THE VEIL OF ISIS. 'UNIVERSITY "SSwsfiS* 1 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. THE INTELLECTUALISM OF LOCKE, The following are EXTRACTS from Critical Notices of DR. WEBB'S Work : In the spirit of an earnest vindicator of the truth, Mr. Webb undertakes to show that Locke was an Intellectualist, in the sense of Reid and of Kant. His treatise is distinguished by a clear methodical arrange- ment, by a perfect mastery over his details, and by a style and language unusually per- spicuous and precise. Courageously, but without presumption, he assails some of the highest modern authorities in philosophy ; and while he always preserves the calmness of temper proper for an undertaking really arduous, he is evidently warmed by a feeling of almost personal regard towards the ill- requited benefactor of English philosophy. . . . We should gladly have made some extracts, had space permitted, from the veiy able chapter in which Locke, Hume, and Kant are compared. As far as we know, this is Mr. Webb's first appearance as an author before the general public. He must, of course, expect some controversy. But he has not ventured into the arena without preparation. He need not fear that he will be driven from it ingloriously ; and judging from his present work, we may predict for him, if he will persevere, a career second to no living British metaphysician. Saturday Review. Mr. Webb's must henceforth be considered the work on this subject. It is not only conclusive, but exhaustive. And yet its arrangement is so admirably logical and consecutive, that the whole is brought within a veiy limited compass. The author never winds towards his conclusions, or returns upon his path. The Essay is most happily free from digression or repetition. Let us add, that the style, the allusions, and the illustrations, show thorough scholarship, and that classical perfection of training and taste in the use of language, which is rarer still than scholarship. London Review. We can assure our readers that The Intellectualism of Locke Is really a great essay, written by a man of no ordinary grasp of mind, and capable of putting ab- stract thoughts before the student in elo- quent and attractive language. Christian Examiner. A book distinguished in no ordinary degree by sagacity and learning. Critic, , DUBLIN: M'GEE AND CO. LONDON: LONGMANS AND CO. DUBLIN UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES. .THE VEIL OF ISIS: -*_ SERIES OF ESSAYS ON IDEALISM, BY ^ /[ THOS. E. WEBB, LL.D., One of Her Majesty's Counsel ; Sometime Fellow of Trinity College and Prof essor of Moral Philosophy, Now Regius Professor of Laws and Public Orator, In the University of Dublin. Eyw et/xt TTOLV TO yeyovos, KCU 6V, Kat eo"d/xei/ov, Kai TOV ^^>> OP THE ^ UNIVERSITY ii^>\ 11 w *' DUBLIN : HODGES, FIGGIS, & CO., GKAFTON-STEEET. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., PATEKNOSTER-ROW. 1885. 0823 DUBLIN : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, BY PONSONBY AND WELDRICK. TO THE RIGHT HON. GERALD FITZ GIBBON, LORD JUSTICE OF APPEAL IN IRELAND, IN MEMORY OF THE DAYS WHEN HE READ PHILOSOPHY WITH THE AUTHOR. PREFACE, A CCOKDINGTto a French writer, quoted by Dugald Stewart in his Dissertation, the comparative history of philosophical systems is nothing else than a history of the variations of philosophical schools, leaving no other impression upon the reader than an insurmountable dis- gust at all philosophical researches, and a demonstrated conviction of the impossibility of raising an edifice on a soil so void of consistency as that which philosophy supplies. I have long come to the conclusion that the general conviction to which this passage gives expression is erroneous, and that even the extent of the variations of opinion on philosophical questions has been greatly exaggerated by those who have written on the subject. It cannot be doubted, as David Hume observes, that the mind is endowed with several powers and faculties, that these powers are distinct from each other, that what is really distinct to the immediate perception may be dis- tinguished by reflection, and consequently that there is a truth or falsehood in all propositions on this subject which viii Preface. are not beyond the compass of our understanding. If this be so, there is no reason why philosophers should not arrive at a practical agreement on such questions as the origin of our knowledge and ideas, the classification of our mental faculties, the nature of general reasoning and of reason- ing by induction in short on all the questions which the term psychology embraces. These are mere questions of fact; and on all these points we are capable of knowledge of knowledge similar in character and certainty to that which we attain in the study of the phenomena of exter- nal nature, supposing what we call external nature to exist externally, and not to be itself a mere evolution of the mind. In point of fact, there is a much more extensive agree- ment among philosophers upon these interesting questions than is generally suspected. Their actual agreement [is disguised by a variety of causes. In philosophy, as in political economy, there are innumerable speculators, who have set up trade, as it were, without any of that intel- lectual capital which is found in the accumulated thought of their predecessors, and whose divergences, for that reason, may safely be discounted. Of those who have endeavoured to prepare themselves for their vocation by a previous course of reading, a large number have studied the former philosophers in histories of philosophy, them- selves compiled from previous histories, which are not his- tories but misconceptions. Even when great thinkers, like Hobbes, and Locke, and Hume, are studied in their own writings, those writings contain so much equivocal Preface. ix expression, so much misleading metaphor, so many im- perfect statements, so many statements apparently con- flicting, so many statements in which precision is sacrificed to point, that the real meaning of the author, like a law of nature lying latent in a chaos of phenomena, is only to he elicited hy a process of patient induction, to the drudgery of which amhitious spirits are unahle to suhmit. The sense of originality, the reaction against assertion, and the pride of confutation supervene, and thus impelled the highest intelligences are apt to fancy themselves to he opposed to those with whom, if they properly under- stood them, they would find that they agreed. The very conditions of all philosophical discussion are calculated to aggravate the evil. There is no universal language in philosophy, and to such an extent has mere difference of expression heen mistaken for diversity of thought, that the history of philosophy appears to the cynical spectator to be a wild Babel of confusion. Even when a great thinker, like Kant, invents a terminology which is gene- rally adopted, the very novelty of his expression disguises the identity of his thoughts with those which had been previously expressed in more familiar language. Another source of illusion though even this does not exhaust the tale requires to be stated. Truth, as I have elsewhere said, is a polygon and not a point ; but before the poly- gon is constructed the sides must be described, and, by a natural prejudice, the philosopher who insists on one as- pect of a general question is supposed to ignore the exist- ence or to deny the importance of the rest. x Preface. Impressed with these considerations, some years ago I wrote and published the Intellectualism of Locke with the object of indicating the fundamental identity of opinion, as far as mere matters of psychology are concerned, which exists between Locke on the one hand and Eeid and Kant upon the other. In the present work I have followed out this idea, and have attempted to show that on the great question of the theory of perception Hume is substantially at one with Reid, and that on the still greater question of the transcendental origin of our ideas of physical causa- tion he anticipated both the principle and the results of Kant. As to those matters which transcend the sphere of con- sciousness, and which concern, to use the familiar phrase, the mystery of existence, the demonstrated conviction of hopeless disagreement displays a show of reason. But even here there is a tendency towards unanimity among those who are competent to form an opinion on the subject. On the question of the existence of an external world, to take the simplest question of existence, the great thinkers, who have formed an epoch in the history of thought during the last century and a-half, have come to a practical agree- ment. Berkeley started the question by asking how it is possible for us to know that material substances exist ; and having shown that we cannot know this either by sense or reason, declined to believe in the existence of that of which he had no knowledge. Hume, less sceptical than the dog- matic theologian, admitted that the existence of material things must be assumed as a fact in all our reasonings, Preface. xi but contended that if the existence of an external world be based on instinct it is contrary to reason, and that, if referred to reason, it is unsupported by any evidence that reason can accept. Generalized by Kant, the conclusion of Hume assumed a more scientific form, and among the philosophers of the present day there are few who would venture to reject the critical conclusions that no object external to ourselves is presented to our conscious- ness; that if an object be not given, its existence cannot possibly be proved; and that if it cannot be proved, its existence must remain for ever a mere object of belief. Whether the existence of the great realities with which we are concerned is to be regarded as an object of know- ledge or as an object of belief is a matter of small practical importance to those who reflect that in the ordinary affairs of life, as in the deepest mysteries of religion, we live by faith and not by sight. But speculative curiosity remains unsatisfied, and where the field of knowledge is closed, the region of hypothesis expands before us. Are the ob- jects of our knowledge distinct from the subject which evolves them ? Are those objects three, or two, or one ? Is the Deity, for example, to be excluded from the theory of real existence ? Is the world, on the other hand, to be regarded as nothing but a phantasm ? Is there no real existence to be recognized except the soul? And as to the soul itself, is it anything but a system of vanish- ing ideas ? Is there any substance in existence ? The answer involved in each of these questions is a system of metaphysics. But these metaphysical hypotheses, unlike xii Preface. the hypotheses which we form as to physical phenomena, are incapable of verification, and accordingly all thinking men are disposed to agree that mere ontologies are not answers to a question of ascertainable fact, but answers to a riddle which in our present state of existence cannot by possibility be solved. Yet even here, as it seems to me, we have an element of science. Dugald Stewart has observed that from the limited number of good stories, as they are called, which we possess, the wit of man would seem to be a barrel- organ with only a limited number of tunes. This remark applies with more felicity to metaphysics. In India, in Greece, in Egypt, in Mediaeval Europe, in Modern Ger- many, in England, and in France, we see the constant recurrence of those various guesses at the riddle of exist- ence which are called systems of metaphysical philosophy. They are all based on a limited number of fundamental conceptions, the permutations and combinations of which may be rigorously ascertained. To the curious mind it cannot but be an object of interest to contemplate the sum total of the hypotheses which the human mind is competent to frame on a question which it is incompetent to solve. To know the possibilities of thought is know- ledge. It is not by a history of names, however, but by an evolution of conceptions, that such a result is to be attained, and, as an illustration of an idea rather than as the accomplishment of an aim, I have sketched the Ideal of Systems which concludes these Essays. One word may be permitted as to the title of this Preface. xiii book. The Veiled Isis, as we learn from Plutarch, was the Egyptian symbol of the mystery of being. I have endeavoured to illustrate the impossibility of solving this mystery, even in its simplest form, by giving a sketch of the speculations in relation to the external world which have occupied thoughtful men for the last century and a-half. In this attempt I have endeavoured to trace the forms which idealism has assumed in the hands of the great masters of speculation; and I trust I may be par- doned if, instead of styling a work composed amid infi- nite distractions a History of Philosophy from Locke to Hegel, I revive an old fashion, and adopt, though at an immeasurable distance, the precedents set by the Siris of Berkeley and the Leviathan of Hobbes. TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, 10th December, 1884. CONTENTS. THEISTIC IDEALISM : OB. BERKELEY, ..... i PROBLEMATICAL IDEALISM : OR HUME, . . . . -67 COSMOTHETICAL IDEALISM : OR REID, . . . . -125 TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM : OR KANT, . . . . -165 CATALEPTIC IDEALISM : OR HAMILTON, 235 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM : OR HEGEL, . . . . . -275 AN IDEAL OF SYSTEMS : OR THE NEW KRITIK, . . . 307 APPENDIX. LOCKE ON THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS, . . . . -335 HOBBES ON GENERAL REASONING, . . . . -344 BACON ON INDUCTIVE REASONING, . . . . -353 HUME ON MIRACLE AND NATURE, . . . . .360 POURTANT pouvons nous dire, que le desir d' entendre fcTverite est un desir de la divinite, mesmement la verite de la nature des dieux, dont 1'estude et le prochas de telle science est comme une profession et entree de religion, et oeuvre plus saincte que n'est point le veu et F obligation de ehastete, ny de la garde et closture d'aucun temple : et si est da vantage tres agreable a la deesse que tu sers, attendu qu'elle est tres sage et tres S9avante, ainsi comme la derivation mesme de son nom nous le donne a cognoistre, que Je S9avoir et la science luy appartient plus qu'a nul autre, car c'est un mot grec que ISIS. Et en la ville de Sais 1' image de Pallas, qu'ils estiment estre Isis, avait une telle inscription : JE suis TOUT CE QUI A ESTE, QUI EST, ET QUI SEEA JAMAIS, ET N'Y A ENCORE EU HOMME MORTEL QUI M ? AIT DESCOUVERTE DE MON VOILE. PLUTARQUE PAR AMYOT. THEISTIC IDEALISM: OE BERKELEY ^ OF THE ^ 'nun :Y THEISTIC IDEALISM; OB, BEKKELEY.* Visa quaedam mitti a Deo velut ea quae in somnis videantur. Cic. ACAD. ii. 15. IRELAND may claim the distinction of having pro- duced three philosophers, each of whom formed an epoch in the history of thought. Johannes Scotus Erigena, the founder of the Scholastic System Hutcheson, the father of the modern School of Speculative Philosophy in Scotland and Berkeley, the first who explicitly maintained a Theory of Absolute Idealism were all men of Irish birth, and were marked, in a greater or less degree, by the peculiar characteristics of Irish genius. It has frequently been observed that the genius of the Irish People is naturally borne to dialectics. * The substance of this Essay was originally given as a lecture from the Chair of Moral Philosophy, and was afterwards published ^as an article in the North British Review for May, 1861. B 2 The Hibernian Logicians. The author of Hudibras, indeed, selects 'the wild Irish' as the types of that mystic learning and occult philosophy which he ridicules in Ralpho. Nor was this the mere fancy of the poet. As early as the !tid\e ofx Charges ihe Bold, the contemporary chroni- clr 4 .speaks Vf "the, multitude of philosophers who, R1ie it feG&tii^,vCi:6sfeed l the sea from Ireland. At a later period Bayle speaks of the Hibernians as renowned for able logicians and metaphysicians ; and Stewart describes them as distinguished in all the Continen- tal Universities for their proficiency in the scholastic logic. And the facts justify the statement. It was to the uncouth i Hibernian figures' who prowled about the halls of Oviedo that Lesage describes Gil Bias as addressing himself when bent on disputation. It is an Irish tutor whom Bayle selects as the man to harass a Professor of Salamanca with sorites. It was the Irish at the University of Paris whom Remi describes as i rampant with reason and on fancies fed.' The Irish logician, in fact, was as ubiquitous as the Irish soldier of fortune, and like the philoso- phic vagabond in the Vicar of Wakefield nay, if we are to believe Boswell, like Goldsmith himself he disputed his way through the Universities of Europe. The University of Dublin has from the first ac- commodated itself to the national bent, and given a prominent place in its curriculum to mental science. Its statutes, drawn by Laud, enact that the Isagoge of Porphyry and the Organon, the Physics, and the Metaphysics of Aristotle, should The University of Dublin. 3 be the text-books of the different classes, and that thrice in the week, at least, their topics should be discussed in public disputation. Aristotle and Porphyry in due time were superseded by Locke; and when the heads of houses were conspiring to ignore the existence of the Essay at Oxford, and when it merely supplied an occasional thesis at Cambridge, it was the recognized text-book of the schools at Dublin. Nor have the graduates of the Irish University been undistinguished in the prose- cution of the favourite study. Dodwell, the an- tagonist of Clarke Browne, the most original and independent of the followers of Locke and Berkeley, the forerunner of Hume and Kant were Fellows of Trinity College.* King, the author of the Treatise on the Origin of Evil Burke, among his other claims to distinction, the writer of the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful and Archer Butler, the historian of Ancient Philosophy were Scholars of the House. To the present day philosophy still oc- cupies its place of honour, and, without mentioning less celebrated names, it is sufficient to point to the historian of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, as a proof that the philo- sophic spirit is not extinct in the University of Berkeley. * Lord Macaulay, in his History of well was a Fellow of Trinity College, England (ch. xiv.), states, that Dod- Dublin, though Lord Macaulay seems well was attainted ' by the Popish only to have known him as ' Cam- Parliament in Dublin,' for the *un- denian Professor of Ancient History pardonable crime of having a small at Oxford.' 9 But even the remains of estate in Mayo.' There was a more Berkeley lie at Oxford, and not at obvious ground for his attainder. Dod- Dublin or at Cloyne. B 2 4 Berkeley's Character. The estimation in which the character of the illustrious Idealist was held by his contemporaries is well known. Everyone knows how he charmed the fierce misanthropy of Swift how Pope attri- buted to him the possession of every virtue under heaven how Atterbury exclaimed, that till he knew him he did not think that so much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, had been the portion of any but the angels. The range of his intellectual accomplish- ments was almost as wonderful as his virtue was unique. He was an accomplished musician ; he was a connoisseur in painting ; he was a devoted stu- dent of poetry and romance ; he was the master of an eloquence which could rouse even the Scriblerus Club into momentary enthusiasm for the mission to Bermuda. At the age of twenty-six, he had already produced the works which were to revolu- tionise the philosophy of Europe. But the New Theory of Vision, and the Principles of Human Know- ledge, and the Dialogues by which they were eluci- dated, were not the only labours of his life. His Querist, to repeat the oft-repeated words of Mackin- tosh, contains more hints, then original, and still unapplied in legislation and political economy, than are to be found in any equal space. In his Analyst he anticipated Hegel in pointing out that seeming inconsistency in the calculus of Newton which Carnot attempted to explain by a compensation of errors, which Lagrange endeavoured to evade by his calculus of functions, and which Euler and Berkeley's Writings. 5 D'Alembert could only obviate by pointing out the constant conformity of the mathematical conception with ascertained results. In his Minute Philosopher he shows himself master of the whole domain of speculation, and, while tracking the free thought of the day through its various evolutions, exhibits an exquisite elegance of diction which is unsurpassed by Addison himself ; and finally, in that wonderful miscellany of physical hypothesis and metaphysical research, which he denominated Siris, he seems to have been borne aloft into the very atmosphere of Plato, and has given to the world of speculation a modern counterpart of the Parmenides and the Timseus. The Theory of Vision which established that * all visible things are equally in the mind, and take up no part of the external space' (s. cxi), was the natural prelude to the Principles of Human Know- ledge which proclaimed that " all the choir of heaven and furniture of earth in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind " (Prin. vi. xlvi). The conception indeed was no novelty in the history of thought. It had been realized in the prophetic trances of the Hebrew seers, and in the apocalyptic vision of St. John. The Hindoo sages had maintained that our system of perception was a mere picture, and that the world of matter was nothing but maya, or illusion. The Philosophers of the West had long been waver- ing over a similar conclusion. The Platonists had 6 Intimations of Idealism. held that matter was merely a supposition necessary for the production of the phenomena of sense. The Academics had suggested that the perception of external things might possibly be nothing but a dream presented by the gods. The Alexandrines had intimated that the soul was not in the world, but that the world was in the soul. The specula- tion at an early period engaged the attention of the Church. The Fathers had been compelled to consider the question in the discussion of Marcion's doctrine of the mere phenomenal nature of the In- carnation. The Schoolmen had asked whether Grod could not present to sense the species representing an external world, when there was in reality no external world for the species to represent. The founders of the more modern Schools of philosophy had been hovering around the same attractive light. Malebranche had admitted that if God should annihilate the material world, and present corre- sponding ideas to the mind, the phenomena of sense would be the same. Locke had allowed that the idea might exist, though the reality had no exist- ence. Even Leibnitz, in spite of his Monadology, had confessed, not only that the existence of body was not susceptible of demonstration, but that the world, for aught that philosophy could teach, might be merely a resplendent iris, an image on the glass, a waking dream. A pure Theistic Idealism, it is true, could not well have been developed in the West before the time of Berkeley, for the Pagan Idealists had no The Idealism of Collier. 7 abiding conception of the omnipresence and spiritu- ality of God, and the Catholic philosophers not only accepted the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantia- tion, but conceived that the existence of the world of matter had been positively revealed by Holy Writ. However this may be, Idealism was the natural product of the age, and of this the history of phi- losophy affords a curious proof. Three years after the publication of the Principles of Human Know- ledge, another thinker combined the idealistic ele- ments with which the speculations of the times were fraught. In his Clavis Universalis, Collier, like Berkeley, attempted a demonstration of the non- existence of the world ; and the perfect correspon- dence between the independent speculations of the two idealists is one of the most curious facts in the history of thought. It was the correspondence of the clocks of Leibnitz. Collier, like Berkeley, de- clined to allow the question to be decided by an appeal to Holy Writ with Malebranche, or by an appeal to common sense with Locke. Like Berkeley, he started from the phenomena of vision, and proved that the world of vision could have no existence but in mind. Like Berkeley, he transferred his idealism from the realm of vision to the realm of touch. Like Berkeley, he held not only the non-existence, but the impossibility of the existence, of a world of matter. As to the mode of the production of our ideas, the two philosophers were equally agreed. Both rejected the doctrine of material efflux, and the cognate doctrine of impressed species ; both 8 The Reception of Berkeley. rejected the hypothesis of seeing all things in God, and also the egoistical idealism which declares that the mind is the creator of its own ideas ; both held that our sensible ideas are the immediate effect of the agency of God. In some respects the ideal- ism of Collier is more philosophical than that of Berkeley. He is a more consecutive, if not a more consistent, thinker. He shows what Berkeley omitted to show, the ambiguity of the word idea. He anticipates the analysis of Hamilton by raising the question whether the idea exists in the mind as in its proper place, or inheres in it as in its. proper subject, or is dependent on it as on its proper faculty. Above all, he shows, in opposition to Berkeley's theory of vision, that the quasi-exter- nality of visual objects is part and parcel of percep- tion, and that it is as much an attribute of the figments of imagination as of the facts of sense.* But Berkeley and Collier were like the two women grinding at the mill the one was taken and the other left ; and while the name of the one is known to few, except the antiquaries of philosophy, the name of the other marks a philosophic epoch. And yet even Berkeley has been subjected to all the vicissitudes of fame. Though his great work * This question is fully discussed, Introduction to Kuno Fischer's Kant, and, in my opinion, finally determined p. xvi. Philosophers who, like Mr, by Mr. Ahhott, in his work on Sight Mill and Professor Eraser, adopt the and Touch. Mr. Ahbott satisfactorily theory of Berkeley, seem to me, in spite shows that if the idea of outness is not of every artifice of language, to beg primarily given it can never be sub- the question by assuming outness in sequently acquired (chap. v). Mr. the medium they employ in their ef- Mahaffy takes the same view in his forts to explain it. The Ridicule of Berkeley. g did not, like that of Hume, fall still-born from the press, the speculation which was to revolutionize the philosophy of Europe was at first received with the easy toleration of contempt. According to Swift he made a proselyte of Smalridge, and a few other people of position. But in the world in general he was assailed with the ridicule with which Pyrrho was mocked when he pursued his cook. Brown, the famous opponent of Shaftesbury, tells us, in his Essay on Satire, that ' coxcombs refuted Berkeley with a grin.' But the grin was not confined to cox- combs. Warburton laughed at the idealist as a mere visionary. Arbuthnot could not suppress a sneer at 6 poor philosopher Berkeley/ and described him to Swift as enjoying the idea of health after being brought to death's door by the idea of a fever. Voltaire said it was pleasant to think that ten thousand cannon balls and ten thousand dead men were only so many disagreeable ideas. Johnson looked on the whole ideal system as worthy of no better refutation than that supplied by his memorable kick. Beattie professed to regard the reference of everything to God as something atheistic. Even Reid, who had himself been a Berkeleian, recanted his heresy, did penance as a man of common sense, and recommended his quondam friend the idealist to run his head against a post, and to be clapped into a madhouse for his pains (Works, 184). So remote, indeed, was the idealist philosophy from received opinions that even philosophers of a higher mood were unable to accept it. At the instance io The Influence of Berkeley. of Addison the great a priori philosopher of the age met Berkeley in order to discuss the subject; but Berkeley complained that Clarke, though he could not answer him, had not the candour to own himself convinced. Berkeley experienced equal difficulty in convincing the rival philosopher who saw every- thing Grod. He discussed the matter with Male- branche in his cell, but so high did the philoso- phical excitement rise that the visionary died in consequence of his interview with the apostle of ideas. Hume took a characteristic view of the sub- ject. All Berkeley's arguments, he said, though otherwise intended, were in reality sceptical ; for while they admitted of no answer, they produced no conviction (Works, iv. 181) a remark which supplies the true justification of Clarke in his re- fusal to own himself convinced. But the influence which Berkeley was destined to exert was far more powerful than any of his contemporaries suspected. From his time philosophy ceased to concern itself with matter. The authority of the Church was dis- regarded ; the reference to revelation was ignored ; and philosophy became ideal. It is scarcely too much to say with Hamann that without Berkeley there would have been no Hume, as without Hume there would have been no Kant and as without Kant there would have been no Hegel. But, regarded as a matter of history, the antece- dents of a philosophy are as much an object of curi- osity as its results ; and looking at the subject in this light, it is not to be denied that the idealism of Berkeley^ Relation to LocJce. 1 1 Berkeley had its starting point in the philosophy of Locke. Locke had taught that the soul is conscious only of its own ideas (i. i. 8) ; and that these bounds were ample enough for the capacious mind of man to expatiate in, though it takes its flight further than the stars, and cannot be confined to the limits of the world though it extends its thoughts beyond the utmost expansion of matter, and makes incur- sions into the incomprehensible inane (n. vii. 10). Our ideas of the sensible qualities of matter Locke had conceived to be produced by impulse. But how little Hamilton was justified in identifying his doc- trine with the materialism of Democritus and Digby (Disc. 78. 81) is evident from Locke's qualification of his own remark. He admits that motion, accord- ing to the utmost reach of our ideas, is able to produce nothing but motion, and that, when we allow it to produce pleasure and pain, or the idea of a colour or a sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker (n. iii. 6). In strict accordance with this view, he holds that our knowledge of the existence of spiritual is more cer- tain than our knowledge of the existence of material things. " Whilst I know, by seeing or hearing, &c., that there is some corporeal being without me, the object of that sensation," he says, " I do more cer- tainly know, that there is some spiritual being within me that sees and hears : this, I must be con- vinced, cannot be the action of bare insensible matter, nor ever could be without an immaterial 12 Berkeley's Relation to Locke. thinking being" (n. xxiii. 15). Reid deems it strange that Locke, who wrote so much upon the subject, should not see those consequences which Berkeley thought so obviously deducible from the doctrine of ideas. But this is an injustice to Locke's philosophical acumen. " There can be nothing more certain," he says, " than that the idea we receive from an external object is in our minds; this is intuitive knowledge; but whether there be any- thing more than barely an idea in our minds, whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of anything without us which corresponds to that idea, is that whereof some men think there may be a question made, because men may have such ideas in their minds when no such thing exists, no such object affects their senses" (iv. ii. 14; iv. xi. i). Locke, however, evaded the difficulty, and took refuge in the arms of common sense. The confi- dence that our faculties do not herein deceive us, he said, is the greatest assurance we are capable of, concerning the existence of material beings (iv. xi. 3). " If after all," he said, " any one should be so sceptical as to distrust his senses, and to affirm that all we see and hear, feel and taste, think and do, during our whole being, is but the series and delud- ing appearances of a long dream, whereof there is no reality, and therefore will question the existence of all things, or our knowledge of anything ; I must desire him to consider, that, if all be a dream, he doth but dream that he makes the question, and so it is not much matter that a waking man should Berkeley's Relation to the Cartesians. 13 answer him"' (iv. xi. 8) the " evidence is as great as we can desire, being as certain to us as our plea- sure or pain, that is, happiness or misery, beyond which we have no concernment either of know- ing or being" (ibid.). But the ultimate conclusion of Locke was the very starting-point of Berkeley. The knowledge of our own being, he said, we have by intuition the existence of a God reason clearly makes known to us and the knowledge of the existence of any other being we can have only by sensation, for there is no necessary connexion of any other existence but that of God, with the exist- ence of ourselves (iv. xi. i, 13). The same point had been reached by the disciples of a different school. It was a first principle in the philosophy of Descartes, and Leibnitz, and Male- branche, as it was in that of Locke, that the mind is conscious only of its own ideas. These philoso- phers, it is true, maintained the existence of a material world without us; but they held that mind and matter are essentially opposed; that, in the words of Norris, they are separated by the whole diameter of existence ; and that consequently mind, if left to its own unaided force, can never take cognizance of matter. To bridge this chasm between mind and matter, different philosophical structures had been framed. According to the Car- tesians, God, on the occasion of the presence of the external object, caused the mind to be so and so affected. According to Leibnitz, God had so pre- established the independent developments of mind 14 Berkeley^ s Relation to Malebranche. and matter, that there was an everlasting harmony between them. According to Malebranche, God, being cognizant of everything, was cognizant of matter; and being cognizant of matter, admitted man into a participation of his cognition, so that the mind saw material things in God. The theories of Occasional Causes, Pre-established Harmony, and Vision of the Universe in God, thus conducted to the same point as the Hyperphysical Realism of Locke. The Dem ex machina was the last resource of all; and all admitted that the world of matter could only be brought into relation with the mind by the intervention, direct or indirect, of God. Of all the philosophers who preceded Berkeley, the one who approached most nearly to his conclu- sion was Malebranche. The French metaphysician regarded it as an indisputable fact, that it is only by means of ideas that the unextended mind can be- come cognizant of extended objects.* He contemp- tuously rejected the argument for the existence of the external world which is based on common sense. With equal contempt he rejected the theory which maintains that external objects make us aware of * Mais je parle principalement ici jen' entends ici autre chose quecequi des choses materielles qui certainement est 1'objet immediat, ou la plus ne peuvents' unir a notre ame de la proche de 1'esprit quand il aper9oit faqon qui lui est necessaire afin qu' quelque objet (ibid.}. On ne s' arrete elle les aperqoive ; parce qu' etant pas a expliquer plus au long ces etendues, et 1'ame ne 1' etant pas, il belles choses et les diverses manieres n' y a point de rapports entre eux dont diffe rents philosophes les con- (Rech. L. iii. P. ii., c. i). C'est 9oivent (c. ii). On assure done qu' incontestable qu' on ne peut voir les il n' est pas vraisemblable que les choses materielles par elles-memes et objets envoient des images ou des sans idees (ibid.}. Par ce mot idee especes qui leur resemblent (ibid.}. Berkeley^ Relation to Malebranche. 15 their existence by the emission of species or entity- ideas. He avowed that according to his way of thinking matter could not even be accepted as the cause of our perceptions or sensations. The experience of delirium and dreams, he said, estab- lishes that there is no necessary connexion between the presence of an idea and the existence of a cor- responding thing without. He admitted, as we have seen, that if the world were annihilated, and if God should produce in our minds the ideas which are now produced in them on the presence of external objects, we should perceive everything that we now perceive. How then are we to account for the existence of our sensible ideas? Malebranche considered it evident that these ideas could not be created by the mind itself, for they were not the creatures of the will, and the mind must have had a knowledge of them before it could produce them.* The obvious conclusion would seem to be that the cause of our sensible ideas must be God. But Malebranche recoiled from this con- clusion. He was not only a philosopher but a theo- logian. Having demonstrated God's existence from * Pensez-vous, Ariste, que la ma- 1' existence de la chose qui cette idee tiere, que vous ne jugez peut-etre pas represents, et ce qui arrive a ceux qui capable de se remuer d'elle-meme, ni dorment ou qui sont en delire le de se donner aucune modalite, puisse prouve suffisament (Rech. L. i. c. x). jamais modifier un esprit, le rendre Dans la supposition que le monde fut heureux ou malheureux, lui repre- aneanti, et que Dieu neanmoins pro- senter des idees, lui donner divers duisit dans notre cerveau les memes sentiments ? Pensez-y et repondez traces, ou plutot dans notre esprit moi (Entret. vii). II n' y a point de les memes idees qui s' y produisent liaison necessaire entre la presence de la presence des objets nous ver- d'une idee a 1'esprit d'un homme et rions les. memes beautes (Entret. i). 1 6 The Idealism of Malelranche. the idea of infinity, lie proceeded to demonstrate the existence of the world by a reference to the word of God. The Scriptures, he said, inform us of the Incarnation of our Lord ; the Scriptures in- form us that in the beginning God created the hea- vens and the earth. The existence of the material world being thus established, all that remained was to account for its perception. This Malebranche did on the principles of the Cartesian School. The essence, the primary conception, of matter, he said, was extension ; and no extended thing could modify the mind. Declining, therefore, to recognise any secondary qualities in matter, he distinguished our ideas from our sensations ; and while he regarded the former as perceived by us in God, he regarded the latter as simply caused by the Deity in us on the occasion of the presence of external objects.* But Berkeley treated the system and the scruples of his illustrious predecessor with but scant respect. God, he said, was not a musician, who required to be directed by notes, in order to produce that har- Un homme ne peut pas former 1'idee Le sentiment est une modification de d'un objet s' il ne le connait au- notre ame et c'est Dieu qui la cause en paravant, c'est-a-dire s' il n' en a nous, et il la peut causer quoiqu' il ne deja 1'idee laquelle ne depend point 1'ait pas, parce qu' il voit, dans 1'idee de sa volonte. Q,ue s'il en a deja une qu' il a de notre ame, qu'elle en est idee, il connait cet objet, et il lui est capable. Pour 1'idee qui se trouve inutile d'en former une nouvelle. II jointe avec le sentiment, elle est en est done inutile d' attribuer a 1'esprit Dieu et nous le voyons, parce qu'il de rhomme la puissance de produire lui plait de nous la decouvrir; et ces idees (Eech. L. iii. P. ii. c. iii). Dieu joint la sensation a 1'idee lorsque * Lorsque nous apercevons quelque les objets sont presents, afin que nous chose de sensible il se trouve dans notre le croyions ainsi, et que nous entrions perception sentiment et idee pure. dans les sentiments et dans les pas- The Idealism of Berkeley. 1 7 monious train and composition of sound that is called a tune (Prin. Ixxi). He protested, in the person of Philonous, that he could not understand how our ideas, which are things altogether passive and inert, can be the essence, or any part, or like any part, of the essence or substance of God (Dial, ii).* Eevelation, he said, had used words in their vulgar acceptation ; and the ideal philosophy did not deny the existence of anything which Holy Writ had de- clared to be existent (Prin. Ixxxii). In fact, the Scriptures themselves ascribed those effects to the immediate agency of God which the heathen philo- sophers ascribed to Nature (Prin. cl). But the question at issue was one to be determined not by revelation but by reason. And what were the dic- tates of reason on the subject ? They were ob- vious. If primary and secondary qualities are only ' ideas existing in the mind' (Prin. ix), why should we make any distinction between ideas and sensa- tions ? If it is possible that we might be affected with all the ideas that we have, although no bodies sions que nous devons avoir par Demeurons done en ce sentiment, qiie rapport a eux (Recherche de la Verite, Dieu est le monde intelligible ou le L. iii. P. ii. c. vi). lieu des esprits, de meme que le monde * II faut bien remarquer qu'on ne materiel estle lieu des corps; quec'est peut pas conclure que les esprits de s& puissance qu'ils re9oivent toutes voient V essence de Dieu de ce qu'ils leur modifications ; que c'est dans sa voient toutes choses en Dieu de cette sagesse qu'ils trouvent toutes leur idees; maniere. L'essence de Dieu, c'est et que c'est par son amour qu'il sont son etre absolu, et les esprits ne voient agites de tous leur mouvements re- point en substance divine prise absolu- gles (ibid.}. Locke, in his Examina- ment, mais seulement en tant que re- tion of Malebranche's Opinion, falls lative aux creatures ou participate into the same error as Berkeley on par elles (Seek. L. iii. P. ii. c. vi). this point (Exam. 31). 1 8 Berkeley's Argument. existed without which resembled them (Prin. xviii), why might not bodies be regarded as the percep- tions of a waking dream? If the world is not known as object, and cannot be inferred as cause (ibid.), what reason have we to believe in its exist- ence ? If, in fine, ' the being of a Spirit infinitely wise, and good and powerful, is abundantly sufficient to explain all the appearances of nature' (Prin. Ixxii), why should we gratuitously assume the co- operation or the co-existence of any other cause ? But Berkeley pushed the argument still further. He contended, not only that we are unable to demon- strate the existence of the world of matter, but that we are able to demonstrate its non-existence. The supposition of an external material world, he said, was unmeaning (Prin. xvii) it was replete with contradictions (Prin. iv. xvii. Ixvii) it could not even be conceived (Prin. xxiii). How can we con- ceive objects existing unconceived, he asked, and professed himself willing to put the whole contro- versy upon that single issue (Prin. xxii). True, the series of sensations of which we are conscious, he said, must have some thinking substance or sub- stratum to support them (Prin. ii), as well as some active cause by which they are produced and changed (Prin. xxvi). But what is the cause in question ? Not a mere physical antecedent to be found in ante- cedent ideas ; for our ideas are ' visibly inactive J (Prin. xxv). Not corporeal substance; for it had no existence (Prin. ix). Neither could the cause in question be ourselves ; for the ideas perceived by Berkeley's Argument. 19 sense have no dependence on ourselves they are not the creatures of the will (Prin. xxix). The cause must, accordingly, be God. The whole argument is neatly summarized by Hylas: "I find myself affected with various ideas whereof I know I am not the cause ; neither are they the cause of themselves, or of one another, or capable of subsisting by them- selves, as being altogether inactive, fleeting, de- pendent beings; they have therefore some cause distinct from me and them, of which I pretend to know no more than that it is the cause of my ideas " (Dial. ii). Hylas, it is true, makes an abortive at- tempt to identify this primeval cause with matter ; but the inexorable Philonous asks, * Though it should be allowed to exist, yet, how can that which is inactive be a cause, or that which is unthinking be a cause of thought?' (ibid.). Hylas is coerced into recognizing the agency of mind. " From [the mere perceptions of the senses]," says Philonous, " I conclude that there is a mind which affects me every moment with all the sensible impressions I perceive ; and, from the variety, order, and manner of them, I conclude the Author of them to be wise, powerful, and good, beyond comprehension" (ibid.}. Thus while the attributes of the Infinite Mind are collected from a ' contemplation of the contriv- ance, order, and adjustment of things,' its existence is ' necessarily inferred from the bare existence of the sensible world ' and this consideration, in the opinion of Philonous, at once baffles the most strenuous advocate of atheism, and effectually dis- C 2 2o The Two Misconceptions. poses of the wild imaginations of Hobbes, Vanini, and Spinosa (Dial. ii). Whatever may be the force of the argument thus constructed, it is so clear that it might well have been supposed to bid defiance to the powers of misconception. But Berkeley has not escaped the fate which has overtaken philosophers in every age. He has been systematically misunderstood. Mr. Mill has remarked that " he was excelled by none who ever wrote in the clear expression of his mean- ing, and the discrimination of it from what he did not mean"; yet, he adds, " scarcely any thinker has been more perseveringly misapprehended, or has been the victim of such persistent ignoratio elenchi, his numerous adversaries having generally occupied themselves in proving what he never de- nied, and denying what he never asserted." A singular illustration of the truth of this remark is furnished by the Scottish School. According to Reid, the Idealism of Berkeley was the result of two things the Ideal Theory which Reid erro- neously attributed to the philosophers in general, and the Theory of the Origin of Ideas which he erroneously attributed to Locke. Men, he said, who, like Hume and Berkeley, recognized no ideas but those of sensation and reflection, were com- pelled to repudiate the idea of substance (Works, 322) ; and anyone who accepted the theory univer- sally received by philosophers concerning ideas would find unanswerable arguments against the existence of the material world (p. 282). In attri- The Ttuo Kinds of Knowledge. 21 buting these theories to Berkeley, Reid is followed not only by Stewart and Brown, but by Hamilton and Mansel nay, stranger still to say, by Mill himself. And yet it is demonstrable that Berkeley held neither of these obnoxious doctrines; and the first duty of an expositor of his philosophy is, to clear his memory from the charge.* In arguing against the existence of Matter, Berkeley anticipates a distinction which pervades the whole of recent philosophy. The distinction is taken in the following passages extracted from the second of the Dialogues between Hylas and Philo- nous, in which he popularizes and explains his Principles of Human Knowledge. " Either you perceive the being of matter immediately or me- diately," says Philonous " if immediately, pray inform me by which of the senses you perceive it; if mediately, let me know by what reasoning it is inferred from those things you perceive im- mediately." " You neither perceive matter objec- tively" he continues, " as you do an inactive being or idea, nor know it, as you do yourself, by a reflex act : neither do you mediately apprehend it by similitude of the one or the other, nor yet collect it by reasoning from that which you know immedi- * As to the Ideal Theory, see Reid's Works, ii. 187 ; Hamilton's Lect. ii. Works, i. 282; Stewart's Works, v. 198; Mansel's Proleg. 134; Mill, ut S8, 422; Brown's Works, ii. 17; infra. In my Intellectualism of Locke Hamilton's Reid, 288, and Disc., 69 ; I have endeavoured to free the prince Mansel's Proleg. 318; Mill, ut infra. of the philosophers of England from As to the Theory of the Origin of the charges to which, like the Irish Ideas, see Reid's Works, 294, 322 ; philsopher, he has been exposed. I Stewart's Works, v. 72; Brown's have recurred to the subject in note A. 22 The Ideal Theory of Reid. utely." In a word, he says, " I have no immediate intuition thereof ; neither can I mediately from my sensations, ideas, notions, actions, or passions, infer an unthinking, unperceiving, inactive substance, either by probable deduction or necessary conse- quence. 77 From these passages it is plain that Berkeley anticipates Hamilton's celebrated distinc- tion between Presentative or Immediate and Eepre- sentative or Mediate Cognition (Reid, 804); that he repudiates his theory of Natural Realism ; and that he adopts the Ideal Theory to this extent, that he holds the mind is conscious of nothing but its own ideas. But what are the Ideas of which alone we are thus asserted to be conscious ? According to the Scottish School, the idea of Berkeley is a separate entity a something numerically distinct from mind a some- thing which may pass from the mind of man into the mind of God an essence of the nature of that tertium quid which, as Hamilton says, was originally devised to explain the possibility of a knowledge by an immaterial substance of an existence so dispro- portioned to its nature as a material object. What place a representative idea such as this could have had in a system in which there was nothing to represent it is hard to imagine. Brown clearly per- ceived that the existence of ideas as separate from the mind is an assumption as gratuitous as the assumption of the external existence of matter itself could have been, and that, in point of fact, perma- nent and independent ideas are matter under another The Ideal Theory of Reid. 23 name (Led. xxiv). He clearly saw that to believe that these entities exist in the mind is to materialize intellect under the pretence of intellectualizing matter (ibid.). But critics, when they imagine their author to be preposterously absurd, are too much carried away by their own sense of superiority to entertain the thought that the author, instead of being preposterously absurd, may possibly have been egregiously misconceived. And that, in this respect, Berkeley has been egregiously misconceived is cer- tain. It is true he tells us that " ideas are inert, fleeting, dependent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in, minds, or spiritual substances" (Prin. Ixxxix). But Phi- lonous has explained his meaning. " When I speak of objects as existing in the mind, or impressed on the senses," he says, " I would not be understood in the gross literal sense, as when bodies are said to exist in a place, or a seal to make an impression upon wax my meaning is only that the mind com- prehends or perceives them, and that it is affected from without by some being distinct from itself " (Dial. iii). Nor is Berkeley guilty of any incon- sistency in this. States of mind exist, and may therefore be called existences; they have a being in the mind, and may therefore be properly denomi- nated beings. It is true, as Mill remarks, that " when we have occasion for a name which shall be capable of denoting whatever exists, as contra- distinguished from nonentity or nothing, there is hardly a word applicable to the purpose, which is 24 Berkeley's Ideas are mere Affections of the Mind. not also, and even more familiarly, taken in a sense in which it denotes only substances" (Log. i. 51). But Berkeley, when he speaks of ideas as < existing in the mind/ expressly warns us that they ' subsist not by themselves' (Prin. Ixxxix). He tells us even that " qualities are in the mind only as they are perceived by it, that is, not by way of mode or attribute, but only by way of idea" (Prin. xlix). Nay, he has himself indicated the very fallacy pointed out by Mill, and has formally, and re- peatedly, explained what is meant by the words thing, reality, existence, and being, when applied to the objects of sense (Prin. iii. Ixxxix. cxlii). Nor has he been less explicit as to the meaning which he attaches to the word idea* His official statement throughout the Principles of Human Knowledge is, that l the existence of an idea consists in being perceived' (Prin. ii); that it is not ' possible ideas should have any existence out of the thinking minds, or thinking things, that perceive them ' (Prin. iii) ; that they are ' mere sensations that exist no longer than they are perceived' (Prin. xlvi): * In a note to his Prolegomena Lo- that I understand the significance of ffica, Dr. Mansel, after some observa- this last remark. If it means that tions to the nattering character of Berkeley did not regard the idea as a which I cannot be insensible, pro- modification of the mental substance, fesses himself unable to agree with I agree with Dr. Mansel. If it means me in regarding Berkeley's theory of that Berkeley did not regard the idea ideas as identical with that which as a modification of the mental sensi- represents the idea to be a modifi- bility, I conceive it to be erroneous, cation of the mind, and adds that But if it means that Berkeley did not "in Berkeley's system the relation of recognize the principle of substance, substance and mode has properly then, in my opinion, it is not only noplace" (p. 318). I am not certain erroneous, but it is at variance with Berkeley's Theory of the Origin of Ideas. 25 and in the explanatory Dialogues, Hylas, as the result of his discussion with Philonous, is compelled to acknowledge that, "upon a fair observation of what passes in his mind, he can discover nothing else but that he is a thinking leing affected with a variety of sensations" (Dial. i). The first error of the Scottish School being cleared away, it remains to clear away the second. In the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley states it to be self-evident that the sole { objects of human knowledge' are ideas ideas imprinted on the senses, ideas formed by memory and imagina- tion, or ideas perceived by attending to the pas- sions and operations of the mind (Prin. i). But nothing can be an object of knowledge unless it be presented to something which knows, and accordingly Berkeley assumes the existence of ' an incorporeal, active substance or spirit' (Prin. xxvi) 'one simple, undivided, active being,' which, * as it perceives ideas is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them is called the will' (Prin. xxvii). Of soul or spirit, the fundamental principles of Berke- Realism is idle, for the phrases in the ley's philosophy, in which it is laid mind and without the mind have no down that all our sensible ideas must reference whatever to locality." But have a cause, and that every cause Hamilton's analysis of the possible must be a substance. This is clearly forms of the representative hypothesis perceived by Professor Maguire, in is applied by him to the various forms his masterly tract on Berkeley's No- of Idealism as freely as to Hypothetical tion of Substance ; but as to the nature Eealism itself (Reid, 817). ' Berkeley,' of Berkeley's idea, he says that, he says, 'is one of the philosophers "with Dean Mansel and Professor who really held the doctrine of ideas, Webb to force it into any one of erroneously, by Reid, attributed to Hamilton's three forms of Hypothetic all' (Reid, 288). 26 Ideas and Notions. Berkeley admits, we can form no idea (ibid.)] nay, he admits that ( such is the nature of spirit, or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived but only by the effects which it produceth' (ibid.). Still he contends that ' we have some notion of soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind 7 (ibid.); and accordingly he holds that ' human knowledge may naturally be reduced to two heads, that of ideas and that of spirits' (Prin. Ixxxvi). But Berkeley goes still further. Not only does he insist that ' we may be said to have some knowledge or notion of our own minds, of spirits and active beings, whereof in a strict sense we have not ideas ' ; but he also insists that ' in like manner we know and have a notion of relations between things or ideas, which relations are distinct from the ideas or things related, inas- much as the latter may be perceived by us without our perceiving the former'; and he accordingly con- cludes that ' ideas, spirits, and relations are, all in their respective kinds, the object of human know- ledge and subject of discourse 7 (Prin. Ixxxix). In all this there is doubtless much confusion, much variation of statement, much ambiguity of ex- pression ; but it may be taken on the whole as cer- tain that Berkeley divided the data of consciousness into two classes, ideas and notions; that under the head of ideas he comprehended Locke's ideas of re- flection, and under that of notions those ideas of re- lation which Locke regarded as i the creations and inventions of the understanding.' Among these conceptions of the understanding Berkeley, like his Sense and Understanding. 27 master, recognized the notions of essential sub- stance and efficient cause as distinguished from our notions of a mere permanent collection of qualities and uniform series of events. It is true that Berke- ley and it is the great defect of his philosophy gave no systematic explanation of our notions, and has even left his views in obscurity as to the mode in which these notions are evolved. In his Princi- ples he assumes the existence of a substantial cause to account for the existence of our sensible ideas, because, as he says, it is 'repugnant that they should subsist by themselves' (Prin. cxlvi). In his Vindi- cation of his Theory of Vision, he explains them to be an ' inference of reason,' as distinguished from an ' object of sense,' and maintains that < from our ideas of sense the inference of reason is good to power, cause, agent' (sect. xi). In his Siris, how- ever, he is more explicit. He professes to effect a compromise between the tabula rasa of Aristotle and the innate ideas of Plato, and suggests that though ' there are properly no ideas or passive objects but what were derived from sense,' yet ' there are also besides these her own acts or operations, such as notions,' which must be referable to the under- standing (Siris, 308). For here Berkeley clearly approximates to Kant. ' As understanding perceiv- eth not,' he says, ' so sense knoweth not' (s. 305). He acknowledges with Kant that sensible objects 6 make the first impressions,' and that ' the mind takes her first flight and spring, as it were, by rest- ing her foot on these objects' (s. 292); but, with 28 Berkeley and Kant. Kant, he contends that ' the mind, her acts and faculties, furnish a new and distinct class of ob- jects, from the contemplation whereof arise certain other notions, principles, and verities,' remote from sense (s. 297) ; and maintains that i the mind con- tains all, and acts all, and is to all created beings the source of unity and identity, harmony and or- der, existence and stability' throughout the world (s. 295). And yet it would be a mistake to identify the psychology of Kant with that of Berkeley. Ac- cording to Berkeley's official doctrine the mind is purely passive in the reception of its sensible ideas, and therefore contributes nothing to their forma- tion. It does not frame them in any forms of sen- sibility; it does not combine them into unity by any synthetic power of apperception ; it does not anticipate their permanence or their recurrence by any category of the understanding. Time, accord- ing to Berkeley, is nothing, abstracted from the suc- cession of ideas (Prin. xcviii) ; space is nothing but the absence of resistance (Prin. cxvi). Sensible objects he regarded not as collected together by the mind, but as presented in ' artificial and regular combinations' by their author (Prin. Ixv). He re- cognizes the * foresight ' which enables us to regu- late our actions for the benefit of life (Prin. xxxi); the i prognostics' which we form as to the perma- nent coexistence of our ideas (Prin. xliv); the ' predictions' which we make concerning the ideas we shall be affected with pursuant to a train of UNIVERSITY Berkeley and Kant. \jPj N actions (Prin. lix) : but the only way in w offers to explain these anticipations of experience is by saying that God operates by the ' established methods ' which we call the laws of nature (Prin. xxx ), and that they are derived ' from the expe- rience we have had of the train and succession of ideas in our minds ' (Prin. lix). But Berkeley seems never to have raised the question which was raised and answered by Hume, and answered still more explicitly by Kant How is it that from the experience we have had we can form any a priori conclusion as to the experience we are about to have ? He seems never to have asked himself why it is that we form the expectation that God will continue to act in the future, as we know that he has acted in the past. He seems never to have clearly seen that the permanence of the phenomena of sense and the continuity of their sequences must be assumed in every physical investigation, and that being necessary assumptions they must be regarded as anticipations of the understanding which antece- dent experience may suggest, and which subsequent experience may confirm, but which no modification of mere experience can explain. But if Berkeley does not explain the unity of human knowledge by the Kantian synthetic unity of apperception, there can be no doubt that he fully recognizes in the mind a synthetic unity of sub- stance ; and his consistent assertion that the soul must be regarded as a thinking substance should, at least, have saved him from one of the persistent 30 Berkeley^ Relation to Hume. misrepresentations to which his philosophy has been exposed. According to Reid, the argument which maintains that matter is merely i a bundle of sensa- tions,' is equally applicable to the mind ; and accor- dingly he gives Hume credit for consistency in reducing mind itself to a mere c bundle of thoughts and passions and emotions ' ( Works, 293). But Reid failed to observe that while Berkeley recognized the principle of substance in all its metaphysical reality, Hume, differing from both him and Locke, ignored it. He failed to recollect that, while Berkeley held that matter was a mere bundle of sensations, he held that it was a mere bundle of sensations in the mind, and that mind, as the c substratum of those ideas,' must of necessity be a substance (Prin. vii. xxvi. cxlvi). If Berkeley denied material substance, it was not because he thought that material qualities could exist without a material substratum, but because he thought that material qualities could not by any possibility exist without a mind (Prin. Ixxiii). But here again Reid's error is without excuse ; for Berkeley anticipated this very objection, and met it in advance. " In consequence of your own prin- ciples," says Hylas to Philonous, "it should follow that you are only a system of floating ideas, without any substance to support them" (Dial. iii). " How often must I repeat," says Philonous to Hylas, " that I know, or am conscious of, my own being, and that I myself am not my ideas, but somewhat else a thinking, active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas?" Philonous The Mistake of Mill 3 1 speaks of this fact as known by c consciousness ,' as he previously speaks of it as known by a ' reflex actj and by i reflection? But Berkeley's official doctrine is, that the conception of substance, like the con- ception of causation, is a notion which the mind is compelled by its own necessities to form, since, whatever our ideas may be, ' it is repugnant that they should subsist by themselves' (Prin. cxlvi). But even Mr. Mill is so carried away by the prevailing error, that he falls into the pit which he himself has pointed out. He too occupies him- self in proving what Berkeley never denied, and in denying what Berkeley never asserted nay, he actually charges him for failing to say what he has expressly said. Berkeley, according to Mr. Mill, " supposed that the actual object of a sensible per- ception, though, on his own showing, only a group of sensations, etc., suspended so far as we are con- cerned, when we cease to perceive it, comes back literally the same the next time it is perceived by us ; and, being the same, must have existed in another mind. He did not see clearly that the sen- sations I have to-day are not the same as those I had yesterday, which are gone never to return, but are only exactly similar ; and that which has been kept in continuous existence is but a potentiality of having such sensations, such potentiality implying constancy in the order of phenomenon, but not a spiritual substance for the phenomena to dwell in, when not present to my own mind."* But * Fortnightly Revieiv of November, 1872, p. 518. 32 How our Ideas exist in the Minds of Others. Berkeley puts the very words of Mill into the mouth of Hylas. " The same idea which is in my mind cannot be in yours, or in any other mind," says Hylas " doth it not, therefore, fol- low from your principles that no two can see the same thing, and is not this highly absurd?" " If the word same be taken in the vulgar acceptation," replies Philonous, "it is certain (and not at all re- pugnant to the principles I maintain) that different persons may perceive the same thing, or the same thing, or idea, exist in different minds. Words are of arbitrary imposition ; and since men are used to apply the word same where no distinction or va- riety is perceived and I do not pretend to alter their perceptions it follows that, as men have said before, several saw the same thing, so they may, upon like occasions, still continue to use the same phrase without any deviation, either from the propriety of language or the truth of things." " But whether philosophers shall think fit to call a thing the same or no," Philonous continues, " is of small importance. Let us suppose several men together, all endued with the same faculties, and consequently affected in like sort by their senses, and who had yet never known the use of lan- guage; they would, without question, agree in their perceptions, though, perhaps, when they came to the use of speech some, regarding the uniformness of what was perceived, might call it the same thing ; others, especially regarding the diversity of persons who perceived, might How our Ideas exist in the Mind of God. 33 choose the denomination of different things " (Dial, iii).* But the misapprehension of Mill reaches further than Berkeley's theory of the world ; it reduces to an absurdity his demonstration of the existence of a God. That demonstration Mackintosh regarded as the touchstone of metaphysical sagacity. But what metaphysical sagacity is evinced by the Ber- keleian who supposes that Berkeley postulated the Deity as ' a spiritual substance for the phenomenon to dwell in ' ? The conception of substance undoubt- edly plays a conspicuous part in the philosophy of Berkeley ; but in his demonstration of the exist- ence of God the dominant idea is not substance, but causation. Not only does Mill ignore this func- tion of causation he reproduces in its crudest form the blunder of Brown as to the nature of Berke- ley's sensible ideas. " These," says Brown, " he evidently considered not as states of the indivi- dual mind, but as separate things existing in it, * Collier makes a similar remark. hold the thing to be the same in this " When I affirm that all matter exists as in any other case of sensation ; for in mind, or that no matter is external, instance, that of sound. Here, two I do not mean that the world, or any or more persons who are present at a visible object of it, which I, for in- concert of music may, indeed, in some stance, see, is dependent on the mind sense be said to hear the same notes of any other person besides myself ; or melody ; but yet the truth is, that or that the world, or matter, which the sound which one hears is not the any other person sees is dependent on very same with the sound which ano- mine, or any other person's mind or ther hears, because the souls, or per- f acuity of perception. On the con- sons, are supposed to be different" trary, I contend, as well as grant, that (Clavis, p. 6). Compare with this the the world which John sees is external corresponding passage in the Clavis as to Peter, and the world which Peter to the mundane idea existing in the sees is external to John; that is, I mind of God (p. 79). 1) 34 The Blunder of Brown. and capable of existing in other rninds, but in them alone; and it is in consequence of these assump- tions that his system, if it were to be considered as a system of scepticism, is chiefly defective. But having, as he supposed, these ideas, and conceiving that they did not perish when they ceased to exist in his mind, since the same ideas recurred at inter- vals, he deduced, from the necessity which there seemed for some Omnipotent Mind, in which they might exist during the intervals of recurrence, the necessary existence of the Deity; and if, indeed, as he supposed, ideas be something different from the mind itself, recurring only at intervals to created minds, and incapable of existing but in mind, the demonstration of some Infinite Omnipre- sent Mind, in which they exist during these inter- vals of recurrence to finite minds, must be allowed to be perfect" (Led. xxiv). But, says Brown, "the whole force of the pious demonstration, which Berkeley flattered himself with having urged irre- sistibly, is completely obviated by the simple denial that ideas are anything more than the mind itself affected in a certain manner ; since in this case our ideas exist no longer than our niind is affected in that particular manner which constitutes each par- ticular idea " (ibid.) . And yet Berkeley adopts the very words of Brown. * I can discover nothing else,' says Hylas, 6 but that I am a thinking being affected with a variety of sensations ' (Dial, i) ; and it is from this fact that Philonous concludes ' there is a mind The Recurrence of Ideas. 35 which affects me every moment with all the sen- sible impressions I perceive' (Dial. ii). But what significance could Brown have seen in that form of the demonstration which he considers perfect ? Ideas are separate entities, which can exist no- where but in mind ; these ideas perpetually recur ; therefore there must be some mind in which they exist during the intervals of their recurrence ; therefore there must be a God. What man in his senses could imagine that anyone would be con- verted to theism by reasoning such as this ? The argument attributed by Brown to Berkeley is much the same as the argument attributed by Cicero to Epicurus.* But Epicurus was an atheist, and his argumentation, according to Cicero, was nothing but a make-believe. The only difference between the theory of entity -images and the theory of entity- ideas is one in favour of the former. The material- ist made the image flow from God to man, and left us some proof of his existence the immaterialist makes the ideas flow from man to God, and leaves us to postulate a God as a material receptacle for a shoal of fugitive ideas a receptacle as material as the crystal tank into which gold and silver fish may be conceived as escaping from their crystal bowl.f * Epicurus docet earn esse vim et simillimarum imaginum species ex naturam Deorum, ut primum non innumerabilibus individuis existat, et sensu, sed mente cernatur ; nee solidi- ad deos affluat " the avfipiQfji.ov y4- tate quadam, nee ad numerum, ut ea Aao/ia of ideas in the ' pious demon- quse ille propter firmitatem ffrepefjit'ia stration ' attributed to the Christian appellat, sed imaginibus similitudine idealist by Brown. et transitione perceptis" (De Nat. f Mansel, who substantially agrees i. 1 8). Velleius adds, "cuminfinita with Brown, states the argument of D 2 36 The Ectypal World in Man. Berkeley undoubtedly states that there must be some other mind wherein ideas exist during the intervals of our perception ; but the explanation of this, after what has been already said, is easy. If our sensible ideas are not the spontaneous product of the mind itself, they must be produced from without ; if they are produced from without, they must be produced by some cause which has intelli- gence of the effects which it produces ; and if that cause has intelligence of the effects which it pro- duces, the idea of the effect to be produced must exist and pre-exist in its intelligence, as the idea of the effect to be produced exists and pre-exists in the mind of the musician, the painter, or the poet. It is thus that Malebranche contends that the ideas of all terrestrial things existed in the mind of the Creator before the date of the creation. It is thus that Collier admits the existence of the great mun- dane idea of created matter by which all things are produced, by which the great God gives sensations Berkeley in the following form: they continue to exist when we do "With this argument, which repre- not perceive them (and that they do sents God as the efficient cause of our so is the irresistible conviction of all ideas, Berkeley combined another, men), they must be perceived by some in which the Deity is regarded as a other mind. Hence the continuous constantly perceiving mind. Accept- duration of things implies the exist- ing, as allowed on all hands, the ence of a constantly percipient mind : opinion that sensible qualities cannot that is, of God" (Proleg. 317). But subsist by themselves, and rejecting sensible qualities, according to Berke- the ordinary hypothesis of their exist- ley's view, are only sensible ideas, and ence in an insensible substratum, he sensible ideas themselves are nothing concluded that they must, therefore, but sensations ; and the statement, exist in a mind which perceives them, that sensible qualities, thus under- and that they have no existence apart stood, continue to exist when we do from being perceived. If, therefore, not perceive them, is ambiguous. Our The Archetypal World in God. 37 to all his thinking creatures, and by which things which are not are preserved and ordered in the same manner as if they were (Clavis, p. 7). It is in this sense that Philonous acknowledges a two-fold state of things the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal ; the one created in time, the other existing from everlasting in the mind of God (Dial, iii).* But the ideas which ex- isted from everlasting in the mind of God are not the same as the ideas which exist for a moment in the mind of man ; and the ideas which cease to exist in the mind of man are not the same as the ideas which have no cesser of existence in the mind of God. The eternal existence of objects in the mind of God is, in fact, only another phrase for his eternal knowledge. " All objects," says Philonous, " are eternally known by God, or, which is the same thing, have an eternal existence in his mind ; but when things, before imperceptible to crea- tures, are by a decree of God perceptible to them, sensations cease to exist when our * II est indubitable qu' il n' y avait perception of them ceases. Similar que Dieu seul avant que le monde sensations, it is true, may be expe- fut crec, et qu' il n' a pu le produire rienced by others, and thus, and thus sans connaisance et sans idee ; que par only, things may have a continuous consequent ces idees, que Dieu en a duration. The sensations so expe- cues ne sont point differentes de lui- rienced require, on Berkeley's theory, meme, et qu' ainsi toutes les crea- the intervention of an efficient cause, tures, meme les plus materielles et which, being intelligent, must be per- les plus terrestres, sont en Dieu, cipientof the eifect which it produces ; quoique d'une maniere toute spiritu- and it is only in this sense that elle et que nous ne pouvons coin- Berkeley contends that the continuous prendre (Rech. L. iii. P. ii. c. v). duration of things implies the ex- With this compare the proof that our istence of a constantly perceiving Ideas are not created by the mind mind. (sup. p. 15). 38 Evanescent Ideas. then they are said to begin a relative existence with respect to created minds" (Dial. iii). It is this relative existence which, in the opinion of Berkeley, constitutes the world to us. So com- pletely relative is that existence, that it is relative not only to the person but to the moment. The world is nothing but successive phenomenon and evanescence. Our ideas have no continuous exist- ence. They disappear to be succeeded by ideas which are similar, but not the same ; and these suc- cessive ideas in their similar succession are mere sparkles on the stream of thought mere bubbles on the river, which glitter in the sun and burst.* Berkeley carried out this view of the fleeting nature of ideas to its most sublime result. If the world exists only in idea, and if ideas are mere evanescent states of mind, it follows that the Divine Energy is for ever engaged in creating and re- creating worlds. Accordingly, in the opinion of * The following remarks of Ferrier, But instead of maintaining that it was in his Institutes of Metaphysic, are the ego, or oneself, which clove in- worthy of attention: "The system separably to all that could he known, of Bishop Berkeley, also, was vitiated and that this element must he thought hy the absence of this analysis, or by of along with all that is thought of, the neglect to distinguish the neces- he rather held that it was the senses, sary from the contingent conditions or our perceptive modes of cognition, of cognition. He falls into the error which clove inseparably to all that consequent on the adoption of the could be known, and that these re- first of the alternatives just referred quired to be thought of along with all to [that of elevating the senses, con- that could be thought of. These, just sidered as elements of cognition, to as much as the ego, were held by him the same footing of necessity with the to be the subjective part of the total ego.] He saw that something subjec- synthesis of cognition, which could tive was a necessary and inseparable not by any possibility be discon- part of every object of cognition. nected. Hence the unsatisfactory cha- Constant Creation. 39 Berkeley, the work of the Creator did not termi- nate upon the sixth day, but is continued through the ages. The birth of each new creature is the herald of a new creation. Each moment the uni- verse is anew created in every individual mind. Creation never ceases. When Alciphron, in the Minute Philosopher (Dial, iv), objects to the notion of Euphranor, that God daily speaks to our senses in a manifest and clear dialect, Crito replies: " This language hath a necessary connexion with knowledge, wisdom, and goodness. It is equivalent to a constant creation betokening an immediate act of power and providence. It cannot be accounted for by mechanical principles, by atoms, attractions, or effluvia. The instantaneous production and re- production of so many signs, combined, dissolved, transposed, diversified, and adapted to such an end- less variety of purposes, ever shifting with the occa- sions and suited to them, being utterly inexplicable racier of his ontology, which, when of Hylas. Philonous replies that tried by a rigorous logic, will he found though God is ' the cause of our to invest the Deity the supreme sensations,' and therefore must 'un- mind, the infinite Ego which the derstand' what sensation is, yet he terms of his system compel him to 'perceives nothing by sense,' and place in synthesis with all things, cannot possibly be 'affected with with human modes of apprehension, sensation' (Dial. iii). Malebranche with such senses as belong to man ; gives a similar reply to the same ob- and this, not as a matter of contin- jection (Recli. L. iii. P. ii. c. vi). But gency, but as a matter of necessity" though this reply meets Terrier's objec- (p. 389). How far Berkeley neglects tion, it suggests another. If the world to distinguish the necessary from the in the mind of man is a mere series of contingent conditions of cognition we sensations, where is the correspondence have already seen. But the final ob- between the ectypal world existing in jection made by Ferrier is anticipated the mind of man and the archetypal by Berkeley, and put into the mouth world existing in the mind of God ? 4 The opening sentence of the Kritik contains the substance of the polemic against innate ideas with which Locke opens the Essay concerning Human Understanding. " That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt," says Kant ; "for how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare, to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impres- sions into a knowledge of objects which is called experience" (p. i). But what, according to Kant, are the objects the knowledge of which we are thus supposed to be able to attain? " In whatsoever The Transcendental Object. 179 mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects," says Kant, "it is at least quite clear, that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of intuition" (p. 21). Is Kant's intuition, then, objective ? No. "Our mode of intuition," he says, " is not such as to give us the existence of its object"; for that is "a mode which, so far as we can judge, belongs only to the Creator" (p. 43). But though our mode of intuition does not give us the existence of the object, he holds that it is ' dependent on the existence of the object' for its manifestations, because it is ' possible only on con- dition that the representative faculty of the subject is affected by the object' (ibid.). What, then, in the Transcendental Philosophy, is the object which affects the subject ? and what is the subject which is affected by the object ? Both are presupposed in Kant's conception of experience ; and both, therefore, must be viewed as transcen- dental. Accordingly, throughout the Kritik of the Reason, Kant assumes the existence of a Transcen- dental Object, which he regards as the non-sensuous cause of our sensations (p. 309). It is true ' the transcendental ground of this unity of subjective and objective' constitutes 'the mystery of the origin and source of our faculty of sense ' ; and, therefore, he regards the transcendental object as a mere nescio quid, the nature of which we could not under- stand, though some one were found able to tell us what it is (p. 200). But it must be postulated by the understanding as ' the mental correlate of sensi- N 2 180 The Transcendental Subject. bility ' (p. 309). And hence it is that phenomena, or the sensuous existences which are the sole objects of our knowledge, present a double aspect one turned to the object as a thing in itself, and the other turned to our own form of intuition (p. 33) ; so that the name of phenomenon is given to that which is not found in the object itself, but which is only found in the relation of the object to the subject, and forms our representation of it (p. 42). The conception of a noumenon, therefore, must be admit- ted as the correlative of phenomena ; and, though such a conception is problematical, it is not only admissible, but must of necessity be admitted (p. 187). Phenomena must have a transcendental object as a foundation which determines them as representa- tions (p. 333); and "to this transcendental object we may attribute the whole connexion and extent of our possible perceptions, and say that it is given and exists in itself prior to all experience" (P- 309). As Kant assumes the existence of a Transcen- dental Object as the mental correlate of sense, so he assumes the existence of a Transcendental Subject as the mental correlate of thought (p. 239). But as he regards the one as a mere nescio quid, of which, beyond the fact of its existence, nothing can be known, so he regards the other as a mere unknown quantity, the equivalent of an algebraic x. The Transcendental Object and the Transcendental Subject are thus the two foci around which the Transcendental Philosophy revolves. But these The Transcenden ta I JEs the tic . 1 8 1 foci are invisible to the eye of sense, and the intro- duction of these metaphysical elements into the Kantian system does not exercise any influence on the purely psychological development of its world of intuitions, conceptions and ideas. Kant, indeed, gives us a critical admonition on the subject. " The transcendental conception of phenomena in space," he says, " is a critical admonition, that, in general, nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and that space is not a form which belongs, as a property, to things ; but that objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call out- ward objects are nothing else but mere representa- tions of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of those representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made" (p. 28). In thus asserting that space, as known to us, is a mere form of our sensibility, and not an in- dependently existing thing, Kant separates himself from all previous philosophers, idealist and realist alike ; and it is by the establishment of this propo- sition that the Transcendental ^Esthetic professes to have proved " that all things intuited in space and time, and therefore all objects of possible ex- perience, are nothing but phenomena, that is, mere representations; and that these, whether regarded as extended bodies or as series of changes, have no self-subsistent existence apart from human thought" (P- 307). 1 82 Theories as to Space. What, then, according to the transcendentalist, are Space and Time? By means of the external senses we represent objects as without us, and that in space ; and, by means of the internal sense, the mind contemplates the phenomena of its internal state, and represents them as in time (p. 23). But our internal experience is only possible under the previous assumption of external experience (p. 167); for Kant holds, with Locke, that ideas of reflection must be preceded by ideas of sensation. Space, therefore, in this sense, is anterior to time. Time, moreover, is in a state of continual flow, while space is permanent, and determines things as such (p. 176). Let us, therefore, restrict our inquiry to space. The theories as to the nature of Space advanced by the philosophers who preceded Kant were nu- merous and discordant. The Schoolmen had started a notion, which was afterwards adopted by Grave - sande, that space is a self-subsisting but unthinking substance. Newton had broached the doctrine, which was afterwards developed by Clarke, that it is an attribute of the eternal and infinite existence. Locke had maintained that, though space is neces- sary to the existence of body, the two things are distinct; but, in reply to the question whether space is attribute or substance, had frankly answered that he did not know(n. xiii, 1 1, 17). Leibnitz regarded it as neither substance nor accident, and, defining it to be nothing but the order of things coexistent, reduced it to a mere relation. Berkeley, as we have seen, maintained that extension, figure, and The Transcendental Ideality of Space. 183 motion were only ideas existing in the mind (Prin. ix.), and that space was nothing but the absence of resistance (Prin. cxvi). Collier, in this respect, more philosophical than Berkeley, held that 'the quasi-externeity of visible objects is not only the effect of the will of Grod/ but ' a natural and ne- cessary condition of their visibility' (Olavis, 4). Hume, on the contrary, maintained that ' the idea of space or extension is nothing but the idea of visible or tangible points distributed in a certain order' (i. 80). And, finally, some fifty years before the publication of the Kritik, Law, the translator of the de Origine Mali of Archbishop King, anticipated the very phraseology of Kant, and, denying that the idea of space required any external ideatum, asserted that its formality existed nowhere but in mind, and had no foundation but the power which the mind possessed to form it (Trans. 7) . But what was a mere passing conjecture in the mind of Law was converted by Kant into a syste- matic exposition of the Transcendental Ideality of Space. To establish his point Kant employs the formula of Hume in a department of our mental phenomena in which Hume never dreamt of em- ploying it. The idea of space, he said, does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves or any relation between them; for things in themselves are not presented to our in- tuition (p. 25). Neither is it a general conception; for the idea of space is one, and is not abstracted from a multitude of spaces (p. 24). Neither, he 1 84 The Empiric Reality of Space. said, can it be derived from our external expe- rience; for before we can represent things as ex- isting in space we must have the representation (p. 23). The representation, therefore, must be regarded as an a priori representation which serves as the foundation for all external intuition (p. 24). Accordingly Kant arrives at the conclusion that 'we find existing in the mind a priori the pure form of sensuous intuitions in general, in which the manifold content of the phenomenal world is ar- ranged and viewed under certain relations' (p. 22). It is true ' we cannot convert the special conditions of sensibility into conditions of the possibility of things ' (p. 26). It is true that empty space ' may exist where our perceptions cannot exist, inasmuch as they cannot reach it ' (p. 158). But space in this sense is not an object of possible experience (ibid.) ; and ' in the human point of view,' space is nothing but a permanent form of sensibility in which the sensations with which we are transcen- dentally supplied are moulded (p. 26). The Empiric Reality of Space is the necessary consequence of its Transcendental Ideality (p. 27). The objects of external intuition, whenever they may be presented to us, 'must correspond to the formal conditions of sensibility existing a priori in the mind,' because c without them they could not be objects to us ' (p. 76). Phenomena in the future as in the past must necessarily correspond with the formal condition of sensibility, because it is only through such formal condition that phenomena exist The Mathematical Sciences. 185 (p. 77). True the phenomenon has its twofold aspect; true it has relation to the transcendental object. But as long as the relation of the object to the subject is maintained (p. 42), as long as the unknown cause of our sensations continues to affect the senses, so long will sensibility, like the cloud in Comus, continue to ' turn forth her silver lining on the night/ and so long will the objective reality of our external intuitions as phenomena in space continue. If empirical intuition is possible only through the pure intuition of space and time, it follows that what geometry affirms of the latter is indisputably valid of the former (p. 125). But the principle which accounts for the validity of our mathematical preconceptions accounts for their existence also. No synthetic a priori judgment would be possible except by means of some a priori determination of the mind, and the a priori determination of the mind is discovered in the forms of sense. In show- ing the transcendental ideality of space, therefore, Kant professes to have solved one portion of the grand general problem of the transcendental phi- losophy. He professes to have shown how synthetic a priori propositions are possible in mathematics by showing ' that we are in possession of pure a priori intuitions, namely, space and time, in which we find, when in a judgment a priori we pass out beyond the given conception, something which is not discover- able in that conception, but is certainly found a priori in the intuition which corresponds to the conception, and can be united synthetically with it ' (p. 44). 1 86 The Transcendental Logic. But this solution, though true as far as it goes, is only a partial solution of the problem, even as far as mathematics are concerned. As ' understand- ing and sensibility, with| us, can determine objects only in conjunction' (p. 189), so 'in no other way than from the united operation of both can knowledge rise' (p. 46). The conclusions of the Transcendental Aesthetic, therefore, require to be supplemented by the Transcendental Logic. The Transcendental Logic finds lying before it the manifold content which the Transcendental Aesthe- tic presents in order to furnish material for the pure conceptions of the understanding ; and the spontaneity of thought requires that the diversity presented by the senses should be examined in a certain manner, and connected together, so as to convert it into knowledge (p. 62). The Understanding is variously defined by Kant as the faculty of thinking, the faculty of conceiv- ing, the faculty of judging, and the faculty of rules. But in its most general character it is " nothing but the faculty of conjoining a priori, and of bring- ing the variety of given representations under the unity of apperception," or self-conscious thought (p. 83). It is only by a synthesis of apprehension that the manifold in any empirical intuition is com- bined into the object which we call a phenomenon (p. 98). It is only by a synthesis of imagination that the objects which we have once combined in apprehension are permanently associated as objects of experience (p. 63). It is only by a synthesis The Transcendental Unity. 187 of conception that the scattered data of experience are combined into a system of scientific knowledge, This threefold synthesis is the work of the under- standing, and is presupposed in all a priori empi- rical cognition (p. 63). But even this synthesis necessitates a transcendental pre- conception. It is true we have no intuition of the mind as object; it is true the transcendental subject is an unknown quantity an algebraic x. But in every act of syn- thesis, whether of apprehension, or imagination, or conception, the act is regarded as mine, and as per- formed by me. The unity of conception, therefore, involves the conception of a unity which Kant styles the Originally Synthetic Unity of Apperception (p. 81) the Transcendental Unity of Self 'Consciousness, to indicate the possibility of any a priori know- ledge (p. 82). This, in fact, is 'the first pure cog- nition of the understanding' (p. 85) i the supreme principle of all our synthetic judgments' (p. 117). The original synthetic unity of apperception is ' the form of the understanding ' in relation to ' the forms of sense' (p. 103); and accordingly the first lesson which the Transcendental Logic teaches is, that it is the supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to the understanding; just as the Transcendental Aesthetic teaches that the formal conditions of space and time are the supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to our capacities of sense (p. 84). The synthetic power, which Kant thus attri- butes to the understanding, is merely the scientific 1 88 The Transcendental Analytic. expression of what Locke and Hume had intimated in more popular language, when they said that the understanding has the power of perceiving, com- pounding, and comparing the simple ideas with which it is furnished by the senses, and that the ideas of substances are mere collections of the simple ideas which the understanding joins together. But Kant, in the Transcendental Analytic, advanced far beyond this point, and penetrated to the very centre of the subject. He gave an exact analysis of the various a priori conceptions which the under- standing employs in dealing with its sensible intui- tions, and also an analysis of the various synthetic a priori principles into which those various concep- tions enter (p. 53). The Analytic of Conceptions professes to trace the pure conceptions of the un- derstanding to their very germs and beginnings in the mind, until they are developed on the occa- sions which experience presents (p. 55). And the Analytic of Principles professes to show that c a priori synthetical judgments are possible, when we apply the formal conditions of a priori intuition, the synthesis of imagination, and the necessary unity of that synthesis in a transcendental apper- ception, to a possible cognition of experience, and say : the conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, and have for that reason objective validity in an a priori synthetic judgment' (p. 119). The first thing to be studied, then, is the Analytic The Analytic of Conceptions. 189 of Conceptions. As the Transcendental ^Esthetic professes to have proved that all objects of possible experience are nothing but phenomena, which have no self-subsistent existence apart from human thought (p. 307), so the Transcendental Analytic professes to have established that ( the understand- ing is competent to effect nothing a priori except the anticipation of the form of a possible experience in general ' (p. 1 83). What, then, are the conceptions of the understanding by means of which it antici- pates experience ? Here, again, the subject diverges into two branches. The object of the Transcen- dental Discovery is to determine* the precise number of these conceptions, and the object of the Trans- cendental Deduction is to show that without their aid all anticipation of experience would be impos- sible for us. It is in the Transcendental Discovery that Kant's claims as a discoverer in mental science are most conspicuous and least disputed. Bacon, it is true, had recognized the necessity of a philosophia prima, which was to be the repository of the conceptions and axioms common to all the sciences, and among his transcendents, had enumerated such conceptions as rnajus minus ; multum paucum ; prius, posterius ; idem, diversum ; potentia, actus ; habitus, privatio ; totum, partes ; agens, patiens ; motus, quies ; ens, non-ens; and the like. Hobbes had followed the ex- ample of his master, and had acknowledged the im- portance of a philosophia prima, which should treat of such fundamental notions as body, time, place, i go The Transcendental Discovery. matter, form, essence, subject, substance, accident, power, act, finite, infinite, quantity, quality, motion, action, passion, and divers others, necessary to the explaining of man's conceptions concerning the na- ture and generation of bodies (iii. 671 ; vii. 226). Locke had divided our complex ideas into modes, substances, and relations ; and had treated in suc- cessive chapters of space, of duration, of infinity, of power, of substances, of cause and effect, of identity and diversity, and of other relations. Berkeley had intimated the necessity of ' an inquiry concerning those transcendental maxims which influence all the particular sciences ' (Prin. cxviii), and had talked in a vague way of the mind containing all, and acting all, and being to all created things the source of unity and identity, harmony and order, existence and stability (Siris, 295). Hume had accepted Locke's division of our complex ideas into modes, substances, and relations ; and had classified rela- tions under the heads of resemblance, identity, space and time, quantity and number, quality and degree, contrariety and causation (Works, i. 30, 98). But none of them, except Hume, had set any definite aim before them. They followed no guid- ing principle in their investigations. They fastened on one conception after another as they occurred, and their whole procedure was hap-hazard. The understanding being the faculty of judg- ment, Kant conceived that by examining the forms of judgment he would be able to determine the number of the a priori conceptions of the under- The Transcendental Clue. 191 standing. It was this which supplied him with the Transcendental Clue (p. 56). Judgments, according to the logicians, can be contemplated under four aspects only, those of quantity, quality, relation, and modality; and if a physical content be intro- duced into these forms of logic, a transcendental element, according to Kant, will be detected (p. 58). The sun is the centre of the planetary system; some of the planets are mere asteroids; all the planets revolve around the sun. What is involved in the words < the,' [and < some/ and 'all'? Evi- dently the conceptions of unity, plurality, and totality. The earth revolves around its axis; the sun does not revolve around the earth ; glass is a non-conductor. These judgments involve the con- ceptions of reality, negation, and limitation, the limitation of a class of things, not by the presence, but by the absence, of a certain characteristic. If we assert categorically that gold has such and such properties, there is implied a conception of inhe- rence and subsistence ; when we assert hypotheti- cally that if the sun shines the wax will melt, there is implied the conception of causality and depen- dence ; and if we assert disjunctively that a thing is either this or that or the other, the coordination of the whole, and the reciprocal exclusion of each, involve a conception of community or reciprocity between agent and patient (p. 64). Finally, what is assumed in propositions such as these : as a matter of fact, man does exist upon the earth ; as a matter of possibility, life may be existent in 1 92 The Categories of the Understanding. the moon ; as a matter of necessary inference from what we have perceived, man must have existed in the glacial period ? Clearly the conceptions of actuality, possibility, and necessity. This com- pletes the tale. We have discovered the twelve Categories of the Understanding. These are the con- ceptions which guide the understanding in its an- ticipations of experience. These suggest the ruling principles which regulate and pre-determine the domain of knowledge. These are the Di Majores of the Kantian system. Or consider the matter in another aspect. We may conceive an object as one, as many, or as at once both one and many; we may conceive it as an object of which something may be affirmed, or of which something may be denied, or of which something may be affirmed with an element of de- nial ; we may conceive it as inherent in some sub- stance, or as produced by some cause, or as reacting on other objects in the form of cause and substance ; we may conceive it as possible, or we may conceive it as existent, or we may conceive it as necessary, that is, as existent from the mere fact of the possibi- lity of its existence. We have thus the Categories of Unity, Plurality, and Totality; of Eeality, Nega- tion, and Limitation ; of Substance, Causality, and Community of Action ; of Possibility, Existence, and Necessity. These are the transcendental concep- tions elicited from the Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Modality of the logicians. In each of the four classes the number of the categories is three, and The Transcendental Deduction. 193 in each triad the third is the synthesis of the other two (p. 67). The four forms of judgment are thus like the four rivers of Paradise in the picture in the old Bibles. They are placed at right angles to one another, each with a convenient bridge erected in the middle, and the tree of knowledge, with the serpent round it, is planted in the centre of the four. Why the Categories should be twelve and twelve only we can no more explain than we can explain why the functions of judgment should be four, or why the kinds of syllogism should be three, or why the forms of sensible intuition should be only two (p. 89). We can only answer that the fact is so. The Transcendental Discovery being completed, Kant proceeds to the Transcendental Deduction, the object of which is Ho show that these conceptions are a priori conditions of the possibility of all expe- rience ' (p. 78), considered as a system of empirical cognition (p. 160). But the categories are not in themselves cognitions, but are mere forms of thought for the construction of cognitions from given intui- tions ; so that from them alone no synthetical pro- positions can be made (p. 174). And this again raises the question, What are the synthetic a priori propositions which the physical sciences assume ? And how are such judgments possible ? The Analytic of Principles is the complement of the Analytic of Conceptions. Fastening on the four forms of judgment, Kant discovers that ' all intui- tions are extensive quantities 7 (p. 122) that 'in all phenomena the real, or that which is an object of o 194 The Principles of the Understanding. sensation, has degree' (p. 125) that 'in all changes of phenomena substance is permanent' (p. 136); and c all changes take place according to the law of connexion of cause and effect' (p. 141); and i all substances, in so far as they can be perceived in space at the same time exist in a state of complete reciprocity of action' (p. 156) and, finally, that as a thing agrees with the formal, or coheres with the material and universal, conditions of experience, it is possible, real, or necessary (p. 161). These are the Axioms of Intuition the Anticipations of Percep- tion the Analogies of Experience and the Postulates of Empiric Thought (p. 121 ). Not only are these prin- ciples assumed in all our physical inquiries, but it would be impossible to form any system of physical science without assuming them. Unless we assumed that all phenomena are subject to the laws of mathe- matics (p. 125), unless we assumed that substance in the world of phenomena is constant (p. 137), unless we assumed that the sequence of phenomena is sub- ject to the law of causation (p. 142), we could pre- determine nothing whatsoever as to the phenomena with which we are to be presented (p. 141). This shows the true nature of cognition a priori. 'All cognition by means of which we are able to cognise and determine a priori what belongs to empirical cognition may be called an anticipation' (p. 126); and the principles which we are discussing are only ' rules of synthetic unity a priori by means of which we can anticipate experience' (pp. 160 i). By means of the Axioms of Intuition we know a The Anticipations of Experience. 195 priori that phenomena, when presented to us, will conform to the laws of time and space (p. 125). The Anticipations of Perception enable us to ' fore- stall experience' in its very matter, the sensation (p. 127). The Analogies of Experience are merely rules by means of which ' we anticipate our own apprehensions' (p. 155), and < intuite the future by anticipation' (p. 164). Even in connexion with the Postulates of Empiric Thought the great objection to the existing systems of idealism was, that by not admitting time and space to be the forms of sense, they gave no objective validity to sensible phe- nomena, and left the mind without any rational ground for anticipating their recurrence (p. 166). In point of fact, it is only by the existence of the principles of the understanding which anticipate experience that our possession of synthetic a priori judgments is proved (p. 463); and, accordingly, the Transcendental Analytic, to repeat the words of Kant, "has this important result, to wit, that the understanding is competent to effect nothing a priori, except the anticipation of the form of a pos- sible experience in general 7 (p. 183); or, as he else- where expresses himself, it shows how the mere logical form of our cognition can contain the origin of pure conceptions a priori conceptions which represent objects antecedently to all experience, or rather, indicate the synthetical unity which alone renders possible an empirical cognition of objects " (P- 22 5> Kuno Fischer, in his Commentary, tells us that 02 ig6 The Transcendental Anticipation. 6 the whole summary of the Transcendental Ana- lytic ' is contained in the proposition that ' the pure concepts of the understanding are not produced by experience, but themselves produce experience, though they cannot produce any other cognition than experience' (p. 129) they produce its very objects like the forms of sense (p. 78). But Kant asserts the very opposite of this. He asserts that the conception of the understanding ' does not pro- duce the object as to its existence/ but is only ' a priori determinative in regard to that object' (p. 77). It is true that the word experience is used in two senses by Kant, and sometimes in a single sentence. Thus in the opening sentence of the Kritik he says that i all our knowledge begins with experience ,' and then goes on to say that unless our senses were affected the powers of the understanding would not be roused ' to compare, to connect, or to separate our representations, so as to convert the raw mate- rial of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience ' (p. i). Here it is evident that the word experience is used first as meaning sensuous impression, and afterwards as meaning scientific knowledge. It is in the latter sense that the word is used by Kant when he says that ' the rules of the understanding ' form ' the basis of the possibility of experience.' " These rules of the understanding," he says, " are not only a priori true, but the very source of all truth, that is, of the accordance of our cognition with objects, and on this ground, that they contain the basis of The Transcendental Enigma. 197 the possibility of experience, as the complex the inbegriff of all cognition" (p. 179). But this suggests another aspect in which the question must be viewed. If truth be the accor- dance of our cognition with its objects (pp. 50, 179), how can we guarantee the accordance of objects with our cognition ? Our cognition can possess no ' objective reality' unless we are supplied with 1 intuitions to correspond with our conceptions ' (p. 201) how, then, can we guarantee that our conceptions will be supplied with the 'corresponding intuitions ? If experience in its higher sense is dependent on the categories for its possibility, it is plain that the categories are dependent on expe- rience in its lower sense for their objective validity and confirmation (p. xxix). How is it, then, that the categories can be 'the keys to possible expe- riences 7 ? (p. 221). In fact, Kant himself suggests the problem. He raises the question, 'how the categories can determine a priori the synthesis of the manifold in nature, and yet not derive their origin from her 7 'how it is conceivable that nature must regulate herself according to them 9 when they have their origin not in her but in the mind (p. 100). He finds himself 'involved in a difficulty ' when he is asked ' how the subjec- tive conditions of thought can have objective vali- dity ; in other words, can become the conditions of the possibility of all cognition of objects' (p. 75). He puts it thus: "That objects of sensuous in- tuition must correspond to the formal conditions 198 The Transcendental Harmony. of sensibility existing a priori in the mind, is quite evident from the fact that without these they could not be objects for us; but that they must also cor- respond to the conditions which the understanding requires for the synthetical unity of thought, is an assertion the grounds of which are not so easily discovered ; for phenomena might be so constituted as not to correspond to the unity of thought, and all things might be in such confusion that, for example, nothing could be met with in the sphere of phenomena to suggest a law of synthesis, and so correspond with the conception of cause and effect ; so that this conception would be quite void, null, and without significance" (p. 76). The solution of this enigma as Kant regards it (p. 100) is supplied by the Transcendental Object. Nature in its subjective aspect -formaliter spectata may be regulated by the categories ; but nature in its objective aspect materialiter spectata must be regulated by the object which is the non-sensuous cause of the phenomena presented to the mind (p. 309). ' To this Transcendental Object,' as we have been already told, ' we may attribute the whole connexion and extent of our possible percep- tions ' (p. 309). The action of this Transcendental Cause when ' phenomenized ' is ' in perfect accord- ance with the laws of empirical causation ' (p. 337). It is thus that objects are found to conform to our cognition (p. xxviii). It is thus that the antici- pations of the understanding are confirmed by sub- sequent experience (p. xxix). Hence it is that when The Transcendental Dialectic. 199 the understanding supplies the conception, expe- rience supplies the case (p. 120). Hence it is that phenomena are presented to us ' in harmony with the category' (p. 113). ' The categories never mislead us,' in short, because ' outward objects are always in perfect harmony therewith ' (p. 394) in the words of Hume, because there is t a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas' (iv. 65). The consideration of the Transcendental Object leads us from the Transcendental Logic to the Transcendental Dialectic from the domain of Phy- sical Science to the domain of Metaphysics from the region of anticipation which experience can confirm to the region of anticipation which admits of no confirmation from experience in our present state (p. xxix). Here the Understanding expands its Conceptions into Ideas, and assumes the name of Reason. The ideas of Kant are not, like those of Plato, the archetypes of things themselves (p. 221). They are nothing but the categories elevated to the unconditioned (p. 257), or rather, aspiring to an unconditioned which they cannot possibly attain (p. 311). They are necessary conceptions of rea- son to which no corresponding object can be dis- covered in the world of sense (p. 228), conceptions which carry their synthesis far above all possible experience (p. 263), and of the object corresponding to which we can have no knowledge (p. 235). And as the clue to the discovery of the categories was supplied by the forms of judgment, so the clue to 200 The Three Ideas. the discovery of the ideas is supplied by the forms of syllogism, to which all reasoning is restricted (p. 225). The three forms of syllogism correspond to the three categories of subsistence, causality, and community of action (p. 226); and, following the thread of these categories, metaphysicians have attempted to demonstrate the nature of the Soul, the World, and God. The futility of all these attempted demonstra- tions, according to Kant, is evinced by demon- strating the impossibility of making any dogmatical assertion concerning any object which lies beyond the boundaries of experience (p. 250). All a priori knowledge, he says, is obtained either from the anticipation of possible experience or from the analysis of conceptions (p. 477). But i in whatever way the understanding may have attained to a con- ception, the existence of the object of the conception cannot be discovered in it by analysis, because the cognition of the existence of the object depends upon the object's being posited and given in itself, apart from the conception' (p. 392). The objects which correspond to our ideas are not so given ; for we have no power of intellectual intuition, and the intuition of the senses can never give the existence of an object in itself (p. 43). It is in vain, there- fore, that the reason poised on the wings of its ideas attempts to transcend experience. As well might the dove attempt to pass beyond the atmo- sphere by which it is supported, and to extend its flight into the void. The Rational Psychology. 201 The Transcendental Dialectic is only a develop- ment of the principles which are thus laid down. The Rational Psychology attempts to demonstrate from the very nature of thought that the Tran- scendental Subject is a substance simple in its essence identical through the whole period of its existence and distinct from body (p. 239). But the conception of a thing which can exist per se only as a subject possesses no objective reality, because we can never know whether there exists any object to correspond with that conception (p. 244). The argument, therefore, is a mere Paralogism of the Reason (ibid.); and the transcen- dental illusion which gives it plausibility is found in the fact, that the unity of consciousness which lies at the basis of the categories is considered to be an intuition of the subject as an object, and the category of substance is applied to the fancied intuition (p. 249). The Rational Cosmology which attempts to demon- strate the existence of a world resembling our ideas fares worse with Kant than the Rational Psychology. It not only begs the question, but in begging the question it finds itself involved in a variety of con- tradictions which are styled the Antinomies of the Reason. Whether Reason contemplates the compo- sition, the division, the origination, or the depen- dence of phenomena (p. 260), so long as it supposes that it is dealing with things in themselves, it finds itself involved in a natural antithetic (p. 255). In the discussion of any one of these questions thesis 2O2 The Rational Cosmology. and antithesis spring from the Reason at the mere suggestion, just as the two serpents which tormented Zohab sprang living from his shoulder at the devil's kiss. Had the world a beginning or had it not? Does or does not every composite substance consist of simple parts ? Is a free causality necessary to account for the phenomena of nature, or is no such free causality required ? Does any absolutely necessary being exist or no ? (pp. 266-284). As long as we suppose we are dealing with things in themselves, thesis and thesis may be with equal plausibility maintained. But the combatants are the victims of a transcendental illusion (p. 315). They fancy that the mere modifications of their sensibility are things subsisting by themselves (p- 37)- Once informed that all they are con- scious of is phenomenal, they will see that the first two antinomies are a contest about nothing (p. 313), and that in the second two the antinomy is only apparent, as it is not impossible that both the con- tradictory statements may be true one, in the world of sense, the other, in the world beyond it (p. 346). The Rational Cosmology recognizes the neces- sity of admitting the existence of a Transcendental Object as the unknown cause of our known sen- sations ; and the recognition of this necessity is an inducement to the Transcendental Theology to identify the Transcendental Object, as Berkeley identified it, with God. But the fallacy of all attempts to prove the existence of God by way of demonstration is shown by the mere definition of The Transcendental Theology. 203 the conception of existence (p. 367) by the fact that the existence of an object corresponding to a con- ception cannot be known by a mere analysis of the conception, and can only be shown by actual expe- rience (p. 392). Hence it is that Kant describes the ontological demonstration which Descartes based on the innate idea of a God, as an illusive augmen- tation of our intellectual wealth by the addition of noughts to our account (p. 370). Hence it is that he describes the cosmological proof, which Leibnitz based on the idea of the contingency of the world, as the ontological demonstration in masquerade, an argument which had changed its dress and disguised its voice, for the purpose of passing itself off as an additional witness before the judgment-seat of rea- son (p. 372). The claims of the physico-theological argument, based upon the principle of final causes, are treated, it is true, by the critic of the reason with deference and respect (p. 382). But, accord- ing to Kant, this argument is merely an introduc- tion to the ontological argument, which contains the only possible ground of proof possessed by the speculative reason for the existence of the Supreme Being (p. 383). Theoretically it is open to the various objections brought against its sufficiency by Hume. It reasons from the analogy of human art, and assimilates the creation of the world to the manufacture of a watch. At most it demonstrates the existence of an architect, but not the existence of a creator, of the world. At most, it proves the existence of a cause proportionate to the order and 2O4 The Speculative Reason. harmony which we observe, but not the existence of a cause, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni- present, such as that which reason sees in its supreme ideal. But beyond this, it is open to the one insuperable difficulty in the mind of Kant. The physico-theological argument is unable to bridge the abyss which yawns between reality and thought ; and the physico-theologians, after follow- ing the path of nature and experience, suddenly turn aside and pass into the region of pure possi- bility, where they hope to reach, upon the wings of ideas, what had eluded their empirical investi- gations, and, extending their conceptions over the whole sphere of creation, imagine they have at- tained to the transcendent reality of which they are in quest (pp. 386, 7). We have now traversed the whole domain of the Transcendental Philosophy, and pursued our way as best we could in the uncertain glimpses of the moon which illuminates that shadowy realm Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna Est iter in silvis. In the Transcendental Aesthetic Kant professes to have established that all things intuited in space and time all objects of possible experience are nothing but phenomena, which, whether considered as extended bodies or as series of changes, have no existence apart from human thought (p. 307). In the Transcendental Analytic he professes to have shown that the understanding is competent to The Practical Reason. 205 effect nothing a priori except the anticipation of the form of a possible experience in general, and that, as that which is not phenomenon cannot be an object of experience, it can never overstep the limits of sensibility within which alone objects are pre- sented (pp. 183, 225, 429). The Transcendental Dialectic professes to have demonstrated that " hu- man reason, in one sphere of its speculation, is called upon to consider questions which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty which it possesses" (p. xvii); and teaches the lesson that it ought never to attempt to soar above the sphere of possible experience, beyond which there lies nothing for us but the incomprehensible inane (p. 429). But it is with the Kantian philosophy as with the nether world of Virgil there is a double exit ; and as the Speculative Eeason is the porter of the gate of horn which gives egress to mere shadowy shapes, so the Practical Reason is seated by the ivory gate from which living realities emerge. Though we surrender the power of ' knowing,' we reserve the power of ' thinking,' supersensible ex- istence (p. xxxiii). There is nothing to prevent us from admitting that the objects which correspond to our ideas of the soul and God have an actual ex- istence (p. 412). We are not only authorised, but we are in fact compelled to realise them, and to posit real objects corresponding to our conceptions, though we cannot be said to know them (p. 415). 206 Moral Certainty. Even in a purely theoretical connexion we may as- sert that we firmly believe in the existence of God, and in a future state, while, in the moral aspect of the question, we are irresistibly constrained to be- lieve in those momentous facts (p. 501). The proofs which have been current among men in justification of these high beliefs not only i preserve their value undiminished,' but l gain in clearness and unsophis- ticated power by the rejection of the dogmatic as- sumptions of the speculative reason' (p. 251). The practical proofs derived from i the analogy of na- ture ' and ( the moral law ' remain after the pre- tended demonstrations have been finally confuted. " This mighty, irresistible proof," says Kant " ac- companied, as it is, by an ever-increasing knowledge of the conform ability to a purpose in everything we see around us, by the conviction of the boundless immensity of creation, by the consciousness of a certain illimitableness in the possible extension of our knowledge, and by a desire commensurate there- with remains to humanity, even after the theoreti- cal cognition of ourselves has failed to establish the necessity of an existence after death" (p. 251). What then has Kant the Destroyer the Alles- zermalmender as he is called by his countrymen destroyed? He himself informs us. He has ef- fected nothing but a c destruction of cobwebs ' (p. xxxviii). He has confuted all i metaphysical demonstrations ; ' but he has left us ' practical proofs' to take their place' (p. 251). He denies that we can have any ( logical conviction ' in sup- Logical Conviction. 207 port of our belief in God and in a future state, but he admits that we may have a ' moral certainty ' upon the subject (p. 502). He recognizes the fact as established on the subjective ground of sentiment which he refuses to regard as established on the objective ground of reason (ibid.). ' It is not the matter which may give occasion to dispute/ he says, i but the manner ' ; and ' even after we have been obliged to renounce all pretensions to know- ledge? it is ' perfectly permissible to employ, in the presence of reason, the language of a firmly rooted faith* (p. 453). Faith fills the space left vacant by the reason (p. xxxi) ; and if Kant abolishes know- ledge, it is only to make way for belief (p. xxxv). When knowledge and belief are thus sharply contrasted, it may be well to examine a little more closely into the true character of knowledge, under the conditions of the Kantian system. For what is Kant's Cognition ? Kant holds that we have no intuition but the intuition of the senses, and that besides the intuition of the senses we have no mode of cognition, except cognition by conceptions (p. 57). What, then, is Cognition ly Conceptions ? According to Kant, ' the conceptions of the understanding are cogitated a priori ante- cedently to experience' (p. 219); and, conse- quently, * all cognition, by means of which we are enabled to cognize and determine a priori what belongs to empirical cognition, may be called an anticipation' (p. 126). Accordingly, as we have seen, the Analytic arrives at the result that 208 The Presuppositions of Reason. ' ' the understanding is competent to effect nothing a priori, except the anticipation of the form of a possible experience in general " (p. 183). But what is the nature of Anticipation ? It is not a mere con- ception of the intuition which will be presented, it is in reality, to use the words of Reid, a conception of the object accompanied by a belief. For what, in fact, is the category of substance but a belief that the phenomenal substance of the universe is constant ? What is the category of causation but a belief that the succession of phenomena is subject to a constant law ? What then is the difference in this respect between the conceptions of the under- derstanding and the ideas of the reason ? It is merely this. The conceptions of the understanding, being restricted to the domain of experience, admit of confirmation, while the ideas of the reason, at- tempting to transcend experience, admits of no confirmation in our present state (p. xxix). Yet it is not exactly true that the ideas of the reason receive no confirmation from experience even here. There are certain principles of the reason which are assumed in physical investigations. With Occam and Leibnitz, Kant has propounded certain laws as to the multiplication of entities, the variety of species, and the continuity of forms, which he denominates the law of parcimony, the law of spe- cification, the law of continuity, and the like (pp. 399-410). These laws, though merely ideas of the reason, have a physical significance and use. They are presuppositions that, amid the seemingly infinite The Maxims of Reason. 209 diversity of the phenomena of nature, there will be found a latent unity of fundamental properties (p. 400) ; presuppositions which impose upon the understanding the duty of searching for sub-species in every species, and minor differences in every difference (p. 402); presuppositions which have their source in reason, and to which no adequate object can be discovered in experience (pp. 404, 5). The laws in question are not laws of nature ; they are Maxims of Reason maxims which are not de- rived from observation of the constitution of the object, but are subjective principles arising from the interest which reason has in producing a certain completeness in its ideas (p. 408). And yet under the guidance of these principles experimentalists have determined the nature of the elements (p. 396), have reduced all salts to alkalis and acids (p. 400), have ascertained the various species of absorbent earths (p. 403), and have detected in the orbit of the planet and the trajectory of the comet the ex- istence and the laws of the all-pervading and con- tinuous force of gravitatiou (p. 406) . It might have happened that reason, in thus following the path of its ideas, was pursuing a path contrary to that prescribed by nature (pp. 399, 405), just as it might have happened that phenomena might have been so constituted as not to correspond with our conceptions (p. 76). But in our actual expe- rience it is not so. The preconceptions of these 1 anticipatory laws of reason, 7 as Kant denominates them, are confirmed (p. 403). They are shown to p 2io The Scandal to Philosophy. possess an ' objective, though undetermined vali- dity ' within the sphere of our actual experience (p. 407); and this proof of their validity inspires us with confidence in the other conclusions of reason, and leads us to believe that they too, in some future experience, may be eventually confirmed.* It is at this point that Kant's approximation to the philosophy of the Scottish school becomes appa- rent. Reid, as we have seen, had resolved sensible perception into conception and belief, and on the authority of mere belief had assumed the existence of an external world of matter. According to Karit, as we have also seen, it must remain a scandal to philosophy to be obliged to assume the existence of things external to ourselves as an article of mere belief, and not be able to oppose a satisfactory proof to anyone who may call the fact in question (p. xl). We are now in a position to examine how he proposes to remove this scandal to phi- losophy, and how he proposes to supply a satis- * How nature can regulate herself question they suggest hy saying that in accordance with the maxims of without these principles ' ' nature her- reason is presented hy the most recent self (i.e. ohjects of experience) could of the Kantian expositors as one of not exist" (p. 152). I have already the most difficult problems in the given my reasons for rejecting this Kritik. How nature must regulate solution of the difficulty, and shown herself in accordance with the prin- that the word nature is amhiguous. ciples of the understanding is a ques- But while differing from Mr. Monck tion proposed hy Kant himself as a in this respect, I take this opportunity transcendental enigma. The two dif- of expressing my obligations to that ficulties in reality are hut one. Mr. acute metaphysician for the numerous Monck, in his Introduction to the hints and suggestions with which he Critical Philosophy, follows the Ger- has favoured me during the composi- man commentators, and answers the tion of the present essay. The Removal of the Scandal. 211 factory proof of the existence of things external to ourselves. Kant's c strict demonstration of the objective reality of external intuition 7 has been strangely misunderstood. One class of commentators of whom Hamilton is the representative has fancied, that in opposition to the whole scope of his phi- losophy he attempted to demonstrate the existence of external things as existing in external space. Another class has supposed with Mr. Mahaffy that his object was merely to prove, in opposition to Descartes and Berkeley, that external perception was not mere imagination, and that phenomena were something more than mere appearance (Fisch. li). It is difficult to demonstrate the true nature of a demonstration which is left involved in such a mist of words; but the momenta of Kant's argument would seem to be as follows : I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time ; and all determination with regard to time presupposes the existence of something permanent in perception (p. 167). My existence in time is determined by my intuitions in space (p. 167); and space as the permanent form of my sensibility is permanent, and determines things as such (p. 176). But the permanent something which determines my exist- ence in me cannot be the mere permanent intui- tion of space, because the permanent intuition of space itself requires to be determined. The ex- ternal sense of which it is the form implies a rela- tion to something real, which must affect the senses P 2 2 1 2 The Greater Scandal. before the form of external sensibility can be evolved (p. xl). There must, therefore, be something perma- nent in existence, as well as something permanent in representation (p. xli.) something permanent in existence which is the cause of our representations (p. 167), and which can be no other than the tran- scendental object (p. 309). But if the transcen- dental object and the transcendental ideality of space be granted, the objective reality of external intuition, that is, its empirical reality, follows, as a matter of course; and the proof of ' the objective reality of external intuition ' is all that Kant con- templates by his proof of ' the existence of things external to ourselves ' (p. xl). But Kant's demonstration of the existence of things external to ourselves is in reality a demon- stration that things external to ourselves, in the ordinary sense of the term, have no existence. It establishes that when the transcendental object acts it produces certain modifications of our sensi- bility, and that when these modifications are pro- duced, they are moulded in the forms of sense, of which the transcendental ideality of space is the result. Thus moulded, they are mere phenomena, which have no existence apart from human thought ; and it is the fundamental position of the Transcen- dental ^Esthetic that these phenomena constitute the only objects of which we have experience (p. 307). It is true, as Hume observes, that by a universal and necessary belief men regard phenomena as things subsisting by themselves (iv. 178). But Transcendental Belief. 213 Kant, like Hume, though in more learned lan- guage, stigmatizes this as a mere transcendental illusion. And this shows the true effect of the Kantian demonstration. It establishes the exist- ence of things external to ourselves, by showing that, properly speaking, they are not external. It demonstrates the objective validity of external in- tuition by showing that, properly speaking, it is not objective. Kant professes to have removed the scandal to philosophy which, in his opinion, is involved in accepting the existence of things ex- ternal to ourselves, as an article of mere belief; but he removes the scandal to philosophy of ap- pealing to belief, by the greater scandal of denying the validity of the belief to which philosophy ap- peals. It is true that by insisting that all our ideas of sensation are moulded in the forms of sense, and that the forms of sense are constituent and essential elements of human nature, Kant attempted to im- part to the sensible world the reality cf the human nature in which it is moulded, and by which it is projected into fancied space. But this does not free philosophy from the scandal of accepting the existence of things external as an article of mere belief. It is mere matter of belief that the consti- tution of human nature, in respect to its capacities of sense, will continue as it is. It is mere matter of belief that the transcendental object will con- tinue to act in its accustomed manner. It is mere matter of belief that the quantity of phenomenal 214 Presentative Realism. substance will continue constant. It is mere mat- ter of belief that the succession of phenomena will continue to be regulated by a constant law. The law of continuance itself the law which, in the words of Bishop Butler, leads us to believe that all things will continue as they are, except in those respects in which we have reason to believe that they will be altered even this fundamental law, by its very terms, is nothing but an expression of belief. We are now in a position to form an estimate of Kant's theory of perception by comparing it with the various theories which he rejects. In the first place, he rejected, by anticipation, the Presentative Realism which Hamilton proclaimed. He held that the only manner in which our knowledge relates to external objects is by means of intuition (p. 21); and he held that our mode of intuition was sensuous merely, and could never give the existence of the object (p. 43). A fortiori he rejected the Transcen- dental Realism, which regards the mere modifications of our sensibility as things subsisting by themselves (p. 307). This was a mere transcendental illusion (p. 315) a universal and primary opinion of all men, it is true, but one which, in the words of Hume, the slightest philosophy was sufficient to destroy (iv. 177). In the same way the principles of Kant's philosophy compelled him to reject the Hypothetical Realism, which supposes the existence of an external world corresponding to our ideas of extension. In the first edition of the Kritik, although Hypothetical Realism. 215 he maintains that we must admit the existence of something which, by affecting our senses in a certain manner, produces in us the idea of exten- sion; yet he maintains that this something is not extended, impenetrable, or composite, because all these predicates only concern sensibility and intui- tion, in so far as we are affected by the transcen- dental object (Fischer, 341). In the Prolegomena he sarcastically exclaims, " I suppose I must say, not only that the representation of space is perfectly conformable to the relation which our sensibility has to objects, for that I have said, but also that it is quite similar to them an assertion in which I can find as little meaning as if I had said that the sensation of red has a similarity to the property of vermilion which excites this sensation in me " (p. 56). In the second edition of the Kritik he states his opinion with respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition to be, " that the things which we intuite are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us" (p. 35). Whether Kant was consis- tent in making these dogmatic assertions may well be doubted. But his dogmatism goes still further. While he admits that objects corresponding to the psychological and theological ideas may possess 'an objective and hyperbolic existence, 7 he contends that there can be no objects corresponding to the cosmological ideas, because they are antinomial, and involve a contradiction (pp. 300, 412); and he 2 1 6 Psychological Idealism. holds that this affords an indirect proof of the transcendental ideality of the phenomena of sense And as Kant rejected these various forms of realism, so in recognizing the existence of a tran- scendental object, he repudiates that form of Psy- chological Idealism, which, ignoring the necessity of conceiving essential substance and efficient cause, regards the sensible world as a mere series of sensa- tions, unsubstantial and uncaused. But he equally repudiated that form of Psychological Idealism which he variously described as Material Idealism, to distinguish it from Formal, and as Empirical Idealism, to distinguish it from Transcendental. Although Material Idealism recognized a cause by which our sensible ideas are produced, and a sub- stance in which they inhere, it did not recognize the intuitions of space and time in which they are moulded, and thus left them, in his opinion, without form and void. It was upon this ground that he rejected the Problematical Idealism of Descartes, which, commencing with the famous Cogito, declared the existence of objects in space without us to be doubtful. According to Kant, it ignored the fact * The most intelligible and com- principal passages in the original pendious comment on the Kantian Kritik of the Eeason, which were philosophy which has hitherto been altered in the second and following published is to be found in Kant's editions, and by so doing has demon- Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic strated, against the German critics, which can claim to be a Science, and that there is no substantial difference Mr. Mahaffy has laid the philosophical between the earlier and the latt- r forms world under great obligation by his of the philosophy of Kant. The same translation of that work. To this trans- passages are also given in his Trans- lation Mr. Mahaffy has appended the lation of Fischer. Theological Idealism. 217 that our internal experience is determined by our external experience ; and it ignored the fact that our external experience is determined by the Tran- scendental Ideality of Space. In the same way he rejected the Theological Idealism, or, as he calls it, the Dogmatic Idealism, of Berkeley. Berkeley, it is true, admitted that all human experience must commence with sense, and recognized the existence of a non-sensuous cause of our sensations. But he held that space was the mere absence of resistance, and that absolute space was the mere phantom of the geometric mechanical philosophers. Hence he left our sensations with- out any natural bond or basis. Hence he repre- sented the mind as entirely passive in the reception of its sensible ideas. Hence he reduced phenomena to mere appearance, and regarded the sensible world as a mere vanity of the Divine Art a mere insubstantial pageant, such as that which the ma- gician exhibited to Miranda in the enchanted isle. But this was not the only ground on which Kant objected to the Theological Idealism of Berke- ley. Not only did Berkeley ignore the transcen- dental ideality of space ; but he professed to determine the nature of the transcendental object. Kant, it is true, reproduces the main argument of Berkeley. " The world around us," he says, " opens before our view so magnificent a spec- tacle of order, variety, beauty, and conformity to ends, that, whether we pursue our observa- tions into the infinity of space in one direction, 2 1 8 Theological Idealism. or into its illimitable divisions on the other, whether we regard the world in its greatest or in its least manifestations, even after we have at- tained the highest summit of knowledge which our weak minds can reach, we find that in the presence of wonders so inconceivable language has lost its force, and number can no longer reckon, nay, even thought fails adequately to conceive ; and our conception of the whole dissolves into an asto- nishment without the power of expression all the more eloquent that it is dumb " (p. 382). But while Kant is compelled to recognize the existence of something which is primal and self-subsistent something which, as the cause of this phenomenal world, secures its continuance and preservation' (ibid.), he refuses to recognize this primal and self- subsistent cause as Grod. He is prevented from so doing by the exigencies of his Dialectic. The prin- ciple of efficient causation, he says, is a principle without significance in the sensuous world (p. 374). It is impossible to discover any mode of transition from that which exists to something entirely diffe- rent termed a cause (p. 390). The knowledge of the existence of an object depends upon the object's being posited and given in itself, apart from the conception (p. 392). The fact is not susceptible of demonstration. It is strange that Kant should have forgotten that, on his own showing, what can- not be mathematically demonstrated may be prac- tically proved, It is stranger still that he should have recognized the principle of efficient causation Egoistical Idealism. 219 when lie assumed the existence of a Transcen- dental Object, but should have repudiated its authority when he came to prove the existence of a God. Kant was more self-consistent when he declined to adopt the Egoistical Idealism of Fichte, and to hold that there is only one single substance in the universe the Ego. We are told by Schwegler that Kant, in his first edition, stated it to be possible that the ego and the thing in itself, which lies behind the appearances of sense, might be one and the same thinking substance, and that in his second edition he expunged the conjecture (Schw. 220). But this is a mere misapprehension. In the second edition Kant repeats the language of the first. He gives a premonition that the two fountains of human knowledge may possibly spring from a com- mon but an unknown source (p. 18). He states " that it is quite possible that the cause of our representations may lie in ourselves, and that we ascribe it falsely to external things" (p. 167). He considers that " that which lies at the basis of phe- nomena, as a thing in itself, may not be hetero- geneous" from the object of the inner sense, the soul (p. 252). But he declined to accept an admit- ted, possibility for an established fact. All the manifestations of our consciousness are determined by our external intuitions (p. 167); but though our external intuitions are determined by some tran- scendental object, we possess no intuition which gives the determining in ourselves prior to the act 22O Egoistical Idealism. of determination (p. 96). On the contrary, we have the consciousness, not of a determining, but only of a determinable, self (p. 241). In one passage Kant seems to agree with Berkeley, that the permanent something to which we are related cannot be ( some- thing in us' (p. 167); but he subsequently modi- fies the statement, and contents himself with saying that this permanen t cannot be an intuition in us ' (p. xl). Nor could Kant consistently have made any dogmatic assertion on the subject. His official doctrine, constantly repeated, is expressed in lan- guage which admits of no dispute. He does not hold, as Fichte seems to have imagined him to hold, that sensation is to be explained by reference to a transcendental object independently existent with- out us' (Schw. 260). What he holds is, that the transcendental object which is the basis of phe- nomena is a mere nescio quid (p. 206) . He insists that the transcendental ground of the unity of subjective and objective lies too deeply concealed for us, who know ourselves only through the in- ternal sense, and consequently as phenomena, to be able to discover in our existence anything but phenomena, the non-sensuous cause of which consti- tutes the mystery of the origin and source of sense (p. 200). In fine, he persistently maintains, against Fichte as against Berkeley, that the transcendental object which is the cause of phenomena is ' an object of which we are quite unable to say whether it can be met with in ourselves, or out of ourselves whether it would be annihilated together with Transcenden tal Idealism . 221 sensibility, or, if this were taken away, would continue to exist' (p. 206). But while Kant thus protested his ignorance of the nature of the transcendental object, he entertained no misgivings as to the transcendental ideality of space. It is in this transcendental ideality that the peculiarity of his Transcendental Idealism is to be sought and found. It is true he admitted that the faculty of cognition could not be awakened into exercise unless our senses were affected (pp. i. 21, 45). It is true he held that our senses could not be affected except by the operation of some efficient cause (pp. 206, 333, 337). It is true he recognized as c the non-sensuous cause of phenomena ' (p. 309) i a non-empirical and intelligible causality ' which 4 phenomenises ' itself though it is not * phenomenal ' (p. 337), and which as transcending the sensations of which it is the cause may be styled the transcen- dental object (pp. 200, 309, 333, 337). But the transcendental object merely supplies the material of knowledge, and it is the transcendental ideality which supplies the form (p. 36). Our sensations are nothing till they are moulded in the forms of sense. Accordingly Kant contended, not only that the rainbow with its various colours has no existence, except in the mind, but that even the raindrops themselves, with their globular form and the space through which they fall, are merely fundamental dispositions of our sensuous intuition (p. 38). It was by the establishment of this that the Transcen- dental ^Esthetic established the fundamental position 222 The Ideality of Space. of Transcendental Idealism, which proclaims that all things perceived by us in space and time, and there- fore all objects of any experience which is possible to us whether they be regarded as extended bodies, or whether they be regarded as series of changes are nothing but phenomena which have no existence apart from human thought (p. 307). Kant tells us that we are not justified in con- verting the forms of our sensibility into condi- tions of the possibility of things (p. 27). He tells us that he does not deny that empty space may possibly exist, though he holds that we cannot possibly perceive it (p. 158). But he maintains that, from * the human point of view,' space is nothing but a form of human sensibility (p. 27); and that, though things may be related in space as a form of sense, they have no relation to space considered as a reality independent of the senses (p. 267).* To test the doctrine which thus reduces space, from the human point of view, to a mere transcendental ideality, let us take the famous pas- * Mr. Mahaffy considers that I am the possibility of a knowledge of the wrong in my view of Kant's theory objective, and yet dogmatically have of space. In his Translation of Fis- affirmed the objective non-existence of cher's Commentary he says" How, what possesses empiric reality ' " Ma- in the face of these reiterated asser- haffy's Fischer, p. 55. But Kant ex- tions, Professor Webb could write pressly says that it is only from the (Intellectualism, p. 173), 'whether human point of view that we can Kant held that space was nothing but speak of space (p. 26) ; and he ex- a form of sensibility may be doubted,' pressly says that he does not intend to seems to me marvellous. And the combat the notion of empty space ; ground of the assertion is still more for, he says, ' ' it may exist where our so : 'it is inconceivable that so sys- perceptions cannot exist, inasmuch as tematic a thinker should have denied they cannot reach thereto" (p. 158). The Starry Heavens Above. 223 sage in the Theory of Ethics which is familiar to every student of philosophy. " Two things there are," says Kant, " which, the oftener and the more steadfastly we consider them, fill the mind with an ever new and ever rising admiration and reverence the Starry Heavens above and the Moral Law within. Of neither am I compelled to seek out the reality, as veiled in darkness, or only to conjecture the possibility, as beyond the hemisphere of know- ledge. Both I contemplate lying clear before me, and I connect both immediately with my conscious- ness of existence. The one departs from the place I occupy in the outer world of sense expands, be- yond the bounds of imagination, the connexion of my body with worlds rising beyond worlds, and systems blending into systems and protends it into the illimitable times of their periodic movement, its commencement and perpetuity. The other departs from my invisible self, from my personality, and represents me in a world truly infinite, indeed, but whose infinity can be tracked out only by the intel- lect, and my connexion with which, unlike the for- tuitous relation in which I stand to the world of sense, I am compelled to recognize as universal and necessary. In the one, the first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it were, my im- portance as an animal product, which, after a brief and incomprehensible endowment with the powers of life, is compelled to refund its constituent matter to the planet itself an atom in the universe on which it grew. The other, on the contrary, elevates 224 The Moral Law Within. my worth as an intelligence, even without a limit, and that through my personality, in which the moral law reveals the faculty of life independent of my animal nature, nay, of the whole material world at least, if it be permitted to infer as much from the regulation of my being, which a conformity with that law enacts, proposing, as it does, my moral worth for the absolute end of my activity, conceding no surrender of its imperative to a ne- cessitation of nature, and spurning in its infinity the conditions and boundaries of my present transitory life."* This passage shows how difficult it is for any idealist to realise his own idealism, or to reconcile it with the unsophisticated view of common sense. For why contrast the moral law within with the starry heavens above, if the starry heavens above in reality exist within ? Why talk of my con- nexion with worlds upon worlds, and systems upon systems, if worlds upon worlds, and systems upon systems, have no external existence, and are but modifications of myself ? Why should the countless multitude of worlds annihilate my importance as an animal nature, when it is in my nature alone that all the countless multitude of worlds exists ? How is the constituent matter of the animal product to be given back to the planet it inhabits, if the matter of * I have slightly modified the trans- or Practical Philosophy, by the Eev. lation of this magnificent passage as T. K. Abbott, Fellow of Trinity Col- given in Hamilton's Discussions (p. lege another valuable contribution to 310). A more literal translation is to the study of the Kantian Philosophy be found in Kant's Theory of Ethics supplied by the University of Dublin. The Material World Without. 225 which it is formed, and the planet which it inhabits, and the universe of which that planet is a speck, are all mere transcendental idealities, which have no existence whatever apart from human thought ? And where is the majesty of the moral law in a world which exists only in idea ? The moral law supposes me to be a member of a moral system a system in which I am related to other beings, and in which each member has his rights and duties, and is under obligation to the others. But if there is no external world, there are no external bodies ; and if there are no external bodies, what proof have I of the existence of other moral beings ? How can I prove, or believe in, the existence of my fellow- creatures, if I cannot prove, and am not to believe in, the existence of the corporeal frames in which they are embodied, and by which they are revealed? On the principles of idealism not only is the sub- limity of the contrast lost, but its very significance is gone. The starry heavens fade away into a sensuous image, and the empire of the moral law dissolves into a domain of dreams. The imagination encounters still greater difficul- ties when it attempts to realise the purely idealist conception of time. Hegel ridicules the passage in which Haller describes eternity as awful, with its mountains of millions, its ages piled on ages. The only really awful thing about it, he says, is the awful wearisomeness of ever fixing, and anon un- fixing, a limit, without advancing a single step (Log. s. 104). But the wearisomeness of the effort Q 226 Time as a Subjective Form. to contemplate the everlasting Now, which is the only idea of objective time which the idealist admits, is quite as awful. The effort, moreover, from the very nature of the case, must prove abortive. We cannot divest ourselves of the idea of an objective time in which all objective change occurs. Changes are real. Time may be a mere form, in so far as it is the form of the continual change in our representations (p. 32). But there are objective changes. We ourselves, whatever we may be, begin to exist, and have therefore an ob- jective beginning of existence. Of such an objec- tive fact no subjective form can be the explanation. As far as we can judge objective changes can only occur in an objective time. Nor does Kant, when properly understood, deny the existence of such an object. It is true, he says that time is not some- thing which subsists of itself ( p. 30) that if we take objects as they are in themselves then time is nothing (p. 31) that time cannot be reckoned as subsisting or inhering in objects as things in them- selves, independently of its relation to our intuition (p. 32). But, in this connexion, what are we to understand by time ? According to the doctrine of the Kritik, time regarded as a real object is not presented to any of our perceptive powers (p. 30). As in the case of every other real object, the only mode in which our knowledge can relate to it is by means of our intuition (p. 21); and here, as else- where, our intuition, being merely sensuous, can never give us the object of intuition in itself (p. 43). Time as an Objective Fact. 227 But if the object be not given by intuition, its ex- istence, according to the teaching of the Kritik, can never be discovered by any analysis of our concep- tions (p. 392). Time, therefore, as an absolute reality, is something which, for us, remains un- presented and unknown. It is only presented to us as a form of sense. Consequently it is only as a necessary representation lying at the foundation of all our intuitions of sense (p. 28), and all our concep- tions of change (p. 29) that we have any cognisance of time. As the real form of our internal intuition, it is something real (p. 32), but this reality is not the absolute reality of a thing subsisting by itself (p. 34). To regard any mere modification of our sensibility as a thing subsisting by itself would be to maintain that obnoxious transcendental realism against which the whole Kritik is one continued protest (p. 307). As a form of intuition, therefore, time is nothing when abstracted from the pheno- menon of sense (p. 31); as a form of intuition, it cannot be reckoned as an attribute of things (p. 32). But the existence of things in themselves is recog- nised by Kant, and in addition to the time which is a form of sense there may be a time which is an existing thing. If time, as an absolute reality, is not given, it does not follow that it does not exist. If time, as an objective existence, is not known, it does not follow that its existence may not be an obj ect of belief. Kant has met all such inconsequen- tial reasoning in advance. He answers both those who deny his doctrine and those who would extend Q 2 228 The Lesson of the Krltik. it. They do not reflect, he says, that both space and time, without question of their reality as re- presentations, belong only to the genus phenomenon, which has always two aspects the one, the object considered as a thing in itself, the other, the form of our intuition of the object (p. 33). To conclude that space and time have no exist- ence because we do not know them as existing would be to disregard the wisest lesson and the most earnest warning of the Kritik. True, the great metaphysician professed to have abolished meta- physics. True, he ridiculed the so-called science with all the richness of metaphor which his imagina- tion could supply. It was a stormy ocean in which nothing could be discerned but the fog-bank and the mist. It was a Serbonian morass in which man could neither stand nor swim. It was a shadowy Walhalla which was the everlasting battle-field of shades. It was a Babel of confusion in which men, like the builders on the plain of Shinar, strove in vain to build them a city and a tower which might reach to heaven. But, in the opinion of Kant, the very severity of his criticism had rendered an im- portant service to the interest of thought. By showing the impossibility of making any dogma- tical affirmation concerning objects beyond the boundaries of experience it had fortified the mind against all counter affirmations (p. 250). If it had shown the inability of human reason to supply any demonstration of the existence of a Supreme Being, it had also shown the utter fatuity of denying his Our Practical Beliefs. 229 existence (p. 393). If it had shown that mere reason is incompetent to demonstrate the freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul, it had shown that reason was equally incompetent to de- monstrate that we are not immortal and that we are not free (p. 458). In fact, according to Kant, the greatest if not the only use of a philosophy of pure reason was to be found in its purely negative cha- racter (p. 482) in the protection which its very negation of knowledge supplies to our practical beliefs in freedom, immortality, and God (p. xxx v) . But our practical beliefs in freedom, immortality, and God can scarcely be considered stronger than our practical belief in the absolute reality of space and time. The principles of space and time stand on the same level of authority as the principles of causation, which Kant recognises without reluctance or reserve. Kant admits that there is an objective course of physical causation which confirms all the anticipations of experience suggested by the cate- gories of the understanding. He admits the objec- tive existence of an efficient cause which operates beyond the region of mere physical causation, and which he styles the transcendental object. He even admits the validity of the principle of final causes, and again transcending the domain of nature, insists on the existence of a great first cause which sustains and regulates the world of sense (pp. 251, 382). In all these cases belief surpasses knowledge. In all these cases belief supplies a ground of expec- 230 Transcendental Hypothesis. tation and a principle of action. But what principle of action can be justified, if one of the most power- ful of our practical beliefs is to be belied? The belief in the existence of space and time is as strong as any belief which the human mind can entertain and to give that belief the lie is to destroy all con- fidence in our faculties and to cut the very nerves of action. The tendency of the mind of Kant was essen- tially idealistic. It was his boast that the Kritik had struck at the root of materialism and destroyed the fatalism and atheism which are its malignant growth (p. xxxvii.). Nor was the boast unfounded. In spite of its loud appeals to experience, material- ism is nothing but a form of metaphysic. The meta- physic of matter is as incapable of verification as that of mind. To convert the principles of experience into conditions of the possibility of things, and to reduce the universe to matter, is just as transcendent a procedure as that which appeals to the principles of thought, and affects to demonstrate the existence of the objects of our ideals and ideas (p. 474). Materialism may be one of the possibilities of things ; but even if materialism be possible it does not exhaust the sphere of possibility (p. 474). There are other possibilities which are equally worthy of regard. It is possible, for instance, that our actual life is nothing but a sensuous representation of a pure spiritual existence that the sensible world is but an image hovering before our faculty of sense that, if we could see ourselves as we actually are, A bsolu te Idealism . 231 we should see ourselves in a world of spiritual natures, our connexion with which did not begin at our birth, and will not cease with the destruction of our bodies (p. 473). But Kant struck at the root of idealism as vigorously as he struck at the root of materialism (p. xxxvii. ). Idealism, he said, is not to be obtruded as a dogma it is not even to be re- garded as a fixed opinion (p. 474). It is a mere transcendental hypothesis (p. 473) a hypothesis which is not to be valued as an instrument of discovery, but as a weapon of defence (p. 472). As a weapon of defence it is available against the attacks of materialism, but that is all. It is a weapon which has not been steeled in the armoury of experience its metal is not steel, but lead (p. 473). But this wise reserve was contemptuously disregarded by the philosophers of Germany who succeeded Kant. They professed to be in earnest about idealism. They proclaimed the transcen- dental ideality to be the only valuable portion of the philosophy of their master. They denied that space and time had any ontological existence. They treated the principles of substance and causation as they treated the principles of space and time. They repudiated the transcendental object. Resolving the World into a sensuous phantom, and God into the moral order, Fichte declared the Ego to be the only substance (Schw. 267), while Hegel resolved the Ego itself into its ideas left ideas without any origin in causation or any support in substance made the Absolute Idea the sum total of existence 232 The Neo-Scottish School. and declared Absolute Idealism to be the last word of philosophy, the culminating point of human thought (Schw. 435). But every revolutionary excess is followed by reaction. In opposition to these extravagances the Neo-Scottish school reverted to the principles of Reid. They recognised the practical authority of belief, and reasserted the objective validity of the principles of space and time, and substance and causation. But they also, with a certain reserve, adopted the principles of Kant. They admitted that unless the object were actually given, its existence could never be positively known ; and they admitted that in whatever way our knowledge relates to material objects, it can only immediately relate to them by means of an intuition. But is our intuition merely sensuous ? Is all our knowledge essentially subjective? Is it true that the object is never given to us in intuition ? Is it true that the ob- ject is never actually known ? These were the questions which engaged the attention of the Neo-Scottish school, and they cannot be more satisfactorily discussed than in connexion with the philosophy of Hamilton, its founder. CATALEPTIC IDEALISM: OB HAMILTON. CATALEPTIC IDEALISM: OR HAMILTON. Tactus enim, Tactus, proh Divom numina sancta ! Corporis ext sensus. LUCRETIUS. THE history of philosophy is little more than a history of refutations. For upwards of two hun- dred years the church militant was thundering on the morion of Hobbes. A whole library might be formed of the answerers of Locke. The name of the antagonists of Hume is legion. But nowhere has this rage of refutation been more conspicuous than in the Scottish School. In the succession of * The substance of this Essay was between the Examination and the originally published under the title present Essay are coincidences only, of The Metaphysician in Frazer's Those who travel the same road will Magazine for April, 1860, four or five see the same objects, and those who years before the publication of Mr. set the same objects will describe Mill's Examination. Any coincidences, them in similar terms and make the therefore, which mav be detected same observations on them. 236 Hamilton's Influence. writers, by whom it is represented, we have not only a series of refutations, but a series of refuta- tions in which the great man, who for the moment was lord of the ascendant, refuted the refutation of his predecessor. The philosophy of Reid was nothing but an attack on the speculative edifice which was reared by Hume. But as Reid refuted Hume, so Brown refuted Reid ; and as Brown refuted Reid, so Hamilton refuted Brown ; and as Hamilton refuted Brown, so the whirligig of time brought in its revenges, and Mill, in his turn, refuted Hamilton. The whole intellectual movement, in fact if it is not beneath the dignity of the subject to employ such an illustration is the exact counterpart of the performances of the cow, the dog, the cat, and the rat, which are celebrated in the jingling history of the House that Jack built. Hamilton, after Hume, is the greatest of the metaphysicians whom Scotland has produced. He occupied a large space in the view of his contem- poraries ; and of all his contemporaries none, per- haps, exerted a greater influence upon thought. Of the state of philosophy in the year 1833, when he first appeared as a writer, we cannot require better evidence than that of a celebrated work which was published in that year the England and the English of the first Lord Lytton. According to that brilliant writer, it was the age of political econo- mists. The stream of thought had been diverted into political science, and had left the fountains of metaphysics and of ethics dry. All the recent Hamilton's Learning. 237 moralists were of the school of Helvetius, and all the recent metaphysicians were of the school of Hartley. There was no idealizing school to coun- terbalance the attraction towards speculations which dealt with the unelevating practices of the world. The lamp of a purer naphtha, to use Lord Lytton's expression, was extinct. Compare this description with the present state of thought, and it will be seen how wide a distance separates the epochs. The lamp which was extinguished is re-lit. The fountain which had run dry is all aflow. Instead of metaphysics being material, physical science has become metaphysical. In this revolution by far the most conspicuous figure is that of Hamilton ; and the power of his personality is evidenced by the influence which he exercised upon such minds as Hansel, and Fraser, and M'Cosh, and Veitch. The first thing which strikes the student of the works of Hamilton is the appearance of stupendous learning. The philosophy of Aristotle and Plato, the mystical speculations of the Alexandrine and Arabian schools, the infinite subtilties of the School- men, and all the developments of modern thought whether British, French, or German appear to be reflected in his mind. Nay, the physiologists and anatomists of all ages seemed to have been as familiar to him as the philosophers ; and even on the question of the worms in the frontal sinus, when attacking the phrenologists, he could in his medical ignorance, as with the pride which apes humility he styles it, refer to authorities which he 238 Hamilton's Criticism. could scarcely summon patience to recount (Lect. i. 427). But if we test his knowledge by a reference to the writers with whom we are familiar if we test it by a reference to Locke, to Berkeley, or to Hume it will be apparent that his learning was too multifarious to be precise. Take, for example, the case of Hume. Hamilton conceived that Hume had no philosophical principles of his own, but merely accepted the principles adopted by the previous schools. He did not see that while Hume rejected Locke's theory of the origin of ideas, he accepted his theory of the origin of knowledge. He did not perceive that on the question of the existence of an external world Hume recognised the practical authority of the common sense of Reid. He did not see that in his discussion of the question of causation Hume enunciated and employed the method which is deemed the dis- covery of Kant. He identified Hume with the sen- sualistic school, though Hume insisted on the a priori character of mathematics. He saw in Hume no- thing but the sceptic, and even the nature of his scepticism itself he misconceived, identifying him with Pyrrho and with Sextus, instead of identify- ing him with Pascal and with Kant. And yet the view of his enormous intellectual acquisitions occasions a feeling of regret that he did not employ them in satisfying the one great desi- deratum of the philosophic world. Studious, subtle, and systematic, the intellect of Hamilton was pecu- liarly fitted for the task of contabulating all the Hamilton's System. 239 various speculations of philosophers, exhibiting them in their mutual relations, . and presenting a synop- sis of the various systems. His analysis of all the possible theories of causation, and his analysis of all the possible theories of perception, show what he could have effected on a larger scale. But Hamilton mistook his mission. He aspired to be a great original thinker, and despised the humbler function of expounding the various possibilities of thought. He did not see that the resources of conjecture were practically exhausted, and instead of supplementing the work of Kant by giving the world a Kritik of Systems, he added to the con- fusion and the conflict which distract philosophy by elaborating a system of his own. Regarded as a system, the philosophy of Hamil- ton presents an appearance which is strangely unsys- tematic. He seems to have been overwhelmed with the mass of his materials. His sentiments are to be collected with infinite labour by a collation of passages extracted from a variety of dissertations historical, critical, and dogmatic. His works are full of repetitions, and inconsistent statements of opinion. Not one of them, in a literary point of view, is artistically complete. He had collected materials for a noble superstructure, but his phi- losophy presents the appearance of a builder's yard rather than the appearance of a building. Unfortunately for his permanent influence, Hamil- ton was misled by his patriotic bias as a Scotchman, and mainly applied his genius to the service of 240 Reid's Question. the Scottish School. With the self-abnegation of a Dumont, he devoted himself to the exposition and development of the philosophy of Reid with this difference, however, that Reid was as inferior to Hamilton as Mirabeau and Bentham were superior to D union t. But it was clearly impossible for a mind so enterprising and so energetic to confine itself within the narrow limits of the philosophy of common sense. It would have been strange, in- deed, if the genius of Kant had not fascinated the imagination, and cast a spell over the intellect, of Hamilton. Hamilton, in fact, was a composite of Eeid and Kant. His philosophy was a confluence of the two streams of speculation which had their fountain-head in Hume. But, like the rivers in the Iliad, the two incongruous tides would never mingle ; and hence, while the professions of common sense, like the stream of oil, lay glistening on the surface of his philosophy, the Kantian stream, like the off- shoot of the waters of the Styx, rolled deep and dark beneath. The influence, however, which Reid exerted over the mind of Harnilon was so great that, in his view, it invested with paramount importance the primary question of Reid's philosophy the theory of perception, and the proof of the existence of the world of matter. This question had been brought into prominence by Berkeley, and had been pro- nounced to be incapable of solution in the way of philosophy by Hume. Reid undertook to solve it. Hume's position was that the opinion of external Common Sense. 241 existence, if rested on natural instinct, is contrary to reason, and if referred to reason is contrary to reason, and at the same time carries no rational evidence with it, to convince an impartial inquirer of its truth (iv. 181). This position Reid undertook to turn; but his mode of procedure was peculiar. He conceded the premises of Hume. He conceded that in perception there is nothing present to the mind but the perception. He conceded that there is no immediate intercourse between mind and matter, and that we have no experience of the connexion between our perceptions and material things. He conceded that the existence of the world of matter cannot possibly be proved by reason. It is true he insisted on what Hume admitted that we are irresistibly led by a natural instinct to believe in the existence of an external world which is independent of our perceptions ; but it is equally true he admitted what Hume insisted on that when we yield to this natural instinct we are irresistibly led to believe that our perceptions are themselves external. Reid, therefore, could not deny the exist- ence of the conflict signalised in Hume's dilemma. All he could say was what had been previously said by Hume that, conflict or no conflict, we must follow the instincts of our nature. It was the governing principle of his doctrine, according to Hamilton, to reconcile philosophy with the neces- sary convictions of mankind (Reid, 820); but his only resource was to disguise the conflict between R 242 The Common Man. them by conferring on each of the conflicting prin- ciples the equivocal name of common sense. The impossibility of basing a system of philo- sophy on common sense in any consistent meaning of the term is apparent from Hamilton's treat- ment of the subject. " Common Sense," he says, " is li-ke Common Law each may be laid down as the general rule of decision ; but in the one case it must be left to the jurist, in the other to the philo- sopher, to ascertain what are the contents of the rule ; and, though in both instances the common man may be cited as a witness, for the custom or the fact, in neither can he be allowed to officiate as advocate or judge " (p. 752). But Hamilton does not seem to have perceived the inevitable conse- quences of this distinction. For observe the results of the examination of the common man if he be cited as a witness for the custom or the fact on this question of perception. Undoubtedly the common man would depose, if he could express himself in the language of philosophers, that he believes the world to exist, because he is immediately cognisant of its existence (Reid, 750). But submit the witness to cross-examination, and what will be the result ? He will inevitably admit to Hume that he believes the images presented by the senses to be the exter- nal objects (iv. 177). He will inevitably admit to Hume that the sensible qualities, such as colour, heat, and cold, which are mere sensations of the mind, are, in his opinion, inherent in the object The Common Philosopher. 243 (iv. 1 80). He will admit, in fine, that he thinks he sees the sky above him, and the fields around him, and the fruit tree in his garden, and that to the best of his belief the sky is blue, and the fields are green, and the cherries on the cherry-tree are .red. But these beliefs Hamilton admits to be at once inevitable and erroneous. He holds that it is incorrect to say that the sun, or moon, or stars are, or can be, perceived by us as existent, and in their real distance in the heavens (Reid, 299) ; and he repudiates the natural realism of the vulgar, which transfers our sensations of colour to the ob- ject (Reid, 8 1 6). But in admitting this, Hamilton admits everything for which Hume contends. He admits that reason and natural instinct are in con- flict. He admits that what is common is not sense, and that what is sense is not common that what is natural is not real, and that what is real is not natural, In short, he virtually admits that Common Sense and Natural Realism, as far as perception is concerned, are contradictions. Nor is Hamilton more fortunate in his appeal to the philosophers on the question of law than he is in his appeal to the common man on the question of the facts. " For reasons to which we cannot at present advert," he says, "it has been almost uni- versally denied by philosophers, that in sensitive perception we are conscious of any external reality on the contrary, they have maintained, with sin- gular unanimity, that what we are immediately cog- nitive of, in that act, is only an ideal object in the R 2 244 Hamilton's Position. mind itself" (Disc. 193). He repeats this in his edition of Reid (pp. 749, 817); he repeats it in his Lectures (i. 295). What then, according to Hamil- ton, is common sense ? Not the common sense of the vulgar, for they are incompetent, to form a judgment ; not the common sense of the philoso- phers, for the judgment they pronounce is wrong. Hamilton's common sense, therefore, would appear to be merely the common sense of one uncommon man ; and, as far as his immediate purpose is concerned, he is merely in a position to verify the saying which Voltaire borrowed from Buffier that common sense is anything but common. The fact is, that common sense is incompetent to give any satisfactory answer either as to law or as to fact ; and the appeal to such an authority can have no result but that of arraying the prejudices of the vulgar against the speculations of an opponent. It is not an argument addressed to a judge, neither is it the examination of a witness. To carry out the analogy, it is a mere speaking to the gallery an appeal to the prejudices of the mob. Abandoning the shifting ground of common sense, and taking his stand upon the ground of reason, Hamilton deviated from the procedure of Reid in dealing with the idealistic question. In reducing perception to mere conception and belief, Reid had unconsciously admitted that in perception there is nothing present to the mind but its ideas, and had gone off on a false track, misled by the idle fancy that the idea of the philosophers Natural Realism. 245 was a tertium quid. Hamilton was too subtle to be betrayed into any such fiasco. He attacked Hume in his central position. Hume had laid it down as a principle, conceded by all philosophers, that, in per- ception * the mind has never anything present to it but the perceptions and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connexion with objects'(iv. 177, 179). This Hamilton denied. ' In the act of per- ception, 7 he said, i I am conscious of two things of myself, as the perceiving subject, and of an ex- ternal reality, in relation with my sense, as the object perceived' (Reid, 747). This he said was 1 the cardinal point of philosophy ' (ibid.\ and it was to the establishment of this point that his philoso- phy of perception was devoted. As this theory must be regarded as one of the permanent possibilities of speculative thought, it may be well to consider it in the various lights in which it was presented by its author. What Hamil- ton conceived himself to have conclusively estab- lished was a system of Natural Realism founded on ' the datum of the natural consciousness, or com- mon sense, of mankind' (Reid, 816), which pro- claims that ' in perception we are conscious of the external object immediately and in itself (p. 866). He maintained that we have an Immediate Knowledge of the existence of the external world (pp. 750, 805). He maintained that we have Intuitive Perception of things, and that ' the mind, when a material existence is brought into relation with its organs of sense, obtains two concomitant and immediate 246 Hypothetical Realism. cognitions' one 'the consciousness of certain subjec- tive modifications in us, which we refer, as effects, to certain unknown powers, as causes in the exter- nal reality'- the other 'the consciousness of certain objective attributes in the external reality itself, as, or as in relation to, our sensible organism' (Reid, 820). He developed a doctrine viReal Presentation- ism which asserts ' the consciousness, or immediate perception, of certain essential attributes, of matter objectively existing, while it admits that other properties of body are unknown in themselves, and only inferred as causes to account for certain sub- jective affections of which we are cognisant in our- selves' (p. 825). What he advanced was a theory of Dualistic Realism the fundamental position of which is that ' our cognitions of extension and its modes are not wholly ideal that although space be a native, necessary, a priori, form of imagination, and so far, therefore, a mere subjective state, there is, at the same time, competent to us in an imme- diate perception of external things, the conscious- ness of a really existent, of a really objective, extended world ' (p. 840). The theory of Natural Realism was intended to displace the Hypothetical Realism of the Cosmotheti- cal Idealists a compromise between common sense and speculation, which was the favourite theory of the philosophers (p. 749), and which supposed ' that behind the non-existent world perceived there lurks a correspondent but unknown world existing' (p. 817). The Cosmothetical Idealist Cosmothetical Idealism. 247 argues that 'the external world exists, because we naturally believe it to exist ' ; but this illation Hamilton conceived to be incompetent (p. 749). In a remarkable passage he contrasts his views on this subject with those of Reid. " Our belief of a material universe," he says, "is not ultimate, and that universe is not unknown. This belief is not a supernatural inspiration, it is not an in- fused faith. We are not compelled by a blind impulse to believe in the external world as in an unknown something; on the contrary, we believe it to exist only because we are immediately cog- nisant of it as existing. If asked indeed how we know that we know it ? how we know that what we apprehend in sensible perception is, as conscious- ness assures us, an object, external, extended, and numerically different from the conscious subject ? how we know that this object is not a mere mode of mind, illusively presented to us as a mode of matter ? then indeed we must reply, that we do not in propriety know that what we are compelled to perceive as not self is not a perception of self, and that we can only on reflection believe such to be the case, in reliance on the original necessity of so believing imposed on us by our nature " (Reid, 750). This resolves the question at issue between Hamilton and the philosophers into one of fact. We know that we necessarily believe in the exist- ence of the material world. Do we necessarily believe that we know it as existing ? To test the necessity of such a belief, let us take the condi- 248 The World of Vision. tions of the possibility of such a knowledge as laid down by the natural realist himself. They are laid down with italicised precision. "A tiling to be known in itself must be known as actually existing ; and it cannot be known as actually existing, unless it be known as existing in its When and its Where. But the When and Where of an object are immedi- ately cognisable by the subject, only if the When be now (i.e. at the same moment with the cognitive act), and the Where be here (i.e. within the sphere of the cognitive faculty); therefore a presentative or intuitive knowledge is only competent of an object present to the mind, both in time and space " (Reid, 809). Let us mark the consequence of this. The first consequence is the exclusion of the whole World of Vision from the range of intuitive perception and immediate knowledge, and a diver- gence from the views of Reid and Stewart as to the object of perception (Eeid, 814). If < we are per- cipient of nothing but what is in proximate contact, in immediate relation, with our organs of sense,' it follows that we can never be said to perceive a distant object (ibid.). l Distant realities we reach, not by perception,' says Hamilton, ' but by a sub- sequent process of inference founded thereon : and so far, as Reid somewhere says (p. 284), from all men who look upon the sun perceiving the same object, in reality every individual perceives a different object, nay, a different object in each several eye' (p. 814). 'Vision,' he says, 'is only a perception, by which we take immediate cognisance The Vision of the World. 249 of light in relation to our organ ' ; and ( the total object of visual perception is neither the rays in themselves nor the organ in itself, but the rays and living organ in reciprocity' (p. 160). Whether this be the total object of visual perception may possibly be disputed. It may be said that we see neither the organ nor the ray, whether in their reciprocity or in their isolation. It may be said that the total object of visual perception is the coloured and ex- tended object which is seen. But how is it that we see the coloured and extended object ? A ray alights upon the eye an inverted image is depicted on a small expanse of nerve and on the instant, as if by the touch of an enchanter's wand, an ideal uni- verse exists. In this ideal universe the material reality is absent the existence of the inverted image is unknown the idea, the inference, is all in all. Vision is literally what Swift described it to be the art of seeing things which are invisible. Malebranche was right in saying that the science of optics is merely an explanation of our optical illu- sions. The theory of Berkeley is triumphant, and the world of vision turns out to be nothing but the vision of a world. And vet sight, if we regard the information which it conveys, is the most objective of the senses. "If," says Reid, "we shall suppose an order of beings, endued with every human faculty but that of sight, how incredible would it be to such beings, accus- tomed only to the slow informations of touch, that, by the addition of an organ, consisting of a ball and 250 The World of Touch. socket of an inch in diameter, they might be en- abled in an instant of time, without changing their place, to perceive the disposition of a whole army, or the order of a battle, the figure of a magnificent palace, or all the variety of a landscape " ( Works, 133). It is no marvel that Reid should have re- garded such a perception as a revelation, as an inspiration, as a species of natural magic. This language Hamilton denounces. " These expres- sions," he says, "in which the cosmothetic ideal- ists shadow forth the difficulty they create, and attempt to solve, are wholly inapplicable to the real fact " (Reid, 749). But in visual perception the real fact, as stated by Hamilton himself, sup- plies their justification. Here at all events we cannot believe that we are immediately cognisant of the world of matter as existing. The world of vision, so far as it is perceived, exists merely in idea, and, natural realism, so far as it recognises the exist- ence of a world beyond perception, is cosmothetical idealism, open and avowed. Abandoning the world of vision, the natural realist takes his stand upon the World of Touch. " There is in reality no medium in any sense," says Hamilton, " and, as Democritus long ago shrewdly observed, all the senses are only modi- fications of touch" (Reid, 104). But here again let us attend to Reid. " If a man were by feeling to find out the figure of the Peak of Teneriffe," he says, " or even of St. Peter's Church at Rome, it would be the work of a lifetime" (Works, 133). The Diffusion of the Soul. 251 " The thing would be impossible," says Hamilton " let anyone try, by touch, to ascertain the figure of a room, with which he is previously un- acquainted, and not altogether of the usual shape, and he will find that touch will afford him but slender aid." (ibid.). On such slender aid, however, the natural realist is necessitated to rely. And what is the result? Once more, let us apply his own condition. Select the simplest phenomenon of touch. You touch an object with the tip of your finger ; you have a sensation in the organ of sense : do you know the object ? On Hamilton's own showing, only if the percipient knows it in its where. But if, as the Cartesians held, the soul be seated on the pineal gland if, like a spider in the centre of its web, it be localised at any point within the body it is seated at a distance from the scene of sense. The informations of sense must be telegraphed, as it were, along the nerves, and the recognition of the object can never be regarded as immediate. Be- fore, therefore, we can accept the doctrine of natural realism, we must reject the Cartesian doctrine, which centralizes the seat of thought we must maintain that the soul is literally at our finger's end we must adopt the doctrine of Aristotle, that the soul contains the body, rather than the body the soul we must embrace the dogma of the schools, that the soul is all in the whole body, and all in every of its parts (Beid, 86 1). But even this will not avail us, In order to cognise the object in its where, not only must we assume that the soul is at the finger's end 252 Contact with the Object. we must assume that the finger's end is in contact with the object touched. But if the theory of Boscovich be true if matter be nothing but a system of acting and reacting forces it is impos- sible that there should be any such thing as con- tact; and, on Hamilton's concessions, if there be no contact there can be no cognition. If the organ and the object be separated by the merest diffe- rential which the mind of the mathematician can conceive, it is evident that, for all purposes of intuition, they might as well be separated by what Norris calls the whole diameter of existence. Before we can accept the conclusions of natural realism, therefore, we must reject the theory of Boscovich, which reduces matter to a system of forces, and adopt the theory of Democritus, which not only reduces every sense to a modification of touch, but explains touch by a contiguity of atoms. But suppose the contiguity effected, we are as far from a cognition of the objective as ever. For what is contact ? A mere community of surface, which of itself conveys no knowledge of diversity of being. " Suppose a man," says Hume, " to be supported in the air, and to be softly conveyed along by some invisible power, it is evident he is sensible of nothing, and never receives the idea of extension, nor indeed any idea from this invariable motion" (i. 82). Sense, therefore, might be in contact with an object, and yet receive no know- ledge of its existence from the contact. If the object should exert pressure and evoke resistance Resistance from Without. 253 a new sensation would be determined, a new infer- ence drawn ; but consciousness would be affected, not by contact, but by pressure. Here, then, it is evident we must abandon atoms and have recourse to force ; and as the theory of Boscovich was abandoned for that of Democritus to effect a contact, so the theory of Democritus must be aban- doned for that of Boscovich to secure resistance. And it is to force that Hamilton avowedly has recourse in order to secure the knowledge of a world without. " The existence of the Extra- organic World" he says, "is apprehended, not in a perception of the primary qualities of matter, but in a perception of the quasi-primary phasis of the secundo-primary ; that is, in the consciousness that our locomotive energy is resisted, and not resisted by aught in our organism itself " (Reid, 882). This at first sight would seem to be the theory maintained by Brown. Brown virtually argues, "I am con- scious of the feeling of resistance ; in myself I am conscious of no difference ; and I therefore infer the cause to be something not myself on the ground that a different consequent necessarily implies a dif- ference of the antecedent " (Lect. xxiv.). But Hamil- ton denies that the conclusion rests on inference. "I am conscious" he says, "that my locomotive energy is not resisted by aught in my organism itself." That is the pinch of the whole ques- tion. As incubus originates within, though it ap- pears to be an oppression from without, why may not the external world be what Fichte conceived it 254 The World beyond the Organs. to be, an anstoss, a self -limitation, in which the radiating activity of the ego is drawn backward on itself? (Schw. 268). "I cannot," says Hamil- ton, " be conscious of myself as the resisted rela- tive, without at the same time being conscious, being immediately percipient, of a not-self as the resisting correlative " (Reid, 866). But why may not this correlative be the transcendental cause of Kant ? Why must it necessarily be the material thing of Reid ? " The experience of external re- sistance," says Hamilton, u supposes a possession of the notions of space and motion in space" (Reid, p. 882). But here the natural realist is involved in a dilemma. Is the notion of space a mere idea ? Then external space, and all that it embosoms, may, for aught we know, be a mere obj edification of a form of sense, a self projection of the mind, a mere metaphysical mirage ; and natural realism is lost in the transcendental idealism of Kant. Is this notion of space an apprehension of space in its objective externality ? In this case we believe in the exist- ence of an external world of matter, because we believe in the existence of motion in an external world of space; and natural realism is enveloped in a mist of paralogism and again is lost. In fact, the extra -organic world of touch, like the extra-organic world of vision, is at last avowedly abandoned to the cosmothetical idealist. " The pri- mary qualities of things external to our organism," says Hamilton, "we do not perceive i.e. imme- diately know for these we only learn to infer } from Knowledge of the Unknown. 255 the affections which we come to find, that they determine in our organs; affections which, yield- ing us a perception of organic extension, we at length discover, by observation and induction, to imply a corresponding extension in the extra- organic agents" (p. 88 1). But how can we know that the extension of the extra-organic agent which ex hypothesi is unknown, corresponds to the or- ganic extension which, for the moment, we may admit that we perceive ? Here it is evident that Hamilton is betrayed into the very absurdity with which he constantly taunts his opponents, and which he regards as decisive of the fate of that form of philosophy which the cosmothetical idealist maintains. How can you deny to mind all cog- nisance of matter, he asks, yet bestow upon it the inconceivable power of truly representing to itself the external world which is ex hypothesi un- known ? This was the argument which Hamilton constantly employed (p. 755). It was by this question that he demolished the Master of Sub- tilties (p. 815). It was by this question that he overwhelmed Descartes and Locke (pp. 839, 840). It was by this question that he annihilated Brown (Disc. 64). It was by this question that he held up the whole race of cosmothetical idealists and hypo- thetical realists to scorn (Reid, 749). But here his argument unexpectedly recoils upon his own philo- sophy ; and it recoils with a peculiar force. The cosmothetical idealist does not profess to know that the idea corresponds to the unknown; he only 256 The Microcosm of the Organs. professes to believe it. The natural realist, on the contrary, professes to know that an extra organic extension, which is confessedly unknown, corre- sponds with an organic extension which, as we shall see, itself escapes his knowledge. Driven from position to position, the natural realist falls back upon the Organic World, the mi- crocosm of the organs. * The organism,' says Hamilton, ' is the field of apprehension, both to sensation proper and perception proper ' (Reid, 880). And here again he calls upon us to concede a para- dox. ' The organism,' he says, ' is, at once, within and without the mind; is, at once, subjective and objective; is, at once, ego and nori-ego' (ibid.). ( Such is the fact,' he says ; ' but how the imma- terial can be united with matter, how the unex- tended can apprehend extension, how the indivisible can measure the divided this is the mystery of mysteries to man' (ibid.). To preclude all confusion and ambiguity with respect to this cardinal distinc- tion, Hamilton maintains that " our nervous organ- ism, in contrast to all exterior to itself, appertains to the concrete human ego, and in this respect is subjective, internal; whereas, in contrast to the ab- stract immaterial ego, the pure mind, it belongs to the non-ego, and in this respect is objective, external" (p. 858). But even, in so far as our organism is objective and external, a discrimination must be made ; for the body may be viewed as a body simply or as an animated body. Hence, while some of its phenomena are "to be considered as The Objective Object. 257 subjective, being the modes of our organism as animated by, or in union with, the mind, and therefore states of the ego," there are other phe- nomena which are " to be considered as objective, being modes of our organism, viewed as a mere portion of matter, and in this respect a non-ego" (ibid.). ' As an animated body' our nervous organ- ism, we are told, i actually exists, and is actually known to exist, only as it is susceptible of certain affections, which, and the causes of which, have been ambiguously called the secondary qualities of matter/ while ' as a body simply it can possibly exist, and can possibly be known as existent, only under those necessary conditions of all matter, which have been denominated its primary qualities ' (ibid.). Of these primary qualities we are con- scious. Hamilton concedes that u by a law of our nature we are not conscious of the existence of our organism, consequently not conscious of any of its primary qualities, unless when we are conscious of it as modified by a secondary quality, or some other of its affections, as an animated body " (ibid.). But he holds that while the object of the one con- sciousness is merely * a contingent passion of the organism, as a constituent of the human self,' which is recognised as i a subjective object J the object of the other consciousness is i some essential property of the organism as a portion of the universe of matter ' a property which, ' though apprehended by,' is ' not an affection proper to, the conscious self at all,' and which, ' as a common property of 258 Con tac tual Extension. matter,' must be ' recognised to be an objective object' (ibid.). But even from this position Hamilton finds him- self necessitated to retreat. He is compelled to admit that, as far as our knowledge of the primary qualities of objects in immediate contact with our organs is concerned, our ignorance of their real magnitude is as complete as our ignorance of the magnitude of the most distant object. He acknow- ledges that magnitude appears greater or less in proportion to the different size of the tactile organ in different subjects ; as an apple seems larger to the hand of a child than to the hand of an adult (Reid, 303). Experiment, he admits, establishes the curious fact that even in the same individual the same object appears greater or less, according as it is touched by one part of the body or by another (pp. 126, 303). In short he is compelled to allow that ' the magnitude perceived through touch is as purely relative as that perceived through vision or any other sense ' (p. 885). Nor, on Hamilton's own admission, have we any more accurate knowledge of the real extension of our organism than we have of that of objects in contact with our organs. Here again physiology is fatal to his claims. ' As perceived,' he says, 6 extension is only the recognition of one organic affection in its outness from another ' (p. 882). But, ' as a minimum of extension,' he continues, ' is thus to perception the smallest extent of organism in which sensations can be discriminated as plural ; and as Organic Extension. in one part of the organism this smallest extent is perhaps some million, certainly some myriad, times smaller than in others; it follows that, to percep- tion, the same real extension will appear, in this place of the body, some million or myriad times greater than in that' (ibid.). Hamilton, accordingly, admits that in no part of the organism have we any apprehension, any immediate knowledge, of extension in its true and absolute magnitude ' (p. 88i)--an admission which leaves no pre- tence for saying that we are, or can be, conscious of any essential property of our organism as a portion of the universe of matter. As far, then, as our knowledge of the primary qualities of the universe of matter is concerned, the natural realist takes his final stand on the position that, ' Perception proper is an apprehension of the relations of sensations to each other, primarily in Space, and secondarily in Time and Degree ' (Reid, 881). But whatever may be our ultimate opinion of the logical coherence or philosophic value of this theory of perception, it is evident that it is not the theory of perception which Hamilton originally led us to expect he would establish. The consciousness of the relations of sensations to each other is not the consciousness which gives us an immediate know- ledge of the world of matter in itself (p. 747) as actually existing (p. 805), as existing in its when and where (p. 809). It is not 'the consciousness, or immediate perception, of certain essential attributes of matter objectively existing ' (p. 825). It is not S 2 2 oo Intuitive Perception. c the immediate perception of external things, the consciousness of a really existent, of a really objec- tive, extended world' (p. 841). It is not 'the im- mediate knowledge or consciousness of the external object, as extended' (p. 842). It is not the ' sensitive perception,' in which ' the extension as known, and the extension as existing, are convertible- known, because existing, and existing, since known ' (ibid.). Indeed so far is it from being so that it is a perception in which extension as existing, whether in things external to our organism or in the organ- ism itself, is confessedly un perceived, un appre- hended, and unknown (p. 88 1). Hamilton nevertheless contends that ' an exten- sion is apprehended in the apprehension of the reciprocal externality of all sensations ' (Reid, 885). He holds that "in the consciousness of sensations out of each other, contrasted, limited, and variously arranged, we have a perception proper of the pri- mary qualities, in an externality to the mind, though not to the nervous organism, as an immediate cog- nition, and not merely as a notion or concept of something extended, figured, &c." (p. 883). Nay he asserts that even when consciousness projects its sensations beyond the bounds of the existing organ- ism into external space, as in the case of an ampu- tated limb, the sensations thus falsely localised i being now, as heretofore, manifested out of each other, must afford the condition of a perceived ex- tension, not less real than that which they afforded prior to the amputation' (p. 86 1). But in what Empiric Intuition. 261 sense can the extension thus perceived be said to be real ? and in what sense can it be said to be exter- nal to the mind ? As perceived, extension is defined to be the recognition of one organic affection in its outness not from the mind, but from another (p. 882). The term ' outness,' therefore, is used in the sense not of externality but of distance. To speak of the distance between one sensation and another is sheer nonsense ; and, accordingly, the distance to be considered is the distance between one sentient point in the organism and another. But this is admittedly unperceived. All that we perceive is ad- mittedly an extension which varies with the sentient mind which differs with the seat of sense which may be presented by a falsely localised sen- sation which corresponds with nothing that is real in the proper acceptation of the term and which, appearing in this part of the body some million or myriad times greater than in that, can be nothing but appearance. If this be so, what is presented to us is not extension but an idea of extension; and what Hamilton calls the intuitive perception of ex- tension is only another name for what Kant has termed its empiric intuition. If we wish to see how thin is the partition which divides the bounds of Hamilton's intuitive perception from those of the transcendental ideality of Kant, we have only to examine the views of the Scottish philosopher with regard to Space. In his notes to Reid, he tells us that * we have a twofold cognition of space an a priori or native imagin- 262 The Adventitious Percept. ation of it, in general, as a necessary condition of the possibility of thought ; and, under that, an a posteriori or adventitious percept of it, in parti- cular, as contingently apprehended in this or that actual complexus of sensations' (p. 882). In his Lectures, he designates this adventitious percept by the word extension, and reserves the term space for space considered as ' a form or funda- mental law of thought' (ii. 114). But what is the source to which this adventitious percept is in- debted for its advent ? It is not furnished to the mind by the extension of external things ; for Hamilton admits that the extension of external things is only an inference from it. Neither is it furnished to the mind by any organic extension ; for Hamilton concedes that our actual organic extension is not apprehended by perception. The adventitious percept, therefore, must be essentially subjective as subjective as the sensations of the relations between which it is the apprehension. We are led to the same conclusion if we consider Hamilton's theory of space. In the first edition of his Discussions he tells us that "it is one merit of the Philosophy of the Con- ditioned that it proves space to be only a law of thought, and not a law of things" (p. 582). True, in his second edition, published a year after the first, he modifies his statement. The merit of his philosophy, he says, consists in this " that it proves space to be by a law of thought and not ~by a law of things " (p. 607). But in what sense can Hamilton maintain that space exists only by a law of thought ? The Necessary Form. 263 As a natural realist he must maintain that, inde- pendently of our perceptions and conceptions, there is an external universe of things existing in an ex- ternal infinitude of space. His proposition, there- fore, must mean that it is only by a law of thought that space exists for us that the space of con- sciousness is not a conception which has been derived from outward experience, or an intuition which presents any property of objects as things in themselves, or which presents their objective rela- tions to each other (Kritik, 23-26) in other words, that space, as known by us, is merely an evolution of the a priori form of sense, which Hamilton de- scribes as a necessary condition of the possibility of thought. But if this be so, what is the doctrine of the natural realist but the doctrine of the cos- mothetical idealist whom he derides ? To use his own emphasised expressions, ' the qualities which we call material extension, figure, &c. exist for us only as they are known by us ; and, on this hypo- thesis, they are known by us only as modes of mind J (Reid, 751). The affinity which exists between the natural realism of Hamilton and the transcendental ideali&m of Kant will be brought into evidence if we view the subject in another light. Hamilton, as we have seen, resolves perception into an apprehension of relations. Now this is the very fact on which Kant relies as affording confirmation to his theory of the ideality of the external as well as the internal sense (KritiJc, 40). He remarks that ' all in our cogni- tion that belongs to intuition contains nothing more 264 The Nescio Quid. than mere relations ' (ibid.) ; he observes that l by means of mere relations, a thing cannot be known in itself ' (ibid.) ; and he thinks i it may be fairly con- cluded that, as through the external sense nothing but mere representations of relations are given us, the external sense in its representation can con- tain only the relation of the object to the subject, but not the essential nature of the object as a thing in itself ' (ibid. ). From this conclusion Hamilton recoils. He admits that in saying l a thing is known in itself/ he does ' not mean that this object is known in its absolute existence, that is, out of rela- tion to us ' ( this,' he says, ' is impossible, for our knowledge is only of the relative ' (Reid, p. 866). He admits that ' of things absolutely or in themselves, be they external, be they internal, we know nothing, or know them as incognisable, and become aware of their existence only as this is in- directly and accidentally revealed to us, through certain qualities related to our faculties of know- ledge, and which qualities, again, w r e cannot think as unconditioned, irrelative, existent in and of themselves ' (Disc. 643 ). He admits, in fine, em- ploying the very phraseology of the Kritik, that 1 all we know is phenomenal phenomenal of the unknown' (ibid.). But instead of acquiescing in Kant's conclusion, that what is thus confessedly unknown is to human consciousness a mere nescio quid, he conceives that its nature is partially re- vealed to us through certain qualities related to our faculties of knowledge. But what are the qualities of external things which are thus related ? Not The Resisting Something. 265 the primary qualities, for they are confessedly un- known (p. 88 1); not the secondary qualities, for, as manifested to us, they are merely pheno- menal affections determined by causes which are essentially occult (p. 854). This brings the ques- tion to the very point to which it was brought by Hume ' bereave matter of all its intelligible qua- lities, both primary and secondary, and you in a manner annihilate it, and leave only a certain un- known inexplicable something, as the cause of our perceptions' (Hume, iv. 181).* Hamilton holds that, at all events, we have the perception of ' a resisting something external to our lody" 1 (p. 883). But it is as difficult to show that this something is external, as it is to show that it is extended. It is in reality something transcen- dental. Yielding to the coercion of the principle of metaphysical causality, Kant postulates its existence as an efficient cause; yielding to the natural in- stinct of the human race, Hamilton professes to apprehend it as an external object. Regarding it as an efficient cause, Kant accepts the conclusion of Hume (iv. 178), and insists that by no argument can * Since writing the above, I have philosophy of Perception. Do we ac- had the privilege of reading Professor tually perceive and conceive in those Veitch's valuable monograph entitled primary qualities body as body, per Hamilton, and it is a source of satis- se as that which exists and subsists faction to be able to cite the following whether we perceive it or not in passage from the work of the disciple, its own actual, absolute reality the to show that in the foregoing criticism transcendent thing in existence ? My I have been guilty of no injustice view is, that Hamilton says no to this to the master: "This reference [to question" (Hamilton, 145-6). Mr. the thing in itself] what we may Veitch even questions whether Hamil- ask the Ontological is, no doubt, the ton held that perceived extension sub- least explained point in Hamilton's sists after the act of perception (p. 179). 266 The Double Saltus. it be proved that our perceptions do riot arise either from the energy of the soul itself, or from the sug- gestion of some invisible spirit, or from some other cause which is equally unknown (Kritik, 206). Re- garding it as an external object, Hamilton accepts, in a modified form, the conclusions of Reid and Brown, and insists that its existence is given in the consciousness that our locomotive energy is resisted, and not resisted by aught in our organism itself (Reid, 882). But what is the consciousness to which Hamilton appeals? Undoubtedly, in the world of motion we seem to be resisted from without, and we seem to behold the very objects which resist us. But sight is, confessedly, mere inference, and why should we not regard this seeming of material re- sistance as mere inference also V The great philo- sophers who have written on the subject must be presumed to have known what they were conscious of, and to have been conscious of what they knew. And yet what are the philosophical conclusions as to the true nature of this resisting object ? To Hamilton, it is true, it was a material thing ; but to Berkeley it was a divine agent to Fichte it was a subjective anstoss to Kant it was a nescio quid and to Hegel it was nothing. The philosophical difficulties which Hamilton's theory encounters are not less than those encountered by the theories of Berkeley and Fichte. The fact is, that Hamilton's criticism of Kant's only possible demonstration of the reality of an external world recoils upon himself, and he only reaches his external reality by a double saltus, which overleaps Cognition of the Object. 267 the foundations of both the egoistic idealism and the mystic (Disc. 93). In these interesting discussions, however, there is one point on which Hamilton is entitled to peculiar credit. He saw more clearly than any contemporary philosopher where the real pinch of the difficulty lay. He accepted the position of Kant, that " in whatever way the understanding may have attained to a conception, the existence of the object of the conception cannot be discovered in it by analysis, because the cognition of the existence of the object depends upon the object's being posited and given in itself apart from the conception" (Kritik, 392). He adopted the words of Fichte when he says: u From cognition to pass out to an object of cognition this is impossible ; we must, therefore, depart from the reality, otherwise we should remain for ever unable to reach it " (Reid, 799). Hence it was that he declared it to be the very cardinal point of philosophy to show that in the act of sensible perception we are conscious not only of ourselves as the perceiving subject, but of an external reality, in relation with our sense, as the object perceived (Reid, 747); and hence it was that he concentrated all his powers on the attack of Hume's position that in perception the mind has never anything present to it but its perceptions, and cannot attain any experience of their connexion with resembling objects (Hume, iv. 178). But, notwithstanding the loud promise of the new departure, Hamilton is eventually forced to 268 Nat and Realism. yield the supremacy to Hume. He is compelled to confess that " the primary qualities of things ex- ternal to our organism we do not perceive, that is, immediately know" (p. 88 1). He is compelled to confess that "in no part of the organism have we any apprehension, any immediate knowledge, of extension in its true and absolute magnitude" (p. 88 1). He is compelled, in fine, to resolve our perception of extension into a mere recognition of one organic affection in its outness from another (p. 882) a recognition which is infinitely variable and confessedly deceptive an extension which is not extension in its reality, but only an idea of extension. To avoid the inevitable conclusion that in perception the mind has nothing present to it but its perceptions, Hamilton exhausts the resources of his learning, but in vain. In vain he contends that all our senses are modifications of touch. In vain he revives the scholastic doctrine that the soul is all in the whole body, and all in every of its parts. In vain he calls upon us to admit that the organism is at once within and without the mind. In vain he distinguishes between the abstract immaterial ego and the concrete human ego incorporate in matter ; between the animated organism and the material things without it ; between the contiguous world of touch and the distant universe of vision. The world of vision, the extraorganic world of touch, and the world of the sentient organism are succes- sively surrendered to the idealist and sceptic. Natural realism is foiled at every point. Thrice Cataleptic Idealism. 269 lias it essayed to grasp reality, but thrice lias reality escaped its grasp. Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago. Hamilton's theory of Perception is not, in fact, the Natural Realism of common sense, but a Catalep- tic Idealism, similar to that which Cicero attributes to the Stoics (Acad. i. 11). The propositions on which Hume challenged contradiction from the philosophers were three. Nothing, he said, can ever be present to the mind but an image 01; percep- tion ; true, we are carried by a natural instinct to suppose an external universe, which exists inde- pendently of our perceptions ; but when we follow this natural instinct, we suppose the images pre- sented by the senses to be the external objects (Hume, iv. 177). Regarding these propositions as the expression of the facts of consciousness, Hume accepted what he calls the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act, and reason, and believe, though they are not able, by their most diligent inquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foun- dation of these operations, or to remove the objec- tions which maybe raised against them (iv. 187). In this admixture of speculative scepticism with practical belief, Philosophy refused to acquiesce, and proceeded to deal with the three propositions of Hume as best it could. Rejecting the natural instinct which leads us to believe in the existence of an external world, Berkeley accepted the natural 270 Difficulties. instinct which leads us to believe that our sensible ideas are external objects, and boldly identified object and idea. Accepting the natural instinct which leads us to believe in the existence of an external world, Reid rejected the natural instinct which identifies the object with the idea, and, in effect, regarded the idea as a representation of the object. Struck with the inconsistency of rejecting one natural instinct and relying on another, Hamil- ton neither identified the object and the idea with Berkeley, nor made the idea the representative of the object with Reid, but recognizing the co- existence of object and idea, brought the idea into contact with the object, and conceived that the material thing was apprehended KCLTOX^TTTOV manu comprehensum in the contact. But Hamilton seems to have closed his eyes to the difficulties and inconsistencies in which his sys- tem is involved. His system postulates the abso- lute veracity of consciousness in every instance (Reid, 745). He holds that 'the immediate or mediate repugnance of any two of its data being established, the presumption in favour of the gene- ral veracity of consciousness is abolished, or rather reversed' (p. 746). He appeals to the judgments of consciousness, in fact, as Torquatus appealed to the judgments of the senses quibus si semel aliquid falsi pro vero probatum sit, sublatum esse omne judicium veri et falsi putat (De Fin. i. 7). But he admits that to consciousness < it appears as if the sense actually apprehended the things out of Dilemmas. 2 7 1 itself, and in their proper space ' (Reid, 748), and nevertheless holds that we reach distant realities, not by perception, but by a subsequent process of in- ference founded thereon (p. 814). Ubi igitur illud semel ? Even if it could be established against Hume, that in certain limited relations of contact we apprehend the object in the image, this would not evince the veracity of consciousness in those wider relations of vision where we admittedly mis- take the image for the object. Hamilton, then, at the outset is met with the dilemma with which he confronted Brown if he adhere to his hypothesis, he must renounce his argument ; and if he apply his argument, he must renounce his hypothesis (Reid, 750). But, apart from this, what is the value of the inference by which he professes to bring distant realities within his reach ? He in- sists that when Locke is asked, how he became aware that the known idea truly represents the un- known reality, he can make no answer (Reid, 839). But what answer can Hamilton make when the same interrogatory is administered to himself ? He stands confronted by Hume's dilemma, and has nothing to say when the great Academic maintains that ' the opinion of external existence, if rested on natural instinct, is contrary to reason, and, if referred to reason, is contrary to natural instinct, and at the same time carries no rational evidence with it to convince an impartial inquirer. 7 Hamilton insists that we know from consciousness that the agent which produces the sense of tension, and 272 Doubts. pressure, and resistance, is something beyond the limit of the mind and its subservient organs (Reid, 859, 883). But the testimony of consciousness to this is not more to be depended on than its testi- mony to the effect that in vision we apprehend the external object in external space. Hamilton admits that " sensations of light and colours are determined, among other causes, from within, by a sanguineous congestion in the capillary vessels of the optic nerve, or by various chemical agents which affect it through the medium of the blood ; from without, by the appli- cation to the same nerve of a mechanical force, as a blow, a compression, a wound, or of an imponder- able influence, as electricity or galvanism" (p. 855). Natural Realism therefore supplies no proof, in opposition to Hume, that "the perceptions of the mind must be caused by external objects entirely different from them, though resembling them, if that be possible " (Hume, iv. 178). It stands confronted by Berkeley's dilemma, and has no answer to give when the idealist contends that " if there were ex- ternal bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it ; and, if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now" (Prin. xx.). ABSOLUTE IDEALISM: HEGEL. ABSOLUTE IDEALISM OR HEGEL. Quid Democritus, qui turn imagines earumque circuitus in Deorum numero refert, turn illam naturam quae imagines fundat ac mittat, turn scientiam intelligentiamque nostram, nonne in maxima errore versatur ? Cic. de NAT. DEOR. THE nature of the Scottish reaction against the philosophy of Kant has been described. The coun- ter-revolution which occurred in Germany remains to be considered. Kant, as we have seen, regarded it as a scandal to philosophy that it should assume the existence of things external to ourselves as an article of irra- tional belief (KritiJc^ xl.) He admitted that the external object is not given by any faculty of in- tuition ; and he showed that, if the external object be not originally given, its existence is incapable of proof. But while Kant made these concessions to philosophy, he made concessions more important T 2 276 The Common Sense of Kant. still to common sense. The phenomena of sense, he acknowledged, must be produced by some effi- cient cause, and relying upon what he called the " intellectual conception " of causality, he admitted the existence of a transcendental cause of sensation, which he styled the transcendental object. Our anticipations of the future he saw could never be explained by our recollections of the past, and presuming the existence of the law of physical causation, and others of the same character, in the course of nature, he postulated certain anticipations of these natural laws in thought, and named them the categories of the understanding. All physical science was thus the result of the categories of the understanding applied to the experience of the past ; and all experience whatsoever was due to the conjoint action of the transcendental object and our faculties of sense. The impossibility of building a system of philo- sophy on mere irrational belief is obvious; for if natural instinct accredits natural realism by assert- ing the existence of external things, reflection ac- credits absolute idealism by asserting that what we assume to be external things are nothing but our own ideas. It is the same with regard to demon- stration. That the existence of external things cannot be proved by any process of reasoning is admitted by Reid as readily as by Hume, and by Hamilton as readily as by Kant. But the propo- sition that the external object is not given by any The Intuition of Schelling. 277 faculty of intuition has not received as general an acceptance. Hamilton, as we have seen, contended that in certain limited relations the external object is given by the intuition of the senses. But in Germany a still bolder attempt to show that objec- tive reality, even in its highest forms, might be grasped, was made by Schelling, who, soaring high above the region of the senses, revived the doctrine of Plotinus, and maintained that absolute reality might be reached by the vision and the faculty divine, which he denominated intellectual intuition. The possibility of such a philodoxy, as he would have styled it, had been clearly seen by Kant ; but here, as everywhere, the common sense of that illustrious man preserved him from illusion. He disclaimed the exercise of the arts of magic. He was a plain man, he said, who knew of no intuition but the vulgar intuition of the senses. He saw nothing in the understanding but a certain faculty of judgment; and the intellectual intuition, with its ecstacies and its absorptions and its unintel- ligible swoons, he left with the Teutonic Theoso- pher, the Alexandrine Mystic and the Indian Mouni. But it was not on the side of intuition that the serious attack was made on the philosophy of Kant; it was on the side of the categories and the tran- scendental object. If the existence of objects ex- ternal to ourselves can neither be perceived nor proved, why, it was asked, should we insist on their existence ? Philosophy for centuries had plagued 278 The Revolt of Ficlite. itself with abortive attempts to determine the rela- tions subsisting between the subject and the object. Kant had shown that the development of the sub- ject was not the mere result of the action of the object ; why not assume that the object is the mere creation and projection of the subject ? Kant him- self had approached this point of view, but with his characteristic caution he had declined to take it as his standpoint. In assuming the existence of the transcendental object, he had taken care to guard himself by saying that it was " an object of which we are quite unable to say whether it can be met with in ourselves or out of us ; whether it would be annihilated together with sensibility, or if this were taken away, would continue to exist " (Kritik, 206). But what Kant was unable to say, his successors dogmatically said. They professed to be in earnest about idealism. They gave out a series of ideal- isms subjective, objective, and absolute as be- wildering and as transient as the northern lights. Fichte, a self-confident and overbearing thinker, commenced the revolution. Schelling first the fol- lower of Fichte, then the successor of Spinosa, then posing as a new Plotinus, and finally lost in the Aurora or Morning Red of Jacob Boehmen asto- nished the world by his versatility and genius, but was too fitful and erratic to produce any perma- nent effect upon the world of thought. He was succeeded by a more imperial spirit. Idealism was in the ascendant in Germany, and the crown- The Advent of Hegel. 279 ing victory of German idealism was achieved by Hegel. The influence exerted by this extraordinary man is one of the most remarkable events in the history of modern speculation. At first he was rapturously hailed as the founder of a new religion. He was regarded as a new Messiah. He was styled a God. Even among the more sober of his admirers the language in which he was described, if less blasphe- mous than that of Marheinecke, was equally ex- travagant. He was styled the King of Thought. Forster compared him to Alexander, and said that on his death the throne of philosophy became vacant, and the provinces of thought could only be governed by his satraps. Scherer compared him to Napoleon, and Professor Graham, making the same comparison, exclaims, " they were two lions littered in one year, but the elder and more terrible was Hegel." * Nor, if Hegel had accomplished all that he is said to have accomplished, would he have been un- worthy of his fame. Professor Graham tells us that the system of Hegel is the most transcend ant attempt ever essayed by the aspiring sons of men to solve at once, and by one principle, all the problems of philosophy, and all the sphinx enigmas of existence, * Idealism : An Essay, Metaphysi- suggestiveness, even to those who do cal and Critical, by William Graham, not accept the doctrine which it M.A., of Trinity College, Dublin a preaches, or the estimate of Hegel work of great eloquence, and full of which it forms. 280 The Obscurity of Hegel. as well as the riddle of the painful earth (Ideal. 69). But even this falls short of the pretensions of the great hierophant himself. His logic, he said, was not the mere scientific exposition of the pure notions of the reason ; it was the exhibition of truth without her veil it was the exposition of God in his eternal essence it was the display of the diamond net in which the universe is held (Schw. 323). Mr. Graham maintains that for years to come it will be the business of philosophy not to refute Hegel, but to try and understand him (p. 41). Confessedly this is not an easy task. Hegel himself has said that to learn his system is to learn to walk upon one's head'; and in speaking of his philoso- phy, shortly before his death, he was fain to admit that of all his disciples one only understood it and that even he did not. Terrier tells us that, with peaks more lucent than the sun, his intervals are filled with a sea of darkness, unnavigable by the aid of any compass, and overhung by an atmo- sphere, or rather by a vacuum, which no human intellect can breathe. Stirling, who has devoted a lifetime to the study of his system, and who has written two large octavos on his Secret, is no less eloquent on the obscurity of the modern Heraclitus. His system is a Cyclopean edifice a palace of Oriental dream a Chinese puzzle a thing of in- finite meddle and make a map of infinite join- ings, of endless seams and sutures, whose opposing edges no cunning of gum, or glue, or paint, can The Principle of Hegel. 281 ever hide. Mr. Wallace, who has translated his Logic, has to confess that to the neophyte the atmosphere of Hegelian thought is a vacuum which we cannot breathe, and which is merely tenanted by ghosts.* In point of fact the most practised and patient of metaphysicians is at fault when he strives to catch the evanescent meanings and interpret the uncouth phraseology of this portentous thinker, while the ordinary man of letters who dips into his works is compelled to quit them in despair, reminded only of the Rosicrucian jargon with which the Adept endeavoured to confound the Antiquary, or the problematical dialogisms, and the conca- tenations of self-existence with 'which the Squire smoked Moses in the parlour of the Vicar. Mr. Graham tells us that the Hegelian system is the final result of philosophy, and that Hegel had the genius to discover and the courage to proclaim that a universal thought is the absolute, and the sole existence (Ideal. 19). But if the position that thought is the sole and absolute existence is the last result of philosophy, it was also one of its earliest results. The Greeks, who anticipated everything, anticipated even this. Centuries before the Chris- tian era Parmenides had proclaimed in sounding hexameters that thought and its objects are the * The Logic of Hegel translated from Merton College, Oxford. This is the the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical most intelligent and the most intelli- Sciences, with Prolegomena by William gible account of Hegel's system that Wallace, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of the English reader can be referred to. 282 The Hegelianism of Heraclitus. same. Gorgias had amused the youth of Athens with the paradox which proclaims the identity of Nought and Being. In fact Heraclitus, in meta- phors which darkened knowledge, had given forth adumbrations of the whole Hegelian doctrine. When he said that all things are in ceaseless flow, he announced the dogma, according to Hegel him- self, that Becoming was the fundamental category of all that is (Log. 144). When he proclaimed that strife is the parent of all things, he proclaimed the Hegelian axiom that plurality and contrast were the conditions of knowledge and perception. Nay, when he said that the world is an ever-living fire which is alternately extinguished and rekindled by itself, he merely anticipated the words of Hegel when he said, u the Becoming is as it were a fire, which dies out in itself, when it consumes its mate- rial " (p. 146). Nor was the theory of Absolute Idealism un- known in modern Europe. The marvellous meta- physical genius which had anticipated Kant had also anticipated Hegel. In his youthful Treatise of Human Nature, Hume had unconsciously re- produced the ideas of Parmenides and Heraclitus, and laid the lines of the Hegelian Logic. He said to himself that "as long as we confine our speculations to the appearances of objects to our senses, without entering into disquisitions concern- ing their real nature and operations, we are safe from all difficulties, and can never be embarrassed The Hegelianism of Hume. 283 by any question" (Works, i. 92). Confining his attention to the appearances of objects, he re- garded human nature as the capital of science, and boldly marched upon it (i. 8). He declared that all the perceptions of the mind may be divided into impressions and ideas (i. 15). He attempted to classify all the relations, natural and philosophi- cal, by which our ideas are united (i. 30). He stigmatised the ordinary division of the acts of the understanding into three as a vulgar error, and endeavoured to show that judgment and reasoning were nothing but conception (i. 132). He denied that there was any necessity for supposing that every beginning of existence should be attended by a cause (i. 227); and he even professed that our perceptions may exist separately, and have no need of any substance to support their being (i. 299). But the speculations of the youthful sceptic had a wider reach. He examined the idea of exist- ence (i. 95). " There is no impression nor idea of any kind, of which we have any consciousness or memory," he says, " that is not conceived as exist- ent ; and it is evident that from this consciousness the most perfect idea and assurance of being is de- rived " (ibid.). " From hence," he continues, "we may form a dilemma the most clear and conclusive that can be imagined, viz., that, since we never remember any idea or impression without attri- buting existence to it, the idea of existence must 284 The Hegelianism of Hume. either be derived from a distinct impression, con- joined with every perception or object of our thought, or must be the very same with the idea of the perception or object " (ibid.). That there was no distinct impression from which it could be derived he considered obvious, and accordingly he concluded that " to reflect on anything simply, and to reflect on it as existent, are nothing different from each other " that " any idea we please to form is the idea of a being, and the idea of a being is any idea we please to form" in fine, that " the idea of existence is the very same with the idea of what we conceive to be existent " (i. 96). By the same reasoning he came to the conclusion that exter- nal existence was nothing but a mere idea (i. 97). "Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible," he said "let us chase our imagina- tion to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves " (ibid.). The consequence of principles such as these was obvious. According to the Treatise, Space was nothing but " the manner in which objects exist" (i. 62) Body was nothing but " a collection, formed by the mind, of the ideas of the several distinct sensible qualities of which objects are composed, and which we find to have a constant union with each other" (i. 282) Mind was nothing but " a system of different percep- tions, or different existences, which are linked to- The Hegelianism of Fichte. 285 gether by the relation of cause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other" (i. 331). In broaching this system of absolute idealism, however, Hume was not one of the men of bright fancies who, to use his own simile, are like the angels that Scripture represents as covering their eyes with their wings. When the wing of the angel was removed, no eye could be keener than his in detecting the contradictions and imperfections of his system; no man of common sense could be readier to acknowledge its unsatisfying nature. Philosophy such as this, he said, was mere philo- sophical melancholy and delirium of which nature is the cure (i. 341) ; it was a mere dream, on waking from which the philosopher would be the first to join in the laugh against himself (iv. 187). But it was in no such spirit that Fichte reproduced the philo- sophemes of Hume. The Great Ego, as he was styled by Goethe and by Schiller, is said to have publicly imprecated everlasting damnation on him- self if he ever swerved in the smallest degree from any of the doctrines which he had propounded (Reid, 796). He submitted the question of external exist- ence to the experiment to which Hume had previously submitted it, and to which, for that matter, it had been previously submitted by Berkeley. Try, he said, the experiment of thinking any given object, and then of thinking the ego, and you will infallibly find that the object thought and the ego thinking 286 The Hegelianism of Fichte. are the same (Fichte, 156).* He rejects, with even more contempt than Hume, "the wonderful as- sumption that the ego is something different from its own consciousness of itself, and that something, heaven knows what, lying beyond this conscious- ness, is the foundation of it" (ibid. 145). The ego, it is true, was the only substance; but sub- stance was nothing but thought vicissitude in gene- ral (Schwegler, 267). It was as thought vicissitude in general that the ego comprehended the sum total of reality, the entire compass of existence (ibid.). The world of sense in short was nothing but a spon- taneous conception of the ego when recoiling from its own limitations (p. 268), and God was nothing but the moral order of the universe (p. 274) the moral order of our own ideas. But there is a breach of continuity in the specu- lations of Fichte, of which Hume at all events was guiltless. The ego from which Fichte's theory of knowledge starts is nothing but the identity of the conscious subject with the object of which it is con- scious (Fichte^ 149). But Fichte goes on to say that the ego referred to is not to be identified with the individual or a person (p. 157). All individual finite spirits, he says, are merely modes of the in- finite life, which is God (p. 203). He holds in fine * Fichte ^j Robert Adamson, M. A., Blackwood Series which contains the Professor of Logic in the Owens Col- most intelligible account of Fichte's lege, Victoria University, Manches- philosophy which I haA r e met with, ter a monogram published in the The Logic of Hegel. 287 that " the one reality, the one life, the life of con- sciousness, which is the manifestation of God, breaks itself up into an endless multiplicity of individual forms forms which in the experience of the finite spirit must present themselves as independent self- existing facts, but which for thought are only modes of the one infinite life (p. 209). Panegoism is thus exchanged for Pantheism, and the absolute idea of Hegel is foreshadowed in the infinite life of which all individual lives are modes. Logic and Metaphysics, if thought be identical with being, are different aspects of the same thing. But even in the logical aspect of Hegel's system there is little that is absolutely new. The prin- ciple that there is no thought without plurality and contrast is as old as Heraclitus, and had been made one of the commonplaces of philosophy by Hobbes. The axiom that the science of opposites is one dates back to the Stagyrite. The famous dogma that all position is negation had been enun- ciated by Spinosa. The secret of the triple nisus, the mystery that reasoning and judgment are only forms of simple apprehension, had been revealed by Hume. The paradox that Pure Being and Pure Nothing are the same is merely a disguise for the platitude that there is no such thing in the world as pure Being, and even that had been propounded by the brilliant Sophist. In declaring that to be un- true means much the same as to be bad (Log. 306), 288 The Metaphysic of Hegel Hegel merely reproduces the theory of Wollas- ton that morality is conformity with truth ; and in attacking the fluxions of Newton and the infinitesi- mals of Leibnitz he merely reproduces the Analyst of Berkeley. Mr. Wallace tells us that the interpreters of Hegel have contradicted each other as variously as the commentators on the Bible (Proleg. xiii.). Nor is this matter of surprise. The metaphysical aspect of his system is constantly changing, and the true method of interpretation is to observe its changes. It is clear that he rejected the transcendental object and the transcendental subject and the transcen- dental ideality of Kant. The thing-in-itself, he said, whether mind of man or God, was a mere abstraction (Log. 77); and time and space, arising as they did in the negative movement of the mind, were nothing but negations. In like manner he repudiated the ego of Fichte and its anstoss. The anstoss, he said, was merely the transcendental object in disguise, and the ego being dependent on it for its impulse was not a free spontaneous force (p. 102). Accordingly, for the ego he substituted the " self-actualising universal," Thought (p. 30). This self-actualising universal, in its onward movement through the categories of being, relation, and deve- lopment, evolved the Notion which constitutes the actual thing (Proleg. cxxiii.). In this manner ex- ternal objects corresponded with our conceptions; The Absolute Idea. 289 but 'our conceptions, if they were to be regarded as expressions of the truth, should also correspond with the Idea (p. 304). Up to this point the idealist was consistent. Thought and existence had been treated as the development of the self-actualising univer- sal subject and object had been identified all dualism had been consistently ignored. But here occurs the fissure which has already been remarked in Fichte. Over and above the specific system of ideas which the self-actuating universal calls itself, the idealist admits another system. " The Abso- lute" he says, " is the universal and one idea, which, as discerning, or in the act of judgment, specialises itself to the system of specific ideas, which, after all, are constrained by their nature to come back to the one idea where their truth lies " (P- 3 O 5)' Here the distinction between subject and object once again emerges, and the transcendental object looms before us in the form of the Absolute Idea. And the very nature of phenomena seems to undergo a change. They cease to be purely subjective conceptions, hemmed in by the im- penetrable barrier of Fichte (p. 207) they cease to be subjective intuitions moulded in the forms of Kant they become objective in their nature. This, in contradistinction to the subjective ideal- isms of previous philosophy, is Absolute Idealism. This is the main point of difference between Kant and Hegel, and the difference is stated by Hegel in the following words : " The things that The Categories of Kant. we immediately know about are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature and without our interference; and these things, finite as they are, are appropriately described when we say that their being is established not on themselves, but on the divine and universal idea" (Log. 79). Before we consider this theory of absolute ideal- ism in its metaphysical aspect, let us examine it in its relation to the categories of the understanding. In holding the categories to be nothing but anticipa- tions of a course of nature which was determined by the operation of a transcendental cause, the critic of the reason found himself met with the ques- tion, how is it to be conceived that nature must regulate herself so as to agree with our anticipa- tions ? According to Kant, this was a transcen- dental enigma which he solved on the principle of a pre-established harmony, such as had been con- ceived by Leibnitz. A similar solution had been given by David Hume. Nature, he said, "has im- planted in us an instinct which carries forward the thought in a correspondent course to that which she has established among external objects" (iv. 66) she has constituted " a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the suc- cession of our ideas " (iv. 65) . This was not satis- factory either to Fichte or to Hegel. In getting rid of the transcendental object they fancied that they had got rid of the transcendental enigma also. The categories, they said, were nothing but the The Categories of Hegel. 291 necessary modes of the action of the self-conscious ego viewed in an objective aspect (Fichte, 158). They were "not instruments which the mind uses, but elements in a whole, or stages in a complex process, which in its unity the mind is " (Hegel, 157). In a word, the categories were not the mere anti- cipations of experience they were the essential constituents of thought. But it is obvious that this is not a solution, but a mere evasion of the difficulty to be solved. Even if we suppose that nature is nothing but the evolution of a self-actualising universal, we must admit that nature has a course ; and even if we suppose that such course is merely subjective and ideal, we must calculate upon its continuance, whether we engage in scientific inquirv or in action. Though we admit that there is no course of nature but the course of thought, the course of thought requires to be anticipated as much as the course of nature. The anticipation that to-morrow I shall have the idea of a sunrise is as much a preconception of the understanding as the anticipation that the sun will rise to-morrow. How is this anticipation to be explained ? It cannot be explained by saying that the categories are con- stituents of thought. Thought may be developed according to the laws of thought, but what guarantee do we possess that the laws of thought will be con- tinued ? The acute thinker who first observed that the supposition of the continuance of the laws of nature could not be derived from experience, because u 2 2 g 2 The Postulate of Mill. all experimental conclusions presupposed it, ob- served also that it could not be regarded as matter of demonstration, because it involves no contra- diction that the course of things may change. This reasoning, it is evident, is equally just, whether we regard the course of nature as something which exists without us, or as something which exists within. If it be regarded as developed fiom within we must anticipate our own development. Such an anticipation cannot be regarded as the constituent of that which ex hypothesi is not yet constituted it can only be regarded as a pre-conception, whether we consider it as a mere instinct with Hume, or ele- vate it to the rank of a category of the understand- ing with his successor Kant. The impossibility of evading this conclusion is conspicuous in Mill. Holding, as he did, that we have knowledge of nothing but our sensations, and the laws of their occurrence, Mill adopted an idealism as absolute as that of Hegel. But while he held with Hegel that " the whole variety of the facts of nature, as we know it, is given in the mere existence of sen- sations, and in the laws or order of their occurrence" (Exam. 257), he repudiated the Hegelian conclusion that "the laws of physical nature were deduced by ratiocination from subjective deliverances of the mind" (p. 628). Nay, after many a bewildering statement in the contrary sense, Mill ultimately accepted the view of Hume and Kant, and among the first principles on which his psychological theory The Duality of Hegel. 293 reposed was content to " postulate that the human mind is capable of expectation " (p. 225) . " The real stumbling-block," he said, " is, perhaps, not in any theory of the fact, but in the fact itself"; and "the true incomprehensibility perhaps is, that something which has ceased, or is not yet in existence, can still be, in a manner, present ; that a series of feelings, the infinitely greater part of which is past or future, can be gathered up, as it were, into a single present conception, accompanied by a belief of reality" ( P . 248). Nor was Hegel more successful with respect to the primary aim of his philosophy than with respect to the categories of the understanding. In contrast- ing the philosophy of Hegel with that of Locke and Kant, Mr. Wallace remarks that the latter philoso- phers admitted two independent centres in subject and object, and were puzzled, like other philoso- phers, in their attempt to get from one to the other (Proleg. Iviii.). Hegel, it is true, by identifying subject and object, seemed to have escaped the puzzle ; but it was only seeming. In declaring all objects to be merely the development of a self- actualising universal, he undoubtedly concentrates all objective existence in the subject. The rigorous result of this would be, as stated by Mr. Hodgson in his Time and Space, that " the world is produced and developed according to the laws which govern consciousness " that " we make the world by know- ing it " (p. 392). But Hegel shrinks from this rigor- 294 Inorganic Nature. ous result. He admits the existence of something antecedent to the world a time when the earth was without form and void, and when darkness was on the bosom of the deep. While professing to have abolished the distinction between object and sub- ject, he leaves the subject confronted by an object as independent of itself as matter. " The living being," he says, " stands face to face with an in- organic nature, and conducts itself as a power over that nature, and assimilates it to itself" (Log. 312). " The nature of the universe," he elsewhere says, " hidden and shut up as it is at first, has no power which can permanently resist the courageous efforts of the intelligence ; it must at last open itself up ; it must reveal all its depth and riches to the spirit, and surrender them to be enjoyed by \i" (Hegel, 195).* But what is inorganic nature in the de- velopment of conscious thought? Here we are met with the most unintelligible of all the unin- telligibilities of Hegel. Let us revert to Professor Graham for its exposition. The development of the self-actualising universal has been character- ised by progress. The Phenomenology is a history of the successive stages through which conscious- ness has passed. Eeason has advanced from the age when man made weapons of flint, to the age in which we live (Ideal. 37). But nature must * Hegel, by Edward Caird, LL.D., monogram, published in the Black - Professor of Moral Philosophy, Uni- wood Series of Philosophical Clas- versity of Glasgow another admirable sics. Unconscious Thought. 295 have existed in geological periods long before the advent of humanity and how? As unconscious thought (p. 23). And this explains the origin of the world and man. Unconscious thought may cast up existences as it did in those geological periods, albeit there was no real existence till conscious thought appeared (p. 65). Mr. Graham tells us we must not try to refute Hegel, we must only try to under- stand him. Let the reader try. " It will be better," says Hegel, "if we use the term thought at all, to speak of nature as the system of unconscious thought, or, to use Schelling's expression, a fossilized intelli- gence" (Log. 39). This fossilized intelligence is the new materia prima nay, it is the primum mobile as well. Such is the beginning of world in the Genesis of Hegel, and Mr. Graham tells us that it is only an example of his great principle, "that being and non-being are the same" (Ideal. 65). But it is not merely in the inorganic nature which existed in the geological periods before the advent of humanity that the Hegelian encounters the inevitable object. He admits the existence of self-actualising universals other than himself ; and it is perfectly clear that if there be a number of self-actualising universals, every self-actualising uni- versal other than himself is an object external to himself, which escapes his apprehension as com- pletely as any material or any transcendental ob- ject. The generations of men who preceded him, mere systems of ideas as they are supposed to be, 296 The Absolute Mind. were not his system of ideas. The great battle, amid the thunders of which the Phenomenology was finished, was fought by spirits, to whom his spirit was a stranger. The past was the creation of other minds than his; and the future is an object which his mind may anticipate, but cannot possibly evolve. Above all, the Absolute Idea, in which he supposes himself to live and move and have his being, is a Being far transcending him, a God whose thoughts are not his thoughts, and whose ways are not as his. Hegel at times gives a great elevation to his language, and a great appearance of orthodoxy to his doctrine, by dilating on the might and majesty of God. Indeed Mr. Graham informs us that " the Hegelian sees God everywhere beneath the world of nature, which is merely his woven veil, and knows him in the high soul of man, which is the manifesta- tion of his spiritual presence" (Ideal. 32); and Stir- ling goes so far as to say that Hegel, in vindicating thought alone as the substantial element in the uni- verse, has extended an immense support to every spiritual influence, and supplied the most powerful bulwark to religion (Schw. 443). But the question is not what Hegel believes or says, but what are his principles, and what is the result to which they lead. Let us therefore examine the theology of Hegel. Mr. Wallace tells us that " the Hegelian system has the all-embracing and encyclopaedic character by which Scholastic thought threw its arms around The Adamantine Circle. 297 heaven and. earth"; and that "Hegel's theory is the explication of God, but of God in the actuality and plenitude of the world, and not as a transcend- ent Being in the solitude of a world beyond " (Proleg. xxvi.). Professor Caird adopts the same metaphor, and tells us that "the essential unity of all things with each other and with the mind that knows them is the adamantine circle, within which the strife of opposites is waged, and which their utmost violence of conflict cannot break" (Hegel, 141).* But how is the existence of this Absolute Mind arrived at? The Absolute Idea, transcending as it does all finite intelligence, is an object as transcendent as the transcendental object which it endeavours to supplant. Hegel tells us that " when we hear the Idea spoken of we need not imagine something far away beyond this mortal sphere" "the Idea is rather what is completely present, and it is found in every consciousness, although it may be in an indistinct and stunted form " (Log. 306) . But, before we can say that the Idea is completely present, its presence must * These metaphors may afford the quern appellat Deum (De ^^ JD. i. 11). explanation of a seemingly absurd and The interpretation of this passage on incongruous doctrine, which is attri- Hegelian principles is quite consistent buted by Cicero to Parmenides, the with what follows Multaque ejusdem philosopher who first proclaimed that monstra, quippe qui helium, qui dis- thought and its object are the same. cordiam, qui cupiditatem, ceteraque Nam Parmenides commenticium quid- generis ejusdem ad Deum revocat. A 1 dam coronae simile efficit stcphanen these things, as existing realities, are appellat continentem ardore [#w:ar- clearly comprehended in Hegel's Ab- dores] lucis orbem, qui cingit coelum, solute Idea. 298 The Addition of Noughts. be proved, and before we can prove its presence we must prove that it exists. What, then, is Hegel's proof of God's existence ? It is the old Cartesian proof. God, he says, " can only be thought as exist- ing" " his Notion involves Being " u it is this unity of the Notion and Being that constitutes the only notion of God" (Log. 92). But the futility of this argument had been shown by Hume. " In the proposition, God is " he said, "or indeed any other which regards existence, the idea of existence is no distinct idea, which we unite with that of the object, and which is capable of forming a compound idea by the union" (i. 132). The futility of the on- tological argument had been still more clearly pointed out by Kant. The definition of the idea of existence showed that it was futile (Kritik, 367). The word leing did not really predicate existence, it was merely the copula of logic (p. 368). The analysis of a conception could never establish the existence of its object (p. 392) ; and we might as well hope to increase our store of knowledge by the aid of mere ideas, as to augment our wealth by the addition of a multitude of noughts (p. 370). But what is the nature of the God whose exist- ence is supposed to be thus established ? The Abso- solute Idealist informs us. " The Absolute," he says, "is intended, and ought to express God in the style and character of thought " (Log. 134). In the style and character of thought he is "the fulness of objectivity, confronted with which our particu- The Ens Realissimum. 299 lar or subjective opinions and desires have no truth and no validity " (p. 289). " God, far from being a Being or Essence, even the highest, is the Being or Essence" (p. 180). In fine, " God, who is abso- lutely infinite, is not something out of, and beside whom, there are other essences" " all else out of God, if separated from him, possesses no essenti- ality " whatever (p. 1 80). But what is the relation between this transcendent essence and our own ? Professor Caird tells us that the universe of Hegel is "a universe in which every thought is a truth, and every particle of dust an organisation a ma- crocosm made up of microcosms, which is all in every part" (Hegel, 179). If we accept this pro- position in the literal sense, then God would seem to be merely the sum total of the infinitesimals of finite thought, a mere integration of existence ; and war, and discord, and lust, and every evil thought, as Cicero said of Parmenides, must be referred to God. But if God is not the integral of humanity, is man an infinitesimal of God ? Every individual being, Hegel tells us, is some one aspect of the Idea ; and he tells us that in God we live and move and have our Being. This is the language of Male- branche the language of Berkeley the language which was borrowed from Epicharmus by St. Paul. But language so variously applied means anything or nothing. Let us take some intelligible utterance of Hegel. The universal and one idea, he says, specialises itself to a system of specific ideas, which 300 The Shadoivy Universal. after all are constrained by their nature to come back to the one idea where their truth lies (Log. 305). This would seem to be merely another form of the infinite impersonal life of Fichte. If this be the case, Hegel would seem, like Fichte, to be merely an idealised Spinosa. For what is the doc- trine of Spinosa ? Spinosa holds that there is one infinite and extended substance of which all finite existences are modes waves, as it were, of the ocean of being, which rise and swell and subside, but never really are (Schw. 173).* If we eliminate the ideas of substance and extension from this con- ception, we may form some dim adumbration of the Absolute Idea. But if this be the true concep- tion, what is God ? According to Stirling himself, nothing but a shadowy universal (Schw. 435). And if God be nothing but a shadowy universal, what is man ? Let Professor Graham answer. Some- thing as unsubstantial as the cloud, something as evanescent as the foam (Ideal. 45). * Goethe, though he changes the metaphor at the close, would seem to have had this idea of Spinosa' s in his mind, when he put the following words into the mouth of the Spirit of the Earth : In the floods of life, in the storm of strife, On the crest of the wave, In the depths of the sea, I am birth and grave Eternally ! As I weave my tissues, Life glows and issues ; For the thunderous loom of time is mine, Which clothes the world with its life divine ! Fanst, p. 37- The Salto Mortale. 301 But even here the difficulties of the Hegelian system do not end. A doctrine which insists upon the co-existence of the Absolute Idea and specific systems of ideas is as dualistic as the doctrine which assumes the mutual co-operation and correspond- ence of a transcendental object and a transcenden- tal subject. Here the criticism of the Absolute Idealist recoils upon himself. "In every dualistic system," says Hegel, "and especially in that of Kant, the fundamental defect makes itself visible in unifying at one moment what a moment before had been explained to be independent and incapable of unification " (Log. 98). But things may be similar in essence without being unified in thought ; and not- withstanding any similarity of essence, the question of dualism recurs How can I know any essence but my own ? The Absolute Idea is something supersensible, and Hegel admits that "the rise of thought beyond the world of sense, its passage from the finite to the infinite, the leap into the supersen- sible which it takes when it snaps asunder the links of the chain of sense all this transition is thought, and nothing but thought " (Log. 87). But if thought leaps into the supersensible, the supersensible into which it leaps is not something out of and beyond itself. Out of and beyond itself not even thought can leap. What thought as thinker thinks, on the principles of Hegel, it creates. If it thinks a Being or Essence which is God, then God himself is its creation. And it is in this sense that Fichte must 3O2 The Truth Unveiled. be understood when he proclaimed to his astonished audience that in his next lecture he was going to create God. But if this be so, the Hegelian sys- tem is absolutely inverted and reversed. The mind of man does not exist in God; on the contrary, God exists only in the mind of man. Pantheism is thus metamorphosed into Panegoism the ego is declared to be the All the world, the soul, and God are nothing but imaginations of the ego and the ego is nothing but a system of shadowy ideas, without any existence in space or time, and without any ground of existence in substance or in cause. The Absolute Idealism of Hegel, notwithstand- ing its pretensions, is, in fact, the metaphysical lunacy which Reid attributed to Hume (Reid, 127, 209). Nor, after all, can it be more graphically de- scribed than in the homely language of the sage of common sense. Like the Treatise of Human Na- ture the Logic discards spirit and body from the world and leaves impressions and ideas the sole ex- istences in nature (p. 109). Its ideas are as free and independent as the birds of the air, or as the atoms of Epicurus when they pursued their journey through the vast inane (ibid.). They are set adrift in the world without connexion or support (ibid.). "But why," said Reid, " should we seek to compare them with anything, since there is nothing in nature but themselves ? They make the whole furniture of the universe ; starting into existence, or out of it, without any cause ; combining into parcels, which The Diamond Net. 303 the vulgar call minds, and succeeding one another by fixed laws, without time, place, or author of those law T s " (ibid.). How then have the promises of Hegel been ful- filled ? Has he exhibited the diamond net in which the universe is held ? Has he given an exposition of God in his eternal essence ? Has he exhibited truth without her veil ? He has done none of these things. He professes to have displayed the diamond net in which the universe is held ; but he has only shown that the universe is a mere evanescence with no diamond net to hold it. He professes to have given an exposition of God in his eternal essence ; but he has only shown that God in his eternal essence is a shadowy universal. He professes to have exhibited the form of truth without a veil; but like the Grecian painter, it is only the veil itself that he has painted. And what of the sphinx enigmas of existence, and the problem of the painful earth ? Hegel solves the enigma by declaring there is no enigma to be solved. He finds no difficulty in con- ceiving that things may subsist without a substance and originate without a cause. He assumes the existence of our sensations without inquiry as to where they come from, and how it is that they arise. He assumes their co- existences and their suc- cessions and their laws without asking how the co- existences and successions are determined, by what power those laws have been imposed. The logic of Hegel gives no answer to the questions which can- 304 The Eternal Essence. not be evaded by the philosopher any more than they can be evaded by the common man. " Where am I, or what ? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return ? Whose favours shall I court, and whose anger must I dread ?" Hume asked himself these questions, and professed himself to be confounded (i. 340). Kant asked them, and left reason trembling on the verge of the abyss of necessity, which he regarded as the ultimate support of all existing things (p. 376). These questions the philosophy of Hegel ignores ; it ignores the very craving of intelligence by which they are suggested. He is content to regard God as a shadowy universal with no existence but a shadow's ; he is content to regard the universe as only another name for that shadowy universal ; and oscillating between Pantheism on the one hand and Panegoism on the other, he is driven to regard man as either a mere shifting shadow of a shade, or an unessential essence which constitutes the universe of things. AN IDEAL OF SYSTEMS: THE NEW KRITIK. AN IDEAL OF SYSTEMS: OE THE NEW KBITIK. Sedjam, ut omni me invidia liberem, ponam in medio sententias philo- sophorum ; quo quidem loco convocandi omnes videntur, qui quae sit earum verajudicent. DE NAT. DEOE. THE advent of Hegel, as we have seen, was regarded as the advent of a new Messiah ; and in the hour of his triumph all Germany hailed him with hosannas. But the hosannas were followed by a crucifixion. A reaction set in against the absolute philosophy. Unbelievers began to ridicule its empty abstrac- tions, its shadowy universals, its artificial tricho- tomies, its affectation of omniscience, and its wearisome iteration of barbaric and unintelligible terms.* Heine described the Hegelian system as a harlequinade of thought; and Schopenhauer derided its author as a philosophical acrobat, * The following details are derived Philosophic Allemande Moderne depuis from a very interesting work HEGEL Kant jusq' a nos jours. Par A. Foucher et SCHOPENHAUER, Etudes sur la de Careil. Paris, 1862. X 2 308 The Discovery of Schopenhauer. who had the misfortune to have lost his body. Schopenhauer went still further further perhaps than he was justified in going. He denounced Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel as three sophists who made a trade of philosophy, and were the intellec- tual mercenaries of the state ready to abandon pantheism for pietism if adequately paid, and, like Bottom the weaver, equally prepared to roar as the lion or to whisper as the sucking dove. Schopenhauer professed to have supplied an ele- ment which he said was wanting in Hegel's theory of the evolution and self-development of thought. "My great discovery," he said, "is a Thebes with a hundred gates ; it is that, at the base of all things, there is a force which is one and identical, always equal and eternally the same ; and that this force, which slumbers in the plant, which awakes in the animal, and which becomes conscious of itself in man, is will"* But Stirling is right (Schw. 446). Although Schopenhauer must take a high rank among German philosophers, it is clear that German philosophy is closed with Hegel. The shadowy uni- versal, with no existence in space or time and with * Goethe, who was a friend of Schopenhauer, probably had this theory in view when he makes Faust hesitate as to how he should translate the \6yos of the famous passage of St. John : Is it mere thought evolves all nature's course ? Surely in the beginning there was force ! Still as the word is traced beneath my hand, A something warns me not to let it stand. The Spirit aids me all is now exact I write, In the beginning was the act ! Faust, p. 73. The Prophecy of Comte. 309 no ground of existence in substance or in cause, was the last word of idealism. Even the power of absurdity, which Hobbes regards as the privilege of reason, could go no further. The history of philosophy from Berkeley to Hegel would seem to justify the positive philosopher in his prophecy that the educated intellects of the future would abandon all metaphysical speculation, and devote themselves exclusively to the study of the phenomena of nature and their laws. But as Schopenhauer remarks and the remark had pre- viously been made by Kant there is a meta- physical instinct in human nature which is as ineradicable as any of its other instincts. The energetic intellect of youth, when it feels the first stirrings of intellectual life, conceives everything to be open to its efforts, and with unconscious auda- city looks the mystery of existence in the face and fancies it can solve it. It may be that this is a mere beating of the air, but it is the beating of the air which develops the muscles of the athlete. Nor is this the only factor in the case. In every free state and this is the most obvious indication of its freedom there will ever be men who, by the bias of their genius, will devote themselves to philosophy, as others devote themselves to poetry and art ; and as poetry and art are never exhausted, so philosophy will everlastingly assume new forms. The object which the philosopher sets before him may be as far beyond the reach of human knowledge 3 1 o The Spirit of Metaphysic. as the grand arcanum or the great elixir. But the spirit of metaphysics never dies. Its destruction is as illusory as that of the visionary maid which Dryden's Theodore beheld when " more than a mile immersed within the wood." The hounds may fasten on her side and the knight may plunge his sword into her back ; but an irrevocable sentence has been past. The pursuit must for ever be con- tinued, and the phantom is no sooner slain than it revives Renewed to life, that she might daily die, We daily doomed to follow, she to fly. But is philosophy, after all, the visionary pur- suit that is imagined ? As Hume has remarked, it is no inconsiderable part of science to know the different operations of the mind, to separate them from each other, to classify them under their appro- priate heads, and to remove all the seeming disorder in which they are involved, when made the subject of reflection (iv. 12). But there is an element of science, even in the books of metaphysics, which the sceptic wished to burn. In the attempt to solve the metaphysical problem of the world a number of hypotheses have been framed by philosophers, and though none of these hypotheses can claim to rank as science, yet in their totality they possess a scien- tific value. In themselves they may be the mere play of philosophic imagination, the romance of reason. But reason, confronted with the great mys- tery of existence, cannot choose but make its guesses A Kritik of Systems. 3 1 1 at the riddle. Every philosophy is such a guess ; and a complete system of philosophies will constitute the sum total of the guesses which reason is compe- tent to make. Such a system, even as a matter of curiosity, would be interesting, and, as a fact ex- pressive of the limitation of the powers of reason, would come within the strict domain of science. Nor is it impossible to imagine such a system. In every department of mental philosophy a conspectus of the various theories which have been invented may be made. The theories as to the origin of knowledge, or as to the nature of universals, or as to the true character of the process of induction, may be contabulated so as to see where they di- verge, how far they differ, and in what respect they are expressions of the truth. Such a synopsis of systems would not only facilitate study, but would go far to remove the opprobrium of philosophy the fatal differences of opinion which seem to exist among its masters. For truth is a polygon, and not a point; and apparent differences of opi- nion are caused by the different sides of the poly- gon on which the attention of philosophers is fixed. It is thus that a Kritik of Systems is required to sup- plement the Kritik of Reason. Let us see whether on the subject of the great cosmological problem the outlines of such a Kritik can be traced. " It seems evident," says Hume, " that men are carried by a natural instinct or prepossession to 3 1 2 Natural Realism. repose faith in their senses, and that without any reasoning, or even almost before the use of reason, we always suppose an external universe which de- pends not on our perception, but would exist though we and every sensible creature were absent or anni- hilated." While we are under the influence of this natural instinct, not only do we suppose an external universe, which depends not on our perception, but we suppose that we immediately perceive it. It appears to us as if sense actually apprehended things out of itself and in their proper space. We make no distinction between the object existing and the object known. We presume not only that the world exists, but that we know it as existing. We presume that we know it not as a mere cause, but as an object. This is the conclusion to which we are led by the instinct of our nature ; and this instinctive determination of the human race is Natural Realism in its only intelligible sense. " But," as Hume continues, "this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but the image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate inter- course between the mind and the object." And in this, as a statement of the fact, the philosopher is right. The blue of the ocean and the sky, the Hypothetical Realism. 313 green of the forest and the field, all the variegated colours of creation, are admitted to be mere sensa- tions. Everything which seems presented from without by vision is admittedly projected from within. What we take to be reality turns out to be a mere conception of the mind. It is the idea of which we are conscious, and not the actual thing. But with the instinct of reality still strong upon us, we are unable to accept the doctrine of a pure, un- qualified idealism, which admits the existence of nothing but the mere idea. Convinced that in the perception of the distant we are only conscious of an idea, we nevertheless regard the idea within as representative of the thing without. The theory of Representative Perception thus emerges. We suppose the existence of a reality which our idea represents, and Hypothetical Realism, to employ the phrase of Sir William Hamilton, is the first conclu- sion which we adopt when we abandon common sense and instinct for philosophy and reason. But how can we know that our ideas are repre- sentative of objects which are thus assumed to be unknown ? The question did not escape the Atom- ists of old, and their answer is given by the poet who beautified the sect which was otherwise infe- rior to the rest. We are told by Lucretius that, stripped from the surface of external things, light films are incessantly emitted, which, borne upon the air, are received by the various appliances of 3 1 4 The Theory of Emission. sense, and are the Sensible Eidola, which represent the realities from which they come. The slender form and effigy of things, By things emitted, from their surface springs ; Membranes, or films, they bear, whate'er their name, The image of the thing from whence they came, The species similar the form the same. Such was the theory which Democritus bequeathed to Epicurus such was the theory which Reid attri- buted to all philosophers from Plato down to Hume. And undoubtedly there is an element of truth in this, the earliest of the theories of per- ception. Unless the rays of light impinge upon the retina of the eye, unless the tympanum of the ear be struck by the vibrations of the air, unless there be an effluvium of the particles of odour soli- citing the membrane of the nose, we neither see, nor hear, nor smell. But a material antecedent is not of necessity a material efflux; and a material efflux is not of necessity a material film ; and the presence of a material film is one thing, and the sensation of which it is the antecedent is another. How, then, is the mental fact, the fact of conscious- ness, to be explained ? This was a question to which the theory of Democritus, as far as we are acquainted with it, gave no answer. An answer was essayed by Aristotle. Perception, the Stagyrite said, is the reception not of a material film, but of an immaterial form. The mind receives the form of things perceived without the matter, just as Physical Influx. 3 1 5 wax, when impressed by a seal, receives nothing but the mere impression. What we are conscious of is not a sensible eidolon, which is a modification of matter, but a Sensible Idea, which is a modification of the mind itself. Here, too, there is an element of plausibility or truth. As far as appears, our organs of sense stand in relation to certain specific qualities of body, and each sensation receives its development, its form, from the operation of the quality to which it corresponds (Reid, 827). But the rationale of the doctrine escaped the apprehen- sion of the men who proclaimed themselves the fol- lowers of the great master. The form with which he conceived the mind to be impressed they seem to have regarded as a matterless efflux from matter. A system of entities, distinct from matter and from mind, was thus devised ; and the material films of Democritus were superseded by the Intentional Species of the schoolmen. A simpler doctrine, one perhaps identical with that of Aristotle, was afterwards em- braced. The sensible idea was regarded as a mere act of sense ; the act of sense was conceived to be determined by the secret powers of matter ; and thus, with a minimum admixture of hypothesis, was developed the theory of Physical Influence or Influx. A film emitted, a form impressed, a fact of con- sciousness determined, such are the three aspects under which our ideas of sensation may be re- garded as the representatives of material things. But the difficulties of the case were not exhausted. 3 1 6 The Plastic Medium and the Gnostic Reasons. A deeper and more serious question arose. Matter and xnind, it was said, are different in their nature ; they are separated by the whole diame- ter of being. Not only must philosophy explain how the mind can perceive matter at a distance it must explain how mind can perceive matter in contact, or at all. The hypothesis of a Plas- tic Medium a medium which was neither mind nor matter, but which had affinities with each - was excogitated in order to bring the two dis- cordant elements into relation. But the Plastic Medium was a mere hypothesis, with nothing in experience to suggest it ; and the interposition of a medium between mind and matter scarcely disguised and did not solve the problem. To solve the problem the Alexandrine philosophers devised the theory of Gnostic Reasons. They supposed cer- tain forms and representatives of things which, prior to the act of perception, have a latent exist- ence in the soul;* and they held that on the occasion of the impression made on the external organ by the object, the mind, being roused to action, mingles the image from without with the * Turn mentis vigor excitus, failed to observe the approximation of Quas intus species tenet the theory of Gnostic Eeasons to the Ad motus similes vocans, Kantian doctrine of the Forms of Notis applicat exteris, Sense, although he observed its ap- Introrsumque reconditis proximation to the hypotheses of Formis miscet imagines. Descartes and Leibnitz (Reid, 263). The Alexandrine theory was adopted It is strange that Hamilton, in citing by Kant's immediate predecessor, these verses of Boethius, should have Wolff (Log. i. 6). The Hyper physical Influence of Matter. 3 1 7 form within, and elicits into consciousness the repre- sentation through which the reality is known (Reid, 263). In thus mingling the image with the form, the theory of gnostic reasons, it is obvious, ap- proximates to the transcendental ideality of Kant. But its defects are obvious. It assumes the exist- ence of the external world, for our knowledge of which it professes to account ; and while admitting the action of matter on the living body and the stimulated mind, it in effect merely gives a state- ment of the difficulty which it was invented to explain. It was at this point the discussion of the question was resumed in modern times. The material world, it was conceded, was not given as an object; the question was, could matter be regarded as a cause. Matter, it was said, is conceived as passive and inert ; how, then, can it be conceived as cause ? It is conceived as essentially unthinking ; how, then, can it be conceived as the cause of thought ? Re- stricting the conception of causation to that of effi- ciency, and assuming that the conceptions of the human mind are the measure of the possibilities of things, philosophy once more embarked on the sea of speculation. Though matter be conceived as in its own nature incapable of thinking or producing thought, might it not be regarded as invested by Omnipotence with powers which it did not of itself possess ? This was the theory of Locke. We may conceive that God, if he pleases, can superadd to 318 Occasional Causes. matter a faculty of thinking; and though motion, according to the utmost stretch of our ideas, can produce nothing but motion, we may still allow it to produce sensation, if we attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker (Essay iv. iii. 6). Philosophy thus effected an alliance with Theology, and the first fruits of the connexion was this theory of the Hyperphysical Influence of Matter. But this conception, it is plain, could scarcely stand the test of logic. If motion can produce nothing but motion, if the production of sensation is resolved into the good pleasure of our Maker, it is God and not matter that is the cause of thought. A new hypothesis was therefore started. God, said the Cartesian, by the incessant action of his omnipo- tence, produces all the changes in material things, but he does not operate on matter so as to enable it to manifest itself to mind ; he operates on mind so as to enable it to take cognizance of matter. On the occasion of the presence of the material object, God, as the efficient cause of thought, de- termines the mind to the formation of a repre- sentative idea. Such was the theory of Occasional Causes or Divine Assistance. But this theory also was open to attack. According to its opponents it postulated a perpetual miracle. It condemned the Creator to create for ever. In the vigorous phrase of Aristotle, it compelled the Deity to put his hand to everything. It degraded the Demiurgus to a drudge. In opposition to the theory of the inces- Pre-established Harmony. 3 1 9 sant agency of God, it was maintained that the series of causes and effects spontaneously evolves itself as a consequence of the original constitution of the world. The music of the spheres was not that of an organ on which the musician strikes every note, nor that of a cylinder which the maker was him- self obliged to turn : it was that of a mechanism which the great artist had cunningly contrived, and which, when once set going, never ceased its chime. There was a Pre-established Harmony between mind and matter. According to Leibnitz the mind of man was a monad, a unit of substance, endowed with a representative power, and the various repre- sentations which it evolves were pre-adjusted so as to correspond with the pre-adjusted evolution of ma- terial monads. The soul and the world were clocks with independent springs, and set to correspond. But this theory, like its predecessors, failed to satisfy the exigencies of speculative thought. It in- troduced the principle of mechanism into incorporeal things. It postulated what it did not prove, the ex- istence of the world. It postulated what it did not prove, the existence of a God. It did not even solve the difficulty which it was framed to solve. If, as the Leibnitzian averred, everything goes on in mind as if there were no matter, and everything goes on in mat- ter as if there were no mind, the chasm between mind and matter, it is evident, remains unbridged, and phi- losophy stands helpless on its verge. To bridge the chasm, recourse was had to theology once more. 32O Vision in God. Philosophy accepted from theology not merely the agency of a God, but the existence of a revelation, to enable it to solve its problem. On the authority of revelation it assumed the existence of an external world, and then it had recourse to reason to ex- plain the knowledge of the existence so assumed. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth " and therefore, said Malebranche, the heavens and the earth have a material existence. Of that material existence we can have no know- ledge, for mind cannot take cognisance of matter. But God takes cognisance of the world, the exist- ence of which he has revealed, and he can com- municate that cognisance to us. In him we live and move and have our being. Our sensations are the production of his power ; our perceptions are a participation of his knowledge. What he sees we see, what he thinks we think we are parts of him. We are partakers of his heavenly vision, and the world of sense is the Vision of the Universe in God. Matter operated on by God so as to reveal itself to mind; mind operated on by God so as to take cognisance of matter; matter and mind each ope- rated on by God so that their modifications should correspond ; mind admitted by God to a participa- tion of his knowledge of material things such are the four great forms of Theological Realism a realism which recognises the existence of a world of matter, but professes itself unable to explain our knowledge Theological Idealism. 3 2 1 of that existence without the intervention of a God. From such a realism the transition to a pure Theolo- gical Idealism was as inevitable as it was obvious. If, as Malebranche said, God produces our sensations why not allow him to produce our perceptions also ? If all that the mind is conscious of is a series of con- ceptions; if that series of conceptions in the mind can never be produced by matter ; if the Deity must be invoked to account for the appearances of sense why suppose the existence of material things ? Their existence could not possibly be proved. True, there must be some cause of the continual succession of ideas which we experience ; but that cause must be an incorporeal active substance other than ourselves (Prin. xxvi.). The existence of a Spirit infinitely wise and powerful and good is sufficient to explain all the appearances of nature ( Ixxii.). But if we come to the conclusion that there is " a mind which affects us every moment with all the sensible impressions we perceive " (Dial, ii.), the consequence is clear. The soul does not exist in the world ; the world, on the contrary, exists only in the soul. Space cannot exist without the mind, and its idea is a mere abstraction (Prin. cxvi.) ; even time itself has no existence abstracted from the succession of our thoughts ( xcviii.). Berkeley fondly imagined that with materialism and atheism he had also banished Scepticism from the world. But his idealism in reality evoked the sceptic. This was shown by Hume. The arguments 322 Academic Scepticism. of Berkeley, he said, admit of no answer, and produce no conviction (iv. 181). Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has deter- mined us to judge as well as to breathe and feel (i. 240), and if we listen to the dictates of nature, the existence of body must be taken for granted in all our reasonings (i. 245). As an agent, he said, I am quite satisfied with this ; but as a philosopher I want to learn the ground of my belief (iv. 47). The ground of the belief, according to Berkeley, was a mere illusion arising from our consciousness that our sensations are imprinted from without. The tenet in question involved a contradiction. Strictly speaking, there was and could be no belief in the existence of objects independent of the mind (Prin. Ivi.). This, it is evident, was a new depar- ture. In recognising the existence of matter, pre- ceding philosophers had deferred to the authority of common sense ; in denying the existence of matter, Berkeley committed common sense and philosophy to an internecine conflict. If we wish to know the issue of the conflict, we have only to pursue the his- tory of idealism from its rise with Berkeley to its culminating point in Hegel. Hume prepared the way for Kant. His un- known cause (iv. 178) was in reality the transcen- dental object. His principle, that nothing can be inferred from experience which every inference from experience presupposes (iv. 46) was the principle of the categories of the understanding. Above all, his Transcenden tal Idealism. 323 position that the ideas of space and time are not separate and distinct ideas, but merely those of the manner in which objects exist (i. 62), was, in effect, a declaration that- space and time were transcen- dentally ideal. The transition from positions such as these to the Transcendental Idealism of Kant was but a step. If space and time be merely ideas of the manner in which sensible appearances exist, why should we postulate their absolute existence ? If space and time are presupposed in all sensible experience, why should we not regard them as the forms of sense ? The things which we intuite in space and time are nothing but phenomena, and phenomena are nothing but representations moulded in the forms of sense, which have no self-subsistent existence apart from human thought (Kritik, 307). It is true we must suppose the existence of some transcendental object as an originating cause which stimulates our sensibility ; but the nature of that object is essentially unknown. We know not whe- ther it exists within ourselves or whether it is to be found without. Such was the reasoning of Kant. The Deity of Berkeley was superseded by a nescio quid ; his abstractions were declared to be the con- stituent forms of sense ; and, in spite of his con- sciousness that our sensations are imprinted from without, it was held that the ideal world, in part at least, was originated from within. The Subjective Idealism of Fichte was the outcome of the Transcendental Idealism of Kant. Where was Y 2 324 Subjective Idealism. the necessity for assuming a transcendental object ? If a cause for the world of sense must be assumed, why should we seek the cause beyond ourselves ? The activity of the ego was manifest in conscious- ness. In its action it evolved all the conceptions with which philosophy was concerned : why should we deem it insufficient to account for the appear- ances of sense ? In its onward movement, it is true, it seemed to encounter an insurmountable obstacle which drove it back upon itself. But this obstacle was merely an anstoss which, like the sense of incubus, had its origin within. It was this which induced the ego to form the notion of a thing with- out ; it was thus that it formed the conception of objects occupying space. But all this was nothing but conception. The objects which appear to be external were the various breakings of the action of the ego against an incomprehensible obstacle (Schw. 268) they were the mere spray of the billow when recoiling from its bound. The subjective idealism of Fichte, after its brief hour of triumph, gave way to the Absolute Idealism of his rival. The incomprehensible obstacle of Fichte, it was said, was merely the transcendental object in disguise (Log. 102) ; his idealism left us hemmed in by an impenetrable barrier, and confined us to our subjective conceptions for a world (p. 207). The transcendental object, whatever form it might as- sume, was nothing but a mere abstraction (p. 77). The things which we immediately know were phe- Absolute Idealism. 325 nomena, it is true ; but phenomena were neither subjective intuitions moulded in our forms of sense, nor subjective conceptions formed by our under- standing in its recoil from nothing ; they were simple appearances existing in their own nature, and without our interference (p. 79). Genuine idealism was in fact the Transcendental Realism which the critic of the reason had rejected (KritiJc, 307). Phenomena were things subsisting in themselves (ibid.). There was no essence behind or beyond the appearance ; existence was nothing but appear- ance, and appearance was all that essentially exists {Log. 206). Appearances supplied the content of the absolute idea (p. 307); of this absolute idea every individual was an aspect (p. 305) ; and in these aspects " God, who is the essence, lends existence to the passing stages of his own show in himself," and is " the infinite kindness which lets its own show freely issue into immediacy, and graciously allows it the joy of being" (p. 206).* But even Fichte and Hegel recoiled from the rigorous results of their respective systems. Their common purpose was to solve the problem of objec- * Goethe, who was the friend and benefactor of Hegel, would seem to have had some such idea as this in view when writing the closing words of the Pro- logue in Heaven : But ye, true Sons of God, surrender Your spirits to the rich and living Splendor ! The teeming Whole which ever works and lives Bind you together with its blessed linking ! And all the shifting shows its essence gives Substantiate by unremitted thinking ! Faust, p. 24. 326 Egois tical Idealism. tive knowledge by abolishing the difference between the subject and the object. Rejecting the dogma that the non-ego produces the ego, Fichte propounded the counter dogma that the ego produces the non- ego, and regarded the object as a mere conception of the subject. Rejecting the dogma that the object is a mere conception of the subject, Hegel pro- pounded the dogma that there is no objectivity apart from universal thought, and regarded the subject as an aspect of the object. But objectivity remained. The subjective idealist recognised an infinite life, of which every individual is a mode ; the absolute idealist recognised an absolute idea, of which every individual is a phase. Both of them admitted that personality is inconceivable, un- less we assume the existence of a multiplicity of persons ; and each of them, accordingly, assumed the existence of a system of egos coexistent with himself (Fichte, 182, 202). But on the slope of speculation the descent of down-lapsing thought is not to be arrested. To the reflecting ego a system of egos other than itself is as much an external object as an external world of matter. If conscious- ness is unable to transcend itself, then the infinite life and the absolute idea are as far beyond its reach as the most transcendental, the most tran- scendent, object. It is in vain to resolve the ele- ments of the universe into thought, and to exclaim, Alles ist Ich ; that is a position which cannot be consistently maintained unless we are prepared to Absolute Nihilism. 327 hold that Ich 1st Allcs. Egoistic Idealism, therefore, with its world of subjective conceptions, is the bourne for which all idealism is ultimately bound. This is shown by the philosophy of Fichte in its earlier form. There the Deity was nothing but the moral order of the universe (Schw. 274); the uni- verse was merely the sum total of the conceptions of the ego (p. 267); and the ego itself was merely thought vicissitude in general (ibid.). The ego was thus converted into the egomet ; the egomet de- clared itself to be the All ; and Panegoism was the last expression of the " philosophical delirium" of Hume. Yet not the last. For what is Panegoism itself when the ego is destitute of substance ? On the acknow- ledgment of Fichte it is merely Nihilism in disguise. " The sum of all", he says, u is this. There is absolutely nothing permanent either without me or within me, but only an unceasing change. I know absolutely nothing of any existence, not even of my own. I myself know nothing, and am nothing. Images there are ; they constitute all that apparently exists, and what they know of them- selves is after the manner of images ; images that pass and vanish without there being aught to wit- ness their transition that consist, in fact, of the images of images without significance and without an aim. I myself am one of these images ; nay, I am not even thus much, but only a confused image of images. All reality is converted into a marvel- 328 The Spirit of Speculation. lous dream, without a life to dream of, and without a mind to dream into a dream made up only of a dream of itself. Perception is a dream ; thought the source of all the existence, and all the reality which I imagine to myself of my existence, of my power, of my destination is the dream of that dream". That is the last word which idealism has to utter. That, according to one of the greatest of the idealists, is the sum of all. Such is the natural and almost the historical de- velopment of the various theories which have been propounded to explain the phenomena of sense. Like the unquiet spirit in the gospel, for two thou- sand years and more, the spirit of speculation has wandered to and fro through the wilderness of thought, seeking evermore for rest and finding none. Impelled by an unreflecting instinct, we first imagine that we grasp the thing; instructed by awakened reason, we are fain to confess that what we are conscious of is nothing but the idea. With the instinct of reality still strong upon us, we are prompted to regard our ideas as representatives of things, and forthwith atoms, forms, and films are invented as intermediaries between the reality without and the conception of the reality within. Baffled in the endeavour to conceive the nature of the relation between mind and matter, in our inability to explain the inexplicable, we invoke the Deity, and speculation enters the domain of hyperphysical influences, miraculous causes, ima- The Intellectual Result. 329 ginary harmonies, and theosophic visions. The Deity having being invoked to account for our knowledge of the world of matter, the existence of the world of matter is ignored as unnecessary to the operation of the Deity, and our ideas of sense are conceived to be excited in our minds by the un- assisted agency of God. But as the world was superseded by God, so God in his turn is super- seded by the soul. The mind, which first rushed into materialism, then burst into the region of theology, falls back exhausted on itself. It first declares space and time to be mere forms of sense ; it next denies the existence of all external causes; and, finally, it ignores all substance. It resolves the universe into unsubstantial thought, and hails this unsubstantial entity which trembles on the verge of non-existence as the All. What, then, is the impression left upon the mind by the contemplation of so many shadowy and shift- ing systems ? In these lofty solitudes of thought we see nothing but the mists which boil around the glaciers, and, like Manfred on the summit of the Jungfrau, we are giddy. But it is not in vain we have reached these silent heights. It is something to have climbed the mountain ; it is something to have seen the mists. We have tried our powers; we have satisfied our curiosity ; we are content. But is this the only benefit that those high spe- culations are calculated to confer ? By no means. 33O Agnosticism. They have shown us our ignorance, it is true, but in ascertaining our ignorance we have increased our knowledge. We know what we may aspire to know, and we know what cannot possibly be known. To use the phrase of Locke, we have learned the length of our tether, and we are satisfied to sit down in quiet ignorance of the things which lie beyond the reach of our faculties of knowledge. And our ignorance as to these subjects is quiet because it is complete. We have learned to regard with indifference any new demonstrations of the old indemonstrable dogmas. We know that it is as im- possible to prove thought to be a function of matter as it is to prove matter to be a phantasy of thought. We know that the materialist cannot prove the existence of the molecules which he would substi- tute for ideas nay, that he cannot prove the very existence of that matter by means of which he would fain supersede the necessity of recognising any spiritual existence either within us or beyond us. But what is this absence of knowledge of which the agnostic so bitterly complains ? In reality it is of no significance whatever. We are so constituted, that upon those all-important subjects which we cannot know we are compelled to think ; and in thinking on them there are things which we cannot but believe; and even in the absence of grounds for unwavering belief there are probabilities on which, as reasonable men, we may well be satis- Action. 331 fied to act.* For probability is the guide of life. In enterprises of the highest moment we are con- stantly compelled to take action in the midst of uncertainty and doubt. The great practical intel- lects which have swayed the minds of men and shaped the destinies of nations have been the most conspicuous for the promptitude with which they calculated probabilities and took their chance. And in the same spirit they were ready to take their chance in higher things. Bacon would rather be- lieve all the fables of the Legend, the Talmud, and the Koran, than that this universal frame was with- out a mind ; and Napoleon, looking up into the star-lit heavens, appealed to the principle of final causes as confidently as Butler or as Paley. The fact is, we hold the possessions of our higher life by the same tenure as that on which we hold our possessions in the world of sense. And it is here that philosophy, even in its negative or agnos- tic side, has rendered a service to religion. It has shown that we can live upon a world the existence of which we cannot prove. It has shown that we can safely calculate on the continuance of a course of nature in the future which we do not know. It has shown that we can associate and act with * Turn Catulus, Egone? inquit ad multa sequitur probabilia non compre- patris revolver sententiam, quam qui- hensa, neque percepta, neque assensa, dem ille Carneadeam esse dicebat, ut sed similia veri, quae nisi probet om- percipi nibil putcm posse, assensurum nis vita tollatur (Ibid. 31). Tbis is autem non percepto (Acad. iv. 48). Is alike the language of Butler and of quoque qui a vobis sapiens inducitur, Hume. 332 The Veiled Statue. a multitude of fellow-creatures whose existence is as incapable of demonstration as that of the Deity himself. It has shown, in fine, that in the most ordinary events of life, as in the deepest mysteries of religion, we live by faith and not by sight. For the whole universe is concealed from us by the veil of our ideas. What is it that exists beyond the veil ? That is a question which we can neither answer nor evade. The mind of man is haunted by the supposition of something, he knows not what, which is beyond him. It is in this sense of the unknown that all philosophy and all reli- gion have their source. But the highest intelli- gence is as helpless as the lowest when it tries to grasp it. The mystery of existence is as inscru- table to the modern philosopher as it was to Plato ; and it was as inscrutable to Plato as it was to the ignorant Egyptian who forty centuries ago bowed before the Veiled Statue of Isis, and worshipped the symbol of existence as the Unknown God. APPENDIX. NOTE A. LOCKE: ON THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS. NOTE B. HOBBES: ON GENERAL REASONING. NOTE C. BACON : ON INDUCTIVE REASONING. NOTE D. HUME : ON MIRACLE AND NATURE. APPENDIX, NOTE A. LOCKE I ON THE OBIGIN OF IDEAS. LOCKE, as his philosophy for two hundred years has been under- stood, is the father of modem empiricism, and as such the source to which we must trace the sensualism of Condillac, the selfish- ness of Helvetius, and the atheism of La Mettrie and Mirabaud. In opposition to this view, I published the Intellectualism of Locke, in which I endeavoured to show that Locke, when properly un- derstood, is to be ranked with Eeid and Kant, and not with Helvetius and Condillac. As that work has long been out of print and may never be republished, I propose in this note to recall the reasons which conducted me to that conclusion. The purpose of Locke, as he himself expresses it, was " to in- quire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds of belief, opinion, and assent" (Essay i. i. 2). As the basis of his inquiry he assumes that no object is pre- sented to the understanding but ideas, and, accordingly, he makes the word idea "stand for whatsoever is the object of the under- standing when a man thinks " (i. i. 8). Knowledge he subsequently demies to be "the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas " (iv. i. 2). In order to ascertain the origin of knowledge, therefore, it is necessary to ascertain the origin of ideas, and, accordingly, Locke's first inquiry is, how ideas come into the mind(i. i. 8). The controversy raised by Eeid and continued by Hamilton 33 ^ Locke* s Inherent Faculties. as to the nature of Locke's ideas may happily be considered obsolete. No one now-a-days contends with Eeid that Locke's idea was a tertium quid, existing in the mind like a wafer in a box ; everbody believes it to be, what Locke persistently asserts it to be, an act of perception (n. x. 2) a modification of think- ing (n. xix. 1) a mere act or affection of the mind (n. xxvii. 25). How, then, do these actual perceptions or modifications of think- ing first arise ? The first book of the Essay contains a negative answer to this question we have none that are innate. The criticism of Leibnitz on this doctrine of Locke is well known, and it supplies a key to all the misunderstandings and misrepresentations which have followed. " Experience is necessary, I admit", says Theophilus to Philalethes, in the New Essays, " in order that the mind should be determined to such or such thoughts, and in order that it should take note of the ideas that are in us ; but what of the means by which experience and the senses are competent to sup- ply ideas ? Is the mind a window ? Does it resemble a tablet ? Is it like wax ? It is clear that all who think thus make the mind material. I shall be met with the received maxim, that there is nothing in the soul which comes not from the senses ; but we must make an exception in favour of the soul itself and its affections. Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu nisi in- tellectus ipse". But on this point there is no difference between Locke and Leibnitz. The exception, so far as it has any real significance, Locke readily admits. He admits that the mind possesses certain " inherent faculties " (i. ii. 2), certain " powers intrinsical and proper to itself" (n. i. 24), certain " natural pro- pensities of thought" (i. iv. 11), certain "principles of common reason " (i. iv. 10), certain principles of " common sense " (i. iii. 4 ; iv. viii. 2 ; iv. xviii. 11). All he denies is the existence of innate principles in the form of " characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it " (i. ii. 1). He does not deny the modern principle of ' heredity ' ; but he denies the pre-existence of Pythagoras (n. xxvii. 14), the reminiscence of Plato (i. iv. 20), the latent modifications of Leibnitz (i. ii. 5), the Locke* s Intuitive Truths. 337 innate ideas commonly attributed to Descartes in brief, the " cognita adtulit" which Cicero adopted from Plato (Tusc. i. 24), and which Locke regarded as the " established opinion" of the times (i. ii. 1). It may be that the controversy in which Locke thus engaged was in a measure verbal. He repeatedly admits that it was (i. ii. 5 ; i. ii. 27 ; i. iii. 13). But it is one thing to contend against misleading phraseology, and another thing to contend against the truth. Locke admits everything for which any reasonable advocate of innate principles can contend. The capacity is innate, he says, though the knowledge is acquired (i. ii. 5). The admission of self-evident principles, he says, depends not on "native inscription" (i. ii. 11), but on their " native evidence " (iv. vii. 10), and the " immediate intuition " of their truth (iv. ii. 1). " Locke", says Eeid, " endeavours to show that axioms or intuitive truths are not innate " (Reid, 465). " He does more", says Sir William Hamilton " he attempts to show that they are all generalisations from experience ; whereas experience only affords the occasion on which the native, not innate, or a priori cognitions virtually possessed by the mind itself actually manifest their existence " (ibid.). Strange to say, this is the very language of Locke himself in his reply to Lowde. Locke objects to the phraseology of Lowde as " misleading men's thoughts by an insinuation, as if those notions were in the mind before the soul exerts them, i. e. before they are known ; ivhereas truly", he says, " before they are known there is nothing of them in the mind but a capacity to know them when the concur- rence of the circumstances which this ingenious author thinks necessary in order to the soul's exerting them brings them into our knowledge". The passage with which Kant commences the Kritik of the Eeason may be regarded as the expression of the doctrine with which Locke commences the second book of his Essay on the Understanding : " That all our knowledge begins with experi- ence there can be no doubt ; for how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of Z 338 Locke* s Simple Ideas. understanding to compare, to connect, or to separate them, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impres- sions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience". What, then, is the function of experience, in the philosophy of Locke, and what is its nature and extent ? Not only does it supply the chronological condition for the development of know- ledge, but it supplies its material content. In answer to the question, Whence has the mind all the materials of reason and knowledge ? Locke replies, " in one word, from experience ; in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself" (n. i. 2). This one word unfortunately supplies the sum and substance of all that the critics seem to know of the philosophy of Locke ; and they never ask themselves what the one word means. In the first place, what are the materials which experience supplies ? The answer of Condillac and his fol- lowers is, sensations only. But the theory of transformed sensa- tions ignores the fact that, on its own showing, sensations are transformed. It ignores the fact that if sensations are trans- formed, they can only be transformed by certain operations of the mind. It ignores the fact that of these operations of the mind the mind itself must sooner or later, in point of time, take notice. It ignores the fact that the mind could not take note of its own operations, unless it possessed a capacity of reflection. None of these considerations were ignored by Locke, and accord- ingly he agrees with Kant in regarding the fountain of experi- ence as comprising two sources, sensation and reflection (n. i. 2), or, as he elsewhere terms them, in the very language of the Kritik, external and internal sense (n. i. 4 ; n. xi. 17). But Locke went further in the path of Kant. In the Kritik it is laid down that our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, sensibility and understanding the one a " recepti- vity for impressions," the other a "spontaneity in the production of conceptions." Does Locke recognise the spontaneous produc- tion of conceptions by the understanding ? It is here that the philo- sophy of Locke has been in a peculiar manner misunderstood ; and it is here that his own language has most materially contri- buted to the misunderstanding. Locke undoubtedly lays it down LocJcds Ideas of Relation. 339 that "simple ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the mind only by the two ways, sensation and reflection" (n, ii. 2) ; he undoubtedly lays it down that " all relation terminates in, and is ultimately founded on, those simple ideas we have got from sensation or reflection " (n. xxviii. 18) ; nay, he says that " external and internal sensa- tion are the only passages he can find of knowledge to the under- standing " (n. xi. 17). But this says nothing more than Kant himself has said. Locke's simple ideas, being merely the ideas which the mind passively receives through sense (n. i. 25), cor- respond with the sensible intuitions of the Kritik ; and in holding that these constitute " the materials " of all our knowledge, Locke merely holds with Kant that the senses external and in- ternal supply " the matter", as distinguished from the form of thought. True, he holds that if a conception of the understanding be " removed from all simple ideas quite, it signifies nothing at all" (n. xxviii. 18); but in this he merely holds with Kant that without material content thoughts are void. For Locke, to do him justice, has abundantly ex- plained himself. Though he tells us that the simple ideas of sense are " the materials and foundations of the rest," he also tells us that there are other ideas which, though not " simple", but "complex", are uncompounded (n. xii. 1), and which the understanding, when " employed about " the simple ideas of the senses, must inevitably " attain unto " (n. xii. 8). Not only does he admit that the understanding can separate, com- pound, and compare the ideas with which it has been furnished by the senses (n. xii. 1), but he admits that, over and above the simple ideas which the understanding gets from the senses, "there are others it gets from their comparison with one another" (n. xxv. 1). These are the ideas of relation which are " added by the mind " (in. iii. 11). Such is the idea of causation which the mind "collects" in observing the constant changes which occur around it (n. xxi. 4 ; n. xxvi. 1). Such is the idea of substance, which the mind " supposes ", when we find that " we cannot con- ceive" how the simple ideas of which substances are composed can possibly subsist alone or in each other (n. xxiii. 4). Such Z 2 340 Locke's Conceptions of the Understanding. also are the ideas of identity and diversity which we " form " on comparing a thing with itself, and ' ' never finding or conceiving it possible that two things of the same kind should exist in the same place at the same time " (n.xxvii. 1). These ideas of relation, it is true, " terminate in and are concerned about " ideas of sensation and reflection (n. xxv. 9), but, in their abstract nature, they are neither ideas of sensation nor ideas of reflection they are "the inventions and creatures of the UNDEK STANDING " (in. iii. 11). Nor is this seeing in Homer more than Homer saw. Locke has not left himself at the mercy of the careless reader or the hostile critic. The point was presented to him in a manner which it was impossible for him to evade. The question of the co-operation of the understanding with our faculties of sense in the development of knowledge was forced upon him in his corre- spondence with the Bishop of Worcester. Stillingfleet raised the question of the origin of ideas and the origin of knowledge as explicitly as Eeid or Stewart, as explicitly as Kant or Cousin. In the course of the discussion, Locke admits that the principle of causation is "a true principle of reason", on the ground of our " perceiving that the idea of beginning to be is necessarilycon- nected with the idea of some operation, and the idea of opera- tion with the idea of something operating which we call a cause" (Works, iii. 61). But it is on the question of substance that he is most explicit. It was the idea which Stillingfleet had selected in proof that sensation and reflection were insufficient to explain " the ideas necessary to reason " (iii. 11). "If the idea of sub- stance be grounded upon plain and evident reason", said Stilling- fleet, " then we must allow an idea of substance which comes not in by sensation or reflection" (iii. 19). Locke admits the fact, but says, " lam sure the author of the Essay of Human Under- standing never thought, nor in that Essay hath anywhere said, that the ideas which come into the mind by sensation and reflection are all the ideas that are necessary to reason, or that reason is exercised about" (iii. 11). " I never said that the general idea of substance comes in by sensation and reflection, or that it is a simple idea of sensation or reflection, though it be ultimately founded on them ; for it is a complex idea, made up of the general idea of some thing Locke's Principles of Reason. 341 or being with the relation of a support to accidents. For general ideas come not into the mind by sensation or reflection, but are the crea- tures or inventions of the UNDEKSTANDING, as I think I have shown" (iii. 19). Locke is not content with even this. He makes a further effort to explain himself. " To explain myself and clear my mean- ing in this matter", he says, " all the ideas of all the sensible qua- lities of a cherry come into my mind by sensation ; the ideas of perceiving, thinking, reasoning, knowing, &c., come into my mind by reflection: the ideas of these qualities and actions, or powers, are perceived by THE MIND to be by themselves inconsistent with existence ; or, as your Lordship well expresses it, ' we find that we can have no true conception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceive a substratum, or subject, wherein they are, i. e. that they cannot exist or subsist of themselves'. Hence the MIND per- ceives their necessary connexion with inherence, or being sup- ported, which being a relative idea, superadded to the red colour in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, the mind frames the correlative idea of a support. For I never denied that THE MIND could frame to itself ideas of relation, but have shown the quite contrary in my chapters on Relation" (iii. 21). Let us now consider Locke's views on the origin of know- ledge. Our knowledge, he says, is of two kinds one relating to the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, the other to the correspondence of our ideas with external objects (iv. xi. 13). As to the agreement or disagreement of our ideas with each other, the key-note of misrepresentation has again been struck by Leibnitz. "If Locke", says Leibnitz, "had sufficiently considered the truths which are necessary and demonstra- tive, and those which we infer from induction alone, he would have perceived that necessary truths could only be proved from principles which command our assent by their intuitive evidence, inasmuch as our senses can inform us only of what is, not of what must necessarily be". Yet, not only did Locke consider the necessary and demonstrative truths in question, but the considera- tion of them pervades the whole of the fourth book of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. He repeats, till the reader is weary of the repetition, that all demonstration must be based 342 Locke's Necessary Truths. on "intuitive principles", which are " irresistible as sunshine" (rv. ii. 1) which are known by their ' ' native evidence ' ' (iv. vii. 10) which " neither require nor admit of proof " (iv. vii. 19). Not only does he distinguish between what is and what must neces- sarily be, but he gives the criterion by which they are to be dis- tinguished the absence or presence of "necessary connexion", of "necessary coexistence", of "necessary dependence and visible connexion", of " evident dependence, or necessary connexion", of "the necessary connexion of the ideas themselves" (iv. iii. 14). Kant himself has not more accurately distinguished between a priori and a posteriori knowledge than Locke has done. He contrasts the " necessary dependence" which is discoverable in our ideas themselves with "the constant and regular connexion" of ideas which we attribute to the " arbitrary determination " of the Creator, and which are discoverable only by " experience " (iv. iii. 28 . "In some of our ideas", he says, "there are certain relations, habitudes, and connexions, so visibly in- cluded in the nature of the ideas themselves that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any power whatsoever, and in these only we are capable of certain and universal know- ledge" (iv. iii. 29); because, as he proceeds to argue, "the things that, as far as our observation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, we may conclude do act by a law set them, but yet by a law we know not, whereby, though causes work steadily, and effects flow from them, yet their connexions and de- pendencies being not discoverable in our ideas, we can have but an experimental knowledge of them" (ibid.). Or, take another passage. " General and certain truths", he says, " are only founded in the habitudes and relations of abstract ideas", and "a sagacious and methodical application of our thoughts, for the finding out these relations, is the only way to discover all that can be put with truth and certainty concerning them into general propositions" (iv. xii. 7). " What, then", he asks, " are we to do for the improve- ment of our knowledge of substantial beings ? " " Here", he says, * ' we are to take a quite contrary course ; the want of ideas of their real essences sends us from our own thoughts to the things them- selves as they exist EXPERIENCE here must teach us what REASON Locke and Kant. 343 cannot, and it is by trying alone that I can certainly know what other qualities coexist with those of my complex idea " (iv. xii. 9). What is it then that Locke, on the principles of Kant, has left undone ? He distinguishes between objective and subjective knowledge (iv. iv. 3 ; iv. xi. 13). He distinguishes between analytic and synthetic propositions (iv. viii. 8), and lays down the "infallible rule" by which they are to be distinguished (iv. viii. 13) He distinguishes between synthetic a priori and synthetic a posteriori judgments (iv. iii. 29 ; iv. xii. 7). He dis- tinguishes between experience and reason (ibid.). And hence it is that he is enabled to accomplish his design and to give an answer to the inquiries with which he started (i. i. 2). The " original " of knowledge is to be discovered in experience (n. i. 2) ; its " certainty" is based on intuition (iv. ii. 2) ; its "extent" is determined by our perception of the identity, co- existence, and relation of our ideas, and the existence of their corresponding objects (iv. iii. 7), so far as it is revealed to us by intuition on the one hand, or by experience on the other (iv. iii. 29). On these principles Locke holds that mathematics, as based on ideas the agreement or disagreement of which may be " intuitively perceived", is capable of demonstration (iv. ii. 9). On these principles he shows that moral science may be deduced " from self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences as in- contestable as those in mathematics " (iv. iii. 18). On these principles he contends that the existence of God may be proved by " a regular deduction of it from some part of our intuitive knowledge," with an " evidence equal to mathematical certainty " (iv. x. 1). Such is the empiricism such is the sensualism of John Locke. But, unfortunately for philosophy, the error as to his true character has become inveterate. It is embodied in all the histories of philosophy. It is stamped with the authority of great men, whose writings are in every hand, and whose names are upon every tongue. For two hundred years Locke has been regarded as a mere empiric ; and it is to be feared that, in spite of all that may be said to the contrary, he will be so regarded to the end of time. 344 The Influence of Holies, NOTE B. HOBBES : ON GENEKAL REASONING. No exposition of the philosophy of either Locke or Berkeley would be complete without a consideration of their opinions as to ab- stract ideas and general names ; and to discuss this question with effect we must go still farther back, and examine the views of the founder of modern Nominalism Hobbes. The life of Hobbes was unusually protracted. He was born atMalmesbury in 1588, the year of the Armada, and he died at Hardwicke, in 1679, the year of the Exclusion Bill. He lived under five sovereigns. He was the amanuensis of Bacon. He was twenty-eight when Shakspere died. He was twenty when Milton was born, and he survived him. He died when Locke was forty-seven. His life therefore covers the whole period from the Novum Organum, which he translated into Latin, to the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which was in preparation when he died. In the interval Hobbes wrote and published the De Cive, the Leviathan, and the Human Nature. Though he did not commence his philosophical writings till he was close upon the verge of sixty, he produced the most powerful effect, not only upon his own age but upon succeeding ages. He was the founder of modern political philosophy. In enunciating the prin- ciples of the utilitarian system he anticipated Bentham. In all that is essential to the science of jurisprudence he anticipated Austin. The influence of his philosophy is visible in Locke, in Berkeley, and in Hume. But his passion for paradox was so great, and he clothed the most innocent truisms in such obnoxious forms, that he aroused a feeling of personal hatred so violent that not only was the whole church militant thundering on his head- piece during his life, but nearly two hundred years afterwards an election mob greeted the editor of his works with the cry ' ' No Realism and Nominalism. 345 Obbes!" As usual, detraction followed in the footsteps of dis- like, and no philosopher in the annals of misrepresentation has been so systematically misrepresented as the founder of the Nominalism of modern times. The controversy between the Kealists and Nominalists is one of the most remarkable in the history of the world. The schools resounded with its discussion ; but the discussion was not con- fined to the limits of the schools. It was maintained by rival theologians, who mutually accused each other of the unpardon- able sin. It procured the martyrdom of Huss. It deluged the streets of Paris with blood. Like the controversy of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, it distracted medieval Europe. Emperors and kings took up arms on the question of universals a parte rei; and, according to John of Salisbury, more money was expended on the contest than was laid up in the treasure-house of Croesus, more time was consumed in its discussion than was required to consolidate the empire of the Caesars. To the ordinary reader the dispute as to the nature of univer- sals which thus convulsed the middle ages is apt to suggest the dispute as to the primitive way of breaking eggs which embroiled the Emperor of Lilliput and the Emperor of Blefuscu. But to the philosopher it suggests topics of interest, which, even in these days when physical science is predominant, continue to agitate the minds of men. The question as to the origin of species is only another form of the inquiry as to the nature of universals a parte rei ; and though the hypothesis of protoplasm and evolution has taken the place of the hypothesis of substantial forms, they equally belong to that metaphysical aspect of the question which every physical science of necessity presents. The questions as to the origin of language, again, which within the last few years have been popularised by the ability of Max Miiller, are only a phase of the question raised by the Nominalists as to the origin of general terms. These ques- tions, however, belong to the domains of physiology and philo- logy rather than to the domain of abstract thought ; and the question in which the mere philosopher is interested relates exclusively to the nature of universals in the mind. What 346 The Intelligible Species of Cudworth. is the object present to the mind in its general reasonings? Is it a thing, an idea, or a name ? Is the Eealist or the Con- ceptualist, or the Nominalist, right ? Unfortunately, such are the ambiguities of language, that before we can discuss the subject we must consider the prelimi- nary question, What are the doctrines which the Kealist, the Conceptualist, and the Nominalist actually held ? This question is exhaustively discussed by Brown, and we cannot do better than take the opinions attributed to the contending sects from him. According to Brown, the Eealist maintained that the universal a parte mentis is a " species distinct from the mind, which, of course, could not be particular, like the sensible species, but universal, so as to correspond with the universality of the notion and the generic term " (Lect. ii. 458). The Nominalist is supposed not only to deny the existence of intelligible species, but also to " deny the existence of that peculiar class of feelings or states of mind which have been denominated general notions, or general ideas, asserting the existence only of individual objects perceived, and of general terms that comprehend them, without any peculiar mental state denoted by the general term" (p. 464). The Con- ceptualist, in his turn, is supposed to maintain that the object of the mind in reasoning is not an arbitrary symbol, but an abstract idea, " a. notion of an object uniting at once all the qualities of the individual objects, yet excluding every quality which distin- tinguishes each from each " (p. 483). But the more absurd a doctrine appears to be, the less likely is it to have been actually held by any reasonable man ; and when a critic, however intelligent, conceives a great philosopher to have been a fool, it is within the limits of possibility that the fool after all may be, not the philosopher, but the critic. Before we ridicule we should refute, and before we refute we should strive to understand, and before we can understand we must care- fully weigh the language of our author. Let us try, then, in the first place to understand what was meant by the intelligible species of the schools. As the type of modern Eealism we may take the modern Platonist, who was the greatest of the antagonists of Hobbes. Cudworth, like his master, holds that " the immediate The General Names of Holies. 347 objects of intellection and science are eternal, necessarily exist- ing, and incorruptible". But he immediately proceeds to obviate the misconception into which Brown was betrayed upon the point. He tells us that " the rationes and essences of things are not dead things, like so many statues, images, or pictures hung up somewhere by themselves alone in a world : neither are truths mere sentences and propositions written down with ink upon a book " (ibid). He tells us that, on the contrary, " the rationes, intelligible essences, and verities of things, are nothing but noemata, that is, objective notions or knowledge, which are things which cannot exist alone ; but together with that actual knowledge in which they are comprehended they are the modifi- cations of some mind or intellect " (ibid). As modifications of intellect or mind, in other words, as cognitive acts, intelligible species were not denied by the founders of Nominalism (Reid, 954), and accordingly on this point Cudworth and Ockham are agreed. The criticism of Leibnitz upon the sage of Malmesbury is one of the commonplaces of the history of philosophy. According to Leibnitz, Hobbes was plus quam Nominalis a Nominalist and something more non contentus enim cum Nominalibus universalia ad nomina reducere, ipsam rerum veritatem ait in nominibus consis- tere, ac, quod majus est, pendere ab humano arbitrio, guia veritaspen- deat a defmitionibus terminorum, deftnitiones autem terminorum ab ar- bitrio humano. Now Hobbes, in his Computation, undoubtedly states that " the first truths were arbitrarily made by those that first of all imposed names upon things, or received them from the imposition of others" (Works, i. 36). But his paradox that all truth is arbitrary is of a piece with his paradox that no law can be unjust. All depends on what we are to understand by truth and law. The fact is, that each proposition is a platitude rather than a paradox. If truth be thought expressed in words, and if words be arbitrarily selected, then it is an identical proposition that truths are arbitrarily made. The whole mystery is cleared away in the Leviathan. Though " true and false are attributes of speech, not of things", and though, " where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood", yet "error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not be, or suspect what hath not 348 Hobbes and Locke. been", albeit, "in neither case can a man be charged with un- truth" (iii. 23). Whether Hobbes was right or wrong in consi- dering language to be arbitrary, he is undoubtedly right [in [his conception of the relations which subsist between the thing, the idea, and the name. " A name is a word taken at pleasure, to serve for a mark which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before, and which, being pronounced to others, may be to them a sign of what thought the speaker had, or had not, before in his mind " (i. 16). But names are "signs of our conceptions" (i. 17); and, "one universal name is imposed on many things for their similitude in some quality or other accident " (iii. 21). Accordingly Hobbes tells us that " a man that seeketh precious truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accord- ingly, or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twigs the more he struggles the more belimed " (p. 23). He tells us "that in the right definition of names lies the first use of speech, which is the acquisition of science " (p. 24) ; and he concludes his discussion with the weighty apophthegm, that " words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them ; but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man " (p. 25). What then were the views of Locke upon the subject ? The philosopher of the revolution was no admirer of the philoso- pher of the restoration. He professed to be but slightly ac- quainted with his works, and seems to have thought so slightly of them that, in enumerating the works on the original of society, and the extent of political power, which had appeared within the previous sixty years, he is silent on the Leviathan and the De Cive, and mentions only the Ecclesiastical Polity of Mr. Hooker, the Discourses on Government of Mr. Alger- non Sydney, and a Treatise of Civil Polity by Mr. Paxton (Works, ii. 408). But the similarity of the views of Hobbes and Locke on the question of universals is not to be concealed. Locke holds that " truth and falsehood properly belong to propo- sitions " (n. xxxii. 1). He holds that mixed modes are arbitrary LoMs Abstract Ideas. 349 (in. v. 8). He ''would not be thought to forget, much less to deny, that nature in the production of things makes several of them alike"; but he thinks "we may say the sorting of them under names is the workmanship of the understanding, taking occasion, from the similitude it observes among them, to make abstract general ideas and set them up in the mind, with names annexed to them, as patterns or forms to which as particular things existing are found to agree, so they came to be of that species, have that denomination, or are put into that classis " (in. hi. 13) ; or, as he elsewhere expresses it, are deter- mined to be of that "sort" (in. iii. 6, 12). "Ideas", he says, " become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence " (in. iii. 6). This process of abstraction he regards as the prerogative of man ; and he delights in magnifying the difficulties that attend it. " General ideas", he says, " are fictions and contrivances of the mind, that carry difficulty with them, and do not so easily offer themselves as we are apt to imagine". " Does it not require some pains and skill", he asks, "to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none of the most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult), for it must be neither oblique, nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural nor scalenon ; but all and none of these at once" "in effect it is something imperfect that cannot exist ; an idea wherein some parts of several different and incon- sistent ideas are put together " (iv. vii. 9). But it is never with impunity that a writer sacrifices precision to point. Locke's abstract idea of a triangle is as enigmati- cal as the Aelia Laelia Crispis of the schoolmen ; and accord- ingly from the first it has been the butt of philosophers and wits. Arbuthnot, in the Memoirs of Scriblerus, could find no parallel for it but Crambe's Abstract of a Lord Mayor. Berkeley, in the Introduction to his Principles of Human Knowledge, found it hard to imagine that a couple of children could not prate of their sugar-plums and rattles till they had tacked together a number of inconsistencies and framed abstract general ideas (Intr. xiv.). Brown considers the passage as unworthy of its great 350 Locke and Berkeley. author, and as abundantly ridiculous (Lect. xlvii.) ; while Hamilton declares that Locke held the conceptualist doctrine in its most revolting absurdity, contending that the general notion must be realised in spite of the principle of contradiction (Lect. ii. 300). But Locke's critics, to use Locke's metaphor, have all been lost in the great wood of words. They have failed to observe that parts of inconsistent ideas are not necessarily in- consistent, and that ideas may be obtained by abstraction with- out being capable of being imaged in the abstract. The abstract idea is not so much an idea as a "measure of name" (in. iii. 14), and it is the very essence of a definition that it should comprehend all particulars and be identified with none. Locke, in fact, repudiates the absurdity with which he has been charged. "If", he says, "I put in my ideas of mixed modes or relations any inconsistent ideas together, I fill my head also with chimeras ; since such ideas, if well examined, cannot so much as exist in the mind, much less any real being ever be denominated from them " (in. x. 33). The doctrine which Hume attributes to Berkeley is, that " all general ideas are nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive signi- fication, and makes them recall upon occasion other indivi- duals which are similar to them " ; and Hume looks on this as " one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that had been made of late years in the republic of letters" (i. 34). But Berkeley said nothing which had not previously been said by Locke. He says it is true in fancied opposition to Locke that he does not " deny that there are general ideas, but only that there are any abstract general ideas " (Intr. xii.), and that " it is one thing for to keep a name constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand everywhere for the same idea " ( xviii.). But these are mere verbal misunderstandings. Berkeley acknowledges that "a man may consider a figure merely as triangular without attending to the particular qualities of the angles or relations of the sides" ( xvi.). He holds that " an idea, which considered in itself is particular, becomes general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular The Reconciliation. 351 ideas of the same sort " (Int. xii.). He insists it is true that "it is not necessary, even in the strictest reasonings", that " significant names which stand for ideas should, every time they are used, excite in the understanding the ideas they are made to stand for " ( xix.). But on this point Locke agrees with Berkeley. He admits everything for which a Nominalist can reasonably contend. He concedes that "most men, if not all, in their thinking and reasonings make use of words instead of ideas " (iv. v. 4). He does not contend that " a man need stand to recollect and make an analysis " of the meaning of the word every time he happens to employ it (in. xi. 9) all he insists on is, " that he have so examined the signification of that name, and settled the idea of all its parts in his mind, that he can do it when he pleases " (ibid.) How then are we to arbitrate between the contending sects ? The materials for an arbitration exist, and, if not obvious, yet when pointed out must be admitted by reasonable men. It must be admitted that in our general reasonings we employ words, without any conscious reference to their meaning, and merely as algebraic symbols. It must be admitted, at the same time, that, if our reasonings are not to end in nonsense, our words must have a meaning, and that their meaning must be determined by their definition, whether denominated abstract idea, scheme, or concept. It must be admitted, moreover, that if our general reasonings are to conduct to any practical result, our conceptions should not be mere chimeras, but should accord with the facts of nature and the realities of things. But then again it must be admitted that everything which exists, whatever maybe the phy- sical cause that determines the mode of its existence, is particular. At the same time it cannot be denied that in contemplating a multitude of particulars the mind is struck with a sense of their resemblance, and that it selects the point of resemblance by a pro- cess of abstraction and combines them into a scheme or concept. But can this scheme or concept be present to the mind as an image or idea ? No ; and even if it could be, it would be parti - ticular. The only means of generalising it and keeping its ab- stracted elements together is by the imposition of a name. The 352 The Abandonment. name, the idea, and the thing, are thus relegated to their natural rights, and are placed in their natural relations. What, then, is each party called on to renounce ? Nothing but the privilege of attributing absurdity to its opponents. The mental facts are all agreed on, and nothing is to be abandoned but the ^intelligible species attributed to Scotus, the unmeaning symbolism attri- buted to Hobbes, and the self -contradictory ideas attributed to Locke. The Rational Faculty in Bacon. 353 NOTE C. BACON I ON INDUCTIVE SEASONING. THE three first names in English philosophy are Bacon, Hobbes and Locke ; and it is hard to say which of these great men hag been most generally magnified, and, at the same time, most generally misunderstood. In one point Locke and Bacon have been subjected to a common error. Both have been regarded as champions of the Empiricism which, according to the critics, is characteristic of their nation (Schw. 153, 181). So far was Bacon from being a mere empiric, that the whole object of his philosophy, as stated in his Distributio Operis, was to effect a reconciliation between the rational and the em- piric faculties, the divorce of which, he said, had thrown all human affairs into confusion. The true process of science, he said in his Novum Organum, was neither that of the ant, which merely stores what it has collected from without, nor that of th spider, which spins everything from within, but that of the bee, which gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and the field, and by its own faculty digests them and converts them into honey. The influence of reason in the development of science from experience is never for a single moment either de- nied or ignored by Bacon. In his Philosophic/, Prima he antici- pates Kant, and attempts to enumerate the transcendental axioms and notions which are assumed in all physical investigation. In his Topica Particulars he adopts the words of Plato, and declares that he who seeks anything in nature must comprehend it in some general notion, in order to recognize it when he finds it. In his Interprctatio Naturae he analyzes the process by which the form is elicited by reason from the facts furnished by experience, and makes mental anticipation the first step iu the process of induction, 2 A 354 The Baconian Induction. The nature of the inductive process has been the subject of bitter and long -continued controversies. But the fact is, the word induction, like every other philosophical term, is used in a variety of senses, and this occasions an apparent variety of opinions where, in reality, none exists. Logical Induction, as it may be called, is a process which goes upon the self-evident fact, that what belongs or does not belong to all the constituent parts, belongs or does not belong to the constituted whole. It is merely the converse of the syllogistic process, and belongs exclusively to the domain of logic. A like remark may be made with respect to the Psychological Induction, as it may be termed, of Mill, who defines induction to be "the operation of the mind, by which we infer that what we know to be true in a particular case, or cases, will be true in all cases which re- semble the former in certain assignable respects " (Log. i. 319). But this inference from the known to the unknown is merely an expression of our belief in the continuance of the laws of nature ; and this belief, though the basis of all our experi- mental inquiries, and the condition of their application, is not so much an inference from experimental data as an anticipation of experience ; and whether it be regarded as an instinct, as a category, or as a transcendent, it must be relegated to psycho- logy, as the logical induction was to logic. The object of induc- tion, as Bacon conceived the process, was to ascertain the laws of nature, and not to explain our belief in their continuance. The cause, the law, or, to use Bacon's term, the form, of any set of phenomenon can only be elicited from the facts ; and the facts can only be ascertained by a patient interrogation of nature, con- ducted on a preconceived plan (topica particularis), the results of which, to be available, should be methodically recorded (experi- entia literata). But the interpretation of nature should follow its interrogation ; and the form which explains the facts ascer- tained by observation and experiment must be discovered by induction. This process may be styled Physical Induction, for the purpose of distinction ; and, according to Bacon, there are two ways in which it may proceed. The form being unknown can, in the first instance, be merely matter of conjecture ; but Bacon's Canons of Induction. 355 when the mind has formed its conjecture it must proceed to test its truth by a reference to the facts. This it may do, in a hasty and perfunctory manner, by an enumeration of the particular instances in which the form appears to exist, without inquiring into the analogous instances in which it does not exist, and so conclude that it is the form. This is the Induction by Simple Enumeration which Bacon considered a precarious method of inquiry a method leading to results which may be neutralized by the first contradictory instance that presents itself a method which affords no exit from the labyrinth of facts into the light of law. Precario concludit, et periculo ab instantia contradictoria exponitur, et consueta tantum. intuetur, nee exitum reperit. In opposition to this, he insists on the employment of an Induc- tion by Exclusion a form of induction quae experientiam solvat et separet, et per exclusiones ac rejectiones debitas necessario concludat a process which considers the facts that experience has furnished, forms hypotheses as to their laws, rejects every hypothesis which is inconsistent with the facts observed, and inducts the true hypothesis after the rejection of those which are d emonstrably false In his Impetus Philosophies Bacon supplies a formula to deter- mine whether any given hypothesis for the explanation of a set of observed phenomena should be rejected. Omnes naturae quae aut data natura praesente adsunt, aut data natura absente ad- sunt, ex forma non sunt ; atque post rejectionem aut negatio- nem completam manet forma et affirmatio. This, he said, was a brief remark, but it embodied a conclusion at which he had only arrived by a long and patient course of thought. In the Novum Organum, however, after still deeper meditation on the subject, he gives a formula more comprehensive and correct. Invenienda est enim super comparentiam omnium et singularium instantiarum natura talis, quae cum natura data perpetuo adsit, absit, atque crescat et decrescat (n. xv.). These formulae, it is plain, are a compendious expression of Mill's canons of agree- ment, difference, and concomitant variations, and they show how completely Bacon, in the infancy of physical science, anticipated all the logical principles on which, in its maturity, it proceeds. 2 A 2 356 Bacon's Inductive Method. Instead of illustrating the Baconian method by trivial or ridiculous instances, let us illustrate it by the process which conducted physical investigation to its greatest triumph the discovery of the laws which regulate the planetary movements. The facts of the celestial motions had been observed from the earliest times, and records of those observations had been made generations ago by the Assyrian, the Egyptian, and the Greek. But what was the law of those familiar motions ? It was not known; and in the first place it could only be provisionally guessed. Was the motion in a line, a spiral, or a curve? Did the earth revolve around the heavenly bodies, or did the heavenly bodies revolve around the earth? The hypothesis of sidereal revolution was embraced. It explained the more obvious phenomena of the heavens ; but fact after fact was observed which it was incompetent to explain. It was in vain that astronomers strove to modify the original hypothesis by subsidiary hypotheses, and imagined " cycle and epicycle, orb on orb". In the felicitous language of Whewell, the conception could not colligate the facts. Accordingly, the hypothesis of Hipparchus was at last rejected ; and Copernicus, in order to explain the facts of the celestial movements, embraced the hypothesis that the earth revolved around the planets in a circle. But though the circular hypothesis explained a multi- tude of facts, there were facts which even it was unable to explain. It was in vain that Copernicus again introduced the epicycle in the form of an equalizing circle ; his hypothesis was in its turn rejected. After so many rejections a new hypothesis was formed by Kepler the hypothesis of an elliptic orbit. The problem of the heavens was solved. The hypothesis of an ellip- tic orbit explained every phenomenon that had been observed. The infinitesimal calculus was invented by Newton ; astronomy was converted into a branch of mathematics ; and, after so many anticipations and so many rejections, the great cosmical hypo- thesis was inducted to its place of honour as the highest type of science. It is evident from what has been said, that in point of logic the Baconian induction is a disjunctive syllogism, of which the Bacotfs Deductive Method. 357 major premiss is the sum total of the hypotheses which the mind can form in order to explain the facts. The law of the phenomena must be either this or that or the other theory ; it is neither this nor that ; therefore it must be the other. The major is thus supplied by the anticipations of the mind ; the minor is the rejection of all anticipations which are inconsistent with the facts of nature ; the conclusion is the induction. As Bacon himself expresses it, a variety of opinions are formed ; all vola- tile opinions disappear as smoke ; and the true solid and affirma- tive result remains. The mention of syllogism suggests another matter in which injustice has been done to Bacon. According to Mill, he " leaves no room for the discovery of new principles by way of deduc- tion" ; and he adds, that "it is not to be conceived that a man of Bacon's sagacity could have fallen into this mistake, if there had existed in his time among the sciences which treat of successive phenomena one single deductive science, such as mechanics, astronomy, optics, acoustics, &c., now are" (Logic, ii. 451). This is as curious a misrepresentation as could well be made. In Bacon's correspondence there is a letter to the Eedemptorist Father Baranzan, in which he distinctly states that when the original facts and primary laws of nature have been ascertained by induction the syllogistic method may be used. In physica prudenter notas, et idem tecum sentio, post notiones primae classis, et axiomata super ipsas per inductio- nem bene eruta et terminata, tuto adhiberi syllogismum, modo inhibeatur saltus ad generalissima et fiat progressus per scalam convenientem. Nay, so far was Bacon from being betrayed into the alleged mistake by the fact that no deductive science existed in his time, that he actually predicts the advent of the very sciences which were destined to form the proudest triumph of the deductive method. Multae naturae partes, nee satis sub- tiliter comprehendi, nee satis perspicue demonstrari, nee satis dextre et certo ad usum accommodari, possunt sine ope et inter- ventu mathematicae ; cujus generis sunt perspectiva, musica, astronomia, cosmographia, machinaria, et nonnullae aliae. Cae- terum in mathematicis mixtis integras aliquas portiones deside- 358 The Key of Bacon's Philosophy. ratas jamnon reperio, sed multas in posterum praedico si homines non ferientur ; prout enim physica majora indies incrementa capiet, et nova axiomata educet, eo mathematicae opera nova in multis indigebit, et plures fient mathematicae mixtae (De Aug. iii. vi.). One word still remains to be said. The tendency of Lord Macaulay's celebrated essay on Bacon is to give his philosophy a far more material and utilitarian aspect than it really bears. We are told that Bacon indulged in ^o rants about the fitness of things, or the dignity of human nature that he said nothing about the grounds of moral obligation or the freedom of the human will that he paid no attention to the casuistical sub- tleties which occupied the attention of the keenest spirits of the age. Nothing could be more misleading. The book of the De Aug- mentis, which he devotes to moral philosophy, contains a refutation of all these statements. He praises the philosophers, for the man- ner in which they had treated ideal excellence. He regards them, however, as surpassed by the pious and strenuous diligence of the theologians, in their treatment of the moral virtues and cases of conscience, and the delimitations of sin. He speaks of the higher power and dignity of the borwm communionis and the bonum activum, as compared with the selfish cares and passive enjoyment of life. He speaks of an approach to the divine or angelic nature as the perfection of our moral form ; and with Aristotle, he proposes heroic and divine virtue as the scope of all our moral aims. The two words, says Lord Macaulay, which are the key of Bacon's philosophy are, utility and pro- gress. Even this is not correct. The key of his doctrine was not utility and progress, but utility and truth. Propositum a nobis est, non rerum pulchritudinem sed usum et veritatem sectari. Nay more, the great experimental philosopher places truth before utility in his estimate of their relations. In his Aphorisms he asserts that the contemplation of truth is some- thing for higher and worthier than any mere utility esse contemplationem veritatis omni operum utilitate et magni- tudine digniorem et celsiorem (Nov. Org. i. Ixxiv). And in his Essays are the words, which every man of education has by Bacon's Summum Bonum. 359 heart : " Howsoever these things are in men's depraved judg- ments and affections ; yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it ; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it ; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it ; is the sovereign good of human nature". 360 Hume's Scepticism, NOTE D. HUME I ON MIKACLE AND NATURE. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, which still maintains its time -honoured place in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, regards Hume as a profes- sor of UNIVERSAL SCEPTICISM, and remarks that "the Sceptic boasts of having involved the results of experience and the elements of geometry in the same ruin with the doctrines of religion and the principles of philosophy " (Works, i. 137). How erroneous this criticism is we have already seen. We have seen that Hume systematically distinguishes between the results of experience and the elements of geometry (iv. 190) that he protests against confounding the principles of philosophy with the principles of action (iv. 47) that he maintains we are under the necessity of acting upon beliefs which no reasoning is able either to produce or to prevent (iv. 56), and that he holds the fundamental doctrines of religion to be based on the principle of natural and necessary faith (iv. 192 . Sir James Mackintosh, still speaking of Hume, remarks, with reference to his views on NATURAL EELIGION, that " to those who are strangers to the seductions of paradox, to the intoxica- tion of fame, and to the bewitchment of prohibited opinions, it must be unaccountable, that he who revered benevolence should, without apparent regret, cease to see it on the throne of the uni- verse " (i. 185). But to those who are strangers to the bewitch- ments of criticism it must be equally unaccountable that Mackintosh should have been betrayed into such a miscon- ception of Hume's opinions, and that he should have considered it necessary to deprive natural religion of the authority of the most profound metaphysical thinker that these countries have produced. Twice has Hume written on the subject of Natural Hume on Natural Religion. 361 Religion, once in his Natural History, and again in the Dialogues which were posthumously published, and in each of those works he repudiates the atheism which is attributed to him by his critic. In his Natural History of Eeligion he protests that " the whole frame of Nature bespeaks an Intelligent Author", and that " no rational inquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Eeligion " (Works, iv. 485). In his Dialogues con- cerning Natural Religion he is still more emphatic. Cleanthes, whose opinions he accepts (ii. 548), maintains that ''the most agreeable reflection which it is possible for human imagination to suggest is that of genuine Theism, which represents us as the workmanship of a Being perfectly good, wise and powerful, who created us for happiness, and who, having implanted in us im- measurable desires of good, will prolong our existence to all eternity, and will transfer us into an infinite variety of scenes, in order to satisfy those desires, and render our felicity complete and durable " (ii. 543). He insists on " the curious adapting of means to ends", which is found " throughout all nature", as supplying an argument by which we prove at once the existence of " the Author of Nature " and his wisdom (ii. 440). He says that the conscience of the Sceptic or Atheist must be scru- pulous, indeed, if he refuses to call the universal unknown cause a Deity or God (ii. 459). And, finally, in the following passage he lays aside the philosophic calm which he generally affects, and bursts into an impassioned strain of eloquence, which might well be mistaken for one of the pious rhapsodies of Berkeley. " The order and arrangement of nature, the curious adjustment of final causes, the plain use and intention of every part and organ, all these bespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or author. The heavens and the earth join in the same testimony. The whole chorus of nature raises one hymn to the praises of its Creator. You [the Sceptic] alone, or almost alone, disturb this general harmony. You start abstruse doubts, cavils, and objec- tions. You ask me what is the cause of this cause ? I know not ; I care not ; that concerns not me. I have found a Deity, and here I stop my inquiry " (ii. 465, 6). 362 Hume on Causation. These passages reflect a vivid light on Hume's opinion on the general subject of CAUSATION. " Mr. Hume's theory of causa- tion", says Mackintosh, " is used as an answer to arguments for the existence of the Deity, without warning the reader that it would equally lead him not to expect that the sun will rise to- morrow " (Works, i. 138). Here again we have a criticism which not only misrepresents Hume, but involves a number of philo- sophical questions in confusion. Hume, as we have seen, recog- nises the principle of efficient causes as the ground of our belief in the existence of a God, while he recognises the principle of final causes as the ground of our belief in his intelligence and goodness. As regards natural causes, he has the conspicuous merit of being the first to popularise, if not to establish, what is now an accepted truth, that the sole object of the physical inquirer is to ascertain the constant conjunction of phenomena in the vast sequence of changes which constitute the laws of nature. This is Hume's theory of causation in the proper sense. But the ex- istence of these constant conjunctions in the past is no guarantee for their continuance in the future. That the sun rose yesterday is no proof that he will rise to-morrow. Our belief in the future continuance of the conjunctions which we have experienced is not to be accounted for by mere experience, according to Hume, but by an instinct of our nature called into play by the recurrence of the phenomena which we have experienced, and supplying a fresh instance of the principle of final causes (iv. 65). Hume's theory of causation naturally suggests a topic which has subjected him to greater obloquy than even his supposed scepticism his views as to the nature of MIRACLES, and the evidence by which they are supported. He defines a miracle to be " a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by an interposition of some invisible agent " (iv. 134). Let us consider the question in its philosophic aspect merely. Eecognising as he does the existence of a Deity, Hume, by the principles of his philosophy, is bound to admit that there is no a priori objection to accepting a mere volition for a cause. " If we reason a priori", he says, " anything may appear able to produce anything " " the falling of a pebble may, for aught we Hume on Miracles. 363 know, extinguish the sun, or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits " (iv. 191 ; i. 315). The existence of any matter of fact, on his theory, is incapable of demonstration ; and all arguments for its existence must be based upon experience alone (iv. 191). In short, it is a " general maxim " with Hume, " that no objects have any discoverable connexion together, and that all the inferences which we can draw from one to another are founded merely on our experience of their constant and regular conjunction " (iv. 130. Let us then view the matter a posteriori. " A miracle", says Hume, " is a violation of the laws of nature, and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined " (iv. 133). But this, surely, is a mere begging of the question. For in the first place, is a miracle a violation of a law of nature ? On Hume's theory of causation nature is a mere series of antecedents and consequents, and the expression of a law of nature is simply this the antecedent A, in our past experience, has been constantly followed by the conse- quent B, the death of a man, for instance, by the dissolution of his body. A miracle is confessedly an unusual occurrence, and on the theory of observed sequences its expression would be this the antecedent X, has been followed by the consequent Y, the volition of a divine person, for instance, by a resurrection from the dead. Here a new antecedent has been introduced, and a new consequent has followed, This, it is evident, is not a violation of the old sequence, but the introduction of a new one. If the new consequent, the resurrection from the dead, be regarded as an interference with the old consequent, the dissolution of the body, even this cannot be regarded as a violation of the laws of nature, for it is a contingency to which every law of nature is subject the intervention of a counteracting cause. To say, then, that the laws of nature are established by an unalterable experience is misleading. Dr. Haughton, in his ad- mirable Lectures on Physical Geography, published in the Dub- lin University Series, describes the scientific law of the uniformity of nature as " a shallow creed " refuted by the science of Geology, 364 Hume's General Maxims. 11 from which we learn that the present is unlike the past, and will probably be still more unlike the future" (p. 75). But neither Hume nor Dr. Haughton, as I venture to think, has formed a true conception of the law in question. Its true expression is to be found in the opening chapter of the Analogy. " There is in every case a probability," says Butler, "that all things will continue as we experience they are, in all respects, except those in which we have some reason to think they will be altered". "It is a miracle that a dead man should come to life", says Hume, "because that has never been observed in any age or country" (p. 134). Again, this begs the question. The question we are discussing is whether a resurrection, such as that of Lazarus, has been observed. This can only be determined by the testimony of observers. Hume lays it down as " a maxim that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle" (iv. 150). But a miracle, after all, as distinguished from a law of nature, is merely an extraordinary occurrence. It may well be that, if we were admitted to a wider view of the universe, as Butler suggests, we might find that the occurrence of miracles is subjected to a law as rigorous as, for instance, the secular appearance of a comet. All we can say is, that a miracle, if it occurred, was an extraordinary, or, if you will, a singular occur- rence. But if a singular occurrence cannot be established by tes- timony, nothing can be so established. The repeated occurrence of the most ordinary event is merely the repetition of a series of singular occurrences, and if the evidence for each of them be regarded as a cypher, it is plain that no multiplication of cyphers will constitute a unit. This brings us to the real point of the whole matter. What is the evidence in favour of miracles, and how is that evidence to be regarded? Hume lays down another "general maxim" (iv. 184). He says that " no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish" (p. 184). This is merely a play on the word miracu- lous. The true statement of the case is made by Mr. Mill. " The improbability, or, in other words, the unusualness, of any Hume's Conclusion. 365 fact is no reason for disbelieving it, if the nature of the case renders it certain that either that or something equally improb- able, that is, equally unusual, did happen" (Log. ii. 168). " All, therefore, which Hume has made out", again to use the words of Mr. Mill, " is that no evidence can prove a miracle to anyone who did not previously believe the existence of a being or beings with supernatural powers ; or who believes himself to have full proof that the character of the Being whom he recognises is in- consistent with his having seen fit to interfere on the occasion in question" (p. 162). But Hume, with all his dogmatism, never pretended to be furnished with any such proof ; and Hume, with all his scepticism, was a firm believer in the being and attributes of God. DUBLIN UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES, THE PROVOST and SENIOR FELLOWS of Trinity College have undertaken the publication of a Series of Works, chiefly Educational, to be entitled the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES. The following volumes of the Series are now ready, viz. : Six Lectures on Physical Geography. By the REV. S. HAUGHTON, M.D., Dubl., D.C.L., Oxon., F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College, and Pro- fessor of Geology in the University of Dublin, i$s. An Introduction to the Systematic Zoology and Morphology of Vertebrate Animals. By ALEXANDER MACALISTER, M.D., Dubl., Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the University of Dublin. ios. 6d. The Codex Rescriptus Dublinensis of St. Matthew's Gospel (Z). First Published by Dr. Barrett in 1801. A New Edition, Revised and Augmented. 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Translated into English Verse by ROBERT YELVERTON TYRRELL, M.A.Dublin, D. Lit. Q.Univ., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and Regius Professor of Greek. Evangelia Antehieronymiana ex Codice vetusto Dublinensi. Ed. T. K. ABBOTT, B.D. DUBLIN: HODGES, FIGGIS, AND CO. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. F.A.TJST FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE The following are EXTRACTS from Critical Notices of DR. WEBB'S Translation : The College Series Committee is highly to be congratulated on the appearance of such a book under their auspices ; and so is Dr. Webb himseif, who in the midst of multi- farious professorial and professional avoca- tions has produced certainly the finest English poem which has appeared since the Epic of Hades. -Daily depress. We feel little hesitation in venturing to predict that this version will speedily be assigned by German proficients and by students of the Goethe- culrus an unique preeminence over all its predecessors, and that for many a day Webb's Faust will be the English Faust. It is, in truth, a reproduction rather than a translation of Goethe's drama ; and it is this because it is so exquisitely faithful to the words, idioms, construction, and spirit of the original. The versification is a marvel, whether regarded as a fac-simile or as a spontaneous outpouring; and, indeed, the whole translation might well pass for the latter. Freeman's Journal. In rendering the solemn and sublime passages the translator gives proof of great mastery over the resources of English versi- fication and poetic language. The fidelity with which he adheres to the author's mean- ing, while compressing it into the same space as that of the original, is most remark- able. Scarcely any idea, even though merely conveyed by one of the joints of a German composite word, is omitted, and yet nearly always the version has all the force of un- trammelled original writing of a high order. This is all the more praiseworthy from the tact that Dr. Webb, believing that much of the charm of Faust resides in the curiosa felicitas of the wording, has set himself to giving English equivalents for the incessant changes of rhythm, the alliteration and asso- nance, and the double and even triple rhyme of the German. Irish Times. Although it is by far the best translation of the Faust, we fancy the chief effect of its publication will be to set readers thinking of the aim, the tendency, the history of the original poem, rather than of the skill with which it has been rendered into English. Dr. Webb's prolegomena and the copious and instructive notes at the end of the volume will interest a wider circle of readers than the translation itself, and are of the kind can be. He has cleared up many difficulties, as regards the time the drama is supposed to occupy, and by so doing has brought out the meaning of many subtle and profound beauties which have hitherto escaped attention. As to his translation, he imposed on himself conditions such as would have made the task impossible to any hand but that one who was himself a poet, and who was master of all the resources of the English tongue. He adheres with mar- vellous fidelity to the ever- varying metre of the original : in every line and sentence he places the emphasis precisely where it was placed by Goethe ; there is not a weak nor an inept word in his version from beginning to end. Evening Mail. His explanation of the minute chronology of the action is extremely ingenious ; it puts some parts of the dramatic effect in a new light, and clears up some points which have formerly been taken as showing on Goethe's part either carelessness or forgetfulness of ordinary dramatic rules. An indication is expressly given in the text, but overlooked by some of the commentators, that the Wal- purgisnacht follows closely on the slaying of Valentine. In the first scene, again Faust speaks of the moon as at the full ; on Walpurgis-night it is still waxing (die unvollkommne Scheibe des rothen Monds). Hence Dr. Webb concludes that the whole action (down to the Walpurgis-night) must take place within three weeks; and, work- ing out the time disposable for the loves of Faust and Margaret, he fixes the scene of Valentine's death to the very night following the last dialogue between Faust and Mar- garet in the garden. This reading not only makes the dramatic interest concentrated instead of diffuse, but gives a distinct signi- ficance, as Dr. Webb argues in detail, to every incident. Saturday Review. While Professor Webb deals freely with many passages, there are times when he comes as near the original as it is possible for any translator to do, and this is notably the case in the dancing metres of the poem. In the lines beginning Der Shafer putzte sich zum Tanz, he has managed to convey in a remarkable degree the spirit which pervades them. The exquisite passage in which Faust begins gliicklich, wer noch hoffen kann, Aus diesem Meer des Irrthums aufzutauchen ! rich as it is in Professor Blackie's latest translations we must think comes out richer and with more brilliancy in Professor Webb's. Academy. The translator has made a long and con- scientious study of Goethe and of Faust. His principles of criticism and translation are well considered and trustworthy. Many passages are rendered with singular felicity of expression, and we have lighted upon none which we are forced to pronounce erroneous. Daily News., His verse moves freely, while retaining a large measure of metrical conformity to the original, and his grammatical and critical notes are a proof of the care which he has exercised to render the German correctly. Guardian. DUBLIN: HODGES, FIGGIS, AND CO. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. DUBLIN UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES Continued, The Correspondence of Robert Southey -with Caroline Bowles : to which are added Correspondence with Shelley, and Southey's Dreams' Edited, with an Introduction, by EDWARD DOWDEN, LL.D., Professor of English Literature in the University of Dublin. 14$. The Mathematical and other Tracts of the late James M'Cullagrh, F.T.C.D., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Dublin. Now first collected, and edited by REV. J. H. JELLETT, B.D., and REV. SAMUEL HAUGHTON, M.D., Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin. 15^. A Sequel to the First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, con- taining an Easy Introduction to Modern Geometry. 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