lililillilil 1 iiiiiiiiii! UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES li..^ THE PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. IN THE PAST AND IN THE FUTURE. By SAMUEL TYLER, OF THE MARYLAND BAR. "Whatever I write, as soon as I shall discover it not to be truth, my hand shall be forwardest to throw it into the fire." — Locke. PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. 1858. J J i ■» i i t * i i y > i i i J -> -* J J J J J » J J ^ * ' ' * J J Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by SAMUEL TYLER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maryland. I. « t I t I ^ « 1 I. 1 « * 1 * • t I I ^ C ( < TO [mfy Intrn, ff. ^.. SECRETARY OP THE SJHTHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Who, while he has devoted his life with eminent success to the investigation and advancement of physical science, has always recognized the usefulness as well as the intellectual dignity of rational philosophy, this tract is appropriately in- scribed by his friend the author. Frederick City, Md., July, 1858. PREFACE. In August 1857, an eminent philosopher* of Europe in a letter to me said: "The position of America in many respects qualifies it admirably for the task of sift- ing the wheat from the chaf in the various conflicting philosophies of Europe, and producing from the mate- rials of the older literature, aided by the independent spirit of her own thinkers, a system adapted to the cha- racter and wants of the age." It is to do something towards the development of such a system that I have prepared this tract. I have endeavoured to show that the true philosophy is founded upon an analysis of con- sciousness within the bounds of common sense. I have pursued this course of speculation from the beginning of the Greek epoch down to the present time, and have pointed out, both by positive and negative criticism, the one perennial doctrine advancing from age to age by new contributions, until it seems manifest, that its con- flicts with other systems have only served to develop it into that complete doctrine which will be evolved by the * Mr. H. L. Mansel, of Oxford. 6 PREFACE. discussions of the future directed in the same course, and reposing on the same foundation in the data of con- sciousness. I have, too, at appropriate points indicated what seem to me initials of new revelations in the one perennial evolution of philosophical truth. This tract has been composed from two articles con- tributed by me to Reviews. The one, constituting the first part, was published in the Southern Quarterly Re- view for T^ovember, 1856. The other, constituting the second part, was published in the Princeton Review for October, 1855. The articles met with so much favour in Europe and America, that I am induced to publish them in this form. The article in the Princeton Review was read by Sir William Hamilton before his death, and he intended* to honour me with an answer to my dissent- ing criticisms, but death deprived us of the light which he doubtless would have shed upon the points in dispute. His forthcoming lectures will, perhaps, give us more light. * Letter to me from Lady Hamilton. CONTENTS. PART FIRST. ANCIENT PERIOD. Throe Epochs: I. From Thalcs to Socrates; 2. From Socrates to Christianity; 3. From Christianity to the Sixth Century 11 MEDIEVAL PERIOD. From Charlemagne, to the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks . 43 MODERN PERIOD. From the Discovery of America to the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century 48 PART SECOND. REACTIONARY EPOCH. From the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century, and still in progress 125 PROGRESS OF rillLOSOPII Y. Pxi iirst. THREE GREAT PERIODS. The relation of philosophy to its history is such, that the best mode of teachiug it, even in system, if regard be had to its future as well as its past, is to exhibit it in its progress through its various aspects in the changing conditions of thought in the successive gene- rations of men. By such a review, under the illumination of a criticism which throws over the doctrines of the earlier ages, the light of the more mature doctrines of the later times, and brings forward to the later times, the various aspects which the prob- lems presented to the struggling reason of the earlier ages, a fuller understanding of the 10 PROGRESS OF PniLOSOPHY. doctrines of philosophy and of the problems both solved and unsolved -may be attained. And the method of philosophising, which science may have constructed, will receive confirmation and correction and exj^ansion from the one perennial method which the endeavours both positive and negative of all sects of philosophers to explain, or to deny all explanation of, the phenomena of exist- ence, will disclose as the rational tentative of universal reason striving for mastery over the unknown. By such a comprehensive survey, the narrowness of schools with their special points of view and their technicalities will be stepped over, and the basis of the one catholic philosophy will be discerned in those assumptions implicitly made, even in para- doxes, from the necessities of intelligence by all sects of philosophers; and on which as explicitly enounced doctrine, the bewildered reason has, at last, been content to seek its rest. And upon this one catholic doctrine, can be grafted whatever of original thought we may have to contribute to the great tree of philosophy, at the parts of its growth where it most fitly pertains. ANCIENT PERIOD. 11 Such is the pLm of this tract, as, in our judgment, especially suited to America where there are no schools of philosophy, but where a superstructure of our own is to be reared upon the foundations of European thought. The progress of philosophy (overlooking the Eastern period anterior to that of Greece,) presents three great periods: 1. Antiquity; 2. The Middle Ages; 3. Modern Times. ANCIENT PERIOD. Ancient philosophy comprehends three epochs. The first, from Thales to Socrates, about one hundred and thirty years, gave rise to four principal sects — the Ionic, founded by Thales; the Italic, founded by Pythago- ras; the Eleatic, founded by Xenophanes; and the Atomic, founded by Lcucippus and Democritus. The second epoch was from Socrates to the promulgation of Christianity, about five centuries. The third epoch ex- tends from the preaching of Christianity to the age of Charlemagne, or rather into the 12 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. sixth century; for philosophy, like all other cultivation, was extinguished in the barbar- ism which immediately preceded the reign of that great monarch. From Tliales to Socrates, but one problem was discussed — the origin of existence; the essence of things; the formation of the uni- verse. Each of the four sects of philoso- phers, during this epoch, was distinguished for the boldness of its hypothesis in attempt- ing to account for the origin of the universe. The different sects varied from each other only in the principles of their solution of the one problem. The magnificence of the world without withdrew philosophers from contem- plating the world within. Philosophy was, therefore, physical, not psychological — of nature, not of the mind. The contemplation of nature had filled the poets Hesiod and Homer with mythical dreams. Every part of the physical world had been personified by them. In their age, the Greek mind had no other notion of causation than the agency of actual personages. All the operations of nature were supposed to be carried on by the immediate agency of actual persons. The ANCIENT PERIOD. 13 four sects of philosopliers which we have mentioned, dispelled the myths of the poets from the contemplation of nature, and substi- tuted for persons, powers or forces inherent in matter, as the causes or formative princi- ples of nature. And Anaxagoras even sug- gested one Mind as the framer of all things. These four sects of philosophers made the first step in philosophy beyond the mytho- poeic conceptions of the poets. In the poets, the emotional element of the mind was para- mount, expending itself in a personifying sympathy, peopling the earth with all those personages which figure in Greek mythology. In the philosophers, the intellectual element was paramount, looking at the operations of nature as mechanical and dynamic. Still, the thoughts of the highest minds were di- rected to the contemplation of the panorama of the external world. To the sects of philosophers which we have considered, succeeded the Sophists. This class of thinkers belongs to a peculiar stage in human progress — to a period of criticism or transition. The previous sects of philoso- phers had failed to find any platform of truth 1* 14 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. on whicli the reason of man could rest satis- fied. Their labours had ended, and no fruits had been garnered into the treasury of know- ledge. They, too, had no successors in their labour to solve the problem of the universe. The diiferent views of nature, taken by the several sects, had all proved unsatisfactory, and yet seemed to have left no other possible view. This, the Sophists saw. The Sophists were, in truth, the offspring of the thinking of these sects of naturalists. Their parentage is shown in the fact, that, in general, they were materialists. The common doctrine of the Sophists was, that doubt attaches to every opinion, and that it is impossible to find cer- tainty in anything. They were thorough skeptics. However much these actors in the great drama of thought may differ in special doctrines, on the one thing of skepticism they were agreed ; and in their skepticism, we find the place on which they stand, in the great order in which the leaders of thought, at dif- ferent epochs, are marshaled in the sequences of history. We must not, as has been so often done, regard this era as one only of de- cadence; for, while we repudiate the opinion ANCIEXT PERIOD. 15 of Mr. Grote, that the Sophists were as honest teacliers as Socrates, and their doctrines only a little less enlightened, we readily admit that they planted in the field of thought many fruitful germs. They called out investiga- tions in the theory of knowledge, in logic, and in language. Tlie methodical treatment of many branches of knowledge was begun by them. They were the first to make style a special object of study amongst the Greeks. Greek rhetoric sprung out of their teachings. They, in a word, prepared instruments, and also cleared the way, to some extent, for the new progress which was to succeed. Now begins the second epoch of ancient philosophy. Socrates is the leader in this period of the struggles of the mind of man with the difficulties of knowing theoretically — of construing to one's consciousness what he feels and sees within and without himself The Sophists had withdra^vn attention from nature, and the solutions of those problems which had engaged the first four sects of Greek philosophers, and had fixed attention on language in itself, and in its contents. They, in fact, began a revolution in the think- 16 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPUY. ing of the nation. Socrates was trained in their discipline. He profited especially by the lectures of Prodicus and Anaxagoras. In fact, his method was that of the Sophists; and when he turned his assaults upon them, his victories were not due more to the greater truth which armed his doctrines, than to his greater skill in their own art of dialectics ; but yet, we must carefully distinguish the Socratic from the Sophistical spirit of philosophising. That of the Sophists was proud and boastful, as their very nsune, Go' adopted, ' r /'D»/ \/n I. rfff ANCIENT PERIOD. 21 sciousness; no effort to trace lines of original speculation through secrets of ps3'cliological manifestations; but all the proofs are deduced from the inaccurate notions embodied in the language of the times. The doctrine, that all acquired knowledge is but a reminiscence of what was learned in a prior state of exist- ence, approaches nearer to an attempt at the evolution of a new principle by reflective analysis from psychological phenomena, than anything else in the dialogue; but this w^as doubtless a sophism of Plato's own, put into the mouth of Socrates, and is^ after all, a shallow^ pretence resting upon mere assump- tion. The whole inquiry consists of assump- tions and ratiocinations. There is no sifting of premises, no searching for principles amidst psychological facts manifested in self-con- sciousness; but the whole fabric rests upon the notions embodied in the language of the people. There is no designed attempt at any more accurate basis for the deduction of con- clusions. Though he saw, as we have said, that consciousness is the criterion of truth. The doctrine of Plato, as to the circle of human knowledge and the powers of the 22 TROGRESS OF PUILOSOPHY. mind, differed widely from that of Socrates. Plato thought that no speculation is beyond the reach of the human mind. His was an ambitious . philosophy. But we will show, that, like the speculations of the other Greek philosophers, his philosophy was founded upon popular notions and remnants of doc- trine handed do-wn, in loose traditions, from older speculators, who built u^^on the same superficial basis. The fundamental doctrine of Plato's philoso- phy is, that there are real entities subsisting in the universe, corresponding to the general terms used in language; and that these gene- ral entities, called ideas, are the only proper objects of science: and that the method of philosophising is to close the senses, and dwell in intellectual contemplation on these ideas, and to note their relations and combine them into propositions, and deduce conclu- sions from these propositions: and that the conclusions will correspond with the empiri- cal truths of physics and the practical truths of morals, because the logical relations of these ideas correspond with the physical and moral relations of their images or represen- ANCIENT PERIOD. 23 tations — the phenomena of the physical and moral worlds. Such is the metliod of Plato when explicitly unfolded. It results from such a metliod, that Plato's physics and Plato's logic, or, more strictly, Plato's metaphysics and Phito's dialectics, are the same. His physics is a logico-physics. The words of popular language embodied his whole field of observation. And the logical relations of the words, therefore, constituted, or were commuted with, the physical rela- tions of the things signified by them; because these things were nothing else than the popu- lar meaning of these words. This is suffi- ciently exemplified in tlie Platonic doctrine of contraries. This doctrine is, that the ulti- mate powers of nature are contraries, and that everything is generated by its contrary. "There is (says Plato) a certain medium between the two contraries. There are two ' births, or processions — one of tlds from that, and of that from tlds. The medium between a greater and a less thing is increase and diminution. The same is the case of what we call mixing, separating, heating, evolv- ing, and all other things without end. For, 24 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. though it sometimes falls out, that we have not terms to express those changes and mediums, yet experience shows, that by an absolute necessity, things take rise from one another, and pass reciprocally from one to another through a medium." It is manifest, that the two births, or processions, spoken of as subsisting in nature between contraries, are nothing but the logical relations of the meaning of the words greater and Jess. There are no births, or processions, in nature, corre- sponding with these relations, constituting a generative medium between the entities greater and less. The whole doctrine is an affair of words. The reasoning is logico- physical. There is nothing real beyond the meaning of the words. The whole of philoso- phy and science is made nothing more than the development of the meaning of the terms of common language. Plato's philosophy, therefore, like all ancient philosophy, reposes upon mere popular notions. He finds the words, equality, big, little, and other like words, in popular language, and, instead of looking into nature for the real things in- tended to be signified by these terms, he con- ANCIENT PEMOD. 25 ceives that there are realities independent of nature corresponding with them. That Plato's supposed higher objects of knowledge, called ideas, are but the popular signification of general terms, is sufficiently manifest from Plato's own theory of the origin of this sort of knowledge. His theory is, that though the knowledge of ideas is ac- quired in a prior state of existence, yet it is recovered in this world by the ministry of the senses exercised upon individual objects, which recall the idea^ by reminiscence. This theory shows, that these ideas are but the general notions formed by every one in the exercise of his faculties upon the objects of nature. In other words, ideas are only the meaning of general terms, w^hich express only relations, and afford no irrespective objects. So, then, the Idealism of Plato, when sifted to the bottom, is found to be the mere Phe- nomenalism of the common mind — a lame empiricism. There is no deeper principle underlying it, as is pretended — no knowledge of higher essences remembered from a prior state of existence. A severe logic takes off the veil, and Plato is seen to stand on the 2* 26 PKOGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. common ground of the meagre empiricism of the ancient philosophy. All philosophers ne- cessarily take their departure from the same general experiences, whatever may be pre- tended to the contrary; and the different re- sults of their speculations will depend upon the difference in the accuracy, the extent, and the completeness of their observations, and legitimate inferences or deductions. Aristotle appears next in Greek philoso- phy; he was the very genius of subtlety and of system; and no greater thinker has yet appeared in the family of man. He saw that the basis of science and philosophy must, from the very structure of the human mind, be phenomenal. Therefore, he strove to fix logic on a psychological basis. With this view, he proceeded to analyze the senses, and account for the origin of knowledge through sensation. He repudiated the Platonic doe- trine of ideas, and contended that the only real existences are individuals, and that gene- rals m,aij be nothing more, so far as the pur- pose of demonstration is concerned, than terms denoting a property common to an in- definite number of individuals. "The steady ANCIENT PERIOD. 27 contemi)lution (says Aristotle, in his Metii- plnsics), of any individual object under that aspect in which it agrees with other indi- viduals, will recall many similar objects to the mind; the staljility of the one will com- miuiicate stability to the others, and thus give birth to what are called universals, that is, to general terms, equally applicable to an indofniite number of individuals." Laying down this doctrine as the basis of his theory of knowing, he at once constructed his logic in accordance with it. Therefore, in his Pos- terior Analytics, he thus lays down the psy- chological basis of demonstration: "For the purpose of demonstration, it is not necessary to suppose the existence of general ideas, but only that one general term can be applied with truth, and in the same sense, to many individuals. It is not necessary to suppose that general terms, denoting any class of sul> stances, express anything besides the different particulars to which they apply, any more than the general terms denoting qualities, relations, or actions. One general term stands for a variety of particulars, considered under one and tlie same aspect; but to suppose that 28 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. this term requires one substantial archetype or idea, as general as itself, is the hearer's fault; such a supposition not being necessary for the purpose of demonstration." If we should stop our inquiry here, Aris- totle would appear to be a mere Sensation- alist; and such is, sometimes, the account of him in history. Plato is represented as a pure Idealist, while Aristotle is represented as a pure Sensationalist. This is a great mis- take; each is both an Idealist and a Sensa- tionalist — maintaining that human know- ledge is derived from both the intellect and the senses. Plato, it is true, considers intel- lect exercised upon ideas, the sole source of science; yet he ascribed some degree of know- ing to the senses. Aristotle ascribed much more importance to sense, but yet made both intellect and sense the conjunct principle of science. He rejected the Platonic doctrine of ideas, but, as we shall see, did not advance as far beyond it as the quotations from his writings which we have given above seem at first to indicate. It behooves us here to inquire, what is the Platonic doctrine of ideas? The word idea, ANCIENT PERIOD. 29 since the time of Des Cartes, has been cm- ployed to denote the objects of our conscious- ness in general; and, since the time of Gas- sendi and Condihac, whose school analyzed our highest faculties into our lowest, the word has been used to denote the objects of our senses in general. We have already seen that Plato used the word in a far different sense from either of these. He employed it to express the real forms of the intelligible world in lofty contrast with the images of the sensible. It was in this Platonic sense that Aristotle rejected the doctrine of ideas. "Plato (says Aristotle,) came to the doctrine of ideas, because he was convinced of the truth of the Heraclitic view, which regards the sensible w^orld as a ceaseless flowing and changing. His conclusion from this was, that if there be a science of anything, there must be, besides the sensible, other substances which have permanence; for there can be no science of the fleeting." In Plato's view, science demanded the reality of ideas as per- manent existences, independent of sensible phenomena. Aristotle maintained that there is no proof of the independent reality of 30 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. ideas; and that, at any rate, the doctnne fur- nishes no ground for the exphmation of being. That Plato, in order to make science possible, had arbitrarily posited certain substances in- dependent of the sensible and uninfluenced by changes — but that only individual things are offered to us objectively. Therefore, that it is the individual which is conceived as uni- versal, or perhaps, that the universal is per- ceived in the individual; and that this con- ception or perception is the objectified idea of Plato. The doctrine, that the universal can be perceived in the individual, which was, ^jer- haps, the opinion of Aristotle, when sifted to the bottom, is simply this. The products of the understanding or generalising faculty have both a general and an individual element, con- stituting two opposite logical poles. The sim- plest operation of this faculty is to compare together the points of resemblance between objects, and reduce them to one in the syn- thesis of thought. The product of tliis pro-" cess is a concept. A conce[)t being the result of a comparison, necessarily expresses a rela- tion; it therefore affords no absolute or irre- ANCIENT PERIOD. 81 spective object of knowledge. In this aspect, it is general ; but it can be realized in con- sciousness, by applying it, as the term of re- lation, to one or more of the objects which agree in the point or points of resemblance which it expresses. In this aspect, it is indi- vidual. A concept, therefore, is a synthesis of the universal and the individual expressed in a term of relation. And it iS the obscure consciousness of this conjunction of the uni- versal and the individual in the products of the understanding, which has led men to assert the existence of universals in nature. It is but the common error in philosophy of commuting the subjective for the objective. This criticism, we believe, has never been made before. It seeitis to us to furnish a clue to the fundameijtal errors m philosophy * n ^ -» * It is the clue "to the error that all knowlediie must be throui^h })revious knowledge — that our cognition of a class or universal is prior to that of the individual. Though intuition must precede conception, yet the in- dividual as such and the universal are discerned simul- taneously. We cannot distinguish one individual from another without being conscious of the notion which that individual exemplifies The general notion is necessarily 32 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. From the criticism of Plato's doctrine of ideas, arose Aristotle's doctrine of matter and form. Aristotle enumerates four metaphysi- cal causes or principles; maiter, form, moving cause, and end. But these four can be re- solved into the fundamental antithesis of matter and form. Matter and form, there- fore, are, according to the Aristotelic doctrine, the only things which cannot be resolved into each other. Matter, according to Aristotle, is capable of the widest diversity of forms, but is itself without determinate form: it is everything in possibility, but nothing in actuality. Matter is thus a far more positive thing with Aristotle than with Plato, who treated it as a shadow. We must guard against the supposition, that Aristotle means by form what we mean by shape. The Aris- totelic form is an activity which becomes ac- tualized, through matter, in individual objects. Aristotle's theory of knowledge corresponds with his theory of forms. As, according to conceived along with the individual which is discerned under it. This is possible, because things are presented in plurality, and conception must begin at once in aid of intuition to complete the a})prehension of the individual. ANCIEXT PERIOD. 33 his mctaplij'sical doctrine, forms or universals exist not apart from, but in individual objects, he made, as we have said before, both intellect and sense important faculties in science. He held that there is an a priori knowledge para- mount to, but not exclusive of, the a posteriori. That, though universals are known through the intellect and implicitly contain particu- lars, yet we may remain ignorant of particu- lars until they are realized through the senses. Therefore, that intellect and sense combine in framing the fabric of science. Accordingly Aristotle's method is two-fold, deductive and inductive; the first allied with intellect and forms or universals; the second, with sense and individuals. In conformity with this doctrine, Aristotle seems to have considered syllogism proper, or deduction, no less amplia- tive than induction; that deduction did, in some way, assure us, or fortify our assurance, of real truth. Though Aristotle turned the mind to out- ward contemplation, he did not perceive the full import of observation, nor the full scope of induction. He still, in conformity with ancient thinking, made universals the para- 3 34 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. mount element of science, and intellect the paramount principle. It is true, that his doctrine of universals differed metaphysi- cally from that of Plato; but logically it came to very much the same result in its in- fluence upon method. There are, according to Aristotle's theory of knowledge, certain universal principles existing in the mind, rather as native generalities than as mere necessities of so thinking, which furnish the propositions for syllogism ; therefore S3'llogism or deduction is not dependent for these on in- duction. Syllogism is thus the paramount process, and induction an inferior process, which may be used as corroborative of deduc- tion; and may be especially used by such minds as cannot a priori realize universals, but may perceive them in individuals. Aris- totle directed all his energies towards con- structing a system of deductive logic. And he assumed that the notions contained in the language of his day were sufficiently accurate for philosophy and science. Some of the pro- foundest distinctions of his philosophy are to be found in the very structure of the Greek language. The distinction, for instance, of ANCIENT PERIOD. 35 power into active and passive wliicli is said to have been established by Aristotle, and was adopted by Locke and by Leibnitz, is found in the very fabric of the Greek language, which possesses two sets of potential adjec- tives, the one for active and the other for passive power. Those significant of active power are denoted by the termination izog, and those of passive, by that of ro$.* Though, therefore, Aristotle extricated logic from the metaphysical errors of Plato, he fell into a like error, but not so gross, under a different name; for Plato's ideas and Aristotle's forms are, at bottom, but the common notions ex- pressed by general terms. In his investiga- tions, Aristotle generally starts out by say- ing: "It is said so and so;"'and his procedure is ratiocination founded upon common no- tions. The doctrine of contraries, too, as was the case with Plato, is a sophistry by which he deceived himself. And in his rea- sonings, his doctrine of forms, sometimes, un- * ridCTjTixov signifies that which can make, and -oirjrov, that which can be made ; y.f^rjTuuv, that which can move, and xivfjTov, that which can be moved. 36 PROGRESS OP PHILOSOPHY. consciously to himself, slips into Plato's doc- trine of ideas. And we doubt whether Aris- totle's estimate of induction, as a method of material inquiry, was higher than that of the ancient Greek skeptics as recorded by Sextus Empiricus in these words : " Induction is the conclusion of the universal from individual things. But this induction can only be cor- rect in as far as all the indi^-idual things agree with the universal. This universality must, therefore, be verified before its induc- tion can be made: a single case to the con- trary would destroy the truth of the induc- tion." The weakness of induction, as indi- cated by this criticism of the skeptics, was overrated by Aristotle; as his whole logic seems to assume, in the very subordinate place given to induction. But yet Aristotle was so superior to all other Greek philoso- jDhers as an observer of nature, that we find in Suidas, he is called the mterpreter of nature — 'Api(TroT£/l>7g Ty;$ ^vaeioc, ypai-i^arevg nv. Let it not be supposed, from what we have ^aid of the deficiencies of the Aristotelic logic, that we value it at a low estimate; it is far otherwise. We put the highest estimate, ANCIENT PERIOD. 37 both upon the influence which it has exer- cised directly upon the progress of knowledge, and indirectly in disciplining the higher facul- ties of the mind. It was as great a need in Aristotle's time as the inductive method was in Bacon's. The work to be done, in the state of knowledge in Aristotle's time, was to sift the thought accumulated, discover its logical dependencies, eliminate, by the princi- ple of contradiction, as Socrates did in his conversations with the Sophists, apparent errors, and retain what would stand the test of logical principles. The time had not arrived for the inductive method of objective observation and material illation. This we will endeavour to elucidate. All thinking is either materially false, or formally false, or both. We have shown, that there was much material falseness in ancient philosophy; as the notions which formed its matter were the result of unscien- tific observation. But this was not the only vice of ancient philosophy. There was in it, also, a great deal of formal or logical false- ness; and, until this was corrected, the time had not come for correcting its other vice. 3* 38 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. Even in so profound a thinker as Plato, there are paralogisms of every kind so gross as to astonish the modern mind not familiar with the looseness of ancient thought. The very ingenuity of the Greek mind led to sophisms. And many of these sophisms, which are seen by the modern mind to be a mere play of wit and acuteness, were deemed very important by some of the most distinguished thinkers of antiquity. In ancient times, men lived more in public, and carried on scientific in- vestigations more in oral discussions, or con- versations, than in the soliloquy of private meditation. IJrofundity, therefore, would be less valued than wit, dexterity in question- ing, and adroit discovery of objections. The Sophists were accomplished masters in this art. There were, too, certain artificial rules, by which their dialogues were regulated. Every answer to a question, for instance, was to be yes or no. The interrogator, therefore, could constrain his adversary to move in a foreseen manner. Now, as the method of science was not understood, men might perceive a fallacy, and yet not be able to point it out; for they AXCIENT PERIOD. 39 had not even the requisite language to ex- press these fallacies. How compendiously does the technical expression, "begging of the question," indicate a common fallacy! Such expressions, furnished by logic, not only facilitate the exposure of error, but enable us to get clearer views of truth. It was, there- fore, the first demand of science, that the laws of thought should be investigated and understood, so that, by their application, fal- lacious reasonings might be discovered. This Aristotle attempted by considering the reason- ings embodied in ancient thought. He saw that the clue to the whole scheme of Sophis- try, was to discriminate the essence of the in- ternal thought from the accident of the ex- ternal expression. In this way, he discovered, that the syllogism is the one form of reason- ing, and that fallacies consist in the covert violations of the logical laws which govern the syllogism. He developed this doctrine into the greatest monument of speculative genius which illustrates the history of philoso- phy. The great purpose of the Aristotelic logic, was to purge the understanding, and to keep it free of those errors which arise from 40 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. the confusion and perplexity of inconsequent thinking. The purpose of this tract forbids any more extended review of the doctrines of the followers of Socrates. Plato and Aristotle rise so far above all others, in the importance of their contributions to the progress of philosophy, that, in a sketch like this, an examination of their doctrines must suffice. The Romans were not acquainted with philosophy until after their conquest of Greece; and they never did succeed in specu- lative inquiries. Cicero reproduced and de- veloped the moral philosophy of the Greeks, and, carrjdng the spirit of the orator into philosophy, he clothed it in the grand ha- biliments of the eloquence nurtured amidst the meditative shades of Tusculum. '^ Hanc enim ■^erfectam philosopliiam (says Cicero), semper judicavi qitce de maximis qucestionihus copiose posset orncdeque dicere." But, for the most part, philosophy was at Rome degraded to a menial to serve personal interests, by dis- playing an apparent love of truth in a pre- tended devotion to elevated studies/ Rome . uu. ^K^ (fit' •'' ■ t i'Tin-iTKa/c:)^ ANCIENT PERIOD. 4l has, therefore, no contribution in the progress of pliilosophy. After the Macedonian conquests, Alexan- dria became the great focus of learning. From its situation, it was the centre of the commerce of the world ; many were attracted thither by the libraries of the Ptolemies. Here met philosophers from the East and the West; the religious dogmas of Jew and Gen- tile, Pagan and Christian, and systems the most opposing, met on the same arena. Plo- tinus, Proclus, and Porphyry, were the most distinguished philosophers of this school. Their doctrines were Platonic, and therefore the school was called Neoplatonic. Their philosophy was, however, a cloudy exhala- tion from the vast inundation of the con- fluent streams of diverse doctrines which had flooded in from many nations. It vanished before the light of Christianity. The only doctrines of Paganism, which existed after this period, were those adopted by the fathers of the Christian Church. The fathers of the Church devoted little /? attention to pliilosophy, and still less to ' nature. They gave a preference to Plato, 42 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. but were adherents of no particular system, culling and selecting from all. "God (says Clirysostom) did not send men into the world to syllogise and form arguments, but to ex- pound the truth — not to dispute and contend with one another, but to deal out truth with impartiality. It was not in philosophical arguments that the Apostles interested them- selves, but they preached simply and clearly, and it is from their example that we are to act." And Clement of Alexandria says: " What I call philosophy, is not what Plato and Aristotle have promulgated, but what they have spoken true and favourable to re- ligion." Such are the most favourable views of philosophy entertained by the fathers of tlie Church. Some of the sects, especially the Epicureans and Stoics, they openly at- tacked. St. Augustine did more than any other of the fathers of the Church to further philosophy; but he conformed his doctrines to Christianity. But this twilight of philosophy at last sunk into night in the sixth century, and for seve- ral ages there is a blank in the progress of speculation. MEDIiEVAL PERIOD. 43 MEDIEVAL PERIOD. ' Our modern philosophy, like our civiliza- tion, takes its rise in the middle ages. Its character in these ages, is philosophy under ecclesiastical authority — pldlosophia ancillans tlieolofjicB. The middle ages begin when the church became disencumbered from the ruins of ancient philosophy. This crisis was not until the time of Charlemagne. He was the vassal of the Pope. Pie opened schools throughout his vast empire; and from these philosophy ol)tained the name Scholastic. The clergy were the cultivators of this philosophy, and its character is given in the nature of its origin, and may be summed up in the saying of Joannus Scotus Eregina, Tliere are not two studies of pliilosaphy and re- ligion, hut icliat is true pliilosophy is also true religion. The Scholastic j^liilosophy is distributed into several epochs or changes. During the first, philosophy was under absolute subordi- nation to religion; during, the second, the subordination was softened down to an alii- 44 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. ance; and in the third, a separation took place, indistinct at first, but finally more discriminating; and at last, terminating in modern j^hilosophy. The rampant spirit of physical inquiry in this age, is too prone to look back at the schoolmen as mere logical knightr-errants, and their philosophy as logic run mad, because it did not advance physical science. Because the schoolmen, not perceiving the relativity of general terms, and that they afibrd no irrespective objects, wasted so much time in disputes about Nominalism and Realism; and not discriminating the primary and secondary qualities of matter, and tlierefore not perceiv- ing that the words denoting the secondary qualities were ambiguously applied both to the knowing mind and the object known, dis- puted, whether fire is hot, sugar sweet, grass green, and other like questions; it has been concluded that all their discussions were idle disputes of mere words. And because they were subject in all their judgments to the Church, as recognized arbiter, it has been sup- posed that all the doctrines of the schoolmen were the blind opinions ordered by the un- MEDIAEVAL PERIOD. 45 reasoned decrees of the ecclesiastical hier- archy. In these conclusions there is great error; for, with all the circumscription of the Church, there was ample scope left for the loftiest speculations. Though the authority of the Church was imperative when it issued its mandate, yet it left a large proportion of the problems of pliilosoj^hical theology unde- termined; and questions which, among Pro- testants, would cause a difference of sects, were decided in either alternative without impairing the orthodoxy of the parties. The f'dct is, that the f^xcidties of the human mind were never more vigorously exerted (just as is the case with lawyers, though their dis- cussions move, too, within the limits of au- thority), than during the middle ages by the schoolmen; though often on trivial questions, with trivial results, but often on important questions, with important results. We are indebted to the schoolmen for much of the analysis which shows from the nature of the thing that the formal laws of thought are the adequate object^matter of logic. We are also indebted to them for the proper scien- tific definition of truth, as the correspondence 4 46 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. or agreement of a cog^iitlon or a cognitive act of tliought vnilt its ohjed. The schoolmen did also much towards fitting the modern lan- guages for philosophical thinking. The great problem of philosophy is, to analyze the con- tents of our acts of knowledge or our cogni- tions, and discriminate what elements have been contributed by the knowing subject and by the object known. There must, therefore, be terms adequate to designate these correlor- tive opposites, and discriminate the share each has in the total cognition. The exact distinction of subject and object was first made by the schoolmen. This distinction involves the whole science of mind; for this science is nothing more than the articulate discrimina- tion of the subjective and the objective, in themselves and in their mutual relations. The two opposite nouns, subject and object, and the corresponding adjectives, subjective and objective, taken together and correla- tively, enable us to designate tlie primary and most important antithesis of philosophy in the most precise and complete manner. Therefore it is seen that the most important u MEDIEVAL PERIOD. 47 seeds of modern philosophy are to be found in the Scholastic. The capture of Constantinople by the TurkSj in the year 1453, scattered over the West the learned Greeks of that capital; and then it was that philosophy rebelled against the supremacy of Aristotle and the Church. Philosophy, which had been the mere hand- maid of the Church, came now to be cultiva- ted for itself. New schools were opened, and almost every school of antiquity had its sup- porters. Europe beheld the revival of the Academy, the Lyceum, and the Porch. The system which first rose into greatest repute was the Platonic, contaminated with many mysteries of the Alexandrian fathers. But there arose a sect of independent thinkers, whose doctrines were subversive of even the spirituality of God and man. Cardamus, Tu- lesimus, Beregard, Cesalpinus, and Verini, present a group of philosophers who cannot be classed under any particular sect. They launched out into speculations which we are forced to admire for their vigour and inde- pendence. Skepticism had its supporters, at this time, in Montaigne and others. But the 48 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. whole pliilosophy of this age, was a mere re- flex of that of antiquity. The want of method was the fundamental defect; and exclusive deference to authority was the great impedi- ment to mental progress. It is difficult for us, in this age of free thought and speech, to realize the extreme submission to the au- thority of the Church, when that authority was exerted, and the absolute deference paid to Aristotle, during the scholastic period. The two great ends to be accomplished, in order to set free the human mind, were to discover a better method of philosophizing and to shake off the yoke of authority. o? MODERN PERIOD. Scholasticism had turned away the minds of thinkers from nature. But now, nature begun to receive a remarkable degree of at- tention. The discovery of America, and of the passage to the East Indies, had widened the scope of view; and the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, had carried MODERN PERIOD. 49 the thoughts of men beyond the limits of tradition and authority, and given an entirely new direction to the thinking of the age. These discoveries refuted a series of tradi- tional errors and prejudices, and gave the thinking mind a self-dependence which caused it to break loose from the fetters of authority, and place itself upon the basis of observation and experiment, inquiry and proof. At this juncture in the progress of thought, the most majestic and prophetic mind known to the history of philosophy, rose up to lead men in the new career of investigation which had been begun. Trained in the practice of a jurisprudence the most technical, and in its routine the most servile, and the most obedient to authority and traditional usage of any which has been established amongst men, Ave see the remarkable spectacle of a Lord Chancellor of England laying aside, for the moment, the king's seals, to become the keeper of the seals of nature. And in a majesty of diction unparalleled in the history of philosophy, this great thinker proclaimed to the world a new method of philosophizing to guide, the mighty spii^t of inquiry which 4* 50 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. ■^as abroad, over the fields of observation. Philosophy, no longer confined to the schools, is led forth by a politician and lawyer, out from the confines of authority into the ampli- tudes of nature. From this moment, the freedom of the human mind was established. This man of business, this accomplished cour- tier, this cunning lawyer, this consummate orator, this leader in the afiairs of the world, appears on the stage of philosophical thought, with a more comprehensive grasp of thinking and a greater forecast, than any one of even the many trained especially to philosophy, who had preceded him. It is, at once, mani- fest to the eye of history, that a great revo- lution in the modes of philosophical thinking has been accomplished; and that henceforth philosophy is to pursue new paths. The power of the schools is gone, and that of the individual is asserted and established. Au- thority can no longer prevail against reason. The revolution which Bacon efiected is analogous to that accomplished by Socrates; for as the latter was said to bring down phi- losophy from heaven to earth, so the former may be said to have brouglit pliilosophy from MODERN PERIOD. 51 V' books and tradition to nature. The philoso- phy of antirpiity, Bacon showed, leaped at once to the highest generalizations or laws, without attending to those intervening par- ticulars, through which we must pass to arrive at a perfect generalization. Its method was a treacherous logic, as we have shown, which limited everything to the mechanism of language; and as words serve only as registers of our thoughts, our doctrines cannot be exempt from error, unless w^e determine the original notions for ourselves. It is, therefore, says Bacon, necessary to purge the mind of these errors which it has imbibed. He therefore, attempted, what was never at^ tempted before, a systematic classification of the kinds of error. Of these he enumerates four, and calls them Idols. The first, he calls Idols of the Tribe, being inherent in human nature; the second he calls Idols of the Den, being those of each individual; the third he calls Idols of the Market, being those formed from the society of men; the fourth he calls Idols of the Theatre, being false notions de- rived from systems of philosophy, and the contents of popular language. Bacon makes 52 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. philosophy a mere interpretation of nature, and says: "The doctrine of idols bears the same relation to the interpretation of nature as that of the confutation of sophisms does to common logic." Therefore, the first step in a true method of philosophizing (interpret- ing nature) is to point out "the idols and false notions which have already preoccupied the human understanding, and are deeply rooted in it." The second step is, "the formation of notions and axioms on the foundation of true induction, which is the only fitting remedy by which we can ward off and expel these idols." Bacon points out the difference between the ancient method and his own in these words: "There are and can exist but two Avays of investigating and discovering truth. The one hurries on rajjidly from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms; and from them as principles, and their sup- posed indisputable truth, derives and dis- covers the intermediate axioms. This is the way now in use. The other constructs its axioms from the senses and particulars, by ascending continually and gradually, till it MODERN PERIOD. ■ 53 finally arrives at the most general axioms, which is the true but unattempted way." It is important to have distinctly in mind the precise end which Bacon designed to ac- complish by his new method, or Novum Or- ganum. It was manifestly intended to super- sede the old method, or Organon of Aristotle. Its very name evinces this. Much difficulty, however, has been created in regard to this question, by making distinctions in logic, which neither Aristotle nor Bacon under- stood. Logic has very properly come to be distinguished into pure and concrete or modi- fied logic. Pure logic is conversant about the form of thought; concrete logic is con- versant about the form of thought as modified by the empirical circumstances, external and internal, under which man exerts his facul- ties. Pure logic, therefore, proposes as its / end, the formal or lotjkal perfection of-^"" - thought, and has nothing to do with its real truth; while the end of concrete logic is real or material truth. Now, it has been con- tended that Aristotle's logical treatises are of pure logic, while Bacon's treatise is of con- crete logic; and that consequently their scopes ^ 54 PKOGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. are entirely different, and the ends intended to be accomplished by Aristotle and Bacon are different also. In this ojoinion there is some truth and much error. Aristotle had no definite, certainly no adequate^ notion of the distinction between pure and concrete logic; and therefore has, throughout the logi- cal treatises which have come down to us, confounded the two. The end of his logical treatises was not merely formal or logical truth, but real or material truth also; the two not, in fact, being discriminated. It was as a means towards real or material truth, that Bacon considered the Aristotelic logic; and it was in this aspect he designed to super- sede it. The whole force of the Novum Organum rests upon this fact. The Aristo- telic logic had in fact confounded the distinc- tion between formal and material truth; and it was this very confusion which constituted its vice. In consequence of this confusion, it was considered a method of philosophizing, a means by which new truths could be elicited or gathered' in. It was, in other words, con- sidered creative, and not merely plastic. It is true, that Aristotle hangs the whole chain MODERN PERIOD. 55 of our mediate knowledge upon a comprehen- sive belief, and maintains that the ultimate or primarj^ principles of knowledge are in- comprehensible, and rest in a blind, passive Itiith. Yet, such seems to have been his no- tion of the scope of syllogistic reasoning, that, somehow " or other, as we have already said, he makes it independent of induction; and in this seems to ignore his principle of primary beliefs. At all events, he has left the relation and correlation of S3'llogism and induction so confused, and his psychological, metaphysical, and logical doctrines so ill ad- justed, that we feel warranted in saj-ing that Aristotle confounded formal and concrete logic, and formal and material truth. Bacon, therefore, viewing the Aristotelic logic as a method of philosophizing, of searching for material truth, attempted to supersede it in that purpose : but to leave it as a means of formal truth, of discussing questions about which there was no dispute as to the data. This was certainly Bacon's view and purpose. His whole doctrine of method is directed to the contents, and not to the form of thought — to the matter, and not to the consecution, 56 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. of our thinking. It is from this point of view we must look at the Novum Organum to appreciate it. The great fallacy which Bacon directed his hostility against, as the one which especially vitiated ancient philosophy, is the commuta- tion of the subjective with the objective. All the errors Avhich Bacon classified as Idols are subjective illusions, which had been commuted in the ancient philosophy with objective re- alities. This fallacy manifests itself in two ways. The one is to assume that the notions of things contained in common language are correct and complete interpretations of nature, and that the true mode of building up science is to analyze these notions, and combine them in their logical relations, because the logical relations of the notions will correspond with the real relations of their objects. The other way is to assume that there are general notions or principles, which are an original furniture of the mind, or are remembered from another state of existence, and that nature must conform in its manifestations to these ideas, and that by considering these ideas we can interpret nature. Both of these MODERN PERIOD. • 57 manifestations of this cardinal error are, as we have shown in our review of ancient phi- losophy, at bottom the same. That its true character is the commuting of the subjective with the objective, is manifest in the con- sideration, that as a notion is the joint pro- duct of the action of the subject and object, it follows that whatever a notion contains not corresponding with the object, must be the contribution of the thinking subject alone; and if the notion be only a partial interpreta- tion of the object, but is considered complete, it is still mistaking an ideal illusion for a real object. The grand error of the ancient j)hi- losophy was to combine, and by syllogistic or deductive reasoning develop, these subjective illusions into systems supposed to be explana- tions of objective realities. The whole scope and end of Bacon's method was, therefore, real or material truth. And here the question arises, what is truth? The schoolmen, as we have already shown, have given an answer which is now acquiesced in as correct. Truth is the correspondence or agreement between our thought and its object — between our thought and what ice tlmik about. 5 58 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. The Baconian method was especially directed to maintain this view of truth. " For we are founding (says Bacon) a real model of the Avorld in the understanding; such as it is found to be, not such as man's reason has dis- torted." Again he says : " We neither dedi- cate nor raise a capitol or pyramid to the pride of man, but rear a holy temple in his mind, on the model of the universe, which model we imitate." And still further : " Let men learn the difference that exists between the idols of the human mind and the ideas in the divine mind. The former are mere arbitrary abstractions; the latter, the true marks of the Creator on his creatures, as they are imprinted on and defined in matter by true and exquisite touches." It was, therefore, to the objective world that Bacon especially directed attention, so as to secure the mind from the vice of the ancient philoso- phy — of commuting the subjective with the objective — of substituting the fictions of the imagination for the realities of nature. As, then. Bacon's method has in view the advancement of the real sciences, it may be well, for the sake of precision, to state what MODERN PERIOD. 59 are the objects of these sciences, as, according to the view of truth above given, the corres- pondence between these sciences as systems of thought and their respective objects consti- tute their truth. The real sciences are sciences of fjict; for the point of departure from which they set out is always a fact, a presentation of mind. Some of these rest upon the presentations of self-consciousness, and these are facts of mind. Others rest upon presentations of sensitive perception, and these are facts of nature. The former are the mental sciences; the latter are the natural sciences. The facts of mind are given partly as contingent and partly as necessary. The latter, the ne- cessary, are universal virtually and in them- selves; the former only obtain a factitious universality by a process of generalization. The facts of nature, whether necessary in themselves or not, are given to us only as contingent and isolated phenomena, and therefore have only that empirical generality which we bestow on them by classification. Now, it is with the facts of nature that Bacon's method, as developed by himself, 60 PROGRESS OF PniLOSOPHT. more especially deals. The great end of his Novum Organum, therefore, is to ascertain that empirical generality, or factitious uni- versality, amongst isolated phenomena of nature, which is accomplished by classifica- tion ; for it is only in this way, according to Bacon, that man can bring the immensity of nature within the scope of his knowledge. In accordance with this view of philoso- phy, particulars or individuals become the important objects of consideration in the Ba- conion method. And Bacon, in the fiice of ancient philosophy, which busied itself about universals, had to defend the study of par- ticulars in these words : " With regard to the meanness or even filthiness, of particulars? for which (as Pliny observed) an apology is requisite, such subjects are no less worthy of admission into natural history than the most magnificent and costly; nor do they at all pollute natural history, for the sun enters alike the palace and the privy, and is not thereby poUuted. For that which is deserv- ing of existence is deserving of knowledge, the image of existence." As, then, particulars are the primary objects MODERN PERIOD. 01 of the Baconian method, this method must begin with the senses. Accordingly, Bacon says, "We must guide our steps by a chie, and the whole patli, from the very first per- ceptions of our senses, must be secured by a determined method." And he enounces his method in these words: "It ought to be eternally resolved and settled, that the under- standing cannot decide otherwise than by in- duction, and a legitimate form of it." Here the question emerges, loliat is induc- tion? Bacon had not a very discriminate notion of it. In the procedure which he calls induction, or rather by which he exem- plifies it, he confuses analysis and synthesis, and does not even sufficiently discriminate between observation and induction; as he in- cludes, in what he calls induction, the objec- tive process of investigating individual facts as preparatory to illation, as well as the illa- tion from the singular to the universal. Nor has any writer, as far as we know, sufficiently explained and exemplified induction. The loosest notions are entertained on the subject. By the best writers, induction is said to be analytical, whereas it is synthetical. This 5* 62 PROGRESS OP PHILOSOPHY. confusion, however, often arises from the con- fused and even contradictory notions which are entertained of analysis and synthesis. The process, Avhich by some is called analysis, is called synthesis by others, and vice versa. These discrepancies and contradictions we will endeavour to explain, and found upon the explanation a more accurate determina- tion of induction. There is and can be but one method in philosophy; and what have been called the different and more or less perfect methods, are merely different applications of this one method to the objects of knowledge. Method is a rational progress — a progress of the mind towards an end; and method in philosophy signifies the progress conducive to the end which philosophy proposes. The ends of philosophy are two — the first being the dis- covery of causes; and the second, the resolu- tion of things into unity. These ends, how- ever, fall into one ; as the higher we ascend in the discovery of causes, we approximate the nearer to unity. The detection of the one in the many is, therefore, the end to which philosophy tends continually to ai)])roximate. MODERN PERIOD. 63 What the method in philosophy is, will appear the more clearly, if, in the first place, we con- sider philosophy in relation to its first end — the discovery of causes. Causes,* taking the name for a synonym of that without which their effect would not be — and they are only coefficient elements of their eft'ect; and effect is the combination of these primary elements to which we give the name of causes, and the concurrence of which gives existence to the effect. The acid and the alkali, for example, are the causes of the neutral salt, and also its coefficient elements. To the elements we give the name causes ; to the combination, we give the name effect. Now, as it is by experience we discover what causes are necessary for the production of an effect, it follows that the only way by which we can attain to the knowledge of causes, as causes, is in and through their effect; and the only way we can Ijecome aware of their effect, as effect, is in and through its causes. In as far, therefore, as philosophy is the re- search of causes, the only necessary condition * The metaphysical doctrine of causation is con- sirlered in the second part of this tract. 64 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. of the possibility of philosophy is decomposi- tion. The decomposition of effects into their causes is called analj^sis. In its philosophical signification it means the separation of the parts of any complex whole. But, though analysis is the fundamental process, it is not the only one. We analj^ze only that we may comprehend the objects; and we can comprehend only as we are able to reconstruct, in thought, if not in reality, what has been decomposed. This mental re- construction is, therefore, the final procedure in philosophy, and is called synthesis. Of these two j)rocesses, the former is called the regressive, as ascending from effects to causes ; the latter is called the progressive, as de- scending from causes to effects. These two processes are the necessary parts of one method, and are relative and correlative of each other. Analysis, without synthesis, is only a begun knowledge. Synthesis, without analysis, is no knowledge at all ; for synthesis receives from analysis whatever elements it recomposes. Synthesis supposes analysis as the prerequisite of its existence, and is de- pendent on it for the qualities of its existence; MODERN PERIOD. G5 for the value of every synthesis dej^ends on the value of the foregone analysis. If the elements furnished by analysis be assumed, or not really discovered, the synthesis will, at best, be but a conjectural theory; and if the analysis be false, so will be the synthesis. The legitimacy of every synthesis, therefore, depends on the legitimacy of the analysis' which it presupposes. These two relative procedures are thus ec|ually necessary to each;: other in the acquisition of knowledge, and are as indisj)ensable to the existence of phi- losophy as the processes of inspiration and expiration are to animal life. It is, however, to analysis that the preeminence is due, if to either; for though it be only a commence- ment, yet it is the preferable, inasmuch as it lays the foundation for synthesis; whereas synthesis without analysis is radically void. As regards, therefore, the first end of phi- losophy — the discovery of causes — there is only one possible method, of which analysis is the foundation, and synthesis the com- pletion. Considering philosophy in relation to its second end — the resolution of our knowledge 66 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. into unity — the same doctrine is equally ap- parent. Everything presented to our con- sideration in the external or internal word — whether through the medium of sense, or of self-consciousness — is presented in complexity . The senses present objects in multitudes, in each of which there is a congeries of many various qualities; and the same holds true of the presentations of self-consciousness, since every modification of mind is a complex state, and the different elements of each state mani- fest themselves in and through each other. Thus there is nothing but multiplicity pre- sented to us. And our foculties are so limited, that they are able to take in only one object or combination, and that the very simplest, at a time. It is therefore only by analysis and synthesis that multiplicity can be brought into unity. In fact, the search for a cause, and the search for unity in cases where the notion of cause does not enter, are both governed by the same regulative principle — the principle or law of identity in its empiri- cal application — as we shall show presently. We see, then, that in any iictual investiga- tion, analysis and synthesis are necessarily MODERN PERIOD. G7 used intcrdependently and intcrcliangeablj. They cannot be separated; and the two together make up the one method of philoso- phy. This method, according to Bacon, is observation and induction. As, then, analy- sis and synthesis constitute the one method, and observation and induction constitute it also, it behooves us to correlate analj^sis and synthesis with observation and induc- tion. Before, however, we do this, let us give an articulate discrimination between ob- servation and induction. There are two ways by wdiich we may become acquainted with things. In the first place, we may know a thing as simply exist- ing. This is the knowledge of what simply is — of facts known in our own experience or that of others — and is called empirical or his- torical knowledge ; for history is properly only the narration of a consecutive series of phe- nomena in time. It comprises all that infor- mation which we obtain from the physical world by sense, and from the mental world by self-consciousness. The process by which this degree or sort of knowledge is obtained, is what Bacon means by observation; and it 68 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. manifestly involves both analysis and syn- thesis. The knowledge obtained in this way is, however, not philosophy. It requires an- other process to elevate it to that dignity. Let us, then, consider the second way by which we may know things. The mind is so constituted, that it cannot perceive the ex- istence of anything without referring it to something else as its cause, and without which it could not have existed. Things do not occur isolated from each other. There is no phenomenon but is the effect of some cause. Thus, when we see a rainbow, we may, in a certain sense, be said to know it; but with such knowledge, the mind does not rest satisfied ; and it is only when we discover that the phenomenon depends on the reflec- tion and refraction of light, by the rain fall- ing from a cloud opposite the sun, that we can be said fully to know it. This is done by inferring from the analogies that the re- flection and refraction of light is the cause, and then by mathematical reasoning deducing from the known laws of reflection and refrac- tion, the breadth of the coloured arch, the diameter of the circle of which it is part, and MODERN PERIOD. 69 the relation of tlie latter to the place of the spectator and of the sun, and fuidhig all these to come out of the calculus just as they are observed in nature. This knowledge of the cause of a phenomenon is something more than that phenomenon considered simply as a fact, and constitutes the second way in which we may be said to know anything, and is called philosophical, scientific, or ra- tional knowledge — the knowledge of effects, as dependent on their causes. Now, into the procedure of acquiring this sort or degree of knowledge, induction as well as observation enters. The process by which the reflection and refraction of light are inferred or assigned as the cause of the rainbow, is induction, and is synthetic; for it brings the phenomenon of the rainbow under the laws of light — binds it with other phenomena of the' same sort — is an illation from an individual or particular to a class, from a singular to a universal. It is seen, and we selected it for that reason, that in the instance given, induction is aided by mathematical deduction, but only aided by it; for the illation is purely inductive, and is assumed as true in the mathematical deduc- 6 70 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. tion, and only verified or confirmed by it ; for mathematics does not take the physical sci- ences out of the pale of induction, but only aids induction. That induction is synthetic, all the discoveries in science show. From our limited experience that some bodies gravi- tate, we infer that all bodies gravitate. Here the mind binds up the several facts of observa- tion into a whole — as it were, reconstructs an analysis; this is certainly synthetic. Induc- tion is therefore clearly" synthetic, and not analytic, as it has sometimes been said to be. It has sometimes been called both analytic and synthetic, especially by the mathematical physicists. When the procedure is from effects to causes it is called analytic, but when the procedure is from an ascertained cause to the explanation, by it, of analogous or resembling phenomena or effects, it is called synthetic. These procedures correspond with Bacon's, or rather are Bacon's ascending and descending scales of induction. This nomen- clature is adopted, because the last procedure, which is also called deductive, is apparently the reverse of the first — the mere retracing of the same steps from the cause back to the MODERN PERIOD. 71 same effects from which it was inferred; whereas other eflects, analogous to those from which the cause has been inferred, are at- tempted to be brought within the same cause and exphiined by it. As the first process is called analytic, this is called synthetic. But at bottom both are synthetic, as they are both induction viewed from opposite points.''' It is seen, then, that method, in its univer- sality, consists of two processes, analysis and synthesis, which are relative to, and comple- mentary of, each other. As philosophy has only one possible me- thod, so the history of philosophy only shows the more or less imperfect application of this one method. It presents many aberrations in the method, but none from it. There never has been an attempt at philosophy wdiere ana- lysis and synthesis were not both used. But sometimes the one, and sometimes the other, * It should be remarked, that the terms analysis and synthesis, which have been derived from the mathema- ticians, are sometimes reversed ; the first being applied, by some, to the process to which the latter is applied by others ; and vice versa. But this is not the occasion to explain this confusion. ■*-l-\^J.JO--. ^> \.. i 72 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. has predominated ; they have not been kept in due correlation in their employment. The ancient philosophy is especially defective, by the meagre employment of analysis. The analysis of phenomena were partial, and the synthesis consequently one-sided, and errone- ous. The analysis of the early Greek physi- cal philosophers, of whom we have spoken, who, fixing upon one or more elements as su- perior to all others, such as water or air, was partial ; and consequently the synthesis, that it was the principle of all things, was one- sided and erroneous. Bacon has exhibited the deficiency of the physics of Aristotle in analysis, when he says : '' Nor is much stress to be laid on his frequent recourse to experi- ment, in his books on animals, his problems and other treatises; for he had already de- cided, icithout having properly considfed expe- rieyice as tJie basis of decisions and axioms; and, after having so decided, he drags experi- ment along as a captive constrained to accom- modate herself to his decisions." And of the empiric school, as he calls it, he says, their dogmas are founded "in the confined obscu- rity of a few experiments." We have, in our MODERN PERIOD. 73 review of ancient philosophy, shown that it was founded on the crude analysis contained in the language of the people. The great pre- cept of the Baconian method is : Do not lairry to a synthetic induction from an imperfect ana- lysis, a narroio observation; hut let your analy- sis he complete. Here emerges the question, how are ive to observe ? In order to scientific knowledge, as we have described it, observation must become or turn into inquiry. We must question na- ture ; but a question implies some knowledge of the thing inquired about. How, then, are we to inquire of nature, unless we have some intimation of her secrets — the human mind having no a priori clue to them? The ques- tions put to nature must, too, be particular or leading questions. The questioning of nature springs out of observation, by nature herself disclosing to us some clue to the secret. When we observe a certain correspondence among a number of objects or phenomena, we are determined by a principle of our intellectual nature to sup- pose the existence of a more extensive cor- respondence than experience has disclosed, or 6* 74 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY, perhaps may ever disclose. This judgment, that where much is found accordant, all will -be found accordant, is the result of an original tendency of our nature. It is the inventive principle by w^iich we generalize our know- ledge. This judgment is first only hypotheti- cal — merely an invenfive 'princi]ple, which prompts us to put questions to nature, based upon the supposed truth of the judgment, and is called hypothesis. The actual procedure of philosophizing, therefore, consists of: 1. Ob- servation; 2. Hypothesis; 3. Questioning; 4. Induction. This questioning is sometimes only the observation of the ordinary course of nature. Sometimes it is experiment; for, says Bacon, "the secrets of nature betray themselves more readily when tormented by art, than when left to their own course." If the answers accord with the first inference — the hypothesis which prompted us to put the questions — it is then assumed as verified, and the induction is complete. How many answers concurring to the same point amount to proof in any case, is beyond the determination of any rule. In some cases, a few instances war- rant an induction ; in others, an immense MODERN PERIOD. 75 number are required to warrant the judgment. This difference results from the fact, that where the character inquired about is an es- sential one, like the lungs in a terrestrial ani- mal, a few instances will suffice; but when the character is a contingent one, like the colour of things, hardly any number of in- stances will suffice. And whether a character is an essential or a contingent one, is itself a question of science, and must be determined before it can be used as a principle of evidence in induction. The presumption, that where much is found accordant, all will be found accordant, has been considered by jDhilosophers to be of tAvo kinds — to be either induction or analogy. This seems to us to be erroneous. Thou2;h induction and analogy are to be distinguished, they are not to be distinguished as only rela- tives of one kind ; they are not to be consi-^ dered as two processes of reasoning; but in- duction is to be considered as the process, and analogy as the objective law warranting the process. In this view of the subject, induc- tion may be defined a material illation of the universal from the sincfular^ v'arranted either 76 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. hy the general analogies of nature, or hij the special analogies of the ohject-matter of any real science. The synthetic inference is not neces- sitated by a law of thought, but only war- ranted by the observed analogies which mere- ly incline the judgment. It seems to us, therefore, more accurate to make induction signify the process, and analogy or similarity signify the evidence on which it is founded; for such is the true account of the process, as the definition just given indicates. In the inductive process, the conclusion is always wider than the premises. Whereas, in strict demonstration, no conclusion can contain more than the premises. In the in- ductive process, experience says, this, that, and the other body gravitate, and the conclusion says, all bodies gravitate. In explanation of this, it has been said, that the mind adds something of its own, warranting us to draw the conclusion. That the affirmation, this, that, and the other bodies gravitate, is con- nected to the conclusion, all bodies gravitate, by inserting between the two another jDropo- sition, to wit: the supposition of the tuiiformity of nature. And tliat as this supposition is MODERN PERIOD. 77 not the product of induction, it must be in- terpolated into all inductive reasoning by the mind. And that, therefore, where the rea^- soning in induction is fully expressed, it will stand thus : this, that, and the otlicr body gra- vitate; but as nature is uniform in all her operations, this, that, and the other body repre- sent all bodies : therefore, all bodies gravitate. Though this is the most scientific explana- tion which has yet been given by any philo- sopher, we feel constrained to demur to it; as, to us, it involves a concealed error. The affir- mation of the uniformity of nature, which seems to be interpolated in inductive reason- ing, can be resolved into something simpler, Avliich makes the process accord with the great mental law, tliat thmujlit is ahoays under the antithesis of subject and ohject; and that in the products or conclusions of tliouyht, nothing is contained as objective which was not objective in the process of thinking. In other words, the laws of intelligence never warrant an illusive interpolation of the objective for the subjec- tive, as it must do if the uniformity of nature is predicated in the inductive illation. The veracity of human consciousness would cer- 78 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. tainlj seem to require this view — otherwise the mind practises ilkisions upon itself, under the truest conformity to its owti laws. We think this supposed uniformity of nature may be resolved into identity objectively perceived in nature. Thus, the principle of uniformity will thereby be resolved into the law of iden- tity. This we will now show. There are but three ultimate laws of intel- ligence : 1. The law of Identity; 2. The law of Contradiction; 3. The law of Excluded Middle ; and a corollary from these, the law of reason and consequent. Now, reason, whe- ther exerted in deductive or inductive (in apodictic or hypothetical) judgments, must always be regulated by the same laws. In other words, the laws of thought are the same in the deductive and the inductive processes; only that in the deductive (apodictic) they are absolute, and in the inductive (hypotheti- cal) they are modified by empirical circum- stances. The laws of thought alone determine the deductive process, necessitating the con- clusion ; but the laws of thought, modified by the analogies of nature, determine the induc- tive process inclining the judgment. In the MODERN PERIOD. 70 inductive process, the laws of thoiiglit have an empirical application. And the law of identity is the special one which is gratified in the synthetic illation by which the analo- gies are unified into identity. Objects which determine undistinguishable impressions upon us, are perceived and represented in the same mental modification, and are subjectively to us precisely as if they were objectively iden- tical. When, therefore, a number of objects or phenomena are found to possess absolute similarity, and their difierence is for the time lost sight of, their similarity is converted into identity, and they are thereby reduced into the unity of thought. By the same regula- tive law, similar phenomena are referred to an identical cause. Analogies or similarities are the footprints of identity. And what has Ijeen supposed to be the assumption of the uniformity of nature in every induction, is but identity, which the mind aflirms upon viewing the analogies or similarities; for what- ever is identical to consciousness, is so uni- formly or universally. It is not, therefore, necessary to a theoretical explanation of in- duction, to assume, as a superficial analysis 80 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. seems to warrant, that the uniformity of na- ture is affirmed as the major premise, which the mind, from the necessity of so thinking, interpolates in the reasoning. The mind con- siders no such principle. It affirms only what it perceives objectively — identity in similaritj^ Some water-fowl have web-feet — not by the assumption of the uniformity of nature, but by the law of identity — leads the mind to affirm, that all water-fowl have web-feet. It is as though the mind had viewed all water- fowl. The inductive inference is, in fact, a sort of reaffirmation of what has been actu- ally observed. If such were not the result of the guidance of the law of identity on view- ing analogies or similarities, the mind would contradict itself — not think at all. For affir- mation and negation are the ultimate alterna- tives of thought. Therefore, the law of con- tradiction combines with the law of identity, of which, in fact, it is a phase, in leading to the inductive synthesis or totalizing result.* * The apparent paradox of identity in diversity con- stituted one of the earliest puzzles in incta[)liysics ; and gave origin to a skepticism which denied the possibility of uniting two notions in a judgment, which, of course. MODERN PERIOD. 81 The error which we have thus endeavoured to expose by a more thorough analysis, results from the covert assumption, that syllogistic is the only reasoning; and that every general assumption which can be found, by reflective analj'sis, to be the condition of a product of the mind, must have been realized in con- sciousness as connate Avith the product at the time of the genesis of such product. For example : as the notion of space is found by reflective analysis to be the condition of the notion of body, it is supposed that the notion was natively latent in the mind, and was eli- cited into consciousness in the process of cog- nizing an external object; whereas, space or extension is cognized objectively as a neces- sary element of body, and must be realized in the cognition, as contributed by the object and not by the subject. The human mind is still fettered in philosophical thinking, by the an- cient doctrine of universals, and that all coutravened the validity of the law of identity. Any objection to our explanation of empirical thinking under the law of identity, will be only a revival of the old skepticism which objected to the apparent paradox in the law of identity even in formal thinking or deduction. 7 82 PROGRESS OF rHILOSOPHY. knowledge is througli previous knowledge, and based on generals, which it was the great purpose of Bacon's philosophy to overthrow, and to emancipate the human mind to the full freedom of a philosophy of observation of individual phenomena. • As hjqoothesis is the great inventive princi- ple of induction, by which, as we have al- ready indicated, the questioning of nature is conducted, it demands articulate exposition. It is in the form of hypothesis that the grand heresy of commuting the subjective with the objective creeps into philosophy and science. Hypothesis is the initial ball, which is rolled through the field of observation, accumulating only what accords with it, so that the whole aggregation will be of the same character with the nucleus ; and if what is first set in motion be erroneous, so will all that is accumulated. In order, then, to 23revent the commutation of the subjective with the objective, it is neces- sary that the hypothetical supposition shall be an inference from phenomena, as it always is, in that which we have descriljed as the normal procedure of induction. The suppo- sition or provisional judgment arises upon the MODERN PERIOD. 83 observation of phenomena, and guides our questioning of similar phenomena. But the great danger is, that our provisional judgment be the mere application of a pre-conception, like the vortices of Des Cartes in explanation of the motions of the heavenly bodies. When a phenomenon is presented to us which we can explain by no causes within the sphere of our experience, we endeavour to recall the out- standing phenomenon to unity, by ascribing it to some cause or class to which there is a pro- bability of its belonging. The great maxim, regulative of this procedure, is called the Law of Parcemony, and is adequately expressed by Sir William Hamilton in these words : "Neither more nor more onerous causes are to be assumed than are necessary to account for the phenomena." In commenting on this rule, which had been enounced by Newton, Sir William says, it is almost certain that Newton, when he says we are to admit no causes but such as are true (vera)), he meant "to denounce the postulation of hypothetical facts as media of hypothetical explanation." Now, it is not only almost but absolutely cer- tain, that this was Newton's meaning : because 84 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. he explicitly says so in the general scholium at the end of his Principia : " I have not been able (says he) to discover the cause of these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses ; for whatever is not de- duced from phenomena is called hypothesis ; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy, particular propositions are inferred from phenomena, and afterwards ren- dered general by induction." Here Newton makes cause the opposite of hypothesis, and astricts hypothesis to mere assumptions not deduced from phenomena. He therefore means by true causes real causes — the 02:)po- site of supposititious causes. And the Prin- cipia is an exemplification of it; for amidst all the intricacies of mathematical demonstra- tion, Newton, with the most marvellous cau- tion and sagacity, never for a moment loses sight of phenomena and known causes. In- duction is the centre and the circumference around and within Avhicli the mathematical demonstrations revolve. NcAvton's rule about true causes does not, as Dr. Whewell and MODERN PERIOD. 86 others suppose, reject the inquir}^ into new causes. In the questions which Newton was considering, the true cause was the first term, the one which should be Ivnown, and not the second, the one unknown, as it always is, in a search for new causes. It would be illegiti- mate, according to Newton, to assign a subtle ether as the cause of the retardation of the planetary motions, as its existence is not known ; but it would be perfectly legitimate as a iJTOvisional judgment, to infer the exist- ence. of a subtle ether from the retardation of the planets in their orbits. It was legitimate, to infer the existence of Leverrier's planet, as the cause of the perturbations in Uranus, as a, provisional judyment, to be verified by sub- sequent observation, as was done ; but to ac- count for the perturbations by the existence of the planet, would be reversing the order, placing the unknown term first in the inquiry, and accounting for the known by the unknown. Such is the comprehensive and profound method — sweeping as it does through all the intricacies of the heights and depths of nature — which Bacon proclaimed in his Novum Or- ganum. "Although (says Newton, in his 7* 86 PROGKESS OF PHILOSOPHY. Optics), tlie arguing from experiments and observations, by induction, be no demonstra- tion of general conclusions, yet it is the best way of arguing which the nature of things admits of." And the marvels accomplished by tliis method in unravelling the secrets of nature, have long since vindicated it from the objections of the ancient Greek skeptics, which we noticed in treating of ancient phi- losophy. Des Cartes comes next in the history of philosophy. He was contemporary with Ba- con, but thirty years younger. The influence for truth of no philosopher has, in our opinion, been more overrated. It is, therefore, time that his philosophy should be weighed in the scales of criticism, and its true value fixed in the progress of philosophy. IFrom the manner in which our 023inions are formed, amidst the circumstances of life, our supposed knowledge caiiinot but be a med- ley of truths and errors.\\|Jt is therefore im- portant to institute a critical examination of the constituents of this knowledge\_ Pes Car- tcs proposed that w e should ^QnijiLeiice._the examination by doubting all our opinions. t '^ 1 MODERN PERIOD. 87 Now, this initial or preliminary doubt of Des Caries has always seemed to us, as a practical rule, extremely idle. For, let it be observed, this preliminary doubt is to be the forerunner of any system of truth. The whole contents of the mind are to be condemned until their truth is established. But how are we to be- gin the examination of our judgments? Not at random, of course, but by selecting tliein according to some principle, and arranging them in some order and dependence. But the distribution of things into their classes is one of the most difficult tasks of philosophy, as well as one of the last that are accomplished. Amongst our opinions there are many which can only be tested by profound investigation and extensive knowledge. This precept of Des Cartes, which is intended to show how we are to begin to be a philosopher, requires us to be one before we begin. The true pre- cept, therefore, is not the unconditional one of absolute preliminary doubt, as Des Cartes teaches, but a gradual and progressive repre- hension of prejudice. We should examine all our opinions with the circumspection which merely supposes that they contain some truth 88 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. combined with much error. All, therefore, of value in the preliminary doubt of Des Cartes is, that it ignores authority. It implies that the judgments bequeathed to us shall not be decided by authority, but by a principle supe- rior to authority within the sphere of truth — the principle of free thought acting within the limits prescribed by its own laws, and not subordinated to authority, and by it astricted to deduce conclusions from such principles as authority has admitted or ordained. But all this had before been articulately proclaimed by Bacon in the Novum Organum, in his masterly criticisms of the previous systems of philosophy, which he closes in these words : "Here, too, w^e should close the demolishing branch of our Instauration, which is com- prised in three confutations: 1. The confuta- tion of natural human reason left to itself; 2. The confutation of demonstration; 3. The confutation of theories or received systems of philosophy and doctrines." So that, at most, the preliminary doubt of Des Cartes is but a crumb dropped from the critical doctrines of Bacon. This dou])t of Des Cartes was a preliminary MODERN PERIOD. 89 to the cstablisliment of a system of positive doctrine; for Des Cartes was anythin g tlianji skeptic. IiiHced, Tie hastened to his conclu- sions; and, as D'Alembert said, "began with doubting everything, and ended in believing that he had left nothing unexplained." How, then, did Des Cartes essay to lay tlie^ foundatiori ofj^nowl edge ? By reflection^ ha_ finds a basis for certainty in the fact of thought Itself ; In the fact of the very^oubt that per- plexes4iim. For , to doubt is to exist; t here- iTore, tIie~doubt reve als in consciousness b^ rth thinking and existence^ T his fundamenta l truth Des Cartes thus expressed : Coglto, ermatter. Such Ijeing the nature of ratio- cination, its very form in the syllogism ex- cludes everything intrusive between the pre- mises and the conclusion. In a word, Mr. ; Mill does not discriminate pure logic, wherein ^ the mental determinations are eifected by the \ formal laws of thought, from concrete or modi- I ficd logic, wherein the mental determinations I are effected under the laws of thought, modi- fied by the empirical circumstances under MODERN PERIOD. 117 wliicli we exert our faculties. But even in concrete or modified logic, thought is not con- sidered as applied to any particular matter,, but the necessary are considered in conjunc-/ tion with the contingent conditions under j Avhicli thought is actually exerted. Mr. Mill does not even discriminate pure from applied logic, formal from material illation, but con- founds even these. It may be said, in answer to these stric- tures, that Mr. Mill defines in the beginning of his treatise Avhat scope he intends to give it, and that the olycction we make is one merely of the meaning of words. This mode of answering our oljjection, while it has the air of looking at the subject from a more com- prehensive point of view, is a sheer evasion. Mr. Mill has not the right to confuse the boundaries of a science. Logic is found l)y reflective analysis as well as by the indica- tions of its history to be confined to the formal laws of thought as its adequate object-matter; else all the material sciences must be intruded into it. Mr. Mill, therefore, by taking into logic so much foreign matter, is like a geo- grapher who should take into the map of 10 118 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. America, the continent of Europe. But Mr. Mill's is not merely an error of boundary : it is a blunder in all the fundamental doctrines of logic, leading him to repeat, with emphasis, the stale misapprehension, that Bacon's method is one-sided, excluding deduction altogether as a process of investigation. Playfair, in his celebrated Dissertation on the Progress of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences, pro- nounced the same judgment, and disparaged Bacon's method as Mr. Mill does, by saying that it ignored the process which in the ad- vanced stage of the sciences becomes the most important and effective. Whereas, what Mr. Mill and his forerunners in the error call de- duction, is not deduction, a demonstrative process, at all, but is what Bacon means by the descending scale of induction, being in fact a hypothetical and not an apodictic pro- cess, and is sometimes, as we have already shown, called the synthetical process of induc- tion. The blunder of Mr. Mill is thus a double one; first, in supposing the process to be deduction when it is not; secondly, in sup- posing that Bacon excluded it from his method. The truth is, Bacon strode with such colossal . A le of ijldlosopliical pre- sumption. Now, in order to distinguish these principles or laws from the universal truths which are generahzed from individual truths of fact, they are called universal truths of intelligence. Now, we prefer to call these principles laws of intelligence, as more expres- sive of their real character, rather than truths of intelligence ; because, in the operations of the mind, they are regulative and not cogita- ble, being in fact the poles on which thought turns. They are, in our thinking, silent in laws, rather than articulate in propositions. We think that this is a discrimination that ought not to be slighted ; and we venture to find fault that Sir William Hamilton uses the expressions, "fundamental facts," "beliefs," "primary propositions," "cognitions at first hand," as denoting the same primary data of consciousness, only from difierent points of view. We are not convinced of the propriety of his opinion implied in such various desig- REACTIOXARY EPOCH. 145 nations ; and are constrained to believe that the confusing the distinction, which we have endeavoured to indicate, is the initial, the root of that cardinal heresy in philosophy which makes all cognition encentric — makes thought start out from a general notion native to the mind. We repudiate the doctrine that there ever is a belief or a cognition of the mind without its corresponding object. The deli- verance of the primary and most incompre- hensible belief is. That its object is. Thought never evades the fundamental antithesis of subject and object, which is the primary law of consciousness itself. In no instance is a notion, not even that of cause, time, or space, native to the mind, acquired from no ade- quate object, but purely subjective and regu- lative, imposing upon objective thought. an illusive interpolation of itself We therefore, repeat, that our jDrimary beliefs are not within consciousness as com- prehended thought, but in consciousness as bases of thought. We cannot therefore as- sent, that, in different points of view, they may or may not be regarded as cognitions or propositions. We think they have not the 12* 146 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. equivocal character, which the ambiguous and various designations apphed to them, by Sir WiUiam Hamilton, seem to us to indicate. They are but modes of one unifying con- sciousness, not rising, in degree of intellec- tion, to cognitions. But to call them, "primary propositions," is what we chiefly object to. There are pri- mary propositions, undoubtedly, which in the view of our primary beliefs, necessitate their own admission : but then, they are not to be confounded with the primary beliefs themselves. They are made up of a plu- rality of primary beliefs unified in a common conviction in consciousness, and articulated in language. The point of our objection is, to every form and semblance of the doctrine, that all hnmoing is through j^revious knowledge, (which will be considered in the sequel), in- stead of merely through the patDer of hnmcing. But to return from this digression: And while Sir William Hamilton thus points out the bases and the elements of truth, he ex- hibits the canons by which philosophical re- search is to be conducted. As Bacon, in the first lioolc of the Novum Organvm, exposed REACTIONARY EPOCH. 147 the sources of error in physical inquiry, and laid down precautionary rules for conducting future investigation, so Sir William Hamilton has enounced maxims for conducting the loftier and far more difficult research into our intellectual nature. And his philosophy is, in this particular, the consummation of that of Bacon. It explores the depths of con- sciousness, and educes those primary )jeliefs and fundamental laws of intelligence which Bacon merely assumed in his philosophy. Sir William Hamilton has lighted his torch at the lamps of both induction and deduc- tion, and it burns with their combined light ; and therefore it is, that he has been able to penetrate depths in the abysses of thought, which to Bacon and Aristotle were unfathom- able darkness. How, in the spirit of Bacon, is the following admonition! "No philoso- pher has ever formally denied the truth, or disclaimed the authority of consciousness; but few or none have been content implicitly to accept, and consistently to follow out its dictates. Instead of humbly resorting to consciousness to draw from thence his doc- trines and their proof, each dogmatic specula- 148 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. tor looked only into consciousness, there to discover his preadopted opinions. In philoso- phy men have abused the code of natural, as in theology, the code of positive revelation; and the epigraph of a great Protestant divine on the book of Scripture is certainly not less applicable to the book of consciousness: Hie liber est in quo quajrit sua dogmata quisque ; Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua." And Hamilton, like Bacon, is not at all dis- mayed by the past failures in philosophy; but with the proud hopes of a great mind, con- scious of the power of truth, he anticipates mighty triumphs in future for that philoso- phy which he has shown to have prevailed for more than two thousand years. "And yet, (says he) although the past liistor}- of philosophy has, in a great measure, been only a history of variation and error; yet the causQ of the variation being known, we obtain a valid ground of hope for the destiny of phi- losophy in future. Because, since philosophy has hitherto been inconsistent with itself, only in being inconsistent with the dictates of our natural beliefs — 'For Trnth is fatlinlio and TVnturo one;' — REACTIONARY EPOCH. 149 it follows, that philosophy has simply to re- turn to natural consciousness, to return t(3 unity and truth. "In doing this, we have only to attend to three maxims or precautions : "1. That we admit nothing, not either an original datum of consciousness, or the legiti- mate consequence of such datum; " 2. That we embrace all the original data of consciousness, and all their legitimate con- sequences; and " 3. That we exhibit each of these in its individual integrity, neither disturljcd nor mutilated, and in its relative place, whether of pre-eminence or subordination." But Sir William does not stop his direc- tions for investigation with these maxims. He gives marks, by which we can distinguish our original from our derivative convictions — by which we can determine what is, and what is not, a primary datum of conscious- ness. These marks or cliaracters are four; — 1st, their incoinpreJienslb'dity — 2d, iJieir sim- 2^licity — 3d, their necessity and absolute imi- vei'saliti/ — 4 th, their comparative evidence and certainty. These characters are explicated 150 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. by him, and rendered entirely capable of ap- plication to the purpose of analyzing thought into its elements. But, besides these positive directions for ascertaing truth, Sir William Hamilton ex- poses the very roots of the false systems of philosophy w]iich have prevailed in different times. As he shows, by the most searching analysis, that the philosophy of common sense has its root in the recognition of the absolute veracity of consciousness in sensible perception; so he shows, that all philosophi- cal aberrations, or Mse systems of philoso- phy, have their respective roots either in a full or partial denial of its veracity. And he does not deal merely in generalities; but he articulately sets forth five great variations from truth and nature, which have prevailed as systems of philosophy, and shows the exact degree of rejection of the veracity of consciousness which constitutes the root of each. "We are thereby enabled to see the roots of these great heresies laid bare, and can extirpate them, by the argument from common sense. Such are the rules which Sir William REACTIONARY EPOCH. 151 Hamilton lays down for conducting inquiry in the province of mind. They are a de- velopment of the method of Bacon in its ap- plication to psycholog}^, the highest branch of phenomenal philosophy. We now approach a new development of the philosophy of common sense, called the philosophy of the conditioned. It constitutes the distinguishing feature of the philosophi- cal system of Sir William Hamilton; and was developed by him to satisfy the needs of intelligence in combating the proud and vain- glorious philosophy of Germany. It is a re- markable monument of the largeness, the pro- fundity, and the penetrating acuteness of his intellect. . The philosophy of common sense assumes, that consciousness is the supreme faculty — in fact, that it is the complement of all the faculties — that what are called faculties are but acts of consciousness running into each other, and are not separated by those lines of demarcation which are imposed upon them by language for the needs of thinking about our intelligent nature. The supremacy of 152 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. consciousness was the doctrine of Aristotle, of Des Cartes, and of Locke. Reid and Stewart reduced consciousness, in their sys- tem, to a special faculty only co-ordinate with the others. This heresy Sir William Hamil- ton, amongst his innumerable rectifications and developments of Reid's philosophy, has exposed, and by a singular felicity of analysis and explication, has restored consciousness to its fightful sovereignty over the empire of intelligence. Having postulated that consciousness is the highest, and fundamental faculty of the human mind, it becomes necessary, in order to determine the nature of human knowledge, to determine the nature of consciousness. Now, consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of the thinking mental self, and an object thought about, in correlation and limiting each other. It is, therefore, manifest, that knowledge, in its most funda- mental and thoroughgoing analysis, is dis- criminated into two elements in contrast of each other. These elements are appropriately designated, the subject and the ohject, the first REACTIONARY EPOCH. 153 applying to the conscious mind knowing, and the List, to that which is known. And all that pertains to the first is called suhjectlve, and all that pertains to the last is called oh- jective. Philosophy is the science of knowledge. Therefore, philosophy must especially regard the grand and fundamental discrimination of • the two primary elements of the subjective and objective, in any theory of knowledge it may propound. Now, the first and fundamental problem, which presents itself in the science of know- ledge is, What can we kn(yio? Upon the prin- ciples of the philosophy of common sense, the solution of the problem is found, by showing what are the conditions of our knowledge. These conditions, according to the thorough- going fundamental analysis of our knowledge just evinced, arise out of the nature of both of the two elements of our knowledge, the subjective and the objective. Aristotle, who did so much towards ana- lyzing human thought into its elements, strove also to classily all objects real under their • - 13 154 PKOGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. ultimate identifications or categories «in rela- tion to thought. In modern times, Kant endeavoured to analyze intelligence into its ultimate elements in relation to its objects, and to show in these elements the basis of all thinking, and the guarantee of all certainty. Aristotle's categories, though extremely incom- plete, and indeed, we may say bungling, as they confound derivative with simple notions, did something for correct thinking in pointing out, with more exactness, the relations of objects real to thought. But Kant, making a false division of intelligence itself into reason and understanding, blundered at the threshold, and while he analyzed reason into its supposed peculiar elements, to which he gave the Pla- tonic name of Ideas, he analyzed understand- ing into its supposed peculiar elements, and gave them the Aristotelic name of Categories. Kant's analysis of our intelligence into its pure forms, made the human mind a fabric of mere delusion. The ideas of reason he pro- posed as purely subjective and regulative, and yet delusively positing themselves objectively in thought. And so too, in like manner, are his categories of understanding expounded as REACTIONARY EPOCH. 155 deceptive. His philosophy is thus rendered, at bottom, a system of absohite skepticism. It is seen, from this account of them, that Aristotle's Categories or Predicaments, are exclusively objective, of things understood; and that those of Kant are exclusively sub- jective, of the mind understanding. Each is therefore one-sided. Sir William Hamilton, discriminating more accurately than his predecessors, the dual na- ture of thought, has distinguished its two fundamental elements, the subjective and the objective, by a thoroughgoing analysis, and at the same time has observed that these ele- ments are ever held together in a synthesis which constitutes thought in its totality. He has therefore endeavoured to accomplish, in one analysis of thought, what Aristotle and Kant failed to do by their several but partial analyses. As thought is constituted of both a subjective and an objective element, the conditions of the thinkable or of thinkino; must be the conditions of both knowledge and existence — of the possibility of knowing, both from the nature of thought, and from the nature of existence; and must therefore em- 156 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. brace intelligence in relation to its objects, and objects in relation to intelligence, and thus supersede the one-sided jDredicaments of Aristotle and Kant. The first stej) towards discriminating the fundamental conditions of thought, is to re- duce thought itself to its ultimate simplicity. This Sir William Hamilton has done, by showing that it must be either positive or negative, when viewed subjectively, and either conditioned or unconditioned when viewed objectively. And he has discriminated, and signalized the peculiar nature of negative thought, by showing that it is conversant about the unconditioned, while positive thought is conversant about the conditioned. This is a salient point in Sir William's philosophy. He shows that the Kantean Ideas of pure reason, are nothing but negations or impo- tences of the mind, and are swallowed up in the unconditioned; and that the Kantean Categories of the understanding are but sub- ordinate forms of the conditioned. And while he thus reduces the Predicaments of Kant to ultimate elements, he annihilates his division of our intelligence into reason and under- REACTIONARY EPOCH. 157 standing. He shows that what Kant calls the reason is in fact an impotence, and what he calls the understanding is the whole in- tellect. It had been shown by Aristotle, that nega- tion involves affirmation — that non-existence can only be predicated by referring to exist- ence. This discrimination has become a fruit- ful principle in the philosoph}' of Sir William Hamilton. He, therefore, begins the an- nouncement of the conditions of the think- able, by showing the nature of negative thought. He shows that negative thought is realized only under the condition of relativity and positive thinking. For example: we try to think — to predicate existence, and find ourselves unable. We then predicate incogi- tability. This incogitability is what is meant by negation or negative thought. If then negative thinking be the opposite of positive thinking, it must be the violation of one or more of the conditions of positive thinking. The conditions of positive thinking are two; 1st. The condition of nonrcontradic- tion : 2d. The condition of relativity. To think at all, (that is positively, for positive thinking 13* 158 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. is properly the only thinking,) our thinking must not involve a contradiction, and it must involve relativity. If it involve contradic- tion, the impossible both in thought and in reahty results. If the condition of relativity be not purified, the impossible in thought only results. Now the condition of non-contradiction is brought to bear in thinking under three phases constituting three laws: — 1st. The law ofidentity ; 2d. The law of contradiction ; 3d. The law of excluded middle. The science of these laws is Logic. Thus, is shown the ulti- mate condition of the thinkable on which de- pends the science of explicative or analytical reasoning. This we shall show fully in the sequel, when we come to treat of what Sir William Hamilton has done for Logic. The condition of non-contradiction is in no danger of being violated in thinking; there- fore its explication is only of theoretical im- portance. The condition of relativity is the important one in thought. Tliis condition, in so far as it is necessary, is brought to bear under two principal relations; one of which arises frjom REACTIONARY EPOCn. . 159 the subjective element of thought, the mind thinking, (called the Relation of Knmoledge ;) the other arises from the objective element of thought, the thing thought about, (called the Relation of Existence.) ■ • The relation of Knaivledge arises from the reciprocal relation of the subject and the ob- ject of thought. Whatever comes into con- sciousness is thought, by us, as belonging to the mental self exclusively, or as belonging to the not-self exclusively, or as belonging partly to both. The relation of Existence arising from the object of thought is two-fold: this relation being sometimes intrinsic, and sometimes ex- trinsic ; according as it is determined by the qualitative or quantitative character of exist- ence. Existence conceived as substance and quality, presents the intrinsic relation, called qitalitative; substance and quality are only* thought as mutual relatii-es inseparable in con- ception. We cannot think either separate from the other. All that has thus, ftir been said appHes to both mind and matter. The extrinsic relation of Existence is three- 160 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. fold; and as constituted by three species of quantity, it may be called quantitative. It is realized in or by the three quantities, time, space, and degree, called respectively, pro- tensive, extensive and intensive quantity. The notions of time and space are the neces- sary conditions of all positive thought. Posi- tive thought cannot be realized except in time and space. Degree is not, like time and space, an absolute condition of thought. Existence is not necessarily thought under degree. It applies only to quality and not to quantity; and only to quality, in a restricted sense which Sir William Hamilton has explicated in his doctrine of the qualities of bodies, di- viding them into primary, secundo-primary, and secondar}^ Of these conditions and their relations in their proper subordinations and co-ordinations Sir William has presented a table, which he calls the Alphabet of Thought. Out of the condition of relativity springs the science of metaphysics^ just as we have indicated that logic springs out of the condi- tion of non-contradiction. Thus the respec- tive roots of the two great cognate branches REACTIONARY EPOCH. IGl of philosophy are traced to their psychological bases in the alphabet of thought. We will now exhibit the metaphysical doc- trine, which Sir William Hamilton educes from the analysis of thought which we have endeavoured to present. And here he elevates the philosophy of common sense into the philo- sophy of the conditioned, borrowing this ap- pellation from the different point of view from which philosophy is considered. The former a23pellation is derived from a psychological point of view, the latter from a metaphysical — the former from a subjective, the latter from an objective. It is sufficiently apparent that the condi- tion of relativity limits our knowledge. This is the fundamental fact which it is proposed to establish. It is proposed to show that of the absolute we have no knowledge, but only of the relative. This is the whole scope of the philosophy of the conditioned. With a view of showing the argument from the philosophy of the conditioned, let us turn, for a moment, to the philosophy of the absolute, the unconditioned, which is the reverse doctrine, and for the refutation of 162 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. which the conditions of the thinkable are adduced as a basis. From the dawn of philosophy in the school of Elea, the absolute, the infinite, the uncon- ditioned has been the highest principle of speculation. The great master amongst an- cient philosophers, Aristotle, in accordance with the general drift of his philosophy, denied that the Infinite is even an object of thought, much less of knowledge. And that profound, and subtle, but perverse and paradoxical genius, Kant, who, towards the close of the eighteenth century, made the first serious attempt ever made, to investigate the nature and origin of the notion of the Infi- nite, maintained that the notion is merely regulative of our thoughts; and declared the Infinite to be utterly beyond the sphere of our knowledge. But out of the philosophy of Kant, from a hidden germ, grew a more extravagant theory of the absolute than any which had before perplexed and astounded the practical reason of man. It was main- tained by Fichte and Schelling — who fell back on the ancient notion, that experience, because conversant only about the phenome- KEACTIONARY EPOCH. 163 » nal and transitory, is unworthy of the name of philosophy as incapable of being a valid basis of certainty and knowledge — that man has a faculty of intellectual intuition which rises above the sphere of consciousness, as well as of sense, and enthroning the reason of man on the seat of Omniscience, with which it in fact becomes identified, surveys existence in its all-comprehensive unity and its all-pervading relations, and unveils to us the nature of God, and, by an ontological evolution, explains the derivation of all things, from the greatest to the very least. This philosophy captivated the brilliant and sympathetic genius of M. Cousin, of France, who strove to conciliate and harmo- nize it with the Scottish philosophy of expe- . rience as promulgated by Reid, with which M. Cousin had been imbued. He denied the intellectual intuition of the German philoso- phers, and claimed that the Infinite is given as a datum in consciousness along with its correlative the Finite; that these two notions, being necessarily thought as mutual relatives, must therefore be both equally objectively true. These two notions and their relations 164 PROGRESS or PHILOSOPHY. to each other are, at once, the elements and the laws of the reason of both man and God, and that all this is realized in and through consciousness. This theory M. Cousin pro- claimed as a powerful eclecticism, which con- ciliated not only what had been before con- sidered counter and hostile in the reflections of individual philosophers, but also, in the different systems of philosophy preserved in the history of the science. Thus, the history of philosophy, with its various systems, was shown to be but the growth of one regularly developed philosophy, gradually culminating towards that one consummate knowledge com- pleted in the all-comprehending eclecticism inaugurated, in the central nation of Europe, by M, Cousin in a splendour of discourse worthy of the grand doctrine which makes the proud rationalism of Germany acknow- ledge its doctrinal affiliation with the humble Scottish philosophy of observation. When this doctrine reached Scotland, Sir William Hamilton, at once, entered the great olympic of philosophical discussion, and stood forth, as the champion of the humble doctrine of REACTIONARY EPOCH. 165 cuinmon sense, against the host of continental thinkers. And now, for the first time in the history of philosophy, the doctrine of the Absolute, the Infinite, the Unconditioned, was made definite. It was shown, by Sir William Hamilton, that so far from the Absolute and the Infinite meaning the same thing or no- tion, they were contradictory opposites; the Absolute meaning the unconditional affirma- tion of limitation, while the Infinite means the unconditional negation of limitation — the one thus an affirmative, the other a negative. And he further showed, that both were but species of the unconditioned. The question being thus purified from the inaccuracy of language and the confusion of thought; and it being shown that the unconditioned must present itself to the human mind in a plural form; it was seen that the inquiry resolves itself into the problem, whether the uncon- ditioned, as either the Absolute or the Infinite can be realized to the mind of man. Sir William Hamilton shows that it cannot. He demonstrates that in order to think either alternative, we must think away from those 14 166 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. conditions of thought under which thought can alone be reahzed; and that, therefore, any attempt to think either the Absolute or the Infinite must end in a mere negation of thought. These notions are thus shown to be the results of two counter imbecihties of the mind — the mabihty to reahze the uncon- ditionally limited, and the unconditionally unlimited. The doctrine of M. Cousin is shown to be assumptions, inconsequent, and self-contradictory. His Infinite is shown to be, at best, only an Indefinite, and therefore a relative. And it is shown, by a compre- hensive application of the AristoteHc doctrine, that the knowledge of ojDposites is one, that so far from the fact, of the notions of the In- finite and Finite mutually suggesting each other, furnishing evidence of the objective reality of both, it should create a susj)icion of the reverse. The truth is, the searching analysis, to which the doctrine of M. Cousin is subjected, clearly evinces that he did not at all apprehend the state of the question discussed, and in fact was confusing himself in a vicious circle of words. And the Intellectual Intuition of Fichte and REACTIONARY EPOCH. 167 Sclielling is sliowii to be a mere chimera ; and his Absolute, a mere nothing. As Schelling could never connect his Absolute with the Finite in any doctrinal affiliation, so he was unaljle to discover any cognitive transition from the Intellectual Intuition to personal consciousness. This hiatus in his theory could not, of course, escape the penetrating sagacity of Sir Wilham Hamilton. It was at once demonstrated as the Intellectual Intui- tion is out of and above consciousness, and to be realized, the philosopher must cease to be the conscious man Schelling, that if even the Intellectual Intuition were possible, still it could only be remembered, and ex hypotliesi, it could not be remembered, for memory is only possible under the conditions of the understanding which exclude the Absolute from knowledge. By this analysis the AIjso- lute is shown to be a mere mirage in the infinite desert of negation, conjured up by a self-delusive imagination, conceiting itself wise above the possibilities of thought. It may also be argued against the Intellectual Intuition, that it is only through the organ- ism of sense, that the mind realizes form, the 168 PROaRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. image of an object; for consciousness in and of itself is not an imaging faculty. Now the Intellectual Intuition realizes image in the Absolute. It therefore partakes of the cha- racter of sensation; and it, in fact, by this analysis stands revealed as a sublimated sense postulated, by reason overleaping itself, in the attempt to clear the circle of the think- able. The doctrine of the Absolute is thus proved to be a sensational philosophy, dis- guised under terms of supposed high spiritual import. And thus, it is demonstrated, that to abandon consciousness as the highest faculty, is to necessitate a fall into sensuism, though we imagine, all the while, we are soar- ing on the wings of reason, above the region of consciousness. Schelling and Condillac are thus found in the darkness of a common error listening to the same oracle. And this analysis is confirmed, by the fact, that Oken, who, next to Ilegel, was the most distin- guished disciple of Schelling, in his Physio- Philosophy, makes the Absolute nothing, zero; and then, by pure reason, evolves, out of it, all physics; thus ascribing to a faculty, above consciousness, the imaging power of the senses. REACTIONARY EPOCH. 169 And Oken thus enthrones the physical sci- ences, as he imagines, on a seat above con- sciousness, when it is, in fact, the footstool of consciousness, the senses, on which they sit the while.* Thus was trampled down, this proud doc- trine which had misled speculation; and phi- losophy was again brought back from its aberrations into the sober paths of common sense. And never before did so mighty a champion lead it. For whatever else may be thought, in comparing Sir William Hamil- ton with other philosophers, it must be ad- * It is true that Sclielling makes the manner of know- ing the absolute presentative, by the fiction of an in- tellectual intuition emancipated from the conditions of time and space, while Hegel makes this manner of know- ing representative, by the fiction of a logical reason emancipated from the laws of thought. Yet I am right in saying that the intellectual intuition, if possible, must possess an imaging power and therefore is sensational ; because in knowing the absolute, imagination and con- ception must concur, for the absolute must be considered individual. It may be said however, that the intellec- tual intuition assumes that both conception and imagina- tion do not belong to its manner of knomng. This is only further evidence that it is a fiction. 14* 170 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. mitted that as a man of hostilities, a dialec- tician and a critic, he is altogether matchless. Having given an all-comprehensive example of the argument from the philosophy of the conditioned, we will now proceed to expound, in outline, the philosophy of the conditioned. The distinguishing feature of this philosophy, the one which most articulately enounces its character, is the doctrine of a mental Impo- tence. This doctrine we will now expound. The problem most fruitful of controversy in philosophy is that of the distinction between experiential and non-experiential notions and judgments. Some philosophers contend that there is no such distinction ; but that all legi- timate notions and judgments are experien- tial. And those who have admitted the dis- tinction have quarrelled about the criterion of the distinction. Leibnitz, at last, established the quality of necessity, the necessity of so thinking, as the criterion of our non-experi- ential notions and judgments. Afterwards Kant, in his Critic of Pure Reason, developed and applied this criterion. And it may now be considered as the acknowledged test of our unacquired cognitions amongst those who ad- REACTIONARY EPOCU. * 171 • mit that there are non-experiential notions and judgments. Now, it is in relation to this fundamental distinction, that Sir William Hamilton has developed the philosophy of the conditioned. He admits that we have non- experiential notions and judgments, (we pre- fer to call the two classes of notions and judgments, 'prhnary and secondary^ as we think both classes, from a certain point of view, can appropriately be considered as ex- periential in a restricted sense,) and he con- curs with Leibnitz and Kant, that necessity is their distinctive quality. But then, he main- tains that the doctrine, as developed by all previous philosophers, is one-sided, when it should be two-sided. And the side of the doctrine, which philosophers have overlooked, is the important one. The doctrine, as here- tofore enounced and recognized, is that the necessity is a positive one, so to thinA; and is determined by a mental power. But Sir Wil- liam Hamilton considers, and very justly, that this is only half of the truth, and the least important half; because this necessity is never illusive, never constrains to error; while the necessity which he indicates is naturally 172 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. illusive. His doctrine is, that this necessity is both positive and negative : " The one, the necessity of so thinking (the impossibility of not so thinking,) determined by a mental power, the other the necessity of not so think- ing (the impossibility of so thinking,) deter- mined by a mental impotence." This negative necessity, which has been overlooked by phi- losophers, plays an important part on the theatre of thinking. It is to the development of its function in our mental economy, that the philosophy of the conditioned is directed. As philosophy stood, the very highest law of intelligence, wliich asserts that of two contra- dictories, both cannot, but one must, be true, led continually to the most pervasive and fundamental errors. Because when one alter- native was found incogitable, the mind imme- diately recoiled to the conclusion that the other contradictory must be true. When, for example, in examining the doctrine of the will, it was discovered that the freedom of the will was incomprehensible, could not be spe- culatively construed to the mind, the inquirer immediately recoiled to the alternative, of the necessity of human actions ; and so on the REACTIONARY EPOCU. 173 other hand, when the necessity of the will was found incogitable, the inquirer fell back upon the alternative of liberty. So that phi- losophers, like Milton's fallen angels, had " _ reason'd high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fixt fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute. And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." Thus the negative necessity, of not so tldnl^ ing, which was not ever even suspected to exist, had been a source of constant errors utterly incapable of solution. But Sir Wil- liam Hamilton has discovered, that we may be negatively unable to think one contradic- tory, and yet find ourselves equally impotent to conceive the opposite. To this fundamental psychological fact he has applied the highest law of intelligence, that of two contradictories , one must of necessity he true; and that there- fore, there is no ground for inferring a fact to be impossible, merely from our inability to conceive its possibility. And thus is disclosed the hidden rock on which speculation, in its highest problems, had foundered. The philosophy of the conditioned is the development and application of this Negative 174 PROaRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. Necessity in combination with the Positive. In order to give precision to the doctrine of the conditioned, the conditions of the thinka- ble are evoked and systematized under the two fundamental categories of positive and negative thinking. And these categories are themselves subdivided in order to bring out their import in generic instances of their ap- plication in practical thought. These condi- tions of the thinkable we have exhibited; but it now becomes necessary to recur to them, for the needs of the discussion and exposition on which we now enter. The most important and comprehensive question in metaphysics is, The origin and nature of tJie causal judgmeiit. No less than seven theories had been propounded on the problem ; and now, Sir William Hamilton has propounded an eighth, entirely new. He at- tempts to resolve the causal judgment into a modification of the law of the conditioned, which is so obtrusive in his view of philoso- phy. He makes the causal judgment a mere inability to think an absolute beginning: — a mere necessity to deny that the object, which we apprehend as beginning to be, REACTIONARY EPOCH. 175 really so begins: — an inaljility to construe it in thought, as possible, that the comple- ment of existence has been increased or di- minished : — a mere necessity to ailhnn the identity of its present sum of being, with the sum of its past existence. The supposed connection between cause and effect is in its last analysis, resolved into a mental im- potence, the result of the law of the condi- tioned. It is manifest, that in this theory, the fact of our inability to conceive the complement of existence, either increased or diminished, is the turning point in the question. That, because we are unable to construe it, in thought, that such increase or diminution is possible, we are constrained to refund the pre- sent sum of existence into the previous sum of existence, is given as an explanation of the causal judgment. Now, it seems to us that this solution avoids the important element in the phenomenon to be explained. The question in nature, is not whether the present complement of existence had a previous existence — has just begun to be? but, how comes its new appearance? 176 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY, The obtrusive and essential element, is the neic appearance, the change. This is the fact which elicits the causal judgment. To the change is necessarily prefixed, by the under- standing, a cause or potence. The cause is the correlative to the change, elicited in thought and posited in nature. The question as to the origin of the sum of existence, does in no way intrude into consciousness, and is not mvolved in the causal judgment. Such a question may, of course, be raised ; and then the theory of Sir Wilham Hamilton is a true account of what would take place in the mind. And this is the question, which, it seems to us, Sir William has presented as the problem of the causal judgment. His statement of the problem is this : " When aware of a new ap- pearance, we are iinahle to conceive that therein has originated any new existence, and are therefore constrained to think that what now appears to us under a new form, had previously an existence under others — others conceivable by us or not. We are utterly unable to construe it in thought, as possible that the complement of existence has been increased or diminished." REACTIONARY EPOCH. 177 This seems to us, not a proper statement of the problem of causation. This problem does not require the complement of existence to be accounted for ; but the new form to be ac- counted for; and a new form must not be confounded with an entirely neio existence. Causation must be discriminated from crea- tion; in the first, clianrje only, in the last, the complement of existence, is involved. If we attempt to solve the problem of creation, the notion of an absolute beginning is involved; consequently, a negative impotence is expe- rienced, as we cannot think an absolute be- ginning, and we would fall back on the notion of causation — would stop short at the causal judgment, unable to rise to a higher cognition — the cognition of creation. The causal judgment consists in the neces- sity we are under of prefixing in thought a cause to every change, of which we think. Now change implies previous existence ; else it is not change. Of what does it imply the previous existence ? Of that which is changed, and also of that by which the change is eftect- ed. Now change is effect. It is the result of an operation. Operation is cause (potence) 15 178 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. realizing itself in effect. It seems to us, by this somewhat tautological analysis, that cause and effect necessarily imply each other, both in nature and in thought. Causality is thought both as a law of things and a law of intelli- gence. When we attempt to separate effect from cause, in our thought, contradiction emerges. It is realized to consciousness in every act of will, and in every act of positive thinking as both natural and rational. Cause and effect are related to each other, as terms in thought, as well as realities in existence. Causality is primarily natural, secondarily rational. The Avoof of reasoning, into wdiich its notion is Avoven, has the two threads of the material and the rational running toge- ther, by which existence and thought are harmonized into truth ; the objective respond- ing to the subjective. If this were not the law of material thinking, we do not see how there could be any consecutive thinking about nature. The notion of cause always leads thought in material reasoning — always deter- mines the mental conclusion, as the notion of reason does in formal or pure reasoning. The law of cause and effect is, in material thought, KEAOTIONARY ErOCH. 179 what the law of reason and consequent is in formal thought. It is doubtless true, that the negative impo- tence to think an absolute beainnin"; necessa- rily connects in thought present with past existence; and as all change must take place in some existence, the change itself is con- nected in thought with something antecedent; and, therefore, the mind is necessitated by the negative impotence to predicate something antecedent to the change. But, then, as a mere negative impotence cannot yield an athr- mative judgment, it cannot connect present with past existence, in the relation of cause and effect, but only in sum of existence which it is unable to think either increased or dimi- nished. The causal judgment is determined by a mental power elicited into action by an observed change, and justified thereby as an affirmation of a potence evinced in the changed existence; and it matters not whether the change be the result of many concurring causes, or of one; still the notion of potence cannot but be thouirht as involved in the phenomenon. When we see a tree shivered to atoms by a flash of lightning, it is difficult 180 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. to be convinced, that the causal judgment elicited by the phenomenon, is merely the impotence to think an absolute beginning. We are conscious that we are the authors of our own actions; and this is, to be con- scious of causation in ourselves. But if we attempt to analyze this fact in consciousness by considering it as made up of two elements related in time, we confuse ourselves by the impotence to conceive any causal nexus be- tween the supposed antecedent and conse- quent. The fact is, that they are a simulta- neous deliverance of consciousness realizing an antithesis in one inseparable act; because cause and effect are never realized separately, but conjointly. Efficiency is twofold, partly cause, partly effect, and cannot be thought otherwise without contradiction. Cause is thus thought as an indefinite, as not having either an absolute beginning or ending. Ab- solute beginning is not more necessary to the notion of cause than to that of time. Both are thought as quantities, and though both are tliounht as indetcrminates, like all inde- terminates, are capable of a determinate ap- REACTIONARY EPOCH. 181 plication. And while realized as particular, they are thought as universal. We are prone to postulate principles more absolutely than they are warranted by nature. Therefore it is, that the subtleties of nature so often drop through the formulas of the logician; and he retains in their stead ab- stractions not corresponding with existence. Excessive study of formal logic tends to lessen the capacity for appreciating the imports of intuition. The apodictic character of logical ( relations is so different from that of mere material relations, that a mind, long addicted ■ to the estimation of the former, cannot but { contract a fallacious bias somewhat like tliat^ of the mere analytical mathematician, but of ? course to a much less degree. And on the other hand, a metaphysician, who like Locke, is deficient in a knowledge of logic, and un- practised in its precise -distinctions and forms, becomes loose, inconsequent, and contradictious in his opinions. We venture to suggest, that the former of these biases is apparent in the application of the law of the conditioned to the causal judgment, by Sir William Hamilton. lie postulates it too unrpialifiedly. 15* 182 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. The doctrine of the conditioned rescues thouo'ht from otherwise insoluble contradic- / tions, by carrying up the contradictory phe- ' nomena into a common principle of limitation , of our faculties. For example : If we attempt to think an absolute beginning, we find it im- possible; and on the other hand, if we at- tempt to think its contradictory opposite, an infinite non-beginning, we find it equally in- cogitable. If therefore, both be received as positive affirmative deliverances of our intelli- gence, then our minds testify, by necessity, to lies. But the philosophy of the conditioned emphatically forbids us to confound, as equiva- lent, non-existence with incogitability; be- cause it does not make the human mind the measure of existence, but just the reverse. It postulates as its fundamental principle, that the incogitable may and must be necessarily true upon the acknowledged highest principle of intelligence, that of two contradictories one must, but both cannot be true. Thus by carrying up these contradictions into the com- mon principle of a limitation of our faculties, intelligence is shown to be feeble, but not false; and the contradictory phenomena are REACTIONARY EPOCH. 183 rescued from contradiction, hy showing that one must be true. And by this doctrine, the . moral responsibility of man is vindicated from all cavil. Thus while the liberty of the will • is inconceivable, so is its contradictory oppo- • site, the necessity of human actions. As then, these two negations are at e({uipoise, and can neither prove nor disprove anything, the testi- mony of consciousness, that we are, though we know not how, the real and responsible authdrs of our actions, gives the affirmance to our accountability. And out of this moral germ springs the root of the argument for the existence of God, Avhich combined with the lately too much disparaged argument from design,'^' constitutes a valid basis for the doc- trine of natural Theology. Thus are vindi- cated, by this now development of the philo- sophy of common sense, the great truths of . * The evidences of design in nature have, in all ages and with all orders of minds, done more to uphold natu- ral, or rational theology than all other evidences put together. The argument founded in our moral nature, so much in vogue with those who aspire to the subtleties of Kant, is wholly incompetent without the argument from design to coiToborale it. 184 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. our practical reason, as they have been called ; and speculation and practice are reconciled. And the doctrine that God is incognizable is demonstrated ; and that it is only through the analogy of the human with the divine nature, that we are percipient of the existence of God. Power and knowledsxe, and virtue cognized in ourselves, and tending to consummation, re- veal the notion of God. For unless all ana- logy be rejected, the mind must believe in that first cause, which hy the limited nature of our fjiculties we cannot l'nou\ In the lan- guage of the great Puritan divine, John Owen : "All the rational conceptions of the minds of men are swallowed up and lost, when they would exercise themselves directly on that which is absolutely immense, eternal, infinite. When we say it is so, we know not what we say, but only that it is not otherwise. What we deny of God we kiit)w in some measure — but wdiat we affirm we know not; only we declare what avc believe and adore." While therefore, this ])liil()sopliy confines our knowlech/e U) tlie conditioned, it leaves \faitli free about the unconditioned; indeed constrains us to ])elieve in it, by the highest REACTIONARY EPOCH. 185 law of our intcllitrcncc. This fundamental truth of his philosophy Sir William Hamilton has enounced in this comprehensive canon : "Thou<;ht is possible only m the c(mditioned interval between two unconditioned contra- dictory extremes or ]wles, each of which is altogether inconceivable, but of which, on tlie principle of Excluded Middle, the one or the other is necessarily true." As therefore the unconditioned, as we have seen, presents itself to the human mind, under a plural form of contradictory opposites, as either the absolute or the infinite, the problem comes under this canon, and the unconditioned is established as a verity, incognizable but helievahle. Thus,, in the very fact of the limitation of our know- ledge, is discovered the alfirmation, by thej highest law of our intelligence, of the trans- cendent nature of faith. There is no ])]iilo-y sophy, which in its spirit, its scope, and its doctrines, both positive and negative, so con- ciliates and u]>liolds revealed religion, as that which is based on this great canon of Meta- physics. The conditions on which revelation with its complement of doctrines, is offered to 18G PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. our belief, are precisely those which this canon enounces. Having exhibited an outline of what Sir William Hamilton has done for Metaphysics, we will now proceed to show what he has done for Logic. Li what we have said about the relation, which the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton bears to that of Bacon, we, by no means, in- tend to affirm, that there is much intellectual sympathy between the two great thinkers. It is quite otherwise. Bacon was preemi- nently objective, exhausting his great powers chiefly in the field of physics, because, in his time, there lay the needs of truth; while Hamilton, rather turning his back on physics, because of their now extravagant cultivation, is supremely subjective, throwing his vast energies upon inquiries in the province of in- tellectual philosophy. And though Sir William Hamilton does not directly dis2)arage the la- bours of Bacon, yet he vaunts those of Des Cartes at then' expense, and certainl}' nowhere does those of ]5acon justice. But still the phil(jHophies of Bacon and of Hamilton are concordant developments of the one philosophy REACTIONARY EPOCH. 187 of common sense, and are affiliated in unity of fundamental doctrine. Bacon is the fore- runner, in that great intellectual movement, to which Hamilton has communicated such a mighty energy of thought, contributed the liiiht of such vast erudition, and adduced such stringent historical proofs of its perennial ex- istence. It is the inductive branch of Logic with its kindred doctrines, which Sir William Hamilton has brought out into bold relief, from the subordination in which it was held by Aristotle : while, at the same time, he has so developed, and simplified by a completer analysis, the deductive branch, that the Stagi- rite only retains his superior fame by being the precursor. And it is, by his successful labours upon these two great branches of LoQ;ic, that Sir William Hamilton conciliates the philosophies of Aristotle and Bacon; and gives to modern thought a force of reasoning, through the practical application of nicer dis- criminations of the forms of thought, and more adequate logical expression, which elevates this century to a higher intellectual platform. All this shall sufliciently appear in the se- quel. » V 188 , PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. When, in the year 1833, Sir WiUiam Ha- milton published in the Edinburgh Review, his criticism on Whately's Logic, there was pre- valent in Britain, total ignorance of the higher logical philosophy. The treatise of Whately was the highest logical standard ; which, though in ability it is much above mediocrity, in erudition is far below the literature of the subject. The article of Sir William elevated the views of British logicians above the level of Whately, and gave them glimpses of a higher doctrine. But the chief service ren- dered by this masterly criticism, was the pre- cision with which it defined the nature and the object matter of logic, and discriminated the whole subject doctrinally and historically, in the concentrated light of its literature. The treatise of Whately presents indistinct, ambiguous and even contradictory views of the proper object matter of logic. Sometimes it makes the process or operation of reason- ing, the total matter about which logic is con- versant; at other times, it makes logic en- tirely conversant about language. Now, though it involves a maniiest contradiction to say, that logic is exclusively conversant about REACTIONARY EPOCH. 189 each of two opposite things, yet Whately was praised, by British logicians for the clearness with which he dispLayed the true nature and oihce of logic. In the low state of logical knowledge in Britain, which these facts indi- cate, it behooved whoever undertook to point out Whatelv's blunders to enter into the most elementary discussion of logic, both name and thing. This Sir William Hamilton did in the article now under consideration. Aristotle designated logic by no single terra. He employed difierent terms to designate par- ticular parts or applications of logic ; as is shown by the names of his several treatises. In fact, Aristotle did not look at logic from any central point of view. And, indeed, his treatises are so overladen with extralogical matter, as to show that the true theoretical view of logic as an independent science had not disclosed itself to its great founder. In fact, it has only been gradually, that the pro- per view of the science has been speculative- ly adopted — practically it never has been; and no contribution to the literature of the subject has done so much to discriminate the true domain of logic, as this article of Sir 16 190 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. William Hamilton. It marks an era in the science. Mounting up to the father of logic himself, it showed that nineteen-twentieths of his logical treatises, treat of matters that transcend logic considered as a formal science. It is shown that the whole doctrine of the modality of syllogisms does not belong to logic ; for if any matter, be it demonstrative or probable, be admitted into logic, none can be excluded. And thus, with the considera- tion of the real truth or falsehood of proposi- tions, the whole body of real science must come within the domain of logic, obliterating all distinction between formal and real infer- ence. The doctrine maintained in this article is, that logic is conversant about the laws of thought considered merely as thought. The import of this doctrine we will now attempt to unfold. The term thought is used in several significations of very different extent. It is sometimes used to designate every mental modification of which we are conscious, in- cluding will, feeling, desire. It is sometimes used in the more limited sense of every cogni- tive fact, excluding will, feeling, desire. In REACTIONARY EPOCH. 191 its most limited meaning, it denotes only the acts of the understanding or faculty of com- parison or relation, called also the discursive or elaborative faculty. It is in this most re- stricted sense that the word tlioiujit is used in relation to logic. Logic supposes the mate- rials of thought already in the mind, and only considers the manner of their elaboration. And the operation of the elaborative faculty on these materials is what is meant by iliowjlit jproper. And it is the laws of thought, m this, its restricted sense, about which logic is conversant. It must be further discriminated, that logic is conversant about thought as a product, and not about the producing operation or process; this belongs to psychology. Logic, therefore, in treating of the laws of thought, treats of them in regard to thought considered as a product. What, then, is thought ? In other Avords, wdiat are the acts of the elaborative faculty? They are three, conception, judg- ment, reasoning. These are all acts of com- parison — gradations of thought. Of these, as producing acts, psychology treats. Logic treats of the products of these, called respect- 192 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. ivelj, a concept, a judgment, a reasoning. The most articulate enunciation, therefore, of the intrinsic nature of logic is, the science of the formal laws of thought considered as a pro- duct, and not as a process. But we will show still further what a form of thought is. In an act of thinking there are three things, which we can discriminate in consciousness. First, there is a thinking subject ; second, an object which Ave think, called the matter of thought ; and third, the relation subsisting between the subject and oljject of which we are conscious — a relation always manifested in some mode or manner. This last is the form of thought. Now logic takes account only of this last — the form of thought. In so far as the form of thought is viewed in relation to the subject, as an act, operation, or energy , it belongs to psychology. It is only in reference to what is thought about, only considered as a product, that the form of the act, or operation, or energy, has relation to logic. With this explanation, we will now enounce the laws of thought, of which logic is the science. REACTIONARY EPOCH. 193 In treating of the conditions of the think- able, as systematized by Sir William Hamil- ton, we have pointed out the fact, that it is shown, that logic springs out of the condition of non-contradiction ; for that this condition is brought to bear only under three phases constituting three laws : 1st, the law of Iden- tity ; 2d, the law of Contradict km ; od, the law of Excluded Middle: of which laws logic is the science. Of these laws we will treat in their order, and explicate the import or logical significance of each. The principle of Idenlity expresses the rela- tion of total sameness, in which, a product of the thinking faculty, be it concept, judgment, or reasoning, stands to all, and the relation of partial sameness, in which it stands to ea(;h, of its constituent characters. This principle is the special application of the absolute equi- valence of the whole and its parts taken to- gether, applied to the thinking of a thing, by the attribution of its constituent or distinctive characters. In the [)redicate, the whole is contained explicitly, and in the subject im- plicitly. The logical signilicance of the law 16* 194 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. lies in this — that it is the principle of all logi- cal affirmation — of all logical definition. The second law, that of Contradiction, is this : What is contradictory is unthinkable. Its principle may be thus expressed: When a concept is determined by the attribution or affirmation of a certain character, mark, note, or quality, the concept cannot be thought to be the same when such character is denied of it. Assertions are mutuall}' contradictory, when the one affirms that a thing possesses, or is determined b}', the characters which the other affirms it does not possess or is not determined by. The logical significance of this law con- sists in its being the principle of all logical negation, or distinction. The laws of Identity and Contradiction are co-ordinate and reciprocally relative: and nei- ther can be deduced from the other ; for each supposes the other. The third law, called the principle of Ex- cluded Middle, embraces that condition of tliought which compels us, of two contradic- tory notions (which cannot both exist by the law of contradiction) to think either the one or the other as existing. By the laws of Iden- REACTIONARY EPOCH. 105 titi/ and Contratlicilon, we are warranted to conclude from the truth of one contradictory to the falsehood of the other; and by the law of Excluded Middle, we are warranted to con- clude from the falsehood of one, to the truth of the other. The logical significance of this law consists in tliis — that it determines that, of two forms given in the laws of Idcut'dij and Cordradlction, and by these laws aftirmed as those exclusively possible, that of these two only possible forms, the one or the other must be aflirmed, as necessary, of every object. This law^ is the principle of disjunctive judg- ments, which stand in such mutual relation, that the aflirmation of the one is the denial of the other. . v, , These tliree laws stand to each other in re- lation like the three sides of a triangle. They are not the same, not reducible to unity, yet each giving, in its own existence, that of the other. They form one principle in different aspects. These laws are but phases of that condition of the thinkable which stipulates for the abso- lute absence of non-contradiction. Whatever, therefore, violates these laws is impossible not 196 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. only in thought but in existence; and they thus determine, for us, the sphere of possi- bihty and impossibility, not merely in thought but in reality. They are therefore not wholly logical but also metaph^^sical. To deny the universal application of these laws is to sub- vert the reality of thought; and as the sub- version would be an act of thought, it annihi- lates itself. They are therefore insuperable. There is a fourth law which is a corollary of these three primary laws, called the law of Reason and Consequent, which is so obtru- sive in our reasoning that it needs to be spe- ciallv considered. The logical siGrnificance of this law lies in this, that in virtue of it, thought is constituted into a series of acts in- dissolubly connected, each necessarily infer- ring the other. The mind is necessitated to this or that determinate act of thinking, by a knowledge of something different from the thinking process itself That which deter- mines the mind is called the reason, tliat to which the mind is determined is called the conse([uent, and the relation between the two is called the consequence. By reason of our intelligent nature, there is a necessary de- p REACTIONARY EPOCH. 197 pendence of one notion upon another, from whieli all logical inference results as an inevi- table consequent. This inference is of two kinds. It must proceed, from the whole to the parts, or i'roni the parts to the whole. When the determining notion (the reason) is conceived as a whole containing (under it) and therefore necessitating the determined notion (the consequent) conceived as its cow- tained pari or jyarts, argumentation proceeds, by mental analysis, from the w^hole to the parts into which it is separated. When the determining notion is conceived as the parts constituting, and therefore necessitating the determined notion conceived as the consti- tuted whole, argumentation proceeds, by men- tal synthesis, from the parts to the whole. The process from the whole to the parts is called deductive reasoning; the other process, from the parts to the whole, is called induc- tive reasoning. There is therefore in logic a deductive syllogism and an inductive syllo- gism. The former is governed by the rule : — What belongs (or does not belong) to the contain- ing whole, belongs [or does not belong) to each and all of the contained parts. The latter by 198 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. the rule: — What belongs (or does not helony) to all the constituent parts, belongs [or does not ''belong) to the constituted whole. These rules exclusively determine all formal inference; whatever transcends or violates them, trans- cends or violates logic. Sir William Hamilton was the first to dis- criminate accurately the difference between the deductive and inductive syllogism. All that had been said by logicians, except Aris- totle, and he is brief, and by no means unam- biguous, on logical induction, is entirely erro- neous; for they all, including Whately, con- found logical or formal induction, with that which is philosophical, and material, and ex- tralogical. They consider logical induction not as governed by the necessary laws of thought, but as determined by the probabili- ties of the sciences from which the matter is borrowed. All inductive reasoning logical and material proceeds from the parts (singu- lars) to the whole (universal:) but in the formal or subjective, the illation is different from that in the material or objective. In the former, the illation is founded on the ne- cessary laws of thought; in the latter, on the REACTIONARY EPOCH. 199 general or particul.'ir analogies of nature. The logician knows no prin('ii)lc, but the ne- cessary laws of thought. Ilis conclusions are necessitated, not presumed. All tliis confusion was produced by the in- troduction, into formal logic, of various kinds of matter. Aristotle himself, corrupted logic in this way; and Sir WiUiani Hamilton has been the first to expel entirely this foreign element, and to purify logic from the result- ing errors, though Kant had done much towards the same result. When we reflect, that the only legitimate illation in formal logic, is that regulated by the law of reason and consequent, which connects thought into a reciprocally dependent series, each necessarily inferring the other, it is, at once, manifest, that the distinction of matter into possible, actual, and necessary, is a doctrine wholly extralogical. Logical illation never differs in degree — never falls below that of absolute necessity. The necessary laws of thought constraining an inevitable illation, are the only principle known to the logician. We have just seen that Sir William Hamil- ton is the first to signalize the fact, that reason- 200 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. ing from the parts to the whole, is just as ne- cessary, and exclusive of material considera- tions, as reasoning from the whole to the parts. And he has evolved the laws of the Inductive Syllogism, and correlated them wdth those of the Deductive Syllogism. We now proceed to another important addi- * tion which he has made to logic. He has ^ shown that there are two logical wholes, in- stead of one, as the logicians had supposed. These two wholes are the whole of Compre- hension, called by Sir William, Depth, and the whole of Extension, called by him, ^ Breadth. These two w^holes are in an in- verse ratio of each other. The maximum of depth and the minimum of breadth are found in the concept of an individual (which in re- ality is not a concept, but only a single repre- sentation;) while the mininium of breadth and the maximum of depth is found in a simple concept — the concept of being or existence. Now, the depth of notions affords one of two branches of reasoning, which, though over- looked by logicians, is, at least, equally im- portant as that afforded by their l)readth, which alone has been developed by the lo- REACTIONARY EPOCH. 201 gicians. The character of the former is that the predicate is contained in the siihject ; of the latter, that the subject is contained under the predicate. All reasoning, therefore, is either from the whole to the parts, or from the parts to the whole, in breadth; or from the whole to the parts, or from the parts to the whole, in depth. The quantity of breadth is the creation of the mind, the quantity of depth is at once given in the very nature of things. The former therefore is factitious, the latter is natural. The same proposition forms a different premise in these different quantities, they being inverse ratios; the Sumption in Breadth being the Subsumption in Depth. Another fundamental development of logic, made by Sir William, is that the Categorical Syllogism though mentally one (for all medi- ate inference is one and that categorical,) is either Analytic or Synthetic, from the ne- cessity of adopting the one order or the other, in compliance with that condition of language which requires that a reasoning be distin- guished into parts and detailed in order of sequence. Because explication is sometimes 17 . 202 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. better attained by an analytic and sometimes by a synthetic enouncement; as is shown in common language. The Aristotelic syllogism is exclusively synthetic. Sir William Hamil- ton thus relieves the syllogism from a one- sided view; and also rescues it from the ob- jection of Petitlo Principii or of an idle tau- tology, which has been so often urged against it. Such objection does not hold against the analytic syllogism, in which the conclusion is expressed first, and the premises are then stated as its reasons. And this form of reasoning being shown to be valid, the objec- tion of Petitio Principii is, at once, turned off as applicable only to the accident of the ex- ternal expression, and not to the essence of the internal thought. The analytic syllogism is not only the more natural, but is presupposed by the synthetic. It is more natural to ex- press a reasoning in this direct and simple way, than in the round-about synthetic way. We will next consider the most important doctrine, perhaps, which Sir William Hamil- ton has discovered in the domain of logic. Logicians had admitted that the subject of a proposition has a determinate quantity in REACTIONARY EPOCH. 203 thought, and this was, accordingly, expressed in language. But logicians had denied, that the predicate in propositions has a determinate quantit}^ Sir William Hamilton has, there- fore, the honour to have first disclosed the principle of the thorough-going quantification of the predicate, in its full significance, in both affirmative and negative propositions. By keeping constantly in view, that logic is conversant about the internal thought and not the external expression, he has detected more, of what it is common to omit in ex- pression, of that which is efficient in thought, than any other philosopher. Inferences, j udg- ments, problems, are often occult in the thought, which are omitted in the expres- sion. The purpose of common language is merely to exhibit ivith clearness the matter of thought. This is often accomplished best, by omitting the expression of steps in the mental process of thinking; as the minds of others will intuitively supply the omitted steps, as they follow the meaning of the elliptical ex- pression. This elliptical character of common language has made logicians overlook the quantification of the predicate. The purpose 204 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. of common language does not require the quantity to be expressed. Therefore, it was supposed, that there is no quantification in the internal thought. When we reflect that all thought is a comparison of less and more, of part and whole, it is marvellous that it should not have been sooner discovered that all thought must be under some determinate quantity. And, as all predication is but the expression of the internal thought, predica- tion must have a determinate quantity — the quantity of the internal thought. But such has been the iron rule of Aristotle, that, in two thousand years, Sir William Hamilton has been the first logician, who, while appre- ciating the labours of the Stagirite in this paramount branch of philosophy, has been, in no degree, enslaved by his authority, and has made improvements in, and additions to, logic, which almost rival those of the great founder of the science himself The office of logic is to exhibit, loith exact- ness, the form of thouglit, and therefore to sup- ply, in expression, the omissions of common language, whose purpose is merely to exliibit, with clearness, the matter of thought. Logic REACTIONARY EPOCH. 20-5 claims, therefore, as its fundamental postulate. That we he allmced to state, in lanrjiiage, icJiat is contained in t7iou(/7tf. This is exemplified in the syllogism, which is a logical statement of the form of thought in reasoning, supplying in expression, what has been omitted in com- mon language. Apply this rule to propo- sitions; and it is at once discovered, that the predicate is always of a given quantity in re- lation to the subject. Upon the principle of the quantification of the predicate. Sir William Hamilton has founded an entirely new analytic of logical, forms. The whole system of logic has been remodelled and simplified. The quantifica- tion of the predicate reveals, that the relation between the terms of a proposition is one not only of similarity, but of identity; and there being consequently an equation of subject and predicate, these terms are always necessarily convertible. So that simple conversion takes the place of the complex and erroneous doc- trine, with its load of rules. Heretofore taught by logicians. By the new analytic. Sir William Hamilton has also amplified logic. The narrower views 17* 206 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. of logicians, in accordance with which an un- natural art had been built up, have been superseded by a wider view commensurate with nature. Logic should exhibit all the forms of thought, and not merely an arbitrary selection; and especially where they are pro- claimed as all. The rules of the logicians ignore many forms of affirmation and nega- tion, which the exigencies of thinking require, and are constantly used, but have not been noted in their abstract generality. Accord- ingly, Sir William Hamilton has shown that there are eight necessary relations of propo- sitional terms; and, consequently, eight pro- positional forms performing peculiar functions in our reasonings, which are implicitly at work in our concrete thinking; and not four only, as has been generally taught. Logic has been rescued from the tedious minuteness of Aristotle, and his one-sided view, and from the trammels of technicality, and restored to the amplitude and freedom of the laws of thought. The analysis of Sir William Hamilton en- ables us also to discrimhiate the class, and to note the differential quality of each of those REACTIONARY EPOCH. 207 syllogisms, whose forms are dependent on the internal essence of thought, and not on the' contingent order of external expression, such as the disjunctive, hypothetical, and dilj[em- matic syllogism, and to show the special fun- damental law of thought by which each distinctive reasoning is more particularly regulated. And those forms of syllogism, which are dependent on the contingent order of the external expression embraced in the three figures of Aristotle, are expounded anew; and while their legitimacy is vindicated, the fourth figure, which has been engrafted on the system by some ahen hand, is shown to be a mere logical caprice. But we cannot particu- larize further. Li fact, the workshop of the understanding has been laid open, and the materials, the moulds, and the castings of thought, in all their variety of pattern have been exhibited, and the great mystery of thinking revealed by this great master, on wdiom the mantle of Aristotle has fallen in the nineteenth century. Logic may be discriminated into two grand divisions — the Doctrine of Elements, and the Doctrine of Method. Thought can only be 208 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. exerted under the general laws of Identit}^, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle, and Reason and Consequent; and through the general forms of concepts, judgments, and reasonings. These, therefore, in their abstract generality, are the elements of thought; and that part of logic, which treats of them, is the Doctrine of Elements. To this part of logic, we have thus far confined our remarks. And the writings of Sir William Hamilton treat only of this part of logic. But, in order to show the historical position of Sir William, and to exhibit the relation, which, we have said his philosophy bears to the philosophy of Aristotle and the philosophy of Bacon, as an initial, or step of progress towards harmonizing the logic of the one with the Method of the other, it becomes necessary to remark briefly upon the second part of Logic, the Doctrine of Method. Method is a regular procedure, governed by rules which guide us to a definite end, and guard us against aberrations. The end of Method is logical perfection, which consists in the perspicuity, the completeness, and the harmony of our knowledge. As we have REACTIONARY EPOCU. 209 shown, our knowledge supposes two condi- tions, one of which has relation to the think- ing subject, and supposes that what is known, is known clearly, distinctly, completely, and in connection ; the second has relation to what is known, and supposes that what is known, has a veritable or real existence. The former constitutes the logical, or formal perfection of knowledge ; the latter, the scientific, or mate- rial perfection of knowledge. Logic, as we have shown, is conversant about the form of thought only; it is, therefore, confined exclu- sively to the formal perfection of our know- ledge, and has nothuig to do with its scientific, or material truth, or perfection. Method, therefore, consists of such rules as guide to logical perfection. These rules are, defhiition, division, and concatenation, or probation. The doctrine of these rules is Method. Logic, as a system of rules, is only valu- able, as a mean, towards logic as a habit of the mind — a speculative knowledge of its doc- trines, and a practical dexterity with which they may be applied. Logic, therefore, both in the doctrine of elements and the doctrine of method, is discriminated into abstract or 210 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. pure, and into concrete or applied. We have thus far, only had reference to abstract or pure logic; and Sir Wilham Hamilton treats only of this. It becomes, however, necessary for our purpose, to pass mto concrete or ap- phed logic. Now, as the end of abstract, or pure logical method is merely the logical per- fection of our knowledge, having reference only to the thinkmg subject; the end of con- crete or applied logical method, is real or material truth, having reference only to the real existence of what is thought about. Con- crete logic is, therefore, conversant about the laws of thought, as modified by the empirical circumstances, internal and external, in which man thinks; and, also, about the laws under which the objects of existence are to be kno^vn. We beg our readers to remember these dis- tinctions, and that all that now follows is about concrete or applied logic. In order to show how the improvements and developments in formal logic, which we have exhibited, that have been made by Sir William Hamilton, conciliate the deductive, or explicative logic of Aristotle, with the in- ductive or ampliative logic of Bacon, it be- REACTIONARY EPOCH. 211 comes necessary to state the difference of the philosophical methods of the two philosophers. The great di(Kculty, with the ancient philo- sophers of the Socratic School, was to correlate logically, the a priori and the a posteriori ele- ments of our knowledge. The difhculty seems to have been suggested by the question, How can we know a thing for the first time? This question raised the doubt, that it is vain to search after a thing which Ave know not, since not knowing the object of our search, we should be ignorant of it when found, for we cannot recognize what we do not know. Plato, and Socrates perhaps, solved the difficulty by the doctrine, that to discover, or to learn, is but to remember what has been known by us' in a prior state of existence. Investigation was thus vindicated as a valid process ; and also a useful one, as it is important to recall to memory what has been forgotten. Upon this theory of knowledge, Plato made intellect, to the exclusion of sense, the faculty of scien- tific knowledge, and ideas or universals the sole objects of philosophical investigation. The Platonic philosophy, called, in this aspect of it, Dialectic, had for its object of investiga- 212 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. tion, the true nature of that connection which exists between each thing and the archetj'pal form or idea which makes it what it is, and to awaken the soul to a full remembrance of what had been kno^\Ti prior to being im- prisoned in the body. Aristotle made a great advance beyond Plato, towards correlating the a priori and a IMsteriori elements of our knowledge. He rejected the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, as uni- versals existing anterior to and separate from singulars; and thereby ignored the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence. Still, he did not extricate himself out of the difficulties which environed the problem of human knowledge. He seems to have believed in the existence of universals or forms, not apart from, but in, particulars or singulars. And to correspond with this metaphysical doctrine, he made both intellect and sense important faculties in science. He maintained an a priori know- ledge paramount to, but not exclusive of, the a posteriori. That while universals are kno^vn \ through the intellect, and implicitly contain particulars or singulars, yet we may be igno- rant of the singulars or particulars, until / ^ REACTIONARY EPOCH. 213 realized in and tlirougli sense; and that, therefore, though all knowing is through pre- / vious knowledge, yet the investigation of par-/ ticulars is not superfluous; because, while we | may know the universal, we may be ignorant / of the particular. Therefore, intellect and? sense combine in framing the fabric of our/ know^ledge. The Aristotelic method of investi2;ation is, i therefore, twofold, Deductive and Inductive;) the first allied w^th intellect and with uni-) versals, the latter allied with sense and with } particulars. Aristotle, in accordance with '' this doctrine of method, seems to have con- sidered syllogism proper, or deduction, no less ampliative than induction — that deductive in- ference did, in some way, assure us, or fortify our assurance of real truth. We greatly doul:>t whether he discriminated at all, the diflerence between formal and material infer- ence; we think that he rather referred all diflerence in the cogency of inference, to the diflerence of necessity or contingency in the matter. He, strangely enough, maintains for the syllogism proper, the power to deduce true conclusions from false premises. There- 18 214 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. fore, the syllogistic inference is not wholly dependent on the premises. And conse- quently, Deduction is not dependent on Induc- tion, whose office it is to supply the premises. This logical doctrine of Aristotle corresponds with his metaphysical, and his psychological doctrine. As he makes universals the para- mount object of science, and intellect its para- mount principle, so does he make syllogism the paramount process, and induction the in- ferior process in logic ; for though intellect is not with him as with Plato, the sole j)rinciple of science, but conjunct with sense, yet sense is logically subordinate to intellect. There are, according to his theory of knowledge, certain universal principles of knowledge ex- isting in the mind, rather as native generali- ties than as mere necessities of so thinking, which furnish the propositions for syllogism; therefore syllogism is not dependent for these on induction. It is nevertheless true, that according to the Aristotelic theory, there is perfect harmony between intellect and sense, between syllogism and induction. And though syllogism is the more intellectual, the more scientific; yet induction can be legitimately REACTIONARY EPOCH. 215 used as corroborative and complemental of syllogism, and particularly by weak minds, who can discern the universal in the particu- lars, but cannot apprehend it a priori as a native generality. It was because of this theory of knowledge, that induction iiolds so sulDordinate and inferior a place in the Aristo- telic logic. Whether our account of Aristotle's theory of knowledge be the true one or not, for there is much obscurity over his doctrine, it is never- theless certain, that Aristotle had a very im- perfect insight into induction as an objective process of investigation. And the slighting manner, in which he passes induction over, shows how little he appreciated it. He has made a crude and superficial distinction, which has been perpetuated to this day, be- tween the universals derived from induction, and universals derived from similars. In i other words, he has correlated induction and \ analogy as different kinds of reasoning. And all writers on logic, including, we suspect, even Sir AVilliam Hamilton,* still speak of. * Sir William's Class Lectures will, doubtless, give his opinions on this subject. 216 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. reasoning by induction, and reasoning by ana- logy. This, it seems to us, is a great confu- sion and error. We make induction the pro- cess, and analogy or similarity the evidence by which the illation is warranted. That analogy, which is the mere resemblance of relations, has nothing to do with philosophy; but only that analogy, which consists of an essential resemblance or similarity. The ten- dency to generalize our knowledge, by the judgment, that loliere j^9a?'//aZ resemhlance is found, total resemhlance loill he found, may be called, the principle of philosophical presump- tion. Upon this principle the objective pro- cess of induction is founded, by which we conclude from something observed, to some- thing not observed; from something within the sphere of experience, to something without its sphere. This principle of philosophical presumption, is brought to bear under two objective laws: the first proclaims, One in many, tlierefore one in all; the second pro- claims. Many in one, tlierefore all in one. Through the first law, we conclude from a certain attribute being possessed by many similar things or things of the same class, REACTIONARY EPOCU. 217 that the same attriljute is possessed by all similar things or things of the same class. Through tlie second law, we conclude from the partial similarity of two or more things in some respects, to their complete or total similarity. Both laws conclude to unity in totality; by the first, from the recognized unity in plurality; by the second, from the recognized plurality in unity. Both of the laws, it is very apparent, are phases of the principle of resemblance or analogy. To call the first of these laws induction, and the se- cond, analogy, as has been done, destroys the correspondence between abstract or pure, and concrete or applied logic. In abstract or pure logic, induction is recognized, but analogy not; therefore analogy cannot rest on the same basis with induction in concrete or ap- plied logic, else, like induction, it would have its counterpart in abstract logic. The theory of knowledge, which we have expounded as his, in which the a ]priori ele- ment is so paramount to the a posteriori, pre- vented Aristotle from having any but the shallowest insight into the scope of induction. The inevitable result of this was to make him 18* 218 PROaRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. slight observation tlirougli sense ; and to rely cliiefly on deduction from x^rincii^les supplied by the intellect. This was the cardinal vice of Plato, and also of Aristotle but not nearly to so great an extent. The philosophy, there- fore, of Aristotle, is rather the result of an analysis of the contents of language, than a product of an original observation of nature. The philosophy of Bacon is just the reverse — it is a product of the observation of nature, and not an analysis of the contents of lan- guage. One of the chief precautions of the ( Novum Organum is, that language is but the '' registry of the crude notions of imperfect ob- ; servation, and consequently that nature her- , self must be interpreted, to ascertain the truth. The logic of Aristotle was designed more for evolving, sifting, and methodizing what had already been thought, than for con- ducting new investigations. The great pur- pose of Bacon was to bring philosophy from books and tradition to nature, from words to things, from the Syllogism to Induction. The true excellence of the Aristotelic logic, therefore, consists in its being considered for- mal and not material. In this view, the REACTIOXARY EPOCH. 219 Organon of Aristotle is conversant about the laws under which the subject thinks; while the Novum Organum of Bacon is conversant about the laws under which the object is to be known. Viewed in this aspect, the two logics, though contrariant, are not antago- nistic; but are the complements of each other. The Aristotelic wdthout the Baconian is null; the Baconian without the Aristotelic is defi- cient. The Baconian supplies the material of the Aristotelic ; and while the truth of science is wholly dependent on the Baconian, its logi- cal perfection is wholly dependent on the Aristotelic. The transition, in thinking, from the Baconian to the Aristotelic is as follows. The process of Induction, as founded on pro- bability, is relative, but its conclusion is abso- lute. Similarities or analogies retain their character of difference and plurality in the inductive process, but become one and identi- cal in the conclusion, or class, into wdiich they are combined by an act of abstraction and generalization. This conclusion becomes the premise of Deduction. It is then within the domain of formal logic. That Sir William Hamilton has done much 220 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. to reconcile the Aristotelic logic with the Ba- conian, by purifying the theory of both, and showing their interdependence, by developing that side of the Aristotelic wliich lies next to particulars and induction, (for all his addi- tions to logic are such,) must be admitted by those who can appreciate his writings. And nowhere, in the historj^ of philosophy, is there a definition of Induction which reaches so thoroughly to the heart of the thing, the essential nature of the philosophical inference of the universal from the singular, as that which Sir William has given to discriminate the Baconian from the Aristotelic, the mate- rial from the formal. His definition is this : "A material illation of the universal from the singular, warranted either by the general analogies of nature, or by special presump- tions afibrded by the object-matter of any real science." This definition shows that the in- ductive process of Bacon, is governed by the laws, not of the thinking subject, ratione formce, but by the laws of the object to be known, m materia^. This definition, though only used to discriminate negatively the Aristotelic, or formal induction, sheds so much light on the REACTIONARY El'OCU. 221 Baconian induction, as to entitle Sir William Hamilton to the praise of having contributed to a true theoretic exposition of the Baconian method, by showing the ultimate basis of its validity, in disclosing the nature of the deter- mining antecedent and the determined illa- tion. The determining antecedent is shown to be the analogies of nature, which afford presumptions varying in all degrees of proba- bility, from the lowest to the highest certainty, that what is found in the singulars observed is in all the singulars. The physical observer asserts, on the analogy of his science, that as some horned animals ruminate, all horned animals ruminate. The logician accepts the conclusion, all horned animals ruminate, and brings it under the laws of thought, and con- siders the some of the physical observer as equivalent to his all. Sir William thus extri-/ cates the theory of material induction from/ the syllogistic fetters in which the logicians had entangled it. His design was, however, by no means, to exalt the dominion of Bacon; but rather, all his labours are designed to draw the age from its one-sided culture — its too exclusive devotion to physics. We, there- 222 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. fore, standing, as we do, at the Baconian point of view of philosophy, step forward to hail the expositions of Sir William Hamilton, and concatenate them with the philosophy of Ba- con. So that the Baconian philosophy, in the future, may cease to he "the dirt philo- sophy" which some of its heretical disciples have made it, and may embrace all the grand problems of thought which Sir William Ha- milton has brought within the philosophy of common sense, and which Bacon certainly in- tended his philosophy to comprehend. Having now indicated the point of concili- ation, between the loirics of Aristotle and of Bacon through that of Hamilton, we will suggest the course of development which the conciliated doctrine must take. The laws of thought, in their relation to the condition of relativity, have not been ex- pounded by Hamilton or any other philoso- pher. Indeed, this aspect of the laws of thought seems to have been entirely over- looked. They have been expounded only in their relation to the condition of non-contra- diction. Now, in the inductive process, the condition of relativity is the one chiefly to be REACTIONARY EPOCH. 223 regarded ; just as in the deductive process, that of non-contradiction is the important one. Therefore, in giving a theoretical explication of induction, we must consider the condition of relativity. This condition, as we have shown in expounding Hamilton, is brought to bear in thinking, under two principal rela- tions : the relation of hioivledge, the mind thinking; and the relation of existence, the thing thought about. In the relation of know- ledge, the mind thinking, the laws of thought are necessarily involved ; because the condi- tion of non-contradiction must be fulfilled in all thinking. In fact, the conditions of non- contradiction and relativity are mutually de- pendent and reciprocally relative. But hither- to, the relation of existence, the thing thought about, has been considered, in explaining the inductive process, to the total neglect of the relation of the mind thinking. The objective '' element of thought has been considered to the exclusion of the subjective element. The objective, it is true, is the great determining element in induction, and therefore, the more obtrusive and important, and very properly and naturally first attracted reflective atten- 224 PROGKESS OF PHILOSOPHY. tion. But then, in giving a theoretical expli- cation of induction, it is indisjDcnsable that the subjective element of thought be regarded. In this aspect of the problem of induction, the condition of non-contradiction, in its three- fold application under the laws of identity, contradiction and excluded middle, must be expounded. In the future, therefore, the chief point of development, in applied logic, will consist in showing the empirical application of the laws of thought in the inductive process. Princi- ples, which have hitherto been considered primary regulatives, will be resolved into in- termediate axioms, mere special applications of the law of identity through the principle of philosophical presumption. All actual, positive thinking is, the identification of the plural under the conditions of non-contradic- tion and relativity. In the deductive process, which is especially dependent on the condition of non-contradiction, total identity is the ob- jective law; and therefore, the process is only explicative. But in the inductive process, which is especially dependent on the condition of relativity, the one prime law of the objee- REACTIOxVARY EPOCH. 225 tive on which the process is dependent, is analogy or partial identity; therefore, the process is aniphative, because the partial iden- tity is shown in the totalizing result to be total identity when extricated from the diver- sity which modified it into apparently partial identity. The field of identity is thereby en- larged, and that of diversity lessened — know- ledge is increased and ignorance diminished. The judgment, therefore, called tlie principlG of pliUosopliwal jyvesumption, that where par- tial resemblance (partial identity) is found, total resemblance (total identity) will be found, is thus shown to be under the imme- diate guidance of the law of identity in its empirical application. Hence, the principle of philosophical presumption determined by the objective law of analogy, correlated with the laws of thought, constitute the basis of a valid theoretical exposition of induction. And the details of a practical system will consist of the rules of all special judgments deter- mined by the special object matters or ana- logies. The logic of inference has, therefore, for its object matter, the laws of thought in their 19 226 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. empirical application. In developing this logic, truths which have hitherto been consi- dered necessary, will be found to be only ex- periential axioms applied in actual thinking under the guidance of the laws of thought. Our original and our acquired perceptions, and our necessary and our experiential notions are so interdependent in our mental opera- tions, that reflective analysis has as yet failed to sufficiently separate them in thought. A priori principles are only discovered a poste- riori. Consciousness is only cognizant of the individual act, and has not before it the a priori principle or regulative which is found by reflective analysis to be the pole on which the thinking turned. This is the case of the principle of the uniformity of nature. This principle, as a known truth, is only an empi- rical generalization. The law of identity con- ducts thinking to the same affirmatives with- out any reference either implicit or explicit to any such principle. The uniformity of nature is an after reflection. It is not even an as- sumption, except in the descending scale or process of induction. The principle of philo- sophical presumption is therefore not prompted REACTIONARY EPOCU. 227 by the assumption of the uniformity of nature, but is under the guidance of the law of iden- tity, and is but a modification of the mental tendency to bring multiplicity to unity. As a preparative to this completer logic of inference, criticism must ascertain, distin- guish, and correlate, the primary beliefs with the several cognitive faculties and with the laws of thought in their empirical application. The primary beliefs are not near so numerous, as the spirit of the Scotch philosophy and its uncritical state in this respect, seem to show. We will now indicate what, we think, should be the future course of metaphysics. The criticism by Sir William Hamilton, which we have exhibited, has established, that we can Jcnaic nothing beyond the limita- tion of consciousness. Any existence, there- fore, beyond this limitation, can only be an object of faith. Metaphysics which is the science of that which transcends knowledge must rest upon faith. But then, has not faith its limits ? K it has none, then it is as legiti- mate to believe one thing as another, which is equivalent to having no faith. Therefore the principle of contradiction, which is a limit 228 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. to the possible in existence as well as in thought, constrains us to set a limit to faith. This limit is, the condition of relativitj^, which is the condition of consciousness. We can only believe in the absolute or infinite through the relative and the finite. We can believe in nothing which has not its germ in some one or more presentations of consciousness. AYe therefore, entirely repudiate all that wild faith which is divorced from the understand- ing. No faith is valid whose object, the laws of the understanding do not constrain us to infer, from data of consciousness, as existent. To posit in existence any object which the understanding does not place there, by the constraint of its laws exercised upon the data of consciousness, is pure conjecture. The laws of the understanding, as we have shown, are regulatives to all inferences as well as to all deductions. To let faith go in a direction which they do not indicate, is to revolt against reason as limited in man. Sir William Hamil- ton was right, therefore, in seeking for a logical basis for his metaphysics; though, perhaps, he did not see the full import of the doctrine. He found this basis in the logico- REACTIONARY EPOCH. 229 metaphysical principle of two contradictory extremes conditioning thought. And by ap- plying the law of excluded middle, he does not, as some have supposed, get a mere formal conclusion; because the laws of thought, as we have shown, are applicable to inference or material conclusion. Nor does he thereby surreptitiously introduce, as has been said, what he has explicitly rejected; for he does not, thereby, make the absolute or infinite an object of knowledge, but only of faith. All metaphysical inquiry is, therefore, con- fined to the question. What does the logical understanding constrain or authorize us to believe in regard to the transcendental? It constrains us: 1. To believe that time and space are infinite. Because we contradict ourselves, in attempting to think that either is not infinite. This settled : 2. We are fur- ther constrained to think, that infinite sub- stantive existence is possible. Because, time and space are the infinite conditions of sub- stantive existence, being in themselves of such a nature as neither to exclude each other, nor to constitute being in such a mode as to ex- clude other existences. They are in fact, in 230 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. their relation to substantive existence, purely negative. Here the question emerges, What existence does the logical understanding, ex- ercised upon the data of consciousness, con- strain us to project into the unoccupied con- ditions of time and space? It certainly does not necessitate us to fill them with infinite worlds or with a supersensible world. It does, however, constrain us to project an absolute cause; for in thinking about causation as given in consciousness, we contradict our- selves by attempting to think it as absolutely beginning. And the judging facult}^, from which all the interpreting light must come, reahzes, that its thinking about finite things is not logically complete unless an absolute cause be posited in existence. An infinite series of causes, the other alternative, does not satisfy the understanding; because it re- cedes in endless negation. Metaphysics there- fore culminates in theology. The moral nature of man, supplemented by revelation, becomes the basis for determining the relation between man and God. Such is the limited basis of the metaphj-sics which we conceive ought to be developed in REACTIONARY EPOCH. 231 the future. By it, reason and faitli are com- pletely reconciled. And tlie doctrines of reve- lation can be grafted on the doctrines of meta- physics without discrepancy. The sinking and rising of metaphysical systems in the past resulted from the divorce of faith from the understanding. With a view to the progress of rational philosophy in the future, consciousness or the intellectual globe may be divided into two grand provinces, logical consciousness and metaphysical consciousness. Logical con- sciousness may itself be divided into the understanding, the primary beliefs, the in- ductive belief or principle of philosojihical presumption, and the laws of thought. Meta- physical consciousness is commensurate with the belief, consequent on the limitation of the understanding, of transcendental existence; or with faith as discriminated from belief. The moral faculty, the feelings and the will belong not to rational Ijut to moral philosophy, and therefore are not delineated. We have thus presented such an outline of the progress of philosophy, as to indicate the true perennial doctrine which consists of the 232 PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. results of the consecutive series of discussions elicited more or less by the circumstances of successive epochs. And we have, by our own criticisms and suggestions of new doctrines, endeavoured to do something, towards answer- ing the demands of the present epoch, so re- markable for earnest speculation. FINIS. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below «i.. 2 ^ ^^^^ M/lfi 1 7 ,964 NOV \ JUL 01 Form L-'.' 1987 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LTPPAPv 1158 01188 9937 -lONAL LIBRARY FACIUTY AA 000 490 236 7 liiiiiiiiiii ■■■^^ ^11 i iiiiiiiii^'^ m