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THE PROBLEM OF
PERSONALITY
A CRITICAL y CONSTRUCTIVE STUDY
IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT THOUGHT
BY
ERNEST NORTHCROFT MERRINGTON
M. A. (Sydney), Ph.D. (Harvard)
RESEARCH STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 1903-4
LECTURER IN PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, I907-9
AUTHOR OF 'THE POSSIBILITY OF A SCIENCE OF CASUISTRY'
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1916
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FOREWORD.
The present work represents an effort to state
the problem of Personality in relation to some
of the fundamental truths of philosophy and
theology. The kingdom of truth is to be found,
if anywhere, ' within you ' ; and it is worth
while to seek to clarify our ideas regarding the
somewhat vague concept of Personality in order
that the constructive spirit which is manifest
everywhere to-day may have some materials with
which to work. This is but a partial attempt to
express certain opinions, which, whatever their
defects may be, have at least passed through
the fires of criticism in three universities, and
have proved to the author and others with
whom he has discussed them that, in an age of
much questioning, they have a helpful influence
upon the truths by which we live, and upon the
life itself which is ' more than they.'
349347
vi FOREWORD
The substance of this work is a Thesis which
is hereby published with the authority of the
Division of Philosophy of Harvard University,
by whom it was accepted as part of the work
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, on the
recommendation of the Examining Committee,
Professors J. Royce, G. H. Palmer and R. B.
Perry. To these and other Harvard teachers
and friends, especially the late William James
and Professor H. Miinsterberg, I have to make
acknowledgments. Also I am grateful to Pro-
fessors Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison and James
Seth (of Edinburgh), and to Professor Francis
Anderson and Principal Andrew Harper (both of
Sydney) for their earlier help.
As the first part of the book is occupied with
an examination of certain views of the Self held
by recent philosophers in Britain and America,
and is somewhat technical to a certain class of
readers, some may prefer to begin with the
Second Part in which the subject is more con-
structively treated.
The following characteristic note from the late
Professor William James upon the views set
forth in this work should be of interest to those
who knew him, and who admire his brilliant
FOREWORD vii
work as philosopher and teacher. It expresses
a certain facet of his theory of the Self, which
supplements what is given in Chapter I by way
of estimating the place of Personality in his
thought : —
' The part of your thesis that hits me hardest
is the remarks on " Experience " — with the rest
I am in sympathy of tolerance if not of active
echo. I have worked for so many years with
the " passing thought " formula which prag-
matically does all the work of a Self, that the
inability to define the Self except by its work
makes me perhaps unduly hostile, not to the
word, of course, but to the use of it as a funda-
mental term in philosophy. The " train of
experience " kind of self gets its unity after the
facts only; but the " unanalyzable principle"
kind is anterior to the facts and seems to
warrant their having unity. But if one makes
of each stage of unity already achieved in fact,
an active worker for more unity, with efficacy
too, doesn't the warrant also seem to exist ? '
In reply, I must say here simply, it all depends
upon the point of view, and leave the reader
to form his own opinion in the sequel. But
may I acknowledge my debt in heart and mind
viii FOREWORD
to this knight-errant of Truth, the greatest of the
century, and most beloved by all who were
honoured with his friendship ? To the memory
of William James I dedicate anything of worth
in this book.
While the manuscript was in the publisher's
hands, Professor Henri Bergson announced as
the subject of his Gifford Lectures the title which
had been given to this work. This is a coinci-
dence ; but here is another evidence of the recog-
nition in our time of the great importance of this
subject. All students of philosophy and theology
will eagerly await the fuller pronouncement by
Bergson of his views upon Personality, which
will doubtless be made available in book form
at no distant date. Meanwhile there is room
for study and treatment of the problem of the
inner life by those who- are occupied with the
theme in their own way, and are keenly alive
to the privilege of being admirers, and perhaps
disciples, of the great thinkers of our time.
E. N. M.
Emmanuel College,
University of Queensland,
March 1914.
CONTENTS.
PAGK
Introduction 1
PART I.
EXPOSITORY AND CRITICAL.
CHAPTER I.
William James 9
CHAPTEE II.
Mr. F. H. Bradley 26
CHAPTER III.
Professor Josiah Royce 55
CHAPTER IV.
Professor G. H. Howison 77
CHAPTER V.
Mr. F. C. S. Schiller 88
CHAPTER VI.
Dr. Hastings Rashdall - 122
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
Professor Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison - - 130
CHAPTER VIII.
Later Tendencies 140
PART II.
CONSTRUCTIVE.
CHAPTER I.
Experience as a Metaphysical Concept - - - 151
CHAPTER II.
The Meaning of Personality and Related Concepts 160
CHAPTER III.
The Reality of Self 170
CHAPTER IV.
Metaphysic of Existence 181
CHAPTER V.
Metaphysic of Values 200
CHAPTER VI.
Metaphysic of Reality 210
Index 221
INTRODUCTION.
The concept of Personality is so vague and
undefined, and the possible problems connected
with it are so numerous and far-reaching, that
it is advisable to state as briefly as possible
my main thesis. I am not concerned primarily
to discuss the relations of Personality to Logic,
Psychology, Ethics, Sociology, Cosmogony, Theo-
logy, and the like, except in so far as the line of
thought passes through these regions. And even
in Metaphysics I have allowed myself but little
space for the problems of Epistemology, In-
dividuality and Immortality. The reason is two-
fold. In the first place, the treatment of this
subject is essentially an exercise in the much-
needed discipline of self-limitation ; for one could
easily lose oneself in seeking metaphysically to
find ' the Self ' ! Further, it is plain that these
problems are insoluble apart from a general theory
of Reality. Instead of seeking to defend any
2 TEE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
special theory represented by these terms directly,
we do better, perhaps, to get an adequate meta-
physical view of the Self ; and then these pro-
blems will precipitate a solution in the theoretical
medium that has been provided. This is especi-
ally true of Immortality ; on which, accordingly,
there is not much said directly ; but the answer
to this great question emerges positively with a
Personalistic Theory of the Universe.
Our thesis then is to examine the main pro-
blems of Personality, with especial reference
to recent works in metaphysics. Accordingly,
the First Part of the work is devoted to the
exposition and criticism of the leading doctrines
of Personality as maintained by some of the prin-
cipal present-day philosophers, who have dealt
fully with the subject. We are concerned with
them only to the extent required for an under-
standing of their views upon our Problem ; and
so we are not called upon to investigate their
systems in other respects, however important
they may be from a different standpoint. And
as the * reaction ' is constructively given in the
Second Part, the criticisms in the First Part are
very brief and pointed. The Second Part will
carry on the alignment negatively shown in the
INTRODUCTION 3
earlier criticisms, to a positive view of the
answers to our main problems.
What then is the Problem of Personality ? It
is primarily the Problem of the Reality of the
Self, and the meaning, and the place of this and
kindred Concepts in a metaphysical theory.
Following upon that are the questions concerning
the Personality of God, and of the Absolute ;
the demands of our moral and religious nature ;
and the relation between Spirits ; the questions
of Monism and Pluralism ; the metaphysical
importance of our Ideals and Values ; the im-
plications of Freedom and Duty, and belief in
Immortality.
The First Part of the book does not aim at
giving an epitome of all recent thought upon the
subject before us. That would require more
years of research and preparation than I have
been able to give, and a large volume as the result.
The aim is to treat the views of those whose
work upon the Concept has been central to their
thinking. I confine myself for the most part to
the thinkers of Britain and America who have
been fairly influential. Accordingly I shall treat
of constructive philosophers chiefly, such as
James, Bradley, Royce, Howison, RashdaJl, and
4 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Schiller. For his valuable works of criticism
Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison is included.
The subject is one that spreads so naturally
that a rigid conciseness of matter and treatment
is essential. The study of the Self easily leads
one into relations with almost any and every
conceivable concept ; and this is for the very
good reason that it fulfils the claims of centrality
and supremacy made here on its behalf.
It may be remarked that there is need of a
Synthetic Psychology or empirical side of meta-
physics which shall study the Self, and such
concepts as Organism and Life in their wholeness.
And this must be done not in an unsympathetic
spirit, but as seeking for light upon the totality of
conduct and behaviour, and the deeper facts and
principles which are most important and signifi-
cant in psychology, ethics, and philosophy, as well
as in life, and which the analytic methods of the
present day, and merely methodological ideals of
truth, are absolutely incompetent to furnish. 1
1 Miss Calkins has recognized this by her provision for Psy-
chology as Science of Related Selves in A First Book in Psychology
(Macmillan, 1910), p. 273 ff. Professor W. R. Boyce Gibson has
made a plea for the recognition of the limitations of Pheno-
menalistic Psychology in his Philosophical Introduction to Ethics,
p. 193 ff.
INTRODUCTION 5
It is part of the Thesis that not only is the Self
the true starting-point for a Metaphysic of
Existence, but, as Personality, it forms the
groundwork of a Metaphysic of Values also,
while it proves to be the supreme category of
explanation, the goal and the consummation of
a Metaphysic of Reality.
PART I.
EXPOSITORY AND CRITICAL.
CHAPTER I.
WILLIAM JAMES.
The metaphysical study of the Self is distinct
from, but not wholly independent of the psycho-
logical treatment of the various problems con-
nected therewith. The late William James has
given a valuable psychological analysis of these
problems, 1 and he has also passed beyond this
stage into the region of metaphysics, in which
his view of the Self is naturally important. His
system of Radical Empiricism is partially worked
out in his later books and in various articles
which we shall refer to as occasion requires. 2
1 The Principles of Psychology, by Prof. William James. Two
volumes. New York, 1890. Especially chapters ix, x.
2 The more recent books of James expound the main ideas
indicated in this chapter, so far as our topic is concerned. His
chief works are Pragmatism, The Meaning of Truth, and A
Pluralistic Universe. In the last-named book — perhaps his
greatest — James works over the Problem of the Self once more,
arrives at the same conclusions as previously adopted ; but,
at least as it seems to the author, with certain qualms of his
philosophic conscience.
10 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Accordingly we shall pass rapidly along the track
of his thought until the bridge between psycho-
logy and metaphysics is crossed, and we are intro-
duced to the region where lie our mam problems.
i.
The distinct starting-point is his conception of
consciousness as ' the Stream of Thought' l Our
psychical life is essentially characterized by
change. Mental life is ever flowing. Never does
the same sensation recur. As Shadworth Hodg-
son has said, ' the chain of consciousness is a
sequence of differents.' 2 Here is the point of
divergence from Locke, Hume and Herbart,
although in their insistence upon succession they
approximate to this view. But they wrongly
held to atomistic units of consciousness, sensa-
tions and ideas, supposed to remain unchanged
except for the different combinations by which
the mental processes were built up. It is im-
possible to think of the brain as unmodified by
the constant change. The same ' object ' may
recur, but that is quite distinct from the same
bodily sensation, which cannot repeat itself.
1 The Principles of Psychology, vol. i. ch. ix.
2 The Philosophy of Reflection, i. p. 290.
WILLIAM JAMES 11
But, further, this sequence of changes is
characterized by felt continuity. Even after
breaks, as on awakening from sleep, the personal
consciousness manifests gregarious tendencies in
regard to preceding thoughts, and accepts what
it regards as its own past experiences. What is
its criterion in this unifying process ? James
replies that certain qualities of ' warmth, inti-
macy, and immediacy ' x are possessed by those
past feelings which are welcomed as personal
property. Later 2 he inclines to the opinion that
these characteristics which constitute our sense
of Selfhood are chiefly, if not wholly, physical.
But, leaving that for the present, we have seen
reason to prefer the conception of consciousness
as essentially changing and continuous to the
notion of it as something static. This smooth-
ness and now are represented by the ' Stream of
Thought.'
Now we are ready to ask — How is the personal
character of mental life provided for in this
procession ? How can the train of thought
explain the Self which seems to own all its
1 Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 239.
a Ibid. vol. i. pp. 241, 242, 299, 300. See also his article ' Does
Consciousness Exist,' Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and
Scientific Methods, vol. i. No. 18.
12 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
thoughts, and to be the centre of its feelings and
desires, and the agent in its volitions ? James
admits the existence of the personal element.
No psychology can question it. But when it
comes to definition of it, divergence seems
inevitable. Common-sense and spiritualistic
philosophy stand for a Soul, an identical
being throughout the psychical change, while
the scientific interests require a more workable
hypothesis.
James tries to meet these claims by his view
of the Self as the ' Passing Thought.' If the
feelings of Selfhood be regarded as themselves
parts of the s stream,' the difficulty of reconciling
common-sense and science seems to be met. For
whatever those thoughts and feelings of Self may
be, they are formed in the present, and projected
from this ' section ' of the stream. This is a
pragmatic account of the Self, and it seeks to
express its ' face- value.' It regards the field of
consciousness as given all at once in every
instant, with feelings of relation and tendency,
thus doing away with the need for an Ego to
unify a manifold of ideas. 1 Consciousness, in
1 Cf. Critique written by the late Professor James upon the
views given in this work, printed in the Foreword.
WILLIAM JAMES 13
fact, is fundamentally a selection within this
field, some ideas being emphasized and others
being ignored. Elsewhere he has described it
as a ' fighter for ends.' 1 The greatest division
due to this emphasis is that which we find
between the ' Me ' and the ' Not-Me,' which are
thus viewed as expressions of relation. By the
' Me ' we understand the Empirical Self, the so-
called ' contents of consciousness,' and the
various relationships in which the ' I ' stands,
and which constitute Personality. So James
speaks of the Material, the Social, and the
Spiritual Self, reserving the Pure Ego for later
consideration. The Material and Social Selves
may be readily conceived, but what is the
Spiritual Self ? It represents the psychical
faculties and processes ; and it may turn out to
be either the ' Stream ' as a whole, or the present
' section/ Examining these in turn, as the
abstract and concrete views of the Spiritual
Self, James admits that the former gives an
account of the intimate and incessant nature of
the Self, which accords best with ordinary
feeling and opinion. 2 But, again, definitions will
cause divergence between the advocates of the
1 Principles of Psychology, i. p. 141. 2 Ibid. i. p. 297.
14 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Soul and those who attribute the self-feeling to
a fiction denoted by the personal pronoun, ' I.'
An examination of the actual feelings is what
concerns James, and for his part, introspection
seems to reveal nothing but intra-cephalic move-
ments and sensations between the head and
throat. Our feeling of activity in the ' nuclear '
Self is viewed as due to these bodily sensations
of movement. 1
Accordingly the concrete method is adopted,
and the Thinker is regarded as a postulate of the
present Thought. The Self is identical, in fact,
with the Thought, which judges the past, knows
the preceding thought, and ' finding it warm,'
that is, possessing the qualities previously de-
scribed, adopts it. 2 As every thought passes
away it is taken up by a present one, which
knows it, and transmits itself in turn to a suc-
cessor. This ' trick ' of the present Thought in
appropriating the past constitutes the Self. This
1 Cf. Stout, Analytic Psychology, vol. i. chapter on ' Mental
Activity ' for a criticism of this view. See also James' article on
1 The Experience of Activity, in the Psychological Review, vol.
xii. No. 1 footnote, pp. 7-9. In A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 378-
380, James replies to Stout's criticisms, and again endorses his
view of the ' I ' as essentially a bodily term, expressive mainly
of the relation of position.
2 Principles of Psychology, i. p. 339.
WILLIAM JAMES 15
also explains the sense of Personal Identity with-
out invoking any metaphysical principle. The
judgment of my Identity is like any other judg-
ment of sameness, a matter of thought ; no
direct spiritual feelings are required, the mere
' warmth ' of bodily quality which gives all such
thoughts a generic unity is sufficient.
A criticism of the three leading metaphysical
theories of the Inner Principle of Personal
Unity, or Pure Ego, is given, 1 viz. the Spiritual-
istic, Associationist, and the Transcendentalist.
As to the first, James regards the Soul as a
superfluity. The Associationists missed the mark
by failure to describe Self-consciousness. The
Kantian Transcendental Unity of Apperception
and the Self-distinguishing consciousness of the
Neo-Kantians — Edward Caird and T. H. Green —
are dismissed as cumbrous and erroneous, through
the effort to explain relations by the knower
rather than by the known. James provides for
relations in the world of objects rather than on
the subjective side. The Subject submits to
' feelings of relation ' as naturally as any other
experience. While James has been largely in-
fluenced by Locke, Hume, and Mill, he disagrees
1 Ibid. i. p. 342.
16 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
here with his authorities. So he stands out of
all three schools. He leaves the reader free to
supplement his view of ' the Passing Thought '
by the theory of the Soul as an actual being or
substantial Ego, if he chooses ; but for himself
he finds no need for such hypothesis. He accord-
ingly speaks of the empirical person as ' Me,' and
the judging Thought as ' I.' ' There need never
have been a quarrel between associationism and
its rivals, if the former had admitted the inde-
composable unity of every pulse of thought, and
the latter been willing to allow that " perishing"
pulses of thought might recollect and know.' x
In addition, it should be remarked that
James discussed some of the psychological diffi-
culties attendant upon the belief in the Self as
commonly held, especially the phenomena of
changes of personality, of hypnotism, and of the
possession of many selves. Such abnormalities
seem to indicate the transitive and unsubstantial
nature of what we esteem as Selfhood, and suffi-
cient evidence is forthcoming to establish the
genuineness of these facts.
Turning now to the later developments of his
doctrine in his metaphysical system, we find that
1 Principles of Psychology, p. 371.
WILLIAM JAMES 17
the Self approaches the vanishing point in
Radical Empiricism. The negative side of his
earlier doctrine of the Self becomes more and
more prominent, till the Person is scarcely dis-
tinguishable among the multitude of * experi-
ences ' which compose our psychic life. Con-
sciousness itself is mistrusted and even discarded ! J
The function of consciousness is performed by
thoughts ; and ' that function is knowing.' 2
There is a common medium of knower and
known which James calls ' pure experience.' He
boldly denies the inner duplicity of consciousness
and content. Both are alike, and may be desig-
nated ' experiences.' In perception or thought
what happens is this — certain experiences get
themselves presented twice at least, once in a
context of relations which concern a field of
objects or ideas, and again in a context which is
made up of relations of ' personal history.'
These relations are themselves felt experiences,
according to the view which we have found in
his Psychology. He illustrates the process of
the dual context by the point at the intersection
of two lines, in both of which it may be counted.
1 Journal of Philosophy, etc., i. No. 18, p. 478.
2 Ibid. p. 478.
B
18 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
I think this may be made clearer by considering
the instance of the bright circle thrown by a
search-light upon the sea. The bright circle is
counted in the stream of light and also in the
surface-plane of the sea, — two different contexts ;
the former may be compared to the person, the
latter to the ' thing.' But the analogy fails in
so far as it does not indicate the oneness of nature
which is claimed in James' Theory for both con-
texts, as parts of ' pure experience,' instead of
regarding them dualistically as matter and mind,
subject and object, and so forth.
Self and its activities are regarded as belonging
to the content of experience. In a later article *
James speaks of Personality as the experienced
relation between terms that are conscious of con-
tinuing each other. This ' relation ' by which the
Self is organized as a system of memories, pur-
poses, strivings, and so on, is admittedly the
most difficult to explain. But this is just the
strategic point of Radical Empiricism, directed
against all the fictions of rationalistic metaphysics.
As to what this ' withness ' which constitutes our
1 ' The World of Pure Experience,' Journal of Philosophy, etc.,
vol. i. No. 20, p. 3. Also vol. ii. No. 2, ' The Thing and its
Relations.*
WILLIAM JAMES 19
personal life is, we can only describe it as experi-
ence of conjunctive relations, continuity or
absence of break. The schools in the past have
recognized disjunctive relations, the disconnected-
ness of experience, but they have not accepted
conjunctive relations, as equally ' given ' ; had
they done so, they would not have needed to
employ transcendental principles to explain dif-
ferences, and to unify the discrepant subject and
object which their one-sided abstract method
provided. Even our minds are not so absolutely
separate as is supposed ; they may and do
become conterminous in our common world, 1 and
perhaps even confluence will be possible at some
future time. James admits his affinity here with
Natural Realism rather than with views similar
to those of Berkeley and Mill. He maintains a
pluralistic, as opposed to monistic, view of the
world, and rejects infinity.
Self-activity and efficient causation are de-
fended by James, 2 although he regards the body
as the centre of such feelings, as opposed to
theories like Wundt's Innervationsgefilhle which
1 Journal of Philosophy, etc., vol. i. No. 21, p. 15 ff.
2 ' The Experience of Activity,' Psychological Review, vol. xii.
No. 1.
20 THE PKOBLEM OF PERSONALITY
James had attacked in his Psychology, and
had reduced to associated and present muscular
feelings. 1 He champions the cause of free-
will 2 as against determinism of every sort,
not, however, as an ethical principle, but as a
natural manifestation of novelty and chance
in our ' activity-situations.' His pluralism is
radical, and is hostile to absolutism in every
form.
In his treatment of the religious consciousness,
he follows his characteristic ' Method ' of Prag-
matism. Instead of the scholastic arguments, he
asks for the practical effects, the individual re-
actions upon our attitudes towards the unseen.
From a long and valuable survey 3 of such
religious experiences, he concludes that there is
a wider spiritual universe, personal communion
with which has recreative value and moral
worth. There may be many Gods rather than
one ; but Personality, presumably as conceived
by James himself, both of man and of Gods,
1 Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. pp. 493-518. Cf. Miinster-
bcrg's Die Willenshandlung, pp. 73, 82.
2 The Will to Believe, and other Essays in Popular Philosophy,
Longmans, 1897.
3 The Varieties of Religious Experience, Gifford Lectures, Edin.
1901-1902, Longmans, pp. 444-485 ff.
WILLIAM JAMES 21
^/ must be regarded as Reality in the completest
sense of the term. 1
II.
As stated in the Introduction, my critical
reaction upon the expositions of the different
systems will be brief, as the latter part of this
work will permit a fuller commentary and a
constructive statement. In regard to James'
views, I will merely make a few critical remarks.
1. There seems to be a lack of homogeneity in
the various presentations of Personality at differ-
ent stages in his thought. Two warring tenden-
cies are seen at work, and the terms of peace have
never been made public, so far as I am aware.
One line fights for a sort of simplicity, and what
looks like a monistic empiricism, while the other
contends for fulness of life, individualism and
pluralism. The key to the struggle is given, I
believe, in the Psychology, where the person is
admitted as uniquely real, and yet is pushed into
the whirling ' stream of thought.' I believe
Interactionism to be a thoroughly defensible
doctrine of mind and body, but it is not clear in
James' system what distinguishes the psychical
1 For his treatment of the Soul, Ibid. pp. 195-6, 498-9.
22 THE PKOBLEM OF PERSONALITY
from the physical. Especially is this true in
Radical Empiricism, where the Self is dismissed,
and Experience is called upon to play the leading
role. James' early dualistic tendencies * are con-
tradicted by his later philosophy of Pure
Experience.
2. There is a similar inconsistency involved in
the attack on Consciousness, which was a ' fighter
for ends' at first, but which is subsequently
reduced to pathological feelings, especially in its
higher forms ! The bodily feelings brought to
light by James' introspection do not seem to me
in any way to disprove consciousness or the
reality of the Self, but rather to confirm it. What
we want is the Introspector, not the results of his
analysis. Those results seem to me to concern
a psychology of vital feeling. What is described
is the bodily background or object to the Subject
in its quiescent contemplation.
3. The Self is the spiritual factor manifested
in our highest psychical experiences, where bodily
terms are absolutely unmeaning. As a matter of
fact, which should surely concern psychology, and
quite apart from logical and metaphysical theo-
ries, consciousness is given as the presupposition
1 Psych, i. p. 218 ff.
WILLIAM JAMES 23
and active participant in all experience. In
comparison, judgment, selection, love, aspiration,
and volition, the Subject preponderates over the
field of objects, which do not seem to be given in
that ' hyphenated ' condition which James repre-
sents 1 as being the characteristic of the field of
consciousness. If the active and synthetic char-
acter of subjectivity be admitted, no account of
' experiences reporting themselves to one another,'
in the epistemology of Eadical Empiricism, will
suffice to account for the apparent dualism.
4. Side by side with the impersonal character
of James' descriptions, his remarks upon the
' judgment ' of Personal Identity also call for
criticism. The judgment itself implies a syn-
thetic activity of Self. Further, it is as difficult
to explain metaphysically the identity of two
instants as of a life-time. This difficulty is hardly
overcome by endowing experience with the innate
relational quality usually attributed to the mind.
As to abnormalities, they should be the most
common of psychical phenomena, if the personal
life merely consisted in ' next-to-nextness,' where-
as, in point of fact, they are so rare as to be
regarded as curiosities.
1 Ibid. i. p. 278 ff.
24 THE PROBLEM OP PERSONALITY
5. The ' Passing Thought ' is inadequate to do
justice to the Self. Have not the conjunctive
relations been ignored here in favour of the dis-
junctive ? If so, James has committed the error
which he charges against the schools. Metaphysi-
cally, some sameness is required to constitute even
a ' sequence of difTerents.' No explanation of the
' trick ' of thought in appropriating the preceding
thought need be looked for. If it be demurred
that these are merely psychological accounts, it
must be remembered that most of them are
reproduced in the metaphysical system of Radical
Empiricism.
6. Opposed to the disintegration represented
by the ' Passing Thought ' is his preference for
an anima mundi thinking in all of us, to a number
of individual Souls ! x Instead of seeing in this
startling confession an inclination to Absolutism,
we should rather look upon it as a premonition
of his later attraction to the tendency of the
' Pure Experience ' philosophy of Avenarius,
Mach, Petzoldt and others, whose general position
will concern us later. 2
1 Psych, i. p. 346.
* Chapter I. of the Second Part will deal with the important
relation of Experience to the Self.
WILLIAM JAMES 25
7. The strong argument of Individuality in
favour of the Soul is not justly met by James'
reference to present-day tendencies towards spirit-
transference and the like, 1 as indicating the
removal of the middle wall of partition between
Self and Self. So in his Eadical Empiricism we
find no explication of this fundamental difficulty,
except the conterminousness of minds in objects,
and the hope of confluence. Karl Pearson's 2
singular expectation of the time when we shall
know the thoughts of other persons by observa-
tion of their brains seems to be along the same
line. Altogether, I feel that the examination of
the efforts of Professor James to provide for a
theory of experience without a Self confirms the
opinion that such a theory, no matter how
ingeniously worked out, is wholly unsatisfactory
and in its very nature liable to all the objections
brought against Hume's view by psychology and
metaphysics.
1 Psych, i. p. 350. 2 Grammar of Science.
CHAPTER II.
ME. F. R BRADLEY.
Widely different thinkers these, James and
Bradley ! And yet their systems resemble one
another in two respects at least, both of which
concern us here : first, the emphasis upon Experi-
ence, and second, the disparagement of the Self.
I am hopeful that by expanding these two text
I may be able to set forth Bradley's views at
sufficient length for our purpose. Brevity, how-
ever, is here indispensable. 1
We need not delay long over Experience,
although it is a concept of prime importance in
Bradley's theory of Reality. It will suffice to
1 Appearance and Reality, a Metaphysical Essay, by F. H.
Bradley; Swan, Soonenschein & Co., Second Edition, 1899.
The new book by Mr. Bradley, Essays on Truth arid Reality
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1914) appears to exhibit the same
standpoint as that given in the former work.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 27
get two purposes falnlled in this part of our
treatment, viz. to obtain a general conception of
Bradley's system, and the part played by Experi-
ence therein ; and in the second place, to notice
the relation — or lack of relation — between this
concept and that of the Self. We are enabled to
state Bradley's general position under this head
of Experience, because that concept provides him
with a starting-point and also a goal, in his search
for reality. It does not become prominent,
however, till the beginning of the Second Book,
entitled Reality. The First Book, as is well
known, is designated Appearance, and is utterly
negative in character. Xothing can withstand
the onslaught of Bradley's logic. Primary and
Secondary Qualities, Substantive and Adjective.
Relation and Quality. Space and Time. Motion
and Change, the Perception of Change, Causation,
Activity, Things, the Self, and Things-in-them-
selves. disappear in rout and utter confusion
Reality is not to be found in any of these.
Bradley's three chief arguments are : (a)
incompleteness ; (b) relativity (which follows from
the former) ; and (c) the discrepancy of identity
and diversity, of the One and the Many, which is
manifested in them all. Such contradictoriness
28 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
disposes of any claim to be considered as real.
And non-contradiction is Bradley's criterion of
Reality. ' Ultimate Reality is such that it does
not contradict itself; here is an absolute cri-
terion.' * Tested by this touchstone of logic, our
seeming real world is proved to be alloy, ' mere
appearance ' and ' illusion.' But this criterion
is also positive ; it directs us to an Absolute
Reality, One and Individual, in which the world
of appearance is somehow transmuted, and har-
monized within the Whole, which is also a
System. But Bradley says that the concrete
nature, the matter of this Absolute must be
Experience, which ' means something much the
same as given and present fact . . . Sentient
experience is reality, and what is not this is not
real.' 2
This point of view is maintained to the close,
although it appears that the Absolute Reality is
beyond Truth, and therefore, in a sense, tran-
scends experience as actual. But this agnostic
and even sceptical attitude is not final in the
explicit presentation of Bradley's doctrine, al-
though comparisons with Spinoza's Substance
and even Spencer's Unknowable suggest them-
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 136. a Ibid. p. 144.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 29
selves to the reader. Yet, against such an
1 empty transcendence ' and ' shallow Pantheism,'
Bradley intends his work to be one sustained
polemic. 1 He follows Hegel's lead of seeking the
Absolute in experience, and in his doctrine of
Degrees of Truth and Reality he acknowledges
his debt to the German philosopher. According
to this doctrine, the ' appearances ' find their
places in hierarchical rank in the Absolute System.
The standard is in one sense Reality itself, and
it may be applied as a test under the forms of all-
inclusiveness and harmony within the System as
a Whole. So judged, ' pure spirit would mark
the extreme most removed from lifeless Nature.' 2
So, in spite of seeming contradiction, Reality is
revealed only in the world of ' appearance,' and
in the higher more than in the lower. 3
Reality is Experience. The Absolute must be
sentience. No Reality can be supposed that is not
felt or experienced. Reality satisfies our whole
being, and the Absolute is more than thought and
/ volition, it possesses the direct nature of feeling.
And yet it would be incorrect to say that the
Absolute is personal. It is supra -personal. 4
1 Ibid. p. 551. 2 Ibid. p. 498.
3 Ibid. p. 550. * Ibid. p. 533.
30 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Further details will come to light as we pro-
ceed. Let us now face the difficult task of
stating what is the relation of the Self to
Experience. That will prepare the way for the
minute examination of his sceptical treatment of
the Self.
When Bradley contends that Experience is
Reality, he denies what he regards as a funda-
mental error, the position, namely, that the Self
can make any valid claim to be real. It is true,
he holds, that all being and fact fall within
sentience. No other content than is supplied by
feeling, thought, and volition is even possible.
Bradley purposely chooses these impersonal
terms as free from the erroneous reflection of
subjectivity. He does not ' divide the percipient
subject from the universe : and then, resting on
that subject, as on a thing actually by itself —
urge that it cannot transcend its own states.' *
Such a vicious abstraction leads to impossible
results. What we find is a unity in which dis-
tinction, but not divisions, may be made. This
is the unity of the sentient experience.
The private and immediate character of the
■ whole ' of sentience in which subject and object
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 145.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 31
appear together is an obvious difficulty in the
system. This Bradley discusses in the chapter
on ' The This and the Mine.' 1 He admits that
particularity and even uniqueness characterize
' an experience.' 2 He assumes that there are an
infinite number of ' this-mines.' 3 By this unusual
term he means the immediate character of feeling,
which appears in ' a finite centre.' The question
is — are these ' finite centres of experience ' in-
compatible with his Absolute ? He has to confess
that this plurality and particularity are in the
end inexplicable. 4 Yet Reality may be enriched
thereby, and feelings may surely be fused together
in the Absolute. The ' this ' seems exclusive, but
when examined, it is found to have no content
which does not go beyond itself. And it is so,
too, in the case of the ' mine.' It has no content
but what is left over by our impotence. 5 Even
the positive special feeling of Self is referable to
an ideal Whole, in which somehow the rough
places must be made plain. There is nothing
which, to speak properly, is individual, except
only the Absolute. 6
1 Ibid. p. 223. 2 Ibid. p. 223. Italics mine.
3 Ibid. p. 223. 4 Ibid. p. 226.
5 Ibid. p. 239. 8 Ibid. p. 246.
32 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
In the course of the examination of the im-
possible theory of Solipsism, he divides experience
into direct and indirect. Direct experience means
what is ' confined to the given simply, to the
merely felt or presented.' Indirect experience
includes all fact that is constructed from the
basis of the ' this ■ and the ' mine.' x
Direct experience gives us the ' this-mine,' not
the reality of my self and its states. We must
go on to the indirect experience, postulating
existence beyond our momentary feelings. The
' this ' and the ' mine ' must be transcended.
And yet this result must itself be ' felt ! ' Bradley
admits this, but denies that the ' felt reality is
shut up and confined within my feeling.' 2 What
then is this ' more ? ' Bradley falls back upon
his statement of the Reality as a direct, all-
embracing experience, and claims that it is
present in ' my ' feeling. ' My " mine " becomes
a feature in the great " mine," which includes
all " mines ! " ' 3 I consider this a crucial point
in the development of the relations of the
concepts we are considering. We reach our
own past and future by a process of inference
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 248. 2 Ibid. pp. 252-253.
8 Ibid. p. 253.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 33
similar to that by which we reach the belief in
other selves.
And yet it is true that ' all I experience is my
state — so far as I experience it. Even the Abso-
lute, as my reality is my state of mind.' x But
we cannot limit it to that one aspect. ' The
import and content of these processes does not
consist in their appearance in the psychical
series.' 2 In short, because experience is my
experience, it does not follow that what I experi-
ence is no more than my state.
In concluding this chapter, however, Bradley
is ready to admit that ' in the end to know the
Universe, we must fall back upon our personal
experience and sensations.' 3
To sum up, then ; Bradley puts the Self in
the realm of indirect experience, with other
' intellectual constructions,' and with the ' import
and content of my states.'
All reality burns in the focus of my state of
mind. 4 So Bradley speaks constantly of ' finite
centres of experience.' But we should err if we
supposed that he means that Experience requires
an equally real Experiencer or Self. And he says
1 Ibid. p. 258. 2 Ibid. p. 259.
3 Ibid. p. 260. • Ibid. p. 260.
34 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
in his chapter on Ultimate Doubts that ' a self
is not the same as such a centre of experience.
. . . From immediate experience the self emerges,
and is set apart by a distinction.' * Experience
transcends the Self, and is itself Reality. He
traces the development of Self, other selves, the
world and God, from undifferentiated experience.
' For certain purposes what I experience can be
considered as the state of my self, or again, of my
soul . . . because in one aspect it actually is so.
But this aspect may be an infinitesimal fragment
of its being.' 2
Having settled this question for the present,
we must now take up Bradley's negative treat-
ment of the Self, which begins early in the book,
although, like the best wine, we have kept it till
the last. In two Chapters on the Meanings of
Self, and the Reality of Self, the most glaring
inconsistencies in this concept are brought to light.
It is certain that if pure logic had guided us, we
could never have believed in it. But as men have
forsaken this ' dry light,' Bradley has to convince
them by means of argument. In the first of
these Chapters, 3 it is shown that we do not know
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 524. 2 Ibid. p. 526.
8 Ibid. p. 75 ff.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 35
what we mean by the Self. And that is itself
sufficient condemnation for metaphysic, since
only by definitions can truth be attained. But
Bradley goes into psychology to bring to light
the diverse meanings of Self. A mere statement
of these results must suffice.
Leaving aside the body, by the Self may be
meant : —
(1) The present contents of experience — a
* cross-section ' at any moment.
(2) The constant average mass, habits, char-
acter, behaviour, dispositions.
(3) The essential Self, the inner core of feeling
called Coenesthesia. This leads to the problem
of Personal Identity, which Bradley regards as
insoluble, owing chiefly to the difficulty of fixing
the meanings of ' person,' and of ' continuity.'
Memory is equally powerless to explain the
supposed sameness.
(4) The Self as a kind of Monad or simple
being.
(5) That in which I take an interest.
(6) The distinction of Subject and Object,
which has two main forms — as theoretical, involv-
ing perception and intelligence, and as practical,
involving desire and will. In each case, the Self
36 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
as related to a Not-Self is found on introspection
to be some concrete form of unity of psychical
existence. And probably every detail of the Self
can be presented in turn as Not-Self in the theo-
retical relation. And in the practical relation, any
feature in the Self may be felt as a limit against
which it could react. And taking the Not-Self,
most of its elements can be regarded as passing
into the background of feeling, and so becoming
Self. Bradley admits that there is a margin, as
it were, which cannot be crossed, but he affirms
that it is unreasonable to make this margin ulti-
mate. So Self may mean either the feeling of
the psychical contents, or a distinction within
the whole mass of certain contents as a back-
ground, against which as a Not-Self, the Self is
realized as existing ; or finally in the practical
relation as an end to be achieved, with which,
as is said, one actively identifies himself. This
leads to a psychological discussion of the per-
ception of activity in relation to the Self, and
it is shown to involve an idea of the change
desired.
(7) The ' mere self ' or the ' simply subjective,'
which is not relevant to a definite psychical
function : it is the unessential in any mental
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 37
process. This is a merely 'chance self,' the
residue, not used, but only felt ; and the meaning
is both too wide and too narrow for our purpose.
Bradley now passes on to discuss definitely the
Reality of the Self. 1 He repeats once more his
admission that one's own existence in some sense
is an indubitable fact, 2 but the question is whether
the claim of the Self to possess reality and even to
guarantee the reality of appearances, can be
maintained. We are not long left in doubt as to
the weapons or the result of the encounter. ' It
is the old puzzle,' Bradley says, ' as to the con-
nection of diversity with unity.' 3 The assurance
of personal identity is irrelevant to the issue. It
is a question of intelligibility. Does the Self
give an experience which will enable us to under-
stand the way in which diversity is harmonized ?
Bradley answers, 'No.' His reason is that,
whether taken as mere feeling, or some form of
self-consciousness or self-identity, the analysis is
made either in the plane of relations with their
inconsistencies, or else in the deeper region of
immediate experience, without distinction be-
1 Appearance and Reality, Chapter IX.
2 Ibid. p. 103 ; cf. pp. 76, 119, 357.
3 Ibid. p. 103.
38 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
tween subject and object. ' Feeling is an appre-
hension too defective to lay hold on reality.' *
Feeling cannot deal with terms and relations
which, ' as it commonly appears/ constitute
Reality. 2 Neither can self-consciousness satisfy
the claims of intellect. ' It is a mere experience.' 3
It cannot give a consistent account of itself or of
Reality. Self-consciousness has too much the
form of feeling. The subject can never wholly
become object to itself, and so cannot become
matter of ' perception.' 4 As to personal identity,
Bradley confesses that the self is ' the same
within limits and to a certain extent,' but denies
that any metaphysical conclusions follow, until
the understanding of how the Self is the same,
is forthcoming, and is presented for criticism.
Neither will he accept any view of the Self as
timeless, supposed to be furnished from the
function of comparison in mental life.
Bradley then treats of the Self as Will or
activity, and denies that intellectually it is better
off than those meanings previously discussed.
The ghosts of change, of unity and diversity, of
relation, will not be laid to rest. Psychologically,
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 106. 2 Ibid. p. 107.
3 Ibid. p. 109. l Ibid, p. 111.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 39
the experience of activity is illusion. The same
result follows the discussion of Monads. The
same arguments recur with fatal regularity.
The conclusion of the whole matter is that the
Self, whatever meaning be attached to it, is
' appearance ' merely. It bears the burden of
external relations, the stigma of unintelligibility,
the brand of inexplicable diversity and unity.
No doubt it is ' the highest form of experience
which we have, but, for all that, it is not a true
form. It does not give us the facts as they are
in reality ; and as it gives them, they are appear-
ance, appearance and error.' * The principle
which metaphysics requires in order to resolve
the contradiction of diversity and unity, the Self
cannot supply. On the contrary, ' when not
hiding itself in obscurity,' the Self ' seems a mere
bundle of discrepancies.'
In the Chapter on ' Body and Soul ' 2 similar
results are obtained. The Self is distinguishable
from the Soul. The latter is defined as ' a finite
centre of immediate experience,' ' possessed of a
certain temporal continuity of existence and again
of a certain identity of character.' 3
The Soul is a personal centre, not taken at an
1 Ibid. p. 119. * Ibid. p. 295. 3 Ibid. p. 298.
40 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
instant, but considered as a ' thing.' * Accord-
ingly, it is an ideal construction and not a
presented fact. It is a result of a process of
idealization of ' experience,' bringing out the
oneness of past with present. So it is endowed
with an ideal and eternal character, which raises
it out of the time-series, although it is realized
in that series. So it is inconsistent, and ' rooted
in an artifice ! ' It has the unfailing mark of
' appearance ' given, in the separation of the
' that ' and the ' what.' The same conclusion is
reached also from the Absolute side — no plurality
of such existences can be Reality.
Bradley discusses objections to this view, based
on the independence of Souls, especially in relation
to bodies ; the claim for a transcendent Soul or
Ego ; and, lastly, the psychical warrant alleged
to be given for a Soul as being beyond mere
phenomena. Bradley declines to be a party to
the identification of soul with body. 2 Even if
psychologically tenable, it would yet involve a
vicious circle. The Ego only serves to increase
our difficulties and is dismissed. As for the
psychical evidence for a Soul, it is either mani-
fested in events in the time-series, or not at all.
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 302. % Ibid. p. 308.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 41
If in events, we cannot claim as evidence the
intellectual constructions which are built upon
them, since the self-transcendence, the import, of
experience cannot be classed in this way. If in
more than mere events, they must take their
chance in intellectual criticism, and, as we have
seen, their ' chance ' is not worth much in a
System of Reality.
Both Soul and Body consist of phenomenal
series, and come together in Absolute Reality,
and their special characters must there be ' lost '
and ' dissolved in what transcends them.' x
As to the relation between Souls P experiences
are certainly separate from each other, and are
capable of influencing each other, so far as we
know, only through the body. We have a
' common understanding ' in regard to the world
of discourse, and further we behave as if our
internal worlds were the same. There is an
ideal identity between Souls. In the individual's
life, both bodily and psychical, an active function
of identity is required. And the Soul is ' less
unreal ' than the physical world ; for it shows
more clearly the self-dependence and harmony
which are the marks of Absolute Reality, to
1 Ibid. p. 342.
42 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
which we are driven, as the explanation of all
' appearance,' and the resolution of all discords.
ii.
With the main outlines of Bradley's formidable
system before us, I may now briefly express some
of the respects in which it seems to me to come
short of, or to transgress, the requirements of a
metaphysic, from the standpoint of our special
problem. It is abundantly evident how promi-
nent the Self is in his polemic. Indeed it is no
exaggeration to say that it affords him his chief
difficulty, increased doubtless by his apparent
hostility to the concept throughout. It is hard to
resist the feeling that he means to keep the Self
in the background, and so to preserve an im-
personal character for his Absolute Idealism.
(1) The first criticism is directed against Brad-
ley's use of the Concept of Experience as over
against that of the Self. Sentience, Experience,
and the like are abstractions when taken out of
relation to a conscious Subject. The use of these
impersonal concepts is at the basis of his grand
mistake in setting up Experience as Reality,
while the Subject involved in all experience is
shut into the outer darkness of * appearance.'
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 43
As this objection will appear again in different
aspects of the subsequent criticism, and will be
more fully discussed in the opening chapter of
the Second Part of this book, I leave it for the
present.
(2) The foregoing difficulty is obscured by the
use of such phrases as ' this-mines,' ' finite
centres of experience,' ' experiences/ ' souls/ ' im-
mediate feeling,' * felt wholes,' and so on. Bradley
is forced to admit again and again that the Self is
real in some sense. But while he complains that
nobody tells him how it is able to transcend these
logical difficulties, he never submits ' Experience '
to the same test. Experience is a vague and
ambiguous term which is supposed to include the
Self, and yet escapes all its difficulties by ignoring
them. It must surely consist of ' appearances '
in the wildest confusion, from a logical point of
view, since it includes all the contradictions and
inconsistencies of the Subject, plus those of the
Object. And in itself it has no remedy for these
difficulties. It is only when adjectived by Abso-
lute, and spelt with a capital, that it can solve
them. If time permitted, a minute examination
of the relations of the concepts of Experience and
Appearance would reveal the double part which
44 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
the former plays in Bradley's system. I am
satisfied that just here the opening wedge must
be applied, and when it is driven home, Bradley's
' block universe,' which seems so compact, will
appear streaked with gaping inconsistencies.
(3) What are we to say of the argument, upon
which so much depends, that the power to
transcend direct experience introduces us to a
world of Reality from which the psychical fact of
Self has disappeared ? Our answer is simply
to point to Bradley's own confessions that the
dual relationship of Subject and Object is never
really sundered. ' Even the Absolute is my
state,' l he says. Therefore the import of experi-
ence does not do away with its relationship to
a Self, as essentially part of the experience. And
in his endeavour to transcend the ' this-mine,'
Bradley faces this question. At the critical point
he fails. He admits that the ' more ' must be
felt. 2 ' It is somebody's experience then,' we
say, — ' W hose is it ? ' Bradley falters, and then
falls back on his a priori position ! It is mine,
but ' what I feel is the all-inclusive universe,'
that is, it belongs to the Absolute Experience !
I contend that at any rate it implies the Self, by
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 260. 2 Ibid. pp. 252-253.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 45
his own admission. It would alter the whole
character of his impersonal System, if Bradley-
were to take fully into account this implication
of the subject in ' indirect experience.'
(4) Bradley fails to make the all-important
distinction between the Self as an intellectual
construction and as an essential element in all
experience. 1 This is the only serious ground he
suggests for the superior reality of experience
over the Self. This is an instance of the ' psycho-
logist's fallacy.' The ' limited aperture ' where
reality burns as in a focus may be called ' an
experience,' but by his own confession it is ' our
sole means of getting at Reality,' and, as such,
it involves subjective awareness, that is, essential
selfhood, apart from all construction. Merely
psychological and genetic problems must not be
confused with the metaphysical issue.
(5) No grade, no totality of experience can
possibly be more real than that which is its con-
dition, viz. the experience of it by a Subject or
Self. If the Subject can be excluded from the
Reality which is granted to experience, then
knowledge is for ever beyond us. If we cannot
1 Cf. Prof. James Ward's Article ' Psychology,' Ency. Britt.
Ninth Edition, vol. xx. p. 83.
46 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
rely upon our own reality, if our existence is not
as real as any matter of human experience, then
is our philosophic and scientific faith vain. This
is our ultimate nerve of truth. This is the
rationale for our existence as seekers after reality.
If there be no point of absolutely real contact
with fulness of Reality, then scepticism is the
logical result. And impersonal Absolutism is not
far from its kingdom either.
(6) Bradley practically admits this frequently,
but by his complexity of phrases, the admissions
which he makes regarding the Self's place in
Reality are quite overshadowed by the assertions
of its place in the world of ' mere appearance.'
I refer not only to his confessions of the Self's
supreme place in existence, but to his express
conviction that ' even the Absolute is my state,'
and all Reality exists only in centres of sentient
experience. 1 What then can withhold him from
recognizing the reality of Personality as above
every other form of finite experience ? He grants
this too, — but ' experience ' has been replaced by
the sinister word ' appearance.'
(7) The method of Bradley is surely somewhat
slighting to the universe. He applies our ' logi-
1 Appearance and Reality, p. 260.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 47
cal ' paradoxes and abstract puzzles, — which
might stand with Buridan's Ass in the road until
they should perish — to the full, rich, growing
universe. 1 The negative results are a reflection
upon his methods, and upon logic itself ; but not
upon the revelation of Reality which experience,
in the true sense, is every day presenting to us.
If we want an explanation of unity and diversity,
instead of throwing away everything that mani-
fests it, we ought rather to free our minds from
the burden of scholasticism which is so powerless
to cope with actually existing facts and principles.
Life is more than concepts. Reality sets us the
task of following her lead. The ' Owl of Minerva '
which, as Hegel tells us, ' does not start on her
flight until the shades of evening have begun to
fall,' cannot imitate the lark which heralds the
day with prophetic song. Life makes the way
for Thought.
(8) But, more in detail, the solution of incom-
pleteness, relations, unity and diversity is to be
found ' within us.' Professor Royce has shown
1 Such works as Bergson's U Evolution Creatrice and James' A
Pluralistic Universe, represent a very proper as well as popular
revolt from the dry scholasticism which lurks in many systems
of Absolute Idealism. The present tendency is wholly towards
a ' concrete ' and living Idealism
48 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
that Thought gives a concrete solution of the
puzzle of the One and the Many. 1 The answer
to the difficulty is solvitur ambulando. The Self
is the key to these mysteries of logic, and it
affords an actual hint and illustration of the way
in which fragmentariness is overcome, relations
subsist in a whole which embraces them, unity
and diversity are positively experienced. This
key Bradley deliberately throws away. The
somehow must be cleared up.
(9) But even in the case of the Absolute, the
somehow is never changed into an account of
how. If we are excused for crying ' mystery '
now, why were we birched for doing so in the
case of our immediate experience ? This act of
faith on Bradley's part results from his method,
because only in our experience can the conceptual
difficulty be overcome. The paradox therefore
recurs, and creates discord even in the Absolute.
The logical discord grates upon the ear until the
noise is drowned by the mystical chorus hymning
the supra-relational, all-absorbing and reconciling
Absolute Experience which enjoys a balance of
pleasure over pain ! Here sameness and diversity
1 The World and the Individual, vol. i. Supplementary
Essay, p. 490 ff.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 49
simply must be real. There — in the case of the
Self — they were real but were disowned !
(10) In regard to the ambiguities in the term
Self, Bradley's contention must be admitted. He
has performed indirectly a great service by calling
attention so acutely to these various meanings.
In a humble way, I shall endeavour to fix some
meanings elsewhere in this work. 1
But from this bundle of meanings some stand
out as proof against Bradley's attacks, although
he is reluctant to admit his failure to demolish
them. For example, in his third case of Essential
Self, Coenesthesia, the Self is twitted about the
problem of change, about its own undefined limits,
and its character as ' a wretched fraction and
poor atom/ if it be merely the identical element
through change. Then he proceeds to the prob-
lems of personal identity, continuity, and memory.
This view of the Self is really scouted because of
our inability to define what we feel. But I am
not aware that the slightest feeling has ever
been any better off in this respect. We are not
clever enough to turn ourselves inside out, and
then take a snapshot photograph. But are we
therefore unreal ?
1 Part II. , Chapter II.
D
50 THE PEOBLEM OF PERSONALITY
No, the feeling and consciousness of Self cannot
possibly be treated as objects on our horizon, and
no one but an intellectualist would desire it. But
Bradley himself does not challenge feeling so long
as it is not feeling of Self, the most intimate
experience, and the most difficult to describe, —
and then he objects ! In his system, feeling is
given a clear course to the highest peak of
Reality, and luxuriates in state as Absolute
Experience, while the Self is refused admittance
except in the guise of a beggar, and on condition
of forfeiture of character.
Bradley's criticism of Subject and Object is
also most inconclusive, and quite unconvincing.
The fluctuating margin of Self and Not-Self is
a psychological characteristic devoid of meta-
physical interest, since both subject and object
are still essentially present in all experience.
These two important meanings of Self therefore
remain intact.
(11) As to the criticism of the Self's Reality,
we have already examined Bradley's method and
aim, and little further need be said. It is evident
that any existing object of attack might be proved
unreal in Bradley's way, for it consists in showing
its entanglement with the aforesaid contradic-
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 51
tions. Even the Absolute would succumb but
for the special consideration shown. But in the
main, the reality of the Self is attacked because
of our failure to intellectualize it, which has
just been adverted to. It may be added that,
whether we will or not, we must accept experience
as our portion. And by this term I mean the
concrete personal kind of experience which we
actually have, and not something which can set
itself over against the life of the Self, and call our
contents of consciousness hard names, from its
vaunted eminence as being ' somehow ' Absolute.
After all we must own the ' I ' that makes a
judgment, that feels a pain, that resolves, strives,
and wills, as having a reality which will not be
decried, and which we assert even in denying and
in doubting. When the Self is intellectualized,
as far as that is possible, Bradley calls it a ' con-
struction/ and mocks at its lateness in appearing
on the scene of experience ! When it is imme-
diate, it is blind feeling. What is the poor thing
to do ? The confusion in the issue is brought
out by his dissatisfaction with the Self when
analysed below relations without distinction
between Subject and Object, because it cannot
deal with terms and relations of which, ' as it
52 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
commonly appears,' Reality consists ! x And
yet when it is taken ' higher up/ it is infected
with relations, and with diversity and unity,
and is an intellectual construction ! Significant
is his remark on self-consciousness : ' It is
a mere experience ! ' How it bears out the
contention in regard to the mistaken use of
Experience in this wide, vague sense so prevalent
to-day !
Surely the truth is that the Self and Experience
stand or fall together in this matter. Neither
are accurately definable. Both must be accepted.
The Absolute Reality must be revealed in Experi-
ence as embodying Subjects of experience. Brad-
ley's frequent admissions that the Self is ' less
unreal ' than any other finite thing are forced
out in spite of his dialectic. If the Self were not
associated with a world long before designated
as ' mere appearance,' it would be able to come
unto its own. It would manifestly range on the
supreme levels of experience as essentially real,
in subordination to a transcendental Absolute,
which really gives an entirely new point of view.
But even so, Self and Experience should appear
as in essential relation.
1 Appearance and Reality, pp. 106-7.
MR. F. H. BRADLEY 53
(12) The denial of Selfhood to the Absolute
in any real sense is the outcome of the position
so frequently admitted before. As has been well
pointed out by Professor A. Seth Pringle-Patti-
son 1 and Professor Royce, 2 — from different points
of view — Bradley's Absolute Experience really
involves the attribution of what is indistinguish-
able from Perfect Personality. The unwillingness
to characterize his Absolute as Self is not con-
sistent with the Idealistic position. 3 His accom-
modation of ' personality ' within the Absolute
beside moral and aesthetic and other ' appear-
ances ' is open to the objection that it limits
Reality while seeking to guard it from determina-
tion. Further, the Self, for which moral purposes
are, is on a higher plane than moral relationships.
Instead of being supra-personal this type of
Absolute tends to fall to the level of infra -human
or impersonal, or else becomes a mere Unknow-
able, hardly distinguishable from a monstrous
Thing-in-itself except for the unmeaning desig-
nation of Experience. The inconsistency in the
1 Man's Place in the Cosmos, Essay on 'A New Theory of the
Absolute,' p. 218 ff.
2 The World and the Individual, vol. i. Supplementary Essay,
pp. 550-554.
3 Appearance and Reality, pp. 558-9 (Appendix).
54 THE PROBLEM 'OF PERSONALITY
use of that concept which we have traced through-
out is so obviously magnified in the final result,
that further criticism here is unnecessary. The
prominence of feeling in the final Reality, and
the discussion of the Absolute's enjoyment, com-
ing after the denial of personality * strike one as
incongruous, and form their own commentary on
the position.
1 Appearance and Reality, pp. 532-5.
CHAPTER III.
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE.
To the student of Professor Royce's more recent
works, 1 it is evident that the concept of the Self
occupies a central position in his System. In his
earlier philosophical writings 2 the palpably ethical
interpretation of the Self and the Universe was
conspicuous — an influence which continues to be
prominent, but now more in relation to the
interpretation he gives of the Self. In the two
later works we find sufficient material for the
problem of our Thesis. 3 Royce approaches the
1 The Conception of God, by Profs. Royce, Howison, Mezes,
and Le Conte ; New York, Macmillan Co., 1897. The World and
the Individual, Gifford Lectures, University of Aberdeen, by Prof.
Royce ; N.Y., Macmillan Co., 1st and 2nd Series, 1901.
2 The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, 1885 ; The Spirit of
Modern Philosophy, 1892 ; both of the Riverside Press, Cam-
bridge.
8 Since these words were written, Professor Royce has given
us The Philosophy of Loyalty, William James, and Other Essays
on the Philosophy of Life, and The Problem of Christianity,
2 vols, (all Macmillan). These works express in fresh relations
56 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Self through his Idealistic Theory of Being. But
he does not regard his system as a priori. Accord-
ingly we are at perfect liberty to expound first
his view of the Self, and then the place of the
Self in his Theory of Reality.
i.
What, then, is the Self ? Royce's answer is
partly negative, but finally positive. He criti-
cizes certain current conceptions of the Self, and
then gives what he believes to be the idealistic
and the true view. Let us state in turn these two
aspects of his answer.
He begins his discussion of the Self with a
psychological account. Viewing the merely brute
facts of self-consciousness, one must see that
there is no stability, no verifiable identity to be
found. The Empirical Ego is the product of
growth, and the outcome of experience, having
a genesis in time, and a connection with the body.
In the aspect of mere fact, a passing mood can
the view of the Self given in The World and the Individual,
which is discussed in the Chapter, but do not greatly modify
the definition of the Self given by Royce, in terms of its relation
to the community and the past and present values of the indi-
vidual experience. In other words, the Self remains for Royce
an interpretation, a logical, ethical and social conception, rather
than a basic fact correlative with experience.
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 57
alter spiritual stability, while the idea of the Self
is largely made up of bodily sensations, especially
muscular and visceral. These form a nucleus to
which are added habits and social experiences.
These latter elements are most important in pro-
ducing that contrast-effect, in which the idea of
Self mainly consists. The child's natural depen-
dence on others becomes consciously weakened,
and gradually the discovery is made of the dis-
tinction between himself and all other selves.
Stages in this process are indicated by quarrels,
loves, the sense of rivalry, the conflict of desires,
and especially by conscious imitation and docility
to another's will. Then comes the sensitiveness
to the approval and disapproval of others. But
it is not till the formation and growth of an Ideal
that true selfhood begins, bringing order, con-
nectedness, and permanence into the inner world.
This important factor is essentially social in
character, and of the nature of a contrast. When
an inward comparison of ideals takes place, how-
ever, then the progress to selfhood only lacks the
fulfilled purpose in order to reach completion.
The meaning or value of a life as expressed in an
Ideal, gives Self its unity and reality. By atten-
tion — the essence of Will — to the life-plan which
58 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
is selected as the Ideal, the seeking Self partly
realizes his selfhood, which is only to be perfectly
fulfilled, however, in the Absolute.
Thus we have passed from the negative to the
positive point of view, or — as it comes to mean
—from the psychological to the metaphysical.
In other words, we have found that the reality of
the Self can only be reached by regarding the
significance or value of certain elements of inner
experience, which, as merely empirical facts, are
incompetent to furnish a doctrine of the Self.
6 The real Self is the totality of our empirical
consciousness when viewed as having unity of
meaning, and as exemplifying, or in its totality
fulfilling an idea.' x So instead of vainly seeking
for an Ego among the empirical facts of con-
sciousness where all is variable and fragmentary,
we realize that the only real and permanent Ego
is to be found in the consciously selected and
adopted plan of life, which pervades such ele-
ments and gives them unity and meaning. By
such an Ideal a Self is constituted, and without
some such purpose no Self can exist. Nay, does
not psychology show that, apart from this stan-
dard, we may be said to possess many selves
1 The Conception of God, p. 288.
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 59
rather than one ? So our Self must be viewed
metaphysically and even morally, if it is to be
seriously reckoned with at all.
Before we finally pass over into this meta-
physical region, however, let us supplement what
has been said by a further survey. In the Second
Series of The World and the Individual the sub-
ject is more fully treated. After speaking of the
ambiguities in the meaning of Self — shown, for
example, in our contrary ethical maxims — ' forget
yourself ' — ' find yourself ' — Royce maintains that
the usage of Self in the higher ethical sense is the
only defensible mode of employing the concept.
Then he proceeds to discuss three different con-
ceptions of the individual Self.
The first conception is an empirical view of the
Self, as a certain unity of facts, contrasted with
all else, partly physical and partly psychical as
including the conscious states. That there is a
variable character about the common-sense dis-
tinction of Self from Not-Self must be admitted.
Royce claims that the psychological unity
observable in this series is due to the principle
that the distinction between the Self and Not-
Self is essentially social, and depends upon a
succession of contrast-effects, together with
60 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
the psychical processes of habit, memory, and
imagination.
The second conception consists in the view of
the Self as a real and independent being, in some
metaphysical sense. The Self is one, and is called
the Soul, and is regarded as a Substance. It is
not to be confounded with the mere states of
consciousness. It gives unity and order to mental
life. But Royce contends that this doctrine is
condemned already as Realistic ; and the refuta-
tion of Realism has been given previously in his
pages. In short, both this and the first con-
ception of the Self are inadequate since they are
incompatible with the only tenable Theory of
Being, namely the Idealistic. To this view Royce
addresses himself as the third conception of the
Self, which shall provide all that is worth con-
tending for in the others. The following out of
this conception will lead us into the realm of
metaphysics and into as much of Royce's System
as it will concern us here to explore.
This third type escapes the two great diffi-
culties of the former conceptions. It is not
burdened by the ethical contradictions which a
criticism of the common-sense Self brings to
light ; nor yet is it disturbed by the psychological
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 61
theories of the ' Passing Thought/ and the like,
or the complexities of empirical processes. What
this third type is we have previously indicated.
It consists in the view of the Self as a ' Meaning
embodied in a conscious life.' * The Self is not
an entity, not a Substance, not a Soul, nor yet
a series of inner states. What the Self is can
only be fully revealed by the fulfilment of the
Ideal which constitutes its Selfhood. That Mean-
ing is relative to other Selves or Meanings and to
the Absolute Self, or Infinite Meaning. And yet
it is distinguished from them, for the Whole is an
infinitely rich and complex unity.
We can no longer keep closed the floodgates of
Royce's Idealism, if we would float down the
river of his thought. In the First Series he has
discussed the Four Conceptions of Being, — the
theories of Realism ; Empiricism and its logical
outcome, Mysticism ; Critical Rationalism ; and
finally his own Idealism, that is, the ultimate
unity in the Absolute of the Internal and External
Meaning. Now, the Self, as a merely fitful flush
of conscious purpose, seems to be just as strongly
contrasted from the wider Not-Self, as the In-
ternal from the External Meaning. But reflection
1 The World and the Individual, vol. ii. p. 269.
62 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
shows the same ultimate transcendence in the
Absolute. The outer world, the Not-Self, the
External Meaning, are seen to be reducible to .
the true Internal Meaning, although without loss
of individuality. So an ' infinite number ' of
such contrasts of Self and Not-Self can be
made, 1 which in reality only express the wealth
of meaning in the Absolute.
And when in any one instant I seem to have
such a contrast between Self and Not-Self, the
fact is that I identify the past and the future
experiences of what I consider Myself with the
present, not by any psychical entity, but by a
unity of purpose which at least I ' ought to
possess ' 2 in contrast with all else. Personal
identity is not the discredited psychological type,
but that of ethical meaning and purpose, which,
as we have seen, constitutes the Self. This Ideal
implies the will to preserve one's own significance
in subordination to the essential Unity. In the
true Theory of Being, therefore, this ethical con-
ception of Self will predominate ; and it will be
valid not for the human individual alone, but, as
we shall see, for the Absolute also, and even for
Reality in its essential structure.
1 The World and the Individual, p. 273. » Ibid. p. 274.
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 63
For since you cannot find out what the Self
really is by mere experience however prolonged,
but must regard its Meaning in the light of the
Absolute who is precisely this system of values
consciously fulfilled unto perfection in his own
infinite Unity, you must look to this stand-
point for a true doctrine of the Self. And it is
for this reason that Royce approaches the Self
through his Theory of Being. But this con-
ception of Reality is essentially based on the
ethical nature of Selfhood — for that is what the
Unity of the Internal and External Meaning
comes to mean. Hence the realm of the Absolute
is throughout conscious and the perfection of
Meaning. That is, the Absolute is a Self, a
Person. And Reality is of this structure also.
For it is the completely organized life of the
Absolute, inclusive of the infinite variety of
meanings, in fulfilled Unity, in which our various
finite Selves have a place, with all that constitutes
God's universe.
Royce's favourite argument, however, for this
constructive view is drawn from his doctrine of
the Self-representative Series, based upon the
formal structure of the Self and extended in
relation to the number series of mathematics.
64 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
The Self is found to be inclusive and included.
It is essentially dual and self-representative in
its structure. And Reality is found to have the
same form, which is shared by the Infinite of
the ' New ' mathematics. 1 Accordingly, against
Bradley, Royce maintains the fundamental reality
of the Self as he conceives it, and he defends as
an integral part of his system the Personality of
the Absolute. This conception of the Self-repre-
sentative System also supplies him with the
solution of Bradley's great riddle of the One and
the Many. For in such a System, as in the Self
also, variety is constituted by unity, and unity
by variety. The life's Meaning makes a Self out
of fragmentary and multitudinous elements, which
only get their being through relation to the Self,
although not fully discovered as yet. And, on
the other hand, the Series of self-inclusive repre-
sentations, for example, maps of maps, is such
that every point is in an infinite unity, while yet
different from every other. In short, this formal
conception gives Royce the clue to the structure
of the Whole of Reality as an Infinite Collection
of the essential type of a Self-representative
1 The World and the Individual, vol. i. Supplementary Essay,
p. 512 ff.
J
// /
f PEOFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 65
OiSystem. Hence his definition of consciousness,
and of the Self, conceived as we have presented
it, as that which can be content to itself; for, so
viewed, the Self is the system of unfulfilled mean-
ings, unsatisfied longings, by which it seeks to
express itself, and yet it is included in these as
the conscious Self with a certain conception of its
meaning at any given stage in the temporal
process. But this is supremely true of the Abso-
lute Self who includes within his life the infinite
collection of Selves. And in this way the appear-
ance of new Selves is to be interpreted. A New
Self arises within a more inclusive Self.
The concept of Infinity is freely used by Royce,
and it is interpreted after the pattern of the
' new ' infinite of Mathematics as required by the
Self-representative Series. An infinite totality
is provided for by the inclusion in the Absolute
of all actually fulfilled, as opposed to all barely
possible, ideas and meanings. This Self-deter-
mination on the part of the Divine Will removes
the objection to Personality as imposing an
arbitrary limit upon the Absolute.
This leads to the problem of the relation of
the Selves, as essentially moral beings, to the
Absolute. Royce faces the difficulty which is
66 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
so strongly emphasized by Howison. 1 How
are genuine moral autonomy, ethical freedom,
and personal immortality compatible with such
Monism ? Well, since Royce is so insistent upon
the ethical character of Selfhood, it is a most
relevant point to raise. And, further, he seeks
to provide a distinct theory of Individuality.
Eoyce considers his system compatible with
the highest claims for moral freedom and ethical
autonomy. For it is the essence of my indi-
viduality to define myself as distinct from all
else by the unique life-plan chosen and adopted.
And my doing so is God's will also. While
Royce conceives the universe as interpretable
teleologically, and as a Divine Unity, he yet
regards every fragment of the world as being in
its individuality an essential aspect of the life
of the Whole, as the positive embodiment of
conscious will and purpose. The antinomy be-
tween human freedom and Divine Purpose is
solved by the category of Time. The fact of
the dependence of the Self upon another Will in
Time does not conflict with the assertion that
in the aspect of Eternity, the Self exists as Self-
defining, and yet as the expression of the Divine
x The Conception of Ood. See also the next Chapter.
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 67
Will. The Divine Will expresses itself in the
Self's own purposes, and includes them in its own.
So freedom, individuality and immortality are
provided for in the System. The Self is real as
an expression of its own meaning, freely chosen
and adopted. But that is so because it is the
Divine purpose. The Absolute supremely solves
the problem of the One and the Many. The
various Selves are many because in God they are
One ; and God is Unity because of this Plurality,
and infinite variety.
The Selves are not independent beings, and
Royce considers any such Realistic Theodicy
beset with the greatest difficulties. Evil he
regards as due to inattention to the highest. It
is atoned for in the Absolute, and so is reconcilable
with the Perfection of Reality. The uniqueness
of our individuality is preserved in God, the
Supreme Person and Individual, in whom our
Eternal Selves find fulfilment and immortality.
God's life includes the temporal process and He
views it eternally, as in one indivisible instant.
In His totality as Absolute He is ' conscious not
in time, but of time, and of all that infinite time
contains.' * As sharers in that Divine Life, the
1 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 419.
68 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Selves, from the eternal standpoint, consciously
attain their perfection by the knowledge of their
temporal strivings in their wholeness, and by
beholding their fragmentary meanings as fulfilled
in the Absolute and revealed in the light of
Eternity.
ii.
Royce's System of Absolute Idealism is logical
and impressive. It represents the results of the
best thinking of one of the foremost living meta-
physicians, after many years of profound reflec-
tion upon philosophical problems. It was not
cast into the literary mould before it was melted.
It has glowed in the crucible of personal life and
conviction ; it has been fused beneath the white
heat of honest criticism.
This conviction, however, must not be empha-
sized here ; but rather we must go on audaciously
to our work of appreciation and criticism. A
word or two more of appreciation will suffice.
I believe that in the latter part of this Thesis,
it will be found that the conclusions indicated
will not very widely diverge from the main out-
lines of Royce's System, with which I am largely
in sympathy, as the best expression yet given of
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 69
Idealism. And now, in regard to criticism : My
first and fundamental divergence is concerning
Royce's view of the Self. I cannot accept the
doctrine, — however widespread it may be, and
however capable of conserving spiritual interests,
that the only real Self is the idea of a life-purpose,
the Meaning intended, the Ideal sought. For
the resort to the Passive Voice here will serve as
a hint of my objection, which I may at once
state bluntly. What intends, means, seeks ideals ?
To my mind the only answer is the Subject or
Ego to whom these thoughts, purposes, and
strivings, are Object, albeit expressive of the
ethical nature of the Person. Now this Subject-
Object aspect, so fundamental to an existential
account of experience, is not explicitly prominent
in Royce's treatment. Yet it seems to me to lie
right across the track of his thought. The
duality in Selfhood is present, and figures occa-
sionally in the 'Self -representative' and the ' Well-
ordered Series,' under the old terms, Subject and
Object, but on examination it will be found to be
distinct, and consisting of twofold Meanings, or
objective content of some hind. Yet this undeniable
fact of ' my ' experience, which we have had
occasion to miss in James and Bradley, does not
70 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
fully come to its proper rights even in Royce.
To be sure, the Self is placed with Experience,
even in the Absolute. So far that is well. But
the 'Self' is not the Subject of Experience,
which I contend is essential to a true metaphysic.
In other words, the Self is pushed into the
conceptual realm, where it is very much at home
with mathematical and other impersonal con-
cepts. But thereby it loses its immediacy, its
character as directly felt and experienced. And
this is precisely the essential thing about the
Self which must be taken into account in Meta-
physics. Royce charges such views with being
Realistic, and accordingly dismisses them. But
surely this is a hard saying to those who believe
all reality to be given in terms of experience and
thought. It is certainly remote from the Realism
of independent things in themselves or relations
apart from knowledge. Of course, the brunt of
the charge is against the Soul-Substance Theory,
which regards the Soul as an independent thing
or entity. But there are many and diverse forms
of this theory ; and, in any case, the reality of
the * Spiritual Self,' even of James' Psychology,
the Subject of our thinking, feeling, willing, striv-
ing, yes, even of our meaning, imagining, and
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 71
planning, must be given a prime place in a system
of Reality.
As to the disintegrating facts of empirical
Psychology, what do they really teach % A
genesis of the Self ; a process of growth in the
idea of the Self ; the possibility of manifestation
in one individual of different groups of habits, or
as we call them in this ethical sense, — selves or
personalities, the social character of Selfhood ;
the flowing moments of consciousness. I main-
tain that there is nothing really new, and nothing
of metaphysical significance to the problem of the
Subject of experience in any of these facts. And
as to the Personal Identity in regard to the Self
for whom this stream of experiences is, I contend
that it is no whit less authenticated, rational, and
defensible than the belief in the identity of the
world. In one case we build up an identity amid
the objects presented in the stream of thought
and in the other we believe in an identical Sub-
ject, which has the great advantage over the
former of being the most intimate experience, and
most verifiable identity, for it is the pivotal
spectator around which the objective kaleido-
scope revolves ! If we are to disintegrate experi-
ence, let us treat both sides alike, and then we
72 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
can turn our open books face downwards, and
confess ourselves utter sceptics ! As this will
come up again in the sequel, I pass on to other
aspects of the same tendency.
In close connection with the foregoing is the
criticism that the Self of Royce's doctrine is
essentially ethical, and therefore stands on a
different plane from that which is claimed for the
Self as an entity. Even if Being is only consti-
tuted by Meaning or Value, as Royce maintains,
from our human point of view, then that Mean-
ing is relative to some kind of identical Self other
than the Meaning. The Meaning requires a con-
scious Self for which different experiences are.
The same truth applies to all forms of Prag-
matism. Schiller and the Oxford School realize
this important basis for reality in terms of value.
Royce's Absolute may serve as the ultimate
standard, but it is hardly fair to fall back upon
it as the ground of the reality of the Self as
Meaning, after discussing psychological and gene-
tic problems ! We must, and we do recognize
the different standpoints of reality for man, and
final Reality for God.
Accordingly, I maintain that the Ethical Self
implies a real being, a Subject, an ' 1/ in relation
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 73
to which all my experiences are, and which my
meanings, purposes, ideals imply, as surely as
currency implies some actual medium of ex-
change. And, on the other hand, if you allow
me a Real Ego, I will have no difficulty in
seeing my way to an Ideal Ego. But without
such an admission, so imperatively demanded by
inner experience, we cannot set one against
the other, or even conceive how an Ideal Ego
can possibly be real in the prime or exclusive
sense.
Accordingly, when Eoyce says that there is no
real Ego or permanent being apart from the life-
plan which pervades our mental experiences, and
which alone makes what I call ' myself,' * I
have to protest that he is employing one con-
ception of the Self — namely the ethical — to the
exclusion of the existential Self or Subject, with-
out drawing the distinction between them. Per-
haps the criticism of Royce might be put thus :
he identifies the ' I ' with an ethical and intel-
lectual ' Me,' to the exclusion of the real Ego
as Subject. He repeats Bradley's mistake of
treating the Self as an intellectual and ethical
construction, as if there were no other meaning
1 Conception of God, pp. 289-290.
74 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of Self. Our distinction between terms in the
Second Part will make this clear.
The emphasis upon the formal and conceptual
side of all Reality follows as a corollary from the
subjection of the Self to these relations. Ethical
and Mathematical concepts and judgments go
together here, — an instance of history repeating
itself — and they accord well with the principles of
Symbolic Logic. To some, no doubt, these purely
formal discussions will appear valuable ; for my
own part, conviction as to Reality does not follow
from such formal considerations. 1 But, leaving
this aside, the duality in the Self-representative
Series, which gives the clue to the structure of
Reality is after all confessedly the structure of
Subject-Object. Now, if this were fully recog-
nized and worked out in the case of the Self,
1 The reader of Royce's latest books, especially his recent fine
work on The Problem of Christianity, will have an opportunity
of observing how far he has gone in following the lead of Sym-
bolic Logic and the New Mathematics in the elaboration of his
system. Concepts are the pieces on the metaphysical chess-
board, and the game of thought is played with them rather than
with the facts of life and experience. Christianity is the evolu-
tion of concepts, loyalty is the abstract principle which unites
the individual with the Divine Community. Great as may be
the truth underlying such a conclusion, one feels as if the
philosopher reaches it a priori. He seems to be thinking in
one language, as it were, and speaking in another.
PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE 75
we should have a system free from the objection
which has been previously urged. In such a
system our hold would be retained upon the
essence of empirical reality, — namely, our own
existence as the Subjects of Experience, — while
' at the same time we should be able to seek for
the ultimate Reality without forfeiting our im-
mediate feeling, our self-activity, and our sense
of life.
The claim of Royce that his system is not a
priori is scarcely manifested by his method of
reading his facts in the light of his conclusions
from the start of his constructive work. It is
true, his writings are on Religious Philosophy;
but, to my thinking, a clear progress from start-
ing-point to conclusion, from finite to Absolute
Reality, would avoid the abstractness and deduc-
tive character of his reasoning, shown for example
in his dismissal of his Second Conception of the
Self, — as a real entity — on the grounds of Realism-
Akin to this method is his over-emphasis, — as it
appears — upon the Social side as constituting
selfhood. Again, we seem to have relations
without any real and experienced terms, short
of the Absolute itself.
With his conception of the Absolute as a Self,
76 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
I am in accord, with reservations, which will
readily be perceived from what I have said in
criticism of the ethical and conceptual character
of the Self. The relation of God to man as a
moral being will come up in the next Chapter.
I may state here that I cannot regard either
Royce's provision for the moral, or Howison's
provision for the metaphysical, necessities of Per-
sonality as fully satisfactory. Boyce's view is
still too monistic to meet the requirements of
true freedom and responsibility, while Howison's
conception is too pluralistic.
CHAPTEK IV.
PROFESSOR G. H. HOWISON.
One of the most interesting expressions of the
present reaction of many minds against the
recently prevailing Monism is the system of
' Personal Idealism ' as expounded by Professor
G-. H. Howison. 1 It is quite distinct from the
views set forth by Eight Oxford Graduates in a
recent volume bearing the title of Personal
Idealism, to which reference is made elsewhere.
The kernel of Howison's thought is to be found
in his protest that Idealistic Monism is irrecon-
cilable with Personality, human or divine. As
1 The Conception of God, by Professors J. Royce, J. Le Conte,
G. H. Howison, and S. E. Mezes ; N.Y., The Macmillan Co.,
1897. The Limits of Evolution and other Essays, illustrating the
Metaphysical Theory of Personal Idealism, by Professor G. H.
Howison, Second Edition, revised and enlarged; N.Y., The
Macmillan Co., 1905.
78 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
we have seen, this opinion was freely expressed
at the Discussion with Professor Royce, reported
in the Conception of God. Equally incompatible
with personality are the claims of Naturalism ;
and that the polemic against this latter view is
no less strenuous is indicated by the Essay on
1 The Limits of Evolution' which gives to his book
its title.
Howison contends for a Rational Pluralism of
free spirits forming an eternal Society, including
God, not as the Efficient Cause, but as the Final
Cause, or determining Ideal of all. Not only the
moral claims of personality, — infinitely momen-
tous as they are, — but also the intellectual self-
activity of minds, leads him to the formulation
of Pluralism as a system. In fact, the theoretical
activity is not to be set over against the ' Practical
Reason ' as separate or fundamentally distinct ;
he maintains that the intellectual is ultimately
reducible to the moral relation, that consciousness
is best interpreted as conscience. In each case
the act of Self-definition is at the root of experi-
ence ; and this personal determination is neces-
sary owing to the presence of a system of
conscious Subjects, other Selves and God, or
the Supreme Self, which together constitute the
PROFESSOR G. H. HOWISON 79
world of Persons, the ' City of God/ 1 This
Self-defining and moral activity is so essential
that the ultimate reality must be stated in terms
which do justice to Personality above all. Monism,
whether Idealistic or Naturalistic, fails in this
supreme task, and therefore is false to the highest
truth of experience. Howison attributes this
fundamental error to the prominence of Efficient
over Final Causation in such systems. The old
form of Monotheism, with its doctrine of Creation
and Regeneration, falls under the like condem-
nation, in his opinion.
If we go to the heart of the matter and ask —
* What is a Person ? ' we shall bring out Howi-
son's thought more fully. Howison answers that
a person is a self-active member of a manifold
system of real beings. 2 The true person is
possessed of independent origination ; and yet
he is essentially related to an inclusive society
of beings equally characterized by initiative ;
and all are attracted to the Ideal and Perfect
Person, God, the Final Cause and bond of union
of spirits. ' It is the essence of a person to stand
in relation with beings having an autonomy, in
1 The Limits of Evolution, pp. 174-5.
2 The Conception of God, p. 91.
80 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
whom he recognizes rights, and toward whom
he acknowledges duties.' *
The person is the real creator of Nature, and
cannot be explained as derived from Nature.
He has no origin, 2 for he is above time. Hence
a philosophy of Evolution is incompetent. The
elements of self-active consciousness are a priori,
as Kant has established, and when this truth is
fully recognized, and consistently worked out,
Howison claims that rational Pluralism will result
as the true Idealism, and the only adequate
philosophy. Each person is a ' focal point ' of the
universe, receiving rays from other conscious
centres and reflecting them back with added
brightness. The universe is the product of the
consciousness of this Society of Persons, who
constitute Nature by their self-activity according
to the laws of cognition summed up in the
Categories, as a priori modes or conditions of
experience. Accordingly, the Person in its whole
reality is the one intelligible creative unity, the
single synthetic energy, ' blending in one ener-
getic whole above the categories the two activities
of absolute subject and absolute cause.' 3 Howi-
son illustrates his extension of the Kantian argu-
1 Limits, etc. p. 52. 2 Ibid. p. xiv. 3 Ibid. p. 174.
PROFESSOR G. H. HOWISON 81
ment by treating Time * as a form of consciousness
in each of us, expressive of our self-activity.
Time is ' a changeless principle of relation, by
which the active-conscious self connects the
items of experience into the serial order which
we call sequence or succession, and blends the
two concomitant series, physical and psychic,
into the single whole that expresses the self's
own unity.' 2
While it is indubitably certain, as Descartes
said, that the Self is real, still that conviction
rests, as a matter of fact, upon the essentially
social relation with other selves, that is, upon the
consciousness of Self as personal. But this funda-
mental recognition of the Society of Minds leads
to emphasis upon the moral relation as the deepest
reality, and the spring of the intellectual and
aesthetic. Yes, from the connection of the idea
of self and the idea of God, the best proof of the
actual existence of God is to be found. God is
the Supreme Person in this Society, defining
himself from every other as the perfect Self-
fulfilment in eternity, the reality of all ideal
1 Ibid. pp. 299-302.
2 Ibid. p. 301. There appears to be evidence of affinity of
thought with Bergson in this view of time.
82 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
possibilities. Human souls define themselves
from God, as from other persons ; so the reality
of each member depends upon the reality of the
Ideal, and the reality of God is involved in the
reality of each member. This mutual self-defini-
tion ensures the ' singular and unrepeatable per-
sonality ' of each soul. This moral relationship
and mutual dependence of souls and God is the
only creation which Howison recognizes.
Howison seeks for a reconciliation between
Freedom and Determinism by means of Self-
determination or purposive action as ' free causa-
tion,' together with the attraction of those Ideals
which constitute the rational bond of Souls, and
which centre in the perfection of God. The
1 Dilemma of Determinism ' can only be avoided
by regarding freedom as rational choice, and by
adopting Final instead of Efficient Causation.
Each Self-defining individual is eternal, and
yet gives rise to ' the phenomenal world of defect '
in defining himself from God, and has, on the one
hand, the trait of empirical alternative ; and, on
the other, the power to respond to the vision of
Good, an influence eternally real throughout the
City of God, emanating from the Spirit who is
the perfection of all Ideals. Evil enters through
PROFESSOR G. H. HOWISON 83
failure of will on the part of human selves.
Immortality is provided for on the basis of the
reality and eternity of all members of this
Society of Persons.
Let it be noted that Howison guards his system
against the charge of being merely Subjective
Idealism by his provision for objectivity. It is
true that he views Nature as the product of the
individual's formative consciousness. But as this
is a part of the soul's act of self-definition, it can
only be done with reference to other minds and
God, the Type of all intelligence. So the same
social and ethical principles which constitute the
Person provide the unity of Nature as a ' com-
munal system of experience.' Time and Space
exist because of this correlation of minds, involv-
ing a logical and moral order in the self-defining
consciousness of each.
The motif of Howison's System is, as we have
seen, the conviction of the inalienable worth and
absolute reality of personality. Accordingly he
falls back upon a Pluralism in opposition to
Monistic and Naturalistic systems which seem to
sacrifice the highest values of morality and indi-
viduality. Royce's provision in his System for
both these values, Howison rejects, on the grounds
84 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
that the distinctness of our minds cannot be pre-
served in the Absolute, nor can the significance
of moral personality be maintained. 1 In such
Absolutism he contends also that the Personality
of God is unrecognizable. Upon this attempt to
vindicate personality Howison's system is built.
What shall we say about it ?
ii.
With Howison's motive I have considerable
sympathy. I cannot but feel that Absolutism has
been half blind to the intellectual, moral and
emotional implications of Personality, the most
significant fact of which philosophy must take
account. But in addition to what has already
been said in the criticism of Royce, we shall have
occasion to refer to this subject again, and so
need not pursue it here.
In regard to Howison's Pluralism, so funda-
mental in his system, we cannot rest in that as a
final account of Reality. The problem of Rela-
tions is certainly too strong to allow us to accept
a divided universe. If it be said the price is less
than that paid in the sacrifice of personality, I
1 The Conception of Qod, p. 129.
PROFESSOR G. H. HOWISON 85
agree ; but I am hopeful that such an alternative
is not ultimate.
Howison does not contribute to a theory of the
Self in his pages, but expounds the concept of the
Person in an essentially social and ethical way.
No doubt he is thus emphasizing a valuable truth,
but, it seems to me, a very partial one. Con-
sidering how important the concept is in his
system, he might have given less reiteration of a
few truths about personality, and assisted in the
pressing work of clearing the intellectual atmo-
sphere that surrounds the concept of the Self.
He shows similar tendency to repetition in the
case of Final Causation, as if it were the ' skeleton
key ' for all locks. Change the term to Teleology
and it ceases to be so flexible — its dangers and
ambiguities come to light, — while the magic word
6 cause ' drops out of sight. As far as I can dis-
cover he has not given us a definite account of
what he means by Final Cause, nor of how it is
sufficient for all these things. I think that his
assertion of Efficient Causation as the unpardon-
able sin of all Absolutists and theologians is an
instance of false emphasis. 1 Cause is not a cate-
gory to conjure with in metaphysics, and the less
1 Limits, etc. pp. 343, 384, 396.
86 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
said about it the better, except as a working
hypothesis. The inspiration of ' the great Stagi-
rite ' was hardly ' verbal ' after all.
The social analogy is pressed too closely and
made too prominent. In fact, such phrases as the
' City of God,' ' Eternal Republic,' and so forth,
do not help us to the solution of the problem of
existence, but rather serve as illustrations in the
ethical sphere. The account of Nature is meagre.
The merely formal aspect of social relationship is
unable to bear the weight of a Universe.
The place of God in this system seems to
me to be unworthy of the name. That is a
serious defect in a system which professes to
rescue divine Personality from the blankness of
Monism. As Dr. J. M. E. M'Taggart pointed out
in his review, 1 the role of the Deity in Howison's
system is inadequate to meet the requirements
of traditional and Christian thought. Howison
replies 2 that the moral qualities are more impor-
tant than Self-existence. But, after all, does
Howison give us concrete holiness, love, and truth
in God ? I think not. God becomes the meeting-
place of mere abstractions. He is somehow
perfect, but without living Personality.
1 Mind, July, 1902. a Limits, etc. p. 429 (Appendix).
PROFESSOR G. H. HOWISON 87
If this be true, as I believe, then Howison has
failed in his object, and chiefly through loss of
contact with the matter of experience. He seems
to save the soul ; but he has merely preserved
the formal fact of relationship between souls, and
does not touch concrete experience anywhere. In
consequence, even human personality becomes a
mere intersection of abstractions ; and no one is
likely to glow with enthusiasm over his Personal
Idealism. It is too academic, too a priori, too
eclectic, for a system professing to deal justly
with living personality. At the same time, it
must be admitted that the unsystematic form of
presentation as popular Essays on diverse topics
may account for some of these defects. 1
1 Professor James Ward has given a critique on Howison's
views, with special reference to Creation, in the Supplementary
Notes to his recent book, The Realm of Ends, p. 455 ff.
CHAPTER V.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER.
The works of Mr. Schiller which we shall here
study are his Riddles of the Sphinx, 1 his essay on
Axioms as Postulates, in Personal Idealism, 2 and
his later contribution of Philosophical Essays
published under the title of Humanism. 3
As these writings extend over an interval of a
dozen years, it is not surprising to find a natural
development of his thought, and in some instances
a change of ideas. Mr. Schiller's first work was
the most ambitious in its range of treatment,
although possibly it was not so expressive of his
characteristic courage as the later essay on
Axioms as Postulates, which, if accepted as valid,
1 Riddles of the Sphinx, A Study in the Philosophy of Evolution,
by a Troglodyte; London, Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1891.
2 Personal Idealism, by Eight Members of the University of
Oxford. Edited by H. Sturt. London, Macmillan & Co., 1902.
8 Humanism, Philosophical Essays by F. C. S. Schiller, M.A.,
Macmillan, 1903.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 89
would revolutionize our notions of Truth. But
this view is still adopted generally in his collection
of essays entitled Humanism, and, although he has
not yet sought to systematically establish and
defend this view, he holds out the hope of so
doing in the future. Meanwhile he shows the
full scope of his doctrine to be wider than an
epistemological theory ; involving as it does
certain views of experience, the world and God,
which he seeks to embody under the inspiring
designation ' Humanism.' This he prefers to
such titles as ' Pragmatism,' which is good, but
not the final term of philosophic innovation, and
' Radical Empiricism,' which it interprets syn-
thetically, and ' Personal Idealism,' which is
perhaps liable to ambiguity, and has already been
adopted for the System of G. H. Howison in his
Limits of Evolution. Humanism is the watch-
word of the movement which sets up the whole
personality in philosophy to the place which it
actually occupies in life, namely the supreme
place ; and from this vantage-ground alone can
the problems of thought be properly surveyed
and correlated with the essential conditions of
will and emotion.
90 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
I.
Upon plunging into the Riddles of the Sphinx,
which, notwithstanding Mr. Schiller's develop-
ment of thought, still contains sufficient per-
manence of material, especially in its relation to
personality, to preserve its value for the student
of Humanism, we soon find something bearing
on our topic to catch hold of, and upon which
we can drift to ' high and dry ' philosophic
certainty, secure from the waves of Agnosticism,
Scepticism, and Pessimism. As it was with the
yvwQi creavrov of Socrates and the Cogito ergo
sum of Descartes, so it is with ' the one indis-
putable fact and basis of philosophy ' of Schiller ;
the reality of the Self it is impossible to doubt.
For to deny it is to resolve everything, including
our ' only chance ' of knowledge, into a destruc-
tive whirl of ' appearance ' and illusion, from
which there is no escape. It is no idle coincidence
then that the historical representatives of Scepti-
cism and Agnosticism, Hume and Kant, have
been just those who tried to disprove the reality
of the Self. Their arguments Schiller refutes,
and then fearlessly proceeds to examine the cheap
phrases and empty charges of anthropomorphism
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 91
flung at religion and any philosophy that recog-
nizes the uniqueness of personality in our own
interpretation of experience. Science is itself
infected with the dreaded taint of anthropo-
morphism. So is philosophy. It behoves thought,
therefore, to be conscious of itself and to construct
a system true to the noblest part of reality, the
conditio sine qud non of experience, namely, the
Self, which furnishes the key to all else, and
therefore makes necessary a teleological explana-
tion of the universe.
Before examining more closely Schiller's doc-
trine of the Self, let us briefly state the leading
principles of the system laid down in the Riddles
of the Sphinx. The ' Riddles ' themselves are
the relation of Man to the World, to his Cause,
and to his Future. The first is to be solved by
the doctrine of the Plurality of ultimate reals ;
the second requires God, non-phenomenal and
personal, but also finite ; and the third is met
by a theory of Immortality, qualified by the
degree of consciousness reached by the soul in
its past. Prominent in Schiller's system is the
process of Becoming, a real process with a begin-
ning and an end in time. Time comes into being
with the World-Process, through a determination
92 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of the Divine Spirit to form the ultimate spiritual
entities into a harmonious cosmos. Between the
individual selves and God there is interaction.
Evil enters through non-adaptation of the Ego
to the interaction with God. Hence Evil tends
to become less as Evolution goes on. Error is in
the same case as Evil. The material world is
due to the Divine side of the ' stress/ while on
its own side the Ego produces the phenomenal
Self. The process of Evolution means the per-
fecting of the interaction, so that the development
of the world will reveal more and more the nature
of God, until at the completion, the perfected
spirits would behold the countenance of God.
The perfection of the individuals and their group-
ing into societies must go together, and this is
the true End of the Process. The Ideal is to be
conceived as the perfection of activity (as in
Aristotle).
Beginning, then, with the reality of the Self,
Schiller examines the question whether our con-
sciousness of our own existence can be made the
basis of theoretical inferences. 1 Kant denied this
principle put forward by Descartes in his famous
formula. But Schiller shows that this is based
1 Riddles, p. 51.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 93
on a misunderstanding of the Cartesian formula,
due to its necessary presentation in an intellectual
form in a philosophical argument. But its force
does not lie in ' I think/ but in the ' I ' whose
reality is intuitively assured in all experience.
So viewed, the supposed objections are seen to be
in the form of an ignoratio elenchi. Schiller goes
on, however, to refute Kant from his own words.
Because thought cannot adequately think the
Self, the latter is a conception only, and — that
is to say — no reality. But the true reason for
thought's inability to think the subject, Kant has
previously implied, namely, because it is the
subject for every conception, and for every
experience besides !
Having passed through the extremes of Agnos-
ticism, Scepticism, Pessimism, and being on the
brink of despair, Schiller revives this conviction
of the Self's reality as the one truth which is left
and which may be plucked like a brand from the
burning — though it merely serve to light the
funereal pyre of Knowledge ! But no, it serves
a purpose far more useful than that, even to
kindle one by one the torches of reality in this
otherwise dark and unintelligible world. Its
light is intelligence ! Schiller exposes the futility
94 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of Hume's objection to personal identity. Hume
declared that he could not find the Soul without
stumbling upon some impression or idea. If
absolute blankness of all content was the con-
dition of the ' self ' for which he was seeking,
and to which he was willing to grant reality, then
indeed he was on a vain quest, for it would be a
most uncanny ghost of a soul that would satisfy
him.
And so Schiller finds a basis for his Reconstruc-
tion of Reality. 1 The Self is the most certain of
all things ; it is the Alpha, and it would not be
surprising if it turned out also to be the Omega,
the goal of philosophy.
As the unity of thought and feeling, the con-
scious Self is a better guide now than either
(abstract) thought or (phenomenal) perceptions.
Schiller has not yet grasped fully the Pragmatic
theory of knowledge, for he speaks of ' the use
of the categories and first principles of our
thought.' 2 And yet he had previously given
evidence of having the germ of the later develop-
ment, when, as a test concerning certain prin-
ciples of knowledge, he had asked of one ' does
it work ? ' 3 But there he concluded that this
1 Riddles, p. 141 ff. ■ Ibid. p. 142. 8 Ibid. pp. 91-92.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 95
is not enough ; for the principle is not completely
disproved because it does not work ; logical con-
siderations must be taken into account. And
further, the pessimist admits that knowledge
appears to work. Schiller's development of the
teleological principle of explanation approxi-
mates to the later ' Humanistic ' view, 1 in some
of its statements. These signs are not only
interesting ; they are relevant to our inquiry ;
for between the acceptance of the reliability of
the Self and such theories of knowledge as are
represented by the designation of ' Humanism/
there is close connection.
Schiller finds use for the distinction, familiar
in philosophy, between the phenomenal Self and
the Transcendental Ego, that is, between the Self
as it appears to itself in its interaction with the
Deity, and the Self as the ultimate reality. He
seeks to avoid the dualism, however, which proves
so dangerous in Kant's theory. There is needed
something in consciousness to connect the mo-
ments of experience. The Transcendental Ego
serves to do this, as a permanent being, and as
the form, which contains the whole of our psychic
life as its content. The error of Kant in separating
1 See also Ibid. pp. 167-168, 260 (footnote).
96 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
the form from the matter is avoided by maintain-
ing that the two selves are in some way one, an
empirical truth corresponding to our conviction
that the Self changes and yet is the same. The
Transcendental Ego is defined as the ' I ' with
all its powers and latent capacities of develop-
ment, the ultimate reality which we have not yet
reached. 1 In the progress of development the
approximation of the two goes on, until at last
coincidence and perfection shall be reached. This
is supported by the testimony of Psychology to
the phenomena of multiplex personality and
* secondary ' selves. Our whole Selves are deeper
and more real than our ordinary selves.
The existence of other selves and of their
worlds of objectivity is explained after the analogy
of hypnotism. As ' several subjects may be made
to share in the same hallucinations,' so may ' an
operator of vastly greater knowledge and power '
create subjective worlds valid for several persons. 2
Between the Ego and the Deity interaction is
going on, and the material world is the resultant,
from the Divine force, and our phenomenal con-
sciousness is due to our imperfect adaptation to
the ' stress.'
1 Riddles, p. 281. a Ibid. p. 286.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 97
Schiller makes the sensible distinction 1 of a good
and bad (including false and confused) anthro-
pomorphism. The false kind consists in the
ascription to beings other than ourselves of
qualities which we know that they cannot possess.
The confused sort is due to a contradiction enter-
ing in between the points of analogy with which
we start, and the principles with which we con-
clude. Good anthropomorphism (seeing that non-
anthropomorphic truth is a fiction) will seek to
parallel all things to the principles of explanation
furnished by the human mind, and ultimately the
universe must be stated in these terms (the highest)
if it is to be explained. And so Teleology comes
in. Action for the sake of rational ends is implied
in our natures, and we cannot avoid this, the best
explanation of change, in regard to natural pro-
cesses. A historical method will not suffice, for
no description, no mere regress of causes, can
satisfy our rational nature. To discover the
significance of things is the task of metaphysics,
and therefore it is necessary that we explain the
lower by the higher, and not the reverse, as the
extreme physicists and biologists urge. The final
cause will be found to be the true ground of
1 Ibid. p. 145 ff.
G
98 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
existence, and this is possible only through the
Deity transcendent above the evolutionary pro-
cess. Evolution, ' which was to have abolished
teleology, turns out itself to require the most
boldly teleological treatment.' But to be free
from objection, the teleological explanation must
not be narrowly anthropocentric. The universal
end of the world-process is being subserved by
the lesser ends. If teleology be kept from con-
flict with scientific mechanism, both philosophy
and science will gain. It is only by a knowledge
of what has been, that we can venture a prediction
of what is to be, and that an adequate explana-
tion can be given of the natural Process as a
whole ; while, on the other hand, the teleological
formula of metaphysics should eventually be of
benefit to the sciences of ethics, sociology, bio-
logy, and, lastly, — the order being one of time as
well as of logic — physics and mechanics. Such
is Schiller's contribution to the Problem of
Teleology.
Bearing in mind his general Theory of Inter-
action, previously indicated, the following
supplementary ideas x on the nature of God
are given. God is the Creator, ' the non-
1 Riddles, p. 310.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 99
phenomenal and unbecome Cause ' ; the Sus-
tained as interacting with the Ego ; it follows
also that he is personal and intelligent Spirit.
The reasons given for Personality are to the
point : —
(a) Cause is a category which is valid only if
used by persons and of persons.
(b) Personality is the conception expressive of
the highest we know.
(c) Not only as Cause, but also as Perfector of
the world-process, God must be regarded as
possessing Personality.
(d) Since purpose belongs only to intelligent
beings, and Evolution is meaningless if not teleo-
logical, therefore we acknowledge the divine Per-
sonality, rather than contradict our principle of
not multiplying entities needlessly to invent
gratuitous fictions like an unconscious or an
impersonal intelligence. In a footnote 1 he ex-
presses his willingness to accept the terms ' supra-
personal ' or ' ultra-personal ' as applicable to
God ; for doubtless the Personality of God
transcends that of man as far as man transcends
the atom. But he adds a proviso which is needed
in the light of F. H. Bradley's doctrine of the
1 Ibid. p. 310.
100 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Absolute as ' supra-personal but not personal.' *
Schiller is wise therefore in clearing himself from
such a meaningless position (which really asserts
the Unknowable in a new dress !) by the stipula-
tion that by supra-personal we mean something
including and transcending, rather than excluding
personality.
But there is a fourth attribute of God, insisted
on throughout Schiller's writings, viz. that God
is finite, or rather, that to God as to all realities,
' infinite ' has no meaning. For firstly, Kant's
rebuttal of the so-called Teleological (or ' physico-
theological ') * Proof ' of God's existence turned
upon the conclusion to an infinite God from
inadequate finite premises. All that could be
inferred was a cause adequate to the pro-
duction of the world. To go beyond this is to
argue for the unknowable from the known, to
seek the infinite from finite data. Again God is
finite as Force, for resistance is implied in Force ;
and God cannot he all if He is to enforce His will
upon the world — * unless He is by some inexplicable
chance divided against Himself? 2
1 Appearance and Reality, pp. 173, 531-33. See supra, Chapter
I. ; also see Part II., Chapter VI.
8 Riddles, p. 311. Italics mine.
MR. F. C. S\ SCHILLER* 101
From his previous account 1 of the universe
the same result follows. Kegarding infinity as
negative and conceptual, he had denied that
Space and Time possess it ; and he had refused
to acknowledge an infinite process of Becoming,
or the conception of ' the world as a whole ' as
infinite. ' An infinite whole is a contradiction in
terms.' 2 The belief in infinity contradicts the
important conception of causation, to which
Schiller holds under the form of a First Cause, as
against the unprofitable notion of an endless
regress. While he is influenced by the Cosmo-
logical and Teleological Proofs, it is evident that
he has departed from them considerably, inas-
much as he argues to a finite Being.
But the grand indictment is not yet complete.
The philosopher must be told that he has false
grounds for the assumption of infinite existence,
and the theologian that the doctrine is not
only illogical but irreligious, and detrimental to
piety, to faith, and to good works. Infinity
in God would make Him the Author of Evil
would neutralize His Personality, and would
deprive the worshipper of his true heritage of
religious emotion. Personality and Infinity are
1 Riddles, Chapter IX. 2 Ibid. p. 253.
102 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
incompatible, for Personality rests on the dis-
tinction of Self from Not-Self. With this highest
attribute sacrificed at the altar of an abstraction,
there would disappear also power, intelligence,
wisdom and goodness, from an Infinite Being.
The religious and philosophical doctrines of
infinity meet in Pantheism, which leads into the
general discussion of Monism and Pluralism. The
pantheistic tendency is in every way a mistake,
emotionally, scientifically, logically. The result
is practically indistinguishable from Atheism.
Change and Becoming are impossible on strict
absolutistic grounds, as the Eleatics consistently
maintained. From the standpoint of the finite,
God comes to mean nothing, and from the stand-
point of the Infinite, the world is nothing — a prac-
tical and theoretical failure is really the result.
Examining Monism, Dualism, and Pluralism,
Schiller at once discards Dualism. Between the
other two systems he proceeds to a defence of
Pluralism. The unity claimed by Monism might
indeed have the advantage if it were not neces-
sarily abstract, and devoid of all practical value.
It does not simplify the understanding of the
world. This merely abstract unity cannot explain
the phenomenal manifold. Pluralism escapes the
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 103
difficult problem of origins. But it is prone to
fall into another danger quite as great as that
which seems fatal to Monism. A relation between
the Reals seems required, and this relation seems
to imply a Unity. In such a manner, then, does
Pluralism imply the Unity of the world. This
difficulty is to be avoided by a rational assump-
tion that " the possibility of the interaction of
the many is implied in their very existence, and
does not require any special proof.' x In a sense,
therefore, Pluralism seems to be based on Monism,
but the One is without reality, being merely an
ideal factor in a real plurality. Pluralism seeks a
better unity, the actual result to be arrived at by
the process of interaction, the perfection and
harmony of a real universe, evolved in the course
of Time. In this conception Pantheism and Indi-
vidualism are transcended. The Many and the
One are recognized, but the primacy and reality
of the Many are more valid than the abstractions
of the One. The influence of the Divine factor
in the interaction provides the element of good
in the moral world of our experience. In this
sense God is immanent in all things. But He is
also transcendent in Himself, though finite.
1 Riddles, p. 355.
104 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Leaving the Riddles of the Sphinx, the exposi-
tion of which has run into some length — but into
no greater than it deserves — I turn to the essay
on ' Axioms as Postulates ' in Personal Idealism.
Here there is the same emphasis, even in the
opening words, upon the Self as real and valid,
upon the part played by the ' whole 'personality '
in the formation of a metaphysic as in every other
human enterprise. Schiller sets forward a two-
fold ground of agreement among philosophers.
The first is that the world is experience, and the
second is that for the organization of this experi-
ence into a reality for philosophy certain con-
necting principles are needed. Then he asks that
pointed question, which causes such heart-burn-
ings among the ' Experience '-Philosophers —
'Whose experience ? ' and secondly, ' Of what is it
the experience ? ' In reply to the first question,
it is vain to say that it is the experience of the
Absolute. Schiller's answer is, ' our experience,'
or if that is assuming too much, ' my experience.'
8 Here again,' he says, ' I must be prepared to
be assailed by a furious band of objectors intent
on asking me — Who are you ? How dare you
take yourself for granted ? Have you not heard
how the self is a complex psychological product,
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 105
which may be divided and analysed away in a
dozen different ways ? And do you actually
propose to build your philosophy upon so dis-
credited a foundation ? ' 1 In reply, certain obser-
vations are made : —
(a) There is a divergence among the analyses
of the Self.
(b) A Self conducts the analysis in every case.
(c) These analyses must serve some purpose,
which is relative to selfhood.
(d) For the acceptance of an analysis choice is
involved, and ' if I choose to analyse differently or
not at all, if I find it convenient to operate with
the whole organism as the standard unit in my
explications, what right have Scribes and Phari-
sees to complain ? ' 2 Now comes the Prag-
matism, which is to be so prominent in Schiller's
subsequent work. Since consequences must jus-
tify the choice made, it is damaging to the afore-
said analyses that nothing valuable or workable
has resulted. He is therefore hopeful that the
assumption of his own existence may perhaps
prove more valuable than any of the denials of
the Self that are propounded by ' psychologies
1 Humanism, p. 52.
2 Ibid. p. 53. Italics after ' whole ' are mine.
106 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
which neglect their proper problem in their
anxiety to be ranked among the natural sciences.' 1
Schiller interprets the Self as not yet com-
pletely known, but as revealed in its true reality
with the process of experience. The World, too,
is only imperfectly known as yet. This leads
him into an exposition of his Pragmatic Theory
of Knowledge. Briefly put, it is that our know-
ledge is gradually evolved by a series of experi-
mental guesses or ' postulates.' There is a large
element of indeterminateness manifested in the
World. The same characteristics of plasticity and
growth are present in the intellectual cosmos.
Logic is essentially dependent upon psychological
needs. This, too, must be the method of super-
human intelligence, if there be one at work in
the forming of the cosmos. ' Its nature must be
the same as ours ; it also proceeds by experiment,
and adapts means to ends, and learns from
experience.' 2 Matter is the raw material and is
conceived after the Aristotelian view of poten-
tiality. Bearing this in mind, Schiller criticizes
ordinary Empiricism, in which the activity of the
Self is ignored in the presence of * impressions
and ideas ' ; and Apriorism, which in its intellec-
1 Humanism, p. 53. 2 Ibid. p. 58.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 107
tualistic bias has maintained certain ' necessities
of thought.' This ' necessity,' this ' universality '
claimed for a priori truths, the Postulates of
Pragmatism are quite capable of yielding. So
Schiller boldly sets out to compel the Axioms, and
even the Laws of Thought to own their true
nature as Postulates, justified in experience by
their working, and by the satisfaction they bring
to the whole nature of man. These Postulates
depend upon psychical temperament, and ' radiate
from human personality as their centre.' 1 This
is a confession of the indissoluble relation which
exists between a Pragmatic doctrine of knowledge
and a conviction that the Self is real. This is the
pragmatic motif for Schiller's insistence upon the
fact of the Self, at a period when it is very un-
fashionable to do so.
He assumes also the characteristic features of
consciousness, e.g. its continuity, coherence, cona-
tiveness, and purposiveness. Consciousness can-
not be denned, and is the ttov <ttw of this, and
every such inquiry. But more than all the
features above named is the consciousness of an
identical Self. The psychological theories do not
1 Ibid. p. 94. For other assertions of this aspect of Pragmatism,
see pp. 95-6.
108 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
affect more than the scientific aspect of the
matter. Upon this Self-identity of consciousness,
which is a psychical fact, he raises his theory of
the postulation of logical Identity, the greatest
principle of thought. This has come to be through
our demand for identity, based upon our con-
sciousness of identity, and ratified by its working
in the world of objects. So, too, the conscious-
ness of Self and of Not-Self (as equivalent to the
external world) has grown up through successful
postulation to account for the felt unsatisfactori-
ness of experience. This gives the clue to his
explanation of the rise of other Postulates — Con-
tradiction, and Excluded Middle, Hypothesis,
Causation, Sufficient Reason, Uniformity of
Nature, Space, and Time. One postulate is not
yet fully axiomatic, that is, Teleology. Schiller
again argues in favour of Teleology, and the
necessity for anthropomorphism. 1 The bias of
Natural Science against these postulates, and
the crude treatment of them in the past by their
advocates account for the fact that Teleology is
still a postulate and not an axiom.
The Personality of God is again briefly vindi-
cated, 2 as also is His Goodness, as a methodologi-
1 Humanism, p. 118 ff. 2 Ibid. p. 122.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 109
cal postulate. Infinity is again denied. 1 And
Schiller concludes his powerful Essay with a
polemic against intellectualism, and a plea for
the Pragmatic Theory of Knowledge. The Will-
to-believe must be regarded, and philosophy must
be reconstructed on a voluntaristic basis.
Passing now to the consideration of Humanism
we may reserve the examination of the Preface
to the last. For it is Schiller's latest contribution
in the book, and also his most pronounced expres-
sion of opinion on our general problem.
In the first Essay on the Ethical Basis of Meta-
physics, the development of his theory of know-
ledge is made clear. Schiller distinguishes be-
tween Irrationalism as a doctrine and the view
that our cognitive activities are pervaded by the
purposive character of mental life generally. The
question of value must be raised ; purpose and
end are, in fact, fundamental to the right under-
standing of experience. This is further expounded
in the ' Discourse Concerning Pragmatism,' en-
titled Useless Knowledge, in which the position is
maintained that action is primary, and knowledge
only secondary — that the Good is the Source of
the True. This is completed by the third Essay
1 Ibid. p. 130.
110 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
on Truth, in which the various definitions of
truth are examined and shown to be open to
serious objection. Truth is not individual either ;
it must win recognition from society. Prag-
matism can show how this is possible, viz. by
efficiency and usefulness being taken as the
criteria of truth in our intellectual activity. The
usefulness is relative to any human end, but
ultimately to the perfection of our whole life.
In the Essay on Lotze's Monism, that philo-
sopher's ' proof ' of the underlying unity is
subjected to attack. Schiller enlarges upon his
previous view that Pluralism may ' beg ' inter-
action. 1
In regard to the argument from Change, appeal
must be made to our inner experience, and there
we find the consciousness of change based on a
feeling of our identity. But this does not apply
to the Absolute, for we can have no such feeling
of its identity. Lotze's re-creation of spiritual
beings by their stepping out of the Absolute, at
the close of his argument is an effort to save his
theory from abstractness.
Schiller agrees with Lotze's arguments to prove
that God must be conceived as personal and
1 Humanism, p. 66.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 111
spiritual. But he differs from him in the attempt
to connect this view with the doctrine of God as
the Unity of things. Even religion does not
require this identification. The Unity of the
Absolute could have no religious value. Lotze's
admission of free-will affords a ground for the
conception of a Divine guidance and Providence,
but it creates an inherent instability in the
Absolute. The mysterious problem of Evil
thwarts the Unity of things, and destroys the
argument. Lotze's identification of God with
the Absolute leads him, according to Schiller,
into a kind of Pantheism. The a priori proofs
share, in common with Lotze's proof from inter-
action, the weakness of being too abstract. This
kind of reasoning would hold in any kind of
world.
In the Essay on Reality and Idealism, Schiller
clearly indicates the connection between Prag-
matism and the conviction of the Self's reality.
'The only certain and ultimate test of reality
is the absence of internal friction, is its undis-
puted occupation of the field of consciousness,
in a word, its self-sufficiency.' * Upon this
criterion the distinction between real and unreal,
1 Ibid. pp. 118, 119.
112 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
and even that between the Self and the World,
is based. The emotional consequences of presen-
tations in experience are various ; so the subject
must, of necessity, distinguish himself from the
object, the world, which does not ' feel ' ; and
he must seek to control this realm. Hence the
attention to phenomena which are followed by
pains or other consequences which are practically
important.
The chief remaining essay for our purposes —
since I am compelled to exclude the arguments
concerning Immortality — is that which contro-
verts the main tenets set forth in Bradley's
Appearance and Reality, in the interests of
Schiller's pragmatistic theory. The title, ' On
Preserving Appearances,' indicates its polemical
aim. Schiller is opposed to the whole method
of the dialectic of Bradley, by which everything
is first convicted of unreality and then ' some-
how ' reconstituted by the Absolute. Such a
negative procedure is itself a verdict of con-
demnation upon the arguments employed, and,
perhaps, upon Logic itself, for ' nothing which
exists in however despicable a sense can really
be contradictory.' x The contradictions can only
1 Humanism, p. 187.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 113
be in our thought, for the reality is there in spite
of them ! Therefore, Bradley's criterion that the
real is that which is not self-contradictory is only
partial, the complete criterion being, according
to Schiller, the principle of Harmony. The
Absolute, furthermore, is ' quite as unknowable
as Spencer's monstrosity.' x And then once again
Schiller lays it down 2 that the only reality we
can start with is our own immediate, personal
experience, and that apart from this basis no
ultimate reality can be reached. The distinction
of ' appearance and reality ' remains always rela-
tive to our knowledge of our world, or, if preferred,
Schiller is willing to say ' that for me it remains
relative to my world.' 3
In the Preface, the chief topic is the advent of
' Humanism,' in place of the terms ' Pragmatism '
and ' Personal Idealism.' It represents an atti-
tude of thought which is sympathetic towards
the full life of Personality. It signifies an attempt
to put forward a philosophic theory of a ' re-
anthropomorphized ' or, as Schiller prefers, a
' re-humanized ' universe. He is ready to stand
by Protagoras, and maintain that Man is the
measure of all things. Instead of illusory hopes
1 Ibid. p. 191. 2 Ibid. p. 192. 3 Ibid. p. 192, footnote.
H
114 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of a philosophy without assumptions, Humanism
candidly confesses that its starting-point is our
immediate experience and experienced self, from
which it can proceed in any direction. Even the
a priori philosophers really take this for granted,
and cannot give us any superhuman system.
ii.
With much of Schiller's philosophy of per-
sonality I find myself in hearty agreement. With-
out committing myself to his theory of knowledge,
it seems plain to me that such a Pragmatism or
Humanism depends for its very life upon the
conviction of the reality of the Self. This is the
starting-point, actual no less than theoretical, for
a philosophy of postulation. If the fashionable
' Experience ' philosophy will hide a multitude of
distinctions in other realms, both of Absolutism
and of Empiricism, here in Humanism it has to
own its twofold aspect of subject and object.
Schiller is ready to ask the simple question
1 Whose experience ? ' which causes such a com-
motion among the ' Pure Experience ' philo-
sophers. And with the problem of the Self thus
raised philosophy must deal. The task of Meta-
physics is to explain the distinctions which
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 115
palpably lie within experience, involving the
problems of the relation of the Self to Nature,
of Self to Self, and of Self to God.
Let us briefly consider now the more detailed
view of the Self given by Schiller. It seems to me
that he does not improve his system by his dis-
tinction between the Empirical Self and the
Transcendental Ego. For the latter is confessedly
an ideal. The difficulties of the Kantian dualism
concerning the Ego can hardly be avoided by
clipping off the epistemological function of the
Transcendental Ego, or by saying — with surely
a Bradleian reminiscence — that the two are some-
how one. Nor can the difficulty of knitting up the
moments of our experience with an identical Ego,
which we know as ourself, be overcome by making
an Ideal Ego do it. Of course, there is this Inter-
action Theory to support, and both the Ego and
the Self are needed for the ' stress ' of the Divine
and the human sides. But neither this nor the
hypnotistic analogy will carry our sympathies
any further in this direction.
Briefly then, Schiller's view of the Self as real
and the centre of experience and philosophy
accords entirely with that adopted in the present
work. Humanism insists^on Personality through-
116 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
out. With the intention of Schiller in giving a
place to the Transcendental Ego as opposed to
the Self as existing at any one moment, I am in
sympathy, but I cannot endorse his use of the
term so redolent with historical associations, nor
can I approve of his method of seeking the Ego as
distinct from the Self, in the future, as an Ideal.
I agree with his maintenance of self-identity
(worked out in ' Axioms as Postulates ') as the
basis of all postulation of identity and of the
Law of Identity. His emphasis upon the whole
. Personality throughout his works, as opposed
to a shallow empiricism, or an abstract intel-
lectualism is also valuable. His recognition of
purpose and practical needs, of individual and
social satisfaction when experimentation is found
to work is also true to a certain extent, and
may be true in the sense that Pragmatism or
Humanism claims.
With Schiller's views on Anthropomorphism
and Teleology I am in accord, and so I may pass
them over. It is the outcome of the Humanistic
view of things to see that the significant thing
in thought, as in all else, is to be aware of the
active personality which reclaims an unknown
void, and is rewarded by reality and enrichment
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 117
of experience. And so the highest explanation of
the Universe must be in the highest terms, along
the lines of purpose, meaning, and development
towards an Ideal, as we know it in ourselves.
A discussion of Schiller's views of the Deity
would strictly involve an estimate of his Inter-
action Theory. But this is not possible here. And
we are concerned more with those doctrines which
have been emphasized in his recent writings. As
to the Personality of God, I consider Schiller's
\ views well-founded. At the same time some of
his conclusions appear to be uncritically anthro-
pomorphic, not only in his early work, but also in
his later Essays, as when he says that the nature
of a superhuman intelligence must be the same as
ours, proceeding by experiment, adapting means
to ends and learning from experience ! x This
surely deserves the charge which Professor Howi-
son brings against Schiller's ' God,' of being
' finite and pathological.' 2
But there is another serious question to which
my answers would scarcely coincide with his.
I refer to the view of the finite nature of God.
This is, of course, a part of the general discussion
1 Personal Idealism, p. 58.
2 Limits of Evolution, p. xii.
118 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of Infinity, against which Schiller is strenuous
in season and out .[of season. But strictly the
question arises in this paper merely as bearing
on our prime subject.
Now I am unwilling to dogmatize in regard to
the Infinite, and for this reason especially, viz.
that mathematical usage has so put its stamp
upon the term, as to invalidate any outside claim
for it. Accordingly I consider that a different con-
cept should be employed in philosophy. Again,
I would not maintain that this metaphysical con-
cept will meet the requirements of the definition
of ' Infinity.' Hence it is of no avail to try and
refute such a metaphysical Absolute or Perfect,
with the objection that it does not answer to
Kant's definition of Infinity, viz. 'that which
cannot be completed by successive syntheses.'
If the conception ' Absolute ' be granted in a
relative sense, relative like all else to our capabili-
ties (surely a Humanistic position), there is no
contradiction in regarding such a conception as
preserving all that was valuable in the conception
of the Infinite, without incurring the charges of
falsity and abstractness which are hurled at us
for using it in a ' philosophical ' sense. The
proper distance between the science of mathe-
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 119
matics and constructive metaphysics is thereby
preserved. If this, then, be what Schiller means
when he says, ' to God, as to all realities, infinite
has no meaning,' I should agree with him. But
it is not. He will not allow one uninterrupted
gaze towards reality as a whole. He denies that
the universe may be conceived under such ideas.
His pluralism is vital and fundamental. Not
only is there no Absolute, no Unity of all ; there
is division and discord at the heart of things.
We may hope for a unity as the world learns
to swing together better, as Evolution does its
work in nature, society, and the individual ;
but there is no underlying unity or world-
ground. The whole process is one of approxi-
mation toward unity, never before realized in
thought or existence ; the Becoming is essential
to the true conception of things, and it is in
Time.
The idea of God as being but a part of the
universe does not satisfy ' the craving for unity '
which, abuse it as one will, has at least a prag-
matic bearing. It seems to me that we require
a Personal Ground of all things, the Supreme
Unity. But I leave this for the present.
God is not limited by some accident or ' chance'
120 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
as Schiller implies as a possible view, 1 — ' dividing
Him against Himself.' It is not reasonable to
introduce chance in such a connection, but it is
rational to endow the Perfect Personality with
the power of Self-determination. I have previously
indicated my objections to Pluralism. It lacks
the denniteness at least which belongs to the One.
The possibility of ultimate interaction between
pluralistic entities is opposed surely to our
notions of rationality. And why the unity, which
even Schiller has to admit to account for this
ultimate possibility of interaction, should be
merely abstract, I am at a loss to conceive.
Schiller is willing to hold to Teleology as a
postulate on its way to becoming an axiom.
And yet against an ' infinite ' unity he is em-
phatic. May not a similar venture of faith
rationalize the universe, and so justify itself ?
May not Perfect Personality be the ground of
all, even of the independence of the world of
Egos ? May not God be more than a strenuous
Pilot wrestling with a refractory fleet in an
unfortunate storm, and seeking to make a
possible port ? May He not be what unbounded
worship wills, what faith believes, goodness
1 Riddles, p. 311.
MR. F. C. S. SCHILLER 121
implies, reason justifies, and love demands, when
it uses the controversial terms ' Infinite ' and
1 Unity ' ? In the light of the views which
are set forth later, I think that the ' venture
of faith ' is reasonable and even necessary.
CHAPTER VI.
DR. HASTINGS RASHDALL.
Among the contributors to the discussion of
our Problem Dr. Rashdall has a claim and rank
for the views which he has set forth concisely
and yet systematically in his Essay on ' Per-
sonality, Human and Divine/ in the volume
entitled Personal Idealism. This closing essay
perhaps fairly reflects the outlook upon ultimate
problems, of the majority of the contributors
to the volume. A very brief account must
suffice here.
I.
Rashdall endeavours to describe the nature
of Personality, and to discuss its metaphysical
bearings. He assumes the position of an Idealist,
and he does not aim at a full exposition of his
arguments in so short a paper.
In answer to the question, — What is a person ?
— he arrives at the following conclusions. In
DR. HASTINGS RASHDALL 123
addition to the obvious possession of conscious-
ness, a person thinks, and not merely feels.
Involved in this power to think is the per-
manence of the personal consciousness, for it
must be able to transcend the succession of
mere feelings. And for the same reason the
person must be a self-distinguishing conscious-
ness, defining himself both from objects regarded
as things, and from other selves. Individuality
is recognized as essential in the idea of Per-
sonality. Further, the person can originate acts,
or, in other words, is will as well as thought
and feeling. Personality is not confined to man,
but in some degree characterizes all forms of
conscious life. Even on grounds of morality,
we are not compelled to exclude the lowest
animal from possessing a rudimentary sort of
personality, for some kind of conflict of impulses
is conceivably present in even the lowest
organisms.
Yet even man is not fully possessed of the
essentials of Personality. For the best of men
fail to realize fully the permanent elements of
personal experience. And in moral achievement
they fail more or less, to realize what Personality
fully means. Accordingly, Rashdall follows Lotze
124 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
in regarding Personality as an Ideal pertaining
to God. He gives a proof of God along Idealistic
lines, rising above a Universal Thought or Self-
Consciousness to the Thinker and Will demanded
by rational consistency. He then discusses
objections to the Divine Personality. It is
said that an object is required for the Divine
Subject. Rashdall replies that the objects
thought by the Divine Thinker are not to be
regarded as existing independently of the Knower,
but we must hold that the Subject may dis-
tinguish itself from its own changing states,
which are willed as well as thought. In this
way the Dualism is avoided which would make
the world an alien Other to God — ' a sort of
Siamese twin to which He is eternally and
inseparably annexed but which is something
other than the content of his Will." * No im-
mediate whole of experience, no ' higher unity '
than that given by Subject and Object can be
accepted — despite Bradley's claim — and so no
alternative to the Personality of God is possible.
The objections to Will are based on mistaken
conceptions of causality, and are met by the
extension of the latter to include Final Cause.
1 Personal Idealism, p. 378.
DR. HASTINGS RASHDALL 125
If also we view thought as itself a manifestation
of Self-activity we need not hesitate to ascribe
Will to God.
What then is the relation between the Divine
Will and the human wills ? Is the moral
universe in reality a Pluralistic Society of
independent Souls ? Rashdall does not regard
this consequence as necessary. For not only is
the original unity of the world sacrificed, but
the dependence upon God involved in theoretical
considerations, e.g. in the relation of soul to
body, is not to be ignored. But when Rashdall
passes from the question of origins, he inclines
to a Pluralistic view of the relation between the
Souls as existing beings, and God, rather than
to the Monistic conception of God as including
finite Spirits. He criticizes Royce and the Neo-
Hegelian School. These thinkers commit the
* supreme fallacy ' of identifying existence for
others with existence for self, the knowledge of
persons with a person's private experience of
himself. This is the outcome of intellectualism.
The social relations which help to constitute the
individual furnish only one aspect of the truth,
and miss the essential side of the Self's reality.
From this source also spring Bradley's objections
126 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
to the Self as real. A distinction must be made
between the reality of persons as they exist for
the Absolute, and the reality peculiar to Selves
alone — of which they are immediately aware as
conscious persons. God must know the Self as
a being which is not identical with His know-
ledge of it. The Universal Consciousness, sup-
posed to include all Selves, does not as a matter
of fact explain the possibility of the knowledge
of one finite Self by another finite Self. The
conception of the Self as included within a larger
Self, is met by the objection that the appearance
of externality and independence must impera-
tively be made clear. Then again even the
content of our individual experience is not
shared by another. As to our knowledge of
other Selves, Rashdall thinks that the difficulty
has been over-estimated, and he regards it as
the duty of philosophy to treat such elementary
cases of inference as fact, and part of our manner
of thought. The distinction between the uni-
versal content of thought, and the private
thinking, feeling, and willing consciousness, is
one of most fundamental importance in philo-
sophy.
Rashdall holds therefore to a view intermediate
DR. HASTINGS RASHDALL 127
between Monism and Pluralism. According to
this conception, the One Mind gives rise to
Many. We may call this whole collection One
Reality, but after all it consists of a community
of Persons. Rashdall cares little if this view
is regarded as incompatible with the infinity
of God. In regard to Time, his opinions are
not fully exhibited, but he aims at preserving
the time-consciousness of the human individual
with the supra-temporal reality of God. Be-
tween God and the Absolute he draws a dis-
tinction necessary for common-sense, philosophy
and religion. God is personal. The Absolute
as the Infinite Being cannot possess personality.
The Absolute then means the collection of
Persons including God, not as an aggregate,
but as an organic Society.
ii.
RashdalFs Essay gives a good presentation of
the side of our subject which lies closer to the
standpoint of Theism than the views previously
discussed. He has improved upon the work of
another author, J. R. Illingworth, whose Per-
sonality, Human and Divine, 1 is gracefully written,
1 Bampton Lectures, 1894.
128 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
but might well be stronger on the metaphysical
side.
To criticize Rashdall is unnecessary here,
since positive views will be set forth in the
Second Part, and respective differences in
method and conclusions will then become
apparent. I may say, however, that the need
of a discrimination between the terms used
almost at random as synonyms for Personality
is plainly shown by Rashdall's treatment. The
employment of Personality as a metaphysical,
practical and social concept is fraught with
ambiguity and error, and makes more imperative
the task of distinguishing the various terms used
to designate the Self. This looseness may partly
account for the omission on Rashdall's part of
a clear statement of the Moral side of Per-
sonality, and of the relation between the ethical
and the existential theories of the Self.
Rashdall comes between Royce and Howison
in his ultimate statements. He holds to a
partial dependence of Souls upon God, including
their origination from Him. Yet he declines to
be a party to the identification of the purposes
of finite Selves with those of God. He holds to
an ultimate Society of Souls, but, unlike Howison,
DR. HASTINGS RASHDALL 129
views all as Reality, as the Absolute, as originated
by God's Will, and as Objects for the Divine
Knower, but still preserving their initiative and
private consciousness. The Souls are not viewed
as co-eternal with God. Nor does Rashdall
follow M'Taggart * who holds to Reality as a
' System ' of eternal souls without God. Rash-
dall maintains that the ' System ' requires a
Mind to know it. For him the Absolute consists
in God and the Selves who are present to the
divine Mind, but who have a beginning in time.
His system is incomplete ; but even as it stands
it is valuable as a vindication of the claims of
Personality.
1 Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, p. 60 ff.
CHAPTEE VII.
PROFESSOK ANDREW SETH PRINGLE-
PATTISON.
Hitherto we have been dealing with authors
whose treatment of the Self has formed part of
a constructive system of metaphysics. Now we
turn to one whose works are well worthy of
study in connection with our Problem, not on
account of any system which he has propounded,
but because of his insistence upon certain truths
pertaining to this subject, in his expositions and
criticisms of various philosophical systems. In
this duty he has wielded a very important
influence upon recent thought, and has com-
mended his views to many minds by his vindi-
cation of certain basic principles of common-
sense and sound reason. Accordingly we have
here a different task. While running with the
hare we must hunt with the hounds. While
Professor Pringle-Pattison is criticizing others we
must seek to take stock of the critic himself.
PROFESSOR A. S. PRINGLE-PATTISON 131
Most of Pringle-Pattison's work has been
devoted to the Idealistic Philosophy of Germany
and England, since Kant. In this field he ranks
among the best living commentators, and for
this reason his criticisms of Modern Idealism
have had great weight. His epoch-making book,
Hegelianism and Personality, has probably tended
more than any other recent work, to shake the
foundations of the ' block universe ' of a rigid
Absolutism, and to quicken the recent growth
of philosophies of Personality. 1 In his other
writings 2 also we find able criticisms of con-
temporary tendencies. I shall endeavour in a
brief space to set forth his views upon our topic,
so far as they have been published.
In his criticisms of the doctrines of Kant and
the Neo-Kantians, especially Green, and of Hegel
and the Neo-Hegelians, notably Bradley, the
main outlines of Pringle-Pattison's standpoint
may be briefly represented as follows : —
1. He is hostile to every attempt to substitute
1 Hegelianism and Personality, Balfour Philosophical Lectures,
Second Edition ; Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1893.
2 The following will be sufficient for our purposes: Man's
Place in the Cosmos, and other Essays ; Blackwood, Edinburgh,
1897. Two Lectures on Theism delivered at Princeton, N.Y.;
Scribner, 1897.
132 THE PKOBLEM OF PERSONALITY
abstractions for real existence as given in our
immediate experience. The chief examples of
this error he finds in Hegel's transition from
Logic to Nature, 1 and in Bradley's sacrifice of
phenomena for the logic of abstract identity. 2
This attitude characterizes Pringle-Pattison's
whole position, and the next point is one among
many instances of his unwillingness to accept a
logic for a metaphysic.
2. The Self is real, our bed-rock of fact, our
foundation of Truth, and our highest category
of explanation. Unless we have this basic
affirmation of the real existence of the Self, we
cannot, in strictness, go on to positive state-
ments about the universe of Being at all. ' We
must touch reality somewhere ; otherwise our
whole construction is in the air.' 3 This given
element which is necessary must primarily be
correlated with the reality of our personal ex-
perience. For him, experience involves the
essential subject-object relation, and all exist-
ence ultimately depends upon the immediate
experience and the undeniable conviction of our
1 Hegelianism and Personality, pp. 110-13, 124-7.
* Man's Place in the Cosmos, pp. 155-160.
8 Hegelianism, etc. p. 124 ff.
PROFESSOR A. S. PRINGLE-PATTISON 133
own existence. Accordingly, Pringle-Pattison
vigorously criticizes Bradley's negative treat-
ment of the Self 1 which we have previously
dealt with, and maintains that the clue to his
mysterious transformation of existence into
' appearance ' is to be found in his polemic
against the Self, which is our saving instance,
and living experience, of unity in diversity. We
need not follow this argument any further after
what has been said in our Chapter on Mr. Bradley.
3. Pringle-Pattison regards the Self as mani-
festing its reality in its activity, with the feeling
that accompanies it, as well as in thought.
Accordingly his version of Descartes' formula
would be not cogito, but ago ergo sum. The
phenomenalistic theories of Will, such as Pro-
fessor Miinsterberg's, 2 seem to Pringle-Pattison
to leave out the essential element of ' feeling-
directed activity ' as distinct from the content
with which it deals. 3 The act of attention is
itself an act of Will. He joins with Professor
James Ward in maintaining that no pheno-
menalistic account can give a true theory of
1 Man's Place, etc. p. 160 ff.
2 Die Willenshandlung, Hugo Miinsterberg, 1888.
3 Man's Place, etc. p. 99 ff.
134 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Will, for Will essentially implies the self-activity
of a unitary conscious being. 1 However, it is
sufficient to say that for Pringle-Pattison a
better assurance of the Self's reality than that
given by knowledge is imparted by the Will,
which in its purposive activity refuses to be
dissolved away into a passing succession of
phenomena. So while thought, feeling, and will
are not separable from the Self, yet it is the self-
existence implied most clearly in the felt activity
of the Subject that we must give as a reason
of the conviction that is in us. 2 This is borne
out by considering the voluntaristic basis of all
mental life, including thought, to which theory
Pringle-Pattison inclines. 3
4. Perhaps the most prominent feature in our
author's critical work is his polemic against the
doctrine of a Universal Self or Self-consciousness
which thinks in all of us. This is his central
objection to Hegelianism and Neo-Kantianism.
He claims that such a view is destructive to the
Personality of man and of God. Green's Spiritual
1 Professor Munsterberg replies that he does not profess to
give an account of the true Will, which belongs to Life, to the
world of appreciation, not to descriptive psychology, Psych.
Review, 1898, p. 640.
2 Cf. Two Lectures on Theism, p. 46. 3 Man's Place, etc. pp. 123- 5.
PROFESSOR A. S. PRINGLE-PATTISON 135
Principle 1 he regards as a mere extension of Kant's
Transcendental Unity of Self-consciousness to
the place of Absolute or Universal Self-con-
sciousness, constituting the universe of relations,
our knowledge of it, and the source of morality. 2
We are reproductions of this eternal Spirit,
which uses as its vehicle in time our bodily
organisms. Pringle-Pattison regards this as an
extension which Kant would have repudiated ;
and — what is far more important — a doctrine
which denies true Personality, to both God and
man. The merely formal principle of conscious-
ness-in-general is very different from the Uni-
versal Consciousness. The former is based upon
an abstraction from the actual human Selves —
the latter is supposed to be endowed with Per-
sonality unto perfection. He regards this as
akin to the hypostasization of universals — which
thus include individuals as accidents — by the
Scholastic Realists. It is the method, however,
of epistemology, which is particularly obnoxious
to Pringle-Pattison ; for questions of ontology
must be settled by a metaphysic of real exist-
1 Prolegomena to Ethics, T. H. Green, Oxford, Chap. I. p. 15 ff.
Fourth Edition, 1899.
2 Sidgwick denies this — mistakenly, in my opinion.
136 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
ence. In short, his attitude of hostility towards
the ' Ontological Proof ' of Theism is manifest
throughout his works, and may be the briefest
way of expressing his aversion to all forms of
conceptualism which hypostasize abstractions
and then convert an identity of type into a
numerical existence. 1 He finds in Hegel, and
Fichte — in his later works — the tendency which
has been criticized in the case of Green. De-
spite the most valuable emphasis placed by
Hegel upon self-consciousness as the highest
manifestation of reality, he finds that in regard
to both the Absolute Idea and the human Self,
the Hegelians of the Left were nearer the logical
truth in their interpretation, than were those
who advocated Personality and defended the
harmony of their master's thought with Chris-
tianity. The same is true of Neo-Hegelianism,
with its universal Self that thinks in all of us.
Such a ' Self ' is devoid of all true Personality,
and it deprives us also of our inheritance. It
is opposed to our own assurance of ' impervious-
ness ' as individual Selves. ' I have a centre
of my own — a will of my own — which no one
shares with me or can share — a centre which
1 Hegelianism, etc. pp. 69, 124.
i
PROFESSOR A. S. PRINGLE-PATTISON 137
I maintain even in my dealings with God Him-
self.' x Religion requires this, and so its testi-
mony is against such identification of the human
and divine Self. Morality protests also. Ex-
perience, and even a true metaphysic of know-
ledge will have none of it. At the same time,
the Personality of God must be advocated, if
we are to be faithful to our highest category.
With this position stand human worth and
immortality, as against a universal consciousness
which denies both. And without Personality
Idealism strictly speaking ceases, for all ideals
are bound up with the person, including intel-
ligibility, the inspiration of philosophy.
n.
The value of this work of Pringle-Pattison is
seen in the light of our previous survey. Be-
tween Radical Empiricists like James, and
Humanists like Schiller, on the one hand, and
Absolute Idealists like Green, Bradley and
Royce on the other, he stands midway. Rash-
dall is close beside him, and Howison has many
points of affinity, except for his Pluralism,
which Pringle-Pattison will not accept. But
1 Ibid. p. 228.
138 THE PROBLEM OE PERSONALITY
what is his solution of these difficulties ? It is
not given. He falls back upon a reverent
agnosticism — reasonable enough, no doubt — in
regard to the Absolute. Religion, morality, and
poetry can teach us more on these ultimate
matters than philosophy ; and a revelation of
the Absolute is ever given us in our experience. 1
At the same time he repudiates the historical
Agnosticism of an earlier decade. But philo-
sophy cannot rest in either of these attitudes.
While we can never know Reality as it is for
the Absolute, as Pringle-Pattison truly says, yet
we can try to reach a better conception than
that which merely affirms Monism and yet insists
upon the sacred privacy of our Personality.
The problem is hard, but our calling is high
as lovers of truth, and we must, as William
James said, refrain from adopting as our motto,
' hypotheses non jingo' until the end is in sight.
So Pringle-Pattison apparently gives no posi-
tive system. He does not furnish a clear doc-
trine of the Self, in whose reality and importance
he so strongly believes. 2 Nor does he clear up
1 Theism, p. 57.
2 Professor Dewey criticizes his use of the term Self in Hegelian-
ism and Personality as ambiguous. Mind, xv. p. 58.
y
PROFESSOR A. S. PRINGLE-PATTLSON 139
the ambiguity and confusion of terms connected
with Personality. He does not definitely state
his theory of God and the Absolute, nor the
extent of his objection to an Absolute Self,
when reached by a line of argument different
from those which he condemns as epistemo-
logical, merely logical or abstract. His view of
time as ultimate is near to common-sense, but
by no means free from difficulties.
At the same time it must be acknowledged
that Pringle-Pattison has given the greatest pos-
sible stimulus towards the formulation of a
revised philosophy of common-sense. The pre-
sent tendencies are largely the outcome of his
strong and sound work in metaphysics, and the
Scottish philosophy is in safe keeping while
following the lines of scholarly exposition and
criticism. His insistence upon the rights of
Reality in life and experience, as against abstract
generalities, is vitally related to the growth of
such systems as those of William James, Bergson,
and James Ward. The place of Personality in
present-day philosophy has been made secure
by just such critical work as this.
CHAPTER VIII.
LATER TENDENCIES.
The valuable movement of reaction which has
set in recently against a hard and fast Abso-
lutism, in favour of life and experience, chiefly
through the medium of James and Schiller in
their own respective ways, probably dates from
Pringle-Pattison's attack on Hegelianism and
his plea for Personality. This is a fitting place
therefore to add a very brief survey of present
tendencies in regard to the Self.
We see that those who deny the Self a reality
of its own are drawn from different schools of
thought. The ' Pure Experience ' Philosophy,
or the ' Immanence Movement,' closely allied to
a form of Realism, has grown from such views
as those of Avenarius, 1 Mach, Petzoldt, 2 on the
Continent, S. H. Hodgson, G. E. Moore, and
1 Der Menschliche Weltbegriff.
2 Die Philosophie der Reinen Erfahrung.
LATER TENDENCIES HI
the Cambridge School in England, William
James in his ' Eadical Empiricism,' Dr. R. B.
Perry, Dr. E. B. Holt, and others in America.
These seek to approach the Self and Personality,
and even Consciousness, from a universal point
of view, called ' pure experience ' ; and end by
practically denying to them any veritable reality.
Consciousness is but a selection of objects from
the world of ' experience.' On the other hand,
we have Mr. F. H. Bradley and his disciple,
Professor A. E. Taylor, on the side of Absolute
Idealism, viewing the Self negatively, as com-
pared with ' experience ' also. Hence my thesis
against this vague use of experience so preva-
lent to-day. Royce is capable of being classified
with these, when we treat the existential aspect
of reality as important, as I do here. A. E.
Taylor's doctrine of the Self is set down in his
recent book. 1 It presents a union of the negative
views of Bradley, Royce and James compressed
into one clearly written chapter. The social
side is very prominent in his interpretation of
experience to the detriment of all real selfhood.
The attacks of Mr. Taylor upon the idea, concept,
or even consciousness of Self do not disprove the
1 Elements of Metaphysics, 1904, Book iv. Chap. III. p. 335.
142 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Reality of the Self as the essential factor in all
experience, except upon the basis that Reality
is reducible to ideas, — a position which is dis-
missed by the whole anti-intellectual school of
to-day.
Professor Hugo Miinsterberg views the psychi-
cal and physical as constructions by the Will, that
takes attitudes, and is itself in the realm of life,
of values, of Reality ; this Personality, however,
is but a part in the supra-temporal Reality
which is constituted by Values. 1
On the other hand, we have many advocates
of the Self, such as the Oxford Personal Idealists,
including Professor G. F. Stout, Dr. Rashdall,
W. R. Boyce Gibson (now of Melbourne, Aus-
tralia), G. E. Underhill and H. Sturt ; in addition
to F. C. S. Schiller, who has now come out as
a Humanist. Then Professors Pringle-Pattison,
James Ward, Sully, Bakewell, Ladd, G.. H.
Palmer, C. M. Tyler, J. Le Conte, Howison, and
the late Thomas Davidson and Borden P. Bowne,
defend Personality, and make it prominent in
1 Professor Munsterberg's main works in English are Psychology
and Life and The Eternal Values (1909). His principal work in
German is his Grundziige der Psychologie. His emphasis upon
Will places him in considerable affinity with philosophies of
Personality.
LATER TENDENCIES 143
their views, the three last-named building their
metaphysical systems upon Personality as an
ethical concept. Thomas Davidson held to a
Personalistic Pluralism of a very individualistic
type, — he called it Apeirothism — in which the
human Egos are themselves sufficient to con-
stitute the world of reality. Professors Dewey
and Baldwin would perhaps belong to the main
group of believers in the Self, although they are
more difficult to classify. Charles Renouvier
recently published his system under the title of
Le Personnalisme, in which the doctrines of
Absolutism and Infinity are opposed, and an
empirical theory is held.
A mighty contribution to the psychological
and metaphysical treatment of the subject is
furnished by Dr. Wm. M'Dougall of Oxford in
his book on Body and Mind. 1 His patient exami-
nation of the animistic hypothesis in the light
of physiology and the mechanistic tendencies of
present-day science is worthy of all praise.
After giving full value to the hostile views, Dr.
M'Dougall gives conclusive reasons for preferring
the old belief in the soul as an entity to the
1 Body and Mind, A History and Defence of Animism (Methuen,
1911).
144 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
pseudo-scientific hypotheses of a materialistic
or empirical kind.
The works of Bergson and of Eucken on the
Continent have provided recent philosophy with
much material for fresh advances, but in neither
instance has an explicit doctrine of the Self been
as yet fully formulated. Bergson certainly holds
to the reality of conscious life with the efficacy
which we associate with will.
Bergson's Philosophy of Change expresses a
revolt against concepts and the construction of
Reality by means of the intellect. Deeper lies
the stream of Reality, which is consciousness in
ceaseless, creative activity. Reality is to be
apprehended by Intuition rather than by Intel-
lect. This stream of consciousness, with which
Duration is identified, is more than the indi-
vidual experiences. Hence for Bergson, per-
sonalities are but means to the end of supra-
' personal spirit. We await further light from
this inspiring thinker regarding the Problem of
Personality. Meanwhile, it appears that he has
not provided in his Monistic Activism, as we
may call his system, for the rights and reality of
the Personal Will.
Eucken provides a spiritual interpretation of
LATER TENDENCIES 145
life, society and history, based upon a union
of idealism and activism ; but does not the
student of Eucken look in vain for a satisfying
dialectic, a critical philosophy of conscious-
ness ? One is constantly in the world of
values while in the company of this stimu-
lating German thinker, but there is no cogent
answer given to the questions that rise regarding
the reality of the distinctions which mark off
God, man and the world.
It is not too much to say, however, that Berg-
son and Eucken have rendered invaluable service
to the cause of religion, ethics and philosophy
by their strong vindication of life as against
mere conceptualism. Whether the Intuitive
method of Bergson or the Interpretative method
of Eucken afford us an alternative pathway to
Reality, better than that of rational investi-
gation and induction, is a question too large
for discussion here, but the insistence of both
these thinkers upon the final reality of conscious
life and Personality, in some sense or other,
expresses the genuine conviction of all who
base reflection upon life, and concepts upon
experience.
As to the Divine Personality, except for the
K
146 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
' Supra-Personal ' Absolute of Bradley and Taylor
most of the leading thinkers of to-day hold that
the reasonable attitude to take towards the
nature of the highest Being, whether regarded
as the Absolute, or pluralistically, is to postulate
Personality in some form or other. The problem
of the relation of the Absolute to human Per-
sonality divides Bradley, Royce, Taylor, and, —
according to Pringle-Pattison — all Neo-Hegelians,
such as Green, the Cairds and Watson — from
the champions of human Personality, such as
Howison, Davidson, Rashdall, Schiller, Bergson,
Eucken, and others, including Pringle-Pattison
himself. Royce, at any rate, comes nearer to
providing for a solution of the problem from the
Absolutist's side than do the others. If we can
accept his view of the Self as satisfactory, Royce
is certainly a defender of the use of the concept.
James seemed to be anxious to regard Personality
most favourably, but the psychological * passing
Thought ' is accepted by him ; and the Pure
Experience theory of his Radical Empiricism has
to be accommodated. Other tendencies are
summed up in the Panpsychism of Fechner,
Paulsen, and C. A. Strong.
That there is much confusion current upon
LATER TENDENCIES 147
the question of the Self is plain. It is partly
due, I believe, to the exclusion of the Self from
much of the ' new ' physiological psychology ;
partly to the hesitation of metaphysicians as to
the treatment of the empirical side of the Self ;
partly to the intellectualistic bias of science and
philosophy which waits for definitions before
acknowledging reality in life or spirit ; — and
chiefly to the vagueness of the concept of Ex-
perience, which has to play the most important
role in the majority of prevalent systems of
philosophy. But over and above all, it is evident
that the tendency is very strong to restore Per-
sonality and Life to their place as fundamental
to a theory of Reality.
PART II.
CONSTRUCTIVE.
CHAPTEE I.
EXPERIENCE AS A METAPHYSICAL
CONCEPT.
If there is one concept about which it would
seem that philosophers are agreed, it is surely
that of Experience. For it is in all the systems
of metaphysicians, the great and the small.
One has only to gasp out ' Experience ' to pass
the sentinels of philosophical orthodoxy ; and
the constant repetition of the password seems
to have a value which has long ago been recog-
nized outside of the ranks of the mystics. ' Ex-
perience ' is thrust forward by every one as a
guarantee of intelligence and good faith. It is
pronounced with great unction as the starting-
point of all extant systems, — not excluding the
Transcendentalists. The announcement is re-
ceived with nodding heads and smiles of approval
by the circle of philosophers and critics. So
long as the tyro in philosophy adheres to
152 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
experience and ' rings the changes ' on ideas, and
things, and what not, as ' experience,' there is
no obvious reason why he should not draw an
admiring crowd. The only apparent check to
his career would arise if some one inquired as
to the significance of the term. The rude
question, What do you mean by it ? might
suggest a dim world of realities lying beneath
the fog that has settled so heavily upon philo-
sophy. It might then and there appear that
the very widespread use of this concept should
itself cause uneasiness. Popularity does not
conduce to definition. It might also occur that
in spite of this agreement as to premises by very
diverse schools of thought, the conclusions are
as wide asunder as the poles. Surely what has
happened is this : the several schools have
taken everything for granted, have, in fact,
' begged ' the universe, with the most compre-
hensive term in existence ; and have then pro-
ceeded to develop some one or more of the
multitude of distinctions which palpably lie
within experience.
Like a great snowstorm, this vague concept
has buried beneath a colourless and uniform
surface the various grades of reality, and the
EXPERIENCE AS A CONCEPT 153
chief problems of philosophy. But the much-
needed thaw that can restore the vanished
world to light has already begun. Schiller has
insisted upon the questions which cause such
concern to the Absolutists like Bradley, and to
the ' Pure Experience,' and Kealistic School, —
' Whose experience is it ; and of what is it the
experience ? ' Ward has ably maintained 2 that
this concept conceals the duality of subject and
object implied in experience. And the fore-
going criticisms of Part I., on James and Bradley
in particular, have already made manifest the
error and ambiguity latent in this term, the
contradictions of which are really worked out
into such divergent results. The unanimity of
a Kant, a Mill, a Bradley, a James ; of Idealist,
Mystic, and Eealist ; of Absolutist, Pluralist,
and Radical Empiricist in adopting Experience
as the starting-point is not really an evidence
of the value of the concept as used ; but it is
rather an incentive to the critic to point out the
1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. ii. p. 131 et passim. Dr.
Ward's new book, The Realm of Ends, or Pluralism and Theism
(1912) gives an impressive presentation of Idealism with special
reference to the category of Personality. I take this opportunity
of expressing many obligations to this thinker for the clarifying
influence of his works upon the problems connected with this
subject.
154 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
vagueness and ambiguity of the term, and to see
in it one cause of the present-day confusion in
metaphysics.
This is most marked in the case of the Self,
which is the chief victim in this usage. It has
ever been the most difficult concept for meta-
physics, and the most recalcitrant fact for
science. The concept of experience is a ' neutral
and non-committal term,' as William James
said ; and so it seems to offer an opportunity
of constructing a system free from the embar-
rassment of a Self.
(1) But one of my main theses has been to
contend that Experience essentially implies the
Subject of experience, and that apart from such
a reference, it has no meaning. It is erroneous
to identify the objects in the ' stream of con-
sciousness ' with * experiences ' which become
thereby capable of personal activity. Yet the
term does not give us the shock that ' entities,'
or ' things,' or even ' ideas ' would. We noted
this incongruity in James' Radical Empiricism,
where ' experiences report themselves to one
another ' ! I maintain that there is a change
of meaning here from that which Experience
bears as the states of a conscious Subject, to
EXPERIENCE AS A CONCEPT 155
that of a mere portion of the stream of objects
when treated as unref erred to a Subject. 1
(2) In addition to this error, the hidden
duality of the concept really carries with it a
reference to the Self which is supposed to be
explained, or even explained away, by it. The
substitution of universal experience for that of
finite Selves is really meaningless, unless the
self-reference which experience implies, can be
fastened upon some Self. To fix it upon the
Absolute Self is not the first, but the last step
in metaphysics. Or again, to make all things
conscious is either a gratuitous assumption, or
else should come at the close of a Panpsychistic
course of reasoning. Hence the unfitness of
Experience without qualification to be a starting-
point in a metaphysic is plain. It is either used
uncritically ; or else it presupposes the whole
theory constructed upon it. And in either case
we have error and fallacy.
(3) The genuine problems of experience — in
the true sense as implying Subjects of experience
— are not solved by adopting a merely universal
point of view, apart altogether from the erroneous
use of the term. The problems of the relation
1 Cf. Ward, Art. ' Psychology,' Ency. Britt. (9), vol. xx. p. 39.
156 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of Subject and Object, of Self and the World,
of Self and Self, of Self and God, persist, and
demand solution as the outstanding questions
for any theory that claims to be ultimate. But
these are the very problems supposed to be solved
by adopting the starting-point of Experience!
How gratuitous that assurance is becomes evident
upon examination.
(4) A breach with genuine reality is made by
ignoring the condition of knowledge, and the
pre-supposition of experience. The most im-
portant factor is left out of account, that which
makes the series of presentations into a unity,
and which renders knowledge and rational
activity possible. In the emotional and voli-
tional processes this element is even more
obvious. The centre of susceptibility and the
agent of purposes which are conceived intel-
lectually also by the same Subject, are not to
be labelled with the same term as the objects
which exist for the Subject. This ignoring of
the prime factors in experience is equivalent to
turning our backs upon our citadel of reality. 1
1 The Will is the great divider and judge of systems of Monism.
Perhaps the chief value and final impressiveness of systems of
Voluntarism and Activism, for instance, as given in such diverse
forms as by Fichte, Schopenhauer, Miinsterberg, Bergson, and
EXPERIENCE AS A CONCEPT 157
(5) The patent distinction between my ex-
perience and the experience of others is not
provided for in this method. A fact, e.g. a
pain, has to be reported to be known. But it
is not the genuine fact which is reported, and
multitudes of other facts never get reported !
And yet, who can deny that they are genuine
experiences for me ? In a word, this notion
of experience as an absolute, universal and
impersonal medium is altogether false to ex-
perience in the true sense of the word. And
observe the ambiguity in the term. It is high
time to stand by immediate experience against
the assumptions of a 'priori systems of philo-
sophy. And that ' stand ' must begin, as Ward,
Pringle-Pattison, and Schiller have maintained,
with the bed-rock of reality, our own existence
as conscious Selves.
(6) The making of a class of ' special diffi-
culties ' in works of Psychology and Metaphysics,
of our most intimate, real and significant
experiences, is itself an indication of the fallacy
of the method of ' experience ' as ' pure ' or
Eucken, are to be found in the fact of the indubitable reality of
Will as an experience, and as efficacious in disturbing the flow
of intellectual presentations of objects.
158 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
' transcendental.' I refer to feeling, volition and
the higher processes of mind. That any doubt
should arise as to the central place of these funda-
mental facts in a theory of reality is an instance
of the inadequacy and futility of the whole
method. It is false to epistemology, to meta-
physics, and to life.
(7) The ambiguities of the term ' experience '
may be further brought out by considering some
of its meanings.
(a) Originally, a trial or experiment by someone.
(b) A striking event or series of events in the
life of a person.
(c) The content of consciousness, the stream of
objects as present to the Subject, or Subjects,
whose experience it is. This is the correct
meaning in my opinion.
(d) The series of all possible conscious facts,
including among them the Self or Subject, and
even the hypothetical ' Pure Ego.' This use is
misleading.
(e) The ' things,' colours, motions, causes, and
so forth, belonging to the world at large ; and
all thoughts, feelings, volitions, and the con-
sciousness of Selfhood so far as known. In fact,
anything and everything that can find a place
EXPERIENCE AS A CONCEPT 159
in the ' universe of discourse ' is called by this
term, as equivalent to * actual and possible
experience,' with a singular and a plural. This
usage is vague and dangerous.
(/) Experience as something universal or
' Pure,' cutting beneath the distinctions of Self
and the world ; only nominally distinguishable
from independent Being, in the Realistic sense.
This is perfectly fallacious.
(g) Absolute Experience, as Reality more tran-
scendental and idealistic than the previous usage.
Here the meaning of Experience may vary, as on
the lower plane ; but when used out of relation
to an Absolute Self or a plurality of Selves, it is
really quite meaningless.
(h) Experience in the phylogenetic sense, as
used by Evolutionists in opposition to a priori or
transcendental theories of origin or development.
In the face of these numerous varieties of
meaning, the term is hopelessly ambiguous, unless
qualified by the implication of Selfhood, as
stated in (c) above. As a starting-point in
Metaphysic the Concept is fraught with error
and confusion, and is liable to objection,
except as expressing what is implied in the
relationship of subject and object.
CHAPTER II.
THE MEANING OF PERSONALITY AND
RELATED CONCEPTS.
In the First Part we have had abundant evidence
of the criticisms directed against Personality for
the various meanings which may be attached to
it, and to the other terms expressive of diverse
phases of Selfhood. We have also seen for our-
selves the need of clearly distinguishing these
meanings. Accordingly we shall devote ourselves
to the following purposes in this Chapter : first,
to the examination of the concepts pertaining to
Personality, including the Not-Self as well as the
Self ; and then we shall proceed to the considera-
tion of some difficulties, or paradoxes, connected
with the Self.
A complete list of these related concepts would
include person, personality, individual, indi-
viduality, self, selfhood, consciousness, self-con-
sciousness, subject, soul, ego, spirit, mind, * I,'
PERSONALITY— RELATED CONCEPTS 161
and the 'me'; also the correlatives, not-self,
object, non-ego, and not-me. Then there are
concepts in the form of phrases which have
become current, such as Kant's ' synthetic unity
of apperception,' or c transcendental unity of
self-consciousness,' the ' noumenal ' as distinct
from the - phenomenal ' ego, and the ' empirical
self ' ; the ' material,' the ' social ' and the
' spiritual ' self, the ' stream of consciousness,'
and the ' Passing Thought,' employed by
William James ; the Personality of God ; the
' Perfect Personality ' advocated by Lotze ; the
' Absolute Self ' in Royce's system, and the
' Absolute Experience ' in Bradley's, — and so on.
The mere mention of these current phrases is
all that is possible here. Most of them are
treated and made clear in the course of the
Thesis. From the first list we shall select the
principal terms for specification.
Let us start with the true basis of mental life,
as we have seen it in our discussion of the con-
cept of Experience. That resolves itself, as we
saw, into the relationship of Subject and Object.
Let us take this ground, and begin with the
Subject. We do not stop to ask now whether
we can distinguish the Subject by itself. Bradley
162 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
we know suffers pangs at the bare suggestion of
such an abstraction, although he is more hardened
when dealing with experience. But that question
will recur in the next Chapter. Meanwhile, if
anyone has qualms similar to Bradley's, he can
display his mental agility by correlating the idea
of Object with that of Subject, while the latter
is under discussion.
The Subject signifies the one for whom any set
of experiences is, the centre to which various
objects are consciously present, and from which
they derive a special relationship to one another,
as facts of one felt whole. It is usually employed
to denote the knower as related to the known ;
but it may also imply the one who feels, who is
susceptible to pleasure and pain. It does not
generally signify, however, the one who is active,
who wills, who strives, who conceives, plans and
executes them. We may for the present speak,
in reference to this self-activity, of ' the Agent,'
or more simply, of Will. The Subject then has
primarily this epistemological and affective refer-
ence, and may be regarded as signifying the
knower, the experiencer, as distinct from the
objects known, and from the content of
experience.
PERSONALITY— RELATED CONCEPTS 163
Now let us pass to the terms closely connected
with the Subject, yet possessed of important
shades of meaning. Such are ' I,' Ego, and
the Soul. Now we have the identity of the
Subject in time brought out, its character of
permanence through change, of unity in diver-
sity. This is not necessarily implied in the
Subject itself. It appears as the correlative of
the series of Objects which are essentially in
time, and as such does not express the character
of identity, which, whether philosophically accept-
able or not, is at least the postulate of reflective
common-sense, and as such is sufficient for our
present purpose, viz. the determination of mean-
ings. The philosophical question of identity will
come up later. But there is another change .
made by the terms ' I ' and ' Ego.' Now the
recognition of the agent in volition is brought
in ; the pale fact of mere subjectivity is trans-
formed by the organic presence of Will. The
terms ' I ' and Ego express a unitary conscious v
Subject which is also active, as the Agent. The
Soul signifies the Ego as a permanent entity cv
or Substance which endures through all the
temporal manifestations, and is related to
the affective, emotional and moral aspects of
164 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
experience rather than to the side of volition.
Spirit is closely allied to the Soul, in antithesis
to the bodily and material, and as inclusive of
self-activity. Mind is used to denote the Subject
as Thinker, plus the objects of thought. Simi-
larly the concept of the Self in metaphysics
involves the relation of Subject and Object, not
in intellectual terms merely, as is the case with
the Mind, but in the organic totality of feeling
and will. While this relation is present in the
constitution of the Self, however, a distinction
is made upon the objective side between what
is Self and what is Not-Self. I will return to
this presently.
The medium of awareness, in which experience,
so to speak, comes to light, is Consciousness,
and in Self-consciousness there is a recognition
of the rational, constitutive and moral part per-
formed by the Self in our highest experiences. 1
The positively social and ethical character of
Selfhood is expressed by the concept of the
1 Abnormal forms of self- consciousness which are related to
moral or pathological conditions, usually in a more or less morbid
way, are not included in this treatment of Self- consciousness.
Recent advocates of Realism are apt to lay undue stress upon
this aspect, as vitiating the Idealistic claims of Self- consciousness.
It is perhaps advisable to point out that all morbid forms of
Self-feeling are distinct from the rational Self- consciousness.
PERSONALITY— RELATED CONCEPTS 165
Person. 1 Although in popular usage the Self is
employed in this sense, it is much better in
Metaphysics to confine that concept to the
meaning given above. Individuality expresses
the aspect of uniqueness in the various Selves,
as Persons. And Personality includes all the
foregoing meanings of Ego, Self, Individual and
Person, with the full circle of relationships to
other Selves, the world and God. Moral char-
acter, rights and duties are provided for by
this concept. ^Esthetic, social, intellectual and
religious ideals are the portion of man as the
possessor of Personality. But God is regarded
as the Source and Inspiration of all such aspira-
tions, and is the Ideal and Perfect Personality.
In regard to the Object which is in relation
to the Subject, we may distinguish between the
Non-Ego and the Not-Self. The Non-Ego is
equivalent to the ' Me,' that is, the empirical
content of the consciousness of Self ; but it may
1 The Theological usage of ' Person ' in the doctrine of the
Trinity is quite distinctive, and is associated with historical
and metaphysical considerations which, if fully treated, would
lead us into another region than that contemplated in the present
work. The Legal connotation of Person, to which some writers
have given special prominence (as William Temple, in his Nature
of Personality, 1911), is but one among many of the aspects of
social value, which belong to Personality.
166 THE PKOBLEM OF PERSONALITY
be distinguished from the Not-Self, or the Not-Me,
by which we signify that which is distinct and
separable from the Self. The Not-Self is a part
of the objective series, which is marked off on
the basis of the Will. Certain presentations are
capable of being dissociated as unnecessary to our
immediate consciousness. They are branded as
the Not-Self. The limit of the body is a fair
indication of the demarcation ; but it is a mis-
take to take it as an absolute test, or as the
explanation, of the Not-Self, for certain psychical
processes may also be regarded as the Not-Self.
The Non-Ego, on the other hand, consists in the
states of consciousness, the processes in building
up our experience, which may be introspectively
presented and branded as not the Ego. The Self
V-as Subject-Object includes the Ego and the
Non-Ego, but not the content of experience
which has rightly been termed the Not-Self.
Yet it is quite misleading to separate the Not-
Self, as a part of experience, from the Subject
of experience.
We will now discuss very briefly some diffi-
culties and seeming paradoxes in connection with
the general question of Personality. The first —
Hegel's problem of ' negativity ' — arises from
PERSONALITY— RELATED CONCEPTS 167
the effort to define the Self. Every such effort
involves the presentation of the Self as object,
and therefore it cannot be the true Self. So
Hegel, to characterize subjectivity, defined it as
the refusal to recognize the Self in any one
object. But that refusal itself is related to the
Self. Hence the Self must express itself in that
which is objective, and therefore not the Self.
The paradox is obvious. But our doctrine of
the Self does not seek for such a definition.
Verily the paradox is the outcome of seeking to
present existence in the forms of logic, which
we have had occasion to criticize in the First
Part. And in our view of the Self the place
of the Subject is assured ; while in all attempts
to substitute definitions for genuine experience,
a breach with existence and reality is — as
Pringle-Pattison maintains * — inevitable.
A second difficulty is allied to the former one.
The essence of Selfhood is subjectivity and
particularity, and yet the striving and develop-
ment of the Self is toward objectivity and
universality. To be conscious of a limit implies
the transcendence of it. Our life, as Fichte felt
and taught, is one continual striving, longing
1 Supra, Chapter VII.
168 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
and seeking. What constitutes selfhood thus
seems to be denied by rational selfhood. We
pursue the universal and objective. This diffi-
culty is really due to our taking the Self in one
aspect as existential — a limited subjective world
— and in the other as ethical — as a seeker after
ideals. The Subject-Object relation persists just
as much in the latter, as in the former case, if
we view them both as existences. And full of
meaning is the ethical aspect presented in this
seeming paradox. The transcendence of limits
may be said, with equal truth, to imply the
previous consciousness of those limits. 1 This
rendering of Personality is but an extension of
the truth that we must lose our life to find it.
Finally there is the paradox stated by Pro-
fessor Palmer in his Nature of Goodness. 2 In
the progress towards true Personality, how can
I really develop myself ? That would require
that ' I make myself ' ! Truly significant is the
distinction involved in this difficulty. From the
standpoint of the Self, as the Subject of certain
experiences, I am now as real a being as ever I
can be. But from the standpoint of values, I
1 Cf. Art. ' Cartesianism,' Edward Caird, Ency. Britt. 9th Edit.
2 Chapter V. on Self- Development.
PEESONALITY— RELATED CONCEPTS 169
am not yet my true Personality. These are
insuperable paradoxes only to those who deny
the right of the Self to exist apart from the
Ideal Ego ; or, on the other hand, to those who
fail to recognize the valid place of ideals and
their significance in Reality. For the difficulty
expresses twin truths, which must not be con-
fused, but which, in a complete view, are ' never
to be sundered without tears.'
CHAPTER III.
THE REALITY OF SELF.
In the present chapter I shall defend the thesis
that the Self is real, and the true basis for any
theory of Reality. In this part of the discussion
I am not using Reality in any absolute or final
sense, but as implying genuine being, or real
existence. What Reality may be in the last
analysis is a problem which will come up later.
Our previous discussions have cleared the
ground, and now we may get our material
together and begin to build. We have seen
that Experience is unfitted to serve as a starting-
point in metaphysics. It is a vague and am-
biguous concept. It is too wide. It cannot
serve as a criterion for reality, because every-
thing shares in the universal promotion. But
when Experience is taken in connection with
the Subject of experience, we are nearer the
truth. It is natural to go a step further and
THE REALITY OF SELF 171
ask — what if this Self as Subject in relation to
Object be our criterion of reality ? Is not the
reverse contention an impossible position ? The
very denial of the Self implies the affirmation.
There can be no surer test of reality than that.
And all experience, thought, and reasoning
imply the reality of the Subject or Knower.
There is not a theory of knowledge which does
not implicitly depend upon the reality of the
Self. We have noted how Pragmatism and
i Humanism are forced to throw the whole burden
of proof upon the Self's reality, whose satisfaction
is the key to what is accepted as truth. All
theories of knowledge as ' practical value ' have
the same axiomatic — and therefore often ne-
glected — basis. Even the Rationalistic theories
imply the cogito in which Descartes, himself a
Rationalist, detected the prime certainty of the
Self's reality. But we do not need to stay upon
the narrow track that has been worn by the
feet of the Rationalists. The universe is ours ;
abundance of life is ours ; the experiences of
emotion, activity, imagination, memory, aspira-
tion and purpose, as well as thought, are all
ours ! Why should we narrow our world to a
mere cogito ? Such a limitation was the source
172 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of Kant's refinements of the Self. Feeling and
will give evidence of stronger convictions than
thought, and furnish many infallible proofs.
In short, the reality of Self cannot be denied
without at the same time being affirmed. It
is implied in every theory of reality, and forms
the secret source of whatever plausibility such
a theory may have. It is not proved merely
from the side of thought ; it is also felt and
realized in our pursuit of ends, and in the execu-
tion of our purposes. In addition to these very
cogent considerations, we have the metaphysical
necessity that if we cannot trust the reality of
ourselves, then we are in the darkness of agnos-
ticism, and the deep darkness of scepticism. And
further, it is evident that if there be no such
reality as ourself, then there is no link between
the mere constructions of a world in thought on
the one side, — perhaps as arbitrary as the 'moves'
allotted to the various pieces in chess — and, on
the other, the world of genuine existence and
experience with which we have actually to deal.
Bradley admits off-hand that the Self is of
course a fact in some sense and to some extent,
but the question is, how ? * He never seems
1 Appearance, etc. p. 103.
THE REALITY OF SELF 173
very concerned about the positive problem.
He shares with Cleon the glory of an accomplish-
ment in which philosophers have been somewhat
proficient, —
1 And I have written three books on the soul,
Proving absurd all written hitherto,
And putting us to ignorance again.' x
We saw, however, that he could not really dis-
pose of two meanings of Self, viz. the Essential
Self as feeling, and the Self as the Subject in
relation to the Object. 2 Now these are precisely
the two meanings most accordant with our view
of the Self. Accordingly we may proceed with
fuller confidence to our constructive exposition.
What is here meant by the Self will become
clearer upon closer examination. When it is
said that the essential relation of Subject and
Object precludes us from treating of the Subject
in itself, I demur. Such a complete prohibition
of all distinctions would destroy all knowledge.
We would be unable to speak of anything at all
as distinct from the whole system of relations ;
that is, we would need to keep absolute silence.
We may certainly distinguish, but not separate,
1 The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, vol. i. p. 542.
2 Supra, Part I., Chapter II.
174 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
the Subject from the Object. This is all I
desire to do in bringing out what is implied in
the Self, as Subject.
(1) Consider then, in the first place, the
different plane occupied by the Subject to that
which is occupied by the Object. Further light
will come by reflecting that the ' Object ' of
which we speak, in relation to the Subject,
denotes nothing in particular, while the Subject
does. The objective side of inner life may
contain any kind of presentation, from the
perception of a varied landscape to the thought
of oneself! In this way then the Subject is
the one centre of a shifting circumference, in
addition to its being the condition of the ex-
perience of such a world of objects, as I have
previously shown.
1 1 am a part of all that I have met ;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro ,
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.' 1
(2) But secondly, this one Subject is also
realized to be the same ' I ' as that which feels,
and that which wills. Hence the Subject is
already consolidated by fusing with the centre
1 Tennyson's * Ulysses,' Works, etc. p. 95.
THE REALITY OF SELF 175
of all our experiences. The old ' faculty ' psycho-
logy has been abolished ; all subjective pheno-
mena are now seen to be related to the Self as
a unitary being. But, behold, no sooner is this
position accepted than we have threats of
execution of the Self, as a caput mortuum of
metaphysics ! And we hear of ' psychology
without a Self ' ! Well, our concern is not with
psychology here ; but it seems the height of
perversity to repudiate faculties, and then deal
treacherously with the conscious unity which
must take their place.
(3) Now thirdly, this Self must be identical ;
must include the Ego. For the mere series of
states could not know itself as a unity unless
the Subject were the common centre of refer-
ence to the different presentations. To deny
this identity of the knower would mean that
we are shut up to merely instantaneous experi-
ences. The rejection of this latter absurdity is
also involved by our Self-activity, which con-
sciously passes over the elements of the time-
series in the steadiness of purpose and in the
fulfilment of the plan of a life. And feeling
speaks out for the Ego, not only by its immediate
testimony, but from the place which it pleases
176 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
the Ego to assign it in his life. The emotion
may be controlled ; the appetites may be related
to a Self, which is conceived as permanent ;
and which defers its gratification till the time
required in its own plans as a rational harmony.
Let us not be ashamed of this belief in personal
identity ; but rather let us regard its ancient
vogue as confirmatory of the conclusions of
philosophy, experience and common-sense. I
shall touch on some objections presently.
(4) Fourthly, the objective series is subordi-
nate to the Will of the Ego. The object is a
changing manifold. The objects get related by
being apperceived by a Subject, which gives to
them a certain permanence reflected from its
own. They are unified and related to past
objects. They are constructed into an identical
world, that lasts from moment to moment, and
is subject to the laws postulated by the reason.
This is posited as the Not-Self. But there is
a much more manifest evidence of the Will than
this, which is somewhat subtle, and is obscured
by epistemological questions. This is the direct
evidence, and absolute conviction that by the
exercise of my will I can make changes in the
world of objects. It is manifest therefore that
THE REALITY OF SELF 177
we have here, in the Self, an emphasis upon
the subjective and self-active element which
predominates over the objective, as the potter
over the clay in his hand. And to refuse to
form an estimate of the Subject, because it is
related to the Object, is like refusing to credit
the potter with anything more than the abstract
relation to clay.
(5) Fifthly, what are we to say of the alter-
native, adopted by some psychologists and the
Radical Empiricists, of seeking in the stream
of consciousness for the Self, as the ' passing
thought,' or as ' the mere idea of the Ego '
which is constructed in the course of experience,
and plays its part with other conscious elements ?
Well, in addition to our previous criticism of
James, 1 I may add that this device really in-
volves the Self which is supposed to be dis-
integrated. For the accusations that the Self
is an intellectual construction involve also in
the same charge the theories of the ' stream of
consciousness ' and the ' passing thought ' and
' the Self as a mere idea.' For they, too, are
constructions. Experience gives none of these
hypothetical moments of consciousness in which
1 Supra, Part I., Chapter I.
M
178 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
the flow consists ! On the contrary, it gives us
longer or shorter glimpses, or synthetic apper-
ceptions, of things, which are as cogent evidences
of identity as the ' allotted span ' of human life !
And further, such constructions as Empiricists
put forward are incapable of being made, except
by the active mind of a Self, enduring through
time, and able to transcend the terms of the
series, and connect them into a system. Nor
does the endowment of the ( passing thought '
with spiritual privileges help us. It is false to
experience ; it is a mere device ; and it is a less
simple theory than that which it seeks to sup-
plant. Such atomistic theories of mental life
and of Selfhood either involve the error and
scepticism of Hume ; or else they ' beg ' per-
sonal identity, and reproduce it in the mysterious
capacities of the ' passing thought,' while pro-
fessing to have explained it away.
(6) Sixthly, the psychological difficulties of
multi-personality and secondary selves do not
affect the Self as we have viewed it, from the
metaphysical standpoint. The old sets of habits,
or the strange modes of behaviour, which appear
in such abnormal cases, affect only the ethical
personality, and not the existential Self. It is
THE REALITY OF SELF 179
the same Subject still, in an epistemological
sense ; but the habits and meanings are different.
Much of the emphasis placed upon the pheno-
mena of so-called ' multi-personality ' causes a
departure from scientific views of mental pro-
cesses to such an extent as to imply the miracu-
lous, without any intention of such a concession.
If it be true, as every psychologist holds, that
perception, habit, memory, and the other mental
conditions are built upon the data of previous
experience, then there cannot be an absolute
break in the continuity of the mental life, or
there would be no materials for the new experi-
ences. If the old material is drawn upon, it
must be by the same epistemological Subject
as existed before. I believe that these pheno-
mena are abnormalities of habit, and certainly
belong to the realm of values, and not of exist-
ence, in so far as the Self is concerned. Pro-
fessor Royce says that there are many so-called
Selves which are not true Selves, on his theory ;
and under this head he would no doubt dismiss
such abnormalities. Were it not for this proviso,
he would find this side of empirical psychology
most damaging for his view of the Self as ideal ;
and he would then be unable to claim that his
180 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
theory avoids the empirical difficulties. The
theory here set forth misses these, in maintain-
ing that the Self as really existing is not con-
cerned with the attainment or non-attainment
of certain purposes, meanings, or ideals. And
it is evident that the purely social character
of selfhood on Royce's theory and its nature
as a mere contrast-effect is quite remote from
my view, which insists that the Self must be
a real being. We do not need to employ the
misleading term Substance, of which no one
knows anything, except that in the material
world qualities were supposed to inhere in it.
It is an entirely different point to maintain
that this ' I,' this Self, which thinks, feels,
and wills, which is the centre of experience for
me ; which is capable of making judgments and
of conceiving purposes, is a real being. Viewing
the Self as the identical, constitutive and active
centre of reference in consciousness, as the Sub-
ject in relation to the spiritually conditioned
Object, can it be denied that the Self exists, is
real, and is our first criterion of Reality at the
human point of view ?
CHAPTER IV.
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE.
The reality of the Self constitutes the reality
and trustworthiness of our experience. This
furnishes the motif of the profound efforts of
Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and more recently, of
Green, Miinsterberg, Schiller and others, to
evolve the world of experience from the Ego,
whether it be conceived as in some way a tran-
scendental, noumenal, absolute, or universal
principle ; or as the will that takes attitudes ;
or as the active Self which seeks satisfaction.
In diverse ways these theories express the
central importance of the spirit in a theory of
reality.
Now we are in a position to accept experience
as it burns in the focus of subjectivity. Whence
these rays of light come, we do not yet know ;
but meanwhile we have guarded against the
182 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
acceptance of the rays apart from the focus ;
and have provided against the substitution of
merely conceptual for actually existing rays,
burning in a real focus. And we have seen
that whatever reality the rays may have, they
derive it from their appearance in the focus.
In other words, we find two truths about the
Object ; first, that it is conditioned by spirit,
that is, by being known, and otherwise related
to the Ego ; and second, that the Self which
provides the unity of Objects in relation to a
Subject, imparts to them also of its own
reality.
A word or two more on these points will lead
us beyond them. I say firstly that what the
Object is apart from a Subject we can never know.
It cannot be said to exist independently of Spirit.
Nor could it be constituted in its nature as it is
but for the synthetic activity of Spirit. I do
not surely need, at this time of day, to inveigh
any further against the Ding-an-sich or any such
' rudimentary organ ' of Realism. As to this
point, namely, the constructive part played by
the mind in experience, we do not require merely
logical and abstract categories, which are drawn
up post rem, and are reminiscent of Scholas-
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 183
ticism, 1 but we may emphasize the case of ideali-
zation. There the contribution of the Mind
appears as an agreeable exaggeration of the part
played by it in perception. In Art, ' a portion
of life/ as Zola said, is ' seen through the medium
of a temperament.' In common life, do we not
often consciously read into things our memories
and imaginings, and so transform them to our
wish by our Self-activity ? For my own part,
I do not believe that we really know any subjecb
till we have thus fused it with our memories,
interests and associations in the heat of feeling
and will, — a process closely akin to idealization.
And I am perfectly convinced that experience
and knowledge are so constructed by Self-
activity. Voluntarism best expresses this truth,
and hints at the essential attempts of the Subject
to reduce the Object to identity with itself. But
I must pass on to the second point.
The reality which we have seen to belong to
the Self cannot be withheld from the Object
which is essentially related to the Subject, and
1 Kant's Deduction of the Categories from the Transcendental
Unity of Apperception is, however, the classical instance of the
way in which the spiritual or noumenal Reality constitutes the
intelligible world of experience, and even the world of phenomena
as manifesting the order of Nature.
184 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
thus expresses the nature of the Self. So we
have now a valid claim to regard the experience
of the world as real.
Now this raises the question which has not
prominently appeared as yet. What is the
relation between different Selves ? How do we
pass from one to another ? I answer : (a) in
the first place, that the question is really less
difficult for us than for the man who takes * Ex-
perience ' as his starting-point. He thinks that
he escapes the problem by assuming the stand-
point of a communal experience ! But the pro-
blem is there all the time, with others which are
apt to be ignored ! (b) In the second place, the
bodily presence of others is guaranteed as real
by our foregoing argument proceeding from the
reality of Self to that of experience, in which
other Selves play a part, (c) But thirdly, the
recognition of other personalities as located in
human bodies springs up with the earliest con-
victions, in point of temporal development ;
prior in fact to the consciousness of Self. The
child depends upon his mother and nurse, and
in his dawning consciousness fives through them.
The point of metaphysical interest in this, how-
ever, is not the temporal and genetic priority
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 185
of the consciousness of other Selves ; what con-
cerns us is the logical truth that emerges, viz.
that experience is essentially of such a nature
that other personalities exist and share in it.
In other words, it does not lead us to regard
Selfhood as a mere" contrast-effect and a purely-
social relationship, as Professor Koyce holds, but
it leads us to view experience as partaking of this
"social character just as surely as it involves the
representation of things as separate in Space and
Time. This conviction is also dependent upon
the reality of the body, in which our own Selfhood
as voluntarily active meets with other Selves
under objective conditions ; and so the body
plays a unique part in our experience not only
of other Selves, but of the World, and of the
essential relation existing between Selves and
the World, (d) But finally, this community of
experience is not sufficiently explained without
seeking to account for the agreement and har-
mony of Self with Self, and of the World with
Selves in certain respects. What imparts to us
this similarity in knowledge and experience ?
How can the common intelligence in Selves, and
in the World, — which Selves explore and reduce
to rationality, — be explained ? Not by the mere
186 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
effulgence of light from the particular Subject for
which it exists epistemologically ; for as we have
seen the Object is broken up and part is postu-
lated as Not-Self ! And this is the part which
unexpectedly manifests that striking identity,
rationality, and intelligibility which is so awe-
inspiring, and which must spring from a spiritual
source. The conviction of the absoluteness and
objectivity of the World, this Not-Self, cannot
be given up. Nor can the wondrous harmony
of Spirit and the Universe be ignored. This
antinomy Idealism recognizes and solves. The
universality and pervasiveness of Intelligence,
Order, and Law point to a Spiritual Principle
which constitutes existence as rational and har-
monious. The conditions of experience point to
the same conclusion. The world of relations
can be synthesized and known only by a Mind,
and so it is required that the Universe be con-
ceived as constituted, as surely as it exists, by
the Supreme Mind for whom all things are. So
conceived, the Spiritual Principle must be of the
form of Subject and Object ; for that is precisely
the relationship which must obtain between the
Universe as existing for such a Spiritual Prin-
ciple and the Spiritual Principle as knowing and
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 187
so constituting the Universe. But this answers
to our description of a Self. Therefore, the
Spiritual Principle, whatever else it may be,
must be a Self.
Let us now look once more at the relation
between Selves. "We saw that their mutual
relationship, and their relation to the World
demanded a Spiritual Principle to explain their
community of agreement and intelligibility.
This appears as an immanent principle in regard
to the content of their experience, but it leaves
their particularity and private Selfhood intact.
The failure to provide for this on the part of
* Pure Experience ' philosophy breaks down its
argument. The respects in which this imman-
ence may be found to consist, may be here
specified as follows :
(1) First, it gives us subjectivity of such a
kind that its objective content harmonizes with
the worlds of all rational Selves. This is the
so-called a priori Self-activity of minds.
(2) Second, it provides the data of our experi-
ence with their capacity for being known, because
they are themselves the Objects of a Supreme
Mind. This saves us from all the perils of a
merely Subjective Idealism.
188 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
(3) Third, our ' universe of discourse ' and
common rationality may be said to manifest the
same immanent Principle. Hence Science and
Education owe their existence to the presence
of the same principle of intelligence and ration-
ality in the Selves.
(4) And fourth, the objectivity of view which
Selves seek, the desire to see the universe sub
specie aeternitatis, and all ideals of truth, as well
as those of beauty and goodness, with which we
shall be concerned in the next Chapter, are
manifestations of this immanent and universal
Principle.
A deep conviction which gives rise to many
of the subjoined criticisms and theses may be
here stated. There is a profounder meaning in
existence than metaphysicians have usually been
ready to discover. Their training in the world
of conceptions and methods of logic has tended
to make them restricted in their vision. Is not
this the living message of James and Bergson
for our day ? Everything that actually is, is
bearing witness, clear and infallible, so far as it
goes, to the nature of Reality. The mere theory
that you or I may mean by our manipulation of
conceptions may or may not be true : and con-
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 189
sidering the wide diversity of opinions, we have
to say, cannot be quite true. But everything
that actually has come to be in the universe, that
really exists is a messenger and a revelation from
the Unseen ! It does not mean that we should
study the mere form. That would lead us into
the conceptual realm again. But it means that
we should regard the interpretation of these things
as organized capacities showing that the Unseen
must be such that it is so manifested. And as
interpretation, this is not so mysterious and
productive of difference of opinion as the objector
might think. For it is patent to all reflective
minds that in life, growth, animal organism, con-
sciousness, and Selfhood we have stages of
development, in which, even without going into
teleology and the world of values, we have
different kinds of being, representing various
modes or functions of Existence. Sufficient is
it to say that in Selfhood we have evidence
of a completer being than any so-called lower
kind can give. Hence we view the Universe
and the Reality which it represents as being
such that Selfhood, ultimately stated in terms
of value as Personality, expresses its highest form
of Existence.
190 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
So, when we are honestly and critically anthro-
pomorphic in our construction of Reality, we
may feel a conviction which no shallow arguments
can disturb. And when we see in Personality our
highest category of explanation, and apply it
in order to understand the Universe and the
ultimate Reality, we have two infallible proofs.
First, we have the testimony, and now so rapidly
growing conviction that this is almost the last
word of present-day philosophy, that Reality
must be conceived in terms of Thought, Spirit,
and Personality. And secondly, we have a
reflection, which we do not need to suppress
when we leave our study and class-room, and
have the budding trees of spring, the singing
birds and the gay butterflies as our companions !
We may feel with the poet —
' To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.'
For the conviction may well sweep over us that
there is nothing incongruous in Personality's
claim of a relationship with this world of Nature,
nothing unsound in our application of Per-
sonality as our category of explanation, not
merely because all things are ours as knowing
Subjects, — that thought we have banished mean-
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 191
while in place of another. The fresh thought
is this — the Universe is so related to Personality
that Personality has really appeared as the child
of All ! It exists ; it is real ; it has being, how-
ever it may be interpreted ; and it cannot be
gainsaid. And not only so ; but all things else
appear as stages in its growth to produce for
Nature, ' Man, her last work,' who seems so fair !
And he, as Personality, can know nature and
rethink her laws, which so far from being dead
and impersonal have actually produced Life and
Personality !
Now it seems to me that this is so much
better than the halting forms of logic, that it
is in reality the source of what is valuable in
formal logic itself. Bradley comes too late to
tell us what the world should be like to har-
monize with his riddles ; for, in however abstract
a fashion, logic has had only this basis of ex-
perience to go upon in spite of itself. And from
the life of the Ego have come its forms of Identity,
and the like, and the categories of Causality,
Substance, and so on. That is part of the heri-
tage left us by Kant. Fichte expounded the
great thought in his own wonderful way. And
when Hegel turned to the world of experience
192 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
with his abstract forms, and sought to recon-
struct it in Schelling's phrase as ' a petrified
logic/ he was really building better than he knew.
For the deepest motives for such attempts, and
their secret source of profound rationality are
not to be found in their conceptualizing a living
universe, but in their re-vivifying of logic by
laying the quick, breathing body of Experience
upon its corpse. And as a matter of fact, we
see how Hegel was driven to urge the revision of
logic ; and he built his great dialectical process
upon forms which ran counter to the rules of the
scholastic logic. And so rationality is more than
a mere name, not because it is understood to be
postulated in the text-books of logic, but because
it is immanent in us, and in the Rock of Reality
from whence we are hewn. Or, to drop the
figure, the stages of real existence which cul-
minate in Personality give us our best and
surest hints, inklings, and even revelations of
the nature of the Unseen, and teach us that
Reality indubitably manifests Rationality and
Personality, that the Living God is at the heart
of things.
Accordingly we must characterize Reality as
essentially of the nature of an Absolute Self.
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 193
This result may be reached by another line of
argument, in addition to those which I have
employed on the grounds of Existence. Such,
for example, is that which seeks to provide for
the ultimate principle of Unity. No final
plurality of reals can stand the onslaught of
the argument from relations. In the last resort
existence must be a Unity. But in characteriz-
ing this Unity, philosophers have had recourse
to various abstractions, such as Being, Sub-
stance, the Absolute Idea, Energy, and so forth.
But no conception of the Unity will suffice
which does not provide for the disconnectedness
of things and the plurality of Selves. And the
only type of Unity which can meet these demands
is that which also provides us with our solution
of the puzzle of the One and the Many, and is
by its very nature a Unity in diversity. The
manifold of experience is given to us in the
unity of one conscious Subject. That is the
prototype of the relation between monism and
pluralism. And so Personality not only proves
to be the prime unit of reality, the criterion of
existence, the synthetic principle, the condition of
experience, the best mode of existence, and the
highest category of explanation, but it is also the
194 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
supreme type of Unity, and the only solution of
the Sceptic's problem of the One and the Many.
And now I will briefly state, from the stand-
point of a Metaphysic of Existence, a theory of
the Absolute, reserving a more detailed ex-
position of it till the concluding Chapter, after
an examination of the influences derivable from
a Metaphysic of Values. I hold that we are led
to view Reality as the Absolute Self who is also
the Unity of all. So far we have seen that the
Self is at least Subject in relation to Object.
Such too, we find, not from analogy alone, but
from the nature of the conditions of Being, must
the Absolute Self be. As Subject and Object
He embraces all existence, and in fact consti-
tutes it so. We can further say that as we —
although in an imperfect manner — constitute our
Object, so does He, as Subject, but unto per-
fection . As the distinction of Sub j ect and Ob j ect,
however, implies an inevitable difference between
them, as well as an essential relation, so the
Absolute as Subject is necessarily different from
the Absolute as Object. This is essential to the
Divine Self-consciousness. It implies also the
existence of a world of conscious beings, who
constitute the ' Other ' to God. But while with
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 195
us the difference between Subject and Object
is beyond our complete control, with Him the
Object is Self-determined to be distinct from
Himself as Subject. This delivers the universe
from the mere identity, the blank undifferentiated
Unity of Pantheism, and most forms of Abso-
lutism. Self -limitation is a most important cate-
gory — as Hegel showed — and is the essential
attribute of the Absolute as Subject ; and this
Self-determination posits relative independence
to the Object. Three logical stages in the
Divine Life may be stated, and subsequently
explained on the basis of our own Selfhood.
(1) The first is His Subjectivity, Omniscient,
Eternal and Self-determining. (2) The Second
is His Objectivity, posited in relation to Himself
as Subject, and consisting of the real universe
in time, including our experience, and being thus
itself of the same type of Subject-Object. (3)
And the third stage is included m the second,
as Object, but is given the special character of
Not-Self, by the Divine Self-limitation. It is
posited as autonomous, apart from essential and
constitutive conditions. 1 His highest glory, His
1 Cf. the political relationship of the British Empire and the
self-governing Colonies.
196 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
essence of rationality, and His sign of Personality
is revealed in this Self-determination. This
Divine positing of an Other in Himself as Not-
Himself is equivalent to the so-called ' creation '
of an infinity of Selves with their own point of
view, as finite Subjects, with their own moral
autonomy and individual freedom, with their
own privilege of the voluntary choice of good-
ness, and participation in the life of God. Now
the essence of this Not-Self as posited, is the
likeness of the human Selves to God Himself.
These Selves are microcosms of the Macrocosm,
the Divine Self. In spite of finitude and imper-
fection, they may realize their spiritual privi-
leges of progress towards likeness to God. And
as they seek the Ideals which are the earnest
of their inheritance they become imbued with
the Immanent Principle, or the Logos which,
as we saw, gives to the Selves community of
experience, rationality, order, and objectivity of
vision, besides the moral, aesthetic and religious
evidences of Divinity in humanity. This Pro-
gress or Development, whether in the individual
or the race, is the striving of the Objective side
of the Absolute back to Subjectivity. And all
the concrete forms which the Object has mani-
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 197
; fested in the course of historical Evolution are
but growing revelations of the Absolute Spirit
as living, organized, conscious, and finally self-
conscious and self-determining, as it is the
essence of Divinity to be, unto perfection.
When we say that these forms, produced in the
course of development, are stages in the pro-
gress to Divine Subjectivity, and are also stages
towards the Not-Self, or in the direction of
alienation from Divine Subjectivity, we are
stating a paradox which contains a great truth,
as an illustration will make clear. In Nature
every such manifestation is a step towards
independence and self-activity. The simple unity
of a passive material universe is broken up by
each sprout of life, organism, or personality, that
sets itself up to be something on its own account.
The essence of human subjectivity, for example,
is exclusiveness and isolation, — ' I am I ' ; but,
as Hegel showed in his dialectical treatment of
the Person, 1 this is but the first step to larger
organization and ultimate unity of the Indi-
vidual with Society, with the Universe, and with
the Absolute Spirit. 2 So the progress of Divine
1 Philosophy of Right, Introduction.
2 Professor Muirhead expounds this principle in relation to
198 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Objectivity to Divine Subjectivity is through
negation and alienation, by becoming part of
the Divine Not-Self, and finding in this life of
otherness the immanence of the Logos which
shall make possible a life of Godlikeness, akin
to the full organization and Self-determination
of the Divine Subjectivity.
Before closing this Chapter, some illustrations
may be given of the relation of the Divine Self
and Not-Self. If it be said that it is unreason-
able to speak of the Divine Object, and of the
Divine Not-Self, as in any real sense God, I
reply by referring to instances in human life.
(a) In ourselves we find the world of experience
within a unity of Self, part of which is yet posited
as Not-Self. God needs no such external World
to constitute His Personality — as Lotze convinc-
ingly showed in answer to objections * — as if the
Absolute were dependent upon the conditions of
Idealism (Art., Ency. Brit. (u) , vol. xiv. p. 285). The momenta
of Idealism are found in the successive and correlative prin-
ciples, ' Without mind no orderly world ' : ' Without the world
no mind.' He concludes by saying, ' Subject and object
grow together. The power and vitality of the one is the
power and vitality of the other, and this is so because they
are not two things with separate roots, but are both rooted
in a common reality which, while it includes, is more than
either.'
1 Microcosmus, Bk. II. Chap. IV.
METAPHYSIC OF EXISTENCE 199
development peculiar to finite beings ! But the
Universe of the Self-existent Absolute Experi-
ence is posited as ' the Other ' by His Self-
determination, while He is also in a certain sense
the Unity of all. (b) Again, we are able to
present to ourselves the objects of desire and
aspiration, although, in spite of the aesthetic
pleasures of idealization and anticipation, we
have to confess them unrealized and unattained,
and to admit their character as Not-Self, (c)
And, as another illustration of the same prin-
ciple, we have habits and modes of activity
which manifest the Self and which yet have sunk
from the level of consciousness and will. These
are a Not-Self to us, although produced by our
volitions in the past, and they are still part of
our wider Self. A certain autonomy is shown
in habit, (d) And finally, in self-sacrifice and
self-determination, that which is ours is at once
owned and disowned, and we have the glory
of the Cross, a reflection of the Divine Nature,
and a cumulative proof of the reasonableness
of the view sketched so imperfectly in this
chapter.
CHAPTEE V.
METAPHYSIC OF VALUES.
Different from the point of view of Existence
is that of Meanings, of Ideals, of Values. For a
full exposition of this difference between that
which merely is and that which is appreciated,
apprized and approved, we would need to refer
to Kant, Koyce, Ward, Miinsterberg, and Eucken.
It is only possible here to insist upon the im-
portance of this distinction between the realm
of mere Fact, and the realm of Value. To the
latter sphere we now pass. Here we may sub-
stitute the Concept of Personality for that of
the Self. Personality, as we have seen, refers
to all the relations which pertain to Selfhood,
the social, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and
religious ideals which give life its worth and
meaning. In the past Chapters this aspect has
not been always completely excluded, owing to
the limitations of the method of abstraction.
METAPHYSIC OF VALUES 201
If we have not suffered the brightness of the
Ideal to shine forth like the full-orbed moon in
the heavens, we have not always been able to
hide the irridescence of its silver glory through
the cloud of Existence.
Beginning again at our finite point of view, we
must consider what constitutes us as real Persons.
And I may be very brief, as I am in substantial
agreement here with the conclusions of Professor
Eoyce, in regard to the Ideal Ego. 1 But I con-
sider that in the world of Existence the Self is a
real being. In the world of Values, however, I
agree that the Personality is constituted as real
by the meaning, purpose, or ideal, which pro-
duces order and unity out of the chaotic confusion
of mere impulse and caprice. And it is just in
proportion as this plan is organic to all the true
interests of the life of the individual and of the
* over-individual,' that Personality is attained.
The question arises then, to what do these
values, meanings, and ideals refer as their stan-
dard and end ? We find certain moral, intel-
lectual, aesthetic and religious appreciations,
which are considered as constitutive of Personal-
ity, on account of their place in a normative
1 See Supra, Part I., Chapter III.
202 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
system. For these we all live, for these some
would even dare to die. Is the norm a matter of
individual and subjective taste, or has it a certain
universal validity and objective character ? In
ordinary life we find that what we do has a
reference to some end, which gives to the action
a purposive character. But further, out of these
voluntary acts certain are approved and certain
are condemned. Now I maintain that this critical
reference of purposes to a standard is but a
higher form of the relation of all action to an
end. In other words, all judgments are cases of
teleological or purposive reference.
We shall select the moral aspect as that which
may best present the argument. The elementary
fact here is that of voluntary or purposive activ-
ity, upon which, as I hold, the explanation of
the highest development of validity depends. It
is brought out by the simple question, — Why
did I act so ? The answer is — I had some end
in view. Now what is this end ? The Hedonist
rashly answers in terms of personal sensibility.
But if I always act so from my own pleasure, no
solution of the problem of the subsequent approval
and disapproval is forthcoming, and we are left
with merely a universal principle, by which to
METAPHYSIC OF VALUES 203
interpret all human actions ! Accordingly the
Hedonist has to set out on his long voyage for
the End in terms of pleasure, and yet as pro-
viding for the problem of approval and dis-
approval. We do not need to follow him into the
deeps of metaphysics where his Universalistic
needs compel him to steer his course. It is suffi-
cient to know that he is afloat on this ocean of
speculation, which allows a course for all kinds
of craft. So, setting out again for ourselves, we
observe in the first place that the end to which
all purposive conduct must be relative is centred
in the Personality which conceives, appreciates
and executes it. Apart from this no ground for
values can be found, any more than a theory of
reality can be held by an unreal Self. 1 The result
is that Personality is in some way an end in itself.
But evidently this end is not mere sensibility.
For if so, we must either deny the distinctions
of worth in conduct ; or else we must regard
these moral distinctions as unproductive of any
genuine act, and merely an empty phrasing of
1 This is manifestly one of the main contentions of Pragmatist
and Humanist. These theories of truth depend upon the
existence of a Self, whose satisfactions or dissatisfactions are
implied in the estimate of the results of conduct, by which Truth
is, in their view, to be explained in the long run.
204 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
thought, after the fact. Both alternatives are
absurd. Therefore, whatever part pleasure may
play in the End, it is not the sole constituent of
it. The conclusion is, then, that every purposive
act is expressive of some phase or other of Per-
sonality, which is alone capable of being con-
ceived as an end in itself. This contention is
vastly strengthened by the consideration of
Obligation. But in the second place, the merely
individual Person cannot be viewed as the End.
His life, his meanings, his ideals are unrealizable
in isolation. He is a member of society, and
is dependents upon others foY the expression of
himself, and for the realization or values which
make his life. He has relations, also, to the
World, and to God, which form an integral part
of his true Personality. Hence the End is Per-
sonality, not in isolation, but in its complete
circle of relations. As Professor Palmer says,
the ' conjunct ' character of Personality must
essentially be present in the End. 1 In Self-
realization, then, as the development of the
whole Personality in all its relations, is to be
found the End.
' The Field of Ethics. Kant's Categorical Imperative involves
the worth of the good will in relation to the Kingdom of Ends.
METAPHYSIC OF VALUES 205
The central fact of ethics is Conscience. Upon
the interpretation of that psychological datum
the general ethical doctrine largely depends. The
theory of Conscience which I here present has
close affinities with the view of the End as Self-
realization, and with a theory of the ground of
Moral Obligation. In my view Conscience is the
consciousness of the Ideal Self, not as a conception
of it in perfection — which is unthinkable, — but
as the implication of the bettered Self of the
succeeding stage of life. This Ideal, which con-
stitutes the moral Person as the Unity of impulses
that are in themselves discordant and fragmen-
tary, is presented to consciousness, and the
reactions of the actual to the Ideal Self in terms
of feeling, thought, and will, produce the pheno-
mena of Conscience. As feeling, it expresses the
congruity or incongruity of the actual Self with
the ideal Personality. As will, it represents the
response of activity called forth in us. As
thought, it has the prerogative of taking into
account the full set of circumstances, and also
the rational law which is behind the contrast.
So Conscience is always adapted to the con-
ditions of the individual and the race. And what
is the Law itself ? It is the fundamental principle
206 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
of Progress upon which the universe and Per-
sonality rest, as the Objective of the Divine Sub-
ject. The differentiations of the real world, its
stages of development, the values of life, the
reality of Selfhood, and Personality as an End,
all depend upon this fundamental law of Progress
on the part of the Divine Object towards the
Divine Subject. Or to state the matter in less
controversial terms, the law which makes the
' Categorical Imperative,' the ' Ought,' is the
fundamental one of all experience, namely, that
in the process of change, which is ever going on in
the universe, the moments should add the present
conditions to the past. It is unthinkable that
decay and subtraction could have constituted
the temporal universe. On the other hand, it
is the essence of rationality to synthesize ; it is
the essence of life to grow, of organism to become
more completely organized, of Personality to
realize more and more fully the capacity and
harmony of its nature. But even this cannot
give the weight of moral responsibility to the
Law which experience and reason attest. Neither
the Obligation, nor the law of Progress on which
it rests, nor Conscience as we have explained it,
nor the meaning of Personality itself, can be
METAPHYSIC OF VALUES 207
adequately explained without reference to the
Objective and Perfect Personality, through whom
alone the Law and the process are explicable, and
without whom the community of interests in the
Good would be beyond our understanding. Once
more we are led to Personality as the Supreme
Principle, in this case from the side of moral
values. 1
And the argument from intellectual and aes-
thetic values is somewhat similar. I believe that
the theories of knowledge as practical value,
which, as we have seen, demand the reality of
Personality, to confirm or reject — according to
the reaction upon experience, — will find their
true warrant in terms of the satisfaction of the
whole man in reference to his Ideal. So truth
will be regarded not merely as that which ' works,'
but as that which accords with the implicated
Ideal of a progressing Self and a wider experience,
in a parallel manner to the case of Conscience ;
and the Laws of Keason will be found rooted and
grounded in the same principle of Progress. And
only by the postulation of a Perfect Personality
1 Lotze reserved the term Personality for God. This usage,
however, is apt to deny to man genuine, albeit imperfect, Per-
sonality (i.e. the Self, as it is termed in this work), as Royce
appears to do, so far as the world of Existence is concerned.
208 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
can the ideals of truth, beauty and goodness be
explained. For aesthetically also, our sense of
the beautiful is similar to the fact of Conscience,
in which the coming event casts its shadow-
before, — a reversal of the psychological fact of
after-images, being rather the content of a kind
of sense of expectancy. And the compatibility of
the Ideal, so far as it is conceived, with the Actual
presentation to consciousness, gives pleasure,
intellectual stimulation and artistic activity ;
while incompatibility offends our taste. But
such things are only for a being who ' looks before
and after,' who can appreciate, and harmonize
the various claims of the Ideals which are sought.
Therefore, whether the artist knows it or not, the
passion for a perfect form which fills his soul, and
the longing for a deeper harmony than any
known before, are akin to the hunger and thirst
after righteousness, and point to an Ideal Unity
in which our aspirations shall be satisfied. All
ideals are glimpses of the Perfect Spirit, who, as
religion also testifies, has formed us for Himself.
And our heart is restless until it finds rest in Him.
The positive definition given to Personality in
Chapter II. of the Second Part, as the Self in
the full circle of its relationships, not only helps
METAPHYSIC OF VALUES 209
us to understand the various qualities that mark
off one human personality from another, in regard
to individuality ; but also gives us a clue to the
interpretation of Divine Personality in other than
negative terms, and thus removes the favourite
objection to the Personality of God as implying
limitation. God, we may say, is fully Personal
in the infinity of His relations (compare Spinoza's
' Substance '), and is only limited in the world
of Values as of Existence by His Self-Determina-
tion.
The remaining questions may be left over to
the closing Chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
METAPHYSIC OF REALITY.
We have now seen that the trend of the argument
from the side of Values is as strongly in favour
of Perfect Personality as the argument from the
side of Existence was in favour of the Absolute
Self. The result is the fusion of the two ideas.
As in ourselves we find one Personality, although
conceivable either as an existing Self or as appre-
ciative Personality, so we reach the conclusion
that there is an Absolute Personality, who exists,
and whose nature is the perfect fulfilment of all
meanings, values, and ideals.
And further, as we saw that the stages of suc-
cessive existence in the World- Order represent
under the form of Time the living and Personal
Reason immanent in Reality ; now we supple-
ment that view by the recognition of the meaning
and significance of these stages in the develop-
ment. These stages are seen to be explicable only
METAPHYSIC OP REALITY 211
teleologically, as involving a reference to a stan-
dard, an End, which is hid in the Absolute, —
' That one far-off Divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.'
And in our view of Reality as Personality, these
stages are gradations in which the Divine Subject
is immanent in proportion to their manifestation
of His own transcendent life. And so there are
degrees of Reality — in the full sense of the term,
— according to the ' all-inclusiveness and har-
mony ' — to borrow Bradley's phrase — of these
several orders of Existence, in relation to the
Absolute Life. But this progress to Divine Sub-
jectivity involves on the part of the Divine Objec-
tive, a kind of alienation as the condition of the
realization of ultimate harmony with His tran-
scendent nature. And the forfeiture of that
independence on the part of the human person
under any condition implies the loss of the
promised inheritance, and the retrogression to
the merely Objective plane. Whereas, the im-
mortal distinctness of our life as a fully organized,
complex and progressive Personality is essential
to the realization of a reflection of the Divine
Nature, of which we are ' broken lights.' And
the autonomy of moral persons as free and
212 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
responsible is so necessary to a theory of ultimate
Reality that we are prepared to side with those
who maintain the rights of Personality, even to
the detriment of the final Unity or Absoluteness,
if such an alternative is the only one possible.
But this view seeks to provide a place in the
Absolute for independent persons, by the dis-
tinctions which we have seen to be necessitated
not only by the analogy of human Personality,
but also by the rational conditions of existence
and by the truest harmony of meanings. In our
view, the Absolute is not the All, in any sense of
an immediate and resistless Unity ; but He is so
only through profound distinctions, not imposed
upon Him from without, nor the product of chance ;
but as Self-determined by His own Personal Nature.
Instead of a blank Monism, we have a Unity
capable not merely of relative independence of
the various parts, implied in the category of
organism, but capable of the positive otherness
clearly required by the only available and com-
petent category to apply to the conception of the
Absolute, namely, that of Personality. And as
we have seen, the universe of separate things, of
living beings, of organisms, of consciousness, of
Personality, with its Self-distinguishing, Self-
METAPHYSIC OF REALITY 213
determining, Self-sacrificing nature, can be truly
unified only in an Absolute which produces
these distinctions, and provides for this inde-
pendence, — that is, Perfect Personality. And
the reduction of form to matter, the annulling
of distinctions, the negation of autonomy which
are characteristic of every form of Pantheism and
of Absolutism, except of some such Personalistic
type as I have endeavoured to present, must be
regarded as radically defective, however successful
such systems may be in displaying a smooth
logical surface to the conceptualist. 1 The in-
spiration of the poet and the mystic in their
pantheistic moods we shall regard as empha-
sizing one side of a never-failing truth, namely
the fundamental Unity of all, but as neglecting
what is perhaps an even greater aspect, that
of Difference, of Meaning, of Value, and of Per-
sonality. We shall therefore supplement their
Absolutism with the recognition of the validity
drawn from Personality and Life, and confirmed
by our highest reasoning, even when it finds
captivating expression as in William Watson's
1 Cf. Art. ' Cartesianism,' by Edward Caird, Ency. Brit.( 9 ),
vol. v., on the defects of the Infinite of Spinoza, and of all
Pantheists.
214 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
Ode in May, in which he says, addressing the
sun : —
4 Thou art but as a word of his speech,
Thou art but as a wave of his hand ;
Thou art brief as a glitter of sand
'Twixt tide and tide on his beach ;
Thou art less than a spark of his fire,
Or a moment's mood of his soul ;
Thou art lost in the notes on the lips of his choir
That chant the chant of the Whole.'
The immanence of God in the world is a hope-
less doctrine unless counterbalanced by and har-
monized with that of His transcendence. Our
view seeks to reconcile immanence and tran-
scendence, and to include a theory of gradations
in the manifestation of the Reality appropriately
regarded as Divine. In the universe, God is im-
manent as Object merely, in regard to the matter,
which serves as the passive condition for develop-
ment towards Subjectivity. In the stages of
Development, there is a movement towards Other-
ness, and through that independence a fuller
manifestation of Subjectivity, which becomes
more immanent as the organism becomes more
like the Self-existent, Self-determining, Divine
Subject. In man's higher spiritual life and pro-
gress in the search for truth, goodness and beauty,
METAPHYSIC OF REALITY 215
the microcosm expresses itself in the highest
form, and these ideals, — now become so precious
and significant, — are evidences of the immanence
of the Divine as Subject — not, however, to the
negation of individuality, of the real being of man
as a part of the Divine Not-Self.
As Professor Howison would say, God is attract-
ing the Society of Spirits unto likeness to Himself
by Final Causation and through the immanence
of Ideals. In my view, however, Pluralism is
only a phase of the Divine Unity which is ration-
ally necessary. The problem of the One and
Many is capable of solution only under the form
of Personality. But this question of Monism and
Pluralism and the questions of Infinity, and
Supra-Personality, I have dealt with in my criti-
cisms in the First Part, and may refer the reader
to those pages for my views. 1
As to Time, I hold that it has its place in the
Divine Objective as the mode of the manifestation
of the Divine Subject. The existent is temporal
because Time is one of the meanings of the Abso-
lute, who is not in Time, any more than judgments
of value are in time, but who knows all as in ' an
indivisible instant,' and who manifests Himself
1 Supra, Chaps. III. -VI.
216 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
under the form of Time, which therefore may
never be done away, unless a state of blank
identity is to supervene upon the order of ration-
ality. Such a condition, even in Eternity, is
unthinkable. 1
In regard to Supra-Personality, we may admit
that the Absolute is above our highest conception
of Personality, without detriment to those essen-
tials of Personality in which we have seen reason
to believe. And it is therefore more than a risk of
depersonalization to speak of Supra-Personality
of the Absolute as prohibitory of the ascription
of Personality to Him. The result of such a
position is the postulation of a Supreme Thing-
in-Itself or Unknowable. This was far from
Pfleiderer's thought when he used the term
' super-personal,' and urged Theists to follow
suit. 2 The danger of such a course ensues upon
placing the emphasis on the prefix, thus changing
Theism into Agnosticism, as Bradley practically
does. But Perfect and Absolute Personality are
1 Bergson's idea of the identity of Duration and Consciousness
appears to me to be an instance of hypostatization, which is
foreign to much in his system that makes for a concrete view of
Man and Nature.
8 Philosophy and Development of Religion, by Otto Pfleiderer,
Gifford Lectures, vol. i. p. 168.
METAPHYSIC OF REALITY 217
terms which will meet the requirements of meta-
physics, which, as we have seen, both on the side
of Existence and of Values, demands that the
Supreme Unity be viewed as Personal. 1
In conclusion, what then is the relation of
Existence and Value ? From the synthetic and
Absolute standpoint, so far as we can conceive
it, of what does Reality consist — of Existence, or
of Value, or of a union of both ? What are the
mutual relations of these fundamental principles ?
Such questions would demand in reply a Meta-
physic of Reality in the final sense.
From the human point of view, the matrix of
the outer reality of existing things cannot be
explained in terms of value. The given element
exists, not because of my attitude towards it,
but as a datum of experience which I must accept
as material of experience, and make the best of.
And if we view ' things ' in this light as con-
ditions of spiritual progress, we are not really
1 The objections to Divine or Absolute Personality on the
score of its limiting the Divine Infinity have been stated over and
over again from the time of Spinoza to the present day, but do
not find so much currency now that Intellectualism and Absolu-
tism are being challenged in so many directions. They have
been well answered by Lotze, Microcosmus, Bk. II., Chap. IV. ;
Martineau, A Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 181 ; Royce, The
World and the Individual, vol. ii. pp. 418-425.
218 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
at the human standpoint any longer. And I
repeat that Existence is inexplicable in terms of
my meaning, for it goes beyond my meaning,
and presupposes my values, inasmuch as my own
existence as a Self is something which, of course,
I could not accomplish or effect. But when we
take the hint as to the teleological explanation
of Existence, that is, when we pass to the Abso-
lute standpoint, so far as we can, we are impelled
to believe that Existence is expressive of the
Meaning of the Perfect Personality. As the
existing details of a picture may be pointed out
by a critic, with only a partial conception of the
meaning of these details, so we as human beings
are able to say what is, from the standpoint of
Existence, without resolving its existence into
what we mean, or to terms of practical value.
But every stroke of the brush had a meaning for
the Artist, and the existence of every detail is
but an incident in the complete meaning which is
expressed in the existence of the picture. So the
universe as Existence is explicable in terms of the
Absolute Meaning, and at that ultimate point of
view, the worlds of Existence and of Value upon
which, in distinction from each other, I have laid
so much stress, coalesce as the complete Expres-
METAPHYSIC OF REALITY 219
sion of Divine Purpose and of Absolute Value.
Or, as Professor Royce would say, the External
is ultimately reducible to the Internal Meaning.
In this final synthesis of the logical stages of
the Divine Life and Purpose, we pass from the
finite and human standpoint in which the real
and the rational, the ' is ' and the ' ought,' the
Existent and the Ideal, the Self and the immortal
Personality, are in irreconcilable dualism, — to
the view ' under a form of eternity ' in which all
is known as the manifestation of Meaning and
Purpose. And the Plan of the Divine Subject
' which brought us hither, 5 and has revealed Him-
self to mankind by the Logos, ever present with
the race in Spirit, and historically manifested in
Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, and the ' ex-
press image ' of the Person of God, will not be
defeated by the dissolution of our personalities ;
but will be more completely fulfilled in our
immortality as individuals. For, as we have
seen, this distinctness from the Divine Subject
is the condition of the Universe as significant
and ordered, the path to its truest unity and
fullest organization, and the expression of His
Eternal Will and Purpose in bringing many sons
unto glory. And while now we know only in
220 THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY
part, when that which is perfect is come, we
shall know even as also we are known. In
that fuller light all Being will be seen as Value —
our own Personalities will be known as expres-
sions of the Complete Ideal. We shall behold
God's face in righteousness, and we shall be
satisfied, when we awake, with His likeness.
INDEX.
Abnormalities, 16, 23, 71, 164 n.,
178, 179.
Absolute, 3, 28, 29, 31, 33„ 44, 46,
48, 51-54, 58, 62 ff., 70 ff.,
75, 84, 100, 104, 110 ff., 118,
119, 126 ff., 138, 139, 146,
194-199, 210-220.
Absolutism, 84, 85, 114, 131, 195,
213, 217 n.
Activism, Monistic, 144, 156 n.
Activity, 14 n., 20, 27, 36 ff ,
78 ff., 116, 125, 133, 134,
144, 171, 175, 180 ff., 197,
202, 205, 208.
^Esthetic aspect, 165, 196, 199 ff.,
207 ff.
After-images, 208.
Agent, 162 ff.
Agnosticism, 28, 90, 93, 138, 172,
216.
America, 3, 141.
Anthropomorphism, 90, 91, 97,
108, 116, 117.
Apeirothism, 143.
Appearance, 27 ff., 37 ff., 40 ff.,
46, 52, 90, 113, 133.
Apriorism, 106.
Aristotelianism, 86, 92, 106.
Art, 183.
Aspiration, 23, 171, 199.
Association, 73.
Associationism, 15, 16.
Atheism, 102.
Atomistic units of consciousness,
10.
Atonement, 67.
Autonomy, Moral, 66, 78 ff.,
195 ff., 211, 213.
Avenarius, 24, 140.
Axioms as Postulates, 104, 107,
108, 116, 120.
BakeweU. 142.
Baldwin, J. T., 143.
Beauty, 188, 208, 214.
Becoming, 91, 101, 102, 119.
Being, 62, 72, 73, 132, 146, 159,
189, 193, 194, 220 ; Theory
of, 56, 60 ff.
Bergson, 47 n., 81 n., 139, 144,
146, 156 n., 188, 216.
Berkeley, 19.
Biology, 98.
Body, 11, 14 n., 19, 21, 22, 35, 39,
40, 57, 125, 166, 184 ff.
Bowne, B. P., 142.
Bradley, F. H., 4, Part I. Chap.
II., 64, 69, 73, 99, 112, 113,
115, 124, 125, 131, 132, 133,
137, 141, 146, 153, 161, 162,
172, 191, 211, 216.
Brain, 10, 25.
British Empire, 195 n.
Browning quoted, 173.
Caird, Edward, 15, 146, 168 n.,
213 n.
Caird, John, 146.
Calkins, Miss, 5 n.
Cambridge School, 141.
Categories, 80, 85, 94, 99, 132,
182, 183 n., 190, 191, 193,
195, 212.
222
INDEX
Causality, 124. 191.
Causation, 27, 82, 101, 108
Efficient, 19, 78, 79, 82, 85.
Final, 78, 79, 82, 85, 97, 124,
215.
Cause, 80, 85, 91, 99, 100.
First, 101.
Chance, 20, 41, 120, 212.
Change, 10. 11, 27, 38, 49, 102,
110, 144, 163, 206.
Choice, 82, 105.
Christianity, 55 n., 74 n., 86, 136.
City of God, 79, 82, 86.
Cleon, 173.
Coenesthesia, 35, 49, 173
Communion, 20.
Community, 74 n., 79 ff., 127,
207.
Comparison, 23, 38, 57.
Conscience, 78, 205 ff.
Consciousness, 10 ff., 15, 17, 22,
51, 58, 60, 65, 71, 78,
80 ff., 91. 92, 95, 96. 107 ff.,
123, 126, 129, 141, 144, 145,
154, 158, 160, 164, 166, 177,
180, 184, 185, 189, 199, 208,
212, 216 n.
Atomistic units of, 10.
Field of, 23, 111.
Stream of, 158, 161, 177.
Continuity, 19, 35, 39, 49, 107.
Felt, 11.
Contradiction, 108.
Contrast-effect, 57, 59, 180, 185.
Cosmogony, 1.
Cosmological Proof, 101.
Creation, 79-82, 87 n., 98, 196,
211.
Criterion, 28, 111, 180.
Cross, The, 199.
Davidson, Thomas, 142, 143, 146.
Definition, 35, 49, 65, 167.
Degrees of Truth and Reality,
29, 211.
Descartes, 81, 90, 92, 133, 171.
Desire, 35, 199.
Determinism, 20, 82.
Development, 196, 197, 199, 206,
211, 214.
Dewey, John, 138 n., 143.
Difference, 24, 193, 194, 213.
Dilemma of Determinism, 82.
Ding-an-sich, 182. (See Thing-
in -itself.)
Distinctions, 57, 145, 152, 157,
173, 203, 212, 213, 218.
Diversity, 37 ff., 47, 48, 52, 133,
163, 193. (See Unity and
Diversity.)
Dualism, 22, 23, 95, 102, 115, 124,
219.
Duality, 69, 73, 153, 155.
Duration, 144, 216 n.
Duty, 3.
Ego, 12, 15, 40, 56, 58, 69, 73,
99, 120, 143, 158, 160 ff.,
165 ff., 175, 176, 181, 182,
191, 201.
Transcendental, 95, 96, 115,
116, 181.
Eleatics, 102.
Emotion, 89. 171, 176.
Empiricism, 21, 61, 106, 114, 116,
178.
Radical, 9, 17. 18, 22-25, 89,
137, 141, 146, 153, 154, 177.
End, 201-204, 206, 211.
Energy, 80, 193.
England, 131, 141.
Epistemology, 1. 23, 89, 115, 135,
158, 179.
Error, 39, 92.
Eternity, 66,68, 82, 216, 219.
Ethical aspect, 62, 63, 71 ff., 86,
163, 168, 200 ff.
Ethics, 1, 4, 98, 145, 205 ff.
Eucken, 144 ff ., 156 n., 200.
Evil, 67, 82, 92, 101, 111.
INDEX
223
Evolution, 80, 92, 98, 99, 119,
197.
Existence, 5, 32, 37, 86, 92,
98, 101, 125, 132 ff., 167,
179 ff., Part II. Chap. IV.,
200, 201, 207 n., 209 ff.,
217-220.
Expectancy, 208.
Experience, vii., 18, 23, 25-34,
35 ff., 42-48, 51, 52, 56, 58,
69 fit., 75, 78 ff., 83, 87, 89,
91, 95, 104, 106, 108, 109,
112 ff., 123 ff., 132, 137 ff.,
141, 145, 147, Part II. Chap.
I., 161, 164, 166, 170, 174,
176 ff., 180 ff., 187, 191, 193,
195, 198, 199, 206, 207, 217.
Absolute, 28 ff., 43 ff., 48,
50 ff., 159, 161.
Ambiguity of term, 43, 152-
159.
Phylogenetic, 159.
Pure, 17, 18, 22, 24, 104, 114,
140, 141, 146, 153, 157, 159,
184, 187.
Experiences, 11, 17, 23, 31, 43, 57,
62, 71, 73, 144, 154, 162, 175.
Fechner, 146.
Feeling, 22, 29 ff., 36 ff., 49, 50,
51,54,94,110,112,123,133,
134, 158, 162, 164, 172, 173,
175, 183, 205.
Feeling of Self, 12, 14, 19, 31, 32,
36, 38, 49, 50 ff., 173.
Fichte, 136, 156 n., 167, 181, 191.
" Fighter for Ends," 13, 22.
Finitude, 91, 100, 102, 117, 118,
196, 201.
Force, 96, 100. '
Freedom, 3, 66, 67, -79, 82, 196 ff.
Free-will, 20, 111.
Germany, 131.
Gibson, W. R. Boyce, 5 n., 142.
God, 3, 20, 34, 66, 67, 72, 76, 78-
84, 86, 89, 91, 92, 96, 98-103,
110, 111, 115, 117-121, 124-
129, 134, 135, 137, 139, 145,
156, 165, 192, 194, 196, 198,
204, 207 n, 209, 214, 215,
219, 220.
Goodness, 102, 108, 188, 196, 208,
214.
Gradations, 211, 214.
Green, T. H., 15, 131, 134, 136,
137, 146, 181.
Growth, 56, 106, 189, 206.
Habit, 57, 60, 71, 178, 179, 199.
Harmony, 29, 103, 113, 176, 186,
206, 208, 211.
Hedonism, 202, 203.
Hegel, 29, 47. 131, 132, 134, 136,
166, 167, 181, 191, 192, 195,
197.
Herbart, 10.
Hodgson, Shadworth, 10, 140.
Holt, E. B., 141.
Howison, G. H., 4, 66, 76, Part
I. Chap. IV., 89, 117, 128,
137, 142 146, 215.
Humanism, 89, 95, 109, 113 ff.,
137, 171, 203 n.
Hume, 10, 15, 25, 90, 94, 178.
Hypnotism, 16, 96, 115.
Hypostasization, 135, 136, 216 n.
Hypothesis, 108, 138, 144.
" I," 13, 14, 14 n., 16, 51, 72, 73,
93, 96, 160, 163, 174, 180,
197.
Idea, 36, 58, 81, 152, 154, 177.
Absolute, 136, 193.~
Ideal, 3, 57, 58, 61, 62, 69, 73, 78,
82, 92, 115 ff., 124, 137, 165,
168, 169, 180, 188, 196, 200,
201, 204, 205, 207, 208, 210,
215, 220.
Ideal construction, 40.
224
INDEX
Idealism, 47 n., 53, 56, 60, 61, 80,
122, 124, 131, 137, 145,
153 n., 164 n., 186, 197 n.
Absolute, 42, 47 n., 61, 68 ff .,
136, 137, 141.
Personal (Howison's), Part I.
Chap. IV., 89, 113.
(Oxford), 72, 77, 89, 122, 142.
Subjective, 83, 187.
Idealization, 40, 73, 183, 199.
Identity, 56, 71, 108, 110, 116,
132, 136, 163, 175, 178, 183,
186, 191, 195, 216.
Personal, 11 ff., 15, 23, 35, 37,
38, 49, 62, 71, 94, 108, 163,
176 ff.
Illingworth, J. R., 127.
Imagination, 60, 73, 171.
Immanence, 103, 140, 187, 196,
198, 214, 215.
Immortality, 1, 2, 3, 66, 67, 83,
91, 112, 137, 219.
Imperative, Categorical, 204 n.,
206.
Individualism, 21, 103, 204.
Individuality, 1, 25, 31, 59 ff.,
66 ; 67, 83, 123, 160, 165, 196,
197, 202, 204, 209, 215, 219.
Infinite, 64, 65, 100, 102, 118, 120,
121, 213 n.
Infinity, 19, 65, 101, 102, 109,
118, 127, 143, 215, 217 n.
Intellectual aspect, 164, 200, 201,
207 ff.
Intellectual construction, 41,
45 ff., 51, 52.
Intellectualism, 41, 50 ff., 93,
106, 109, 116, 125, 147,
217 n.
Intelligence, 35, 83, 93, 102, 106,
117, 185, 186, 188.
Interaction, Theory of, 92, 95 ff.,
103, 110, 111, 115, 117,
120.
Interactionism, 21.
Introspection, 14, 22
Intuition, 144, 145.
Irrationalism, 109.
James, William, vi. ff., 3, Part I.
Chap. I., 26, 47 n., 69, 70,
137 ff., 140, 141, 153, 154,
161, 177, 188.
Jesus Christ, 219.
Judgment, 23, 202.
Kant, 80, 90, 92, 93, 95, 100, 115,
118, 131, 135, 153, 161, 172,
181, 183 n., 191, 200, 204 n.
Kingdom of Ends, 204 n.
Knowledge, 17, 70, 94, 95, 106,
107, 109, 114, 125, 126, 134,
135, 137, 156, 171, 183, 185,
207.
Ladd, G. T., 142.
Law, 186, 205, 206, 207.
Moral, 206.
Laws of thought, 107.
Le Conte, J., 142.
Legal aspect, 165 n.
Life, 4, 47, 75, 89, 134 n., 142,
144, 145, 147, 158, 171, 183,
189. 191, 197, 206, 213.
Life-plan, 57, 58, 66, 69, 73, 175,
201.
Limit, 167.
Locke, 10, 15.
Logic, 1, 28, 34, 47, 48, 106, 112,
132, 167, 188, 191, 192, 213.
Symbolic, 74, 74 n.
Logos, 196, 198, 219.
Lotze, 110, 111, 123, 161, 198,
207 n., 217 n.
Love, 23, 86.
M'Dougall, W., 143.
Mach, 24, 140.
Macrocosm, 196.
M'Taggart, 86, 129.
INDEX
225
Man, 91, 99, 113, 123, 134, 135,
145, 191, 207 n., 214, 215,
216 n.
Martineau, J., 217 n.
Mathematical concepts, 74, 118,
119.
Mathematics, " New," 64, 65,
74 n., 118.
"Me" and " Not-Me," 13, 73,
161, 165, 166.
Meaning, 61 ff., 67 ff., 72, 163,
173, 179, 180, Part II.
Chap. V., 210, 212, 218, 219.
Internal and External, 61 ff.,
219.
Mechanics, 98.
Mechanism, 98, 143.
Memory, 35, 49, 60, 171, 179.
Metaphysics. 1-5, 9, 10, 15, 18,
25, 39, 58, 70, 85, 97, 98, 104,
114, 118, 119, 128, 130, 137,
139, 147, 154, 155, 157, 158,
164, 165, 170, 172, 175, 178,
184, 188, 194, 203, 217.
Microcosm, 196, 215.
Mill, John Stuart, 15, 19, 153.
Mind, 129, 160, 164, 182, 183,
186, 187, 197 n.
Minds, Society of, 81, 83, 84.
Mind and Body, 21.
Monads, 35, 39.
Monism, 3, 19, 66, 77, 79, 83, 86,
102, 103, 110, 125, 127, 138,
156 n., 193, 212, 215.
Moore, G. E., 140.
Moral aspect, 76, 78, 79, 81, 86,
128, 163, 164, 196, 201, 202,
203.
Morality, 83, 123, 135, 137,
138.
Motion, 27.
Muirhead, Professor, 197 n.
Miinsterberg, H., 20 n., 133, 142.
156 n., 181, 200.
Mysticism, 61, 153.
Naturalism, 78, 83.
Natural Science, 106, 108.
Nature, 29, 80, 83, 86, 115, 132,
183 n., 190, 197, 216 n.
Nature, Uniformity of, 108.
Negativity, 166, 167.
Neo-Hegelians, 125, 131, 136,
146.
Neo-Kantians, 15, 131, 134.
Non-contradiction, 28.
Non-Ego, 161, 165, 166.
Not-Self, 36, 50, 59, 61, 62, 102,
108. 160, 161, 164 ff., 176,
186, 190, 195 ff., 215.
Novelty, 20.
Object, 10, 22, 23, 43, 69, 112,
123, 124, 161, 163, 167, 174,
177, 182, 183, 186, 187,
194 ff., 206, 214. (See Sub-
ject and Object.)
Objective, 206, 211, 215.
Objectivity, 83, 96, 167, 186, 188,
195, 196, 198.
Obligation, 204 ff.
One "and the Many, 27, 37, 48,
64, 67, 103, 127, 193, 194,
215.
Ontological Proof, 136.
Ontology, 135.
Order, 83, 186, 196, 201, 219.
Organism, 4, 189, 197, 206, 212.
"Other," 124, 194, 196, 199,
212.
Pain, 48, 51, 162.
Palmer, G. H., 142, 168, 204.
Panpsychism, 146, 155.
Pantheism, 29, 102, 103, 111, 195,
213.
Paulsen, 146.
Pearson, Karl, 25.
Perception, 17, 35, 38.
Perfection, 67, 68, 82, 92, 96, 103,
110, 135, 194, 205, 220.
226
INDEX
Perry, R. B., 141.
Person, 16, 17, 35, 63, 67, 69 5
79 ff., 99, 122 ff., 127, 137,
158, 160, 165, 165 n., 197,
201 ff., 205, 219.
Society of Persons, 80, 83,
127.
Personality, 1, 2, 3, 5, 13, 18, 20,
21, 46, 53, 54, 65, 71, 76 ff.,
81-91, 96, 99 ff., 104, 107,
113, 115, 116, 122 ff., 127-
129, 131, 134-137, 139-147,
153 n., Part II. Chap. I.,
165 n., 185, 189-193, 200,
201, 203-213, 216-219.
Multiplex, 16, 96, 178.
Paradoxes of, 160, 166-169.
Personality of God, 3, 20, 64, 67,
84,86,99,101,108,110,117,
120, 124, 127, 134, 135, 137,
146, 161, 192, 196, 198, 207,
209-219.
Personal Idealism. (See Ideal-
ism.)
Personal Identity. (See Iden-
tity.)
Pessimism, 90, 93.
Petzoldt, 24, 140.
Pfleiderer, Otto, 216, 216 n.
Philosophy, 4, 84, 89, 93, 94, 104,
109, 114, 115, 118, 126, 127,
137 ff., 144, 145, 147, 153,
176, 190.
Religious, 75.
Physico-theological Proof, 100.
Physics, 98.
Pleasure, 48, 162, 202, 203, 204,
208.
Pluralism. 3, 19 ff., 31, 67, 76, 78,
80, 83, 84, 91, 102, 103, 110,
119, 120. 125, 127, 137, 143,
153, 193, 215.
Pragmatism, 72, 89, 94, 105 ff.,
109 ff., 113, 116, 171, 203 n.
Method of, 20.
Pringle-Pattison, Andrew Seth,
4, 53, Part I. Chap. VII.,
140, 142, 146, 157, 167.
Progress, 196, 197 : 206, 207, 217.
Protagoras, 113.
Psychologist's fallacy, 45.
Psychology, 1, 4, 5 n., 10, 22, 25,
35, 45, 56 ff., 71, 157, 175,
179.
The " New," 147, 175.
Purpose, 57, 62, 66, 67, 69, 73, 99,
109, 116, 117, 171, 175, 179,
201, 219.
Qualities, Primary and Secon-
dary, 27.
Rashdall, H., 4, Part I. Chap.
VI., 137, 142, 146.
Rationalism, Critical, 61, 171.
Rationality, 185, 186, 188, 192,
196, 206, 216.
Realism, 19, 60, 61, 67, 70,
75, 140, 153, 159, 164 n.,
182.
Reality, 1, 5, 21, 26 ff., 30 ff.,
37 ff., 42, 44 ff., 50 ff., 57,
62 ff., 67, 70 ff., 74, 75, 79 ff.,
84,91-96,103,104,111,113,
116, 119, 126, 127, 129,
132 ff., 136, 138, 139, 142,
144, 145, 147, 152, 156 ff..
167, 169, Part II. Chap.
III., 181, 183, 183 n., 188-
194, Part II. Chap. VI.
Reason, 207, 210.
Sufficient, 108.
Relation, 15, 18, 27, 38.
Relations, 15, 17, 37 ff., 47, 48,
51, 52, 75, 84, 135, 173, 186,
193, 200, 204, 209.
Conjunctive and Disjunctive,
19, 24.
Religion, 20, 91, 111, 127, 137,
138, 145, 196. 200, 201, 208.
INDEX
227
Religious Philosophy, 75.
Renouvier, C, 143.
Royce, Josiah, 4, 47, 53, Part I.
Chap. III., 78, 83, 84, 125,
128, 137, 141, 146, 161, 179,
180, 185, 200, 207 n., 217 n.,
219.
Scepticism, 46, 72, 90, 93, 172, 178.
Schelling, 192.
Schiller, F. C. S., 4, 72, Part I.
Chap. V., 137, 140, 142, 146,
153, 157, 181.
Scholasticism, 183.
Schopenhauer, 156 n.
Science, 12, 91, 98, 108, 147, 188.
Scottish Philosophy, 139.
Selection, 13, 23.
Self, vii, 1-5, 9, 11 ff., 16 ff., 22-
27, 30-39, 42 ff., 48-53, 55-
67, 69-76, 78, 81, 85, 90-96,
102, 104 ff., Ill, 112, 114 ff.,
125, 126, 128, 130, 132 ff.,
136 ff., 140 ff., 146, 147,
154 ff., 158 ff., 164 ff., Part
II. Chap. III.. 181 ff., 187,
194, 198 ff., 203, 203 n., 205,
207, 208, 210, 218.
Absolute, 53, 61 ff ., 76, 139, 155,
159, 161, 187, 192 ff., 210 ff.
Empirical, 13, 16, 56, 58, 59,
115, 161.
Meanings of, 34, 35, 36, 49, 50,
Part II. Chap. II., 179.
Universal, 24, 134, 135, 180.
Self-consciousness, 37, 38, 52, 56,
124, 134, 135, 136, 160. 164,
194, 197.
Self-definition, 66, 78, 82, 83.
Self -de termination, 82, 120,
195 ff., 199, 209, 212, 214.
Selfhood, 11, 16, 53, 57, 58, 61,
63, 66, 75, 105, 141, 158, 160,
164, 167, 168, 178, 185, 187,
189, 195, 200, 206.
Self -identity, 37, 108, 116.
Self-limitation, 1, 195.
Self-realization, 204, 205.
Self-representative system, 63,
64, 65, 69, 74.
Self-sacrifice, 199.
Selves, 65 ff.. 78, 92, 96, 126, 129,
165, 179, 185, 187, 188, 193,
196.
Secondary selves, 16, 58, 96,
178.
Sentience, 29, 30, 42.
Sidgwick, Professor, 135 n.
Social aspect, 57, 59, 71, 75, 81,
86, 125, 128, 164, 165, 180,
197, 200, 204.
Sociology, 1, 98.
Socrates, 90.
Solipsism, 32.
Soul, 12, 14, 16, 24, 25, 34, 39,
43,60, 61, 70, 82, 83, 87,91,
94, 125, 128, 143, 160, 163,
164.
Society of Souls, 125, 128.
Space, 27, 83, 101, 108, 185.
Spencer, H., 28, 113.
Spinoza, 28, 209, 213 n., 217 n.
Spirit, 29, 82, 92, 99, 135, 147,
160, 164, 181, 182, 186, 190,
208, 219.
Spirits, 3, 20, 25, 79, 125, 215.
Spiritual Principle, 135, 186, 187,
188, 196, 205.
Stages, 57, 189, 191, 195, 197,
210, 211, 219.
Standard, 202 ff .
Stout, G. F., 14 n., 142.
Strong, C. A., 146.
Sturt, H., 142.
Subject, 22, 23, 30, 42, 43, 45, 52,
69, 70 ff., 75, 78, 80, 93, 124,
154 ff., 158, 160 ff., 166 ff.,
170, 171, 173 ff., 179 ff., 182,
183, 186, 190, 193 ff., 206,
211, 214, 215, 219.
228
INDEX
Subject and Object, 18, 19, 23,
30, 31, 35, 38, 43, 44, 50, 51,
69, 71, 74, 112, 114, 124, 132,
153, 156, 159, 161, 162,
164 ff., 171, 173, 174 ff.,
180, 182, 183, 186, 194, 195,
197 n., 206, 214, 215.
Subjectivity, 23, 30, 163, 167,
181, 187, 195 ff., 202, 211,
214.
Substance, 60, 61, 70, 163, 180,
191, 193, 209.
Substantive and Adjective, 27.
Sully, Professor, 142.
Supra-personality, 29, 53, 99,
100, 146, 215, 216.
Taylor, A. E., 141, 146.
Teleological Proof, 100, 101.
Teleology, 66, 85, 91, 95, 97, 98,
108, 116, 120, 189, 196 ff.,
202, 211, 218 ff.
Temple, W., 165 n.
Tennyson quoted, 174, 211.
Theism, 136, 216.
Theologv, 1, 67, 85, 101, 165 n.
Things, 27, 40, 123, 152, 154, 158,
185, 192, 217.
Thing-in-itself, 27, 53, 216. (See
Ding-an-sich.)
Thought, 10, 12, 14 ff., 24, 30, 47,
48, 89, 91, 93, 94, 107, 108,
113, 116, 123 ff., 133, 134,
164, 171, 172, 190, 204, 205.
" Passing," vi ff., 12, 16, 24,
61, 146, 161, 177, 178.
Stream of, 10 ff., 21, 177.
Time, 27, 40, 66. 67, 80, 81, 83,
91, 98, 101, 103, 108, 119,
127, 129, 163, 178, 185, 195,
210, 215, 216.
Time-series, 40, 175 ff.
Transcendence, 29, 62, 103, 167,
168, 214.
Trinity, 165 n.
Truth, 28, 29, 46, 86, 89, 110,
132, 171, 188, 207, 208,
214.
Tyler, C. M., 142.
Underhill, G. E., 142.
Unity, 30 ; 36, 57-64, 67, 80, 83,
94,102, 103, 110, 111, 119 ff.,
125, 156, 175, 182, 193 ff.,
197 ff., 201, 205, 208, 212,
213, 215, 217, 219.
Unity and Diversity, 27, 37 ff .,
47, 48, 52, 133, 163, 193, 212,
213.
Personal, 15.
Transcendental, 15, 135, 161,
183 n.
Universality, 107, 167, 186,
202.
Universe, 33, 44, 46, 47, 55, 66,
80, 84, 86, 97, 101, 103, 117,
119, 125, 135, 152, 171, 186-
192, 195, 197, 198, 206, 212,
214, 219.
Unknowable, 28, 53, 100, 216.
Unseen, 189, 192.
Value, 57, 72, 109, 111, 215, 217-
220.
Values, 3, 5, 63, 142, 145, 168,
179, 189, 194, Part II.
Chap. V., 210, 217, 218.
Volition, 23, 29, 30, 158, 103, 164,
199.
Voluntarism, 134, 156 n., 183.
Ward, James, 87 n., 133, 139,
142, 153, 153 n., 155 n., 157,
200.
Watson, John, 146.
Watson, William, quoted, 214.
Whole, 28, 29, 31, 61, 64, 66, 101,
214.
INDEX
229
Will, 35, 38, 57, 65 ff., 83, 89, 100,
123 ff., 129, 133, 134, 142,
144, 156 n., 162 ff., 166, 172,
174, 176, 180, 181, 183, 199,
205, 219.
" Will-to-believe," 109.
Wordsworth quoted, 190.
World, 34, 52, 66, 89, 91, 92, 96,
100, 102, 106, 108, 111, 113,
119, 124, 125, 145, 156, 165,
172, 176, 183 n., 184 ff., 190,
191, 194, 198, 204, 206.
World- Order, 210.
World-Process, 91, 92, 98, 99.
Worth, 200, 203. {See Value.)
Wundt, 19.
Zola, Emile, 183.
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