University of California. FROM THK LIBRARY OF DR. FRANCIS LIEBER, Professor of History and Law in Columbia College, New York. MICHAEL REESE, Of San Francisco. 1873. RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY HISTORY AND IN SYSTEM AN INTRODUCTION TO A LOGICAL AND METAPHYSICAL COURSE. BY ALEXANDER C. FBASEK, PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THB UNIVERSITY OP EDINBURGH. '0 (JLfv yap (rvvoTTTiKos, PLATO. EDINBURGH: THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO. HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., LONDON. 1858. EDINBURGH : T. CON8TABLF, PRISTBR TO HER MAJESTY. CONTENTS. THE ACADEMICAL STUDY OF RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY, . 1 U. \TIQNAL PHILOSOPHY IN HISTOKY, 1. The History and Scepticism, . . . .18 2. Interpretation of the History Constructive, Con- tradictory, and Catholic types of Philosophy, with their Historical Relations, . . .27 NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE CATHOLIC SYSTEM, The two Parts of Rational Philosophy, . . .60 A. Pure or /Speculative. Two Offices of Speculative Philosophy, . . . 02 1. LOGIC, or the Philosophical Science of the INTELLI- GIBLE, 1. The Logical Element in our Conscious Experi- ence 66 2. Formal Logic, 78 II. METAPHYSICS, or the Philosophical Science of the REAL, 1. The Finite in our Metaphysical Experience, . S'2 2. The Seal as Infinite, and Transcendental Meta- physics, ....... 98 B. Mixed and Applied. I _ ANTHROPOLOGY, or the Occasion of Error and Ignor- ance, I'- ll. METHODOLOGY, or Rational Means for the abate- ment of Error and Ignorance, .... 126 VI CONTENTS. APPENDIX. Note A. PA OB KKA-ON AND RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. . . . 131 Note B. THE CHAIR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS. . . . 135 Note C. MATHEMATICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DISCIPLINE. . 142 PREFATORY NOTE. THE Lecture read by me this winter, at the commencement of the Academical Course, is here expanded, in the form of a Tract on Philosophical Method, in which principles, then announced in a very general way, are more fully unfolded. A few references are also given to the literature of Philo- sophy. These are easily multiplied. Most of the books referred to are in the ordinary reading of a philosophical student. They are here introduced to bring the reader immediately under influences, more fitted than any words of mine, to awaken the condition of mind in which the theme of this little work should be weighed. I was led to believe that the finger-posts which I have here tried to erect, on the confines of Rational or Intellectual Philosophy, might help one who is entering that region, in his search for answers to questions about the kind of study pursued there, its past and present condition, the aims and con- tents of Logic and Metaphysics, as philosophical sciences, their internal relations, as well as their connexion with one another, with the intellectual Vlll PREFATORY NOTE. history of man, and with an abatement of the error and ignorance by which that history is disfigured. These are questions which rise in the mind of the considerate student, and to which, in the present confused state of logical and metaphysical literature in this country, it is not easy for him to find answers. I place this Tract, accordingly, within the reach of my own students, as a provisional substitute for a syllabus or outline of the Course which I am endea- vouring to mature, in a region where maturity must be long sought for, and late in its appearance. A view of Logic and Metaphysics, as the phi- losophical theory of Understanding and Belief in the mutual relation of their first principles, though not, as far as I am aware, hitherto stated and sys- tematically unfolded, seems to bring into harmony some of the best current doctrine regarding these studies. It must be remembered, however, that an- swers to the questions which I have, in the last para- graph, supposed, far more full and satisfying than any I pretend to offer, if merely placed on paper, to be lodged in the memory, are no provision for the wants of a reflecting mind. Philosophy cannot be taught or learned by rote. But something may perhaps be done, through a printed statement of this sort, to put or keep in motion, in the mind of a student, that train of meditative experiments, which is the essential part of a philosophical life. PREFATORY NOTE. IX It is not in the design of this little work to bring much into light, either the proofs on which its doc- trines rest, or the consequences which may be de- duced from them. In the class-room, such premises and conclusions should gradually make their appear- ance, in co-operation with those who study there ; and that co-operation is heartily given by a large number of the students of this University. In case these pages happen to fall under the eye of a philo- sophical reader, already matured, he is well able (if he should care, as an experiment, to occupy their point of view thoughtfully for a little time) to draw out for himself the reasoning that is latent in them, by which their teaching may be confirmed, or its errors made more apparent ; and in the stores of his own reflection and learning, a reader of that class has more than enough of resources for testing the assumed premises. u Etant aussi persuades," says Malebranche, " que nous le sorames que les hommes ne se peuvent en- seigner les uns les autres, et que ceux qui nous ecoutent n'apprennent point les verites que nous disons a leurs oreilles, si en merne temps celui qui les a decouvertes ne les manifeste aussi a leur esprit, nous nous trouverons encore obliges d'avertir ceux qui voudront bien lire cet ouvrage de ne point nous croire sur notre parole par inclination, ni s'opposer a ce que nous disons par aversion ; car, encore que X PREFATORY NOTE. Ton pense n'avoir rien avance de nouveau qu'on ne 1'ait appris PAR LA MEDITATION, on serait cependant bien fache que les autres se contentassent de retenir et de croire DOS sentiments sans les savoir on qu'ils tombassent dans quelque erreur, ou faute de les entendre, ou par ce que nous nous serions trompes." It is in this spirit that I seek to pursue my own philosophical studies, and to guide those of others. I have placed in an Appendix some supple- mentary matter, in part relating to the past history of these studies in the University of Edinburgh. Certain disquisitions, more purely metaphysical, which, at one time, I thought of including in the Appendix, in the form of additional Notes, I now hold back. What follows, is already too much ex- panded, and perhaps already touches too many deli- cate questions, for the purpose it is meant to serve. A section only of the course that is here partially unfolded, is all that can be really explored by a student, during the few months of a single College Session, in a department where depth of reflec- tion is so much more valuable than mere extension of knowledge, while each is often found in the in- verse ratio of the other. Some parts, moreover, of what is here indicated in outline, if treated ela- borately, are obviously more suited to persons PREFATOBY NOTE. XI already advanced in logico-metaphysical studies, and who might constitute a Senior philosophical class. Other parts may be appropriately offered, in the second year of their curriculum, to a Junior class of students, intellectually developed and in- formed as men ought to be at that stage in their academical course, I have not discussed any of the many interesting questions which rise, when we look, with a practi- cal eye, for arrangements likely to engage the dif- ferent members of a large and miscellaneous body of students, in the parts of logical and metaphysi- cal science for which they are individually pre- pared. We want to unite an efficient logical discipline for the many, with encouragement and assistance to a few, who are able to pursue re- searches, in the profounder labyrinths of Philosophy, or the more recondite parts of its literature. Ra- tional Philosophy, in these and other details of its Academical Discipline, well deserves a separate consideration, especially at a time when the eleva- tion of the National Universities is in the front class of our social reforms. COLLEGE OF EDINBURGH, January 1858. H^EC STUD1A ADOLESCEXTIAM ALUXT, SEXECTUTEM OBLECT- ANT, SECUXDAS KES OEXAXT, ADVERSI3 PEKFUGIUM ET SOLATIUM PKEBEXT ; DELECTAXT DOMI, XOX IMPEDIUXT FOUIS : PEKXOCT- AXT KOBISCUM, PEREGRIXAXTCR, RUSTICAXTUK. Cicero. RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. THOSE who become thinking members of a class of Logic and Metaphysics, which performs what it nominally promises, are thereby devoted to the highest kind of academical culture and discipline. Their act implies that they want to discover, by reflection or mental experiment, the plan of thought, according to which our life, as men endowed with Reason, must be re- gulated. It places them on the ascent of the loftiest part of what Bacon calls " the intellectual globe," and on the first stage of a journey, in the course of which their old world of life is seen in new lights, and A 2 PATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. with a fresh eye. It brings them within the range of doctrines and a discipline, with which the venerable name of PHILO- SOPHY has for ages been, in a particular manner, associated, and which have been illustrated, in a variety of systems, during many generations. It is the duty, on the one hand, of the Student in logical and metaphysical philo- sophy, to engage in a high discipline of intellectual sympathy and co-operation with his guide ;~* and that discipline, when pursued on a foundation of sound philological training, proves that what is called a course in speculation, is really as practical as any in the curriculum of the University. It is the duty of the philo- * Spoken or written words can convey philosophical truth, only when the state of mind that corresponds to them is ex- cited by reflection in the mind of the hearer or reader. Men are not trained in philosophy hy a mechanical drill of routine examinations and exercises. Philosophical discipline, as re- flective, is a series of experiments, shared between the hearer or reader, and the speaker or author ; and its oral or written exercises are valuable as far as they are organs of reflective sympathy. THE TWO CORRELATIVE STUDIES. 3 sophical Professor, on the other hand, to, introduce academical youth to studies which have long been recognised as the complement of every other study, which, when wisely directed, strengthen, by exer- cise, the highest faculties and best feel- ings of the human mind, and which, in their remoter ramifications, are the most advanced point in the liberal part of aca- demical education."* Rational Philosophy, as that term is used by me, is a search for Ultimate Truth, or that unity of Reason which is conceived to be the final reward of the philosophical im- pulse. It seeks its appropriate intellectual satisfaction through two studies, namely, * The student and his guide may ponder the place in the hierarchy of the sciences and in education, assigned by Plato to 5iaAe/cTi/o7 which nearly corresponds to the metaphysical part of our Kational or Speculative Philosophy. " *Ap ovv SoKel (rot," he asks, " Gxrirep ^piyicbs TOIS /j.adrifj,a " See Republic, B. vii., and compare B. vi. and the latter part of B. v. for an appreciation of the higher edu- cation, and as suggesting high ends of human life, to which all genuine philosophy appeals. T .ATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. LOGIC, or the philosophical science of the Laws by which the Understanding or fa- culty of Thought must, as such, be ruled and restrained ; and METAPHYSICS, or the philosophical science of Real Existence, as revealed to the understanding in Belief. Logic is the science of formal truth ; Meta- physics is the science of real truth. In the one, we contemplate the harmony of thought with its own necessary conditions; in the other, the last relations of the real universe to the universal beliefs of Reason. The former contains the venerable science, long associated with the name of Aristotle; and now much elaborated, under the name of Formal Logic. In the latter study, in which also Aristotle takes a conspicuous place, we contemplate the phases of Being that are apprehended by the Understand- ing in space or time ; with the view to learn whether the Real World can be com- prehended in a mind that is logically ruled and restrained. In Logic, we study the HISTORY AND SYSTEM. o capacity of thought ; in Metaphysics, the relation of finite thought to exist- ence. These two sciences, when regarded as thus philosophically correlative, may be termed Rational Philosophy, and I am justified by the example of my predeces- sors, as well as by the nature of the study, when I assume that Rational Philosophy and its History is the province intrusted to the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh.'* The courses delivered from this Chair have, nearly all, I believe, nominally recognised Logic, Meta- physics, and the History of Philosophy, as the departments within their sphere. The History has been, as it may be, either treated as a separate department, or blended with the logical and metaphysical system, in the form of occasional quota- * The only Chair in any British University, which form- ally recognises, by its title, Metaphysics as the correlative of Logic, and " Philosophy " as the two in correlation, while the History combines with both. NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. tions, with a criticism of philosophical literature. And variation of opinion has, of course, appeared regarding the lawful contents of logical and metaphysical science, and the prominence due to the system, as distinguished from a history, of philosophical doctrine. Along with the seeming variation in the matter of instruction, there has also been variety in the terms used to designate it. Although the names of the two sciences, which, between them, constitute and com- plete this part of study, are now usually appropriated to the Chair, this has occa- sionally been called, what it still professes to be in fact the class for Rational or Speculative Philosophy. In past periods of its history it has been designated the class of " Philosophy," " First Philoso- phy," " Rational" or "Intellectual Philo- sophy," " Speculative" or " Theoretical Philosophy," and " Instrumental Philo- sophy." It was thus distinguished, as a PHILOSOPHY IN EDINBURGH. / philosophical Chair, from those appropri- ated to Moral and Natural Philosophy."'" I might refer in some detail to the useful labours of the representatives of the Chair, in the earlier part of its history, which have been commemorated by the grateful testimony of distinguished pupils.f I do not need to remind any of its later history, and the epoch in the history of Rational Philosophy in Scotland, which that later history marks. For more than twenty years it has been the centre of a great intellectual light, to which Europe and America were wont to turn for guidance. From this place have issued those pro- found and elaborate lessons in thought, and those curious and recondite disco- veries in the history of opinion, which in these years aroused the spirit of reflection * See Appendix, Note A. on " Reason and Rational Philo- f See Appendix, Note B. on " The Chair of Logic and 8 P 4.TIONAL PHILOSOPHY. in this University, and among the men of the present generation at home and abroad. "We meet in a place that has been an arena for high philosophical discipline, as well as the scene of the promulgation of philosophical discoveries ; and in a Uni- versity which bears a European name for distinction in those Metaphysical, Ethi- cal, and Political speculations, in which Scotland and its academical institutions have gathered so much honour in the past. "We perhaps feel, as we enter acade- mical courts, once frequented by Fergus- son and Stewart, by Brown and Hamilton, as Piso did in the well-known dialogue of Cicero, which records their visit to the academy of Plato. " Natura ne nobis," he asks, as they witnessed the scene, sacred to so great a name, " natura ne nobis hoc datum dicam, an errore quodam, ut, cum ea loca videamus, in quibus memoria dig- nosviros acceperimus inultum esse versatos, THE SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES. 9 magis moveamur, quam si quando eorum ipsorum aut facta audiamus, aut scriptum aliquod legamus ? Velut ego mine moveor. Venit enim mihi Platonis in mentem ; quern accepimus primum hie disputare soli- turn, cujus enim illi hortuli propinqui non memoriam solum mihi afferunt, sed ipsum videntur in conspectu meo ponere. Hie Speusippus, hie Xenocrates, hie ejus audi- tor Polemo." * Philosophical study, in its higher forms, cultivates reverential communion with the Past ; and it is in harmony with its spirit, that we should recollect our responsibility, as members of one of those Scottish Uni- versities, which have derived their chief honour and influence in this very depart- ment. " Surely/' says Bacon, " as nature createth brotherhood in families, and arts mechanical contract brotherhoods in com- monalties ; so, in like manner, there cannot but be a fraternity in learning and illumi- * De Finibus, v. 1. 10 R'TIONAL PHILOSOPHY. nation, relating to that fraternity which is attributed to God, who is called the Father of illuminations or lights." * In the present case, the recollection may well excite the painful feeling of inadequate performance, as, by small instalments and slow degrees, we try to meet our responsibility. The organization for liberal education in the Scottish Universities has, at least in theory, derived its life from three funda- mental studies : I. Roman and Greek Philology and Literature ; II. The sciences, which may be called Mathematico-physical or Physico-philoso- phical; III. Logico-metaphysical or reflective philosophical studies, f * Advancement of Learning, B. ii. f According to Aristotle, Mathematics and Physics are, along with Theology (i.e., Metaphysics), the three parts of Speculative Philosophy. See Metapli. v. 1, and x. 4. The theory of their equilibrium is the theory of a philosophical education. In various parts of his works, Aristotle discusses the relation of Mathematics to Metaphysical Philosophy. THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL STUDIES. 1 1 The Languages and Literature which have proved their permanent adaptation to what is most refined in cultivated humanity ; Science, with its firm intel- lectual training, and tranquillizing assur- ance of truth ; and the arduous exercises of Reflex Speculation, concerning human knowledge and human destiny : these three, are the permanent and universal heritage of mankind. As such, they are the three essential elements in the high education of a University ; and they have long formed the curriculum in the national colleges of Scotland. The first, with the old national life which it reveals, is the basis of a broad human training, and an introduction to modern literature and modern polity. The second is the appropriate academical pathway into the vast and miscellaneous department of modern physical knowledge. Reflex spe- culation, and the insight into history which reflective studies, when rightly conducted, 32 PA.TIONAL PHILOSOPHY. induce, is the key, in particular, to scien- tific theology, and also to the theory of the higher or University education. But every department of science and opinion, as well as the general tone of feeling, is mo- dified by the logico-metaphysical scheme, regarding the limits of Conception, and the meaning of Reality, that is (consciously or unconsciously) held by individuals and communities. These, accordingly, are the three or- gans of universal study. It is professedly through these three universal studies- maintained in their relative equilibrium that a University opens a safe path into those parts of knowledge which are popu- larly interesting, from the comparative ease with which they may be subdued, or their immediate and palpable utility. The three fundamental studies them- selves are mutually related, in and through philosophy, in which they find their con- summation. THEIR RELATION IN PHILOSOPHY. 13 Classical philology, when used by a Uni- versity as distinguished from a school, as an organ of education, may be expected to rise into the dignity of an applied philosophy, a philosophy applied to man, or rather to the most memorable of man's literary productions, and to the most not- able period in the intellectual history of our race. Moreover, as a large part of classical literature is itself philosophical, a course of reflex speculation may consist, and in some Universities does consist, in an interpretation of the books which contain this large deposit of philosophical doctrine." 5 " * A course of pure philosophical study may start either from Modern and prevailing forms of thought, or from the long revered records of Ancient speculation. The former plan invites the student to work backwards into the past; the latter to work onwards into the present. Each has its ad- vantages. The one is, perhaps, best adapted to the profes- sorial system, and a comprehensive course of doctrine; the other to the tutorial method, and a course of exact study. The current philosophy of Western Europe is the point of de- parture for the one ; Aristotle and Greek thought is the usual point of departure for the other. The former plan is adopted by the Scottish Universities, and the latter by Oxford ; and if Scotland has been deficient in philosophical learning, Oxford has not yet produced an independent school of philosophy. 14 BATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. The mathematico-physical sciences, when they are in the highest sense " progressive," become reflective philosophy applied to nature. It is then that their disciples spe- culate concerning the mode in which those sciences are formed, their relations to one another, and the theory of their classifica- tion. It is then that they begin to see the ocean of infinite ignorance, by which we find we are surrounded, when we reflect deeply on what are called " ultimate " laws of nature, or on the mysteries of Space and Time, in which Nature is revealed, and through which, as it were visibly, it merges in the Infinite. Rational philosophy, in its turn, is at- tached to all human knowledge and human life. To it belongs the " Science," to which Bacon refers, as " the main and common way, before the sciences part and divide themselves," because, he adds, " the dis- tributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one LEARNING AND MODESTY. 15 angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree that meet in a stem." * In particular, this philosophy is connected with the History of man, and with the logico-metaphysical Systems and Controversies of the past, by which the course of opinion has been moulded. These Systems, as they lie imbedded in the books of the great nations of the world, form an appropriate reward to the labours of the philosophical student, as he opens a way for himself through the crust of an ancient or foreign language. And in the enjoyment of that reward, he is confirmed in the lesson of modesty and caution, which is blended with all true philosophy, as it is the primary element in the philosophical spirit. " Those that have always lived at home," says an old writer, "and have never seen any other country, are confidently persuaded that their own is the best ; whereas they that have travelled, and observed other * Advancement of Learning, B. ii. 16 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. places, speak more coldly and indifferently of their native soils ; and so those confined understandings that never looked beyond the opinions in which they were bred, are exceedingly assured of the truth, and com- parative excellency of their own tenants ; when as the larger minds, that have tra- velled the divers climates of opinions, and considered the various sentiments of in- quiring men, are more cautious in their conclusions, and more sparing in positive affirmations.'' A fresh academical course of instruction and discipline in Rational Philosophy has a relation to the philosophical systems, different from that which a new course in the mathemati co-physical sciences has .to existing mathematical or physical doctrine. The mathematico-physical course traverses a region of well-recognised truth ; and an outline of the path to be followed can be predicted by the student. An excursion in speculative philosophy is felt by many OLD EXPERIMENTS AND NEW. 17 to resemble a voyage on a sea unknown, unless for the reported disasters of preced- ing voyagers, and on which every fresh expedition is expected to follow a different route. This singular feature in reflective study should be examined, that the student may appreciate the just relation between every new course of philosophical research, and the systems that have evolved them- selves in the past. With this view, we shall take, as our first object of contemplation RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY. The phenomena of the past philosophical experience of mankind are often read in a spirit which induces scepticism about Philosophy. I think they may be read differently. Let us look at both sides. I. The History and Scepticism. In the past, the present, and the future of Philosophy, are contained the intellectual struggles of mankind to solve one Eternal B 18 F.ATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. Problem, or to ascertain that it is inso- luble. The CONSTANT EXPERIMENT that is needed for a philosophical determination of the alternative, has been pending since the dawn of civilisation. It cannot be per- formed by proxy. Every philosopher must repeat it for himself ; and its actual per- formance, by the student, as distinguished from an assumption of its results upon trust, is the pure philosophical part of edu- cation. The History of Philosophy is the record of preceding experiments. A new course of Philosophy is an attempt to re- peat the experiment. It seems to have been so often repeated, without success, or at least without terminating philosophical controversy, that men who measure " pro- gress" in these logico-metaphysical studies by the standard of " progress " in mathe- matico-physical sciences, despair of Philo- sophy altogether/"" * See Appendix, Note C. on " Mathematical and Philoso- phical Discipline." THE HISTORICAL PHENOMENON. 19 The constant phenomenon of the rise and decline of systems is what induces this scepticism, when men review the philoso- phical past, or forecast the philosophical future. The phenomenon meets us in all ages and in all countries. In ancient Greece, one School appears to rise amid the ruins of another, to make way, in its turn, in like manner, for a successor. Even the strong bond of ecclesiastical unity, by which Europe was held together in the Middle Ages, failed really to re- strain that interminable variety and dis- cord in philosophical opinion, which it only rendered less obtrusive. And in modern Europe, systems have waxed and waned in more rapid succession than even in ancient Greece. Britain, France, and Germany have witnessed, in the three last centuries, the prevalence of every elemen- tary phase of speculation; and each country in its turn has been under the sway of a series of dominant schools. Must those 20 '.IATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. \vho now propose to exercise themselves in reflection, either invent a new system, or select, ready made to their hand, the one orthodox system from among many mutu- ally antagonistic competitors ; or, failing, as may be expected, in both these enter- prises, must they, in the last resort, for- sake Philosophy as a hopeless aspiration 1 ? Complaints of the chaotic state of opinion, and the incurable discord of sects in Philo- sophy, have accordingly become common, especially in modern books. The history of this part of study is reported to be a record of mutually destructive systems of thought, which have appeared and dis- appeared in endless succession, from the dawn of reflection in ancient India and Greece, until this nineteenth century of ours. The retrospect is said to discover, not a fertilizing stream of knowledge, widen- ing and deepening as it advances, but the unprogressive undulations of innumerable waves on the ocean of opinion. After so THE CHAOS OF THE PAST. 21 long a trial, it is concluded, that one must surely, in this late age of the world, enter a philosophical gymnasium, only to imitate the labours of Sisyphus, or at least having reason to listen with suspicion to the plausi- ble promises of any modern gymnasiarch. It must be conceded, that some eminent leaders in Philosophy have given their countenance to the opinion, that the past history of reflection is the history of an intellectual chaos, and that its guides may now hope to substitute a cosmos for the chaos. Two celebrated contemporaries, whose works have induced the greatest metaphysical movement in late times, Reid and Kant, may be quoted as instances. There is a remarkable coincidence be- tween the opening part of Reid's Essays, and the Prefaces to the first Critique of Kant. Both deplore variety and collision among preceding systems, as a scandal inconsistent with the unity of truth. Both contrast the oscillations of mental re- 22 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. search with the steady march of the phy- sical and mathematical sciences. Both look with good hope into the future, in case of a change in the old and still fashionable method of constructing sys- tems of Philosophy. Both confess that preceding philosophers have wandered from the path. Both indulge the expecta- tion that a path may still be found. In the closing sentence of his memorable work, Kant thus expresses himself: "If the reader has been sufficiently indulgent to accompany me thus far, he can judge whether, if he pleases to assist in making this bypath of mine the high road of thought, that which many ages have failed to accomplish may not be attained before the end of the present century, namely, the complete satisfaction of human reason, in regard to the problem which has always and ardently, but without lasting results, engaged its powers.""* * It is a negative " satisfaction " that Kant professes to REID AND KANT. 23 The language of Reid and Kant has been echoed, with exaggerations, by re- cent authorities in Philosophy, as it had been anticipated by not a few earlier ones. It is now a fashion to affirm that the philosophical world has been travelling in darkness for ages, and that unless, without longer delay, the full blaze of light de- scends upon the road, we and our succes- sors may give up the journey in despair. We are taunted with the state of metaphy- sical doctrine either stagnant or moving in a circle and are challenged to emulate the onward progress, which the record of the physical sciences, during these last centuries, discloses. From much in this representation of supply ; but, with men as they are, we cannot expect any professed solution, negative or positive, of the problem of Reason to terminate philosophical discussion. Even a true solution cannot be long retained in verbal symbols. As regards the critical philosophy, the third edition of Cousin's Philosophic de Kant has just appeared, to which the reader may refer, as also to the able expository criticism in the article Kant, in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 24 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. the past and present in Philosophy, I must humbly but firmly express my dissent. It appears to be founded on an oversight of the essential nature of this kind of knowledge, and consequently of its his- tory, which disables from a just estimate either of its past evolutions or its pre- sent condition. There is another side to the picture. A confession of metaphy- sical weakness and sterility in the past, and an acknowledgment of far surpassing success in the mathematical and physical sciences, are, I believe, both erroneous, when success is measured by the highest standard, and when the education of the inner life is distinguished from the ame- lioration of our outward circumstances. Bacon himself acknowledges that the pro- gress of all the sciences depends upon the cultivation of First Philosophy. He complains, in his comprehensive review of human knowledge, that " men have aban- doned universality or Summary Philoso- ANOTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 25 phy, which cannot but cease and stop all progression. For no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or level ; neither is it possible to discover the more remote or deeper parts of any science, if you stand long upon the level of that same science, and ascend not to a higher." * It is proposed to show, in this acade- mical course, that the reverse of what is alleged in the popular charge may be rea- sonably held. I hope to prove, in the end, that no sphere of mental labour can record a longer series of illustrious successes than Rational Philosophy ; when a true interpretation is applied to the historical phenomena, and when success is judged by the highest intellectual standard. The physical sciences, on the contrary, are for the most part only struggling in the infancy of what is doubtless destined to be a long and useful career. The victories of Reason in the world of nature are but of * Advancement of Learning, B. ii. 26 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. yesterday. And even at the best, as Hume profoundly remarks, " the most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our IGNORANCE a little longer ; as, per- haps, the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it." * This sentence by Hume should be in our thoughts when we criticise the history of knowledge. A discovery, by means of reflection and mental experiment, of the limits of knowledge, is the highest and most universally applicable discovery of all ; it is the one through which our intellectual life most strikingly blends with the moral and practical part of human nature. Pro- gress in knowledge is often paradoxically indicated by a diminution in the apparent t/ f JT bulk of what we know. Whatever helps to work off the dregs of false opinion, and to purify the intellectual mass whatever deepens our conviction of our infinite igno- * Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Sec. iv. A SEEMING PARADOX. 27 ranee really adds to, although it some- times seems to diminish, the rational pos- sessions of man. This is the highest kind of merit that is claimed for Philosophy, by its earliest as well as by its latest repre- sentatives. It is by this standard that Socrates and Kant measure the chief re- sults of their toil. II. Interpretation of the History . Let us, even in this Introduction, take one step, or perhaps two, towards what seems a just interpretation of the pheno- menon of a shifting succession of systems, that is so obtrusive on the surface of the history of logico-metaphysical science. What, in the first place, do these same SYSTEMS mean, whose rapid rise and fall has excited so much clamour against the studies to which this place is consecrated ? What is a system in Philosophy, and what are Logic and Metaphysics, when they are treated as organic parts in the system 1 28 E iTIONAL PHILOSOPHY. The answer to this question is a step in the direction of the interpretation to which I have referred. I shall indicate the answer which, as it seems to me, a philosophical course may afterwards offer in detail, by a criticism of the literary records of systematic speculation, that have descended from the past, or been developed in the present age. I shall also suggest the spirit in which it should consequently treat the (alleged) mutually destructive varieties of sect or school among philosophers. Every genuine philosophical system is the result of an effort to represent the Universe, in its deepest and truest aspect, in relation to Reason. In Philosophy, the ultimate aim through many apparently devious windings and mazes is to deter- mine, what is meant at bottom by the so-called Real Existence which appears in innumerable forms, which every human action assumes, and on which life reposes. A PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM. 29 That is just saying, in other words, that philosophy tries to describe the true ulti- mate relation, between speculation and action understanding and belief, and to determine whether belief and practice can be ultimately resolved into, or at least reconciled with understanding and specu- lation. A system of logical and metaphysical Philosophy is thus an ultimate plan or scheme of thought, concerning the Real World that is perpetually presented and represented to us in daily life. It is, moreover, a plan of such a kind, that it must become, to any one by whom it is earnestly adopted, the intellectual measure of all his ultimate judgments about the Universe in which he is living ; and consequently about the department of phenomena to which he is particularly at- tracted by taste or circumstances. Every philosophical system is, in one word, a type or phase of THEOEETICAL REALISM. 30 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. Now, let us turn for a moment to the logico-metaphysical theories, which tradi- tion has handed down, or the present age produced, and which, whatever the inten- tion of their authors, may all be philoso- phically interpreted by us as modifications of Realism. They seem to be at variance. At the point of view taken by their pro- moters, many of them cannot be reconciled. But may not a point of view be found, at which they shall appear to us, not in conflict, but conspiring to one great issue \ Do not some, for example, at the expense often of a subtile insight into its separate elements, professedly recognise the myste- rious integrity of the genuine nature of man ; and do not others, by their para- doxical speculations, even although in violation of that integrity, introduce fresh light upon the parts which they illegally assume to be the whole 1 Does not the drama that has been enacted in the philosophical past, exhibit the partial or THE COMPOSITION OF FORCES. 31 sectarian systems working out the develop- ment of ONE CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY, which, in its turn, at each stage in its advance, at each great crisis in its development, absorbs or assimilates the systems by which that advance was occasioned \ That a true Philosophy is somehow the result, and that, in its turn, it becomes the corrective of partial philosophical systems, is an opinion, the germ of which may be traced to an early period in the history of these studies. But it is naturally the issue of trials arid experiments in reflection con- tinued during long ages, rather than the fruit of man's first endeavours to discover the power and limits of Reason. The learned and comprehensive review of the previous history of Greek Philo- sophy, by which Aristotle introduces and accompanies his own reasonings on these high questions, suggests to us that Philo- sophy and its History are, in some sense, 32 FATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. organically connected.* Struggles to adjust the relation between true Philosophy and previous systems, marked that instructive period in history the decline of thought in the old world, in the schools of Alexan- dria. The idea has animated the growth of our modern European Philosophy, when a longer experience of the nature and re- sults of philosophical activity has afforded to us " ancients," as Bacon calls the mo- derns, a larger induction of historical facts. The theory of a Philosophy, broader than the dogmatic systems, but which, never- theless, recognises in each system a jet, as it were, of individual insight and intelli- gence, drawn forth through its own par- tial view of the objective universe, this theory, which has always been in some (conscious or unconscious) form a gra- vitating principle of speculation, emerges into clearer light in the comprehensive * e.g., Metaphysics, B. I. 3-9, in -which the opinions of Plato and the early Greek schools are criticised. LEIBNITZ. 33 mind of Leibnitz, the most comprehen- sive genius in modern history. This theory, which inspires reverence for the past, and checks a vain conceit in the present, while not the peculiar property of any, may be fitly associated with the name of Leib- nitz. He contrasts the " one permitted sect of all," the " sect of searchers after truth," with the sectarians, who, by im- plicitly and finally yielding themselves to a single mind, however illustrious, are dis- qualified for the hopeful exercise of their own ; as one who has for years travelled along a beaten track becomes unobservant of surrounding scenes, or as the ima- gination that has been long under the spell of a single melody cannot readily listen to another. " I have found," says Leibnitz, " that the greater number of phi- losophical sects are right in much which they affirm, but not in what they deny. I flatter myself that I have penetrated into the harmony of the different realms of c 34 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. philosophy, and have discovered that both parties are right, if they only would not exclude each other."* A more exact theory of history as a philosophical development, may be found in the later speculation of Germany, and especially in Hegel. But such history is a Constructive Philosophy. We are asked to breathe an unhealthy atmosphere, when we are invited to meet, within the cor- ners of a modern speculative structure, all the liberal thinkers of two thousand years ; and we long, when thus confined, for the bracing exercise of going in quest of them ourselves, beneath the free air of heaven. A larger spirit has inspired the works of the most celebrated philosopher now living, though perhaps not without a tendency, in his earlier writings, to modify history by constructive system. " There are," says Cousin, " no abso- lutely false, but many incomplete systems, * Opera Philosophica, pp. 701-704, &c. (Erdmann's edition.) THREE TYPES OF REALISM. 35 systems true in themselves, but vicious in their pretence, each to comprehend that absolute truth which recognises itself through them all. The incomplete, and therefore the exclusive, is the one funda- mental vice of philosophy, or to speak more accurately, of the philosophers. . . . Each system reflects the real, but unhappily reflects it only under a single angle."* Thus far we have presumptive evidence and authority against the superficial hypo- thesis, that the past history of reflection is the history of disorder and chaos. It is time to advance another step, and to con- sider what phases of Rational Philosophy are logically possible. The ultimate problem concerning the Real must be either soluble or insoluble by * Fragmens Philosophiques, Tom. I. " Du Fait de Con- science.'" See also Cousin's Preface to the second edition of the Fragmens, and to his Translation of Tennemann's Orund- riss, &c., &c., with Jouffroy's Melanges (Histoire de la Phi- losophic, &c.) 36 NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. Speculative Reason. Take the former of these alternatives. The solution must be either positive or negative i.e., the pro- blem may be positively solved, or it may be negatively dissolved in contradictions. In the nature of the case, there is thus room for three elementary types of Theo- retical Realism. Now the actual philosophical creations of the present and past, may be analysed into three corresponding modifications of speculative doctrine, or rather two modi- fications, in perpetual collision, ever sup- plying fresh material for a third. Of the two extremes, by which the third or medi- ate type is thus developed, the one may be called a Constructive, and the other a De- structive extreme. A Constructive Philo- sophy professes to be logically exhaustive, and is therefore dogmatic ; a Destructive Philosophy contains proof that the exhaus- tive system is self-contradictory, and that it logically issues in a sceptical despair of CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM. 37 Reason. The third type of Realism intermediate between the Constructive and Destructive extremes is the Catholic Philosophy, which accepts ultimate human beliefs in their incomprehensible integrity, and confesses the necessary exhaustion of Speculative Reason, in the presence of reality. The whole history of Philosophy may be read by us whatever was the meaning of the meditative men by whom its materials were created, as the history of an appa- rent conflict and virtual co-operation of the three elements into which all thorough- going Realism is analysed. The type of REALISM that corresponds with the first, may be called CONSTRUCTIVE or SECTARIAN. It includes the different dogmatic systems or sects, under the two heads of Idealistic and Naturalistic Realism, with their respective modifica- tions. The various Constructive schemes of Idealistic Realism, are in general founded 38 NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. on d priori Definitions, and developed de- ductively under the law of Reason and Consequent."* Naturalistic or Positivist Realism, in modern times, consists of in- ductive inferences, founded on the objec- tive relation of Uniformity in the succession of phenomena, popularly called the relation of Cause and Effect. Both are partial and sectarian, if a logical treatment of Formal Definitions is no proper solution at all of problems concerning the Real ; and if an ontological solution of the ulti- mate problem of Natural Causation is not, while a practical and moral solution is, within the compass of human Reason. f Nevertheless, these sectarian systems, as * These systems, in all their ramifications, are only explica- tions of what the definitional axioms hold by implication ; and their trains of reasoning only bring out more fully, the partial view of our conscious experience that is assumed in the pre- mises. Theoretical Realism is at its minimum, when it is merely Formal ; recognising the Principle of Contradiction as the only element in our conscious experience, or even rising on its ruin. f Both forms of Sectarian Realism, rigorously interpreted, issue logically either in Speculative Egoism or Speculative Pantheism, and these at last in Speculative Scepticism. DESTRUCTIVE REALISM. 39 well as the scepticism in which they issue, may be also read by us as paradoxical and partial representations of philosophical truth. The second type of Rational Philosophy we may term the CONTRADICTORY or SCEP- TICAL. It accepts, practically at least, the immediate realities of sense and worldly experience, while it delights in illustrating the contradictions that are latent in the whole intellectual life of man, when that life is interpreted through the professed solutions offered in the sectarian dogmatic systems. The sceptical interpretation of the real appears at a critical period in the great historical epochs in Greece, Western Europe, and India. The so-called sceptical philosopher is often only a narrow and Empirical dogmatist a sectarian Realist, with a low theory of life and duty, or a weak intellect.* "When the human mind," * This may be compared with passages in that receptacle of the arguments of ancient sceptics, the Hvfipdvetuv 'TirorvTru- of Sextus Empiricus e.g., B. i. 1, &c., where he adopts 40 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. says Bacon, " once despairs of discovering truth, all its faculties begin to languish/' But I do not now discuss the mental patho- logy of scepticism in the individual only its historical office in the perpetual experi- ment of reflection ; and here, through scep- ticism, as Pascal says, " la Raison confond les dogmatiques" The intermediate theory, as I believe Realism proper, may be called CATHOLIC or INSOLUBLE REALISM. This form of philoso- phical belief acknowledges, on the ground of logical proof, the finitude of Understand- ing ; and recognises, through our metaphy- sical experience, the counterpart incompre- hensibility or infinity of Existence. On the foundation of a proof that the ultimate pro- blem of reality is, and must be, insoluble, Catholic Realism accepts the irreducible faith, that constitutes and regulates human nature in its healthy state, and that guides the classification of philosophers, as Soy/uutTiKoi a.Kadrifjt.aiKoi, and (TKriTTTiKoL See also Diog. Laer. IX. Arist. Met. III. 4, &c. THEIR PERSISTENCY. 41 us in that ultimate weakness of Speculative Reason, which it is one chief office of the metaphysical part of Rational Philosophy to bring out into light.* Of these three cardinal schemes of Phi- losophy, the two former are partial or imperfect ; and the second is the organ by which the imperfection and one-sidedness of the first are displayed. The first and second, both separately and in combina- tion, have induced the grand historical crises which mark the past course of the third. None of the three is the special birth of any age, or the native of any par- ticular country ; though in some genera- tions, and in some of their types, they have attained ampler and more determined fea- tures than in others. Accordingly, nothing is easier than to trace all the great problems * This must not be confounded with the a.KaTa\r]\f/ia and dra/>ata of the sceptics, which it exactly reverses. Yet our very intellectual powers illustrate our intellectual impotence, and a catholic Eealist may place in the foreground either the former or the latter. 42 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. of reflection, and their solutions, through the whole course of philosophical literature. Their very nature accounts for their per- sistency^ and for the startling fact that we find the latest forms of British and Con- tinental speculation in the minds of Indian thinkers nearly three thousand years ago, and may not unreasonably anticipate their re-appearance as novelties three thousand years hence. Philosophy is always old, and yet always fresh. Apart from the Constructive or Rational- istic systems and Scepticism, Catholic or Insoluble Realism tends to decline. It has been nourished by the struggles of Idealism and Materialism with one an- other, and of both with scepticism. This warfare is the most striking feature in the philosophical past ; and, so far as past experience, and the tendencies of the intellectual nature of man enable us to judge, it will form the most striking fea- ture also in the future of Philosophy. The THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONS. 43 world is likely long to need the twofold service of a Catholic Philosophy of Inso- luble Realism, namely, to repel, from the various provinces of science, the invasion of Constructive metaphysical systems, and of the Scepticism which is latent in them, and also to represent to those by whom it is itself studied and accepted, the con- fined "intellectual globe" of man, as in progress through illimitable darkness. Whether we review the past or anti- cipate the future, we thus have before us, in all the genuine philosophical strug- gles of mankind, the combinations of a few elements, united in different propor- tions, and with a varied intensity. We see the collisions of Scepticism, with systems that profess to resolve the Universe about which we speculate into the unity of a single comprehensible principle. We see these systems destroyed by Scepti- cism in succession, as inadequate to the task the various phases of sectarian f 44 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. Realism thus proved to be partial and illogical. And, contemporaneously with this, we see, too, the growth and amend- ment of that type of meditative thought, which finds, in the collisions of Construc- tive with Destructive Realism, evidence to support a rational acknowledgment, that only a theory of the Universe, as essentially incomprehensible or mysteri- ous alike under the formal relation of Reason and Consequent, and the physical relation of Cause and Effect is compe- tent to the Understanding. So it has been, and so we conclude it must continue to be. With men as they are, and with the Universe as it is pre- sented in the conscious experience of this mortal life, probably no one of the three types of Realism can be dis- counted, consistently with the mainten- ance of reflection in full vigour. Scep- ticism, in successful collision with the sectarian systems, is needed to excite and THE SCEPTICS. 45 deepen our thought of the insoluble pro- blem which pervades reality. And the manifold trials or experiments of the au- thors of the dogmatic systems their subtile and ingenious paradoxes disclose unexpected aspects of Reason, in its essen- tial relations to the mystery of things, which the ordinary course of Catholic Philosophy might never have discovered. The sectarian systems help to carry re- flection further down. Scepticism dis- covers, that notwithstanding they have not found the bottom. The Sceptics, by this means, test the successive experiments of sectarian theo- rists, and prove them to be failures. They have, in the past, set aside, as illogical, in a finite intelligence, every proposed modi- fication of Constructive Realism, and have thus opened a deeper and truer view of the mystery of that Natural or Catholic Realism which confesses its own incom- prehensibility. They have once and again 46 NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. carried Philosophy back, from partial and one-sided systems, into which, through our love of unity and comprehensibility, it has ever been prone to degenerate, towards the incomprehensible unity of catholic truth. And this their office is not likely to be soon an idle one. Men of in- ventive genius are ever ready to repeat the experiment of a logical theory of Ex- istence. Through a struggle with the Scepticism, which is the issue of their ex- periment, materials are evolved for a fresh and more profound appreciation of the insoluble mystery, on which, in the Com- mon Sense of mankind, all reality seems to repose. " Everything," as some one says, "has relation to all things, and he that talks of strict and perfect science pretends to omniscience." According to the sublime representation of Pascal, human reason is ever suspended, in a vast and mysterious medium, poised between Absolute Ignor- ance and Absolute Knowledge, neither THE LESSON OF HISTORY. 47 fully cognizant, nor in utter intellectual darkness. And when we endeavour to transgress these our bounds, the object we pursue escapes from our grasp, and seems to vanish in an eternal flight, which no power can for us control. The History of Philosophy thus teaches one uniform and constant lesson. The same result issues from every trial re- flection has made : yet every man who would learn the lesson aright must make the trial anew for himself, in a systematic course of philosophical discipline. He will then learn that knowledge must, at last, hang suspended, on the wings of Faith and Love, over a dark gulf, which the line of Reason cannot fathom. In Modern Philosophy the sceptical Hume is a central figure. He takes that place chronologically ; and it also belongs to him on account of the office of his philosophical Scepticism in the modern history of opinion. 48 PATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. Rather more than a hundred years after the rise of independent speculation in Wes- tern Europe, in the person of Descartes, Hume's Treatise and Inquiry were given to the world. Rather more than a hundred years have now elapsed since the philo- sophical world was roused from its " dog- matic slumber" by these celebrated books. The earlier century, from Descartes to Hume, was a century of experiments in Constructed Realism, in which speculative thinkers sought in vain to resolve the mys- teries of Being by means of reasoning in which a relative knowledge of existence was assumed to be a representative know- ledge of existence and in which an imperfect (or imperfectly understood) development of the Catholic Philosophy, by Locke"'' on the one side, and by Leib- * The Essay of Locke is an attempt to verify, by induction, the Hypothesis, that human knowledge originates in experi- ence, i.e., that it is all a kind or modification of experience. This hypothesis is tested in the course of the Essay, by ap- plying it to those intellectual phenomena which seem most remote from an experimental origin, e.g., our notions of Space, DAVID HUME. 49 nitz* on the other, afforded no adequate corrective to the counter schemes of Ideal- ism and Materialism, which were deduced from the commonly received principles of the time. The second century, which dates from the age of Hume, and includes the pre- sent condition of philosophical opinion, is a century in which Catholic Realism has laboured to make good a broader foun- dation in the Common Reason ; under Time, Cause, Substance, Power, &c. The attempt lias occa- sioned a century and a half of controversy partly about Locke's meaning, and partly about its real truth. Is Locke's experience = the contingent element only, in our conscious ex- perience ; or does it contain experience in its catJwlic integrity including logical and metaphysical, as well as empirical ele- ments ? But I am not here writing the history of particular systems, nor applying the foregoing principles to the actual speculations of Locke or any other individual. Locke, more, over, was rather a practical antagonist of prevailing error, than a speculative philosopher. Hence the laxity of his metaphy- sical language, which has added many valuable books to the philosophical library the last not the least ingenious. See Mr. Webb's Intellectualism of Locke. Dublin, 1857. * The Opera Philosophica of Leibnitz, by Erdmann (Ber- lin, 1840), are well known. An appreciation of his Philosophy is a subject for a volume. We are only beginning to under- stand its meaning. 50 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. the influence of the revolution inaugurated by Hume, and in part also through the deeper insight into the ultimate problems of knowledge, occasioned by the more re- cent idealistic and materialistic systems of Germany and France. Recent Euro- pean philosophy is a disclosure of some fresh aspects of Insoluble Realism, by means of collision with extreme Idealisms and Materialisms, which may be traced back in their principles to the subtile ana- lysis of the Scottish sceptic, refined and increased in power, at the hands of Kant and Fichte.* I have thus indicated what I mean, when I say that the History of Philosophy may * On Hume, in addition to the works of the Scottish philo- sophers, and Kant, see Jacobi's Dialogue, David Hume, uber den Glauben oder Idealismus und Realismus (Breslau, 1787) ; and other works of that time in Germany ; Cousin's Cours de rHistoire de la Philosophic IModerne, torn, i., &c. ; and the Lettres Philosophiques of the Baron Galluppi. In Fichte, tin- Xihilism of Hume appears in all, and more than all, its original force. See the Bestimmung des Mensclien, with its counterpart theory of Belief (Glaube). INDIVIDUAL INSIGHT. 51 be interpreted by us as a history, not of conflicting but of conspiring systems. In the technical words and phrases of these systems, we seem to hear the race of man thinking aloud, and to see it recording a series either of partial and one-sided or of sceptical or of confessedly irreducible systems of knowledge, as the expression of its varied speculative experience. The systems are in conflict when contemplated at the respective points of view of their authors. They all conspire to the disco- very of manifold phases, and to the circu- lation of fresh life in one Catholic Philoso- phy the theory of reality as essentially incomprehensible, which is at once the undeveloped Philosophy of the unreflect- ing many, and that practically acknow- ledged by all. To the formation of this Philosophy all the genuine movements of human thought, in the past and the present, and of every school, may be viewed as, directly or indi- 52 '.ATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. rectly, a comprehensive contribution. In some of these movements the torch of truth has been raised higher than in others, and its light has then extended further over the dark ocean on which we seem to float, ever surrounded by the Infinite. The prospect actually attained, through each system, depends on the genius and in- sight of the individual thinker by whom the system is originated for every great theory is an expression of individual genius and insight. It is diffused through society, in proportion as men are able to occupy the point of view of its author, and to in- terpret reality in the light of his technical words and formulas.* The possibility of this conflict and yet co-operation among the three phases of * " Words and formulas," which no philosophy worthy of the name has been ever able to dispense with, nor indeed any of the physico-mathematical sciences, in which exact language is less indispensable than in philosophy. But the use, in high speculation, of these necessary tools, does not absolve those guilty of the common sin of displaying this sort of apparatus everywhere, and in all work. AN ANALOG?. 53 genuine philosophical speculation ; those evolutions of Catholic, through the collisions of Sectarian with Sceptical Realism col- lisions into which the human mind is brought back for its advantage, in recoil from the decline of a high Catholic Philo- sophy induced by an abatement of reflec- tion ; this unrest which conducts to a high and serene repose, from which we are sum- moned back into the conflict, that, in its hour of languor, the lofty serenity of our repose may be recovered, may remind us of language used by a poet-philosopher in a very different service, when he refers to " the subtile progress by which, both in the natural and moral world, qualities pass in- sensibly into their contraries, and things revolve upon each other. As in sailing upon the orb of this planet, a voyage to- wards the regions where the sun sets, con- ducts gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed to behold it come forth at its rising ; and, in like manner, a RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. voyage towards the east, the birthplace, in our imagination, of the morning, leads finally to the quarter where the sun is last seen when he departs from our eyes, so the contemplative soul, travelling in the direction of mortality, advances to the country of everlasting life ; and in like manner may she continue to explore those cheerful tracts, till she is brought back for her advantage and benefit, to the land of transitory things of sorrow and tears." A retrospect of the Past in Philosophy suggests some interesting analogies, between the representative creations of art, and the great philosophical systems, which seek to represent the universe symbolically, in its deepest relations to our rational life. One poet does not build mechanically upon the poetical insight of another; and neither can one philosopher build upon the philo- sophical insight of another. The earliest philosophers, as the earliest poets, may be MONUMENTAL BOOKS. 55 the best, and perhaps no successors will ever rival either Homer or Aristotle. As all genuine poets have added to the com- mon stock of human imagination, so every genuine metaphysician contributes to the philosophical experience of the humanmind, as it vainly struggles through reflection to comprehend reality. A book of philosophi- cal doctrine may be regarded as the symbol of a reflective insight into the scheme of things, more or less penetrating in different authors and readers. The insight is gone when living thought has subsided in the verbal signs. The rise of reflection in a new age is often indicated, by a resurrection, for the men of that age, of their old mean- ing, in classical books of Philosophy, pro- duced by a long gone generation. Not a little philosophical activity, in each new time, may be advantageously expended in efforts to restore their original life to books of that class, which as the symbols of past reflection remind us that the conservation 56 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. of such words is no guarantee for the con- servation of such creations of thought.* It follows from the relation which Ra- tional Philosophy bears to its History, that a new philosophical course may be con- structed with a primary reference, either to a logical plan of thought, or to the chronological order of the development of logico-metaphysical doctrines. We may try to contemplate the universe arid our intellectual life in it, afresh for ourselves, in and through one of the three elementary types of Realism to which I have already alluded ; or we may study, in the philoso- phical library, the speculative experience of the thinking part of mankind, as we find it * All meditative words in all books thus lose their mean- ing, when an unreflecting reader is concerned with them ; and meaning is, in fact, preserved in books of thought, only through reflective sympathy between the author and the suc- cessive generations of his readers. Yet how many accept the symbols instead of their significance the letter for the spirit and expect to fatten on the husks of words ! " The bark" is still there, but the " waters are crone." TWO METHODS 57 gradually registered in books and past sys- tems of philosophy. In the one case, we have in the foreground our individual con- scious experience, as our organ for the interpretation of reality ; and our theory may be dogmatical, sceptical, or critical in its method, comprehensible, contra- dictory, or incomprehensible in its last issues. In the other case, we are studying the variously developed consciousness of others, as it appears in, or disappears from, the literary records of the world's philoso- phical experiments ; and what is contained in these records may be subjected to criti- cism and generalization. Either of these two points of view invites over to itself those who occupy the other. If we begin by working out a Realistic theory for ourselves, we are naturally led to trace historically those elements of all speculation about reality, that are latent in the past perennial collision of the sectarian systems of Constructive Realism with the Scepti- 58 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. cism which refutes them. If we ground a philosophical course upon a chronological study of these same struggles of the philo- sophical past, we are moved by their appa- rent discord to seek for a point at which we can see their harmonious explanation. In llational Philosophy, accordingly, in- dividual reflection is reasonably associated with a study of the records of reflection in others, and a philosophical history of philo- sophy implies a speculative system. On the one hand, we may strive in a reflex study of our own consciousness of pre- sented reality, and the limits of thought concerning Keal Existence to read the intellectual riddle of the universe, by pondering its problems for ourselves. We may resolve in this way to see the mys- tery of things with our own eyes, and not on testimony through the insight of others. On the other hand, sym- pathy with the insight of others, in the manifold phases and trials of that insight THE CATHOLIC SYSTEM. 59 in the past, is necessary, that our own in- sight may be deepened and extended, and made more nearly co-extensive with the Common Reason of humanity. In this effort to understand the great thinkers of the past, we often learn the humbling lesson, that in our own most successful mental experiments, the tide of reflection falls far short of the point it had reached in some long past age, when it filled re- cesses and ramifications of language, from which the meaning has now subsided, be- cause the tide has with us ebbed below its ancient level. Philosophy, in a word, ought not, on the one hand, to be divorced from the study of its own history, and cannot, on the other hand, be analysed into a mere study of the past. History and System are here correlative. We pass, accordingly, from the contemplation of Rational Philo- sophy in its History, to contemplate Ra- tional Philosophy in the CATHOLIC SYSTEM. 60 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. The folio wiDg course professes to be a system of Catholic or Insoluble Realism. It proposes to offer proof that Real Ex- istence which may, in some of its pheno- mena or phases, be, directly or indirectly, apprehended in consciousness is ulti- mately incomprehensible by finite intelli- gence. It concludes that we are bound, both by our speculative and our moral faith, as purely rational and also as respon- sible beings, to believe what we cannot comprehend in thought ; and that every thorough- going metaphysical analysis of the objects of belief presented in the ex- ternal or internal world must, in its issue, awaken the feeling of this intellectual and moral obligation. It sees, in the various Constructive and Destructive schemes of Philosophy, unconscious contributions to this proof and suggestions of this inference. According to the analogy of the method alike of Plato and Bacon, it may be PURE AND MIXED. 6 affirmed that Rational Philosophy is both PURE and MIXED. It is either a reflex analysis of the logical and metaphysical elements of Reason, as these are necessari- ly involved in the conscious experience of HUMANITY, i.e., the theory of ideal Reason ; or it is a reflex study of the imperfect pro- ducts of rational activity in INDIVIDUALS, i. 0., the theory of actual Reason, as em- bodied in a corporeal organization, and subject to the illusions by which a human intellectual life is more or less clouded here on earth. In Plato, man struggles to escape from the imperfections of the illu- sive and transitory, to the quiet assurance of the Real and Eternal. " There is no small difference," reiterates Bacon, " be- tween the Idola of the human mind, and the Ideas of the Divine mind." Reason, in short, in its true relations to the Real, differs from much in the opinions of individuals and communities. Pure Phi- losophy is the ultimate science of specula- 62 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. tive TRUTH, as attained by abstract medita- tion. It is the contemplation of what even Bacon might call Ideas of the Divine mind. It may be described as the theory of Reason regarded as a Revelation. Applied Philo- sophy the theory of ERROR, and avoidable ignorance; with rules and a discipline for their removal or abatement. (A.) PURE OR SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Two chief offices are indispensable on the part of a Speculative System of Rational Philosophy. It must first concentrate reflection upon THOUGHT or UNDERSTANDING ; especially in order that the student may determine, and become familiar with, the Laws by which consciousness must, in this rela- tion, be governed, and the Limits by which it must be confined. The philosophical problem, in this first part, is, to determine the capacity of thought. It should, in the next place, contemplate CREATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS. 63 REAL EXISTENCE ; especially in order that reality may be reflectively contrasted with illusion, perception with conception, fact with fancy, in some of the subtile speculations which the contrast has called forth during the last two thousand years. It is thus that evidence of the essential incomprehensibility of the Real World of Existence, presented to the Understanding, as contrasted with the comprehensibility of the World of Formal Thought, created by the Understanding, may be brought out into light. The highest philosophical office of this second part is to compare Real Existence with the Conditions which regulate the capacity of Thought. These two duties, between them, ex- haust what, in the speculative part of this enterprise, it is proposed to accomplish. Rational Philosophy discharges the one duty in the abstract Science of Logic, and the other in the abstract Science of Meta- physics. It discharges both, by means 64 RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY. of a reflex study of our conscious ex- perience. The study of each of these sciences separately, and of the two in correlation, by means of independent reflection, and of reflective sympathy with former phi- losophical " experiments," dogmatical, sceptical, and critical, is the nucleus of all philosophical study. It is the systematic contemplation of finite knowledge or in- telligence, and of the speculations which have sought to give the deepest and truest expression to that theory. It implies, moreover, a mental discipline, in clear, dis- tinct, conclusive, and methodical thought, corresponding to its logical part ; and in the intellectual and moral virtues, which are naturally fostered by a metaphysical analysis, that conducts from Sectarian Rationalism to the Catholic Faith of Rea- son, and leads to an ultimate repose upon the common feelings of the human mind, instead of on pretended explanations or THE LOGICAL VESTIBULE. 65 demonstrations of transcendental specula- tion. It remains to indicate in outline the system, which lies involved in this general description of the two great departments of Speculative Philosophy. That outline I shall now offer, commencing with LOGIC, which, in the order of thought, takes the first place,* and, in its own nature, is the easier of the two sciences that constitute Rational Philosophy, f Logic, as I have said, is the Philosophi- cal Science of the Necessary Conditions of UNDERSTANDING or THOUGHT. * Leibnitz refers to Logic as " philosophise vestibulum." (Diss. de Stilo Philos. Nizolii.) This accords with the spirit, if not with the letter, of the best schemes of reflex speculation ; and, in particular, with the opinion of Aristotle, who says that a course of discipline in the Analytics (Formal Logic) should precede the study of axioms and metaphysical philosophy, e.g., tan 5 crola Tts ital i) fyvaiK-t], d\X' ov irpwrrj. OTO, 6' e7%ei- povcrt TWV \eybvrwv TU>S irepl rrjs dXrjdeias, ov rpbirov Set dTroSexecr^ai, 6t' aTrai8evei\o(ro-^'n * n JAN H 1959 !iR6 LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 MAY! W27-6692RCO ^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY