows, with exogamous clans and female descent, out 
 of twelve clan names four are totemic — Prairie Dog, Skunk, Raven, 
 Antelope ; three are very unkind nicknames.^ 
 
 The American tribes have been much disturbed by the whites, and 
 many changes have occurred in their institutions. As Mr, Frazer 
 points out, in a book of 1781 Captain Carver describes Siouan 
 " bands " or " tribes " (really totem kins), each with a badge represent- 
 ing an animal, and named after the animals : Eagles, Panthers, Tigers, 
 Buffaloes, Snakes, Tortoises, Squirrels, Wolves, etc. These people 
 were Sioux or Dacotas ; whether they were exogamous or not Carver 
 does not say. But, in place of now bearing totemic names, the 
 " gentes " of these people are at present distinguished by obvious and 
 even odious nicknames, such as " Breakers of the Law," because 
 members of this getis disregarded the marriage law by taking wives 
 within the gens. 
 
 So says Mr. Dorsey. Mr. Frazer says the bands of this tribe are not 
 exogamous. But they must have been exogamous when a gens 
 received a nickname for breaking the law of exogamy. One " band " 
 or gens " Eats no Geese " ; it may have been a Goose clan. Other 
 bands or gentes bear nicknames or local names.^ 
 
 ^ T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 135, 136. Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 158. 
 
 ^ T. and E.f vol. iii. pp. 153, 154. 
 
 ^T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 86, 87. Dorsey, R.B.E., xv. (1897) p. 215 et seq. 
 
METHOD IN STUDY OF TOTEMISM 37 
 
 I need not give more examples. In America, as in Australia, 
 various conditions, already mentioned, cause changes from totemic 
 names of exogamous clans to local names and nicknames. 
 
 It has now been proved that though, in very rare cases, such as 
 those of the Arunta and Narran-ga, sets of people may have totemic 
 names, yet marry within the name ; and that, though " clans " may 
 be exogamous and yet bear names which are not totemic, nevertheless 
 the co-existence of totemic names with exogamy prevails in the over- 
 whelming majority of instances, while the exceptions, as they have 
 been accounted for by their causes, prove the rule. Consequently I 
 see no error of method in holding that the totemic name and 
 exogamy are normal features of totemism, while totemism is " an 
 integral phenomenon." 
 
 This is my answer to Mr. Goldenweizer's criticisms. Of course I 
 " do not say that totemism was the cause of exogamy ; I hold that 
 exogamy was prior to totemism, and think it perfectly possible that 
 some exogamous peoples may never have been totemic. 
 
 In this discussion I have, not illogically I hope, taken into account 
 relative conditions of advancement among the peoples studied. I have 
 not here shown that reckoning descent in the male line is a social 
 advance on reckoning in the female line, but I am able to prove that 
 it is, at least in Australia. I have shown that wealth, rank, and 
 settled habitations tend to modify totemism, for example, by intro- 
 ducing heraldry, and enabling non-totemic to supersede, now more 
 now less, the totemic names of exogamous units. 
 
 Mr. Goldenweizer, as we saw, writes " that these conditions are due 
 to the fact that the tribes of British Columbia are 'advanced' cannot 
 be admitted." ^ I am sorry that he cannot admit what is true and 
 obvious. The wealth, the art, the degrees of rank, the settled houses 
 and towns of the British Columbian tribes have introduced the per- 
 plexities of their heraldry; as in other parts of America and in 
 Australia other causes have brought in local names for exogamous kins. 
 
 y. J. F. p. 287. 
 
GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. 
 
V. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN? 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD ROBERTSON, B.D. 
 
 CARNEGIE FELLOW; FORMKRLY ASSISTANT TO 
 THE PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, ETC., UNIVERSITY, ST. ANDREWS 
 
 GLASGOW 
 $3ri)vteti at the SVnibcvsit.u iiJress bjj 
 
 ROBERT MACLEHOSE & CO. LTD. 
 1911 
 
^>^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 * c r 
 

 Where was Eden ? 
 
 The site of Eden still awaits identification. The Garden has been 
 fruitful of much speculation, and its four rivers have occasioned 
 much searching geographical inquiry. Eden has been located by 
 critics in Armenia : in Babylonia (both near the city of Babylon 
 and near Abu Shahrein [ancient Eridu]) : in Arabia (S., E., N.W., 
 and N.): in the Palestinian Negeb : near Damascus: near Kashmir: 
 near the Altai Mountains : on the mountains above Pamir : in 
 Somaliland. Even Australia and the North Pole have their 
 advocates.^ By the ' astral school ' of Babylonian scholars, it is 
 contended that Eden must be sought in the starry heavens. The 
 river that " went forth from Eden " is the Milky Way, and through 
 their own telescopes they observe it branching into four. No site 
 yet suggested, however, nor theory propounded has met with general 
 acceptance and many critics in despair are looking to comparative 
 mythology for fresh light on the problem. The present writer does 
 not expect to be more successful than the more capable critics who 
 have preceded him, but since the view he here presents appears to 
 him to offer a possible solution of the difficulties he ventures to 
 submit it to the judgment of scholars. 
 
 Assuming for the moment that the story of the Garden of Eden 
 [Gn. ii 8— iii 24] is the work of one hand and has come down to us 
 in an inviolate text, there are four references, or passages, in the 
 
 ^ Particulars and criticisms of these various theories may be found in the more recent 
 commentaries on Genesis, especially those of Driver (1904), and Skinner (1910). Compare 
 also Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradiesl, (l88i), pp. ii ft"., Sayce in Hastings' D.B. s.v. 
 Garden of Eden, and Cheyne in £n. B. s.v. Paradise. 
 
 lii^,^^ 
 
2 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 narrative indicative of site ;^ (i) eastward (D*T|5^) [ii 8^],- (2) the 
 
 name Eden, (3) the passage relating to the river of Eden, its four 
 
 branches and the associated lands [ii 10-14], (4) the final extrusion 
 
 and exclusion of the man from the Garden [iii 23-24]. Of these 
 
 the first and third appear to locate the garden on the earth. The 
 
 . .•" • secon-d points to no solution since no suitable corresponding place- 
 
 ,... nanie has yet been brought into connection with the name Eden.^ 
 
 • •«•-•* t^ 
 
 ^ Some critics would find other indirect references in the garments of fig leaves (3'') 
 and in the ' cool of the day ' (lit. ' wind of the day ' or evening breeze (D'vn nn)) (3^) to 
 indicate that Eden was situated in a warm zone. But such reflections might be due 
 to a writer ignorant of great climatic differences who imagined the whole world 
 possessed of a climate the same as that in which he lived. Against the fig-leaf aprons 
 may be set the ' coats of skins ' (3^^). 
 
 '^D'lpc — a somewhat elusive word as to meaning. In general it seems to denote 
 "eastward," or "on the east side," — c/. Gn. 11^, 12*, 13I1, all passages assigned by 
 scholars to the same hand (J) as Gn. 2*^-^^. The meaning of mpn in Gn. 3^^^ is not 
 
 very clear. In Gn. 2® the LXX has Kar^a) dvaToXds [Josephus, Anf. I. i — irpbs tt]v dvaroXirip]. 
 The Vulgate, on the other hand, has a principio, "iirom aforetime," the sense in which 
 msD is most frequently used in the Psalms and prophetic writings. 
 
 ^ Eden — apparently not to be confused with the place-name jnj; to which references are 
 
 made in II Ki. ig^^ ||' Is. 3712, Ezek. 2"]"^, Am. i^; \cf. W. M. Miiller, Asien u. Etiropa 
 p. 291]. In II Ki. 19^" (II' Is. 37^-) the ]np '33 are mentioned as in Telassar. According 
 to Delitzsch, Faradies, pp. 3 ff., 262 ff., the pp here, as well as in Ezek. 27^^ (pj?) and 
 
 Am. i'' (py no), must be identified with the Babylonian Bit-Adini. The ]lj; n'3 of 
 Am. i^ has been looked for elsewhere. According to E. Robinson, Bib. Res. iii, p. 556, 
 it is Paradisus (cf. Ptol. Geog. v. 14) mod. Jusieh — cf. also Steiner and Hoffmann, 
 Z.A. W. iii, (1883), p. 97. A Babylonian identification of Eden has been persistently 
 sought. It has been brought into connection with the Babylonian district Km-dunidi 
 [varr. Kaj'-dti-ni-si, Gin-du-ni-sii\ so Rawlinson {vide Delitzsch, Paradies, pp. 65 ff., 
 133 ff.). Amongst a list of cities in the Sumerian language is mentioned Sipar Edina 
 =:Sippar of Eden (so Pinches, O.T. and Bab. -Assy. Records^^ (1903), p. 70). Then 
 there must be mentioned Gu-edin-na (thought by Hommel to be the old name for the 
 Chaldaeans) [III R. 53, 4 ; II R. 59, Rev, 43; IV R. 21*, no 2, Rev. 19], nar-cditi-tm, 
 kis-edin-na (rivers) which Hommel has brought into comparison with the name \cf. 
 Hommel, Geog. u. Gesch. pp. 241 ff. ; vide Jeremias, A.T.A.O.", (1906), pp. 188 f.]. In 
 one of the great syllabaries (S*) edinu is synonym for ^t7-« =" plain, desert." It is 
 interesting to note that i^'^ has no determinative ynN which J appears to use when the 
 
 land-name is unfamiliar (as niJ pN, Gn. 4^^), poetical (as -lyji? "p^<, Gn. 11-) or com- 
 prehensive (as ]yD3 y^^<, Gn. \2^, etc.). Familiar lands such as DnxD have no determinative 
 
 VD^. It has been contended that py was originally not a place-name at all, but meant 
 "pleasure, delight," in which sense it is obviously used in II Sam. !-■*, Je. 51^*, Ps. 36^. 
 In Gn. 18^2 J uses a fem. form nnj? in this sense. This view is supported by the LXX 
 
 renderings of jny as i) Tpv4>i) in Ezekiel and Joel [i.e. Ez. 28^^, 31^' '^^' '^^< ^^ 36^' ; 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN 3 
 
 The fourth, again, encourages strongly the view that the ' garden ' is 
 not on earth at all, since it is a place whence man was driven, 
 presumably for all time. 
 
 The presence of such curiously contradictory conceptions of the 
 same place within the limits of a comparatively short narrative 
 suggests the desirability of a closer examination of the form of the 
 story and of the condition of the text. Even if we agree with 
 Driver that we have in the Paradise story, as, indeed, in general 
 in the early chapters of Genesis, the expression in allegorical dress 
 of profound truths respecting the nature of man, and " that what 
 we have to consider is not the question of the site of Paradise as 
 a real locality, but the question of its site as it was pictured by the 
 Hebrew narrator,"^ we have not rid our path of difficulties. Was 
 the Paradise of the Hebrew narrator an ideal locality, whose only 
 existence was in his own mind ? That would accord well with 
 Gn. iii 23 f, but is quite inconsistent with Gn. ii 10-14. The latter 
 passage clearly indicates that to the narrator Eden was a real 
 locality, the site of which he was at pains to define. It may be 
 contended, of course, that although the narrator pictured to himself 
 a real locality, an imperfect knowledge of geography may have 
 occasioned a faulty presentment of its situation. But even allowing 
 this contention full weight, it cannot reconcile the fundamental 
 opposition of conceptions to which attention has been directed. The 
 most feasible solution, — and as we shall see it is one justified by 
 other evidence, — seems to lie in a surrender of the assumption that 
 the whole section is the work of one hand and the reflection of one 
 mind. We have to deal with a composite document, the constituent 
 elements of which it is our task to determine. 
 
 Analysis of the Narrative. The story of the Garden of Eden is 
 contained in Gn. ii 8-iii 24. This section in its turn forms part 
 of a larger whole extending from ii Afb-\\\ 24, and distinguished 
 
 Jo. 2^]. The Lxx reading for Is. 51^, however, is TrapdSejaos, and for Genesis [2^> i"- i'"', 
 323. 24^ 4I6J i^ jg "ESeyU. The Vulgate renders the J1J?3-]J1 of Gn. 2** by paradisus voluntatis. 
 
 This seems by implication the interpretation put upon it by Josephus [^tjci 5^ rbv Qebv 
 Koi irapdSeLaov irpbs ttjv di'aToXTjJ' KaracpvTedcrai iravTolui TeOrfXbTO, cpvri^. — Ant. I. i 3], 
 who knows of no land Eden [c/. his ll' passage to Gn. 4^'' — NaiSa tottov ovru KaXotj- 
 Hevov — Ant. I. ii 2]. 
 
 ' Genesis (1904), pp. 57 f. 
 
 A 2 
 
4 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 from the surrounding context by the use of the double name 
 DTl/X nirr*-^ Thus in Gn. i i-ii 4a (also a whole and attributed 
 to P) the divine name employed is DTl/i^- In chapter iv again 
 there is a sudden change to the use of niri'' alone. Modern 
 criticism in general assigns the Eden story to J. 
 
 An examination of the whole section [ii ^a-'ni 24] reveals a curious 
 mingling of subjects. The section opens with what purports to be 
 an account of creation [v. 4^]. A ' mist * goes up from the earth 
 [v. 6], and the man is formed [v. 7]. After the statement in v. 5, 
 we expect an account of the creation of vegetation to follow. But 
 at this stage the creation narrative is interrupted by the opening 
 account of the Garden of Eden [v. 8]. Vegetation 0/ a particular 
 kind'^ (VS?) is made to grow within the confines of the garden \y. 9]. 
 A river issues from Eden \v. 10] which branches into four \yv. 
 I I -1 4]. The man is put into the garden with certain injunctions 
 vv. 15-17]. In t^. 18 we have the recognition that an help-meet is 
 essential for the man. In v. iga we have an account of the creation 
 of beasts and birds, but not of the help-meet which we were led to 
 expect from the tenour of v. 1 8. Then follows the naming of the 
 beasts and birds [v. i gl>]. Vv. 2 1 f contain the delayed account 
 of the creation of the help-meet, and her name [M^X]. F. 25 
 furnishes the connecting link with chap. iii. Chap, iii vv. 1-19 
 
 ^The distinctive use of the two-fold name, may be due to the final redactor [Rp], who 
 adopted this device to bridge over the incongruity occasioned by the sudden and unex- 
 plained change in the divine name from Elohiin in the first chapter to Jahvch in the 
 second. This seems the most plausible explanation, although others are possible. Thus 
 J may have availed himself of an older document in which Elohiin was employed, and 
 added of his own accord Jahveh thereto. Or the composite name may be due to some 
 Q^'re [niiT or D'^'?^*] which has crept into the text. The Lxx and Vulgate, it should 
 be observed, read most often 6 Qeti% [D'HTN]. In tlie conversation between the woman 
 and the serpent, the name used is merely D'n^ti [Gn. 3^' "• '']. Whatever be the true 
 explanation of the phenomenon, it can hardly represent a fusion of J and P sections 
 dealing with the same theme. 
 
 2 Cf. the n'b* and 3&j? of v. 5 which we should have expected here. V. 8 limits the 
 
 garden to an orchard. It might be argued that other forms of vegetation than the yp 
 
 may be comprised in the ptSM of v. 8, but pt03 in addition to its literal meaning of 
 
 planting (trees, etc.) has the figurative sense of establishing \cf. Is. ^\^^ (the heavens); 
 Je. i^", i89, 31^8 (people), etc.] which would be quite suitable here. It must, however, 
 be acknowledged that where J employs the word elsewhere \i.e. Gn. 21'*^ (a tamarisk tree), 
 Gn. 9"" (a vineyard) ; Nu. 24'' [JE] (vine)] it is taken in the literal sense. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN 5 
 
 form a continuous narrative which flows logically and without 
 interruption. In v. 20 we have another name given to the woman 
 [rriri]. Adam and Eve are clothed in skins \y. 21] (in iii v. 7 their 
 garments were aprons of fig leaves). The expulsion from the 
 garden follows \vv. 22-24]. 
 
 Obviously we have here the commingling of, at least, two originally 
 distinct narratives (i) a Creation story, (2) a Paradise story. 
 
 The Creation Story. A continuous narrative is furnished by 
 ii vv. 4d, (5rt), 7, ga, iga, 20, 18, 21, 22, 23^ (or iii v. 20). 
 Of the nature of redactional additions are vv. $d, gb, \gb{}), 24. 
 V. 23^ is apparently a quotation from an old form of words used 
 at a marriage ceremony. 
 
 In the day that the Lord God made earth and heavens. (And no plant 
 of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung 
 up.) . . . And the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living 
 soul. . . . (And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every 
 tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.) . . . And the Lord 
 God formed from the ground every living thing of the field, and every 
 fowl of the heavens, and brought [them] unto the man to see what he 
 would call them (lit. it.) . . . And the man gave names to all cattle, and 
 to the fowl of the heavens, and to every beast of the field ; and for 
 the man he had not found an help-meet for him. . . . And the Lord God 
 said " It is not good that man should be alone. I will make an help- 
 meet for him." . . . And the Lord God caused to fall a deep sleep upon 
 the man, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the 
 flesh after it. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from man 
 into woman and he brought her unto the man. . . . (And the man said 
 she shall be called woman because she was taken from man.) 
 
 The Paradise Story. A continuous narrative is also furnished 
 by ii vv. 8, ga, {gb), 15-17, iii 1-19, 22-24. 
 
 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden : and there he 
 put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God 
 made to grow every tree that is pleaspnt to the sight and good for food ; 
 (the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the 
 knowledge of good and evil.) . . . And the Lord God took the man, and 
 put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the 
 Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou 
 mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
 thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou 
 shalt surely die. . . . And the serpent was more subtil than any beast 
 
6 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said, etc. . . . to 
 V. 19. (To this, perhaps the conclusion \yv. 22-24] falls to be added.) 
 
 It may be supposed that the foregoing roughly indicates the 
 two main documents of which the section is composed. They 
 contain the matter of the two originals, — which may have existed 
 either in the form of oral tradition or written records — and probably 
 even the actual wording in parts, but they have been worked over 
 by J who appears to have fused them together, and cast their 
 contents into the mould of his own style. That this is not a 
 forced division is shown by the treatment meted out to it by 
 Josephus, who claims \_Ant. Pref §4] to follow the sacred books,^ 
 Josephus separates the creation elements from the Paradise story.^ 
 He is clearly conscious of the diversity between the creation 
 account of Gn. i i-ii ^.a and that in the section under review, 
 explaining away the discrepancy by maintaining that after the 
 seventh day Moses began (pucrioXoyeiu -Trepi t>7? t' ai/OpwTrov 
 KaracTKevfji.^ We must for the moment be content, however, 
 merely to draw attention to the existence of these different 
 documents without making any effort at closer delimitation. 
 
 A third docuinejit. It will be observed that no attempt has been 
 made to include vv, 6, 10-14 in either of the foregoing. These 
 verses are marked off for differential treatment by certain peculiar 
 characteristics. Since vv. 1 1-14 hinge on v. 10, being of the nature 
 of a gloss on that verse, our immediate concern is with vv. 6 and 
 10. For convenience we reproduce the Hebrew. 
 
 ^ There can be no doubt that Josephus had other sources of information than the 
 Massoretic Text at hand. By some he is thought to be merely a clever compiler. — 
 Cf. Bloch, Quellen des Josephus, (1879), also Biichler, Rev. d. £/. Juives, xxxii, {1896), 
 p. 199, and xxxiv, (1898), p. 93. 
 
 ^Josephus \Ant. I. i 2] treats in general terms of the formation of man \cf. Gn. 2''], 
 the name Adam, and the presentation of the creatures \cf. v. 19], their naming \cf. 
 w. igb, 20], the recognition of the need of an help-meet [cf. v. 18], the creation of 
 woman [cf. vv. 21, 22], and he cleverly unites the passages Gn. 2^, 3-° on the naming 
 of woman. In Ant. I. i 3-4 he takes up the Paradise narrative separately. 
 
 * Since in his Preface he asserts that the great lawgiver only shrewdly hinted at some 
 things, whilst others again he concealed in a dignified allegory, explaining expressly such 
 things as it was expedient to discuss directly [irdvTa yap ry tup SKup tpitjei (Tvncpupop 
 ?Xf' T^P 8id6eaip, to, flip alviTTO/j.ipov rod POfiod^TOV Se^tcDs, to. d' d\\r)yopovPTOs fiera. 
 ae/jLpiTTjTOi, 6aa 8' i^ evOelas XiyeadaL avpicpepe, ravra prjrtiis ificpaplt^oPToi], Josephus 
 probably means by (pvcioKoyeip some allegorical or enigmatical treatment of the subject. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN 7 
 
 It T -: IT •• : T V I T : • : I VAi T ) ■ :■ --.i- •■ : 
 
 r\v:iiih n^ni ins^ oerb^ nn-riws* rSpmh pyx: n>c^ nn^i "o 
 
 T T : - : T T : •• t • t • |at - v ) : - : | v •• •• •• t t : 
 
 I* T 
 
 The peculiarities to note in connection with these two verses are: 
 
 (a) the absence of the name ^T\7^ nin*' from both. In 
 both cases we have every reason to expect the divine name. 
 Observe in the context how each new phenomenon of creation is 
 attributed to the active intervention of the Lord God,— the Lord 
 God made, the Lord God formed, the Lord God planted, made to grow, 
 took, etc. It is the same in the first chapter of Genesis. Each 
 new act of creation is ascribed to the power of the word of God. 
 Each is introduced by the famiHar phrase " And God said." In 
 the present case both verses introduce phenomena, which consistently 
 with the context ought to have been assigned to the activity of 
 Jahveh Elohim. In v. 6 an IJSt goes up either from, or upon,^ 
 the earth. In e^. lo a river issues forth from Eden. We should 
 
 thus have expected in z;. 6 . . .^^<t D''^7^{ nUT' 7y.*5 and in 
 
 V. 10 . . .^nj n^rh^ r\)'n'' ^^n 
 
 T T .. - 
 
 (d) A second point to notice is that the grammatical cast of 
 both verses is the same, and that in this respect also they differ 
 from the context. Take v. 6, for instance. The ' tense ' of the 
 sentence is the Imperfect probably with Jussive force. " And an "^^ 
 shall go up from (upon) the earth and shall water the whole surface 
 of the ground." Or it may be "and let an ^{^ go up," etc. "and 
 let it water" etc. It is not merely a "continuation of the descriptive 
 sentence by the Imperfect and consecutive Perfect" [Dillmann]. 
 In z^. 10 we have an unusual construction, — the Participle followed 
 by an Imperfect.^ It almost seems as if by the use of the Parti- 
 ciple an attempt had been made by the Massoretes to get back 
 
 ^Sp so in Merx, Chrestomathia 7a;'^«/«?Va (1888), also Haupt, Proceedings of American 
 
 Oriental Society 1896, pp. 158 ff. 
 
 ^"The Tarticiple, followed by the Imperfect and the consecutive Perfect, expresses 
 continuance ; whether in the past or in the present of the author, may seem doubtful. 
 The statement of purpose mppn"?, leads rather to the former conclusion." — Dillmann, 
 Genesis, (Eng. Transl.), i (1897), p. 123. 
 
8 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 to the Perfect in this manner since the form of the sentence denied 
 them otherwise. The original reading in accord with v. 6 was, no 
 doubt, NV.*: not J<V'- 
 
 {c) The tenour of the verses marks them off from the surrounding 
 text. It has long been recognised that vv. 10-14 had no part in 
 the original narrative.^ They obviously interrupt it. Holzinger, 
 too, has recognised the individuality of v. 6, and thinks that 
 it once stood after v. 8 in the description of the garden.^ As 
 we have shown above in our analysis, they can be removed without 
 inconvenience from their place in the text for separate consideration, 
 According to \oa a distinction must be made between Eden and 
 the garden. It has never been evident why such distinction should 
 be made. That Eden and the garden have separate identities 
 might be maintained from the pyS"!^ of 8a, but the ^ has all 
 the appearance of an interpolation introduced to justify and support 
 the reading of \oa} Why, too, should the source of the river be 
 outside the garden ? Nothing in the narrative hangs on a dis- 
 tinction between Eden and the garden. The phrase " from there it 
 shall be divided " only increases the confusion of ideas into which 
 the verse throws us. Was the river divided before it reached the 
 garden, or in the garden, or after it left the garden ? Some critics 
 argue for the separation taking place at the boundary of the garden 
 or just within the garden at the point where the river is about to 
 make its exit. But these are problems that only those who defend 
 the unity of the section are called upon to solve. They serve to 
 justify our separation oi vv. 10-14 from the surrounding text. 
 
 The only connection these verses have with the story of Eden 
 
 ^ Such is the view e.g. of Ewald, Dillmann, Bunsen, Toy, Holzinger, Gunkel, Cheyne. 
 
 '^C/., however, Cheyne, En. B. s.v. Paradise, col. 3573. 
 
 3 Elsewhere the garden appears to be identified with Eden, if indeed pj? is to be taken 
 as a place-name. Thus we have ]np~p merely, Gn. 2l^ 3'-^' ^; Ezek. 36^' [where "the 
 desolate land " shall become pj?-]33] ; so also Joel 2^. The identification of the garden 
 with Eden is more obvious in Is. 51*, where py is found in poetic apposition with 
 nirT-]3, and in Ezek. 28" with D'n'7N~]3. Identity is also suggested in Ezek. 31^-^. It 
 is thus exceedingly probable that the )ny3~)3 of Gn. 8a was originally pp~jJ. Indeed 
 if the true reading were ]nj?3 we should scarcely expect p and ]lj?3 to be joined by 
 the viaqqeph. The 3 is antagonistic to the spirit of the maqqeph. In the editions of 
 Ginsburg and Baer, e.g., the maqqeph is omitted, but to all seeming it is the 3 that 
 should be removed instead. This is an emendation already suggested by Reuss. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN 9 
 
 is found in loa. There we learn that a river went forth from Eden 
 to water the garden. So runs the Massoretic Text. It may be 
 asked, is this not proof that v. 10 at least belongs to the Paradise 
 narrative ? So strongly however does the evidence weigh against 
 the inclusion of v. 10, that we are rather compelled to look for 
 some explanation of the occurrence of the word py here at all. 
 We very much doubt if the original text had it. It is much more 
 probable that the reading was py instead of 'ry^} a change that 
 is but slight and could easily have been made. Slight carelessness 
 on the part of a scribe would suffice to create confusion between 
 the •> and the "i, more especially in the period prior to the intro- 
 duction of the square character, when these letters were of 
 the same size and a slight irregularity in the horizontal lines 
 would serve to make them indistinguishable.^ But this question 
 of the substitution of py for ry takes us back to a further con- 
 sideration of V. 6. 
 
 In V. 6 we are told that " an IK shall go up from (upon) the 
 earth and shall water the whole surface of the ground." The 
 meaning of 1t^ is not very clear. The word occurs in only one 
 other passage of the Old Testament [Job xxxvi 27] where the 
 interpretation is not obvious. Indeed the whole passage here is 
 obscure and difficult.^ The LXX reads [Gn. ii 6] Trrjyii Se ave^aivev 
 K.T.X., and on the strength of this reading'* we may reconstruct 
 
 the original Hebrew as . . . H^yri VV) — a reconstruction that has 
 been suggested before now. If py, then, was the reading of the 
 original text, why was *TX substituted ? The reason is not far 
 
 1 Perhaps instead of pyD or j'yn in v. lo we should read pyD spring or fountain, 
 in apposition to nnj. 
 
 "^C/., e.g., the ' and the T of the Siloam Inscription. 
 
 *The passage runs JinK'? "itDD ipr D'D~'Dt03 ynr '3 — Literally — "For he shall draw up the 
 drops of water, they (or perhaps he — reading pr) shall refine [or perhaps siorc up, 
 bind up—^^1, if. D'pi =' fetters ' (or Aram. Npn = wine-skin)] the rain to its {his}) 
 
 ? (mist? or cistern?)." Some critics wish to read nti3'7="to his water-skin." There 
 appears to be an inclination to identify nN with Assyr. cdil 'flood, floodwater,' but this 
 must be regarded with Zimmern [R'.A.T.^, (1903), p. 529] as doubtful. 
 
 ^ The LXX is supported in this reading by the Peshitta and the Vulgate. Aquila has 
 eiTi^Xvcr/jids. 
 
lo WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 to seek. In C3*yx and n/b*1{< we have a play upon words such as 
 the Hebrew mind took delight in — dj^ is formed from the ri/b1i<- 
 This play upon words has been extended by some later priestly 
 investigator who conceived the brilliant idea of substituting '^^{ 
 for py. An "7X ascends from the earth and D1J< is formed from 
 
 the n^lK-' 
 
 This vy, moreover, would give us a valuable additional connecting 
 link between vv. 6 and lo. These sentences would then run 
 
 • • • pxn-p n^yn pyi c 
 
 I- - T T t: 
 
 In respect both of form and matter these verses purport to be a 
 fragment of a creation story. As we know from Babylonian 
 literature there could be several theories of creation existing side 
 by side amongst the same people. Even in the Old Testament 
 we have traces of more than one cosmogony and several cosmogonic 
 echoes." The verses before us, moreover, were to all seeming con- 
 secutive portions of the same document. Adhering to a strictly 
 literal interpretation of the verses, we should say that this document 
 formed a cosmogonic narrative, wherein, after the fashion of the 
 cosmogony of P [Gn. i i— ii 4«], the several acts of creation 
 resulted from the divine command. 
 
 We have now distinguished in the section Gn. ii d^b-\\\ 24, three 
 separate sources or documents — (i) a creation story, which for con- 
 venience we shall call c^ (2) the garden story, which we shall call 
 g, and (3) a cosmogonic fragment, which since it centres on the 
 fountain (py) we shall denote y. 
 
 It is of interest and of importance to compare the three creation 
 
 1 There is another play upon words in the section of which we treat. Compare the 
 D'Tiy of Gn. 2^5 [ = ' naked,' v^Tij;] with the nny of Gn. 3^ [ = crafty, shrewd, ^^\ 
 
 T T 
 
 As Gn. 2^ is a later interpolation, we may be justified in assuming that the same hand 
 which introduced this verse, is responsible for the substitution of IN' for py. 
 
 ^ Cf. (in addition to the cosmogonies in the first two chapters of Genesis) Job 38^" ; 
 Prov. S''^"^. We have cosmogonic echoes in Gn. 49-^; Judg. 5^°; Job 15''^; and figura- 
 tive reflections of the Babylonian myth in Is. 27\ Si***; Ts. 74^'''", Sgi"-"; Job 3^ 9", 
 2612. i3_ On the various Babylonian creation myths vide Weber, Literatur dcr Babylonicr 
 und Assyrcr, (1906), pp. 40-60. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN ii 
 
 stories or fragments of such, which, if our analysis be correct, we 
 find within such short compass. These are our c and/" documents, 
 and the cosmogony of P [Gn. i i-ii \a\ 
 
 {a) The c document. According to c, when the earth and heavens 
 are fashioned by God, the earth is dry — so dry that no vegetation 
 can grow upon it. The implication \cf. v. ^b'\ is that the earth will 
 be watered by rain. The author of c does not seem to be acquainted 
 with any other means of irrigation. He makes no mention of any 
 great body of water, such as seas, or rivers. Nor is this an accidental 
 omission due to J. It is inherent in the document itself as is 
 manifest from vv. 19, 20, where only 'beasts of the field' and 
 ' fowls of the air ' are included in the creation of the animals. No 
 mention is made of the denizens of the deep, so conspicuous in P's 
 cosmogony — no ' waters bringing forth abundantly the moving thing 
 that hath life' \cf. Gn. i 20-22]. 
 
 c is the simplest of our three cosmogonic documents. Its con- 
 ception of the Deity and of the universe is the most rudimentary. 
 God labours in the process of creation. He shapes the earth and 
 heavens, forms man of dust from the ground, and out of the ground 
 fashions the beasts of the field and the fowl of the air. The notion 
 of creation here presented could only have been the expression of 
 the reflections of a people of primitive culture. The outlook is 
 circumscribed. It is the cosmogony of a child of nature. The 
 surrounding is that of the desert, where water is scarce, where the 
 earth is dry and dusty, and where vegetation springs luxuriant after 
 rain. There is here none of the sublimity of P's narrative, where 
 God but spake and it was done. 
 
 {b) The f document. Short though it is, this fragment takes us 
 into an entirely different atmosphere. We are at once conscious of 
 a wider and more comprehensive outlook, the fruits of riper specula- 
 tion. If c is the outcome of desert musings, / is the product of 
 culture in a land of cultivation. The author of/ has in his mind's 
 eye a grand terrestrial scheme of irrigation. Four rivers branch off 
 from a parent river, which in its turn is fed from a fountain, — no 
 doubt one of the fountains of the great deep.^ The parent river is 
 
 1 Cf. Gn. 7"* (P), 82 (P) [(nan) oinn nirpo] ; Pr. S^s [ninn niyy] ; Job sS'fi [D'-sajl. 
 
12 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 probably the circumfluent Okeanos.^ The four great world rivers — 
 perhaps one for each of the great world divisions — leave it to rejoin 
 it again. " Unto the place whence the rivers go, thither they return 
 again. - 
 
 Such conceptions as these could only originate amongst a people 
 familiar with broad and extensive waterways. There can be no 
 hesitation in fixing the birthplace of/ Babylonia is writ large upon 
 it The terminations of the names Pishon and Gihon, too, suggest 
 Hebraised forms of Babylonian-Assyrian names terminating in dnu. 
 Even the form of sentence with the subject preceding the verb is 
 after true Babylonian fashion.^ 
 
 ic) The P cosmogony. In Genesis i i-ii 4« we recognise the work 
 of a writer who has a grand conception of the universe and a noble 
 and exalted conception of God. The outlook revealed is wide, and 
 the scheme of creation logical. He covers the whole universe in his 
 range. His cosmology, however, is still tinged with the crudities 
 of early speculative philosophy. To the writer of P the heaven is 
 still a solid roof overhead restraining the waters of the primaeval 
 abyss with floodgates whence these waters escape as rain [cf. 
 Gn. vii ii]. But his education has been extensive. He knows of 
 the wonders of the heavens. He can appreciate the value of the 
 planetary orbs- for omens [nhi^l for the determination of the sacred 
 seasons [Dn.VliS], and for recording time in general [D'*^^T ^''^?]- 
 
 ^ An all-encircling Okeanos, known to the Greeks of Homeric times, was also believed 
 in by the Babylonians. The well-known Mappa Alimdi in the British Museum [No. 92687 ; 
 cf. C.T. xxii 48] depicts the world encircled by a nar marrattiiii ("bitter river," viz. 
 salt sea). The nar marratuni is not merely the Persian Gulf, as some commentators 
 assume. It is the ocean, the rivcj- which encircles the earth. In one of the Assyrian 
 syllabaries mai-raUi is given as synonymous with miqu, ring. The circular shape of the 
 earth (probably a deduction from the form of the horizon) seems to be the assumption 
 underlying such passages as Is. 40^ ; Pr. 8^'' ; Job 2(P. In Ps. 651" '^' behind the figura- 
 tive language we have possibly the thought of the ocean as the D^n'^N h^, or canal of 
 
 God. According to Josephus the river of Eden is the river that surrounds the earth. 
 [ Apderai 6' oirros 6 ktjwos vwb evbs irorafiov, iraaav iv KtJKXifi ttjv yTji' irepippiovroi, os «'s 
 ricaapa fiipr] axt^erai k.t.X. — Afi/. I. i 3]. We do not know what authority Josephus 
 followed, but his account is certainly in conformity with the spirit of the / document and 
 may represent an earlier and better form of text free from disfiguring emendations. 
 
 ^ Eccles. l'. 
 
 'Pride of place might have been given to the subject in vv. 6 and 10 as a direct trans- 
 lation from a Babylonian original. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN 13 
 
 He knows of the ' great sea-serpents ' [D v^l^l D3''^J!I], presuppos- 
 ing a general acquaintance with the great deep and the tales 
 of adventurous sea-farers. His repeated use of TD implies also a 
 general knowledge of the various species of beasts, birds, fishes, and 
 insects. P's conception of God although lofty is not altogether free 
 from anthropomorphism. It is sufficient, however, that God should 
 speak (almost the minimum of effort),^ and it is done. Man made 
 in God's image has forthwith dominion over the creatures. The 
 horizon of the author of P ig much more extended than that of c for 
 instance. He is the product of a richer civilization. 
 
 A detailed consideration of g need not occupy our attention here. 
 It is so obviously different from the other documents that it is quite 
 unnecessary to emphasize the distinction. 
 
 The nature of the documents we have thus briefly reviewed, their 
 manner of thought and style of diction, fully justify their separation. 
 It only remains to give sufficient reason for the cause and manner 
 of their compilation. 
 
 The combination of c and g. It will be readily acknowledged that 
 g presupposes a creation narrative. It deals with the creation 
 epoch, with the first man and woman, and the first creatures. A 
 direct connection with a preceding cosmogony is even indicated by 
 such references as " the man whom he had fashioned " [ii %b\ " the 
 beasts of the field which the Lord God had made" [iii i]. Was 
 this preceding narrative of creation our ^? It is natural to infer 
 from their present connection that it was, and this view receives 
 support from the diction of the two phrases quoted, re-echoing as it 
 does the phraseology of ii 19, 20. The documents thus display a 
 certain relationship which cannot, and need not, be set aside. 
 Their harmony of diction lends confirmation to the opinion already 
 expressed that from whatever sources the original compiler (probably 
 J) drew his material he made free use of it, moulding it to his own 
 style. 
 
 But common sense demands that the union of diverse documents 
 such as c and g should be a union of entities, not a fusion, such as 
 we find here, where passages from the one document are taken out 
 
 ^ For the doctrine of creation by the mere exercise of thought, we must turn to India. 
 
14 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 and spread broadcast through the pages of the other. How, then, 
 is it possible to account for the remarkable interweaving of the 
 documents? On the surface there seems no good reason for it. If, 
 say, the working over of c and g had been by different hands, and g 
 had thus possessed certain cosmogonic elements of its own, which 
 could be supplanted by corresponding portions of c, such interlacing 
 of sources would be natural, since documents become fused together 
 in this manner, not because of dissimilarity, but because they have 
 certain elements in common. Such case, however, is not applicable 
 here. 
 
 The rearrangement of the text and consequent mingling of docu- 
 ments, may be traced to the editorial manipulation of a late period. 
 The creation narrative, as we know, has been disseminated through 
 the opening passages of the Paradise story in a remarkable manner, 
 the result, it may be, of an attempt to exhibit a logical order in the 
 development of events. For an explanation we need not look 
 further than the statement of ii %b — " and there {i.e., in the garden) he 
 put the man whom he had formed." We have here no mention of 
 woman, nor of the beasts of the field. If this represents the original 
 phrasing — as there is every reason to believe ^ — any one reading the 
 Paradise story critically might reasonably wonder at the inconsistency 
 of a narrative which began by assigning occupation of the garden 
 to the man alone, and then suddenly brought on the scene the 
 woman and the serpent.^ When the text had acquired a special 
 sacredness, a remedy could not be sought in the ordinary way 
 by means of the requisite additions and corresponding gram- 
 matical alterations. It was a clever solution of the difficulty that 
 suggested itself. By rearranging the text suitably, it might be made 
 to appear that woman was created after man was put in the garden. 
 The same, too, with the beasts of the field. Thus it comes about 
 
 ^This ignoring of the woman who plays so important a part in the narrative, is perhaps 
 typically oriental. Cf. iii. vv. 22-24, where again there is no mention of woman. 
 
 "Josephus, who had no doubt access to works, bearing on the sacred records, which 
 have been lost, or to traditions respecting treatment of text and interpolation of subject 
 matter which are no longer preserved, takes the creation narrative in Gn. ii (our c) as a 
 complete document preceding the Paradise story {g). He expressly states that God 
 brought Adam ami his wife into the garden, and explains that at that time the serpent 
 lived with them \cf. Ant. I. i. 3f.]. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN 15 
 
 that the creation of woman, and of the beasts of the field, is made 
 to appear as a work performed by the Lord God within the garden, 
 whilst the language used, as can be readily observed, conveys not 
 the slightest hint that such was really the case. If these acts of 
 creation had been performed within the garden, it is scarcely possible 
 to believe from the style of the Paradise narrative that all reference 
 to the surroundings could have been suppressed. 
 
 Then, again, there are flaws in the welding. In ii '^b we are told 
 that the Lord God planted a garden and put (DSJ'*!) there the man 
 whom he had fashioned. In v. 15 we are again told that the 
 Lord God took the man and settled him (^11113*1) in the garden " to 
 
 dress it and to keep it " (H'l^K^/l rTl^p?). There is no apparent 
 need for a repetition of the statement that man was put into the 
 garden. Still, this is not a point to which much value can be 
 attached. Mere repetition of the same fact in an altered form of 
 words is not evidence calculated to impugn the unity of a writing — 
 if that were all. But note the anomaly in v. 15. The word p is 
 
 masculine, and yet we read that the man was appointed ni^y? 
 
 .1 T : T : 
 
 Tr\ppy\. The feminine suffixes here make it evident that the 
 reference was originally not to the garden but to the HpIN of the 
 creation narrative. Nor can the passage even be construed into an 
 implicit reference to the H^li^ of the garden. It was part of man's 
 punishment that he was sent back " to till the ground whence he 
 was taken" [iii 23]. The dressing and keeping of the ri/b"lX was 
 the duty assigned to man in the creation narrative. Thus in z/. 15 
 we have part of ^ masquerading as part oi g. 
 
 Then there is the problem of the / document. Why such 
 obviously extraneous matter, as is here contained, should be mixed 
 up with the other documents is not very obvious. Might it be that 
 the notion of a pleasure-garden demanded that there be fountains 
 and streams as well as all sorts of pleasant trees ? The famous 
 " Hanging Gardens " of Babylon were after this manner. Engines 
 were installed in the foundations to pump up water for their running 
 streams. 
 
 Wo lag das Paradies ? We are now approaching the end of our 
 inquiry. There remains but to fix the site of Eden, or rather the 
 
i6 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 Pleasure-garden, in accordance with our analysis. This compels us 
 to a twofold consideration of site. In the first place there is the 
 site of the Pleasure-garden according to the Paradise story proper 
 (the ^ document), and in the second place there is the site of 
 ' Eden ' as it is presented after the compilation of the documents. 
 
 According to ^^ the man after his creation is set in a garden 
 filled with " every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for 
 food." The point meant to be emphasized clearly is that the man 
 has been thus appointed to a life of luxury and ease. There is no 
 need to labour. His food is ready to hand. He is warned, however, 
 against aspiring to the peculiar privileges and attributes of Deity.^ 
 These, as we learn from the context, are (i) "the knowing of good 
 and evil," viz., the power of discriminating between right and wrong, 
 or perhaps, simply, of exercising the faculty of reason [cf. iii 5, 23], 
 (2) the possession of immortality. Hence we learn indirectly what 
 were regarded as the special attributes of Deity at the date of the 
 narrative.^ The man and woman at the instigation of the serpent,' 
 partake of the forbidden fruit, and thereby become possessed of one 
 divine attribute — the sense of right and wrong. In consequence 
 man forthwith became responsible for his conduct, where hitherto he 
 had been irresponsible. He has become in part divine without 
 being fitted otherwise for his high estate. " Behold the man is 
 
 ^The man is not told that the tree, or rather trees, — for no doubt the tree of life was 
 included in the prohibition also, — possessed such properties. It is the serpent, presumably 
 by divination of some sort (see below), who acquires the secret and divulges it to the woman. 
 
 ^This is also the Babylonian conception. When the God Ea created the man Adapa, 
 we are told "wisdom he gave him, eternal life he gave him not." 
 
 ^Vfn. There is a verb ^n meaning "to practise divination, use enchantment, etc.," 
 which may or may not be connected with era. Used only in the ft'e/, it is generally 
 regarded as a denominative from c5n:. There is this objection, however, that the 
 
 TT 
 
 Aramaic has tfra but no cnj. If era, then, be not a derivative of vm, we have new 
 
 •• - TT •••' ' Tt' 
 
 insight into the appearance on the scene of the ^nj in the 7v/e of tempter. It gives 
 
 the reason of his implied acquaintance with the divine secrets. [Note J's use of the 
 word in Gn. 30", 44'^' i"' (story of Joseph), and that of the noun ^TO ("divination, 
 
 enchantment") by JE, Nu. 23'^, 241 (story of Balaam).] A play upon words, such as this 
 view would admit of, makes a strong appeal to the Hebrew imagination. The choice 
 may even have fallen on the serpent from its having "poison under its tongue," a 
 physical feature which could readily be travestied figuratively [c/., e.g.. Job 20^'; 
 Ps. 10', etc.]. 
 
WHERE WAS EDEN 17 
 
 become as one of us knowing good and evil" [iii 22]. To man, 
 however, the other attribute of immortality is denied by a timely 
 exclusion from the garden [iii 22^, 23 f.]. 
 
 It is evident that the whole narrative is a figure of speech 
 enshrining the doctrine of an irresponsible and sinless state in which 
 man was created, whence he passed into one responsible and sinful. 
 It draws attention to the semi-divine in man — the possession of 
 wisdom which so separates him from the rest of the animal world. 
 From what we can gather there appears to have been no definite 
 location of the garden in the mind of the narrator. His Pleasure- 
 garden is an ideal locality. With the expulsion of Adam and Eve 
 it is closed for ever to mankind. If the C^j^^ of ii 8 belonged to 
 the original narrative, and is to be interpreted " eastward," then, 
 perhaps, the garden may have been vaguely conceived of as situated 
 somewhere in the east, beyond the ocean perhaps,^ and the " flame 
 of a sword which turned either way," may be figurative of the ra3'^s 
 of the rising sun. 
 
 The other site, — the site of the Pleasure-garden as indicated by 
 the Massoretic Text, — is far to seek. We may with perfect safety 
 aver that it cannot be found at all, "A river branching into four, 
 of which two are the Tigris and Euphrates, corresponds to nothing 
 which is to be found — or, we may safely add, was ever to be found 
 — on the surface of the earth." ^ The incorporation of the f docu- 
 ment gave to the Pleasure-garden a semblance of reality and an 
 apparent definiteness of location, that were entirely absent from the 
 Paradise story proper. The situation was not improved by the 
 modifications made on the text from time to time, of which the main 
 were the mistaken interpretation of pS? as a place-name, the sub- 
 
 ' C/". Ethiopic Enoch [LXXX. iii 2ff.] "And thence I went over the summits of those 
 mountains, far towards the East, and passed above the Erythrean Sea [here =: Indian Ocean], 
 and went far from it . . . and I came into the garden of righteousness, and saw . . . the 
 tree of wisdom . . . and the holy angel Rufael, who was with me, answered me and said, 
 ' This is the tree of wisdom of which thy old father and thy aged mother, who were 
 before thee, have eaten, and they recognised that they were naked and they were driven 
 out of the garden." — R. H. Charles, Book of Enoch, (1893), PP- 102L So also Ephrem 
 Syrus and Cosmas Indicopleustes transported Eden to the other side of the ocean. 
 Up\_Ar\sukttnnakkii the council chamber of the Babylonian gods, was conceived of as 
 situated on the earth in the east in the mountains of sunrise not far from the edge of 
 the world. 
 
 2 Driver, Genesis, (1904), p. 58. 
 
i8 WHERE WAS EDEN 
 
 stitution of pV for py in v. lo (if indeed this did not take place 
 
 in the / document before incorporation and thereby furnish the 
 reason for the incorporation), and the interpolation of ^ before py 
 
 in V. 8. Hence an entirely artificial ' Eden ' came into being which 
 has proved the despair of critics. Nor is it only modern critics who 
 have been puzzled. In vv. 1 1-14 we have quite a little commentary 
 on the rivers of 'Eden.' The form of v. I4.b suggests that 
 originally the names merely of the rivers were furnished. The rest 
 of the geographical information in vv. 11- 14 has been added from 
 time to time, — it may be, in the form of interlinear^ scholia which 
 ultimately crept into the text.^ But why pursue the subject further ! 
 It is, as we have said, an entirely artificial ' Eden ' that the 
 Massoretic Text presents for our consideration. To attempt to 
 locate it is folly. 
 
 Here, then, we may let the matter rest. The real ' Eden ' has 
 no existence in reality, whilst the site of the artificial ' Eden ' is, 
 and will for ever remain indeterminable. 
 
 ^ The earliest Massoretic notes, the so-called Massorah pm-va, were written on the outer 
 and inner margins ; but there is at least one case in which such notes are found between 
 the lines of the Hebrew text [a MS. in the possession of Dr. Gaster, vide Illustrated 
 Bibles, p. 12]. We are therefore justified in assuming the possibility of interlinear addi- 
 tions in times pre-Massoretic when the text was not yet rigid. 
 
 ^ Thus one early scholiast, to obviate the obscurity of the names of the rivers, identified 
 the Pishon with the river "which compasseth the whole land of Havilah," and the Gihon 
 with that " which compasseth the whole land of Cush." The Hiddeqel is defined as 
 " that which goeth in front of Assyria." The impression we gather from such explanatory 
 comments is that the commentator had before him some early, and therefore crude, map 
 of the world. But even the explanations he furnishes are not altogether satisfactory. 
 Cush and Assyria were familiar land-names to the Hebrews, but Havilah was apparently 
 unknown. A second commentator consequently adds after Havilah "where there is gold," 
 whilst yet a third, either to make the identification clearer or to display his own know- 
 ledge, contributes the additional information "and the gold of that land is good, and 
 there is bdellium and the onyx stone." These comments, so suggestive of Babylonian- 
 Assyrian lists, encouraged Dclitzsch to sift the appropriate cuneiform material without, 
 however, obtaining much reward for his efforts. 
 
 The very fact that three out of the four rivers whose names are given require explana- 
 tory comment, constitutes in itself strong proof of the foreign origin of that particular part 
 of the narrative. The only river that explains itself is the Euphrates (Perath), which from 
 its comparative nearness was familiar to the Hebrews. 
 
 Glasgow: printed at the university i-ress by Robert maci.ehose and go. ltd. 
 
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 Is Increasing Utility Possible: 
 
 In 1896 a distinguished writer on the theory of Value in general spoke 
 of a sub-division of it — namely that of Utility in Economics — as a field 
 in which scientific research was then closed.^ No doubt the analysis 
 of Utility is complete, if certain assumptions that it makes are to be 
 accepted as axiomatic. That there should be such assumptions, in a 
 study which has been aptly named "the Metaphysics of Political 
 Economy," is evitable,^ because the enquiry begins where Philosophy 
 ends, and therefore the student of economic value must either accept 
 results arrived at by Psychologists and Ethical thinkers or else re- 
 examine the conditions implied in certain states of consciousness for 
 himself It so happened that, when the examination of Utility was 
 begun, the former method was adopted ; and the economists who 
 endeavoured to outline this new study accepted a certain type of 
 ethical dogma as self-evident, from which they deduced the law of 
 diminishing Utility. For instance, when in 1855 Richard Jennings 
 formulated this principle, he derived it from a special type of 
 Physiological Psychology,^ and Jevons, who followed him in 1862 at a 
 meeting of the British Association, candidly starts from the ethical 
 conceptions of Bentham.* Strangely enough the contemporary 
 investigators of this subject on the Continent^ also began with similar 
 presuppositions, so that it may be said that the theory of Utility 
 made its appearance with the birthmark of Hedonism, a beauty-spot 
 
 'Ehrenfels, "The Ethical Theory of Value" in The International Journal of Ethics, vi. 
 p. 376. 
 
 ^Edgeworth, "On the Ultimate Standard of Value" in Economic Journal, iv. p. 5ib>. 
 
 "^ Nattiral Elements of Political Economy, pp. 98-100. 
 
 * 7 heory of Political Economy, 1 871, pp. 29-31. 
 
 ^ Entwickelung der Gesetze cies nienschlichen Verkehrs, by H. H. Gossen (printed 1854), 
 ed. 1889, pp. 1-9. 
 
 A 
 
 n\'\^^ 
 
2 IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 
 
 ■; / for.i blemish, according as one regards it, which, it may be, has in 
 ' the prpc.ess of its growth become less marked, but has not wholly 
 -• : .*'•: ".•'*:• <;ii§3'ppeared. 
 
 Attempts have been made to disavow or to eliminate the connection 
 with Hedonism — that naive view of man's practical nature which 
 regards him as subject to wants which occasion discomfort, the removal 
 of the latter then giving rise to pleasure. It is an instance of the 
 comprehensiveness of Prof. Marshall's enquiries that he was aware of 
 the danger of misconception, and in 1893 he expressly stated that in the 
 analysis of Utility "pleasure" was to be understood "so as to include 
 every good for which a man strives," and attention was drawn to the 
 description of total Utility as an aggregate of " satisfactions," not 
 of pleasures.^ Satisfaction in this sense is to be understood as the 
 attainment of the object of a desire. Now the general tendency of 
 Philosophy in recent years has been to distinguish such satisfaction 
 from the pleasure that usually follows it.^ 
 
 It may seem that the distinction just drawn is a purely verbal one 
 — but on the contrary it is vital ; and it is the more important, since 
 many who write of Utility, drift unconsciously into the interpretation 
 of satisfaction as pleasure in the sense in which the term is used in 
 Philosophy; hence the danger of re-opening in the field of economics 
 that long drawn-out controversy as to whether pleasures as such are 
 capable of summation and therefore of quantitative estimation.^ Even 
 if one endeavours to interpret the term " pleasure," as used by many 
 writers on Value, in the sense of satisfaction in general ; it must be 
 admitted that there is a marked tendency for many of them to think — 
 not merely to speak — hedonistically, and so we still sometimes hear of 
 " atoms of pleasure," of " a hedonic calculus," of " a psychological 
 hedonism from which every economic truth is deduced."'* Moreover, 
 this latter type of thought altogether overlooks the admission by some 
 
 ^ Economic Jotirtial, iii. p. 388. 
 
 ^Cf. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 178; Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 87; Sidgwick, 
 Methods of Ethics, pp. 46-7. 
 
 ^This is the basis of one of the points made by Professor Nicholson in his criticism of 
 Marshall's statement of diminishing Utility [Principles of Political Economy, i. pp. 55-65). 
 This criticism was the subject of a discussion in the Econoviic Journal , iv. pp. 151-S, 342-8. 
 
 ^ Pantaleoni, Pure Economics, pp. 9-23 ; cf. Zur Lehre von den Bediirfnissen, by F. Cuhel, 
 Innsbruck, 1907, pp. 29-31. 
 
IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 3 
 
 ethical Hedonists of a difference in kind in pleasure, by an ignoring of 
 what Mill called "the higher pleasures," many of which would fall 
 within the scope of Economics.^ 
 
 The investigation of Utility in its relation to Value requires to be 
 liberated from the entanglement with Hedonism, and this means more 
 than the substitution of the word "satisfaction " for the term " pleasure" 
 when we come to describe the realisation of the object of a desire. 
 Only confusion is introduced, if it be assumed that a "pleasure" 
 or Pleasure in general is the object of the desire. Economics has 
 little, if any, concern in the criticism of the ultimate ends of conduct, 
 and therefore it is safer to avoid preconceptions which presuppose a 
 somewhat dubious interpretation of these. 
 
 The tendency towards the acceptance of pleasure as the end of 
 desire has diverted attention from the consideration of the object that 
 actually is desired. Prior to the exertion of will, there must be an 
 idea in consciousness of a future state of the self which is preferable 
 to " the present one. This is the object, ideally conceived, which is to 
 be made actual by voluntary action.^ This again represents, as has 
 been said, "a harmonising of life."* To the economist, in particular, 
 clearness on this point is essential, since there is danger through con- 
 fusion of language ; for the object of a desire may relate to the 
 systematising in one universe of desire of a considerable number of 
 concrete objects, those in fact that we name commodities. The 
 peculiar risk of misconception at this point may have far-reaching 
 results. For instance, the following is the general line of reasoning by 
 which Wieser brings the collector of books or pictures under the 
 Law of Diminishing Utility. It is admitted that this phenomenon is 
 an apparent exception to the law, since each additional book or 
 picture stimulates, instead of weakening, the desire as it brings the 
 collector nearer the possession of a perfect library or a perfect gallery. 
 But it is urged that if duplicates of some book or picture were offered, 
 
 ^J. S. Mill, Utilitarianis/n, pp. 11-15. This difficulty has been dealt with as a limitation 
 of Consumers' Rent by Prof. Pigou, Economic Journal, xiii. p. 68. 
 
 ^ When this paper was read before the Economic Section of the British Association at 
 Winnipeg, the phrase " more choice-worthy " was used. In accordance with the criticism of 
 Prof. Chapman, I now substitute the more colourless term in the text. 
 
 ^ Cf. Green, rroL-s^oinena lo Ethics, p. 135. 
 
 •* Bosanquet, " Hedonism among Idealists," Mind, N.S. XII., p. 312. 
 
 A 2 
 
4 IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 
 
 the desire would be much weakened, if not destroyed, and so it is 
 concluded that this case, instead of being an exception, is a strong 
 confirmation of the law.^ But what is the object of the desire ? 
 Surely it is the perfect or complete collection — and as that object 
 ex hypotJicsi excludes duplicates,^ the reference to them is on a par 
 with the confusion of tongues invented by the enterprising twins. 
 Budge and Toddy, in Helens Babies, while playing at the Tower of 
 Babel, on which occasion one brought bricks when the other called 
 for mortar. 
 
 The object of a desire is related on the one side to the emergence 
 of the desire and on the other to its attainment. The whole process 
 might be described as an epoch in the life of a self-conscious being 
 who, in relation to all that he is, endeavours to make himself, from his 
 own point of view, more complete. Regarded in this way, the desire 
 might be described as a practical problem, and the attainment of it is 
 the solution. This is what is named satisfaction, which is a highly 
 complex state of consciousness, but which is clearly measurable from 
 several different stand-points, and it is one of these that is named 
 Utility. 
 
 The placing of the measurement of the attainment, or the partial 
 attainment, of the object of a desire on a less ambiguous foundation 
 suggests some reflections. On this interpretation of desire, if we con- 
 ceive the satisfaction to proceed progressively, there is no special 
 reason for the later stages in the movement yielding invariably less 
 satisfaction than the earlier ones. Indeed, it has been held that 
 certain desires do give an increasing satisfaction, but most economists 
 would rule these out as being obviously outside the scope of their 
 science. The problem then takes shape as to whether, within this 
 field, increasing utility is possible. To raise this question, even in 
 a hypothetical form, represents a breaking with what has hitherto 
 been accepted as to the nature of Utility, but it may be that 
 the strangeness of the suggestion arises from presuppositions con- 
 nected with the influence of Hedonism to which attention has 
 already been drawn. 
 
 ^ Natural Vahie, London, 1893, P- ^O- 
 
 '^Wieser's illustration evidently proceeds on the supposition, that in the "perfect 
 collection " there would be no duplicates. 
 
IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 5 
 
 In making an attempt towards the solution of the problem sug- 
 gested, the first step will be to produce some possible instance that 
 points towards increasing, rather than diminishing Utility. Attention 
 has already been directed to the apparent failure of Wieser to estab- 
 lish the application of the latter principle to the collector who was 
 aiming at the formation of a perfect library or picture-gallery. There 
 would be difficulties in presenting a concise analysis of the motives 
 and satisfactions involved in this special case, and it will be more 
 convenient to illustrate the point under discussion by another type of 
 collecting which will be found to present the various conditions that 
 require to be dealt with in a more manageable form. I select for this 
 purpose a certain aspect of the pursuit or hobby of stamp-collecting. 
 It may be premised that, in order to prevent ill-disposed persons 
 joining together the uncancelled halves of two stamps to defraud the 
 Post-Office, a plan was adopted in the issues of Great Britain and 
 several of the colonies, in the early days of adhesive stamps, of dis- 
 tinguishing the position of each particular stamp on its plate. Further, 
 the plates themselves were also distinguished, and those engraved 
 for use in Great Britain between 1858 and 1870 of the denomination 
 of id. had the number of the plate introduced into the design of the 
 stamp. It follows that any stamp of the issues from 1840 to 1870 
 can be assigned to its own proper position on the plate and that most 
 of the plates can be identified. Many stamp collectors have interested 
 themselves in reconstructing the plates, that is in gathering together 
 such of those specimens, belonging to the same plate, which are 
 capable of occupying a separate position on the reconstructed plate. 
 The undertaking is one of very great magnitude. There are over 300 
 plates of British stamps of this character and of these each plate of 
 id. stamps contained 240 separable stamps. Suppose we concentrate 
 attention on the process by which the desire for a single complete 
 reconstructed plate, say of the first British stamp (the black id. issue 
 of May, 1840) is satisfied gradually. The collector will begin with a 
 few specimens; as he adds others to these he obtains not only the 
 satisfaction of acquisition but the further satisfaction of getting nearer 
 and nearer to the completeness at which he aims. It follows that each 
 addition to the group of commodities he already had acquired towards 
 the satisfaction of his desire yields him an increasing utility. If we 
 
6 IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 
 
 translate this phenomenon into terms of price, it may be noted that 
 there is a very well defined market in postage-stamps of this character. 
 As a rule, all copies of equally good condition from the same plate are 
 sold at the same price. Taking a particular plate of this character for 
 illustration, known as Plate No. i, unused copies are .sold at about £2 
 each. Now in .so far as the collector has begun to reconstruct this plate, 
 it is clear he would be willing to give this amount for each of the early 
 copies — a price he may be actually assumed to have given.'^ But a 
 further copy will bring him nearer his goal of completeness, and 
 therefore, if it were necessary, he would give more than the market 
 price to secure it. This tendency will show itself with increasing 
 intensity as he came nearer the end, and the price he would be willing 
 to pay for the 239th would be many times that of the first specimens, 
 that of the 240th yet higher.^ 
 
 This illustration, which might be pursued much further, though in 
 some respects perhaps a trivial one, has the rare advantage that the pro- 
 cess of simplification that is so often necessary in economic analysis is 
 not required. From these data it would be possible to work out mathe- 
 matically the exact value of the conception of completeness as it 
 manifested itself at every stage, but probably enough has been said to 
 show that each additional purchase gains in utility from the existence 
 of the previous ones. Thus Utility, under these circumstances, tends 
 to increase rather than to decrease. It seems to me that this analysis 
 does not violate any of the legitimate limiting conditions introduced 
 into the statement of Diminishing Utility. According to the phraseo- 
 logy of Prof, Marshall there is no need to suppose that there is "any 
 
 ^ Neglecting the supposition that he may have found or been given some copies. Supposing 
 he obtains eleven in either of these ways and gives the market or catalogued price for the 
 twelfth, that price shows that he considers the utility he obtains worth it ; and, if he continued, 
 he would be prepared to give more for later specimens. 
 
 ^ In order to obtain as great a degree of reality as possible, I have obtained particulars from 
 a collector of the stamps described in the text, with a view to securing a basis for a demand- 
 schedule. In the case of a British plate of 240 stamps, where the first 20 were obtained at 
 IS. each, in the circumstances explained in the text, the following figures would be likely to 
 result : 
 
 For the 21st stamj) the collector would pay . . 13d. 
 
 50th „ ,, „ . . isd. 
 
 ,, looth ,, ,, ,, . . i8d. 
 
 ,, 200th ,, „ „ . . 24d, 
 
 „ 240th „ „ „ . . 3od. 
 
IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 7 
 
 alteration in the character or tastes of the man himself." ^ We start 
 with a certain desire and observe the successive additions of things 
 which are objectively equal increments to the stock, but giving 
 increasing satisfactions, respectively. It might be held that the case 
 investigated had been dealt with by anticipation by Prof. Marshall, 
 when he shows that "a small quantity of a commodity may be 
 insufficient to meet a certain special want," as for instance in a 
 comparison of the " pleasure " derived from ten pieces of wall-paper 
 in comparison with that of the last two needed for a room which 
 requires twelve pieces.^ It is admitted that in this special case the 
 decrease in satisfaction is not proportionate, and it is concluded 
 that the phenomena are analogous to what happens in diminishing 
 return where the earlier doses of labour and capital give a more 
 than proportionate increase until a certain point is reached. It seems 
 to me that this case may differ from the philatelist who is recon- 
 structing plates of stamps. Supposing a person is papering a room, it 
 may be that under no circumstances, at a given time, would he buy 
 more than twelve pieces of paper — if so his satisfaction, as the object 
 of his desire is attained, does not diminish — it ceases altogether when 
 it is at its maximum,^ The true analogy then appears to be with 
 Quasi-Rent, not with diminishing return. The same conclusion would 
 hold good with the stamp-collector whose desire was for one 
 reconstructed plate of the id. black of 1840 unused; the satisfaction 
 ends when at its maximum. If on the other hand he begins to 
 construct another plate, the market-price of the stamps needed for 
 which is the same (say S. G. No. 24), the influence of the ideal of 
 completeness reappears on a higher plane, that is he would derive a 
 somewhat larger degree of utility from the 240th addition to his 
 
 ^ Since desire is relative to character, if we suppose an endeavour to be made progressively 
 towards the attainment of its object, iti a certain special sense, each stage of realisation effects 
 a theoretical change in character. But such changes, unless they attain a certain degree, need 
 not occupy the attention of the economist. 
 
 2 Marshall, Principles (1907), p. 94. 
 
 •* In this case it may be assumed that the purchaser of paper would give more for the pieces 
 of paper necessary to complete the papering of the room, if this course were necessary. 
 Suppose when he had obtained the quantity needed, the price were to fall, say by three- 
 quarters, he might be induced to consider the re-papering of another room or rooms. This 
 case might be taken as analogous to diminishing returns, or again it might perhaps be urged 
 that the original desire had been succeeded by a new one. 
 
8 IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 
 
 second plate than from the 240th on the first, and so his utility curve, 
 though not showing an evenly continuous increase, would on the whole 
 tend to move upwards. Further, before leaving this example, it may 
 be added that should the collector desire to have a complete set of all 
 the reconstructed plates of British stamps, absolute completeness 
 would be exceedingly difficult of attainment, since in the case of one 
 plate, numbered yj, sufficient copies are not known to exist to enable 
 such reconstruction to be carried out. 
 
 Though this phenomenon, in so far as it has yet been analysed, 
 affects only a comparatively small number of persons, it can be shown 
 to extend very much further by other instances which can be dis- 
 covered when search is made for them. It has been noted that the 
 high price obtained for the Amherst collection of Caxtons was due to 
 the large number of examples. Here again there is the influence of 
 completeness, acting on the one side upon a desire which requires as 
 its object a considerable number of the commodities needed, which 
 commodities exist only in comparatively small numbers and are 
 obtainable with difficulty. The conditions are the exact contrary of 
 those required for diminishing Utility where the total quantity of the 
 commodity a person would desire is inconsiderable as compared with 
 the amount of that commodity that may be offered for sale. In his 
 illustration of diminishing Utility derived from purchases of tea, 
 Prof. Marshall supposes that in a year the person under observation 
 would not use more than 30 lbs. even if he could have more for 
 nothing — the stock in the United Kingdom at the present time is 
 about 105 million lbs. On the other hand, the collector of Caxtons 
 would be willing to possess every possible example, while the whole 
 number known is considerably under 1000 copies.^ 
 
 As a result of this analysis it would appear that the idea of com- 
 pleteness acts a counteracting tendency to Senior's Law of Variety. 
 But while this idea {i.e. completeness) is important in the formulation 
 of the principle of increasing Utility, it may be doubted whether it is not 
 merely the manifestation of a further conception. Why, it may be asked, 
 should completeness have such an important influence on Utility .-' 
 
 ^ According to the census of Caxtons in Blake's W. Caxton, pp. 372-3, the number of 
 copies known in 1882 was 560. Many of these were owned by libraries and could not 
 come to market. Hence the " world's visible supply " of Caxtons is very small. 
 
IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 9 
 
 It may be suggested that the motive behind it is that which takes 
 various forms, as emulation, the wish for distinction, or for excellence.^ 
 To be eminent in some direction constitutes a stimulus which enables 
 the man, who strives for distinction, to give a very high degree of 
 utility to such objects as are desired as steps in his progress. It is 
 clear, then, that from this point of view there is much scope for the 
 existence of an increasing utility, manifesting itself in the completeness 
 of the number of objects acquired which have been bound together 
 ideally as means towards the object of one desire. Hence the ex- 
 planation of the concentration of the desire for completeness upon 
 commodities which either from their nature, or from accident, are 
 comparatively few in respect to the aggregate wish for them. A 
 similar situation may arise in special circumstances in the case of com- 
 modities, neither naturally nor accidentally scarce, but artificially so. 
 Suppose that a manufacturer sees a great prospective advantage in 
 the amalgamation of his firm with a competing one, and that the latter 
 is a joint-stock company. He would elect to acquire control of the 
 latter by the purchase of a sufficient number of shares to give him a 
 majority of votes at the next annual meeting, and it may be assumed 
 that he enters on his campaign at a time when the shares that will 
 vote at this meeting cannot be increased. Now, the person aiming at a 
 controlling interest, would not give a price for the first shares purchased 
 much in advance of that current in the market, because it would be 
 uncertain whether his plan would be successful. But suppose that he 
 is gradually able to acquire nine-tenths of the stock he needs. As the 
 element of doubt lessens, he would, if he could not have bought each 
 successive block of shares at any less price, have been justified in 
 increasing his price progressively. Now, should it happen that the 
 last tenth that is essential to him is most likely to be obtained from 
 two persons, each owning the same quantity, but not in communication 
 with each other ; the manufacturer may find one of these less 
 obdurate than the other, and in dealing with him he must keep before 
 his mind the possibility that the last holder, from whom he has a 
 chance of obtaining the shares, may not sell at any price. Therefore, 
 the manufacturer, for this reason, cannot afford to pay the last seller 
 
 ^Marshall, Principles (1907), p. 89; Pigou, "Some Remarks on Utility," Economic 
 Journal, xiii. p. 61. 
 
lo IS INCREASING UTILITY POSSIBLE? 
 
 but one as much as he would give the stock-holder from whom he 
 acquires the final block of stock. Thus all through, if he were pushed 
 to it, he would give advancing prices for each successive purchase — a 
 conclusion that has been abundantly confirmed by the course of prices 
 of certain stocks in Wall Street in the not-distant past. Finally, this 
 manufacturer is, in technical language, a consumer of the commodity 
 known as stock in the particular company he is endeavouring to con- 
 trol; and it follows that, from his being willing to give advancing prices 
 (if he cannot obtain what he needs at less), he receives an increasing 
 utility. 
 
 If then my analysis, and the reasoning founded on it, is accurate, there 
 is not only a possibility of increasing Utility, but cases can be adduced 
 in which the tendency shows itself, while some hints can be discovered 
 of the reasons that bring it into existence. 
 
 The discovery of this principle introduces a symmetry hitherto 
 wanting in the theory of Economics. There is both diminishing and 
 increasing return, and now, if my conclusions are well-founded, we 
 have to balance this diminishing and increasing Utility. Further, it 
 results from the previous analysis that increasing Utility sometimes 
 involves an element of monopoly in consumption — thus I think the 
 theory of monopoly can be extended in some directions from 
 Production to Consumption. Finally, though these reflections and 
 suggestions are highly theoretical, the establishment of Increasing 
 Utility will have some not unimportant practical results in relation to 
 taxation. 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVEKSITV PRESS BV ROBERT MACLF.HOSE AND CO. LTD. 
 
^y 
 
 \ 
 
 y 
 
 i- 
 
a * 
 
 Some Fundamental Points in the 
 Theory of Knowledge 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The terms " Akt," " Inhalt " and " Gep^enstand " are the keywords of a 
 certain theory of knowledge which constitutes, in my opinion, the most 
 important recent development of philosophical thought in Germany. 
 L^Among its leading representatives I may refer to Me ino ng, Husserl 
 and Lipps, Kiilpe and Messer. In spite of manifold divergences 
 in detail, these writers agree in adopting a certain fundamental 
 scheme as expressing the fundamental nature of mental life and 
 mental development. They agree in sharply distinguishing between 
 what the mind means or intends in perceiving, thinking, or having 
 ideas, and the actual experiences or " Erlebnisse " which belong to its 
 own particular existence as a psychical individual. What t he mind 
 means or intend s is called by them an object or " Gegenstajxd-" The 
 meaning or intending of something as distinguished from what is 
 meant or intended is called by them an ' ^Akt." An act is a mode of 
 being conscious, and is therefore an actual experience or " Erlebnis s " 
 forming part of the existence of the iildividual mind. But it is 
 an experience which has the distinctive character of intending or • 
 being or directed towards an object. Hence it is often described , 
 as " intentional " experience. Inasmuch as there are various modes 
 of being conscious in relation to objects, it is necessary to dis- 
 tinguish different qualities of intentional experience. In this way 
 mere supposing is distinguished from believing, and both from- 
 desiring or willing. But whether we merely suppose or believe or 
 desire or will, the acts of supposing, believing, desiring, or willing are 
 essentially relative to something other than themselves which is 
 
 % 
 
 "i^'Vi 
 
 q3 
 
/ 
 
 2 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 supposed, believed, desired, or willed, and this something is, in 
 •• .'. . each case, the object of the act. The act is always an actual 
 . V eGcper-ience of the individual. The object, on the contrary, need 
 I;.* :':.•--;. -not: hQ actually experienced, and perhaps never' can be completely j 
 ''• 'id'e'iifififed with anything that is actually experienced at the moment 
 in which the mind is cognisant of it. For instance, I may think 
 of an event as happening before I was born ; I may again affirm that 
 this event actually happened ; I may be agreeably or disagreeably 
 interested in it ; but it is plain that the event which I thus refer 
 to is not part of my own immediate experience as my present 
 belief and interest is, or a headache is, while I am actually feeling 
 it. Similarly, when my doctor believes that I have a headache, I may 
 be experiencing the headache myself, but he is not. In general, , 
 what is actually experienced, actually exists in being experienced ; 
 but the object of a mental act need not actually exist : " it may 
 be self-contradictory ; it may be something which happens not to 
 be a fact, such as a golden mountain ; it may be essentially incapable 
 of existence, as, for instance, equality ; it may be physical and not 
 psychical, or it may be something which did exist or will exist, 
 but does not exist at present." ^ 
 
 If it is urged that the object must at least exist, inasmuch as 
 it is something mentally referred to, the answer is that this implies X 
 only the actual existence of the mental act, not that of its object. ^ 
 The object qua object may have being in some sense. But, in any 
 case, its being does not consist in being an actual experience of 
 the mind for which it is an object. 
 
 Acts, on the contrary, are always actually experienced, and, 
 ► consequently, always exist as psychical facts. But they are by no 
 means the only psychical facts. Sensuous impressions, for instance, 
 and sensory images are sharply distinguished from such ways of 
 being conscious as supposing, believing, desiring, hoping, fearing, and 
 willing. On the other hand, it will not do merely to classify them as 
 objects of a special kind distinctively characterised by their being 
 actually experienced as well as mentally intended. For we are 
 constantly experiencing sensations which escape our notice, and 
 
 -i. 
 
 > 
 
 'B. Russell, Meinong's " Theory of Complexes and Assumptions" (Mind, N.S. vol. xiii. 
 p. 207). 
 
X 
 
 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 3 
 
 so remain undistinguished in the background of subconsciousness; 
 these subconscious sensations are not the object of any meptal act, • 
 not even of an innplicit judgment asserting their existence. A still 
 more important point is that sensuous experiences fulfil a peculiar 
 function in our mental life which requires to be explicitly recognised 
 in our terminology. They constitute a link between mental acts 
 and objects which are not themselves present 'contents of immediate 
 experience. Thus sense i m pressio ns and image s are means by which 
 we perceive or imagin e material thing s and their qualities, states, and ' 
 processes. We cannot imagine a horse without having an image 
 of it ; but the image in our heads is evidently not what we intend 
 to refer to. It cannot be simply identified with the object of the 
 mental act which we call thinking of a horse. Similarly, when we 
 dispense with anything in the nature of a mental picture of a horse, 
 and use only the word " horse," the word is still not the animal which 
 we mean to refer to, but only a sensuous experience through which 
 we refer to it. A special term is required to designate contents of 
 Immediate experience which thus fulfil, or are capable of fulfilling,', 
 the function of presenting or introducing objects that are not them--|\^ ^ 
 selves contents of immediate experience*. The term selected for this 
 purpose by the group of writers I am dealing with is " Inhalt." 
 
 The general scheme which I have attempted to reproduce in broad 
 outline has for me a special interest, because it is akin to views, 
 which I had independently developed in my book on Analytic 
 Psychology, which was published in 1896.^ I there connect my own 
 position with that of ,Brentano, accepting his distinction between 
 objects of consciousness and the modes in which consciousness refers \ 
 to its object, but criticising his failure to distinguish between 
 "Objekt" and "Inhalt."^ The word which in my nomenclature 
 corresponds to "Inhalt " is presentation, and I describe the presentative 
 function of presentation as follows. "In having cognisance of an I 
 object there are two factors involved: (i) A thought-reference to 
 something which, as the thinker means or intends it, is not a present 
 modification of his individual experience. (2) A more or less 
 
 ^ I am not claiming priority, but only independence. Priority of publication belongs, 
 I believe, to Zwardowsky. 
 
 * Analytic Psychology, vol. i. pp. 40-46. 
 
4 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 specific modification of his individual experience, which determines 
 
 ^ the direction of tho.ught to this or that special object; this special 
 
 experience we may call a presentation. " We may say, if we choose, 
 
 that the^objecf itself is presented, but not that it is a presentation, 
 
 I and when we say that it is presented, it is better to say that it is 
 presented J^ consciousness than that it is presented in consciousness. 
 In the perception of a tree the reference to an object is specialised 
 by a plexus of visual and other presentations. The o bject thought of 
 r is thus rendered determinate. It is determined as a material thing 
 and not a mental occurrence, a tree and not a stone, an oak and not 
 an elm." ^ 
 
 Thus the term presentation has for me a twofold implication. In 
 the first place, it is something existentially present in experience, ariv 
 actual apparition in consciousness :' in Berkeleyan phrase it " exists in . 
 the mind," and is not merely meant or intended by the mind. In the 
 second place, it is, or may be, presentative of objects which are not^ 
 thus immediately experienced.^ So far as this is the case, it specifies 
 the direction of thought to objects, so that the nature of the presented^ 
 object varies in correspondence with the varying nature of the 
 presentation. Presentations may, however, exist without directly |n(^ 
 fulfilling the presentative function. They are then what I have ' 
 called anoetic experiences. Most of the sense impressions^ which 
 exist in the background of subconsciousness are anoetic. I had not 
 originally any single word to designate what have since been called 
 " acts." I was content to describe them as ways of being conscious \ 7^ 
 of objects, or as attitudes of consciousness towards its object. I would 
 now reserve for them exclusively the title of subjective states or/)^ 
 processes: for presentations are not predicates of the subject in its 
 individual unity and identity, as believing or being pleased are. The 
 term " act " is certainly convenient, and in view of its having already 
 become current, I am prepared to accept it. But in doing so I make 
 two reservations. In the first place, I would make a distinction _ 
 between acts such as supposing, believing, or desiring, and the relation 
 tQ _an object which is common to all. All acts as such involve this 
 
 ^ Ibid. i. p. 47. In quoting I have somewhat altered the wording of the passage. 
 
 ^By " tmmediaie^xpeneng§^I mean what is actually a n experience at any given moment, 
 as distinguished from future, past, or possible experiences. 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 5 
 
 relation, but it is not itself an act. It is not itself a mental state/ 
 or process, but a relational attribute of certain mental states oq * 
 processes. In the second place, the word act must noc be takefl to/ /. 
 signify activity ; it is sometimes maintained that activity is not to be 
 found in our mental life at all, and though I heartily disagree with 
 this position, the question is one which I do not propose to discuss on 
 this occasion. But in any case I submit that if the mind is, properly \ 
 speaking, active, it is so only in virtue of one kind of "act," that in J 
 which it is interested in an object as something to be sought or I 
 shunned. Mental activity therefore, Jf there be such a thing, must be 
 identified with conation, the striving aspect of our conscious life. 
 
 I have now indicated the general nature of the theory of knowledge 
 in which I, more or less, agree with such writers as Lipps, Meinong, 
 and Husserl. But the copious literature in which this general doctrine 
 has been recently expounded contains many special developments 
 which I fail to follow, and in which the writers themselves disagree 
 with each other. I have accordingly selected two of these topics for 
 discussion on this occasion. I have fixed on the following problems 
 as being of most fundamental significance from the point of view of 
 general Philosophy, {a) What is the nature of the unity andndentity 
 of the self or subject which experiences acts and presentations, and is 
 aware of objects? {h) What are the conditions of the relation between 
 presentation and presented objects? 
 
 W^ 
 
/ 
 
 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 THE SUBJECT OF MENTAL ACTS. 
 
 It is a fact, recognised explicitly or implicitly by everyone, that the 
 manifold and constantly changing experiences which enter into the 
 life history of an individual mind are in some sense owned by a self or 
 ego which remains one and the same throughout their vicissitudes. 
 But when we begin to enquire into the precise nature of the unity and 
 identity ascribed to the self, and the precise sense in which its 
 experiences belong to it, we are confronted with a fundamental 
 divergence of views. On the one hand, it is maintained that just as 
 the unity of a triangle or of a melody or of an organism consists 
 merely in the special mode in which its parts are connected and 
 , correlated so as to form a specific kind of complex, so the unity of| a 
 what we call an individual mind consists merely in the peculiar wayy\ 
 in which what we call its experiences are united with each other. On 
 this view, when we say that a desire is someone's desire, we merely 
 mean that it enters as one constituent among others into a connected 
 totality of experiences having a certain sort of unity and continuity , 
 which can belong to experiences only, and not to material things. In 
 opposition to this doctrine, it is strenuously maintained by others that 
 the identical subject is not merely the unified complex of^experience^ 
 j. but a distinct principle from which they derive their^unity, a some- 
 thingjvhich persists through them and links them together. ' According 
 to these writers it is an inversion of the truth to say that the manifold 
 experiences through their union with each other form a single self. 
 On the contrary, it is only through their relation to the single self as 
 a common centre that they are united with each other. 
 
 Of these two conflicting theories, I feel bound to accept the first 
 
 and reject the second. The unity of the self seems to me indistinguish- 
 
 v]able from the unity of the total complex of its experiences. On the 
 
 lother hand, the adherents of the alternative theory seem to me 
 
 /essentially justified in denying that the sort of unity required to con- 
 
 ' stitute a self can belong merely to immediate experience, abstractly 
 
 considered, and in holding that it can be explained only by takingi 
 
 into account the common relation of the manifold of immediate! 
 
 experiences to some thing other than themselves. They are right in 
 
\ 
 
 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 7 
 
 demanding a condition of unity which does not itself fo.rm part of 
 the psychical complex. Where they go astray rs ih' identifying this/ 
 precondition of the unity of experience with the unity which it con-/^ 
 ditions, — the unity of the conscious subject. The role which they 
 ascribe to the subject of consciousness ought rather to be -ascribed 
 
 I to its object. The general principle is tha-t the changing complex^ 
 of individual experience has the unity and identity vyiiquely dis- 
 tinctive of what we call a single self or ego. only in so far as 
 objects are apprehended as- one and the same in different acts or , 
 
 j in different stages and phases of the same act. In other words, the 
 unity of the self is - essentially a unity of Uitentional expe rience 
 and essentially conditioned by unity of the o bject as meant or 
 intended. 
 
 It will be seen that I have here in view what, in Kantian language, 
 is known as unity of apperception. I shall have to point out presently 
 that my own position differs in vital respects from Kant's. None the 
 less, I can utilise for my own purpose most of his arguments and 
 illustrations. In particular, I would lay emphasis on the central 
 importance, in this connection, of the act of judging. What is 
 implicitly or explicitly apprehended as the same proposition, or what 
 Meinong would call the same objective, is repeatedly asserted or 
 denied in separate mental acts or in the continuance of the same 
 mental act. To this extent, the distinct mental acts or stages of the ^ , 
 same mental act have the unity distinctively characteristic of the ^ 
 self. The same unity is of course involved in apprehending the dis- 
 tinguishable constituents of any proposition as members of the whole. 
 What has been said of judgment holds also for mere supposals, for 
 what Meinong calls " Annahmen." For both in judgment and in merely 
 supposing, it is the unity and identity of the propositions supposed o^ 
 asserted which condition the unity and identity of the subject of the 
 acts. It is needless to add that we have here to include not mere 
 isolated propositions, but also propositions combined in a context. 
 Such combinations may be, from our present point of view, regarded 
 as forming one complex proposition. And this holds good, however 
 loose and distant the connexion may be. We assert a single pro- 
 position when we assert that "virtue is its own reward and whales are 
 mammals." The conjunction "and" expresses at least the vague 
 
8 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 thought of the indirect interrelation of these facts as belonging to one 
 world. 
 
 We reach the same result when we consider other mental acts. 
 Take, for instance, the identity of the self which asks a question, with 
 the self which finds or receives an answer. The self is identical, 
 inasmuch as the question asked is identified with the question 
 answered. Similarly with the pursuit of ends, however simple or 
 complex these may be. The self is the same self, inasmuch as 
 throughout the process of pursuit it is aware of the desired object 
 as the same, and inasmuch as it is aware of the object attained as 
 . identical with the object pursued. The best example, however, is 
 I supplied by continuityjof attention. Attention is continuous when it 
 lis throughout directed to the same total object from varying points of 
 jview, so as to distinguish successively its different partial features, 
 Wspects, and relations. For instance, in observing a flower with a 
 view to its classification as a botanical specimen, the stamens, root, 
 and leaf arrangement may be successively distinguished. The total 
 object is the flower as a specimen to be classified, together with 
 the whole body of botanical science so far as this may be relevant 
 to the classification. The partial features of this total object are 
 successively discriminated, and in their turn cease to be discriminated. 
 But there is continuity of attention, inasmuch as the partial features 
 successively discriminated are throughout implicitly apprehended 
 as being partial features of the same complex unity. Such continuity 
 is by no means confined to relatively advanced stages of mental 
 development. On the contrary, it seems to be coincident with the 
 most rudimentary beginnings of intelligent life. The observed facts 
 point to its presence even in the instinctive behaviour of animals. 
 The cat hunting a mouse, or the kitten playing with a ball, seem 
 throughout to be dealing with a single complex situation, which 
 includes not only the mouse or the ball, but all circumstances or 
 occurrences which may turn out to be relevant to their governing 
 interest. To this extent, the successive and simultaneous experiences 
 of the cat and the kitten have the unity distinctively characteristic of 
 an identical self. 
 
 I may now proceed to bring out the nature and significance of 
 the theory I am advocating by pointing out a very important 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 9 
 
 consequence to which it inevitably leads. If the unity of the subject 
 is essentially conditioned by the unity of the objects of its acts, as such ' 
 it follows that wherever a manifold of experiences are connected/ V 
 as experiences in a single self, they must be related cither as acts or asi '^ 
 presentations to the same total object. All special objects must be' 
 distinguished within this whole as partial constituents. No special 
 object can be apprehended as absolutely self-existent and self- 
 contained. Every special object must be at least capable of being 
 apprehended as related to others, and finally to the unity of the whole. 
 So far as this condition is not realised, the identity of the self is not 
 realised, but remains, at the most, merely potential. The common / 
 object is what, at the level of analytic or reflective consciousness,^ 
 we explicitly refer to as the Universe. But the conception of the 
 universe is only the explicit formulation of what is already implied in 
 the apprehension of particular objects as incomplete, and therefore as 
 requiring completion in a whole which transcends and includes them. 
 How is this view related to the Kantian doctrine of apperception } 
 Both agree in insisting on the strict correlation of the unity of the 
 object and the unity of the subject. But further comparison reveals 
 vital differences. For Kant there are two selves, the empirical self 
 and the pure ego. The empirical self consists in the total complex of 
 simultaneous and successive experiences which enter into the life 
 history of an individual from birth to death. This complex is not the 
 subject which is conscious of objects, and consequently does not 
 possess that form of unity which is the correlative of unity in the 
 object. On the contrary, its unity is, in principle, analogous to that 
 of any other object which is not itself a conscious subject. But on the 
 view which I am advocating, the empirical ego and the pure ego are ^ 
 one and the same. There is only one self, the complex of simultaneous^ 
 and successive experiences, unified in a way which essentially involves^ 
 the relation of acts and presentations to a common object. This 
 divergence from Kant is closely connected with another. The Kantian 
 exposition tends to represent the unity of the pure subject as a 
 precondition which produces unity in its objects by a synthetic process 
 exercised upon what is originally given as a relationless manifold. 
 This is, of course, quite irreconcilable with my position. If the unity 
 of the subject presupposes the unity of its subject as such, the unity 
 
 A 
 
lo SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 of the subject cannot be a prior condition from which the unity of the 
 object is derived. 
 
 I find a similar difficulty in the language used by Meinong and his 
 followers in treating of what they call "objects of higher order." 
 This phrase covers (i) complex unities of interrelated term's, (2) the 
 relations or forms of unity as distinguished from the terms related or/ 
 unified. Now, I might express my view of the unity of the self by' 
 saying that it depends on apprehension of objects of higher order. 
 But in his otherwise admirable treatment of this subject, Meinong uses 
 language suggestive of a doctrine which appears to me both incom- 
 patible with my own and with the facts.^ He lays stress on the 
 necessity of the constituents of a complex being independently 
 apprehended as the logical precondition of the apprehension .of "their 
 relations, or the complex unity within which they fall. To use his 
 own metaphor, the objects of higher order are built up on their 
 "inferiora" as their indispensable foundations. Further, it is in each 
 case through a synthetic operation of the mind that the awareness of 
 complex unity is superinduced on the awareness of the relatively ' 
 disconnected inferiora. It would seem to follow from this doctrine 
 that ultimately the mind must start from a multiplicity of unrelated 
 items, and erect on these a superstructure of relations and complex'es. 
 Now it does, of course, very frequently happen that we are initially 
 aware of given items without being aware of them as constituents of 
 a certain kind of cornplex, and that their unity as constituents of this 
 complex may then be discovered through such mental operations as 
 comparing or counting. But in such cases there is no evidence, so far 
 as I can see, that the original items are ever originally given as an 
 unrelated manifold. On the contrary, the basis from which the mind 
 proceeds in apprehending the new relation seems always to be itself 
 a complex of interrelated parts. Or, to speak more accurately, it 
 is always within a pre-existing form of unity that relatively new forms 
 of unity emerge for consciousness through an appropriate direction 
 of attention. This will, I think, become clear when we consider that 
 there are two ways in which we may be aware of relation. We may 
 be aware of relations either implicitly or explicitly. In seeing a book 
 lying on a table, the book's being on the table is certainly part of the 
 
 ^ I do not say that he actually holds this doctrine. 
 
 h 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE ii 
 
 object of which I have cognisance. But I apprehend it only implicitly 
 if I fail to distinguish the general relation of above and below from 
 the terms which in this instance it relates : — if I am only aware of 
 the complex without mentally contrasting its constituents and their 
 relational form. Now the explicit apprehension of relations and forms 
 of unity may perhaps always involve a mental operation starting from 
 a given basis, but the given basis itself seems in all cases to include 
 implicit relations;^ it is always some kind of complex. By comparing 
 red and blue, I become explicitly cognisant of a relation of difference 
 as subsisting between them. And the possibility of this no doubt 
 presupposes that I began by thinking both of the red and blue 
 together. But it is a condition of my thinking of them together that 
 I shall think of them in some kind of relation to each other, and 
 therefore as members of some kind of complex. I cannot attend to 
 both in such a way as to begin comparing them without at least 
 apprehending them as in some way spatially or temporally connected. 
 Further, the function of comparison in general is to substitute for 
 implicit or relatively indefinite awareness of likeness an explicit or 
 relatively precise awareness. Similarly, when we count we start not 
 merely with the apprehension of units, but with the apprehension of a 
 relatively vague numerical complex, which becomes more precisely 
 defined in the process of counting. In general, the basis or " inferius " | ^ 
 of an object of higher order is itself an object of higher order. We 
 may go further than this. In some cases of fundamental importance, 
 a complex is apprehended without all its members being independently \ ,. 
 presented, and sometimes without any of them being independently ' 
 presented. We may think, for instance, of equality between x and j/, 
 where x and j/ are determined only as being any terms such as may 
 enter into this relation. Here, if we are to make such a distinction at 
 all, it is the constituents which depend on the complex rather than 
 inversely. In other instances the unity of a complex is apprehended^ 
 though only some of its constituents are independently given. Thus, 
 in thinking of a class, it is plain that we do not and, for the most part, 
 cannot independently bring before our mind all the members. We do 
 indeed, when we think of a class, in a sense think of all its members, 
 
 ^ Locke similarly distinguishes "secret relations" from relations of ideas apprehended 
 through "comparison," 
 
nity 1 ^ 
 
 12 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 But it is the thought of the unity of the class which preconditions the 
 thought of its members as such, and not inversely. In like manner, 
 all the attributes belonging to the same thing are mentally referred to 
 as a complex unity, including both what is known and what remains 
 to be known about the thing ; plainly, the unknown attributes, at least, V 
 are thought of only in and through the act of thinking of the complex 
 as such, and not independently given as a precondition of this. Other 
 examples of far-reaching importance are supplied by the unity of the 
 order of succession in time and of coexistence in space, and also by 
 the unity of the universe as the necessary correlative of the unity 
 of the self. And the unity of the self as the complex of present, past, I i 
 future, and possible experiences is another relevant instance. 
 
 It may be urged that I have taken the phrase, " objects of higher 
 order," in a wider sense than that contemplated by Professor Meinong- 
 In all probability this is so. But it does not follow that what I 
 have said is irrelevant. For, in the first place, the connexion between 
 relational consciousness in general, and the special form of it covered 
 by the term " objects of higher order," requires to be explicitly 
 considered. In the second place, it is difficult to see how the view 
 that the apprehension of a complex presupposes the independent 
 apprehension of all its terms can be justified unless by making it 
 part of the definition of a complex, and so rendering the statement 
 a tautology. 
 
 It will be seen that in treating of the unity of the self I have 
 omitted all reference to self-consciousness. I have done so inten- 
 tionally, on the ground that there can be no consciousness of self 
 unless there is a self to be conscious of. But this, in the first instance, 
 can only be constituted by acts which have for their objects some- 
 thing other than their own being. This follows from the general 
 principle that a relation cannot itself be one of the terms which 
 it relates. On the other hand, if we presuppose the complex unity of , 
 the self, as independently conditioned by reference to objects, this 
 difficulty vanishes. Given a self to know, there is no reason why 
 it should not be known. It would seem that there is no stage or 
 phrase of mental life in which self-consciousness is entirely absent, 
 however vague and rudimentary it may be. However preoccupied 
 the mind may be with other objects, these objects are at least 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWI.EDGE 13 
 
 apprehended as qualified by attributes essentially relative to sub- 
 jective states and processes. An object of desire, as such, differs from 
 an object of aversion, and both from objects which are, in this 
 respect, indifferent. Similarly, an agreeable situation differs from 
 a disagreeable situation, a successful line of behaviour from one 
 that is unsuccessful, and an occurrence which disappoints expectation 
 from one that fulfils it. These and the like variable attributes of 
 objects belong to them only as related to the self and its varying acts. 
 Hence it would seem that the awareness of these must involve at 
 least an indefinite form of self-consciousness capable of becoming 
 more determinate under special conditions. 
 
14 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 PRESENTATIONS AND THEIR PRESENTATIVE 
 
 FUNCTION. 
 
 (i) ANALYSIS OF A TYPICAL CASE. 
 
 We may begin by examining a typical case of fundamental import- 
 ance — the presentative function of sensory images in relation to 
 impressions. We may then proceed to use this as a clue to the 
 general theory of presentative function. When it is said that an 
 image is a " revival " of an impression, or a revived impression, 
 part of what is meant is that the image more or less resembles 
 the impression. My present mentp^l picture of the visible appearance 
 of my friend, as I last saw him, is more or less similar to the complex 
 of visual sensations which I experienced in actually seeing him. But 
 this is not all that we mean by the word revival. We also intend 
 to imply that the occurrence of the image is in a special way 
 preconditioned by the previous occurrence of the impression. The 
 present image is conceived as being a modified recurrence or 
 reinstatement of the original sensation, and, therefore, as being 
 existentially connected with it and dependent on it. Thus the 
 I image is (i) more or less like the original impression, (2) derived 
 I from it. These are the two points on which Hume insists as 
 constituting the relation of impressions to what he calls "ideas" or 
 " thoughts." But there is a third point which Hume ignores, although 
 it is directly involved in his use of the terms " idea " and " thought." 
 The fainter copy derived from a past impression is constantly treated 
 by him as being a thought or idea of the impression ; and, without 
 this assumption, he would not be able to stir a step in the exposition 
 of his philosophy. Yet he never seems to see that thinking of a 
 previous impression is something radically different from having a 
 subsequent experience more or less similar to it and dependent on 
 it. There is here a gap which is certainly not bridged by his 
 insistence on the faintness or feebleness of the derivative copy as 
 compared with its original. If the facts were exhaustively described 
 by describing the present experience as a derivative copy fainter 
 than its original, we should be for ever precluded from knowing 
 or thinking that the copy is a copy or that it implies the previous 
 
 i 
 
 / 
 
'1^ 
 
 / 
 
 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 15 
 
 occurrence of the impression. The impression is no longer ex- 
 perienced when the image is experienced ; it does not wait to be 
 copied like the sitter who is having his portrait taken. It is only 
 in the act of remembering itself that we can, in the first instance, 
 come to know, believe, or suppose that the present experience is like * 
 or unlike the past : it is only in the act of remembering itself that we 
 can, in the first instance, come to know, believe, or suppose that 
 a prior impression has occurred or that its occurrence is a pre- 
 condition of the present image. But as the impression, unlike 
 the image, is not at the moment actually experienced, its previous 
 occurrence, its nature and its relations to the present image can 
 be mentally referred to only as the object of a thought which 
 transcends immediate experience. Similarly, the cognisance of the 
 image itself as being like or unlike the impression, as subsequent 
 to it and as presupposing it, is also possible only as involving thought 
 which transcends immediate experience. On the other hand, the 
 thought which thus transcends immediate experience does so only 
 by means of it ; what is thought is rooted and grounded in what 
 is felt. It is the existential presence and the nature of the image 1 
 which determines for thought the occurrence of a certain past / ^ 
 impression as its special object. The image is the specifying content/ 
 of the thought, determining it as the idea of a specific impression./ 
 Apart from the image or something discharging an equivalent 
 function, this thought would be empty — indeterminate or direction- 
 less ; apart from thought the image would be blind — without reference 
 to anything beyond itself, and, therefore, without reference even 
 to itself. 
 
 It is not true that any image is capable of determining the directionV 
 of thought to any impression. Each image does so only in the 
 case of an impression specially connected with it. What is the 
 special connexion which conditions this presentative function of 
 the image .-" It must be sought in one or both of the two relations 
 already assigned: (i) The resemblance of the image to the impres- 
 sion ; (2) the existential dependence which is indicated by saying 
 that the impression is retained and reproduced in the image. If 
 (i) were the sole condition, remembrance would extend only so 
 far as resemblance extends. The thought of the impression would 
 
i6 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 only include such characters as are repeated in the image. But 
 this is very far from being the case. The impression, for instance, is 
 remembered as being vivid, whereas the image is faint; the impression 
 is remembered as being distinct, whereas the image is blurred ; 
 the impression is remembered as being steady, whereas the image 
 wavers and fluctuates ; the impression may be remembered as 
 coloured, whereas the image is black and white. Given a 
 suitable direction of attention, such contrasts are recognisable in 
 the very act of remembering. Thus, though the degree of fidelity 
 of the image, as copy, to the impression, as original, is, no doubt, 
 a condition of the detailed accuracy of memory, resemblance is 
 not the sole condition of the presentative function of images, (2) is a 
 fundamental condition as well as (i). Some community of nature 
 between impression and image seems to be required ; but the 
 presentative function of the image also depends on the peculiar wayy 
 in which the image is preconditioned by the antecedent impression 
 As the merely external fact of dependence cannot be supposed to , 
 be operative, we must assume that the image itself as an immediate 
 experience has a character due to its derivative existence, and varying 
 according to the varying impressions from which it is derived. To 
 verify the presence of this character introspectively, we have only 
 to contrast images which directly subserve memory with those 
 that subserve the play of fancy, e.g. the complex image of a 
 golden mountain or of a three-headed dog. 
 
 In the case of such complex images of fancy the components 
 are ultimately derived from past impressions, but the complex, as 
 such, is not the reproduction of an impressional complex. Hence, "^ 
 though the whole image conditions a thought-reference to impres- 
 sional experience, it does not yield the awareness of a correspond- 
 ingly complex sensation as having actually occurred. The thought 
 connected with it is rather that of a possible impression, or, under 
 special conditions, that of a future impression. Even images, which 
 are wholly derivable from previous impressions, may determine 
 the thought of future or of possible sensations rather than the 
 remembrance of those which are past. All depends on the variable 
 context of experience of which they form a part. To discuss in 
 detail the questions which here emerge would be impossible at 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 17 
 
 the present stage of our enquiry. But we may safely assert that 
 the reference to the past is primary, and that all other forms of 
 the presentative function of images, in relation to impressions, pre- 
 suppose it, and arise as modifications of it. 
 
 (2) GENERAL NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF THE 
 PRESENTATIVE FUNCTION. 
 
 The foregoing analysis of what takes place in remembering the 
 occurrence of a past impression by means of a present image is 
 intended to explain and illustrate by a typical example the general 
 view of the inseparable correlation of thought and experience in all 
 knowledge, which is involved in the doctrine of presentations. There 
 are here two points to be noted, (i) As we have cognisance of the 
 image only in remembering the past impression, so mere experience 
 as it is actually being experienced cannot by itself constitute the 
 object of knowledge, apart from a thought which transcends it. (2) As 
 the specifying function of the image presupposes a special relation 
 between it and the impression, and as this relation is itself cognisable 
 in the process of remembering, so all thought is similarly conditioned 
 by appropriate relations between immediate experience and what is 
 thought of, and these relations themselves form part of what is I y^ 
 thought of. 
 
 Apart from the examination of special cases, have we any general 
 grounds for assuming that these propositions express universal con- 
 ditions of knowledge ? Let us proceed to consider them separately, 
 (i) Can a bare experience, or, to use T. H. Green's language, a mere 
 feeling, be, by itself, an object of knowledge apart from a thought 
 which transcends it.-* In denying this, I find myself on ground which 
 has been thoroughly traversed and explored. Little can be added to 
 what has been already urged by Green in the introduction to his 
 edition of Hume, and what I have to say here is intended mainly to 
 remind the reader of work which has already been done effectively by 
 others. The most general reason why a bare feeling, as it is being v^ 
 felt, cannot by itself be a complete object of knowledge is that it is 
 not a proposition, and that all knowledge is of propositions and of 
 other things only as forming constituents of propositions. To know is 
 
1 8 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 alway to know " that. . ." ; it is to know, for instance, "that something 
 is or exists or occurs," or "that something is of such and such a 
 nature," or "that it is so and so related to something else." Now a 
 proposition, understood in this sense, is never a particular existence or 
 occurrence, and it cannot therefore be a feeling which is always a 
 . .- i particular existence or occurrence. Particular existences, as such, are 
 
 P(mJ^ capable of beginning to exist and ceasing to exist, but propositions 
 
 ^[^^ are not thus affected by the flux of time. The battle of Waterloo is a 
 
 (f^^„y4^Jp) particular occurrence, which began and ended on June i8th, 1815. But 
 
 the facts of this battle being fought on June i8th, 181 5, and therefore 
 ninety-six years before 191 1, are not events which come into existence 
 or pass out of existence. Both these facts are expressed when some 
 one speaking in 191 1 asserts that the battle took place ninety-six 
 years ago on June i8th, 1815. The dates assigned determine the 
 time of the event, not the time of the fact of its occurrence or of 
 its occurrence at a certain date, or before some other date and 
 after some other date. These facts, as such, are dateless. Similarly / 
 a feeling exists only in the moment in which it is felt ; but the I "^ 
 fact of its being felt at that moment is exempt from such temporal 
 limitation. The fact of its being felt at that moment cannot change 
 into the fact of its not being felt at that moment ; and if we con- 
 sider the fact of its being felt abstractly without reference to any 
 special time, it is still plainer that this does not change or cease to 
 be. It follows that a bare feeling cannot by itself be a complete I / 
 object of knowledge. But it may be thought that the view we are [ 
 criticising can, in substance, be rendered defensible by restating in an , 
 amended form. Granting that what is apprehended is not the bare 1 
 feeling only, but the fact of its existence, is it not still possible to / f 
 assume that the apprehension of this fact may be merely coincident ' 
 with and limited to the existential presence of the feeling, so that 
 the fact is isolated for knowledge exactly as feeling is isolated for 
 experience > To see that this view is untenable we have only to con- 
 sider what it implies. Ex hypothesi, all reference to anything other 
 than what is contained in the experience of the present moment is 
 excluded, so that there can be no thought of the past or future 
 Hence the existence of the present feeling cannot be apprehended as 
 being present ; for this involves the thought of its relation to a before 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 19 
 
 and after. There can therefore be no cognisance of its beginning or 
 ceasing, or of its being an event or occurrence. For the same reason 
 there can be no cognisance of it as like or unlike any experience 
 which has preceded or may follow it. For the same reason, there 
 can be no apprehension of it as enduring or changing, or as 
 having changed or endured. Thus it cannot be recognised as remain- 
 ing the same in quality or intensity or as varying in quality or 
 intensity in successive phases of its existence ; this cannot be because 
 the self-complete and self-contained object of knowledge is supposed 
 to be only the present phase of its existence in isolation from any- 
 thing else whatever. Here we seem to have reached a reductio ad 
 absurdum. Where there is no identification or recognition of a thing 
 as the same with itself, there can be nothing which deserves to be 
 called knowledge. The same point may be exhibited in a still more 
 searching way, as follows : To know that something exists involves a 
 distinction between what it is and its existence. But this distinction 
 carries us at once beyond the particular existent itself. Its nature as 
 distinguished from its existence is general or universal, inasmuch as it 
 is capable of being exemplified in other particular existents besides. 
 Its existence again, as distinguished from its nature, is general or 
 universal, inasmuch as it is common to whatever exists. As, therefore, 
 a particular existent is only known or knowing the proposition that 
 it exists, it can only be known by a thought which transcends it. 
 
 There still remains one objection to this line of argument. It may 
 be said that the grounds assigned for denying that a bare feeling can 
 by itself be known, depends for whatever cogency they may possess 
 on an arbitrary distinction between what is and what is not to be 
 regarded as knowledge. I have, therefore, to point out that the dis- 
 tinction on which I have proceeded is not arbitrary ; and this is 
 possible only by showing that it rests on a presupposition common 
 both to those who affirm and those who deny that knowledge may be 
 simply coincident with and limited to immediate experiences as they 
 come and go. Now, it is acknowledged on all hands that cognitions 
 are linked with each other in a system. As to the nature and extent 
 of this systematic unity there may be much divergence of opinion. 
 All agree, however, that it must in some way include the possibility of 
 inferring from facts given in or through experience other facts not so 
 
20 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 given. But this would be at least logically indefensible, if not 
 psychologically impossible, were feelings capable of being felt by 
 themselves correspondingly capable of being known in isolation. Such 
 feelings as they are experienced from moment to moment would be 
 the only particular facts primarily given. If we adopt a strictly 
 empirical position and assume that the mind starts solely with 
 these primary data, even the thought of anything that is not being 
 actually experienced at a given moment, becomes an impossibility. 
 For each experience being for knowledge self-complete and self- 
 contained cannot imply anything beyond itself Even the reference 
 in memory from image to impression would be inexplicable on this 
 view. On the other hand, if we add to the primary data a faculty of 
 thinking to link them with each other and with facts not directly 
 given in experience, then, as Hume has so brilliantly demonstrated, the 
 work of thought would be wholly baseless and arbitrary. It could 
 only consist in affirming connexion where no connexion is discover- 
 able. No equipment of Kantian categories can help its impotence in 
 face of a logically impossible task. 
 
 Generalising from the special case of the image as presentative of an 
 impression, we obtain (2) the universal principle that nothing which 
 transcends immediate experience can be known except in so far as it is 
 apprehended in an appropriate relation to something which is immedi- 
 ately experienced. Further, if we take into account proposition (i), the 
 inverse will also hold good, that no immediate experience can be known 
 except as related to something which transcends immediate experience. 
 Thus, in so far as knowledge is conditioned by a presentation, this \ ^ 
 presupposes {a) that there is a special relation between the presentation | ' 
 and the presented object, and {b) that this relation is itself part of what 1 s7 2. 
 is known. As for {a), it seems sufficient to say that there would be no 
 reason why a presentation should determine the direction of thought 
 to one object rather than another, unless it had some special 
 relation to this object, and that the relation must vary according to 
 the various features or aspects of the object which are revealed to 
 thinking consciousness. As for {b), we have already seen that the 
 relation between presentation and presented object is itself appre- 
 hended in the special case of the images as presentative of the 
 occurrence of previous impression ; if other cases difi"ered in this 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 21 
 
 respect, there would be a fundamental disparity in the nature of the 
 presentative function in different instances of it, which would involve 
 a breach of continuity, not to be accepted without cogent grounds. 
 But there are no such grounds. On the contrary, a detailed examina- 
 tion will show that other cases are in this respect strictly analogous to 
 the case which we have taken as typical. It is also important to 
 notice that we can give no rational explanation of the function of 
 presentations without implying that the relation to presented objects 
 is itself apprehended. The only intelligible account seems to be as 
 follows. Thought, as such, has for its ultimate object the universe in 
 its unity ; but not of course the universe in all its detail. The special 
 features emerge successively, leaving always a relatively indefinite 
 background. The unity of the universe is apprehended in apprehend- 
 ing its parts as being partial, — as being incomplete and requiring 
 completion through their relations within a whole which transcends 
 them. Now, the process through which the parts of the universe are 
 successively revealed must start from primary objects, which ultimately 
 specify for thought, directly or indirectly, all other objects. These 
 primary objects can be nothing else than those modes of immediate 
 experience which we have called presentations. But this implies not 
 only that presentations are essentially fragmentary and so related in 
 various ways to being which transcends their own existence, but also 
 that they must be apprehended as incomplete, and therefore as related 
 to objects which are not themselves presentations falling within the 
 experience of the individual at the moment. 
 
 Inasmuch, then, as knowledge is conditioned by presentation, the 
 total object known is a complex unity, which may be symbolised as 
 PrO, where P is the presentation, O an object distinct from it, and 
 ;' the relation between P and O. Plainly, this view is not open to 
 the objections which are commonly regarded as making the doctrine 
 of representative knowledge untenable. The doctrine of repre- 
 sentative knowledge is, in principle, indefensible, because according 
 to it we begin by apprehending a P which represents O without 
 apprehending O itself. But we cannot be aware of P as representative 
 of O without being aware of O itself; and, if we are initially aware 
 only of Pf there seems to be no conceivable way in which we could 
 pass from the knowledge of P to the knowledge of O. Hence the 
 
22 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 doctrine of representative knowledge, in the sense in which it is 
 ordinarily understood, is doomed to collapse when it is brought 
 face to face with the question : How does the mind pass from the 
 representation to that which is represented ? The position here 
 advocated is such as to make this question entirely irrelevant. I 
 Ido not say that we are first aware of presentation by itself, and 
 then somehow pass from this to the knowledge of an object distinct 
 from it. What I do say is that whatever other objects we know, 
 we know only in knowing their relation to presentations. But the. J 
 objects so known, and their relatedness to presentation, are known y^ 
 immediately. They are immediate objects of thinking consciousness ; 
 and, for me, whatever is really thought, in so far as it is thought 
 really is.^ Whether the object of thought is an actual experience 
 of mine at the moment, such as a present toothache, or something not 
 actually experienced, such as my having had a toothache yesterday, 
 or the infinity of time ; — in all these cases, equally, the object of 
 thought, as such, is directly present to my thinking consciousness ; 
 and what is thus directly present is reality, and not something, 
 intervening between me and reality. To put the case in a different 
 way : I no more hold that the knowledge of other objects is 
 mediated by presentations than I hold that the knowledge of 
 presentations is mediated by that of objects which are not presenta- 
 tions. If it is true that I cannot know anything else except as 
 related to a presentation, it is equally true that I cannot know a 
 presentation except as related to something else. In different ways 
 the knowledge of presentations and of presented objects mediate 
 each other, so as to form an inseparable unity. It follows that 
 the question, How do you get from the presentation to the presented 
 object,? is not relevant to my position at all. I do not need to 
 "get to" the presented object; for I am there already. If this were 
 not so, I could not even "get to" the presentation itself in the sense 
 of knowing it ; for the presentation, in order to be known, must 
 be thought as well as experienced ; and it cannot be thought except 
 as connected with what is not presentation. 
 
 * I have expounded this view and have attempted to reconcile it with the existence of 
 error in my paper on "The Object of Thought and Real Being," published in Proceedings of 
 the Aristotelian Society, 1911-12. 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 23 
 
 It may be said that, on this view, our knowledge of whatever 
 is not our immediate experience at the moment is merely 
 relative, inasmuch as what we know of it is not its own intrinsic 
 nature, but only the way in which it is related to something else. 
 Does not this leave undetermined the question, what it is in 
 itself apart from its relations to immediate experience P^ Art 
 we not reduced to the Kantian position, that we can know things 
 only in their appearance as sensible phenomena and not as 
 they are in themselves ? Such questions seem to be based 
 on an untenable assumption, the assumption that, knowing the 
 intrinsic nature of A, we can know B as related to A without 
 any insight into the intrinsic nature of B, whatever the special 
 character of the relation may be. This really presupposes the 
 general theory that relations are purely "external" forknowledge, 
 so that anything may be apprehended as related in any way to 
 anything else. Now, even if this be conceded in the case of some 
 relations, it certainly cannot be admitted for all. We cannot appre- 
 hend B as prior to A without apprehending B as something which 
 temporally endures or occurs. We cannot apprehend B as greater 
 than A without apprehending ^ as a quantum of the same sort 
 as A. So far as regards our present question, the assumption, 
 that all relations are in the required sense purely external, breaks 
 down at once when we consider the case which we have taken 
 as typical. Obviously, in apprehending the relation of past impres- 
 sion to present image, we apprehend, in some degree, the nature 
 of the past impression. Similarly, in so far as one man has cognisance 
 of the sensations and emotions of another in relation to his own, 
 he has more or less insight into the intrinsic nature of the other 
 man's sensations and feelings, though he does not himself experience 
 these. In general we may venture to assume, until a clear exception 
 is shown to exist, that all knowledge of presented objects irrcludes, 
 in some respect and degree, a knowledge of their intrinsic nature, and 
 not merely of their relatedness to presentation. The respect and 
 degree will vary with the presentation and the sort of relation 
 apprehended between it and the presented object. Thus, the 
 
 / 1 By " immediate experience " I mean the experience of the moment distinguished from 
 past, future, and potential experiences of the individual. 
 
24 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 distinction between knowledge of things as they are in themselves 
 and knowledge of things as phenomena may still be maintained 
 in a relative sense. It ceases to be absolute and becomes a distinc- 
 tion of more or less. We may illustrate by comparing the knowledge 
 which a man blind from birth may obtain of the visual sensations 
 of other men with that possessed by a man whose own vision is 
 normal. Inasmuch as the blind man himself experiences sensations 
 of various kinds, he knows what it is for another to have sensuous 
 experiences, and, to this extent, he knows what it is to have visual 
 experiences : inasmuch as he himself has tactual sensations which 
 are extensive, he knows what it is to experience extensive sensations, 
 and to that extent he knows what it is to experience visual sensation. 
 But all his further special knowledge of them has reference merely 
 to their distinctive place and function in the mental life of other 
 men ; this knowledge may be extensive and systematic ; and it 
 often enables the blind to speak of light and colour with a propriety 
 and accuracy which make it difficult to realise that they them- 
 selves are unable to see. None the less it can never give cognisance 
 of the distinctive qualities of light and colour sensations as they are 
 in themselves. These are known in their Svvafiig rather than their 
 eJSoi; they are apprehended phenomenally and not per se. 
 
 The knowledge of beings other than existent particulars, e.g- 
 generalities and possibilities, and universal forms of unity, such 
 as space, time, and causality, is ultimately coincident with the 
 knowledge of relevant particulars as actually existing. Hence the 
 presentations which present existent particulars eo ipso, present these 
 other modes of being. Thus, in apprehending a particular existent, 
 such as a tree or a horse, we must, however vaguely, distinguish 
 its " what " from its " that " ; and so regard as an instance exemplify- 
 ing a general nature capable of having other instances. In order 
 that these other instances, actual or possible, may be separately 
 brought before the mind in their distinct particularity, other specific 
 presentations are required ; these may partly be given in the course of 
 sensuous experience, as, when after seeing a white horse, we see 
 a black one ; or, again, they may be formed through productive 
 imagination, under the guidance of general concepts, as, when after 
 seeing a white horse, we imagine a green one, which we have never 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 25 
 
 seen ; or, when after seeing a horse and a man, we proceed to 
 imagine a centaur. But it is not necessary for the apprehension 
 of a distinct instance, as such, that it should be thus separately 
 perceived or imagined. It may be thought as having some deter- 
 minate relation to what is perceived or imagined. Thus, to adopt an 
 illustration from Hume, supposing that a qualitatively graduated 
 series of colours is given, another colour, which is not given, may 
 be determined for thought, as being intermediate in quality between 
 two adjacent members of the series which are given. Whether or 
 not the mind endeavours to imagine this colour, and whether or 
 not it succeeds in so doing, the particular colour is none the less 
 apprehended through its relation to the given particulars. Nor is this 
 all ; other unimagined particulars may be determined for thought 
 as related to this one, which is itself unimagined. If the given 
 colours are p and q, and the unimagined colour x is thought of as 
 being exactly intermediate between p and q, then another colour y 
 may be determined for thought as exactly intermediate between 
 p and X, and yet another z as exactly intermediate between y and x, 
 and to this process there is no theoretical limit, apart from the 
 special conditions of special cases. It is in some such way that 
 we are enabled to think of the infinite series of numbers intervening 
 between o and i. 
 
 We may say generally that universals, whether these be merely 
 class concepts or other forms of unity, and also possible particulars, as 
 jsuch, are ultimately apprehended in inseparable unity with actual 
 (particulars. Hence, in dealing with the question, how far universals 
 and possibilities are known as they are in themselves, we must 
 take into account two conditions. We have (i) to consider how 
 far the relevant actualities are, in relevant respects, known as they 
 are themselves. So far as the things we see and touch are 
 phenomenally known, the general concept of material things, and 
 the systematic concept of the material world, are also phenomenal. 
 On the other hand, so far as particular feelings, and sensations, 
 and thoughts are known, in their intrinsic nature, the corresponding 
 class concepts are known in their intrinsic nature, and so is the 
 individual mind, inasmuch as it is a unified complex of feelings, 
 sensations, and thoughts. Condition (2) has especial reference to 
 
26 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 possible particulars and classes of possible particulars. A possible 
 particular may be set before the mind through a process of productive 
 imagination, and, to this extent, it is apprehended as it is in itself in 
 the same^ manner and degree as the actual particulars with which 
 it is connected. On the other hand, without being itself imagined, 
 or even capable of being imagined, it may be determined for thought 
 as " that which " is related in a certain way to other actual or 
 possible particulars. It may be determined for thought as x in our 
 example is determined through its relation to p and q, or as y is 
 determined through its relation to x and /, or as z is determined 
 through its relation to x and y. So far as this is the case, the 
 possible particular is known "relatively" rather than "in itself"^ 
 
 \ 
 
 (3) FUNCTION OF SENSE PRESENTATIONS IN THE PERCEPTION 
 
 OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS. 
 
 I have so far avoided any discussion of the part played by presenta- 
 tions in the perception of material things and their qualities. Nor do 
 I now intend to deal with the problem as a whole, as this would be 
 impossible within the space at my disposal. I feel bound, however, to 
 say something in reply to the charge that I hold a doctrine of Repre- 
 sentative Perception. I have already shown that my general theory 
 of knowledge is not really open to this criticism. But in dealing with 
 the perception of the sensible qualities of bodies, I have to meet a 
 more special objection. It is urged against me that there is here no 
 room for any distinction between presentation and presented object ; 
 the sense presentation, it is said, is itself all that is discernible as the 
 quality of the thing. 
 
 I may state the case against me in the language of a very acute 
 critic, who has favoured me with a private communication on the 
 subject.'^ " I have before me a brass inkstand. It is round and yellow. 
 What is the relation between, e.g. the yellow which I see (presentation- 
 
 ' This discussion of our knowledge of universal possibilities is meant only to indicate 
 the general mode in which I would deal with the questions raised. There are manifold 
 complexities and subtleties which I leave untouched. 
 
 ' Mr. Henry Barker, of Edinburgh University. 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 27 
 
 yellow = Yp) and the yellow of the inkstand (yellow object = Yo)} 
 According to Representative Perception Yp, the colour sensation 
 yellow is one thing and Yo the colour yellow is another quite distinct 
 thing, and Yp represents Yo. I understand that you would say that 
 Yp presents rather than represents Yo, but that Yp must be dis- 
 tinguished from Yo, inasmuch as 1^ is a momentary psychical fact 
 
 and Yo is a permanent quality of the inkstand I am content to 
 
 ask, In any one moment in which I see the inkstand is there only one 
 yellow which may be regarded either as colour sensation or as colour 
 quality, or are there two yellows ? For my part I answer, of course, 
 one yellow, the identical yellow colour which I see the inkstand to 
 be of." 
 
 The point could hardly be better put. My reply is as follows : I 
 grant that the " yellow I see " is the yellow of the object. But I deny . 
 that the "yellow I see" can, according to the normal use of language,} X 
 be identified with presentation-yellow ( Yp). Ordinary language 
 follows common sense ; and common sense regards the question. 
 What is seen ? as ultimately dependent on the question. What 
 material thing is actually before the eye to be seen } If I say that I 
 see a man, I may be told that I do not see a man but a wax figure. 
 Similarly, if I say that I see a yellow inkstand, common sense may 
 correct me by asserting that I do not see a yellow inkstand, but only 
 one which looks yellow to my jaundiced eye, or under a certain 
 unusual illumination. That it looks yellow to me means that I Ty 
 apprehend a sensory content similar to that which I should apprehend, / 
 if I really saw a yellow inkstand with a normal eye and under normal 
 illumination. But we do not naturally speak of seeing the sensory \/^ 
 content itself. The case of dreams and hallucinations is instructive. 
 I may say that I saw a yellow inkstand in a dream. But " I saw in a k'' 
 dream " is only a way of saying, " I dreamed that I saw," and is 
 sharply distinguished from really seeing. Yet, in dreaming that I v/ 
 see a yellow inkstand, the visual sensations may be virtually the same 
 as in really seeing one. The awareness of the sensations is not by I A 
 itself enough to constitute seeing. I do not really see unless there is 
 present either a yellow inkstand or something mistaken for it, to 
 which the yellow may belong. 
 
 What then is the relation of Yp\.o Yo} It is suggested that if I say 
 
28 SOME FUNDAMENTAL POINTS IN 
 
 there are two " quite distinct " yellows, I involve myself in obvious 
 absurdity. So far I agree. Such a position would be absurd. But 
 there is also another absurdity which I am equally anxious to avoid, 
 one which my critics do not seem able to escape. If it is absurd to 
 assert two distinct yellows, it is a fortiori absurd to assert an 
 indefinitely numerous multiplicity of yellows, all belonging to the 
 same object. But, if presentation-yellow is taken to be, by itself, 
 identical with the yellow of the object, then, since the presentation- 
 yellow may vary indefinitely for different percipients, and for the 
 same percipient under different conditions, there must be a corre- 
 sponding multiplicity of different yellows really belonging to the 
 object. 
 
 My way of avoiding both the double yellow and the indefinite 
 plurality of yellows is as follows : What I perceive by sight at any 
 moment is not merely Yp, but Yp as conditioned.^ My perception i 
 includes not only awareness of the sensory content, but also the/^ 
 thought o f its condition. Thus, if the presentation-yellow is symbolised 
 by Yp, I should symbolise the yellow of the object, so far as this is 
 perceived at any given moment, by Yp-r-c, where c stands 'for a con- y 
 dition and r for a relation. The two distinct yellows are thus 
 avoided. For Yp-r-c includes Yp, and if Yp is omitted there is no 
 yellow to be seen in the inkstand. On the other hand, I also avoid 
 the absurdity of the indefinitely numerous yellows. For the various, 
 presentation-yellows, in virtue of their common relation to the constant 
 condition c, form, together with c, a complex unity which may be 
 symbolised as follows : 
 
 yp'. 
 yp 
 
 y r-c. 
 
 ypj 
 
 ^ This complex unity is the yellow of the object, Yo; and Yp^-r-c, 
 
 \-r-c... Yp„-r-c are not separate yellows, but the partial phases^ 
 1 of the single objective yellow which we call its varying^ sensible 
 \ appearances. The single objective yellow looks different according to 
 the varying circumstances under which it is perceived. If we could see 
 
 I 1 II 
 
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 29 
 
 or feel the vibrations which constitute yellow for the physicist, we 
 should only be perceiving one sensible appearance of Yo among 
 others. 
 
 It is only from this point of view that it seems possible to account 
 I satisfactorily for the identification of visible with tangible extension 
 \ in the same thing, notwithstanding the dissimilarity which Berkeley 
 j pointed out between the extensive characters of visual and tactual 
 I sensations, as such. Part of what we mean by the unity of the 
 sensible qualities of the same thing is that, so far as they are in place 
 at all, they are in the self-same place. In particular, visible and 
 tangible qualities are apprehended as spatially coincident — as, so to 
 speak, interpenetrating each other. The smoothness of the inkstand 
 is exactly where its yellowness is ; there is not one extension of the 
 smoothness and another of the yellowness. There is a single indis- 
 tinguishable extension of both. But if we compare the corresponding 
 visual and tactual presentations, as such, we find no such identity in 
 the extension which belongs to them. As Berkeley has shown in 
 I his Theory of Vision, the relation between Ev, the extension of visual 
 sensation, and Et, the extension of tactual sensation, apart from the 
 general similarity which is implied in applying the word, extension, to 
 both, consists merely in their regular empirical conjunction in certain 
 successive and simultaneous combinations. The Ev and the £■/ which 
 I experience in seeing and touching the brass inkstand are, in their own 
 nature and existence, as distinct from each other as each of them is 
 from the Ev or Et which I experience in seeing or touching a book 
 on my shelves. If, then, there is no difference between sense- 
 presentations and the sensible qualities of bodies, how can we account 
 for the identical extension of the visible and tangible qualities of the 
 same thing? On my view, there is no difficulty. The identical 
 
 Ev\ 
 extension of the thing is the complex unity t^ \ r-c. Evrc is that 
 
 partial phase of this complex unity which we call its visual appearance, 
 and Eire the partial phase of it, which we call its appearance to 
 touch. 
 
 Plainly there are many further questions which arise out of this 
 account of the perception of sensible qualities. In the first place, the 
 constant condition pervading and unifying the different appearances 
 
30 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 of the same quality is only one of the conditions on which the sense- 
 presentation depends. The variations in the sense-presentation must 
 be referred to correspondingly variable conditions. We have thus to 
 
 y^ face the problem, how does the percipient subject come to discern 
 with increasing definiteness and certainty the constant from the 
 fluctuating factors .■' In following up this line of investigation it would 
 be necessary to traverse again, from a different point of view, the 
 ground covered by Kant in his proofs of the Analogies of Experience. 
 y Again, there is the very important question : how far does know- 
 
 *^ ledge, by way of sense experience or otherwise, include a knowledge 
 of the conditions of sensation as they are in themselves } Kant's view 
 was that they cannot be known as they are in themselves at all. But 
 y^ as I hold that the distinction between knowing anything through its 
 relations and knowing its intrinsic nature is merely one of degree, it is 
 clear that I am bound to disagree radically with this Kantian doctrine. 
 The limits of the present essay debar me from dealing with these 
 and similar problems. But I hope that I have said enough to show 
 the general point of view from which I would treat them. 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BV ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. 
 
^^1 
 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE IN ITS 
 THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 
 
 BY 
 
 C. W. VALENTINE 
 
 GLASGOW 
 ^rintei at tht Snib^reitg Press bg 
 
 ROBERT MACLEHOSE & CO. LTD. 
 igii 
 
\ 
 
 '^%'>^ 
 
The Philosophy of Lotze in its 
 Theological Aspects 
 
 This essay only aims at giving a preliminary survey of Lotze's 
 position in so far as it bears immediately upon the most 
 fundamental problems of the Philosophy of Religion, I am very 
 conscious of the fact that many topics have had to be left after 
 only very brief treatment. 
 
 My best thanks are due to the Rev. George Galloway, D.D., for 
 his advice as to reading bearing upon Lotze's theological position ; 
 to Professor A. E. Taylor for reading my manuscript and for an 
 important criticism on a question of historical orthodoxy ; and to 
 Professor Stout for his kind permission to make use of certain 
 ideas of his discussed at recent meetings of the Senior Philosophical 
 Society at St. Andrews University, and for the help which I have 
 gained from conversation with him. The references are to the latest 
 editions of English translations of the Metaphysic, the Microcosmtis, 
 the Outlines of Metaphysic, and the Outlines of Philosophy of 
 Religion, and to the single volume edition of the Logic. 
 
 C. W. VALENTINE. 
 St. Andrews, /««<?, 191 1. 
 
 ^%\^^^ 
 
» • » * • 
 
 * • ^ 
 
 « I- _ I, • 
 
 * 4 ' « * 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE PLACE OF FEELING AND REASON 
 
 It is characteristic of Lotze that, in a preliminary discussion as to 
 the value of Philosophy, he recognises and emphasises two aspects 
 or means of the search for truth, one or the other of which is 
 frequently ignored by opposing schools of thought. In the first 
 place, the very origin of metaphysics is due, he says, to the conflict 
 of what seems to us reality, with the demands of man's heart, and 
 its value is determined by the extent to which it shows us " what 
 we have to reverence, as the true significance of existence, what 
 we have to do and what to hope'' (Introd. to Microcosnms, p. ix.). 
 
 Mere knowledge of truth is of no value in itself. " If the object 
 of all human investigation were but to produce in cognition a 
 reflection of the world as it exists, of what value would be all 
 its labour and pains, which could result only in vain repetition, 
 in an imitation within the soul of that which exists without 
 it } What significance could there be in this barren rehearsal — 
 what should oblige thinking minds to be mere mirrors of that 
 which does not think, unless the discovery of truth were in all 
 cases likewise the production of some good, valuable enough to 
 justify the pains expended in attaining it .-* " 
 
 Yet mere desire is no adequate guide. It cannot be expected that 
 the "obscure and unquiet movements of men's spirits should furnish 
 a juster delineation of the connection of things than the careful 
 investigation of science." 
 
 Hence, whilst recognising that the value of a philosophy is only 
 determined by the extent to which it satisfies the whole man, and 
 whilst asserting that the demands of the heart cannot be stifled, he 
 holds that it can " expect a response to them only as an incidental 
 result of knowledge which starts from a less emotional and there- 
 fore a clearer point of view " {Mic. Intro, vii.). 
 
 a2 
 
4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 This should dispose of the often vaguely expressed accusation 
 that Lotze "bases his Philosophy on Feeling," whilst it divides him 
 at once from Ritschl and his school, by the emphasis upon the 
 essential work of Reason. 
 
 Desire and We may add a further thought to this. Man will, in so far as he 
 
 observes and reflects, himself tend to distrust those beliefs which accord 
 with his strongest desires, if he has not honestly made an attempt 
 to consider their bases without prejudice. For he will see how readily 
 most people are led to believe that which they strongly wish to 
 believe, and how often the subjective element in the determination of 
 belief leads one astray. Yet this is not to assert that the desires of a 
 man's deepest nature should have no influence upon his beHef. It 
 may well be that all philosophy can do is to show that there are no 
 insuperable objections to a satisfying system of belief; or that the 
 "chances are even " ; or that there is a probability in favour of such a 
 truth. In such a position why should not a man " Cleave ever to the 
 sunnier side of doubt".? "With perfect knowledge, it would be 
 otherwise, but with limited knowledge there is always room for faith 
 and always need for it" (Professor J. Ward, Outline of Gijford 
 Lectures at St. Andrews, 19 lo). 
 
 The guiding Furthermore, a step thus taken at the promptings of desire may 
 
 work of desire. ,,. ..^ i-ii • , 
 
 lead us to a new position irom which the universe becomes more 
 intelligible. " Credo ut intelligam," as Anselm put it. As Professor 
 Ward showed in recent Gifford Lectures, it is thus that knowledge 
 has advanced. " We gain knowledge solely by doing ; the race at 
 least has gained it only in this way." This is, no doubt, an over- 
 statement. The knowledge of the race has advanced simply with the 
 knowledge of individuals, and with them reflection has contributed — 
 which Dr. Ward would, of course, admit. Yet it remains true that 
 conation has been "at once the source of faith and the cause of 
 knowledge," and by following its promptings we too may be led to 
 yet a further stage of knowledge. The faith of Theism, says Ward, is, 
 "psychologically considered, only the final phase of an ascending 
 series." 
 
 If, then, we can show that a theistic view of the universe is at least 
 as rational as one which fails to satisfy so adequately the heart of 
 man, we need not hesitate to adopt it merely because we have been 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 5 
 
 prompted and upheld in our search for truth by a craving for such 
 satisfaction. A frank recognition of such a motive at the outset of 
 our search is more likely to guard us against undue influence by it in 
 the consideration of particular arguments than would a profession of 
 complete disinterestedness. Indeed, such a position of impartiality is 
 probably impossible. Even Dr. McTaggart, who has combated 
 vigorously the "argument from desire," gives as a justification for the 
 study of Philosophy the fact that by its means we may attain to a 
 " more cheerful view of the Universe." The biologist who seeks the 
 truth about the universe along the lines of his own science, is doing so 
 because at some time certain facts interested him more than others. 
 Had his mental disposition been otherwise, it might have been 
 historical facts which would have interested him more. If he is going 
 to be absolutely impartial he must give up his specialising because at 
 one time his search for truth had its trend determined by personal 
 interest. 
 
 One further point before we leave this topic. There is a danger The danger of 
 of the cautious man discounting too much beliefs that are in accord 
 with his desires. As Professor Stout points out, " Tarde creduntur, 
 quae credita laedunt " holds good only of persons of certain types. 
 "Where the general mental attitude is one of fear, timidity, or 
 gloomy suspicion, it does not hold good " {Manual of Psychology, 
 
 P- 552). 
 
 And probably we may go further and say that not only the 
 pessimistically inclined, but also a certain type of extremely con- 
 scientious individual is apt to shrink too much from accepting beliefs 
 that fit in apparently only too well with their hearts' desires — which 
 seem "too good to be true." Such persons are comparable with 
 those — often of stern puritanical upbringing — who tend to think 
 that, of several possible lines of conduct, the most disagreeable one is 
 probably the only right one. 
 
 We hold, then, that Lotze is justified in refusing to ignore entirely 
 the claims of faith at the outset of his philosophy, and in refusing 
 equally, on the other hand, to put aside the knowledge accumulated by 
 scientific zeal, but rather in "consciously endeavouring to maintain 
 the right of each and to show how far from insoluble is the contradic- 
 tion in which they appear to be inextricably involved." 
 
6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 The work Yet it must not be imas^ined that Lotze would give an independent 
 
 of Reason . ^ t> r 
 
 essential. authority to the demands of the heart. At least this is not his final 
 
 view — taken in the Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion. Rather 
 the contributions of the inner states are only further data, additional 
 to knowledge from external experience — "all of which have to be 
 gathered together if possible into one harmonious truth of religion by 
 our reflection." Only thus do we get at " Religion within the limits of 
 mere reason." Such inner states include the aesthetic demand that 
 the ideally beautiful and good shall be " no accidental product of that 
 which is without significance, but must be rather the very Principle of 
 the world or closely related to its creative principle." 
 
 GENERAL METHOD 
 THE POWERS AND LIMITATIONS OF THOUGHT 
 
 Lotze is emphatic in his criticism of those philosophers who attempt 
 to base their metaphysics upon a theory of knowledge or upon 
 Psychology. For in examining the process of thought and in discuss- 
 ing its validity we have to make use of thought itself, and to trust to 
 its validity in so doing. Or as Lotze puts it, " As to the truth of our 
 cognition and its capability of truth no verdict can be compassed 
 which is independent of that cognition itself" {Met. Introd. §. ix.). 
 And further we cannot know that our knowledge is true unless we 
 know some fact about reality; we require some ontological truth 
 before we can make an epistemological assertion. 
 
 Whilst this is true it does not prevent us from taking a critical 
 attitude towards the reliability of Thought. We are somewhat in the 
 same position as that of the man who mounts a rope ladder in order 
 to see if its supports are trustworthy : he must make use of them in 
 the very attempt to examine them. We may say here briefly that 
 Lotze's position is that Thought, whilst capable of attaining to true 
 knowledge of reality, is yet incapable of exhausting reality, seeing 
 that there are aspects of reality, feeling and volition, to wit, which 
 cannot be represented adequately in Thought ; and also, that there 
 are problems which our thought has to give up as insoluble — in our 
 present stage, at least, as for instance the problem of "absolute 
 becoming " and that of the reconciling of the existence of evil with 
 the omnipotence and goodness of God. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 7 
 
 Lotze is keenly aware of the unsatisfactory nature of any system Lotze's 
 
 . .... starting-points. 
 
 that starts with only one prmciple, however certain, from which it 
 attempts to evolve a whole theory of the universe, any mistake in the 
 process of which is a source of error in the subsequent development of 
 the theory. 
 
 Further, though we assume a certain unity of the world, yet "that 
 unity need not combine the manifold in general, or even combine 
 individual truths among themselves, in such a way as that we should 
 be in a position to deduce one out of the other, or all out of one 
 according to law. It might, to use an imperfect comparison, control 
 the whole of its organisation in a manner of a melody whose unity and 
 continuity are perceptible, although no reasoning can prove that this 
 particular continuation belongs to that particular beginning " (Art. in 
 Contemporary Review, vol. xxxvii. p. 149). 
 
 Lotze himself maintains that investigation must take its departure 
 from the largest possible number of independent considerations, with 
 the proviso that " the results which the prosecution of one con- 
 sideration yields, shall be subsequently corrected so far as is necessary 
 by the results of the rest " {Outlines of Met. p. 9). The result is that 
 one feels, in studying Lotze, that while his system may lack the com- 
 pactness and stringency of some others, yet he is keeping in close 
 touch with the whole of experience as known to us, and is not 
 arbitrarily excluding one aspect or another for the sake of a greater 
 consistency. 
 
 " Our whole theory of the universe," says Lotze, " has tJiree starting 
 points. We find within ourselves a knowledge of universal laws, 
 which, without themselves giving rise to any particular form of 
 existence, force themselves on our attention as the necessary and 
 immediately certain limits within which all reality must move. On 
 the other hand, we find within ourselves an instinct bidding us discern 
 in Ideas of the good, the beautiful, and the holy the one indefeasible 
 end whence alone reality derives any value ; but even this end does 
 not bring to our cognition the special form of the means by which it 
 is to be attained. Between these two extreme points extends for us 
 a third region — that of experience — boundless in the wealth of its 
 forms and events, unknown in its origin " {Mic. i. p. 417). 
 
 In the first place, then, we find "universal laws" which the rational 
 
 A3 
 
8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 mind cannot but accept as necessary. " I maintain with a philosopher's 
 obstinacy that, above all things, that must hold good which we find to 
 be in its nature a necessary result of Thought, though all else bend or 
 break." Yet Lotze honestly admits that a priori reasoning, based on 
 such self-evident laws, may lead to a conflict with experience. " We 
 know in fact that the nature of reality yields a result to us unthinkable. 
 It teaches us a union which we cannot construct in thought." We 
 cannot, for example, give up the reality of our immediate experience 
 of " becoming," and yet it remains for ever inexplicable by thought, 
 and in a sense contradictory {^Met. i. pp. 178-9). 
 
 When led to this impasse Lotze still clings to his two lines of 
 thought, and their respective starting points. A solution of the 
 contradiction, he maintains, can only be hinted at by a suggestion of 
 that which is " superior to logical laws." 
 
 Lotze, then, is content, as every philosopher has had to be, to leave 
 certain apparent contradictions as unsolved, even as insoluble from 
 our point of view. Indeed, thought, he shows, is inadequate to deal 
 completely with reality as immediately experienced by us, and if this 
 be the case, how much more likely that it is inadequate to deal fully 
 with that infinite universe towards which, however, it points. 
 Thought Thus he says {^Mic. i. 555): "Mind and mental life are more than 
 
 reahty. ^^ ^"^ thinking. It is quite possible that what things are is not beyond the 
 possible experience of the whole mind, and yet that it is wholly 
 incomprehensible by this one form of inner energy — thinking." Feeling 
 and volition, for example, " are intelligible only to him who knows 
 them by experience." And thought can never make " intelligible by 
 forms of thinking the distinction that separates them from all 
 thinking." 
 
 " Much goes on within us which even our thinking intelligence 
 follows and contemplates only from without and whose contents it 
 cannot exhaustively represent either in form of an idea or through a 
 union of ideas. He, therefore, who is animated by the conviction that 
 real existence cannot be impenetrable to the mind, cannot with equal 
 confidence assume that thought is the precise organ which will be 
 able to comprehend the real in its innermost essence" {Contemporary 
 Review, xxxvii. p. 135). 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 9 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTION— THE UNITY OF 
 THE UNIVERSE 
 
 Now, if we are to make any attempt at understanding the Universe, 
 we must, Lotze claims, make at least the fundamental assumption 
 that the world is a unity, and further, that the elements act upon 
 each other in accordance with law. For even if we supposed two 
 such elements, a and b, as indifferent to one another, " we should 
 after all never be compelled to regard this indifference as a fact based 
 upon no principle, but as the necessary consequence of the same law, 
 in accordance with which a and b exercise the aforesaid other 
 reciprocal actions." If we give up all assumption of any such unity 
 of the universe, " the very basis for every investigation would be 
 abolished." " This one supposition is the foundation of every 
 attempt to arrive at knowledge by means of experience, and is not 
 deriveable from experience itself. The sceptic who doubts it is 
 reduced to the absurdity of being unable, even under definite circum- 
 stances, to consider the occurrence of one event as more probable than 
 that of another" {Met. i. p. 4). 
 
 Lotze is careful to point out that this assumption is no work of 
 pure thought. In making it " we follow no longer the mere 
 inclination of an uninterested understanding, but the inspirations of a 
 reason appreciative of worth, which rejects even the thinkable, as long 
 as it is only thinkable, and does not besides by the inherent excel- 
 lence of its contents win recognition of its worth in the world " 
 {Mic. i. 244). 
 
 The attempt to explain the universe, then, implies an assumption 
 the negation of which, whilst thinkable, our full being refuses to 
 accept. This point is fundamental in Lotze's philosophy. Else- 
 where Lotze closely allies with it the " confidence of Reason in 
 itself." " As regards the ultimate principles however which we follow 
 in this criticism of our thoughts, it is quite true that we are left with 
 nothing but the confidence of Reason in itself or the certainty of 
 believing in the general truth that there is a meaning in the world 
 and that the nature of that reality which includes us in itself has given 
 our spirit only such necessities of thought as harmonise with it " 
 {Met. i. 220). 
 
lO 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 "Faith "com- 
 pared with 
 " Self-evident 
 truths." 
 
 In certain places Lotze carefully distinguishes the nature of 
 " religious faith " and that of self-evident ultimate truths. The latter, 
 he points out, " do not tell us that anything whatever is or takes 
 place, but only declare what would exist or would have to take place 
 in case definite conditions occur " : whereas Faith asserts some actual 
 existence. Yet in this ultimate belief in the rationality of the universe 
 we seem to have a link between the basis of our philosophy and a 
 basis of religion. For it is a kind of immediate certainty. And, 
 similarly, an immediate certainty exists according to Lotze that 
 " what is greatest, most beautiful, most worthy, is not a mere thought 
 but must be a reality " {Mic. ii. 670). Many, of course, have not this 
 immediate certainty, but the man who has possesses for his religion a 
 basis somewhat analogous to that basis which we have seen is 
 necessary for all philosophic thought. 
 
 It is true, of course, that to deny the truth of this immediate 
 certainty (that the most worthy is real) does not lead to self- 
 contradiction — that is, no immediate and obvious self-contradiction. 
 But neither does the denial of the unity of the universe, according to 
 Lotze, who asserts that the contrary alternative is thinkable. 
 Though, of course, the basis for all investigation would be taken 
 away, and there would be " practical self-contradiction " involved in a 
 regular mode of acting. 
 
 It is true, again, that the trust in the unity of the universe is a 
 universal one ; at least it is implied in the actions and thoughts of all 
 sane men. But mere unanimity or the lack of it is no final test 
 of truth. 
 
 Dr. McTaggart is doubtless right in asserting that he who bases 
 his religion or philosophical position on an experience of immediate 
 certainty which is not shared by another cannot expect this other to 
 accept this certainty as an argument in favour of his belief. But this 
 immediate certainty that the highest and best is real, is not by any 
 means the sole basis of Lotze's philosophical system. Belief in the 
 Good as real he regards not merely as a matter of personal conviction 
 but as a necessary belief if we are to obtain a rational interpretation 
 of the universe. 
 
 " It is not altogether just," he says, " to maintain that we believe in 
 a supreme Good — in a life beyond, merely because we desire them. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS ii 
 
 In reality such beliefs rest upon an extremely broad though an Conception of 
 unanalysed foundation of perception. They start from the fact of this necessTo' for 
 actual world as it is given to us in experience in which we find certain rational"^ ^ 
 intolerable contradictions threatening us if we refuse to acknowledge un*! verse °'^''^^ 
 that those ways in which the structure of the world extends beyond 
 our perception are real complements of that which we perceive" 
 {Logic, § 347, p. 500). 
 
 We have, then, an immediate conviction of the unity of the uni- 
 verse, and we also find this a necessary postulate if we are to form a 
 rational interpretation of our experience: similarly, for Lotze there is 
 an immediate conviction of the reality of the Supreme Good, and at 
 the same time he finds this also a necessary postulate for a completely 
 rational interpretation of our experience. Lotze speaks of the 
 Highest Good as " the one real principle on which the validity of the 
 metaphysical axioms in the world depends." Yet he goes on to say 
 that we cannot regard it as a principle of cognition that can be 
 profitably converted into a major premise from which to deduce the 
 sum of metaphysical truth. That, indeed, would have been incon- 
 sistent with his statement that we must start from as many given 
 points as possible. The principle of the Highest Good is rather one 
 to which Lotze is led as explaining the vieaning of life. Lotze 
 himself does not attempt a concise statement of the steps leading to 
 this position. That it is the " highest reason for the formation of the 
 world and of our own metaphysical thoughts about it," is " not 
 further demonstrable as a matter of strict metaphysics." The words 
 "not further" refer to his summing up of the argument briefly in 
 the preceding paragraphs. His metaphysical argument has shown, he 
 maintains, the spiritual nature of all reality, including the phenomenal 
 world. He refers then to Fichte's doctrine that those metaphysical 
 principles " in accordance with which we trace out an inner coherency 
 within this phenomenal world," can be shown to be " natural to our 
 spirit on account of this, and only on account of this, because the spirit 
 is intended for action." Lotze regards this as " not quite satisfactory, 
 because it makes all actuality exist merely in the service of human 
 action," ignoring the very end and aim of such action which determines 
 it. For such " action," then, Lotze substitutes " the morally good for 
 which the action is simply the indispensable form of actualization." 
 
12 
 
 THE PHILOSOrHY OF LOTZE 
 
 "The Good" 
 as means of 
 Interpretation. 
 
 Suppose we admit, as Lotze maintains, that he has proved in the 
 Ontology that all reality consists of spiritual beings and that these 
 are bound together in the life of one Infinite Spiritual Being. (This 
 position will be critically considered shortly.) Now, spiritual activity 
 is essentially marked by its purposiveness. And to the Supreme 
 Good, which is the end and aim of this Infinite Being, all else is 
 " subordinate means to an end." Hence it seems legitimate that such 
 means may best be interpreted by the end to which they serve, so 
 that the Good is that principle which is necessary to explain the 
 whole of reality (in so far as it is explicable to us), including the 
 phenomenal world. Apparent reality is merely a " system of contri- 
 vances by means of which this world of phenomena, as well as these 
 determinate metaphysical habitudes for considering the world of 
 phenomena, are called forth in order that the Highest Good may be- 
 come for the spirit an object of enjoyment in all the multiplicity 
 of forms possible to it." 
 
 Mechanism is universal in its working, but it is only the method 
 adopted by a supreme intelligence, teleologically determined. Indeed, 
 the time may come, Lotze thinks, when " these simplified propositions 
 of all mechanics will become more directly connected with the 
 Supreme Principle and will admit of being interpreted as the last 
 formal offshoots of that Good which is the beginning of the end of the 
 whole universe " {^Mic. ii. p. 726). 
 
 The optimist sees a beneficent harmony of the universe spread out 
 before him. To the pessimist "all things here seem out of joint." 
 " Both views," Lotze points out, " imply the natural assumption that 
 reality has no meaning except as it is productive of happiness." So 
 while " absolute becoming " and an apprehension of a real beginning 
 of existence are beyond our powers, explanation by end may not be. 
 And in so far as we are able to apprehend a meaning and purpose 
 " our cognition possesses more of truth than if it copied exactly a 
 world of objects that has no value in itself. Although it does not 
 comprehend in what manner all that is phenomenon is presented 
 to its view, still it understands what is the meaning of it all ; and 
 is like to a spectator who comprehends the aesthetic significance 
 of that which takes place on the stage of a theatre, and would 
 gain nothing essential if he were to see besides the machinery by 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 13 
 
 means of which the changes are effected on that stage " {Out. of 
 Met. § 92). 
 
 Now, perhaps, we see better what Lotze means in a passage 
 previously quoted. " We find within ourselves an instinct bidding us 
 discern in Ideas of the good, the beautiful, and the holy, the one 
 indefeasible end whence alone reality derives any value." 
 
 There still remains, then, the three starting-points, (i) The idea 
 of the Good gives us the clue to the final meaning of reality ; but 
 (ii) from experience we must learn the mode of its realisation. 
 And (iii) through all thinking we must hold loyally to the immediate 
 certainty of " necessary laws." Where the " necessary laws " and 
 experience conflict Lotze speaks of a reality which is " superior 
 to logical laws." Where experience and our demand for the Good 
 clash, as in the case of the problem of evil, Lotze again falls back 
 upon the idea that " our finite wisdom has come to an end of its 
 tether," While refusing to follow some in superficial attempts to 
 explain away evil, he, at the same time, " believes that the 
 solution exists." 
 
 We may sum up this section with a statement of what Lotze calls 
 his " philosophic faith " — that these three modes or means of seeking 
 truth meet eventually in the conception of God — " the one real power 
 appearing to us under a threefold image of an end to be realised — 
 namely, first, some definite and desired Good ; then, on account of the 
 definiteness of this, a formed and developing Reality ; and finally in 
 this activity an unvarying reign of Law" {^Mic. ii. p. 716). 
 
 THE SUBJECTIVITY OF OUR KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Throughout its activities thought must be coloured by its own 
 subjective nature. We cannot get outside ourselves and see things as 
 they would appear if we were not looking at them. The mind in 
 apprehending things is active, and this activity implies that the mind 
 contributes its share to the resulting knowledge. But this does not 
 invalidate all knowledge of things external to us as being merely 
 subjective. For, as Lotze points out, " our representation must be 
 subjective not merely if there were no external world but it must be 
 subjective also if there is. Even of a real world we could have no 
 other kind of representation than we have, a representation reproduced 
 
14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 through our own subjective activity." Thus the admitted subjectivity 
 of all our knowledge " decides absolutely nothing as to the reality of 
 its object and the accuracy of our representation of it" {Cont. Rev. 
 vol. xxxvii. p. 145). 
 
 " An absolute truth," says Lotze, " such as archangels in heaven 
 would have to accept," is not the object of philosophy. Yet even arch- 
 angels would be liable, on Lotze's own showing, to this subjectivity of 
 cognition. For " it is no specially prejudicial lot of the human spirit, 
 but must recur in every being which stands in relation to anything 
 beyond it " {Met. i. p. 220). 
 
 This limitation, if it be a limitation, does not apply in Lotze's view 
 to the knowledge of God. For He is the all-inclusive Being, and 
 there is nothing "beyond Him." His knowledge, then, is analogous 
 to our knowledge of self, and of this, Lotze admits, we have an 
 absolute knowledge. And it is from this fact of knowledge of self 
 that we may entertain a legitimate hope of learning just what 
 positively constitutes in other things as well their essential " Being." 
 
 THE UNION OF INDIVIDUAL THINGS IN AN INFINITE BEING 
 
 We now proceed to deal with the ontological position of Lotze in so 
 far as it is important in leading up to his Philosophy of Religion. 
 
 Very various labels have been applied to Lotze as a philosopher. 
 He has been called Absolutist and Individualist, Realist and Idealist, 
 and he has even been accused of defending Materialism. This last 
 charge was due to his writings on the Physiology of Life and of the 
 Soul, in which he attempted an explanation of mental phenomena 
 by means of the conception of mechanism. But no careful reader of 
 the Microcosmiis, or of his later Metaphysics could for a moment 
 suspect him of materialism. It is true that in opposing the usual 
 argument from design, Lotze maintains that such " design " as we can 
 trace in the physical universe might, supposing a state of originally 
 complete chaos with infinite possibilities, be the effect of blind 
 mechanical laws, "testing" the various forms of existence in the 
 " endless alternation of its phenomena." Thus from a state of chaos, 
 by selection of certain forms of combination, might a system arise 
 presenting many signs of apparent design and conscious adaptation : 
 such a hypothesis being rendered more plausible by the fact that 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 15 
 
 there are many things in which we can trace no purpose {Mic. i. 
 p. 427). 
 
 Yet such an admission by no means justifies the term "Materialist." 
 Lotze had his own reasons for rejecting such a hypothesis, if they 
 were not those usual to the theology of his day. The preceding chaos 
 postulated by the atomists is to him unthinkable. We must start, if 
 we start at all, with a definite universe in a definite condition. No 
 mere chaos of infinite possibilities is thinkable, from which just the 
 existent system of spatial order could have been selected. 
 
 Further, the " Mechanical " Theory, even if tenable, is not identical 
 with Materialism. For the presence of intelligent life must be 
 acknowledged, and so it must be concluded as having been present 
 even in the " original supersensible elements," 
 
 Elsewhere Lotze demonstrates the fallacy of explaining mind by 
 reference to material forces, which are themselves only intelligible in 
 terms of mind. In short, his attitude on this whole question he sums 
 up himself in the introduction to the Microcosmus, where he speaks of 
 showing " how absolutely universal is the extent, and at the same 
 time how completely subordinate the significance, of the mission which 
 mechanism has to fulfil in the structure of the world." 
 
 We shall now deal with the main lines of thought by which Lotze The problem 
 
 11 , . . r • • 1 • • 1 11 • of Interaction. 
 
 leads up to his conception of a purely spiritual universe, with all its 
 individuals bound together in the unity of the Being of an infinite 
 God. 
 
 This consists in an argument for the unity of the universe based upon 
 the fact of the interaction of individual beings. Lotze starts from the 
 Realist position, assuming the existence of individual things. " Even 
 the most common apprehension of the world is impossible without 
 articulating the content of our perceptions in such a manner that we 
 assume 'Things' as the supports and centres of its phenomena and 
 events and all kinds of ' reciprocal actions ' as being interchanged 
 between them" {Out. of Met. § i.). 
 
 This assumption of actual things is based upon sense experience. 
 It is an inference from our perceptions. Yet Lotze's metaphysic 
 leads him to deny the reality of matter as apparently apprehended in 
 sense perception. This, however, does not invalidate his argument 
 from the interactions of individual selves. For souls remain as 
 
 A4 
 
i6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 individual selves (the denial of the existence of any other souls than 
 our own Lotze regards as too absurd to need refutation), and between 
 these spiritual selves there is interaction. Lotze makes the assump- 
 tion, then, that all real elements of the world act upon each other. Our 
 experience, he remarks, so far as it goes, supports this view. 
 
 In reply to the theoretic objection that some individual elements 
 tnay be indifferent to others, Lotze points out that even such 
 indifference "we should after all be compelled to regard as a necessary 
 consequence of the same law of interaction." While to the remark 
 that elements which have interacted, may at another time, under 
 similar conditions, be completely independent of one another, Lotze 
 replies that if one adopt such a view "the very basis for every 
 investigation would be abolished." 
 
 Such a world of interacting beings could not be deduced from beings 
 which were originally wholly without relation to each other. Nor can 
 it be demanded that things must exist before they can stand in 
 relation to one another. It is true that we cannot think a relation 
 without thinking things related. But the priority of unrelated to 
 related existence is merely this logical priority, not a metaphysical 
 priority. 
 
 Even if one could assume an unrelated existence how could it then 
 enter into relation with other things .'* If it does, it must be some 
 definite relation to the exclusion of others. And where can lie the 
 ground of this specific determination of the relation entered into if 
 not in a previous relation .-* 
 
 If, then, all real things are thus bound together by their relations in 
 one system, no one being independent of the others, each interacting 
 with others, how are we to conceive of their interaction ? 
 
 Lotze examines the common opinion that some "influence" or 
 " force " passes over from one thing to the other. What is this which 
 passes over when a acts upon b ? Is it a real element which leaves a 
 and joins d } If so, there is really no " efficient causation," no real 
 action. If it be said that it is a state which is transferred, how can 
 there be a state " passing over," for in passing it must be a state of 
 nothing, and "Attributa non separantur a substantiis." And even if 
 it could, now that the state is near to d, why must d change on that 
 account .-' This remains as great a mystery as the primary question. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 17 
 
 Nor does the theory of " Pre-established harmony" solve the 
 problem. " For if a change of some constituent of the universe has to 
 follow and correspond to any event that may or may not happen, 
 whenever it does happen, then that constituent must be able to 
 distinguish the occurrence from the non-occurrence of the event by 
 some passion which the event produces in it, and the action and 
 reaction which it was desired to banish would thus be necessary for 
 the comprehension of that harmony which is intended to replace it " 
 {Mic. ii, p. 597). 
 
 It is also useless to suppose the interaction to be the result of the 
 constant mediating activity of God, so long as God is supposed to be 
 separated from the things in the same way as things are supposed to 
 be separated from one another. For we must suppose an action of 
 the things upon God, and a reaction of God upon them, so that the 
 problem of interaction remains. 
 
 The only explanation, says Lotze, seems to be that the various Unity of Being 
 things are not entirely separate and independent in the way supposed. 
 But rather that a " state which takes place in the element A must for 
 the very reason that it is in yi, likewise be an affection in B\ but it 
 does not necessarily have to become such an " affection " of B by 
 means of an influence issuing from A " {Out. of Met. § 48). 
 
 This change b is rather due to the fact that both A and B are 
 elements in a greater whole which embraces all individuals and 
 which Lotze in his MetapJiysic designates the *' Infinite " or the 
 " Absolute." The Absolute causes a sort of " compensating " changes, 
 and all activity is really His activity. 
 
 Through another line of thought, including ethical postulates, criticism of 
 Lotze identifies this Absolute with God. Now, Lotze's moral and so°utLn. 
 religious philosophy requires a certain being for self for the 
 individuals : — they must be capable of action. Otherwise how can 
 individual moral progress be a reality : how can individual effort be 
 justified or demanded? And this is inconsistent with the view of the 
 Absolute just described. As Dr. Galloway points out, Lotze's 
 discussion is not really a " proof of how interaction is possible, but 
 rather a reaction to an illusory appearance somehow generated by the 
 compensatory movements within the one real Being" {Principles of 
 Religious Development, p. 290). 
 
i8 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 Can the whole 
 of our 
 
 experience be 
 included in 
 that of God ? 
 
 The feeling of 
 self-hood. 
 
 I do not agree with Dr. Galloway's further criticism that Lotze 
 assumes that "reality is a fixed magnitude and cannot be more or 
 less than M" if by " fixed " he means incapable of progress or change 
 of the whole. For whilst Lotze maintains that a new state a in an 
 individual A is " compensated " by a new state b in an individual B, 
 there is no reason why the second change should be a sort of negative 
 quantity, exactly equivalent to a but of opposite action. It may well 
 be that « is a better state for A, and b for B, than the previous state 
 of afifairs, and thus that both for these and for the " Absolute," or God, 
 there had been actual progress. All the changes, indeed, may be so 
 organised as to lead towards the realisation of the one great purpose 
 of God (see Outlines of Phil, of Rel. § 20). 
 
 Still, the previous objection holds, and we are confronted appar- 
 ently with the alternative of either giving up the individuality of the 
 " unit " and thus making freedom impossible, moral effort futile, and 
 the feeling of self-hood illusory ; or of being thrown back upon the 
 old difficulty of interaction. Lotze himself is inconsistent, holding at 
 one time that every state and action of the mind is also a state and 
 action of the Absolute, and elsewhere asserting that there is a " being- 
 for-self " which separates the unit from the whole. " In that a thing 
 is something for itself, consciously refers to itself, apprehends itself as 
 an ego — by just this, which is its very essence, it detaches itself from 
 the Infinite " {Mic. ii. p. 645). 
 
 This act of apprehending myself as a separate self, and that self my 
 particular self, is then an experience which in its very nature cannot 
 be experienced by God. So here we have a part of my being which 
 is not included in the being of God, even on Lotze's own showing. 
 And here Lotze contradicts the result of his Metaphysics, which 
 required that all reality, and therefore all experience, should be 
 included within the being of the Absolute. And this feeling of self- 
 hood, one may say in passing, is so emphatically a part of immediate 
 and certain experience that the belief in interaction of things could 
 more easily be given up than this. 
 
 But apart from this feeling of self-hood there would seem to be 
 some human experiences which from their very nature cannot be 
 experienced by God. Professor Roger suggests the case of ignorance. 
 I am, say, in complete ignorance as to the solution of a problem. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 19 
 
 " Now, can this concrete state of mind exist unchanged in all its 
 detail in an all-knowing mind ? Can I feel baffled and feel every- 
 thing sun-clear as a unitary fact of consciousness ? Can I feel baffled The case of 
 
 Ignorance 
 
 and see the solution in the same experience ? ' Further, suppose that and Despair. 
 for a moment I experience complete despair. " Can God have an 
 identical feeling without himself being in complete despair?" 
 {Religions Conception of the World, p. 156). 
 
 Now, it is true that I can know that I had a feeling of despair, 
 although now I am again hopeful. I can still revive certain elements 
 of the previous state of despair, and in so far as this is possible 
 a partial interpenetration of two kinds of experience is possible. 
 It might, perhaps, be suggested, then, that thus our experience may 
 enter partially into that of the Divine Being, that He knows my 
 experience without actually passing through an identical experience. 
 But without further elucidation this only ignores the difficulty of 
 interaction. For in the case where I know my own past feeling 
 of despair, and partially revive it, it is only possible because my 
 present self was modified by the previous feeling — which was 
 entirely its own : and this modification continues and shows its traces 
 in the present self, which is really one with the previous self The 
 two states are bound together in the unity of one being. But this 
 is not the case with my feeling of despair and the experience of 
 God, for we must suppose that there are two beings, if we cannot 
 accept Lotze's view. 
 
 Paulsen's analogy of the individual cells of the body contributing to Lotze's 
 
 view. 
 
 our total experience is not satisfactory for our purpose. For, supposing 
 the cells to have psychic experiences of their own, it is not these, as 
 far as we know, which contribute to our total experience, but rather 
 their physiological conditions. We have of them only a phenomenal 
 knowledge, not a sharing of their own inmost being, their being-for- 
 self. And they affect us only by first affecting the brain processes, 
 through interaction, and here again we must suppose interaction 
 between brain and soul, or a parallelism which requires explaining by 
 some such higher synthesis as we are now seeking. 
 
 Dr. Galloway also fails, it seems to me, to supply an adequate 
 substitute for the theory of Lotze which he criticises. He makes use 
 of the analogy of organic unity, which, as he says, is essentially 
 
20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 teleological. "The universe is coherent because all its constituent 
 centres of experience are sustained by the same ever-present Ground, 
 a living will which gives organic connexion to the multiplicity of 
 spiritual reals and a place and function to each of them. This will is 
 a guarantee that the whole system is teleological " {Principles of 
 Religious Development^ p. 299). 
 
 But this only seems to provide that the interactions of the 
 individuals shall lead towards the well-being of the whole, it does not 
 explain how it can possibly be effected. While the analogy is a 
 suggestive one in its bearing upon the combination of welfare of the 
 unit and the whole, it does not explain interactions ; as in Paulsen's 
 case, interaction of the individuals in the organic unity has to be 
 assumed. 
 
 It might appear that our object would be attained if we could suppose 
 that any experience of the unit has its parallel and counterpart in the 
 experience of God. But to suppose one merely a sort of function of 
 the other, so that, say, an increase of intensity of experience a in one is 
 accompanied by increase of intensity of experience A which enters as an 
 element into the experience of God, to do this still leaves the problem of 
 interaction unless we suppose a pre-established harmony between my 
 experiences and those of the divine Being. Now, we saw reason to 
 reject any theory of pre-established harmony. We can only adopt 
 something like it by supposing that never from the beginning of my 
 being has my experience been entirely separate from that of God. 
 Thus we may come to suppose that in creating me, in progressively 
 developing a new centre of experience, God has all along retained an 
 element of my total experience as an element of His also. This leads 
 me to the conception of the partial interpretation of two experiences. 
 Professor Stout has defended this view in some recent lectures on 
 Leibnitz. He fully admits that it is absurd to suppose that the 
 individual unity of one being should form part of the individual 
 unity of another, that, for example, my volitions as such, that is, as 
 mine, should be part of another's. 
 
 But he points out that it does not follow that the content of my 
 experiences should not be shared by others. Not merely that the 
 content may be similar, but that a part of it may form a common 
 element between two centres of experience. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 21 
 
 Professor Stout refers by way of suggestive example — not, of 
 course, as proof — to cases of simultaneous double-personality, where 
 we have each, apparently, with its own character and point of view, 
 yet sharing one body and apparently one series of sensations. 
 
 Now let us suppose some such common element between my Partial 
 
 -_,,Tri-i • I -1 Interpenetra- 
 
 experience and that of God. If this element varies constantly with tion of lieing 
 my total experiences it may provide a complete clue to the nature of i^'i^racUon? 
 that experience, and thus may a complete knowledge about me be 
 possible to the divine Being, as well as a means of interaction being 
 provided. Yet there may be left to me a power of initiation and the 
 evil volitions of the individual need not be ascribed to the will of 
 God, as on Lotze's view they must ultimately be. 
 
 Professor Stout believes that such a " common element " is provided 
 by the " presentation continuum," shared both by God and by all 
 finite beings. We interact on one another by means of this "presenta- 
 tion continuum" : and, similarly, God may work upon us, but in His 
 case our very feelings and volitions may appear as presentations, so 
 that a more immediate influence may be possible. 
 
 Such a view avoids the difficulty which both Dr. McTaggart and 
 Dr. Rashdall emphasise, of supposing that I am merely part of a state, 
 or an "adjective" of another being, for it leaves a central portion of 
 my experience mine, and mine only, though it may be known and 
 communicated through the medium of that part which I have in 
 common with God and with other beings. 
 
 The conception is no doubt a difficult one. It does not seem to be 
 proved, further, that in cases like that of" Sally Beauchamp " two separ- 
 ate personalities had certain sensations in common and not merely 
 similar sensations. But it would seem that unless we can assume some 
 such partial interpenetration of being, the problem of interaction must 
 be classified with those which Lotze himself regards as beyond the 
 powers of human reason. Whereas if we do assume it, we have a 
 means of connection between the soul and God, and either through 
 this, or directly, a connection with all beings thus united with Him. 
 And through this common experience God may have a knowledge 
 of individual beings which includes all of them, and all of their 
 experiences, though this "knowledge about" is not the same as 
 immediate knowledge given by experiencing the same things Himself. 
 
22 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 It may be argued that it must ultimately depend upon similar 
 elements in His own past experience, as is apparently the case with 
 our own understanding. (Compare the suggestion in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, that through His human experience, Jesus was able to 
 reach a more complete knowledge of human difficulties than He would 
 have had if He had never taken upon Himself our human nature. 
 Heb. ii. 17, 18). 
 
 Dr. Rashdall frankly gives up the problem as to how God can 
 know what I feel without having felt the like. But without assuming 
 any exactly similar experience, may we not suppose that elements of 
 experience sufficiently similar to ours may enter even into the divine 
 life for re-combinations to be formed and so very varying and much 
 more limited ranges of experience be comprehended .-* 
 God's know- Such a knowledge ahotit might surely at least be complete in every 
 
 ledge may thus . . -r> • /^ i 
 
 be complete in scnse neccssary for the religious consciousness. By it Cjod may 
 
 important know Completely how to act upon man, and what is best for the 
 
 sense. welfare of such a being. And it might be much more complete from 
 
 this point of view than my own knowledge of self, in which much of 
 
 the past is omitted and in which the knowledge of my circumstances 
 
 is so inadequate that I cannot foresee the future. 
 
 Further, we must be cautious in applying the tenets of human 
 psychology to the workings of the mind of God. And in any case 
 the difficulty is not nearly so great as in supposing with Lotze, 
 that my whole experience is simply a part of the wider experience 
 of God, and that my feeling of present ignorance is felt by Him 
 too as ignorance, and that my volitions towards evil are also His 
 volitions. 
 
 We have seen that Lotze assumed the existence of individual 
 things at the outset of his discussion upon the nature of interaction 
 and its bearing upon the unity of the universe. We also pointed 
 out that, even if the existence of individual things apprehended in 
 the apparently material world be denied, Lotze could have found a 
 basis for his position in the existence and interaction of human souls. 
 Now, it is true that Lotze does deny the existence of material 
 things as such. As his arguments on this point have much in 
 common with other Idealists, they need not detain us. But we 
 must refer to his view as to what material appearances are due 
 
 God and the 
 
 Material 
 
 World. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 23 
 
 to. He mentions with considerable respect what he designates as 
 the view of Idealism (though it is not the view of all Idealists), 
 that material things as apprehended are the results of the activity 
 of the Infinite working upon our minds. But Lotze maintains that 
 nothing is gained by making such an assumption, and prefers the 
 view that things are both Real and Spiritual ; " things which seemed 
 to our merely external observation as working blindly, suffering 
 unconsciously and being self-contradictory through their incompre- 
 hensible combination of selflessness and Realness, are in fact better 
 internally than they seem on the exterior — that they too exist not 
 merely for others, but also for themselves " {Mic. ii. p. 642). 
 
 Lotze accepted the atomic view of the physical world, and held 
 that each atom is in reality not an extended thing but a spiritual 
 self, giving rise in us to a perception of extension. 
 
 Yet the realness of such things does not involve a separation from 
 God according to Lotze. Yet with these too, as with human selves, 
 that " being-for-self " at least must, even on Lotze's own showing, 
 be something which is not also a part of the experience of God. 
 Here, too, then, if we suppose that matter is the presentation to us 
 of real spiritual beings, one may also suppose that there is partial 
 interpenetration of their experience with that of God, through which 
 He works upon them. 
 
 Further, through the material world as given in presentation, God 
 has a means of working upon us, as well as more immediately. 
 And this may be so even though their entering into the experience 
 of God may be the condition of their affecting us, though this is 
 not essential to our view. 
 
 We have seen that Lotze's metaphysics required that all the 
 individuals in the universe should be bound together by one supreme 
 Being. Lotze himself spoke of this Being as the Absolute Being. 
 But we saw reasons for holding that there are at least aspects of 
 our experience, and those the most essential, which are not merely 
 modes of the being of the Absolute. Indeed, we saw that even 
 Lotze separates that feeling of being-for-self, possessed by each 
 finite being, as an element of the experience of each of us, which 
 is not also a part of the experience of the Absolute. 
 
 Hence we see the undesirability of naming Lotze's Supreme Being 
 
24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 " the Absolute," seeing that He does not include all reality within 
 Himself; though, as we showed, we may believe Him to be in active 
 touch with the whole of reality. 
 
 THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE UNITING BEING WITH A 
 
 PERSONAL GOD 
 
 By another line of thought in the metaphysic Lotze leads to the 
 view that all reality is spiritual. For a completion of his Philosophy 
 of Religion, it remains for him to show that this supreme and unifying 
 Being may be regarded as a Personal God. 
 
 The fairness and caution of Lotze are well shown in his manner 
 of approaching this final goal of his thought. He recognises it as 
 a demand of the religious consciousness. Yet he will not have such 
 faith given as a proof of the reality of its object. If we cannot reach 
 it by reason, it may still be an object of faith, says Lotze, but " that 
 which is inaccessible to human reason cannot furnish any proof that 
 such faith is true " {Mic. ii. p. 668). The traditional " proofs " of the 
 existence of God he finds unsatisfactory. 
 
 The Cosmological Proof, which concludes from the conditioned 
 and contingent character of everything in the world the fact of the 
 existence of a necessary and unconditioned Being, could only, if 
 valid, attain to the metaphysical conception of " an Unconditioned " 
 and not to the religious conception of a God. 
 
 The Teleological Proof is unsatisfactory, for, though in a high 
 degree improbable, it yet remains possible that such design as we 
 find may have been evolved from chaos by blind mechanical laws. 
 And Lotze further regards it as unsatisfactory in that it would only 
 lead us to a notion of a Governor of the Universe and not to that 
 of a Creator. 
 
 In the Ontological Proof, useless in its usual form, Lotze discovers 
 a hint of a " fundamental thought which is seeking for expression, 
 the immediate certainty that what is greatest, most beautiful, most 
 worthy, is not a mere thought but must be a reality." But this, Lotze 
 admits, is not capable of logical proof. 
 
 Lotze avowedly takes a leap in identifying such an ideal of the 
 most worthy with a Personal God. But having done so, he does not 
 leave the matter here, but proceeds to argue for its validity by a 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 25 
 
 process of elimination. He reviews the possible alternatives and finds 
 each of them unsatisfactory even from a metaphysical point of view. 
 Thus the conception of a Personal God has a theoretic superiority, 
 and it is also a more complete solution in that it satisfies the aesthetic 
 and moral demands of our nature no less than those of the under- 
 standing. 
 
 Having previously arrived at the conviction that all reality is 
 spiritual, it is legitimate for Lotze to consider only those views which 
 regard the " Absolute " as spiritual. 
 
 In his Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion he considers first of Alternative 
 
 views of the 
 
 these the view of the Absolute as "unconscious Reason." This, as Absolute con- 
 
 he points out, is going contrary to all our experience, if, indeed, it is 
 
 not self-contradictory. " We have no right to strip off from Reason, 
 
 which we invariably first learn by experience to know as conscious, 
 
 this predicate of consciousness, and then to persuade ourselves that 
 
 aught intelligible is left" {Out of Phil of Rel. § 24). 
 
 Nor can we think that our self-conscious reason could possibly ever 
 originate in a universe of " Unconscious reason." The existence of 
 so-called " sub-conscious " or unconscious states or processes is no 
 argument in favour of the view under discussion. For these are only 
 known in connection with some conscious personality, and as in some 
 way dependent upon it. 
 
 In the next place "Impersonal Spirit" goes contrary to our 
 experience. We only know spirit as the spirit of some individual. 
 There may be states of consciousness in which there is no reference to 
 the self as such, where " we so lose ourselves in the content of a sensa- 
 tion, an idea, a feeling, or an effect, that we (so to speak) are for a 
 time nothing but this." But we only know such states as states of a 
 personal spirit. Lotze might also have urged that no multiplicity of 
 such spiritual units, even if such were conceivable, not bound together 
 in the unity of one self, would provide the unifying and binding 
 functions which we found were necessary to explain the unity of the 
 universe. Nor would Lotze's purpose have been served by Dr. 
 McTaggart's view of the universe as a system of spiritual selves, 
 forming a unity after the analogy of a " body corporate " but in 
 which no person forms the bond of unity. For this again leaves 
 unexplained the mode of interaction among the units. 
 
26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 Hence Lotze is led to adopt the theory that the Absolute is not 
 only spiritual but personal. On purely speculative grounds this is 
 preferable, and this alone can fit in satisfactorily with the religious 
 demands of man's nature. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD 
 
 We now come to deal with the problem of the Personality of God, 
 perhaps the most important topic in any discussion of Lotze's 
 theological views. 
 
 We saw reasons for dropping the term "Absolute," because we 
 could not agree with the idea that all experiences of all individuals 
 were included in that of the Supreme Being, in the sense that if that 
 which God shares in my experience were removed from me, nothing 
 would remain, peculiar to myself. 
 
 As we saw, this is really involved in parts of Lotze's own discussion 
 of the matter though he makes statements inconsistent with it. This is 
 recognised by Dr. McTaggart, who at the end of his criticism of 
 Lotze's views of the Personality of God, admits that his objections "do 
 not challenge Lotze's right to consider the Absolute as personal. For 
 he regarded the Absolute as not exhausted by its manifestations and 
 those manifestations as to a certain extent from an ethical point of 
 view, outside the Absolute" {Hegelian Cosmology, p. 8i). 
 
 Our modified position is, then, relieved from that attack of Mr, 
 Bradley upon the idea of the personality of the Supreme Being, based 
 upon the position that a self must have something outside itself, that 
 every ego implies a non-ego. But our position only remains free from 
 this criticism so long as we regard some finite selves as co-existent with 
 God. If we retain a belief in a creation, in the sense usually under- 
 stood, we must face the problem, as we shall see, of a personal God at 
 one time existing alone. 
 
 Yet this only applies if we suppose that all beings other than God 
 Himself were created. It is, however, possible to hold that while all 
 human beings and those lower than these were at some time created, 
 yet that there are beings of another order who are co-eternal with God 
 though inferior to Him. This position would meet both difficulties. 
 It would admit a reality other than the Divine Self, which some maintain 
 is essential for personality. And yet it would allow for our creation. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 27 
 
 It may be remarked that some interpretations of the Christian 
 doctrine of God involve a view analogous to this. I refer to those 
 interpretations according to which the "personae" of the Trinity are 
 regarded as of the nature of selves. 
 
 Such a view helps somewhat towards the satisfying of both meta- 
 physical and religious demands. For the being and experience of the 
 second and third persons must be regarded as in some degree other 
 than and distinct from that of the first. And in so far as this is the 
 case, something other than self is provided as the object of knowledge, 
 and so the condition of personality demanded is supplied. 
 
 From the point of view of the religious ideal we may quote Professor 
 Rogers {Religious Conception of the World, p. 166): "Which represents 
 the higher type of existence, judging by the best standard we are able 
 to apply, — a being shut up within the limits of his own self-centred 
 nature, or one who finds his life by losing it in the common life which he 
 shares with others." Also, " Regarded as a mere solitary, self-identical, 
 infinite, the nature of God would be a stranger to that which is the 
 highest element of a spiritual nature, the element of love" (John 
 Cdixvd, Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, vol. i. p. 70). 
 
 Caird proceeds to argue that for the perfect self-realisation of God, 
 the created world, nature and man, would not suffice : partly because 
 of its imperfection : and partly because it would involve progression 
 in the nature of God. Caird is inconsistent here, in denying the 
 possibility of such progression. For he has just pointed out that the 
 highest expression of love is attained only by sacrifice, and so this was 
 necessary for the Ideal realisation of God's nature, the act of redemp- 
 tion, a " going forth of God's own being according to the needs of 
 man " — a progressive act, as the development of the human race is 
 progressive. 
 
 I do not wish to dwell upon this point, but only to lead up to the 
 fact that Lotze's own system seems to provide for the non-ego 
 necessary for divine personality, a fact which has apparently escaped 
 the notice of some other critics of Lotze. This would not be the case 
 if we hold to the Absolutism of Lotze, for even the created Beings 
 would only be differentiations of the Absolute entirely included within 
 His own being. But we pointed out that Lotze himself really gives 
 this up in allowing a being-for-self for each soul, which particular 
 
28 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 Lotze's view as 
 to Creation. 
 
 From eternity 
 there were 
 other selves 
 than God, but 
 these were 
 dependent 
 upon Him. 
 
 experience is not shared by the Infinite. This being admitted, we 
 must consider what view Lotze holds as to the creation of such selves. 
 We find he denies that there is any process of creation. Creation 
 rather signifies the complete dependence of the universe upon the will 
 of God. The world did not suddenly come into being by a divine act 
 of creation, thus profoundly altering the experience of God at some 
 definite time. Rather "the will to create is an absolutely eternal 
 predicate of God and ought not to be used to designate a deed of his 
 so much as the absolute dependence of the world upon his will in 
 contradistinction to its involuntary ' emanation ' from his nature " (see 
 Phil, of Rel. § 44). This being so, it is unnecessary to suppose any 
 period of time when God was alone in His universe and was in the 
 most complete sense the "Absolute." 
 
 Rather does Lotze hold that from eternity there were differentia- 
 tions of the Divine Being within Himself, and those, too, of the 
 nature of selves, for only selves can be real. But being-for-self, 
 as we saw, cannot be regarded as entirely included in the being of 
 another. Hence from all eternity we may regard God as having 
 material which supplied the non-ego, which we are supposing 
 essential for personality. To say that such " creation from all time " 
 is incomprehensible to us is futile. For as Lotze repeatedly points 
 out, any theory of absolute becoming is beyond us. We can 
 comprehend existence from all time no more than creation from 
 all time, in Lotze's sense of the word. 
 
 Yet to meet the speculative difficulty as to the personality of God 
 it is not necessary that all selves should have been existent from 
 all time. And Lotze is rather concerned with showing that there 
 was no period when the "creative will had no existence" than in 
 proving that no finite beings (ourselves, e.g?) began to be. Indeed 
 there are passages in which Lotze distinctly suggests this latter. 
 Here, again, the mystery of absolute beginning need not compel 
 us to declare its impossibility, even if we feel, as Dr. Rashdall 
 does, that the absence of all trace of an earlier experience and 
 the dependence on the bodily organism are conclusive arguments 
 for believing in the creation of our human souls at some definite 
 time. For the mode of origin of life and being is, in any case, 
 beyond us, as Lotze points out, ad nauseam. Yet there is another 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 29 
 
 suggestion that may throw light on the matter. If we suppose matter 
 to be merely the presentation of spiritual selves at a low stage of 
 development, may we not suppose that by bringing such selves 
 into certain definite relation with others such an increased develop- 
 ment may be produced in some of them that what we may almost 
 regard as the creation of a new being may take place? Such an 
 undeveloped mind would also have its being not entirely separate from 
 God. There would, on the view we have upheld, be an element of its 
 being which would also enter into the Being of God. To Him, too, 
 may be due that stimulus which results in the origin of the new 
 development, so that He does in a sense create a New Being, that is, 
 He develops a being of greater and more varied capacity. 
 
 This view resembles somewhat that put forward by Lotze in his 
 chapter on the " Beginning and End of Soul life " {Mic. i. 390- 1 ), though 
 here Lotze naturally treats of such development as being entirely 
 within the being of the Absolute. But, with this proviso, we may 
 quote the passage as a suggestive one in reference to a possible mode 
 of the development of a new type of self, " No necessity of Reason 
 constrains us to shun the thought of a beginning of a soul. As every 
 physical process, even the most minute, apparently taking place between 
 two elements, is likewise an event within the Eternal, on whose con- 
 stant presence all possibility of action depends, even so the quietly 
 advancing formation of the organic germ is no isolated, independent, 
 event, but a development of the Infinite itself. Fostered by it, 
 received by it into its own inner being, this natural event there 
 excites the creative power to new development ; and as our human 
 soul receives stimuli from without and answers them by the produc- 
 tion of a sensation, so the consistent unity of the Infinite Being 
 lets itself be stimulated by this internal event of physical develop- 
 ment to produce out of itself the soul appropriate to the growing 
 organism." 
 
 Thus far we have assumed the truth of the view that personality is is a Non-Ego 
 impossible without something other than self which the self may personality? 
 know and from which it may distinguish itself. And we have 
 seen that even supposing its truth, we need not give up the belief 
 in the personality of God as long as we do not insist upon identifying 
 God with the Absolute in the sense of the whole of reality. It 
 
30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 now remains to examine Lotze's arguments against the view that 
 personality necessarily involves a Not-self. 
 
 Lotze states the usual objection as follows : " An Ego (or Self, Ich) 
 is not thinkable without the contrast of a Non-Ego or Not-Self ; 
 hence personal existence cannot be asserted of God without bringing 
 even Him down to that state of limitation, of being conditioned 
 by something not Himself, which is repugnant to Him." 
 
 This, as Lotze says, is ambiguous. It may mean : 
 
 (i) "What the term Ego denotes can be comprehended in reflective 
 analysis only by reference to the Non-Ego." 
 
 It may also mean : 
 
 (2) " That it is not conceivable that this content of the Ego should 
 be experienced without that contrasted Non-Ego being experienced at 
 the same time." 
 
 Finally : 
 
 (3) " It may point to the existence and active influence of a Non- 
 Ego as the condition without which the being upon which this influence 
 works could not be an Ego." 
 
 In reference to (i) Lotze points out that Ego and Non-Ego 
 " cannot be two notions of which each owes its whole content to 
 its contrast with the other." Each must at least bear in its own 
 nature the reason why it should be the one of the two (Ego or 
 Non-Ego) and not the other : so any being which is an Ego, must 
 have the ground of its self-hood in that nature which it had previous 
 to the contrast, although before being thus contrasted it cannot 
 be called Ego or Non-Ego. 
 
 Now it seems to me that Dr. McTaggart's criticism of this 
 argument of Lotze fails. Dr. McTaggart first admits that it would 
 be a " vicious circle " for us to attempt to explain the Ego exclusively 
 from the outside. But he suggests an alternative not contemplated, 
 he thinks, by Lotze, "that the isolated Ego cannot be explained at 
 all, being an unreal abstraction, which shows its unreality by its 
 inexplicability, and that Ego and Non-Ego can only be explained 
 when they are taken together as mutually explaining each other" 
 {^Hegelian Cosmology, p. 6']\ 
 
 Then he instances the case of parent and child. If we tried to explain 
 the idea of a parent merely in terms of the idea of a child we " should 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 31 
 
 have fallen into a vicious circle since we should find that the idea 
 of a child could not be explained except in relation to the idea 
 of a parent. But it would not be correct to argue from this that 
 a parent could exist or be conceived without a child," 
 
 But Dr. McTaggart persists in using the term Ego where Lotze 
 acknowledges that it must be given up — when that stage of Being 
 is spoken of which is thought of as previous to the contrast " although 
 it is not yet entitled to the predicate which in that contrast comes to 
 belong to it." Dr. McTaggart's own example gives support to 
 Lotze's own contention. The parent can be thought of as existing 
 before the child, in fact his pre-existence is a necessary condition 
 of parenthood ; only he is not then called " parent," but only man 
 or woman. This very pre-existence is a necessary condition of his 
 entering the relationship of parenthood — though previous to this new 
 bringing into contrast he was " not yet entitled to the predicate which 
 in that contrast comes to belong " to him. 
 
 Lotze, then, is willing to give up the term Ego. " For it is our 
 opponents' opinion and not ours that personality is to be found 
 exclusively where in ideation (or presentation) self-consciousness sets 
 itself as Ego in opposition to the Non-Ego " (^Mic. ii. p. 679). It 
 is feeling which is the primary basis of personality. In order that 
 the distinction "myself" — "something other than self" — may be 
 thought, there must be a certainty of self which is immediately 
 experienced, "a self existence earlier than the discriminative relation " 
 by which it becomes Ego as opposed to Non-Ego. Thus Lotze deals 
 with the second possible meaning of the opposing criticism, maintain- 
 ing that there may be conscious experience apart from the experience 
 of the contrasted Non-Ego. " We admit that the Ego is thinkable 
 only in relation to the Non-Ego, but we add that it may be 
 experienced previous to and out of every such relation and that to this 
 is due the possibility of its subsequently becoming thinkable in that 
 relation " {Mic. ii. p. 680). 
 
 Dr. McTaggart objects that "each of us finds that for him, 
 consciousness of the Non-Ego is an essential condition of his 
 personality." " We can never say ' I ' without raising the idea of 
 the Non-Ego." 
 
 Now, in so far as introspection serves me, I should be prepared 
 
32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 to question this. For example, I believe that when in a state of 
 fatigue I can think the thought " I am tired " without raising any idea 
 of the Non-Ego. Further, I may think " I am not what I once 
 was " without any thought of a Non-Ego except in the sense of a past 
 self, which is no longer my present self. Further, I may regard 
 an isolated impulse (though something entirely within my own being) 
 which I resist, as " not myself," cf. " I was not myself when I did 
 that." 
 
 It would seem then that given a developed personality there 
 can be the thought of the self and not only the immediate experience, 
 without any reference to anything other than either the present 
 self or a past state of the self. 
 
 Dr. McTaggart refers to Lotze's complaint that "those who 
 deny the personality of the Absolute separate spirit from personality 
 in an unjustifiable manner, since they are never separated in our 
 experience." Lotze's criticism, according to Dr. McTaggart, recoils 
 on himself. " For personality without a Non-Ego is just as alien 
 to our experience as spirit without personality." If my previous 
 contention is sound this argument falls to the ground, if it is meant 
 that we never have experiences which do not involve a reference 
 to an other-than-self. 
 
 It remains true, however, that personality as we know it always 
 includes — with the exception of rare possible moments — some 
 reference to a not-self The rare moments, however, may suffice 
 for us to show the possibility of thought without a reference to 
 a not-self. Dr. Rashdall, I find, takes this view in asserting that 
 "the self must distinguish itself from something; but that something 
 need only be the changing states of itself" 
 
 But there still remains the question of the necessity of a not-self 
 for the development of a full personality. In dealing with this 
 Lotze protests against the transference of the conditions of fiinite 
 personality to the personality of the Infinite. He, as the source of 
 all life, does not require that His "life should be called forth by 
 external stimuli, but ' with perfect self-sufficingness ' possesses in 
 His own nature the causes of every step forward in the development 
 of His life." 
 
 We even get a hint of how this may be from our own experience 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 33 
 
 " in the course of memory in the finite mind. The world of our 
 ideas, though certainly called into existence first by external impres- 
 sions, spreads out into a stream which, without any fresh stimulation 
 from the external world, produces plenty that is new by the continu- 
 ous action and reaction of its own movements " {Mic. ii. p. 684). 
 
 As Lotze admits, it remains to ask, " What it is that in God 
 corresponds to the primary impulse which the train of ideas in a 
 finite mind receives from the external world ? " But this suggests the 
 question, " Whence comes movement in the external world ? " Both 
 questions are unanswerable. For we must, in any theory of the 
 cosmos, recognise some original movement as given reality ; we 
 can never " extract it from rest." 
 
 There remains, however, a difficulty which Lotze does not discuss. 
 He states, rightly enough, " that no being in the nature of which 
 self-existence was not given as primary and underivcd, could be 
 endowed with self-hood by any mechanism of favouring circumstances 
 however wonderful." 
 
 But may we not say that it is equally difficult to see how a con- 
 sciousness of the not-self could in any way arise if it, too, were not 
 " primary and underived." As Dr. Stout says, " We cannot proceed by 
 inference to a not-self from an experience which has no element 
 of not-self. An individual could never get beyond the circle of 
 his immediate experience once confined within it" {Proceedings of 
 British Academy, vol. v. pp. 178, 9). 
 
 It may be suggested that the knowledge merely of past states of 
 the self satisfy these conditions. But this would seem to lead to a 
 logical impasse — the existence of a previous state as the condition of 
 any given state. There only remains then the knowledge of a present 
 state as a state of the self but yet distinguished from it. But though 
 logically distinguishable, yet that state too is a matter of immediate 
 experience, not something known by means of immediate knowledge, 
 and so would not satisfy the condition demanded according to 
 Professor Stout, 
 
 There remains then this difficulty from the standpoint of Lotze 
 if he be understood as maintaining the view of God as alone before 
 the creation. But as we saw, his view of creation as an eternal act 
 makes it unnecessary for him to maintain this difficult position. 
 
34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 Personality an Before leaving the question of Personality we must mention Lotze's 
 
 Id €3.1 
 
 contention that Personality is an ideal — unattainable by finite beings. 
 In six points do we fail to satisfy the conditions of perfect personality, 
 (i) In our subjection to a cosmic order which we did not ourselves 
 ordain ; thus our freedom and independence are limited. 
 
 (2) Our inability fully to comprehend ourselves because our being is 
 founded in the Infinite. 
 
 (3) Our dependence upon external reality for stimulation of our 
 energies. 
 
 (4) The fact that our own souls cannot be completely known even 
 by ourselves. 
 
 (5) The fact that we are moved to action sometimes by individual 
 impulses rather than by the whole of the self. 
 
 (6) Our susceptibility to the influences of time ; much of the past dis- 
 appears entirely from memory. And the future is largely unknown to us. 
 
 Personality can only be perfect in the Infinite Being, says Lotze, 
 "which in surveying all its conditions or actions never finds any 
 content of that which it suffers or any law of its working the meaning 
 and origin of which are not transparently plain to it, and capable of 
 being explained by reference to its own nature " {Mic. ii. p. 686). 
 This was so for Lotze, because, according to him, the Infinite Being 
 included within His own being all reality. In our view this is not so, 
 but this does not lead us to any theory of the knowledge of God 
 which is unsatisfactory from a religious point of view. The knowledge 
 of other selves, even for God, may have to be mediate knowledge, but 
 it is not therefore inadequate. (Even God's knowledge of the past, 
 taking Lotze's view of His nature and experience, is no longer 
 immediate). The bond of connection, the partial interpenetration 
 of being, may be, as we saw, a completely adequate clue to a know- 
 ledge of other selves : and it may still remain true for us as for Lotze 
 that to God everything is capable of being explained by reference 
 to His own nature. 
 
 THE "ATTRIBUTES OF GOD" 
 
 This discussion of the omniscience of God leads us on naturally to 
 speak of the other attributes of God, which are suggestively dealt with 
 by Lotze. 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 35 
 
 God is said to be " unchangeable^ This, according to Lotze, does Unchangeabie- 
 
 ness. 
 
 not mean that God is without changeable inner states. Such an one 
 would answer no religious need. We need a living God. Therefore, 
 by His unchangeableness "nothing further is meant than the con- 
 sistency with which all these inner states proceed from a nature that 
 remains the same." This view is consistent with Lotze's own meta- 
 physical doctrine of identity amid change. For such identity of being 
 it is only necessary that the individual, while changing, should 
 " remain always within a closed series of forms, every one of which 
 can be transformed by means of definite conditions into every other, 
 and no one of which can be transformed into any form foreign to this 
 entire series" {Out. of Met. § 36). 
 
 Lotze himself does not attempt to prove that God possesses this 
 attribute in a sense that it is not possessed by finite selves. But we can 
 see how certain of his remarks upon the difference between the degree 
 of our own personality and that of God may bear upon the question. 
 The power of isolated impulses to move us, the fact that we forget the 
 past and know little of the future, our ignorance of our own full being, 
 and our partial dependence on the outside world for stimulus to 
 activity, all make for changeableness, whereas the knowledge of past 
 and future, and the presence of a consciousness of His full being in 
 any and every activity, all make for unchangeableness in the Being of 
 God. Now, the religious consciousness has generally held to the view 
 that God's own experience is partially modified by the action of His 
 creatures. But the influence of prayer, for example, has been held to 
 be, not that of actually causing a change in the nature of God, but in 
 so changing conditions that God's actions are now consistently different 
 from what they would have been apart from such prayer. 
 
 In reference to the doctrine of God's Omnipresence, Lotze, of course, OmnipreseDce. 
 deprecates any such interpretation as would suppose God to be 
 spatially extended. Rather is it interpreted in the sense that God is 
 independent of space distances. " The activity of God is everywhere 
 alike immediately and perfectly present without difference of degree." 
 
 Professor James remarks, in his Principles of Psychology, that the 
 mind is cognitively present with the fixed stars, but dynamically 
 present only with the brain. God, we may say, is both cognitively 
 and eflficiently present with the whole of reality. 
 
36 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 Omnipotence. 
 
 God Himseli 
 the ground of 
 distinction 
 between the 
 possible and 
 the impossible. 
 
 A further attribute is that of Omnipotence. Lotze does not approve 
 of the expression " God can do all possible " as an interpretation of 
 the doctrine of omnipotence. The religious " feeling is not satisfied, 
 as it is implied that God himself is subjected to a sphere of laws 
 antecedent even to himself which would determine for him the scope 
 of his power " {Phil, of Rel. § 30). 
 
 Nor will Lotze have the other interpretation, " God can make 
 even the impossible to be possible and actual." For, apart from 
 the self-contradiction inherent in it, as it stands, it is unthinkable. 
 " For all order, all consistency and all coherency of the world appear 
 to depend upon the limits between the possible and the impossible 
 being absolutely immovable. If that which is of itself impossible can 
 once be made possible by any power whatever, then every sure 
 foundation for making any conclusion whatever in relation to the 
 coherency of the world falls away " {ibid.). 
 
 Furthermore, this interpretation makes, according to Lotze, the 
 same mistake as the first ; it suggests that the distinction of the 
 impossible from the possible exists independently of God. " Rather 
 must we arrive at such an apprehension of God as makes God himself 
 to be the prime reason for the opposition of the possible and the 
 impossible having any significance at all in the world of actual 
 experience." That is, the ground of distinction between the possible 
 and the impossible lies in God Himself 
 
 But we may add here that, even if we think of God as thinking 
 of " possible worlds," He could only think as theoretically possible 
 those the thoughts of which were consistent with His own mind 
 as the mind of a Rational Being, and He could think as practically 
 possible only that one which is the best while consistent with His own 
 Being, in which we include His will and purpose. For we cannot 
 separate the will and reason of God. And the thoughts of that 
 divine reason are " entirely rational, systemically connected with each 
 other, and eternal truths which God cannot change because he cannot 
 wish to change them without contradicting himself" (Pfleiderer, 
 Phil, of Rel. vol. iii. p. 293 trans.). 
 
 God did not find Himself in a universe in which were operative 
 laws independent of Himself, but to which He had to conform. 
 This is a view connected with a position which Lotze frequently 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 37 
 
 maintains from several points of view. In reference first to natural, 
 physical laws, he emphasises the fact that laws are simply statements 
 of the ways in which matter behaves — a way consistent with its 
 own nature. But " prior to the world, or prior to the first thing 
 that was real, there was no pre-mundane and pre-real reality, in 
 which it would have been possible to make out what would 
 be the rights which, in the event of their coming to be a reality, 
 each element to be employed in its construction could urge for 
 its protection against anything incompatible with its right as a 
 substance, or to which every force might appeal as a justification for 
 refusing functions not imposed upon it by the terms of its original 
 charter" {Met. vol. i. §85). It is the real which, by its being, brings 
 about the appearance of there being a necessity antecedent to it, 
 just as it is the living body that forms within itself the skeleton 
 around which it has the appearance of having grown. 
 
 It is true that, given the existent universe, any new thing entering 
 it would find "laws" which would determine it, though even here 
 its own nature would be at least a co-determinant of its mode of 
 action. But such external determination cannot apply to God, in 
 so far as He was, though not the whole of the reality (as Lotze 
 maintained) yet the one on whom all reality depends for its being. 
 
 We must in fact include the idea of various eternal and necessary 
 laws in the very concept of God. They cannot be separated from 
 Him in reality any more than the attributes of a thing can be 
 separated from the substance. The attempt to think of God's power 
 apart from its mode of action is doomed to failure. "As there is 
 no motion without velocity and direction, and none which could 
 be endowed with velocity and direction after it had come into 
 existence, so we cannot conceive of any power that has not some 
 mode of procedure, nor of any empty capacity that in its emptiness 
 hits upon definite modes of activity" {Mic. ii. p. 696). 
 
 The eternal and "necessary" truths, then, are the mode of action 
 of Omnipotence, but not its product. The definite mode of action 
 of this power is not a limitation of its unconditionedness, however. 
 Of course for Lotze it is not so, because he holds that every activity 
 even of the finite differentiations is also the activity of the Absolute. 
 On our modified view, which regards finite beings as partially 
 
38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 " outside " the being of God, must we regard His power as therefore 
 limited ? 
 
 There seems to be no logical necessity for this conclusion as 
 long as we do not regard a use of means to an end as in itself implying 
 limitation, and as long as we only require that God's purposes shall 
 ultimately be fulfilled. This is all that is really felt to be necessary 
 by the religious consciousness. 
 
 For if we take one of the two alternatives which we suggested 
 as possible, viz. that of eternal production, the finite selves are 
 still entirely dependent upon God for their being and nature, and 
 so cannot form obstacles to His will, except in so far as He Himself 
 has willed that they should temporarily be permitted to do so, 
 consistently with the accomplishment of His ultimate purpose, as 
 the opposing efforts of the chess amateur may be even necessary 
 for the fulfilment of the desires of the expert opposed to him, though 
 the former may be continually in opposition. 
 
 Or suppose we take the other of our two suggested alternatives and 
 assume the " germs " of finite selves, as we know them, to have been co- 
 eternal with God. Even here, we saw that our present mode of being 
 and its development were partly the outcome of divine activity. If 
 we suppose the original germ of selves or " centres of experience " 
 to have been at a very low stage of development, and that the 
 developed self owes its nature to a greatly preponderating degree 
 to its mode of development rather than to its original mode of 
 existence, then little comparatively may remain which has not been 
 the outcome of divine activity, and even that surplus may be such as 
 to be quite in accord with His will and purpose. Just as a painter 
 may have complete power over his picture, qua picture, though he did 
 not make the particles of paint with which he is making it, and 
 has not complete power over them qua particles of matter. But their 
 own nature need cause no thwarting of his purpose. Rather does 
 he actually make it the very means to the fulfilment of his purpose. 
 
 In a sense, God is theoretically limited on this view, in that the 
 material on which He can work is given. This is a necessary con- 
 sequence of any view of those who cannot accept a doctrine of 
 creation, but believe in the self-existence of finite selves. But such 
 self-existence may, we repeat, be quite consistent with the complete 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 39 
 
 accomplishment of God's final purpose. The selves may indeed 
 partake to such a degree of divine nature that they will all, when 
 fully developed, of their own will, co-operate in the divine purpose ; 
 and this is in full accord with widely held views both in the sphere of 
 Ethics, in which it is held that when man fully realises his nature 
 he must seek the Good, and in the sphere of Theology, where it is 
 believed that when man "comes to himself" he will find his highest 
 satisfaction in obedience to the will of God. 
 
 As we have said, the original co-existence of other beings with God 
 through eternity may be consistent with His complete control over 
 them and their development. And further, on the other hand, the fact 
 that they were created would not necessarily mean that God's power 
 over them was complete. A being might conceivably create some- 
 thing which afterwards got beyond his control. Indeed, there are 
 suggestions of this belief in some views of man's freedom, though 
 generally accompanied by the assertion that God deliberately gave up 
 His power of absolute determination of the individual. 
 
 If we take Lotze's view that all beings are included within the one 
 being of God the matter is different, for then it resolves itself into a 
 question of self-determination. For every action of every self is 
 really an action of God. But even with this view relinquished, there 
 seems to be no convincing proof that the original co-existence of 
 other selves with God is necessarily inconsistent with the idea of the 
 Omnipotence of God in the sense demanded by the religious 
 consciousness. 
 
 It can scarcely be a reproach against Lotze that he contributes The problem 
 nothing original towards the solution of the problem of evil. He 
 simply criticises the attempt to solve the problem by the assertion 
 that individual evils constitute a good when summed or viewed from 
 a more universal point of view. It is characteristic of him that he 
 clings both to the omnipotence and to the goodness of God, falling 
 back on the idea that here " our finite wisdom has come to the end of 
 its tether " and that we do not understand the solution which yet we 
 believe in. But we may point out that the problem of moral evil is 
 aggravated if one holds, with Lotze, that every volition of man is also 
 a volition of God. Whereas if we give up this view, we may make 
 use of Lotze's interpretation of the omnipotence of God (as modified 
 
40 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOTZE 
 
 The demands 
 of the 
 " Religious 
 Conscious- 
 ness." 
 
 by the Eternal-generation view of creation given above) that God's 
 power is not limited by anything outside Himself, except by that 
 which is dependent upon Him for its very existence. Then we may 
 say that such creatures were the best of all possible creations, with a 
 view to God's final purpose. Whilst if we take the view of eternally 
 co-existent finite beings, moral evil may be attributed to them, though 
 this, of course, implies a limitation of God's omnipotence; but this 
 again need not be such as to fail the demands of religion, as we may 
 still believe that God's ultimate purpose shall be attained. 
 
 A final word must be added in reference to this argument from 
 religious needs — the demand of the religious consciousness to which 
 we have referred several times. 
 
 Lotze varies in his utterances upon this point. One or two of his 
 assertions may seem to justify the extreme views of Ritschl ; for 
 example, his assertion that the best we can conceive must be true. 
 «' It is an immediate certainty that what is greatest, most beautiful, 
 most worthy, is not a mere thought but must be a reality," because it 
 would be " intolerable " to believe of our ideal that it has no existence, 
 no power, and no validity in the world of reality {Mic. ii. p. 670). But 
 in the main Lotze merely uses such demands of the soul either as 
 supplying motives for the search for a satisfying truth or as an 
 addition to metaphysical arguments in favour of a particular view ; 
 seeing that any philosophy which gives room for and accounts for the 
 religious experience of mankind is by so much the more a complete 
 and rational account of the universe. It is true that Lotze emphasises 
 the fact that the whole man, and not the mere intellectual element, is 
 concerned in the search for truth, and that the "judgment according 
 to worth" may reject that which is thinkable if it does not accord with 
 the demands of the heart. But he does not attempt to build merely 
 upon such demands a creed which will satisfy, and he emphatically 
 states that religious beliefs, even if "sprung from revelation" must 
 come under the examination of philosophy. No doubt there are 
 " inner states which are available as data for the acquisition of truth," 
 among which Lotze includes the ethical feelings and also the aesthetic 
 feehngs, with the "conviction that what is so fair" must be at least 
 closely related to the creative principle of the world. But these too 
 are only data ; the truth of religion must be developed by reflection 
 
IN ITS THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS 41 
 
 upon them. " Our whole theory of the universe," to repeat, " has three 
 starting points, universal laws, experience," and the "instinct" by 
 which we hold to the good, the judgments of worth which gave 
 Ritschl his idea of " value-judgments." 
 
 And again, " Though we cannot command the heart to suppress its 
 questionings and longings, we yet hold that it can expect a response 
 to them only as an incidental result of knowledge which starts from a 
 less emotional and therefore a clearer point of view " {Mic. Introd. 
 p. vii.). 
 
 In short, one great value of Lotze's work lies in the fact that he 
 recognised the importance and legitimacy of endeavouring to maintain 
 the rights of both faith and reason. And this insistence at once 
 divides him emphatically from the one-sided view represented by 
 Ritschl and his school. 
 
 In conclusion, it is true that Lotze looks to the conception of the 
 Supreme Good as the ultimate means of interpreting the world. 
 " Genuine Reality in the world (to wit, in the sense that all else is, in 
 relation to it, subordinate, deduced, mere semblance or means to an 
 end) consists alone in this Highest Good personal, which is at the 
 same time the highest good Thing" {Outline of Met. p. 151). 
 
 But in this teleological view we are nearest to a true understanding 
 of things, truer than if " our cognition copied exactly a world of 
 objects, that has no value in itself"; for thus, to quote again one of 
 Lotze's most illuminating metaphors, we may understand the meanitig 
 as the spectator understands the meaning of the play, though he does 
 not see the stage mechanism, and would gain nothing if he did. 
 
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