\X*£ Co A Z< m "*£ V .^Sk ** KJ ^P*£' ; ' •:;::■-;; ■ ■ LIBRARY OF THE University of California. ■ GIFT OF* \Aaaa*xt....-...£\ vfcwiV.Cj (?U^:.( Class 1 MB n w ■ HI Gbe TUntversttE of Gbfcago FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN THE LIGHT OF SOME RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHOLOGY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTIES OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOLS OF ARTS LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE, IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (DEPARTMENT OF philosophy) BY WILLARD CLARK GORE CHICAGO IQ02 V3f?f '-'. Copyright, IQ02 By Willard Clark Gore CONTENTS. l'AGE. Part I. A Statement of Spinoza's Theory of the Imagination - - - 7 Sec. i. The Nature of Spinoza's Problem ... 7 Sec. 2. The End Proposed by Spinoza as the Solution 9 Sec. 3. The Means for Attaining the End in - - - - -11 (a) The Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione - - -11 (£>) The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus - - - - 16 (c) The Ethics 23 Sec. 4- Summary of the Statement of Spinoza's Theory of the Imagi- nation - - - - - -- - - -30^ Part II. Hume's Theory of the Imagination ------ 32 Sec. 1. The Nature of Hume's Problem ------ 32 Sec. 2. Senses in Which Hume Uses the Word "Imagination"' - 33 (a) Imagination Distinguished from Memory - - - 33 (&) Imagination Distinguished from Reason - - - 35 (c) Imagination Distinguished from Habit, Association, and Emotion --------- 37 Sec. 3. The Function of the Imagination in Hume's Theory of Knowledge - 40 Sec. 4. Criticism ---------- 45 Sec. 5. Summary Comparison of Spinoza and Hume - - - 46 — -- Part III. Psychology of the Imagination ------- 49 Sec. 1. The Use of Terms -------- ^g Sec. 2. Recent Specific Contributions to the Psychology of the Imagi- nation ---------- 50 Sec. 3. A Psychological Analysis of Image Development - - 54 Applications and Conclusion - - - - 71 00? NOTE. The page references to Spinoza's writings refer either to the translation by Elwes, two volumes, London, 1 891, or to the Opera, two volumes, edited by Van Vloten and Land, The Hague, 1882-83. When both are referred to, E. designates the translation, and L. the Opera. The page references to Hume's writings refer to the Treatise of Human Nature, edited by Selby- Bigge, Oxford, 1896. A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE THEORIES OF THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME. The object of this study is to make a specific test, or at least to find an illustration, of the general proposition that philosophy, or meta- physics, and psychology form a logical partnership, an organic unity, which cannot be ignored or dissolved without impairing interests that each holds to be peculiarly its own. Such a proposition is liable to be greeted either as harmlessly com- monplace, or as hopelessly behind the times, or as absurdly prema- ture, according to the local conditions which it chances to encounter. Few would deny, I suppose, that philosophy and psychology are related members of one body of knowledge, and a good deal of philosophizing as to the organic nature of that relationship would doubtless be good- naturedly tolerated even by some who would be the first to resent the logical consequences of this kind of philosophizing. Again, there are those who, granting that philosophy, or "metaphysics," and psychology have been intimately associated in the past, perhaps not altogether to the detriment of the latter in some instances, would at the same time dwell upon the fact that psychology, following the example of the natural sciences, has long made good its escape from the leading-strings of its ancient mother. And, finally, there are those who would assert that a new and real unification of the two disciplines, a recognition of the partnership, would seem to be quite unwarrantable and premature, being without adequate' scientific backing from any source, and thus affording a prospect so vague and remote as not to appear worthy of serious consideration. It is not so much with the intention of verifying the proposition or hypothesis in question as it is with the hope of making it less vague and remote in some particulars, that this critical examination of a nar- rowly restricted portion of the field has been attempted, namely, the theories regarding the imagination which are found in the philosophies of Spinoza and of Hume. No especial reason need be given for choos- ing this particular subject-matter, save that it is concerned with psycho- logical specimens which are found growing in philosophical soil ; many 5 6 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME other topics would doubtless have served the purpose as well, if not bet- ter. The method employed — that of presenting contrasting theories for mutual criticism — is purely subordinate to the end in view, and is rather an after-thought than an essential condition, since it occurred to the writer only after Part I, which deals with Spinoza's theory of the imagination, had taken what is practically its present form. PART I. A STATEMENT OF SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION. Spinoza's identification of the imagination with the source of all falsehood, error, and confusion — a doctrine which runs in varying forms through nearly all of his works, and which is so fully and consistently worked out, taking it as a whole, that it may fairly be called a theory of the imagination — is not to be intelligently stated or appreciated, it almost goes without saying, apart from the main body of his philosophy- What was the need, the problem, that this doctrine arose to meet ? What did it contribute toward the attainment of the end proposed as a solution ? In what respects, if any, does it appear inconsistent, or inadequate ? and why ? These questions openly confess to the assump- tions that Spinoza was conscious of a problem, did propose a certain end as a solution, and developed a theory of the imagination as one of the means — not necessarily the only one — of attaining the end. It is believed, however, that these assumptions rest on Spinoza's own state- ments, especially on those in the autobiographical portion of that propaedeutic to his philosophy, the Tractatus de Intellectus Emen- datione. SEC. I. THE NATURE OF SPINOZA'S PROBLEM. Experience, we are told in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, had taught Spinoza that the commonly accepted goods of life are vain and futile ; that the all-absorbing ideals commonly conceived to con- stitute the sunimum bonum — riches, fame, and the pleasures of sense — when realized are found to be uncertain and fleeting, followed by melancholy and a dulled intellect in the case of the pleasures of sense, and by perpetual dissatisfaction with successive attainment in the case of fame and riches. The same problem is suggested elsewhere in Spinoza's writings. In that earliest of his writings — the Dialogue between Understanding, Love, Reason, and Desire, composed probably four or five years prior to his excommunication — there is a trace of the same kind of dissatis- faction. At the beginning of the dialogue Love questions the Under- standing regarding the nature and existence of an absolutely perfect being ; Understanding answers that such a being and the whole of 7 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME nature are one, and Reason is called upon to corroborate this intuitive assertion. Then Desire breaks in with an attempt to point out contra- dictions in the answers that Understanding and Reason have given; and advises Love to remain content with the things that he, Desire, has shown to her. Love turns on Desire with these bitter words : You shameless wretch ! What things have you shown to me, save those from which would follow my ruin ? For if I had ever allied myself to the things which you have shown me, from that hour I should have been pursued by the two arch-fiends of the human race — Hatred and Remorse — and now and then by Forgetfulness. Therefore I turn again to Reason. May he con- tinue, and stop the mouths of those fiends. (Sigwart, German transl., p. 26.) The same note is struck in the second part of the Brevis Tractatus de Deo, Ho7)iine et Beatudine, Chap. V, where we are told that we become weak and miserable through love of transient things. To be sure, there is a still harder fate possible for us; for Spinoza concludes this paragraph by saying : If those who love transient things, which have some degree of reality, are so miserable, how is it possible to conceive the misery of those who love fame, riches, and the pleasures of sense, which have no reality at all ! The essentially objective reference of the dissatisfaction is the important thing to note. Spinoza's pessimism is far from the pessimism of Schopenhauer. It is not a despair born of a sense of the all-devour- ing, yet perpetually hungry, character of the will itself. It is not a pessimism with reference to the nature of desire itself, but it is a pes- simism, or — if that is too strong a word— -a deep-seated dissatisfaction, with reference to the ordinary objects of desire. All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hindrances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them. 1 After mentioning examples of this fatal tendency, Spinoza con- cludes that : All these evils seem to have arisen from the fact that happiness or unhappi- ness is made wholly to depend on the quality of the object which we love. When a thing is not loved, no quarrels will arise concerning it — no sadness will be felt if it perishes — no envy if it is possessed by another — no fear, no hatred; 1 "Ilia autera omnia, quae vulgus sequitur, non tantum nullum conferunt remedium ad nostrum esse conservandum, sed etiam id impediunt, et frequenter sunt causa interitus eorum, qui ea possident, et semper causa interitus eorum, qui ab iis possidentur." ( Trac. de Intell. Em., p. 4.) SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 9 in short, no disturbances of the mind. All these arise from the love of what is perishable, such as the objects already mentioned. 1 Let these brief statements, insignificant though they may appear in comparison with the great systematic developments of his thought, be given their due weight, and they will be found to afford some idea, it is believed, of Spinoza's fundamental problem, which was an ethical problem, perhaps the ethical problem, the problem as to the nature of the good. Scarcely more than the origin of this problem has been touched upon, its origin in the feeling of intense dissatisfaction with the fleeting and perishable objects, the barren ideals, which are pur- sued by the multitude, with the so-called goods of this life — riches, honor, and pleasure — with "the worldly hope men set their hearts upon," which — " Like snow upon the desert's dusty face, Lighting a little hour or two — is gone." It does not appear, however, that this dissatisfaction had any sentimental or aesthetic interest for Spinoza. Rather was it a stimulus to a solution, to the discovery of a true and eternal good. Postquam me experientia docuit, omnia, quae in communi vita fre- quenter occurrunt, vana et futilia esse : . . . . constitui tandem inquirere an aliquid daretur, quod verum bonum, et sui communicabile esset, et a quo solo, rejectis caetens omnibus, animus afficeretur ; imo an aliquid daretur, quo invento et acquisito, continua ac summa in aeternum fruerer laetitia. {Trac. de Intell. Em., p. 3.) To this positive interest in the problem we now pass. SEC. II. THE END PROPOSED BY SPINOZA AS THE SOLUTION. The end or ideal proposed by Spinoza as the solution, and virtu- ally set over against the fleeting, partial goods pursued by the multi- tude, is that of a true good, a verum bonum, an eternal, infinite good, a fixed good {fixum enim bonum quaerebam), a good " having the power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else ; " a good " the discovery and attainment of which would enable one to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happi- ness." But how is such a good to be obtained ? Spinoza says that he made many efforts to arrive at this new principle, or at any rate at a 1 " Videbantur porro ex eo haec orta esse mala, quod tota felicitas aut infelicitas in hoc solo sita est, videlicet, in qualitate objecti, cui adhaeremus amore. Nam propter illud, quod non amatur, nunquam orientur Iites, nulla erit tristitia, si pereat, nulla invidia, si ab alio possideatur, nullus timor, nullum, odium, et, ut verbo dicam, nullae commotiones animi: quae quidem omnia contingunt in amore eorum, quae perire possunt, uti h^ec omnia, de quibus modo locuti sumus." {Trac. de Intell. Em., p. 5.) IO THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME certainty concerning its existence, without changing the conduct and usual plan of his life, but in vain. Compromise was impossible. Either the ordinary pursuits and ideals of life must be abandoned, or else the quest for the verum bonum. He felt that he must choose between a possessed good uncertain and transient in its nature, and a good not uncertain in its nature (Jlxum cnim bonum quaerebani), but uncertain in the possibility of its attainment. Further reflection convinced me that, if I could really get to the root of the matter, I should be leaving certain evils for a certain good. I thus per- ceived that I was in a state of great peril, and I compelled myself to seek with all my strength for a remedy, however uncertain it might be ; as a sick man struggling with a deadly disease, when he sees that death will surely be upon him unless a remedy be found, is compelled to seek such a remedy with all his strength, inasmuch as his whole hope lies therein. 1 Spinoza's logical method, in the largest sense of the word, was con- ceived in this struggle. The fundamental significance of the logical method was, and is, that it emerged in the course of the struggle, and that it began at once to exercise a modifying influence upon the con- flicting elements, transforming the end and discovering the means for its realization. The end is transformed by being stated in intellectual terms. The highest good ceases to be a mystic abstraction set over against the partial, concrete values of the life that now is. Spinoza was forced to recognize that human weakness cannot attain in its own thoughts to the eternal order and fixed laws of nature. At the same time he asserted that a man can conceive a human character much more stable (multo firmiorem) than his own, and that such a man sees no reason why he should not acquire such a character, and is led to seek for means which will bring him to this pitch of perfection, calling everything which will serve as such a means a true good. 2 The highest good is that a man should arrive, together with other indi- viduals if possible, at the possession of this character. 3 And now comes Spinoza's statement of what this character is, a statement which, in virtue of its formulation in intellectual terms, opens the way to a Il 'Assidua autem meditatione eo perveni, ut viderem, quod turn, modo possem penitus deliberare, mala certa pro bono certo omitterem. Videbam enim me in summo versari periculo, et me cogi, reme- dium, quamvis incertum, summis viribus quaerere ; veluti aeger lethali morbo laborans, qui ubi mortem certam praevidet ni adhibeatur remedium, illud ipsum, quamvis incertum, summis viribus cogitur quaerere, nempe in eo tota ejus spes est sita." (Trac. de Intell. Em,, p. 4.) 2 "Incitatur ad media quaerendum, quae ipsum ad talem ducant perfectionem: et omne illud, quod potest esse medium, ut eo perveniat, vocatur verum bonum." {Ibid,, p. 6.) 3" Summum autem bonum est eo pervenire, ut ille cum aliis individuis, si fieri potest, tali natura fruatur." (Ibid.) SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION II logic, to an account of the means for attaining the end. This char- acter, Spinoza says, is the knowledge of the union existing between the mind and the whole of nature. 1 This, then, is the end for which I strive, to attain such a character myself, and to endeavor that many should attain to it with me. In other words, it is a part of my happiness to lend a helping hand, that many others may under- stand even as I do, so that their understanding and desire may entirely agree with my own. 2 SEC. III. THE MEANS FOR ATTAINING THE END. I shall not attempt to make a very systematic statement under this heading, for fear of forcing an interpretation of Spinoza's philosophy. One of the most significant features of that philosophy is that it does not differentiate to any considerable extent between logical, psycho- logical, and ethical categories. Chiefly for the sake of convenience, then, as the field to be covered is exceedingly broad and diversified, I will partition it, with reference to the treatment of the imagination involved, into — I. The Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, which works out a logical method ; II. The Tractatus Theologico-Polilicus, in which the theory of the imagination is effectively applied, and at the same time is much more fully developed ; and III. The Ethica, where further developments of the theory of the imagination are to be noted, especially on the more distinctively psychological and ethical sides. I. Tractatus de Intellectus Eme/idatione. Spinoza first pointed out that, in order to attain the ideal character, which is a unity of self with the whole of nature, it is essential both to understand and to form a social order such as is most conducive to the attainment of this character by the greatest number with the least difficulty and danger. He then enumerates the following somewhat more specific measures : Moral philosophy, and the sciences of edu- cation, of medicine, and of mechanics. "But before all things," he continues, "a means must be devised for improving the understanding and purifying it, as far as may be at the outset, so that it may appre- hend things without error, and in the best possible way." In other 1 " Quaenam autem ilia fit natura ostendemus suo loco, nimirum esse cognitionem unionis, quam mens cum tota Natura habet." {Ibid.) 2 "Hie est itaque fines, ad quem tendo, talem scilicet naturam acquirere, et, ut multi mecum earn acquirant, conari; hoc est, de mea felicitate etiam est operam dare, ut alii multi idem atque ego intel- ligant, ut eorum intellectus et cupiditas prorsus cum meo intellectu et cupiditate conveniant." (Ibid.) 12 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME words, it is a logic that Spinoza seeks to develop as the first and funda- mental means of controlling science and thus arriving at the ideal. To this task alone Spinoza addresses himself in the rest of the Tracta- tes de Intellectus Emendatione, and with it emerges his conscious logical method as distinguished from the larger logic of the situation, which I have attempted to follow up to this point. What might fairly be called his logical theory falls into two main divisions. The first of these divisions corresponds pretty closely to the larger logic of the situation, which I have just referred to, and leans toward a genetic view of logical processes. The second is devoted to logic or method in the narrower sense of the term — that is, logic as a body of rules. I will try to state his position far enough to make it clear where the treatment of imagination enters and plays its part. Under the first division, Spinoza discriminates three stages : (i) The end, to which we wish to direct all our thoughts. (" Habuimus hujusque primo Finem, ad quern omnes nostras cogitationes dirigere studemus," p. 15.) (2) The mode of perception best adapted to attaining the end; corresponding, I believe, to what we should call the most effective attitude of mind. (3) The discovery of the best way to begin, namely, the use of every true idea as a standard. This corre- sponds in a way to what we should term the discovery of a working hypothesis, though for Spinoza there was absolutely nothing of a hypo- thetical character about the true idea. I will state more fully what Spinoza means by the standard idea, because it is in connection with the methods of determining it that the treatment of the imagination emerges. The standard idea is its own test of truth, because it is an instrument created by the native strength of the intellect. There is no test of truth for the intellect extrinsic or back of itself. A regressus ad infinitum is out of the question. "In order to know, there is no need to know that we know, much less to know that we know that we know .... for, in order to know that I know, I must first know." Spinoza's famous hammer illustration comes in here : " It would be as foolish to argue that men have no power of working iron because they must use a hammer, which in turn must have been made by another hammer, and that by another or by other tools, and so on to infinity, as it would be to argue that the mind could not know truth as truth." And again: "The reality of true thought does not acknowledge the object as its cause, but must depend on the actual power and nature of the understanding." Furthermore, not only does a true idea necessarily first of all exist in us as a natural SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 13 instrument, "but it is absolutely correlative with its physical object;" this is, of course, a fundamental assumption with Spinoza. Under the second division, Spinoza states his more specific prin- ciples of' logic : 1. The means of distinguishing a true idea from all other percep- tions. 2. Rules for perceiving unknown things according to the standard of the true idea. We might be led to suspect that Spinoza had antici- pated what in principle corresponds to the technique of modern laboratory procedure, but he confined himself to a warning against "confounding what is only in the understanding with that which is in the thing itself," and to a discussion of the conditions to be met in framing a good definition. 3. An order which enables us to avoid useless labor (this corre- sponds to classification). 4. The perfection of method, which would be when we had attained to the idea of the absolutely perfect being. "This is an observation which should be made at the outset, in order that we may arrive at the knowledge of such a being more quickly." The treatment of the imagination becomes immediately involved only in the discussion of the first of these four principles, namely, the means of distinguishing a true idea from all other perceptions. Should the reader raise the question, " Why did Spinoza need to propose means of distinguishing a true idea from all other perceptions, after the true idea had been declared to be its own witness of its truth? " an answer will be found in what Spinoza has to say concerning the validity of reasoning about the test of truth itself. He admits that, if "by some happy chance" anyone had stumbled upon the true idea, " in his investigations of nature," that is, if he had acquired new ideas in the proper order, according to the standard of the original true idea, he would never have doubted the truth of his knowledge, "inas- much as truth, as we have shown, makes itself manifest, and all things would flow, as it were, spontaneously toward him." But this rarely or never happens, Spinoza continues. This order of thinking, though " adopted by men in their inward meditations," is rarely employed in investigation of nature, because of current misconception, because it demands keen and accurate discernment, and, lastly, because " it is hindered by conditions of human life, which are, as we have already pointed out, extremely changeable." I have quoted this partly for the sake of showing in what form the original problem persists. It is 14 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME at this particular point that the treatment of the imagination becomes explicit. There are three types of ideas which the mind, according to Spinoza, must be kept from confusing with true ideas. These three types are : fictitious, false, and doubtful ideas. All of these originate in the imagination, "that is, in certain sensations fortuitous (so to speak) and disconnected, arising, not from the power of the mind, but from external causes, according as the body, sleeping or waking, receives various motions." Spinoza perceives that he has appeared to beg the question, and requests that no one be astonished that "before proving the existence of body and other necessary things he has spoken of the imagination of the body and of its composition." The view taken is immaterial, he continues, so long as we know that the imagination is something indefi- nite, that it is essentially different from the understanding, that the mind with regard to it is passive. We can know "the true idea because it is simple or compounded of simple ideas," because it is clear and distinct. But a "fictitious idea" cannot be clear and distinct. It is necessarily confused, "because the mind has only a partial knowledge of the object, and does not distinguish between the known and the unknown, and because it directs its attention promiscuously to all parts of the object at once without making distinctions." " Fiction never creates or fur- nishes the mind with anything new; only such things as are already in the brain or imagination are recalled to the memory, when the atten- tion is directed to them confusedly and all at once." The mind in imagination is at the mercy of its world. Chance associations rule. ' For instance, we have remembrance of spoken words and of a tree ; when the mind directs itself to them confusedly, it forms the notion of a tree speaking." Again, we can know a true idea because it shows how and why something is or has been made. Imagination introduces the irrelevant. "If an architect conceives a building properly con- structed, though such a building may never have existed, and may never exist, nevertheless the idea is true ; and the idea remains true the same whether it be put into execution or not." But imagination asserts, not the essence, but the existence, of a building — to adapt Spinoza's illustration — without knowing whether the building really exists or not. So the true idea of a sphere is the concept of its con- struction by means of the revolution of a semicircle on the diameter. But imagination affirms something not contained in such a concept, as SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 15 motion or rest of the semicircle apart from the relation of a semicircle to the production of a sphere. When the imagination and the understanding, or the perception of true ideas, appear to be associated, the danger is especially great, giving rise to complete deception. This occurs when certain things presented to the imagination also exist in the understanding. Then true and false ideas become confused. Spinoza instances the Stoics, who "heard that the soul is immortal, yet imagined it only confusedly; they imagined, also, and understood that very subtle bodies penetrate all others, and are penetrated by none. By combining these ideas, and being at the same time certain of the truth of the axiom, they forthwith became convinced that the mind consists of very subtle bodies; that these very subtle bodies cannot be divided, etc. But we are freed from mistakes of this kind, so long as we endeavor to examine all our perceptions by the standard of a given true idea." In another, though similar, way we confuse the intellect and the imagination. We think that what we more readily imagine is clearer to us ; that what we imagine, that we understand. Thus we violate the true deductive method, "the true order of progression" — putting first what should be last. There are other grave errors arising through not distinguishing accurately between the imagination and the understanding: such as "believing that extension must be localized; that it must be finite; that its parts are really distinct one from the other; that it is the primary and single foundation of all things; that it occupies more space at one time than any other; and other similar doctrines, all entirely opposed to the truth, as we shall duly show." Finally, an idea is stated, though not developed very far, in this tractatus, which is one of the fundamental ideas of the Spinozistic phi- losophy. The imagination is affected only by " particular, physical objects, and thus perceives things in a determinate number, duration, and quantity; " whereas the understanding perceives things not so much under "the condition of duration as under a certain form of eternity and in an infinite number." To put the substance of the matter in a sentence or two : The theory of the imagination furnishes a negative test of the standard idea. Let no trace of the imagination be found in it. Let no influ- ence from any external and particular object or time contaminate it. Let no confusion enter into it from without through the gates of sleeping-awake — for error is the dreaming of a waking man. "Error autem est vigilando sominare." Let the standard idea be the instru- 1 6 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME ment created solely "per vim nativam" of the mind itself working according to fixed and eternal laws, the fulfilment of which is freedom. Assuming that we now have before us a fairly complete statement of the theory of the imagination as it is worked out in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, the true critical question that arises is: To what extent will it be found a useful means in attaining the end proposed, in solving the original problem ? Recall the nature of that problem — the fleeting, perishable, finite character of the commonly accepted goods of this life; the sham, the self-deception of it all. What has Spinoza done save to identify this problem with the nature of the imagination, and then by rejecting the imagination to get rid of the problem — a solution by exclusion, by excommunication? Infinitely more ! it will be said. Has he not pointed out the way to the goal — the formation of that perfect character which is the knowledge of the unity of itself with the whole of nature — by showing how the indi- vidual himself, any individual who thinks, is by virtue of the very act of thought a creator of the instruments of truth with which to attain the goal? True, all this may have been won for the individual — but only at the cost of the essence of individuality itself. All spontaneity, all initiative, all variability, all progress is ruled out. "For the soul," Spinoza says, "acts according to fixed laws and is, as it were, an immaterial automaton." 1 II. The Tractatus Theologico- Politicus . The object of the Tractatus Theologico- Politicus is closely related to the general problem, because it aims to secure perfect freedom in carry- ing out the solution of the problem — freedom to think. The theory of the imagination worked out in this tractatus is one of the instru- ments with which to eliminate conflicting elements from the situation. In its application it receives further development and definition. It is possible to overemphasize the influence on Spinoza's life and thought of his excommunication. "This compels me," he is reported to have said on receiving the news, "to nothing which I should not otherwise have done." (Pollock, Life of Spinoza, p. 19.) Nevertheless, the excommunication has an important significance, in that it was an overt expression of a deep-seated conflict between the old and the new, between sacred tradition and ritual, and the spirit of growing scientific 1 "At ideam veram simplicem esse ostendimus, aut ex simplicibus compositam, ut quae ostendit, quo- modo et cur aliquid fit aut factum sit, et quod ipsius effectus objectivi in anima procedunt ad rationem formalitatis ipsius objecti ; id quod idem est, quod veteres dixerunt, nerape veram scientiam procedere a causa ad effectus ; nisi quod nunquam, quod sciam, conceperunt,uti nos hie, anitnam secundum certas leges ageniem, et quasi aliquod automa spirituale" (Italics mine.) ( Trac. de Intel!. Em., p. 29.) SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 17 thought and political freedom. Spinoza was not indifferent to this con- flict. His principal works, particularly this tractatus, show that he was keenly alive to it. This conflict finds here its most concentrated expression in the separation of theology from philosophy, of obedience from freedom to think. The separation is explained and justified, to a very large extent, by means of an analysis of the gift and function of prophecy, and by a psychological distinction between the imagination and the understanding, developing with the analysis and at the same time con- trolling it. The analysis of the gift and function of prophecy, which occupies the first two chapters of the tractatus, follows two somewhat different lines of argument, and brings out clearly two different aspects of the imagination. A comparison of the introductory sentences of each chapter will serve as a statement of the contrast, and will also set before us (a) the definition from which the first line of argument proceeds, and (6) the conclusion which the second line of argument aims to support by empirical data : Prophecy, or revelation, is a sure knowledge revealed by God to man. A prophet is one who interprets the revelations of God to those who are unable to attain to sure knowledge of the matters revealed, and therefore can only apprehend them by simple faith. 1 It follows from the last chapter that, as I have said, the prophets were endowed with unusually vivid imaginations, and not with unusually perfect minds. 2 (a) A theory of the imagination becomes involved in the first of these two lines of argument as soon as the principle is laid down that the imagination is one of the three ways in which certa cognitio was revealed by God to man in the Scriptures, the other two being the vera vox that spoke to Moses, and the immediate communion of Christ with God — mind to mind. To be sure, Spinoza expressly states that the ordinary knowledge which we acquire by our natural faculties depends upon our knowledge of God and his eternal laws ; that the feeling of intellectual certainty is of the nature of a divine revelation — an idea elaborated in Chap. IV, and destined to be of transcendent importance in the Ethics. But with reference to prophecy, in all instances, save those of 1 " Prophetia sive Revelatio est rei alicujus certa cognitio a Deo hominibus revelata. Propheta autem is est, qui Dei revelata iis interpretatur, qui rerum a Deo revelatarum certam cognitionem habere nequeunt, quique adeo mera fide res revelatas amplecti tantum possum." (Cap. i.) 2 "Ex superiore Capite, ut jam iudicavimus, sequitur, Prophetas non fuisse perfectiore mente praeditos, sed quidem potentia vividius imaginandi, quod Scripturae narrationes abunde etiam docent." (Cap. ii.) 1 8 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME Moses and of Christ, the imagination is the sole instrument of divine revelation. Toward the close of the argument the deepest significance attaching to this instrument is made to depend on a quatenus, which in turn involves the moral character and peculiar power of the prophets, and finally depends upon the nature of a prophecy, as defined in the first paragraph of the chapter, quoted above, thus completing the circle and identifying imagination with the mind of God. More in detail, Spinoza enters upon a full discussion of the various meanings of the Hebrew word for " spirit," with the end in view of determining the rela- tion between spirit and prophecy, as illustrated in such scriptural phrases as : " The spirit of the Lord was upon a prophet," " The Lord breathed his spirit into men," "Men were filled with the spirit of God, with the Holy Spirit," etc. Such phrases mean, he concludes, "that prophets were endowed with peculiar and extraordinary power, and devoted themselves to piety with a special constancy; that thus they perceived the mind or thought of God; for it has been shown that God's spirit signifies in Hebrew God's mind or thought, and that the law which shows his mind and thought is called his spirit; hence the imagination of the prophet, in so far as {quatenus) through it were revealed the degrees of God, may equally be called the mind of God, and the prophets be said to have possessed the mind of God." 1 Quatenus, if it reduces the possibility of divine revelation to zero, makes the original definition of prophecy a mere form of words for a thing that has never existed. If, on the other hand, there has been such a thing as prophecy in the scriptural sense — -and Spinoza never goes so far as to express a doubt of this assumption — then " in so far," quatenus, the imagination of the prophets and the mind of God were one. It is worth noting that in the paragraph immediately following this part of the discussion, Spinoza confesses his ignorance of the particu- lar way in which communication between the mind of God and the imagination of the prophet was effected, and declares the irrelevancy of any attempt at explanation. (b) The second line of argument develops and endeavors to sub- stantiate by evidence drawn from the Scriptures, and by an appeal to i "Nihil enim aliud significant, quam quod Prophetae virtutem singularem et supra communem habebant, quodque pietatem eximia animi constantia colebant. Deinde, quod Dei mentem sive senten- tiam pcrcipiebant ; ostendimus enim, Spiritum Hebraice significare tam mentem quam mentis sententiam, et hac de causa ipsam Legem, quia Dei mentem explicabat, Spiritum sive mentem Dei vocari ; quare aequali jure imaginatio Prophetarum, quatenus per earn Dei decreta revelabantur, mens Dei etiam vocari poterat, Prophetaeque mentem Dei habuissedici poterant." (Italics mine.) {Trac. Theol-Pol., cap. i, p. 390.) SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 19 common experience, the contrast between imagination and reason implied in the first sentence in Chap. II, quoted on p. 17. The most significant feature of the argument — a feature which not only antici- pates the contrast between inadequate and adequate ideas in the Ethics, but also touches the core of Spinoza's philosophic method — is the nature of the distinction between the imagination and the under- standing. It is a distinction between particulars and the universal ; between particulars as expressed in terms of opinions, biases, mental images — in short, the capacities of the private, subjective individual as such — and the universal as it necessarily follows from the nature of the thing perceived or seen. Out of this distinction grows on the logical side a distinction between two kinds of certitude, two kinds of validity — moral and mathematical. One line of certitude, the kind which the prophet experienced, is afforded by signs extrinsic to the revelation itself : " Simplex imaginatio non involvat ex sua natura certi- tudinem." Instances are given of the verification of prophecy by signs, which show " Prophetas semper signum aliquod habuisse, quo certi fiebant de rebus, quas Prophetice imaginabantur." (This state- ment is subsequently qualified : " Praeterea concedere possumus, Prophetas, qui nihil novi, nisi quod in Lege Mosis continentur, pro- phetabant, non indignisse signo, quia ex Lege confirmabantur.") The important point is that both sign and revelation varied according to the capacity and disposition of the individual. Numerous examples are given of the ways in which revelations may vary according to the mood, culture, and ideas of the individual prophets. Yet, differing as widely as they may in all these respects, there is one trait that true prophets share in common — high moral character. This affords the surest guarantee of certainty. " Nam Deus pios et electos numquam decipit." To give Spinoza's summary of the discussion with reference to the criteria of prophecy: The whole question of the certitude of prophecy was based on these three considerations : 1. That the things revealed were imagined very vividly, affecting the prophets in the same way as things seen when awake. 2. The presence of a sign. 3. Lastly and chiefly, that the mind of the prophet was given wholly to what was right and good. (Chap, II. This summary is repeated and expounded further in Chap. XV.) Set over against prophetic certainty, or moral certainty, is mathe- matical certainty. The nature of this kind of certainty is intrinsic 20 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME and deductive, self-involved and self-evolving. " Prophetica igitur hac in re naturali cedit cognitioni, quae nullo indiget signo, sed ex sua natura certitudinem involvit" (p. 393). The distinction between the two kinds of certitude is imbedded in a remarkable sentence, which may be quoted as a summary of the principal points brought out thus far: As, then, the certitude afforded to the prophets by signs was not mathe- matical (z. e., did not follow necessarily from the perception of the thing perceived or seen), but only moral, and as the signs were only given to convince the prophet, it follows that such signs were given according to the opinions and capacity of each prophet, so that a sign which would con- vince one prophet would fall far short of convincing another who was imbued with different opinions. Therefore the signs varied according to the indi- vidual prophet. (Chap. II, E, p. 29, and L, p. 393.) From this discussion of the first two chapters of the tractatus, involving points which, as Spinoza states at the close of the second chapter, are the only ones bearing on the end in view, namely, " ad separandam Philosophiam a Theologia," it is evident that we have to consider, on the one hand, two aspects of the imagination, two apparently irreconcilable aspects : (1) imagination as the sole instrument of the divine revelation of sure knowledge, certa cognitio, in all prophecy (save in the case of Moses and of Christ), as one with the mind of God ; and (2) as a particular, in the sense of private, variable, subjective, partial, embodiment of moral law. On the other hand, we have to consider understanding, intellectus " claris et distincta idea," which is its own witness of the truth. It is difficult to see how there can be any opposition between the first aspect of imagination and the under- standing. It is also difficult to see how it is any easier to reconcile the two aspects of imagination with each other than it is to reconcile the second aspect with the understanding itself. In short, the analysis gives us a two-faced imagination versus the understanding or intellectus. But this is not the place and time for a criticism as to logical con- sistency. Return we first to the problem itself and see how far the results of Spinoza's psychological and logical analysis will meet the situation successfully. Tradition, based on prophetic revelation, is at war with growing scientific and speculative thought. The conflict con- stitutes the problem. What Spinoza proposes as a solution is a cessa- tion of hostilities. He aims to define the province of each, so that each must remain within its own, and so that there will be. no future possibility of conflict. To theology he assigns far the larger area — SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 21 practically the whole of moral education and spiritual guidance. The- ology is given jurisdiction over the many-headed multitude, over those who are untrained in " the deduction of conclusions from general truths a priori" and who "seek each for himself his own selfish interests, with no thought beyond the present and the immediate object." To them theology or religion — both as worship and as exponent of the highest moral law — can make its appeal, not in the form of reasoning deduct- ively from axioms and definitions, but only in terms of concrete human experiences. The law must be incarnated in particulars so vivid and personal that it becomes a living reality to him whose mind cannot grasp a clear and distinct generalization. The law can be effective only as it becomes some particular fragment of the individ- ual's fragmentary life. Hence the function of prophecy was the func- tion of adapting the universal moral law and will of God to the clouded and finite intelligences of the vast majority of humankind. " Pro- pheta autem is est, qui Dei revelata iis interpretatur, qui rerum a Deo revelatarum certam cognitionem habere nequeunt, quique adeo mera fide res revelatas amplecti tantum possunt." It is hardly necessary to state that according to Spinoza the function of prophecy and of the- ology was not to promote religious ecstasy; its function was social, moral — to effect through obedience to the law, as felt by the individ- ual, a secure and permanent organization of society. Of especial sig- nificance in this connection are the chapters on the vocation of the Hebrews, and the Hebrew theocracy, which declare that vocation to have been a monopoly neither on virtue nor on intelligence, but the establishment of a highly perfected and long-enduring social organiza- tion, in which religious, moral, and political control was one in the spirit of reverent and joyful obedience to laws divinely revealed. To philosophy, on the other hand, Spinoza assigns the narrow ter- ritory of the deductive or mathematical method of developing the divine law from clear and distinct ideas — narrow, because this rational insight into the divine nature of things is the blessed possibility of only a few. It, too, however, leads to salvation. Even he who should be ignorant of Scripture narratives, but who should know by natural reason {famine naturale) that God exists, and who should have a true plan of life, would be altogether blessed — yes, more blessed than the common herd of believers, because besides true opinion he would possess also true and distinct ideas. It was most essential, however, not merely to assign different prov- inces to theology and philosophy, but to establish boundary lines that 2 2 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME could never be infringed upon ; to show how the two could never again, from the nature of the case, be at war with one another. There were three instruments with which Spinoza endeavored to bring this about : (i) a theory of the imagination, (2) historical-biblical criticism, (3) a theory of the state. It would be difficult, perhaps irrelevant, to decide which of the three was of the most fundamental importance. All I shall attempt to do is to point out the function of the first, namely, of the theory of the imagination. The divinely revealed subject-matter of the Scriptures is the only subject-matter and body of doctrine, according to Spinoza, that theology can have ; for it is doubtful whether there have been any latter-day prophets. That sub- ject-matter was given and retained solely in terms of the imagination (excepting, always, in the case of Moses and of Christ). To speak more explicitly, that subject-matter was given and retained in terms of private, individual imaginations, flatly contradicting one another in mood, in training, and in matters of rational knowledge and belief. Therefore, the content of theology is embodied in individualistic terms, and is partial, variable, beclouded, and wayward. There is moral agree- ment between the particular, individualistic terms, a practical social unity to which they contribute, but no necessary intellectual agreement, no rational unity. The imagination is so arbitrary, so subjective, so par- tial — in both senses of the word — that it acquired certitude, validity, in prophecy, only through the presence of an objective, corroborating sign or witness. And even this sign or witness was not purely objective and rational, but varied with the character of the individual prophet. The very nature of the imagination, and the very nature of the unrational- ized individual who exercised it in prophecy, determine in themselves — or in itself, for both are one — the limits of theology. Beyond its particular and concrete content theology cannot logically pass. Its law was given by revelation, not derived by reason. Its law was revealed unto the flesh, not born of the spirit. Theology can read its data back- ward, but not forward — backward to the source, but not forward to a new generalization. Contradictory particulars may reflect the law, but the law cannot originate with them. It is just as possible for the logi- cally discrepant particulars of the imagination to generate a universal as it is for the differing rays of light from " the many-colored dome of glass" to become what they once were, " the white radiance of eter- nity." The success of Spinoza's theory of the imagination is apparent, if we accept his premises. The theory simply disarms theology of its SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 23 weapons of attack upon philosophy — or rather shows that theology has never possessed any logical weapons of attack upon the province of rational knowledge. Logically, theology must either abandon its own province altogether, renounce its revealed doctrine, and abdicate its authority over the hearts and the morals of the community; or else it must keep strictly within its broad territory, and make no attempt to limit the freedom of philosophic thought. Take into account as well the reinforcements which the theory of the imagination receives both from Spinoza's discussion of the authorship of the Scriptures — in which he anticipates the standpoint of modern biblical scholarship — and from Spinoza's theory of the state, which aims to show that the safety of the state lies in "the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular, matters should merely have to do with action, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks" — take all this into account, and it is difficult to see that theology has not been excommunicated from philosophy as absolutely as Spinoza was excommunicated from the synagogue, only dispassion- ately and with no breathing of curses. Yet may we not fairly ask : Is this a solution sub specie aetemitatis? How long will a two-faced imagination be at peace with itself ? How long can the imagination and the understanding get on without each other? III. The Ethics. The theory of the imagination involved in the Ethics is the same theory as the one involved in the two tractaii, but with further devel- opments and applications. The Ethics may be regarded as a more complete fulfilment of the logic worked out in the Tractatus de Intel- lectus Emendatione. In harmony with that logic, its movement may be described as the deductive evolution of the standard idea of an abso- lutely perfect being ; and its goal may be described as the intellectual unity of the self with nature, with humanity, and with God — the complete rationalization of existence. " Spinoza's greatness," says Hoffding {History of Mod. Phil., Vol. I, p. 314), "consists in the reso- lute carrying out of the thought that existence must be rational ; from which he concludes that its essence must be identity — absolute unity." Now, opposed to such a unity, to such a goal, is the imagination. Though rejected, it is still a lion in the path. For, as stated in the appendix to Book I of the Ethics, and as has been stated in the previous tractati, the imagination is found to be the source of all 24 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME confused, erroneous, and inadequate ideas — these being the indices of personal prejudices, of individual capacities and limitations. This may be taken as an extremely condensed form of the theory of the imagination in the Ethics, in its resemblance to that of the tractati. The following are the important additions to the theory, or develop- ments of points previously implied : i. A physiological explanation of the origin of the imagination. 2. A psychological explanation of the imagination as the source of error. 3. Imagination the correlate of the body rather than the represen- tative of the object. 4. Relation of the imagination to the emotions. 5. Teleology and freedom as illusory. 1. Spinoza gives a physiological explanation of the imagination on the hypothesis of animal spirits (II, 17, Cor. Proof). The state- ment is perfectly clear so far as it goes. But a "comparison of this passage with I, 15, Sch., brings out an interesting contradiction. The animal-spirits hypothesis, according to which Spinoza explains the origin of the imagination, involves the assumption of the existence of particular things : (1) external objects; (2) animal spirits, or the fluid parts of the human body; (3) the softer parts of the human body. In I, 15, Sch., however, he explains the origin of particular, finite things on the basis of the nature of the imagination as opposed to the intellect. In the former case we imagine because we are particular- ized, so to speak — we are acted upon by particular, finite things; in the latter case, on the other hand, we particularize because we imagine. 1 A remark let fall by Hume is pertinent here : "The same principle cannot be both the cause and the effect of another; and this is, perhaps, the only proposition concerning that relation, which is either intui- tively or demonstratively certain" (p. 90). There is one way out of the contradiction involved in Spinoza's analysis of the imagination : regard it as self-caused. But that will never do, for that would identify it with Substance. This apparently fatal circle of reasoning is not to be dismissed as a logical curiosity. It points to a deeper consequence ; it frames and defines the nature of the underlying problem. This eddy in the cur- rent of Spinoza's stream of thought is a witness alike to the logic of rejection and to the ideal of unity. It marks a point at which the 1 My indebtedness to Professor Dewey for this point is specific. See his article on the " Pantheism of Spinoza," in Jour, of Spec, Phil., Vol. XVI, p. 24a. SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 25 identity between Ursache and Wirkung, and Grund and Folge, 1 breaks down ; neither series is complete ; each borrows from, and lends to, the other. The categories may be diagrammed thus : Grund: ;> Folge: igination as f Particula mind passive. ) V Ursaci Animal spirits, etc. Imagination. ~\ Ursache: - — > Wirkung: 2. Closely related to what I have called a physiological explana- tion of the imagination is the explanation of why the imagination is a source of error and confusion (II, 40, Sch. 1). Both rest on the assumption of animal spirits and all that it implies. Spinoza con- ceives the body to be capable of forming only a certain number of images within itself at the same time. If the number be exceeded, the images will begin to be confused. If this number be largely exceeded, the images will become entirely confused with one another. In all this the mind parallels the body. Spinoza would not agree with Plato (Theaetetus, 194) that "the wax in the soul of anyone could be suffi- ciently deep and abundant, smooth and perfectly tempered," " pure and clear," so that " the impressions which pass through the senses and sink into the heart of the soul" could be retained as "true thoughts " "not liable to confusion." For Spinoza every soul would be, in this respect, essentially limited in the amount, if not in the quality, of its "wax." Like Plato, however, he would ascribe indis- tinctness and confusion to a multitude of impressions, " all jostled together in a little soul, which has no room." The point of the explanation was its application. And the appli- cation was made in accounting for the origin of general or generic terms, such as " being," " thing," " man," " horse," " dog," etc. " They arise, to wit, from the fact that so many images, for instance, of men, are formed simultaneously in the human mind, that the powers of the imagi- nation break down, not indeed utterly, but to the extent of the mind losing count of small differences between individuals, e. g., color, size, etc., and their definite number, and only distinctly imagining that in which all the individuals, in so far as the body is affected by them, agree" (II, 40, Sch. 1). 1 Cf. Max Rackwitz, Studien iiber Causalitdt u. Identitcit als Gritndprincipien des Spino- zismus (Halle, 1884). 26 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME All that Spinoza has said with reference to this point is practically an indictment of empirical or "inductive" logic. It is an indictment of any logic that regards generic ideas as common elements abstracted from particular instances, or made after the fashion of a composite photograph. So far as the whole theory of the imagination is concerned, how- ever, the most significant feature of this particular explanation is its bearing on Spinoza's concept of the individual — a concept whose fundamental importance becomes more and more apparent as our dis- cussion proceeds. Although the generic term is formed by abstracting the common element, and by losing track of differences, it does not follow that a generic term possessed by one individual will be identi- cal with the generic term of the same name possessed by any other individual. This for the reason that the images from which the term is abstracted are never alike in any two individuals. " We must, how- ever, bear in mind that these general notions are not formed by all men in the same way, but vary in each individual according as the point varies whereby the body has been most often affected, and which the mind most easily imagines or remembers " (II, 40, Sch. 1). In so far as we, as individuals, " form our general notions by abstracting them from particular things represented to our intellects fragmentarily, confusedly, and without order, through our senses," we. have the kind of knowledge that may be called opinion or imagination (II, 40, Sch. 2). 3. Imagination the correlate of the body, rather than the repre- sentative of the object. This point is simply a phase of the two preceding points. " The imagination is an idea which indicates rather the disposition of the human body than the nature of the external body ; not indeed distinctly, but confusedly ; whence it comes to pass that the mind is said to err " (IV, 1, Sch.). Spinoza would differentiate clearly between the idea of Peter which constitutes the essence of Peter's mind, and the idea of Peter which is in another man, say Paul. The first is a true repre- sentative idea. The second is quite likely to be imagination ; it indi- cates rather the disposition of Paul's body than the nature of Peter (II, 17. Sch.). If we ask Spinoza how an individual can ever form an idea that does not indicate the present disposition of his body, rather than the nature of the object, we are, of course, referred to the paral- lelism of attributes. Or, if we pursue the matter and ask why the par- allelism of attributes will not assure to the correlate of the body the validity of a representative of the object, we shall come upon the SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 27 doctrine of error as privation (II, 23, 25, and IV, 1, Sch.). To use his illustration, when we look at the sun and imagine it to be but two hundred feet distant from us, the error does not lie solely in the imagination per se (cf. II, 17, Sch., last part), but in the fact that we do not yet possess the true knowledge of its distance. In other words, the error consists in taking the appearance for the reality. Error is, so to speak, negative reality. 4. Relation of the imagination to the emotions. When Spinoza, in a " General Definition of the Emotions" (conclu- sion of Part III), states that "emotion, which is called a passivity of the soul, is a confused idea," etc., it is evident that emotion and imagination have been brought into close relationship to one another. What, then, we ask, is the nature and significance of this relationship ? I doubt the relevancy of entering upon a detailed discussion of Spinoza's theory of the emotions, and I therefore submit with little argument the follow- ing propositions : What the imagination is to knowledge, the emotions are to conduct. In other words, what the imagination is to the under- standing, the emotions are to the will. According to II, 49 Cor., the understanding and the will are identical. Is there any distinction to be made between imagination and emotion ? Hoffding calls attention to a contradiction between II, 49 Cor., and III, 9, Sch. According to the latter reference, knowledge is made dependent on will. However this may be. Spinoza appeared to regard the emotions, particularly desire, as presenting more of the active element of the mind than the imagination, which he repeatedly characterizes as the mind passive. "Desire is the actual essence of man, in so far as it is conceived, as determined to a particular activity by some given modification of itself .... By the term ' desire,' then, I here mean all men's endeavors, impulses, appetites, and volitions, which vary according to each man's disposition, and which are therefore not seldom opposed to one another, according as a man is drawn in different directions, and knows not where to turn " (III, " Definitions of Emotion," I). Put this with the definition of emotion (III, Def. Ill), and with the important Nota Bene, and the nature of the distinction between the emotions and imagination, and also the correspondence of one with the other, will be evident : By emotion I mean the modification of the body, whereby the active power of the said body is increased or diminished, aided or constrained, and also the ideas of such modifications. N. B. : If we can be the adequate cause of any of these modifications, I then call the emotion an activity, otherwise I call it a passion, or a state wherein the mind is passive. 2 8 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME Emotion, thus viewed, partakes of the nature of both understand- ing and imagination, of both adequate and inadequate ideas. A good deal depends, of course, upon the "if" in the Nota Bene. In the last two books of the Ethics it is Spinoza's problem to show how it is truly possible for emotion to be an activity of the mind. A principle of activity is postulated in the emotion which may become its salva- tion. This view of emotion is due, I believe, to the fact that Spinoza kept in mind and emphasized the physiological side of emotion. "By emotion I mean the modifications of the body, whereby the active power of the said body," etc.; whereas the physiological explanation of the imagination appears to have been developed after the logical and psychological sides had already been worked out. The word " emo- tion," then, is used in two senses : (i) as an activity corresponding to, if not identical with, the activity of intelligence ; (2) as passion, corre- sponding to the imagination. Emotion as passive is akin to imagination in two important aspects: (1) It represents the element of individual variation, in the sense of haphazard discrepancy — "impulses, appetites, and volitions, which vary according to each man's disposition, and which are therefore not seldom opposed to one another," etc. We have seen this element of spontaneous variation to be also a prevailing characteristic of the imagination, both in the tractati and in the Ethics. It is a form in which Spinoza's earliest problem persists, and which he is continually endeavoring to get rid of. (2) It represents the fact that the indi- vidual finds himself overpowered by causes external to him. Man is a prey to his passions. (Preface to IV; also IV, especially 2, 3-6.) The individual as such is conditioned to act by another finite thing, and that by another, and so on to infinity (I, 28). "The force whereby a man persists in existing is limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes" (IV, 3). The whole doctrine of finite modes is involved. {Cf. I, Def. V, and proof to I, 28.) "Hence it follows that man is necessarily always a prey to his passions, that he follows and obeys the general order of nature, and that he accommo- dates himself thereto as much as the nature of things demands" (IV, 4, Cor.). Passion results from the feeble struggle of the activity of the self against the overwhelming odds of nature. So feeble is the resist- ance offered by the self that the whole being appears to be helplessly swept along in the irresistible flood of passion. " We are in many ways driven about by external causes, and, like waves of the sea driven by contrary winds, we toss to and fro, unwitting of the issue and of our SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 29 fate" (III, 59, Sch.). All this is in principle equally true of the imagi- nation, though it is stated in the more remote and colorless terms of logical theory. The physiological explanation of imagination and of the way it forms abstractions from data — literally data — as discussed above, on pp. 24, 25, bears out the point. 5. Teleology and freedom as illusory. Other aspects of the theory of the imagination in the Ethics, such as the illusion of freedom and the doctrine of final causes, though of great importance, do not demand a full discussion here, for they are simply inevitable applications of the theory as it has been repeatedly stated. Self-conscious freedom and the doctrine of final causes repre- sent for Spinoza wholly gratuitous projections of personal prejudices into the realm of natural law, self-deceptive attempts to derive a whole from discrepant and variable fragments {cf. I, Appendix ; also III, 2, Sch.). The scope of this discussion does not include the Tractatus Politi- cus, for' the reason that this tractatus contains no mention of the imagi- nation. But the fact itself is sufficiently important to mention. The role played by the imagination in the writings discussed above is assigned to the passions in the Tractatus Politicus — the passions versus reason. And the passions of the tractati are the passions of the Ethics, which, as we saw, correspond closely to the imagination. {Cf. Chaps. I, 5 ; II, 5, 6, 8, 14, 18; III, 6 ; VI, 1; VII, 2, 4.) Men are led more by blind desire than by reason. The passions to which men are prey make them enemies of one another. In the state of nature, every man, of course, has the right to do exactly as he pleases ; that is, the indi- vidual as natural is a sovereign — he can do no wrong. But his right to do exactly as he pleases is limited by his might, which in turn is so limited by the natural forces of which he is but a part, and by other hostile individuals, that his right is practically a nonentity, "existing in opinion rather than in fact." Hence there gradually emerges some form of co-operation among men, some attempt to live according to reason, which is the law of common welfare {cf. Ethics, IV, 35, and Sch. 1 and 2). Spinoza's political theory readily lends itself to a statement in physical terms. Every individual is an atom possessing two qualities — the power of repelling all other atoms, passion ; and the power of attracting all other atoms, reason. As a gas becomes a solid, so does the state of nature become a commonwealth. But Spinoza in his quest for unity would reject the passions altogether, as mere empty space, and keep only the solidarity of the atom. SO THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME This is not intended to be a fair or adequate statement of Spinoza's political theory. The theory of the imagination or of the passions does not receive in the Tractatus Politicus a new development that would warrant an attempt to discuss the matter fully, but perhaps enough has been said to indicate the general drift of the political theory and the part assigned to the externally conditioned individual. SEC. IV. SUMMARY OF THE STATEMENT OF SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION. It must be evident that the dualism into which Spinoza has fallen cuts far deeper than the psycho-physical dualism of Descartes. The dualism finds expression in the following forms : Imagination vs. understanding. Theology vs. philosophy. Inadequate vs. adequate ideas. Causes external vs. causes immanent. Passions vs. reason or virtue. Time vs. eternity. Finite quantity vs. infinity. Multiplicity of modes vs. unity of substance. Necessity vs. freedom. It is evident that the dualism may be approached from a psycho- logical, ethical, logical, or metaphysical standpoint. I shall endeavor to keep within close range of the psychological standpoint. Spinoza's problem, as we have seen, took its rise in a dissatisfaction which, though undoubtedly an expression of his character and training, was given an objective reference; it was a dissatisfaction with the com- monly accepted goods of life — riches, fame, and pleasure. The end proposed as a solution, that verum bonum, was also given an objective reference. It was that object which a man might love and never find wanting. In the process of getting from the uncertain and fleeting objects of the present to the contemplation and love of that fixed, supreme, and eternal object, a psychological mechanism had to be invented and worked out. The self was found to be made up of imagination and appetites, on the one side, and of understanding or reason, on the other. To the world of uncertain and fleeting objects corresponded the imagination and the appetites. To the unity of the whole world of nature corresponded the reason. The problem was solved in its very statement — solved, that is, by identifying the imagi- nation with things finite (in the Ethics we saw how this identification SPINOZA'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 31 was effected through the circular reasoning that made the imagination the cause of things finite and things finite the cause of the imagina- tion), and then separating the imagination from reason. Much as the early Christian monks treated the world, the flesh, and the devil, so did Spinoza treat the imagination ; only that he rejected it, not for the sake of an other-world salvation, but for the sake of salvation in the eternal present of this world. It is perhaps impossible to overestimate the importance of the fact that Spinoza finally brought a psychological analysis to bear upon his problem. To so great an extent, however, was the analysis simply a reflection of the two kinds of objects with reference to which it was made that the self which he dissected out fell into two parts, quite as antagonistic and irreconcilable as the two kinds of objects given in the first place. Many critical questions have suggested themselves throughout the discussion, and still persist. They may be concentered in these two: 1. How far can manifold, fragmentary, finite particulars and the imagination be identified? 2. How far can reason and the imagination be dissociated ? What becomes of the individual when cut in two in this fashion ? PART II. HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION. I have been able to discover no finer or more suggestive answers to the questions just raised than the development of English sensa- tionalism, which was among other things a criticism, though an unconscious one, of Spinoza's theory of the imagination. The very elements rejected by Spinoza as sources of error and confusion became the foundations, the unquestioned data, of the philosophies and psychologies of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. It will probably be sufficient for our purpose to examine only Hume's theory of the imagination. For Hume recapitulates the sensationalism of his predecessors ; at the same time frankly shearing away all inconsistent assumptions, and thus coming unawares upon inconsistencies in the central assumption itself. I shall attempt to show that Hume's unconscious criticism of Spinoza has a twofold significance : i. As revealing the value of an instrument that Spinoza criticised and discarded ; and 2. As revealing, also, the difficulties in the way of elevating this instrument, as Hume proposed, to the rank of a supreme epistemo- logical principle; or, to use Hume's words, to the rank of "the ulti- mate judge of all systems of philosophy " (p. 225). In a sense Spinoza was a critic of Hume, as well as Hume of Spinoza. SEC. I. THE NATURE OF HUME'S PROBLEM. Unlike Spinoza, Hume left behind him no explicit statement of the nature and origin of his problem. The nearest approach to such a statement is doubtless to be found in that sentence which Professor Huxley, in his work on Hume, regards as the keynote of the treatise : I found that the moral philosophy transmitted to us by antiquity labored under the same inconvenience that has been found in their natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending more upon invention than experience : everyone consulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and happiness, without regarding human nature, upon which every moral conclu- sion must depend. 1 1 Huxley: Hume, with Helps to the Study of Berkeley (New York, 1894), p. 11. 32 HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 33 But this sounds more like Bacon than like Hume. The problem with which Hume came to be concerned was not so much how phi- losophy may be founded on experience as how experience itself is constituted. Just what this problem was, or at least what one impor- tant phase of it was, will become evident, I believe, in the course of the following discussion of Hume's theory of the imagination. I will make only a brief preliminary statement with reference to it. In shearing away all the inconsistent and metaphysical assumptions of his predecessors, Hume reduced sensationalism to sensations. The problem was how to build up out of these sensations the coherent and rational wholes of experience. It was in a way Kant's problem that Hume had to struggle with — the problem of how an individual experience is constituted, of how intrinsic relations are to be discovered and maintained, in place of the extrinsic metaphysical entities that had been begged or assu med in sensationalism up to that time, f l shall attempt to show how Hume, in the straits of his problem, finally resorted to the imagination as the sole instrument capable of meeting the demand for a coherent and forward-moving individual experi- ence. SEC. II. SENSES IN WHICH HUME USES THE WORD "IMAGINATION. The word "imagination" recurs frequently throughout the Treatise of Human Nature, and in different senses. Hume acknowledges at least three different uses of the term: (1) when opposed to memory; (2) when opposed to reason ; (3) when opposed to neither, i. e., when "it is indifferent whether it be taken in the larger or more limited sense," or when " at least the context will explain the meaning " (p. 117, note). In this sense it is usually equivalent to " fancy." I. Imagination distinguished from memory. Imagination and memory are alike in that they are both repetitions of impressions, reproductions of past perceptions. They differ in two respects: (1) "The ideas of memory are much more lively and strong than those of the imagination." Ideas of memory approach the vivacity of the original perceptions. Those of the imagination have lost that vivacity and have become perfect ideas. (2) Memory repro- duces the arrangement of the original perceptions. Imagination is free to recombine them. "The imagination is not restrain'd to the same order and form with the original impressions ; while the memory is in a manner ty'd down in that respect, without any power of varia- tion." (Book I, Part I, sec. 3, and Part III, sec. 5.) 34 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME But Hume is too good a psychologist to allow these two distinc- tions to stand as hard and fast realities. In fact, he practically abandons both of them when he comes to the discussion of belief. In spite of the fact that memory preserves the order and arrangement of sense-perceptions, while imagination freely transposes them, we can never on that basis tell an idea of the memory from one of the imagination, "it being impossible to recall the past impressions, in order to compare them with our present ideas, and see whether their arrangement be exactly similar." Since, therefore, the memory is known neither by the order of its complex ideas nor by the nature of its simple ones — it being borne in mind that both memory and the imagi- nation " borrow their simple ideas from the impressions, and can never go beyond these original perceptions" — it follows that the differ- ence between it and the imagination lies in its superior force and vivacity. "A man may indulge his fancy in feigning any past scene of adventures; nor would there be any possibility of distinguishing this from a remembrance of a like kind, were not the ideas of the imagination fainter and more obscure" (p. 85). It now becomes difficult to see how the second distinction mentioned in the preceding paragraph can have any value whatsoever. Even if it be a true dis- tinction, it is one of which we can never be directly aware ; it must always rest upon an uncertainty : if our ideas with reference to any experience are relatively faint, we may infer that we are using the imagination, a faculty which may be exercising its power of independ- ent reconstruction of ideas. But Hume will not allow even the first distinction mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the distinction of force and vivacity, to remain unqualified. An idea of the memory may lose its force and vivacity, and become an idea of the imagination. "We are frequently in doubt concerning the ideas of the memory, as they become very weak and feeble ; and are at a loss to determine whether any image proceeds from the fancy or the memory, when it is not drawn in such lively colours as distinguish that latter faculty. I think, I remember such an event, says one ; but am not sure. A long tract of time has almost worn it out of my memory, and leaves me uncertain whether or not it be the pure offspring of my fancy" (pp. 85,86). "So, on the other hand, an idea of the imagination may acquire such force and vivacity, as to pass for an idea of the memory, and counterfeit its effects on the belief and judgment. This is noted in the case of liars ; who by the frequent repetition of their lies, come at last to believe and remember them, as realities; custom and habit HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 35 • having in this case, as in many others, the same influence on the mind as nature" (p. 86). But, we ask, if an idea may degenerate or develop in either direction, how is the distinction with reference to force and vivacity to be of any more service than the distinction with reference to correspondence and transformation ? How are we to know whether a given idea is a fiction of the imagination or a faithful reproduction of past experience ? If it has a force and liveliness, we must forsooth believe in it. But the idea itself may be either a faithful reproduction of past experience, or it may be a recombination and transformation of the imagination which has acquired such force and liveliness as to pass itself off for an idea of the memory. Hume would have us say, I presume, that as a rule belief, which is only another name for force and vivacity of perceptions and ideas, "attends the memory and the senses," and not the imagination; as a rule, remembering is believing — just as seeing is believing — and imagining may be more or less of illusion ; but practically the distinction will not always hold true Sometimes we believe in the illusion, and disbelieve in the half- forgotten testimony of our senses. And Hume's psychology is so true to life that we can never tell whether we have a rule or an exception. So much for the distinctions between imagination and memory, involving belief. Hume gives us no explanation of the origin of these distinctions, nor anything but hints as to the forces that sweep them away. Let us now see how it fares with II. Imagination distinguished from reason. "When I oppose imagination to the memory, I mean the faculty, by which we form our fainter ideas. When I oppose it to reason, I mean the same faculty, excluding only our demonstrative and probable reasonings" (p. 117, note.). The expression "the same faculty" is ambiguous in its reference ; but subsequent statements make it clear that Hume identifies reason and imagination to some extent, e. g., "to the understanding, that is, to the general and more established proper- ties of the imagination" (p. 267). The distinction between imagina- tion and reason grows sharper and deeper as the treatise proceeds — in this respect quite the contrary of the distinction between imagina- tion and memory. At first, imagination and reason appear to co-operate in one of the two worlds in which we live. These two worlds are (1) the world of memory and senses, with which, strictly speaking, in the nature of the terms as defined above, the imagination has nothing to do. This world is the system which we form of our impressions and ideas of 36 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME memory; "and every particular of that system joined to the present impressions we are pleased to call a reality. But the mind stops not here" (p. 108). And we have (2) the world of judgment, in which, as the following quotation will make evident, imagination and reason work together in harmony; it is that system of perceptions which is "connected by custom, or if you will, by the relation of cause and effect . ..." (p. 108). And as the mind "feels that it is in a manner necessarily determined to view these particular ideas, and that the custom or relation, by which it is determined, admits not of the least change, it forms them into a new system, which it likewise dignifies with the title of realities " (p. 108). 'Tis this latter principle which peoples the world, and brings us acquainted with such existence, as by their removal in time and place, lie beyond the reach of the senses and memory. By means of it I paint the universe in my imagination, and fix my attention on any part of it I please. I form an idea of Rome, which I neither see nor remember ; but which is connected with such impressions as I remember to have received from the conversation and books of travelers and historians. This idea of Rome I place in a certain situation on the idea of an object, which I call the globe. I join to it the conception of a particular government, and religion, and manners. I look backward and consider its first foundation ; its several revolutions, successes, and misfortunes. All this, and everything else, which I believe, are nothing but ideas ; tho' by their force and settled order, arising from custom and the relation of cause and effect, they distinguish themselves from the other ideas, which are merely the offspring of the imagination (p. 108). [Italics mine.] I have quoted the last paragraph in full, not only because it tells how harmoniously imagination and reason may work together, but also because it contains an example of the use of the word "imagination" in the third sense; that is, in a sense opposed or related neither to memory nor to reason. In other words, the paragraph contains two entirely different uses of the word. In the first instance the word is used in the sense of the handmaid of reason ; its ideas have the "force and settled order arising from custom and the relation of cause and effect." In the second instance the word is used in the sense of mere fancy and caprice. The occasional agreement and co-operation of the reason with the imagination is easier to note and record than the progress and out- come of the growing distinction and conflict between the two. I will not here attempt to trace all the turnings and windings of thought in and out and back and forth, in which reason is now "the discovery HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 37 of truth and falsehood" (p. 458), and now the probability of proba- bilities ad infinitum, "till at last there remains nothing of the original probability, however great we may suppose it to have been, and how- ever small the diminution by every new uncertainty" (p. 182); and in which the imagination is now a mere fanciful transformation of ideas, and now the very foundation of the memory, the senses, and the under- standing (p. 265), and the bearer of causation and the objective world; until at length we are pulled up short by the startling antithesis : " We have, therefore, no choice left but betwixt a false reason and none at all" (p. 265). For the main features of this shifting interplay and growing distinction and conflict will come to light, I hope, in the impending discussion of the active part or function that imagination plays in Hume's theory of knowledge. III. Imagination distinguished from habit, association, and emo- tion. There are other important distinctions and relations between imagination and other categories of the mind, involved in the treatise, which should be taken into account, although they seem not to have had nearly so much importance for Hume as the distinctions and rela- tions discussed above, or else were taken for granted. They are (1) imagination and custom or habit; (2) imagination and the laws of association ; and (3) imagination and the passions or emotions. As all but the last are involved in the discussion of causation and objec- tivity, brief statements will here suffice. 1. The relation between custom, or habit, and imagination is extremely intimate. Imagination is clay in the hands of the potter, custom. " Custom takes the start and gives a bias to the imagina- tion " (p. 148). A significant distinction between imagination and reason is made in connection with this point (pp. 147-9). Custom lies at the bot- tom of both imagination and reason, imagination being conceived as the mediator between custom and reason, in a way that recalls the schematism of Kant. "According to my system, all reasonings are nothing but the effects of custom ; and custom has no influence, but by enlivening the imagination, and giving us a strong conception of any object" (p. 149). But imagination and reason are by no means identical or always in agreement. The imagination is, so to speak, the more plastic element, the more sensitive, fluent, impulsive element ; whereas the reason is more staid and sober and responds only to gen- eral rules (Book I, Part III, sec. 15), to acknowledged and conserva- 38 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME tive principles. "The general rule is attributed to our judgment; as being more extensive and constant. The exception to the imagina- tion ; as being more capricious and uncertain" (p. 149). 2. The relation between the principles of association of ideas — resemblance, contiguity, and causation — is similar to the relation between the imagination and custom. Without these principles of association, chance alone, as Hume says, would join the ideas of the imagination. In the chapter treating of the "Connexion or Associa- tion of Ideas " (Book I, Part I, sec. 4) Hume does little more than mention that third principle of association, cause and effect, leaving a thorough examination of it to another occasion. Anticipating, how- ever, our discussion of that examination, we may pause to note the circular reasoning involved in making the principle of cause and effect one of the guiding principles of the imagination, and then later in showing how the imagination is the only faculty that makes possible the idea of cause and effect. It would be anticipating too much to attempt to bring out at this point the full significance of this circle. It suggests the circular reasoning into which Spinoza fell in consider- ing the relation between the imagination and things finite. Another significant distinction between imagination and reason comes out in connection with this point. Reason is totally inadequ ate to afford any basis for the principles of association. Only the imagi- natio n can do this. Reason can never shew us the connection of one object with another, tho' aided by experience, and the observation of their constant conjunction in all past instances. When the mind, therefore, passes from the idea or impres- sion of one object to the idea or belief of another, it is not determined by reason, but by certain principles, which associate together in the ideas of these objects, and unite them in the imagination. Had ideas no more union in the fancy than objects seem to have to the understanding, we could never draw any inference from causes to effects, nor repose belief in any matter of fact. The inference, therefore, depends solely on the union of ideas. (P. 92.) 3. A discussion of the relation between the imagination and the passions, or emotions, involving Hume's fundamental moral category — sympathy — would take us too far afield of the theory of knowl- edge. It would hardly be relevant to our purpose to examine how "'tis on the imagination that pity entirely depends" (p. 371), or how "'tis certain, that sympathy is not always to the present moment, but that we often feel by communication the pains and pleasures of others, which are not in being, and which we can only anticipate by the force HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 39 of the imagination " (p. 385). But, at the risk of apparent digres- sion, I should like to call attention to a very fine piece of psycho- logical analysis in Book I, which, in discovering the mutual reinforcement of the imagination and the emotions, anticipates the modern organic-circuit interpretation of the reflex-arc theory. I will quote the whole paragraph, italicizing the most significant pas- sage : .... custom takes the start, and gives a bias to the imagination. To illustrate this by a familiar instance, let us consider the case of a man, who being hung out from a high tower in a cage of iron cannot forbear trem- bling, when he surveys the precipice below him, tho' he knows himself to be perfectly secure from falling, by his experience of the solidity of the iron, which supports him ; and tho' the ideas of fall and descent, and harm and death, be derived solely from custom and experience. The same custom goes beyond the instances, from which it is derived, and to which it perfectly corresponds ; and influences his ideas of such objects as are in some respect resembling, but fall not precisely under the same rule. The circumstances of depth and descent strike so strongly upon him, that their influence cannot be destroyed by the con- trary circumstances of support and solidity, which ought to give him a perfect security. His imagination runs away with its object, and excites a passion proportioned to it. That passion turns back upon the imagination and enlivens the idea ; which lively idea has a new influence on the passion, and iti its turn augments its force and violence ; and both his fancy and affections, thus mutually supporting each other, cause the whole to have a very great influence upon him. (P. 148.) We certainly have before us a remarkable instance of how far Hume's native psychological sagacity could outrun the sensationalistic inheritance, which he elsewhere accepts uncritically. Had he only been able to take his man out of the iron cage which was hung out from the high tower, and set him down on firm ground, he might never have become the traditional means of awakening Kant from his dogmatic slumber. To conclude this portion of the subject. One thing is so evident, I believe, as not to need emphasis or further discussion — the fact that Hume wavers between a structural and a functional statement of the categories of the mind ; between an attempt to set up distinctions and determine boundary lines, on the one hand, and a candid recog- nition of the active, living, functioning character of the elements singled out by and for critical analysis, on the other. On the side of description, of structural distinctions, are (1) sense-percep- tion, (2) memory, (3) imagination, (4) reason, (5) habit, (6) principles 40 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME of association, (7) emotions. They can be made to hold still, as it were, long enough to have their pictures taken. But on the side of explanation, of functional interpretation, note the interplay, the pro- tean shifting of character, the cinematographic display of activity. Sense-perceptions become either memory or imagination. Memory fades to imagination. Imagination wakes into memory — or more, ima- gination, after transforming and recombining the material given by sense-perceptions and memory, wakes into a new memory, or to an illusion that is taken for a memory. Reason and imagination are as one, like man and wife ; and then they fall out, and quarrel with one another till they find out that another element, custom or habit, has made them what they are, and till they learn that one of them is simply a deeper, more permanent crystallization of habit than the other. But reason has lost its plasticity, its progressive quality; with the help of imagination it can give us the old world, the old Rome, but not the new ; it is a hope- less Tory. Therefore it is denied all participation in the principles of association. Imagination, however, can give us a new world, growing out of the old; it is more like a Liberal Unionist. And finally we have the whole circuit of activity. Sense-perception reacts into conflicting habits; ideas of memory and of imagination are brought into play; these ideas exite the emotions ; the emotions in turn reinforce the sense- perceptions and react upon the imagination and "enliven" the idea, thereby making it more believable; and so on, causing "the whole to have a very great influence" on the man. We miss in Hume the brave show of logical consistency that we found in Spinoza. We miss the sense of completeness and finality that comes with a view of Spinoza's deductive hierarchy of systematic thought. Hume's analysis may, in contrast, appear to reduce the world of the spirit to chaos. But there is life here. There may be small hint of division of labor, but there is a forecast of organic activity. There is a basis for a fine skepticism of rigid class distinctions, and for a faith in onward movement. SEC. III. THE FUNCTION OF THE IMAGINATION IN THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. The function of imagination in Hume's theory of knowledge can be stated in a few words. It is the faculty which makes it possible for us to have the concep tion of causation and the co nception of ob jec- tivity . Hume's expression for objectivity is the continued and dis- tinct, or independent, existence of objects. HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 4 1 Hume never doubts the re ality of causation or of objectivity, as I understand him, but is co ncerned solely in accounting for the way in which we come to have b elievable ideas of such realities. "We may begin with observing that the difficulty in the present case is not con- cerning the matter of fact, or whether the mind forms such a con- clusion concerning the continued existence of its perceptions, but only concerning the manner in which the conclusion is formed, and prin- ciples from which it is derived" (p. 206). The same would be true of causation. Hume becomes a skeptic with reference to all existing explanations of the way in which we come to form ideas of such real- ities, as I shall attempt to bring out in the course of this discussion, rather than a skeptic with reference to the existence of these realities themselves. In short, his interest seems to be psychological, rather than metaphysical or epistemological. Causation involves three essential factors : contiguity, or relations in space; succession, or relations in time; and necessary connection. The first two are given in ordinary sense-perception. But whence is the idea of necessary connection derived? If we observe that objects of one sort follow immediately objects of another sort, and if we remem- ber to have observed that this has been the case in all past instances in which these objects have been concerned, we say that they are constantly conjoined, and that in such a constant conjunction the antecedent is the cause of the consequent (Book I, Part III, sec. 6). Constant conjunction, at first sight, seems to be the same as necessary connec- tion, just as a case of unvarying post hoc would to all practical intents and purposes be the same as a propter hoc; provided, Hume would have to add, that we could know beforehand in some miraculous way that this was a case of unvarving post hoc. And yet "this new- discovered relation of a constant conjunction seems to advance us but very little on our way" (p. 88). For constant conjunction is nothing but the multiplication of instances. If a single instance of conjunc- tion between two objects can never give us the idea of necessary con- nection, how can we get such an idea from the mere repetition of this instance ? " From the mere repetition of any past impression, even to infinity, there never will arise any new original idea, such as that of a necessary connexion ; and the number of impressions has in this case no more effect than if we confined ourselves to one only" (p. 88). The senses and the memory, then, can never give us the concept of causation. There remain two other possible sources, the reason and the imagination. Hume asks reason first. 42 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME "If reason determined us, it would proceed upon that principle, that instances of which we have had no experience must resemble those of which we have had experience, and that the course of nature continues always the same" (p. 89). Such a proposition must rest either upon demonstrative knowledge or upon probability. It cannot rest upon demonstrative knowledge, for we have no demonstrative arguments that transcend experience. Neither can it rest upon probability, for even probability has to have some objective data on which to work ; it can have nothing whatever to say in regard to those " instances of which we have had no experience." " Probability, as it discovers not the relations of ideas, considered as such, but only those of objects, must in some respects be founded on the impressions of our memory and senses, and in some respects on our ideas" (p. 89). Then follows one of the most remarkable sentences in the whole treatise, significant not only in its bearing upon present discussion, but in its anticipation of the famous dictum of Kant that forms of thought without sense-per- ceptions are empty, and sense-perceptions without forms of thought are blind: "Were there no mixture of any impression in our probable reasonings, the conclusion would be entirely chimerical : And were there no mixture of ideas, the action of the mind, in observing the relation, would, properly speaking, be sensation, not reasoning" (p. 89). The next step is the subtle distinction between presumption and probability. The idea of cause and effect is only a presumption. We presume the existence of an object similar to the usual attendant of another object. Now, the probability of cause and effect is. unquestion- ably founded upon this presumption. But therefore it is impossible that this presumption can arise from probability. "The same principle cannot be both cause and effect of another; and this is, perhaps, the only proposition concerning that relation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain" (p. 90). Reason, then, which can create no new idea, is unable, either through demonstrative or probable arguments, to derive for us the concept of causality. The idea of necessary connection has been reduced to the narrow limits of a bare presumption. The imagination is the last resort. What is needed is some kind of psychological basis for the presumption which will transform it into an idea of necessary connection. In other words, what is needed is a faculty sufficiently plastic and coherent to carrry the mind beyond the present object or idea to an idea not present, but resembling the HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION ' 43 usual attendant of the present object or idea. This is exactly what imagination seems to be capable of doing, for "the imagination when set into any train of thinking, is apt to continue, even when its object fails it, and like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse" (p. 198). The imagination is all the more inclined to do this, if the contiguous and successive objects have been repeated. The more frequent the repetition of any given con- tiguous and successive objects has been, the more readily the imagina- tion passes from the given present object to an idea resembling its absent attendant ; that is, from the experienced to the not-experienced. In other words, constant conjunction, operating upon the imagination bv means of the principles of the association of ideas, makes possible what neither sense nor reason could give, namely, ideas which are not given in and through the present experience, but which resemble the impressions usually had in conjunction with this object which is now the sole content of sense-experience. When the mind in and through the carrying or propensive quality of the imagination passes from a present object to an absent attendant, it reasons from cause to effect, or from effect to cause. But how does the mind know that it reasons thus from cause to effect ? How does it thereby get the idea of causation ? "The repe- tition of perfectly similar instances can never alone give rise to an original idea" (p. 163). Imagination makes it possible for us to do the passing from cause to effect or from effect to cause, but does it make it possible for us to know that we are doing it ? Hume's thought takes a peculiar turn at this juncture, which plainly makes the idea of causation completely a priori, or what Locke would call an idea of reflection, an "impression of reflection," to use Hume's phrase. Tho' the several resembling instances, which give rise to the idea of power, i. e., to the idea of causation, have no influence on each other, and can never produce any new quality in the object, which can be the model of that idea, yet the observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in the mind, which is its real model Necessity, then, is the effect of this observation, and is nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another The idea of necessity arises from some impression. There is no impression con- veyed by our senses, which can give rise to that idea. It must, therefore, be derived from some internal impression, or impression of reflection. There is no internal impression which has any relation to the present business, but that propensity, which custom produces, to pass from the object to the 44 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME idea of its usual attendant. This therefore is the essence of necessity. Upon the whole, necessity is something that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, considered as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects and from effects to causes, according to their experienced union The efficacy or energy of causes is neither placed in the causes themselves, nor in the deity, nor in the concurrence of these two principles ; but belongs entirely to the soul, which considers the union of two or more objects in all past instances" (pp. 164-6). I shall not attempt to do justice to Hume's account of the way in which we arrive at the ideas of continued and independent existence of objects. But the course of reasoning is much the same as that involved in showing how we arrive at the idea of causation. The imagination, in virtue of its propensive quality, already referred to so often, is able to bridge over the gaps between interrupted sense- perceptions, and produce the opinion of a continued existence of body. This opinion is " prior to that of its distinct existence, and produces that latter principle." For belief in the continuity and identity of that which to our sense-perceptions appears only as inter- rupted fragments, must give rise to the opinion or fiction of the imagination that this continuity and identity is an objective reality, or, rather, "that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence of which we are insensible" (p. 199). It is in the discussion of objectivity that reason and imagination come to blows again. And the idea of causation has a falling out with the idea of objectivity: (1) Reason tells us that "the doctrine of the inde- pendent existence of our sensible perceptions is contrary to the plain- est experience. This leads us backward upon our footsteps to perceive our error in attributing a continued existence to our perceptions" (p. 210). The opinion of the identity of interrupted perceptions "can never arise from reason, but must arise from the imagination. The imagination is seduced into such an opinion only by means of the resemblance of certain perceptions, which we have the propension to suppose the same" (p. 209). "The imagination tells us that our resembling perceptions have a continued and uninterrupted existence, and are not annihilated by their absence. Reflection tells us that even our resembling perceptions are interrupted in their existence, and different from each other" (p. 215). Reason, paradoxically enough — reason, which is appealed to only with general rules and conservative principles — suddenly appears to object to imagination's HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 45 becoming a lawgiver, a legislator of universal principles. Reason, I should say, appears to feel that its vested rights in the actual data of experience are being threatened. (2) Again, "when we reason from cause and effect, we conclude that neither color, sound, taste, nor smell have a continued and independent existence. When we exclude these sensible qualities there remains nothing in the universe which has such an existence " (p. 231)* Imagination has made possible both the idea of causation and the idea of continued and independent existence — it is the only faculty that makes them possible — yet these two ideas are found to be incom- patible. Is it possible that a deep-seated conflict lurks within the very imagination itself? {Cf. p. 266.) SEC. IV. CRITICISM. At about this point in the discussion, difficulties, contradictions, self-involved criticism, which have been surging below, begin to come to the surface and threaten to wreck all that has been accomplished. I doubt whether there is in any literature a finer specimen of a confession of philosophic difficulties than the concluding chapter of Book I. In this chapter, and indeed throughout the Treatise, Hume makes it so evident what the contradictions are that we are in danger of missing their deeper significance. The following are brief statements of some of the difficulties and contradictions involved in the Treatise: 1 . The recurrent doubt as to whether such a faculty as the imagination can furnish the basis of a solid and rational system {cf. pp. 198, 217,267). 2. The ultimate inexplicability of (a) the cause of impression — "It will always be impossible to decide with certainty whether they arise immediately from the object, or are derived from the author of our being" (p. 84) — and the ultimate inexplicability of (6) causal con- junction. "We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We only observe the thing itself, and always find that from the constant conjunction the objects acquire an union in the imagination." (P. 93.) 3. Dilemma between illusion of the imagination and ineptitude of the reason — between false reason and none at all (pp. 267, 268). 4. " Direct and total opposition betwixt our reason and our senses," involving a contradiction within the imagination itself (p. 231). Imagination makes possible both the idea of causation and the idea of continued and independent existence. But when reason employs the former idea, it contradicts the latter. (3) and (4) taken 46 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME together have a three-cornered conflict, involving reason, sense, and imagination. 5. ' ; In short, there are two principles which I cannot render con- sistent: nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz., that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences. Did our per- ceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connection among them, there would be no difficulty in the case " (p. 636). 6. A final resort to intuitionalism (pp. 164-6 and 629; especially p. 629, Appendix to Book I, Part III, sec. 6, which is too long to quote). I have said that it was an easy matter to find these difficulties and contradictions, and many others, in Hume's Treatise, but it is no easy matter to appreciate their true significance. Perhaps one of their chief functions is to arouse the questioning attitude — e. g., does not Hume end where Spinoza began, namely, with discrediting the imagi- nation as a source of truth ? Or, from another point of view, is there very much difference between Hume and Spinoza as to the practical outcome of their systems ? What matters it, after all, whether at the start sensations and images be rejected as useless lumber or accepted as foundations, if the outcome and final resort is to be in each case an appeal to a mystic or intuitional sense of immediate contact with reality? What is the use of all this machinery of ideas, sensations, images, emotions, and memories, if it only drives one to a resort where it never has been needed, and never will be ? Have the phi- losophers attempted to discover how this machinery came to be, and what it is really for? This last question seems to me to be aiming closer to the mark than any other. And the nature of a solution of these difficulties and contradictions will be found, I believe, through an inquiry into the origin and evolution of psychological machinery, and its function in experience. SEC. V. SUMMARY COMPARISON OF SPINOZA AND HUME. The answers which I find in Hume to the questions proposed at the end of the statement of Spinoza's theory of the imagination are as follows : 1. Manifold, fragmentary, finite particulars and the imagination cannot be identified. The imagination is a unifying activity. It possesses the power of rearranging, of recombining, the particulars of sense-experience which are given to it. The imagination is a plastic,. HUME'S THEORY OF THE IMAGINATION 47 unifying, propensive element in whose flow particulars are held and carried along ; transcending the present, it gives us the idea of cause and effect, and of the distinct and continued existence of the objective world. The imagination is not Spinoza's reason or understanding, which sees things sub specie aeternitatis ; it gives us time, sequence of phenomena, progress. 2. Reason and the imagination are often opposed to one another, but they could not long exist apart. It is difficult, because of the inconsistencies in Hume, to put the point in a more specific form. Part of the time, at any rate, his statements would warrant the infer- ence that reason divorced from the imagination would become abso- lutely rigid, inaccessible to the molding influence of custom; and that, on the other hand, imagination divorced from reason would become mere fancy. Curiously enough, it is reason with Hume that informs us that our perceptions are interrupted, in this respect corresponding exactly to the imagination with Spinoza ; whereas it is the imagination with Hume that gives us the continuity of the objective world to which our interrupted perceptions refer, in this respect corresponding exactly to reason with Spinoza. Yet in another view of the two categories they correspond respectively each to each : with both Spinoza and Hume the imagination is a source of individual variation, whereas the reason can originate no new idea. Reason is a coming to conscious- ness of laws given either by custom (Hume) or by God (Spinoza). With Hume, however, there appears to be no error necessarily bound up in the spontaneous character of the imagination. To be sure, absolutely undirected by custom or reason, the imagination might become mere fiction. But as it is actually constituted, its spontaneity is rather a propensive quality, an amoeboid movement, passing beyond this, that, and the other sense-perception, and leaving behind the formal fixity of reason. If Hume had completely solved his own difficulties, he would at the same time have answered Spinoza so effectively that further discus- sion of the matter would be superfluous. The difficulties which he himself recognized are those which some follower of Spinoza, had he been shrewd enough, might have pointed out. Such a follower of Spinoza would probably have begun with that passage in his master's Ethics which demonstrates how general ideas arise confusedly in the imagination by means of the agglutination of overcrowded images (cf. p. 27); and he would probably have asked how Hume's idea of causation differed from a general idea so formed. He miafht have 4§ THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME pointed out, as Hume himself did, the contradictory character of the two concepts which the imagination offered to reason — the concept of causation, and the concept of continued and independent existence of objects. And he might have asked whence the validity of any deliv- erance of the imagination, seeing that it is constituted ex hypothesi, not by a universal act of thought, but by particular sense-perceptions, varying in quantity and in quality with every individual. Still, in spite of the conflicts between these two treatments of the imagination, both agree in one fundamental point; both regard the imagination as conditioned from without, as concerned with particulars given to it ready-made. Only with this difference : Spinoza regards the imagination as that aspect of the mind which is passive with refer- ence to the data imposed upon it from without; whereas Hume regards the imagination as actively recombining its data, as passing from one group to another, as anticipating data not yet actually given. I believe this fundamental assumption to have been the source, to a very large extent, of Spinoza's one-sided conception of the imagination, and of his negation of individuality; and also a source of the difficulties in which Hume found himself — difficulties which any answers to Spi- noza's position, in case they flow from the same assumption, are liable to encounter. From the standpoint of this whole discussion, the chief value of the theories discussed above lies in the problems they suggest to psy- chology. These problems may be summed up and stated once more as follows : i. To what extent is the imagination to be held responsible for the detached, fragmentary particulars of experience ? (Spinoza.) 2. How far can the imagination be dissociated from the under- standing or reason ? (Spinoza.) 3. To what extent is the imagination a unifying, anticipating activ- ity? (Hume.) 4. To what extent is the imagination co-operative with reason ? (Hume.) 5. Why does the imagination fail to give a firm foundation to a rational system of philosophy — and especially to the concepts of causation and substance, meaning by substance continued and inde- pendent existence ? (Hume.) 6. Does the imagination simply receive or operate upon ready- made data, conveyed to it through the sense-organs ? To what extent is it merely receptive? To what extent is it creative ? (Spinoza and Hume.) PART III. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. SEC. I. THE USE OF TERMS. In the interests of division of labor it may sometimes be an advan- tage to distinguish carefully between the imagination and mental imagery, according to whether the attention of the observer is directed to the functional or to the structural aspect of the matter. The term "image," moreover, seems to be the more specific and scientific term. Mr. Wilfred Lay, in his monograph on mental imagery, draws a distinc- tion between the terms which is useful because it reflects the distinc- tion commonly made and accepted : By imagination is here meant the "faculty" generally called, more spe- cifically, creative imagination. It is that which makes great works of art, whether they be paintings, sculptures, poems, symphonies or cathedrals. The possession of the creative imagination implies that of mental imagery, but not vice versa. Imagination is something abstract and indescribable ; imagery is concrete and is experienced by every one. Imagination is something that cannot be itself represented in mental imagery save by a feeling ; mental images are, on the other hand, quite as real (not objective, however) as sensations themselves, and play quite as important a role in our lives. The association in our minds of the creative imagination with mental imagery is somewhat far-fetched from the real nature of things, and is the result of the similarity and like etymology of the English words which are used for these two aspects of mental life. 1 If I fail to use this distinction it will be because it seems unreal and fallacious when carried over from ordinary discourse into psycho- logical analysis. It is true that "imagination is something abstract and indescribable" — that is, apart from its embodiment in images or in outward physical forms. It is true that "the possession of the creative imagination implies that of mental imagery." But if we add "not vice versa," we are drawing an arbitrary line; we are viewing the matter from the outside, as we must do so often in practical emer- gencies when we say, for example, such and such people have no imagination, while certain others have. Psychologically speaking, i Lay, "Mental Imagery" (supplement to Psychological Kc7/zew,Vo\. II, No. 3), p. 2. 49 50 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME every mental image is creative — creative in the same sense that imagi- nation is creative. To what extent this or that image may modify overt conduct or the arrangement of objects in space and time is a question of becoming aware of a fact ; it is not a question of becoming aware of a principle. In making this assertion I am anticipating, of course, a line of argument to be worked out later. SEC. II. RECENT SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. The great mass of material which has been put at the service of the psychology of the imagination since the investigations of Fechner and Galton were begun has been chiefly of a descriptive character. Images have been contrasted to and compared with sense-perceptions. The imagination has been analyzed into various types — visual, audi- tory, etc. — each corresponding to a sense-organ. One of the most strik- ing facts that this analysis has brought to light is the wide variance between individuals with reference to the prevailing type of their imagery. As Professor James says : " There are imaginations, not 'the Imagination,' and they must be studied in detail" (Princ. of Psy., Vol. II, p. 50). Abundant and telling evidence of this fact has recently been furnished by the discussions and controversies regarding various types of word-imagery, which have been carried on by Strieker, Egger, Ballet, Baldwin, Dodge, and others. The testimony of Strieker, for example, appears to be flatly contradictory to that of Egger. Strieker describes his internal speech as being purely an affair of articulatory- motor images, as being inseparably bound up with sensations of inner- vation of his lip and tongue and throat muscles. Egger, on the other hand, describes his internal speech as being purely in terms of audi- tory images. All this serves to corroborate and give new emphasis to Spinoza's view that the imagination characterizes the individual in his differences from all other individuals. Attempts have been made, especially by French psychologists, to clothe this bare fact of individual variation with social meaning. Arreat, in his work entitled Me/noire et imagination: peintres, musiciens, pokes et orateurs (Paris, 1895), first analyzes memory into motor, visual, auditory, emotional, and intellectual types ; then finds a type of imagination corresponding to each, and attempts to show how this varies in nature and development with the aptitude and vocation of the individual. Painters, for example (cf. Chap. II) have more definite and detailed visual images, and musicians more systematic PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION 51 and accurate tone-images, than ordinary men. The intellectual type is feeble in artists, for example, who are by nature receptive and emo- tional. Still more explicit in the interpretation of individual differ- ences is Queyrat in his work entitled IS imagination et ses varietes chez V enfant: etude de psychologie experimental appliquee a V education intel- lectuellc (Paris, 1 895). Queyrat analyzes the imagination into three types — visual, auditory, and motor. His thesis is that predominance of a certain type determines aptitude for science, art, or professional life, as the case may be. Hence it becomes the duty of the educator to dis- cover the predominant type in the child, and thus to direct him intel- ligently in his choice of a vocation, at the same time developing other types harmoniously. (" La predominance dans un esprit d'un ordre d'images lui assure des aptitudes prononcees pour une science, un art, une profession. Le role de l'educateur est done de s'appliquer a la reconnaitre, afin, s'il y trouve real avantage, de possesser l'enfant dans la voie que lui trace la nature" (p. 156). Further developments in this direction — that is, in the direction of giving an immediate and specific social significance to individual variations of mental imagery — would be in the nature of detailed application. And a thorough test of the hypothesis would involve experiments on children and adults extending over a considerable period of time. I have not been able to learn of any such experi- ments. Hence the hypothesis can be criticised here only as to its logical merits. The attractiveness of the hypothesis lies in its possi- bility of affording a positive interpretation of individual variation, by connecting the variation with division of labor in society. The special type of imagery which an individual possesses, especially if he pos- sesses it to an unusual degree, makes him all the more fit, the hypothesis could readily be stretched to say, to discharge some particular function in the social organism. But the hypothesis is broad at the expense of depth. It is as superficial as it is attractive. It is premature. On the face of it, there is no more reason for associating a predominant type of mental imagery with a call to a particular vocation — say the visual type with the vocation of the artist — than there is in associating red hair with a fiery temper. It is true that there may be some deep- lying relation between the two ; but it is equally true that, until this relation has been made out, the comparison is merely one of superficial and inconstant resemblance — I say inconstant, because inquiries have revealed many exceptions to the supposed rule. 1 ■C/. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 88 and 94. Cf. Lay, Mental Imagery, pp. 16-24. 52 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME Ribot, in his recent and suggestive work on imagination (Essai sur V imagination creatrice, Paris, 1900), criticises the analysis of the imagi- nation into the various types as illusory and futile. Such an analysis, he says, does no more than point out the materials with which the imagination works. It has no more meaning than a classification of architectural structures on the basis of the materials employed ; say, a classification of monuments into those made of stone, brick, iron, wood, etc., without reference to differences in style (p. 150). Ribot then proposes the following classification of the principal types of imagina- tion : i. Plastic. 2. Diffluent. 3. Mystic. 4. Scientific. 5. Practical and mechanical. 6. Commercial. 7. Utopian. It is not necessary to reproduce his definitions of these types; the essentially social and objective reference of the criterion of the classifi- cation is evident. Its value and its limitations fall together. Its value, to say nothing of the richness of detail with which Ribot has illuminated his pages, lies in the truth that the imagination does finally express itself in an objective world of fact. Ribot sums up this truth in the closing sentence of the book : " L'imagination constructive penetre la vie tout entiere, individuelle et collective, speculation et pratique, sous toutes ses formes : elle est partout." Its limitations lie in the disregard of psychological processes, sensorial or otherwise, that lead up to the objective, overt results; its limitations lie also in the assumption that the sense elements involved in the imagination are so much " material," on and with which the creative powers work. Ribot is also to be classed with Spinoza and Hume, in so far as he regards sense elements merely as the given, the raw stuff, the data of experience. A conception which, logically speaking, enables Ribot to analyze and classify the various types of imagery on an objective basis, and at the same time to regard the reproduced sense elements as so much "material," is the conception of the motor aspect of imagery. "La nature motrice de l'imagination constructive " is the title of the intro- ductory chapter, and is a theme that reappears again and again throughout the entire work. " Essayons de suivre pas a pas la transi- tion qui conduit de la reproduction pure et simple a la creation, en PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION 53 montrant la persistance et la preponderance de l'element moteur a mesure qu'on s'eleve de la repetition a l'invention " (p. i). Even in a purely reproductory image a motor element is present, Ribot would say, for such an image is a residue of an anterior perception ; and per- ception always involves movements. In virtue of this motor element the image always tends to find outward expression. " . . . . l'element moteur de l'image tend a lui faire perdre son caractere purement interieur, a l'objectiver, a l'exteriorer, a la projecter hors de nous " (p. 2). But Ribot fails to see anything creative in this tendency of the image to pass into an act. He distinguishes sharply between reprodutive and creative imagination. The criterion is the objective one. The repro- ductive imagination is that which gives rise only to the repetition of some act or object. To be creative, the imagination must result in something new. Ribot's work is a contribution to sociology rather than to psy- chology. Or it might be described as embodying a type of social psychology in which " l'element moteur " forms a sort of bridge between two sets of phenomena — one psychical or subjective, the other social or objective. Such a conception as this marks an advance over the conception previously referred to — the conception that there is an immediate, qualitative correspondence between certain types of mental imagery and certain activities or vocations. It gives us a glimpse of a mechanism between image and result, idea and fact. I am not attempting to express an appreciation of Ribot's work as a whole, with its clear, though not always convincing, analyses, and its suggestive comparisons. I merely wish to use certain points empha- sized in the work ; namely, the fact that an image, whether visual, auditory, or tactual, is always motor; and the fact that by virtue of this motor phase an image always tends to objectify itself in the world of fact. And yet there is nothing novel, or strikingly "creative," in these points. They are simply expressions or applications of the cur- rent doctrine of sensori-motor and ideo-motor reactions. What might be called the official work on the psychology of the imagination has not, it seems to me, brought to light results that have a very direct bearing upon the problems raised in our discussion of the imagination as treated by Spinoza and Hume. This cannot be urged as a criticism against the careful descriptive work that has been done, nor against the brilliant interpretations of recent French writers. But a solution will have to be sought in and through other phases of psychology. 54 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME SEC. III. A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF IMAGE-DEVELOPMENT. In this part of the discussion I am especially indebted to Profes- sor Dewey's reinterpretation of the doctrine of sensori-motor reaction, as found notably in his article on the "Reflex- Arc Concept in Psy- chology" {Psychological Review, Vol. Ill, p. 357). The fundamental assumption with Spinoza and Hume — and with Ribot as well — the assumption that the sense element in experi- ence is externally imposed, is a datum ; an " impression," to use Hume's word ; "material," to use Ribot's — suggests the point at which analysis may be most effectively directed. If the assumption be granted, then we have either of two alternatives presented, according as we regard the recipient " faculty" of the mind as passive respecting its data, or as active. With Spinoza .we may regard it as passive, and the problems already indicated (p. 48) will arise, the most pressing of which is perhaps the problem of individuality. What can be done for a self that is half bond and half free — half imagination and half reason ? Is it a self at all ? It takes a thoroughgoing empiricist, or associationist, like Herbert Spencer, for example, to push this concep- tion past Spinoza and on to its logical ultimatum, completely general- izing the method of forming the individual out of a continual raining in of sense-impressions — but at the expense of a complete dissipation of individuality. Spinoza was a semi-Spencerian. Or with Hume we may regard the imagination as actively recombining and projecting its sense data; and another set of difficulties will arise, chief among which is the wholly irresponsible character of the imagination thus conceived apart from its material. In short, the assumption, in whichever way it is taken, creates more difficulties than it solves. A counter-assumption which I wish to test on this group of prob- lems is the assumption that a sensation is not a given element, a datum, but appears as the locus of a problem. It marks or locates the point in the organic activity of an individual where the strain is great- est, where demand for readjustment is most acute. A sensation is the way in which strain seems to the individual — in that sense it is seem- ing rather than being. It is the appeal which the demand for read- justment makes to the individual — in that sense it is particular rather than universal. It does not presuppose organic activity as a basis. It is organic activity come to consciousness in the process of becoming more organic. The so-called reflex arc is not sensori-motor or ideo- motor, in the sense that it is made up of two joints or segments, one of which is sensory up to a certain point, and the other motor. The PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION " reflex arc," or, as it has been more aptly termed, the " organic cir- cuit " of stimulus and response, is either all sensory or all motor, depending upon whether it is a matter of immediate experience, or a matter of mediate or inferred experience ; depending upon whether it is my experience from my point of view, in which case it is sensory; or my experience from your point of view, in which case it is motor. A kinsesthetic sensation is as much a sensation as a visual or audi- tory sensation. And, conversely, a visual sensation involves motor adjustments as much as a kinesthetic sensation. To say that a sensation appears as the locus of a problem does not mean that every sensation is to be so regarded. A sensation may be simply the point of least resistance in some habitual attitude or response which is anything but problematic. The barking of a distant dog breaks in upon my stream of consciousness as I write these lines. Since I have no jurisdiction whatever over that dog, the barking is barely perceived ; in other words, only the most habitual and elementary forms of audi- tory perception and interpretation are brought into play. The case might be very different, however, if I knew that I could exercise some sort of control over the dog. In that event I might allow myself to be irritated by the barking. The more I felt that it was in my power to do something to check the disturbance, the more the. sensation in ques- tion would appear to be the locus of a problem. The rattling of a win- dow, the flapping of a curtain, the squeaking of a sign-board, are often almost entirely ignored, until it occurs to one that something can be done to stop the noise ; then, unless the suggestion is followed up with- out delay, the noise is liable to become a source of irritation, a locus of a problem. I doubt whether Carlyle had been so much disturbed as he was by the cackling of his neighbors' fowls, if there had not been some suggestion, however remote, of the possibility of Mrs. Carlyle's purchasing the offenders, as she finally did, and silencing them forever. Instead of its being true that a sensation is a datum given from with- out, it is more true to the facts of experience to say that when a sensa- tion is so regarded it is liable to be annihilated. Wholly from with- out ? Well, then it does not concern me; I can't help it. It is only when I feel myself to be in some way responsible for a sensation ; it is only when it arises within my range of activities, my habits of control, that it persists and grows more intense. The greatest difficulty that stands in the way of this assumption or hypothesis as to the nature of sensation would seem to be the objection that it is absolutely idealistic — if sensation is not given from without, 56 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME then it must be given or produced from within — purely idealistic, subject to call, so to speak, and therefore not in any degree problem- atic. This difficulty or objection is really nothing but the same old assumption over again, though in an apparently new form. It arises because of the old tendency to deal with sensation as if it were a datum, if not given from without, then, forsooth, given from within. If the externally given sensation is to be regarded as materialistic, and the internally given sensation as idealistic, then from the standpoint of the present hypothesis it is a matter of complete indifference whether a materialistic or idealistic turn be given to the machinery. The pres- ent hypothesis simply takes sensation where it finds it, and attempts to give it a functional interpretation. One of the commonplaces of psy- chology is that sensation cannot be defined save in terms of itself. Carry this commonplace farther and the definition may be reached that sensation is, functionally, simply experience defining itself to itself. It may relieve the last statement of some of its metaphysical abstractness to consider the classification of sensations employed by several modern psychologists, notably by Kiilpe. By him sensations are classified into those peripherally excited and into those centrally excited, or into sensations as such, and images or ideas. This distinc- tion between peripherally and centrally excited sensations seems to be made on a purely structural or even anatomical basis. Sensations peripherally excited are psychical phenomena which necessarily involve the stimulation of a sense-organ. Those centrally excited are psychi- cal phenomena which necessarily involve the activity of some portion of the central nervous system, but not necessarily the stimulation of a corresponding sense-organ — the phenomenon may be experienced even though the sense-organ is no longer in existence. The distinc- tion does not deny the primary unity of the two sides, nor their subse- quent interdependence, but it does assert that they may become anatomically distinct from one another. Yet, being a structural or anatomical distinction, it may furnish the loci for a functional restate- ment. It suggests a division of labor, as well as a difference of position. Even in its present form it is a criticism upon the traditional view, held by Hobbes and his successors, that a mental image is a less vivid or decayed sense-impression. " The correctness of the assump- tion that images are merely weaker sense-perceptions has never been demonstrated," says Kiilpe, "and the constant assumption has done as much as anything else to render the department barren and schematic " {Outlines of Psy., p. 169). But any structural statement lays itself open PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION 57 to just such a criticism as this. It has to be supplemented, and pos- sibly corrected, by a functional or physiological statement. How did the two loci ox foci of sensation arise ? What is their function in main- taining the life-process ? Under what conditions does an " organic circuit" become an organic ellipse ? The problem can be most readily approached, I believe, from the genetic and physiological side. It is a law of growth, on the physiological side, that habits previ- ously worked out independently of one another shall be combined, co-ordinated, to form a higher, more organic unity, which in its turn may become a habit, subject to combination with other habits : and so on indefinitely, or until growth ceases. This form of combination is not a mechanical putting together; it is organic, since each member of the co-ordination, each previously independent habit, undergoes reconstruction and also gains in efficiency through its interaction with the other members of the co-ordination. To illustrate, take the case of learning to swim. There are habits of pushing objects aside with the hands and arms, habits of kicking, habits of balancing the body, etc., which have been worked out independently of one another, at least so far as the act of swimming is concerned. They are the necessary con- stituents of the act or habit of swimming that is to be ; but simply making them work together is not sufficient; they must be co-ordi- nated. Each habit has to be made over somewhat, reconstructed, through its interaction with the other habits involved. Each gains a new efficiency, in proportion as the act of swimming is mastered — as the co-ordination is realized. And this co-ordination, when realized, tends to become a habit, capable in turn of playing a part in some larger co-ordination yet to be. Two distinct factors of this law of growth are habits and co-ordina- tion ; and bound up with these is consciousness. Between habits, the achievements of the past, and co-ordination, the possibility of the future, stands the "specious present" of consciousness. Out of this "specious present" of consciousness with reference to habits on the one side, and to co-ordination on the other, arise the two foci of sensation, the peripherally and the centrally excited sensations — sensations as such and images or ideas. Sensations as such answer to habits, which are not quite what they were, because they are conflicting or inade- quately functioning under the stress of unwonted conditions. The image answers to the co-ordination that is to be, provided it is possible to anticipate the co-ordination. 58 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME As to the possibility, on the physiological side, of anticipating a co-ordination. The sensory areas or centers of an infant are unco-ordi- nated. According to Flechsig, the mechanism for their co-ordination is lacking until the medullary sheaths of the connecting fibers or associa- tion centers ripen. " Noch einen Monat nach der Geburt sind die geistigen Centren unreif, ganzlich bar des Nervenmarkes, wahrend die Sinnescentrenschon vorher — ein jedes fiir sich,vollig unabhangig von den andern — herangereift sind" (Gehirn mid Seek, p. 23). Until the connecting fibers ripen there is no reason to suppose that the eye activity, say, influences in any organic way the hand or ear activity, unless it be through some subtle modification of that dark continent of inner environment, the blood supply. Naturally only random move- ments and instinctive acts are possible. The fingers close in response to a stimulus of the palm. In the same way, probably, the muscles of the eye respond to a stimulus of the retina. But neither hand nor eye movement can affect each other organically, until the nerve-fibers con- necting the eye and hand tracts become functionally mature and active. It seems probable that each type of movement develops as far as its isolation will permit ; but it is difficult to conceive how anything corresponding to a mental image could arise during this period. With the ripening of the connecting fibers, however, comes the possibility of the image. The eye-hand activity which now arises is a more com- plex activity, and one capable of a higher degree of organization, than either the eye or the hand activity by itself. At first each activity is an accidental stimulus to the other ; it shoots into the other, so to speak, at random. Only through such chance associations, followed by repeated trials and interaction, does the higher organization of the eye-hand activity come into existence and establish itself. In the case of the painter, to take an extreme example, this process of perfecting the organization of the eye-hand activity may be the work of a lifetime. The Anlage of the image thus approached from the genetic and physiological side is capable of being generalized and of having its mechanism stated in the following terms : At first, as I have already pointed out, the activity takes place in a wholly unanticipated, acci- dental way. There comes a time, however, with reference to a given stimulus, when a tension is bound to arise between the eye and the hand activity as independent reactions and the eye-hand activity as a co-ordinated reaction. It is not that the original eye activity is opposed to the original hand activity as such. But it is a conflict between the old way of doing things, represented by the instinctive PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION 59 reaction of the eye activity as independent and the instinctive reaction of the hand activity as independent, and the new way of doing things, represented by the eye-hand co-ordination. In describing this tension we are at the same time describing consciousness, and also, what is more to our purpose, the origin and function of the image in its rela- tion to sensation. (I am using the terms "image" and "sensation " as equivalent respectively to centrally and peripherally excited sensa- tions.) The image is the incipient eye-hand co-ordination in its tension with the incipient eye and hand reactions. The image stands for the persistence of previously haphazard co-ordinations ; the sensa- tions stand for immediate eye and hand reaction. The image is the incipient eye-hand co-ordination in its tension with the incipient eye and hand reactions. The sensations are the incipient eye and hand reaction in tension with the incipient eye-hand co-ordination. (I am not using the terms " co-ordination " and " reaction " to mark a radical distinction. Co-ordination is simply a more complex, more mediated reaction. Reaction denotes the more direct and immediate response.) The greater the tension, the more comprehensive the image, and the more definite the sensation. Professor James, in his chapter on " Will," has shown how all volun- tary action is a function of the image or sensation attended to, though it seems necessary to him to postulate in addition a fiat, a sort of " le roi le veut." Our hypothesis can accept and utilize in toto Professor James's analysis of the mechanism of volition without at the same time being obliged to use the remnant of monarchy which is bound up in the doctrine of the fiat. Activity is a fundamental characteristic of the self. The problem is how this activity shall be organized and expended. The image is the element of control as against sensation or tendencies to immediate response. It represents a more adequate mode of freeing activity as against merely impulsive or instinctive action. Yet both image and sensation appear as the problematic points in the situation. The co-ordination can be expressed only through the reconstruction of relatively partial reactions. On the other hand, in asserting themselves as sensations these reactions at the same time define the condition which the more highly organized activity must meet and utilize. The process of consciously recon- structing previous types of reaction, and the tension between co-ordi- nation and reaction which appears as a conflict between two sets of sensations — centrally and peripherally excited — are equivalent expres- sions. The activity which reconstructs, or which defines itself to itself in sensations, or which finds expression in overt movements, is one. 60 THE IMAGINATION IN SPINOZA AND HUME I have implied that the image is the persistence of previously hap- hazard co-ordination. This would seem to mean that the image is simply a revival. Taken in itself, this would be true, but the image is not to be taken in itself; it has to be taken in its relations, in its ten- sion, to previously isolated reactions. With reference to them it is not a revival ; they are rather the revivals. It is an anticipation of a fuller and freer activity into which these previously isolated activities may pass, and find organic membership. It will be seen at once how close this is to the view which Hume took of the imagination. The value of Hume's analysis with reference to this point has not been recognized, and can hardly be overestimated. The "propensive," projective, anticipatory character of the image — that is precisely its function, as Hume clearly saw. It is interesting to recall, in passing, Spinoza's identification of the imagination with the gift of prophecy. True, Spinoza placed the emphasis on the receptive, sense-content aspect of the imagination, rather than on its forward, anticipatory movement. And yet, if prophecy deserves the name, it is a /