UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 MODERN PHILOSOPHY
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 MODERN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 (FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT) 
 
 BY 
 
 B. C. BURT, A.M. 
 
 AUTHOR OF A "BRIEF HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY," OF TRANSLATIONS OF 
 
 ERDMANN'S "GRUNDRISS DER GE=CHICHTE DER PHILOSOPHIE DBS NEUN- 
 
 ZEHNTEN JAHRHUNDERTS," AND HEGEL'S " RECHTS-, PFLICHTEN-, 
 
 UNO RELIGIONSLEHRE;" SOMETIME DOCENT (LECTURER) 
 
 IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY AT 
 
 CLARK UNIVERSITY 
 
 En 3to0 Uolumes 
 VOL. I. 
 
 773 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 1892 
 
 MAY 1908
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 BY A. C. MCCLURG AND Co. 
 
 A. D. 1892
 
 "335 
 v.l 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 UNDERTAKING only to a limited extent the higher logico- 
 genetic development and the complete and final valuation 
 of ideas and systems of thought, the present work aims 
 primarily merely to present with considerable fulness, and 
 as simply and clearly as may be consistent with scien- 
 tific accuracy, the principal content of the leading systems 
 (and partial systems) of philosophy in modern times, 
 together with a reasonable amount of information re- 
 garding philosophical authors and works. It aims to be 
 something more than a mere " chronological " account of 
 systems, authors, and works ; to show, in a general way, 
 at least, the actual historical connections of systems, 
 i.e., to exhibit the historical continuity of modern philo- 
 sophical thought, and, further, to furnish materials and 
 stimulus to the student for the study of the higher genesis 
 and final values of ideas and systems. The paragraphs of 
 characterization (marked Result) are of course intended 
 rather as helpful suggestions than as complete, absolute 
 statements of final truth. It seems not out of place to 
 remind the reader that where, as almost necessarily in a 
 case like the present, a work contains numerous quota- 
 tions, direct and indirect, and adaptations from a great 
 variety of authors, a certain heterogeneity and lack of 
 smoothness in style is inevitable. The apparently dispro- 
 portionate length at which certain recent systems are 
 treated will find sufficient excuse, it is assumed, in the 
 fact that they have not as yet become commonly known 
 through other histories of philosophy. For the benefit of
 
 VI* PREFACE. 
 
 readers unfamiliar with German and Italian, the titles of the 
 principal philosophical works in these languages have been 
 translated. 
 
 In the preparation of the present work the following- 
 named authorities have been chiefly depended upon : 
 
 WORKS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS 
 (ORIGINALS AND TRANSLATIONS). 
 
 Noack's " Historisch-biographisches Handworterbuch zur 
 
 Geschichte der Philosophic" (1879). 
 Zeller's " Geschichte der neuern Philosophic seit Leibniz " 
 
 (1873)- 
 
 Erdmann's " Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic." 
 (Also the translation of the same, made in part by 
 the present writer.) 
 
 " Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques," etc., edited 
 by M. Adam Franck (1875). 
 
 Volumes in " Blackwood's Philosophical Classics," edited 
 by Professor Knight. 
 
 Volumes in Griggs's " Philosophical Classics," edited by 
 Professor Morris. 
 
 Volumes in " English Philosophers," edited by Professor 
 Monck. 
 
 Articles in the " Encyclopaedia Eritannica." 
 
 Ueberweg's "History of Philosophy" (Morris's transla- 
 tion, vol. ii., containing also histories of English and 
 of American Philosophy, by Ex President Porter, and 
 a "History of Italian Philosophy," by Professor Botta). 
 
 Fischer's " Geschichte der neuern Philosophic " (also trans- 
 lation of vol. i. of the same by J. P. Gordy). 
 
 Stockl's " Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophic" (1870). 
 
 Schwegler's " Handbook of the History of Philosophy " 
 (Stirling's translation). 
 
 Morris's "British Thought and Thinkers." 
 
 McCosh's "Scottish Philosophy." 
 
 Articles in "Journal of Speculative Philosophy." 
 
 To some extent, also, the Histories of Hegel, Michelet, 
 Lewes, Morell, Fortlage, Windelband, and Willm and 
 Erdmann's larger work, have been used.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 FIRST PERIOD OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 PACK 
 i. THE GENERAL CHARACTER AND THE MAIN DIVISIONS 
 
 OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 15 
 
 2. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF 
 
 MODERN PHILOSOPHY 16 
 
 I. 3. The Rehabilitation of Ancient Systems of Philosophy . 17 
 (i) 4. Platonists and Neo-Platonists 17 
 
 5. Pletho 18 
 
 6. Bessarion 18 
 
 7. Ficinus . 18 
 
 8. Pico, Reuchlin, Agrippa, Bovillus 19 
 
 (2) 9. Aristotelians 20 
 
 10. Averroists 21 
 
 it. Alexandrists (Pomponatius, etc.) 21 
 
 (3) 12. Ciceronians ( Valla, Agricola, Vives, Nizolius, Ramus) 23 
 
 (4) 13. Stoics 25 
 
 (5) M- Sceptics (Montaigne, Le Charron, Sanchez, and others) 25 
 
 (6) 1 5. lonicist 27 
 
 (7) 16. Epicurean (Gassendi) 27 
 
 II. 17. The Association of Philosophy with (Protestant) The- 
 
 ology. Semi- Rationalists 29 
 
 (1) 18. Philip Mdanchthon (Works; Philosophy) . . . 29,31 
 19. Nicolaus Taurellus (Works; Philosophy) .... 31 
 
 (2) 20. Mystics : Sebastian Franck 32 
 
 21. Valentin IVeigel 33 
 
 22. Jacob Boehme ( Works; Philosophy) 33.34 
 
 III. 23. The (Relatively) Independent Cultivation of Philos- 
 ophy as such 35 
 
 (i) 24 Natural Philosophers 35 
 
 25. Nicolaus Cusanus (Works; Philosophy) .... 39 
 26. Theophrastiis Bombastus Paracelsus (Works; Phi- 
 losophy) 37 
 
 27. Hieronyinus Cardanus (Works ; Philosophy) . . 38.39
 
 Viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 28. Bernardinus Telesius (Works ; Philosophy) ... 40 
 29. Frandscus Palritius ( Works ; Philosophy) .... 41 
 30. Thomas Campanella (Works; Philosophy) . . . 41,42 
 31. Pompeio Ucilio Vanini (Works ; Philosophy) ... 44 
 32. Giordano Bruno ( Works ; Philosophy) .... 45-47 
 
 (2) 33. Ethical Philosophers 51 
 
 34. Nicole) Macchiavelli 52 
 
 35- Thomas More 52 
 
 36. Johannes Oldendorp 52 
 
 37. Nicolaus Hemming 53 
 
 38- Jean Bodin 53 
 
 39. Albericus Gentilis 54 
 
 40. Benedict Winckler 55 
 
 41. Hugo Grotius (Works ; Philosophy) . . 55,56 
 
 42. Richard Hooker ( Works ; Philosophy) . . 56-60 
 
 SECOND PERIOD OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 43. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SECOND PERIOD OF MODERN 
 
 PHILOSOPHY 61 
 
 44. Francis Bacon (Works; Philosophy; I. The Survey 
 of the Sciences: Introduction; History; Poesy; 
 Philosophy (Philosophia Prima) ; Divine Philoso- 
 phy; Natural Philosophy; Human Philosophy; 
 Divine Learning; II. The New Method of the 
 Interpretation of Nature : Introduction ; The Idola 
 of Human Knowledge; The Positive Side of the 
 Interpretation of Nature; III. Natural and Exper- 
 imental History ; " Principles and Origins ; " Result, 
 Bacon's Position and Rank as a Philosopher) . 61-77 
 
 45. Thomas Hobbes (Works; Philosophy: Problem, 
 PaTts, and~End of Philosophy; First Philosophy; 
 Geometry ; Doctrine of Motion ; Physics ; " Moral 
 Philosophy ;" Civil I hilosophy; Result) . . . 77-87 
 
 46. Lord Herbert of Cherbury ( Works ; Philosophy) . 87-90 
 
 47. The Cartesians 90 
 
 48. Descartes (Works; Philosophy; Standpoint and 
 Method ; Metaphysics : First Principle ; Knowl- 
 edge of other Existences than Self; (i) God; 
 (2) Existence of External World; Substances; 
 Physics; God; Result) 90-100 
 
 49. Arnold Geulincx (Works; Philosophy) . . . . 100-102 
 50. Nicolas Malebranche (Works ; Philosophy) . . . 102-104 
 
 51. Baruch de Spinoza (Works; Philosophy; Motive 
 and Genesis of Spinoza's Philosophy; Doctrine 
 of God ; The Attributes of Thought and Extension ;
 
 CONTENTS. ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Origin and Nature of the Emotions ; Human Ser- 
 vitude, or the Power of the Emotions ; The Power 
 of the Intellect, or Human Freedom ; The State ; 
 Religion; Result) 104-116 
 
 5 A The Cambridge Plalonists, and Richard Cumber- 
 land (Anti-Hobbean, Anti-Cartesian) . . . .116,117 
 
 53. Benjamin Whichcote 117,118 
 
 54. John Smith ( Philosophy ; Knowledge ; Stages of 
 Spiritual Attainment ; Immortality ; God ; Re- 
 ligion) 118-120 
 
 55. Nathaniel Culverwel 12O, 121 
 
 56. Ralph Cudworth (Works; Philosophy; Problems; 
 Existence of God ; God in Relation to Matter , The 
 Plastic Nature ; Eternal and Immutable Morality ; 
 Liberty and Necessity) 121-125 
 
 57. Henry More (Works; Philosophy; Problems; Mat- 
 ter and Spirit; The Soul of Man and the World- 
 Soul; Morality) 125-129 
 
 58. Richard Cumberland (Philosophy) 129, 130 
 
 59- John Locke (Works; Philosophy; Human Under- 
 standing: Introduction: Scope, Value, and Method 
 of the proposed Investigation ; Innate Ideas ; Spec- 
 ulative Principles ; Practical Principles ; Mere 
 Ideas ; Origin and Sorts of Ideas ; Ideas of Modes ; 
 Ideas of Substances ; Ideas of Relations ; Ade- 
 quateness in Ideas ; Association of Ideas ; Words ; 
 Knowledge : its Nature and Kinds ; Degrees of 
 Knowledge ; Extent of Knowledge ; " Improvement 
 of Knowledge ; " Reason ; Wrong Assent ; Division 
 of the Sciences. II. Natural Philosophy. III. 
 Ethics; Morality; Education; Politics; Religion; 
 Result) 130-159 
 
 60. Critics and Defenders of Locke (Stillingflfet, Bur- 
 thogge, Lee, Browne, Mayne, Perronet, Bold, Cock- 
 burn) 159-161 
 
 6l. English Deism 161-164 
 
 62. George Berkeley (Works; Philosophy; Result) . . 164-169 
 /' & 63. English Moralists of the Eighteenth Century . . . 169 
 .S ./ 64. Anthony Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury ( Works ; Phi- 
 losophy ; Metaphysics : God ; Ethics ; Esthetics ; 
 
 , Result) 169-173 
 
 \/| 65. Francis Hutcheson (Works ; Philosophy ; Psychology 
 
 . and Metaphysics ; Ethics; ^Esthetics; Result) .173-17? 
 V 66. Joseph Butler (Works; Philosophy; Theory of Re- 
 ligion; Ethics; Result) 177-182 
 
 67. Samuel Clarke (Works; Philosophy; Being and At-
 
 C CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tributes of God ; Foundation of Morality ; Free- 
 dom; Result) 182-184 
 
 J 68. Richard Price (Works ; Philosophy ; Result) . . 184, 185 
 
 */% 69. Adam Smith (Works; Philosophy) 185-187 
 
 ^ ./ 70. William Paley( Works; Philosophy) 187,188 
 
 "jL^f/ume (Works; Philosophy; Importance and the 
 Method of the Science of Human Nature ; Origin 
 of our Ideas ; The Ideas of Space and Time, Num- 
 ber, Existence, and External Existence ; The Rela- 
 tion of Cause and Effect ; The Relation of Identity ; 
 Objective Existence ; The Passions ; Morals ; 
 
 Religion; Result) .188-201 
 
 Leibnitz (Works; Earlier Doctrines; Final Stand- 
 point; Substance and the Monad; Representa- 
 tions; Ideas; Appetitions; The External World; 
 
 God; Result) 201-214 
 
 73- Walther Ehrenfried, Count von Tschirnhausen 
 
 y (Works; Philosophy) 214-216 
 
 74. Samuel Puffendorf (Works; Philosophy) . . .216,217 
 75. Christian Thoniasius (Works; Philosophy) . .217-219 
 76. Christian Wolff ( Works ; Philosophy ; Standpoint 
 and Method ; The Divisions of Philosophy ; Ontol- 
 ogy ;. Cosmology ; Psychology; Natural Theology ; 
 
 Practical Philosophy; Result) 220-229 
 
 77. Woljfians and Anti-Woljfians 229-232 
 
 / 78. The French "Illumination" 232 
 
 y/ 79-_ Voltaire (Works; Philosophy; Result) . . . .233-235 
 
 80. Montesquieu (Works; Philosophy) 235-237 
 
 8l. fean Jacques Rousseau (Works; Philosophy; God 
 and Nature ; The State ; Morality and Educa- 
 tion; Result) 277-242 
 
 82. Charles Bonnet (Works ; Philosophy) .... 242, 244 
 
 83. Jean Baptiste Robinet (Philosophy) 244,245 
 
 84. Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (Works; Philosophy; 
 
 Origin of Ideas ; Method of Knowledge) . . . 245-247 
 %$. D^stutt de Tracy (Works; Philosophy; Problems 
 
 of Philosophy; Ideology; Morals) 247-249 
 
 86. Claude Adrien Helvetius (Works; Philosophy) .249-251 
 
 87. Denis Diderot (Works; Philosophy) . . . . .251-253 
 
 88. Julien Offray de Lammettrie (Works ; Philosophy) 253, 2^4 
 
 89. Baron D'Holbach (Works; Philosophy) . . .254-256 
 
 90. Pierre Jean Cabanis (Works ; Philosophy) . . .256-258 
 
 91. The German "Illumination" (Reimarus, Sttlzer, 
 
 Tetens, Feder, Meiners, Basedow, Mendelssohn, 
 Lessing) 258-260 
 
 92. Mendelssohn (Works; Philosophy) 260-262
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PAGB 
 
 93. Lessing (Works; Philosophy) 262-265 
 
 94. Italian Philosophy 265 
 
 95. Giovanni Battista Vico ("Work; Philosophy) . . . 269 
 96. American Philosophy, (Jonathan Edwards and oth- 
 ers) 266, 267 
 
 THIRD PERIOD OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 97. CHARACTERISTICS (AND DIVISIONS) OF THE THIRD PE- 
 
 / RIOD OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 268 
 
 v/9.8. Scotch Systems 269 
 
 99. Thomas Reid (Works; Philosophy; Standpoint and 
 Method ; Sensation and Perception ; Common 
 / Sense; The Powers of Man; Result) . . . .269-274 
 ^f too. Dugald Stewart (Works; Philosophy) . . . .274-276 
 101. Thomas Brown (Works; Philosophy; Result) .276-278 
 102. Sir William Hamilton (Works; Philosophy; Gen- 
 eral Conception of Philosophy ; Phenomenology ; 
 Natural Realism and Natural Dualism ; Latent 
 Modifications ; Necessary Cognition ; The Law of 
 the Conditioned and its Applications; Causa- 
 tion) 278-287 
 
 103. James Frederick Ferrier (Works; Philosophy; In- 
 troduction : Conception and Method of Philosophy; 
 Epistemology ; Agnoi'ology ; Ontology ; Result) 287-293 
 
 104. French Systems 293 
 
 105. Maine de Biran (Works; Philosophy; Result) .294-297 
 
 106. Pierre Laromiguitre 297-298 
 
 107. Pierre Paul Royer-Collard (Philosophy) .... 298 
 108. Victor Cousin (Works; Philosophy; Genesis of 
 Cousin's System; Divisions of System; Method; 
 Psychology ; Ontology ; Ethics ; History of Philos- 
 ophy ; Result) 298-303 
 
 109. Theodore Jouffroy (Works; Philosophy) . . .303,304 
 1 10. Robert de Lamentiais (Works; Philosophy; Earlier 
 
 Standpoint ; Later Standpoint) 304, 305 
 
 in. Auguste Comte (Works; Philosophy; Law of Hu- 
 man Development ; Characteristics and Problem 
 of Positive Philosophy; Advantages of the Positive 
 Philosophy ; The Hierarchy of the Positive Scien- 
 ces; Sociology ; Religion of Humanity ; Result) 305-312 
 
 112. German Systems 312,313 
 
 113. Immanuel Kant (Works; Kant's Earlier Develop- 
 ment and Works ; Kant's Later Works ; Philoso- 
 phy ; Introduction ; The Critique of Pure Reason; 
 Problem ; Transcendental Esthetic ; Transcen-
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 dental Logic; The Analytic of Notions; The 
 Categories; The Transcendental Deduction of the 
 Categories; Analytic of Judgments ; Schematism 
 of the Categories ; The System of Principles of the 
 Pure Understanding; Ground of Distinction of 
 Phenomena and Noumena ; Transcendental Dia- 
 lectic ; Conceptions on Ideas of Pure Reason; 
 Syllogisms ; Dialectical Conclusions of Pure Rea- 
 son ; Transcendental- Paralogisms ; Criticism of 
 Rational Psychology ; Antimony of Pure Reason ; 
 Criticism of Rational Cosmology ; The Ideal of 
 Pure Reason ; Criticism of Transcendental The- 
 ology ; Transcendental Theory of Method ; Cri- 1 
 tique of Practical Reason ; The Notion of Prac- 
 tical Reason; The Analytic of Pure Practical 
 Reason ; The Notion of an Object of Pure Prac- 
 tical Reason ; The Motives of Pure Practical Rea- 
 son ; Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason ; Metho- 
 dology of Pure Practical Reason ; Critique of 
 Judgment ; Introduction ; Critique of ^Esthetical 
 Judgment; Analytic; Dialectic of the ./Esthetic 
 Faculty; Critique of Teleological Judgment: An- 
 alytic; Dialectic of Teleological Judgment; The- 
 ory of Method; Moral Proof of the Existence of 
 God; The Metaphysical Foundation of Natural 
 Science ; Introduction ; Phoronomy ; Dynamics ; 
 Mechanics; Phenomenology; The Metaphysics of 
 Morals ; Introduction ; Theory of Right ; Theory - 
 of Virtue ; Religion within the Limits of Mere 
 
 Reason; Result) 3I3-3 68 
 
 114. Reception of the Kantian Philosophy 368
 
 A 
 
 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i. 
 
 The General Character and the Main Divisions of 
 Modern Philosophy. Modern Philosophy, as distin- 
 guished from Mediaeval Philosophy, is occupied with the 
 immanent and concrete, rather than the transcendent and 
 abstract ; with the natural and the human, rather than the 
 supernatural and the superhuman. As distinguished from 
 Ancient Philosophy, it is occupied with the subject, rather 
 than with the object ; with thought, rather than with being. 
 It may be quite easily divided into three great periods, as 
 follows : i . A period predominantly of reception and appro- 
 priation (though with considerable self-assertion as against 
 medievalism) ; 2. A period of original effort very largely 
 destructive or negative (towards previous philosophy as 
 well as the object of thought generally) ; 3. A period of 
 equal originality, and more constructive or synthetic effort. 
 Psychologically speaking, these periods may be viewed as, 
 respectively, periods of (receptive) sense, (analytic) under- 
 standing, and (synthetic) reason; logically, as periods of 
 thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The first period extends from 
 the middle of the fifteenth century to the beginning of the 
 seventeenth ; the second, from the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century to the third quarter of the eighteenth ; and 
 the third from the third quarter of the eighteenth century, 
 onwards.
 
 1 6 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 DIVISION I. FIRST PERIOD OF MODERN 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 2. 
 
 General Characteristics of the First Period of Mod- 
 em Philosophy. The beginnings of Modern Philosophy 
 formed a part of the general human awakening in Europe 
 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This awakening 
 was, as every one is well aware, an awakening from a sort 
 of " dogmatic slumber," in which human thought was 
 wrapped up in the idea of a supra- mundane world, an- 
 swering, as it now seems, to fancy and mere feeling, rather 
 than to active sense, healthy understanding, and reason ; in 
 which, along with logical acuteness, there existed a certain 
 enslavement to preconceived ideas, and to authority in 
 intellectual things. At the beginning, Modern Philosophy 
 was, on the one hand, a revolt against a philosophy which, 
 both by its content (which was constituted by the abstract 
 and transcendental) and by its form (which was either 
 mystical or else pedantically logical) had come to be want- 
 ing in power to satisfy a real human interest ; on the other 
 hand, an endeavor to substitute for that barren philosophy 
 something more worthy of a strong consciousness of human 
 dignity as such, and of the wealth and grandeur of visible 
 Nature. This double character attaches to almost every 
 form of early Modern Philosophy, until, so to say, it 
 reaches its majority, and even after that time ; so that 
 every new system, whatever else it may also be, is a protest 
 against mere Scholasticism. The substitutions made for 
 Scholasticism were in various directions, and of various 
 degrees of completeness and originality. The revival of 
 ancient learning and literature placed within the reach of 
 the new impulse to philosophic thought accompanying 
 and supporting like impulses in literature, the arts, and the 
 sciences a noble wealth of ancient philosophical literature, 
 which was eagerly seized upon and made the basis for
 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. IJ 
 
 various schools of rehabilitated ancient philosophy. The 
 new religious movement, Protestantism, found in ancient 
 thinking (but to some extent also in mediaeval though non- 
 scholastic mysticism) a stimulant and possible helper, which 
 it associated with itself and adapted to its need. The 
 cultivation of the natural sciences by both empirical and 
 speculative methods furnished material and basis for a phi- 
 losophy of Nature ; the actual political conditions of the 
 period, and the revival of the political doctrines of the an- 
 cients (particularly of Plato and Aristotle), presented occa- 
 sions for the framing and putting forth of systems of political 
 philosophy. It is possible to distinguish definite degrees 
 (three in number) of originality or independence of philo- 
 sophical effort in this first period of Modern Philosophy. 
 There is ( i ) the relatively passive reception of the ancient 
 systems, as such ; (2) the adaptation of ancient and medi- 
 aeval systems to religious or theological uses; (3) a rela- 
 tively independent cultivation of philosophical conceptions 
 into systems of Nature-philosophy on the one hand, and 
 political philosophy on the other. We have, then, in the 
 treatment of the first period of Modern Philosophy, three 
 grand divisions, which may be denoted as follows : The 
 Rehabilitation of Ancient Systems ; The Association of 
 Philosophy with (Protestant) Theology; The (Relatively) 
 Independent Cultivation of Philosophy on its own Account. 
 
 3- 
 
 I. THE REHABILITATION OF ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF PHILOS- 
 OPHY. The ancient systems of thought rehabilitated were, 
 naturally, principally those of (i) Plato and the Neo-Pla- 
 tonists; and of (2) Aristotle. Other systems rehabilitated 
 were (3) Ciceronianism ; (4) Stoicism; (5) Scepticism; 
 (6) lonicism; (7) Epicureanism. 
 
 4- 
 
 (i) Platonists and Neo-Platonists. Chief among the 
 revivers of Platonism and Neo-Platonism were Georgius 
 VOL. i. 2
 
 1 8 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Gemistus Pletho (circa 1355-1450), who was a learned 
 Greek at the court of Cosmo de' Medici in Florence ; 
 Bessarion of Trebizond (1395-1472), likewise a Greek, 
 and a pupil of Pletho ; Marsilius Ficinus, or Marsilio Ficino 
 (1433-1499) ; Giovanni Pico, of Mirandola (d. 1533) ; 
 Johannes Reuchlin, the renowned German humanist (1455- 
 1522) ; Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535) ; Carolus 
 Bovillus, or Charles Bouille" (1470-1535) ; and Jacques 
 Lefevre (1455-1537), professor in the University of Paris. 
 
 5- 
 
 Pletho. Pletho not only enthusiastically expounded and 
 defended Platonism and Neo-Platonism, but vigorously at- 
 tacked Aristotle and his doctrine. Unlike most of the 
 revivers of ancient systems, Pletho was non- Christian in his 
 theology, and desired to substitute Platonism for Christianity. 
 Two works of Pletho bear the titles " De Platonicse et Aris- 
 totelicae Philosophise Differentia " and No/*o>i> 
 
 6. 
 
 Bessarion. Bessarion was a more temperate admirer 
 of Plato, though he too combated (discreetly) the doctrines 
 of Aristotle, as maintained by George of Trebizond. He 
 considered Plato more in accord than Aristotle with Chris- 
 tian dogma. He rejected the Platonic doctrines of the 
 pre-existence of the soul, the plurality of gods, and the 
 world-soul. The chief work of Bessarion is entitled " In 
 Calumniatorem Platonis." 
 
 7- 
 
 Ficinus. The lectures of Pletho upon Platonism led to 
 the founding at Florence by Cosmo de' Medici of a Platonic 
 Academy. Of this, Ficinus, who had been a successful 
 translator of the works of Plato, Plotinus, and others of the 
 same general school, was made the first director. Ficinus, 
 it is related, had in his private apartments but a single pic- 
 ture, that of Plato, before which a light was continually
 
 PICO, REUCHLIN, ETC. 19 
 
 kept burning. He advocated the reading of the works of 
 Plato along with the Hebrew-Christian Bible in church. 
 The chief work of Ficinus is " Theologia Platonica de 
 Animorum Immortalitate " (1482). 
 
 8. 
 
 Pico, Reuchlin, Agrippa, Bovillus. Pico, Reuchlin, 
 Agrippa, Bovillus, " blended with the Neo-Platonism Jewish 
 Cabalistic doctrines, took a step in the direction of what 
 was almost pure nature-philosophy." Pico taught that the 
 " bond of union between God, man, and the world in their 
 common perfection is Christ, the God-man ; that man 
 knows and possesses God the more perfectly the more he 
 employs the powers of knowing and willing natural to him ; 
 but this natural happiness is merely a shadow of the super- 
 natural which man attains to through the in-working of 
 God." Works of Pico are "Apologia" (1489), " Oratio 
 de Hominis Dignitate " (1496), " Disputationum adversus 
 Astrologos " (1496). Reuchlin opposed Aristotelianism 
 and Scholastic supersubtleties ; and maintained that there 
 is no knowledge of the supersensible without faith. Works 
 of Reuchlin are " De Arte Cabalistica" (1517); "De 
 Verbo Mirifico" (1494). According to Agrippa, the high- 
 est branch of philosophy is Magic. This is of three sorts : 
 natural magic, which teaches the miraculous use of earthly 
 things ; heavenly or celestial magic, which has to do with 
 the drawing down to earth of the influences of the stars ; 
 and religious magic, which teaches the art of obtaining 
 from supernatural sources miraculous appearances. Magic 
 controls the secret powers of the universe. Besides natural 
 endowment in man, faith and a laborious study of theology, 
 physics, and mathematics are prerequisites to the acquire- 
 ment of the powers of the magician. 1 The chief work 01 
 Agrippa is entitled "De Occulta Philosophia" (1510); 
 other works are " De Triplici Ratione Cognoscendi Deum," 
 
 i Noack.
 
 2O A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " De Vanitate et Incertitudine Scientiarum. " Bovillus 
 teaches that philosophy leads to self-knowledge and union 
 with God, that science is union of subject and object, that 
 intelligence is the perfection of faith, that the universal is 
 prior to the particular in knowledge, that the highest knowl- 
 edge of God is ignorance, that the soul and matter and the 
 visible world are immortal, that matter is the middle term 
 between being and not-being, that creation is a free act 
 flowing from the pure goodness of God. Works of Bo- 
 villus are "Liber de Sensibus," "Liber de Intellectu," 
 " Ars Oppositorum," etc. 1 
 
 9- 
 
 (2) Aristotelians. The attacks of Pletho and Bessarion 
 on Aristotle called forth replies from Gennadius, Patriarch 
 of Constantinople (died circa 1454), and George of Trebi- 
 zond (1396-1486), both of whom, besides being expoun- 
 ders of Aristotle, were defenders of traditional Christianity. 
 There were various other scholars in the fifteenth century 
 who translated or commentated the works of Aristotle. 
 Jacques Lefevre (the Platonist already mentioned) is said 
 to have gone directly to the original sources for his Aris- 
 totelianism. In northern Italy at Padua, Venice, and 
 Bologna Aristotelianism was taught and defended by two 
 rival schools of philosophers known as Averroists and Alex- 
 andrists (followers of Alexander Aphrodisias, of the second 
 century A. D.). The rise of the Alexandrist school was 
 doubtless owing to existing sympathy with increasing hu- 
 manism and naturalism, as opposed to the mystical panthe- 
 ism of Averroes. An important point of difference in the 
 controversy between the schools was that the Averroists 
 maintained that the active reason in man was an emanation 
 from the Deity, and the Alexandrists that it was not so, 
 but a part of the universal reason, both schools, however, 
 denying immortality. 
 
 1 Noack.
 
 A VERROIS TS. ALEXANDRISTS. 2 1 
 
 10. 
 
 Averroists. Among the Averroists were Alexander 
 Achillinus (d. 1512), professor of medicine and philosophy 
 at Padua and Bologna; Augustinus Niphus (\$i2-circa 
 1550), physician and astrologer; Giacomo Zabarella (1533- 
 1589), professor of philosophy at Padua; Cesare Cremonini 
 (1552-1631), successor of Zabarella at Padua. Zabarella 
 is sometimes described as an " Averroist in physics, and an 
 Alexandrist in psychology." Sensible knowledge, he says, is 
 confused, and must be subjected to logical tests or a scien- 
 tific method to become certain and true. The existent is 
 always individual, though the principium individuationis is 
 form, and not matter. Eternal motion presupposes an 
 eternal mover separate from all matter. The active intel- 
 lect is not one in all men. Works of Zabarella are " De 
 Rebus Naturalibus Libri triginta" (1594), "Opera Logica" 
 (1579), " Commentaria in Aristotelis Libros Physicorum " 
 (1602), "In Aristotelis Libros de Anima." Zabarella has 
 the credit of having had a truer appreciation of the impor- 
 tance of scientific method than any other Aristotelian of his 
 time. Cremonini has been called the last of the " Aris- 
 totelians in Italy." He cannot be credited with the true 
 scientific or (for that matter) philosophic spirit, since he 
 refused to look through the telescope, because he feared 
 the upsetting of his physical theories as a consequence of 
 doing so. 
 
 it. 
 
 Alexandrists. Of the Alexandrists, the following seem 
 the most worthy of mention: Leonicus Thomseus (1456- 
 1533), professor of philosophy at Padua; Andreas Caesal- 
 pinus (1519-1603), a professor of natural history; Petrus 
 Pomponatius, or Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1524), said to 
 have been the " most influential professor of philosophy of 
 his age." Thomaeus went to the original Aristotle, and 
 strongly advocated the doing so. His philosophical intel- 
 ligence appears in his teaching the substantial agreement of
 
 22 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. Caesalpinus tries to 
 explain Aristotle apart from the commentators. His doc- 
 trine is briefly stated as follows : Knowledge is of the 
 universal definite conception, which is knowledge of sub- 
 stance, unites matter and form. All things are medi- 
 diately or immediately living. God is the universal mind, 
 above human comprehension : he is pure spirit. The soul, 
 which unites the parts of the body, is pure form : it is 
 immortal. After death, it remains joined to the pure uni- 
 versal matter. The perception of the One in all things 
 is true divine happiness. Works of Caesalpinus are 
 " Quaestiones Peripateticae " and " Dsemonum Investigatio." 
 
 Pomponatius 3 (born at Mantua) studied medicine and 
 philosophy at the University of Padua, and afterwards 
 occupied the chair of philosophy there. Among the works 
 of Pomponatius are the following : " Tractatus de Immor- 
 talitate " (1516), " De Incantationibus " (1520), " De Fato, 
 libero Arbitrio et Praedestinatione " (1523), "Apologia" 
 
 against Contarini (1517), " Defensorium," against 
 Niphus, the last two having special reference to the doc- 
 trine of immortality. Pomponatius expresses the highest 
 reverence for the philosopher in general, and for Aristotle 
 in particular : the philosopher, he says, is to the ordinary 
 human being as a real man is to a painted one, he is a god 
 among men. The philosophy of Pomponatius is principally 
 occupied with the three problems, of the immortality of 
 the soul, of the influence of the spiritual world upon the 
 material, and of the relation of divine providence to human 
 liberty and destiny. Pomponatius asserts that, on the prin- 
 ciples of the philosophy of Aristotle (which he accepts), 
 the doctrine of the immortality of the soul cannot be main- 
 tained, the soul, as the entelechy of the body, cannot be 
 active without the body ; and thought, in the proper sense, 
 cannot be carried on without sensible images. On the 
 whole, Pomponatius thinks " the question of the immor- 
 tality of the soul, like that of the immortality of the world, 
 
 1 Franck.
 
 CICERONIANS. 2$ 
 
 is a question which reason cannot decide either affirma- 
 tively or negatively, upon which God alone can afford us 
 certain knowledge. For myself," he adds, " it suffices that 
 Saint Augustine, who is of higher authority than Plato and 
 Aristotle, believed in immortality." That is, Pomponatius 
 professed " as a philosopher " not to admit the doctrine of 
 the immortality of the human soul, but "as a man" to 
 accept it, a position sufficiently significant as to the con- 
 ceived relation of philosophy to theology in his age. (The 
 mere " consistency," or want of " consistency," of such a 
 position is perhaps best shown up by a reply made by the 
 satirist Boccalini to this saying of Pomponatius : " It is 
 necessary to absolve Pomponatius in so far as he is a man, 
 but to burn him as a philosopher.") Pomponatius explains 
 the " universality " of the belief in immortality as an effect 
 wrought by priests in the interest of religion ; but he thinks 
 the appeal to the future an unscientific one, since virtue 
 should be its own reward. Pomponatius attempts to justify 
 his dualistic philosophical attitude by means of a distinction 
 between speculative and practical reason, the former of 
 which (as well as the latter) belonging to the philosopher 
 alone ; the latter (only) to men in general. If reason is 
 thus absolutely dualistic, the position of Pomponatius was a 
 natural, though an uncomfortable and compromising, one, 
 as he himself seems to have felt. 
 
 12. 
 
 (3) Ciceronians. The fact of a newly-arisen life of 
 thought, as opposed to the dryness of the Scholastic under- 
 standing, had, as a natural, though not, perhaps, a very 
 profound, consequence, the coming into existence of a 
 school of thinkers who hated and vehemently antagonized 
 Scholastic logicism in general, its over-refinement, or 
 false subtlety, and its barrenness. This is the school of 
 the Ciceronians, Laurentius Valla, Rudolph Agricola, Lu- 
 dovicus Vives, Marius Nizolius, Petrus Ramus, and others. 
 Laurentius Valla (1407-1459) affirmed that "dialectic"
 
 24 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 (logic) is merely an aid to rhetoric, which should be sub- 
 stituted for it ; that virtue is really virtue only when sought 
 for the sake of pleasure ; that human freedom and divine 
 providence are merely matters of faith. Rudolph Agri- 
 cola (1442-1485) combated Scholastic subtleties, and ad- 
 vocated a philosophy of " common sense." The only rule 
 of knowledge, he affirmed, is the rule of probability. 
 Ethics is the principal part of philosophy. Our ultimate 
 resort must be to Scripture. Vives (1492-1540) advo- 
 cated humanism as opposed to Scholasticism, and the rule 
 of probability as opposed to demonstration so called. 
 The Nominalists and Realists, he thought, occupy sub- 
 stantially the same ground. Of the soul we can know only 
 the attributes and the operations, not the nature. The exis- 
 tence of God is for us a moral need, not a theoretical cer- 
 tainty. We must interrogate Nature : " only through direct 
 investigation, by way of experiment, can Nature be known." 
 Works of Vives are "De Prima Philosophia" (1531), " De 
 Anima etVita" (1538). Marius Nizolius (1498-1575), 
 likewise, opposed Scholasticism and advocated the substi- 
 tution of rhetoric for metaphysics and dialectic, and the 
 employment of empirical methods " induction " in 
 the search for truth. A work of Nizolius, "De veris 
 Principiis et vera Ratione philosophandi contra Pseudo- 
 philosophos Libri quatuor" (1553), was reissued by Leib- 
 nitz in the seventeenth century. Ramus (1517-1572) 
 graduated from the Sorbonne, and (in 1551) received the 
 appointment ot professor of philosophy and eloquence in 
 the College de France. Violent opposition on his part 
 to Scholasticism brought upon him theological odium, to 
 which he fell a victim in the celebrated massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew. Ramus's works number upwards of fifty : 
 among them are " Aristotelicae Animadversiones " (1543), 
 "Dialectics Partitiones" (1543), "Institutions Dialecticae" 
 (1547), nearly the same as the one preceding. Ramus 
 was a special student of the works of Cicero, Quintilian, 
 Plato, and an avowed follower of Valla, Agricola. Nizolius,
 
 STOICS. SCEPTSCS. 2$ 
 
 and Vives. He denounced the Aristotelian logic as arti- 
 ficial, and without value for a real dialectic, and sought to 
 merge logic into rhetoric. He laid stress upon the theory 
 of judgment, which he viewed as also a theory of memory 
 and its right use. There are, according to him, three 
 stages of judgment : i. Syllogistic inference; 2. Combina- 
 tion and arrangement into a self-consistent whole of propo- 
 sitions of like kind and import (a process which involves 
 some uncertainty in the result) ; 3. The reference of the 
 scientific truth obtained by these forms of judgment to God, 
 and the attempt to see God in all things, to the end that 
 we may be incited to the praise of God. Ramus's im- 
 provements ( ?) upon the old logic have (unfortunately) been 
 largely followed by modern logicians. He had many fol- 
 lowers, and excited much opposition ; and for a century or 
 more, logicians as a class, throughout Europe, were divided 
 into Ramists, Anti-Ramists, and Semi-Ramists, chief 
 among the Anti-Ramists being a certain Antonius Goveanus, 
 colleague of Ramus at Paris. In conclusion, it has to be 
 remarked that the " Ciceronians " present traits which make 
 them forerunners of Francis Bacon, generally regarded as 
 the founder of modern empiricism. 
 
 13- 
 
 (4) Stoics. As revivers of Stoicism may be mentioned 
 Justus Lipsius, or Joost Lips (1547-1606), teacher in the 
 universities of Leyden and Louvain, and author of works 
 entitled " Manductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam " (1604) 
 and " Physiologic Stoicorum Libri III." (1610) ; and 
 Caspar Schoppe, or Scioppius (1576-1649), author of 
 "Casparis Scioppii Elementa Stoicae Philosophic Moralis 
 quae in Senecam, Ciceronem, Plutarchum, aliosque Scriptores 
 Commentarii Loco esse possunt " (1608). 
 
 14. 
 
 (5) Sceptics. Revivers of Scepticism were Michel de 
 Montaigne (1533-1592), Pierre Le Charron (1541-1603),
 
 26 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Francois Sanchez (15521632). According to Montaigne, 
 the true philosophy is, not to depend too much on philos- 
 ophy. Human knowledge as such is bounded by the 
 senses ; which are, obviously, unreliable guides to sub- 
 stantial truth, since they are contradictory and variable in 
 their reports. The more we learn, the more ignorant we 
 become. Human reason must be supplemented by faith, 
 acceptance of Revelation. The first virtue of man is sub- 
 mission and obedience to God. The Scepticism of Mon- 
 taigne did not (Erdmann thinks) include the ataraxy, or 
 impassivity, of Pyrrho, but was rather a part of that general 
 tendency towards the practical, as distinguished from the 
 mediaeval, worldliness. For Montaigne's views, see Book I. 
 Essay XII. of his celebrated Essays. Le Charron an 
 advocate, theologian, famous pulpit orator, and friend of 
 Montaigne teaches that knowledge comes, not through 
 the senses, but from the inner depths of the soul, in " which 
 are implanted the germs of science and virtue." The mere 
 understanding is the source of all human evils. Human 
 welfare depends on the will solely. To attain wisdom man 
 must free himself from passion (which originates in the 
 sensible region of the soul), must desire little, and that 
 only which accords with nature, must hold his judgment 
 always open for the reception of new light, since human 
 knowledge is never more than a greater or less degree of 
 probability. Le Charron's views are contained in a work 
 entitled, "De la Sagesse " (1601, 2d edition 1604). 
 Sanchez a graduate in medicine, a superintendent of an 
 infirmary, teacher of medicine and philosophy combats 
 Scholastic subtlety, preaches the vanity of human knowl- 
 edge, and advocates a " Christian Philosophy." We can 
 know nothing, since things are infinite in number, and even 
 if they were numerically finite, their connections are infinite. 
 So-called universals are creations of the fancy : only in- 
 dividuals really exist. Through the senses we learn only of 
 the accidents of things, not of their essence. By self-con- 
 sciousness we apprehend merely mental phenomena, not
 
 IONICIST, EPICUREAN: GASSENDI. 2"J 
 
 the essence of the soul itself, and these only imperfectly, 
 since they are continually varying and without definite out- 
 lines. Reflection, too, can give only confused and uncertain 
 results. Our only recourse is " Christian faith." Works of 
 Sanchez are "Tractatus de multum nobili et prima uni- 
 versali Scientia, quod nihil scitur" (1581), his chief 
 work ; " De Divinatione per Somnum ad Aristotelem : " 
 " De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae." In addition to the 
 foregoing Sceptics, may be barely mentioned Francois de la 
 Mothe le Vayer (1586-1672), Simon Foucher (1644-1696), 
 Joseph Glanvil (died 1680), Hieronymus Hirnhaym (died 
 1679), Pierre Daniel Huet (1633-1721), and Pierre Bayle 
 (1647-1706), author of the celebrated " Dictionnaire his- 
 torique et critique " (1696). 
 
 15- 
 
 (6) An lonicist. The early Ionic philosophy was 
 revived by Claudius Berigard (15927-1663?), professor in 
 Pisa and Padua, in a work entitled " Circuli Pisani seu de 
 Veteri et Peripatetica Philosophia Dialogi" (1643). 
 
 16. 
 
 (7) An Epicurean. Epicurean doctrines, blended with 
 Christian theology, were taught by Pierre Gassendi (1592 
 1655). Gassendi took courses in the College of Digne 
 and the University of Aix, and afterwards lectured in these 
 institutions of learning. Later he was professor of mathe- 
 matics in the College Royal. He entered the priesthood, 
 and was at one time provost of the cathedral of Digne. 
 Gassendi numbered among his friends some of the most 
 eminent scientists of his age, among them Descartes and 
 Galileo, was himself well informed in the early modern 
 sciences, and may be regarded as a link between the first 
 and second eras of modern philosophy. Philosophical works 
 of Gassendi are, " Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus 
 Aristoteleos " (1624), " De Vita, Moribus, et Doctrina Epicuri 
 Libri octo " (1647), De Vita, Moribus, et Placitis Epicuri,
 
 28 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 seu Animadversiones in X. Librum Diogenis Laertii " 
 (1649), " Syntagma Philosophise Epicuri " (1649), the last- 
 named being his principal work. He was the author of 
 works in physical science possessing some value. At one 
 time inclined towards the revived Aristotelianism, Gassendi 
 was prevented from remaining an Aristotelian by the study 
 of the natural sciences in their modern character. He 
 sought reconciliation between " science and religion," and 
 found it, as he thought, in a modified Epicureanism. 
 Philosophy, according to Gassendi, is the pursuit of wisdom. 
 Its parts are Physics (whose object is truth) and Ethics 
 (whose object is virtue), Logic being merely propaedeutic to 
 philosophy proper. The path of knowledge lies between 
 scepticism and dogmatism. There are no innate ideas. 
 All knowledge originates in sense-perception, from the 
 data proceeding from which reason deduces causes and 
 arrives at universal ideas. The first principle and matter 
 of things is the atom. Atoms differ in magnitude, weight, 
 and form. The number of atoms is not, as Epicurus taught, 
 infinite, but finite : the same is true of the extent of space. 
 Atoms are not eternal a parte ante, but were created by 
 God; the world formed of atoms is not a product of 
 chance, but a work of providence. The world and mankind 
 were created to receive and manifest the goodness of God. 
 All creation culminates in man, who alone is capable of 
 leading the world or creation back to God. In all men 
 there is a certain presentiment of a divine nature and a 
 providence sustaining all things, a doctrine, we may 
 observe, not quite consistent with the denial of " innate 
 ideas." Man possesses both a material and a rational soul, 
 having a joint seat in the brain ; the rational soul is not, as 
 Epicurus taught, composed of minute fiery atoms, but is 
 simple and immaterial, and immortal, since it possesses a 
 knowledge of the supersensible and universal, etc. Freedom 
 of will is indifference of choice, resulting from indifference 
 in the understanding. The object, directly or indirectly, of 
 all our effort is pleasure, or painlessness of body, and peace
 
 MELANCHTHON. 2p 
 
 of soul : the virtues are merely safeguards against hindrances 
 to pleasure or happiness. 
 
 17- 
 
 II. THE ASSOCIATION OF PHILOSOPHY WITH (PROTESTANT) 
 THEOLOGY. Next after the revivals of ancient systems of 
 thought, and before the first original and independent efforts 
 coincident in time with them, we may consider the efforts of 
 philosophical thought in the service of and at the same 
 time aided by the at least would-be free spirit of the Protes- 
 tant religion. Protestantism, a religion of " faith," felt the 
 need of a certain basis in " reason." The chief Protestant, 
 Martin Luther, abhorred philosophy, whether Scholastic or 
 ancient ; but Melanchthon, the associate leader of the 
 Protestant movement, was clearly convinced that without 
 positive method and dogma, as educational instrumentalities, 
 Protestantism as a practical movement must succumb to 
 confusion, to want of organization ; and he taught and 
 wrote energetically and thoroughly in accordance with this 
 conviction. Besides Melanchthon, have to be treated in 
 the present connection Nicolaus Taurellus, and the so- 
 called " Mystics " Sebastian Franck, Valentin Weigel, and 
 Jacob Boehme. For distinction's sake, we may style 
 Melanchthon and Taurellus Semi-Rationalists. 
 
 18. 
 
 (i) Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), the "teacher of 
 the whole German world in philosophy, as well as in the- 
 ology," was educated at the Academy of Pfortzheim and at 
 the Universities of Heidelberg and Tubingen, at which lat- 
 ter university he studied law, medicine, and theology. Bril- 
 liant scholarship secured for him, soon after graduation, a 
 professorship in Greek in the University of Wittenberg. 
 Here he taught in the spirit of the Renaissance, and especial- 
 ly labored to make Greek philosophy a source of advantage 
 to Protestantism. As a teacher of Greek he awakened the 
 admiration of Luther, and became associated with him in
 
 30 A If IS TORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 the revision of his translation of the Bible and the carrying 
 on of the Reformation so-called, his objective intellectual 
 equanimity and conservatism supplementing the subjective 
 moral intensity and radicalism of Luther. He has been 
 called the scribe of the Reformation, as having drafted 
 " most of the public documents " of the " Reformers." 
 
 Works. Melanchthon's philosophical works (mostly 
 text- books) are, " Dialecticae Libri IV." (1520), " De 
 Anima " (1520), " Initiae Doctrinae Physicae" (1547), 
 "Epitome Philosophise Moralis" (1538), " Ethicae Doc- 
 trinae Elementa" (1550), and " Declamationes " (1544- 
 1586), which consists of discourses on ancient philosophy, 
 the practical value of philosophy, etc. 
 
 Philosophy. Melanchthon taught a somewhat modified 
 Aristoteliarrism. He seems to have adopted in full the 
 Aristotelian logic, adding to it certain principles borrowed 
 from Cicero and Christian theology, as that the sources and 
 criteria of knowledge are, besides logical inference, univer- 
 sal experience, or consensus gentium, innate ideas, and the 
 truths of Revelation. With a perceptible leaning, in meta- 
 physics, towards Plato (with whom, however, he regarded 
 Aristotle as in substantial accord), he adopted the Aristo- 
 telian physics (except as to the doctrine of the eternity of 
 the world), the Aristotelian psychology (except as to the 
 doctrine of the future life), and the Aristotelian Ethics, 
 Christianized somewhat. In Melanchthon's Christianized 
 Aristotelian Ethics, the moral law is God's will ; virtue is 
 the knowledge of God and obedience to him ; Revelation 
 (the Decalogue in particular) the highest statement of 
 moral truth ; natural right comprises innate universal prin- 
 ciples (together with their consequences), and is based, as 
 " regards duties to God, upon the dependence of creature 
 on the Creator, as regards duties to fellow-men, upon the 
 necessity of human society; " positive right consists of the 
 enactments, depending on circumstances, of civil authority ; 
 civil authority is directly of and from God ; the state, 
 though not to be ecclesiastically ruled, must cherish religion,
 
 TAURELLUS. 31 
 
 enact no laws contrary to the divine commandments, and be 
 subject to the condition that religious necessity may make 
 it right that the citizen resist authority, and even, in case of 
 tyranny, murder the civil ruler. It has been maintained, 
 apparently with perfect justice, that except in the depart- 
 ments of natural and civil law, Melanchthon's philosophy 
 was entirely borrowed ; that by his " substitution of the 
 Bible for canon law" he helped to promote the evolution 
 of the philosophy of law. 1 
 
 19. 
 
 Nicolaus Taurellus (1547-1606). Taurellus studied 
 theology and philosophy at the University of Tubingen, and 
 took the degree of doctor of medicine at the University 
 of Basel. He was successively physician to the Duke 
 of Wiirtemburg, professor of philosophy and medicine at 
 Basel, and professor in the same sciences at Altdorf. 
 
 Works. Works of Taurellus are " Philosophise Tri- 
 umphus, seu metaphysica philosophandi Methodus " (1573), 
 " Synopsis Aristotelis Metaphysices ad Normam Christiana? 
 Religionis Explicatse, Emendatse et Complete" (1596), 
 " Cosmologia " (1603), " De Rerum ^Eternitate " (1604), 
 etc. 
 
 Philosophy. Taurellus seeks to " free philosophy from 
 the fetters of (Scholastic) Aristotelianism and to bring it 
 into harmony with the fundamental doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity." Philosophy is a propaedeutic or intellectual prepa- 
 ration for theology : it shows men their spiritual ignorance, 
 and points the way to that which alone is capable of satisfy- 
 ing their spiritual needs. It is that " knowledge of things 
 human and divine which we obtain by the inborn power of 
 thought," a power which is the " same in all men, and 
 subsists without increase or diminution ; " it is knowledge 
 through conceptions, which are " not something coming to 
 us from without, but produced by us from within." It is 
 
 1 See Erdmann, 232, 3.
 
 32 A HISTORY OF- MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 concerned with necessary and eternal truths. " General 
 notions " are abstractions from individual things, which 
 alone are real. Everything has a cause, and at the head of 
 all causes is a First Cause, God. In his pure essence. God 
 is mere causa sui, not the cause of anything else. Every 
 cause is more perfect than its effect; and the activity of 
 God in going out of himself becomes less than perfect, /. e., 
 becomes finite. Hence the world is finite, and must have 
 had a beginning. The like holds of matter. The eternal 
 as such is unchangeable, and from it no world of atoms 
 could have been formed : the created world must have been 
 formed from nothingness. Further, infinite power needs no 
 such thing as matter for the bringing forth of finite things. 
 Though philosophy discovers necessary and eternal truths, 
 it cannot attain to the knowledge of the will of God; hence 
 the necessity of a revelation for man. But of the truths 
 commonly supposed to be merely revealed truths, some 
 e. g. those of the resurrection and the Trinity are philo- 
 sophically necessary. 1 
 
 20. 
 
 (2) Sebastian Franck (1500-1545). Franck studied 
 at Heidelberg, and afterwards became a historical writer of 
 eminence. He had a profound acquaintance with the works 
 of the German Mystics of the fourteenth century. Works 
 of Franck are "Paradoxa" (1542), " De Arbore Scientiae 
 BonietMali" (1561). According to Franck, God is the 
 only good. He created things, not at any particular time 
 and once for all, but eternally creates and sustains. Apart 
 from him, things are nothing : he is in everything, and 
 constitutes the being of everything. Man is free in will, 
 though limited in act. He is truly himself when he wills 
 God : otherwise he is nothing. All men are one man. In 
 every man both Adam and Christ exist, and redemption is not 
 something that began to be just fifteen hundred years ago. 
 He who is dead to his individual self and serves his spiritual 
 
 1 See Erdmann, 239, 14.
 
 WEIGEL. BOEHME. 3 3 
 
 self or God, is a Christian a member of the Holy Church 
 
 even though he never believed on Christ. Franck was 
 by the Lutherans persecuted for his philosophical opinions. 1 
 
 21. 
 
 Valentin Weigel ( 1 533-1 588). Weigel, after many years 
 of study at the universities of Leipsic and Wittenberg, spent 
 his life as pastor of a church at Zschopau. By discreet- 
 ness he escaped Franck's fate. He was a follower of 
 Franck and the German Mystics. Works of Weigel are, 
 
 "Studium Universale, TVW&L o-eavroV (Know thyself), 
 " Kurzer Bericht vom Wege und Weise, alle Dingen zu 
 erkennen " (Brief Description of the Way and Method of 
 Learning all Things) , " Christliches Gesprach vom wahren 
 Christenthum." True wisdom has its foundation in self- 
 knowledge, knowledge of our origin and destiny. Man is 
 the microcosm : in him are united soul, spirit, and body, 
 originating respectively in the divine, the celestial (sethe- 
 real), and the earthly worlds. By his soul (only) he is 
 an image of God, and is immortal. He apprehends God 
 directly : he cognizes the world, the macrocosm, through 
 the elements of it united in himself. The object of knowl- 
 edge is the occasion but not the cause of our knowledge : 
 we know and understand only what we ourselves are. God 
 is one and self-sufficient : man is dependent, and contains 
 in himself alterity, has self- existence not of necessity, but by 
 grace or favor. True Christianity, true resurrection and 
 consciousness of God, are contained in " death to self." a 
 
 22. 
 
 Jacob Boehme* (1575-1624), the " Gorlitz Shoemaker," 
 a native of Upper Lusatia, attended a village school, and 
 was then apprenticed to a shoemaker. For many years he 
 was an industrious maker of shoes, and gloves in the town 
 
 1 See Erdmann, 233. 2 Erdmanr. 234, 4-6. 
 
 8 Zeller, Hegel, etc. 
 VOL. i. 3
 
 34 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of Gorlitz. He was a constant reader of the Bible, the 
 works of the Mystics, and astrological works. He experi- 
 enced in youth supernatural visions and ecstatic conditions 
 of mind, and in later years passed through inner mystical 
 struggles. His peculiar views brought upon him charges of 
 heresy, and made him an object of inveterate hatred to the 
 clergy in his neighborhood. 
 
 Works. Of Boehme's works (16121624), about 
 twenty in all, the following-named are among the most 
 important: "Aurora," "Vom dreifachen Leben des Men- 
 schen" (Threefold Life of Man), "Signatura Rerum," 
 "Von der Gnadenwahl " (Election by Grace), " Myste- 
 rium Magnum." Boehme's works, both by their content 
 (which is strongly mystical) and their form (which is very 
 highly figurative), have been universally found difficult to 
 comprehend, and even more difficult to expound. 
 
 Philosophy. Boehme is a naturalistic theosophist. In 
 its physics, his doctrine is Paracelsian (see below, p. 37) ; 
 in its metaphysics, Neo-Platonic. He divides speculation 
 into three branches : philosophy, treating of God and the 
 origin of the heavens and the elements ; astrology, treating 
 of the origin of all mundane things, from the stars and the 
 elements ; and theology, which treats of the " Kingdom 
 of Christ." Boehme attempts to refer all things to their 
 source in such a manner that the greatest contrarieties even 
 shall be comprehended in a single principle. All things 
 have their source in God, and, conversely, all things are, 
 without giving up their being, contained in God ; the dis- 
 tinction between God and Nature (including man) is one 
 that is in some manner eternally in God himself, for only so 
 is God all in all. The distinction exists that God may mani- 
 fest himself, and so be a true, perfect God. Apart from 
 this distinction, God is pure groundless unity, eternal still- 
 ness, eternal nothing. If God were only this unity, this 
 stillness, this nothingness, any distinction would be a sep- 
 aration from God without a return to him, and he would 
 not be the All. There is both a "Yes" and a " No" in
 
 NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS. 35 
 
 all things, by which they subsist. The primary physical 
 elements are " light " and " wrath," which are antagonistic 
 forms of the same thing, " heat." Light is lovely, and 
 the universal cause of life ; wrath burns, consumes, de- 
 stroys. The constant war of light and wrath is at once the 
 source and offspring of "quality," spirit. In God are 
 seven primal qualities or spirits. Of these, six were 
 begotten by and are embraced in the seventh, which is 
 the divine nature, " mysterium magnum." In itself, the 
 mysterium magnum is a world of pure light, harmony, and 
 joy ; unfolded, it becomes the world of both good and evil. 
 Hence, evil as well as good is from God, and is of his 
 essence, appertains to the property of generation neces- 
 sarily contained in God. The evil in every creature is that 
 inherent individual self-will which opposes itself to the 
 universal will. The fall of man was a division, which took 
 place in the slumber of selfishness, of his originally sexless 
 nature into the two sexes. The redemption of man is 
 through the divine light manifest in Christ. Boehme is 
 commonly known as the philosophus Teutonicus (the Ger- 
 man philosopher par excellence}. He has had a very 
 marked influence in later German thought, particularly in 
 the systems of Schelling, Baader, and Hegel. 
 
 23. 
 
 III. THE (RELATIVELY) INDEPENDENT CULTIVATION OF 
 PHILOSOPHY AS SUCH. Here occur (i) Natural Philoso- 
 phers; (2) Ethical (chiefly Political) Philosophers. 
 
 24. 
 
 ( i ) Natural Philosophers. As the most important of 
 the natural philosophers may be named : Nicolaus Cusanus, 
 Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus, Hieronymus Cardanus, 
 Bernardinus Telesius, Franciscus Patritius, Thomas Cam- 
 panella, Ucilio Vanini, Giordano Bruno.
 
 36 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 25. 
 
 Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464). Nicolas of Cusa 
 took a doctor's degree in law in the University of Padua, 
 but instead of practising law, entered the Church. In 
 1448 he was appointed to a cardinalship, and two years 
 hter was made bishop (of Brixen), having performed 
 important services as church-official. In the midst of 
 ecclesiastical duties he carried on mathematical and astro- 
 nomical studies, in which he was at least a century beyond 
 his age, having even anticipated Copernicus in important 
 regards. 
 
 Works. The chief work of Nicolas is entitled "De 
 docta Ignorantia" (1440). Other works are "De Con- 
 jecturis " (supplementary to the foregoing), "De Visione 
 Dei," "De Ludo Globi," "De Beryllo." 
 
 Philosophy. All human knowledge is, as such, mere 
 " conjecture ; " human learning is " learned ignorance ; " and 
 our highest knowledge is the knowing that we do not know. 
 Tnie knowledge knowledge of God we have only by 
 an intellectual intuition, a vision of God. God is the 
 content or substance of all things, the unity of all opposi- 
 tions : in him absolute motion and absolute rest, the 
 infinitely great and the infinitely little, reality and possi- 
 bility, matter and form, subject and object, are one and the 
 same. The universe is (not God himself, but) the explication, 
 unfolding, external ization of God's nature. All things fol- 
 low mathematically from the divine unity, and form together 
 a cosmos governed by mathematical relations. The physi- 
 cal universe is infinite in time and space ; the earth rotates 
 on its axis. The destiny of man is to be united with God, 
 by faith in the God-man, Christ. The ideas of Nicolas, 
 through their direct influence upon Bruno, and their in- 
 direct influence on Spinoza, Leibnitz, and others, have 
 been a very considerable factor in modern philosophy. 
 Particularly original and modern in Nicolas is the idea of 
 the infinitude of the universe, on account of which chiefly
 
 PARACELSUS. 37 
 
 is he to be classed with modern rather than with (early) 
 mediaeval philosophers. 
 
 26. 
 
 Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus ! ( 1493-1541 ) . 
 Paracelsus, who was educated by his father and at several 
 universities, spent a considerable portion of his life roving 
 about the countries of Europe, seeking a knowledge of the 
 world in general and medicine in particular. He had 
 already studied medicine under his father and other in- 
 structors. In 1526 he was appointed professor of medicine 
 in the University of Basel. He is reported to have opened 
 his first course of lectures by burning the works of Galen 
 and Avicenna, to symbolize his conception of the duty of 
 investigators as regards independence of the past and the 
 direct study of nature and life. He attempted to intro- 
 duce a reform in the art of medicine upon the basis of a 
 philosophical knowledge of human nature as a whole. 
 
 Works. Works of Paracelsus are " Paramirum seu de 
 Medica Industria," " Paragranum " (or the " Four Pillars 
 of Medicine"), " Labyrinthus Medicorum et de Tartaro," 
 " Pestilitate ex Influxu Siderum," etc. 
 
 Philosophy. Philosophy has for its only subject nature, 
 and is itself merely " invisible nature." Its instrument is 
 the natural light of the mind, reason. Nature is to be 
 comprehended only through the knowledge of its end, 
 man, who is (therefore) the " book from which we may 
 read the secrets of nature," the microcosm. Man is com- 
 posed of an earthly body, which is tangible, a heavenly or 
 astral body, which is aether-like in nature, and a " spirit," and 
 a soul, which is purely of divine origin and destiny. The 
 first of the three parts of man is nourished from the mate- 
 rial elements (fire, air, earth, water), the second from the 
 influences of the stars, the third from Christ through faith. 
 The material elements are formed from salt, sulphur, and 
 quicksilver, which in turn come from a primal matter 
 1 Zeller, Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic.
 
 38 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 (termed by Paracelsus mysterium magnum}, which is not 
 so much corporeal as incorporeal in nature. The essence 
 of material things is force rather than matter. There is a 
 universal life, each thing's peculiar share of which is its 
 quintessence (/. <?., the fifth essence, fire, air, water, and 
 earth being the other four), its virtue, or nature. Medicine 
 is the art by which that virtue, in man, is, when obstructed 
 in its operation, made effective. The virtue or quintessence 
 of man is to be understood, of course, only through a knowl- 
 edge of his various parts individually in their relations, 
 the earthly, the astral, and the divine parts of man : hence 
 the " four pillars " of medicine, philosophy (having to do 
 with the earthly portion), astronomy (having to do with the 
 astral portion), and theology (which is concerned with 
 the soul), together with alchemy, or the applied theory of 
 nature. Possessing a right knowledge of these, the phy- 
 sician can easily determine, in case of disease, whether the 
 disease be earthly, sidereal, or divine, and accordingly stimu- 
 late to appropriate activity the inner human virtue. It is 
 the business of medical chemistry (alchemy) to produce 
 the quintessences or virtues of things at will. As a form of 
 knowledge, medicine combines speculation and experience, 
 either of which is false without the other. Paracelsus, it 
 may be said in passing, seems to have a title to be regarded 
 as a great reformer in the science of medicine. If so, he 
 affords a striking illustration of a fact too often overlooked, 
 that advances in science frequently have their initiative 
 in philosophical theory. 
 
 27. 
 
 Hieronymus Cardanus, or Girolamo Cardano 1 (1501- 
 1576), eminent as a physician and mathematician as well 
 as a philosopher, studied philosophy and medicine at the 
 universities of Pavia and Padua. He was at one time 
 professor of medicine in Bologna. In his youth he was 
 
 1 Noack, Erdmann.
 
 CARDANUS. 39 
 
 a victim of strange visions and hallucinations, and his mind 
 even in later life was filled with distempered imaginations. 
 His character and life were eccentric : he was full of the 
 restlessness of his age, and was a sensualist in his habits 
 even in his old age. He is to be credited, however, with 
 the possession of a genuinely scientific spirit. He was one 
 of the early discoverers in the science of algebra. 
 
 Works. The principal works of Cardanus are entitled : 
 "De Subtilitate" (1552), " De Varietate Rerum" (1556), 
 " Arcana ^Eternitatis " (posthumous), the most important 
 of all. 
 
 Philosophy. In the system of Cardanus we have the 
 conception of a coherent universe having its principle of 
 unity and being in a world-soul, the phenomenal or material 
 form of which is heat. All changes occur according to natural 
 law and through natural causes, since to conceive them as 
 occurring merely because God wills them is to assume God 
 to be without reason and to be capable of occupying him- 
 self with trivial things. That all things are subject to law is 
 sufficiently shown outwardly by the fact that the motions of 
 the stars are governed by number. The will of man, who is 
 a triple nature composed of body, soul, and an immortal 
 mind, is, however, free from the law-governed influences of 
 the heavenly bodies. Man is not merely an individual of a 
 species, like the animal, but a whole in himself: he is, 
 nevertheless, so far as he is an individual, not entirely self- 
 sufficient, hence society. Human laws have binding force 
 only if accordant with philosophy or religion; tyrannical 
 laws may rightfully be broken, and tyrants murdered. An- 
 cient theories of the state were constructed too little with 
 reference to the actual, varying conditions of social life. 
 Philosophy has to do solely with theory : perfect religious 
 freedom should be accorded to thinkers. By divine grace 
 the mind rises in mystical ecstasy to the intuition of the 
 divine, and becomes one with God. Cardanus had a close 
 follower in Telesius.
 
 40 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 28. 
 
 Bernardinus Te/esius, or Telesio (1508-1588). Tele- 
 sius, first instructed by an uncle, afterwards studied philos- 
 ophy and mathematics at Padua, and the natural sciences 
 at Rome. He conceived a scientific antipathy to Aristotle, 
 and formed a plan of reforming philosophy. Under the 
 auspices of the prince of Naples he founded an academy 
 for the cultivation of natural philosophy and the antagonizing 
 of the revived Aristotelianism. 
 
 Works. An early work, the first indeed of Telesius, is 
 entitled "De Rerum Natura juxta Propria Principium" 
 (1565-1586). Various treatises, on comets, atmospheric 
 phenomena, the rainbow, etc., appear together in a work 
 entitled "Varii de Naturalibus Rebus Libelli " (1590). 
 
 Philosophy. Telesius like Cardanus professes to 
 philosophize in accordance with the conception of universal 
 natural law and natural causes in the universe. Two com- 
 manding phenomena are ( i ) the heavens sending forth heat 
 and the earth emitting cold, (2) the sun's heat producing 
 life upon the earth. Heat and cold, then, are two " prin- 
 ciples." Body without properties is a third. This third 
 property is passive, the others are active, " soul-like." 
 Heat is the cause, but not a consequence, of motion. Light 
 is a manifestation of heat. Heat causes the earth to per- 
 spire, so to say, and thus produces water. Air is condensed 
 or cooled fire. Body, or composite existence, presupposes 
 a soul by which its parts are made to cohere. The human 
 soul is a very subtle substance, the principle of which is heat. 
 The seat of the soul in man and animals is the blood, the 
 nerves, and, especially, the brain. The soul has its origin at 
 the birth of the body. All knowledge even geometry 
 is grounded in sense-perception, or experience. Animals 
 think. Volition in man is a consequence of thought : we 
 will only what we determine to be good. The highest good 
 is self-preservation ; and the virtues are merely the opera- 
 tions of the impulse to self-preservation. To the immaterial
 
 PATRITIUS. 41 
 
 soul of man it belongs to know God and to be like him. 
 Telesius is perhaps the most distinctly scientific and the 
 most original of these early modern natural philosophers. 
 He was a favorite with Francis Bacon, of whom, indeed, he 
 was a forerunner. 
 
 29. 
 
 Franciscus Patritius, or Francesco Patrizzi (1529- 
 1597), received a good early training in classical literature 
 and philosophy, and, after some time spent in travelling, 
 completed his studies at Venice and Padua. He became a 
 teacher of philosophy at Ferrara. He was a violent op- 
 ponent of the Aristotelianism of his day, and an equally 
 energetic advocate of Platonic, or, rather, Neo-Platonic 
 doctrines. 
 
 Works, Works of Patritius are " Nova de Universis 
 Philosophia Libris quinquaginta Comprehensa " (1591- 
 1593), "Zoroastris Oracula," etc., " Hermetis Trismegisti 
 Libelli et Fragmenta," etc. 
 
 Philosophy. The doctrine of Patritius is Neo-Platonism, 
 with a modern naturalistic cast. The universe is an emana- 
 tion from a primal immaterial light, the special manifestations 
 of which in the heavens and on the earth are heavenly and 
 earthly light. The highest principle is an indivisible One. 
 From it emanates a discrete unity. The two are united by 
 love. There exists a world-soul, possessing reason in a 
 limited degree. Space is the condition of material existence, 
 and the first element of all things. Other elements are the 
 heat and light filling and belonging to space. A fourth 
 element is fluidity. The earth moves. It is subject to the 
 influences of the stars, from which come germs having, 
 however, their primary source in the light above the stars 
 to the earth. Patritius praised Telesius. 
 
 30- 
 
 Thomas, or Tommaso, Campanella* (1568-1639). 
 Campanella (born in southern Calabria) early read the 
 1 Noack and Erclmann.
 
 42 A HISTOXY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 works of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, studied 
 theology with the Dominicans, acquired a knowledge of 
 the systems of Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and 
 Telesius. Going, afterwards, to Naples, he joined the 
 Telesian Academy, and became an avowed follower of 
 Telesius. Owing to the radical character of his opinions, 
 frankly uttered, he came into disharmony with his fellows, 
 and, in consequence, lived for some years a roving life. 
 For some reason he became an object of political suspicion, 
 and was, on the pretext of his being a conspirator against 
 the Spanish government in Naples, thrown into prison. In 
 various prisons more than fifty, it is reported he spent 
 twenty-seven years of his life. 
 
 Works. Works of Campanella are : " Prodromus Philo- 
 sophiae," etc. (1611), " De Sensu Rerum," etc. (1620), 
 " Realis Philosophise Epilogisticae Partes IV.," etc. (1623), 
 " Atheismus Triumphatus " (1631), " Philosophiae rationalis 
 Partes V.," etc. (1638), " Universalis Philosophiae seu Meta- 
 physicarum Rerum Partes III.," etc. (1638). Of these, the 
 last named is regarded as the most important. Campanella 
 is popularly known by a politico-philosophical romance 
 called "City of the Sun" (Civitas Solis), which forms a 
 part of the " Realis Philosophiae," etc. 
 
 Philosophy. Campanella treats philosophy as a " maid- 
 servant " of theology. He divides philosophy proper into 
 two " real sciences," philosophia naturalis and philosophia 
 moralis. Merely formal and instrumental are the sciences 
 of logic and mathematics. Intermediate between the real 
 and the formal sciences is metaphysics, treating of being 
 and essence. The starting-point of philosophy is the cer- 
 tainty of the existence of self, which is self-evident and 
 beyond the reach of all scepticism. The self is limited. In 
 common with all other limited beings, the self presupposes 
 an infinite being. The essence of the self is seen on re- 
 flection to consist in power, knowledge, and will ; and since 
 the cause must contain at least as much as its effect, power, 
 knowledge, and will belong to being as such, and not
 
 CAMPANELLA. 43 
 
 merely partially as to us, but eminenter. The attributes of 
 not-being are mere negations. Besides its positive attributes 
 everything has negative attributes which are the negations 
 of all the attributes which it has not in a positive manner : 
 /. e., being and not-being are united in all beings. God 
 created the finite world from love. In it he is only partially 
 contained. Nearest God is a world of archetypes : then 
 follow in order, the spiritual world or world of eternal ideas, 
 the world of mathematical entities, the abstract temporal, 
 or corporeal, world, and the world of definite time and space. 
 The lower worlds are varied images of the highest of all. 
 All existence is an act of knowledge and will, and nothing 
 is without soul : even of space is this true, for it abhors a 
 vacuum and strives to fill it : it is true also of passive matter, 
 which by its fixedness (inertia) and its accelerating its speed 
 in falling, gives evidence of its not being merely dead. 
 Hate and love mingle in all things. The physical principles 
 of existence are heat and light (in the circumference of the 
 universe) and cold and dark (at the centre). Animal in- 
 stinct is knowledge blended with its opposite. The instinct 
 of self-preservation in animals is love of their own being. 
 Every creature loves only its own being. Self-love ceases 
 to be merely selfish when it becomes love of God. The 
 highest end of action is self-preservation : virtue is but the 
 method of attainment of this end. The highest political 
 problem is the welfare of the State : the act of legislation 
 and governing demand the highest wisdom. This " highest 
 wisdom " includes, among other similar acts, those of 
 currying favor with lower classes of society, and so dispersing 
 the higher that their influence may not, by becoming 
 centralized, be an obstacle to the realization of the idea of 
 a high and arbitrary universal ecclesiastical monarchy. 1 
 
 Result. There occurs in the doctrine of Campanella 
 one very remarkable anticipation of a distinctive feature of 
 modern philosophy in, so to say, its majority, viz., the 
 resting of all certainty and knowledge upon the certainty 
 
 1 See Erdmann, 246.
 
 44 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and knowledge of self, as is done by Descartes, with his 
 famous Cogito, ergo sum, and by many coming after him. 
 We may regard Campanella as a forerunner of Descartes, 
 as Telesius is of Bacon. 
 
 31- 
 
 Pompeio Ucilio Vanini (1585-1619). Vanini studied 
 theology and philosophy in Rome, jurisprudence at Padua, 
 and the natural sciences in various European universities. 
 A wanderer, like Bruno, Paracelsus, and other philosophers 
 we have noticed, he travelled, teaching as he went, through 
 Switzerland, France, Belgium, and England, persecuted 
 much for his heterodox convictions. He is said to have 
 been a pupil and worshipper of Pomponatius : he styled 
 Aristotle the "God of philosophers and pontiff of wis- 
 dom." He was put to death in a most horrible manner 
 by the Inquisition. A work of his (the second mentioned 
 below) was condemned to the flames. 
 
 Works. Two of his works are entitled, respectively, 
 " Amphitheatrum ^Eternse Providentiae " (1615) and "De 
 Admirandis Naturae Reginae Deseque Mortalium Arcanis 
 Libri IV." (1616), often cited as " Dialogues on Nature." 
 The real views of Vanini are contained in the latter of these 
 two works. 
 
 Philosophy. 1 Nature is the energy of God and God 
 himself. It is an eternal begetting, and has its own inhe- 
 rent laws of bringing- forth and preservation. Matter is 
 indestructible, unchangeable in quantity : it exists not with- 
 out form, but always is changing form. The matter of all 
 things of heaven and earth is the same. The heavens 
 are not moved by intelligences, but by the omnipresent en- 
 ergy of God. The sea ebbs and flows of its own essence ; 
 the air by its motion heats itself, and so becomes flame ; 
 plants hate and love one another. The soul rules in all 
 parts of the body as a material spirit, or nerve- mind : it is 
 the form of the living element in matter, and the creative 
 
 i Noack.
 
 BRUNO. 45 
 
 form in germs. As the centre of all life man combines in 
 himself the earthly and the heavenly : in the human com- 
 pound as in a microcosm the whole of nature is contained, 
 wherefore man has the powers of plants, animals, and min- 
 erals. Our vital spirits depend upon the food we eat ; our 
 vices on the bodily humors and germs. In Vanini (as in 
 Bruno) nature-philosophy, and indeed philosophy in gen- 
 eral, dissociates itself from theology, or at least " Christian 
 theology," and exists in and for itself. As compared with 
 the philosophy of Bruno, the principle of which is, as we 
 are about to see, the unity of opposites, the philosophy of 
 Vanini is rather abstract and undeveloped, a product of the 
 negative understanding rather than of synthetic imagin- 
 ation. On this account we have reserved the notice of 
 Bruno till the last. 
 
 32- 
 
 Giordano Bruno l (1548-1 600) . Bruno born at 
 Nola, a city near Naples, early received a training in 
 logic, dialectic, and the ancient classics, and later was an 
 enthusiastic student of the ancient philosophers especially 
 Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans and of the sci- 
 entific investigators and speculators of his own age, Nicolaus 
 Cusanus, Telesius, Cardanus, Copernicus. Decidedly, how- 
 ever, of an original and creative turn, he could be no mere 
 borrower nor a mere eclectic. Independence of thought 
 caused him to desert the cloister near Naples which he had 
 entered, and to become a wanderer on the face of the earth. 
 He went to Rome, Genoa, Padua, Geneva, Lyons, Toulouse, 
 Paris, teaching and propagating on the way the ideas with 
 which his enthusiastic brain seethed. He became instructor 
 in philosophy and lectured with eclat at the universities of 
 Toulouse and of Paris (1579-1583). He spent two years 
 in England, living in intimate association with Sir Philip 
 Sidney and other choice spirits there, debating the Coper- 
 
 1 See Giordano Bruno's Weltanschauung und Verhangniss, aus 
 den Quellen dargestellt von Dr. Hermann Brunhofer, Leipzig, 
 1882 ; Franck ; Noack ; etc.
 
 46 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 nican doctrine with Oxford professors, and producing some 
 of his most important works. He also spent two years 
 (1586-1588) in Germany, lecturing privately, composing 
 treatises, debating with scholars burning topics of the age, 
 such as the Scholastico-Aristotelianism (which he vehe- 
 mently opposed), the Copernican astronomy, and religious 
 and intellectual intolerance. He sought particularly the 
 universities as centres of intellectual life, and, though an in- 
 tellectual radical, received a professorship at the University 
 of Helmstadt. His radicalism caused his exclusion, how- 
 ever, and he again became, after a time, a wanderer. In 
 1591 he was invited by a certain Venetian nobleman to go 
 to Venice to instruct him in the Lullian art of invention and 
 discovery, which had been a favorite subject of cogitation 
 with Bruno since almost his earliest instruction in logic. 
 The nobleman becoming suspicious after a time that Bruno 
 was not revealing to him the true Lullian doctrine, betrayed 
 him to the representatives of the Inquisition, who impris- 
 oned him in May, 1592. Bruno had been misunderstood 
 and misrepresented. He was at last, after seven years or 
 more of imprisonment in Rome, burned at the stake. 
 " The judgment which ye have pronounced upon me," he 
 said at the stake to his judges, " inspires fear in you 
 rather than in me." 
 
 Works. Bruno was by natural aptitude, and also by 
 conscious intent, a poet-philosopher. Always a fervid 
 spirit, he early wrote poetry and early believed philosophy 
 to be a "foster- parent of the Muses," and himself to be 
 truly inspired by the Platonic love of philosophic beauty 
 and truth. His philosophy is to be found therefore not 
 merely in didactic expositions, but in poems also. Among 
 the most important of his works: "Delia Causa" (1584), 
 "Principled Uno " (1584), metaphysical in content; 
 "Del 1 Infinite " (1584), "Universo, e Mondi" (1584),- 
 physical ; " Spaccio della Bestia Trionfonte " (Expulsion of 
 the Triumphing Beast [w.] in human nature), moral; 
 " Degli Eroici Furor," a poem, moral ; " De Triplici
 
 BRUNO. 47 
 
 Minimo et Mensura " (1591), " De Monade Numero et 
 Figura" (1591), " De Immenso et Innumerabilibus, hoc 
 est, de Absolute Magno Innumerabili et de Mundis " 
 (1591), " De Umbris Idearum et Arte Memoriae" (1582), 
 (one of numerous treatises on method). 
 
 Philosophy : Method}- Paradoxical as it may appear, it 
 was a matter of prime necessity to this poet-philosopher to 
 lay down a method of philosophizing. That creative in- 
 stinct of power, determination, unity, which was the foun- 
 tain-head of poetry in him, was also of necessity the source 
 of an effort to get possession of an absolute, self-determin- 
 ing method, a method uniting thought and reality. In one 
 aspect this effort was, it may be, merely psychological ; so 
 powerful was Bruno's intuition of unity and determination 
 that the external world presented by contrast a spectacle of 
 confusion. In another aspect this effort is a direct conse- / 
 quence of the immediate perception of the unity of thought 
 and being, and possesses thus absolute reality, and we may 
 properly begin with the exposition of it. The foundation 
 of real knowledge is, according to Bruno, evidence: that 
 which is not supported by evidence is unworthy a philos- 
 opher's acceptance ; that which is, cannot be rejected by 
 him. Evidence presupposes criticism and doubt. In 
 itself, knowledge is an order in ideas according to which 
 there is a rank of higher and lower, the latter flowing from 
 the former by a necessity corresponding to a necessity in 
 being, with which thought is one. There is in knowledge 
 as in the universe a determining nature and a determined. 
 Man's ideas are the shadows or copies of the archetypal 
 Ideas or patterns " existing metaphysically in the ultimate 
 unity or intelligence, physically in the world of things, and 
 logically in signs, symbols or notions." It is the office of 
 true method to connect our ideas in the relations of neces- 
 sary determination corresponding to those in the archetypal 
 ideas. The philosophy of the monad, or primary being, 
 must, that is to say, precede natural science. Method must 
 1 See Brunhofer.
 
 48 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 be deductive, mathematical. And yet, on the other hand, 
 since thought and being are one, there is everywhere 
 a harmony of opposites, thought is nothing if it can- 
 not be " put into the mould of phantasy or sensuous 
 imagination, imagination is nothing if not a vehicle of 
 thought," and all theoretical investigation of nature must 
 have as its corrective and complement, experience. In 
 the study of nature we have to regard, as far as possible, 
 the higher forms of existence as consequences of the lower, 
 and gaps in our knowledge of the higher must be filled 
 from our knowledge of the lower. True method is an art 
 of discovery as well as of memory. Such an art supersedes 
 the Scholastico-Aristotelian logic. 
 
 The primal Unity : God. ^All things haye^their^ source 
 and their truth and^xplanation in a single simple substance. 
 Without opposition or difference in itself, it is the ground 
 of all differentiated being. In it are contained simulta- 
 neously and in one act the, to finite intelligence, infinite 
 variety and succession of beings. Matter ajid form, power 
 and end, in it fall together into perfect unity : matter is, 
 from the beginning, form, power, and end. j^orrn, power, 
 and end are in themselves matter ; and all are but mani- 
 
 festations of the one single substance, nature of nature, 
 God. The manifestations of this substance are not persona- 
 lities nor even attributes of it, since it is not in the least 
 affected with plurality, but are merely aspects which this 
 substance presents to finite intelligence. In itself it is 
 absolutely simple; and it is consequently incognoscible, 
 all its manifestations are but shadows and reflections, 
 negative manifestations. It is directlypercejxedbj 
 eye of pure reason alone, to which all contrarifity^appeaj 
 as resolved into pure identity. 
 
 Nature. Nature is not God, but his manifestation. In 
 nature there are two highest principles, mjtter and Jprm. 
 In the last analysis these two are one ; form proceeds from, 
 and returns into, matter, which, consequently, cannot be 
 conceived as mere barren possibility, as Aristotle attempted
 
 BRUNO. 49 
 
 to conceive it. Form, indeed, is merely a (self-) determi- 
 nation of it. Matter is thus force, soul, spirit. Nature, 
 therefore, must be conceived as working in the manner of 
 an artist, and though distinct from God, is not, in reality, 
 separate from him. Nature as God's image contains in 
 itself at every moment all that it is and can be. The whole 
 of nature is present in every part, as the life of the body is 
 in the juices and the blood of the whole body. But it is 
 present in a different manner in different parts : hence 
 multiplicity and change, which obviously cannot belong to 
 being as such, but only to the mode of being. Nature, as 
 in itself one and as subject of multiform and changing 
 modes, is a harmony of opposites ; its working is at one and 
 the same time both union and opposition ; the resolution or 
 dissolution of one individuality is also the formation of a 
 new individuality. The elementary constituents of nature 
 are point-like material spheres (termed monads), having, in 
 different degrees, a psychical nature. Of these there are 
 as many classes as there are classes of things perceivable by 
 the senses. The monads, as the elements of all that is, are, 
 on the one hand, the "minima" (smallest), and, on the 
 other (since all else has its source in them), the " maxima " 
 (greatest) of things. God is the monad of monads. Space 
 is merely a necessary thought- form, correlative to body, and 
 is an infinite continuum. Time is not (as Aristotle held) the 
 measure of motion, but motion, rather, of time, which would 
 exist even were there no motion (motion is necessary, how- 
 ever, to the perception of time). Objective time would be 
 that measured off by the motions of the heavenly bodies if 
 uch motions were perfectly regular in every regard. 
 
 The Concrete Universe. The visible universe is not 
 bounded by the region of the fixed stars ^as Aristotle and 
 / even Copernicus held), but is infinite [as Nicolas of Cusa 
 had said] . There is an infinity of worlds infinitely various 
 in degree of perfection, so reflecting the infinite perfection 
 of the Creator. They are living organisms, and contain an 
 infinite variety of organic life, in the maintenance of which 
 VOL. i. 4
 
 50 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the creative world-soul finds its infinite satisfaction. Reason 
 never tires of drawing forth from matter all sorts of forms. 
 The immanent end of the existence of every living thing is 
 the perfection of the whole. The world is the most beautiful 
 possible, the perfect harmony of all oppositions. It is the 
 work of an in-dwelling reason, gives evidence, by the won- 
 derful structure and manifoldness of its parts, the tendency 
 of objects to " preserve their being," flee their opposites, 
 and struggle towards that which is useful to them, of the 
 presence in it of a universal intelligence. There are three 
 degrees of this intelligence. On the plane of the lowest 
 degree neither the nature nor any property of objects is 
 clearly distinguished, there is at most but an indefinite 
 feeling of bodily properties. Such intelligence belongs to 
 plants. A higher stage is that which distinctly perceives the 
 constitution and character of objects : this is animal intelli- 
 gence. The third and highest stage is that of rational 
 knowledge. There are degrees of life in ascending scale, 
 and corresponding changes from one to another resulting in 
 a gradual development of higher forms of life out of lower. 
 Change is universal and constant, but gradual and occurring 
 in infinitely long periods. In a period of twenty thousand 
 years one genus may develop into another. Real infinitude 
 is predicable of the genus only : the genus alone has infinite 
 capacity for development. Man's place in the scale of 
 living things is midway between the divine and the earthly, 
 he is the harmony of these two opposites, the bond between 
 them ; his nature contains implicitly all others. The soul 
 lives in the whole body, returning towards the heart (from 
 which it extended itself, as a web) at death. The present 
 life of the soul is but death, death the awakening of a new 
 life. Sense, imagination, understanding, and spiritual in- 
 telligence are the forms of human knowledge. In spiritual 
 intelligence everything is embraced in a single perception 
 " life, light, sense, and thought, are one essence, one power, 
 one act, the All-One." This is the only real intelligence. 
 Viewing the world with the eye of this intelligence, man sees
 
 ETHICAL PHILOSOPHERS. 51 
 
 it as the image and law of God, nay, God himself. In such 
 intelligence and the longing and hope corresponding to it, 
 man passes into God and " becomes all as he is all." In so 
 doing he becomes the Good, which is precisely the One, 
 King, the Divine. Evil is relatively non-existent, is mere 
 defect and opposition, finitude, not-being in being. To be- 
 come evil is merely to fall away from God. Only as good 
 does the soul find true joy in itself and its environment. 
 Goodness is, first of all, truth, since truth is just that One 
 which is in and above all things. In truth and goodness, 
 thought and action are united and become love, which is 
 their consummation. He who is filled with love is filled 
 with God, who is precisely Love, which pours itself forth on 
 all things, and towards which all things struggle. 
 
 Result. In the doctrine of Bruno, the nature-philosophy 
 of the First Period reaches its highest form ; in it there 
 is manifested a fuller conception of the presuppositions, 
 method, and results of a philosophy of nature, whether 
 speculative or empirical, than in any of these systems we 
 have contemplated before it. By his conception of nature 
 as the sum and unity of all possible determinations, Bruno 
 holds the position of forerunner of Spinoza ; by his concep- 
 tion of the monad that of forerunner of Leibnitz. The 
 philosophy of Bruno stands almost entirely alone among the 
 systems of this First Period as being wholly " non-Christian " 
 in principle and result : it is simply Platonism, or Neo- 
 Platonism, purified of mediaeval accretions, and blended 
 with the widest truths of nature as known to the science of 
 the age of Bruno, or as divined by a mind gifted with high 
 poetico-philosophical insight. The kernel of it is, doubtless, 
 the conception of the unity of opposites, a conception 
 which has played (and is playing) a vast role in modern spec- 
 ulative thought, as we shall have abundant occasion to see. 
 
 33- 
 
 (2) Ethical Philosophers (chiefly Political}. The 
 names which occur here are those of Nicol6 Macchiavelli,
 
 52 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Thomas More, Johannes Oldendorp, Nicolaus Hemming, 
 Jean Bodin, Albericus Gentilis, Benedict Winckler, Hugo 
 Grotius, Richard Hooker. 
 
 34- 
 
 Nicolb Macchiavelli (1469-1527), the Italian statesman, 
 in his two works, " II Principe " (The Prince), (1513, pub. 
 1532), and " Discorsi sul Primo Libro delle Deche di Tito 
 Livio " (Discourses on the First Book of the Decades 
 of Titus Livius), (1520?), gives not so much a theory of 
 the State as such, as a theory of a State under conditions 
 like those existing in Italy in his own day. He separates 
 political methods entirely from moral and religious, and 
 upholds the maxim that the " end justifies the means." 
 
 35- 
 
 Thomas More (1478-1535). More, the well-known 
 Lord Chancellor of King Henry VIII. of England, in a 
 philosophical romance, "Utopia" (Latin, 1516; English 
 translation by Ralph Robinson, 1551), portrays an "ideal 
 commonwealth," agricultural in basis, in which com- 
 munity of property is the universal rule, the form of 
 government is republican, transgression of the laws (which 
 are but few) is punished by degradation to a condition of 
 slavery, the sciences are assiduously cultivated, education 
 is compulsory, religious toleration prevails except towards 
 those denying the doctrine of the immortality of the soul 
 and of a divine providence, and the priesthood (numeri- 
 cally small) enjoys special respect and is irresponsible. 
 
 36- 
 
 Johannes Oldendorp (d. 1561). Oldendorp, professor 
 at Marburg, whose "Juris Naturalis Gentium et Civilis 
 fio-aywyri" (1539) has been called the "first attempt to 
 establish a system of natural law," 1 based natural right on 
 universal reason, but held that Revelation (/. e., the Deca- 
 
 1 See Erdmann, 252, 4.
 
 HEMMING. BOD IN. 5 3 
 
 logue) was the only "reliable authority for the same." 
 Civil right, or law, is a species of natural right, but is based 
 on probabilities, and depends upon the constitution of 
 the State. 
 
 37- 
 
 Nicolaus Hemming (1518-1600). Hemming, at one 
 time professor at Copenhagen, having previously been five 
 years a personal pupil of Melancthon, aims to derive natural 
 law purely from the reason implanted in man by God. In his 
 "Lege Naturae apodictica Methodus Concinnata " (1577), 
 he maintains assuming that the end of the practical life 
 is threefold ; viz., economical, political, and spiritual that 
 the political end is ultimately identical with the spiritual, 
 which is the knowledge, fear, and love of God. Immedi- 
 ately, the political end is repose and peace ; it is mediated 
 by the four (Platonic) virtues, prudence, moderation, 
 courage, and justice. Governments differ according to 
 circumstances, but only those sorts of law are justifiable 
 which can be proved to flow from the axioms of nature. 1 
 
 38- 
 
 Jean Bodin* (1530-1597). Bodin, who took a degree 
 in law at Toulouse, and afterwards lectured there on juris- 
 prudence, and who was one of the earliest of modern politi- 
 cal economists as well as modern writers on jurisprudence, 
 undertakes, in a work entitled " Six Libres de Re'publique " 
 (1597), to erect a theory of society on a historico-empirical 
 basis as regards method. The State, according to Bodin, 
 is a community of families regulated by authority and rea- 
 son ; it arises by " force and violence from a patriarchal 
 state of society." Citizenship in a true State is the " ac- 
 knowledgment of the sovereign by his free subject, and the 
 protection of the sovereign towards the subject." The 
 State reposes on a real or imaginary contract. The sov- 
 
 1 See Noack. 
 
 2 See Hallam, Lit. of Europe, Part II., pp. 150-164.
 
 54 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ereign power of the State is the legislature : it is a power 
 that is perpetual, absolute, and subject to no law. The 
 forms of government are three, and three only : democ- 
 racy (in which the sovereignty rests with the majority of 
 the citizens) , monarchy (which is the " rule of one man 
 according to the law of nature, who maintains the liberties 
 and properties of others as much as his own"), aristocracy 
 (a government in which a " smaller body of the citizens 
 governs the greater"). Resistance to the commands of the 
 sovereign is a thing to be avoided except in cases where 
 those commands indubitably conflict with the " law of 
 God." Slavery is undesirable. Revolution best takes place 
 by a voluntary cession of power. The supreme law of the 
 State is public safety. Climate, the surface of the land, 
 soil, and physical conditions generally (a subject that has 
 hitherto been neglected) must be considered : the laws 
 of " Nature will not bend to the fancy of man." Religious 
 tolerance should be the rule, since men give assent " volun- 
 tarily, not by force." The best form of government is an 
 agnate monarchy. Bodin may, profitably, be compared 
 with Aristotle, on the one hand, and Montesquieu, on the 
 other. 
 
 39- 
 
 Albericus Gentilis, or Alberico Gentili (1552-1608), an 
 Italian who was driven from his native country by religious 
 persecution, and who, settling in England, became Regius 
 Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, rejects both the historico- 
 empirical and the theological views of the basis of natural 
 law, which he finds solely in the science of human nature. 
 Man is by nature a social being. Right exists only in 
 society, and only between individuals, so that the ordinary 
 distinction of right into jus natures and jus gentium is un- 
 tenable. War is justifiable only for the sake of peace. 
 Atheists have no rights. To all persons, except atheists, 
 toleration should be shown. Gentilis' chief work is entitled 
 "De Jure Belli LibriTres" (1598). To this work of Gen-
 
 WINCKLER. GRO TIUS. 5 5 
 
 tilis the corresponding famous work of Grotius is said to 
 be largely indebted. 
 
 40. 
 
 Benedict Winckler 1 (d. 1648), professor of jurisprudence 
 at Leipsic, whose " Principiorum Libri Quinque" (1615) 
 has been called the " most important treatise on natural 
 right prior to Grotius," derives all right ultimately from a 
 divine source, which is most purely revealed in the Scrip- 
 tures, particularly the Decalogue. He distinguishes a 
 jus natures prius by which man was governed prior to the 
 " fall," and a jus naturae posterius, sive jus gentium, the 
 natural law of man since the " fall." The jus natures prius 
 is indispensable and binding. Civil law is merely a means 
 of upholding obedience to jus naturale and jus gentium. 
 It changes with circumstances. Society is, ultimately, 
 founded on the social nature of man. 
 
 41- 
 
 Hugo Grotius, or Huig van Groot (1583-1645). 
 Grotius, the commonly reputed founder of the science of 
 international law, was a prodigy in learning even when 
 a youth ; very early took a degree in law at the University 
 of Leyden ; at the age of twenty received the appointment 
 (unsolicited by him) of historiographer of the United 
 Provinces of Holland ; was afterwards advocate-general 
 of the fisc for the provinces of Holland and Zealand ; 
 fiscal-general at Rotterdam ; ambassador to London, etc. 
 Imprisoned for life (as was intended) because of a part 
 in theologico-political disturbances (Grotius was a " Re- 
 monstrant"), he managed, by the shrewdness of his wife, 
 who was allowed to share in his imprisonment, to escape 
 to Paris. At Paris he acted as ambassador for the Swedish 
 Crown. He accepted an invitation from the Crown of 
 Sweden to go to Stockholm to reside. He is almost uni- 
 
 1 Zeller, Erdmann.
 
 56 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 versally known as the author of a treatise " De Jure Belli 
 et Pads " (1625). 
 
 Philosophy. 1 Grotius, like others before him, professes 
 to aim at the establishment of a science of law. Law, 
 he says, is founded in human reason, or the social nature 
 of man, and would be binding even if God did not exist. 
 Upon natural law, thus founded, is based positive law, 
 which has its source in the pleasure, or will, as distin- 
 guished from the nature, of man or of nations. Law is 
 of four sorts : it is jus natura, jus civile^ jus gentium 
 naturale, jus gentium voluntarium. The condition of the 
 mere individual is a condition of mere nature. In the 
 state of nature every one has an equal right to everything, 
 in so far as everything belongs to all but to none in par- 
 ticular. Society originates as a means of obviating the 
 insecurities of such a condition, as well as means of sup- 
 plying social need as such. It is created by a voluntary 
 combination, and rests upon a compact. The rights of the 
 subject depend in general upon the nature of this com- 
 pact; but it cannot as a rule be right for the subject 
 to make war against the State. Humanly speaking, the 
 only object of punishment is the prevention of crime or the 
 improvement of the criminal : " Retribution belongs to the 
 Almighty alone." Just cause of war is found only in injury 
 to rights, and in the denial of the being and providence 
 of God : even a right of taking up arms to recover stolen 
 liberty is inadmissible. War is to be avoided by all pos- 
 sible means. 
 
 42. 
 
 Richard Hooker (1554-1600). Hooker falls last in 
 our list, because he seems to us to have given the best 
 philosophical deduction of the conception of law. Born 
 near Exeter, England, he was educated at the Exeter 
 grammar-school, and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 
 For some years he was Hebrew lecturer at Oxford ; and 
 
 1 Hallam, Literature of Europe, part iii. pp. 176-220.
 
 HOOKER. 57 
 
 was afterwards minister, in the Established Church, of 
 various parishes in England. While preacher at the Tem- 
 ple in London, he became, unwillingly, involved in a con- 
 troversy with a Calvinist divine of the Temple on the 
 subject of Church observances and laws, whence arose 
 his philosophical treatise. 
 
 Work. The treatise in question is " Of the Laws of 
 Ecclesiastical Polity," particularly the First Book (1594). 
 Hooker's ideas seem to have been, largely, borrowed from 
 Aristotle, the early Church Fathers, and Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 Philosophy}- "All things that are," says Hooker, "have 
 some operation not violent or casual. Neither doth any- 
 thing ever begin to exercise the same without some fore- 
 conceived end for which it worketh. And the end which 
 it worketh for is not obtained unless the work be also fit 
 to obtain it by." Now that which " determines the kind, 
 the degree, and the measure of the operation or activity 
 of each thing " is law. There is one and only one 
 being which is a law unto itself; all others act according 
 to a law of which, not themselves, but that being, God, is 
 author. The law of God's activity is reason or, rather, 
 rational will, and not mere blind reason nor mere arbitrary 
 will. It is immutable, eternal : but does not thereby abate 
 or hinder his freedom, since the imposition of this law 
 upon himself is his own free act. The law imposed by 
 God upon himself is the " first eternal law " of his working ; 
 that which he imposes upon his creatures is the " second 
 eternal law." Hooker distinguishes law in general into 
 law of nature, law of reason, law of spirit, and into human 
 and divine (revealed) law; and human law into law 
 of the individual and law of society. The law of spirit 
 of angels and intellectual beings as such generally is 
 that of love, adoration, and imitation of divine perfection. 
 In their associate capacity, spirits form an " army, one in 
 order and degree above another : " in relation to human 
 beings, they are fellow-servants. All of their functions are 
 1 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.
 
 58 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 performed "with joy." A fundamental law of all things 
 and especially of human nature is consciously or uncon- 
 sciously to " seek the highest, to covet the participation 
 of God himself." This seeking has various degrees, but 
 the end is always the same, viz., God or goodness. The 
 first degree of seeking is the desiring the continuance of 
 existence. A second degree is the striving to resemble 
 God in constancy and excellency of operation. This seek- 
 ing is in man conscious, and as such constitutes his 
 essence. Man attains to full consciousness in his seeking, 
 by degrees. Until he distinguishes " differences of time, 
 affirmation, negation, and contradiction in speech," he is on 
 a level with the lower animals. When he does so he has 
 some " use of natural reason." By reason he compre- 
 hends the laws of his true being, the laws by which his 
 actions are by him to be guided. Human action has for 
 its end either mere action for its own sake, or action for 
 the sake of procuring an ulterior object. Like that of God, 
 it is, ideally speaking, witting and free : desire only solicits, 
 will controls, it. Actions determined by appetite are volun- 
 tary in the sense that they are subject to the control of the 
 will, though the will may not be exercised, but yields assent, 
 as it were by silence. The good, or whatever is an object 
 of real desire (since desire is everywhere the Good (God) 
 seeking itself), does not move to action merely by being, 
 but by being apparent or the object of a consciousness. 
 Evil as such is never really desired or willed : men choose 
 evil, when they choose it, from habits overpowering reason 
 in them. The good and the evil are known by one and 
 the same criterion. We judge of the good and evil of 
 things by means of their causes and effects and signs. The 
 main principles of judgment are self-evident, " for to make 
 nothing self-evident of itself unto man's understanding 
 were to take away all possibility of knowing anything." 
 Examples of self-evident principles are : the greater good 
 is to be chosen before the less ; it profits a man nothing 
 to gain the whole world and lose his own soul; obey
 
 HOOKER. 59 
 
 the mind rather than the body (the highest law of action), 
 etc. The marks of the laws of reason are, likeness 
 to the laws of nature, accessibility to human understand- 
 ing (without revelation), universality of recognition. So- 
 ciety has its origin in the inability of the individual to 
 " furnish himself with the store of things needful for such 
 a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity 
 of man." It has a double bond, the natural inclination 
 of men to social communion, and an "agreement, ex- 
 pressed or tacit, as to the manner of union or living 
 together." The latter the agreement is the law of the 
 commonweal, which has for its object the public good. 
 The chief ends of living are wisdom, virtue, and religion. 
 Laws of the commonweal are natural laws, positive laws, 
 and laws of nations. Divine laws are such as are " super- 
 natural both in respect of the manner of deducing them, 
 and also in regard of the things delivered " (viz., the objects 
 of faith, hope, and charity). Hooker's discussion on the 
 subject of law closes with the following assertions, which 
 may be taken as a brief summing up of his general mean- 
 ing : " Of law there can be no less acknowledged, than 
 that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony 
 of the world : all things in heaven and earth do her hom- 
 age, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest 
 as not exempted from her power : both angels and men, 
 and creatures of what condition soever, though each in a 
 different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent 
 admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." 
 
 Result. There are in Hooker's conception of law two 
 features of primary importance, to which special attention 
 may be directed, 1 viz., the notion that law, instead of being 
 merely a mode of mechanical operation, is ultimately an 
 expression of rational will or living reason, and the notion 
 of the universality of law. By the first, the philosophy 
 of Hooker is absolutely distinguished from all mechanistic 
 
 1 See British Thought and Thinkers (by the late Prof. G. S. Mor- 
 ris), pp. 71-79.
 
 6O A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 philosophies, and especially mechanistic philosophies of 
 the State, like that of Hobbes, for example ; and even 
 more, were that possible, is it by the second taken in con- 
 nection with the first, universal living reason is wholly 
 another thing than blind necessity. The influence of 
 Hooker appears in later political philosophies, particularly 
 (strange as it may seem as regards the first and the last) 
 those of Hobbes, Cumberland, and Locke. He has re- 
 ceived too little attention from historians of philosophy, 
 has, in fact, generally been entirely ignored or overlooked.
 
 BACON. 6 1 
 
 DIVISION II. SECOND PERIOD OF MODERN 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 43- 
 
 The Characteristics of the Second Period of Modern 
 Philosophy. The Second Period of Modern Philosophy 
 extending from the beginning of the seventeenth century 
 to the third quarter of the eighteenth is characteristically 
 a period of analysisjtnd formal .reflection. A leading prob- 
 lem the leading problem of the second period is the 
 problem of the method of philosophical inquiry and reflec- 
 tion and of the sources of knowledge,. As regards method 
 and its view of the sources of knowledge, thought in this 
 period is, predominantly, either empiricistic, intuitionalistic, 
 or rationalistic. As analytic, the standpoint of this period 
 is that of (phenomenal) consciousness rather than of self- 
 consciousness. The most common results of thinking of 
 the period, accordingly (that is, in consequence of the fact 
 that on the standpoint of mere consciousness subject and 
 object are separated), are, in the theory of knowledge and 
 being as such, subjective idealism or else scepticism, on the 
 one hand, and, on the other, dogmatism, or the arbitrary 
 affirmation of a supersensible existence ; in the theory of 
 nature, mechanism ; in that of will, determinism. The truth 
 of the foregoing assertions can, of course, be established 
 only in connection with the presentation and characteriza- 
 tion of the systems of the period. The actual historical 
 connection of systems in this period is such that it is im- 
 practicable to attempt to group them under the separate 
 heads of " empiricistic," " intuitionalistic," and " rationalis- 
 tic " systems. The systems will be characterized as they 
 are individually dealt with. 
 
 44- 
 
 Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Francis Bacon was the 
 son of Nicholas Bacon, for many years lord-keeper of the 
 great seal under Elizabeth, and Anne Cooke, daughter of
 
 62 A ffJS TORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Sir Anthony Cooke and said to have been a woman of ex- 
 traordinary learning, culture, and piety. At the age of 
 twelve, the "young lord-keeper," as Elizabeth styled the 
 rather precocious youth, entered the University of Cam- 
 bridge. Here he acquired, if not a very profound knowl- 
 edge of Aristotle himself, a decided antipathy to the 
 Aristotelian philosophy as then taught, regarding it as dis- 
 putatious and barren. He left the university, at the age 
 of fifteen, to study law in Gray's Inn, London. Soon after- 
 wards he was sent with the English embassy to Paris to 
 acquire a knowledge of the human "world" in general, 
 and of diplomacy in particular. The death of his father, 
 in 1579, recalled him from Paris to England, and threw 
 him entirely on his own resources. He decided to practise 
 law ; but he had a larger than merely professional ambition, 
 namely, that of being grandly useful to " his country, the 
 Church, and humanity at large." He had, as he himself 
 avowed, " early taken all knowledge for his province," and 
 had conceived a design of beginning a revolution in human 
 knowledge and action by the discovery of a method that 
 would supplant the empty Scholastico-Aristotelian logic, on 
 the one hand, and a blind, slavish, and delusive empiricism 
 on the other. Passing through Gray's Inn, he took a place 
 at the bar (1582) ; sat several times in Parliament during 
 the reign of Elizabeth, at one time seriously offending the 
 Queen and damaging his prospects of advancement by hon- 
 est opposition to a certain plan cherished by her Majesty ; 
 acquired standing as queen's counsel, after having failed in 
 an attempt to secure an appointment as attorney-general, 
 then as solicitor-general, and, again, as master of the rolls ; 
 held, in the reign of James I., successively the positions of 
 king's counsel, solicitor-general, attorney-general, privy 
 councillor, lord-keeper, and lord-chancellor (1618) ; was 
 knighted, and invested with the titles of Baron Verulam 
 and Viscount St. Albans (1621). That he really served 
 his country is doubtful, since he was always an upholder of 
 royal prerogative as against the privileges of the Commons, 
 and was guilty of political corruption (.though not of receiv-
 
 BACON. 63 
 
 ing of bribes), and fell in disgrace from his high position 
 as chief minister of justice. He did really serve the Church 
 in the reign of Elizabeth by earnest endeavors in aiding to 
 promote ecclesiastical unity and tolerance. What service 
 he has rendered to humanity, by his philosophical achieve- 
 ments, may be judged of after a consideration of those 
 achievements. 
 
 Works. Most of Bacon's philosophical works came into 
 being, and accordingly arrange themselves, with direct ref- 
 erence to a design early conceived, and followed up through- 
 out life, which was nothing less than a design of inaugurating 
 a reformation of existing sciences, the reconstruction of all 
 knowledge. " The end of knowledge," says Bacon, is the 
 " glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate." The 
 reformation of science has for its goal the rendering of it 
 " active," or practical. To become truly " active " it must 
 cease to be merely empirical, on the one hand, and merely 
 abstract and formal on the other, it must have a method 
 by which it may be both universal and concrete. The ap- 
 plication of the method presupposes the existence of a col- 
 lection of facts or phenomena as data. The systematic and 
 complete application of the method to the interpretation of 
 facts results in the knowledge sought. The application may 
 be not only systematic and complete, it may also be merely 
 tentative and incomplete. By way of illustration of the 
 application of the method a series of graduated instances 
 must be exhibited, and, further, a department of knowledge 
 must be created to preserve truth accidentally discovered 
 apart from the systematic application of the method. Pre- 
 liminarily to the positive construction of science in the new 
 sense, is needed a survey of the existing state of knowledges. 
 The reformation of the sciences, the " Magna Instauratio," 
 must, according to the foregoing analysis, have certain 
 leading parts. These are represented by certain works of 
 Bacon, as follows : 1 Part I. " Partitiones Scientiarum," or 
 
 1 See the Prefaces and Introductions to the works of Bacon in the 
 edition of Spedding, Ellis, and Heath ; also Professor Adamson's 
 article on Bacon in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " (gth ed.).
 
 64 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 survey of the sciences, with which are concerned the " Va- 
 lerius Terminus" (1603), which falls partly into the next class 
 also, "Advancement of Learning "(1605), "Descriptio Globi 
 Intellectualis " (1609), " De Dignitate et Augmentis Scien- 
 tiarum " (1623), the last-named incorporating the substance 
 of the rest -, Part II. " Interpretatio Naturae," the method 
 of interpreting nature, with which deal " Partis Secundae 
 Instaurationis Delineatio et Argumentum" (1606, 1607), 
 "Cogitata et Visa" (1612), " De Interpretatione Senten- 
 tiae duodecim " ( ?), " Redargutio Philosophiarum " 
 (1609), " Novum Organum " (1620), the last embodying 
 the results of the others of this group ; Part III. " Historia 
 Naturalis et Experimentalis," the data or raw materials of 
 science, represented by " Historia Ventorum," " Historia 
 Vitae et Mortis," " Historia Densi et Rari," " Sylva Sylva- 
 rum," etc., the last-named being the most important ; 
 Part IV. "Scala Intellectus," graduated examples of in- 
 vestigation conducted by the new method, represented by 
 the work " Filum Labyrinthi " (1607?); Part V. Pro- 
 dromi," or anticipations of the new philosophy ; Part. VI. 
 "Active Philosophy," to be the work of future generations. 
 There may be mentioned as indirectly connected with the 
 " Instauratio Magna " : " The New Atlantis " (a fragment), 
 which is a picture of an imaginary state in which the prin- 
 ciples of the new philosophy are embodied ; " De Principiis 
 et Originibus Secundum Fabulas Cupidinis et Cceli " (circa 
 1623), perhaps the most important of the very few of 
 Bacon's works that concern themselves with really meta- 
 physical conceptions ; " Cogitationes de Natura Rerum," to 
 be classed with the " De Principiis," etc. The celebrated " Es- 
 says " and " Wisdom of the Ancients " may be mentioned 
 here; nor should the "Temporis Partus Masculus" (circa 
 1583), Bacon's first expression of the standpoint which 
 distinguishes him among philosophers, be overlooked. The 
 most important of Bacon's works are, of course, the " De 
 Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum " and the " Novum 
 Organum." The latter, it should be noted, is a fragment.
 
 BACON. 65 
 
 Philosophy. i . The Survey of the Sciences * {Bacon's 
 "Encyclopedia" of Existing Sciences). Introduction. 
 Human knowledge has two, quite distinct, sources, un- 
 derstanding and revelation : it is, accordingly, " philoso- 
 phy " or "theology," "human learning" or "divine 
 learning." " Human learning " may, upon the basis of 
 the division of the understanding into the three branches, 
 memory, imagination, and reason, be divided into history, 
 poesy, and philosophy (in the narrower sense). "Divine 
 learning " may be likewise divided. 
 
 History. History is natural and civil, the latter com- 
 prising ecclesiastical and literary history. Natural History 
 treats of nature as free, as constrained, or subject to rules of 
 art, and as " erring," or varying : it is a history of " crea- 
 tures," of arts, and of " marvels." Civil History is either 
 memorials, perfect histories, or antiquities. Ecclesiastical 
 History is the history of the Church, of providence, and of 
 prophecy. 
 
 "Poesy." "Poesy," which is distinguished from history 
 and from philosophy, in that it " bows things to the desires 
 of the mind," whereas those two do just the opposite, is 
 either epic, dramatic, or allegorical (the other kinds of 
 poetry being regarded by Bacon as belonging to Rhetoric). 
 
 " Philosophy." " Philosophy " is either " divine," " natu- 
 ral," or " human," the last-named being styled also " hu- 
 manity." But underlying these three branches of philosophy 
 is a "primitive or summary philosophy " a philosophia prima, 
 which, rather difficult of exact definition, may be described 
 as a " receptacle for all such profitable observations and 
 axioms as fall not within the compass of any special parts 
 of philosophy or science, but are more common and of a 
 higher stage." Bacon would here place, for example, the 
 "axioms": "If equals be added to unequals, the wholes 
 will be unequal," "All things change, but nothing per-, 
 ishes," etc. ; and the conceptions, " quantity," " similitude," 
 
 1 We follow the " Advancement of Learning," supplementing it at 
 points from the " De Augmentis." 
 
 S
 
 66 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " diversity," etc. This part of philosophy (Bacon thinks) 
 is deficient as yet, being "mixed" and "confused," a 
 " degradation of other sciences rather than anything solid 
 or substantive of itself." "Divine Philosophy" or " natural 
 theology" is the knowledge of God obtained by the con- 
 templation of his works. The ancient opinion that God's 
 works are an image of himself is erroneous; in contem- 
 plating them we do not cognize God as he is in himself. 
 God is really known only through revelation, or through 
 faith. The ancient opinion " mixes religion and philoso- 
 phy," to the great detriment of both, since this mixing has 
 as result " an heretical religion and fabulous philosophy." 
 Philosophy is interdicted from the direct consideration of 
 God's nature. It is not so interdicted, however, as regards 
 the nature of " angels " and " spirits." Natural Philosophy 
 has two parts, concerned, respectively, with the " acquisition 
 of causes," and the " production of effects : " it is either 
 speculative or operative, science or prudence. The two 
 parts have a natural relation to one another, since there is 
 an " intercourse between causes and effects." Speculative 
 Philosophy is either metaphysics or physics, according as it 
 treats of the "abstracted," "fixed," "rational," /. e., of formal 
 and final causes, or of the " material, transitory, changing and 
 merely existent and necessary," /. e., of material and efficient 
 causes. Metaphysics, as just defined, must not be confounded 
 with prima philosophia, the " parent or common ancestor of 
 all knowledge," nor vice versa. Any doubt as to the pos- 
 sibility of metaphysics, or the possibility of discovering the 
 ultimate forms, or causes, or natures, of things, may be 
 annulled by the consideration that, as we know the alphabet 
 without knowing all possible words, so may we reasonably 
 think to determine the simplest forms, or principles, of 
 sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, heat, cold, etc. 
 Metaphysics, as treating of formal and final causes, has 
 two parts, corresponding to these two classes of causes. 
 Physics, as treating of the " contexture and configuration 
 of things," of the " principles or originals of things," and
 
 BACON. 67 
 
 of the " variety and peculiarity of things," has three parts. 
 We must carefully distinguish between the metaphysical and 
 the physical consideration of forms. Physically regarded, 
 the whiteness of snow or of froth, for example, has as its 
 form or cause the " subtle intermixture of air and water ; " 
 but this account of whiteness is not an account of its essen- 
 tial nature or formal cause. Final causes with which the 
 second part of metaphysics is occupied have no place 
 whatever in physics. It is an error, however, to suppose 
 that there is any " enmity or repugnance " whatever between 
 final and physical causes. There is, for example, no incom- 
 patibility between the propositions, that " the eyelids are 
 for the safeguard of the sight," and that " pilosity is inci- 
 dent to orifices of moisture." Further, it is no " derogation 
 from divine providence " to affirm the compatibility of the 
 two sorts of causes : the " wisdom of God is the more 
 admirable when nature intendeth one thing and providence 
 draweth forth another than if he had communicated to par- 
 ticular creatures and motions the characters and impressions 
 of his providence." As regards the relation of metaphysics 
 to the other branches of philosophy, Bacon explains his 
 view by likening all knowledge to a pyramid, the base of 
 which may be taken to represent history (i.e., mere em- 
 pirical science), the apex metaphysics, the intermediate 
 portion physics. The superiority of metaphysics lies in the 
 possession of certain two characters : viz., a higher unity 
 and a greater " capability of enfranchising the power of 
 man unto the liberty and possibility of works and effects." 
 Physics carries men in " narrow and restrained ways, sub- 
 ject to many accidents of impediments imitating the ordi- 
 nary flexuous courses of nature ; but whoever knows any 
 form knows the utmost possibility of superinducing that 
 nature upon any variety of matter, and so is less restrained 
 in operation either to the basis of the matter or the condi- 
 tion of the efficient." Subsidiary to physics and meta- 
 physics, but belonging to the latter rather than to the 
 former, is the science of mathematics, the subject of which
 
 68 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 is definite quantity (indefinite quantity being a subject of 
 philosophia prima). Mathematics is pure or mixed: of 
 pure mathematics there are two branches, treating respect- 
 ively of " dissevered quantity " and " continued quantity." 
 The use, or value, of mathematics is quite as much sub- 
 jective (/. e., value as a means of intellectual discipline) as 
 objective. Operative Philosophy has two recognized main 
 parts, corresponding to the two principal divisions of Spec- 
 ulative Philosophy, Natural Magic (corresponding to 
 metaphysics), and Mechanics (corresponding to physics). 
 Natural Magic has nothing to do with the degenerate magi- 
 cal arts of alchemy, astrology, etc. It is the deduction 
 of operations from metaphysics, applied metaphysics. 
 Bacon here proposes, as a new part of natural philosophy, 
 the making of an inventory of all extant discoveries, and 
 the conducting experiments, and not only such as shall be 
 esteemed of immediate, but also such as are of most uni- 
 versal, consequence for the discovery of other experiments 
 and of causes. He proposes also, as a last part of natural 
 philosophy, the making of " calendars of doubts," " calen- 
 dars of popular errors," and " calendars of sects of philos- 
 ophy." Human Philosophy, "though the end and term 
 of natural philosophy " in the intention of man, is but a 
 "portion of philosophy in the continent of nature": 
 separated from natural philosophy, it would be little better 
 than " empirical practice." (" And generally let this be a 
 rule," says Bacon, " that a partition of knowledges be 
 accepted rather for lines and veins than for sections and 
 separations; and that the continuance and entireness of 
 knowledge be preserved.") Human Philosophy has two 
 parts, one of which deals with " man segregate," or taken 
 distributively, and the other with " man congregate " : it is 
 "simple and particular" or "congregate and civil." Sim- 
 ple Human Philosophy treats of the " league of body and 
 mind," and of the body and the mind viewed separately. 
 The science of the " league of body and mind " has two 
 parts, one of which is called physiognomy, ad the other is
 
 BACON. 69 
 
 without a name. The most important part of this science 
 is that relating to the " seats and domiciles which the sev- 
 eral faculties of the mind do take and occupate." (On this 
 point Bacon is not dogmatic, but inclines to the doctrine of 
 Plato.) Knowledge of the body is of four sorts, relating 
 to health, to beauty, to strength, and to pleasure ; hence 
 the four branches of physiology, medicine, cosmetics, 
 athletics, and the "voluptuary art "(music and painting). 
 Medicine is deficient, in being too empirical and not taking 
 comparative views. The knowledge of the Soul, as such, or 
 Psychology, has two main branches, occupied, respectively, 
 with the origin and nature of the soul, and with the subject 
 or substratum of the faculties. " Considerations of the 
 origin of the soul, whether it be native or adventive, and 
 how far it is exempted from the laws of matter, and of the 
 immortality thereof, should be bounded by religion." 
 Bacon distinguishes a rational nature (of supernatural 
 origin) and an irrational, or material, nature, in the soul. 
 Two appendices of the branch of psychology are Divina- 
 tion, which is foreknowledge growing out of the nature of 
 the soul in itself, and Fascination, the " power and act of 
 the imagination intensive upon other bodies than the body 
 of the imaginant." The consideration of the faculties of 
 the rational soul has two branches, treating, respectively/ 
 of understanding and reason, and of will, appetite, and 
 affection ; hence the sciences Logic and Ethics. Between 
 the two leading faculties, or, rather, groups of faculties, 
 stands the imagination, which has the office of mediating 
 between those faculties or groups, and also an independent 
 office, as in Eloquence and Rhetoric. Logic, or the purely 
 " rational " or intellectual branch of Psychology, has four 
 divisions " intellectual arts " viz. : Inquiry, or Inven- 
 tion; Examination, or Judgment; Custody, or Memory; 
 Elocution, or Tradition. Within the art of judgment falls 
 the consideration of those false appearances, those idola, of 
 human knowledge (which Bacon claims the credit of being 
 the first to point out and explain) which hinder the right
 
 7O A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 operation of the understanding in judgment. (These idola 
 are discussed at length in the First Book of the " Novum 
 Organum." See infra.} A branch of the art of Tradition 
 is Rhetoric, which has for its office the " application of 
 reason to imagination for the better moving of the will." 
 Rhetoric is an " excellent " art, and " can no more be 
 charged with coloring of the worse part than Logic with 
 sophistry, or morality with vice." Appendices of rhetoric 
 are literary criticism and pedagogy. Ethics treats of the 
 doctrine of the good (the utile), which is either private 
 (or particular) or "communicative" (or general). The 
 " communicative " sort of good is paramount ; active life 
 should take precedence over the contemplative. The 
 " husbandry " which shall procure this fruit of life the 
 good is culture of the mind, the real problem of Ethics. 
 This depends upon a doctrine of human knowledge and a 
 doctrine of moral culture. Ethics has hitherto (Bacon 
 says) been deficient in a knowledge of the feelings and 
 temperaments of men. Civil Philosophy is " conversant 
 about a subject which of all others is most immersed in 
 matter" and " hardliest reduced to axiom." It has the 
 three branches, " Conversation," " Negotiation," and " Gov- 
 ernment " : civil society, that is to say, has three main ends 
 to secure, "comfort in loneliness," "advantage in busi- 
 ness," and "protection from injury." "The sum of be- 
 havior " (in conversation) is " to retain a man's own dignity 
 without intruding on the liberty of others." In negotiation, 
 or business, a knowledge of human nature is of the highest 
 importance : other things of value are slowness of belief, 
 the giving of trust to deeds rather than words, " framing 
 the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion," etc. 
 Speaking of Government, Bacon says, "All who have 
 written of laws have written either as philosophers or as 
 lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, 
 they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths ; 
 and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light, 
 because they are so high. For the lawyers, they write, accor-
 
 BACON. 71 
 
 ding to the states where they live, what is received law, not 
 what ought to be law. There are in nature certain foun- 
 tains of justice whence all civil laws are derived but as 
 streams." Divine Learning "rests upon the word and 
 oracle of God : " but great latitude is practised as regards 
 the use of reason in religion. It is a defect in Divine 
 Learning that it has not sufficiently inquired into the true 
 limits and use of reason in religious matters. Reason has 
 two uses in religion: (i) the " conceiving and appre- 
 hending of the mysteries of God revealed to us," and (2) 
 the " inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction there- 
 from." There are two principal parts of Divinity: the 
 matter or information revealed, and the nature of the re- 
 velation. Perfection or completeness in Divinity is not to 
 be sought. The Scriptures require to be treated according 
 to a method not applicable to any other written work. 
 
 2. The New Method of the Interpretation of Nature. 
 Introduction. The New Method, or Organon, is by Bacon 
 distinguished from the Old, the traditional logic having 
 its source remotely in the Organon of Aristotle as re- 
 gards " end," " order of demonstration," and " starting-point 
 of inquiry." As to end, the New Method aims ultimately 
 at the invention of arts, not, like the Old, at the invention 
 of mere arguments. As to " order of demonstration," 
 the New Method entirely rejects the syllogism, because 
 of the uncertainty of mere words, and of the fact that the 
 primary notions which must form the content of the terms 
 of the propositions constituting syllogisms are as yet vague 
 and false from overhastiness of induction ; and it proceeds 
 regularly and gradually from one axiom to another, so that 
 the most general are now reached only last. As to start- 
 ing-point, the New Method begins with careful o&servation 
 and induction, treating the received first notions and the 
 immediate reports of the senses as inadequate and false. 
 The Old Method was a method of " anticipation " or of 
 applying preconceived notions to the judgment of nature : 
 the New Method is a method of interpreting nature. Nor
 
 72 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 is the New Method sceptical, any more than dogmatic ; 
 it does not assert or imply that nothing can be known, but 
 rather the contrary. In the treatise on the New Method, 
 viz., the " Novum Organum," Bacon devotes one book, 
 the first, (chiefly) to pointing out and explaining the idola 
 of human knowledge, and a second to explaining the 
 method itself. 
 
 The Idola of Human Knowledge. Man is the " ser- 
 vant and interpreter of nature : " he can do and under- 
 stand only so much as he has observed in fact or in thought 
 of the course of nature. The unaided intellect, like the 
 unaided hand, cannot effect much. To penetrate into the 
 recesses of nature, we require a fixed and sure method. 
 The mind must be led to particulars and their series and 
 order, and must lay aside its preconceived, false notions 
 and become familiar with facts. There are four sorts of 
 false notions besetting men's minds, which must be known, 
 either to the end that they be eradicated, or, if that be not 
 possible, be not allowed to warp the mind in its search for 
 truth. First, the human understanding has false notions 
 because it is prone to suppose the existence of more order 
 and regularity in the world than there really is : having 
 once formed an opinion, it seeks to support it by all pos- 
 sible means; it is deeply impressed by that which sud- 
 denly strikes the imagination ; it is restless ; it is not 
 a " dry light," but is clouded by the influence of the 
 will and feelings ; it is deceived by the dulness and inept- 
 ness of the senses ; it is prone to abstraction, and to give 
 substance and reality to things transitory. These false 
 notions are, by name, Idola Tribiis (" idola of the tribe 
 or race "). Another class of false notions are those beset- 
 ting individual minds as such, Idola Specus (" idola of 
 the cave"). They are such as result from the circum- 
 stances that particular men become attached to certain 
 particular sciences or speculations, to the neglect of others, 
 that some minds are more apt to mark differences, others the 
 likenesses of things, some are given to the admiration
 
 BACON. 
 
 73 
 
 of antiquity, others to an extreme " love and appetite for 
 novelty," etc. A third class the most important of 
 idola, Idola Fori (" idola of the market-place "), are such 
 as are due to the "alliance of words and names." A 
 fourth class, Idola Theatri ("idola of the theatre"), in- 
 cludes the false notions caused by the (uncritical) recep- 
 tion of (ancient) systems of philosophy. The destruction 
 and avoidance of idola, though of very great importance, 
 is but a negative and preliminary work in the advance- 
 ment of human knowledge. The chief hope for that 
 advancement lies in induction by means of contradictory 
 instances (and this is as true in Ethics and Politics as 
 in Physics). Hypothesis also may be of use, if cautiously 
 employed. 
 
 The Positive Side of the Interpretation of Nature. The 
 (positive) interpretation of nature has two parts: i, the 
 eduction of axioms or forms from experience ; and, 2, the 
 derivation of new experiments from forms. There is, first 
 of all, required for the discovery of forms : (i) a " muster 
 or presentation before the understanding of all known 
 instances which agree in the same nature (selected for 
 investigation), though in substances the most unlike;" 
 /. e., what may be termed (is so termed by Bacon) a 
 Table of Essence and Presence; (2) a "presentation 
 to the understanding of instances in which the given nature 
 is wanting (for the form ought no less to be absent when 
 the given nature is absent, than present when it is present), 
 and since to note all these would be endless, also the sub- 
 joining to the affirmatives of the negatives, and the inquir- 
 ing as to the absence of the given nature only in those 
 subjects which are most akin to the others in which it is 
 present and forthcoming," Table of Deviation or Ab- 
 sence in Proximity; (3) a "presentation to the under- 
 standing of instances in which the nature under inquiry 
 is found in different degrees, more or less, which must 
 be done by making a comparison either of its increase 
 or decrease in the same subject, or its amount in different
 
 74 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 subjects, as compared with one another," Table of De- 
 grees, or Table of Comparison. It is next necessary, in 
 order to discover the " form " of a given nature, or the 
 nature which always occurs with it as its cause, to exclude 
 from investigation all natures not always found in con- 
 junction with the given nature, or not found to increase 
 or decrease when the nature increases or decreases. This 
 process of exclusion is the foundation, but not the real 
 beginning, of it in an affirmative sense ; which is made 
 only by a survey of all instances remaining after the pro- 
 cess of exclusion. The result of this survey may be called 
 the First Vintage. It is always of a somewhat tentative 
 character, and requires to be supplemented by certain " helps 
 of the understanding in the interpretation of nature and 
 true and perfect induction." These helps of the under- 
 standing (only the first of which was ever fully explained, 
 owing to the fragmentary character of the treatise on the 
 Interpretation of Nature) are as follows : ( i ) prerogative 
 instances (/. e., instances of first importance) ; (2) supports 
 of induction; (3) rectification of induction; (4) varying 
 of the investigation according to the nature of the subject ; 
 (5) prerogative natures with respect to investigation (or 
 what should be inquired of first and what last) ; (6) limits 
 of investigation, or a synopsis of all natures in the universe ; 
 (7) application to practice, or things in their relation 
 toman; (8) preparations for investigation: (9) ascend- 
 ing and descending scale of axioms. The prerogative 
 instances twenty-seven in all are distinguished among 
 themselves by their different values in relation to the 
 " speculative " or the " operative " phases of induction, 
 to the activities of sense and of understanding, etc. Cer- 
 tain instances, five in number, the " Instances of the 
 Lamp " (the use of a fanciful terminology is characteristic 
 of Bacon), have their significance in the fact that they 
 assist the senses. Others, " by facilitating the processes 
 of exclusion, by narrowing and indicating more nearly the 
 affirmative of the form, or by exalting the understanding
 
 BACON. 75 
 
 and leading it to genera and common natures, etc., assist 
 the understanding. Of Bacon's twenty-seven prerogative 
 instances, it must suffice to notice in particular only one, 
 the Crucial Instance, or " Instance of the Finger-post," 
 which, according to Professor Fowler, 1 is " by far the most 
 celebrated of all " : " When in the investigation of any 
 nature the understanding is so balanced as to be uncertain 
 to which of two or more natures the cause of the nature 
 in question should be assigned, on account of the frequent 
 and ordinary concurrence of many natures, Instances of 
 the Finger-post are such as show the union of one of the 
 natures with the nature in question to be sure and indis- 
 soluble, of the other to be varied and separable. For 
 example, if it be found in any history worthy of credit 
 that there has been any comet, whether high or low, which 
 has not revolved in manifest agreement (however irregular) 
 with the diurnal motion, but has revolved in the opposite 
 direction, then certainly we may set down thus much as 
 established that there may be in nature some such motion. 
 But if nothing of the kind can be found, it must be re- 
 garded as questionable, and recourse had to other Instances 
 of the Finger-post about it." Following are the mere 
 names of a number of the instances : Solitary Instances, 
 Migratory Instances, Striking Instances, Clandestine In- 
 stances, Instances of Range or Limitation. (It should here 
 be said that it is not always easy to separate the instances 
 clearly one from another, and in fact there appears to be 
 considerable overlapping among them.) 
 
 Natural and Experimental History? Bacon's chief 
 performance in the gathering of data for the new science 
 is a collection consisting of one thousand " experiments," 
 grouped, in no very systematic fashion, into ten equal 
 divisions (termed "centuries"). One group relates to 
 " percolation," another to the subject of musical phenomena 
 
 1 See note on this topic in his edition of the " Novum Organum ; " 
 also " Bacon " in " English Philosophers " series. 
 
 2 See Nichol's Bacon (" Blackwood's Philosophical Classics").
 
 76 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 in general, another to that of sound, another to the ways 
 and means of retarding or accelerating the ordinary pro- 
 cesses of nature, three others to plant- management, two 
 to miscellaneous topics, heat, weight, growth and frui- 
 tion, want of rain in Egypt, sources of fevers, one to 
 what would be at the present moment called phenomena of 
 " telepathy." " Experiments " are distinguished by Bacon 
 as " experiments solitary " and " experiments in consort." 
 (Much the greater part of the "facts" of the "Sylva Syl- 
 varum " were, according to one of Bacon's editors, drawn 
 from a few then well-known authors, George Sandys, 
 Cardanus, Aristotle, Pliny, and, especially, the Italian Bap- 
 tista Porta : some were gathered from hearsay, and some, 
 finally, were the fruit of Bacon's own observation. The 
 collection possesses little or no scientific value in itself.) 
 
 "Principles and Origins." * We may pass over entirely 
 the remaining parts of Bacon's vast scheme, unless, in- 
 deed, what we are about to discuss belongs to the Fifth 
 Part, and take up Bacon's metaphysical principles proper. 
 Reality, according to Bacon, is not unknowable ; scepticism 
 is an " idle doctrine." Reality is not, indeed, an object of 
 sense, but it is known through combined sense and under- 
 standing. The real that to which the "new method" 
 must guide us is a primary matter, not formless, but hav- 
 ing certain definite qualities. Beyond, or behind, this, we 
 cannot by mere philosophy get. It is the First Cause within 
 nature, and the cause of causes next to God Himself, and 
 must be taken just as found. It were as foolish to try to 
 get back of this as not to look for a cause of the immediate 
 phenomena of sense. It is the primary qualities of this 
 matter which are the ultimate objects of philosophy's quest, 
 the " forms." Philosophy is natural science. Ultimate 
 reality, or God, is known only through Revelation. 
 
 Bacon's Position and Rank as a Philosopher. Bacon 
 deserves, in a certain sense, but not without qualification, 
 the title often accorded to him of the " Father of Modern 
 
 1 See Nichol's Bacon.
 
 BA CON. HOBBES. 57 
 
 Inductive Philosophy." The method of induction had, as 
 we have had occasion to see, been advocated in modern 
 philosophy prior to Bacon : but Bacon was the first to make 
 the method the object of comprehensive reflection, and to 
 institute a formal investigation into its character; and, 
 though his " analysis " of the method was imperfect, those 
 who helped practically to perfect the method Descartes 
 and Newton, in particular were not uninfluenced by what 
 Bacon had done before them. Practically, it is true, Bacon 
 was no inductive philosopher, butjie clearly saw and stated 
 the object of inductive philosophy, viz., to discover " causes 
 or facts of causation," and the importance of an " acquain- 
 tance with facts," and of complete analysis and cautious 
 generalization. What he did not appreciate, was the value 
 of certain things which more mature reflection upon in- 
 duction has learned to emphasize, viz., hypothesis, deduc- 
 tive inference, and verification. Bacon does not touch the 
 metaphysical problems lying back of induction, /. <?., does 
 not consider how it is possible, and what it means. But 
 Bacon was something more than a philosopher of induction ; 
 he was an initiator of a critical attitude of thought, a real 
 forerunner even, notwithstanding their wide differences, of 
 the greatest of all critical philosophers, Kant ; his doctrine 
 of the idola of human thought is an anticipation (in the 
 empirical sphere of reflection, it is true) of the " Kritik of 
 Pure Reason " of Kant. That Bacon was not a speculative 
 philosopher in the highest sense of the term scarcely needs 
 be said. Though he condemned mere empiricism in method, 
 the real was practically for him, as a philosopher, in the 
 domain of mere consciousness as distinguished from self- 
 consciousness, or from the union of the two. He is to 
 be regarded as the initiator of the empirical direction in 
 modern philosophy. 
 
 45- 
 Thomas Hobbes* (1588-1679). Hobbes, who sprang 
 
 1 Prof. Robertson's " Hobbes " (" Blackwood's Philosophical 
 Classics ") ; Hobbes's " Elements of Philosophy," " Leviathan," etc.
 
 78 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 from a " plain English stock," was educated at the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford. He left the university with a very unfavor- 
 able opinion of the instruction and discipline in vogue there. 
 Among the causes of his dissatisfaction had been the Scho- 
 lastic, superficially formal treatment of logical, metaphysical, 
 and physical sciences at Oxford. After graduation Hobbes 
 travelled on the Continent, in the capacity of tutor to a 
 member of the Cavendish family. (He resided with the 
 family for more than thirty years.) He carried on classical 
 studies; and made a translation (published 1628) of the 
 History of Thucydides for the "purpose of showing the 
 evils of popular government." Between the years 1621 
 and 1626 he was, it appears, private secretary of Bacon, 
 and assisted in the translation of some of Bacon's works 
 from English into Latin. In the years 1629-1631 a second 
 journey was made by him on the Continent, and within not 
 many years afterwards two others, all of which proved of 
 the utmost importance for Hobbes's scientific development, 
 since they brought him into direct communication with 
 some of the most eminent men of science on the Continent, 
 and acquainted him with the actual state of scientific dis- 
 covery at the time. During the period of the Civil Wars 
 and for some time before and afterwards (i. e., from 1640 to 
 1651), Hobbes was again on the Continent; after that he 
 lived in England continually till his death. His scientific 
 and philosophical activity were for the most part completed 
 before his final return to England from the Continent. 
 Literary composition and acrid learned controversies occu- 
 pied his later years. 
 
 Works. Hobbes's chief philosophical works are, " Ele- 
 menta Philosophica de Give" (1642), " De Corpore Po- 
 litico, or the Elements of Law, Moral, and Politic " (1650), 
 " Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Polity " 
 (1650), "Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a 
 Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil" (1651), "Of 
 Liberty and Necessity," etc. (1654), " Elementa Philo- 
 sophise" ("De Corpore," " De Homine," "De Give,"
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 79 
 
 1668). (We may mention, of Hobbes's nonphilosophical 
 works, his " Behemoth," a history of the Civil War, and a 
 metrical translation of the " Iliad " and the "Odyssey.") 
 
 Philosophy. Problem, Parts, and End of Philosophy. 
 Philosophy is, according to Hobbes, the knowledge of 
 causes; or, more accurately speaking, the knowledge of 
 causes from given effects, and the knowledge of effects from 
 already known causes : it is the knowledge of the genera- 
 tive and the generable ; the knowledge of " nature." Phi- 
 losophy is a science in the strict sense : it is, indeed, 
 science itself (CTTIOTT//-^) . It has nothing to do with the 
 supernatural (or nongenerable) or the eternal (the object 
 of " faith ") ; it is not in any sense metaphysics or theology. 
 It is distinct from experience as such, or the merely em- 
 pirical knowledge of things (Aristotle's /u7rpta) ; it is 
 distinguished from experience in that it is reasoned sys- 
 tematic knowledge, whereas experience is haphazard and 
 reaches no universal conclusions. It has nothing to do 
 with history, natural or civil, so far as these rest on expe- 
 rience (including authority or testimony). Philosophy, or 
 science, as general knowledge, is a knowledge of names 
 expressing the common attributes of things ; its foundation 
 is definitions (or the explications of the meanings of 
 names), or when (as in the case of the simplest notions, 
 space, body, motion, etc.) definitions are impossible, the 
 nearest possible approach to them by mere indication or 
 suggestion. The body of all primary or fundamental defi- 
 nitions, together with their direct consequences, constitutes 
 First Philosophy (philosophia prima). All definitions or 
 indications or suggestions of primary notions are expres- 
 sions of abstract notions of things perceived by sense ; all 
 knowledge takes its "rise intense. "Rnt SPT^P ppjrcgSwT 
 only l5ocITes~and their attributes. This it can do only as 
 motions proceeding from bodies affect the organs of sense. 
 Bodies are in motion ; their attributes, so far as they can 
 be known at least, are generated by motion. By motion in 
 bodies is generated the attribute of extension, the science
 
 80 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of which is Geometry. The theory of effects of motion 
 between bodies is the Doctrine of Motion. The theory of 
 motion as it affects the senses, producing the qualities of 
 light, heat, sound, etc., is Physics. The doctrine of motions 
 of the individual mind is Moral Philosophy ; that of motions 
 of minds associated is Civil Philosophy. If we add to the 
 foregoing divisions Logic, or the science of reasoning, or 
 computation (in the arithmetical sense), we have the main 
 branches of Philosophy as the doctrine of bodies. These 
 branches group themselves as follows : ( i ) Preliminary 
 Sciences, Logic and First Philosophy; (2) Natural Phi- 
 losophy, Geometry, the Doctrine of Motion, Physics ; 
 (3) Civil Philosophy, Moral Philosophy and Civil Phi- 
 losophy (in the narrower sense). "The end or scope of 
 philosophy is," says Hobbes, "that we may make use to 
 our benefit of effects formerly seen ; or that by the applica- 
 tion of bodies to one another we may produce the like 
 effects of those we conceive in our mind, as far forth as 
 matter, strength, and industry will permit, for the commodity 
 of human life." 
 
 N First Philosophy. It is possible to conceive all things 
 annihilated, except space and time. From the notions of 
 space and time are derived all such notions as part and 
 whole, division and composition, one and number, con- 
 tinuous and contiguous, beginning and end, finite and 
 infinite. Space and time are the subjective correlatives 
 of two primary attributes of body, viz., extension and mo- 
 tion. The " attributes " extension and motion and indeed 
 attributes in general do not form a part of, or even 
 inhere in, body as such, but are merely our modes of 
 conceiving body, or the " power body has of making 
 itself to be conceived." The only necessary attribute of 
 body is extension. The generation and the destruction 
 of body are merely the generation and the destruction 
 of the attributes of body (extension excepted). For us 
 body is its attributes ; and the essence of body is merely 
 " that accident for which a thing gets its name." Body as
 
 HOBBES. 8 1 
 
 the materia prima of the Scholastics is an abstraction. The 
 causes of attributes are motions. The causes of motions 
 are other motions, and so on ad infinitum. The relations of 
 bodies are purely mechanical. " An effect wrought in any 
 patient is the generation or destruction of some accident, 
 and the cause of this effect is nothing less than the aggre- 
 gate of all accidents in agent and patient together, which 
 being supposed present, it cannot be understood that the 
 effect is not at the same time produced, and any of which 
 being absent it cannot be understood that the effect is pro- 
 duced. Such is cause simple and entire, inclusive of causa 
 sine qua non, which may be any one of the accidents that 
 in a particular case is wanting to the production of the 
 effect." All causes are either efficient or material, formal 
 and final causes are mere metaphysical figments, or, rather, 
 special cases of efficient cause. For distinction's sake, effi- 
 cient cause is in those beings which have sense or will, called 
 final cause; the term "power" has meaning only as indi- 
 cating a cause the effect of which is yet to be produced. 
 There is a cause for every accident. The accident is " con- 
 tingent " only as depending on its cause. That for which 
 there is no cause is impossible, and vice versa. Everything 
 possible will necessarily be produced. Bodies falling under 
 the same sense belong to the same species. Relations, 
 identity and difference, likeness and unlikeness, equality and 
 inequality, etc., are not accidents. 
 
 Geometry. Hobbes's treatment of Geometry concerns 
 it chiefly as regards its form or method. Geometry is, in 
 this regard, the pattern of all (demonstrative) sciences. It 
 is so because in Geometry we generate the very objects to 
 be known, lines, surfaces, figures, etc., and thus know 
 them in their very causes. 
 
 Doctrine of Motion. Motion is universal. Non-visible 
 motion, or motion occurring in less time and space than 
 can be conceived, is nevertheless real and effective motion. 
 It may be termed " endeavor : " it is indestructible, and 
 propagates itself ad indefinitum. All motion has for its 
 voi. i. 6
 
 82 A Hf STORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 cause other motion, and that another, etc. Motion is either 
 "simple circular" motion or "compound circular" motion 
 (or motion about an axis). 
 
 Physics. Physics, or the doctrine of concrete material 
 existence in general, is dependent upon experience ; has 
 therefore an a posteriori character, herein differing from 
 Geometry and the Doctrine of Motion. Since time and 
 space, and, consequently, all things as conceived under the 
 forms of them, are purely subjective, there is no proving 
 from them the infinity of the real world in time and space ; 
 there is no necessary connection between body as it is in 
 itself and the notions of time and space. From the sub- 
 jectivity of the notion of space follows the meaninglessness 
 of the idea of the vacuum as applied to the real world. 
 The real world, in fact, is a plenum of bodies, visible and 
 invisible, solid, fluid, and both solid and fluid. Physical 
 continuity depends on the omnipresence of the perfect 
 fluid, aether, which fills all space not otherwise occupied. 
 /Ether is common air minus the solid particles commonly 
 mixed with air. Its existence is predicated only as an in- 
 ference from the fact of action at a distance, as, for example, 
 in the case of objects affecting our senses. Upon the move- 
 ment of the aether in and out of the interstices of bodies 
 depend the phenomena of rarefaction and condensation, 
 ^ther transmits motion equally in all directions and with- 
 out any loss. It is through the medium of the aether that 
 the sun by its motions rules the solar system, as regards 
 movement, light, heat, etc. Visible bodies are aggregates 
 of quasi-atomic bodies everywhere floating in the aether. 
 
 Moral Philosophy. The soul of man cannot be imma- 
 terial, since all that really exists is material or extended. 
 The chief seat of the soul is the heart, from which are 
 distributed through nerves to the brain and the rest of 
 the body the impulses of both bodily and mental life. The 
 powers of the soul are two, cognitive and motive, the 
 latter depending upon the former. Our ideas of external 
 objects are merely subjective reactions from the heart in
 
 HOBBES, 83 
 
 response to impressions made by external motions on the 
 organs of sensation. Not every reaction is sensation, but 
 only " that which at several times is by vehemence made 
 stronger than the rest, and which deprives us of the sense 
 of other phantasms, as the sun deprives the rest of the stars 
 of light." The " subject " of sensation is the entire organ- 
 ism ; the object is real body (not the subjectively conceived 
 qualities). We objectify body, because the "endeavor" 
 of the heart in response to external stimulation is felt as 
 outgoing, and "seemeth to be some matter without." A 
 necessary condition of sensation is a perpetual change of 
 object of sensation : "to be sensible of the same thing " is 
 " not to be sensible at all." The continuance of motion iu 
 an organ of sense, after the removal of the cause exciting it, 
 produces imagination and memory, which may, therefore, 
 be termed " weakened sense," and are, in fact, sense over- 
 powered by newer sense. Transition from one imagination 
 to another occurs only in case the latter has once been 
 before sense : the principle of association, in other words, 
 between acts of imagination or of memory, is that of conti- 
 guity. Connected acts of imagination or memory constitute 
 " mental discourse." The power of conjoining ideas other- 
 wise than they are conjoined in mere experience, and of 
 giving them a definite and fixed succession, is reason. In 
 the fixing of the succession of ideas language is a necessary 
 medium, since only by it are we able to comprehend many 
 things together in their unity, and relieve ourselves of the 
 burden of our ideas merely collectively taken. Reason is not 
 inborn, nor a product of " experience," but an acquisition 
 made by " industry," by "apt imposing of names and pro- 
 ceeding in orderly method from the elements, which are 
 names, to assertions made by conversion of one with an- 
 other." When an "endeavor," or non-visible motion, from 
 the heart towards the organ of sense is accompanied with a 
 feeling of pleasure or pain, there is also an accompanying 
 endeavor towards or away from the organs of motion, which 
 may be called appetite (desire) or aversion. The pleasure
 
 84 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and the appetite, the pain and the aversion, are one and the 
 same thing viewed from different sides. Pleasures and pains 
 are either bodily or mental. Mental pleasures and pains in- 
 volving the sense of power (/. e., of one's faculties, knowl- 
 edge, place, riches, etc.) are passions. The simple passions 
 are appetite (desire) and aversion, love and hate, joy and 
 grief. Appetite with expectation of obtaining that of which 
 there is appetite is hope ; with expectation of the opposite, 
 despair. Aversion with expectation of hurt is fear ; the 
 same with expectation of avoiding hurt is courage. Sudden 
 courage is anger. Desire to know " how " and " why " is 
 curiosity, which is peculiar to man among animals. Laugh- 
 ter proceeds from sudden glory (elation). Pity for an- 
 other arises from conceiving that his calamity may befall 
 one's self, etc. The alternation of the passions of desire 
 and aversion is the cause of deliberation. Will is the last 
 appetite which presents itself in the act of deliberation, 
 when there happens to be deliberation. In any case, it is 
 merely appetite or desire : there is no freedom or purely 
 rational self-determination. Whatever is the object of will 
 or appetite is good ; the opposite evil. The kinds of good 
 are, "good in the promise " (the pulchrum, i. e., beautiful), 
 "good in the effect as the end desired " (the jucundum, or 
 delightful), "good as the means " (the uti/e, or profitable). 
 The corresponding sorts of evil are, the furpe, or base ; 
 the moles turn, or troublesome ; the inutile, or unprofitable, 
 hurtful. Man is, primarily, moved by selfish impulses. 
 Happiness is not a mere feeling of pleasure or content- 
 ment : the " felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose 
 of a mind satisfied^ but in a continual progress of desire 
 from one object to another, the attaining of the former 
 being still the way to the latter." The passions of men 
 determine not merely their actions, but also their concep- 
 tions of the natures and causes of things in general, causing 
 them to attribute to invisible powers and agencies the phe- 
 nomena about them. Hence arises religion. The idea of 
 a first eternal cause is a consequence of man's curiosity,
 
 HOBBES. 85 
 
 or the impulse to know the "how" and "why" of things 
 rather than of the mere passions, such, for example, as 
 anxiety and fear regarding his fortunes. 
 
 Civil Philosophy. Men are actuated by the three pas- 
 sions of the desire of safety, desire of gain, and desire of 
 glory, all sources of dissension. The natural state of 
 men, consequently, is a state of war. Jn^such a state the 
 " life of man is poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and in it 
 there is no property, no dominion, no mine and thine dis- 
 tinct, but that is every man's that he can get, and for so 
 long as he can keep it." The undesirableness of such a 
 state, the desire of things promotive of commodious living, 
 and the hope of being able to attain them, together with 
 the fear of death and the instinct of self-preservation, cause 
 men to seek the conditions of peace, which, indeed, is the 
 " first law of nature," the second being to defend one's self. 
 These conditions men come to find in a mutual transfer- 
 enTC" of right by means of covenant ; the performance of 
 the covenant made ; the practice of gratitude, sociability, 
 mercifulness ; eschewing cruelty, pride, and arrogance ; 
 observance of equity in judging between man and man, etc. 
 (Hobbes enumerates twenty- two such conditions, which he 
 calls " laws of nature ") ; inaword, in not doing to another 
 what one would not have done to one's self. Injustice, 
 ingratitude, arrogance, inhumanity, and the like can never 
 (Hobbes has to admit, in spite of his theorem, that man is 
 essentially selfish) be made lawful in the " court of con- 
 science ": ^in_ other words, the state owes its existence 
 partly, at least, to the idea of justice. Civil society comes 
 into existence through the instrumentality (as has been inti- 
 mated) of a contract, tacit or expressed, by which there is 
 transferred to a single authority, consisting of one man or 
 an assembly of men, of the individual's natural right of self- 
 defence, and all is " made subject to the sovereign or su- 
 preme power thus constituted." This transference may 
 take place " by institution or by acquisition, by free choice 
 or by conquest.'" Civil society once formed is the " body
 
 \ 
 
 86 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY.. 
 
 politic " (as contradistinguished from " natural or physical 
 bodies"). The contract is an agreement not between the 
 sovereign and the people, but between the people among 
 themselves : it does not bind the sovereign, the authority 
 of whom is, consequently, absolute and irrevocable. The 
 sovereign has the " power of coercion, absolute command of 
 military forces, power of judicature and of legislation, ap- 
 pointing all magistrates and determining all conditions of 
 honor and order, judging all doctrines that may be taught." 
 It is the duty of the sovereign to seek the safety and good 
 government of the people, and, to this end, to educate them 
 in right opinions regarding their duties in relation to the 
 integrity and safety of the State. Practically, the sove- 
 reign must regulate, not only the secular, but also the reli- 
 gious, conduct of the people, since there must not be a 
 conflict between the consciences of the individual and of 
 the sovereign ; hence the sovereign is the ecclesiastical as 
 well as the political head (the " soul ") of the " body 
 politic." The individual retains in society certain inde- 
 feasible rignTs", such as the right not to " kill, maim, or wound 
 himselt, or kill others or perform any dangerous or dis- 
 honorable office in a case where refusal does not frustrate 
 the end for which sovereignty is ordained." The individ- 
 ual is free to do those things as regards which the law 
 has not limited his natural liberty. There are three forms 
 of sovereignty : democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. 
 Monarchy is superior to either of the others. In favor of 
 monarchy are the following considerations : the public and 
 private interest of the sovereign cannot but be identical; 
 deliberation on the part of the sovereign may be mature, 
 since the monarch when in doubt may take such counsel as 
 is requisite ; the " resolutions of the monarch are not neces- 
 sarily abnormally inconstant ; " factions are impossible un- 
 der a monarchy; the evils of favoritism are at least no 
 greater in a monarchy than in an aristocracy ; the incon- 
 veniences attending the succession of an infant are not 
 greater than those attending the rule of an assembly ; etc.
 
 HERBERT. 87 
 
 Results. We have now to note a few points by way of 
 indicating the general character of Hobbes's philosophy and 
 its place in the history of Modern Philosophy. There is in 
 Hobbes the same antagonism to the Scholastic mode of 
 thought as in Bacon, though there is a nominalism in his 
 logic which in spite of himself allies hirrTln part with the 
 Scholastics. There is also the same general empirico-sensa- 
 tionalistic view of knowledge and the same materialistic con- 
 ception of reality in the doctrine of Hobbes as in that of 
 Bacon, with the noteworthy difference that whereas Bacon 
 underrated the value of mathematics and the deductive side 
 of knowledge generally, Hobbes strongly emphasized them. 
 Hobbes was the earliest systematic modern exponent of the 
 mechanico-sensational theory of knowledge so prevalent at 
 the present day : he was the inaugurator of lines of devel- 
 opment in moral and political philosophy which have ex- 
 tended down to the moment ; his egoistic theory of morals 
 and his absolutist doctrine of the State have never failed in 
 any considerable period of philosophical speculation to pro- 
 voke thought, generally in directions opposed to them- 
 selves. He attempted to construct as no one in modern 
 times before him a comprehensive system. Inconsis- 
 tencies may be found in it, as, for example, that " mo- 
 tion " is employed in different meanings when applied to 
 the two classes (physical and moral) of phenomena; that 
 while extension is said to be real, space is treated as sub- 
 jective ; that though there are no rights in the state of 
 nature, peace is the ideal of men in that state : but that the 
 system breaks down, does not hide the scientific breadth of 
 Hobbes's attempt. 1 
 
 46. 
 
 We pass now to a philosopher who is the earliest of the 
 philosophers of the " intuitional " type, Edward Herbert, 
 
 1 The reader may be referred to Professor Robertson's work on 
 these and other points.
 
 88 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Lord Cherbury* (1582-1648). Herbert was educated at 
 Oxford, travelled several years on the Continent, distin- 
 guished himself as a soldier in the Netherlands, and was 
 English ambassador at Paris. He came of a race of sol- 
 diers, and was noted as a knightly character and for 
 courtly accomplishments. 
 
 Works, The philosophical works of Lord Cherbury 
 are : " De Veritate prout distinguitur a Revelatione, a Veri- 
 simili et a Falso " (1624), with an Appendix, " De Causa 
 Errorum una cum Tractatu de Religione Laici et Appen- 
 dice ad Sacerdotos ; " and " De Religione Gentilium Erro- 
 rumque apud eos Causis " (16451663). 
 
 Philosophy. It is, according to Lord Cherbury, equally 
 impossible that we should know all things and that we know 
 nothing ; some things we may be certain of. We know that 
 man has certain faculties, and can apply them to the inves- 
 tigation of truth. We have, first of all, to become ac- 
 quainted with our faculties, their classes, laws, relations to 
 objects, etc. ; then, we may attempt to determine the reali- 
 ties underlying the appearances of things. There is such a 
 thing as truth permanent, omnipresent, self-evident, man- 
 ifold. Truth is of four kinds : truth of the object, the 
 agreement of a thing with itself (object must be of a certain 
 size, have a principle of individuation, be adapted to some 
 sense or faculty) ; truth of appearance, agreement of a 
 phenomenon with the essence of the object (object must 
 be perceived for a sufficient time, be at a proper distance, 
 be perceived through a medium, etc.) ; truth of perception, 
 agreement of our faculty with the object (faculty must 
 be sound, attention must be directed towards object, etc.) ; 
 truth of the mind in itself or the intellect (depends on a 
 certain common nature in the mind). "The most impor- 
 tant truths are truths of the intellect, which are truths en- 
 tirely inaccessible to sense. They manifest themselves in 
 every sane and well-organized mind ; they seem to come 
 
 1 Franck; Histoire de la Philosophic en Anglcterre depuis 
 Bacon jusqu'a Locke, par Charles de Remusat.
 
 HERBERT. 89 
 
 from a supernatural source and to be destined for deter- 
 mining the nature of objects which present themselves in 
 the theatre of the world." They are the notions pre- 
 senting themselves either immediately or after reflection 
 which all men have in common. They are original and 
 derived. The former are known by the marks of priority, 
 independence, universality, certainty, necessity, immediacy. 
 The latter (" derived " notions) are discovered by ascer- 
 taining about what things there has been universal agree- 
 ment among men. These communes notifies (common 
 notions) are the object of the faculty of " natural instinct " 
 (/. e., according to Hamilton, 1 the vov? of Aristotle, intclli- 
 gentia of the Schoolmen, "common sense" of philoso- 
 phers in general) . Besides this faculty are those of internal 
 sense, external sense, and discursive reason, with all of which 
 natural instinct cooperates in a greater or less degree. In- 
 ternal sense discerns the inner intrinsic nature of things, 
 the hidden types of being. The discursive faculty employs 
 ten categories, expressed in the terms whether, what, of 
 what sort, how much, in what relation, how, when, where, 
 whence, wherefore (the categories of Aristotle). Of all our 
 faculties the discursive reason is the most exposed to error ; 
 it " confounds the limits of our faculties, prevents or de- 
 stroys the common notions, confuses internal sense, thereby 
 making us deny our liberty : it is the faculty of the schools." 
 The distinguishing attribute of man is religion. No man is 
 really an atheist; though because of their detestation of 
 certain false and horrible notions of the Deity, many sup- 
 pose themselves, or are supposed, to be such. The end of 
 religion is the practical obligating of men to what they 
 should do of themselves, and the maintaining of the com- 
 mon unity of all. The essence of religion is contained in 
 the following truths : (i) the existence of a supreme being ; 
 (2) the duty of worshipping this being; (3) virtue and 
 piety as the prime elements of the worship of God ; (4) re- 
 pentance for transgression; (5) present and future rewards 
 
 1 Hamilton's edition of Reid's works, p. 781.
 
 90 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 and punishments, depending on the justice and goodness of 
 the Supreme Being. God is revealed to man in his inner 
 consciousness in the yearning towards our eternal life 
 and happiness and in outward nature. The object of 
 his revelation is his greater glory. Historically the stages 
 of religion are : ( i ) pure instinctive worship of God in 
 thought and purity of life ; (2) worship with rites and cer- 
 emonies upheld by a sect; (3) idolatry, encouraged by false 
 teachers. The first of these is, alone, natural and true 
 religion. A true revelation fulfils the following conditions : 
 it presupposes prayer and faith ; it is immediately evident to 
 each one (otherwise it is a mere tradition, history) ; it offers 
 something of uncommon truth and value ; it produces upon 
 our faculties the effect of an inspiration. All error is in- 
 complete, obscured truth. 
 
 47- 
 
 The Cartesians. We pass next to the initiators of the 
 third main direction of thought in the Second Period of 
 Modern Philosophy ; viz., the rationalistico-idealistic direc- 
 tion. Here have to be considered Ren Descartes, Arnold 
 Geulincx, Nicolas Malebranche, Baruch de Spinoza. Minor 
 names we are obliged to omit. 
 
 48- 
 
 Rene Descartes l (1596-1650). Descartes was born, of 
 noble family, at La Haye, Touraine, in March, 1596. He 
 received an excellent education at the Jesuit College at 
 La Fleche (1604-1612), developing there special fondness 
 and taste for poetry, eloquence, and mathematics. Even 
 before his entering college, the mental trait of inquisitive- 
 ness showed itself very markedly (one story of him relates 
 that his father had dubbed him "his philosopher "), and at 
 school he was distinguished by a habit of " matutinal reflec- 
 
 1 See " Descartes," by J. P. Mahaffy (" Blackwood's Philosophical 
 Classics ") ; article in " Encyclopaedia Britannica ; " Descartes' works; 
 etc.
 
 DESCARTES. 9 1 
 
 tion " in bed. A deep distrust of tradition and his teach- 
 ers, growing out of his extreme intellectual individuality, 
 determined him to throw aside books for a time, and to 
 study himself and the great world. He went to Paris. He 
 took lessons in horsemanship and fencing ; he spent a short 
 time, at least, in something like dissipation, in which he 
 displayed a special fondness for gaming. But his purely 
 intellectual interests did not permanently forsake him ; he 
 theorized about fencing, and almost before his friends were 
 aware of it, had secluded himself in an obscure quarter of 
 Paris (1614-1616) to evolve a mathematical theory of 
 music, and study physics. He was drawn from his seclu- 
 sion, and in his pursuit of a knowledge of the world entered 
 the army, first in Holland, and afterwards in Bavaria and 
 other countries during the Thirty Years' War, quitting the 
 army in 1621. In Holland he formed the acquaintance of 
 a Dutch mathematician, Isaac Beeckman, from whom he 
 received mathematical suggestions; and while in Bavaria 
 he had strange and sudden mental revelations, which deter- 
 mined forcibly the bent of his thinking, regarding a universal 
 scientific method, combining features of ancient geometry, 
 modern algebra (which had been partially founded by cer- 
 tain Italian and German mathematicians), and logic. After 
 some rather extensive travels in northern Germany and in 
 Italy, and a considerable period spent in Paris studying the 
 refraction of light, grinding glasses for optical instruments, 
 and reflecting on human nature and God, he went, in 1629, 
 to Holland, to breathe a freer intellectual atmosphere. 
 There he resided in a dozen or more different places, ac- 
 cording as the necessity of seclusion required, until 1649 > 
 returning to France occasionally on business or to receive 
 honors bestowed upon him for scientific achievement. His 
 studies were chiefly in physical " philosophy ; " he read 
 little, despised history, politics, learning, and art, studied 
 anatomy and chemistry in the laboratory in search of a 
 medical doctrine based on absolute demonstration, and pur- 
 sued astronomical and meteorological inquiries, all with
 
 92 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 the purpose of carrying the physical explanation of phe- 
 nomena as far as possible, and, to a considerable extent, as 
 it would seem, in the spirit of Baconian empiricism, for 
 which he seems to have had a certain admiration notwith- 
 standing his very decided mathematical predilections. But 
 in spite of his scientific independence, he preserved a certain 
 respect for Church doctrines and awe of Church authority, 
 since he feared to run the risk, by publishing his scientifico- 
 philosophical works, of being accused of heresy, and took 
 care to soften certain features of his physical doctrines that 
 contravened established theological tenets. He did not, 
 however, escape all odium theologicum ; he was charged 
 with atheism and infidelity by the universities of Leyden 
 and Utrecht. In the year 1649 ^ e accepted (reluctantly) 
 the urgent and often-repeated invitation of Queen Christina 
 of Sweden to come to her capital and reside, instruct her 
 in philosophy, and found an academy of sciences. Change 
 of climate and of mode of living, occasioning serious 
 abridgment of the individual freedom he had always sought 
 and cherished, resulted in his death, in 1650. From the 
 foregoing biographical sketch it clearly appears that Des- 
 cartes was personally a true child of the Renaissance, 
 disdainful of the past, restless, intense, sanguine, egoistic. 
 His philosophy corresponds closely with his character. 
 
 Works. The principal philosophical works of Descartes 
 are: "Discours de la Mthode " (1637), " Meditationes 
 de Prima Philosophise" (1641), " Principia Philosophise " 
 (1644), containing his physics, "Traite' des Passions de 
 I'Ame" (1649). 
 
 Philosophy of Descartes: Standpoint and Method. 
 The philosophy of Descartes has as its starting-point a 
 definite conception of truth as union of knower and known 
 object in intellect, as distinguished from sense, imagination, 
 and memory. Truth, Descartes holds, presents itself only 
 in those clear and distinct (as opposed to obscure and con- 
 fused) ideas which intellect alone is capable of. In full 
 keeping with his mental history as we have sketched it,
 
 DESCARTES. 93 
 
 Descartes affirms that the precondition to, the attainment of 
 truth is thorough-going doubt. Not doubt merely for its 
 own sake, however ; scepticism is only a means to an end, 
 a moment or element of method, not the goal of thought. 
 And it must be remembered, of course, that the principle 
 of universal doubt has application in theoretical matters 
 only ; in matters pertaining to conduct, says Descartes, we 
 must follow as principle that which is merely probable. 
 Now it is, in the first instance, easy to doubt all forms of 
 so-called knowledge, except mathematics. Mathematics, 
 therefore, suggests, if it does not immediately contain, the 
 ideal of scientific method ; it is not merely formal, like the 
 old logic, not merely the rule of the operation of a cer- 
 tain subjective faculty, but is^j^jgethod^of arriving at 
 objective truth of fact; and it possesses the highest degree 
 of certainty. But the melnod sought must be absolutely 
 universal, which majjieiatics is not. It has four elementary 
 principles, which in their relation to one another are but' 
 steps in a single process, whose unity corresponds to the 
 nature of truth itself. These principles or steps are as fol- 
 lows : (i) Never receive as true anything not certainly 
 known to be such ; avoid prejudice and precipitancy in 
 judgment, and embrace nothing except that which presents 
 itself so clearly and distinctly to the mind that there is no 
 room for doubt about it; (2) Analyze every problem into 
 as many parts as possible and as may best facilitate its solu- 
 tion ; (3) Think in an orderly manner, commencing with 
 objects that are the simplest and easiest to understand, and 
 ascending by degrees to the knowledge of the most com- 
 plex, assuming the same order among those which do not 
 naturally have the precedence one over the other ; (4) Make 
 everywhere enumerations so complete and reviews so com- 
 prehensive as to be assured of having omitted nothing. 
 Descartes, it is true, gives this as merely the method which 
 he had resolved upon to assure himself personally of rising 
 out of the region of confused, obscure, and, hence, doubtful 
 things into that of clear and distinct truth ; but he asserts,
 
 94 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 nevertheless, that diversity of opinion results not so much 
 from differences in minds as in methods of using them ; 
 that truth is the same for all minds following the true 
 method ; and, furthermore, the method of analysis and 
 synthesis embodied in his four principles is, as we shall 
 see, quite in harmony with the physico-mechanical char- 
 acter of his doctrines. 1 
 
 Metaphysics : The First Principle, " Cogito, ergo sum." 
 If the truth is that only which is absolutely certain, which 
 is perfectly clear and distinct to the mind, it would appear, 
 at first, at least, that nothing whatever can be received as 
 true. The presentations of the senses, of memory, of imagi- 
 nation, may all easily be questioned, may be treated as 
 dreams, mere hallucinations, the machinations, say, of some 
 omnipotent deceiver : they are, if believed in, mere pre- 
 judices and presuppositions, which have to be got rid 
 of. 2 But there is one prejudice that I cannot rid myself of: 
 I think, and (therefore) I am. However questionable all 
 my ideas considered as representations of fact, it is not at 
 all questionable that / have them : I could not be deceived 
 if I did not have them, did not think (in the broad sense 
 of the term), and hence did not exist. If it be said that I 
 am deceived in thinking that I exist, I reply that I cannot 
 here make a distinction between my existing and my think- 
 ing that I exist. I can not with such certainty say, " I walk, 
 therefore I exist," because it is not absolutely certain to the 
 understanding however it may be to sense that I do 
 walk. My existence and my thinking are to understanding 
 inseparable ; walking and my existence are not thus insep- 
 arable. 8 The reasoning of Cogito, ergo sum, is not purely 
 syllogistic. There is not wanting a premise to complete my 
 thought, as the premise, Whatever thinks exists. I imme- 
 diately perceive intellectually my existence as a thinking 
 being. Further, I perceive that I exist as thinking. I do 
 not as yet perceive anything beyond that ; * my doubt and 
 
 1 Discours de la M^thode. 2 First Meditation. 
 
 8 Second Meditation. * Ibid.
 
 DESCARTES. 95 
 
 those creations of my imagination, the truth of which I can 
 easily doubt, prove only that I exist as thinking. This 
 principle, Cogito, ergo sum, is, then, the first material prin- 
 ciple of philosophy; it is the foundation and criterion of 
 all truth, and may fitly be compared to the single fixed 
 point Archimedes required (but could not get) to move the 
 whole world with his lever. In the intellectual perception 
 of myself I have that feeling of certainty and that clearness 
 and distinctness of idea which gives to mathematical truth 
 its almost supreme value as regards method. All other 
 ideas are true in so far as they possess the clearness and 
 distinctness of this. In fine, whatever assertion I make 
 concerning the existence of other beings than myself in- 
 volves, as its support, the assertion of my own existence, 
 and is to be judged by comparison with my assertion as to 
 my own existence. 1 
 
 The Knowledge of other Existences than Self: (i) God. 
 Now with regard to the existence of other beings than 
 myself there is a possibility of my being deceived. To 
 resolve the doubt here I am obliged to determine whether 
 or not there be a God, and, if there is, whether or not he 
 can be a deceiver. Where do I get the idea of a God, and 
 what truth is there in it ? Of all my ideas, I find some that 
 have come from without, as those of sensible existences, 
 others that are created purely by myself, such as those of 
 a winged horse or a siren, and others still that neither come 
 from without nor are created by myself, and must therefore 
 be, as it were, innate ; for example, the idea of truth, thing, 
 thought, an infinite being. Thatjhe_idea of an infinite 
 being does noL^come to me from without, is seil-.evident : 
 that^it ha&-not been produced by me may be argue.cLfrom 
 the fact that an effect can in no case be greater than its 
 cause; e.g., the perfectj:ajinot in any-wayilte-an -effect of 
 the Jrnrjerfect. I can easily produce, by abstraction, the 
 idea of the indefinite ; but not the positive idea of infinite 
 perfection, for I am imperfect. The source of such an idea 
 1 See Second Meditation.
 
 96 A JUS TORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 can, originally, bejanly a being that is infinite in nature, 
 /. e., God ; therefore the^ j'Hpa m\\^ havp bp^n impbntpd. in 
 me by him, he must exist. I know that God exists also 
 from the fact of my own existence ; if I had been the author 
 of my own being, I should have given myself all possible 
 perfection, and I must attribute my continued existence as 
 well as my creation to a God. 1 Further, the existence of 
 God may and must be inferred from the very idea of the 
 infinite. It is as impossible for me to conceive the idea of 
 infinite perfection without that of existence as it is to con- 
 ceive a triangle the sum of whose angles is not two right 
 angles, or to conceive a mountain without a corresponding 
 valley. I have, in other words, a distinct and clear percep- 
 tion of existence as a necessary attribute of an infinitely 
 perfect nature. I can, it is true, separate in thought the 
 idea of a finite thing and the existence of that finite thing ; 
 but the idea of the infinite would be self-contradictory and 
 impossible to me if it did not include that of God's exist- 
 ence. 2 This proof of the existence of God, which resem- 
 bles that of Ansejm, is distinguished from the Anselmic 
 proof as follows : Anselm infers the existence of God purely 
 from the necessary implication of the idea of the perfect 
 being; I rather from the clearness and distinction with 
 which the necessary connection between infinitude and 
 existence is perceived by the understanding. 8 
 
 Existence of the External World. Now, it is utterly 
 impossible that God, a being of infinite perfection, can 
 wish to deceive me. I know, therefore, that whatever 
 I can clearly and distinctly conceive as existing does really 
 exist, just as I know that God exists from the clear and 
 distinct conception of him. I clearly and distinctly con- ,oJ 
 ceive the external world as existing, (ergo) it really exists. v 
 
 Substances. Among my ideas are ideas of things that 
 are clearly and distinctly conceivable in and by themselves, 
 and ideas of others that are not so conceivable. I can, 
 
 i Third Meditation. 2 Fifth Meditation. 
 
 8 Fifth Meditation.
 
 DESCARTES. gy , 
 
 for example, clearly and distinctly conceive myself as a 
 purely intellective being, as complete without the faculties 
 of feeling and imagination ; but I cannot conceive imagina- 
 tion and feeling as existent without me or some intelligent 
 nature to which they belong ; nor can I conceive the power 
 of changing place and taking various situations without 
 a certain nature to which it belongs. Things which are 
 thus conceivable in themselves are siibstances ; things not 
 thus conceivable are attributes or are modes. There are 
 three substances : God, ourselves, and external nature. 
 Ourselves we know as thinking substance, God we know 
 also as thinking substance and as author of ourselves and 
 external nature, and nature we know, from the veracity 
 of God, as extended substance. Primarily, God alone is 
 substance, since we and nature depend on him ; we and 
 nature are secondary substances, having the attributes re- 
 spectively of thought and extension. 
 
 Nature. According to his view of substance, Descartes 
 could not conceive nature as really distinct from God ; nor 
 did he, except for purposes of mere explanation. And for 
 purposes of explanation he finds it necessary, in accord- 
 ance with his mathematical method of knowledge, to treat 
 of nature as mere extension and motion. The conception 
 of force or power he expressly terms non-physical, 
 power belongs to God alone ; and he excludes all inter- 
 pretation of nature by the doctrine of final causes. Abso- 
 lutely^considered, nature is to Descartes eternal ; and 
 yet he finds it necessary for explanation's sake, and con- 
 venient for theology's sake, to treat nature as having a cer- 
 tain origin from material elements and motion. Extension 
 is without limitation of any nature ; hence there are no 
 fixecl atoms and no vacuum. Original matter (extension) 
 is divided into innumerable undifferentiated parts set and 
 kept in motion by the power of God. From the collision 
 of the parts of moving matter there results a differentia- 
 tion of matter into three sorts: (i) "first matter," com- 
 prising innumerable fine particles, materia subtilissima, 
 VOL. i. 7
 
 0)8 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 composing the sun and fixed stars, and producing heat by 
 their motions ; (2) "second matter," less subtile but very 
 fine, composing the heavens and producing light by its 
 motion; (3) a sort comprising larger particles and com- 
 posing the planets, etc. [The motion of matter is in no 
 case produced by action at a distance, but by pushing of 
 portions of matter by others, in particular, by the finest 
 of the differentiated material elements, or " first matter." 
 By a rotatory motion caused by collision of particles vor- 
 tices are produced in ^matter, and bodies and systems 
 of bodies are evolved throughout space. The sum of mo- 
 tion in the universe is constant. The earth does not move 
 of itself about the sun, but is carried about in a vortex 
 (says Descartes, steering carefully between the Scylla of 
 Catholicism and the Charybdis of Science) . Organic bodies, 
 like inorganic, are explicable on purely mechanical prin- 
 ciples. " If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the 
 parts of the seed of any species of animal (e.g., man), we 
 could from that alone, by reasoning entirely mathematical 
 and certain, deduce the whole figure and conformation 
 of each of its members, and, conversely, if we knew the 
 several peculiarities of this conformation, we could deduce 
 from these the nature of the seed." 1 Animals are in fact 
 mere__autQniatic machines. Life in plants is due merely 
 to motion anoT brHer^ of~parTs : Hfe~~tTr animals is due 
 tojnotion or circulation of blood, whTch in^turrTls- due 
 merely__tp__changes ot temperature. By a separation of 
 particles in the brain are generated animal spirits, which 
 are conducted by the nerves to and from sense-organs, 
 muscles, and brain, giving rise to sensuous impressions and 
 movements of muscles, etc. The pineal gland, in the 
 centre of the brain and single in nature, is the seat of the 
 soul. 
 
 The Soul. As animals are mere automata, having no 
 souls, so man has but the one rational soul, without the ani- 
 mal and vegetable souls, of the ancient theorists. Of this 
 
 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. vii., art. Descartes.
 
 DESCARTES. 
 
 99 
 
 soul we have, as already seen, a clear and distinct idea in 
 perfect abstraction. We perceive the soul to be simple, 
 unextended, or immaterial, and hence imperishable, except 
 it be destroyed by direct act of its creator. The acts of 
 the soul as such are either ideas or volitions, the former 
 being as acts relatively passive, the latter positively active. 
 As to origin, our ideas are, as we have seen, innate, or 
 impressed upon us from without, or made by ourselves. 
 With regard to their truth, they may be classed as adequate 
 and inadequate. ( Error in our ideas is a consequence 
 of the incommensurateness of intellect, which is necessary 
 in its action because determined by the nature of necessary 
 being, and will, which is free : by act of will we may in 
 judging receive and approve that which understanding does 
 not clearly and distinctly apprehend. Innate ideas are, 
 by virtue .of their necessary origin in God, not thus subject 
 to error./ While the ideas of the intellect are clear and 
 distinct, because innate, those of sense and imagination 
 are obscure and confused, because they have a material 
 origin : they are occasioned, though, since body and soul 
 are distinct and disparate substances, not directly pro- 
 duced, by the changes in the animal spirits occurring in the 
 brain. (And as the body does not directly act upon the 
 soul, so the soul does not in acts of volition work directly 
 upon the body : it merely gives direction to the vital spirits 
 in the conarium, or pineal gland, as the rider directs the 
 movements of the horse, j More directly dependent upon 
 the association of body a'nd soul than ideas and volitions 
 are the passions which are involved in certain tendencies 
 of the vital spirits, some more practical, and others more 
 theoretical. Of the passions, six are primary : wonder, 
 love, hate, desire, sorrow, and joy. The passions are con- 
 trolled through the influence of ideas upon the animal 
 spirits. In the control of the passions lies the essence 
 of moral activity. By firm and definite judgments regard- 
 ing good and evil we rise superior to passion and experi- 
 ence ; the highest of all pleasures is the pleasure of rational 
 activity.
 
 IOO A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 God. The union of body and soul, upon which the 
 lower mental operations so closely depend, requires the 
 immediate concourse of God with, or his presence to, both 
 body and soul. God is perfect, necessary intelligence. His 
 intelligence, however, and all else that exists, depend upon 
 his free and arbitrary will. 
 
 Result. The system of Descartes ends in dualism (of 
 thought and extension, mind and matter), or at least a 
 monism which is merely formal or mechanical : God is, 
 after all, but a Deus ex machina in this system. Descartes 
 states the problem of philosophy (from the point of view 
 of self-consciousness as such), and makes clear the terms 
 of it ; but leaves these imperfectly synthesized, and the 
 problem not completely solved. It becomes the endeavor 
 of certain men nearly contemporary with Descartes to 
 complete the solution. The question is, How shall the 
 secondary substances be conceived in relation to one 
 another and the primary substance ; how shall mind and 
 matter be conceived as related to one another and God? 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that as Bacon is the 
 initiator of the empirico-realistic tendency of the second 
 period of modern thought, Descartes is the inaugurator of 
 the rationalistico-idealistic tendency. 
 
 49- 
 
 Arnold Geulincx* (1625-1669). Geulincx, born at An- 
 twerp, took a degree in medicine and, perhaps, philosophy 
 in the University of Louvain, and was afterwards for twelve 
 years lecturer there. Exciting hostility by attacks on Scho- 
 lasticism, he was compelled to leave Louvain. He went to 
 Leyden and became a private lecturer in the university at 
 that place. At one time he underwent extreme poverty, 
 and would have died but for the assistance of a (Cartesian) 
 friend, Heidanus by name. 
 
 Works. " Saturnalia, seu Qusestiones quodlibeticse in 
 
 1 See Fischer, vol. i. (trans.).
 
 GEULINCX. 101 
 
 utramque Partem disputatse " (1660); "Logica Funda- 
 mentis suis, a quibus hactenus collapsa fuerat restituta " 
 (1662); " TvSidi a-eavTov sive Ethica " (1665), his 
 most important work; "Physica Vera" (1680); "Meta- 
 physica Vera et Mentem Peripateticam " (1691); "An- 
 notata praecurrentia " (1690) ; "Annotata majora in Prin- 
 cipia Renati Descartes" (1691). 
 
 Philosophy. Philosophy is divided into Metaphysics, 
 Anthropology, and Ethics. Metaphysics is the doctrine of 
 self, of body, and of God : Autology, Somatology, and Theol- 
 ogy. Self-certainty is the basis of all knowledge. Cogito, 
 ergo sum : " My activity coincides with my consciousness ; " 
 thought or will of which I am not conscious is not my 
 thought or will. The self is simple. It is united to a body, 
 which is composite in nature. The two are disparate, and 
 cannot act upon one another. Their union is a miraculous 
 one, and depends upon a power above body and soul, namely, 
 God. He is the cause of motions in body and of sensa- 
 tions in me through these motions. As such he must be 
 conceived as omnipotent will and thought. In relation to 
 all other things " he is active, they are passive ; he inde- 
 pendent, they dependent ; he is the absolute being ; cause 
 of himself, unlimited, perfect, necessary, eternal," etc. 
 "Geulincx," says Fischer, "wavered between the theo- 
 logical and the naturalistic conception of the relation of 
 finite minds to God. He regarded finite minds as creatures 
 (mentes, create, particulars, limitata), and at the same 
 time as modes of God (aliquid mentis) " Conduct is the 
 harmony of will and thought. The (four) cardinal virtues 
 are diligence, obedience, justice, humility. " We must first 
 perceive the voice of reason by making a careful study of 
 ourselves, then obey it by doing what it commands, and, 
 finally, make this obedience the guiding principle of our 
 conduct, the constant rule of our lives. Thence the fourth 
 and highest duty naturally follows : we must pretend to be 
 nothing except what we in truth are, instruments in 
 the hands of God." Humility includes, on the one hand,
 
 102 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Despectio sui, and, on the other, Amor Dei ac 
 The doctrine of which Geulincx is the real founder that 
 the acts of body and of soul in their interrelation are merely 
 occasions upon which supervene the causative operation of 
 God, is known as Occasionalism. 
 
 5- 
 
 Nicolas Malebranche* (1638-1715). Nicolas Male- 
 branche, son of the secretary to Louis XIII. of France, 
 received a classical training at home (because of a feeble 
 constitution), studied philosophy at the College de la Marche, 
 and theology in the Sorbonne. He joined the Congregation 
 of the Oratory, and took up the study of Church history and 
 Biblical Criticism. He did not become satisfied and settled 
 in thought until after the accidental reading, in 1664, of 
 Descartes' "Traite de 1'Homme," which determined him to 
 philosophy forever. After ten years of reflection he pub- 
 lished his (first and chief) work, " De la Recherche de la 
 Verit^, ou Ton traite de la Nature de 1'Esprit de 1'Homme 
 et de 1'Usage qu'il en doit faire pour eViter 1'Erreur dans 
 les Sciences." This occasioned controversy, in which, with 
 others, Locke and Leibnitz took part, and was followed at 
 intervals by other works, mostly theological in matter and 
 aim. Besides theology and metaphysics, mathematics and 
 physics also engaged his thought. His death is said to 
 have been the consequence of an illness caused by a con- 
 troversy with Bishop Berkeley in a personal interview. 
 
 Works. Other works of Malebranche, besides the 
 chief work above mentioned, are : " Conversations Chre- 
 tiennes " (1676, etc.); "Trait de la Nature et de la 
 Grace " (1680) ; "Meditations Chretiennes et Me'taphysi- 
 que" (1683) ; "Traite de la Morale" (1684) ; "Entre- 
 tiens sur la Melaphysique et la Religion" (1688). 
 
 1 See Kuno Fischer's History of Modern Philosophy, vol. i. (trans. 
 by J. P. Gordy.) 
 
 2 See ibid.'
 
 MALEBRANCHE. 
 
 103 
 
 Philosophy. Adopting the distinctions laid down by 
 Descartes as to the faculties and the method of cognition, 
 the relations of extension and thought, or mind and body, 
 and God, as comprehending in himself pure thought and 
 pure extension, Malebranche, under the general influence 
 of his theological prepossessions, came to the, with him, 
 cardinal position that we see all things in God, i.e., we 
 have knowledge of the true nature of existences by partici- 
 pation in God's knowledge of them. God's knowledge is a 
 knowledge through pure ideas, or archetypes, of which he 
 is the " place," as space is the place of sensible objects. 
 The knowledge we have by this participation is rational or 
 scientific, /. e., geometrical knowledge. Our knowledge of 
 the merely sensible aspect of things is confused and uncer- 
 tain, and it is knowledge by things in their relations to us 
 rather than of things in themselves. Our knowledge of our 
 individual selves is, likewise, confused and uncertain : it is 
 merely a matter of feeling or inner experience. Our knowl- 
 edge of others is purely conjectural. What we and others 
 are in ourselves and themselves is known to God (and per- 
 haps also to spirits). (Descartes had declared the knowl- 
 edge of ourselves to be the most certain of all knowledge.) 
 Our knowledge of God as spirit depends on immediate illu- 
 mination by him. Body as apprehended through ideas is 
 mere (intelligible or non-sensible) extension. Real indi- 
 vidual bodies are "modifications" or "participations," i.e., 
 specifications or limitations, of this extension produced by 
 God through motion. Force does not appertain to body 
 as such, but to God ; and bodies moving or communicating 
 motion do so only by God's presence and influence. Motion 
 as originating with God is simple and unchangeable in its 
 laws. As the ultimate essence of body is extension, so that 
 of mind is thought, and differences of mind are a conse- 
 quence of inclination or will, which is therefore related to 
 mind in its essence as motion is related to extension. Will 
 as such depends on God, and is his love : and, since he 
 is source and end of all things, it is his love toward himself.
 
 IO4 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Particular will depends on relation of body and soul. This 
 relation is founded on God : external objects are merely the 
 occasion of ideas in us ; our will is merely the occasion 
 of our bodily movements : God alone produces ideas and 
 movements. Instrumental in the reciprocal relation of 
 body and soul are the passions, whose ultimate source is 
 love, and whose end is the liberation of the soul from the 
 constant care of the body. They are good or evil accord- 
 ing to the nature of that which is their exciting cause, or 
 their object. Enlightenment is the precondition to freedom 
 from error through the passions. Our destiny is to live, 
 through knowledge and love, in union with God, who is 
 himself eternal wisdom and love. 
 
 Result. In the system of Malebranche Cartesianism 
 approaches more nearly than hitherto a monistic (substan- 
 tialistic) standpoint. The secondary substances, thought 
 and extension, are in real subordination to the primary, 
 God. There is an assimilation to one another of opposed 
 terms through the conception of God as Replace of "ideas," 
 as space is the place of sensible objects. This assimilation 
 is an assimilation of thought to extension (rather than the 
 opposite), and the system of Malebranche, though by its 
 theory of knowledge of a theological cast, is by virtue of this 
 peculiar character of the assimilation it contains, naturalistic 
 also : it in fact (as Fischer suggests) borders upon the 
 .naturalistic pantheism of Spinoza, whom we have next to 
 consider. 
 
 51- 
 
 Baruch de Spinoza 1 (1632-1677). Spinoza, descend- 
 ed from a family of Spanish Jews that had fled to Hol- 
 land to escape persecution, was born in Amsterdam. 
 His education was conducted by a Talmudist, Saul Levi 
 
 1 Spinoza's Works; Kuno Fischer's Geschichte der neuern Phi- 
 losophic; Spinoza, a Study, by James Martineau ; Ueber die beiden 
 ersten Phasen des Spinozistischen Pantheismus, von Richard Ave- 
 narius; Noack ; etc.
 
 SPINOZA. 105 
 
 Morteira, through whom he became acquainted with the 
 teachings of Maimonides (d. 1204) and Gerson (d. 
 1344), by an atheist physician, Franz Van den Ende, 
 who taught him the classics, and possibly also impreg- 
 nated his mind with naturalistic conceptions, and by a 
 Cartesian, Ludwig Meyer, who instructed him in phy- 
 sical science ; Spinoza meantime studying the works of 
 Bruno and Descartes. His studies carried him beyond 
 the faith of the Synagogue, and he, though once the hope 
 of the Jewish doctors, had to undergo excommunication 
 from the Synagogue. Hunted by persecutors, from whom, 
 on one occasion, he made his escape barely with his life, 
 he lived in rather close retirement in a number of differ- 
 ent places, Rhynsburg, Voorburg, The Hague. At one 
 period, at least, he won a (frugal) living by polishing 
 lenses. Nothing not even a call to the chair of phi- 
 losophy in the University of Heidelberg could tempt 
 him to give up his quiet and independent mode of life, 
 which alone could shield him from the possibility of being 
 disturbed in the pursuit of philosophical contemplation. 
 He had a number of discreet friends, to whom he com- 
 municated his system as it grew. He was in close as- 
 sociation with the (heterodox) Arminians at Rhynsburg. 
 Directly or indirectly he was in communication with some 
 of the most eminent men in the world of science and 
 philosophy in Europe, Huyghens, Leibnitz, Boyle, 
 Tschirnhausen. 
 
 Works. Spinoza's chief philosophical works are : 
 "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ; " "Tractatus de Deo et 
 Homine ejusque Felicitate ; " " Tractatus de Intellectus 
 Emendatione et de Via qua optime in veram Cogni- 
 tionem ; " " Ethica Ordine geometrico demonstrata et 
 in quinque Partes distincta in quibus agitur, I. De 
 Deo, II. De Natura et Origine Mentis, III. De Origine 
 et Natura Affectuum, IV. De Servitute humana seu de 
 Affectuum Viribus, V. De Potentia Intellectus seu de 
 Libertate humana;" "Tractatus Politicus in quo demon-
 
 106 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 strantur quomodo Societas ubi imperium Monarch ium 
 Locum habet, sicut et Ea ubi Optimi imperant debet 
 institui, ne in Tyrannidem labatur et ut Pax Libertas- 
 que Civium inviolata maneat ; " " Epistolae." Only the 
 first-named of the foregoing works was published in 
 Spinoza's life-time. The " Tractatus de Deo et Homine " 
 etc. was not generally known to exist, until the middle 
 of the present century. Spinoza's masterpiece is the 
 " Ethica ; " next in importance for the knowledge, of his 
 philosophy are the " Epistolae.'' lxM . vWV ^ {fj^^*^ 
 
 Philosophy: Motive and Genesis of Spinoza's Philos- 
 ophy. The motive of Spinoza's philosophizing is prima- 
 rily ethical." His ethical doctrines are prefaced by 
 riTeTapHysical and psycKoIogical doctrines, and supple- 
 mented b~y~a political ~fHeory \vEIch constitutes, as it 
 were, a scholium to his doctrine of the passions. It 
 must be observed, however, that Spinoza's ethical theory 
 culminates, as it begins, in metaphysics, so that meta- 
 physics does not exactly occupy a subordinate position 
 in his system. Genetically viewed, the doctrine of Spinoza 
 is, on the whole, a resultant of a combination of th~e Neo- 
 Flatonlco- CabUIstic doctrine ot BruncTand the Cartesian 
 doctrine. Three general stages may be detected in 
 Spinoza's thinking ; the first of which may be character- 
 ized as naturalistic, the second as theistic, the third_jis 
 substantialistic. It appears, from a certain portion of the 
 " Tractatus de Deo et Homine," that Spinoza's first thought 
 was that of Nature as the infinite and as altogether perfect 
 in its totality. Next as appears from another portion of 
 the same work he held the notion of God as the- infinite, 
 and God, too, viewed as a predetermining providence,jper- 
 mitting human freedom and the operation of final causes. 
 /-If with the conception of the perfect all-inclusive and self- 
 \ contained, /. <?., the conception of substance, there be 
 j joined the mathematical method of thought-development 
 ( recommended by Descartes, we have the essence of the 
 \third phase of Spinoza's thought. The mathematical 
 
 ^v X"*.^_ _ i* ""
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 107 
 
 method is the only -method, as Spinoza assumes, suited 
 to the conception, since it alone possesses always clearness 
 and distinctness and demonstrative cogency, or, in other 
 words, the self-evidence and complete xieteKaination cor- 
 responding to self-contained and all-inclusive being as 
 content. It should be noted that all three phases contain, 
 implicitly or explicitly, the notion of substance, and all are 
 monistic. 
 
 TJoctrine of God. The first and fundamental con- 
 ception in the final doctrine of Spinoza is the_conceptJ9n 
 of that which by its very nature is, is only in and through 
 itself, and is knogp-JP and through itself and only so. 
 This, Spinoza terms causa sui, defined (see Definition 
 i.) as "that the nature of which involves existence, or 
 cannot be conceived as not existing ; " and substance, 
 defined (Definition iii.) as "that which is in itself and 
 is conceived through itself, or that the notion of which 
 needs for its formation the notion of no other thing." 
 Causa sui, or substance, is eternal, since existence is its 
 very essence (Definition viii.), free, since it " exists from 
 the sole necessity of its nature, and acts from itself alone " 
 (Definition vii.), is, hence, unconditioned, and is infinite, 
 indivisible, one. It is known through attributes, attri- 
 bute being defined as " that which the intellect perceives 
 of substance as constituting its essence" (Definition iii.). 
 In and with its attributes it is God, who may be defined 
 as " absolute being or substance consisting of infinite attri- 
 butes, each of which expresses the eternal and infinite 
 essence." Of the (numerically) infinite attributes of 
 God each of which is conceived only per se and is 
 not limited by any other, two only are known to us, viz., 
 thought and extension. God's thought is like that of man 
 only in name ; it excludes choice or purpose, since God 
 acts solely from the laws of his own nature (Prop, xvii.), 
 though " freely," because not governed from without. So 
 far as he is extended, God is identical with Nature, in 
 and with which he acts as immanent cause of all things
 
 IOS A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 (Prop, xviii.). From the divine nature, consisting of in- 
 finite attributes, there follow " infinite things in infinite 
 modes," the mode being an "affection of substance or 
 that which is in another, and through which that other 
 is conceived" (Definition v.). The modes in God differ 
 from him as effect from cause, viz., in that it has a cause ; 
 otherwise, each is known as the other, /. e., they are alike. 
 Modes are of two sorts, finite modes, such as are, in- 
 dividually, all finite things, and infinite modes, which are, 
 in one aspect, the permanent characters or qualities of 
 finite existence in general, and, in another, necessary 
 varieties or modifications of the infinite attributes of God. 
 The intellect (see below, page no) is an example of an 
 infinite mode of thought ; motion and rest are examples 
 of infinite modes of extension. Infinite modes are a mid- 
 dle term between finite modes, on the one hand, and 
 attributes, on the other. The modes are in God, and are 
 modifications of his attributes, just as triangles, or figures in 
 genera], are "in" extension, and are modifications of it. 
 And they follow from the nature of God's attributes ; the 
 infinite directly, the finite through others, ad infinite m. 
 They follow necessarily, or as from the nature of the tri- 
 angle it follows that the sum of the angles is equal to 
 two right angles. All things are therefore necessary, noth- 
 ing is contingent in any other sense than that of being 
 dependent : contingency is merely a name for our ignorance. 
 The same is true also of the term final cause* there is no 
 purposing of things. All things exist necessarily and at 
 once with their causes. In reality they " follow " one an- 
 other only as one mathematical truth " follows " another, not 
 temporally. A corollary to the foregoing is, that our men- 
 tal attitude towards nature or the works of God should 
 be, not that of one who praises or finds fault with what 
 does or does not answer to a certain " ideal," but that of 
 one simply trying to understand. 2 
 
 1 See the famous Appendix to Book I. of the " Ethica." 
 2 Tractatus Politicus, cap. i., 4.
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 109 
 
 i h<> Ajfrifwtff s>j 'lm$t't a>^_P'rffrtnc t r ) Mind and 
 yav. - 
 
 Body. A " mode of God expressing his esseTlce in so far 
 as he is res extensa, is extended, is a body " (Part II. Def. i.). 
 Modes of thought express the essence of God in so far as he 
 is a res cogitans. As the attributes of God are conceived 
 each per se, and are not limited by one another, bodies, on 
 the one hand, and modes of thought, on the other, are inde- 
 pendent of one another ; and by ideas are to be understood, 
 not anything passively received from body, but products of 
 the mind's own action. An " adequate idea " is an idea 
 which, as far as considered in itself and without relation to 
 an object, has all the properties and characteristics of a true 
 idea" (Def. ii.), i.e., clearness and distinctness. The 
 following propositions are axioms : The essence of man 
 does not involve necessary existence, i.e., from the order 
 of nature it may happen that this or that man may or may 
 not exist (Ax. i.) ; Man thinks (Ax. ii.) ; Modes of thought 
 such as love, desire, or whatever other affects of mind, are 
 not given in the same individual without the idea of the 
 thing loved, desired, etc., though the idea may be given 
 without any other mode of thought being given (Ax. iii.) ; 
 We know a certain body affected in many ways (Ax. iv.) ; 
 We neither know nor perceive particular things besides 
 bodies and modes of thought (Ax. v.). Though extension 
 and thought, body and mind, are independent of one an- 
 other, or do not interact, the order and connection of ideas 
 is the same as the order and connection of things (Prop, 
 vii. Part ii.) ; Mind and body are but two corresponding 
 sides of the same thing ; any bodily mode and the idea of 
 that mode are one and the same thing ; and in general, the 
 essence of the human mind is to be the idea of some par- 
 ticular actually existing thing, /. e., of some body. The idea 
 of the body constituting the object of the mind is necessa- 
 rily given in the mind. Bodies external to our own are 
 known through their effects upon our bodies, i.e., the 
 ideas of them are involved with the ideas of our own body. 
 The number of our perceptions depends on the aptitude of
 
 I 10 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the body for being disposed in various ways. Acts of im- 
 agination are dependent on the fact that, if the human body 
 is affected with a mode which involves the nature of an ex- 
 ternal body, the mind will continue to contemplate the 
 external body as present until the human body is affected 
 with such a state as excludes the notion of the presence of 
 the body. Memory is a " concatenation of ideas involving 
 the nature of the external bodies, according to the order 
 of the human body." From this concatenation is to be dis- 
 criminated that which takes place according to the order of 
 the intellect, whereby the mind perceives things by means 
 of their causes ; and which is the same in all men. Self- 
 consciousness, or the idea of the human mind, " follows in 
 God, and is referred to God, in the same way as the idea 
 of the human body : " it is an idea which is a member of 
 an infinite series corresponding to, or parallel with, the idea 
 of the body, and is united with the mind as the mind is 
 with the body ; the idea constituting the mind and the idea 
 of that idea are two sides of one and the same thing. The 
 ideas of the body are, so far as referred to the human mind 
 alone, confused and inadequate ; so, too, are the ideas of 
 those ideas. They are true when referred to God or seen 
 in their origin. Every adequate idea (see Def. iv. above) 
 and complete idea is true. There is adequate knowledge 
 of that, and that only, which is common to all things in part 
 as in whole, for this constitutes the essence of no particu- 
 lar thing (Props, xxxvii. and xxxviii.). Such knowledge is 
 expressed in axioms. Ideas in the human mind following 
 adequate ideas are adequate. Abstract terms being, thing, 
 something, etc. arise from the fact that the human body is 
 capable of only a limited number of distinct states, and the 
 states (and their corresponding ideas) become confused 
 and generalized when their number exceeds a certain limit. 
 There are three sorts of cognition : ( i ) opinion, or imagi- 
 nation (opinio or imaginatio) , which may or may not be 
 true; (2) reason (ratio), or "adequate" ideas, which is 
 true but not demonstrated cognition ; (3) intuitive science
 
 SPINOZA. 1 1 1 
 
 (intuitiva scientia), which is "the adequate cognition of 
 the essence of things through the adequate idea of the for- 
 mal essence of certain attributes of God." In knowledge 
 of the last named sort things are perceived in their neces- 
 sary, eternal nature, or under the form of eternity, sub 
 specie aternitatis (Bk. II., Prop. xliv.). "Imagination" 
 perceives under the form of time. " Reason " is the faculty 
 of adequate ideas which follow from God in so far as he 
 constitutes the essence of the human mind. The mind has 
 adequate knowledge of the infinite and eternal essence of 
 God, since it has ideas by means of which it perceives itself, 
 its body, and external objects as actually existing, and since, 
 further, any idea of any body or particular thing actually ex- 
 isting necessarily involves the infinite and eternal essence of 
 God (Prop. xlvii.). "There is in the mind no absolute, or 
 free, will, but the mind is constrained to willing this or that 
 thing by a cause which also is constrained by another, and 
 this by another, and so on in infinitum" (Prop, xlviii.). 
 There is no independent power of willing, as of knowing, 
 desiring, or loving. Men (ignorantly) suppose themselves 
 free, merely because they have confused ideas of the causes 
 of their deeds. " Free will " is identical with intellect : will 
 otherwise is not distinguishable from the strongest desire^ 
 So-called suspension of judgment is merely inadequate per- 
 ception. This doctrine of will has special advantages in a 
 moral point of view : it teaches that we are truly free and 
 happy only as we know God ; it helps us to bear with 
 equanimity inevitable misfortune ; it teaches us not to de- 
 spise, hate, ridicule, envy, or be angry with any one : it 
 shows men how they should act as citizens, viz., not as 
 slaves, but as those who unconstrainedly do those things 
 which seem best. 
 
 Origin and Nature of the Emotions. Human actions 
 and emotions are to be explained by the same method that 
 the geometer employs ; the scientific treatment is merely, 
 as it were, a " matter of lines, planes, and solids." " By 
 emotions I understand affections of the body, by which the
 
 112 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 body's power of acting is augmented or diminished, in- 
 creased or decreased ; also the ideas of those affections " 
 (Part III., Def. i.). . Subjectively viewed, an emotion is a 
 confused idea by which the mind affirms that the power of 
 the body or some part of the body to exist is increased or 
 diminished, and by which the mind is constrained to think 
 this or that thing rather than some other. When we are 
 the adequate or real causes of our emotions (considered as 
 affections of the body) we may be said to act. We are 
 adequate causes in so far, and only in so far, as we have 
 adequate ideas. The passions or passive emotions are to 
 be referred to the mind only in so far as it involves nega- 
 tion, or can be considered a part of nature which cannot 
 per se and without other things be distinctly and clearly 
 perceived. But the mind is also independent of nature as 
 such, is essentially conatus, or' endeavor to persist in a cer- 
 tain manner of its own, with a consciousness of this 
 conatus. This conatus referred to the mind alone is will, 
 referred to both mind and body is instinct, or appetite. 
 Appetite, together with the consciousness of it, is desire, 
 examples of which are benevolence, anger, cruelty, fear, 
 modesty, ambition. Desires and passions are the two great 
 classes of affects or emotions. As depending upon the body 
 the mind suffers great mutation of condition, now passing to 
 a greater degree of perfection, now to a less. ^lence arise 
 two distinct classes of passions, or two passions, joy and 
 grief, the former being the passion by which the mind 
 'passes to a state of greater perfection, the latter the passion 
 opposite to this. The passions are, further, divisible, with 
 reference to the externality or internality of their cause. 
 Examples of passions^Having an external cause are love, 
 hate, devotion, indignation, envy; examples of passions 
 having an internal cause are humility, penitence, pride, 
 shame. Joy and grief are the most general emotions. 
 Desire is to be classed with joy as an emotion by which the 
 mind is active and passes from a lower to a higher degree 
 of perfection. All actions which follow from emotions
 
 SPINOZA. 113 
 
 which are referred to the mind, so far as it knows, are 
 forms of "fortitude" which is either a desire by which each 
 one endeavors from the dictate of reason alone to preserve 
 his own being, "animosity" or a desire by which one 
 endeavors from the dictate of reason alone to assist others 
 and unite them in friendship, "generosity" (Spinoza dis- 
 cusses forty-eight emotions which he regards as the chief 
 not the only ones.) We may cite one or two propositions 
 further on the origin and nature of the emotions. " If the 
 mind has been once affected by. two emotions at the same 
 time, it will when it is affected by either of them afterwards 
 be affected by the other also." The mastery of the passions 
 depends in considerable measure on the opposing of those 
 by which the mind passes to a less degree of perfection by 
 those by which it passes to a greater degree of perfection. 
 
 Human Servitude or Power of the Emotions. Whatever 
 strengthens that conatus, or endeavor to persist, which con- 
 stitutes the essence of each thing, is good ; the opposite is 
 evil. Things are not good in themselves, but because and 
 in so far as desired and striven for. The stronger the cona- 
 tus the more virtuous we are. There can be no virtue, 
 without the desire to exist ; and there can be no virtue 
 greater than the desire to exist, none to which it is re- 
 lated as means to end. It follows from the foregoing prin- 
 ciples that all forms of grief are evil. Some forms of joy 
 may be evil if they exist in a very high degree, e.g., love, 
 titillation ; others are, without qualification, so, e.g., con- 
 ceit, great pride ; hope is not good per se. In view of the fact 
 that evil emotions may be disciplined by means of stronger 
 and contrary emotions, it is important to determine what 
 emotions are stronger than and contrary to others. An 
 emotion whose cause we imagine to be present in us is 
 stronger than one whose cause we do not imagine to be 
 present in us ; an emotion towards a thing present is 
 stronger than an emotion towards a thing in the future to 
 us ; feeling towards a thing which we imagine to be neces- 
 sary is more intense, other things being equal, than towards 
 VOL. i. 8
 
 114 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 a thing which we imagine to be contingent, possible, or not 
 necessary ; desire arising from joy is stronger, other things 
 being equal, than desire springing from grief; love and 
 generosity are stronger than hate, anger, contempt, etc. 
 (All these propositions, it must be remembered, are demon- 
 strated geometrico more, like all others in the "Ethica.") 
 The Power of the Intellect or Human Freedom. By 
 the fact that the mind possesses the power of concatenating 
 ideas according to a different order from that of the body, 
 there are other ways of moderating and coercing the emo- 
 tions and attaining to spiritual freedom than by opposing 
 to them those contrary and stronger, ways leading more 
 directly, if not always more certainly, to reason. It is pos- 
 sible to moderate feeling (i) by separating it from the 
 idea of its exciting cause and joining it to other ideas 
 (Part V., Prop, ii.), (2) by referring it to many instead 
 of few causes, and to an object of reason rather than 
 of sense or imagination (Props, ix. and vii.), (3) by view- 
 ing things in their necessary character (Prop, vi.), or under 
 the form of eternity. The last-mentioned method is not 
 merely a means to freedom, but is in itself freedom. 
 In viewing things sub specie <zternitatis the mind is no 
 longer passive or subject to nature, but active and self- 
 determining and free from nature. This condition of 
 mind has an emotional aspect, in virtue of which it may 
 be called intellectual love towards the eternal or God, 
 for what the mind knows sub specie aternitatis it delights 
 in, recognizing at the same time God as the cause of 
 its delight. The intellectual love of God, amor intel- 
 lectualis Dei, is the most constant of all emotions, since 
 there is no stronger opposite emotion by which it can be 
 destroyed (for no one can hate God), and cannot be pol- 
 luted by envy or jealousy. It is a part of the infinite love 
 of God towards himself (Prop, xxxvi.). It is necessary 
 and eternal, and can be destroyed by nothing in nature. 
 The cup of him who loves God with this love is full of 
 joy. He cannot even desire that God should love him
 
 SPINOZA. 1 1 5 
 
 (Prop, xxxvi., Schol.). /This blessedness of his is not the 
 reward of virtue but virtue itself (Prop. xlii.). But even 
 though we should not know this love and that our minds 
 are eternal, we ought to esteem above all things the 
 rational endeavor for self-preservation and the rational 
 endeavor to assist others and unite them in friendship. 
 
 The State. The conatus of man is, ideally speaking, 
 an endeavor, in accordance with reason. Nothing is so 
 useful to man as that which promotes that endeavor. That 
 endeavor, whether in its bodily or its mental aspect, de- 
 pends on nothing so much as upon man : nothing, there- 
 fore, is so useful to man as man. The highest good of 
 men is a good that is virtually common to all men, a 
 good that all can rejoice in : and he who lives in society 
 is freer and better than he who lives in solitude. While 
 however all this is true ideally, society actually has its 
 foundation in the emotions rather than in reason. The 
 corner-stones of society as it actually exists are the two 
 principles that the emotions must be coerced by those 
 that are stronger, and that whoever hates any one will 
 strive to injure him unless he fears that a greater evil will 
 befall him ("Ethica," Part III., Prop, xxxix.). The State, 
 therefore, has its end, office, and virtue in the providing 
 for the security of the individual as against the emotions 
 of others, which it does by coercing those emotions 
 by stronger and contrary ones. The right of the State 
 expressed in the most general terms is that of coercion, 
 a right which it possesses merely because of its might. The 
 State, as long as it has the power to exist, can do no wrong. 
 It alone has the power to break the contract on which 
 it rests. Every citizen is bound to obey all laws, however 
 absurd they may seem to him. The utmost liberty of 
 opinion and discussion, short of sedition, should be per- 
 mitted in the State. The right of coercion may be vested 
 in a single person, a popular assembly, or in a select body 
 of men : government, that is to say, may be a monarchy, 
 a democracy, or an aristocracy. In a monarchy the sove-
 
 II 6 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 reign should be a king with an advisory or consultative 
 council ; in an aristocracy a senate of four hundred, chosen 
 from a patrician order of five thousand men, constituting 
 a great common council, the fountain of all authority ; in 
 a democracy the body of " native " or naturalized citizens. 
 Religion. Religion has a function quite different from 
 that of philosophy. While the end of philosophy is truth, 
 that of religion is obedience. To^ this end Jhgre suffices 
 merely the belief that there js a single _omnipj-esent highest 
 being vvho loves justice and goodness JL _that^everence of 
 Gpd^and^ obedience to him consist in righteousness and 
 love of one's neighbor, that those ajone_who_p^ractise this 
 obedience^re happy, and that God parHnm thp 
 
 Obedience to divine laws may be practised by all men, 
 without distinction as regards their mental endowment; 
 but philosophy is only for the select few. Religion may 
 have a sufficient basis in the lowest form of knowledge, 
 opinio or imaginatio ; philosophy is scientia intuitiva, the 
 highest form of knowledge. 
 
 Result. As compared with the pantheism of Male- 
 branche, Spinoza's pantheism is the more naturalistic ; and 
 because more consistently substantialistic, since where sub- 
 stance (including mechanical cause and effect) is the 
 supreme category, there is the realm of nature as such. 
 The substantialistic pantheism of Spinoza closes the natu- 
 ral course- of development of Cartesianism : Descartes' 
 notion of God as substance par excellence, or as the 
 substance of substances, attains in Spinoza's conception 
 of God as the only substance, all other so-called substances 
 being merely attributes, its fully developed form, since sub- 
 stance is in its very nature but one. 
 
 S*- 
 
 The Cambridge Plafonist 1 and Richard Cumberland: 
 Anti-Hobbean and Anti- Cartesian. 
 
 1 See Tulloch's " Rational Theology and Christianity in England " 
 (in the seventeenth century), vol. ii.
 
 CAMBRIDGE PL A TONISTS. WHICHCO TE. 117 
 
 We may next consider a group of thinkers of the seven- 
 teenth century, whose position, if not their very existence, in 
 the history of philosophy is due largely to the fact that they 
 opposed the mechanico-naturalistic standpoint as advocated 
 by the Cartesians and (especially) by Hobbes. They are 
 the so-called Cambridge Platonists, Benjamin Whichcote, 
 John Smith, Nathaniel Culverwel, Ralph Cudworth, and 
 Henry More ; and Richard Cumberland. The Cambridge 
 Platonists may be classed as intuitionalists : Cumberland 
 as an empirico-rationalist. 
 
 53- 
 
 Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1683). Whichcote gradu- 
 ated at Cambridge University, and was afterwards fellow 
 there, and provost of King's College (1644). His sermons, 
 for he became a preacher, are said to have kindled the 
 religio-philosophical movement carried on by the Cambridge 
 Platonists. His philosophical utterances are contained in cer- 
 tain " Aphorisms " on (i ) the " Use of Reason in Religion," 
 
 (2) the "Differences of Opinion among Christians," and 
 
 (3) the "True Character of Religion." (i) "He that 
 gives a reason for what he saith," says Whichcote, "has 
 done what is fit to be done, and the most that can be done. 
 He that gives no reason speaks nothing, though he saith 
 never so much." "There is nothing proper and peculiar 
 to man but the use of reason and exercise of virtue." 
 
 (2) " Every man hath a right of judging, if he be capable ; 
 yea, can a man, ought a man, to believe otherwise than as 
 he sees cause? Is it in a man's power to believe as he 
 would, or only as the reason of the thing appears to him ? " 
 " He that is light of faith by the same reason will be light 
 of belief; he will as easily disbelieve truth as believe error." 
 
 (3) "Religion is intelligible, rational, and accountable: it 
 is not our burthen, but our privilege. The moral part of 
 religion never alters. Moral laws are of themselves, without 
 sanction by will ; and the necessity of them arises from the 
 things themselves. All other things are in order to these.
 
 I 1 8 A HISTORY OF MODE RAT PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 . . . Morals are owned as soon as they are spoken, and they 
 are nineteen parts in twenty of all religion. . . . Religion 
 doth possess and affect the whole man ; in the understand- 
 ing it is knowledge; in the life it is obedience; in the 
 affections it is delight in God ; in our carriage and be- 
 havior it is modesty, calmness, gentleness, quietness, candor, 
 ingenuity [ingenuousness?] ; in our dealing it is uprightness, 
 integrity, correspondence with the rule of righteousness ; 
 makes men virtuous in all instances." The foregoing apho- 
 risms may be said to contain the seed-thoughts of most of 
 the philosophic wisdom of the Cambridge Platonists. 
 
 54. 
 
 John Smith (1618-1652). John Smith was a graduate 
 of Emmanuel, and fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. 
 Besides being very successful as a teacher, he won esteem 
 for many excellences of character. His philosophical views 
 are contained in a volume of " Select Discourses." 
 
 Philosophy : Knowledge. Smith finds the test of knowl- 
 edge in its relation to character rather than in the 
 accordance with the formal requirements of syllogistic 
 demonstration. He distinguishes between evidence and 
 certainty, affirming that the " common notions of God and 
 virtue impressed on the souls of men are more clear and 
 conspicuous than any ; and if they have not more certainty, 
 yet they have more evidence, and display themselves with 
 less difficulty to our reflective faculty than any geometrical 
 demonstrations." In the last analysis all knowledge is self- 
 knowledge. 
 
 Stages of Spiritual Attainment. After the manner of 
 Plotinus (whom he cites) and of Plato (in the " Phsedrus," 
 " Symposuim," and "Republic"), Smith distinguishes cer- 
 tain stages of spiritual attainment. He characterizes the 
 types of intellect respectively belonging thereto as follows : 
 " First is the complex and multifarious man, in whom sense 
 and reason are so mixed and twisted up that his knowledge 
 cannot be laid out into first principles," the victim of
 
 JOHN SMITH. 119 
 
 custom and vulgar opinion ; next in order is the " ration- 
 alist," " who thinks not fit to view his own face in any other 
 glass but that of reason and understanding, and in whom 
 the communes notitice, or common principles of virtue and 
 goodness, are more clear and steady, but who, being unfed 
 and unfilled with the practice of true virtue, may be poor, 
 empty, and hungry ; " third, there is the mystic, who has 
 an " inward sense of virtue and moral goodness far tran- 
 scendent to all mere speculative opinions, but whose soul 
 is apt too much to heave and swell with the sense of his 
 own virtue and knowledge ; " last we have the true " meta- 
 physical and contemplative man," who, leaving behind his 
 mere " logical or self-rational life, pierceth into the highest 
 life." 
 
 Immortality. Smith's conception of the dignity of 
 human nature leads him directly to the conception of im- 
 mortality (and thence to that of God). The highest proof of 
 immortality is with him, man's capacity for virtue, and the 
 indestructibility of virtue, virtue making us partakers of 
 the divine eternity. Immortality is proved also by the 
 soul's incorporeality, its self-action, its apprehension of 
 necessary truth. Incorporeality follows from the fact of 
 self-consciousness ; mere material atoms could not by any 
 possibility beget thought, nor even mere sensation, which is 
 far from being real, discriminative thought. It follows also 
 from the unity and self-identification of the soul, which 
 are demonstrated by the facts of memory and the power to 
 connect ideas into a single whole of conception, and are 
 attributes entirely opposite to those possessed by matter. 
 Again, the apodictical principles of geometry, and the 
 directly-apprehended and unchangeable archetypal concep- 
 tions of morals, physics, and metaphysics, justice, wisdom, 
 goodness, truth, eternity, omnipotency, require, in virtue of 
 their purity, a higher source than mere matter. 
 
 God. "Though God hath copied forth his own per- 
 fection in this conspicable and sensible world, according as 
 it is capable of entertaining them, yet the most clear and
 
 120 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 distinct copy of himself could be imparted to none else but 
 intelligible and inconspicable natures ; and though the whole 
 fabric of the visible universe be whispering out the notions 
 of a Deity, and always inculcates the lesson of its divine 
 origin to the contemplation of it, yet we cannot understand 
 it without some interpreter within." Self-knowledge, that 
 is to say, is the key to the knowledge of the world as re- 
 lates to God, and hence of God. This is true as regards 
 not only the existence but also the attributes of God, ex- 
 cept that we know only in part and by degrees what is in 
 God eternally. God's intelligence is reason ; his acts are 
 determined by his intelligence. He is constantly present 
 with us as an unsatisfied ideal. He is revealed to us 
 through the senses as well as the understanding. Revela- 
 tion is an influx of the divine mind into ours. 
 
 Religion. The main purpose of religion is to " purge 
 and reform our hearts, and all the illicit actions and notions 
 thereof." Religion, instead of being a " boiling up of our 
 imaginative powers." or the " flowing heat of passion," is a 
 new nature, informing the souls of men. 
 
 55- 
 
 Nathaniel Culverwel (1615-1652). Culvenvel was a 
 graduate and fellow of Cambridge University, and author of 
 a philosophico-theological treatise, " Discourse of the Light 
 of Nature " (1652). Culverwel criticises "those theolo- 
 gians who are unwilling to give to reason the things that are 
 reason's, as well as to faith the things that are faith's," and 
 inquires whether they " would be banished from these es- 
 sences." He " cannot look upon reason only as a bird of 
 prey that comes to peck out the eyes of men." Will the 
 misguided theologians " pluck out their eyes because they 
 cannot look upon the sun in his brightness and glory?" 
 Culverwel, however, opposes the doctrine of innate ideas 
 and the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul, which had 
 by Plato been assumed to account for " innate ideas." In- 
 trospective psychological analysis, " consulting one's own
 
 CUL VER WEL. CUD WOR TH. 12 I 
 
 breast," fails, he thinks, to disclose any such ideas; all 
 knowledge originates primarily through the senses. Reason, 
 in the complete sense of the term, is both a light which 
 discerns eternal law, and a subject which obeys that law. 
 The eternal law discerned by reason is God himself, who 
 embraces in a single great order both matter and spirit. 
 Law originates in reason and is for reason, is essentially 
 moral in character (as Hooker had already taught). What 
 the law of reason is, we may learn not only by introspection, 
 but from the consensus gentium, or the universal consent of 
 men. " When you see so many rays from the same light 
 shooting themselves into the several corners of the world, 
 you presently look up to the sun as the glorious original of 
 them all. . . . Certainly it is some transcendent beauty that 
 so many nations are enamoured withal. It is some powerful 
 music that sets the whole world advancing." 
 
 56- 
 
 Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688). Cudworth graduated 
 at Cambridge, was fellow and tutor in Emmanuel College 
 there, and was also regius professor of Hebrew, and master, 
 or principal, of Clare Hall and of Christ's College. During 
 an interval between different periods at which he was con- 
 nected with the university he preached in one of the English 
 parishes, winning a name for pulpit-eloquence. " Even at 
 the early age of twenty-three " Cudworth had " mastered all 
 the main sources of philosophy, mediaeval as well as clas- 
 sical," and was particularly familiar with the Neo-Platonic 
 and Jewish schools of thought. He is noted for his great 
 learning. 
 
 Works. Cudworth's principal works are: "The Intel- 
 lectual System of the Universe" (1678), a reply to 
 Hobbes's " Leviathan, a Treatise concerning Eternal and 
 Immutable Morality" (published 1731), "Liberty and Ne- 
 cessity" (published 1838). 
 
 Philosophy : Problems. " These three things," says Cud- 
 worth, " are the fundamentals or essentials of true religion :
 
 122 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 that all things do not float without a head and governor, but 
 there is an omnipresent understanding being presiding over 
 all ; that God hath ah essential goodness and justice, the 
 differences of good and evil, moral, honest and dishonest, 
 are not by mere will and law, and consequently the Deity 
 cannot act, influence, and necessitate men to such things as 
 are in their own nature evil ; and lastly, that necessity is not 
 intrinsical to the nature of everything, but men have such a 
 liberty or power over their own actions as may render them 
 accountable for the same and blameworthy when they do 
 amiss, and consequently there is justice distributive of re- 
 wards and punishments running throughout the world." To 
 establish by rational proof the three foregoing theses 
 viz., the existence of God, of the truth of moral conceptions 
 as such, and the fact of liberty of will is the proposed 
 general object of Cudvvorth's philosophizing. 
 
 The Existence of God. Cudworth's proof of the thesis 
 of the existence of God is largely merely a disproof of the 
 contradictory. He defines atheism as " corporealism," 
 the " putting of matter in place of mind ; " theism, on the 
 contrary, " making the first original of all things universally 
 to be a consciously understanding nature, or perfect mind." 
 He classes as " imperfect theists " those who hold to the 
 eternity of matter as well as mind. Atheistic were, actually, 
 though not necessarily, the ancient doctrines of atomism and 
 hylozoism. Purely atheistic is the " corporealism " of 
 Hobbes. The logical origin of Hobbes's atheism lies in his 
 doctrine of knowledge. If the Hobbean doctrine of knowl- 
 edge, which is, fundamentally, that all knowledge is limited 
 by mere sense, be true, we do not know that we know, " since 
 one sense cannot judge of another or correct the error of it, 
 all sense as such (that is, as fancy and apparition) being 
 alike true." Sense itself is unknown, since " neither fancy 
 nor sense falls under sense, but only the objects of them ; 
 we neither seeing vision nor feeling taction, nor hearing 
 audition, much the less hearing sight or seeing taste or 
 the like." To deny the existence of whatever may not
 
 CUD WORTH. 123 
 
 be an object of corporeal sense is to deny the existence 
 of mind and soul in ourselves and others, since we can 
 neither feel nor see any such things. Nevertheless, we are 
 certain from inward consciousness, from "reason," since 
 " nothing " cannot act, and from our observation of the 
 actions of others, that soul and mind really exist in ourselves 
 and others. And the atheist has as little reason to deny 
 the existence of a perfect mind presiding over the universe 
 as that of mind and soul in ourselves and others. To derive 
 mind from a " supposed senseless, stupid, and inconscious 
 life of nature in matter" is equivalent to deriving some- 
 thing from nothing. " If matter as such had life, per- 
 ception, and understanding to it, then of necessity must 
 every action or smallest particle thereof be a distinct per- 
 cipient by itself: from which it will follow that there could 
 not possibly be any such men and animals as now are com- 
 pounded out of them ; but every man and animal would be 
 a heap of innumerable perceptions and intellections ; whereas 
 it is plain that there is but one life and understanding, one 
 soul or mind, one thinker in every one." Similarly, there 
 must be assumed in the universe as one universe a single 
 mind ruling it. Further, were all movement in the universe 
 merely mechanical, communicated, or passive, movement, 
 motion would primarily proceed from nothing ; hence there 
 must be a self-moving, unmoved first mover. Again, matter 
 could never have created mind ; but a perfect mind could 
 have created matter. Another proof of the existence of 
 God (or perfect being) is as follows : Something must 
 eternally have existed, and must consequently have ex- 
 isted naturally and necessarily, including necessarily eternal 
 existence in its own nature ; hence have been absolutely 
 perfect. Still another proof may be given thus : " Knowl- 
 edge is possible only through ideas, which must have their 
 source in an eternal reason. Sense is not only not the whole 
 of knowledge, but is in itself not at all knowledge : it is in 
 itself wholly relative and individual, and not universal until 
 the mind adds to it what is absolute and universal. Knowl-
 
 124 A HISTORY OF MODEKN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 edge does not begin with what is universal : the individual 
 is known by being brought under a universal : the universal 
 is not gathered from a multitude of individuals. And the 
 universals, vorj^ara, or ideas, which underlie all knowledge 
 of men, which originate it, and do not originate in it, have 
 existed eternally in the only mode in which truth can be 
 said to be eternally existent, /. e., in an eternal mind." 
 Another proof offered by Cudworth of the existence of God 
 is that of Anselm, slightly modified. 1 
 
 God in Relation to Matter : The " Plastic Nature." 
 To suppose that " God himself doth all immediately, and, as 
 it were, with his own hands, forms the body of every gnat 
 and fly, insect and mite, is to render divine providence 
 operose, solicitous, and distractious." And, apart from this, 
 the slowness and imperfection of actual nature confute such 
 an idea. There must exist between God and matter a third 
 nature, which may be termed the " plastic nature." " It is 
 a certain lower life than the animal, which acts regularly 
 and artificially according to the directions of mind and un- 
 derstanding, reason and wisdom, for ends, in order to good, 
 though itself do not know the reason for what it does, nor 
 is master of that wisdom according to which it acts, but only 
 a servant to it, and drudging executioner of the same, it 
 operating fatally and sympathetically according to law and 
 commands prescribed to it by a perfect intellect, and im- 
 pressed upon it ; and which is either a lower faculty of 
 some conscious soul, or else an inferior kind of life or soul 
 by itself, but essentially depending upon an higher intellect." 2 
 To suppose that " every plant, herb, and pile of grass has a 
 plastic or vegetative soul of its own were unreasonable, 
 but there may possibly be one plastic unconscious nature 
 in the whole terraqueous globe, by which vegetables may be 
 generally organized and framed, and all things performed 
 which transcend the power of fortuitous mechanism." 
 
 1 See Professor Flint's article on Cudworth in the " Encyclopaedia 
 Brftannica," on these proofs. 
 
 8 See " Intellectual System of the Universe," book i., ch. iii.
 
 HENRY MOKE. 12$ 
 
 Eternal and Immutable Morality. Cudworth's theory 
 of the foundation of morality, intended as answer to Hobbes's 
 mechanico-sensational theory, is summed up in the following 
 propositions: (i) Things are what they are by nature, not 
 by mere will; (2) Things are immutably and necessarily 
 what they are, there is no such thing as an " arbitrarious 
 essence, mode, or relation that may be made indifferently 
 anything at pleasure ; " even when a divine or human com- 
 mand makes a thing before indifferent obligatory or unlaw- 
 ful, the real element of morality depends upon the right or 
 authority of the one who gives the command, which right 
 or authority is founded on natural justice and equity or on 
 antecedent obligation to obedience in the subjects; the 
 moral quality of acts does not depend on the mere will or 
 pleasure that enjoins them. Cudworth's doctrine of morality 
 rests immediately on the epistemological doctrine that 
 knowledge, in the proper sense of the term, is not born of 
 sense, which is merely receptive and mutable, like the things 
 of which alone it takes cognizance, but of intellect, and is 
 as such true and eternal. The mind, characteristically, acts 
 by an inherent power of its own, and has not only fleeting 
 " sensations " and " phantasms," but also noemata, or pure 
 conceptions, to the essence of which, as the objects of pure 
 actuality or self-determination, it pertains to endure. Among 
 such conceptions are those of right, justice, and the like. 1 
 
 Liberty and Necessity. Cudworth admits free will in 
 man in so far as man, because of an imperfect nature, may 
 at times be unable to make an intellectual choice or dis- 
 tinction between objects. Otherwise man is not " free," 
 as God is not, in any sense. 
 
 57- 
 
 Henry More (1614-1687). More went from Eton 
 College (Grammar School at Eton) to Christ's College, 
 
 1 The student may profitably consult the monograph by C. E. 
 Lowrey, Ph. D., entitled, "The Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth," etc. 
 (N. Y., 1884).
 
 126 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Cambridge, where as student or as fellow he lived recluse- 
 like most of his adult life. As a youth he exhibited great 
 sensitiveness of feeling. His parents were stanch Calvin- 
 ists ; the Calvinistic faith was utterly repulsive to him. After 
 passing through a religious ferment, he found mental satis- 
 faction in the study of the doctrines of the Neo-Platonists, 
 the Cabala, the mediaeval Mystics, and Boehme. He be- 
 lieved himself to have a direct sense of the presence of a 
 higher life in him, and he strove intellectually and emotion- 
 ally for a union with the divine principle of things. Though 
 a sort of recluse, he had a warm love for visible nature. His 
 life and character are said to have been of special beauty. 
 Like Cudworth, he was deeply learned in the history of 
 philosophy. 
 
 Works. Of More's works may be mentioned : " Anti- 
 dote against Atheism," " Immortality of the Soul," " Grand 
 Mystery of Godliness," " Mystery of Iniquity," " Divine 
 Dialogues" (1668), "Enchiridion Ethicum" (1668), "En- 
 chiridium Metaphysicum, or Manual of Metaphysics " 
 (1671), "Letters to Descartes." He wrote treatises on 
 Boehme and Spinoza. 
 
 Philosophy : Problems. The character of More's philoso- 
 phizing was determined by his opposition to the doctrines 
 of the unphilosophical theologians of his time, and of Des- 
 cartes and Hobbes. He strives to establish against the 
 theologians the rights of reason in religion, and the ration- 
 ality of (Christian) religion. " For mine own part, reason 
 seems to me to be so far from being any contemptible prin- 
 ciple in man that it must be acknowledged in some sort to 
 be God himself." To make clear this point he distinguishes 
 the divine reason as the ratio stabilis, a "kind of steady 
 and immovable reason discovering the connections of all 
 things at once," and the human reason as the ratio mobilis, 
 or " reason in evolution," and a real " participation of that 
 divine reason." The "logos, or steady comprehensive 
 wisdom of God, in which all ideas and their respects are 
 contained, is but universal reason." The root of religion,
 
 HENRY MORE. I2J 
 
 and indeed of philosophy, is moral purity, the very consti- 
 tution of human nature itself. More's attitude towards 
 Descartes and Hobbes will appear in what follows. 
 
 Matter and Spirit. Matter is, not extension, as Des- 
 cartes maintains, but " impenetrable and discerptible sub- 
 stance : " it is " resistance or capacity of keeping out 
 stoutly or irresistibly another substance from entering into 
 the same space or place with itself," and it is the capa- 
 city of endless subdivision into parts. Equally rational 
 (Hobbes to the contrary notwithstanding) with the notion 
 of an impenetrable and discerptible substance is that of 
 a " penetrable and indiscerptible substance," /'. e., spirit. 
 " Penetrability " implies " self-motion, self-contraction, and 
 dilation ; " indiscerptibility " implies that spirit of its own 
 nature invisibly holds itself together, so that it cannot 
 be disunited or dissevered." The idea of extension and 
 space cannot be thought away : it is necessary, and implies 
 a necessary reality, one, indivisible, infinite. Matter 
 is not such a reality; matter, as being essentially con- 
 tingent, implies a necessary principle, spirit ; the very idea 
 of God as being absolutely perfect, implies a spiritual exist- 
 ence ; the fact of motion points to an immaterial cause 
 of motion, since matter is " homogeneal," and hence with- 
 out a principle of difference and change such as motion 
 implies, matter, even if capable of producing motion, 
 could not be conceived as doing anything more than 
 " grinding itself into the more rude and general delineation 
 of nature ; " unquestionable testimony to the existence of 
 ghosts and apparitions necessitates belief in the existence 
 of spirit ; above all, the fact of an ideal element in knowl- 
 edge and of the freedom of the will prove the existence 
 of spirit. Spirit is extended substance. If it were not, 
 God would not be omnipresent. Whatever is, is in virtue 
 of its simple being, somewhere, and is therefore in some 
 sort of space. The space occupied by matter is an ^ten- 
 sive space, that occupied by spirit, mtensive. Space, as 
 both extensive and intensive, is the bridge (in More's
 
 128 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 doctrine) between the corporeal and incorporeal, and the 
 means by which the spiritual world brings the material 
 under its dominion. 
 
 The Soul of Man and the World-Soul. Spirit (soul) 
 in man originated neither ex traduce nor by special creation 
 when the body was formed, but from a previous state 
 of existence, and is therefore immortal. It passes through 
 three definite stages of development, a terrestrial, an 
 aerial, and an ethereal. While in the material body the 
 soul has its seat in the fourth ventricle of the brain, 
 where it may have the best possible communication with all 
 parts of the brain. The soul of the world is a spirit 
 " without sense and animadversion ;" it pervades the " whole 
 matter of the universe," producing such " phenomena 
 as cannot be resolved into mere mechanical power." Evi- 
 dence of the fact of the wo rid- soul appears in gravity, 
 which must be conceived as the effect of some " immaterial 
 cause directing the motions of ethereal particles to act 
 upon those grosser bodies to drive them towards the 
 earth." 
 
 Morality. Morality is the art of living well or happily. 
 The essential condition of morality is freedom of the will. 
 The freedom of the will we know directly : we know 
 it, sometimes, only too well, since we frequently do not 
 do the good which we know we ought to do. There can- 
 not possibly be a contradiction between divine prescience 
 and freedom of the will, since contradiction cannot at 
 all come within the sphere of divine omniscience. We 
 know the good by a faculty which perceives instinctively 
 and with absolute certainty its object, and delights in it 
 alone, viz., the " boniform faculty." This faculty in us 
 is a " sense " corresponding to TO a-yaOov in the Deity. It 
 is the most truly divine faculty in our souls, the image 
 of the " divine sagacity," which in God is superior even 
 to reason. The perception of this faculty consists in a 
 living sense of its object, and not a merely formal appre- 
 hension of it. The characteristic fruit of the faculty is
 
 CUMBERLAND, 1 29 
 
 love of God and one's neighbor. The passions of men 
 are not necessarily evil, but may be servants of the notion 
 of virtue. They may be compared to the winds, which 
 purify the material atmosphere. The seat of the passions 
 is the plastic nature (which occupies the heart) . The funda- 
 mental passions are those of admiration, love, and hate. 
 Love towards future good is desire ; love exulting in the 
 presence of the good is joy ; etc. The primary virtues 
 are prudence, sincerity, and patience. Derivative are 
 justice, courage, and temperance. Subordinate are the 
 virtues of liberality, gratitude, veracity, candor, urbanity, 
 fidelity. " All virtue is summed up in ' intellectual love," 
 or love of the highest good. Just as numbers spring from 
 unity and may be measured by it, so intellectual love, 
 as a single and simple principle, is the source and rule 
 of the diverse forms of good." 
 
 58. 
 
 Richard Ctimberland ( 1 632-1 718). Cumberland was 
 a graduate and fellow of Cambridge, and was rector at 
 Brampton and Stamford, chaplain to the Lord Keeper of 
 the Seals, and Bishop of Peterborough. His only philo- 
 sophical work appears to have been " De Legibus Dis- 
 quisitio Philosophica in qua earum Forma, summa Capita, 
 Ordo, Promulgatio, et Obligatio e Rerum Natura investi- 
 gantur ; quin etiam Elementa Philosophic Hobbianae, cum 
 Moralis turn Civilis, considerantur et regulantur" (1692). 
 
 Philosophy. Cumberland undertakes, in common with 
 More and Cudworth, to vindicate the notion of a natural 
 and immutable foundation of morality against the me- 
 chanico-sensational and individualistic theory of Hobbes. 
 He rejects the Platonistic doctrine of knowledge upon 
 which the Cambridge philosophers had based their ethical 
 doctrine, and maintains a theory not unlike (indeed) that 
 of Hobbes himself: he will as far as possible deduce the 
 laws of morality by a geometrical method from a single 
 fundamental principle. This principle is, the law of bene- 
 VOL. i. 9
 
 130 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 volence towards all rational beings, including even God. 
 This law has its foundation in the fact that since every- 
 thing has a definite place in the entire world of things, 
 and is so framed as to continue in that place and preserve 
 its nature, human nature, or rational nature in general, 
 is a certain end in itself to itself. An a posteriori proof 
 of this law of nature is found in the fact of man's natural 
 aptitude for social virtues or a common life with others. 
 This aptitude appears in the possession of reason, of power 
 of comparison and of perception of analogies, of speech, 
 of efficiency of hand, of organs for the propagation of the 
 human species, etc. This law has as sanction happiness 
 and unhappiness, which common experience and the con- 
 sensus gentium show to be consequent upon observance 
 and violation of it. This sanction is one affixed by the 
 divine will to the law, though the happiness consequent 
 upon observance and the unhappiness consequent upon 
 violation follow from human nature as well as from the 
 divine will. Benevolence is good, however, apart from 
 its connection with happiness. It promotes the common 
 good : that it does so is (says Cumberland) as certain as 
 that a moving point generates a line. The limited nature 
 of our physical powers makes it necessary that, in the 
 observance of the primary law of morality, we (i) dis- 
 tinguish between things within our reach and things not 
 so, and (2) limit our benevolence as regards persons, 
 times, places, etc. Since the whole depends upon its 
 parts, a corollary of the law of benevolence is an individual 
 right of property. After benevolence, the chief moral 
 virtue is justice, which embraces liberality, courtesy, and 
 domestic affection. All government and political author- 
 ity have their foundation in the idea of benevolence. 1 
 
 59- 
 John Locke* (1632-1704). Locke, who was the son of 
 
 1 See Hallam's Literature of Europe, Part IV. 
 
 2 Locke's works ; " Life of Locke," by H. R. Fox-Bourne :
 
 LOCKE. 131 
 
 a Puritan attorney and small landowner of Somersetshire, 
 attended, between the ages of fourteen and twenty, 
 the Westminster Grammar School, at the head of which 
 was a Dr. Busby, famous as a flogger of schoolboys. 
 The impressions received by him there were of lasting 
 consequence : he always afterwards had a hatred of mere 
 scholasticality in thinking, which constituted a prime motive- 
 force in his philosophizing. He entered Oxford University 
 in 1652, and remained connected with that institution, as 
 student, tutor, fellow, or honorary student, for many years. 
 He was not, as an undergraduate, specially studious : he 
 was repelled at Oxford, as at Westminster, by outworn Scho- 
 lasticism. He was, however, a busy reader. The reading 
 of Descartes, who greatly delighted if he did not com- 
 pletely satisfy him, gave him his first stimulus to philo- 
 sophical reflection. Some thought of making divinity his 
 profession was dispelled by the certainty that if he did so he 
 would be obliged to surrender all real conviction ; and he 
 chose the study and practice of medicine. He fell into 
 the society of men interested in physical research, and 
 was elected member of the Royal Society of London. In 
 1665 he accompanied Sir Walter Vane as secretary on an 
 embassy to Germany. In 1667 he became private secretary 
 to the statesman, or politician, Lord Ashley. During Ash- 
 ley's term as minister he received appointments as Secretary 
 of Presentations, and of the Board of Trade. In 1675 
 (after Ashley's dismissal from office), Locke went to France 
 on account of ill-health. He there had the society of men 
 of intellectual eminence. He returned to England in 1679 
 to become again secretary and counsellor of Ashley, with 
 whom he remained till the latter's flight to Holland four 
 years later. Locke fled to Holland, and was for six years 
 a (political) exile. In Holland his time was largely occu- 
 pied with the preparation of his great " Essay," begun 
 
 " Locke," by Thomas Fowler ("English Men of Letters"); Green's 
 "Introduction to Hume;" "Conduct of the Understanding," ed. by 
 Fowler; "Locke," by Fraser (Blackwood Series).
 
 132 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 fifteen years previously. He had the pleasure and advan- 
 tage of social and intellectual intercourse with the Dutch 
 theological liberals. Locke returned to England when the 
 new political order began, and took an active part during 
 the remainder of his life in the work of establishing firmly 
 the quasi-republican form of government under the reign 
 of William of Orange. Ill-health necessitated his declining 
 the offer of certain positions of great honor and responsi- 
 bility ; but he did accept the office of Secretary of Trades 
 and Plantations, and acted as a personal adviser of the chief 
 republican statesmen about him. His published works, 
 dealing with burning questions of his day, brought upon 
 him many controversial tasks, which he always performed 
 vigorously and effectively. In the scientific, religious, and 
 political life of his age he was one of the most active and 
 useful of men. Few philosophers, if any, in any age, have, 
 indeed, been practically so efficient as Locke. His private 
 life and character seem to have been most estimable. 
 
 Works. Locke's chief philosophical works are : " Essay 
 Concerning Human Understanding," first published in 1690, 
 and enlarged twice or thrice within the following decade, 
 the sixth edition being the fullest ; " Thoughts Concerning 
 Education" (1693) ; " The Conduct of the Understanding " 
 (posthumuously published) ; " Second Treatise of Civil 
 Government" (1689); Three "Letters" (1697-1699) to 
 the Bishop of Worcester (Edward Stillingfleet) . 
 
 Philosophy. I. Human Understanding. Introduction : 
 Scope, Value, and Method of the Proposed Investigation. 
 Locke proposes in his chief philosophical undertaking, con- 
 cerning human understanding, to inquire into the "original 
 [origin] of those ideas, notions, or whatever else one may 
 please to call them, which a man observes and is con- 
 scious to himself he has in his mind; the ways whereby 
 the understanding comes to be furnished with them ; what 
 knowledge the understanding hath by those ideas, and the 
 certainty, evidence, and extent of it ; the nature and grounds 
 of faith or opinion [or the assent which we give to any
 
 LOCKE. 133 
 
 proposition as true of whose truth we have no certain knowl- 
 edge], and there as on and degrees of assent." He proposes 
 to exclude from his investigation all " physical considera- 
 tion of mind" and all examination into its essence and the 
 " motions of our spirits or alteration of our bodies by which 
 we come to have any sensation by our organs or any ideas 
 in our understandings, and with the question whether those 
 ideas do in their formation, any, or all of them, depend 
 on matter or no." He hopes that undertaking, successfully 
 carried through, " may be of use to prevail with the busy 
 mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things 
 exceeding its comprehension, to stop where it is, at the 
 utmost extent of its tether, and to sit down in quiet igno- 
 rance of those things which upon examinatipn are found to 
 be beyond the reach of our capacities ; our business in this 
 world being not to know all things, but only those which 
 concern our conduct," etc. And he is confident that it 
 " will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant, who 
 would not attend his business by candle-light, to plead tha-t 
 he had not broad sunshine, since the candle that is set 
 in us shines bright enough for all our purposes." Locke's 
 proposed method is what he terms the " plain historical one," 
 the looking into his own mind to find what he can there, 
 without even assuming that all " minds " are similar to his. 
 And, in fact, anything like the methods of recent experi- 
 mental psychology, comparative psychology, and of the 
 theory of knowledge in the sense of an inquiry into the 
 condition of experience, is quite foreign to Locke's con- 
 scious (or unconscious) plan. He proposes simply to take 
 the "ideas he finds in his mind," and by exhausting the 
 consideration of the agreements and disagreements among 
 them, to gather what he can concerning their origin and 
 meaning. Thejnvestigation of human understanding has 
 four parts : I. " Of Innate Notions ; " II. " Of Ideas ; " 
 III. "Of Words;" IV. "Of Knowledge and Opinion." 
 Innate Ideas : ( i ) Speculative Principles)- Defining 
 
 1 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II. ch. ii.
 
 134 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 / an idea as " whatsoever is the object of the under- 
 standing when a man thinks," " whatever the mind can 
 be employed about in thinking," "something which a man 
 observes and is conscious to himself he has in his mind," 
 Locke combats the doctrine of innate ideas. Universal 
 consent or agreement as to the (supposed) fact of innate 
 ideas, or "constant impressions which the souls of men 
 receive in their first being, and which they bring into the 
 world with them as necessarily and really as they do any 
 of their inherent faculties, proves nothing," says Locke, 
 " if there be any other way shown how men come to that 
 universal agreement in the things they do consent in." 
 But there are no ideas to which mankind give universal 
 assent : even such axiomatic truths as " What is, is," and 
 " It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," 
 are, to a large portion of mankind, unknown even. Again, 
 "no proposition can be said to be in the mind which it 
 never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of," for 
 otherwise all propositions that the mind is capable of as- 
 senting to might be regarded as " innate ; " 
 
 ideas if that is all that is meant is, of course/' innate. ' ' 
 If it be said that certain principles are innate in the sense 
 that all men know and assent to them when they come to 
 the use of reason, and that this is enough to prove them 
 innate, the answer is that savages, children, idiots, and the 
 illiterate employ reason long before they are aware of 
 such truths as " What is, is," and " It is impossible for 
 the same thing to be and not to be ; " that if such truths 
 were innate on this ground, so likewise are many others not 
 regarded as innate ; that it would be no more true to say 
 that these truths are innate, on the ground that the time 
 of assenting to them and the time of coming to reason 
 coincide, than to say that speech could be innate if the 
 time of coming to the use of it, and the time of first assent- 
 ing to these truths, were the same; that, overlooking 
 time, if all truths discovered by reason be innate, then 
 equally are the axioms of mathematics (which are innate
 
 LOCKE. 135 
 
 if any principles are) and the theorems grounded on them 
 innate, and it would follow that, since all reasoning is 
 "search and casting about, and requires pains and appli- 
 cation," what was imprinted by nature as the foundation 
 and guide of our reason (as innate principles are supposed 
 to have been) would require the use of reason to discover 
 it ! Further, on the alleged ground that ideas are innate 
 which are assented to when the terms in which they are 
 proposed are understood, innumerable propositions in 
 mathematics, natural philosophy, and all other sciences 
 would have to be (falsely) declared innate. And, indeed, 
 why should innate ideas or principles need to be proposed 
 in order to gain assent? It is not true to say here that 
 men do not learn anything absolutely de novo : the truth 
 is, rather, that ideas are no more innate than names are. 
 To conclude, then, as regards " speculative " principles, 
 such as, " Whatever is, is," and "It_js impossible for the 
 same thing to"~be~~an3T^h6t to be," they have not uni- 
 versal 'assent, they Tire not first known Imless wlPmake 
 the~ absurd supposition that they can be imprinted in 
 the mind and yet not be perceived, and finally, they 
 appear least where what is innate shows itself most 
 clearly, in the original impressions, if there be such, 
 upon the minds of children, idiots, savages, and the 
 illiterate being least of all corrupted by custom, bor- 
 rowed opinion, learning, and education, though the minds 
 of such persons are without innate principles. There are, 
 therefore, no innate speculative principles. 
 
 (2) Practical* Principles?- And it is even more true 
 that there are no innate practical principles, or principles 
 of action. The proverbial " honor among thieves," for 
 example, points not to any such innateness of practical 
 principles, but merely to men's natural instinct of self- 
 preservation. Again, " practical principles " that are 
 denied in action, but approved in theory, are not 
 really practical principles or " inclinations of appetite " 
 
 1 Essay, Book I. ch. iii.
 
 136 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 to good or evil. Further, moral rules require proof: one 
 who had never heard the Golden Rule might, on first hear- 
 ing it, ask, without absurdity, Why? Virtue is approved 
 among men, not because it is innate, but because it is 
 profitable. Nor is conscience innate : it depends on 
 education, surroundings, custom; and sanctions different 
 and even contrary things in different persons and peoples. 
 And if conscience were innate, how could individuals and 
 nations fail To^ rjegard ifr and ever openly reject and re- 
 nounce its rules ? Again, to say " that innate principles 
 of morality may, by education and custom and the gen- 
 eral opinion of those among whom we converse, be dark- 
 ened, and at last quite worn out of the minds of men," is, 
 in effect, to deny the universality of assent, or to take it 
 in a sense contrary to fact. But as a matter of fact we 
 do not find innate principles " clearest and most perspicu- 
 ous nearest the fountain, in children and illiterate people 
 who have received least impression from foreign opinions." 
 There are no innate practical_priniples ; nor, indeed, do 
 those wficT mamTam their existence say what they are. 
 Tradition, reverence for what seems established, want 
 of skill, of leisure, of inclination to investigate, laziness, 
 ignorance, education, precipitancy, have all combined to 
 preclude the discovery of the real origin of the supposed 
 innate practical principles. 
 
 Mere Ideas}- Finally, there are no innate ideas, not 
 to say principles. Who will affirm that the ideas of im- 
 possibility and identity involved in the principle, " It is 
 impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," are 
 innate? Can a child of seven (or even a man of seventy) 
 state positively " whether a man, being a creature con- 
 sisting of soul and body, be the same man when his bodies 
 are changed"? The idea of whole and part presupposes 
 those of extension and number, which no one, surely, will 
 affirm to be innate. Whole nations have been without the 
 idea of God, and different nations and individuals have 
 
 1 Essay, Book I. chap. iv.
 
 LOCKE. 137 
 
 held widely different conceptions of the Deity, and since, 
 if there were no other way by which we could have the 
 idea, and it would, therefore, seem most natural that it, of 
 all ideas, should have been imprinted upon the mind, and 
 so be universally acknowledged, whereas such is not the 
 case, we cannot suppose any other idea to be innate. The 
 idea of substance, which might seem to be an exception, 
 is not a positive idea, we mean by the word substance 
 merely something " which we take to be the substratum, 
 or support, of those ideas we know." Lastly, to say that 
 there are ideas in the mind which it does not actually 
 " think on," is unintelligible. 
 
 Conclusion. Innate ideas and principles so-called are, in 
 fine, merely certain classes of ideas and principles that " for- 
 wardly offer themselves to all men's understandings," and 
 are no more innate than arts and sciences. The mind is 
 originally an empty " cabinet," which has to be " furnished" 
 with contents ; it is a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, 
 to be written upon. 
 
 Origin and Sorts of Ideas?- The source of all our knowl- 
 edge is experience. 
 
 " which is such an impressJon^orL_motion, made in some 
 par^of the body, as produces some perception in the under- 
 standing." " The impulse made on the organ [say of sight] 
 must be produced by some insensible particles coming from 
 the object to the eyes ; and by a continuation of that mo- 
 tion to the brain, ideas are produced in us." A " new set of 
 ideas," which may be called " ideas of reflection," is pro- 
 duced by the mind's reflection upon its " operations about 
 the ideas got by sensation." " In all that good extent 
 wherein the mind wanders, in those remote speculations it 
 may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond 
 those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for its 
 contemplation " (Bk. II. ch. i., 23, 24). The impressions 
 made on our senses by outward objects are wholly " extrin- 
 sical " to the mind, its own operations are "intrinsical " to 
 
 1 Essay, Bk. II. ch. i.
 
 d 
 v/ q 
 
 yc 
 \y i 
 
 138 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 it. The power to produce an idea in the mind by impres- 
 sion upon the senses is the quality of the " subject wherein 
 that power is." Whiteness, coldness, roundness, regarded 
 as " sensations or perceptions in the understanding " are 
 called ideas ; regarded as " powers " in a snowball to pro- 
 
 uce these ideas, are the qualities of the object. The 
 qualities perceived in bodies are, (i) such as are in the 
 bodies themselves, are inseparable from them, whatever 
 their state, produce ideas in us that are " resemblances " of 
 the qualities themselves, and may be termed " original," or 
 < f^Hmary~ >J Tpialities, or (2) such as are not in bodies ex- 
 
 ept in some mysterious and accidental manner, produce 
 in us ideas that have no resemblance to the qualities them- 
 selves, and may therefore be 
 
 X 
 
 qualities. Secondary qualities are of two sorts : ( i ) such 
 as produce ideas in us through the senses, and (2) such as 
 produce changes in other bodies whereby they are caused 
 to operate on our senses differently from what they did 
 before. The primary qualities of bodies are solidity, ex- 
 tension, figure, number, motion, rest. Secondary qualities 
 of the first-named sort are colors, smells, sounds, and tastes. 
 The power the " sun has to make wax white," or " fire has 
 to make lead fluid," are examples of the second-named 
 class of secondary qualities. That " God should annex 
 such ideas " (as those corresponding to secondary qualities) 
 to motions with which they have no similitude, is "no 
 more impossible to conceive . . . than that he should annex 
 the idea of pain to the motion of a piece of steel dividing our 
 flesh, with which that idea has no resemblance." Secondary 
 qualities would have no existence were there not minds 
 to be cognizant of them. In themselves ideas may be 
 . classed as simple and complex. Of_simple-44eas. some are 
 ; got by sensation alone, some by sensation and reflection 
 t/ together, some by reflection alone. Some simple ideas 
 belong to one sense only, as colors to sight, and heat, cold, 
 and solidity to touch ; others to more senses than one, as 
 space, figure, rest, and motion to both sight and touch.
 
 LOCKE. 139 
 
 Our ideas of pleasure and pain, existence, unity, power, 
 and succession we get from sensation and reflection united. 
 Our ideas of perception, thinking, willing, knowledge, faith, 
 etc., are given to us in reflection only. The simple idea is 
 given to the mind when, in a merely " passive " state, and in 
 clear and distinct perception, it " contains in itself one uni- 
 form appearance of mind, and is not distinguishable into 
 different ideas." As the mind is passive in relation to sim- 
 ple ideas, it is " not in the power of the most exalted wit 
 or enlarged understanding, by any quickness or variety of 
 thought, to invent or frame one new simple idea in the 
 mind, not taken in by the ways before-mentioned, nor can 
 any force of understanding destroy those that are there : 
 the dominion of man in this little world of his own under- 
 standing, being much what the same as it is in the great 
 world of visible things, wherein his power, however man- 
 aged by art and skill, reaches no farther than to compound 
 and divide the materials that are made to his hand, but 
 can do nothing towards making the least particle of new 
 matter, or destroying one atom of what is already in 
 being." In an active relation to its ideas, the mind may 
 by repeating, comparing, uniting simple ideas produce to 
 "almost infinite variety," "complex ideas," examples of 
 which are space, time, number, substance, cause. Gom- 
 plex ideas may be classed as ideas of m^^ of- sub-^ 
 stances, and of relations. The idea of the mode " contains 
 "the Supposition of a thing subsisting in dependence on an- 
 other : the idea of the substance contains no such supposi- 
 tion." Modes are either "simple," which are "variations 
 or different combinations of the same simple idea" (e.g., 
 dozen or a score), or "mixed, which are compounds ".of 
 simple modes of various kinds (e. g., beauty, " which is a 
 compound of color and figure causing delight in the be- 
 holder "). The " mixed modes " do not correspond to any 
 real existence, but are " scattered and independent " ideas 
 " put together " by the mind, the unity of the mode con- 
 sisting solely in an " act of the mind." Mixed modes are
 
 140 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 constantly changing with custom and opinion. Substances 
 are single or collective ; examples of the latter-named sort 
 are "army," "lead." 
 
 Ideas of Modes. Space as mere extension is a "simple 
 idea." It must not be confounded with body (as was done 
 by the Cartesians), since it is not solid, and its parts are 
 immovable and inseparable. Modes of space are distance 
 (including figure and place) and capacity. The fact that 
 the power of " enlarging " our idea of space remains con- 
 stant how many soever " additions " we may make, suggests 
 to us the idea of infinite space, which, however, is not a 
 positive idea. The same is true of the idea of time. (If 
 we could " enlarge " other ideas as easily as we can those 
 of space and time, we could more readily than we now can 
 join the idea of the infinite with them.) Number is a 
 "complex idea" (though a simple mode), which is given to 
 us in all our experiences. Pleasure and pain are simple 
 ideas indescribable, indefinable, and known only as experi- 
 enced. They constitute the criteria of good and evil (moral 
 and physical). Pleasure and pain are the primary constitu- 
 ents of all our passions. " Happiness in its full extent is 
 the utmost pleasure we are capable of ; misery the utmost 
 pain ; the lowest degree of what may be called happiness is 
 so much ease from all pain, and so much present pleasure 
 as without which any one cannot be content " (Bk. II. ch. 
 xxi.). Modes of pleasure and pain are: love, or the idea 
 of the delight which any present or absent object is apt to 
 produce ; hatred, or the " idea of the pain any present or 
 absent object is apt to produce ; desire, or the uneasiness a 
 man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose 
 present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it ; " joy, 
 sorrow, hope, fear, despair, anger, envy. The idea of 
 " power " is a simple idea produced in us by the fact that the 
 mind, being "every day informed by the senses of this alter- 
 ation of these simple ideas it observes in things without, 
 and taking notice how one comes to an end, or ceases to 
 be, and another begins to exist which was not before, re-
 
 LOCKE. 141 
 
 fleeting also on what passes within itself, and observing a 
 constant change in its ideas, sometimes by the impression 
 of outward objects on the senses, and sometimes by the 
 determination of its own choice, and concluding from what 
 it has constantly observed to have been, that the like 
 changes will for the future be made in the same things by 
 like agents and by like ways, considers in one thing the 
 possibility of having its ideas changed, and in another the 
 possibility of making that change." We get our clearest 
 idea of power from our own minds, from our ability to 
 " begin or forbear," " continue or end," etc. The actual 
 exercise of power in us (or will) is volition, one of the 
 "simple ideas of reflection." Volition must not be con- 
 founded with desire. Desire is that " uneasiness " by 
 which alone the will is " determined ; " volition the act of 
 the determined will. But will may " suspend the prosecu- 
 tion of desire " ("as every one daily may experiment upon 
 himself"). This power in the will is the real " source of all 
 liberty " and of " that which is (as I think improperly) 
 called free will." Properly speaking, the man himself, and 
 not the will, must be said to be free or not free. 
 
 Ideas of Substances. Locke's account of the origin of 
 the " ideas of substances " (or independent beings) is as 
 follows : *^he mind being, as I have declared, furnished 
 with a great number of simple ideas, conveyed in by the 
 senses as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection 
 on its own operations, takes notice also that a certain num- 
 ber of those simple ideas go constantly together; which 
 being presumed to belong to one thing, and words suited 
 to common apprehensions and made use of for quick de- 
 spatch, are called, so united in one subject, by one name ; 
 which by inadvertency we are apt afterwards to talk of, and 
 consider as one simple idea, which indeed is a complica- 
 tion of many ideas together, because, as I have said, not 
 imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves, 
 we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum where- 
 in they do subsist and from which they do result ; which
 
 142 A IflS TORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 therefore we call substances. So that if any one will ex- 
 amine himself concerning his notions of pure substance in 
 general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all but 
 only a supposition of he knows not what support of such 
 qualities which are capable of producing ideas in us ; which 
 qualities are commonly called accidents." A principal in- 
 gredient of our complex ideas of substances is the idea of 
 power, since the qualities of substances are dependent upon 
 and rest in the substances themselves. The ideas of the 
 primary qualities are necessary ingredients, and if we knew 
 the relation of secondary to primary qualities, /. e., could 
 reduce them to terms of the primary, our ideas of sub- 
 stances would be fundamental and complete. Unfortu- 
 nately, they are not now : in fact, it is " very evident : 
 ( i ) That all our ideas of the several sorts of substances 
 [God, ourselves, and the things constituting the world] are 
 nothing but collections of simple ideas with a supposition 
 of something to which they belong, and in which they sub- 
 sist ; though of this supposed something we have no clear 
 idea at all. (2) That all the simple ideas that thus united 
 in one common substratum make up our complex ideas of 
 *he several sorts of substances are no other but such as we 
 have received from sensation or reflection. So that even 
 in those which we think we are most intimately acquainted 
 with, and that come nearest the comprehension of our most 
 enlarged conceptions, we cannot go beyond these simple 
 ideas. And even in those which seem most remote from 
 all we have to do with, and do infinitely surpass anything 
 we can perceive in ourselves by reflection or discover by 
 sensation in other things, we can attain to nothing but those 
 simple ideas which we originally received from sensation 
 or reflection, as is evident in the complex idea of angels, 
 and particularly of God himself. (3) That most of the 
 simple ideas that make up complex ideas of substances, 
 when truly considered are only powers, however we are apt 
 to take them for positive qualities ; e. g., the greatest part 
 of the ideas that make our complex idea of gold, as yellow-
 
 LOCKE. 143 
 
 ness, weight, ductility, fusibility, and solubility in aqua 
 regia, etc., are all united together in an unknown substra- 
 tum : all which ideas are nothing else but so many relations 
 to other substances, and are not really in the gold consid- 
 ered barely in itself, though they depend on those real pri- 
 mary qualities of its internal constitution whereby it has a 
 fitness differently to operate and be operated on by several 
 other substances" (Bk. II. ch. xxiii.). As has already 
 been indicated, the primary qualities belonging to bodily 
 substances alone are extension, solidity, mobility; to spir- 
 itual substances, perceptivity and motivity; to both, exis- 
 tence, duration, and number. We " frame " our idea of 
 God by joining the idea of infinity to that of finite spiritual 
 substance. God is infinite knowledge, power, existence, 
 duration, and number [!?]. 
 
 Ideas of Relations. Ideas of relations are such as 
 "father," which implies son or daughter; "cause," which 
 implies effect ; " identity," which implies diversity ; and all 
 moral conceptions, etc. Such ideas are derived " from the 
 comparison of things one with another ; " and imply the 
 previous existence of simple ideas. There are as many 
 such ideas, of course, as there are " occasions of compar- 
 ing " things with one another. Relations are " extraneous 
 to things themselves and superinduced." The ideas of 
 cause and effect are produced as follows : " In the notice 
 our senses take of the constant vicissitude of things we 
 cannot but observe that several particular both qualities 
 and substances begin to exist ; and that they receive their 
 existence from the due application and operation of some 
 other being. . . . That which produces any simple or 
 complex idea we denote by the general name cause ; 
 that which is produced effect." The ideas of cause and 
 effect presuppose the idea of power. The ideas of " iden- 
 tity and diversity " are formed " when, considering any- 
 thing as existing at any determined time and place, we 
 compare it with itself as existing at another time. When 
 we see anything to be in any place in any instant of time,
 
 144 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing and 
 not another which at that same time exists in another 
 place, how like and undistinguishable soever it may be 
 in all other respects. The principium individuationis is 
 existence itself, which determines a being of any sort to 
 a particular time and place incommunicable to two beings 
 of the same kind." As regards personal identity, Locke 
 says : " Since consciousness always accompanies thinking, 
 and 'tis that that makes every one to be what he calls 
 self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other think- 
 ing beings, in this alone consists personal identity, /. e., the 
 sameness of a rational being ; and as far as this conscious- 
 ness can be extended backwards to any past action or 
 thought, so far reaches the identity of that person." We 
 must distinguish between personal identity and the (sup- 
 posed but perhaps not necessary) identity of substance 
 in that which thinks. Moral ideas are ideas of relations 
 cf actions to rules ; and " rules being nothing but a col- 
 lection of several simple ideas, the conformity thereto 
 is but so ordering an action that the simple ideas belong- 
 ing to it may correspond to those which the law requires." 
 
 Adequateness in Ideas. Locke discusses the distinc- 
 tion of ideas made by the " Cartesians " into clear and 
 obscure, distinct and confused, adequate and inadequate. 
 As regards the last-named distinction, he says that simple 
 ideas must all be adequate, since, "being the effects of 
 certain powers in things fitted and ordained by God to 
 produce such sensations in us. they cannot but correspond 
 and be adequate to those powers ; and we are sure they 
 agree to the reality of things ; " that our " complex ideas 
 of modes, being voluntary collections of simple ideas which 
 the mind puts together without reference to any real arche- 
 types or standing pattern existing anywhere, are and can- 
 not but be adequate ideas." Our ideas of substances, 
 considered either as the substratum or as the sum, of 
 the known qualities, are necessarily inadequate, imperfect, 
 since we have no positive idea of the substratum, and
 
 tuunuujK* 
 
 :tion, may i / 
 riginal im- \/ 
 o receives \ 
 
 LOCKE. 145 
 
 cannot comprehend together the numerically infinite 
 qualities. 
 
 Association of Ideas. " Some of our ideas have a natu- 
 ral correspondence and connection with one another; 
 it is the office and excellence of our reason to trace these 
 and hold them together in that union and correspondence 
 which is founded on their peculiar beings. Besides this 
 there is another connection of ideas wholly owing to 
 chance, ideas that in themselves are not at all of kin, . . . 
 always keep company. Their connection is made volun- 
 tarily or by chance. Custom settles habits of thinking. 
 Ideas having at first a merely accidental connection, 
 become firmly united, because of strength of original 
 pression or of ' future indulgence.' A man who receives 
 a sensible injury from another is ever afterwards unable to 
 dissociate the ideas of the two. A man has suffered pain 
 or sickness in any place in space, and afterwards associates f 
 the place and the sickness. Time__alojie_dissQciats--ideas \j 
 thus united. The influence of this artificial association on 
 the intellectual habits is sometimes unfortunate! Figure 
 and shape, for example, are by custom associated in the 
 child's mind with the idea of God. Some such wrong and 
 unnatural combinations of ideas will be found to establish 
 the irreconcilable opposition between different sects of 
 philosophy and religion. This gives sense to jargon, 
 demonstration to absurdities, consistency to nonsense, and 
 is the foundatien_f_the greatest, I had almost said, of all 
 errors in the world" (Book II., chap, xxxiii.). 
 
 Words}- Locke finds, when he has arrived at the end 
 of the discussion of the " original sorts and extent of our 
 ideas," that " there is so close a connection between ideas 
 and words, and our abstract ideas and general words have 
 so constant a relation one to another, that it is impossible 
 to speak clearly and distinctly of our knowledge, which 
 all consists in propositions, without considering first the 
 nature, use, and signification of language ; " that is to say, 
 
 1 Book III. Mill speaks of this book as " immortal." 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 J 
 
 146 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 he interpolates a third task between the two main portions 
 of his task as it first proposed itself to him. Words are 
 signs of our ideas about things, and of things themselves. 
 The ends of language are the easy and rapid communica- 
 tion of ideas in themselves and of the knowledge of things. 
 It is impossible, and it would be "useless," that every 
 particular thing should have a distinct peculiar name, 
 useless, since so many names as there would necessarily 
 be would overburden the memory, and necessary disagree- 
 ment among men as to the names of the same things 
 would defeat the end of discourse. General names are 
 therefore, on this account, a practical necessity ; and they 
 are, furthermore, natural products of thought, generated 
 by the act of abstraction. The general name represents 
 the nominal (or externally conceived) essence of a thing, 
 not its " real " essence or substratum of qualities ; /'. <?., the 
 essence of the (abstract) species or genus, not of the 
 individual. Names of simple ideas and substances " inti- 
 mate real existence." Names of simple ideas and modes 
 signify always both real and nominal essence. Names of 
 simple ideas are indefinable. The principaL. abuses of 
 words consist in the use ofjh^m^_wjth^ut_any_clear ideas 
 attached to them, the " unsteady^application of them, the 
 affected wrong apph^ajioji^f_them 4l _the taking of them 
 for things" (particularly in the case of substances). Words 
 have their inherent limitations, however. The names of 
 mixed modes are doubtful because the ideas they stand 
 for are so complex and there is no standard in nature 
 to refer them to. Names of substances are doubtful be- 
 cause they refer to a real essence that can not be known, 
 and to coexisting qualities, which are known only limitedly. 
 Less doubtful are the names of simple modes ; least doubt- 
 ful those of simple ideas. 
 
 Knowledge : its Nature and Kinds. The subject of the 
 joining together of ideas in propositions by means of words 
 introduces that of the nature, kinds, degrees, and extent of 
 knowledge. " Knowledge is the perception of the connec-
 
 LOCKE. 147 
 
 tion and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any 
 of our ideas." Where this perception is wanting, we come 
 short of knowledge, and attain only to probability at the 
 most. There are four sorts of agreement; viz., of identity, f^/ 
 coexistence, relation, and real existence. "All the inquiries I 
 that we can make concerning any of our ideas, all that 
 we can know or can affirm concerning any of them, is that 
 it is or is not the same with some other ; that it does 
 or does not always coexist with some other idea in the 
 same subject ; that it has this or that relation to some 
 other idea; or that it has a real existence without the 
 mind." An example of an agreement of identity is, Blue 
 is not yellow ; of relation, Two triangles upon equal bases 
 between two parallels are equal; of coexistence, Iron is 
 susceptible of magnetical impressions ; of real existence, 
 " God is." With regard to the mode of presence of knowl- 
 edge in the mind, knowledge is actual or habitual, 
 it being in the latter case merely " laid up," either " en- 
 tire," or else without the proofs leading to it, in the 
 memory. 
 
 Degrees of Knowledge. As to the degrees of knowl- 
 edge, "when'the mind perceives the agreement of two 
 ideas immediately by themselves, without the intervention 
 of any other," its knowledge is intuitive ; when its percep- I 
 tion is mediated by intervening ideas (termed proofs), its v 
 knowledge is called demonstrative. In default of intuition <. 
 we have either belief (or opinion), the reality correspond- 
 ing to which is the probable, or else a perception inter- 
 mediate between opinion, on the one hand, and intuition 
 and demonstration on the other ; viz., the perception of the 
 particular existence of finite things. Intuition precludes 
 all doubt either before or after it : it is present at every 
 step of demonstrative or mediated knowledge. Demon- 
 stration may be preceded, but not accompanied nor fol- 
 lowed, by doubt. Among the demonstrative sorts of 
 knowledge may be included, not only mathematics (which, 
 from the clearness and distinctness of its ideas and from
 
 148 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 its usefulness has been deemed the only sort of demon- 
 strative knowledge), but also morals. 
 
 Extent of Knowledge. From the nature of knowledge 
 as above defined it follows that (i) "we can have knowl- 
 edge no further than we have ideas;" (2) "we can have 
 no knowledge further than we can have perception of that 
 agreement or disagreement;" (3) "we cannot have an 
 intuitive knowledge that shall extend itself to all our ideas 
 and all that we can know about them, because we cannot 
 examine and perceive all the relations they have to one 
 another by juxtaposition and immediate comparison one 
 with another;" (4) "our rational (or demonstrative) 
 knowledge cannot reach to the whole extent of our ideas, 
 because between two different ideas we would examine we 
 cannot always find such mediums as we can connect one to 
 another with intuitive knowledge in all parts of the deduc- 
 tion ; (5) scientific knowledge, reaching no farther than 
 to the existence of things actually present to our senses, is 
 yet much narrower than the former." As regards the kinds 
 and degrees of knowledge, in their relations, the following 
 observations may be made: (i) Our intuitive perception 
 of identity and diversity is coextensive with our range of 
 ideas. (2) Our knowledge of coexistence, "though in this 
 perception consists the greatest and most material part of 
 our knowledge concerning substances," which is a " weighty 
 and considerable part of human science," is very limited, 
 since the connection between most simple ideas, especially 
 secondary qualities, is unknown, and the connection between 
 secondary and primary qualities is undiscoverable. (3) Our 
 knowledge of relations (conclusions) is of uncertain extent. 
 The ideas of quantity (which are ideas of relations), how- 
 ever, are, as has been said, not the only ideas capable of 
 demonstration. " The idea of a Supreme Being, infinite in 
 power, goodness, and wisdom, whose workmanship we are, 
 and on whom we depend, and the idea of ourselves as un- 
 derstanding beings, being such as are clear in us, would, I 
 suppose, if duly considered and pursued, afford such foun-
 
 LOCKE. 149 
 
 dations of our duty and rules of action as might place mo- 
 rality amongst the sciences capable of demonstration, 
 wherein I doubt not but from self-evident propositions by 
 necessary consequences as incontestable as those in mathe- 
 matics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out 
 to any one that will apply himself with the same indifferency 
 and attention to the one as he does to the other of those 
 sciences. Where there is no property, there is no injustice, is 
 a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid ; 
 for, the idea of property being a * right to anything,' and 
 the idea to which injustice is given being the ' invasion or 
 violation of that right,' it is evident that, these ideas being 
 established, and these names being annexed to them, I can 
 as certainly know this proposition to be true as that a tri- 
 angle has three angles equal to two right angles." " Com- 
 plexedness " and want of sensible demonstration as regards 
 moral ideas have alone made demonstration seem impossible 
 with reference to them. (4) We have an intuitive knowl- 
 edge of our own existence, a demonstrative knowledge of 
 the existence of God, and a "sensitive" knowledge of the 
 existence of things. If any one be so foolish as to doubt 
 his own existence, he is readily confuted by hunger, say, or 
 any other pain. The existence of God follows certainly, 
 for us, from the certainty of our own existence. " In the 
 first place, nothing cannot produce any real being. Again, 
 that which had its beginning and being from another must 
 also have all that which is in and belongs to its being from 
 another too. All the powers it has must be owing to and 
 received from the same source. This eternal source of all 
 being must be the source and original of all power, so this 
 eternal being must be also the most powerful. We have 
 then got one step farther; and we are certain now that 
 there is not only some being, but some knowing, intelligent 
 being in the world. There was a time, then, when there 
 was no knowing being, and when knowledge began to be, 
 or else there must have been also a knowing being from 
 eternity. If it be said, there was a time when no being had
 
 150 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 any knowledge, when that eternal being was void of all un- 
 derstanding, I reply that then it was impossible there should 
 ever have been any knowledge, it being as impossible that 
 things wholly void of knowledge and operating blindly, and 
 without any perception, should produce a knowing being as 
 it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three 
 angles bigger than two right ones. For it is as repugnant 
 to the idea of senseless matter that it should put into itself 
 sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the 
 idea of a triangle that it should put into itself greater angles 
 than two right ones." Hence the existence of an " eternal, 
 most powerful, and most knowing being, . . . which whether 
 any one will please to call it God it matters not. . . . We 
 have more certain knowledge of God than of anything our 
 senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I pre- 
 sume I may say that we more certainly know there is a God 
 than there is anything else without us. . . . The knowledge 
 of the existence of any other thing we can have only by 
 sensation : for there being no necessary connection of real 
 existence with any idea a man hath in his memory, nor of 
 any other existence but that of God, with the existence of 
 any particular man, no particular man can know the exist- 
 ence of any other being but only when by actually operating 
 upon him it makes itself perceived by him. ... It takes not 
 from the certainty of our senses and the ideas we receive by 
 them, that we know not the manner in which they are pro- 
 duced. . . . The notice we have by our senses of the existing 
 things without us, though it be not altogether so certain as 
 our intuitive knowledge or the deductions of our reason em- 
 ployed about the clear abstract ideas of our minds, yet it is 
 an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge. . . . 
 This is certain, that the confidence that our faculties do 
 not herein deceive us, is the greatest assurance we are capa- 
 ble of concerning the existence of material beings. For we 
 cannot act upon anything but by our faculties, nor talk of 
 knowledge itself but by the help of those faculties which are 
 fitted to apprehend even what knowledge is." A " concur-
 
 LOCKE. 1 5 I 
 
 rent reason " for the belief in the existence of external things 
 is the following : " Those perceptions are produced by ex- 
 terior causes affecting our senses," as is evident from these 
 considerations : ( i ) those that want the organs of any sense 
 can never have ideas belonging to that sense produced in 
 their minds; (2) sometimes I find I cannot help having 
 those ideas produced in my mind ; (3) many of those ideas 
 are produced in us with pain which we afterwards remember 
 without the least offence; (4) our senses bear witness to 
 the truth of each other's reports concerning the existence 
 of sensible things without us. 
 
 " Improvement of Knowledge." Knowledge grows, not 
 from supposed a priori " maxims " (of the Schoolmen), or 
 axioms, nor by hasty hypotheses, but from " clear, distinct, 
 complete ideas " given by experience. And since the " un- 
 derstanding faculties are given to man not barely for specu- 
 lation, but also for the conduct of his life," our scientific 
 knowledge is supplemented by the use of the faculty of 
 judgment. " He that will not eat till he has demonstrated 
 that it will nourish him, he that will not stir till he infallibly 
 knows the business he goes about will succeed, will have 
 little else to do but sit still and perish." By judgment we 
 at least attain to " the twilight of probability " (or the 
 "appearance of agreement upon fallible proofs") "suitable 
 to the state of mediocrity and probationership in which we 
 are placed." In other words, " the faculty which God '"""' 
 has given to man whereby to supply the want of clear cer- 
 tain knowledge in cases where it cannot be had, is judgment, 
 whereby the mind takes its ideas to agree or disagree, or, 
 which is the same, any proposition to be true or false with- 
 out perceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofs." 
 The criteria of probability in ideas are (i) conformity to 
 our knowledge, observation, and experience ; (2) testimony 
 of others; (3) the number of witnesses, their integrity and 
 skill, and, in case of a written work, the design of the 
 author, consistency of its parts, " circumstances of the rela- 
 tion," contrary testimonies. In things which sense cannot 
 discover, analogy is the great rule of probability.
 
 152 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. ' 
 
 Reason. The name of all probable truth, including even 
 " revelation " and the faculty of natural knowledge in gene- 
 ral, is reason. Reason has two parts : sagacity, or the faculty 
 \/ythat " finds out " ideas, and " illation, a faculty concerned 
 
 ^ with intermediary ideas." There are four degrees in reason : 
 " The first and highest is the discovery and finding out of 
 
 / proofs; the second, the regular and methodical disposition 
 of them, and laying them in a clear and fit order to make 
 their connection and force to be plainly and easily perceived ; 
 the third is the perceiving their connection ; the fourth, 
 making a right conclusion." Is the syllogism the " proper 
 instrument" of it? The syllogism is useful merely for 
 1 showing the connection of the proofs in any one instance, 
 and no more ; and it is of " no great use here, since the 
 mind can perceive such connection where it really is, as 
 easily, nay, perhaps better, without it. ... Many men reason 
 exceedingly clearly and rightly who know not how to make 
 a syllogism ; " and " scarce any one ever makes a syllogism 
 on reasoning within himself. The syllogism is made use of 
 on occasion to discover a fallacy hid in a rhetorical flourish, 
 or cunningly wrapped up in a smooth period." " God has 
 not been so sparing to men to make them barely two-legged 
 creatures, and left it to Aristotle to make them rational. 
 The Scholastic ways of reasoning are not less liable to fal- 
 lacy than the plainer ways." The syllogism has no value 
 I whatever in matters of probability. 
 
 ^^ Reason and Faith. Reason is contradistinguished from 
 \/faith, or knowledge by revelation, as knowledge by our natural 
 
 ^/faculties. Revelation cannot be admitted against the clear 
 evidence of reason : our natural intuitive and demonstrative 
 knowledge is the most certain we have. No man inspired 
 by God can by any revelation communicate to any other 
 any new simple ideas, since the communication of a revela- 
 tion is conditioned by the ordinary use of language. Reve- 
 lation may discover and convey to us ideas which are 
 discoverable to us by reason and the ideas we may natu- 
 rally have. Things of whose past, present, or future exist-
 
 LOCKE. 153 
 
 ence we can by the natural use of our faculties have no 
 knowledge at all, are, when revealed, the proper matter of 
 faith. 
 
 Wrong Assent. Wrong assent results from want of 
 proofs, want of ability to use them, want of will to use them, 
 from wrong measures of probability, from propositions that 
 are not in themselves certain and clear, but doubtful and 
 false, taken up for principles, from received hypotheses, 
 predominant passions, authority. 
 
 Division of the Sciences. There are three branches of 
 human knowledge: Physics (Physica), Ethics (Ethica), 
 Semiotics (Semiotica) , or the Doctrine of Signs, the first 
 (whose end is merely "speculative truth") having to do 
 with the nature of things as they are in themselves, their 
 relations, and their manner of operation ; the second, with 
 that which man ought to do as a rational and voluntary 
 agent for the attainment of any end, especially happiness ; 
 the third, with the ways and means by which the knowledge 
 of both the one and the other of these is attained. From 
 a short treatise by Locke on Natural Philosophy it appears 
 that such investigations as we have thus far gone over 
 except those on Words belong to Natural Philosophy 
 (the last chapter of Locke's brief treatise just referred to, 
 discussing in outline the Understanding of Man). To Natu- 
 ral Philosophy there belong, besides, the theory of matter and 
 motion, and the visible universe in all its parts. Ethics 
 embraces, besides the general principles of morality, the 
 theory of Education, of the State, and of Religion. 
 
 Natural Philosophy. Locke's Natural Philosophy is a 
 mere sketch, in which the substance of the newest doctrines 
 of his age in physical science is indicated, without much 
 speculative interpretation or comment. All the phenomena 
 of bodies are to be explained " by the figure, bulk, texture, 
 and motion of small and insensible corpuscles, /. e., atoms," 
 from the combinations of which arise "moleculae" and 
 " bigger bodies," and thus the whole material world is 
 formed. The origin of the sensible phenomena as sen-
 
 154 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY- 
 
 sations and perceptions is due to motion affecting organs of 
 sense, and propagated by animal spirits through the nerves 
 to the brain. The five senses and memory belong to 
 animals as well as men. Man has higher faculties, sepa- 
 rating him \to some extent from the brute. 
 
 Morality. Locke's theory of morality, which is contained 
 in fragmentary statements and in suggestions scattered 
 throughout his psychological and epistemological investiga- 
 tions (contained in the " Essay concerning Human Under- 
 standing "), may be very briefly stated as follows : Morality 
 is the agreement of action with certain rules acknowledged 
 as the will of God. Without belief in a God, who is omnis- 
 cient and " has in his hands rewards and punishments, and 
 power enough to call to account the proudest offender," 
 no morality. (" Freedom of will," or rather of the man, 
 which Locke admits in the later editions of the " Essay," 
 plays no part in his moral theory.) The rule of action is 
 to be found in public happiness, the means to which we 
 have to ascertain merely by use of the natural reason ; the 
 method of knowledge in morality being essentially the same 
 as the method in mathematics. 
 
 Education. The keynote of Locke's educational the- 
 ories, which have become celebrated in the history of 
 /educational doctrine, is contained in the ancient aphorism, 
 Mens sana in corpore sano. He insists strongly on begin- 
 ning education at the earliest possible period in the life of 
 -J the child, since it is in this matter " as in the fountains of 
 some rivers, where a gentle application of the hand turns 
 the flexible waters into channels that take quite contrary 
 courses." All "cockering and tenderness" in the treat- 
 ment of the child's physical nature, except perhaps in the 
 matter of sleep in the case of the young child, are forbidden 
 by Locke. He would even have children inured to running 
 about with wet feet, and sleeping on hard, disagreeable beds. 
 The moral and intellectual education of the child must 
 have for its ends " virtue," or rational control of passion and 
 appetite, wisdom, or power to " manage one's business ably
 
 LOCKE. 155 
 
 and with foresight in this world," "good breeding," or agree-!/ 
 able manners, and last (and least), learning. Locke's theory V 
 of discipline to virtue is rather stern, though not inten- 
 tionally unkind : corporal punishment is to be reserved for 
 cases of obstinacy, and in its stead appeals to the child's 
 sense of honor (" reputation ") and shame are to be em- 
 ployed. Further, " he that will have his son have respect 
 for him and his orders, must himself have great reverence 
 for his son:" a child whose "spirit" has been broken is 
 even a less worthy product of discipline than a "disorderly 
 fellow," who knows no such thing as obedience. Instruc- 
 tion by example rather than precept and for practical Vy 
 rather than intellectual ends is Locke's ideal of instruction, v 
 Hence his advocacy of placing the child in the hands of a 
 private tutor (instead of in the public schools). The tutor 
 is to " fashion the carriage and form of the child's mind, to 
 settle good habits and the principles of virtue and wisdom, 
 to give him by little and little a view of mankind, and work 
 him into a love and imitation of what is excellent and 
 praiseworthy, and in the prosecution of it to give him vigor, 
 activity, and industry," merely opening the door to the 
 purely intellectual accomplishments which make a " man a 
 critic, orator, logician, metaphysician, natural philosopher, 
 mathematician, or master in history and chronology : " of 
 " good breeding, knowledge of the world, virtue, industry, 
 and a love of reputation, the child cannot have too much ; 
 and if he have these, he will not long want what he needs 
 or desires of the other." (Locke's programme of branches 
 of study to be pursued by youth is, Arithmetic, Geog- 
 raphy, Grammar, Rhetoric, Chronology, History, Geometry, 
 Astronomy, Natural Philosophy, French, Latin, minus 
 Latin Composition, Ethics, Civil and Common Law, and 
 a manual trade, " nay, two or three.") In the " Conduct 
 of the Understanding" we have a substitute for mere Scho- 
 lastic logicism, an attempt to show how intellectual inde- 
 pendence and grasp are to be acquired. The pattern of 
 intellectual method for all knowledge is the mathematical
 
 156 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 v/method. Intellectual discipline has especially to obviate 
 the habits of " taking ideas too much on the authority of 
 others, and of putting passions in the place of thoughts," 
 also a want "of a large roundabout sense." Locke dis- 
 cusses in the "Conduct of the Understanding" a great 
 variety of educational topics, among which occur the fol- 
 lowing : the necessity of having a store of " moral and 
 abstract ideas as a foundation for proper employment of 
 the reason ; " critical examination of one's opinions, and 
 the avoidance of prejudice ; impartiality of intellectual dis- 
 position ; observation ; mental bias ; " hunting after argu- 
 ments " for special pleading ; haste, desultoriness, smatter- 
 ing ; aiming at universality in acquisition ; reading ; the 
 possession of intermediate principles ; avoiding partiality 
 for certain branches of study; classes of opinion, as 
 mathematics, ancient opinions, heterodox opinions ; an- 
 ticipation ; surrendering of one's judgment ; wandering of 
 the thoughts ; perseverance ; presumption ; despondency on 
 first encountering difficulty ; association of ideas ; fallacies. 
 It is perhaps needless to remark that the discussion pre- 
 supposes to a considerable extent the investigations of the 
 " Essay Concerning Human Understanding," as, indeed, the 
 " Conduct of the Understanding " was at first intended as a 
 chapter to be added to the " Essay." 
 
 Politics. Locke's political doctrines (framed with 
 particular reference to the well-known political crisis 
 that took place in England in the last quarter of the 
 seventeenth century) constitute a theory of a constitu- 
 tional monarchy. " Political power I take to be a right 
 of making laws with penalties of death, consequently all 
 less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of prop- 
 erty [/. e., "lives, liberty, and estates"], and of employ- 
 ing the force of the community in the execution of such 
 laws, and in the defence of the Commonwealth from 
 foreign injury, and all this only for the public good." 
 A full understanding of political right depends on a con- 
 sideration of " what state all men are naturally in, and that
 
 LOCKE. 157 
 
 is a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dis- 
 pose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit> 
 within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking 
 leave or depending on the will of any man ; " it is a " state 
 of equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, 
 none having more power than another ; " a state, however, in 
 which " every man hath a right to punish the offender and be 
 the executioner of the law of nature, a state of peace, good- 
 will, mutual assistance, preservation." This state ceases to 
 exist by the fact that one man tries to obtain absolute 
 power over another : a state of enmity, malice, violence, 
 mutual destruction in short, a state of war ensues, in 
 which power rests on mere force. The intolerableness of 
 such a state makes civil government a necessity, the chief 
 end of which is the maintenance of the right of property, or 
 the right to life, liberty, and possessions. Property is meas- 
 ured by the " extent of men's labor and the convenience 
 of life." Within the state is the family, the chief end of 
 which is the procreation and bringing to the age of reason 
 of children. During nonage the child owes to the parent 
 obedience, afterwards honor merely. The husband is the 
 natural head of the family, as "being the abler and 
 stronger." The power of husband and father is far from 
 absolute. In case of absolute disagreement between hus- 
 band and wife there may be an appeal to the law of the com- 
 munity. Political society exists " there and there only . . . 
 where every one of the members hath quitted his natural 
 power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all 
 cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection 
 to the law established by it. One who resigns his natural 
 power thereby authorizes the society, or which is all one, 
 the legislative thereof, to make laws for him, as the public 
 good of the society shall require ; to the execution whereof 
 his own assistance, as to his own decrees, is due." An 
 absolute monarchy is not a true civil society, since the 
 absolute monarch does not resign his natural power : abso- 
 lute monarchy is a " state of nature." Now, in a state of
 
 J 
 
 158 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 nature there is wanting established, settled, and known law, 
 a known and indifferent judge, " power to back and support 
 the sentence of the judge when right, and to give it due 
 execution." The possible forms of government, dependent 
 upon the placing of the powers, are pure democracy, 
 oligarchy, monarchy, hereditary or elective, and common- 
 wealth, in which last the legislative power is the supreme 
 power. The legislative power in the commonwealth, though 
 supreme, has not absolute authority over the lives and for- 
 tunes of the people ; it has, for example, no right to make 
 arbitrary decrees, it cannot take from any man any part of 
 his property without his own consent, it cannot transfer 
 its function of making laws into any other hands. The 
 supremacy held by the legislative power passes in a certain 
 manner, however, over to the executive, in as much as the 
 executive must have authority (especially as the legislative 
 body does not always sit) to act according to discretion for 
 the public good, without the prescription of law, and some- 
 times even against it. In the last resort, the really supreme 
 power of the state is with the people, who alone can alter 
 the legislative and so determine the form of government. 
 In relation to other states, the commonwealth is in a state 
 of nature, and has among its powers what may be called a 
 federative power. In case of conquest, he who conquers 
 acquires no power over those " who conquered with him, 
 acquires power only over those who have actually assisted, 
 concurred, or consented to that unjust force that is used 
 against him, and has over those conquered in a just war, a 
 power perfectly despotical." Tyranny is power exercised 
 beyond right. Governments are overturned from without, 
 by conquest, and from within, by the alteration of the legis- 
 lative power, and by unfaithfulness of legislature and prince 
 to their respective trusts. 
 
 Religion. Regarding Locke's doctrine of religion, it 
 may be added to what has already been stated (page 152) 
 concerning reason and revelation, that Locke advocated 
 what he supposed to be a ";'aA'<?a/''Chxistianit^_ Such
 
 CRITICS AND DEFENDERS OF LOCKE. \ 59 
 
 a doctrine was based on a literal interpretation of the Ne"\ 
 Testament according to the principles of his doctrine of 
 knowledge arid probability ; it was natural religion, supple- 
 mented by the sanctions of the pure life of Christ, and the 
 revelation through him of the altogether reasonable hypo- 
 theses of immortality and future rewards and punishments. 
 Locke advocated religious toleration for all classes of per- 
 sons except pronounced atheists. 
 
 Result. Locke, it is scarcely necessary to say, is an 
 empiricist ; consistently speaking, he ought also to be de- 
 scribed as a subjective idealist, for if knowledge is merely 
 the perception oftKe" agieement or disagreement among 
 ideas, and ideas all originate, directly or indirectly, in sen- 
 sation, the mind contributing nothing to objectify ideas, it 
 seems impossible to get, by knowledge, beyond the indi- 
 vidual subject with its ideas. Locke did not himself draw 
 the full consequences of his doctrine, but maintained the 
 existence of a (quasi-) objective apprehension of mind, th^ 
 external world, and God. On the principles of his empiri-) 
 cism it was possible for any one coming after him to deny, 
 regarding any one or even all of these, that we have knowl- 
 edge of it or them. Such denial occurred. The influence 
 of Locke in modern philosophy has, as we shall see, been 
 very great. We take up next the critics and defenders 
 of Locke's doctrines in his own country and age. 
 
 60. 
 
 Critics and Defenders of 'Locke. .' The doctrines of Locke 
 provoked exceptions from a number of thinkers (upwards 
 of a dozen, at least) , the most important of whom are, per- 
 haps, Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester (1635- 
 1699), Richard Burthogge, M.D. (d. 1694), John Ser- 
 geant (1621-1707), Henry Lee, B.D., Peter Browne, 
 Bishop of Cork (d. 1735), Zachary Mayne (d. 1750). 
 
 1 See Dr Porter's "Philosophy in Great Britain and America" 
 (printed with Morris's translation of Ueberweg's " History of Phi- 
 losophy ") ; Noack ; etc.
 
 I6O A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Stillingfleet's exceptions relate to most of the cardinal 
 features of the doctrine of Locke : the polemic against 
 innate ideas, the merely twofold source of knowledge, the 
 unknowability of substance and identity of subject or object, 
 the meaning of the term "idea," etc. ; Stillingfleet's attitude 
 being that of a defender of traditional orthodoxy in religion, 
 /. e., of a revelationist. Burthogge, in an essay on Reason 
 and the Nature of Spirits, substitutes for the Lockean repre- 
 sentationism, or doctrine of ideas representing unknown 
 objects, a doctrine of pure phenomenism, asserting that 
 " things are nothing to us but as they are known to us," a 
 doctrine which (as Dr. Porter points out) " anticipates one 
 of the most important positions of Kant's philosophical sys- 
 tem, known also as Hamilton's doctrine of the relativity of 
 knowledge." Sergeant criticises Locke's use of the term 
 " idea " to signify " whatever is before the understanding 
 when one thinks," and limits the term to objects of sense 
 or of sensuous imagination. He then affirms that by the 
 understanding we cognize directly things as they are in 
 themselves. The title of Sergeant's work is " Method to 
 Science : Solid Philosophy asserted against the Fancies of 
 the Ideists" (1697). Lee, who wrote "the most elabo- 
 rate and extended critical reply to Locke's 'Essay,'" de- 
 fends the doctrine of innate ideas ^though not in the sense 
 in which Locke denied it), denies, ol course, that sensation 
 and reflection are the only sources of knowledge, and denies 
 that there are simple ideas which must be " gained before 
 the mind receives the knowledge of things by perceiving 
 the agreement or disagreement of such ideas," etc. The 
 title of Lee's work is, " Anti-Scepticism ; or, Notes upon 
 each Chapter of Mr. Locke's ' Essay Concerning Human 
 Understanding,' with an Explication of all the Particulars of 
 which he treats, and in the same order with Locke" (1702). 
 According to Browne, all knowledge depends upon " sim- 
 ple perceptions of sense," and there is no knowledge of the 
 supersensible. Knowledge is immediate or mediate. Im- 
 mediate knowledge comprises the single perceptions of
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. l6l 
 
 sense, which are ideas of external objects, and simple ap- 
 prehension of the intellect (or in the present terminology, 
 "self-consciousness"). The simple apprehension of the 
 intellect is knowledge without ideas ; it is perfectly direct 
 (and hence the term " idea " has meaning only in relation 
 to sense-perception). But the apprehension does not occur 
 apart from the consciousness of external objects. Mediate 
 knowledge is either demonstrative certainty, moral certainty, 
 certainty based upon sight, or certainty based on evidence. 
 Our notions of the supersensible are derived from an ana- 
 logical extension of the application of sensible ideas. 
 Browne's works of importance in this connection are, " The 
 Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding " 
 (1729), and "Things Divine and Supernatural conceived 
 by Analogy with Things Human " (1733). Mayne, vyho 
 published anonymously a work entitled " Two Dissertations 
 Concerning Sense and Imagination, with an Essay on Con- 
 sciousness" (1727), unless, indeed, this work be a work 
 of Browne's, 1 distinguishes from sense and imagination, 
 which he declares to be non-intellectual in character, the 
 understanding as the sole faculty of conceptions. He " dis- 
 tinctly recognizes the functions of consciousness and self- 
 consciousness as they have been subsequently developed by 
 the schools of Reid and Hamilton." 2 Locke's views were 
 defended by Vincent Perronet, Samuel Bold, and Mrs. 
 Catherine Cockburn. 
 
 61. 
 
 English Deism. 6 Owing largely to the influence of 
 Locke's teaching, but partly also to that of the teachings 
 of Lord Cherbury and Hobbes, there appeared conspicu- 
 ously in England about the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century a certain phase of philosophical thought, hardly 
 characterized by any definiteness or identity of particular 
 doctrines among different thinkers, which is known as Eng- 
 
 1 See Noack, and Franck, under Browne. 2 Porter. 
 
 3 English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, by Leslie Stephen. 
 VOL. I. II
 
 1 62 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 lish Deism. It was in general a denial of supernaturalism 
 in religion and morals, together with the (complementary) 
 assertion of the inherent truth and sufficiency of reason, or 
 common-sense, in religion and morals. We may take as 
 perhaps the most important of the Deists, John Toland 
 (1689-1722), Anthony Collins (1676-1729), Matthew 
 Tindal (1657-1733), Thomas Chubb (1677-1747), Henry 
 St. John, Lord Bolingbroke (1698-1751). Toland, in a 
 work entitled "Christianity not Mysterious" (ist ed., 1696, 
 3d ed., 1702), maintains that all things have their real foun- 
 dation in reason alone, and that, consequently, the only 
 legitimate ground of assent is reason or demonstration, and 
 that whenever this is wanting, suspension of judgment is the 
 only proper attitude of mind. True Christianity cannot be 
 mysterious in the sense of being ' above all reason ; " and 
 no alleged revelation which does not show the " indisputable 
 character of divine wisdom and sound reason " deserves 
 acceptance. By "reason," Toland, who is a professed 
 Lockean, means what Locke means by " knowledge " when 
 he defines it as " the perception of the agreement or dis- 
 agreement among ideas." Collins, a personal friend and 
 acknowledged disciple of Locke, wrote a work entitled a 
 "Discourse of Freethinking " (1713), in which he main- 
 tained the necessity of free thought as an instrument of 
 truth and human welfare, and a work entitled " Inquiry 
 Concerning Human Liberty" (1715), defending the (Hob- 
 bean) doctrine of necessitarianism. Among Collins's argu- 
 ments upon freethinking occur the two, (i) that thought 
 cannot in reality be limited, since it would be only by a 
 reason or thought which should show that it is not permitted 
 to think on a subject on which one may wish to think ; and 
 (2) the limiting of thought takes away the only means of 
 arriving at the truth, especially in religion. Collins ad- 
 mits liberty (with Locke and Hobbes) in the sense of a 
 power to do as one wills or pleases, but denies it of man in 
 any other sense, and for the following reasons (among 
 others) : When two contrary objects of choice are presented
 
 THE ENGLISH DEISTS. 163 
 
 to us, we are not able to choose either ; our choice is at 
 bottom only a practical judgment that one thing is better 
 than another ; and as all judgment is necessary, so must all 
 choice be ; even in actions which appear the most indiffer- 
 ent our choice is determined by a multitude of causes, as 
 temperament, habitude, prejudice, etc. ; our belief in free- 
 dom is in part a consequence of our inability to give an 
 account of the motives determining the will. In a " Letter to 
 Mr. Dodwell," Collins, following out a suggestion contained 
 in the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (to the 
 effect that God might have endowed matter with the ca- 
 pacity to think), maintains that the soul might be a result- 
 ant of the activities of thinking particles composing the 
 body, and would not therefore be in itself capable of immor- 
 tality. Tindal, perhaps the most important of the Deists, 
 wrote a work entitled " Christianity as Old as Creation " 
 (i 732), which received the appellation of the " Bible of the 
 Deists." It is very much in the line of the Lockean thought 
 upon the subject with which it deals. So-called " revealed 
 religion teaches nothing," says Tindal, "which nature, or 
 reason, has not always taught, could teach nothing that 
 would not have to be tested by the standards of reason." 
 Human nature is a fixed quantity, and what it apprehends 
 is apprehended by all alike. "The attempt to destroy 
 reason by reason is a demonstration that men have nothing 
 but reason to trust to." Chubb (a tallow-chandler and a 
 self-taught scholar) held that the accountability of man is a 
 guaranty of the possession by him of a capacity to discern 
 and fulfil his responsibilities, and that religion has for its 
 content nothing not revealed in nature ; that Christianity is 
 not mere intellectual adherence to dogma, but life according 
 to the nature of things. Chubb's principal works are : 
 "A Discourse Concerning Reason" (1731), "The True 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ " (1739), "The Author's Farewell to 
 his Readers" (1748). With Bolingbroke, Deism passes 
 into Scepticism : Bolingbroke, though a professed theist, 
 affirms the uncertainty of all science. English Deism, as
 
 1 64 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 will hereafter appear, has exerted a powerful influence in 
 modern philosophizing since its day. 
 
 George Berkeley* (1685-1753). Berkeley, though of 
 English descent, was born in Ireland, in the county of Kil- 
 kenny. He early displayed a peculiar inquisitiveness of 
 temper and a habitual enthusiasm for pure ideas, decided 
 intellectual precocity ; also a love of nature, and the posses- 
 sion of a quick eye for its phenomena. He was educated 
 first at Kilkenny school, and then at Trinity College, Dublin, 
 where in 1 702 he received the degree of B. A., in 1 704 
 that of M. A., and in 1707 an appointment as fellow, tutor, 
 Greek lecturer, etc. During his college course he mani- 
 fested the deepest interest in the physical and metaphysical 
 speculations of his age, viz., those of Descartes, Malebranche, 
 Locke, Newton ; and was greatly interested in the making 
 of certain original investigations in the field of metaphysics. 
 Not long after his graduation two of his principal works 
 were published. In 1713 Berkeley removed to London. 
 The next ten years of his life were filled with social and 
 intellectual intercourse with the chief literary luminaries of 
 England, Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and others, 
 travelling on the Continent, and philosophical reflection 
 and writing. As early as 1724 he had projected the phi- 
 lanthropical enterprise of founding a university in the Ber- 
 mudas for the education of English-speaking youths, and 
 savages, there. Three years were spent by him in medita- 
 tive retirement in Rhode Island, awaiting the action of 
 Parliament in relation to a promised grant of funds for the 
 founding of the proposed university. The scheme failed, 
 and Berkeley returned to Ireland. Made bishop of Cloyne 
 in 1734, he lived in philosophical seclusion, studying an- 
 cient thinkers, and developing his own early-discovered 
 philosophical principle on its higher side, until 1752, when 
 
 1 See "Berkeley," by Professor Eraser (" Blackwood's Philosophi- 
 cal Classics ") ; " Selections from Berkeley, " by Professor Fraser ; etc.
 
 BERKELEY. 1 65 
 
 he moved to Oxford, where a son was studying, to spend the 
 remainder of his days. He died suddenly in January of the 
 following year. 
 
 Works. Berkeley's principal works are : " An Essay 
 towards a New Theory of Vision" (1709), " The Principles 
 of Human Knowledge" (1710), " Hylas and Philonoiis, 
 or Dialogues" (1713), "Alciphron, or the Minute Philoso- 
 pher " ( 1 733), " Siris : a Chain of Philosophical Reflections 
 and Inquiries concerning Tar- Water," etc. (1744). The 
 first two of these set forth his principle in its earliest form ; 
 the third is taken up with the refutation of objections to his 
 doctrine ; the fourth, with a somewhat transitional phase of 
 his thought ; and the last, with the exposition of his thought 
 in its maturest form. We may mention also the " Common- 
 Place Book." 
 
 Philosophy. The starting-point of Berkeley's philoso- 
 phizing is to be found in a class of queries suggested, it. 
 would seem, by the following passage of Locke's "Essay" 
 (book ii., ch. iv., 8) : "The ideas we receive by sensation 
 are often in grown people altered by judgment without our 
 taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a round 
 globe of any unifo.rm color, e.g., gold, alabaster, or jet, it is 
 certain that the idea thereby imprinted on our minds is of 
 a flat circle variously shadowed, with several degrees of 
 light and brightness coming to our eyes, etc. But we have, 
 by use, been accustomed to perceive what kind of appear- 
 ances convex bodies are wont to make in us, what altera- 
 tions are made in the reflections of light by the differences 
 in the sensible figures of bodies, and the judgment presently, 
 by an habitual custom, alters the appearances into their 
 causes, etc." To the query (also to be found in Locke) 
 " whether a man born hlinH pnH ^en n\^r\p I-Q see would at 
 first give the naine^istance to any idea (object of con- 
 sciousness) intromitted by sight," Berkeley's answers that 
 he would " take di^tanrejjiat Jiejhfid perr [ giyed bytpuch to^. 
 be something existing without his mind, but would certainly 
 think nothing seen was^without his mind"?' He would come
 
 1 66 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 to perceive distance by sight only as he learned to interpret 
 visual impressions by impressions of touch and bodily move- 
 ment. By experience he would become able to " perceive " 
 distance at once by sight ; every visual impression would 
 instantaneously receive an interpretation in the language of 
 touch and movement. But, this being the case, all vision 
 would, in a very important sense, be prevision ; visual per- 
 ceptions are, unconsciously to ourselves, created for us be- 
 forehand by experience ; and every idea or object of 
 (visual) consciousness would presuppose a subject of con- 
 sciousness or mind. What is true of vision is true of all 
 forms of sensible experience. Why the sensations of one 
 sense thus receive interpretation in the language of another, 
 and why certain impressions of different senses are uniformly 
 conjoined to constitute the idea of a fixed object, we do not 
 know, any more than we know why words in English, Greek, 
 or any other language have the significations they have for 
 us. Certain it is that we find in experience ideas or objects 
 existing in regular coexistence and succession, or in an 
 order, which order we know, from the manner in which 
 we get these ideas and from the fact that they form an 
 order, to be inseparable from mind. Such being the case, 
 the traditional notions of matter, substance, and the like, 
 which suppose a real existence apart from mind, are " empty 
 metaphysical abstractions," a " dust raised by metaphysicians 
 that prevents their seeing clearly." The notion of matter is 
 self-contradictory: "matter" is something that is not, and 
 yet at the same time is for consciousness, since we cannot 
 attach any meaning to the term " matter " without giving 
 matter an existence for the mind, or " bringing it within the 
 mind." The very being of all objects for us consists in the 
 " being perceived and known." What does not exist in my 
 mind or that of any other mind or spirit, finite or infinite, 
 cannot have existence. The self-contradiction inherent in 
 the notion of water does not appertain to that of spiritual 
 substance. The words / and you have certain intelligible 
 meanings which warrant our speaking of spiritual beings,
 
 BERKELEY. 1 67 
 
 though they be not exactly phenomenal. " I know and am 
 conscious of my own being, and that I myself am not my 
 ideas, but am somewhat else, a thinking, active principle 
 that perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas. . . . 
 I am not, in like manner, conscious of the existence and 
 essence of matter. On the contrary, I know that nothing 
 inconsistent can exist, and that the existence of matter im- 
 plies an inconsistency." We know, then, only that which 
 is itself mind, or inseparable from, and object to, mind. 
 The " ideas or phenomena of which things are composed 
 are not modifications of the mind to which they are pre- 
 sented, but are, on the contrary, perceptions, dependent 
 presentations exhibited under laws of nature in individual 
 minds. Still more it must be remembered that phenomenal 
 things need not be composed only of the phenomena pre- 
 sented to the five senses. Phenomena of innumerable sorts 
 which do not appear in human sense-experience may form 
 a part of the experience of other sentient spirits. . . . Fur- 
 ther, Berkeley's immaterialism assumes the possibility of our 
 having phenomenal experience and perceptions of phenome- 
 nal things in a disembodied as well as in this embodied state 
 of conscious life " (Fraser) . In reply to the objection that, if 
 the nature of things consists in their being perceived, there 
 can be no things as such, since the ideas of no two persons 
 are identical, it may (besides other things) be said that we 
 must make a distinction between the phenomenal and hy- 
 perphenomenal. What we know through the senses merely, 
 partakes of the nature of sense : we sensibly perceive only 
 the sensibly perceptible ; but the real nature of ideas and 
 objects is not therefore beyond the " limits " of mind, be- 
 cause we do not sensibly perceive it : it exists as an arche- 
 type in the Eternal Mind, hence by hypothesis is not to be 
 known in its absolute identity by sense-perception. As to 
 the relation between the phenomenal and the hyperphe- 
 nomenal worlds, it is a vulgar mistake to suppose the latter 
 outside mind. We are directly conscious of ourselves indi- 
 vidually as thought and will, and we interpret the (phe-
 
 1 68 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 nomenal) actions and words of others as signs of thought 
 and will in them. In like manner, we may interpret phe- 
 nomena generally as signs of eternal thought and will, 
 as manifestations of eternal mind : we in fact daily see, 
 hear, and know God, if our spiritual faculties are open, 
 together with our senses. From the foregoing it seems to 
 follow that there are among phenomena no real causes: 
 real causes are hyperphenomenal, God, or finite spirits. 
 Purely mechanical philosophy knows not true causes, but 
 rather mere signs and things signified, forming, as it were, 
 a " rational discourse," evincing by the regularity of connec- 
 tion between sign and thing signified an intelligent primal 
 cause. It is concerned merely with phenomena and their 
 laws, which are but the rules of the operation of spirit. 
 These rules constitute a grammar to the understanding of 
 nature and the prevision of effects. It is not, however, a 
 rational necessity that the rules should always remain the 
 same, though it be a rational necessity that there be rules. 
 The phenomenal world is a world in which " reason is im- 
 mersed in matter," and intellect is merely latent in sense : 
 it is a world of " blemishes and defects " (which, however, 
 " have a use, in that they make an agreeable sort of variety, 
 and augment the beauty of the rest of creation, as shades in 
 a picture serve to set off the brighter and more enlightened 
 parts"). Pure reason is pure causality. It is not known 
 by means of the grammar of the understanding, but only 
 in moral and spiritual intuition and trust. "There is no 
 sense nor sensory, nor anything like sense or sensory, in God. 
 Sense implies an impression from some other being, and 
 denotes a dependence in the soul that hath it. Sense is a 
 passion [passivity], and passions imply imperfection. God 
 knoweth all things as pure mind or intellect; but nothing 
 by sense, nor in nor through a sensory." The two great 
 principles of morality are the being of God and the freedom 
 of man. 
 
 Result. Locke, we saw, left the external world (matter), 
 the self, and God in the doubtful position of being only
 
 ENGLISH MORALISTS, SHAFTESB UR Y. 1 69 
 
 (quasi-) knowable : Berkeley, we have just seen, drops mat- 
 ter, as an irrational notion. By so doing, he begins the 
 development of the Lockean doctrine towards its legitimate 
 result. Berkeley is a pure idealist, and one of the very 
 few empiricists who have been so. His idealism is, how- 
 ever, at least in its best-known form, as a factor in the 
 history of philosophy, only an empirical idealism. 
 
 63. 
 
 English Moralists. The several next following thinkers, 
 including Hume (who, however, has an independent posi- 
 tion in the history of philosophy) are commonly known as 
 the English Moralists of the Eighteenth Century. They 
 are (besides Hume) Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, Clarke, 
 Price, Adam Smith, Paley. They are perhaps more im- 
 portant in the history of thought than in themselves 
 regarded, though not insignificant in this respect. 
 
 64. 
 
 Anthony Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury^ (1671-1713). 
 Shaftesbury, who was grandson of the celebrated states- 
 man of the same title, was educated by a private tutor, 
 acting under Locke's direction, at a private school, and 
 at the Grammar School of Winchester. His education was 
 supplemented by several years' travel on the Continent, 
 which gave a cosmopolitan flavor to his thinking. He was 
 possessed by an ardent liking for the ancient classics, and 
 became so fully imbued with the thought and spirit of them 
 that he never afterwards could accommodate himself fully 
 to the modern " Christian " temper and view of things. 
 He succeeded his father, the second Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 as a (Whig) member of the House of Lords. On account 
 of ill-health he was obliged, after a few years in Parlia- 
 ment, to retire to private life. He made visits to Holland 
 and Italy on account of ill-health. Personally Shaftesbury 
 
 1 See "Shaftesbury," by Thomas Fowler, M.A., LL.D. (" English 
 Philosophers Series"); Shaftesbury's "Characteristics."
 
 1 70 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 was characterized by a spirit of benevolence which, it is 
 said, practically benefited not a few people. He was 
 particularly fond of stimulating and assisting ambitious, 
 intelligent young men. He was of a religious tempera- 
 ment, but no believer in dogmas. He is known, however, 
 to have had little sympathy with the Deistic movement. 
 
 Works. Shaftesbury's works are " Characteristics of 
 Men, Manners, Opinion, Times" (1711), a collection 
 of essays (some of which are not strictly philosophical) 
 on various topics ; " Letters written by a Nobleman to 
 a Young Man at the University." His ethical views are 
 to be found chiefly in an essay (among those of the " Char- 
 acteristics ") entitled an " Inquiry concerning Virtue and 
 Merit." The essay " The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhap- 
 sody," contains his metaphysical doctrines. 
 
 Philosophy. The motive impulse of Shaftesbury's think- 
 ing is to be found, like that of the Cambridge Platonists 
 (whom he seems to have esteemed), in hostility to the 
 views of Hobbes and the dogmatic theologians. 
 
 Metaphysics : God. Shaftesbury professedly detests 
 technical " metaphysics " and " system-making." The 
 metaphysicians, he says, by their attempt to demonstrate 
 everything, " renounce daylight and extinguish, in a man- 
 ner, the bright, visible, outside world." "The most inge- 
 nious way of becoming foolish is by a system. True 
 philosophy is the study of happiness." One need " know 
 only so much metaphysics as will teach him that there is 
 nothing in it." But Shaftesbury has, nevertheless, his 
 metaphysics, and talks not a little about " system." He 
 regards virtue as a sort of harmony with the "universal 
 system " of things, and the good as happiness, all things 
 working together for the best. From what he terms the 
 " mutual dependency of things," the " order, union, and 
 coherence of the whole," the universal system, " the co- 
 herent scheme of things," he infers the existence of a 
 universal mind, a wise and benevolent God. He combats 
 the Lockean notion that matter could (by God) have
 
 SHAFTESBURY. I'Jl 
 
 been made to think or produce thought, and finds in the 
 superiority of thought to matter evidence of the eternity 
 of thought. God is related to the world as the soul to the 
 body ; he directs and manages all the operations of nature 
 as the soul does those of the body. 
 
 Ethics : Moral Beauty ( Virtue) . That harmony which 
 characterizes the " universal system " as such appears also 
 in man, in himself, and " his relations to the world." In 
 himself, in the sum of his thoughts and affections, he is like 
 a musical instrument, no one of the strings of which can 
 be overstrained without damage to the instrument as a 
 whole. As a part of the universal human whole, he is good 
 only as he acts for the public good, is possessed by the 
 spirit of benevolence. As a sort of harmony, virtue is 
 a species of beauty : it is moral beauty, or beauty of action \J 
 and characters, instead of mere objects. Moral beauty 
 is not an object or product of reason, nor is it a merely 
 conventional thing. It is an object and product of a 
 faculty of " taste," a moral sense. The moral sense is as 
 natural to us as the faculty of feeling itself. Its operation 
 is immediate, and when the sense is educated, decisive : / 
 what i s . good, presents itself to it at once as the " amiable* 
 and the agreeable, and hence right." The criterion of right 
 and wrong is, in general, the public good : to love the 
 public, "to study universal good, and to promote the 
 interest of the whole world as far as lies within our power, 
 is surely the height of goodness, and makes that temper 
 which we call divine." On the other hand, "since it 
 is impossible that the public good, or good of the system, 
 can be preserved without the affection towards private 
 good, a creature wanting in these is in reality wanting in 
 some degree to goodness and natural rectitude, and may 
 thus be esteemed vicious and defective." But the other- 
 regarding sentiments cannot, Shaftesbury maintains (in 
 opposition to Hobbes), be deduced from the merely self- 
 regarding. As regards the relation of reason and the will, 
 as it is the "affectionate part" of human nature (the
 
 1/2 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " heart ") rather than the reason that apprehends the 
 right or the good, so it is the appetite rather than rea- 
 son that determines action : appetite gives the initiative 
 of action, reason merely guides it. The sanction of virtue 
 is twofold : a sanction of conscience combined with the 
 " love and reverence of a beneficent, just, and wise God." 
 As to the fear of " future punishment" and hope of " future 
 reward" (the only "sanctions" recognized by Locke), 
 these " cannot be of the kind called good affections 
 such as are acknowledged the spring and source of actions 
 truly good." These affections can at most only help to 
 prepare the way towards the cultivation of a moral disposi- 
 tion. A will or decree of God, or supreme goodness, must 
 necessarily be unintelligible to a being who does not know 
 what goodness is. 
 
 /Esthetics : Beauty. The constituent elements of 
 beauty are harmony and proportion. There are three 
 orders of beauty: (i) "dead forms," or external objects; 
 (2) "forms that form" or "have intelligence, action, 
 or operation ; " (3) the " form which fashions all other 
 forms, both dead and living, viz., the Divine Mind." 
 " Whatever is beautiful is harmonious and proportion- 
 able ; whatever is harmonious and proportionable is true ; 
 what is at once both beautiful and true is, of consequence, 
 agreeable and good." 
 
 Result. In the philosophy of Shaftesbury we have an 
 assertion of the rights of "internal sense," or feeling 
 against the purely discursive faculty or activity of thought. 
 Instead of a mechanical relation of part to part and to 
 whole (as in the system of Hobbes) , we have here (/. e., 
 in the principles of benevolence) an immediate living, or 
 felt, relation : instead of an individualistic, egoistic ethics, 
 we have a universalistic, altruistic one. Since sense, and 
 not reason, is the norm of truth in this system, the system 
 is not rationalistic ; but since sense here is internal and 
 in a measure reflective, the system is intuitional rather than 
 empirical. The system of Shaftesbury is pantheistic.
 
 HUTCHESON. 173 
 
 Shaftesbury's influence was in the last century a very wide 
 one. Not only in England, but also in France, and even 
 more in Germany, his views left distinct traces in the sys- 
 tems of numerous philosophers who studied his works. 
 
 65. 
 
 Francis Hutcheson 1 ( 1 694-1 746) . Francis Hutcheson, 
 son of a Presbyterian clergyman, was of Scotch descent, 
 though born in Ireland. After receiving a preliminary 
 training in a classical school in his native place and at an 
 academy elsewhere, he spent six years (171016) in the 
 University of Glasgow. His course of study there included, 
 besides philosophy, the classics and general literature, the- 
 ology, which was taught by a man, the liberality of whose 
 views (which cost him his chair) left a marked effect upon 
 Hutcheson's way of thinking in theology. At the close of 
 his course, Hutcheson accepted a call from a country con- 
 gregation near his old home, but soon resigned his position 
 to open an academy in Dublin. After some years of very 
 successful work here, he went (1729) to Glasgow to occupy 
 the chair of Moral Philosophy, to which he had been 
 elected. By a certain frankness and benevolence of dis- 
 position and manner, and by a liberality of view and a 
 natural eloquence, he won a large following, and exercised 
 a wide influence, tending towards the separation of ethics 
 and religious dogma, and the liberalization of religious 
 teaching in Scotland. 
 
 Works. Hutcheson's principal works are : " Inquiry 
 Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, and Design " (1725) ; 
 " Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil" (1725); 
 " Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and 
 Affections " (1728) ; " Illustrations upon the Moral Sense " 
 (1728) ; "Letters" (1725-27) ; " Philosophise Moralis In- 
 stitutio Compendiaria Ethices et Jurisprudentiae Naturalis 
 Elementa" (1742); " Metaphysicae Synopsis Ontologiam 
 
 1 " Hutcheson," by Thomas Fowler ; Hutcheson's " System of 
 Moral Philosophy ; " " The Scottish Philosophy," by James McCosh.
 
 174 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 et Pneumatologiam complectens " (1742); "System of 
 Moral Philosophy" (1755). The most generally known, 
 and most important, are the first four works in the pre- 
 ceding list. 
 
 Philosophy. Hutcheson is important chiefly as a moralist. 
 It is worth while, however, to glance at his psychologico- 
 metaphysical doctrines. 
 
 Psychology and Metaphysics. In psychology Hutcheson 
 is largely a follower of Locke. He rejects the doctrine of 
 innate ideas (as Locke understood it), derives knowledge 
 from sense ("sensation" and "consciousness"), and "re- 
 flection." There are certain (not unimportant) points in 
 which he differs from Locke. He asserts that the " ideas 
 of extension, figure, motion, and rest are more properly 
 ideas accompanying the sensations of sight and touch than 
 the sensations of either of these senses ; that the idea of 
 self accompanies every thought; and that the ideas of 
 number, duration, and existence accompany every idea 
 whatever." We cognize the external world by means of 
 images of it, which we are compelled to refer to an external 
 world by " our very nature." The correspondence of image 
 and object has for its cause God, who by " an established 
 law of nature brings it about that the notions which are ex- 
 cited by present objects may be like the objects themselves, 
 or at least represent their habitudes or qualities, if not their 
 true quantities. We have a direct consciousness of mind as 
 distinguished from body and of our own personal identity." 
 Still other points in which Hutcheson " departed from or 
 supplemented the philosophy of Locke" are the "distinc- 
 tion between perception proper and sensation proper, which 
 occurs by implication, though it is not explicitly worked out ; 
 a hint as to the imperfection of the ordinary division of 
 the external senses into five classes ; the limitation of con- 
 sciousness to a special mental faculty, namely, that by which 
 we perceive our own minds, and all that goes on within 
 them ; and the disposition to refer disputed questions of 
 philosophy not so much to formal arguments as to the testi-
 
 HUTCHESON. 175 
 
 mony of consciousness and our natural instincts " (Fowler). 
 With regard to the senses external and internal he 
 proposes the following classification (understanding by 
 " sense," " every determination of our minds to receive 
 ideas independently on our wills, and to have perceptions 
 of pleasure and pain"): (i) "the external senses uni- 
 versally known " (though the ordinary division is "very im- 
 perfect"); (2) pleasant perceptions arising from regular 
 harmonious uniform objects; (3) "our determination to 
 be pleased at the happiness of others, and to be uneasy 
 at their misery," the "public sense;" (4) the general 
 sense by which we perceive virtue or vice in ourselves or 
 others; (5) the sense of honor; and perhaps an infinite 
 number of others. Metaphysical axioms are self-evident 
 and immutable (though not innate) ; space and time are 
 realities, but not modes of the divine being ; we perceive in 
 conscious energy or efficacy the only sort of cause that 
 the nature of substance is unknown. 1 
 
 Ethics. "Human nature," says Hutcheson, "was not 
 left quite indifferent in the affair of virtue to form to itself 
 observations concerning the advantage or disadvantage of 
 actions, and accordingly to regulate its conduct. The weak- 
 ness of our reason, the associations rising from the infirmity 
 and necessities of our nature, are so great that very few men 
 could ever have formed those long deductions of reason 
 which show some actions to be on the whole advantageous 
 to the agent, and their contraries pernicious. The Author 
 of nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous con- 
 duct than our moralists seem to imagine by almost as quick 
 andjDOwerful instructions as we have for the preservation of 
 our bodies. He has made a lovely form [in Shaftesbury's 
 sense] to excite our~pursuit of it, and has given us strong 
 affections to be the springs of each virtuous action." There 
 is (that is to say) for the determination of conduct a 
 " moral sense," " guiding and controlling certain natural 
 and non-reasoned impulses." The moral '* sense " is for 
 
 1 See McCosh's " Scottish Philosophy."
 
 176 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Hutcheson not wholly without intellectual character, but 
 has a certain governing norm, or criterion, according to 
 which it acts. The . springs of action are : ( i ) original 
 desires, corresponding to the five classes of senses above 
 enumerated, viz., desires of the bodily senses, of the imagi- 
 nation or internal sense, of the sense of public happiness, 
 of virtue, of honor; (2) various secondary desires conse- 
 quent upon these. In moral action these desires, and not 
 reason, give the initiative, but are subject to conscience, 
 which is therefore the real controlling principle. The 
 desires or affections are classifiable as turbulent and tran- 
 sient, or calm and enduring, and as selfish and benevolent. 
 From the calm, enduring, benevolent desires conscience 
 cannot withhold approval. The criterion of the moral 
 sense, that is to say, is the idea of benevolence or the 
 general good of mankind, the "greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number" (a phrase originating with Hutcheson). 
 " If we examine all the actions which are accounted amia- 
 able anywhere, and inquire into the grounds upon which 
 they are approved, we shall find that, in the opinion of the 
 person who approves them, they always appear as benevo- 
 lent and flowing from the love of others and a study of 
 their happiness, whether the approver be one of the per- 
 sons beloved or not ; so that all those kind affections which 
 incline us to make others happy, and all actions supposed 
 to flow from such affections, appear morally good if, while 
 they are benevolent towards some persons, they be not per- 
 nicious to others. Nor shall we find anything able anywhere 
 in any action whatsoever where there is no benevolence 
 imagined ; nor on any disposition or capacity which is not 
 applicable to and designed for benevolent purposes." The 
 principle of benevolence does not exclude self-love : a man 
 may be " in part an object of his own benevolence ; and 
 those actions which flow from self-love, and yet evidence 
 no want of benevolence, having no hurtful effect upon 
 others, seem perfectly indifferent in a moral sense, and raise 
 neither the love or hatred of the observer. . . . Self-love is
 
 BUTLER. 177 
 
 really as necessary to the good of the whole as benevolence, 
 as that attraction which causes the cohesion of the parts is 
 as necessary to the regular state of the whole as gravita- 
 tion." The only real sanction of moral action is the voice 
 of conscience, governed by the thought of benevolence. 
 
 ^Esthetics. There is a sense of the beautiful, as of the 
 good ; /. <?., the perception of beauty is immediate, it is a 
 matter of sensibility or feeling, /. e., of pleasure or pain. 
 The sense of the beautiful is an internal sense, ... a per- 
 ception of relations rather than things. The fundamental 
 relation of beauty is that of uniformity amidst variety : 
 " mathematically speaking, beauty is a compound ratio of 
 these two, so that when the uniformity of bodies is equal, 
 the beauty is as the variety, and when the variety is equal, 
 the beauty is as the uniformity." There is a beauty of 
 universal truths, laws, actions, moral principles. Our ideas 
 of the beautiful are in a measure effects of association 
 of ideas. 
 
 Result. rThe general observations made upon the sys- 
 tem of Shaftesbury apply to that of Hutcheson, a close fol- 
 lower, almost a copyist, of Shaftesbury. Hutcheson is 
 generally regarded as the founder of the Scottish School of 
 Philosophy, a school the chief characteristics of which are 
 that (i) it makes the self its chief object of study; (2) it 
 employs as method "induction;" (3) it maintains the 
 doctrine of the existence in mankind of a " common 
 sense " perceptive of eternal and necessary truths. 1 
 
 66. 
 
 Joseph Butler* (1692-1752). Butler was educated by 
 a private tutor at a " Dissenters' Academy " (to which his 
 father sent him, with a view to making a Presbyterian minis- 
 ter of him) and at the University of Oxford. His en- 
 trance to Oxford was preceded by an expressed intention 
 
 1 See McCosh, " Scottish Philosophy." 
 
 - Butler's Works ; " Butler " by Collins (" Blackwood's English 
 Philosophers") ; " Encyclopaedia Britannica." 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 1/8 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 to conform to the principles of the Established Church. 
 On finishing his university course he decided to enter the 
 ministry of the Church, and was ordained in 1717. He 
 occupied a number of more or less important ecclesiastical 
 posts, among them the rectorship of Stanhope, the dean- 
 ship of St. Paul's in London, the bishoprics of Bristol and 
 Durham. His benevolence is said to have been some- 
 thing extraordinary. 
 
 Works. Butler's philosophical "works" comprise 
 (fifteen) " Sermons " on ethical and religious topics 
 (1726), "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, 
 to the Constitution and Course of Nature" (1736), "Two 
 Brief Dissertations on Personal Identity, and the Nature 
 of Virtue," appended to the " Analogy," and a few Letters 
 to Samuel Clarke. The " Analogy " was a reply to Tindal's 
 " Christianity as Old as Creation," the so-called " Bible of 
 Deism." 
 
 Philosophy. Butler possesses some importance as an 
 opponent of the Deistic doctrine of religion, but owes his 
 place (not a mean one) in the history of philosophy chiefly 
 to his ethical doctrines. 
 
 Theory of Religion. In opposition to the Deists, Butler 
 attempts to show (i) that nothing in "reason" or "expe- 
 rience " precludes for us the probability and probability, 
 he says, is our only guide in such matters that we are 
 immortal, and that the future state is a state of rewards and 
 punishments : in other words, that the government of the 
 world is a moral government (as taught by revealed reli- 
 gion) ; (2) that, in view of the imperfection of reason and 
 experience, Revelation is probable, and that it is no more 
 (nor less) impossible of comprehension than the ordinary 
 course of nature. In connection with the question " the 
 most important that can possibly be asked " of immor- 
 tality, arises that of the " meaning of that identity or same- 
 ness of person which is implied in the notion of our living 
 now and hereafter in any two successive moments." On 
 this point, Butler answers that we live and act constantly
 
 BUTLER. 179 
 
 as if we were the same to-day that we were yesterday and 
 shall be to-morrow, that only real beings not mere ab- 
 stract ideas are capable of life and action, happiness and 
 misery, and that every person is "conscious that he is 
 now the same person or self he was as far back as his re- 
 membrance reaches." 
 
 Ethics. " That which renders beings capable of moral 
 government " is the " having a moral nature, moral facul- 
 ties of perception and action." And, on the other hand, 
 the being moral is the exercise of these faculties. The moral 
 faculties of man comprise, according to Butler, four classes 
 of principles : ( i ) certain " propensions, aversions, pas- 
 sions, and affections " having relations to external objects 
 which constitute " human nature " in relation to such ob- 
 jects; (2) self-love, which constitutes our moral nature as 
 respects ourselves ; (3) a natural " principle of benevolence," 
 our nature as regards others, " which is in some de- 
 gree to society what self-love is to the individual ; " (4)3 
 "principle of reflection," conscience, by "which we ap- 
 prove and disapprove our own actions." In the most 
 general sense of the term, moral action is action from and 
 according to any one of these principles, way part of our 
 moral nature ; in a less wide sense it is action from and 
 according to whichever is the strongest ; in a more restricted 
 sense still it is action from and according to a principle 
 which prevails, not by reason of mere strength, but by virtue 
 of its nature as representing most fully human nature as a 
 unit and the whole, and as being therefore the most excel- 
 lent. This last principle is doubtless the "principle of 
 reflexion," or conscience, which, only, is unequivocally pecu- 
 liar to man as distinguished from the brute ; no action that 
 is not " suitable " or " proportionable " to this principle has 
 a truly moral character or is truly good. " The very con- 
 stitution of our nature requires that we bring our whole 
 conduct before this faculty ; wait its determination ; en- 
 force upon ourselves its authority ; and make it the business 
 of our lives, as it is absolutely the whole business of a moral
 
 I SO A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 agent, to conform ourselves to it." Next in rank to this is 
 self-love, which implies a certain degree of " calculation," 
 or reflection. " Reasonable self-love and conscience are 
 the chief or superior principles in the nature of man." 
 That self-love, though condemned by moralists who disap- 
 prove of Hobbes's making it the sole principle of ethics, is 
 a real principle of our nature, becomes evident from the 
 consideration of the fact that while as " members of one 
 another " we are " made for society," we are " intended to 
 take care of our own life and health and private good." 
 Self-love is not necessarily inconsistent with love for others, 
 but may be involved in that, or, on the other hand, involve 
 that, without detriment to it. Without self-love benevo- 
 lence would often be without an object, except the indefinite 
 one of merely avoiding pain. " The gordness or badness 
 of actions does not arise from hence, that the epithet ' inter- 
 ested ' or ' disinterested ' may be applied to them, any more 
 than that any other indifferent epithet, suppose ' inquisitive ' 
 or 'jealous,' may or may not be applied to them; not 
 from their being attended with future pleasure or pain, 
 but from their being what they are, namely, what becomes 
 such creatures as we are, what the state of the case requires, 
 or the contrary. Or, in other words, we may judge that an 
 action is morally good or evil before we so much as consider 
 whether it be interested or disinterested. . . . Self-love in its 
 one degree is as just and morally good as any other affec- 
 tion whatever. Benevolence towards particular persons 
 may be to a degree of weakness, and so be blamable ; and 
 disinterestedness is so far from being commendable that the 
 utmost possible depravity which we can in imagination con- 
 ceive is that of disinterested cruelty." Injustice is done to 
 self-love by confounding it with the pursuance of the grati- 
 fications of the passions, which in themselves are not directly 
 related to the self, but to the external world. It is this 
 gratification rather than real self-love that is "unfriendly 
 to benevolence." Self-love is distinguished from the " par- 
 ticular affections, passions, and appetites to particular
 
 BUTLER. l8l 
 
 external objects in that it belongs to man as a " reasonable 
 creature," whereas they, though a part of human nature, are 
 quite distinct from reason as such. Self-love is further dis- 
 tinguished from the passions in that the gratification of 
 them is a source of happiness, whereas " people may love 
 themselves with the utmost unbounded affection, and yet 
 be extremely miserable ; " and if " self-love wholly engrosses 
 us and leaves no room for any other principle, there can be 
 no such thing at all as happiness or enjoyment of any kind 
 whatever." Butler gives special attention to resentment, 
 compassion, love of neighbor, among the moral senti- 
 ments. He distinguishes two sorts of resentment, one of 
 which is "sudden " and " instinctive," and has for its object 
 to defend ourselves from impending bodily " harm," the 
 other reflective, and relates to a " moral injury." The for- 
 mer is justifiable only in special instances; the latter is 
 justifiable in the form of moral indignation. Compassion 
 has for its final causes to prevent misery (by restraining 
 resentment, envy, unreasonable self-love) and to relieve 
 misery. Resentment, compassion, love of neighbor, are all 
 subject to the dictates of conscience. The sanctions of 
 virtue are, according to Butler, conscience, and the knowl- 
 edge of God as the rewarder and punisher of virtue and its 
 opposite. The obligation to obey conscience rests upon the 
 fact that it is the law of our nature, or, in another aspect, 
 the will of God. 
 
 Result. Butler, it is scarcely necessary to remark, is an 
 intuitionist. He is in an important sense a disciple of 
 Shaftesbury ; his " conscience " being the " moral sense " 
 of Shaftesbury, tinged with an element of reflection, and less 
 aesthetic in its action. His view of self-love may be re- 
 garded as a reaction against Shaftesbury's somewhat one- 
 sided view of " benevolence," itself a reaction against the 
 egoistic ethics of Hobbes. Butler seems to come very 
 near regarding benevolence and self-love as one and the 
 same thing, but, after all, left the identification of the two 
 through the reason, which comprehends both self and other,
 
 1 82 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 subject and object, to later moralists. He has been rightly 
 deemed one of the greatest moralists between Aristotle 
 and Kant. He has .been somewhat neglected by historians. 
 
 67. 
 
 Samuel Clarke (1675-1729). Clarke, after a course 
 in the school of his birthplace, Norwich, entered the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge and pursued studies in mathematics 
 and philosophy. Becoming acquainted with the Newtonian 
 principles of physics, he adopted them, and upheld them 
 in opposition to those of Descartes. He studied divinity, 
 took orders, became chaplain at court, and "resident 
 chaplain" of the Bishop of Worcester, a position held 
 by him till his death. 
 
 Works. Clarke's principal philosophical works, treat- 
 ing particularly of the being and attributes of God, the 
 principles of morality, freedom and necessity, and the 
 nature of space and time, are : " A Demonstration of the 
 Being and Attributes of God, more particularly in answer 
 to Mr. Hobbes, Spinoza, and their followers" (1705); 
 " Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of 
 Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the 
 Christian Revelation" (1706); "A Collection of Papers 
 which passed between the late learned Mr. Leibnitz and 
 Dr. Clarke," etc., together with a reply to Collins's " Philo- 
 sophical Enquiry Concerning Human Liberty" (1711). 
 
 Philosophy: The Being and Attributes of God. It has 
 been asserted 1 of Clarke's metaphysico-religious doctrine 
 that it " was intimately connected with his Natural Philos- 
 ophy, and Newton was hardly less his guide in the former 
 than in the latter." Whether it was Newton or Spinoza who 
 was his guide, Clarke assumes that the mathematical 
 method was the method of metaphysics, and attempts 
 to prove the existence, omnipresence, and the infinite wis- 
 dom and beneficence of the Creator, " geometrico ordine" 
 (as Spinoza says). The notion of an infinite chain of 
 
 1 See Martineau, " Types of Ethical Theory," ii. 428 (ist ed.).
 
 SAMUEL CLARKE. 183 
 
 causes and effects is a self- contradictory notion : hence 
 there must have something existed from eternity. This 
 being must be immutable and independent ; must be self- 
 existent ; its substance is incomprehensible ; many of its 
 attributes may be demonstrated, it is eternal, infinite, 
 and omnipresent (because self- existent), and one (since if 
 there were " two beings, either could be supposed to exist 
 without the other "), intelligent (since the cause is more 
 perfect than the effect), free (freedom is implied in intelli- 
 gence), omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely good, just, true, 
 etc. 
 
 Space and Time. Space and time are both infinite. 
 They are not substances, but attributes. As such they 
 presuppose a real, necessary, and infinite being, of which 
 they are attributes. They are, that is to say, attributes of 
 God. 
 
 The Foundation of Morality. All things, man included, 
 have, by virtue of unchangeable laws, implanted in them 
 definite natures and definite relations to one another and 
 the system of the world. The suitedness or fitness (or the 
 opposite) of things in relation to one another is indepen- 
 dent of all will or arbitrary arrangement, even of God, since, 
 though not obliged to create the world, God was, on having 
 decided to create it, necessitated by the possible nature of 
 things. The actions of intelligent beings are obligated to 
 be guided by the knowledge of the immutable relations of 
 things, not by special interest or conditions. Actions are 
 virtuous or otherwise, according as they are or are not fitted 
 to the correspondences between things. In virtue alone 
 consists the happiness of man. The correspondences of 
 things are perceived by an infallible instinct of reason. For 
 those who will not attend to the voice of reason a special 
 revelatio.n is provided, and promises of rewards or punish- 
 ment for obedience or disobedience to the laws of nature. 
 
 Freedom. Freedom is the power of self-motion. 
 Among Clarke's proofs of freedom is the following : God 
 is freedom, and could communicate freedom to his crea-
 
 1 84 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 tures. Consciousness attests the fact of such a com- 
 munication. 
 
 Result. Clarke seems to combine characteristics of all 
 three of the cardinal directions of thought of the Second 
 Period : he is a rationalist as regards method, an intuitionist 
 in his conception of reason and the first principles of mo- 
 rality, and a (Lockean) empiricist in his general meta- 
 physical principles (" Dr. Clarke, though not a formal 
 defender of the philosophy of Locke, never formally dis- 
 sents from him." Porter.} His speculations are said to 
 have exercised a considerable influence upon English 
 theologians. 
 
 68. 
 
 Richard Price (1723-1791). Price, whose education 
 did not extend beyond that of a private tutor, a private 
 school, and an academy, studied especially mathematics and 
 theology. Though the son of a strict Calvinist, he became 
 a " Dissenting " minister of a " liberal " faith. The latter 
 portion of his life was devoted to economico-political 
 thought and work. He became conspicuous during the 
 war of England against her American Colonies as a cham- 
 pion of the cause of the Colonies. By his outspoken 
 sympathy with the French Revolutionists he became a 
 special object of Burke's antipathy. He is said to have 
 " studied at an early age the works of Clarke and Butler, 
 and to have conceived a special admiration for the theo- 
 logico-ethical works of the latter." 
 
 Works. Works of Price are : "A Review of the Chief 
 Questions and Difficulties in Morals, particularly those 
 respecting the Origin of our Ideas of Virtue, its Nature, its 
 Relation to the Deity, Obligation, Subject, Matter, Sanc- 
 tions " (1757) ; " Letters on Materialism and Philosophical 
 Necessity." 
 
 Philosophy. Price opposes the Lockean sensational 
 theory of knowledge, maintaining that the understanding 
 is an independent source of knowledge (and even of feel- 
 ing) , essentially distinct from sensibility, and apprehends, by
 
 ADAM SMITH. 185 
 
 its own power, time, space, cause, etc. The main affirma- 
 tions in the ethical doctrines of Price seem to be that 
 " right " and " wrong " are objective, or founded in the 
 nature of things as parts of an order ; that they are directly 
 apprehended by reason or understanding (as distinguished 
 from the moral " sense " of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and 
 others, whom he criticises) ; that the mere perception of 
 right and wrong " excites to action, and is alone a sufficient 
 principle of action," or that " excitement belongs to the 
 very ideas of right and wrong, and is essentially inseparable 
 from the apprehension of them," or (in still other terms) 
 " that the intellectual nature is its own law, and has within 
 itself a spring and guide of actions, which it cannot suppress 
 or reject ; " and, finally, that actions are " formally right " 
 (right in intention) only as chosen by reason or under- 
 standing, or are obligatory, independently of any relation to 
 happiness or unhappiness. 
 
 Results. It is important to note that Price's theory 
 differs from all English theories of morals prior to it 
 even from Clarke's, with which it seems otherwise nearly 
 identical in admitting no "sanction" or source of obliga- 
 tion whatever, distinct from reason or understanding itself. 
 In this regard it anticipates the ethical teaching of Im- 
 manuel Kant, if it does not, rather, stand entirely alone. 
 
 69. 
 
 Adam Smith 1 (1723-1790). Smith was educated at 
 the school of his birthplace and at the universities of Glas- 
 gow (where he had Hutcheson as an instructor in phi- 
 losophy) and Oxford. His studies at Oxford were chiefly 
 in the moral and political sciences and in language and 
 literature. In 1751 he received the appointment of pro- 
 fessor of logic, and in 1752 that of professor of moral 
 philosophy, in the University of Glasgow. He resigned 
 
 1 " Life of Adam Smith," by R. B. Haldane ; Noack ; " English 
 Thought in the Eighteenth Century," by Leslie Stephen; Smith's 
 Works.
 
 1 86 A HISTORY OF MODERK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 his professorship (in 1763) to travel as tutor of the Duke 
 of Buccleugh, on the Continent. After his return, he 
 spent ten years in studies which resulted in his renowned 
 work in political economy. As a holder of a lucrative pub- 
 lic office, he was able to spend his latter years in ease and 
 intercourse with intellectual friends, among whom were 
 Hume, Ferguson (professor of moral philosophy), Dugald 
 Stewart, Hutton the geologist, and Black the chemist. 
 
 Works. Smith's philosophical works are : " Theory 
 of the Moral Sentiments" (1759); "Inquiry into the 
 Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776); 
 "Essays on Philosophical Subjects" (1795). 
 
 Philosophy. Smith is an opponent of the Hobbean 
 egoism in ethics. " How-selfish-soever man may be sup- 
 posed, there are evidently some principles in his nature 
 which interest him in the fortune of others, and render 
 their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing 
 from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is 
 pity, or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the 
 misery of others when we either see it, or are made to 
 conceive it in a very lively manner." The essential ele- 
 ment in moral sentiment is sympathy. The moral senti- 
 ment in general involves, (i) sympathy with the motives 
 of the agent ; ( 2 ) with the feelings of the recipient ; 
 (3) perception of the harmony of action with the rules 
 according to which the two sorts of sympathy generally 
 act ; (4) the perception of action as forming a part of 
 a system of behaviour tending to promote the happiness 
 of the individual or society, and as being on this account 
 beautiful. An action with the motives of the doer of which 
 we find ourselves able to sympathize possesses " propriety." 
 If it be also beneficent in its effects, exciting in the patient 
 of it feelings of gratitude with which we can properly sym- 
 pathize, it possesses " merit " also. The judgment of 
 merit, it appears, depends upon sympathy with both agent 
 and patient. If we disapprove of the motives of the doer 
 of an action benefiting another, the action is the opposite
 
 PA LEY. 187 
 
 of meritorious. The foundation of our judgments con- 
 cerning our own sentiments and conduct, and of the sense 
 of duty, lies in the fact that " man desires not only to 
 be loved, but to be lovely : " praise must signify praise- 
 worthiness in him who is praised to be truly agreeable. 
 The perfectly virtuous man is he who acts according to 
 the rules of perfect prudence, of strict justice, and of proper 
 benevolence. The knowledge of the rules of conduct 
 must be accompanied by self-command, to produce virtue. 
 With Smith, ethics is one of four parts of the whole of 
 philosophy ; viz., natural theology, ethics, politics, or juris- 
 prudence, and economics. Smith is to a certain extent 
 a disciple of Hume. 
 
 70- 
 
 William Paley* (1743-1805). Paley graduated at 
 Cambridge, and became a fellow and tutor there, lectur- 
 ing on divinity, metaphysics, and ethics. Compelled to 
 retire from his fellowship because of intended marriage, 
 he accepted a rectorship in the Church of England, and 
 later held several important preferments, though on account 
 of comparatively latitudinarian views he failed to attain 
 to the highest ecclesiastical honors. He was a very 
 successful lecturer and author. Some of his works are 
 theological. 
 
 Works. Paley's philosophical writings are : " The 
 Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy" (1785); 
 " Natural Theology, or Evidence of the Existence and 
 Attributes of the Deity, collected from the Appearances 
 of Nature" (1802). 
 
 Philosophy. Paley's entire "philosophy" comprises 
 three divisions, occupied with the " evidences of natural 
 religion, the evidences of revealed religion, and an account 
 of the duties that result from both." We are here con- 
 cerned only with the first and the last of the three. In 
 
 1 "English Thought in the Eighteenth Century," by Leslie 
 Stephen ; " Encyclopaedia Britannica."
 
 1 88 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the Natural Theology Paley " proves " the existence of 
 God from the appearances of design and contrivance 
 in nature. Among the instances he notes of apparent 
 design are the following : the " pivot upon which the head 
 turns, the ligament within the socket of the hip-joint, the 
 pulley, or trochlean muscles, of the eye, the course of 
 the chyle into the blood, ... the constitution of the 
 sexes as extended throughout the whole animal creation." 
 Moral philosophy is directly connected with theology ; 
 through the assumption, that is to say, that the promise 
 of future rewards and punishments is a necessary sanction 
 of duty. The end and criterion of virtue is happiness : 
 " Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in obedience to 
 the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness." 
 The will of God is the "rule," as happiness is the end, 
 of action. Paley, of course, denies the existence of a 
 " moral sense " and of eternal, intuitively perceived prin- 
 ciples of right. " Obligation," he says, " is a violent mo- 
 tive resulting from the command of another." Paley 
 is to be regarded as a forerunner of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury Utilitarians. 
 
 71- 
 
 David Hume 1 (1711-1776). David Hume was born 
 in Edinburgh. By the anxious care of his mother, his 
 father having died when Hume was an infant, he was 
 given a good education, which included a partial course 
 in the University of Edinburgh. He left the university 
 with strong literary tastes and inclinations; and when 
 afterwards he was supposed by his friends to be digging 
 into books of law, he was, as he says, " secretly devouring 
 Cicero and Virgil ! " Though his mother thought " Davie 
 a fine, good-natured creatur, but uncommon wake-minded," 
 his mind seems to have been sufficiently active in its 
 
 1 Hume's " Treatise of Human Nature ; " Green's " Introduc- 
 tions " to Hume; "Hume," by Professor Knight (" Blackwood's 
 Philosophical Classics") ; Huxley's " Hume/' etc.
 
 HUME. 1 89 
 
 own way. An interval of several years spent at home, 
 after a practical failure at " law," was followed by another 
 practical failure at "business." In 1734, for economy's 
 sake, he went to France to live, resolved on pursuing a 
 literary career and winning a real literary fame. During 
 the following ten years, only three of which were spent 
 abroad, he finished a philosophical treatise (his master- 
 piece), which had been begun before he left Scotland, 
 and wrote a volume of essays. In 1 746 he accepted the 
 position of secretary to General St. Clair, who was sent 
 out on an expedition ; and in 1 748, a similar position with 
 General St. Clair, when he went as ambassador to Turin 
 and Vienna. Between the years 1751 and 1763 Hume 
 was at Edinburgh, courting (successfully) fame as a his- 
 torian, want of acknowledged success in philosophy having 
 put a damper on his ambition as a philosophical writer. 
 He held at the same time the position of librarian to the 
 Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh. For three years 
 (1763-1766) he was secretary to an embassy to France, 
 and for two Under-Secretary of State. He had in the 
 mean time acquired a good property, bearing (together 
 with a pension) an income of ^1,000 a year, and he 
 determined to spend the remainder of his life (after 
 1769) in leisure and ease. He died in 1776. A certain 
 gayety of disposition characteristic of him seems to have 
 been even more marked than ever before, when, for some 
 
 rt time previous to his death, he was perfectly aware of his 
 
 -I approaching dissolution. 
 
 k Works. Hume's chief philosophical works are : " A 
 eatise of Human Nature, being an Attempt to Intro- 
 ice the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral 
 Subjects (three Books : I. Of the Understanding ; II. Of 
 the Passions; III. Of Morals) " (1739-1740) ; "Essays, 
 Moral, Political, Literary" (1742) ; " Enquiry Concerning 
 Human Understanding" (Book I. of the "Treatise" re- 
 vised for literary purposes, 1748) ; "Enquiry Concerning 
 the Principles of Morals" (a revision of Book III. of
 
 190 A HISTORY OF MODERtf PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the " Treatise," and regarded by Hume as his best work, 
 1751); "Political Discourses" (1752); "The Natural 
 History of Religion" (1757); "Dialogues Concerning 
 Natural Religion" (1779). Hume's philosophical master- 
 piece is the " Treatise of Human Nature," his earliest 
 work. Perhaps next to this in value are the " Dialogues 
 on Natural Religion " and the " Natural History of 
 Religion." 
 
 Philosophy : The Importance and the Method of the 
 Science of Human Nature. The only hope, says Hume, 
 by way of introduction to his system, for success in philo- 
 sophical investigation is to take as the beginning and basis 
 of all knowledge the knowledge of human nature : " There 
 is no epiesttou of importance wHbse~decistoir is not com- 
 prised in the science of man, and there is none which can 
 be decided with any certainty before we become acquainted 
 with that science." And as this science is the only solid 
 foundation for other sciences, so the only solid foundation 
 we can give to this science itself must be laid in expe- 
 rience and observation. The method of experience, or 
 experiment and observation, as applied to human nature, 
 has indeed its limitations, since reflection and premedita- 
 tion must so disturb the operations of nature in the mind 
 as to render it impossible to " form any just conclusion 
 from the phenomena;" but by a cautious observation 
 of human life we may learn experiments enough and of the 
 proper sort to establish a science of human nature. 
 
 I. The Understanding: Origin of our Ideas. All per- 
 ceptions of the human mind may be resolved into two 
 kinds, differing merely in degree of " force and liveliness." 
 The more forcible and lively may be termed " impres- 
 sions ; " the less, " ideas." The latter are simply " faint 
 images" of the former. Our perceptions may also be 
 divided into simple and complex. All simple ideas are 
 derived from simple impressions, which they exactly repre- 
 sent. Impressions are of two sorts : impressions of sensa- 
 tion and impressions of reflection. The origin of the
 
 HUME. IQI 
 
 first-named sort is unknown. The second sort originate 
 largely from our " ideas (or copies of first impressions) 
 returning upon the soul." The theory of impressions of 
 sensation is a part of anatomy and natural philosophy, 
 rather than of a philosophy of mind, which begins, prop- 
 erly, with the theory of ideas. Now, " ideas," or " impres- 
 sions returning upon the soul," are by the degree of their 
 vivacity either perfect ideas, or are intermediate in char- 
 acter between a pure impression and a pure idea. In the 
 latter case they are an idea of memory ; in the former, are 
 ideas of imagination. By the faculty of imagination, but 
 not by memory, ideas are given a different order and 
 combination from that which impressions have. The 
 principles of " union and cohesion " among simple ideas 
 in the imagination are resemblance, contiguity in time 
 and place, cause and effect. From the union of simple 
 ideas result complex ideas, which may be classed as rela- 
 tions, mooes, and substances. Ideas of substances are and 
 can be only ideas of collections of particular qualities. 
 If substance were not merely a collection of qualities, the 
 idea of it must be derived from an impression of sensa- 
 tion or an impression of reflection. In the former case, 
 it must be a color, sound, taste, smell, etc., which certainly 
 it is not; in the latter, it must be a passion or emotion, 
 which also it is not. What is true of substance in these 
 respects is true also of modes, which are merely groups 
 of qualities " dispersed among different subjects." To 
 Hume's account of the idea of substance we may append 
 his doctrine of abstract ideas (which is substantially the 
 same as that of Berkeley). The abstract or general idea, 
 says Hume, is " merely the particular annexed to a certain 
 term," " which gives it more extensive signification." This 
 must be so ; for it is " utterly impossible to conceive any 
 quality or quantity without forming any precise notion 
 of its degrees," since " abstract ideas must be copies of im- 
 pressions, which are always definite, both in quantity and 
 in quality." The general term always suggests the ideas
 
 IQ2 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of certain individuals, together with less definite ideas of 
 others. The mind really adds nothing to what is impressed 
 upon it. Relations are philosophical or natural : philo- 
 sophical when the results of voluntary comparison, other- 
 wise natural. The philosophical relations are resemblance, 
 proportion in quantity and number, degrees in quality, 
 contrariety, identity, relations of time and place, causation. 
 These may be divided into two different classes, according 
 as they either depend merely on the ideas compared (as 
 do the first four mentioned), or do not so depend (as do 
 the last three). Only relations of the former sort are self- 
 evident objects of " certainty and knowledge." The other 
 relations require further attention. 
 
 The Ideas of Space and Time, Number, Existence, and 
 External Existence. The idea of space can originate 
 only in an external impression, since it cannot be identified 
 in any manner with passions, emotions, desires, or aver- 
 sions. The only external impressions from which the idea 
 of space or extension can possibly arise are "impressions 
 of colored points disposed in a certain manner ; " the 
 " idea of extension is nothing but a copy of those colored 
 points and the manner of their appearance." The pure 
 idea of extension depends upon an act of comparison and 
 abstraction ; but this adds nothing to what is given in 
 the impression as such. The idea of time comes to us 
 from the succession of our ideas and impressions. And 
 " time cannot make . its appearance to the mind either 
 alone or attended with a steady, unchangeable object ; " 
 it is not distinguishable, and hence not separable from 
 particular impressions, arising altogether from the manner 
 in which impressions appear to the mind. That the ideas 
 of space and time originate in the senses is absolutely 
 proved by the fact that space and time become contradic- 
 tions if not conceived as merely made up of indivisible and 
 in themselves perceivable parts ; for how should extension 
 or duration be composed of merely mathematical points 
 so called? It follows from the sensible character of our
 
 HUME. 193 
 
 ideas of space and time that mathematical conceptions and 
 judgments, though sometimes infallible, are not always so. 
 Vagueness generally attaches to the notions greater, less, 
 equal, curved, straight, plane, etc., in any real relation. 
 From the " loose " and " indeterminate ideas " of sense 
 and imagination, it is impossible to derive those which 
 shall be exact. Beyond a " certain degree of minuteness," 
 all geometrical demonstration is necessarily fallacious. At 
 most, geometrical reasoning mathematics in general 
 is only highly probable. From the foregoing notion of 
 space, it also follows "that we can form no idea of a 
 vacuum, or space where there is nothing visible or tan- 
 gible." Whether there be a vacuum independent of sensa- 
 tion, or what either it or bodies would be independently 
 of sensation, it is useless to inquire ; we can have no 
 ideas of such, since no ideas can possibly exist for us not 
 having or betraying a sensible character. What has been 
 affirmed of the ideas of space and time as inseparable 
 from sensible qualities, applies also to the idea of exist- 
 ence : the idea of existence is the very same with the 
 " idea which we conceive to be existent." The idea of 
 existence makes, when conjoined with the idea of any 
 object, no addition to it. There is no distinct impression 
 from which the idea of existence arises. The same is true 
 of the idea of external existence : we have no idea of any 
 sort of existence out of relation to our perceptions. " Let 
 us chase our imagination to the heavens or to the utmost 
 limits of the universe, we never really advance a step 
 beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence 
 but those perceptions which have appeared in that narrow 
 compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor 
 have we any idea but what is there produced." 
 
 The Relation of Cause and Effect. The relation of 
 cause and effect presents (as compared with the other 
 natural relations, identity and situation in time or place) 
 the peculiarity that it takes us beyond what is immediately 
 present in perception, and informs of objects which we do 
 VOL. i. 13
 
 194 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 not see or feel. The origin and validity of this idea is a 
 matter of peculiar -importance. The idea__of__cause and 
 effect cannot have its origin in any particular qualities, 
 since therejs_jiQtMnge3d^tent, either~externally or inter- 
 nally, which may notbe regarded as a cause or an effect. 
 What is the relation among objects from which this idea is 
 derived? Why do we pronounce it necessary that every- 
 thing whose existence has a beginning should also have a 
 cause? Why must particular causes have particular effects? 
 What is the nature of the inference we draw from one to 
 another, and of the belief we repose in that inference? It is 
 not absolutely certain that whatever exists must have a cause. 
 Absolute certainty in knowledge arises only from compari- 
 son of ideas. But no one of the relations based on com- 
 parison i. e., resemblance, proportion in quantity, degree, 
 or contrariety suggests the idea that whatever exists has 
 a cause. There is, further, no necessity, in the mere idea of 
 cause, of our conceiving that of effect, and there is in reality 
 no reason why an object, non-existent at this moment, may 
 not be existent at the next, without a cause or productive 
 principle. In answer to the possible objection that " every- 
 thing must have a cause, for if anything want a cause it 
 must produce itself, /. e., exist before it existed," it is to be 
 said that this objection begs the question, since to say that 
 a thing is "produced," or, rather, comes into existence 
 without a cause, is not to affirm that it is its own cause, but 
 to deny it. In reply to the objection that " whatever is 
 produced without a cause must be produced by nothing, 
 which is impossible," it is to be said that this also begs the 
 question, since the very point in question is whether every- 
 thing must have a cause or not. The idea that everything 
 must have a cause is evidently not a product of demon- 
 stration or scientific reasoning ; and hence, if it exist, must 
 be a result of observation and experience. All our argu- 
 ments, concerning causes and effects, consist of both an 
 impression of the memory or senses, and of the idea of that 
 existence which produces the object of the impression or is
 
 HUME. 195 
 
 produced by it. Now, there is no object which implies the 
 existence of any other, if we consider these objects merely 
 in themselves, and never look beyond the ideas which we 
 form of them. We infer the existence of one object from . 
 that of another only through habit or experience. " Thus, 
 we remember to have seen that species of object which we 
 call flame, and to have felt that species of sensation which 
 we call heat ; we likewise call to mind their constant con- 
 junction in past instances ; we therefore call one a cause, 
 and the other the effect." But there remains unexplained 
 the idea of necessary connection (between " cause " and 
 "effect "). This idea is not a necessary one, since we can 
 at least conceive a change in the course of nature : it must 
 rest upon association of perceptions ; we have, in fact, " no 
 other notion of cause and effect but that of certain objects 
 which have been conjoined together habitually in past 
 experience." By the relation of cause and effect we not 
 only pass beyond our present perception to an idea of an 
 object not present, but to the idea of an object of belief or 
 of a matter of fact so-called, and hence an idea having the 
 vivacity of a present perception, or an impression. The 
 vivacity of this idea of which (the vivacity) our belief 
 is a consequence depends upon the rule, that " when an 
 impression becomes present to us, it not only transports 
 the mind to such ideas as are related to it, but also com- 
 municates to them a share of its force and vivacity." The 
 communicated force and vivacity are all the stronger when 
 the impression is one that has been repeatedly conjoined in 
 our minds with the idea to which it gives rise, and com- 
 municates a share of its vivacity. From the foregoing it 
 follows that all reasoning by the principle of cause and 
 effect all probable reasoning is a species of sensation. 
 " All reasonings are but the effects of custom, and custom 
 has no influence but by enlivening the imagination and giv- 
 ing us a strong conception of any object." In answer to 
 the objection, that the relations of resemblance and con- 
 tiguity also augment the force and vivacity of our ideas,
 
 196 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 it may be admitted that besides mere force and vivacity, 
 there is necessary for the production of belief, the concep- 
 tion of an order or a system among our ideas, of past and 
 present objects, an order necessitating the particular man- 
 ner of our thinking or judging as the manner of our receiv- 
 ing impressions is necessitated. Nevertheless, the only ideas 
 really involved in the relation of cause and effect are those 
 of contiguity, succession, and constant conjunction ; and the 
 idea of necessary connection is purely subjective, having its 
 only ground in " that propensity which custom produces 
 in us, to pass in thought from one object to its usual atten- 
 dant." As a result of the foregoing investigations we have 
 the following definition of cause : " A cause is an object 
 precedent and contiguous to another, and where all objects 
 resembling the former are placed in like relations of pre- 
 cedency and contiguity to those that resemble the latter," 
 or (more subjectively viewed) " an object precedent and 
 contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea 
 of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the 
 other, and the impression of the one to 'form a more lively 
 idea of the other." 
 
 " The Relation of Identity: " Objective Existence. If all 
 knowledge is mere belief occasioned by a peculiar asso- 
 ciation of ideas, it is necessary to discover for the apparent 
 continued existence and identity of objects, external and 
 internal, an explanation which does not assume their real 
 continuance and identity. This identity corresponds to 
 nothing that the senses present to us, for neither a single 
 object nor a multiplicity of objects of sense contains 
 the notion. It is a " pure fiction of the imagination," 
 which is given reality by the idea of duration, and the 
 resemblance of perceptions, and a succession of related 
 objects, " considered with the same uninterrupted progress 
 of the imagination as attends the view of the same inva- 
 riable object." The propensity of the mind to " feign " this 
 identity is so strong as to multiply the perception of the 
 obvious fact of the distinguishedness, and hence separate-
 
 HUME. 197 
 
 ness, of our perceptions. In reality there is no such thing 
 as identity, either in the " external world " or in ourselves : 
 all that we can know is merely " bundles of perceptions," 
 which we and the " external world " merely are. This 
 sceptical conclusion, though of course opposed to ail 
 dogmatism, is not utterly destructive of belief, it has no 
 real power against that " instinct of reason " which makes 
 us believe in the reality of ourselves and the external 
 world ; and hence does not deprive morality and religion 
 of all real basis in truth. 
 
 II. The Passions. By "Passions " Hume seems to mean 
 " impressions of reflection " regarded as feeling. Passions 
 differ fundamentally, as involving either of the two primary 
 feelings of pleasure and pain. They may also be distin- 
 guished as calm (as the " sense of beauty, of deformity in 
 action, of composition" of external objects), and violent 
 (as love and hate, joy and grief, humility and pride). They 
 may be distinguished as simple, compound, and complex. 
 They may, again, be distinguished as direct and indirect, 
 the former being such as "arise immediately from good 
 and evil, pleasure and pain," the latter such as " proceed 
 from these by conjunction with other ideas, viz., the ideas 
 of self or of other persons." It is necessary to distinguish 
 between the cause and the object of the passion, and be- 
 tween the quality and the subject of the quality or the 
 cause of the passion. A general law of passion is that 
 there is a definite ratio between the relation of object and 
 cause of passion to that between passion itself and the 
 sensation produced by the cause, considered merely in itself. 
 Passion has three branches : ( i ) pride and humility, 
 passions the object of which is self; (2) love and hatred, 
 passions the object of which is another; (3) will and 
 the direct passions. Concerned more or less in all other 
 passions is the passion of sympathy. Pride and humility 
 are, respectively, pleasurable and painful. Their causes are 
 " every valuable quality of mind and body, and every pos- 
 session and relation." Lo^e and hatred are, respectively,
 
 1 98 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 pleasurable and painful. Their causes are various, but are 
 always, directly or indirectly, thinking beings. Love at- 
 tended by appetite is benevolence ; hatred, so attended, is 
 anger. Benevolence implies a "desire of another's pleas- 
 ure, and aversion of his pain." Love and humility together 
 constitute the compound passion, respect. The will is in- 
 definable, except as the " internal impression we feel and 
 are conscious of when we knowingly give rise to any new 
 motion of our body or new perception of our mind." 
 There is no liberty of the will. Belief that there is, is 
 merely a consequence of (i) a confusion between sponta- 
 neity, or that which is opposed to violence, and indifference, 
 or negation of necessity and causes; (2) a false sensation, 
 or experience of the liberty of indifference; (3) religious 
 prejudice. The will is moved only by the prospect of 
 pleasure or of pain : reason or understanding alone neither 
 causes nor prevents volition, and it merely " guides " the 
 will. " Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the 
 passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to 
 serve them." There is in reality no conflict between reason 
 and the passions in relation to the will. The supposition 
 
 that reason influences the will is due to a misconception 
 
 K 
 
 of certain passions, such as benevolence, resentment, love of 
 life, which "produce but little emotion in the mind." They 
 determine the will ; reason does not. Passions move the 
 will, not merely by their violence, or strength, and not 
 always in proportion to that, but also by their perma- 
 nence and habitualness. It is a law of the passions that 
 they affect one another by association, and that they are 
 greatly affected by custom and repetition. Custom begets 
 a " facility in the performance of any action and an inclina- 
 tion towards it : " and " from these we may account for all 
 its other effects, however extraordinary." The imagination, 
 by its power of enlivening our ideas, has great influence 
 upon the passions, and hence upon the movement of the 
 will. Of the "direct passions," desire and aversion, joy 
 and grief, hope and fear, only'the last two require special
 
 HUME. 199 
 
 attention. They imply uncertainty (of expectation) : and 
 are different mixtures of joy and grief with different degrees 
 of the ingredient of uncertainty. Curiosity, or the love of 
 truth, is not a desire of truth merely on its own account, 
 but as possessing a certain utility, and capable of arousing 
 in us sympathy with others. 
 
 III. Morals. The moral quality of actions is to be 
 found not in any merely intellectual perception of relations, 
 or act of reason, that may precede and determine them 
 (since reason does not influence the will), but in the nature 
 of an impulse produced by a feeling of pleasure or pain ac- 
 companying the idea of an object. Our decisions regard- 
 ing moral rectitude are " perceptions : " morality is more 
 " properly felt than judged of," though this feeling is so 
 " soft and gentle that we are apt to confound it with an 
 idea." "To have a sense of virtue" is merely to "feel a 
 satisfaction" of a particular kind from the contemplation of 
 character : to have a " sense of vice " is to " feel uneasiness 
 in the same case." The sense of virtue may be natural 
 or artificial (/. e., produced by " experience "). All virtuous 
 actions derive their merit only from virtuous motives. The 
 virtuous motive can never be a regard to the virtue of the 
 action : to affirm that it could, would be to argue in a 
 circle. Neither self-love nor the love of mankind can be 
 the principle of virtuous motivation, since the first is the 
 source of all injustice and violence, and the second does 
 not really exist. An action is virtuous which gives pleasure 
 to a disinterested observer, the approbation or disapproba- 
 tion of the observer depending upon the exercise of sympa- 
 thy, which, therefore, is a chief source of moral distinction. 
 Of the virtues, justice is to be regarded as artificial. The 
 foundation of it is partly self-interest, partly also " morality," 
 or the " pleasure received from the view of such actions as 
 tend to the peace of society, and an uneasiness from such 
 actions as are contrary to it," a disposition depending 
 upon the force of public opinion and on private edu- 
 cation. Of the natural virtues some have their peculiar
 
 200 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 merit in their being agreeable to their possessors ; others in 
 their being so to other persons. Among the virtues whose 
 peculiar merit consists in their usefulness to others than 
 their possessors are modesty and benevolence. The merit 
 of love is in its agreeableness to one's self, etc. Besides 
 the virtues usually so termed, there are certain " natural 
 abilities," which, as procuring for us the love and esteem of 
 mankind, may be regarded as, in an important sense, virtues. 
 In most of the virtues are to be found all the conditions 
 requisite for the operation of sympathy, which is, without 
 doubt, the chief source of moral distinctions. 
 
 IV. Religion. According to Hume's own confession (as 
 we have seen) the sceptical conclusions of his theory of 
 knowledge were in some respects unsatisfactory; and he 
 preferred to think that while he had confuted mere dog- 
 matism, he had left room for faith or belief regarding pos- 
 sible objects transcending experience, rather than to feel 
 that he had upheld absolute scepticism in that regard. 
 Accordingly, he shows an inclination as Kant did, after 
 him to look with favor upon the ideological argument 
 for the being of a God ; though he points out that that 
 argument could only establish the existence of a Creator 
 who, though he might be all-benevolent, could not, in view 
 of the imperfection of the created world, be conceived as 
 all-powerful. In a purely scientific point of view, neither 
 the world of matter nor that of mind furnishes any warrant 
 for our going beyond experience ; and there would be no 
 warrant for our stopping short of infinity itself in our re- 
 gressive search for a cause of the world, if once we should 
 step beyond the bounds of experience. Theoretically, the 
 " whole matter of religion is a riddle, an enigma, an inexpli- 
 cable mystery ; " morally, there must be something in it. 
 
 Result. In the doctrine of Hume we have empiricism 
 resulting in scepticism. Hume simply carries farther the 
 theory of Ix>cke as it left the hands of Berkeley. On the 
 principle of pure empiricism, mind and God as well as 
 matter are nothing real. Hume is justified in calling the
 
 LEIBNITZ. 201 
 
 object of knowledge only a bundle of merely individual 
 "perceptions," if there is no bond between phenomena 
 except what is given in sense as such. Is there no other 
 bond ; does the " mind " of itself contribute nothing towards 
 knowledge ? And does not its contribution objectify that of 
 sense? The suggestion of this question seems to be the 
 chief service to philosophy of Hume's teaching. The at- 
 tempt (by Reid, Kant, and others) to answer it constitutes 
 the beginning of a new epoch in the history of philosophy. 
 
 72- 
 
 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz* (1646-1716). Leibnitz, 
 who was a son of a professor in the University of Leipsic, 
 where he was born, attended school in Leipsic and the 
 universities of Leipsic and Jena. He became an omnivor- 
 ous reader in his father's library, and acquired even before 
 entering the university at the age of fifteen, a large ac- 
 quaintance with ancient authors, the Scholastics, and the 
 writings of the Protestant theologians. At the same time 
 with his reading, he disciplined himself in habits of 
 logical thinking and going to the roots and principles of 
 things. At the universities he gave particular attention 
 to the study of law, mathematics, and philosophy. Declin- 
 ing a professorship offered him at Altorf, he took up juris- 
 prudence, and soon gained a recognition which secured him 
 favor and high trust. He was sent (1692) by the Elector 
 of Mainz on an embassy to the court of Louis XIV. and on 
 a mission to London. At Paris and London he made the 
 acquaintance of a number of men eminent in science and 
 philosophy, Huyghens, the Dutch mathematician ; Ar- 
 nauld, the Cartesian ; Newton ; the English physicist Boyle ; 
 Oldenburg, the secretary of the Royal Society. On his way 
 between Paris and London he tarried to see Spinoza, of 
 whom Oldenburg was a close friend. At the same time he 
 
 1 Works of Leibnitz; Zeller's "Geschichte der Neuern Philo- 
 sophic;" Ueberweg, " History of Philosophy;" Erdmann; Noack ; 
 " Encyclopaedia Britannica."
 
 2O2 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 is said to have carried on very actively his studies in science 
 and philosophy, and was " able to announce an imposing list 
 of discoveries and plans for discoveries arrived at by means 
 of a new logical art, in natural philosophy, mathematics, 
 mechanics, optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, and nautical 
 science, besides new ideas in law, theology, and politics, 
 and a calculating machine for multiplying, dividing, extract- 
 ing roots, as well as adding and subtracting." 1 In 1676 his 
 discovery of the Differential Calculus was announced. In the 
 same year he became librarian of the ducal library at Han- 
 over, and counsellor to the court. A number of other posi- 
 tions of distinction were held by him : he was appointed privy 
 councillor of justice by several Governments, among them 
 that of Russia, first president (and president for life) of the 
 Berlin Society (after 1 744 Academy} of Science ; was made 
 by Austria Baron of the Empire and Imperial Privy Coun- 
 cillor, etc. He was commissioned by each of the Govern- 
 ments of Germany, Russia, and Austria to plan an Academy 
 of Science. His last years were embittered by controversy 
 (with Newtonians), by the death of his friend and favorite 
 pupil, Princess Sophie Charlotte, of the house of Branden- 
 burg, and by the neglect of former friends and patrons. 
 Only a single mourner, it is reported, followed his remains to 
 the tomb ; the French Academy alone, in the learned and 
 scientific world, took cognizance of his death. Leibnitz is 
 frequently placed on a level with Aristotle as to the origi- 
 nality and catholicity of his mind and attainments ; and the 
 comparison seems just, though Leibnitz hardly bears the 
 same relation to modern philosophy that Aristotle does to 
 the ancient. Personally, he is said to have been frank, 
 benevolent, and inclined to conciliate favor. 
 
 Works. The philosophical works of Leibnitz fall natu- 
 rally into two general groups, one of which consists of 
 those writings suggesting or containing the exposition of 
 his final and distinctive doctrine, and the other of writings, 
 earlier in time, and expounding positions which proved to 
 
 1 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," art. Leibnitz.
 
 LEIBNITZ. 203 
 
 be merely tentative or only secondary in importance. To 
 the latter group or class belong, with others : the " Disputatio 
 metaphysica de Principio Individui " (1663), Scholastic 
 in doctrine ; " Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria " (1666), 
 a logical treatise growing out of the study of Raymond 
 Lullius; " De Stilo Philosophico Nizolii " (1670) ; " Metho- 
 dus Nova Docendae Discendaeque Jurisprudentiae," etc. 
 (1669); " De Vita Beata ; " " Meditationes de Cognitione, 
 Veritate et Ideis" (1684) : to the former group or class 
 belong, " Letters to Arnauld " (1671 and 1690) ; "Systeme 
 Nouveau de la Nature et de la Communication des Sub- 
 stances" (1695); "Nouveaux Essais sur PEntendement 
 Humain " (i 765), which were ready for publication in 1 704, 
 but (owing to the occurrence, soon after, of the death of 
 Locke, in reply to whose " Essay Concerning Human Un- 
 derstanding" they were composed) were not then published ; 
 " Essais de Th^odicde sur la Bont de Dieu, la Libert^ de 
 1'Homme, et 1'Origine du Mai" (1710), an intended reply 
 to the sceptic Bayle ; " La Monadologie," a brief epitome of 
 Leibnitz's system ; " Principes de la Nature et de la 
 Grace "(1714?), a still briefer epitome of his system ; and 
 Letters to Clarke "SurDieu, 1'Ame, 1'Espace, la DureV 
 (1715-1716). 
 
 Leibnitz's Earlier Doctrines. Leibnitz (as he himself 
 indicates in the "Systeme Nouveau de la Nature," at the 
 beginning) successively occupied, before arriving at his 
 final standpoint, positions identical with or nearly akin to 
 those of certain of the Scholastics, of Bacon, of Descartes, of 
 the Atomists (Democritus, Gassendi), and of Aristotle. In 
 the " De Principio Individui " he maintains the " nominal- 
 istic " view that the real and distinctive character of a 
 thing is to be found in that thing as it exists ; that what- 
 ever exists is by its very nature as existent an individual, 
 as opposed to the " realistic " view that it is constituted 
 by a principle, positive or negative, actually separate from 
 the thing itself as existent. It appears, however, that the 
 nominalism of Leibnitz was of the moderate sort (first) ad-
 
 2O4 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 vocated by Durand de St. Pourcain, of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, who held the universal and individual to be the very 
 same thing, only regarded from different points of view, the 
 individual being the thing as completely determined. 1 As 
 far as it goes, this position is not inconsistent with the final 
 standpoint of Leibnitz. In the " De Arte combinatoria " 
 and certain other works the more modern, mathematico- 
 mechanical view makes its appearance : knowledge is 
 treated as pure calculation, all occult qualities and powers, 
 all attributes, in fact, that are supposed incapable of a mere- 
 ly mechanical explanation, are denied to bodies. At the 
 same time, however, more importance is attached to the 
 Aristotelian than to the Cartesian physics. It should be 
 noted, too, that the nominalistic and anti-Aristotelian view 
 that the genus is merely the collective totality of individ- 
 uals is criticised as undermining demonstrative (mathe- 
 matically deductive) science as opposed to induction, 
 which is at most merely probable in its results. Appended 
 to the " De Arte Combinatoria " is an attempted mathe- 
 matical proof of the existence of God. The influence of 
 Bacon is especially apparent in the " Methodus nova 
 Docendse Discendaeque Jurisprudentise, " in which, after 
 the manner of the " De Scientiarum Augmentis " of Lord 
 Verulam, is given a survey of the sciences and their rela- 
 tions, with a great show of system, with the use, however, 
 of the deductive method. 2 In the " Meditationes de Cog- 
 nitione, Veritate et Ideis " are repeated, developed, and 
 supplemented, Descartes' distinctions regarding ideas as 
 obscure or clear, confused or distinct, etc. As, however, 
 Leibnitz's views on this subject remained unchanged, 
 and reappear in his final general standpoint, they may 
 be passed over here. In the " Systeme de la Nature " 
 Leibnitz confesses that in his dissatisfaction with Aristotle 
 as first understood by him he adopted the conception of 
 the atom because of its definiteness, but saw later that no 
 real principle of unity could be found in matter alone, and 
 
 1 See Ueberweg, Erdmann, etc. 2 Noack.
 
 LEIBNITZ. 
 
 that the key to the solution of the difficulty lay in the 
 "substantial forms," or "first entelechies," of Aristotle. 
 Thence he was (through the influence of Bruno, apparently) 
 led directly to the notion of the spiritual atom, or the 
 monad, though the name " monad " was not made use of 
 until many (nearly thirty) years after the notion was 
 adopted (i.e., not till about 1697). Regarding Leibnitz's 
 attitude towards his predecessors, it should be observed 
 that, to employ his own expression (in the "Systeme de la 
 Nature"), he "sought to reooncile Plato with Democ- 
 ritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the Scholastics with the 
 Moderns, theology and morals with reason." Leibnitz's 
 philosophy in its catholicity and conciliatory character 
 partakes of the mind and disposition of its author. 
 
 Final Standpoint : Substance and the Monad. The ulti- 
 mate elements of being' cannot, according to Leibnitz, be 
 material atoms/ since whatever is material is extended, com- 
 posite, passive, and dependent, lacking in a real principle 
 of unity, and incapable of action or the exertion of force. 
 /A real ultimate principle of unity and activity can only be 
 an immaterial atom, perfectly simple, self-determining, and, 
 since the only notion of a being capable of action is that 
 taken from the idea of our own souls, spiritual in nature 
 This spiritual atom (which, seemingly after the example of 
 Bruno, ~LeiBnitz~ terms the Monad), singly or in combi- 
 nation, is substance, or the sole underlying reality of the 
 universe ; all else is phenomenal. Substance is either 
 simple or composite, and since so-called matter is infinitely 
 divisible, there is an infinite number of simple substances 
 or monads. As simple, the monad is not subject to nat- 
 ural generation and decay, as material bodies are ; it is not 
 created nor annihilated, except by the absolute divine will. 
 Though, as simple, it is without parts, the monad yet has, 
 for otherwise it would be nothing conceivable, internal 
 qualities and aspects by which it is distinguished from 
 every other monad. The finite monad, as finite, is ever 
 changing ; but as simple, and as an activity, it is self-
 
 206 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. ' 
 
 determining and changes according to a law, is a subject 
 of development, every state being a result of preceding 
 states, the present being "pregnant with the future." 
 As self-determining, it transcends the law of natural action 
 and reaction; its relation to other monads is merely a 
 representational or ideal one. /The internal actions of the 
 monad are, in general terms, either " perceptions," which 
 are representations of what is external to it and its states, 
 or " appetitions," which are its active tendencies to con- 
 stant change from one perception to another. It is by its 
 power of representation that the monad enters into accord 
 and combination with others, forming composite substances. 
 In every such combination there is some single monad in 
 which it is " represented " and which forms its centre ; 
 and. conversely, every monad forms, in a single regard, 
 the centre of a combination of monads; and substance is 
 throughout organic in constitution ; in every point of it is 
 virtually represented every other, every point is, according 
 to its place, a representative, reflection, or mirror of the 
 whole universe of substance. In so far as monads are posi- 
 r tively representative, they are active ; in so far as they are 
 represented in and by other monads, they are passive : so 
 that, in each monad, activity and passivity are combined, 
 the latter constituting a limitation of, or check upon, the 
 former, thus rendering the monad in so far finite. The 
 activity of one monad corresponds to the passivity of other 
 monads represented by it, and vice versa. There is, there- 
 fore, virtually a universal reciprocity and harmony of the 
 monads, the centre or uniting principle being, as it were, 
 situated in a single monad, the monad of monads, God. 
 This correspondence and harmony are not temporal and 
 real, but pre-established, ideal, and eternal : the monads, 
 once having received their nature in the absolute act 
 of their creation, are pure substances and forever self- 
 determining. 
 
 Representations. As the monad is of a spiritual nature, 
 a sort of soul, its acts of representation are ideas, though
 
 5 
 
 LEIBNITZ. 2O7 
 
 not necessarily conscious ideas, as the Cartesians wrongly 
 maintained. Ideas or acts of representation are, in fact, 
 of three degrees, unconscious (as in dreamless sleep or in 
 a swoon), semiconscious, and conscious. To unconscious 
 representation the term " perception " is applicable ; to 
 conscious representation, as conscious, the term "apper- 
 ception." Monads, whose representations are wholly 
 unconscious, are " simple monads ; " those whose represen- 
 tations are semiconscious (as in the case of elementary 
 memory in animals) are " souls " in a narrow sense of the 
 term ; those whose representations are fully conscious are 
 " spirits." These distinctions are not absolute : the human 
 soul, which is a " spirit," may sink into such a condition of 
 lethargy as to become animal (as in dreamless sleep or in 
 swooning). As directly implied^ln the foregoing, the 
 monad rises or falls in the scale of being according to the 
 character of its ideas. 
 
 Ideas. Ideas may, or may not, be such as fully repre- 
 sent to us an object ; if they do, they are clear, if not, 
 obscure. When by means of an idea I clearly distinguish 
 the marks of the object which it represents, the idea is 
 distinct ; when I do not, it is confused. When it fully 
 represents the object in all its attributes and relations, it is 
 adequate, when not, inadequate. An idea is intuitive if it 
 immediately presents all elements of the conception of its 
 object ; it is merely symbolic when it does not do so. A 
 perfect knowledge is a knowledge contained in ideas that 
 are adequate (adequateness implying distinctness, which in 
 turn implies clearness), and intuitive. Such knowledge pre- 
 supposes such an ordered and complete analysis of con- 
 ceptions that the notion sought is self-evident, its own 
 ground or explanation. This it is completely only as per- 
 fectly simple or free from contradiction. (Leibnitz seems 
 to have conceived, in a vague, general manner, a catalogue 
 or table of ultimate simple notions, which, by the aid of an 
 exact system of designations, should form the basis of an 
 absolute a priori science, similar to, but more truly uni-
 
 2O8 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 versal than, mathematics. He was, however, doubtful as to 
 the possibility of such notions for us. They would be ana- 
 logues in [subjective} consciousness of the supposed atom 
 in space.) The highest principles of knowledge are, 
 according to the foregoing, the principles of identity or 
 contradiction (principium contradictions} and of ultimate 
 ground, or sufficient reason (^principium rationis sufficiently) . 
 The principle of contradiction is a " formal principle," and 
 governs the activity of pure reason, or the faculty of uni- 
 versal and necessary ideas, or ideas growing out of, and 
 representing, the nature of the monad, sub specie ceternitatis . 
 Such are immediately apperceived by the monad in its 
 developed consciousness of itself. By the principle of 
 sufficient reason, we rise from given facts to principles, 
 which are merely geneflM and probable, and at most possess 
 a merely moral necessity, and which constitute " regulated 
 experience." To these two may be added a third (which 
 is a synthesis of the two), of secondary importance: the 
 principium indiscernibilium, or the principle that there are 
 in nature no two things perfectly similar. (This is a relic 
 of the nominalistico-realistic position once held by Leib- 
 nitz.) As to origin, all ideas, since the monad is self- 
 determining, arise from the soul itself: universal and 
 necessary ideas exist in the monad eternally, either as 
 inclinations, dispositions, impulses, or as fully apperceived 
 forms of thought and being ; and ideas of mere individual 
 and contingent fact follow necessarily, according to the law 
 of ground and consequent, from other ideas whether con- 
 scious or unconscious. It is true, however, even as regards 
 universal and necessary ideas that, as the empirical psycho- 
 logists have held, all ideas originate in sense, that there is 
 nothing in intellect which was not already in sense, and that 
 for every conception there must have been a perception ; but 
 it is also true that even in sense, intellect is present, and 
 that reflection merely brings out of our perceptions what we, 
 as spiritual beings, have beforehand put into them. All acts 
 of learning are the bringing forth of new ideas out of old,
 
 LEIBNITZ. 209 
 
 confused, and unconscious ones, the assisting of the natural 
 tendency of unconscious ideas to become conscious. 
 
 Appetitions. The succession of the acts of the soul is 
 on their dynamical, as on their ideal and static, side, deter- 
 mined according to the laws of contiguity and sufficient 
 reason: each effort or appetition )is determined by an im- 
 mediately preceding state of soul. Each effort, however, 
 must be an idea, conscious, semiconscious, or unconscious. 
 Unconscious appetition is the " impulse of development ; " 
 semiconscious, " instinct." Appetition risen into conscious- 
 ness, or become arTobject of apperception, isjgjjl. Will is 
 (of course) not free, in the sense of being arbitrary : it is 
 free only in so far as depends on the fact that the soul 
 is an automaton, or acts from within. The supposition of 
 a free will, in the sense of undetermined will, has its basis 
 in the fact that the real causes of some of our acts are 
 unconscious. The will is more nearly free, because less 
 restrained by an inherent passivity, the higher the order of 
 its ideas, and the more it is determined from the higher 
 nature of the soul. As its acts are predetermined, its good- 
 ness is never a moral goodness, but only a sort of natural 
 perfection, the degree of the perfection corresponding to 
 the character of the ideas dominating- the will. The end 
 of all appetition as such is some form of pleasure. In the 
 case of semiconscious appetition, there is first a combina- 
 tion of impulses, giving rise to a certain (felt) tendency to- 
 wards a definite idea. This, if not fully realized, is longing 
 or fear; if realized, pleasure or pain. If there be combined 
 with the tendency, memory or imagination, a preponder- 
 ating inclination results, which decides the will. The good, 
 or that which is will in this stage of appetition, is whatever 
 produces pleasure or satisfaction ; evil, or that which is 
 shunned, is whatever produces pain. In higher natures, 
 the pleasure aimed at is an enduring one, or happiness, 
 since only such pleasure accords with the eternal nature of 
 reason. (Hence the importance of right education, or en- 
 lightenment, in view of human welfare.) As reason is not 
 VOL. i. 14
 
 2IO A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 merely individual but also universal, happiness includes, 
 besides self-satisfaction, satisfaction in the joy or perfection 
 
 another, and is (therefore) love. And the end of 
 human action whether of the individual or of the race 
 is human perfection and happiness through reason, or 
 love, philanthropy. This is the highest good. From 
 philanthropy flows natural right. This has the three forms 
 of justice (in the narrow sense), equity, and piety. (Three 
 corresponding formulae are, Neminem Iczde, suum cuique 
 tribue, hones te vive.} Justice in the narrow sense (jus 
 strictutri) is rightness in matters of exchange, " commu- 
 tative justice." Equity (aquitas) is the obligation to 
 secure to every one his deserts (universal welfare), 
 (Aristotle's) distributive justice. Piety {pietas} is right- 
 ness towards the divine order of things (and presupposes 
 a belief in God, a divine order of the world, and retribu- 
 tion). Positive or arbitrary right consists in the ordering 
 of given relations, in accordance with the principles of 
 natural right : it necessarily differs among different peoples, 
 but is not therefore contradictory to natural right. 
 
 The External World. As regards the representational 
 values of ideas, it has to be said, first and in general terms, 
 that as the highest principles of knowledge are those of 
 contradiction and sufficient reason, phenomena in which 
 these principles can most clearly and distinctly, or ade- 
 quately, be discerned, must be regarded as the highest mani- 
 festations of being as such. The composite or bodily is, as 
 such, without a principle of unity : it is self-contradictory ; 
 the simple or monadic is of the opposite character. Again, 
 that which is immediately given in experience is neces- 
 sarily imperfect, since it reflects imperfectly the idea of 
 sufficient ground, points beyond itself for its explanation. 
 So far, therefore, as these principles fail to appear in a 
 given phenomenon, it is mere phenomenon. The phe- 
 nomena of space and time to be specific are, as such, 
 merely phenomena ; space is merely a phenomenal form 
 under which things appear in confused perception. The
 
 LEIBNITZ. 2 1 1 
 
 explanation of mere phenomena is a purely mechanical 
 explanation such as the Cartesians gave (of physical na- 
 ture). But since real being (substance) is active force 
 and not mere motion, the only real explanation of the ex- 
 ternal world is a dynamical one, one governed by the law 
 of sufficient reason, or, since the principle of sufficient 
 reason necessitates a knowledge of ultimate end and pur- 
 pose, the law of final, as opposed to secondary, causes. 
 Now, of nature as an organic force, or rather organism of 
 forces, two special laws may be predicated : ( i ) as governed 
 throughout by a single end, nature is continuous, never 
 makes any leaps, there can be, for example, no (New- 
 tonian) action at a distance; (2) as substance is neither 
 created nor destroyed, the sum of " living " (or active) 
 force (not of motion, as the Cartesians maintained), or MV* 
 (product of the mass by the square of the velocity) , is for- 
 ever the same. 1 ' According to the law of continuity, the 
 universe is an. infinite series of beings of infinite varieties of 
 perfection ; for, in the first place, though the existence of 
 two or more exactly similar monads is in a manner con- 
 ceivable, yet there is, in reality, no sufficient reason why 
 there should be ,two or more monads precisely alike (prin- 
 cipium indiscernibilium), and, in the second place, that 
 there be no leaps in nature, every possible degree of dif- 
 ference must be contained in the monads collectively re- 
 garded. (The real sufficient reason and principle of identity 
 and continuity in the universe is, of course, God.) As 
 regards body and soul, each has its nature and existence, 
 not through the other, but from a precedent being of its 
 own kind, though there is no body without a soul, no soul 
 without a body, and there is a constant harmony between 
 them. This connection of body and soul is, in fact, but a 
 special instance under the general law of pre-established 
 harmony. In this union of body and soul we have, on 
 
 1 According to the doctrine of the present day, the doctrine of the 
 " Conservation of Energy," it is the sum of the " living," or kinetic, 
 and the " dead," or potential, forces that is constant.
 
 212 A HISTORY OF MO DERM PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 one side, a being that comes into and passes out of being, 
 namely, the body, and on the other, a being that is eternal, 
 undergoing no change except that of metamorphosis, or 
 transformation from a lower to a higher form of existence 
 (which must not be confounded with metempsychosis). 
 The changes of the body, as existing, are by the law of 
 continuity gradual only, take place as a result of the enter- 
 ing and leaving the body of a few particles at a given time. 
 The soul is contained, in germ and as central monad, in the 
 corporeal seed that develops, after the union of the sexes, 
 into the human body. 
 
 God. ( i ) By the law of the sufficient reason, we must 
 infer the existence of an eternal, supra-mundane, omnipo- 
 tent power. (2) By that of final cause, we infer the exis- 
 tence of an eternal supra-mundane will and end of all 
 things. (3) From the fact that the contingent generally 
 presupposes the necessary, we infer the existence of a 
 single necessary being. (4) From the existence of neces- 
 sary truths, we must infer that of a necessary mind as their 
 " place," a divine understanding. Thus we arrive at the 
 truth of the existence of God. (5) We may further argue 
 God's existence from the very idea of him, as did the Car- 
 tesians, provided the Cartesian argument be supplemented 
 with the addition that the idea of God is not self-contra- 
 dictory (since it embraces "realities" or "perfections" 
 only). (6) A still further proof of God's existence is as 
 follows : if God is possible, he exists ; for if he were not, 
 he would not even be possible, and nothing else would 
 exist; but other things for example, I myself exist, 
 ergo, etc. (Proofs i, 2, and 3, it may be noted, are s 
 teleological proofs, proof 4 is psychological, proof 5 onto- 
 logical, proof 6 partly ontological and partly teleological.) 
 The attributes of God are not so strictly a matter of proof 
 as is his existence. As the individual (human) soul 
 is indestructible and maintains a separate existence after 
 death, there is possible no universal all-absorbing being 
 (Spinoza's God). The idea of individual consciousness
 
 LEIBNITZ. 2 1 3 
 
 and existence is incompatible with that of consciousness 
 and existence as a part of a universal, all-absorbing spirit. 
 Further, the beauty and order of the universe were nought 
 "were the variety of existence in innumerable separate 
 souls reduced to a sabbath of quietude " in a single indi- 
 vidual being. <^God is a separate individual, a distinct 
 monad. \ Since he is the " place " of eternal truths, he 
 must be conceived as possessing wisdom ; since he is the 
 source and end of all acts aiming at the better life, or per- 
 fection, he possesses goodness; since perfection includes 
 satisfaction in the weTfare~~br happiness of others, he is 
 loye^. Since he is the sufficient reason of the existence of 
 all things, he isjgQwer. His chief attribute is necessarily 
 wisdojn ; by this, all acts of his will are determined, as the 
 strivings of the monad are determined by its ideas. Hence 
 the world of nature is the best possible natural world, and 
 the world of spirit (of " grace " ) is the happiest possible ; 
 and the two are in the highest possible harmony. God is 
 the author of evil (as well as of the good) because he is 
 the author of that which is, by its very nature, finite, im- 
 perfect (it is not finite because of a will to make it such). 
 There can, in other words, be only one perfect or infinite 
 being. Things are good or evil, not in themselves, but 
 in their relation to the general nature and end of existence. 
 From this point of view, the world of finite beings must be 
 deemed the(jiest possible world of finite things!} That all 
 sorts of good may in accordance with the law of con- 
 tinuity be realized, there is, necessarily, inequality. This 
 is, abstractly and metaphysically speaking, a necessary evil. 
 From this necessary, metaphysical evil flow two others, 
 physical evil, or pain, and moral evil, or sin ; inequality 
 is necessarily felt, and there are necessarily imperfect 
 degrees of rationality in action. But evil of whatever 
 nature has a negative rather than a positive existence. 
 God does not will it ; he merely suffers it. God's choice 
 of the present world among all conceivable, worlds, was 
 governed by moral necessity ; he created the world accor-
 
 214 A Iff STORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ding to a "divine mathematics" The world, therefore, is 
 the harmony of the principles of freedom, or " grace," and 
 of necessity, or nature ; Ideological and mechanical laws 
 are everywhere in perfect accord. And since moral neces- 
 sity is the necessity of the idea of the good, or happi- 
 ness, or complete perfection of personality, the reality of 
 happiness or personal perfection is a thing of mathematical 
 certainty. The contemplation of the world in its perfection 
 must result in tranquillity of mind, and yield the deepest 
 satisfaction. Man's capacity to apprehend this perfection, 
 a capacity which he possesses by virtue of the possession of 
 reason and the knowledge of the eternal verities, renders 
 him a denizen of the City of God, of which God is sole 
 ruler, as he is the architect of the realm of nature. In 
 that society there is no crime without punishment, no good 
 deed without proportionate recompense, and as complete 
 virtue and enjoyment as are possible. ^ ' 
 
 Result. The theory of Leibnitz is a rationalistic ideal- 
 ism (the opposite of Berkeley's empirical idealism). Its 
 cardinal features and those, naturally, which have had 
 the most important influence upon succeeding thinkers 
 are its conciliatory aim, its monadism, or dynamic atomism, 
 its assertion of the spjontaneity of thought (as against the 
 sensational istic doctrine of the mere passivity or receptivity 
 of thought), the doctrine of pre-established harmony, its 
 determimsm and eudaemonism, its optimism, or attempted 
 reconciliation of mechanical and Ideological views of na- 
 ture. The course of philosophical thought since Leibnitz, 
 has demonstrated that his rationalism was somewhat too 
 subjective and formal, and required to be supplemented by 
 its opposite empiricism, as was in fact done in the system 
 of Kant. 
 
 73- 
 
 Walther Ehrenfried, Count von Tschirnhausen 1 (1651- 
 1 708) . Von Tschirnhausen was a native of Upper Lusatia. 
 
 1 See Zeller's " Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic."
 
 TSCHIRNHA US EN. 2 1 5 
 
 He resided for a long time in Holland and France (Paris). 
 He took courses in mathematics and physics in the Univer- 
 sity of Leyden, and afterwards travelled very extensively, 
 and made the acquaintance of distinguished scholars and 
 artists. Among his friends were Spinoza, the mathemati- 
 cian Huyghens, and Leibnitz. He was elected member of 
 the French Academy. His death is said to have deeply 
 grieved Leibnitz. 
 
 Works. Works of Tschirnhausen are, " Medicina 
 Mentis sive Artis inveniendi Praecepta generalia " (1689), 
 his chief work, and dissertations in the Leipsic 
 "Acta Eruditorum " and in the "Me" moires" of the Paris 
 Academy. 
 
 Philosophy. Tschirnhausen emphasizes four " funda- 
 mental facts" of consciousness, (i) the consciousness 
 of ourselves (as shown by Descartes), through which we 
 get the idea of mind; (2) the consciousness of agreeable 
 and painful feelings, whence we derive the idea of good 
 and evil ; (3) the consciousness of our comprehending some 
 things and not others, whence we derive the notion of the 
 understanding, and of the true and the false ; (4) the con- 
 sciousness of passivity in ourselves and of our having im- 
 pressions, upon which the knowledge of external existences 
 is based. All knowledge begins with these inwardly expe- 
 rienced facts : all knowledge is based on experience. To 
 constitute real knowledge experience has to undergo a 
 reduction to the third sort of consciousness above men- 
 tioned, /. <?., to terms of the understanding, or to conceptions 
 (rationalia} ; which must be discriminated from percep- 
 tions (sensibilia) and from imaginations (imaginabilid} . 
 From the simplest conceptions expressed in genetic defi- 
 nitions or definitions explaining the origin of the thing 
 defined (for, as Spinoza showed, all things must flow from a 
 single primal nature) must be deduced, by analysis, axioms ; 
 by synthesis, theorems, etc. That is to say, knowledge is 
 a product of experience transformed by the application of 
 " mathematical " method, or mathematics verified by expe-
 
 2l6 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 rience. The method of knowledge is the same for all 
 branches of knowledge. According to subject-matter, 
 knowledge is knowledge either of sensibilia (and imagina- 
 bilia), rationalia, or realia. The ultimate elements of 
 sensibilia are the solid and the fluid, of rationalia the 
 point and the line, of realia, extension and motion. The 
 science of realia is physics, which, naturally, is the highest 
 of the sciences ; the science of rationalia is mathematics ; of 
 the passions produced in us by sensibilia and imaginabitia 
 and of the will as being subject to or free from these pas- 
 sions, is ethics. The knowledge of realia delivers us from 
 the bondage of sensibilia and imaginabilia : physics is the 
 basis of ethics. The science of science in general, the phi- 
 losophy of method (the only branch of philosophy treated 
 in extenso by Tschirnhausen) is philosophia prima (ex- 
 pounded in " Medicina mentis"). Tschirnhausen is a fore- 
 runner, as regards theory of philosophic method, of Wolff. 
 
 74- 
 
 Samuel Puffendorf 1 (1632-1694). Puffendorf, born in 
 Saxony, began the study of theology at Leipsic, but aban- 
 doned it for that of law, which he studied chiefly at Jena. 
 In 1 66 1 he accepted the chair of the Law of Nature and 
 Nations at Heidelberg, a chair created for him. He was 
 afterwards, at different times, professor in the University of 
 Lund (Sweden), historiographer -royal of Sweden, historio- 
 grapher and privy-councillor of Frederick III. of Branden- 
 burg. A recent writer speaks of him as one to whom 
 " scant justice has been done," and as at once, " philosopher, 
 lawyer, economist, historian, and even statesman." 
 
 Works. Works of Puffendorf are, " Elementa Juris- 
 prudentiae Universalis Libri duo" (circa 1660), " De Statu 
 Imperii Germanici" (1667), " De Jure Naturae Gentium" 
 (1692), and "De Officio Hominis et Civis" (1695). 
 
 Philosophy. Puffendorf bases right on the divine law or 
 
 1 Hallam's " Literature of Europe," Part IV. pp. 165-171 ; see also 
 Zeller and Erdmann.
 
 PUFFENDORF. THOMASIUS. 2 1 7 
 
 will, but maintains, nevertheless, that it may be discovered 
 by reason, and that moral science is as certain as mathe- 
 matical. " Common consent " and " self-interest " are ( 
 insufficient as bases for a doctrine of right. Society takes ) 
 its rise from the " nature of man, his wants, his powers of 
 doing mischief to others," and hence it may be said that , 
 the source of law is self-preservation. On the other hand, ^ 
 it is a duty to live for the common good. In fact, besides 
 duties to ourselves there are duties to others and duties to 
 God. Among the minor principles laid down by Puffendorf 
 are, that free consent and knowledge of the whole sub- 
 ject are required for the validity of a promise, that there 
 can be no obligation without a corresponding right, that 
 veracity is not always obligatory, that property is grounded 
 in an express or tacit contract of mankind, made while all 
 was yet in common, that each should possess a separate 
 portion, that the right of the husband to rule the wife is 
 grounded in a tacit or express promise of obedience, 
 that the power of a master over his servant is not by nature 
 nor by the law of war, but originally by a contract founded 
 on necessity. The ruler of the State derives his authority, 
 not from a divine source, but from the State-compact. Re- 
 sistance to authority is justifiable only in certain very special 
 instances. Tolerance should be shown in religion except 
 as regards non-belief in God and providence. Puffendorf 
 is a follower though also a critic of Hobbes and Gro- 
 tius. He is a forerunner of Wolff in the theory of law. 
 
 75- 
 
 Christian Thomasius 1 (1655-1728). Thomasius was 
 an anti-theological, anti-Scholastic, and in general anti- 
 conservative, professor of law who is sometimes styled the 
 father of the German Illumination (to be spoken of here- 
 after). He received from his father and in Leipsic Uni- 
 versity a thorough training in philosophy and its history, and 
 
 1 See Erdmann's " Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic ; " 
 also Zeller's "Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic."
 
 21 8 A HISTOKY OF MODEXN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 took up law, at first following Grotius and Puffendorf. He 
 sympathized with the French in their breach with the past, 
 and both advocated and practised strenuously the avoidance 
 of pedantry and the use of the German tongue as a vehicle 
 of learned communication in the universities. He acquired 
 great popularity and influence, and though driven from his 
 professorship at Leipsic, and forbidden to lecture or write, 
 because of his radicalism, he received an appointment at 
 Halle as " second," and then as " first " professor of law, 
 and as rector of the university, in the founding of which 
 he had been instrumental. He seems to have been a sup- 
 porter and popularizer of other men's ideas rather than a 
 profound originator, and an Illuminationist rather than a 
 philosopher. He may be treated as, so to say, a detheol- 
 ogizer and naturalizer of Scholastic philosophic thought, 
 and a forerunner of Wolff. 
 
 Works. The principal work of Thomasius is entitled 
 " Fundamenta Juris Naturae et Gentium ex Sensu Communi 
 deducta " (1705). Other works are " Institutiones Juns- 
 prudentiae " (1688), " Introductio ad Philosophiam auli- 
 cam " (1688), an attack on Scholastic logic. 
 
 Philosophy. For Thomasius, philosophy is a non-tech- 
 nical, non-speculative, readily intelligible theory of human 
 existence on its human side as such. He expressly and 
 absolutely separates it as wisdom of this world from theol- 
 ogy as "God-wisdom," and as expressly and absolutely 
 attempts to avoid all syllogizing, all use of technical phra- 
 seology. He will avoid all prejudice and sectarianism ; he 
 will be a common-sense, eclectic philosopher. As to sub- 
 ject-matter and end, philosophy is to him that branch of 
 human knowledge which teaches man how he should live 
 happily, /'. <?., in inward and outward peace, in this world. 
 Philosophy thus practically reduces itself, with Thomasius, 
 to ethics. The Thomasian ethics has a certain basis in 
 (Lockean) psychology. The norm of action is found in a 
 happy commingling of certain ground-impulses in human 
 nature, as desire of bodily enjoyment, property, indepen-
 
 THOMASIUS. 219 
 
 dence, honor, and rule over others. Out of the relation of 
 those to external influences spring the affects or passive 
 conditions of the soul, of which there are the two general 
 classes, hope and fear. Men are naturally filled with preju- 
 dice, ruled by passion, and in constant strife. A few have 
 in themselves the true norm of action, and are capable of 
 being teachers and rulers. By the principles of right (in 
 the broad sense) alone are they taught to do that which will 
 tend to freedom from prejudice, to self-dependence in theo- 
 retical matters, to inward and outward peace in practical, and 
 so to the longest and happiest life for man. These princi- 
 ples are: (i) Do not to others what you would not have 
 done to yourself; (2) Do to others what you would have 
 done to yourself; (3) Do to yourself what you would 
 have others do to you. The first of these is the principle 
 of all compulsory or perfect duties, is the sum and sub- 
 stance of justice (jusfum), or right in the narrow sense, 
 and has reference to the preservation of external peace. 
 The second is the principle of the fitting (decorum ) , and has 
 reference to attainment of external peace through benevo- 
 lence. The third is the principle of morals (honestum} , and 
 relates to the attainment of inner peace. Duties growing out 
 of the second and third principles are imperfect, because 
 non-compulsory. Duties may be divided into duties to 
 God, to ourselves, and to others. But since the human 
 and the divine have nothing to do with one another, only 
 such duties to God are subjects of philosophy as are condi- 
 tional to the fulfilment of duties to ourselves and to others. 
 The office of the State is the preservation of external peace, 
 external right, among religious societies ; otherwise the State 
 is separate from religion. This relation of Church and 
 State is the principle of what is termed by Thomasius his 
 Territorial System. In religion he sympathized with the 
 Pietists, and advocated mutual tolerance of sects.
 
 22O A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Christian Wolff (1679-1754). Christian Wolff was 
 the son of a tanner of Breslau, who intended him for a 
 theologian. He studied at a gymnasium in Breslau and at 
 the University of Jena. Though distinguished at the gym- 
 nasium for attainments in theology, at the university he 
 gave his attention rather to mathematics, physics, and phi- 
 losophy, Scholastic and anti-Scholastic. At the gymnasium 
 he read Descartes' works and Tschirnhausen's " Medicina 
 Mentis," and when, leaving Jena (1699), he went to Leipsic 
 to take his master's degree, he habilitated with a thesis, 
 written in the Cartesian spirit, on " The Universal Philo- 
 sophy, treated by the Mathematical Method." At Leipsic, 
 he early prepared a dissertation on Universal Practical Phi- 
 losophy, the fruit of a study of the works of Grotius and 
 Puffendorf, to whom his practical philosophy owed much. 
 This dissertation gained him the recognition of Leibnitz, 
 whose views he soon adopted, and a privat-docentship in 
 the University of Leipsic, his lectures being on the subjects 
 of mathematics and philosophy. Through Leibnitz's influ- 
 ence he was, in 1707, appointed Professor of Mathematics 
 in the University of Halle ; he lectured also on physics and, 
 later, on philosophy. By the easy intelligibility and the 
 general impressiveness of his lectures he gained great popu- 
 larity as a teacher; his exposition was lucid and metho- 
 dical, and he spoke in German instead of Latin, and with 
 great fluency and naturalness of manner. But by rational- 
 istic views in theology he excited the hostility of Pietistic 
 colleagues, who, bringing undue influence to bear with the 
 king against him, procured a cabinet decree depriving him 
 of his position, banishing him from the domain on pain of 
 death by the halter, and proscribing his works (1723). 
 Settling at the University of Marburg, whence he had pre- 
 viously received a call to a professorship, he lectured there, 
 
 1 Zeller, " Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic ; " Erdmann, 
 "Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic;" Noack , etc.
 
 WOLFF. 22 1 
 
 with even greater applause than at Halle, until 1 740. In the 
 mean time his philosophy became universally known, he 
 was elected member of the French Academy, and won the 
 admiration of Frederick the Great, successor to Frederick 
 William, who had driven him from Halle, and his writings 
 were reported upon favorably by a commission appointed 
 to examine them ; and in 1 740 he was restored to his 
 former university, and afterwards honored in various ways, 
 dying while professor, Vice-Chancellor of the University, 
 privy councillor, etc. He did not regain his former popu- 
 larity as lecturer, in fact, lectured to empty benches ; 
 but his philosophy was at the time of his death, and had 
 long been, the ruling philosophy in Germany. 
 
 Works. Wolffs earlier works are in German, his later 
 in Latin. His most important German work is entitled, 
 " Verniinftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele 
 des Menschen ; auch aller Dinge iiberhaupt " (" Rational 
 Conceptions on God, the World, and the Soul of Man ; also 
 All Things in General"). (The first two words of this title 
 occur in the titles of most of Wolffs German works ; they 
 represent the spirit of this system.) Titles of some of his 
 Latin works (which are largely restatements in more scien- 
 tific form of the German works) are : " Philosophia Ra- 
 tionalis sive Logica" (1728), "Philosophia Prima sive 
 Ontologia"(i729), "Cosmologia Generalis"(i73i), "Psy- 
 chologia Empirica " (1732), " Psychologia Rationalis" 
 ( x 734) > " Theologia Naturalis " (i 736-1 737), " Philosophia 
 Practica Universalis " ( 1 738-1 739) . 
 
 Philosophy: Stand-point and Method. Wolff, as a 
 true disciple of Tschirnhausen and of Thomasius, lays em- 
 phasis upon two things as prime requisites of philosophy ; 
 viz., precision and intelligibility of method, and utility of 
 end or result. By philosophy Wolff understands the science 
 of universal conceptions, the science which seeks to de- 
 monstrate how the possible, or universally conceivable, can be 
 in reality. Its method is necessarily an a priori method : 
 philosophy begins with pure conceptions, whatever their
 
 222 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 origin, and merely draws from them that, and only that, 
 which is contained in them. This method, like the geo- 
 metrical, is not only a priori, but demonstrative and certain. 
 Philosophy, therefore, though engaged with truth in gen- 
 eral, is quite distinct from empirical science, which, instead 
 of being a priori, necessary, and certain, is a posteriori, 
 contingent, and uncertain. 
 
 The Divisions of Philosophy. As there is in man a fac- 
 ulty of cognition (facultas cognoscitiva} and a faculty of 
 appetition or volition {facultas appetitiva), philosophy is 
 theoretical philosophy (philosophia theoretica sive metaphy- 
 sical) and practical philosophy (philosophia prac tic a). In- 
 troductory to theoretical philosophy, and to a certain extent 
 forming a part of it, is the science of logic, having a " theo- 
 retical" part, treating (in Aristotelian manner) of the prin- 
 ciples of formal thought; and a practical part, treating 
 (more in the modern manner) of the grounds, limits, and 
 forms of knowledge, and of the practical uses of logical 
 method. The material sciences embraced under the term 
 " theoretical philosophy " are ontology, cosmology, psychol- 
 ogy, natural theology ; under the term " practical philoso- 
 phy " universal practical philosophy, ethics, economics, 
 politics. 
 
 Ontology. Ontology is the theory of being in general, 
 and its categories and kinds. This is philosophia prima. 
 Its highest principles are those of contradiction and suffi- 
 cient reason. The latter depends on the former, as is 
 proved in the following manner : " Suppose A and B to be 
 precisely alike. If it is possible that there can be anything 
 which has not a sufficient reason, then a change may take 
 place in A which does not in B If B be substituted for A. 
 But since from the very fact that A and B are precisely 
 alike, it follows, if we assume that the principle of sufficient 
 reason is not a valid principle, that A and B are not precisely 
 alike, and since, on the contrary, it is impossible that a 
 thing can both be and not be, the principle in question 
 must be indisputably correct : everything has its sufficient
 
 WOLFF. 22.3 
 
 reason for being." 1 Leibnitz incorrectly assumed that these 
 two principles were independent of one another, and that 
 the latter was axiomatic. The main problem of philosophy, 
 to show how the possible can be actual, is solved by 
 the conception of determination, the actual being that which 
 combines into one definite or determinate nature many pos- 
 sible distinctions, or, rather, being that determinate nature 
 itself. The possible is the non-contradictory, and the 
 sufficient reason of the determinate being is a certain 
 determinant (or cause, in the Aristotelian sense). If the 
 determinant be in the determinate thing itself, that thing 
 is absolutely necessary; if in another thing, contingently, 
 or hypothetically, necessary. Determinations or qualities 
 of a thing following from its own nature are attributes; 
 those not so following, are modes. The highest reality 
 is that which is most determinate in nature, and vice versa. 
 The attributes of the actual may be termed realities. 
 Truth is formal order or consistence. Being is either sim- 
 ple or composite. Simple being is being without extension, 
 time, space, motion, form, becoming, etc., which character- 
 ize composite being only. Simple beings are monads, 
 metaphysical points, eternal and completely individual, or 
 distinct in themselves and 'from one another ; they alone 
 are true substances. They are subject to no real change : 
 that which belongs to them is always present in them. 
 They are active, instead of passive, are centres of determi- 
 nate and determining force. A portion of them only (says 
 Wolff in his later philosophizing) have the faculty of idea- 
 tion, the rest are merely natural atoms (atomi nature*}. 
 (This is, of course, an important departure from the doctrine 
 of Leibnitz.) To composite beings belong all those attri- 
 butes above denied to simple beings, extension, time, 
 space, motion, form, becoming, etc. Extension is the co- 
 existence of different things external to one another. 
 Things co-existent are contemporaneous ; successive are 
 
 1 See " Verniinftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt u. der Seele," 
 etc., near the beginning.
 
 224 ^ HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 things of which the ending of one must precede the begin- 
 ning of another. Time is order of succession in a constant 
 series ; space, order of co-existence of contemporaneous 
 things. Force is the sufficient reason of activity, etc. The 
 composite is material, temporal, and a plurality, subject to 
 real change or succession of qualities : it is finite. 
 
 Cosmology. The world is a machine, a plurality or 
 multiplicity of interrelated bodies, the changes of which 
 occur in accordance with the laws of motion. The ultimate 
 elements of bodies are simple substances, monads. Inter- 
 mediate in nature between these and bodies are certain 
 secondary elements of bodies composed of simple sub- 
 stances. These are termed corpuscles (some of them 
 being "primitive," some "derivative" corpuscles), and 
 are, for empirical science, ultimate elements. They are 
 not sensible, though bodily. The philosophy of these is 
 physics ; that of the real, ultimate elements universal or 
 transcendental cosmology. The latter is theoretically prior 
 to the former. Physics is partly empirical science, partly 
 dogmatic or mathematical science. Dogmatic physics may 
 also be termed the science of nature. It begins with the 
 corpuscles and their motion, and mathematically deduces 
 bodies from them, /. e., from the corpuscula derivitiva. 
 Bodies, and even the corpuscles, being phenomenal, or 
 objects of confused ideas, no strictly mechanical derivation 
 of them from ultimate substances is possible ; all explana- 
 tion is necessarily physical or teleological, /. <?., an explana- 
 tion of phenomena by their relations to other phenomena 
 or to certain a priori ends in nature. Nature is an organic 
 whole ; what takes place in any portion or at any given time 
 has its sufficient reason in the given whole. As the ulti- 
 mate elements are, in part at least, natural atoms, the 
 harmony of parts is due, not to a representative faculty, but 
 to correspondent passive and active principles in nature; 
 viz., inertia and moving force (another deviation from 
 Leibnitz). Different kinds of force are required for the 
 explanation of different classes of phenomena. The sum
 
 WOLFF. 225 
 
 of " living force " is constant. The laws of nature are not 
 unconditionally necessary ; above them are unconditional 
 ends : they are subject to the laws of contradiction and 
 sufficient reason. Nature is accordingly, in a sense, contin- 
 gent, and miracles are possible. When a miracle occurs, the 
 succeeding order of nature is, however, different from the 
 foregoing, unless the peculiar consequence of the miracle 
 be annulled by a further miracle. As an instance in proof 
 of a teleological order in nature may be cited the fact that 
 the light of the stars serves as a guiding light for men at 
 night. 
 
 Psychology. The fact of consciousness is a proof of a 
 soul, and the unity of thought is demonstrative evidence of 
 the soul's simplicity, immateriality, pre-existence, immortal- 
 ity, etc. The essence of the soul is a power of representa- 
 tion (vis representatives), the various faculties, so-called, 
 being but modifications, or forms, of this. This power 
 changes with surroundings, external and internal. The chief 
 forms of its activity are cognition (vis cognoscitivd) and 
 desire (vis appetitiva) . The faculty of cognition has two 
 forms, a lower, having to do with confused ideas, and 
 comprising sensation, imagination, and memory; and a 
 higher, having to do with clear and distinct ideas, and com- 
 prising attention, understanding, and reason. All ideas 
 originate in sensations, which are copies, or representations, 
 of sensible things in the soul. The senses apprehend form, 
 magnitude, position, motion, but not the ultimate elements, 
 nor even the corpuscles. Clearness of ideas in perception 
 depends on velocity of motion in the nerves ; distinctness, 
 on its distribution among fibres of nerves ; etc. The move- 
 ments in the brain corresponding to imagination are slower 
 than those corresponding to sensation. Ideas are recalled 
 in the imagination by others with which they have been 
 associated, because they once constituted with those others a 
 single state of mind. The peculiar function of the higher 
 faculty of knowledge, is reflection, which includes attention, 
 comparison, discrimination ; in its highest form, reason, this 
 VOL. i. i ;
 
 226 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 is the perception of the connection between universal truths, 
 or a priori demonstration. Since knowledge originates 
 in experience, reason is in the last analysis not absolutely 
 pure, but points back to the senses. As vis representativa, 
 the soul has an inherent tendency to change continually its 
 condition. This, accompanied by the idea of the object of 
 the tendency, is desire (vis appetitiva). The idea of a 
 physical object carries with it a tendency to motion. The 
 motive forces of desire are the cognition of perfection and 
 that of imperfection, or pleasure and pain. Whatever im- 
 proves our condition, /. e., makes it more nearly perfect, is 
 good, i. e., an object of desire ; the opposite is evil. A 
 confused idea of a good is appetite, a clear one, will. All 
 volition has its sufficient reason in ideas, acting as motives, 
 i. <?., is determined, not free. The soul progresses to ever 
 greater perfection. The union of body and soul is expli- 
 cable only on the hypothesis of a pre-established harmony 
 between them. The a priori science of the soul is rational 
 psychology ; the a posteriori is empirical psychology ; the 
 former presupposes the latter and what necessarily flows 
 therefrom. 
 
 Natural Theology. Natural or rational theology must 
 be strictly distinguished from sacred theology ; it has noth- 
 ing whatever to do with the mysteries of faith, but merely 
 ascertains the rational conception of God's being and at- 
 tributes. The rational proofs of God's existence are of two 
 classes (and natural theology has two corresponding parts), 
 proofs from the consideration of the world, or a posteriori 
 proofs, and proof from the idea of the most perfect being, 
 a priori proof. The contingency of the world is a proof of 
 the fact of a necessary being. The idea of the most per- 
 fect being necessarily includes among its " realities " that of 
 existence. Our notion of God's nature is determined by 
 the laws of our thought, by the fact that we must judge 
 of it by its consequences in the world in which we are. 
 God, as the source and harmony of all things, must be con- 
 ceived as having clear and distinct ideas of all existences,
 
 WOLFF. 227 
 
 /. e., as omniscient. His power is infinite within the sphere 
 of the possible ; /. <?., he is limited by the eternally finite 
 nature of that which he creates. Otherwise, he is free. 
 He might have existed eternally without creating the world, 
 had he seen fit. As he is perfect, the world is the best of 
 all possible worlds. Though not created expressly for man, 
 human ends are embraced in its plan. (Daylight assists 
 the transaction of the daily business of men ; by the help 
 of the sun, manufacture of dials is possible, the meridian 
 may be ascertained, etc. ; in the night, men may sleep or 
 catch birds or fishes for their use, etc.) Without man 
 there would be no recognition of the glory of God as the 
 Creator. 
 
 Practical Philosophy. Human nature contains in itself 
 the foundation and end of all morality ; the highest, indeed 
 the only, law of which is, Do that which renders thee and 
 thy condition more perfect ; omit to do that which renders 
 thee and thy condition less perfect. "Perfection" in action 
 has regard not merely to the doer's intent, but also to the 
 consequences of the action ; it includes happiness, or the 
 approval of conscience or reason. The will must not be 
 determined by hope or fear, but by the understanding 
 alone, the enlightenment and education of which is of su- 
 preme importance to human welfare. The highest good 
 (beatitudo philosophica} is continual progress towards higher 
 perfection. Duties are duties to ourselves, to others, and 
 to God, flowing, respectively, from our relation to our per- 
 fection as individuals, our dependence upon one another, 
 and our knowledge of divine perfection as reflected in 
 nature. The value of external service to God depends 
 solely upon its moral influence on man, its moral utility. 
 Duty is the foundation of natural right, which is the same 
 for all men. According as right is or is not a matter of 
 compulsion, it is " perfect" or "imperfect." The obligation 
 of a person to perform a benevolent action is an obligation 
 which no one can be compelled by another to fulfil, and 
 is, as a right, " imperfect." The subject of natural law has
 
 228 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 four branches, duties, property, general social life, and 
 the State. Society rests on the two facts of the obligation 
 to promote as much as possible the perfection of self and 
 others, and of an express or a tacit contract which subjects 
 the wills of some to those of others. Marriage and the 
 parental relation are of the nature of a contract regarding 
 the begetting, preservation, education of offspring. The 
 only true marriage is monogamic marriage. The grounds 
 for divorce are adultery, malicious abandonment, and the 
 like. Slavery is permissible under certain circumstances, 
 e. g., when the slave has deliberately chosen it. The State 
 rests upon a contract implied in the fact that the lower organ- 
 ism (the family) is not equal to supplying the needs and 
 comforts of life and defending men against injury. The 
 State can rightfully interfere with the natural liberty of the 
 individual only for the common good. The voice of the 
 people is the ultimate source of authority. Passive resist- 
 ance to authority is always justifiable when authority con- 
 flicts with natural right; active resistance is proper only 
 when rights reserved by the constitution of a State are 
 infringed. Rulers stand in a relation to subjects similar to 
 that of parents to children. It is incumbent upon the State 
 to care for the welfare of its subjects, even in the minutest 
 details ; it must care for all forms and means of educa- 
 tion, schools, academies, universities, churches, theatres, 
 books, etc. ; for all charitable interests, including the pro- 
 vision of asylums for the poor and for orphans, the education 
 of physicians, for all economic interests, fostering agriculture, 
 determining relation of industries ; for the general habits of 
 eating, drinking, amusement, recreation, refreshment, etc. 
 Atheists and deists must be expatriated and denied hon- 
 orable burial. The object of punishment is correction of 
 criminals and prevention of crime, light punishment in- 
 flicted with strictness is better than a severer one not so 
 inflicted. Merely an extension of natural right or law is 
 the right or law of nations. The State as a person enters 
 into relations similar to those into which individual persons
 
 WOLFFIANS AND ANTI-WOLFFIANS. 22$ 
 
 enter. There is a necessary and natural right and a positive 
 right among States as among those social organisms enter- 
 ing into the make-up of a State. 
 
 Result. The philosophy of Wolff is very largely merely 
 a formulation and systematization of what had been taught 
 by Leibnitz, as is sufficiently obvious. But (as Wolff himself 
 claimed) it possesses, in relation to that of Leibnitz, a cer- 
 tain independence and originality, and constitutes in certain 
 scientific regards an advance upon that. The deviations of 
 the philosophy of Wolff from that of Leibnitz were such as 
 to add determinateness, solidity, and comprehensiveness to 
 philosophy, in at least a formal regard, to increase the ob- 
 jectivity of its results. Besides the deviations already noted, 
 may be mentioned the conscientious application of a sci- 
 entific method, the attempt to determine and deduce the 
 categories of, at least, formal thought, the limiting of the 
 range of miracle, the separation of morals from dogma, the 
 broadening of the scope of philosophy so that its content 
 became coextensive with all possible objects of knowledge, 
 and, finally, the "teaching of philosophy to speak German." J 
 Wolff, like Melanchthon, taught the " whole German world " 
 philosophy, and has exercised a great influence in modern 
 thinking. Among his pupils was even Kant himself. He 
 propounded no new great principle, but he reckoned 
 squarely with those extant, and so in a manner set philos- 
 ophy on a new footing. He deserves, it would seem, 
 somewhat more attention from students of the history of 
 philosophy than he usually receives. 
 
 77- 
 
 Wolffians and Anti- Wolffians. 2 The philosophy of 
 Wolff, for reasons that are perhaps obvious, found nu- 
 merous adherents and also met with considerable oppo- 
 sition. Among the followers of Wolff perhaps the most 
 
 1 Schwegler, " Handbook of the History of Philosophy." 
 
 2 See Zeller, " Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic ; " Noack ; 
 Erdmann.
 
 230 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 important were Georg Bernhard Bilfinger (1693-1750), 
 Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762), Georg 
 Friedrich Meier (1718-1777), Johann Heinrich Lambert 
 (1728-1777). Of the opponents were Franz Buddeus 
 (1667-1729), Andreas Riidiger (1673-1731), Christian 
 August Crusius (1712-1776), Joachim Georg Daries 
 (1714-1792). Bilfinger, professor in Tubingen and 
 Petersburg, follows Leibnitz in his conciliatory attitude 
 towards theological dogma ; otherwise he is a Wolffian. 
 He distinguishes a mediate as well as an immediate re- 
 presentation in the monads, regards every psychological 
 change as a passing from an idea to a resulting appetition, 
 or vice versa, points out the necessity for a logic of the 
 imagination (as well as of the understanding, which alone 
 Wolffs logic was) . Baumgarten is especially noted as the 
 author of the first modern " system " of aesthetics (a logic 
 of the imagination which Bilfinger had desiderated). By 
 ^Esthetics he understands the science of the lower, or sensi- 
 ble, faculties of the mind. The subject of aesthetics is, 
 according to Baumgarten, the perfection of sensible phe- 
 nomena as such, or the harmony of the manifold in phe- 
 nomena. But this is the beautiful : beauty is, precisely, 
 perfection as apprehended by the senses (for, as Leibnitz 
 pointed out, the sensible apprehension of perfection affords 
 pleasure). Baumgarten's "Esthetics" relates chiefly to 
 poetry, belongs to the class of works of which Aristotle's 
 " Poetic " is the earliest extant representative. It is said 
 to have been made by Kant the basis of his lectures on the 
 subject it treats. Baumgarten expounded (with great practi- 
 cal success) Wolffs doctrines as a whole, out-Wolffing Wolff 
 in the matter of logical analysis and elaborate terminology. 
 His text-books were very popular ; Kant was distinctly 
 influenced by them. Meier was also a successful writer 
 on aesthetics and the Wolffian philosophy. Meier em- 
 phasized " common-sense " and practicality as the primary 
 requisites in a sound philosophy, was a Lockean in psycho- 
 logy, attempted a reconciliation of the imperfection of the
 
 THE ANT2-WOLFFIANS, 231 
 
 world and the perfection of God through a distinction be- 
 tween an essential and external perfection in God, the for- 
 mer being absolute and unchangeable. Meier's works were 
 employed by Kant similarly as were Baumgarten's. Lambert 
 a personal friend of Kant attempted the application 
 of Wolffian doctrines and methods to Lockean psychology. 
 In a work entitled the " New Organon," he deals with the 
 questions whether the human understanding can attain to 
 certain knowledge of the ultimate truth, whether it can 
 avoid confusing truth and error, whether speech is really 
 a help or a hindrance to the attainment of knowledge, 
 whether the understanding must not always be blinded by 
 illusion or not. His most important discussions are those 
 relating to the last of these questions. Lambert divides 
 illusions into physical illusions (illusions of the senses), 
 psychological illusions (illusions of consciousness, imagina- 
 tion, memory), moral illusions (illusions of feeling), patho- 
 logical illusions (illusions, due to the condition of the 
 nerves). Lambert was highly esteemed personally and 
 as a philosopher by Kant, and is regarded as occupying 
 an intermediate position between Wolff and Kant. The 
 Anti-Wolffians objected, some more, others less, strongly 
 to the (supposed) fatalism involved in the principle of 
 sufficient reason, determinism, pre-established harmony, 
 the mechanical explanation of nature, and optimism ; con- 
 ceived the criterion of truth to be, not the certainty of the 
 mathematico-logical understanding, but liveliness of feeling, 
 supernatural illumination (Buddeus), immediate thought- 
 necessity (Crusius), or a high degree of probability (Rudi- 
 ger) ; treated reason as subordinate to revelation, and moral 
 activity as obedience to the (revealed) will of God. Bud- 
 deus was a syncretist, including in his " system " supersti- 
 tions, church-dogmas, etc. According to Rtidiger, all 
 things, even mind and God, have a material origin, the 
 soul is extended, though simple. Crusius held the same 
 view. He criticised the ontological proof of God's exist- 
 ence (as did after him Kant, an admirer of his) , as con-
 
 232 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 founding the existence of God with the thought of that 
 existence. His proofs of God's existence were those of 
 " sufficient cause " (not the " fatalistic " " sufficient reason " 
 of Leibnitz and Wolff ) and the " contingency of the 
 world." The highest principle of philosophy (according 
 to Crusius) is that of " conceivability," which is stated, 
 That which is not conceivable is false ; what cannot be 
 conceived as false is true. The immortality of the soul 
 is not proved from its nature as a substance, but from the 
 fact that it (immortality) alone unites desert and happi- 
 ness (compare Kant). Daries, who is less hostile towards 
 Wolff, affirms contingency and imperfection to be con- 
 sequences of freedom in God, or of a free understanding 
 and will, as distinguished from a necessary understanding 
 and will in God, not of the character of the finite as such. 
 Our duties grow out of natural ends recognized as depend- 
 ent on the will of God. 
 
 78- 
 
 The French "Illumination" The English philosophy 
 of the beginning of the eighteenth century, Deism, Lock- 
 ism, the Newtonian Physics, etc., transplanted to France 
 by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and English works that went 
 across the Channel, found in a prevailing revolt against 
 ecclesiastical and political tyranny a hospitable soil and 
 bore abundantly its peculiar fruit. The new epoch pro- 
 duced by it in French thinking is commonly known in the 
 history of philosophy as the " French Illumination." The 
 names of men to be spoken of in this connection are those 
 of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, who may be classed as 
 Deists ; Condillac and De Tracy, sensationalists ; Bonnet, 
 Robinet, and Diderot, semi-materialists ; D'Holbach, 
 Lamettrie, Helvtius, Cabanis, pure materialists. Perhaps 
 the most important contribution to philosophy as a science 
 made by these "philosophers " was that of the Holbachian 
 materialism.
 
 VOLTAIRE. 233 
 
 79- 
 
 Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire* (1694-1778). 
 Voltaire was educated at a Jesuit college in Paris. He 
 took up the profession of letters, and soon became a popular 
 idol. On account of an " affair of honor " he was obliged 
 to leave France, and he spent three years in England. In 
 England he came under the influence of Newtonian and 
 Deistic doctrines. He returned to France a Newtonian, a 
 Deist, and an admirer of the English constitution. A pub- 
 lished work of his, Deistical in sentiment, caused his banish- 
 ment. He went to Holland. On the removal of the ban 
 in 1735 he returned to France, and took up his abode with 
 a certain Madame du Chatelet in Lorraine as her preceptor. 
 At the invitation of Frederick the Great of Prussia, himself 
 a " freethinker," Voltaire spent three years at the Prussian 
 court. He quarrelled with Frederick, and went to Switzer- 
 land to reside. On a visit to Paris in 1778 he was received 
 with great enthusiasm. His death occurred shortly after- 
 wards. The clergy refused burial to his body in Paris : his 
 life (an industrious one) had been largely spent in antag- 
 onizing ecclesiastical bigotry and intolerance. 
 
 Works. Voltaire's philosophy (such as it is) is to be 
 found chiefly in the following-named works : " Lettres phi- 
 losophiques sur les Anglais" (1734), " Examen important 
 de my lord Bolingbroke " (1736), " Etemens de la Philoso- 
 phic de Newton," etc. (1738), " La Metaphysique de New- 
 ton, ou Parallel des Sentimens de Newton et de Leibnitz " 
 (i 740), ridicules the Leibnitzian optimism, " Candide, 
 ou sur 1'Optimisme " (1757), " Dictionnaire Philosophique " 
 (1764), " Le Philosophe ignorant" (1767), probably 
 contains the best exposition of his general world-view, 
 " Re'ponse au ' Systeme de la Nature ' " (1772), an in- 
 tended refutation of atheism. 
 
 Philosophy. The philosophy of Voltaire is that of Locke 
 and of the English Deists. He opposes (with ridicule) the 
 
 1 See Franck and Noack ; Works of Voltaire.
 
 234 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 doctrine of " innate ideas," the " mind has to be sent to 
 school to learn what it already knows " if that doctrine be 
 true. Not ideas, but reason, is innate : " God gave all men 
 the same reason, and by this, when it develops, men per- 
 ceive the same necessary principles, just as he has given 
 them organs which, when they have the degree of their 
 energy, perpetuate necessarily and in the same manner the 
 race of the Scythian and that of the Egyptian." Voltaire 
 so far dissents from Locke's polemic against the notion of 
 universally prevalent ideas as to maintain that the idea or 
 instinct of justice is universal. Metaphysics (in any real 
 sense) he repudiates as idle curiosity, ruinous to common- 
 sense and morality. Common-sense and the dictates of 
 common morality are a sufficient basis of theoretical belief, 
 which, after all, has its end, not in itself, but in action. 
 Voltaire contends, however, in his fashion, for belief in 
 God, freedom, and immortality. The denier of God is, he 
 says, refuted with the single " Vous existez, done il y a un 
 Dieu" ("You exist, therefore there is a God "). The sup- 
 position of a God is "so convenient, so necessary, indeed 
 (the idea of justice and the manifestation of design in the 
 world require it), that man would have to invent a God if 
 he did not exist." We are necessarily and forever ignorant 
 of God's nature ; one must be God to know God. We 
 must, as no society can exist without justice, suppose him 
 to be just. It is of course irrational to " believe in a God 
 who promenades in a garden, talks, becomes man, and 
 dies on a cross." Liberty is the power to think or not to 
 think of a thing, to move or not to move, at will. Proof 
 of liberty is found in the fact of an irresistible feeling of it, 
 the fact that the opponents of liberty admit the existence of 
 this feeling and give the lie to their professed opinions by 
 their conduct, and that if we are not free, we must conceive 
 God as acting unworthily of the Supreme Being in so creat- 
 ing us as that we should be deceived on this point. Our 
 passions do not disprove liberty any more than (some) dis- 
 ease does (all) health : the will is not necessarily determined
 
 MONTESQ UIE U. 235 
 
 by what the understanding thinks, since will and understand- 
 ing are not two separate entities, acting, as it were, physically 
 on one another, but are activities of one and the same 
 being, who both judges and wills (in other words, moral 
 necessity must not be confounded with physical) ; the pre- 
 vision of God does not necessarily conflict with liberty, 
 since the mere knowledge of an action before it is per- 
 formed does not differ from the knowledge of it after it is 
 performed ; God's prevision may be conceived as like that 
 of one who knows beforehand what course of action will 
 in a given instance be pursued by a person whose character 
 he knows ; man's freedom does not interfere with God's 
 infinite power, since it is the effect of that ; we may be 
 conceived as possessing liberty from God as the general, 
 in an action, does from a king who has given him carte 
 blanche. Liberty is not the liberty of indifference : if it 
 were, we should be inferior to idiots, imbeciles, and brutes. 
 
 Result. Voltaire is one of the founders of the "Eclair- 
 cissement" or (French) " Illumination." He exercised a 
 very wide influence upon popular thinking, and (without 
 being himself really a philosopher in the strict sense of the 
 term) made certain philosophical notions universal com- 
 monplaces of thought among men of the eighteenth and 
 even of the nineteenth century. " We are all," in the 
 words of Professor Du Bois Reymond, " more or less 
 Voltairians." 
 
 80. 
 
 Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montes- 
 quieu 1 (1689-1755). Montesquieu, born near Bordeaux, 
 received thorough early training, studied law, became a 
 counsellor in and was for twelve years president of the pro- 
 vincial Parliament of Bordeaux. He resigned his position 
 in 1726 to devote himself to philosophical, historical, and 
 political studies. He was elected member of the Bordeaux 
 Academy, and contributed to its Proceedings. In 1728 he 
 
 i See Franck and Noack.
 
 236 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 was elected member of the French Academy, and in the 
 same year began a tour through " Europe to observe men, 
 things, and constitutions." He spent a year in Italy, and 
 eighteen months in England, becoming possessed with a 
 decided admiration for English character and customs and 
 the English Constitution, an admiration which had its 
 effect in a changed manner of living, as well as in certain 
 doctrines contained in his chief work, written a few years 
 after his return to France. 
 
 Works. The philosophical works by which Montes- 
 quieu is known are : " Lettres Persanes " (1720), a sa- 
 tirical criticism of certain social, political, ecclesiastical 
 (and literary) conditions in France at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century ; " Considerations sur les Causes de la 
 Grandeur et la Decadence des Remains " (i 734), " L'Esprit 
 des Lois : ou du Rapport que les Lois doivent avoir avec la 
 Constitution de chaque Gouvernment, les Mceurs, le Climat, 
 la Religion, le Commerce," etc. (1748). These works re- 
 ceived a wide reading, and exercised a powerful influence 
 on popular opinion, " L'Esprit des Lois " becoming one 
 of the recognized causes of the French Revolution. 
 
 Philosophy. " All things," says Montesquieu, " have 
 their laws : divinity has its laws ; the material world its 
 laws ; superhuman intelligences their laws ; animals their 
 laws, man his laws." Laws are the relations existing be- 
 tween primordial reason and the various sorts of being, and 
 the relations of these beings to one another. With law 
 there naturally co- exists freedom : God does not foreknow 
 all the individual acts of self-determination. But his free- 
 dom, though " ruling as a king within its sphere," obeys the 
 larger sphere " like a slave." As the laws of the universe as 
 a whole have their source in the primordial reason, so hu- 
 man laws originate in human reason, are the self-determi- 
 nations of that reason. They are, ideally, adapted to the 
 particular people for whom they exist : adapted to the gen- 
 eral nature of things, on the one hand, and to the diversity 
 of existing conditions, on the other ; they are not arbitrary,
 
 ROUSSEAU. 237 
 
 artificial, Utopian. There are, in the nature of the case, 
 three most general species of government, the republic, 
 the monarchy, and the despotism. For the security of the 
 State it is requisite that the citizens have a grade of eleva- 
 tion corresponding to the nature of the government ; pri- 
 vate virtue is the fundamental principle of action in popular 
 States : in aristocracies it is less necessary ; in a mon- 
 archy honor, in a despotism terror, occupies the place of 
 virtue. The principle of the republic becomes corrupt not 
 only when the spirit of equality is lost, but when it becomes 
 extreme ; monarchy is destroyed by the enfeeblement of 
 intermediary powers (as the nobility) ; the despotic gov- 
 ernment is already corrupt. Political liberty consists, not 
 in power to do what one likes, but only in the power to do 
 what one should like : it is the right to do all that the laws 
 permit. The powers of the government are three, legis- 
 lative, judicial, and executive ; and security in government 
 requires that these powers be in distinct hands, or, at least, 
 that the judicial be kept entirely independent of both ex- 
 ecutive and legislative powers. The abuse of power cannot 
 always be prevented, even in the most moderated States : 
 it must set limits to itself. Between laws and the Christian 
 religion there is such connection that " that which seems to 
 have no other object than the felicity of the other life con- 
 stitutes our happiness also in this." 
 
 81. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau* (1712-1778). Rousseau was 
 early left without parents' care, and received but little primary 
 training from any source. He read Plutarch and romances. 
 After failures to obtain a practical foot-hold in the world, 
 and some wanderings and escapades, he was taken into 
 the house of a Madame de Warens, who felt interest enough 
 in him to have his education looked after and to become 
 mistress to him. He studied Latin, mathematics, music, 
 and the Port Royal logic ; and read the works of Locke, 
 1 Noack ; " Encyclopaedia Britannica ; " Franck.
 
 238 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Leibnitz, Descartes, and Malebranche. Losing Madame 
 de Warens' favor, he went to Lyons, and in 1741 to Paris. 
 He at first copied and composed music, afterwards held for 
 a time the post of private secretary to the ambassador to 
 Venice, got into the society of the celebrated Encyclopedistes, 
 contributed to the " Encyclopedic," and won fame by taking 
 a prize offered by the Academy of Dijon for the best essay 
 on the " Effect of the Progress of Civilization on Morals " 
 (1749). His literary success brought him offers of favor, 
 of which, however, he did not avail himself to any great 
 extent. He copied music, wrote operettas, comedies, 
 novels, and essays. After a number of years of both popu- 
 larity and prosperity (a Madame d'Epinay caused to be 
 built for him a fine residence in the valley of Montmorency, 
 near Paris), Rousseau fell under condemnation because of 
 alleged Deism, immorality, and what-not in his writings, and 
 was, by his enemies, driven about from place to place. He 
 found refuge finally in England, under the auspices of 
 Hume, in the year 1765. Quarrelling with his benefactor, 
 he returned to France the next year. He was permitted 
 to return to Paris on condition that he would not publish 
 anything on religion or the government. He gained a live- 
 lihood for himself and a woman with whom he had infor- 
 mally united himself some years before but did not until 
 now marry, by copying music. Stories of poverty, domestic 
 infelicity, sorrow, and sickness are related of him at this 
 time. In 1778 he determined to accept an oft-repeated 
 invitation of a certain Marquis de Girardin to live on an 
 estate of his near Paris. He died suddenly (by his own 
 hand, some have imagined) a few months after accepting 
 the invitation. His importance in the history of philosophy 
 seems to be more that of a personal force and stimulator of 
 other men than that of a scientific thinker. 
 
 Works. Of Rousseau's works we may mention here : 
 "Discours sur POrigine et les Fondemens de I'lne'galite' 
 parmi les Hommes" (1753); "La Nouvelle He'loise" 
 (1761) ; "mile, ou sur 1'Fxlucation" (1762), containing
 
 ROUSSEAU. 239 
 
 the " Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard," Rousseau's 
 answer to the materialism of his day and the statement of 
 his views on God and natural religion ; '* Du Contrat Social, 
 ou Principes du Droit Politique " (1762), closely con- 
 nected with the " Discours sur 1'Origine," etc. 
 
 Philosophy : God and Nature. I receive impressions 
 from objects, which I am able to distinguish from myself, 
 even though they were merely ideas ; hence they exist. I 
 distinguish from myself as merely feeling or receiving im- 
 pressions, myself as judging, exercising a power of reflection, 
 a power which only an active, intelligent being can pos- 
 sess ; therefore I, as well as objects, exist. I perceive 
 matter now in motion, and now at rest, and seek a cause. 
 1 perceive that if nothing acts upon matter, it does not 
 move ; that, therefore, its natural condition is one of rest. 
 I distinguish in myself a voluntary cause of motion; but 
 the visible universe is not an animal which moves itself, 
 and its movements must have an external cause ; matter 
 receives and communicates motion, but does not originate 
 it. We have to attribute motion to will as its cause : there 
 is no action without will. Will, then, moves the world and 
 animates nature : this is the first article of my creed. 
 Matter moving according to law reveals an intelligence, 
 the second article of my creed. Intelligence implies com- 
 paring and choosing. Hence there exists a judging, choos- 
 ing, willing, or acting, being as the cause of all things. 
 The designs of this being I do not comprehend ; but I 
 perceive co-ordination and order everywhere, and cannot 
 resist the conviction that the world is guided by a wise, 
 powerful, and consequently a good will. My spontaneous 
 attitude towards this being is that of a feeling of awe and 
 gratitude ; and, according to a simple dictate of nature her- 
 self, I worship this being. I do not find a written revela- 
 tion of him. Man's freedom is only apparent : his will is 
 necessarily determined by his understanding ; he wills the 
 good only as he judges the true. His freedom, so called, 
 consists merely in his willing what is, and what he holds to
 
 240 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 be, suited to him. As free, man is animated by an immaterial 
 substance the third article of my creed. The evil that 
 man does, returns upon himself, without affecting the order 
 of the world. The only evil in the world is what he does 
 and suffers. That the soul is immortal I do not know, but 
 I cannot conceive the dissolution and death of it as of the 
 body. I assume that it does not die, because this assump- 
 tion comforts me and is not in itself irrational. What hap- 
 piness or punishment there may be besides those which 
 result from the contemplation of the highest being and 
 from the judgments of conscience, I do not know ; but I 
 must think that men will be rewarded according to their 
 deserts, and that justice is done already in this life. I can 
 conceive no greater good that any being could expect to 
 realize hereafter than to be permitted to live according to 
 its nature. The moral disorder of the world does not 
 shake, but rather confirms, my faith in providence. I en- 
 deavor to shun the two extremes of heartless freethinking 
 and blind credulity, I dare confess God before the 
 philosophers, and preach humanity to persecutors. The 
 various religions of men are so many modes of worship, 
 differing merely according to requirements of climate, 
 government, spirit of the people, etc. ; they are essentially 
 the same, and good only so far as God is in them. Reli- 
 gion is essentially of the heart. The duties of religion are 
 independent of the affairs of men, but no religion absolves 
 from the duties of morality, which are alone truly essential. 
 The State. The State rests upon a contract by which 
 all individuals alienate to the community, or general will, 
 their natural rights. Outside society man exists in a state 
 of nature, which is not, indeed, a state of war, but a state 
 similar to that in which brutes live : instinct, instead of 
 reason, ruling action. But self-preservation and the satis- 
 faction of need are with difficulty secured in such a condi- 
 tion, and to obviate the difficulty society is established. 
 The alienation of rights through which society is established 
 is an alienation of personal freedom and property. The
 
 ROUSSEAU. 241 
 
 purpose of the alienation is a redistribution and equaliza- 
 tion of rights ; a legitimation of what were, before the 
 alienation, rights merely, as it were, by usurpation. In 
 society the general will (la volonte generate), or the will of 
 the people, is sovereign, since the civil order should in its 
 essence be as little as possible removed from the state of 
 nature. The general will is infallible, and always attains to 
 justice, since justice is merely what the general will deter- 
 mines : " if the people wrong itself, no one has a right to 
 interfere." The general will must be ascertained, not through 
 assemblies of deputies or representatives, but from a direct 
 expression through meetings of the populace. At each 
 meeting of the populace it must be formally decided 
 whether or not the sovereign (the people) pleases to main- 
 tain the existing form of government, and whether or not 
 it pleases to leave the administration of the government 
 with those who actually have it in charge. The change of 
 the existing form of government is not revolution ; there 
 is no revolution, whatever the State chooses to do being 
 ipso facto legal. The general will must be executed by a 
 power directly subject to itself. The monarchy, therefore, 
 is the worst form of government, the republic the best. 
 Religion, like property, must be under the control of the 
 State. As individuals, men may think as seems reasonable 
 to them, but as citizens they must recognize the public 
 religion. The essentials of this religion are the belief in an 
 intelligent, benevolent, prescient, providential God, a future 
 life, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the 
 wicked, the sanctity of the social contract. Non-believers 
 must be punished with death. (At this point appears most 
 plainly the connection between Rousseau's Deism and his 
 theory of Society.) 
 
 Morality and Education. Man is born good : instinct, 
 primal sentiment, unaltered, tend spontaneously to the 
 good. Goodness is life according to nature, or to what 
 we are by nature. Goodness has to be attained by recall- 
 ing conscience to the sentiment of good and evil, which 
 VOL. i. 16
 
 242 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 sophistry and conventionality have obscured. This is the 
 problem of education. Education is of a threefold nature : 
 it conies from nature, from men, and from things. As 
 coming from nature, it is, so far as the human teacher is 
 concerned, negative. The teacher must, in dealing with 
 the very young, let nature have her way almost entirely, 
 must " keep the child from doing anything." And even 
 in later stages of instruction the teacher must not so much 
 give information as cause the child, by the exertion of its 
 natural powers, to discover of itself what it should know. 
 The successive stages in education are (i) education of 
 the body and the senses (till the twelfth year) ; (2) intel- 
 lectual education (from the twelfth to the fifteenth year) ; 
 (3) moral education (from the fifteenth to the twentieth 
 year). Intellectual education should be entirely utilita- 
 rian, history, language, and literature must be proscribed, 
 and, in their stead, the practical arts and sciences pursued ; 
 moral education should be sentimental ; religious educa- 
 tion must begin late, to avoid superstition. Females 
 must be educated solely with reference to wifehood. The 
 natural man, who is the beginning of the process of educa- 
 tion, is not a " savage banished to the primal wilderness," 
 but a " savage who is to dwell in towns," and to see with 
 his own eyes and feel with his own heart ; in a word, to 
 be ruled by reason. 
 
 Result. Rousseau belongs almost, if not quite, as much 
 to the third as to the second period of Modern Philosophy. 
 In him, at least, individual self-consciousness receives some- 
 thing like its due. His Deism, however, connects him 
 with the second period. 
 
 82. 
 
 Charles Bonnet (1720-1793). Bonnet, though of 
 French descent, was born in Switzerland, and always lived 
 there. He early began studies in natural history, and 
 made therein important discoveries, which won him mem- 
 bership in the Royal Society of London, the Academy
 
 BONNET. 243 
 
 of Sciences in Paris, in Gottingen, in Stockholm, etc. In 
 him were combined with the attributes of the scientist 
 those of poet and metaphysician. He applied in physical 
 speculation Leibnitzian metaphysical principles. He pos- 
 sesses considerable importance in the history of the doc- 
 trine of organic evolution. 
 
 Works. Bonnet's principal philosophical works are : 
 " Essai Analytique sur les Facultes de 1'Ame et sur la Me- 
 chanique de ses FaculteV (1759); "La Palingenesie 
 philosophique, ou Ides sur 1'Etat pass et sur 1'Etat futur 
 des Etres vivants " (1769). 
 
 Philosophy. Man is the product of the union of a 
 certain soul with a certain body. The nature of the union 
 of body and soul, we do not understand. To the union 
 we owe our ideas : all ideas, that is to say, originate in 
 sense, and depend upon the operation of the nerve -fibres. 
 To understand ideas, we must understand fibres and their 
 action. There are different fibres for different sorts of 
 sensation (a statement which appears to be an anticipation 
 of the current theory of the specific energy of the nerves) . 
 A fibre that has once undergone movement has acquired 
 a tendency to reproduce the movement once impressed 
 upon it. The second impression made in such fibre natu- 
 rally differs from the first. The mind recognizes the dif- 
 ference by means of a difference in the felt resistance 
 offered by a fibre to movement. The conscious effort of 
 the soul to prolong received impressions is attention. The 
 persistence of impressions in the brain is the ground of 
 memory. Memory is the basis of personality. Reflection, 
 comparison, astonishment, surprise, etc., have a physical 
 basis. In will the soul is self-determining, possesses 
 freedom. The soul is not self-conscious, cannot really 
 know by self-observation its own activities : these are 
 known only by physiological observation and reflection. All 
 souls survive after death, and continue to exist in union 
 with bodily organs. The body of the soul after death is 
 a new body, though already present in germ in the actual
 
 244 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 body. Its substance is an etherealized matter analogous 
 to fire or electric fluid, and of great mobility. In the uni- 
 verse there is a single scale of life, including all animals 
 and plants, together with man. This scale, since the inter- 
 val between the finite and infinite is infinite, contains an 
 infinitude of degrees of perfection. All beings gradually 
 rise in the scale of perfection, one degree leading to the 
 next higher, and so on ; and all are animate. The stimu- 
 lating agency of all activity is pleasure and pain ; the end 
 of all activity is happiness. 
 
 83. 
 
 Jean Baptists Robinet (1735-1820). Robinet was 
 educated as a Jesuit, but left the order to become a phi- 
 losopher. He went to Holland to think and write. For 
 a number of years he was engaged in translating English 
 novels, in writing for journals, and on other of the less am- 
 bitious kinds of literary work. His chief work is entitled 
 "De la Nature" (1761-1768). 
 
 Philosophy. According to Robinet there is everywhere 
 compensation, the correlation, or equilibrium, of good and 
 evil, being and non-being. The changing existence of 
 finite beings is a continual interchange of these two prin- 
 ciples ; there is no nutrition without waste, no activity 
 which does not destroy. This being the case, all beings 
 may be regarded as only varieties of the animal type. 
 Instinct (Leibnitz's "appetition") is the universal law 
 of nature. There is no soul without body, no body with- 
 out soul. Above the changing finite, which is the union 
 of being and non-being, are the immutable infinite (or 
 God), and its correlative, Nothing. God is unknowable. 
 Anthropomorphism must be avoided in the doctrine of 
 God. The only categories that can be applied to him 
 are those of cause and infinitude. Creation is eternal, but 
 not the world or created objects. Knowledge has a sen- 
 sible origin. Morality is an instinct. Robinet follows 
 Locke in the theory of knowledge, Leibnitz in that of
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 245 
 
 being, Hutcheson in that of morality. Some have found 
 in his doctrines anticipations of the Natur- Philosophic of 
 Schelling. 
 
 84. 
 
 Etienne Bonnot de Condillac^ (1715-1780). Con- 
 dillac was of a noble, but not wealthy, family. Though 
 he entered the Church, he was an abbe only in name. 
 Most of his life seems to have been spent in retirement 
 as student and writer. He was in his youth a friend 
 of Rousseau. At one time he was tutor to the Duke 
 of Parma (grandson of Louis XV.), on whose account 
 several of his works were written. 
 
 Works. Of Condillac's works the following seem to 
 be the most important : " Essai sur 1'Origine des Con- 
 naissances Humaines " (1746); "Traite' des Systemes " 
 (1749), criticises the systems of Malebranche, Spinoza, 
 Leibnitz, etc. ; " Trait< des Sensations " (1754) ; " Trait6 
 des Animaux " (1755); " L'Art de Raisonner" (1755); 
 "La Logique" (1780); " La Langue des Calculs " (pub. 
 1798). The principal work is " Trait6 des Sensations." 
 
 Philosophy : Origin of Ideas. Condillac is, in general, 
 a Lockean first (in the "Essai sur 1'Origine," etc.), then 
 (in the "Trait6 des Sensations") an emendator, his 
 emendation consisting in the reduction of the sources of 
 knowledge from two to one ; *'. e., in treating reflection 
 as a form of sensation. Beginning with the simplest order 
 of sensations (those of smell), he seeks to show how the 
 higher follow, as the mind develops, in the order of their 
 degree. The mind receives, as tabula rasa, a number 
 of impressions, has a number of " perceptions," one 
 of which predominates in vividness in relation to the rest, 
 and fixes the (passive) energy of the mind upon itself, 
 thus begetting attention. This act of attention is suc- 
 ceeded by others, the earlier, however, not becoming lost. 
 These being conjoined in a single act of attention, there 
 
 1 Franck, Works of Condillac, and " Encyclopaedia Britannica."
 
 246 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 arises the idea of past and present impressions ; /. <?., of 
 memory as well as of attention. The act of attending to 
 the two impressions or " attentions " at the same time 
 is comparison, which, as implying the perception of resem- 
 blance and difference, is judgment. Upon judgment fol- 
 low reasoning and reflection, which is attention passing 
 successively over the various parts of an object. Attention, 
 memory, comparison, judgment, reasoning, reflection, are 
 but different stages of attention. From sensation arise 
 also the " affections " of the mind, desire, volition, etc., 
 through the mediation of the feelings of pleasure and 
 pain (which indeed are the sources of attention). Atten- 
 tion directed to a present disagreeable impression, in con- 
 trast with a past agreeable sensation, makes us feel the 
 need of change in our condition. This feeling, together 
 with the idea of the thing conceived as agreeable, consti- 
 tutes desire, which may be defined as the " action of the 
 understanding determined towards a particular object by 
 the uneasiness caused by the privation of that object." 
 From desire flow all other affections. Desire, strengthened 
 by the idea of the attainability of its object, is transformed 
 into will. The mass of remembered and present sensa- 
 tions constitutes the /. Self- consciousness, or the power 
 to say /, depends on memory. The knowledge of the 
 body and of external objects ;'. e., of magnitude, motion, 
 position, distance comes to us only through the opera- 
 tion of the sense of touch : by the other four senses we 
 do not get " outside " of our minds at all. The seat of all 
 sensation is the soul (not the body, Condillac denies 
 being a materialist), and, in the last analysis, we know 
 only our own thoughts. Condillac employs, to explain 
 the growth of experience, the fancy which has become 
 a familiar one of a statue, organized similarly as a human 
 being, caused by an experimenter gradually and systemati- 
 cally to acquire knowledge and power of action. 
 
 The Method of Knowledge. The fundamental prin- 
 ciple of thought and the test of truth is the logical principle
 
 DE TRACY. 247 
 
 of identity. Thought is purely analytical, the discovering 
 of propositions by means of the mere explication of given 
 propositions. The ideal norm of method in all sciences 
 is mathematics. Science is merely well-formed language 
 (langue bienfaite) , In this sense, it presupposes a " given " 
 knowledge of the external and internal worlds, " evi- 
 dence of fact" and "evidence of feeling; " hence, while 
 mathematics is our "method," nature is our "guide." 
 
 85. 
 
 Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836). De Tracy, who was 
 of a " noble " family, was educated at the University of 
 Strasburg, and adopted the profession of his father, who 
 had died as a field-marshal. He sat in the Constitutional 
 Assembly, and always remained loyal to the political princi- 
 ples of 1 789. For political reasons he retired from the 
 post of field-marshal, to which he had been appointed, and 
 devoted himself to science, in company with Cabanis and 
 Condorcet. During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned, 
 and came near ending his life on the guillotine. During his 
 imprisonment, which lasted almost a year, he became intro- 
 spective in mental habit, and, through the influence of the 
 study of Locke and Condillac, formed the resolve to aban- 
 don the study of the natural sciences for that of mind. 
 Under the Empire he was senator, during the Restoration 
 made peer of France. He was elected to the French 
 Academy, and was an important member of the Academy 
 of Moral and Political Sciences. He had the highest con- 
 fidence as to the truth of his philosophical and political 
 convictions, and was, it is told, deeply saddened at their 
 becoming, or seeming to become, obsolete. 
 
 Works. The principal works of De Tracy are : " Ele" - 
 ments dTddologie " (1804-1824), and " Commentaire sur 
 1'Esprit des Lois" (1819). The former includes the fol- 
 lowing special treatises : " Traite 1 de VolonteY ' " Grammaire 
 Ge"ne"rale," " Logique," " Ideologic." 
 
 Philosophy : The Problems of Philosophy. Philosophy
 
 248 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 has the three problems of (i) giving an account of the 
 means of knowledge, (2) applying these means to our will, 
 (3) applying them to the study of external objects. To 
 these correspond three groups of sciences : ( i ) ideology, 
 grammar, logic; (2) political economy, morals, politics; 
 (3) physics, geometry, arithmetic. 
 
 Ideology. Ideology is the " first philosophy," upon 
 which all other sciences depend for their foundation and 
 method. All ideas and faculties originate in sensation ; to 
 think is to feel (Denser, c'est sentir) . The immediate ob- 
 jects of the faculty of thinking or feeling may be termed 
 " sensations," " sentiments," " ideas," " perceptions." These 
 are of four classes, " sensations proper," " memories," " re- 
 lations between sensations," "desires." Four correspond- 
 ing faculties are : sensibility, properly so called, memory, 
 judgment, will. Sensibility is the property of our nature 
 by virtue of which we receive impressions of various sorts 
 and have consciousness. Our " external " sensations are 
 caused by the action of objects upon the extremities of the 
 nerves : " internal " sensations by the action of the nerves 
 in the interior of the body resulting from the functioning 
 of organs or lesions of different parts of the body, etc. 
 Memory depends on certain permanent conditions of the 
 brain. Judgment is directly involved in the connecting, 
 in a feeling of agreement, of sensations. Desire and will 
 are respectively passive and active conditions of the same 
 form of thinking faculty. All acts of the thinking faculty, 
 will included, are subject to the law of necessity. Our 
 knowledge of external objects as such comes through the 
 feeling of resistance acquired through voluntary movement. 
 Ideology is a part of zoology (/'. <?., in later terminology, 
 psychology is a part of biology). De Tracy's ideology is 
 a combination of the physiological psychology of Cabanis 
 with the " introspective " psychology of Condillac, the latter 
 element predominating. 
 
 Morals. Man, as having desires, has a capacity for suf- 
 fering and enjoyment, has needs, rights, duties. His rights
 
 HELV&TIUS. 249 
 
 are determined by his needs, his duties by his power of 
 satisfying these. The fundamental principle of morals is 
 that our " rights are always without limit, our duties are 
 always only the general duty of satisfying our needs : every 
 one has the right to do what he pleases and can ; there is 
 neither justice nor injustice." 
 
 Politics. The true government is one of pure represen- 
 tation under one or more leaders, a government sprung 
 from and founded on the general will, having for its princi- 
 ple reason, its means liberty, its effects happiness a gov- 
 ernment in which the rulers are servants, and punishment 
 is simply for the prevention of wrong. Here we have in a 
 nutshell the " philosophy " of the moving spirit of the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Residt. De Tracy has been called the "logician or 
 metaphysician " of the " sensualistic school." 
 
 86. 
 
 Claude Adrien Helvetius^ (1715-1771). Helve' tius, 
 who was the son of the court-physician at Paris, and edu- 
 cated at the College of Louis-le-Grand, had, it would seem, 
 neither externally nor internally very favorable conditions 
 given him for the attainment of philosophic wisdom. He 
 had influential friends, was wealthy, vain of his person, 
 without taste for really scientific pursuits, ambitious to 
 shine in polite society, was, in short, a spoiled favorite 
 of earthly fortune. He held a lucrative political office for 
 a number of years, and feasted his friends frequently after 
 he retired from it. The publication of Condillac's " Trait6 
 des Sensations " excited his intellectual vanity to attempt 
 the production of a philosophical work, the result of his 
 attempt being the (once) famous " De 1'Esprit." He died 
 of an attack of gout. He left behind a name for kindliness 
 and for liberality in giving. In his youth he was fond of 
 reading Locke. 
 
 l Noack ; Martineau, " Types of Ethical Theory," vol. ii.
 
 250 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Works. Besides the " De TEsprit" (1758), which is 
 his best work, he composed numerous other works, of 
 which we may mention here " De PHomme ; de ses 
 Faculte's intellectuelles et de son Education" (1772), 
 which is a new version of the earlier work, and " Les 
 Progres de la Raison dans le Recherche du Vrai" (1775). 
 There were published in various languages, fifty editions of 
 the " De 1'Esprit " in a short time. 
 
 Philosophy. The opinions of Helvetius were very largely 
 borrowed from writers of the empirico-sensualistic school. 
 In man, says Helvetius, all is the result of bodily organiza- 
 tion, and is to be explained by corporeal sensibility. The 
 law of man's nature is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. By 
 this law the law of interest he acquires ideas, or the 
 impressions of relations, and the power of understanding ; 
 by this law also are his actions determined : man is a 
 machine set in motion and kept running by corporeal 
 sensibility. The passions of man, which have their origin 
 purely in the impulse to seek pleasure and avoid pain, 
 are of two sorts, those depending immediately on the 
 bodily sensations, and those depending on ideal, that is, 
 artistic and social, sensations. Both sorts centre in self- 
 love, by which even the most disinterested actions are ex- 
 plainable. " If a man does good to his fellows, if he 
 sacrifices himself for his father, his son, or his country, it is 
 because he finds in doing that action, in imposing a sacri- 
 fice upon himself, a pleasure greater than the sufferings 
 which may follow it. An action which, besides procuring 
 pleasure for ourselves, also benefits others, receives the 
 name of virtue ; but all virtue has for its final purpose the 
 satisfying of self-interest." The problem of morals and 
 legislation is to combine the interest of the whole with 
 that of the individual. There is and can be no conflict 
 between virtue and justice, on the one hand, and interest, 
 on the other. Rather are the passions necessary to the 
 highest virtue. The virtue of him who is incapable of 
 passion is a passive virtue, the virtue of indolence. We
 
 DIDEROT. 25 1 
 
 require passion to prevent us from gravitating continually 
 towards indolence and inactivity ; hence the passions must 
 be encouraged, strengthened. To this end it is necessary 
 to gratify them, to excite them with promised rewards and 
 threatened punishment, to elaborate them by means of 
 education. Without them there is nothing good or beau- 
 tiful or great among men. The unhappiness of men is 
 merely the consequence of an unenlightened self-love. Let 
 men be educated to a full consciousness of their moving 
 principle. All men are by nature equal in capacity of 
 self- enjoyment, since all have the same natural power of 
 sensibility ; the differences among them are differences 
 of education. Legislators should exercise the power they 
 have to mould by education the characters and manners 
 of the people as they please. They should employ this 
 power for the increase of the happiness (the greatest pos- 
 sible physical pleasure) of man. Helvtius has exercised 
 an influence, through Bentham, upon Nineteenth Century 
 Utilitarianism. 
 
 87. 
 
 Denis Diderot (1713-1784). Diderot was educated 
 at a Jesuit school at Langres (his birthplace) and at the 
 College d'Harcourt in Paris. Refusing to adopt, in accord- 
 ance with the wish of his father, the profession of law, he 
 chose that of letters, in which after many years of hard labor 
 and privation he acquired great eminence, particularly as 
 chief editor of, and contributor towards, the great French 
 " Encyclopedic." Though not a very systematic thinker, 
 he is regarded as one of the most original and fertile minds 
 of France of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Works. Diderot's standpoint twice changed : he was a 
 "theist," a "deist," and an "atheist" (or rather natural- 
 istic pantheist) in succession. His " Principes de la Philo- 
 sophic Morale, ou Essai sur la Vrit et sur la Vertu " ( 1 745) 
 a free rendering of Shaftesbury's " Inquiry Concerning 
 Virtue and Merit " was written by him as a "theist." In
 
 252 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 his "Penses Philosophiques " (1746), "Promenade d'un 
 Sceptique " (1747), "Lettre sur les Aveugles" (1749), 
 " Lettres sur les Sourds et Muets " (1751), and in his articles 
 for the " Encyclopedic, ou Dictionnaire Raisonne" des Scien- 
 ces, des Arts, et des Metiers" (175 1-175 7), he is generally 
 deist. (The " Encyclopedic " was a sort of mouthpiece of 
 the deistic and materialistic thinkers in France in the mid- 
 dle of last century.) His atheistic views are expressed in 
 his "Pense"es sur 1' Interpretation de la Nature" (1754), 
 " Entretien entre d'Alembert et Diderot" (1769), " Le 
 Reve d'Alembert" (1769), a sequel to the "Entre- 
 tien," "Sur la Matiere et le Mouvement " (1770). 
 
 Philosophy. In his first period Diderot regards ortho- 
 dox theism as the only metaphysical doctrine favorable 
 to virtue, and deism as shallow. In his second, or as a 
 deist, he thinks that even atheism is preferable to super- 
 stition, and that metaphysic, in the ordinary sense, is as 
 nothing compared with common-sense, that the only wea- 
 pons of warfare against atheism are the Newtonian physics, 
 that natural religion is the only religion superior to all cavil 
 or objection. In his third period Diderot maintains the 
 view that the first principle of things is matter endowed 
 with a psychic force, or life. Everywhere there is sensi- 
 bility and activity, though in the lower and lowest grades 
 of being these are, as it were, imprisoned. " Body is, 
 according to some philosophers, in itself without action 
 and without force. This is a monstrous error, contrary 
 to all good physics, to all good chemistry. In itself, by 
 the nature of its essential qualities, whether it be considered 
 in molecules or in masses, it is full of activity and force." 
 This new view takes with Diderot, first, the shape of a 
 (quasi-Leibnitzian) dynamic atomism, and afterwards of a 
 pure monism, since he denies all real independent existence 
 of individuals, and asserts that only of one individual, 
 the All. Man is a part of nature ; the soul is not separate 
 from the body, psychology is merely physiology of the 
 nerves. In the properties and conditions of our sense-
 
 LAMETTRIE. 253 
 
 organs lie also the conditions and qualities of moral con- 
 duct. Freedom of will is a delusion. Diderot approves the 
 ethics of Epicurus, and the Hobbean view of natural right, 
 though not of society, for he maintains that laws are for 
 the good of all, not of one alone. Beauty, says Diderot, is 
 relative to us, but is an object of thought, and not of sen- 
 sation. Our ideas of beauty (i. e., order, arrangement, pro- 
 portion, harmony) arise to us from our needs and the na- 
 tural exercise of our faculties. By means of the standard 
 thus gained we judge of the beauty of beings surrounding us. 
 
 88. 
 
 Julien Offray de Lamettrie (17091752). Lamettrie, 
 after a thorough early training, took courses in medicine at 
 the universities of Rheims and Leyden. At the latter uni- 
 versity he heard the celebrated Boerhaave. He entered the 
 army in the capacity of a physician, and while sick with 
 fever, or at least in consequence of observations he made 
 upon his mental, in connection with his bodily, condition 
 during the illness, conceived the idea of explaining all 
 thought as a consequence of bodily organization, and wrote 
 a treatise embodying and developing the idea. The trea- 
 tise provoked hostile criticism, and he wrote others in reply 
 to critics. His opinions caused his exile from France, and 
 even from Holland. He took refuge with Frederick the 
 Great, with whom he lived in greatest intimacy, and by 
 whom he was made member of the Prussian Academy of 
 Sciences. 
 
 Works. Of Lamettrie's numerous works, the most 
 important are: "Histoire Naturelle de PAme" (1745), 
 " L'Homme-Machine " (1748). Others are " L'Homme 
 Plante" (1748). " Discours sur le Bonheur, la Volupte", 
 1'Art de Jouir " (1751). He was formerly supposed to 
 be the author of (D'Holbach's) "Systeme de la Nature." 
 
 Philosophy. Matter possesses the power to feel, think, 
 and move. Human thought and will originate in sensation. 
 All memory is explicable by organic or bodily conditions.
 
 254 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 What we eat and drink determines our thought and action. 
 Physicians, not metaphysicians, are the true philosophers. 
 Happiness depends on sensuous enjoyment. Such enjoy- 
 ment may be enhanced by reflection : the educated man 
 has higher enjoyment than the ignorant. There is every 
 probability of a Supreme Being, but there is nothing absurd 
 in the idea of an eternal machine. Belief in God is not 
 without real value for mankind, though religion does not 
 necessarily have morality as a consequence. Death is an- 
 nihilation. Life is a farce. 
 
 89. 
 
 Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron (THolbach* (1723-1789). 
 D'Holbach, though a native of Bavaria, was educated, 
 and spent most of his life, in Paris. Inheriting great wealth, 
 he became a generous patron of artists, men of letters, 
 philosophers, and kept open house, as it were, for his 
 learned friends (among whom were Condillac, Helvetius, 
 Diderot, Hume, Turgot, and, for a time, Rousseau), who 
 dubbed him " maitre d'hotel de la philosophic." At his 
 house, dinners were regularly eaten by his friends on Sun- 
 days and Thursdays, and at table, political, religious, and 
 philosophical questions were debated. D'Holbach had a 
 varied learning, and was a collaborator on the " Encyclo- 
 pedic," for which he translated articles from Dutch and 
 German on scientific topics. His personal character seems 
 to have been an unusually attractive one ; he was not only 
 hospitable, but remarkable for courtesy, gentleness, modesty, 
 and benevolence. 
 
 Works. D'Holbach is now known chiefly by his " Sys- 
 teme de la Nature, ou des Lois du Monde Physique et du 
 Monde Moral" (1770), which has rightly been called the 
 " Systematic chef-d'oeuvre of French Materialism in the 
 Eighteenth Century." Other works of his are " Christia- 
 nisme deVoil " (1767), "Le Bon Sens, ou Ides naturelles 
 oppose"es aux Idees surnaturelles "(1772)," Systeme Social, 
 1 Noack; D' Holbach, "System of Nature" (trans.).
 
 D'HOLBACff. 255 
 
 ou Principes Naturals de Morale et de la Politique " (i 773), 
 aims to lay down a system of morals and politics inde- 
 pendent of religious systems. 
 
 Philosophy. Though man imagines a realm of existence 
 beyond nature, there is nothing for him outside nature, 
 nature is the all. Nature shows us nothing but matter and 
 motion. Motion, like extension, is contained immediately 
 in the notion of matter, the sole existent. Motion is uni- 
 versal, there is no rest. All particular motions are com- 
 municated motions, there is no independent motion. By 
 means of motion of various kinds all particular things origi- 
 nate from matter. These motions are governed by un- 
 changeable laws, fundamental among which are those of 
 attraction and repulsion, " sympathy " and " antipathy," 
 "love" and "hate," in a word, the law that everything 
 seeks itself : the law of gravitation in the physical world, the 
 law of self-love in the moral. Man is a part of nature : he is 
 a material being purely. He experiences an external and an 
 internal motion, and imagines that he has not only a natural 
 body, but also an immaterial soul. But all mental activity is 
 only movement in the brain, a function of the brain. An 
 immaterial being could not feel nor think. There is no free 
 activity, all feeling, thought, willing, are ceaselessly subject 
 to necessity. To be free, man must be stronger than nature, 
 or outside nature. Mechanism everywhere rules in nature, 
 and the law of the mechanical association of ideas explains 
 all supposed freedom. We suppose ourselves free because 
 we are not conscious of our real motives. The ideas of 
 merit and guilt, reward and punishment, have meaning 
 through the fact (and only through it) that they help to 
 control passion. The soul is inseparable from the body, 
 is born, changes, and dies with it : life, the condition of 
 the soul's existence, is merely the sum of bodily motions, 
 and ceases when those motions cease. Immortality, then, 
 is a delusive idea. But the fear of death is irrational : 
 death is but sleep. The loss of the idea of heavenly im- 
 mortality is compensated for, in a practical regard, by
 
 256 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the idea of an immortality upon earth in the minds and 
 lives of men. The appeals of priesthood to the ecclesi- 
 astical idea of immortality as a moral motive may be 
 replaced by the appeal to the idea of immortality in the 
 visible world. Animated by this idea, men would not be 
 subject to the fear of death, and would live lives of help- 
 fulness to their fellow-men. To contribute to the happi- 
 ness of our fellow.-men is to be truly useful. Utility is 
 the criterion of morality. All men desire happiness : every 
 one seeks his own : self-love is the fundamental law of 
 morals. The idea of God is a superstitious offspring of 
 ignorance, unrest, unhappiness. Men need the word " God " 
 only to designate unknown causes. The idea of God, like 
 that of the soul, is a consequence of the error of mentally 
 separating soul and body, spirit and matter. It is purely 
 negative, and useless. The world needed no creator : the 
 attributes of the uncreated indestructible elements are ade- 
 quate to its production. If there were a God, where should 
 he be located? If in nature, he would be merely matter or 
 motion ; if outside nature, he would be immaterial, and 
 would have no place. The idea of God is not merely use- 
 less, it is chimerical, absurd, the cause of all evil in society. 
 The doctrine of D'Holbach is the purest expression of 
 materialism in modern philosophy, and the last word on the 
 subject. 
 
 9- 
 
 Pierre Jean Cabanis l ( 1 75 7-1 808) . Cabanis studied 
 with priests at Cosnac (his birthplace) ; he studied also 
 at the College of Brives, and at Paris. Though for some 
 years student and professor of belles-lettres (and ambitious 
 of literary distinction), he turned to the study of medicine, 
 took his degree in 1783. became professor of hygiene in a 
 school in Paris, administrator of hospitals, and lecturer in 
 the National Institute. During the period of the Revolu- 
 tion he was closely associated with Mirabeau, labored to- 
 
 1 Noack ; " Rapports du Physique et du Moral," etc.
 
 CABANIS. 257 
 
 gather with him for the cause of public education, and 
 attended him as physician in his last illness. He was at 
 one time member of the Council of Five Hundred and of 
 the Senate. Among his friends were, besides Mirabeau, 
 Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, Condillac, 
 Voltaire, Franklin, and Jefferson. 
 
 Works. Cabanis' philosophical works are a series of 
 memorials, published first (1802) under the title "Traite' 
 du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, M again (1805) 
 under the title, " Rapports du Physique et du Moral de 
 1'Homme." 
 
 Philosophy. All knowledge, says Cabanis, is knowledge 
 of phenomena. So-called first, or metaphysical, causes, are 
 beyond our ken. All mental or psychical phenomena must 
 be referred to the bodily organization as their sole cause : 
 the mental (or moral) is only the physical considered under 
 certain particular points of view : psychology is but an aspect 
 of physiology. Living or animate nature is distinguished 
 from non-living or inanimate nature by the universal charac- 
 teristic of sensibility, or the capacity to feel. But there forces 
 itself upon us the " conjecture that between animal sensi- 
 bility, on the one hand, and plant impulse, and even elec- 
 tive affinity and attraction of gravitation, on the other, there 
 is an analogy ; that vegetable impulses, chemical attraction, 
 universal gravitation, are a sort of instinct which, though 
 varying and indefinite in the lower stages, develops more 
 and more in the following, and exhibits in the higher a sug- 
 gestion of will and inclination." Sensibility, then, must be 
 regarded as of physical origin and principle. There may 
 be sensibility without the consciousness of it, or without 
 sensation. Sensibility arrives at consciousness in the brain, 
 the function of which is to " think " (to work over the nervous 
 impressions received from without), as that of the stomach 
 is to digest ; to " secrete thought," as that of the liver is to 
 " secrete bile." But even when unconscious it may be the 
 determining condition of movement. It is excited to ac- 
 tivity by impressions from without : these impressions are 
 
 VOL. i. 17
 
 258 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 transmitted to a distributing centre, whence the nerves 
 convey them to the muscles. The medium of conduction 
 is, Galvanism seems to show, electricity. The sympathetic 
 connection of the parts of the organism with one an- 
 other through the nervous system renders preposterous the 
 " statue " of Condillac. The operations of the organism by 
 which perceptions, conceptions, judgments, determinations 
 of will, are brought about, instead of occurring singly and 
 without affecting one another, occur in connection with one 
 another and modify one another. From the motions of the 
 brain resulting from external or internal impressions con- 
 veyed to it, arise all operations of the soul or mind ; from the 
 impressions of outer sense arise ideas ; from those of inner 
 sense or feelings in the internal bodily organs, instincts, 
 as, for example, the maternal instinct, which arises from 
 the action of inner organs during the period of gestation. 
 Through the brain (and nerves) also the mind acts on the 
 body. Les nerfs, voila tout rhomme ! In the nervous 
 system and especially the brain is the identity of the 
 physical and moral which the method of natural science 
 postulates. Cabanis outgrew (if we may say so) this pure 
 materialism, and held to the belief in a universal intelli- 
 gence and will above the physical world. His earlier 
 doctrine is a complete anticipation in many respects of the 
 physiological psychology of the present moment. 
 
 91. 
 
 The German "Illumination" {Aufklarung) > There 
 were in the conditions of the age in which the Leibnitzo- 
 Wolffian philosophy flourished, reasons why that philosophy 
 should (in general) give place to a philosophy the object of 
 whose interest should be, not truth in general and for its 
 own sake, but a limited aspect of it and for utility's sake, 
 why, in other words, that would-be universalistic, scientific 
 rationalism should give place to a pronouncedly limited, 
 merely humanistic, and even individualistic one. There 
 
 1 Zeller, Erdmann, Noack.
 
 THE GERMAN " ILLUMINATION." 259 
 
 was in the very spirit of the age in Germany a distinct sub- 
 jectivism which revolted against custom, authority, and law 
 in all matters, and sought to determine everything anew and 
 from inner original sources. This was reinforced, as regards 
 philosophy, by an influx of French materialism (particularly 
 at the court of the gallicized Frederick the Great) and of 
 English empirical psychology, deism, and moral philosophy. 
 Even in the Leibnitzo-Wolffian philosophy, indeed, there 
 was an element that was entirely in harmony with all this. 
 To say nothing of a certain individualism implied in its 
 doctrine of monads, its insistence upon common intelli- 
 gibility and practicality as prime requisites of a sound 
 philosophy, upon the paramount importance of an " enlight- 
 ened understanding " as a condition to human welfare and 
 happiness, was calculated to throw the weight of its influ- 
 ence with the common mind entirely in the direction of a 
 rather narrow rationalism, much narrower than the system 
 of Wolff (as a system which professed to take all knowledge 
 for its province) would admit of, a rationalism that de- 
 spised " metaphysics " and " mysticism," and extolled " com- 
 mon sense " and " sound understanding." It was therefore 
 in every way natural that the prime object of interest in 
 philosophy should be man, and the question of his present 
 and future welfare and happiness, that thought should 
 centre upon his inner experiences and his faculties; that 
 self- contemplation and diaries, confessions, autobiographies, 
 etc., resulting from it should become a fashion ; that philo- 
 sophical discussion should run mainly along the lines of 
 empirical psychology, aesthetics (utilitarian), moral philos- 
 ophy (equally utilitarian), natural theology, and should be 
 unsystematic and not altogether profound. Such at least was 
 the case. By far the most important thinkers of the En- 
 lightenment, as it is usually termed, are Moses Mendelssohn 
 and Lessing. Besides these two should be mentioned here : 
 Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), a pronounced 
 Woffian (except as to the doctrine of pre-established 
 harmony), who sharply opposed to the ruling orthodox 
 theology the teachings of a rationalistic natural theology
 
 260 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 (containing a distinction of teleology into internal and 
 external which was adopted by Kant), and taught a pro- 
 nounced eudaemonism ; Johann Georg Sulzer (1720- 
 1779), noted chiefly as a writer in aesthetics, but author of 
 an ethico-physical treatise in which the ground is taken 
 (for example) that the divine goodness appears in the fact 
 that cherries do not ripen in the winter, because then they 
 would not taste so well as in the summer, an instance of 
 the superficially anthropomorphic teaching in the teleology 
 of this period; Nicolaus Tetens (1736-1805), a Leibnitzo- 
 Lockian, who was one of the " first to co-ordinate feeling as 
 a fundamental faculty with understanding and will," and 
 was esteemed and followed by Kant as a psychologist, and 
 was in turn capable of appreciating and being influenced 
 by Kant; Johann Georg Heinrich Feder (1740-1820), a 
 representative eclectic of the " common sense," utilitarian 
 type, who, together with Christoph Meiners, established a 
 " Philosophical Library " for the purpose of combating the 
 Kantian Criticism; Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723- 
 1790), a successful popular pedagogist, one of whose doc- 
 trines may here be mentioned because of the contrasts it 
 offers to a corresponding one of Kant's, viz., that the 
 doctrines of the existence of God and the immortality of 
 the soul must be true because belief in them is morally 
 beneficial. 1 We may now turn to the two most important 
 Illuminationists, Mendelssohn and Lessing. 
 
 9 2 - 
 
 Moses Mendelssohn* (1729-1786). Moses Mendels- 
 sohn was the son of a Jewish teacher and author, of Dessau. 
 He went to Berlin at the age of fourteen, and in the face of 
 many and great difficulties gained a livelihood (as a private 
 teacher, and as a book-keeper and manager of a silk estab- 
 lishment), carried on his studies, and won the recognition 
 of thinkers and scholars. Early educated as a Jew, he was 
 always at heart a Jew, and labored most nobly for the eleva- 
 tion of his race, translating portions of the Old Testament 
 1 See Erdmann, 300, II. 2 Zeller, Erdmann, Noack.
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 26 1 
 
 into German, preparing a Jewish ritual, championing the 
 cause of free thought and universal toleration, and empha- 
 sizing certain central truths of universal religion. In the 
 formation of his philosophical opinions he was much in- 
 fluenced by personal intercourse with Lessing and Nicolai', 
 both pronounced Illuminationists, and by a study of the 
 works of Locke, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, the Scotch school, 
 Rousseau, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Wolff, nearly all thinkers 
 of a rationalistic type, and instrumental in bringing about 
 the philosophical Illumination throughout Germany in the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Works. Works of Mendelssohn are : " Philosophische 
 Gesprache " (Philosophical Dialogues), (1755) ; " Briefe 
 liber die Empfindungen " (Letters on the Sensations), 
 ( I 755) > "Phsedon, oder iiber die Unsterblichkeit der 
 Seele"(Phaedo, or on the Immortality of the Soul), (1767) ; 
 " Morgenstunden, oder Vorlesungen iiber das Dasein 
 Gottes " (Morning Hours, or Lectures on the Existence 
 of God), (1785). 
 
 Philosophy. The only worthy end of human endeavor 
 is the happiness and perfection of human individuals. 
 " Humanity " is a mere dead, fixed abstraction. " Science," 
 as such merely, is likewise an empty abstraction. The 
 prime requisite for the attainment of human happiness is a 
 knowledge of human nature, which is gained only by a care- 
 ful psychological investigation. This investigation must be 
 conducted, first of all, observation-wise ; reason (the rea- 
 soning faculty) of itself is liable to err, and must be con- 
 trolled by the more primitive understanding, whose material 
 is sensations and intuitions. The final criterion of truth is 
 practical need, the heart. Between (and co-ordinate with) 
 cognition and desire lies feeling, which is either pleasurable 
 or painful. A pleasurable feeling results from the idea of 
 perfection, a painful one from the opposite. A feeling 
 produced by perfection in a sensible form is a sensation of 
 sensible beauty. The impulse towards the realization of the 
 idea of perfection is the fundamental impulse in human
 
 262 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 nature, and the highest law of our will. Stated as an injunc- 
 tion, this law is : " Make the inner and outer condition of thy- 
 self and others as faultless as thou canst." Indispensable 
 for the fulfilment of this injunction and the realization of 
 the idea of perfection is a rational faith in God, in the divine 
 government of the world, and in the immortality of the soul. 
 Now, the existence of God follows for us from the idea of 
 the most perfect being : the idea is self-contradictory unless 
 God be. The being of God follows, further, from the con- 
 tingent nature of the world. That the soul is immortal 
 follows from such considerations as that : Nature knows 
 no real annihilation; a rational being, striving by the ne- 
 cessity of its nature towards perfection, cannot reasonably 
 be hindered in its destiny ; the rational necessity of retribu- 
 tion is not satisfied in the present existence ; without the 
 hope of immortality human life must be a life of stupefac- 
 tion and despair. But if the soul endures, so must its chief 
 attributes, thought and will; and its existence must be a 
 happy one, since it is impossible that God, the perfect 
 being, could destine it for eternal wretchedness. These 
 principles relative to human happiness, God, and immor- 
 tality are for Mendelssohn almost, if not quite, axiomatic. 
 Metaphysics he deems to have every whit the evidence, 
 /'. <?., the certainty and comprehensibility, that mathematics 
 boasts ; it is only because mathematics has a system of 
 well-chosen symbols, is not concerned with the existence 
 of objects, and does not immediately affect our interests, 
 that a prejudice in its favor exists. Descartes, indeed, 
 showed clearly and distinctly the mathematical certainty 
 and intelligibility of metaphysics in his demonstrations 
 of the existence of the ego and of God. Without this 
 certainty and intelligibility metaphysics were of course 
 valueless. 
 
 93- 
 
 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing* (1729-1781). Lessing, 
 the most original and profound of the Illuminationists, or 
 1 Zeller, Erdmann, Noack; Works of Lessing.
 
 LESSING. 263 
 
 German rationalists, was the son of a preacher and author, 
 received an uncommonly good training in mathematics and 
 the classics at the Latin school of his native place, Kamenz, 
 in Upper Lusatia, and at the " great school of St. Afra in 
 Meissen," and attended the University of Leipsic (to be- 
 come, as he phrased it, not a scholar, but a man) and after- 
 wards the university at Wittenberg, where he took his 
 master's degree. Instead of making theology or medicine 
 his profession, as his father desired, he was drawn by a 
 social nature, literary tastes, and a desire to become a pol- 
 ished man of the world, into the society of actors and 
 dramatists, and finally chose literature as a calling. His 
 works fall chiefly in the departments of the drama and 
 aesthetic criticism and of philosophico-theological criticism. 
 
 Works. Lessing's philosophical views are to be found 
 principally in his " Das Christenthum der Vernunft " (The 
 Christianity of Reason), (1752-1753) ; " Ueber die Wirk- 
 lichkeit der Dinge ausser Gott " ( On the Reality of Things 
 outside God), (1763) ; and " Die Erziehung des Menschen- 
 geschlechts " (On the Education of the Human Race), 
 (1780). 
 
 Philosophy. Profound and comprehensive in thought as 
 Lessing is universally acknowledged to be, his place is 
 primarily among the great writers rather than among the 
 great philosophers of the world. He himself avowed that 
 he was not, and would not be, a philosopher, that the 
 pursuit was nobler than the fixed possession of truth. His 
 importance in relation to the history of philosophy lies 
 chiefly in the fact of his force and influence as a critic, and 
 as suggester of fruitful points of view. It is as a champion 
 of the higher reason rather, perhaps, than the enlightened 
 understanding of which Mendelssohn is the purest repre- 
 sentative, that Lessing has a place among the Illumination- 
 ists. His metaphysical principles are those of Leibnitz as 
 modified by the influence of Spinoza, on the one hand, and, 
 on the other, the individualistic thinkers of France and 
 England, with all of whom he had a learned acquaintance.
 
 264 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The monads are to Lessing real individuals, actually exist- 
 ing partialized " perfections " or " realities " in the Leib- 
 nitzo-Wolffian sense, of God : they are parts of God, who is 
 therefore something other than the ideal totality of things. 
 They are in God, and we can have no conception of things 
 outside God. They exist by the fact that God through 
 them presents to himself the world : they are not sub- 
 stances, in the Leibnitzian sense, nor Spinozistic modes. 
 They are individualized, though (and hence) partialized, 
 perfections of God. God is not in things, constituting their 
 substance, as Spinoza taught, nor is he outside things, as 
 the Deists held. He is that which comprehends all things 
 in its representative power; he is transcendent persona- 
 lity. In this attempt to reconcile individualism and pan- 
 theism, Lessing seems more a Leibnitzian than a Spinozist ; 
 but he finds no use for the doctrine of a pre-established 
 harmony, so cardinal in Leibnitz's system. He holds, how- 
 ever, to the Leibnitzian determinism : we lose nothing by 
 the loss of freedom except the bare capacity to choose, and 
 ought to be thankful that we " must" All things are bound 
 together in a web of causes and effects and tend towards 
 the one best thing. The human soul, as tending towards 
 perfection, requires infinite room, an immortality, for its full 
 activity. A sine qua non to the attainment of the goal of 
 perfection and happiness is intellectual enlightenment ; in- 
 deed, man's end is not merely perfection and happiness, 
 but these through enlightenment. Immortal existence em- 
 braces a plurality of existences for each individual, a series 
 of soul-wanderings under the guidance of a divine provi- 
 dence. The end of the individual's existence lies in the 
 individual. The State is but a means to this end : the ideal 
 State is just that State in which the individual is a law and 
 end unto himself. Such an ideal State has yet to be real- 
 ized. In the past there has been a gradual development 
 towards the complete realization of this ideal, which will 
 be fully realized only when pure reason prevails. In the 
 past, revelation has guided men ; but revelation is an in-
 
 ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY. 26$ 
 
 ferior sort of reason, and suited only to the lower conditions 
 of men. There was, first, the Jewish revelation, then the 
 Christian. From the " Christian religion," or religion that 
 honors Christ as a supernatural being, must be distinguished 
 the " religion of Christ," the religion of piety, human 
 love, and the doing good for good's sake ; /. e., of reason. 
 In general, religions founded on revelations and creeds 
 must be regarded as of an inferior order, as having only a 
 temporary value, and as deriving all their usefulness from 
 the success with which they adapt natural religion to special 
 conditions of life. To the higher reason, the dogmas of 
 the Trinity, original sin, and atonement have a certain 
 meaning, it is true. God finds it better, for perfection's 
 sake, to give man laws and pardon his transgressions of 
 them than to leave him without laws. But the traditional 
 orthodoxy is a horrible product of madness. Lessing an- 
 ticipates in important respects the philosophy of history 
 and of religion of the next period. 
 
 94- 
 
 Italian Philosophy. Italian philosophy, in what we have 
 designated as the second period of modern philosophy, 
 may be described, in general terms, as principally either a 
 repetition of Cartesianism, or else of Lockianism, particularly 
 in the form of Condillacism. Cartesians were Tommaso 
 Cornelio (1614-1684) ; Michelangelo Fardella (1650- 
 1718), who studied three years in Paris with Malebranche 
 and Arnauld ; Cardinal Giacintho Gerdil (i 718-1802) ; Vin- 
 cenzo Miceli (1713-1 781) ; and numerous others. Lockian 
 were Francesco Soave (who translated into Italian Locke's 
 " Essay," and wrote many works in the spirit of Locke), 
 G. C. Bini, F. Barkovich, M. De Tomaso, and others. The 
 philosophies of Wolff and Leibnitz had each an adherent or 
 two. The most important single name is that of Giovanni 
 Battista Vico, commonly known as the " founder of the 
 philosophy of history" in modern times, of whom it is 
 necessary to give some account.
 
 266 A Hf STORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 95- 
 
 Giovanni Battistd Vico (1668-1744). Vico, educated 
 at the University of Naples, occupied at one time the chair of 
 rhetoric there, but was for most of his life unrecognized by 
 the world, though a laborious student and author of a num- 
 ber of works. 
 
 Work. Vico's fame as a philosopher rests chiefly upon 
 his " Principii della Scienza Nuova d' intorno alia Commune 
 Natura delle Nazioni " (2d edition, 1730). 
 
 Philosophy. According to Vico, human history, like 
 nature, is governed by law, and to be understood must be 
 viewed as the physicist views nature. The laws of history 
 are a product of an inborn sentiment at first instinctive 
 merely, but finally conscious and voluntary governing 
 human conduct. They assume at first a religious guise, as 
 primitive man is incapable of philosophical reflection ; next 
 they appear as abstract, though unreasoned, formulae ; and 
 finally as reasoned principles. Under all forms they remain 
 substantially the same. Corresponding with the three stages 
 in the development of law are three stages in the progress 
 of civilization, called the divine, the heroic, and the human. 
 These stages repeat themselves in the history of the same 
 nationality ; so that history obeys a " law of cycles." His- 
 tory is the manifestation of a divine providence operating 
 through the spontaneous activity of human nature. Vico's 
 method is a professed synthesis of the a priori method 
 (of Plato and Descartes), and the empirical method (of 
 Bacon) ; and his philosophy aims to be at once a theodicy 
 and a history. 
 
 96. 
 
 American Philosophy^ In American philosophy we 
 have the well-known Calvinist theologian Jonathan Ed- 
 wards (1703-1758), who appears to hold the position of 
 
 1 See Porter's " Philosophy in America " (in vol. ii. of Ueberweg) ; 
 also " Mind," vol. iv. ; "Journal of Speculative Philosophy," vol. ii. ; 
 Edwards on the Will.
 
 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY. 267 
 
 being the most original and acute if not the most sound 
 of American philosophers. Among Edwards's principal 
 works are a " Treatise on the Religious Affections " (i 746) ; 
 " A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Modern Notion of 
 Free Will," etc. (1754), his chief work; and "Disserta- 
 tion concerning the Nature of True Virtue " (1788). In 
 his doctrine of the will Edwards advocates a theory of 
 necessitarianism not unlike that of Hobbes and Locke, to 
 the effect that the only freedom possessed by man is the 
 freedom, not to will, but merely to act as he, governed 
 by the "strongest motive," "wills." Liberty of choice, 
 so-called, is a self-contradictory notion, since it implies 
 a choice of choice, a choice of that choice, and so on ad 
 infinitum. Necessity in the will, instead of being incon- 
 sistent with the notion of virtue, is alone consistent with it. 
 In his doctrine of virtue Edwards maintains that virtue is 
 benevolence, or (as he defines it), "love towards universal 
 being as such, or God; " he distinguishes between the " ap- 
 probation of mere conscience " and that of " inclination," 
 the " heart," " disposition," or " religious affections," which 
 is generated by the divine inworking, and is necessary to 
 constitute virtue true virtue or real love to universal being 
 as such, or God. Moral evil is a product of the merely 
 natural as distinguished from the divine principle in man. 
 God permits, but is not himself the author of, evil. Ed- 
 wards has had a considerable number of followers, among 
 the most important of whom are his son Jonathan Edwards 
 (1745-1801), once president of Union College; Samuel 
 Hopkins (1721-1803), a clergyman who had studied 
 philosophy with the elder Edwards; Nathaniel Emmons 
 (1745-1840), a clergyman and theologian; Timothy 
 Dwight (1752-1817), once professor in and president of 
 Yale College; Charles G. Finney (1792-1875), professor 
 at and president of Oberlin College ; Edwards A. Park 
 (1808), professor in Andover Theological Seminary; and 
 others.
 
 268 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 DIVISION III. THIRD PERIOD OF MODERN 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 97- 
 
 The Characteristics and Divisions of the Third Period 
 of Modern Philosophy. If the Second Period of modern 
 philosophy is characteristically a period of formal analysis 
 and reflection, the Third Period extending from the 
 third quarter of the eighteenth century onwards is a 
 period of synthesis and speculative deduction. The pro- 
 blems of method and the origin of knowledge recur, but 
 in closer relation with that of content and being ; and 
 this because being and knowledge are recognized as hav- 
 ing a common centre, self-consciousness. Thought in this 
 period is empiricistic, intuitionalistic, rationalistic, as in the 
 second ; but empiricism, intuitionism, rationalism, as forms 
 of self-consciousness, are seen to have an organic relation. 
 As regards the results of the thinking of this period, they 
 cannot, in the nature of the case, be mere dogmatism nor 
 mere scepticism in the theory of knowledge and being, nor 
 unqualified mechanicism in the theory of nature, nor pure 
 determinism in the theory of the will ; they are, in fact, 
 respectively, idealism (subjective or absolute), organicism, 
 and what we may call, for want of a better term, " liberta- 
 rianism." To a very large extent, systems in this period 
 group themselves, in their actual historical connections, by 
 nationalities, but may in general be grouped as follows, as re- 
 gards the rubrics "empiricism," "intuitionism," "rational- 
 ism " : empiricistic are the English systems ; intuitionalistic 
 the Scotch, French, and Italian ; rationalistic the German 
 systems ; miscellaneous, the American. The intuitionalistic 
 systems always, of course, contain a large element of mere 
 empiricism. The order in which it is most practicable to 
 take up the systems is as follows: (i) the Scotch, (2) the 
 French, (3) the German, (4) the Italian, (5) the English, 
 (6) the American.
 
 SCOTCH SYSTEMS. REID. 269 
 
 (i) Scotch Systems. Of the Scotch systems of the Third 
 Period, the following are here treated ; viz., those of Thomas 
 Reid, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, Sir William Hamil- 
 ton, James Ferrier. Ferrier does not belong to the " Scotch 
 school," in the ordinary sense of the term " Scotch school," 
 but is a decided opponent of its principles. But just on 
 account of his opposition to those principles, is it conve- 
 nient to place him in the same group with the other Scotch 
 philosophers, though he is not even an intuitionist. 
 
 99- 
 
 Thomas Reid 1 (1710-1796). Reid, who was the son 
 of a clergyman, was born not far from Aberdeen. He 
 studied theology at Mareschal College, Aberdeen, where he 
 graduated at the age of sixteen. He had as instructor in 
 philosophy George Turnbull. From him Reid, it is said, 
 learned more than from all other masters and writers put 
 together. For ten years after graduation, Reid acted 
 as librarian of the college, continuing his studies mean- 
 while. He presided as pastor over a parish in Aberdeen- 
 shire for some years (with indifferent success) ; and in 
 1752, on the merits of some brief treatises, among them 
 one on Aristotle's Logic, was appointed professor of 
 moral philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen. From 
 1764 to 1780 he occupied the chair of moral philosophy 
 in the University of Glasgow. He is described as having 
 been singularly modest, cautious, sincere, and devout, and 
 as very positive in his convictions. 
 
 Works. Reid's chief works are : " Enquiry into the 
 Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense " 
 (1764), "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man" 
 (1785), "Essays on the Active Powers of the Human 
 Mind" (1788). These works had their origin chiefly in 
 
 1 McCosh, "Scottish Philosophy;" Noack ; Porter's "Philosophy 
 in Great Britain and America ; " Works of Reid ; etc.
 
 2/O A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 a purpose to refute Humian scepticism and Lockian- 
 Berkeleyan subjective idealism. 
 
 Philosophy : Standpoint and Method. At first a Ber- 
 keleyan in philosophy, Reid, according to his own account 
 of himself, was driven by an impulse received from the 
 scepticism of Hume to the position which has come to be 
 
 \J known as the standpoint of " Common Sense." He at one 
 time renounced philosophy (as ordinarily understood, at 
 least), and declared that the hopeless condition of philos- 
 ophy in his day was owing to the fact that philosophy had 
 undertaken to sit in judgment on common sense. His 
 philosophical importance, such as it is, seems to depend 
 chiefly on his doctrine of sensation and perception, and of 
 
 ^ the a priori element in knowledge. We may notice also 
 his classification of the powers of the mind. The method 
 of philosophy is, according to Reid, the method of observa- 
 
 v / tion : philosophy is the empirical science of mind. There 
 are certain principles of the common human understanding 
 which are the basis of all thought and science, as presup- 
 posed by every investigation. Such are the following : we 
 think, remember, draw conclusions ; " fresh and living mem- 
 ory equals in certainty and evidence consciousness itself;" 
 we may have as clear and indubitable knowledge of the 
 activities of our minds as of the external world ; our 
 thoughts are .manifestations of a thinking principle which 
 we call " ego ; " some things exist, not of themselves, but 
 only in and by another as its property or characteristic ; 
 there must for most of the activities of the mind be given 
 something different from them, which is their object ; there 
 are certain things about which all men of all times and 
 peoples agree; all things may be admitted about which 
 there is agreement among sane-minded men. 
 
 Sensation and Perception. We have immediate knowl- 
 edge of the " external world ; " we do not conclude from a 
 resemblance of an idea to an object to the existence and 
 nature of the object, since we should have to know before- 
 hand the object itself in order to compare the two. Such
 
 REID. 271 
 
 resemblance, moreover, does not exist. The (Lockian) 
 doctrine of representative ideas is therefore false, a mere 
 begging of the question. In perception there is not only a 
 feeling, an " impression " produced upon or in sense, but 
 an immediate primitive act of judgment affirming the ex- 
 istence of an object of the sensation. The sensation is a 
 " sign " or " suggestion," upon the occurrence of which the 
 mind spontaneously and at once applies its inner principles'" 
 to the determination of the object, and exercises belief in 
 its existence as determined. The sensation is not to be 
 considered as a ground of inference to the external world, 
 since the act of perception is not a mediate but an im- 
 mediate or direct act or process. Ideas regarded as indi- 
 vidual existences which are intermediaries between objects 
 and the mind, are mere fictions : ideas exist in and with (not 
 merely after) the " primitive judgment " of perception, and\ 
 become independent objects of the mind only in conse^ 
 quence of a " resolving and analyzing " of the natural and 
 original judgment, or an act of "simple apprehension." 
 Our knowledge of ourselves is as direct as that of the ex-^ 
 ternal world : " it is not by first having the notions of mind 
 and sensation, and then comparing them together that we 
 perceive the one to have the relation of a subject or sub- 
 stratum, and the other that of an act or operation ; on the 
 contrary, one of the related things to wit, sensation 
 suggests to us both the correlate and the relation." In this 
 doctrine of sensation and perception is contained, besides 
 the refutation of the theory of representative ideas, the 
 Humian notion of the individual independence of " percep- 
 tions," and the Lockian doctrine of knowledge as the per- 
 ception of agreement or difference between two separately 
 presented ideas ; also a refutation of the doctrine that the 
 mind is at first a mere tabula rasa. The mind, that is to 
 say, contributes something of itself towards knowledge. 
 
 " Common Sense." We ascribe to reason two offices, 
 or two degrees. The first is to judge of things self-evident ; 
 the second, to draw conclusions which are not self-evident
 
 272 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Irom those that are. The first of these is the province, and 
 the sole province, of common sense. The principles of 
 common sense (which it is important to determine, since 
 every man is competent to judge of them, and opinions 
 which contradict first principles are both false and ab- 
 surd) are of two classes, contingent and_necessary. Of 
 the former class there are twelve, as follows : ( i ) Every- 
 thing of which I am conscious exists ; (2) The thoughts of 
 which I am conscious are the thoughts of a being which I 
 call myself, my mind, my person; (3) Those things did 
 really happen which I distinctly remember ; (4) We know 
 our own personal identity and continued existence as far 
 back as we can distinctly remember; (5) Those things do 
 really exist which we distinctly perceive by our senses, and 
 are what we perceive them to be; (6) We have some de- 
 gree of power over our actions and the determination of 
 our wills; (7) The natural faculties by which we distinguish 
 truth and error are not fallacious ; (8) There is life and intelli- 
 gence in our fellow-men with whom we converse ; (9) Cer- 
 tain features of the countenance, sounds of the voice, and 
 gestures of the body indicate certain thoughts and disposi- 
 tions of the mind; (10) There is a certain regard due to 
 human testimony in matters of fact, and even to human 
 authority in matters of opinion; (n) There are many 
 events depending on the will of man in which there is a 
 self-evident probability, greater or less according to circum- 
 stances; (12) In the phenomena of nature, what is to be 
 will probably be like what has been in similar circum- 
 stances. Necessary truths are of the following classes : ( i ) 
 grammatical principles; (2) logical axioms; (3) mathe- 
 matical axioms; (4) axioms in matters of taste; (5) prin- 
 ciples in morals, e. g., An unjust action has more demerit 
 than an ungenerous one; (6) metaphysical principles, 
 e. g., (a) The qualities we perceive by our senses must have 
 a subject, which we call body, and the thoughts we are con- 
 scious of must have a subject, which we call mind ; (b) 
 Whatever begins to exist must have a cause which produced
 
 'REID. 273 
 
 it ; (c) Design and intelligence in the cause may be in- 
 ferred with certainty from marks or signs of them in the 
 effect. The principles of common sense are established 
 upon the general consent of mankind, as shown particu- 
 larly in the language of men. 
 
 The "Powers of Man." The human "powers," or 
 " faculties," are, first of all, " intellectual " and " active." 
 The intellectual powers are, external sense, memory, con- 
 ception, abstraction, judgment, reasoning, taste, moral per- 
 ception, consciousness, and the social operation of the 
 mind. To sense-perception may be attributed direct 
 knowledge of external existence (including space) ; to 
 memory an immediate knowledge of the past and of per- 
 sonal identity ; to conception, the forming of notions of 
 individual things, of the meanings of words (and of im- 
 aginary existences) ; to abstraction, the formation of general 
 conceptions (universals have no existence except in the 
 mind) ; to judgment, the framing of the principles of com- 
 mon sense ; to reasoning, ratiocination ; to taste, the being 
 pleased or displeased, together with the power of judgment 
 (the beauty and sublimity of objects of sense being "de- 
 rived from the expression they exhibit of things intellectual, 
 which alone have original beauty "). Active powers can be 
 attributed only to subjects having thought, understanding, 
 and will. There is no efficient cause in nature as known to 
 " natural philosophy : " "a physical cause is not an agent ; 
 it does not act, but is acted on, and is passive as to its 
 effect." Will (or the form of active power, which in itself 
 is not directly known) is to be distinguished from desire 
 and the affections. It is free (as we know directly from 
 the testimony of consciousness, the fact of moral obligation, 
 etc.). "I grant that all rational beings are influenced, 
 and ought to be influenced, by motives. But the relation 
 between motive and action is of a very different nature from 
 the relation between an efficient cause and its effect. An 
 efficient cause must be a being that exists and has the power 
 to produce the effect. A motive is not a thing that exists. 
 VOL. i. 18
 
 2/4 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 It is only a thing conceived in the mind of the agent. 
 Motives imply liberty in the agent, otherwise they have no 
 influence at all." The principles of action are mechanical 
 (as instincts and habits), animal (appetites, desires, and 
 affections), rational (regard for our good upon the whole, 
 and a regard to duty). Duty, right and wrong, and the 
 first principles of morals are discovered by the " moral 
 faculty." Moral principles relate to virtue in general, to 
 the different kinds of virtue, and to the comparison of vir- 
 tues. Of the first sort an example is, Some things in human 
 conduct merit approbation and praise, others blame and 
 punishment ; of the second, We ought to prefer a greater 
 to a less good ; of the third, Unmerited beneficence should 
 yield to compassion to the miserable. 1 
 
 Result. Reid is evidently to be classed as an intuitionist, 
 with all his empiricism. From the fact of its antagonistic 
 relation to the pronounced scepticism of Hume, Reid's in- 
 tuitionism has a more critical and more positive character 
 than that of Lord Cherbury, with which it may naturally 
 be compared. Reid, though not usually regarded as the 
 founder, is the chief, of the " Scotch school " of (empirical) 
 intuitionists. His teachings have had not a little influence 
 also outside of his own country : Rousseau in France, 
 Jacobi, Fries, and others in Germany, owing a decided 
 debt to him. 
 
 ioo. 
 
 Dugald Stewart* (1753-1828). Dugald Stewart, who 
 was a son of Matthew Stewart, professor of mathematics 
 in the University of Edinburgh, was educated at Edin- 
 burgh High School and at Glasgow University. At Glasgow 
 he gave special attention to mathematics and philosophy. 
 He was a pupil and became a friend and follower of Reid. 
 For a time he acted as a substitute for his father in the 
 chair of mathematics, and then as associate professor of 
 
 1 See Porter. 
 
 2 See McCosh, Franck, Noack, etc.
 
 DUGALD STEWART. 2?$ 
 
 mathematics, in the University of Edinburgh. During one 
 session he lectured on morals in the same institution. In 
 1785 he took the chair of moral philosophy, which he 
 occupied for the next twenty-seven years, exercising a large 
 and wholesome influence for the promotion of philosophi- 
 cal culture. 
 
 Works. Stewart's principal works are : " The Elements 
 of the Human Mind " (three volumes, 1792, 1814, 1827) ; 
 "Outlines of Moral Philosophy" (1793); "Philosophical 
 Essays" (1810) ; "A General View of the Progress of 
 Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy since the 
 Revival of Letters " (1815 and 1821, in the " Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica ") ; "The Philosophy of the Active and Moral 
 Powers " (1828). 
 
 Philosophy. Stewart, even more, if possible, than Reid, 
 makes of philosophy the empirical science of mind. His 
 general position is substantially that of Reid. Peculiar 
 to him seem to be the following assertions : ( i ) Our con- 
 viction of the independence of the perceived object de- 
 pends partly on the " repetition of the act of perception " 
 in reference to one and the same perceived object, partly 
 on the natural belief of " common sense " in a fixed order 
 of nature ; (2) There are three (instead of two) classes 
 of sensible qualities, the third class (mathematical quali- 
 ties) being constituted by extension, form, etc., which are 
 posited directly as exterior, and are presupposed by the 
 other primary qualities; (3) Though we are aware of 
 both subject and object in perception, we are conscious, in 
 the strict sense of the term, only of the former, we are 
 certain of ourselves, or subject, only by inference from the 
 sensation or the act of thinking; (4) The association of 
 ideas (a topic to which Stewart gave extended attention) 
 is not to be deduced from custom, but custom from the 
 association of ideas; (5) Our power over the association 
 of our ideas is not one of arbitrary will merely, but one 
 of knowledge of the principles of cause and effect, ground 
 and consequence ; (6) Our ideas succeed one another
 
 2/6 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 in dreams according to the same law as in waking con- 
 sciousness, the difference between the two states being due 
 solely to the influence of the will. 
 
 101. 
 
 Thomas Brown 1 (1778-1820). Brown, who was the 
 son of a Presbyterian clergyman, was born near Edinburgh, 
 educated in and near London, and at the University of 
 Edinburgh. At the university he manifested the liveliest 
 interest, and displayed great acuteness, in philosophical 
 studies. He studied law, and afterwards medicine, and 
 became in the latter a successful practitioner. In 1810 
 he was appointed adjunct professor of moral philosophy 
 in the University of Edinburgh, having previously acted 
 once as a substitute for Stewart during an illness of the 
 latter. He died comparatively young, of overwork. Brown 
 (like Stewart) was an eloquent lecturer. 
 
 Works. Philosophical works of Brown are, " An In- 
 quiry into the Relations of Cause and Effect" (1804; 3d 
 edition 1818) ; "Lectures on the Philosophy of the Hu- 
 man Mind" (1820); " Physiology of the Human Mind" 
 (1820). He made contributions to the "Edinburgh 
 Review," of which he was one of the founders, 
 among them an article on Kant. 
 
 Philosophy. Under the same stimulus (the teachings 
 of Hume) which called forth from Reid his peculiar anti- 
 sceptical theories of perception and intuitive cognition 
 in general, Brown put forth a doctrine that was almost 
 more sceptical than otherwise, quite antagonistic in 
 important respects to that of his predecessors in the Scotch 
 school. Brown limits knowledge to phenomena. He re- 
 jects the notion of occult "powers" or "faculties" of the 
 mind, and reduces the mind to a series of " states " (if not 
 quite to Hume's "bundle of perceptions"). These he 
 5rings under two general heads ; viz., " simple suggestion," 
 or the reproduction of the ideas of absent objects, and 
 1 McCosh, " Scottish Philosophy," etc.
 
 BROWN. 277 
 
 "relative suggestion," or the perception of relation among ) 
 ideas. Consciousness with Brown is not separate from / J 
 the states of the mind, it is merely the " whole series ^ 
 of states " of the mind. External bodies are perceived 
 through sensations of resistance (which must not be con- 
 founded with those of touch), outness, extension, inter- 
 preted by means of an intuited idea of cause ; all that we 
 really know being merely sensations. Regarding causa- 
 tion, Brown says : " When we say that B will follow A 
 to-morrow, because A was followed by B to-day, we do 
 not prove that the future will resemble the past, but we 
 take for granted that the future is to_jesejnbje_the past. \S 
 We have only to ask ourselves why we believe in this simi- 
 larity of sequence ; and our very inability of stating any ~ 
 ground of inference may convince us that the belief which 1 
 it is impossible for us not to feel is the result of some other 
 principle of reasoning " (than from mere experience) *" 
 namely mtuilkmr-~ (If we substitute " custom^for " intui\ \/ 
 tion," we get Hume's doctrine of causation. Brown, in/ 
 fact, says that the difference between Reid and Hume wa'sV 
 one of terms rather than of opinion.) Brown gives a table 
 of subjective categories, as follows: (i) "Coexistence," 
 including "position," "resemblance or difference," "de- 
 gree," " proportion," " comprehension," " whole and 
 parts;" (2) "Succession," including "casual priority," 
 "causal priority." Emotions are "immediate," "retro- 
 spective," and " prospective." Will is mere desire, voli- 
 tion the strongest desire. The moral faculty consists of\ 
 the " emotions " of " approbation " and " disapprobation." ' 
 Brown strongly advocates the application of physical 1 ] 
 methods of inquiry to the study of the mind. 
 
 Result. In Brown the principle of intuitionism ap- 
 pears in closest union and also in sharpest contrast with 
 its opposite, that of scepticism. Brown, it is obvious, 
 deviates considerably from the positions of his predecessors 
 in the Scotch school. His philosophy "occupies an in- 
 termediate place between the earlier Scotch school and
 
 2/8 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the later analytical or associational psychology." l To 
 some extent a follower of Brown was, as we shall see, the 
 German Beneke. Brown seems to have influenced J. S. 
 Mill's thinking. 
 
 102. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton z (1788-1856). Hamilton was 
 the son of Dr. William Hamilton, professor of anatomy and 
 botany in the University of Glasgow. By the death of the 
 father a few years after the birth of the son, the entire 
 bringing up of the son devolved upon the mother, said to 
 have been a woman of unusual ability and force of char- 
 acter. William received an excellent education. At the 
 University of Glasgow he distinguished himself as a student 
 in logic and moral philosophy; at Oxford he sustained 
 an examination on an unprecedentedly wide range of read- 
 ing, and acquired very high distinction in philosophical 
 studies. His reading included, besides other things, 
 almost all the writings of Aristotle and the philosophical 
 works of Cicero. He had already chosen as profession 
 medicine, and had made preparatory studies in it, but 
 instead of practising medicine, he studied law, or rather 
 pretended to study law ; for his chief occupation while an 
 "advocate" was reading in the Scotch libraries. In 1820, 
 after failure as an advocate, he was appointed to the chair 
 of universal history in the University of Edinburgh, and 
 in 1836 to the chair of logic, having in the mean time won 
 a name as a philosophical writer by articles published in 
 the " Edinburgh Review." A paralytic stroke (in 1844), 
 much illness, and certain minor misfortunes fell to his lot 
 and interfered with the execution of important designs of 
 his in philosophy. He was greatly aided in his work by 
 his wife, but for the assistance of whom as amanuensis his 
 
 1 See " Encyclopaedia Britannica." 
 
 a See W. H. Monck's "Sir William Hamilton" ("English Phi- 
 losophers"); " Encyclopaedia Britannica ;" Hamilton's Lectures on 
 " Logic " and " Metaphysics ; " O. W. Wight's " Philosophy of 
 Hamilton ; " Veitch, " Memoir of Sir William Hamilton."
 
 HAMILTON. 279 
 
 lectures (generally written the night before delivery in the 
 class-room) could not have been given to his classes. 
 'Hamilton has the reputation of having been the most 
 erudite of all philosophers, and also of having been an 
 unusually lucid expositor of philosophic truth. 
 
 Works. Hamilton's principal works are, " Discussions 
 in Philosophy, Literature, and Education " (1852-1853), 
 a collection of articles previously published in the "Edin- 
 burgh Review," among them the celebrated one on the 
 " Philosophy of the Unconditioned ; " " Notes and Disserta- 
 tions " accompanying an edition of Reid's works (1846), 
 very important ; Lectures on " Logic " and on " Meta- 
 physics " (1859-1860). 
 
 Philosophy : General Conception of Philosophy. Phi- 
 losophy, in the full sense of the term, is a knowledge of 
 causes and of effects in their causes ; in a narrower sense, 
 it is the knowledge of mind as the " universal and principal 
 concurrent cause in every act of knowledge." It has its 
 origin primarily in the necessity the mind feels to " connect 
 causes with effects " and to " carry up our knowledge into 
 unity ; " secondarily, in the feeling of wonder. As to the 
 methods of philosophy, the " one necessary condition of 
 its possibility is the decomposition of effects into their 
 constituted causes," analysis. This is the fundamental 
 problem of philosophy. But we analyze that we may com- 
 prehend ; and we comprehend only inasmuch as we are 
 able to reconstruct in thought the complete effects which 
 we have analyzed into their elements. This mental recon- 
 struction is the final, the consummative procedure of phi- 
 losophy, synthesis. Analysis and synthesis are, properly 
 understood, the two correlative necessary parts of the same 
 method, the one possible method of philosophy. The 
 aberrations of philosophy have all been so many viola- 
 tions of the one method. There are two practical condi- 
 tions of the study of philosophy : viz., first, the renunciation 
 of all prejudices, the exercising of (provisional) doubt : 
 and, second, the subjugation of the passions, particularly
 
 280 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 sloth and pride. The parts of philosophy answer to the 
 three questions : ( i ) What are the facts or phenomena 
 to be observed? (2) What are the laws which regulate- 
 these facts, or under which these phenomena appear? 
 (3) What are the results not immediately manifested 
 which these facts warrant us in drawing? The parts of 
 philosophy are accordingly the phenomenology of mind, or 
 empirical psychology ; the nomology of mind, or rational 
 psychology ; ontology, or inferential psychology, or meta- 
 physics proper. Hamilton occupied himself systematically 
 chiefly with phenomenological and nomological investiga- 
 tions : he produced no ontology proper. W r e may indicate 
 the most general results of his psychology, and then take 
 up points relating to the higher theory of knowledge and 
 being. 
 
 Phenomenology. Mental phenomena are possible only 
 under a certain condition ; namely, consciousness, or the 
 knowledge that the ego exists in some determinate state. 
 Consciousness may be " compared to an internal light by 
 means of which, and which alone, what passes in the mind 
 is rendered visible. It is simple, and always resembles 
 itself, except in intensity. It is not a special phenomenon, 
 but comprehends within itself all phenomena." As knowl- 
 edge it is immediate : it affirms its object explicitly, and 
 the subject implicitly. Whatever appears in conscious- 
 ness is there ; consciousness possesses entire veracity, and 
 is the basis of all thought. Necessary to every act of con- 
 sciousness is attention, which has three degrees, being 
 either a mere vital, irresistible act, or an act determined 
 by desire, or an act determined by volition. Attention 
 is to consciousness what the contraction of the pupil of 
 the eye is to sight. The phenomena in consciousness 
 may be divided into three classes, phenomena of 
 knowledge, or cognition, of feeling, and of conation 
 (desire and will). The classes of phenomena are not 
 independent of each other : in " every simplest modifi- 
 cation of mind, knowledge, feeling and desire or will,
 
 HAMILTON. 28l 
 
 go to constitute the mental state ; and it is only by 
 scientific abstraction that we are able to analyze the 
 state into elements." Of the three, knowledge is cer- 
 tainly first in order, and both knowledge and feeling are 
 presupposed by will. Cognition and feeling are always 
 in inverse ratio to one another. The cognitive faculty has 
 the following forms : ( i ) Presentative Power, comprising 
 external perception and self-consciousness; (2) Conserva- 
 tive Power, or Memory ; (3) Reproductive Power, com- 
 prising Suggestion (which is without will), Reminiscence 
 (with will) ; (4) Representative Power or Imagination ; 
 (5) Elaborative Power, or Comparison, Faculty of Rela- 
 tions; (6) Regulative Power, or Reason, Common Sense. 
 The feelings fall into two classes : one class comprising 
 feelings that accompany the energies of the cognitive 
 powers, Contemplative Feelings, or Sentiments ; the 
 other, feelings that accompany the energies of the cona- 
 tive powers, Practical Feelings, or Sentiments. To the 
 former class belong the feelings of tedium, beauty, sub- 
 limity, truth ; to the latter, feelings relating to self-pre- 
 servation, enjoyment of existence, preservation of the 
 species, to our tendency towards development and per- 
 fection, to the moral law. Feelings as pleasurable are the 
 accompaniments and reflexes of the spontaneous and 
 unimpeded exertion of a power of whose energy we are 
 conscious ; as painful, the accompaniments and reflexes 
 of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a power. 
 Hamilton does not discuss conations. 
 
 Perception: " Natural Realism" and " Natural Dual- 
 ism" Hamilton rejects the Brownian criticisms of the 
 doctrine of Reid, and takes up a position, akin to that 
 of Reid, styled by him Natural Realism. We have, ac- 
 cording to Hamilton, a direct and immediate conscious- 
 ness of the external world ; our belief in its reality is 
 simply the consequence of our knowledge, immediate 
 feeling, perception of it. We do not have a direct per- 
 ception of material substance : all that we know of that,
 
 282 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 all that we can really designate by the name " matter," is 
 the aggregate of extension, solidity, figure, motion, divisi- 
 bility, roughness, smoothness, etc., which appear to us. 
 We are, it is true, compelled by our mental constitution 
 to attribute these as properties to an independently subsist- 
 ing something; but of this in itself we know absolutely 
 nothing. We know matter only in its effects, phe- 
 nomena. The same is true as regards mind; the term 
 mind is merely a common name for the states of knowing, 
 willing, feeling, etc. Qualities are of three sorts : primary 
 (<?. g., extension), which are modes of the non-ego; sec- 
 ondary (e. g., color) , which are modes of the ego ; and 
 secundo-primary (e.g., resistance), whidh are modes of 
 both ego and non-ego. To the ego belongs not merely 
 the pure mind, but also the body so far as it is merely 
 animate ; to the non-ego, the extra-corporal world and the 
 body so far as extended. We apprehend the three sorts 
 of qualities directly : the primary, through our body con- 
 sidered as a part of the non-ego ; the secondary, through 
 our body as animate ; the secundo-primary, through the 
 body under both characters (as encountering and feel- 
 ing resistance). The consciousness of a resisting thing 
 external to consciousness as such presupposes a posses- 
 sion of the notions of space and motion in space. Space 
 is, in fact, an a priori notion. It is also an empirical 
 perception got through the perception of different colors 
 bordering upon each other. The doctrine of Natural 
 Realism is upheld by the enlightened common sense of 
 mankind. Consciousness of object is involved in the 
 consciousness of mental operations relating to object. To 
 accept (as does Brown) the existence of the external 
 world on account of the natural belief in its existence, 
 and yet to deny the truth of our natural belief in the 
 immediate perception of it, is absurd. Mediate knowledge 
 presupposes immediate. It is impossible to the upholders 
 of the doctrine of representative perception to show that 
 the representation resembles the object, etc. In percep-
 
 HAMILTON. 283 
 
 tion we not only cognize the external world, but distin- 
 guish it from ourselves, we apprehend the existence 
 of matter and mind as separate. Natural Realism involves 
 Natural Dualism. 
 
 Latent Modifications of the Mind : Memoty and the As- 
 sociation of Ideas. The most important problem in this 
 connection is, not the explanation of the phenomenon of 
 retention, for that follows easily from the " self-energy " of 
 the mind, and is " involved in the very conception of its 
 power of self-activity," but the phenomenon of forgetfulness, 
 or the vanishing of a mental activity. How can an activity 
 which has once existed be abolished " without a laceration 
 of the vital unity of the mind as a subject, one and indivi- 
 sible ? " The solution of this problem is to be sought for 
 in the theory of obscure or latent modifications or mental 
 activities, real, but beyond the sphere of consciousness. 
 The infinitely greater part of our spiritual treasures lies 
 always beyond the sphere of consciousness, hid in the 
 obscure recesses of the mind. There are two degrees of 
 latency : first, one* such that the latent knowledge may be 
 applied how and when we will to apply it ; second, one 
 such that whole systems of knowledge may lie uncon- 
 sciously in the mind, unless by some abnormal condition of 
 mind they are thrown into consciousness. Latent modifi- 
 cations are explained by the hypothesis of the constancy of 
 the quantum of mental energy with a continual change of 
 the ideas among which this energy is distributed, the newer 
 ideas naturally attracting to themselves a relatively larger 
 amount of that energy, and the older being crowded out of 
 consciousness. Though memory is known to be greatly 
 dependent on corporeal conditions, latent modifications do 
 not admit of a physiological or materialistic deduction : 
 they must be referred to the unity and self-activity of mind, 
 in virtue of which mental activities which have once been 
 determined persist. By this conception of latent modifica- 
 tions may be explained the Association of Ideas, the general 
 law of which (which may be called the Law of Redin-
 
 284 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 tegration) is that " thoughts which have once co-existed in 
 the mind are afterwards associated, or that those thoughts 
 suggest each other which had previously constituted parts 
 of the same entire or total act of cognition." 
 
 Necessary Cognition. The marks of necessary truth 
 are, incomprehensibility (or inexplicability) , simplicity, 
 necessity and universality, comparative evidence and cer- 
 tainty. Necessity is positive or negative. Positive neces- 
 sity occurs when a proposition is conceivable and its 
 contradictory opposite is inconceivable ; negative, when the 
 proposition and its contradictory opposite are both equally 
 conceivable. According to the logical law of the " Ex- 
 cluded Middle," one of the propositions must be true; 
 hence inconceivability is not a test of truth. Space to 
 take an illustration cannot be conceived either as finite or 
 as infinite ; but it must be one or the other of these. The 
 same is true as regards time also. From the foregoing it 
 follows that only positive necessity is a test of truth. Ex- 
 amples of positively necessary notions are existence and its 
 modifications, identity, contradiction, " excluded middle," 
 the intuitions of space and time. The positively necessary 
 notions may be described as " so many positive exertions 
 of mental vigor ; " the negatively necessary notions are, on 
 the other hand, consequences of the " imbecility of the 
 human mind." The truth of one of the inconceivable 
 mutually contradictory notions may sometimes (as in the 
 case of the notion of freedom, which is postulated by the 
 moral faculty) be shown by non-theoretical considerations. 
 
 The Law of the Conditioned and its Applications : 
 Causation. It is a law of finite, or human, thought that 
 the conceivable is in every relation bounded by the incon- 
 ceivable, or, more definitely, "All positive thought lies 
 between two extremes, neither of which we can conceive as 
 possible, yet as mutual contradictions the one or the other 
 we must recognize as necessary." This law receives ex- 
 emplification in our formation of judgments of causation. 
 " When we are aware of something which begins to be,
 
 HAMILTON. 285 
 
 we are by the necessity of our intelligence constrained to 
 believe that it has a cause. But what does the expression 
 that it has a cause signify? If we analyze our thought, we 
 shall find that it simply means that as we cannot conceive 
 any new existence to commence, therefore, all that now 
 is seen to arise under a new appearance had previously 
 an existence under a prior form. We are utterly unable 
 to realize in thought the possibility of the complement 
 of existence being increased or diminished. We are 
 unable, on the one hand, to conceive nothing becoming 
 something, or, on the other, something becoming nothing. 
 Ex nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti, expresses 
 in its purest form the whole intellectual phenomenon of 
 causality." Between causes and effects there is an "ab- 
 solute tautology," cause and effect have the same con- 
 tent, only in different forms. " Gunpowder is the effect of 
 a mixture of sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, and these three 
 substances again are the effect result of simpler con- 
 stituents, and these constituents again of simpler elements 
 either known or conceived to exist. Now, in all these series 
 of compositions we cannot conceive that aught begins to 
 exist. The gunpowder, the last compound, we are com- 
 pelled to think, contains precisely the same quantum of 
 existence that its ultimate elements contained prior to their 
 combination. Well, we explode the powder. Can we 
 conceive that existence has been diminished by the an- 
 nihilation of a single element previously in being, or in- 
 creased by the addition of a single element which was not 
 heretofore in nature? ' Omnia imitantur : nihil interit? 
 is what we think, what we must think." The principle* 
 that every event should have its cause is necessary and 
 universal, and is imposed on us as a condition of our 
 human intelligence. As to the origin of the principle of 
 causality, there are possible in all eight different theories, 
 that it is a result of both external and internal percep- 
 tion, of internal perception alone, of induction and gen- 
 eralization, of association, custom, habit, of pure intelligence,
 
 286 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of expectation of the constancy of nature, of the law of the 
 conditioned. The principle of causality is, in fact, a con- 
 sequence, or rather special form, of the Law of the Condi- 
 tioned ; our inability to conceive either the commencement 
 of time or the infinite non-commencement of it, is an in- 
 ability mentally to create or annihilate it ; our inability 
 to conceive space as beginning or ceasing to be, is 
 an inability mentally to create or annihilate it ; and, in 
 general, our inability to conceive existence as beginning or 
 ceasing is an inability mentally to create or annihilate it. 
 In this last inability is the explanation of the entire pheno- 
 menon of causality. The necessity of the principle of 
 causality is, as appears immediately from the foregoing, a 
 negative necessity, a consequence of " powerlessness ; " and 
 the principle may consequently be true or false. (It is, in 
 fact, to a certain extent, false, as is proved by the fact of 
 moral freedom.) Another application of the " Law of the 
 Conditioned " occurs in the use of the notion of substance 
 and phenomenon, or accident. The phenomenon which, 
 conceived in entire isolation, would be unthinkable, be- 
 cause unconditioned, refers us to an underlying substance ; 
 and substance in like manner to phenomenon. 
 
 The Unconditioned : the Infinite and Absolute. The 
 two inconceivable extremes to which the conditioned is the 
 mean are comprehended under the name " unconditioned." 
 The unconditioned, as the extreme of perfect illimitation, 
 or "unconditionally unlimited," is the Infinite; as the 
 opposite extreme, or as the " unconditionally limited," is 
 the " absolute." By the Law of the Conditioned we can 
 know only the conditionally limited, or existence in special 
 modes. From this it follows that we know neither mind 
 nor matter in themselves ; nor can we know ultimate 
 being, or God. God by the Law of Excluded Middle must 
 be either the Absolute or the Infinite ; but which of these he 
 is, we have (outside revelation) no means of knowing. 
 
 Result. Hamilton combines with the doctrines espe- 
 cially characteristic of the Scottish school the negativism
 
 FERRIER. 287 
 
 of the Kantian theory of knowledge ; and perhaps the most 
 characteristic single feature of his doctrine is the (pseudo- 
 Kantian?) doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. The 
 influence of Hamilton's teachings has, it is scarcely neces- 
 sary to remark, been very wide and marked, marked 
 even where it might not naturally be expected ; as, for ex- 
 ample, in the case of Spencer. American metaphysics has 
 in the past been largely Hamiltonian. We may mention 
 here the most important Hamiltonian, Henry Longueville 
 Mansel (1820-1871), Professor at Oxford and Dean of St. 
 Paul's. His chief works are " Prolegomena Logica " (185 1), 
 "Metaphysics" ("Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1857, sepa- 
 rately, 1860), " Limits of Religious Thought " (1858), " Phi- 
 losophy of the Conditioned." Mansel, however, differs 
 from Hamilton in his doctrine of the Self and his doctrine 
 of Causation. The self is a " fact of consciousness, not an 
 inference from it," is constituted by consciousness. The 
 conditions essential to personal existence are time and free 
 agency. Of causation we know in our consciousness of de- 
 termining our volitions, and only so ; we do not know it as 
 something outside consciousness. 
 
 103. 
 
 James Frederick Ferrier 1 ( 1 808-1 86 1 ) . Born in Edin- 
 burgh, Ferrier was educated at the Edinburgh High School, 
 under a private tutor, and at the universities of Edinburgh, 
 Oxford, and Heidelberg. He was appointed professor of 
 civil history in the University of Edinburgh in 1842, and 
 professor of moral philosophy and political economy at the 
 University of St. Andrews in 1845. He married a daughter 
 of Professor John Wilson ("Christopher North"). His 
 rather premature death has been the cause of deep regret 
 among a large number of admirers of his speculative 
 genius. 
 
 Works, Ferrier's principal philosophical work is en- 
 titled " Institutes of Metaphysic " (1854 ; 2d edition, 1856). 
 1 Ferrier's " Institutes of Metaphysic."
 
 288 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Other works are, an " Introduction to the Philosophy of 
 Consciousness" (1838-1839), " The Crisis of Modern Spec- 
 ulation " (1841), "Berkeley and Idealism" (1842), "Lec- 
 tures on Greek Philosophy" (1866). The clearness of 
 Ferrier's insight and the lucidity of his exposition gave 
 some foundation for the assertion of one writer that " Fer- 
 rier's works are perhaps the best propaedeutic to the study 
 of metaphysics in the English language." 
 
 Philosophy : Introduction. Philosophy in its ideal per- 
 fection is a body of reasoned truth. A system which is 
 reasoned without being true falls short, indeed, of perfection, 
 but is of higher value than a system which is true without 
 being reasoned. The failure of philosophy hitherto has 
 been chiefly due to its not being strictly reasoned, its 
 proscription of necessary truth, its neglect to go back to 
 the beginning. The law of identity is the general expres- 
 sion and criterion of all necessary truth ; and the canon of 
 all philosophy is, " Affirm nothing except what is enforced 
 by reason as a necessary truth, /. e., as a truth the supposed 
 reversal of which would involve a contradiction ; and deny 
 nothing unless its affirmation involves a contradiction, that 
 is, contradicts some necessary truth or law of reason." 
 The present system starts from a single self-evident propo- 
 sition, and deduces from it others in a series of demon- 
 strations each of which professes to be as strict as any 
 demonstration in Euclid, while the whole of them together 
 constitute one great demonstration. The ground and only 
 justification of the existence of philosophy is the assumption 
 that the original dowry of man is inadvertency and error ; 
 the mission of philosophy is, negatively reviewed, to correct 
 the inadvertencies of man's ordinary thinking. Psychology 
 also "which is the abettor and accomplice of common 
 opinion after the act," must come in for a share of casti- 
 gation. Positively viewed, the purpose of philosophy, or 
 metaphysic, is the substitution of true ideas that is, of 
 necessary truths of reason in place of the oversights of 
 popular opinion and errors of psychological science. In
 
 FERRIER. 289 
 
 conformity with this double purpose of philosophy, its 
 method is governed by the canon of proposition and coun- 
 ter-proposition, the confronting of the errors of common 
 and psychological opinion with the necessary truths, or laws 
 of reason, which they violate. The propositions, with their 
 demonstrations, are the " Institutes of Metaphysic." The 
 general unintelligibility of former systems e.g., those of 
 Plato, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Hegel is due to their neglect to 
 exhibit the contrast of the true and the false, philosophical 
 and popular opinion. The parts of philosophy and their 
 order appear upon a consideration of the distinction (first 
 made by Aristotle) between what is first in the order of na- 
 ture and what is first for us. Being (what is) is first in the 
 order of nature : being as known is first for us, while being is 
 last. Two main parts of philosophy are, then, Ontology 
 (theory of being) and Epistemology (theory of knowledge) ; 
 we " pass to the problem of absolute existence only through 
 the portals of the solution to the problem of knowledge. 
 But even after we have fixed the meaning, the conditions, 
 the limits, the object, and the capacities of knowledge, it 
 seems quite possible, indeed highly probable, that absolute 
 existence may escape us by throwing itself under the cover, 
 or within the pale, of our ignorance ; " it is necessary, there- 
 fore, to institute an inquiry into the nature of ignorance, 
 into what we are, and can be, ignorant of. Hence a third 
 part of philosophy, Agnoiology (theory of ignorance). As 
 Being must be either that which we know or that which 
 we do not know, or neither of these, we shall be able, after 
 having given theories of both knowledge and ignorance, de- 
 monstratively to fix its character. The first question of 
 philosophy is, not, What is knowledge ? for that question, in 
 the form in which it is stated, is ambiguous, and hence un- 
 answerable, but, What is the one feature which is identical, 
 invariable, and essential in a variety of knowledge, the 
 Ens unum in omnibus notitiis ? The answer to this ques- 
 tion is the first proposition of Epistemology, the absolute 
 starting-point of metaphysic. 
 VOL. i. 19
 
 2QO A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Epistemology. " Proposition i. Along with whatever 
 any intelligence knows, it must, as the ground or condi- 
 tion of its knowledge, have some cognizance of itself, 
 That is to say, self, or the 'me,' is the common centre, 
 the continually . known rallying-point, in which all our 
 cognitions meet and agree, the ens unum, et semper co- 
 gnitum, in omnibus notitiis." This proposition, as the 
 starting-point of all knowledge, cannot, strictly speaking, 
 be demonstrated, it is an axiom. Explanation may be 
 employed to show its axiomatic character. Common opin- 
 ion and ordinary psychology assume that consciousness is 
 possible without self-consciousness. The thing known is 
 and must be always object plus subject (Prop, ii.) ; and 
 the unit or minimum of knowledge is constituted by object 
 and subject taken together. Ordinary thought conceives 
 subject and object, ego and non-ego, as separable (Coun- 
 ter-Prop.). Matter per se, the whole material universe 
 by itself, is of necessity absolutely unknowable (Prop. iv.). 
 The demonstration of this proposition is as follows : The 
 whole material universe by itself or per se is a mere col- 
 lection of objects without a subject or self. But it was 
 proved by Prop. ii. that the only things which can possibly 
 be known are objects plus a subject or self. Therefore 
 the whole material universe by itself, or per se, is of neces- 
 sity absolutely unknowable. Again, object plus a subject 
 is the minimum scibile per se (by Prop. hi.). But the 
 whole material universe per se being a mere collection of 
 objects without a subject, is less than the minimum scibile 
 per se. Therefore the whole material universe, being less 
 than the least that can be known by itself, is of necessity 
 absolutely unknowable" (Counter- Prop.). The material 
 universe as such is an object of cognition. There is a uni- 
 versal unchanging element (ego), and a particular fluctuating 
 element (non-ego), in every cognition (Props, vi. and vii.). 
 Ordinary opinions and popular psychology assume the op- 
 posite ; and by this assumption, especially in the form of the 
 doctrine of abstraction, the science of the human mind, as it
 
 FERRIER. 291 
 
 is called, has done incalculable mischief to the cause of truth. 
 " All knowledge and all thought are concrete, and deal only 
 with concretions, the concretion of the particular and 
 the universal." The ego, or self, or mind, per se is of ne- 
 cessity absolutely unknowable ; it is known only in some 
 particular state, or in union with some non-ego (Prop. x.). 
 Mere objects of sense can never be objects of knowledge ; 
 /'. e., the senses by themselves are not competent to place 
 any knowable or intelligible thing before the mind (Prop, 
 x.). That alone can be represented in thought which can 
 be presented in knowledge : it is impossible to think that 
 of which knowledge has supplied and can supply no sort of 
 type (xi.). The material universe per se and all its quali- 
 ties per se are not only absolutely unknowable, they are of 
 necessity absolutely unthinkable (xii.). There is no mere 
 phenomenal in cognition ; the phenomenal by itself is 
 absolutely unknowable and inconceivable (xiv.). The 
 substantial in cognition is object plus subject, matter mecum, 
 universal and particular, etc. (xvi.). There is no mere 
 relative in cognition (xviii.). There is an absolute in 
 cognition, something absolute is knowable, and is known 
 by us (xx.). The absolute in cognition is object plus sub- 
 ject; matter mecum, universal and particular, etc. (xxi.). 
 The main result, then, of Epistemology (which attempts to 
 answer the question, What is knowledge ?) is that knowl- 
 edge is the apprehension of one's self along with all that 
 one apprehends, of object plus subject. The only way of 
 transcending one's consciousness is by conceiving other 
 consciousnesses like one's own. 
 
 Agnoiology. Ignorance is an intellectual defect, imper- 
 fection, privation, or shortcoming. The law of all igno- 
 rance is that " we can be ignorant only of what can possibly 
 be known ; " in other words, there can be an ignorance only 
 of that of which there can be a knowledge (in.)- There 
 is no ignorance of objects per se or out of relation to mind ; 
 hence no ignorance of matter or mind per se, of universal or 
 particular, etc., per se. The object of ignorance is always
 
 292 A HISTORY OF MODERN' PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the synthesis of the particular and the universal, object plus 
 subject, etc. In the Agnoiology, says Ferrier, the " ship 
 of Speculation is put upon a new track, the great waters of 
 Reason are spread before her in a direction heretofore un- 
 traversed." The doctrine of ignorance has been missed, 
 partly because philosophers have wavered as to the precise 
 object of knowledge, and partly because they have been too 
 much occupied with the quantity of ignorance to think of 
 its nature or quality. 
 
 Ontology. What truly is, or Absolute Existence, is either 
 first that which we know, or that which we are ignorant 
 of, or that which we neither know nor are ignorant of. 
 The counter-proposition is (in substance) " Whatever we do 
 not know, we must be ignorant of; in other words, it is 
 impossible neither to know nor to be ignorant of a thing." 
 (The error in this position lies in the overlooking of the 
 fact that the Law of Excluded Middle applies only to non- 
 contradictory things. Of the contradictory, or the abso- 
 lutely or in itself unknowable, there is neither knowledge 
 nor ignorance.) Absolute Existence is not what we neither 
 know nor are ignorant of (since it is not the contradictory) ; 
 it is either that which we know or that which we are igno- 
 rant of. It is not matter, nor the universal, nor the particu- 
 lar, nor the ego per se ; for of these things we can neither 
 know nor be ignorant. Absolute existence is the synthesis 
 of subject and object, of universal and particular, ego and 
 non-ego. All absolute existences are contingent except 
 one ; in other words, there is One, but only One, Absolute 
 Existence which is strictly necessary ; and that existence is 
 a supreme and everlasting mind in synthesis with all things 
 (Prop. xi.). The demonstration of this proposition is as 
 follows : " To save the universe from presenting a contra- 
 diction to reason, intelligence must be postulated in con- 
 nection with it ; because everything except the synthesis 
 of subject and object is contradictory, and is that of which 
 there can be no knowledge and no ignorance. But more 
 than one intelligence does not require to be postulated:
 
 FRENCH SYSTEMS. 2Q3 
 
 because the universe is rescued from contradiction as effec- 
 tually by the supposition of one intelligence in connection 
 with it as by the supposition of ten million, and reason 
 never postulates more than is necessary. Therefore all 
 absolute existences are contingent except one, etc. The 
 ninth proposition (relating to the origin of knowledge) of 
 the ontology is, together with its demonstration, as follows : 
 Matter is not the cause of our perceptive cognitions; in 
 other words, our knowledge of material things is not an 
 effect proceeding from, and brought about by, material 
 things. For matter is the particular part or peculiar ele- 
 ment of some of our cognitions, of those which we 
 term ' perceptions.' But the part of cognition cannot be 
 the cause of a cognition. Therefore, etc." The question, 
 What is the origin of knowledge? is unanswerable, be- 
 cause unaskable. No existence at all can be conceived 
 by any intelligence anterior to and aloof from knowledge. 
 Knowledge of existence, the apprehension of one's self 
 and other things, is alone true existence. 
 
 Result. A strong light is thrown by Ferrier upon his 
 own doctrines and their opposites by a wealth of accurate 
 knowledge of the history of philosophy. The expressed 
 and implied criticism in his teachings bear not alone upon 
 doctrines which his immediate philosophical environment 
 made it necessary to oppose, the doctrines of the " Scotch 
 school," but upon doctrines of philosophers of every age. 
 
 104. 
 
 (2) French Systems. It is particularly convenient to take 
 up the French systems at this point, because they are, in a 
 very noticeable degree, repetitions and continuations of the 
 Scotch. We have to treat of Maine de Biran, Pierre Laromi- 
 guiere, Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, Victor Cousin, Theodore 
 Jouffroy, Robert de Lamennais, Auguste Comte. The last 
 two named have no other than a merely national identity 
 with the others of this group. Comte logically affiliates with 
 the English group. Lamennais shows German influence.
 
 294 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 105. 
 
 Maine de Biran 1 (i 766-1824). Maine de Biran spent 
 most of his not very eventful life in retirement, engaged in 
 reflection. He was at one time member of the company 
 of " Life-Guards " of Louis XVI., and, again, of the Coun- 
 cil of the Five Hundred, and of both Chambers, and was 
 Councillor of State, etc. He several times carried off 
 honors from the learned academies of Paris, Berlin, Copen- 
 hagen, etc. Personally, he is said to have been a man of 
 great modesty. 
 
 Works. We may mention of his works, which are 
 chiefly psychological : (i) " Sur PInfluence de 1'Habitude " 
 (1803); (2) "Sur la Decomposition de la Pense"e" 
 (crowned by the Institut in 1805); "Apperception" 
 ( 1 8 1 1 ) ; " Nouvelles Considerations sur les Rapports du 
 Physique et du Moral de FHomme " (1811, published 
 J 834) ; (3) " Essai sur les Fondements de la Psychologie 
 et sur les Rapports avec 1'Etude de la Nature " (published 
 J 8S9) ; "Nouveaux Essais d'Anthropologie " (1823, post- 
 humously published). These works represent (as indi- 
 cated) three different stages of thought. 
 
 Philosophy: First Stage. Maine de Biran occupies, 
 first, the general standpoint of Bacon, Locke, and Condillac, 
 in whom he sees the true philosophers. He proposes to 
 carry the method of physics over into metaphysics. The 
 understanding is merely the ensemble of the habitudes of 
 the brain. A distinction not made by Condillac has 
 to be made between sensation as a passive, and perception 
 as an active, condition of mind ; the latter involving, as 
 the former does not, a certain volitional activity. A dis- 
 tinction is also to be made between passively formed " cus- 
 toms " and active " habits." 
 
 Second Stage. The sensationalist theory (of Con- 
 dillac) fails to explain the characteristic attribute of man. 
 It takes as its basis the facts of animal life merely, the facts 
 
 1 Franck ; Cousin, " Fragments Philosophiques."
 
 MAINE DE BIRAN. 295 
 
 of unconscious affections in the physical nature of man. 
 But the use of these facts to explain man's characteristic 
 quality is a misuse of them. The animal is without real 
 consciousness, does not know that it exists. Man feels 
 and knows the me (moi). The me is to be distinguished 
 from what is merely physical, and for the reason that it 
 perceives itself and distinguishes itself from its object. It 
 is an error to look for the me in fibres, as does the mate- 
 rialist ; and it is equally an error to see its nature in the 
 abstract conceptions of the a priori philosophers. The me 
 does not present itself as object, but as subject. It is not 
 to be comprehended as an absolute, independent of con- 
 sciousness, but is apprehended in self-observation ; and yet 
 only on condition that it reveals itself, or acts, /. e., pre- 
 sents itself as will. Descartes said, Je pcnse, done je suis ; 
 but we may more truthfully say,y<? veux, done je suis, "I 
 will, therefore I am ; " the will is the self-manifestation 
 of the me. All attempts to derive the me, and also the 
 feeling of personality, from mere sensation are vain. The 
 me has a double character: (i) it is an individual force 
 (not a substance; substance is the category of pantheism) ; 
 (2) it is inseparably united to a resisting organism. This 
 double character is directly evident to consciousness. 
 From the consciousness of the me's activity we acquire 
 the universal and necessary notions of force, causality, 
 unity, liberty. These notions are not innate, since they de- 
 pend on a prior activity of the will, but they are absolutely 
 different in character from mere general ideas produced 
 by external observation. They are sui generis; instead 
 of becoming less real, as do ideas derived from sensible 
 perceptions when made the subjects of abstraction, they 
 become more so. It is only by the complete abuse of the 
 spirit of system that the notion of liberty can be treated as 
 a mere abstraction. The will, even when following the 
 stimulus of desire, knows itself to be responsible and free. 
 To understand completely human nature it is necessary to 
 consider its two inseparable interacting elements one of
 
 296 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 which, affection, is variable and relative, while the other, 
 the will, or me, is permanent and absolute in the suc- 
 cessive modes of their combination. There result four 
 "systems;" the affective system (/<? systeme affectif), the 
 sensitive system (le systeme sensi/if), the perceptive system 
 (le systeme perceptif}, and the reflective system (le systeme 
 reflectif}. The first comprehends the animal life, pains, 
 pleasures, instinctive phantasies, images, etc., but no will ; 
 the second self-consciousness, the localization of affections 
 in the organs, referring intuitions to space, and associating 
 the idea of cause with them, the beginning of memory and 
 generalization, and will in the lowest degree ; the third, 
 attention, which involves a higher degree of volitional 
 effort, the seeking of objects of knowledge, exercising active 
 touch and judging of externality, distinguishing primary 
 and secondary qualities, classification, formation of general 
 ideas, intelligence being occupied in this system with 
 external objects calling it forth; the fourth, all acts of 
 intelligence concerned with its own nature, the me here 
 distinguishing itself completely from its opposite, becoming 
 completely conscious of the notions of which it is the source, 
 the universal and necessary ideas, and establishing 
 upon them the mathematical and metaphysical sciences. 
 
 Third Stage. There is something higher even than 
 will. Will is incapable of being or becoming all that intelli- 
 gence perceives. In the presence of the idea of the good, 
 the will feels a certain defect in itself, requires aid. The 
 mere light of reason is insufficient. God is the only suc- 
 cor, who is both the source of light in the world of 
 intelligence, and of power in the sphere of will. The me 
 conscious of its weakness, is in a new relation ; it is presented 
 with the alternative of submission to sensible nature, towards 
 which its lower tendencies carry it, or of union with the divine 
 nature, the need of which (union) its higher instincts make 
 for it. The higher life thus opened to the me is the life of 
 spirit, of love, instead of will ; it is the life on which man 
 turns towards the source of light and force, intelligence and
 
 LAROMIGUJ&RR. 297 
 
 will, and identifies itself with God, the absolute Truth and 
 absolute Good. Below this highest life are the "life of 
 man " (/. e., the life of will, including the systemes sen- 
 sitif, perceptif, et reflexif), and the "animal life" (systeme 
 affectif). By will man rises out of the animal life, by 
 love out of the "life of man," into the life of spirit. This 
 life is exalted above both Stoicism (which is self-asser- 
 tion) and Quietism (which is all submission) ; it is a life 
 of both will and submission, effort and prayer, the life 
 of Christianity. 
 
 Result. Maine de Biran may be said to have begun in 
 France the revolt against sensationalism begun in Scotland 
 by Reid, in Germany by Kant, etc. He is, indeed, some- 
 times styled the French Kant, and not inappropriately on 
 other accounts than the one here implied. He is admitted 
 to be an original thinker, the most original of the French 
 philosophers since Descartes, or perhaps Malebranche ; 
 and his thought is strongly marked by that twofold energy 
 of self-distinction and self-identification which marks the 
 thought of Kant (and German philosophy after him) . Most 
 of the French philosophers who follow in our account were 
 largely indebted to him. 
 
 106. 
 
 Pierre Laromiguiere (1756-1839) was teacher ot phi- 
 losophy in Toulouse and at the Ecole Normale in Paris. 
 We mention his "Foments de Metaphysique " (1788), 
 and " Lecons de Philosophic, ou Essai sur les Facults de 
 1'Ame " (18151818). Laromiguiere. once a close follower 
 of Condillac, departs from the doctrine of his master in an 
 important respect, in that he consciously makes the mind 
 essentially active instead of passive : with him, not mere 
 sensation, but attention, is the primary faculty of the mind. 
 This is in fact a revolt against the whole principle of sensa- 
 tionalism. From attention are deduced, on the one hand, 
 comparison and reasoning, which together with it constitute 
 the understanding ; and on the other, desire, together with
 
 298 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 preference and liberty springing from it. The material of 
 knowledge originates in sensibility, which is either (i) simple 
 sensibility, or (2) reflection, or (3) the feeling of relation, 
 or (4) the sense of right and wrong. The idea of God is 
 immediately given to us. 
 
 107. 
 
 Pierre Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845). Royer-Col- 
 lard graduated at the College of Charmont, afterwards read 
 mathematics and philosophy, making the works of Plato, 
 Descartes, and Leibnitz, and especially Reid, the main 
 objects of his studies. He was at various times advocate 
 in the Parliament at Paris, member of the Council of Five 
 Hundred, professor of philosophy in the College of France, 
 president of the Commission of Public Instruction, president 
 of the Chamber of Deputies, etc. He published no in- 
 dependent philosophical work. His " Fragments Philoso- 
 phiques " were issued by Jouffroy, with a French translation 
 of Reid's works (1828-1835). 
 
 Philosophy. Royer-Collard opposed the sensationalism 
 and materialism of the school of Condillac with weapons 
 of doctrine borrowed from Reid. The method of philo- 
 sophy is identical with that of natural science : principles 
 are to be sought through the collecting, sifting, and arrang- 
 ing of observed facts. The ideas of substance, cause, time, 
 space, originate, not in sense, but in consciousness as such. 
 In perception we infer directly, or without reasoning, the 
 external world ; the truth of perception in general depends 
 on the will of God ; the ego is in all phenomena of conscious- 
 ness. That it is identical, memory teaches us. Time and 
 space are objective, eternal, infinite, and infinitely divisible ; 
 what they are in themselves we do not know, and never 
 shall know. We could never become aware of a reality 
 outside of ourselves but for perception, etc. Royer- 
 Collard is the founder of the doctrine of eclecticism, of 
 which the chief expounder is Victor Cousin, to whom we 
 now turn.
 
 COUSIN. 299 
 
 108. 
 
 Victor Cousin* (1792-1867). Cousin was educated 
 at the Lyce"e Charlemagne and at the Ecole Normale in 
 Paris, at which latter place he heard the lectures of Laromi- 
 guiere and Royer-Collard on philosophy. At the lycee he 
 distinguished himself in the classics, and at the normal 
 school in philosophy. Here he became a maltre de con- 
 ferences, and on the resignation of Royer-Collard at the 
 Sorbonne was appointed as his successor there. The liber- 
 ality of his political opinions, together with his popularity 
 and influence as a lecturer, excited the distrust of the Gov- 
 ernment, and he was in 1820 deprived of his professorship. 
 He had already acquired some familiarity with German 
 philosophy and had personally met both Schelling and 
 Hegel; and in the interval of seven years which elapsed 
 after his dismissal before he again became a public lecturer 
 on philosophy, he renewed his acquaintance with German 
 philosophy and its greatest living representative when on a 
 stay in Berlin. At the same time he undertook a trans- 
 lation of the works of Plato, and published editions of 
 the works of Descartes and Proclus, as well as impor- 
 tant original works. In 1828 he was reinstated at the 
 Sorbonne, and lectured for three years with the highest dis- 
 tinction. In 1 830 he was made member of the Academy, 
 in 1832 peer of France, and in 1840 minister of Public In- 
 struction, as such exercising an important influence towards 
 the improvement of education in France. In 1848 he re- 
 tired to private life. He is quite as worthy (if indeed not 
 more worthy) of a place in the history of philosophy for 
 the stimulus he gave to philosophical thinking and learning 
 as for what he himself accomplished as a philosopher. A 
 large number of pupils have under his inspiration written, 
 translated, edited, commentated works in philosophy ; e. g., 
 Barthe"lemy Saint-Hilaire, Emile Saisset, Jules Simon, Paul 
 
 1 Franck; Cousin, " Fragments Philosophiques; " "Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica ; " Ravaisson's " Philosophic en France au xu: e Siecle ; " 
 " Cousin," by Jules Simon ; Morell.
 
 300 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Janet, Adolphe Franck, Charles de Rdmusat, M. Wadding- 
 ton, Ph. Damiron, Renouvier, Haure"au, Janet, Taine, etc. 
 
 Works. Of Cousin's numerous philosophical works the 
 following are perhaps the most worthy of mention : " Cours 
 de Philosophic" (1818, published 1836), revised and pub- 
 lished as " Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien " (" The True, the 
 Beautiful, and the Good"), (1854) ; "Fragments Philoso- 
 phiques " (1826); "Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophic" 
 (1827 and 1840); "Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophic 
 Moderne" (published 1841); "Cours d'Histoire de la 
 Philosophic Morale au xvm e Siecle" (1840) ; " Lecons de 
 Philosophic sur Kant" (1842) ; " Nouveaux Fragments" 
 (1847). The "Fragments Philosophiques " (1826) are 
 regarded as containing the best statement of his views, 
 though the " Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien " is the more 
 widely known. Cousin translated a large number of stand- 
 ard works on the literature of philosophy. 
 
 Philosophy : The Genesis of Cousin's System. The 
 genesis of Cousin's philosophy (as described by himself) 
 is substantially as follows : Laromiguiere taught him men- 
 tal analysis ; from Royer-Collard he learned the fact of 
 universal and necessary truths, after the Scotch method ; 
 Maine de Biran taught him to see volitional activity in all 
 consciousness, the three together grounding him in 
 psychology, the " basis of all science ; " his ontological 
 conceptions came to him from Germany, /. <?., from 
 Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. 
 
 Divisions of Cousin's System. Cousin's system falls 
 naturally under the heads : method, psychology, ontology, 
 ethics, and the history of philosophy. 
 
 Method. The method of philosophy is (according to 
 Cousin) that of (self-) observation and induction, which may 
 be called the "psychological method." This method as- 
 sumes that there are certain primary " facts of conscious- 
 ness." These it attempts to discover and analyze and raise 
 to the dignity of laws, necessary and universal truths. 
 Some of these, by their self-evidence, take the rank of intu-
 
 COUSIN. 3OI 
 
 itions and afford stepping-stones by which the mind to a 
 certain extent rises out of and above mere consciousness 
 or phenomena into the realm of being as such. 
 
 Psychology. The method just described yields within 
 consciousness the following general truths. There are three 
 great classes of " facts of consciousness," facts of sensation, 
 of reason, and of will. i. Those of will are as Maine de 
 Biran has shown facts of personality : the will is the me ; 
 prior to the development of the will, man is merely a natu- 
 ral being. With will, and will alone, is he personality. A 
 distinction must be drawn between conscious, or reflective, 
 volition and a certain primary volition of which we must 
 become cognizant before conscious volition can occur, 
 an unconscious volition such as artistic genius manifests. 
 It is unconscious rather than conscious volition that con- 
 stitutes the essence of personality. 2. Will is the basis of 
 the self-activity of reason, and its independence of sensa- 
 tion, without which it would not be reason. The facts of 
 reason are embraced in three " integrant and inseparable 
 elements," viz., the ideas of (i) substance, embracing those 
 of the absolute, the infinite, etc. ; (2) cause, embracing those 
 of plurality, difference, the conditioned, the finite, the phe- 
 nomenal, etc. ; (3) the union of these, since unity and plu- 
 rality, identity and difference, etc., presuppose one another. 
 These ideas are not subjective and relative, but objective and 
 absolute : and first because reason (unlike will, which is in- 
 dividual and personal) is non-individual and impersonal, is 
 an emanation from a universal reason, or God ; second, it is 
 (as observation attests) a spontaneous principle having an 
 immediate apperception of the truth germane to it. Rela- 
 tivity and subjectivity in our thinking is the result of reflec- 
 tion, which, as mediatory in nature, admits of error's creeping 
 in at one or more points of the discursive process it involves, 
 which cannot occur in immediate apperception. 
 
 Ontology. If now the ideas of substance and cause and 
 the syntheses of these two are of objective significance, 
 we have a means of getting at external reality as such,
 
 302 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of apprehending supersensible being. In other words, we 
 know that there is a real cause of our sensations outside us, 
 that there is a real nature corresponding to the idea of the 
 ego, and that there is a real being (God) above ego and 
 the external world. The external world, causing our sen- 
 sations, can be only of the nature of force, is not mechanical 
 but dynamical in constitution. The ego which we perceive 
 as willing, exercising reason, and having sensations, has, as 
 possessing these attributes, an absolute existence, an essen- 
 tial and ever-abiding reality. God, as the synthesis of ego 
 and its opposed non-ego, is comprehensible. He is both 
 substance and cause, cause because substance, and vice 
 versa, unity and multiplicity, the infinite and the finite, 
 humanity and nature ; which is a view of the Deity that 
 avoids the error of pantheism, since this makes God only 
 substance, thus denying the freedom of the ego and the 
 independence of the world. God creates the universe out 
 of himself by a spontaneous non-reflective exercise of 
 energy. In nature his creative energy appears as expan- 
 sion (passage from unity to multiplicity) and contraction 
 (the reverse process) ; in us as self-distinction and self- 
 identification in consciousness. 
 
 Ethics. The basis of morality is reason ; self-love and 
 sympathy are variable and uncertain as principles. We judge 
 an act of ours to be good or bad according as it conforms or 
 does not conform to a universal rule of reason called the 
 Good, applied to such acts by an act of self-observation. 
 From the idea of the Good flow those of duty, virtue, and 
 the summum bonum. The moral commands of reason are, 
 since man is essentially free: (i) Maintain thy freedom ; 
 (2) Recognize the freedom of others as thy own (the duty 
 of justice). These are supplemented by obedience to the 
 impulse of devotion, or self-sacrifice. The harmony of 
 reason, freedom, and happiness is the highest good. 
 
 History of Philosophy. The three ideas of the reason 
 the " infinite," the " finite " and their synthesis have 
 been the foundation of philosophy (as of life) in every age.
 
 fOUFFROY. 303 
 
 Of the three, that of the " infinite " is the most distinctive in 
 Oriental thought, that of the " finite " in Greek thought, and 
 their synthesis in modern thought. Systems of philosophy 
 as they have appeared in history may be classified as sen- 
 sational, idealistic, sceptical, mystical. These are all imper- 
 fect forms of the one true philosophy, eclecticism. 
 
 Result. Though not of great originality or profoundity 
 (as indeed he did not claim to be), Cousin has had a very 
 great influence on the thought of the century, particularly 
 in his own country and in America. He was a remarkably 
 skilful popularizer of philosophical truth. 
 
 109. 
 
 Theodore Simon Jouffroy (17961842). Jouffroy was 
 educated at the College of Dijon and at the Ecole Normale 
 in Paris, where he had Cousin as instructor in philosophy. 
 He became an assistant instructor in the Normal School, 
 lecturer at the College de Bourbon and in the University 
 of Paris, and adjunct professor to Royer Collard in the 
 last-named institution. He was at one time member of 
 the Chamber of Deputies. He was elected to the Academy 
 in 1833. 
 
 Works. Original works of Jouffroy are : " Melanges 
 Philosophiques " (1833), a miscellany of philosophical 
 writings; " Cours de Droit Naturel " ("Course in Natural 
 Right"), (1835) ; " Nouveaux Melanges Philosophiques" 
 (posthumous) ; " Cours d'Esthe'tique " (posthumous). (He 
 translated Reid's works and the " Outlines of Moral Philos- 
 ophy " by Dugald Stewart. He also edited, in an ab- 
 ridged form, Kant's " Kritik der reinen Vernunft," 1842.) 
 
 Philosophy. The only salvation for philosophy as 
 distinguished from physiological psychology is the rec- 
 ognition that there is a distinct order of facts for it to deal 
 with, and that there must be a " more profound observation 
 of human nature " than has yet been employed. Human 
 nature has a twofold character : it is both free and subject 
 to necessary laws ; it has a psychological and a physiological
 
 304 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 side ; it is personal and impersonal. It possesses the 
 faculties of liberty of will, of primitive inclinations, of 
 voluntary motion, of speech, of feeling pleasure and pain, 
 of sensible perception, conception, and abstraction (intel- 
 lectual faculties). Human action, as a part of a universal 
 order, is to be judged according to the degree of its con- 
 formity with that, or, in other words, with the destiny of 
 human nature. Beauty is that which affords a disinterested 
 pleasure. The elements of beauty are order and propor- 
 tion ; its conditions are unity and variety. 
 
 no. 
 
 Robert de Lamennais^ (1782-1854). Lamennais was 
 educated for the priesthood, and until 1834 was a stanch 
 defender of the faith and the infallibility of the authority 
 of the Romish Church in matters of religion. After 1834 
 he appears as a philosopher pure and simple, having re- 
 nounced the Church. 
 
 Works. The philosophical works of Lamennais cor- 
 respond with two distinct attitudes of thought. His 
 " Essai sur 1'Indifference en Matiere de Religion " and 
 " De la Religion considered dans ses Rapports avec 
 1'Ordre Politique et Civil " (1825-1826) are works in which 
 philosophy appears as subservient to the Church. His 
 " Esquisse d'une Philosophic" (1837-1841) is a philo- 
 sophical work in the proper sense of the term. 
 
 Philosophy : Earlier Standpoint. All individual phi- 
 losophical systems necessarily end in scepticism. The 
 individual reason alone is impotent to search out the uni- 
 versal truth. This is in the possession of the universal 
 reason of humanity, the only true expression of which is 
 contained in the faith of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 the only organ of which is the pope, etc. 
 
 Later Standpoint. Underlying all our thoughts and 
 affirmations is the idea of being as such, God. God is 
 the positive in all existence ; outside him there is nothing. 
 
 i Noack.
 
 LAMENNAIS. COMTE. 305 
 
 God alienates himself in part from himself, thus creat- 
 ing the world of finite existences, which is consubstantial 
 with, though in a manner distinct from, him. God, though 
 one, contains in himself a triplicity of principles. In his 
 intelligence there are: (i) the "sole thought of himself; 
 (2) representative ideas of all particular beings; (3) some- 
 thing which determines the actual distinction of particular 
 ideas." God has the three attributes of power, intelligence, 
 and love, and in all that exists, this triplicity in different 
 degrees recurs. The lowest degree of manifestation of 
 God's attributes is found in matter as such. Impenetra- 
 bility in matter corresponds to force, or power, in God, 
 figure to intelligence in him, and cohesion to love. 
 The material elements ether, light, heat are, respect- 
 ively, inferior forms of God's three attributes, power, in- 
 telligence, love. The divine essence communicates itself 
 in all its purity to the rational free soul. Creation is the 
 progressive manifestation of all that which is in God, and 
 in the same order in which it is in God. The world is the 
 best possible. All that could be, necessarily was ; there 
 was no room for choice. Lamennais aims to avoid pan- 
 theism by insisting on the necessary imperfection of the 
 world as a created existence (since God could not create 
 another God), and therefore it is separateness in relation 
 to God. 
 
 in. 
 
 Angus te Comte * (1798-1857). Comte was born at 
 Montpellier. He attended school in Montpellier and stu- 
 died at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, from which he 
 was ejected because of unwillingness to submit to what was, 
 perhaps, an arbitrary exercise of authority. For some years 
 he lived in Paris, obtaining a not very liberal livelihood by 
 
 i See Abridged Translation of Comte's " Philosophic Positive," by 
 Harriet Martineau ; " A General View of Positivism " (translated 
 by J. H. Bridges) ; " Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte," by 
 J. S. Mill; "Encyclopaedia Britannica ; " Caird's "Comte's Social 
 Philosophy." 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 306 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 teaching mathematics. Between the years 1818 and 1824 
 he was a pupil of the Socialist Saint-Simon. At first an 
 enthusiastic admirer of the Socialist, he came to despise him 
 as a charlatan, and declined to admit himself to be under 
 any great intellectual obligations to him. In 1826, in con- 
 sequence of overwork and of mental anxiety caused by 
 domestic discord and financial straits, he became mentally 
 deranged. He was able, however, in 1828 to resume his 
 work as teacher, and to prepare in the two years following a 
 volume for publication. In 1832 he was appointed repcti- 
 teur, or assistant- instructor, and not long after examiner, 
 in the Ecole Poly technique. In 1842 he lost his place as 
 examiner, and lived precariously, supported in part by con- 
 tributions of friends and followers in France and England. 
 In 1845, having, three years previously, divorced his wife, 
 he fell violently in love with a certain Madame Clotilde 
 de Vaux, whose friendship he enjoyed only for too brief a 
 period, since she died the next year. The influence of her 
 and her memory upon him introduced a new epoch in his 
 mental life, promoting, if not causing outright, a tendency 
 the seeming opposite of the positivistic, viz., a phantastico- 
 mystical religious tendency. 
 
 Works. Comte's chief philosophical works are : 
 " Cours de Philosophic Positive" (1830-1842, 6 vols.) ; 
 " Systeme de Politique Positive, ou Traite" de Sociologie 
 instituant la Religion de l'Humanit " (1851-1854) ; " Syn- 
 these Subjective " (1856). 
 
 Philosophy : the Law of Human Development. " Each 
 of our leading conceptions, each branch of our knowledge, 
 passes successively through three different theoretical con- 
 ditions, the theological, or fictitious ; the metaphysical, 
 or abstract; the scientific, or positive. In other words, 
 the human mind by its nature employs in its progress 
 three methods of philosophizing, the character of which 
 is essentially different, and even radically opposed ; viz., 
 the theological method, the metaphysical, and the positive. 
 Hence arise three philosophies, or general systems of con-
 
 COMTE. 307 
 
 ceptions on the aggregate of phenomena, each of which 
 excludes the others. The first is the necessary point of the 
 human understanding ; the third is its fixed and definitive 
 state. The second is merely a state of transition. In the 
 theological state, the human mind, seeking the essential 
 nature of beings, the first and final causes (the origin and 
 purpose) of all effects, in short, absolute knowledge, 
 supposes all phenomena to be produced by the immediate 
 action of supernatural beings. In the metaphysical state, 
 which is only a modification of the first, the mind supposes, 
 instead of supernatural beings, abstract forces, veritable 
 entities (that is, personified abstractions) inherent in all 
 beings, and capable of producing all phenomena. What 
 is called the explanation of phenomena is in this stage 
 a mere reference of each to its proper entity. In the final, 
 positive state, the mind has given over the vain search 
 after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the 
 universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself 
 to the study of their laws, that is, invariable relations 
 of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observa- 
 tion, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. 
 What is now understood when we speak of explanation 
 of facts is simply the establishment of a connection of 
 single phenomena and some general facts, the number of 
 which diminishes with the progress of science. The theo- 
 logical system arrived at the highest perfection of which 
 it is capable when it substituted the providential action 
 of a single being for the varied operations of numerous 
 divinities which had been before imagined. In tho same 
 way, in the last stage of the metaphysical system was sub- 
 stituted one great entity (Nature) as the cause of all 
 phenomena, instead of the multitude of entities at first 
 supposed. In the same way, again, the ultimate perfection 
 of the positive system would be (if such perfection could 
 be hoped for) to represent all phenomena as particular 
 aspects of a single general fact, such as gravitation, for 
 instance." Evidences of this law are to be found in the
 
 308 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 history of the sciences, in the history of the individual 
 mind, in the theoretical considerations that the mind feels 
 a necessity, in dealing with numerous and complex data, 
 of having some theory by which to connect them ; that 
 it could in the beginning have only such a degree of intelli- 
 gence as the theoretical conception of things in general 
 embodies ; that the theological view would naturally stimu- 
 late inquiry, and lead on to the metaphysical (which is 
 merely transitional), and thence to the positive. The 
 positive view, then, is the scientifically true view; Positive 
 Philosophy, the true philosophy. 
 
 Characteristics and Problem of Positive Philosophy. 
 Positive philosophy has three general characteristics : ( i ) it 
 regards all phenomena as subject to invariable natural law; 
 
 (2) it attempts accurately to discover these laws, with a 
 view of reducing them to the smallest number possible ; 
 
 (3) it rejects speculation about origin and purpose, and 
 simply analyzes accurately the circumstances of phenomena, 
 connecting them by the natural relations of succession and 
 resemblance. Every sort of knowledge reaches the posi- 
 tive stage. Every branch of knowledge becomes a part 
 of positive philosophy as it acquires generality, simplicity, 
 independence. Every branch must sooner or later acquire 
 the positive character. Social phenomena, as being the 
 most individual, the most complex, most dependent on 
 others, are the latest to be brought within the positive 
 sphere, sociology the latest branch of positive philoso- 
 phy. The problems of positive philosophy are: (i) to 
 establish a social physics (to bring sociology fully within 
 the sphere of the positive) ; (2) to form a system of the 
 positive sciences. The former problem is primary; the 
 latter, secondary. 
 
 Advantages of the Positive Philosophy. There are four 
 advantages to accrue from the study of the positive phi- 
 losophy : ( i ) the discovery by experiment of the laws 
 which rule the intellect in the investigation of truth ; 
 (2) the regulation of education ; (3) the promotion of
 
 COMTE. 309 
 
 the progress of the special sciences; (4) the discovery 
 of a basis of social reorganization, (i) Introspective 
 psychology pursues a false, illusory method ; the mind 
 cannot observe its own phenomena; emotion interferes 
 with accurate observation; the method of introspection 
 cuts off the phenomena of mind from their causes and 
 effects. (2) Education is theological and metaphysical 
 chiefly ; it may be brought to the positive stage by positive 
 philosophy. (3) The positive philosophy will supply gen- 
 eral principles by which the sciences may receive new 
 applications, as algebra and geometry did when generalized 
 by Descartes. (4) Positive philosophy will do away with 
 the existing social anarchy by doing away with the intel- 
 lectual anarchy the existence of the three incompatible 
 philosophies of which it is the consequence. 
 
 The Hierarchy of the Positive Sciences, Human effort 
 is either^ theoretical or practical. We have to do here 
 only with the former. Science, or theoretical effort, is 
 either abstract or concrete. The former have to do with 
 laws, and are fundamental. With them alone is philosophy 
 concerned. The order of science must be determined as 
 nearly as possible according to the general principle that 
 the simpler and more general come first, and the more com- 
 plex and particular stand last. According to this principle 
 we should have the sciences arranged in nearly the his- 
 torical order of their perfection, as follows : Astronomy 
 (geometrical and mechanical), Terrestrial Physics (em- 
 bracing Physics properly so called and Chemistry) and 
 Organic Physics (including Physiology and Social Physics). 
 The principle which gives this order to the whole body 
 of science arranges the parts of each science. The fore- 
 going arrangement gives the sciences in the order of the 
 perfection, the simpler and more precise possessing the 
 higher degree of perfection. It also shows the order in 
 which they must be studied, since no science can be 
 "effectually pursued without the preparation of a compe- 
 tent knowledge of the anterior science on which it de-
 
 310 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 pends." (The advantage of all this for Pedagogy is obvious.) 
 The positive method, though always fundamentally the 
 same, receives different applications in the different sci- 
 ences, and to be thoroughly understood must be studied 
 in the different sciences. A variety of the methods appli- 
 cable to one science cannot be transferred without modi- 
 fication to another science. Mathematics, omitted from 
 the list of the sciences as given, is, and has been since the 
 time of Descartes and Newton, the basis of the whole of 
 Natural Philosophy, rather than a particular science. Re- 
 garded as a particular science, it would stand at the head 
 of the list. 
 
 Sociology. We pass over entirely Comte's treatment of 
 the first four of the five particular sciences which constitute 
 the entire circle of sciences, and speak merely of the fifth, 
 Sociology, a science of which he claimed to be the founder. 1 
 Sociology, or the Science of Society, has two general con- 
 ditions to consider; viz., those of order and progress in 
 civilization, the two being necessarily inseparable aspects of 
 one principle. It has accordingly the two general divisions, 
 Social Statics and Social Dynamics. The method of 
 Sociology is the same as that of the other sciences, the 
 method of combined induction and deduction. So far as it 
 merely observes and collects facts peculiar to its sphere and 
 draws from them empirical laws, it is inductive in its pro- 
 cedure ; so far as dependent on the anterior sciences of 
 Physiology, Chemistry, Physics, etc., it is deductive in its 
 procedure. The empirical laws it arrives at by induction, 
 must harmonize with the deductions from the principles 
 drawn from anterior sciences. Social Statics has for its " ob- 
 ject the positive study of the mutual action and reaction 
 which all portions of the social system continually exercise 
 upon each other." The elements it has to deal with are the 
 
 1 We may quote here a remark which occurs in Professor Huxley's 
 " The Advance of Science in the Last Half Century," to the effect that 
 Comte " had no adequate acquaintance with the physical sciences 
 even of his own time." In this Comte reminds one of Bacon.
 
 COMTE. 3 1 1 
 
 individual, the family, and society as such. The family was 
 " originally the sole, and always the principal, source of the 
 social feelings, and the only school open to mankind in gen- 
 eral in which unselfishness can be learned, and the feelings 
 and conduct demanded by social relations be made habitual." 
 Society is founded on a division of employment and a co- 
 operation of human beings. This division and this co-oper- 
 ation require a wise supervision, which can be exercised 
 only by Positive philosophers, in the capacity of authorized 
 educators. Social Dynamics, which treats of the laws of the 
 evolution of society, has for its fundamental law that of the 
 " constant and indispensable succession " of the three gen- 
 eral states theological, metaphysical, positive through 
 which our intelligence passes in all speculations. Corre- 
 sponding to these three states are three forms of social life, 
 the military, the legal, and the industrial. The most 
 important transition yet undergone by mankind is that 
 which gave rise to industrial organization, which substituted 
 serfdom for slavery, extended the influence of domestic 
 affections, tended to establish castes, and to unite differ- 
 ent populations, etc. Social regeneration must, primarily, 
 be speculative or intellectual : in the future the specula- 
 tive class will rule, because of the need men will naturally 
 come to feel for its influence in affairs of life. 
 
 The Religion of Humanity. Society is, in its highest 
 idea, a harmony of individual and collective humanity. 
 This renders it obligatory upon the individual to subordi- 
 nate himself to collective humanity, to live a life of unselfish 
 love and sacrifice as far as may be possible. Humanity is 
 the, for us, Supreme Being, the only being we can know 
 and worship. This Grand Eire is most perfectly symbol- 
 ized in woman, who, accordingly, living or as preserved in 
 memory, should be made an object of private worship, as 
 collective humanity is of public worship. The ministers of 
 the religion of humanity are, in the family, the women of 
 the family, and in society at large, a class of (male) priests 
 who, without power to command, have authority as advisers
 
 312 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and remonstrators, as the instructors of youth and as the 
 sole depositaries of the medical art. Though philosophers, 
 they subordinate their intellectual powers and attainments 
 to the ends of the social feeling, which is the essence of re- 
 ligion. The religious motto of the Positivist is, " D Amour 
 pour principe, F Ordre pour base, et le Progres pour but" 
 by " progress " being understood the continued increase 
 of mastery of man's defects and, in particular, those of 
 the moral nature. 
 
 Result. As regards Comte, it seems sufficient merely 
 to say that his " Positivism " is essentially that " scientific " 
 (semi-rationalistic) empiricism which in Hume (who, as 
 pointed out by J. S. Mill, went a step though but a step 
 beyond the position of Comte even) logically led to the 
 purest scepticism. We turn now to the thinker who by 
 almost universal acknowledgment logically put an end to 
 all empiricism in philosophy, Immanuel Kant, noting, 
 as we leave Comte, that his doctrines have exercised a de- 
 cided influence upon the later English thinkers, in par- 
 ticular J. S. Mill and Lewes, and some of the Germans, 
 e. g., Eugen Diihring. 
 
 112. 
 
 (3) German Systems. Among the German systems 
 (rather too numerous to be fully specified here) taken as a 
 group there appears such an order of development that they 
 may, even chronologically, almost, be arranged in the fol- 
 lowing succession : (i) Idealists, (a) subjective, as Kant, 
 Reinhold, Fichte, Schlegel, Schleiermacher, etc. ; {b} objec- 
 tive, as Schelling and his disciples ; (c) absolute, as Krause, 
 Hegel, etc. ; (2) Realists, as Jacobi, Schopenhauer, Herbart, 
 etc. ; (3) Ideal- Realists, as Beneke, Trendlenburg, Von Hart- 
 mann, Lotze, etc. (We overlook, for the present, minor, 
 sceptical, and materialistic systems.) The German systems, 
 whether regarded individually or as a group, exemplify 
 as it scarcely needs be said more fully than any others 
 of this period the conception of system, or totality. Ger-
 
 KANT. 313 
 
 man philosophy is in a very striking degree an organic 
 whole, even with its great number of systems. It is so be- 
 cause its standpoint is virtually that of the " whole," since 
 it is in a very eminent degree that of jr^-consciousness. 
 The founder of German philosophy and its ruling genius is, 
 of course, Immanuel Kant. 
 
 (i) Immanuel Kant 1 (1724-1804). Immanuel Kant, 
 son of an honest and industrious saddler of limited means, 
 was born in Konigsberg, Prussia. The strong piety of his 
 parents provided a thorough religious and moral training at 
 home for Immanuel, and would have destined him for the 
 ministry. He attended, between the years 1732 and 1740, 
 the gymnasium in his native town, at whose head was the 
 Pietist Franz Albert Schulz, a pastor, and at one time pro- 
 fessor of theology in the University of Konigsberg. At the 
 gymnasium Kant showed special fondness and aptitude for 
 the study of the Roman classics, from which he received 
 impressions that had a life-long influence over him, all 
 the more because he was not especially familiar with the 
 ancient classics in general. In 1 740 he entered the Uni- 
 versity of Konigsberg, primarily to study theology, though 
 mathematics and philosophy came in time to have greater 
 attractions for his mind. Thrown almost entirely upon his 
 individual resources by the death of his father (in 1746), 
 Kant spent nine years as a private tutor, in several families, 
 continuing meantime his learned studies and interesting him- 
 self in individual social culture as well. Duly qualifying 
 as a privat-docent, he began in 1755 what proved to be 
 an unusually successful career as university lecturer. He 
 lectured first on mathematics and physics ; afterwards on 
 logic, metaphysics, morals, physical geography, natural the- 
 ology, anthropology, philosophical encyclopaedia, a wide 
 range of subjects. After fifteen years a rather long 
 
 1 See Watson's " Selections from Kant," Zeller, Ueberweg, Erd- 
 mann, Noack, " Encyclopaedia Britannica," Caird, Kant's Works, etc.
 
 314 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 period, considering the value of his services and his popu- 
 larity as privat- decent, he received the appointment of 
 professor of logic and metaphysics in the university, hav- 
 ing in the interval failed in the attempt to secure a coveted 
 appointment as professor extraordinarius in mathematics, 
 and declined offers from the universities of Erlangen, Jena, 
 Halle, as well as the chair of poetry for which he con- 
 sidered himself unsuited at Konigsberg. He held his 
 professorship until, in 1797, the approach of old age and 
 failing powers caused his resignation. HK popularity as a^ 
 lecturer and Ms fame as a writer were such as to make his 
 name a very great one in Europe even long before his death. 
 ( Privately also he was a strong personality ; not only intelli- 
 gent on general topics, but also of a very social disposition, 
 he had many friends and admirers, and particularly among 
 the tradespeople of Konigsberg.) He felt a strong interest 
 in the humanitarian political movements in France and 
 America, and was open in the expression of his convictions. 
 His early Pietistic training had a life-long influence over 
 him, not, however, with the effect, as might perhaps be ex- 
 pected, of preserving the hull, but the real kernel, of religion 
 and the spirit of religious liberty, though he did not, it is 
 true, dare disobey a royal mandate (issued a propos of his 
 treatise on religion) that he should be silent on religious 
 topics. He did not regularly attend church, indeed, never 
 would enter a church ; though his duty as rector of the uni- 
 versity would seem to have required him at stated times to 
 do so at the head of academic processions. Physically he 
 was weak and inferior ; but by a strict regimen in living, 
 maintained health and power to labor industriously. 
 
 Kanfs Earlier Development and Works. Considered 
 with reference to the entire course of his philosophical 
 development, Kant belongs to an old and to a new order 
 of things, to the second as well as to the third period of 
 modern philosophy. He fully imbibed the philosophic and 
 scientific ideas current in his age and particularly in the 
 universities of Germany, and it was only quite gradually
 
 KANT. 3 I 5 
 
 that he outgrew, as far as that might be possible, the 
 T .gjhnitzQ-WoUEan metaphysics ar "jlh^ 
 
 His first lectures, based on the works of recognized author- 
 ities, merely repeated, with no very great modification, their 
 views. In his " Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie 
 des Himmels " ("Universal History of Nature and Theory 
 of the Heavens"), (1755), he asserts the Leibnitzian doc- 
 trine of the compatibility of a mechanical with a teleologi- 
 cal explanation of nature, though rejecting the theory of 
 the divine creative activity. In a somewhat later work on 
 " Optimism " (i 759), and in works on the Lisbon Earthquake 
 (1756), he upholds the Leibnitzian thesis that "the existing 
 universe is the best possible, and all parts are good in 
 view of the whole." In the " Physicalische Monadologie " 
 ("Physical Monadology"), (1756), there is a departure 
 from Leibnitzo-Wolffian principles in the assertion of the 
 existence of simple substance occupying real space, and of 
 the supremacy in logic of the principle of identity (over 
 contradiction), and the denial of pre-established harmony, 
 the principium identitatis indiscernibilium, and the validity 
 of the ontological proof of the existence of God. The work 
 " Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration 
 des Daseins Gottes " (" The only Possible Proof of the Ex- 
 istence of God") substitutes for the ordinary ontological, 
 teleological, and cosmological proofs of the existence of 
 God an " a priori proof" reposing on the principle that 
 possible being presupposes necessary being as its cause, and 
 an a priori proof the substance of which is that unity in 
 the world points to the existence of a God. Throughout 
 the greater part of the earlier period Kant treats space as 
 the order of relation between bodies, i. e., as objective 
 or quasi-objective, in accordance with the principles of his 
 " Physical Monadology." As to philosophical method, 
 Kant, without ceasing to insist on mathematics, emphasizes 
 more than Leibnitz had done the " analysis of experience, 
 and the explanation of phenomena by the rules which such 
 analysis implies." Finally, steering between the formalism
 
 316 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of the Wolffian and the unscientific procedure of mere em- 
 piricism, Kant, in works of the years 1765 and 1766, viz., 
 " Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen tiber 
 die Philosophic," etc. (" Announcement of the Arrangement 
 of his Lectures on Philosophy"), and "Traume eines Geister- 
 sehers erlautert durch Traume der Metaphysik " (" Dreams 
 of a Spirit-seer explained by Dreams of Metaphysics "), is to 
 be found declaring against a priori dogmatic metaphysics, 
 asserting that no finished philosophy exists, that questions 
 of a " purely ideal nature, which do not fall within the 
 sphere of sensible experience, are not merely impossible 
 and beyond the horizon of human knowledge, but are 
 entirely gratuitous and futile." 1 Here, then, is Kant's 
 " first direct renunciation of and attack on traditional met- 
 aphysics" (Zeller). According to Kant's own confession 
 (e.g., in the Preface to the "Prolegomena" mentioned be- 
 low), it was Hume's criticism of the category of causality 
 that "interrupted his dogmatic slumber" and caused him 
 to attempt (as he did) the " reform of metaphysics." 
 
 Kant's Later Works. The first positive attempt made 
 by Kant towards a reformation of metaphysics appears in a 
 work published in 1770, " De Mundi sensibilis atque intelli- 
 gibilis Forma et Principiis." This consists in the treating 
 of space and time, not indeed as purely subjective forms of 
 human knowledge, but as merely " phenomenal correlates 
 of the divine omnipresence and eternity" (Ueberweg). A 
 further movement would have been to treat substance, 
 causality, and other categories as ideal, and not real. This 
 was positively done in the first of the works now generally 
 recognized as expounding the distinctively Kantian stand- 
 point, viz., the " Kritik der reinen Vernunft" ("Critique 
 of Pure Reason "), (1781). Besides the " Kritik der reinen 
 Vernunft," we have to mention here the " Prolegomena zu 
 einer jeden kiinftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft 
 wird auftreten konnen" ("Prolegomena to every Future 
 Metaphysic which can claim to be a Science "), (1783) ; 
 1 See Noack.
 
 KANT. 3 1 7 
 
 " Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten " (" Foundation 
 of the Metaphysics of Ethics"), (1785) ; "Metaphysische 
 Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft " (" Metaphysical 
 Principles of Natural Science"), (1787) ; second edition 
 of the " Kritik der reinen Vernunft," containing im- 
 portant additions and alterations (1788); "Kritik der 
 praktischen Vernunft" ("Critique of Practical Reason"), 
 (1788); "Kritik der Urtheilskraft " ("Critique of the 
 Faculty of Judgment "), (1793) ; " Die Religion innerhalb 
 der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft " (" Religion within the 
 Limits of Mere Reason"), (1793); "Metaphysik der 
 Sitten," I. " Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Rechts- 
 lehre," II. " Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Tugend- 
 lehre " (" Metaphysics of Ethics," I. " Principles of Theory 
 of Right," II. "Principles of Theory of Virtue"), (1797). 
 
 Philosophy : Introduction. Philosophy has hitherto pur- 
 sued two opposed paths, one of dogmatic- assertion and f > ) 
 of implicit confidence in human, reason ; the other of ^ 
 doubt and distrust of human reason. Neither dogmatism 
 nor scepticism for these are the two paths proves its 
 own assertions or absolutely disproves those of the other. 
 There remains a third way ; namely, to investigate and sur- 
 vey to "criticize" the faculty of human reason as a 
 faculty for a priori knowledge of that which transcends 
 mere experience ; and this to the end that we may know 
 how to avoid the subreptions of reason and the illusions 
 springing therefrom. Philosophy, that is to say, is, first of 
 all, instead of dogmatism (Leibnitzo-Wolffism) or scepti- 
 cism (Humism), "criticism." After criticism has done its 
 work, metaphysics, if criticism shall show it to be possible, 
 begins. Now, human reason i. e. pure, non-empirical, 
 human reason has the three branches of theoretical 
 reason, practical reason, and the faculty of judgment inter- 
 mediate between the two former ; and the critique of hu- 
 man reason is a critique of theoretical reason, a critique 
 of practical reason, and a critique of the faculty of 
 judgment.
 
 3l8 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The Critique of Pure Reason : Introduction ; Problem 
 of the Critique of Pure Reason. " Though all our knowl- 
 edge begins with experience, it does not follow that there- 
 fore it all derives from experience." 1 There is, in fact, 
 an element in knowledge that is in a manner inde- 
 pendent of experience, an element that may properly be 
 designated as a priori, in contradistinction to an element 
 deriving immediately from experience itself, an a pos- 
 teriori element. Every proposition of mathematics, for 
 example, possesses a necessity and universality character- 
 istic of a priori knowledge alone. 2 And, in physics, such 
 a proposition as that every change has a cause, is mani- 
 festly universal and necessary, i. <?., a priori. There is, 
 further, a class of propositions in which are contained deep 
 interests of reason, but which, transcending the bounds 
 of all possible experience, make it necessary to determine 
 the possibility, principle, and limits of all a priori cogni- 
 tion. A priori propositions or judgments are either ana- 
 lytic or synthetic. An analytic judgment in general is a 
 judgment the predicate of which adds no idea to the sub- 
 ject not already in it implicitly. A synthetic judgment 
 is a judgment of the opposite character, its predicate 
 lies outside of the notion constituting the subject. In an 
 analytic judgment, the connection of subject and predicate 
 is thought through identity; in the synthetic it is not so 
 thought. Analytic judgments are judgments of explication 
 merely; synthetic judgments are judgments of extension. 
 The proposition, " All bodies are extended," is an example 
 of an analytic proposition ; for the notion of extension 
 is contained in that of body. In the proposition, "All 
 bodies are heavy," the predicate is outside the notion 
 of body as such ; and the proposition, therefore, is syn- 
 thetic. Now, the judgments of experience as such are 
 
 1 See "The Philosophy of Kant in Extracts" (selected by Pro- 
 fessor Watson, of Kingston), from which the following brief summary 
 of Kant's " Critiques" is very largely borrowed. 
 
 2 Compare Hume's assertion (above, pp. 192-193).
 
 KANT. 319 
 
 synthetic. Only by experience do we come to connect 
 the notion of weight with that of body ; but the judgments 
 of experience are as such a posteriori. The question 
 arises, Are, and if so, how are, a priori synthetic judg- 
 ments possible ? The sciences of mathematics and natural 
 philosophy present numerous examples of a priori syn- 
 thetic judgments ; the judgments of mathematics are in 
 fact all such. A priori synthetic judgments in natural 
 philosophy are such as, In all changes of the corporeal 
 world, the quantity of matter remains the same ; In all 
 communication of motion, action and reaction are equal. 
 All notions of the supersensible are ex hypothesi synthetic : 
 in its aim, at least, metaphysics consists in none other 
 than a priori synthetic judgments. The problem of pure 
 reason is thus comprised in the question, How are a priori 
 synthetic judgments possible ? /. e., How are pure mathe- 
 matics, pure natural philosophy, pure metaphysics possible ? 
 This problem has to be solved by a distinct science, the 
 Critique of Pure Reason ; reason, that is to say, which, 
 though present in all experience, is not derived merely 
 from experience. The divisions of this science may, anti- 
 cipatorily, be laid down as follows : ( i ) Theory of the 
 Elements of Pure Reason; (2) Theory of the Method 
 of Pure Reason ; and as there are two stems of cognition, 
 sense, which receives, and understanding, which thinks, 
 objects, the Theory of Elements has for its grand divisions 
 Transcendental ^Esthetic (or the Science of Sensibility) 
 and Transcendental Logic (Science of the Understanding). 
 The science thus outlined Criticism may be termed 
 Transcendentalism, as having to do with a priori knowl- 
 edge, or knowledge transcending experience as such. It 
 is not transcendent ; i. e., does not go beyond experience 
 in its totality, or all experience whatever, rather it shows 
 the fallacy of such " transcendent " use of reason. 
 
 Transcendental ^Esthetic. If we take away from " what 
 constitutes our consciousness of body the elements of it 
 belonging to understanding, as substance, force, divisi-
 
 320 A IlfS TORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 bility, etc., and the elements belonging to sensibility, 
 as impenetrability, hardness, color, etc., there still re- 
 main the two attributes of extension and figure. " These 
 belong to pure perception, which as mere form of sensi- 
 bility, and without any actual object of sense or sensation, 
 exists in the mind a priori. It is the pure, or a priori, 
 principles in general of sensibility that form the subject- 
 matter of the Transcendental ^Esthetic." The principles of 
 sensibility are comprised in the two forms space and time. 
 Space is the form of what may be designated as the outer 
 sense ; time, of the inner, or rather, since all mental 
 states, whether the object be outer or inner, presuppose 
 time, of sensibility in general. That time and space are 
 pure, and not empirical, appears from the facts [among 
 others] that they are in a manner preconditions to the 
 existence of phenomena ; they cannot be ' thought away ' 
 or abstracted from, though objects be removed from them. 
 That they are forms of perception, and not conception, 
 is proved by the fact that their parts do not precede the 
 wholes as individuals do a general abstract notion formed 
 from them. The parts of time and space are not logically 
 subsumable under the whole ; space is essentially a unit, 
 and different times are only parts of the same time. A 
 further proof of the subjectivity of space is found in the 
 fact that our space-distinctions are ultimately relative, 
 as shown by the terms "left," "right," etc. 1 An indirect 
 proof that space and time are subjective and a priori is 
 the fact of the practical reality of the science of pure 
 mathematics. Space and time are therefore pure percep- 
 tions, and as such render possible synthetic propositions 
 a priori of a certain kind. Their limitation consists in the 
 fact that they concern objects only so far as objects are 
 perceptions of sense ; they have no reference to so-called 
 things-in-themselves. Regarded as absolute objective re- 
 alities, space and time lose their values : for if they are 
 
 1 See Prolegomena, 13.
 
 K'ANT. 321 
 
 conceived as substance, they become self-subsistent enti- 
 ties, " having no other purpose than just to embrace all 
 that is actual ; " and if they are thought as attributes or 
 as relations among things, they are not principles of the 
 mathematical knowledge of things. As pure or a priori 
 forms of perception they render possible the science of 
 pure mathematics. If they were empirical perceptions, 
 no universal and necessary propositions could be based 
 on them ; if they were mere conceptions, they would fur- 
 nish no synthetic propositions. As pure and non-empirical 
 and as intuitions, or pure perceptions, they are both a 
 priori and synthetic, and hence are capable of supporting 
 a pure mathematics. It is possible to conceive a sort of 
 perception which, instead of being, like ours, "possible 
 only through the perceptivity of the subject being affected 
 by an object," is such that through it the very being of 
 the object is given, an original intellectual perception 
 such as can belong only to God. It is possible that there 
 are other beings besides human beings, having a form of 
 perception like ours as regards space and time ; so their 
 perceptions must, like ours, be a sensible, not an intel- 
 lectual, perception. 
 
 Transcendental Logic : Introduction. Transcendental 
 Logic differs from ordinary general logic in that it does 
 not abstract from all matter of cognition, though it cer- 
 tainly does from all merely empirical matter of cognition ; 
 since, in order to show how the understanding thinks what 
 sense has received, the pure conceptions have to be con- 
 sidered, not only in themselves, but in their relations to pure 
 perception. Transcendental logic, therefore, instead of be- 
 ing (like the ordinary' Scholastic logic) subjective and gen- 
 eral, is objective, a logic of cognition and truth. According 
 as it treats of the legitimate application of pure conceptions 
 to the matter of pure sense or of their illegitimate employ- 
 ment in a sphere beyond sense, it may be termed either 
 Analytic or Dialectic. Analytic, since conceptions have to 
 be considered both in themselves and in their applications 
 VOL. i. 21
 
 322 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 to objects in general, has two parts, the Analytic of No- 
 tions, and the Analytic of Judgments. 
 
 The Analytic of Notions : The Categories. The office 
 of the understanding in thinking the matter of sense is to 
 bring into unity in various ways the units of cognition fur- 
 nished by sense. This it does through various forms of 
 activity, or functions. As all acts or functions are judg- 
 ments, what the various forms of the constitutive activity 
 of the understanding are in relation to experience, may be 
 determined from the inspection of a table of logical judg- 
 ments. Logical judgments may be viewed with regard to 
 quantity, quality, relation, modality. As to quantity, judg- 
 ments are universal, particular, singular ; as to quality, judg- 
 ments are affirmative, negative, infinite ; as to relation they 
 are categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive ; as to modality, 
 problematic, assertoric, apodictic. The pure synthetic 
 acts, the pure conceptions of the understanding, or the 
 logical categories, are, accordingly, as follows : of quantity, 
 unity, plurality, totality ; of quality, reality, negation, 
 limitation ; of relation, inherence and subsistence (sub- 
 stance and accident) , causality and dependence (cause and 
 effect), communion (reciprocity of action and reaction) ; of 
 modality, possibility and impossibility, existence (actual- 
 ity) and non-existence, necessity and contingency. The first 
 two groups of categories, which have to do with objects of 
 perception, may be denominated mathematical categories ; 
 the last two, having to do with the existence of objects, 
 dynamical categories. A mere glance suffices to show that 
 the third in each of the four groups " owes its origin to the 
 union of the second with the first : totality is merely plural- 
 ity regarded as unity ; limitation is reality in union with 
 negation ; reciprocity is substance exchangeably causal ; 
 and necessity, lastly, given, as it were, by possibility 
 itself." 
 
 The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. It 
 has now to be shown how by what right or law the 
 categories can have application in relation to objects of
 
 KANT. 323 
 
 experience, or furnish conditions of the very possibility of 
 all perception and experience of objects. All thought, or 
 activity of the understanding, consists in the reference to 
 a single principle, of a jnanifold (furnished by sense). Un- 
 less it be possible that / think accompany all my percep- 
 tions, they are nothing for me. And this reference of the 
 elements of my consciousness to myself which constitutes a 
 necessary part of consciousness depends on the possibility 
 of my conjoining in a single consciousness the given ele- 
 ments of consciousness. There is, therefore, presupposed 
 by the single consciousness and the accompanying apper- 
 ception of self, an original synthesis. The " ultimate prin- 
 ciple of the possibility of all perception in relation to 
 understanding is, then, that the unity of every perceptive 
 complex must stand under conditions of the original syn- 
 thetic unity of apperception." Matter of sense which has 
 submitted to this condition has acquired objectivity. Now 
 this objectivity is a fixed unity wrought by the understand- 
 ing under the guidance of self-consciousness ; and as all 
 acts of the understanding are comprised in the categories, 
 the categories, at the same time as they are instrumental 
 in objectifying the manifold of sense, themselves receive 
 reality. In their original character the categories have no 
 other application in cognition than to matter of experience, 
 since thought or judgment requires a given manifold, with- 
 out which it would be merely ideal, " perceptions without 
 conceptions being blind, conceptions without perceptions, 
 empty." 
 
 Analytic of Judgments. We have next to consider the 
 sense-conditions under which the application takes place, 
 and then the synthetic propositions (judgments) which a 
 priori result from the categories under these conditions and 
 underlie all other a priori judgments. 
 
 Schematism of the Categories. For the application of 
 the categories to the affections of sense there fs required 
 a third somewhat (besides affections and categories), a 
 tertium quid, partaking of the characters of both, like
 
 324 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 both non-empirical, but intellectual in one aspect, and 
 sensuous in another. This tertium quid is pure time. 
 Time may be viewed as regards range or extent (as ad- 
 mitting the existence of units singly,, in a group, or as a 
 sum) ; as regards content, as having a content in gen- 
 eral, not having any content, having a definite content ; as 
 regards order of content, order being one of permanence, 
 irreversible succession, reversible succession, i. e., co-exist- 
 ence ; as regards comprehension. being in this regard 
 indefinite and particular time, definite and particular time, 
 and universal time. These time-relations constitute a 
 system of schemata by which the categories may be 
 mediated with the affections of sense. Time-extent with 
 its modes becomes the schema of the general category of 
 quantity, with its modes ; time-content with its modes, of 
 quality with its modes ; time-order with its modes, of rela- 
 tion with its modes; time-comprehension with its modes, 
 of modality with its modes. According to this arrange- 
 ment, the schema of substance, e. g., is permanence of order 
 of time ; of cause, irreversible succession ; of reciprocity, 
 co-existence ; of necessity, universal time, *'. <?., always ; etc. 
 The establishment of this schematism of the categories 
 effects the mediation between understanding and sense in 
 both directions (/. e., from understanding to sense, and 
 vice versa}, and completes the demonstration of the 
 theorem that knowledge originates within, but not solely 
 from experience. The faculty of the schemata (and hence 
 also the mediator between pure sense and pure understand- 
 ing) is Transcendental Imagination. 
 
 The System of Principles of the Pure Understanding. 
 Distinguishing the activities of the understanding as ana- 
 lytic and synthetic, we have as the highest principle of the 
 former the law that " no subject can have a predicate that 
 contradicts it, /. e., the principle of contradiction ; " and 
 as the highest principle of the latter, the law that " every 
 object is subject to the necessary conditions of a syn- 
 thetical unity of the manifold of intuition in a possible
 
 KANT. 325 
 
 experience." The principle of contradiction is, for the 
 most part, merely a negative criterion of truth : it has a 
 positive use in enabling us to deny the opposite of that 
 which " exists and is thought as a concept in our knowl- 
 edge." It is a general and altogether sufficient principle 
 of analytical knowledge. Our highest principle of syn- 
 thetic judgment shows us at once that our best guide to 
 the system of particular synthetic principles is the table of 
 categories. These principles are : (i) All intuitions (sen- 
 sations) are extensive magnitudes, the principle of the 
 " Axioms of Intuition " (corresponds to the category of 
 quantity) ; (2) In all phenomena the real, which is an 
 object of sensation, has intensive magnitude, or degree, 
 the principle of the " Anticipations of Perception " (cor- 
 responding to ^category of quality) ; (3) Experience is 
 possible only through the idea of a necessary connec- 
 tion of phenomena, the principle of the " Analogies of 
 Experience" (corresponding to the category of relation). 
 First Analogy. In all changes of phenomena, substance 
 remains the same, and its quantum in nature is neither 
 increased nor diminished, the Principle of Permanence 
 (corresponding to category of substance). Second Anal- 
 ogy. All changes occur according to the law of connection 
 of cause and effect, principle of sequence, according to 
 the law of causality (corresponding to the category of cau- 
 sality) . Third Analogy. All substances, in so far as they 
 can be conceived as coexisting in space, are in complete 
 reciprocity, principle of coexistence according to the 
 law of reciprocity (corresponding to category of re- 
 ciprocity). (4) Postulates of Empirical Thought: (a) 
 What agrees with the formal conditions of experience (in 
 intuition and conception) is possible ; () What agrees 
 with the material conditions of experience (sensation) 
 is actual; (c} That, the connection of which with the 
 actual is determined according to the universal conditions 
 of experience, is necessary or exists necessarily. 
 " These primary principles of the understanding are the
 
 326 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 principles a priori of the possibility of experience, and 
 have no application whatever to anything beyond pos- 
 sible experience." 
 
 Ground of Distinction of Phenomena and Noumena. 
 The truth that the categories have no application beyond 
 experience, overthrows that boasted Ontology, which pre- 
 sumes to supply in a systematic form various sorts of syn- 
 thetical knowledge a priori of things by themselves (for 
 instance, the principle of causality) , and necessitates the sub- 
 stitution of the more modest Analytic of the Understanding. 
 But there is a certain sense in which the categories may be 
 said to extend farther than sensuous perception; and the 
 notion of noumenon, i. e., of a thing which can never be 
 thought as an object of the senses, but only as a thing in itself 
 (by the pure understanding) is not self-contradictory. For 
 the categories apply to objects in general without regard to 
 the special mode of sensibility in which they may be given ; 
 though we cannot maintain that sensibility is not for us the 
 only form of perception. The conception of the nou- 
 menon is necessary to keep sensuous perception from 
 extending to things in themselves : it is useful as a limita- 
 tive conception. But it has no further use, and the real 
 division of phenomena from noumena and of the world 
 into a sensible and intelligible world is inadmissible. By 
 means of the conception of noumenon the understanding 
 receives a sort of negative extension and independence ; it 
 limits itself, instead of being limited merely by sensibility. 
 Metaphysics, as a priori science of the supersensible, is 
 impossible. 
 
 Transcendental Dialectic. Inasmuch as the activity ol 
 the understanding is in relation to knowledge, as distin- 
 guished from mere thought, dependent upon that of sense, 
 which is changing and relative, it is a conditioned activity. 
 The "principles" of the understanding are, absolutely 
 viewed, rules rather than principles. The faculty of pure 
 principles, the activity of which is unconditioned, is pure 
 reason. Reason does not " look to experience," or to any
 
 KANT. 327 
 
 object but to the understanding, in order to impart a priori 
 through notions to its manifold kinds of knowledge a unity 
 that may be called the unity of reason (and is very different 
 from the unity which can be produced by the understand- 
 ing) . Since Reason is the faculty of the unconditioned, the 
 question whether pure reason contains synthetical principles 
 and rules a priori must be answered in the affirmative or 
 negative according as it is determined whether or not the 
 series of the conditioned extends to the unconditioned. If 
 it does not, the objective application of the pure principles 
 of reason must result in illusion. As in general logic that 
 part of the subject dealing with false appearances of truth 
 is known as dialectic, the corresponding division in this 
 science may be termed Transcendental Dialectic. Logi- 
 cally viewed, reason is the faculty of inference, as under- 
 standing is of judgment ; and the Transcendental Dialectic 
 naturally falls into the two grand divisions: (i) Concep- 
 tions or Ideas of the Pure Reason, and (2) Syllogisms of 
 Pure Reason. 
 
 Conceptions or Ideas of Pure Reason. Reason being 
 the faculty of inference, its conceptions have to be drawn 
 from the forms of the syllogism, as the conceptions of 
 understanding were from those of judgments. Syllogisms 
 are categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive. The uncon- 
 ditioned viewed categorically becomes the absolute unity 
 of the thinking subject ; hypothetically, the absolute unity 
 of the series of phenomena ; disjunctively, the absolute 
 unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general. 
 The Notions or Ideas of the reason are, in other words, 
 those of the Soul, of the World, and of God. These Con- 
 ceptions or Ideas of the reason necessarily have no corre- 
 sponding object in sense, and may therefore be termed 
 transcendental. They are, however, not mere fancies, but 
 are supplied to us by the very nature of reason, and refer by 
 necessity to the whole use of the understanding. And they 
 are " transcendent," as overstepping the limits of all expe- 
 rience, which can never supply an object adequate to the
 
 328 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 transcendental idea. " There is among the transcendental 
 ideas themselves a certain connection and unity by which 
 pure reason brings all its knowledge into one system. 
 There is, in the progression from our knowledge of our- 
 selves (the soul) to a knowledge of the world, and through 
 it to a knowledge of the Supreme Being, something so 
 natural that it looks like the logical progression of reason 
 from premises to a conclusion." 
 
 The Syllogisms : Dialectical Conclusions of Pure Rea- 
 son. If I conclude from the transcendental or subjective 
 notion of the thinking subject, which contains no manifold- 
 ness, the absolute unity of the real subject itself, of which I 
 have no notion, I employ a certain dialectical syllogism 
 (which we will call the transcendental paralogism} . Con- 
 cluding from the fact that my notion of the unconditioned 
 synthetic unity of the series of conditions to any given 
 phenomenon is always self-contradictory, the correctness of 
 the opposite unity, of which, however, I have no real con- 
 ception, gives rise to a second class of dialectical syllogisms, 
 which in their paired opposition may be termed antinomies 
 of reason. A third class of dialectical syllogisms which 
 may be called the Ideal of Pure Reason arises when I 
 conclude from the totality of conditions under which objects 
 in general, so far as they can be given to me, must be 
 thought, the absolute synthetical unity of all conditions of 
 the possibility of things in general, or, in other words, when 
 I conclude from things which I do not know according to 
 their mere transcendental notion, a Being of all beings, 
 which I know still less through a transcendent notion, and 
 of the unconditioned necessity of which I can form no 
 notion whatever. 
 
 Transcendental Paralogism : Criticism of Rational Psy- 
 chology. The idea of the unconditioned, applied to self- 
 consciousness, or the " I think," accompanying all synthetic 
 activity of the understanding, requires that the ego, as such 
 consciousness, be regarded as logical subject of all its states 
 (i.e., as substance), as simple (in quality), as a unit (in
 
 KANT. 329 
 
 quantity), as distinct from a certain contraposed other 
 (modality). But a paralogism is committed when asser- 
 tions made by the ego as merely subjective, or as merely 
 conceived, concerning itself, are converted into assertions 
 made of an objective somewhat capable of being given in 
 perception, and the soul is asserted to be a substance, to 
 be simple and individual and to exist independently of other 
 substances. It would be equally wrong, indeed, to assert 
 that the soul is not a simple, single, individual substance, or, 
 in other words, that it is material in nature. The soul not 
 being given to us as an object of sense, we have no matter 
 as regards it to which the categories of the understanding 
 substance, simplicity, unity, individuality can apply. Ra- 
 tional Psychology as a positive science or as anything other 
 than a criticism of ordinary dogmatic, empirical, and scep- 
 tical views of the soul, is an impossibility. 
 
 The Antinomy of Pure Reason : Criticism of Rational 
 Cosmology. The idea of the unconditioned applied to 
 phenomena gives rise to four pairs of antithetical ideas 
 corresponding to the four classes of categories, as follows : 
 (i) The finitude and infinitude of the world of phenomena 
 in time and space; (2) The infinite and the finite divi- 
 sibility of the real in time or phenomena; (3) Free and 
 necessary causation of phenomena ; (4) Existence and non- 
 existence of a necessary Being belonging to the world either 
 as part or as the cause of it. Propositionally expressed, 
 these ideas are : ( i ) The world has a beginning in time 
 and is limited in space (Thesis) ; The world has no begin- 
 ning and no limits in space, but is infinite in respect to 
 both time and space (Antithesis). (2) Every compound 
 substance in the world consists of simple parts, and nothing 
 exists anywhere but the simple, or what is composed of it 
 (Thesis) ; No compound in the world consists of simple 
 parts, and there exists nowhere in the world anything simple 
 (Antithesis). (3) Causality according to the laws of na- 
 ture is not the only causality from which all phenomena of 
 the world can be deduced ; in order to account for these
 
 330 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 phenomena it is necessary also to admit another causality, 
 that of freedom (Thesis) ; There is no freedom, but every- 
 thing in the world takes place entirely according to the 
 laws of nature (Antithesis). (4) There exists an absolutely 
 necessary Being, belonging to the world either as a part or 
 as the cause of it (Thesis) ; There nowhere exists an ab- 
 solutely necessary Being either within or without the world 
 as the cause of it. The solution of the first of the forego- 
 ing antinomies is found by a distinction between the in- 
 finite and indefinite. An infinite (definite) quantity is for 
 us an impossible notion ; in trying to realize such an idea 
 (which we get only by a misapplication of the notion of 
 the unconditioned to quantity), we merely go on in thought 
 in indefinitum. The whole world of phenomena, as regards 
 quantity, is, absolutely speaking, neither infinite nor finite for 
 us in concrete thought, but indefinite, or capable of further 
 determination (a fact tallying with the subjectivity of 
 space) . The solution of the second antinomy is found by 
 distinguishing between the infinitely divisible and the in- 
 finitely divided, the latter being an impossible concep- 
 tion. Body, in other words, is, like space, divisible in 
 indefinitum without consisting of an infinite number of parts. 
 " What applies to a thing by itself represented by a 
 pure notion of the understanding, does not apply to what 
 is called substance, phenomenon. This is not an absolute 
 subject, but only a permanent image of sensibility, nothing, 
 in fact, but perception, in which nothing unconditioned can 
 ever be met with." The resolution of the third and fourth 
 antinomies depends on the distinction between phenomena 
 and noumena. The thesis holds true of the world regarded 
 as noumenon, the antithesis, of the world viewed as pheno- 
 menon. Man's knowledge of himself through mere apper- 
 ception is proof of his freedom in relation to nature, or the 
 world of sense. The possibility of a free cause appears, 
 apart from the fact that a phenomenal and necessary cause 
 (antecedent) cannot originate anything, also from the ex- 
 istence of practical or moral imperatives, through which man
 
 KANT. 331 
 
 recognizes himself as being partly outside as well as within 
 the world of phenomena. "The understanding can know in 
 nature only what is present, past, or future. It is impos- 
 sible that anything in it ought to be different from what it 
 is in reality, in all these relations of time. If we look only 
 at the course of nature, the ought has no meaning what- 
 ever." This " ought " expresses a possible action, the 
 ground of which cannot be anything but a mere notion ; 
 while in every natural action the ground must always be a 
 phenomenon. In asserting the existence of a natural law 
 of causation, we do not if we distinguish between pheno- 
 mena and noumena contradict the causality of freedom. 
 It is a peculiarity of the Fourth Antinomy that it carries us 
 outside of the world of phenomena, " since there cannot 
 be in the whole series of dependent existence any uncondi- 
 tioned link the existence of which might be considered as 
 absolutely necessary." 
 
 The Ideal of Pure Reason : Criticism of Transcendental 
 Theology. Further removed from objective reality than 
 the Idea, is what may be termed the- Ideal, or the idea 
 not merely in concrete, but in indiinduo ; i. e., an indi- 
 vidual thing determinable or even determined by the idea 
 alone. Virtue and human wisdom in its perfect purity are 
 ideas, while the wise man (of the Stoics) is an ideal, /. e., 
 a man existing in thought only, but in complete agreement 
 with the idea of wisdom. The idea gives rules, the ideal 
 serves as the archetype for the perfect determination of the 
 copy. Reason postulates such an ideal in the notion of an 
 ens realissimum, i. e., a being possessing in itself all pos- 
 sible attributes of reality. The notion of the ens realis- 
 simum ens originarium, ens summum, ens entium, simple 
 being, cause of all others is the only true ideal of which 
 human reason is capable, because it is in this case alone 
 that a notion of a thing which in itself is general is com- 
 pletely determined by itself and recognized as the repre- 
 sentation of an individual. '' It is self-evident that in order 
 to represent the necessary and complete determination of
 
 332 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 things, reason does not presuppose the existence of a being 
 that should correspond to this ideal, but its idea only, in 
 order to derive from an unconditioned totality of complete 
 determination the conditioned one, that is, the totality of 
 something limited." To suppose the existence of a being 
 corresponding to the ideal, is to apply outside of experience 
 an idea which, though having the highest validity in ex- 
 perience as such, has for us no application outside of it. 
 Upon this misapplication of the ideal of pure reason rest the 
 three speculative proofs, so called, of the existence of God, 
 ontological, cosmological, physico-theological (" ideo- 
 logical"). The notion of the ens realissimum to criti- 
 cise the ontological proof first, since the others depend 
 upon it does not necessarily imply the existence of such 
 a being. Existence is not an attribute ; if possessed by an 
 ens realissimum, it would not add anything to the notion 
 of it. Hence it is not to be derived from it, any more 
 than a hundred real dollars are derivable from the mere 
 notion of a hundred dollars. We never mistake the mere 
 notion of an object of sense for the existence of it. The 
 cosmological proof, or proof a contingentia mundi, argues 
 from experience to the existence of necessary being, as- 
 suming that necessary being implies an ens realissimum. 
 Rather should necessary being be deduced at once from 
 the notion of the ens realissimum, and the a posteriori 
 position of the cosmological proof be dropped. There are 
 four fallacies, however, in the cosmological proofs besides 
 this : ( i ) The application of the principle that everything 
 contingent must have a cause, which is valid in the world 
 of sense only, outside that sphere; (2) The inference of a 
 first cause, based on the impossibility of an infinite ascend- 
 ing series of given causes in the world of sense, an infer- 
 ence which the principles of the use of reason do not allow 
 us to draw even in experience, while here we extend that 
 principle beyond experience, whither that series can never 
 be prolonged ; (3) The false self-satisfaction of reason 
 with regard to the completion of that series, brought about
 
 KANT. 333 
 
 by removing in the end every kind of condition, without 
 which, nevertheless, no notion of necessity is possible, and 
 by then, when any definite notions have become impos- 
 sible, accepting this as a completion of our notion; (4) 
 The mistaking the logical possibility of a notion of all 
 united reality (without any internal contradiction) for the 
 transcendental, which requires a principle for the practi- 
 cability of such a synthesis, such a principle being ap- 
 plicable to the field of possible experience only. The 
 physico-teleological proof possesses a certain plausibility 
 and respectability, as being the oldest, clearest, most in 
 conformity with human reason, and as adding life to the 
 study of nature, but is lacking in apodictic certainty. The 
 principal points of the proof are : (i) There are every- 
 where in the world clear indications of an intentional ar- 
 rangement carried out with great wisdom, and forming a 
 whole indescribably varied in its contents and infinite in 
 extent; (2) The fitness of this arrangement is entirely 
 foreign to the things existing in the world, and belongs to 
 them contingently only, /. <?., the nature of different things 
 could never spontaneously, by the combination of so 
 many means, co-operate towards definite aims, if these 
 means had not been selected and arranged on purpose by 
 a rational disposing principle, according to certain funda- 
 mental ideas; (3) There exists, therefore, a sublime and 
 wise cause (or many), which must be the cause of the 
 world, not only as a blind and all-powerful nature, by 
 means of unconscious fecundity, but as an intelligence, by 
 freedom ; (4) The unity of that cause may be inferred with 
 certainty from the unity of the reciprocal relation of the 
 parts of the world, as a portion of a skilful edifice, so far as 
 our experience reaches, and beyond it, with plausibility, ac- 
 cording to the principles of analogy. The argument leaves 
 out of account the sirtstance of the world, and so arrives not 
 at a creator, but an architect of the world, who may be 
 subject, to a large extent, to the nature of the material 
 with which he has to deal. (To prove the contingency of
 
 334 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 matter we have to resort to an a priori argument.) The 
 argument, therefore, merely proceeds from a contingent ar- 
 rangement in the world to a contingent cause, for no one 
 can pretend that omnipotence, the highest wisdom, absolute 
 unity, constitute a cause proportionate to a world of which 
 experience alone teaches us. The notion of the highest 
 cause is, therefore, not given by the physico-theological 
 proof. This proof has to be supplemented by the cosmo- 
 logical with its (transcendental) inference from contingency 
 to necessity, and from necessity to the ens realissimum. 
 These three " proofs " being the only possible ones, and the 
 last two being considered as a priori proofs reducible 
 to the ontological one, it follows that the ontological proof 
 is the sole a priori proof if any proof so far transcending 
 the empirical use of the understanding is possible at all 
 of the existence of the Ideal of Pure Reason, or God. But 
 as no object can be given corresponding to such an ideal, 
 since experience is conditioned, while by hypothesis the 
 Ideal is unconditioned, there is no proof of the existence of 
 God^ Transcendental Theology, therefore, exists only as a 
 criticism and test of our ideas of the highest reality, and 
 would prove itself indispensable if by an ethico-theology 
 the " flawless ideal " constituted by the notion of the Su- 
 preme Being were proved to possess objective reality. 
 Necessity, infinity, unity, extra-mundane existence, eternity 
 free from conditions of time, omnipresence free from con- 
 ditions of space, omnipotence, etc., all these are trans- 
 cendental predicates, and their purified notions, which are 
 required for every theology, can be derived from transcen- 
 dental theology only. 
 
 Transcendental Theory of Method. By the " Trans- 
 cendental Theory of Method" (to take up the second 
 grand-division of the " Critique of Pure Reason ") is to 
 be understood the determination of the former conditions 
 of a complete system of pure reason. This involves 
 (i) a theory of the negative aspect of reason, which theory, 
 as teaching merely how error shall be avoided, may be
 
 KANT. 335 
 
 styled the Discipline of Pure Reason; (2) a theory of the 
 positive aspect of reason, which, as presenting the standard 
 a system of principles a priori for the proper em- 
 ployment of reason, may be termed the Canon of Pure 
 Reason; (3) a theory of pure reason as a system, which 
 may be termed the Architectonic of Pure Reason ; (4) a 
 History of Pure Reason. According to the Discipline 
 of Pure Reason, neither the dogmatic (/. e., mathemati- 
 cal), nor the polemical or merely sceptical use, nor the 
 hypothetical use of reason, is philosophical. Philosophi- 
 cal method differs in kind, not merely in degree, from 
 mathematical ; since philosophy deals with pure con- 
 ceptions, not with intuitions. It cannot, therefore, begin 
 with axioms and definitions, and it employs apodictic 
 demonstration in a way peculiar to itself; /. e., it is 
 obliged to presuppose that which it demonstrates. (The 
 proposition, that everything that happens has its cause, 
 is presupposed in any proof of its truth, since it must 
 be assumed as a condition of the experience by appeal 
 to which its truth is shown. The proof or deduction 
 of the categories was found to lie in the fact that only 
 through them was experience possible.) The polemical 
 (including the sceptical) use of reason stands in the way 
 of an impartial, all-sided view of the principles of the 
 understanding, and has value chiefly as a " true school- 
 master to lead the dogmatic speculator towards a sound 
 criticism of the understanding and of reason." Hypotheses 
 are inadmissible, except for polemical purposes, in dealing 
 with questions of pure reason ; since reason, independent 
 of all experience, knows everything either a priori and 
 as necessary, or not at all. There are three rules govern- 
 ing the proofs of Pure Reason : ( i ) To attempt no trans- 
 cendental proofs before first having considered whence 
 we should take the principles on which such proofs are 
 to be based, and by what right we may expect our con- 
 clusions to be successful; (2) For every transcendental 
 proposition only one proof can be found ; (3) Transcen-
 
 336 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 dental proofs must never be apagogical, or circumstantial, 
 but always os tensive, or direct. According to the Canon 
 of Pure Reason, the " highest aim to which the speculation 
 of reason, in its transcendental employment, is directed, 
 comprehends three objects, the Freedom of the Will, the 
 Immortality of the Soul, and the Existence of God." The 
 purely speculative interest of reason in these questions is 
 very small : the interest of them is almost wholly practi- 
 cal ; /. e., in so far only as they are related to our knowl- 
 edge of what ought to be done. In relation to these 
 questions, the proper mental attitude is that of moral be- 
 lief. The ordinary understanding has just as much (and 
 just as little) knowledge upon these questions as the 
 wisest philosopher. The Architectonic of Pure Reason 
 defines philosophy in a " Scholastic " or " logical " aspect 
 as the system of all philosophical knowledge, and points 
 out that there is also a " universal" or, so to say, " cos- 
 mical," notion of philosophy, according to which phi- 
 losophy is the science of the relation of all knowledge 
 to the essential aims of human reason. Philosophy is 
 cither pure or empirical. " The philosophy of pure rea- 
 son is either propaedeutic, inquiring into the faculties of 
 reason with regard to all pure knowledge a priori, and 
 called critique, or the system of pure reason (science), 
 comprehending in systematical connection the whole (both 
 true and illusory) of philosophical knowledge derived from 
 pure reason, and called metaphysic." Metaphysic is either 
 speculative or practical, metaphysic of nature, or meta- 
 physic of morals. The metaphysic of nature, so far as 
 treating of understanding and reason in themselves and 
 their connection with object (being) in general, is On- 
 tology ; so far as treating of the sum given of objects 
 (nature), is Rational Physiology. The employment of 
 reason in this rational study of nature is either physical 
 or hyperphysical, or, more accurately speaking, immanent 
 or transcendent. Transcendent Physiology has for its 
 object either an internal or an external connection, both
 
 KANT. 337 
 
 transcending every possible experience : the former is the 
 physiology of nature as a whole, or transcendental knowl- 
 edge of the world ; the latter refers to the connection 
 of the whole of nature with a Being above nature, and 
 is therefore transcendental knowledge of God. Immanent 
 Physiology, which considers nature as object of experience, 
 has two parts, Rational Physic and Rational Psychology. 
 The whole system of metaphysics consists, then, of 
 (i) Ontology; (2) Rational Physiology (including Ra- 
 tional Physics and Rational Psychology) ; (3) Rational 
 Cosmology; (4) Rational Theology. Empirical Psy- 
 chology is not properly a part of metaphysics : " it is a 
 stranger only, whom one allows to stay a little longer until 
 he can take up his own abode in a complete system of 
 anthropology, the pendant to the doctrine of nature." In 
 the History of Pure Reason it is made to appear that 
 hitherto several paths to the goal of reason have been 
 trodden in vain. Considered with reference to the object 
 of knowledge, there are the sensualistic (Epicurus) and 
 intellectualistic (Plato) ; as regards origin of knowledge, 
 the empiricistic (Aristotle) and no-ologistic (Plato) ; as 
 regards method, the dogmatic (Wolff) and sceptical 
 (Hume). There remains the critical path, the only one 
 path still open, which bids fair to lead to a goal as yet 
 through long centuries unattained, though sought. 
 
 Critique of Practical Reason : The Notion of Practical 
 Reason. Reason is practical as subjected, or rather as 
 subjecting itself, to an ideal, a moral law. The moral law 
 we know as a fact of pure reason. From this fact we know 
 also as a fact freedom, since the moral law could have its 
 ratio essendi in freedom only. The moral law is the ratio 
 cognoscendi of freedom, as freedom is the ratio essendi of 
 the moral law. Reason as practical, demonstrates itself to 
 be what as theoretical it was only in possibility, and thus 
 the harmony of the two aspects of reason is made out. 
 
 The Analytic of Pure Practical Reason : The Princi- 
 ples of Pure Practical Reason. Practical principles in 
 VOL. i. 22
 
 338 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 general are either material, which presuppose an object of 
 the faculty of desire as the ground of determination, and so 
 are empirical and subjective, or else formal, which pre- 
 suppose only the idea of law, and hence are rational and 
 objective. All material practical principles as such fall 
 under the general principle of self-love, or private happiness, 
 
 they place the determining principle of the will in the 
 lower desires, so that, if there were no purely formal laws of 
 the will adequate to determine it, we could not have any 
 higher desire at all. On the other hand, since the bare form 
 of the law is the object of reason only, the will, which is 
 determined by the merely formal practical principle, is in- 
 dependent of natural phenomena and their law, the law 
 of causality, /. e., is a perfectly free will. The fundamen- 
 tal law of such a will must be, Act so that the maxim of thy 
 will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of 
 universal legislation. (This law is a [the] " categorical im- 
 perative," unconditional command.) Pure reason, that 
 is to say, is practical of itself alone, gives itself its law. 
 This principle, the principle of the autonomy of the will, is 
 the sole principle of moral laws. Heteronomy of the will 
 
 the being ruled by something foreign to itself cannot be 
 the basis of any obligation, but is, on the contrary, opposed 
 to the principle thereof and to the morality of the will. The 
 autonomy of the will, as distinguished from the mere inde- 
 pendence of natural law, is positive, as distinguished from 
 negative, freedom. The moral law proves that we belong 
 to a supersensible as well as a sensible world, and permits 
 us to view nature, in spite of its mechanism, as a supersen- 
 sible system, /. e., a system having the determining prin- 
 ciple of its causality solely in the pure faculty of reason. 
 
 The Notion of an Object of Pure Practical Reason. 
 The only objects of the practical reason are, the good and 
 the evil, the former being always an object necessarily 
 desired according to a principle of reason, the latter an 
 object necessarily shunned, according to a principle of rea- 
 son. Whether or not any action which is possible to us in
 
 KANT. 339 
 
 the world of sense comes under the rule of reason which 
 determines the good and the evil, is a question to be de- 
 cided by the practical judgment. And instead of a schema, 
 as in the case of the sensibility, we have the law as exhibited 
 in concrete in objects of the senses : this law, thus exhib- 
 ited, we may call a Type of the moral law. The rule of 
 judgment according to laws of pure practical reason is 
 this : Ask yourself whether, if the action you propose were 
 to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you 
 were yourself a part, you could regard it as possible by your 
 will. It is therefore allowable to use the system of the 
 world of sense as the type of a supersensible system of things, 
 provided I do not transfer to the latter the perceptions and 
 what depends on them, but merely refer to it the form of 
 law in general, laws as such, being identical, no matter from 
 what they derive their determining principles. 
 
 The Motives of Pure Practical Reason. An action 
 possesses legality only, and not morality, if, though it takes 
 place according to the moral law, it be determined by a 
 mere feeling of whatever kind. Pure practical reason 
 does not aim to destroy self-love, but merely to make it 
 rational : it does "strike down " self-conceit, in order to make 
 room for respect for the moral law as such. This is indeed 
 a feeling, but a feeling having a purely intellectual cause, 
 the only feeling which we know quite a priori, and the 
 necessity of which we can perceive. Through this feeling 
 the moral law becomes a subjective determining principle, 
 a real material principle. Respect for the moral law is, 
 however, not so much a motive to morality as morality 
 itself subjectively considered as a motive. It is to be 
 observed that respect for the moral law as having to do 
 with sensibility cannot be attributed to a Supreme Being, 
 but to finite beings as such (the feeling of obligation is 
 merely a concomitant of the fact that with the noumenal 
 nature in man is joined a phenomenal). The (apparent) 
 contradiction between freedom and the mechanism of 
 nature in one and the same action is removed by the
 
 340 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 consideration that, while phenomenally one's acts take 
 place in accordance with natural law, they cannot nou- 
 menally or morally be regarded as his except in so far 
 as they are rationally understood and adopted as his, or are 
 referred to laws springing from his consciousness of himself 
 as a thing in himself. A further difficulty in conceiving the 
 combination of freedom with the mechanism of nature in a 
 being belonging to the world of sense a difficulty arising 
 from the idea of God as the cause of the existence of 
 substance is resolved as follows : God does not create 
 phenomena, and created noumena, as having a principle dis- 
 tinct from that of phenomena, are free as regards them. 
 
 Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason. Reason in its 
 practical use, as in its speculative, has a dialectic, since it 
 seeks to discover the unconditioned for the practically con- 
 ditioned. And though it possesses in the moral law the 
 determining principle of the will, it seeks an unconditioned 
 in a highest object of pure practical reason, a Summum 
 Bonum. Virtue is doubtless the supreme condition that 
 can appear to us as desirable, and consequently of all our 
 pursuit of happiness, and therefore the supreme good. But 
 it does not follow that it is the whole and perfect good as 
 the object of the desires of rational finite beings ; for this 
 requires happiness also, and that not merely in the partial 
 eyes of the person who makes himself an end, but even in 
 the judgment of an impartial reason, which regards persons 
 in general as ends in themselves. Now, inasmuch as virtue 
 and happiness together constitute the possession of the 
 summutn bonum in a person, and the distribution of happi- 
 ness in exact proportion to morality (which is the worth of 
 the person and his worthiness to be happy) constitutes the 
 summutn bonum of the possible world ; hence this sum- 
 mum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good, in which, 
 however, virtue as the condition is always the supreme 
 good, since it has no condition above it : whereas happi- 
 ness, while it is pleasant to the possessor of it, is not in 
 itself absolutely and in all respects good, but always presup-
 
 KANT. 341 
 
 poses morally right behavior as its condition. The antin- 
 omy of practical reason, resulting from the connection of 
 virtue and happiness, is as follows : Either the desire of 
 happiness must be the motive to maxims of virtue, or the 
 maxim of virtue must be the efficient cause of happiness. 
 The first is absolutely impossible, because maxims which 
 place the determining principle of the will in the desire of 
 personal happiness, are not moral at all, and no virtue can 
 be founded on them. The second also is false, because the 
 practical connection of causes and effects in the world as the 
 result of the determination of the will does not depend 
 upon the moral disposition of the will, but on the knowledge 
 of the laws of nature and the physical power to use them 
 for one's purposes. The solution of the antinomy is con- 
 tained in the possibility that morality of mind should have a 
 connection as cause with happiness (as an effect in the sen- 
 sible world), if not immediate, yet mediate (viz., through 
 an intelligent author of nature), and moreover necessary. 
 Necessary to the realization of the summum bonum in the 
 world is a perfect accordance of the mind with the moral 
 law holiness (= worthiness to be happy) , but holiness can 
 be attained by a rational sensible being only in a progressus 
 in infinitum, which presupposes endless duration of the 
 existence and personality of the same rational being (which 
 is called the immortality of the soul) . The summum bonum, 
 then, practically is only possible on the supposition of the 
 immortality of the soul : consequently immortality, being 
 inseparably connected with the moral law, is a Postulate of 
 pure practical reason (by which is meant a theoretical prop- 
 osition not demonstrable as such, but yet an inseparable 
 result of an unconditioned a priori practical law) . The 
 moral law must also lead to the supposition of the existence 
 of a cause adequate to the production of happiness (as the 
 second element of the summum bonum}, i. <?., to the postu- 
 lation of the existence of God as the necessary condition of 
 the possibility of the summum bonum. Happiness, being 
 the condition of a rational being in the world with whom
 
 342 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 everything goes according to his wish and will, depends on 
 the harmony of physical nature with his whole end, and 
 likewise with the essential determining principle of his will. 
 There is in the moral law itself not the least ground for 
 connection between morality and proportionate happiness. 
 Such connection, however, is postulated by the summum 
 bonum. Accordingly, the existence of a cause of all nature 
 distinct from nature itself and containing the principle of 
 this connection is also postulated. This supreme cause 
 must contain the principle of the harmony of nature, not 
 merely with a law of the will of rational beings, but with the 
 conception of this law in so far as they make it the supreme 
 determining principle of the will, and consequently not 
 merely with the form of morals, but with their morality as 
 their motive ; that is, with their moral character. Therefore 
 the summum bonum is possible in the world only on the 
 supposition of a supreme nature having a causality corre- 
 sponding to moral character. A being capable of acting 
 on the conception of law is an intelligence (a rational 
 being), and the causality of such a being according to this 
 conception of laws is his will ; therefore the supreme cause 
 of nature, which must be presupposed as the condition of 
 the summum bonum, is a being which is the cause of nature 
 by intelligence and will, consequently its author, /'. <?., God. 
 The postulates of the practical reason, freedom, immor- 
 tality, and God, while they do not extend our speculative 
 knowledge, give objective reality to the ideas of speculative 
 reason in general, and give it a right to notions, the possi- 
 bility of which it could not otherwise venture to affirm. 
 Nothing is added to the content of the notion of duty as 
 such by these postulates. It alone binds me in the most 
 perfect manner to act in unconditional conformity to the 
 law. 
 
 Methodology of Pure Practical Reason. By the method- 
 ology of the pure practical reason is to be understood the 
 " mode in which we can give the laws of pure practical rea- 
 son access to the human mind and influence on its maxims,
 
 KANT. 343 
 
 that is, by which we can make the objectively practical 
 reason subjectively practical also." Unquestionably the 
 only proper way to accomplish this important end is to 
 place before the mind the purest exhibitions of the work- 
 ing, in historical personages, for example, of the pure moral 
 motive. " The heart is freed and lightened of a burden that 
 always secretly presses on it, when instances of pure moral 
 resolutions reveal to the man an inner faculty of which 
 otherwise he had no right knowledge, the inward freedom 
 to release himself from the boisterous importunity of in- 
 clinations to such a degree that none of them, not even the 
 dearest, shall have any influence on a resolution for which 
 we are now to employ our reason." Were it not the case 
 that the exhibition of pure virtue can have more power over 
 the human mind, and supply a far stronger spring even for 
 effecting the legality of actions, and can produce more 
 powerful resolutions to prefer the law from pure respect for 
 it to every other consideration than all the deceptive al- 
 lurements of pleasure or of all that may be reckoned hap- 
 piness, or even all threatenings of pain and misfortune, no 
 mode of presenting the law by roundabout ways and indi- 
 rect recommendations would produce anything but mere 
 hypocrisy and hatred or contempt of the moral law. 
 Even the arousing of enthusiasm for a noble and magnan- 
 imous action is a spurious method of rendering objectively 
 practical reason subjectively practical as well, although it 
 and other like inferior means may properly be employed to 
 bring an " uncultivated or degraded mind into the track 
 of moral goodness." 
 
 Critique of Judgment : Introduction. This is a critical 
 examination of the faculty which forms the connecting link 
 between Understanding and Reason. It treats the ques- 
 tions : Are there a priori principles of Judgment ? Does 
 Judgment give rules a priori to the feeling of pleasure and 
 pain, as Understanding prescribes laws to knowledge, and 
 reason to desire? Critical search for the principle of 
 aesthetic judgment is the main object of the Critique of
 
 . 
 [j 
 
 344 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Judgment. It lies in the very idea of freedom to realize 
 in the world of sense the end presented in its laws, and 
 hence nature in its formal aspect as conformable to law 
 must at least be capable of harmonizing with that end. 
 There must, then, be a principle which unites the super- 
 sensible substrate of nature with the supersensible con- 
 tained practically in the notion of freedom. And although 
 that principle does not lead to a knowledge of the super- 
 sensible, and hence has no realm peculiarly its own, it yet 
 enables the mind to make the transition to the practical 
 point of view. There are three faculties of mind, 
 knowledge, feeling, and desire. Feeling-stands between 
 knowledge and desire, just as judgment (transcendental 
 imagination) mediates between understanding and reason. 
 Judgment is the general faculty of thinking the particular 
 as contained under the universal. If the universal (the 
 rule, principle, law) is given, then the judgment which 
 subsumes the particular under it is determining. But if 
 only the particular is given for which the universal is to 
 be found, the judgment is merely reflective. There are in 
 nature many forms or modifications of the universal trans- 
 cendental notions that are unaffected by the a priori laws 
 of the understanding. There must be laws for those forms, 
 and such laws, as empirical, may be contingent so far as 
 our intelligence is concerned, and may yet be regarded as 
 following necessarily from a principle which is the condition 
 of the unity of the multifarious forms of nature, although it 
 is unknown to us. The reflective judgment, which is com- 
 pelled to ascend from the particular to the universal, there- 
 fore, requires a principle of its own ; and that principle it 
 cannot borrow from experience because it is to unite all 
 empirical principles under higher ones, and so make their 
 systematic connection possible. The principle of judg- 
 ment as reflective must therefore be conceived as if it were 
 a unity imposed on nature by an intelligence different from 
 ours, to enable us to reduce our knowledge of nature to a 
 system of particular laws. We cannot, however, assert that
 
 KANT. 345 
 
 there actually is an intelligence of this kind, for judgment 
 does not give a law to nature, but only to itself. -'The prin- 
 ciple of judgment in its relation to the forms of things 
 which come under empirical laws in general is the adapta- 
 tion of nature in its manifold variety to an end." ( Nature is 
 here conceived as if its manifold empirical laws were due 
 to an intelligence.) The principle of nature's adaptation 
 to an end is a transcendental principle, not a principle of 
 knowledge of objects as such ; the notion of objects so far 
 as they are thought as standing under this principle is mere- 
 ly the pure notion of objects of possible experience in general. 
 (It is therefore a necessary law of the reflective judg- 
 ment.) It is a subjective principle or maxim of judgment, 
 since the notion of adaptation is not a notion either of 
 nature or of freedom, but merely represents the way in 
 which we must necessarily proceed in reflecting on natural 
 objects with a view to a thoroughly connected experience. 
 With the attainment by reflective judgment of its end, 
 the reduction of the special laws of nature to unity of 
 principle, there arises a feeling of pleasure which is de- 
 termined by a ground a priori for every one, and indeed 
 from the mere adaptation of the object to our faculty of 
 knowledge. In the apprehension of a sensible object 
 are implied two relations, a subjective and an objective: 
 a relation of adaptation of the representation of the object 
 directly to our mere faculty of perception, and a relation of 
 adaptation of the form of an object as given in a notion to 
 the object itself in its possibility. The former is not es- 
 sential to knowledge, it being the mere feeling of pleasure 
 or pain accompanying our knowledge of sensible objects. 
 Adaptation here is purely aesthetic. In the other case it 
 is logical. When the imagination, as the faculty of percep- 
 tion a priori, is found to be in harmony with the under- 
 standing, and a feeling of pleasure is thereby awakened, the 
 object must be regarded as adapted for the reflective judg- 
 ment. The object is then said to be beautiful, and the 
 faculty which judges it to be so is called Taste. From the
 
 346 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 adaptation of the form or even formlessness of objects to 
 the notion of freedom in the subject, arises the emotion of 
 the sublime. Hence two main divisions of the Critique of 
 Esthetic Judgment. When the notion of an object is 
 given, the work of the judgment lies in the presentation of 
 a perception corresponding to it. And we may either, as in 
 art, endeavor to realize in a perception a notion set up by 
 our imagination as an end, or we may make use of our no- 
 tion of end in judging of certain natural objects (e. g., or- 
 ganized bodies) . In the latter case, not merely the form of 
 a thing implies adaptation, but the thing itself is regarded 
 as a natural end. Now, although subjective adaptation 
 does not imply any notion of an object, we may still, by 
 analogy with the notion of an end, attribute to nature as it 
 were a regard for our faculty of knowledge ; hence we may 
 look upon natural beauty as the presentation of the notion 
 of a formal or subjective adaptation, and end in nature as 
 the presentation of a real or objective adaptation : the for- 
 mer being the object of aesthetic judgment or taste, the 
 latter being judged logically by understanding and reason 
 through notions. The Critique of Judgment has two parts, 
 Critique of /Esthetical Judgment ; Critique of Teleological 
 Judgment. 
 
 Critique of /Esthetical Judgment : Analytic. The 
 judgment that an object is beautiful is, like all other judg- 
 ments, a judgment with reference to quality, quantity, 
 relation, and modality. As regards quality, an object is 
 beautiful when it is a source of disinterested satisfaction 
 in us. As such it is to be distinguished from an object that 
 is merely agreeable by the fact that the latter excites in us 
 an interest in the existence of the object and a desire 
 for the possession of it. It is to be distinguished from 
 that which is good by the fact that the latter involves an 
 interest in an object in relation to a preconceived end. 
 In framing a judgment of taste, a judgment having refer- 
 ence to beauty, concerning an object, the mind is occu- 
 pied solely with the effect of the object upon it in a con-
 
 KANT. 347 
 
 templative attitude. In quantity, the judgment of taste 
 is universal, a judgment which every one must make, or 
 which, though subjective in the sense that beauty is a mat- 
 ter of feeling, does not depend upon private conditions 
 or individual subjectivity. The idea of a beautiful object, 
 in other words, is such as to give rise to that " free play 
 of the faculties out of which knowledge arises, and thus 
 the feeling produced by it possesses a" universality for mind 
 as such." The relation expressed in the judgments of taste 
 is one of adaptation to an end, yet without reference to 
 any definite design ; or one of " purposiveness without 
 purpose." 1 The pleasure excited by a beautiful object 
 as beautiful " has in itself a causality to maintain the state 
 of contemplation in the subject ; " /. e., to keep the facul- 
 ties engaged upon the object without any further end. We 
 linger over the contemplation of the beautiful because this 
 contemplation strengthens and reproduces itself. This 
 pleasure " has nothing to do with the idea of the power 
 of the object over us, or its objective perfection as a speci- 
 men of its kind." As regards modality, the judgment of 
 taste is necessary, though this necessity is of course not 
 a necessity either of the theoretical or of the practical rea- 
 son, but of common feeling, or of a certain sensus communis. 
 In general, then, the beautiful is a sense of a free agree- 
 ment, in the imagination, with law, or a conception of the 
 understanding. A sense of agreement in the imagination 
 with an idea of the reason God, freedom, immortality 
 is a sense of the sublime. " The sense of the sublime is 
 further characterized by being only indirectly pleasurable, 
 since it involves the feeling of a momentary check upon 
 the forces of life within us, followed by a more vehement 
 outflow of those forces." It is above all especially charac- 
 terized by the fact that, instead of being a feeling of har- 
 mony between an object and our faculty, it is the oppo- 
 site, and this because an idea of reason can never be 
 
 1 See Caird's " Critical Philosophy of Kant," vol. ii., from which 
 this account of the /Esthetic Judgment has been drawn.
 
 348 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 objectively realized by the sensuous imagination. While 
 the beautiful makes us rest in nature with the anticipation 
 of finding purpose or design in it, by " widening, not in- 
 deed our actual knowledge of natural objects, but our con- 
 ceptions of nature, so that we regard it not as a mere 
 mechanism, but as a kind of art," the sublime makes 
 us regard nature as incomplete and aimless in itself, but 
 yet as presenting to us certain phenomena which " may be 
 used to awake the feeling of a higher design in ourselves 
 that is quite independent of nature." The idea of the 
 sublime may be connected with our notions of quantity 
 or of the forces of nature ; the sublime is either the mathe- 
 matically or the dynamically sublime. Magnitudes too 
 great to be realized in imagination arouse in us a sense 
 of the infinite, or of that which transcends all positive con- 
 ditions. The reason, checked by the weakness of the 
 imagination, reacts violently, and throws into conscious- 
 ness the idea of the unconditioned, exciting a feeling 
 of reverence, which we illogically transfer to an object 
 of nature. The forces of nature are regarded as sublime 
 " when we feel their greatness, and yet feel that they can- 
 not overpower us ; " that is, when the physical feeling 
 of force is counteracted and overpowered in our minds 
 by the idea of an unconditioned power. The feeling of 
 the sublime is in reality a feeling of the superiority 
 of spirit to nature. Technically characterized, the sublime 
 is as regards quality painful, as regards quantity the abso- 
 lutely great, as regards relation that which causes us to 
 feel our essential superiority to nature, as regards modality 
 a necessary condition. As beauty is apprehended by a 
 faculty of feeling only, all art-creation is the work of 
 genius. 
 
 Dialectic of the Esthetic Faculty, The antinomy of 
 the sesthetic faculty is as follows : The judgment of Taste 
 is not based on conceptions, for otherwise it would be 
 a matter of controversy which might be decided by such 
 conceptions (thesis) ; the judgment of Taste is based upon
 
 KANT. 349 
 
 conceptions, for otherwise we could not contend about 
 it as we do when we claim that others should necessarily 
 agree with us (antithesis). The solution of the antinomy 
 is contained in the notion of the indefinite conception, 
 or conception of reason (not of the understanding). That 
 is, the ideas of the beautiful and sublime are of merely 
 subjective origin and validity, and have their explanation 
 in the supersensible. The propaedeutic to fine art 
 there is no "method" of the aesthetic faculty lies in 
 a culture of the higher, the characteristically human, 
 faculties. 
 
 Critique of Teleological Judgment: Analytic of Teleo- 
 logical Judgment, We may distinguish adaptation as 
 formal and as real. The use to which a geometrical 
 figure may be put as not being the condition of its very 
 existence in thought is an illustration of formal adapta- 
 tion. The adaptation displayed by a number of things 
 presented as without me and as enclosed within definite 
 limits, <?. g., trees, flowers, and walks disposed in regular 
 order in a garden is real, and presupposes necessarily 
 the notion of an end. These things are actually existing 
 things which must be known empirically, and not merely 
 by an idea of my own " determined a prion according to 
 principle." Adaptation may also be distinguished as inter- 
 nal (as in a work of art) or relative (as when the effect pro- 
 duced is regarded merely as material for the art of other 
 possible natural beings). Adaptation of the latter kind 
 is called utility in relation to man, advantage when we are 
 speaking of other creatures. Relative adaptation, though 
 it points hypothetically to natural ends, does not of itself 
 justify an absolute ideological judgment (since everything 
 may be regarded as a means to something else, on the 
 principle of external adaptation). A thing is known as 
 a natural end when it is known as capable of being 
 explained non-mechanically only ; /. e., through a notion 
 of reason. A thing exists as a natural end only when 
 it is (in a double sense) its own cause and its own effect.
 
 350 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 A tree produces another tree according to a well-known 
 law. The tree so produced is of the same species : hence 
 a tree, as continually self-produced, is, on the one hand, 
 its own effect, and, on the other hand, its own cause ; and 
 by such continual self-production it perpetuates itself as 
 a species. Again, the tree is self-productive even as an 
 individual. The matter which the tree incorporates it 
 previously works up into a specifically peculiar quality, 
 which is not due to any mechanism outside of it; and 
 thus it develops itself by means of a material which as 
 assimilated is its own product. Thirdly, each part of the 
 tree is self- productive, so that the preservation of one 
 part is dependent on the preservation of all the rest. 
 Leaves of a tree are products of the tree, and the tree 
 is in turn dependent for its growth upon their effect on 
 the stem ; for if it is repeatedly denuded of its leaves, it 
 dies. For a thing to be a natural end, its parts must be pos- 
 sible only in relation to the whole. As an end, the thing 
 itself is comprehended under a notion or idea which must 
 determine a priori all that is to be contained it. A natural 
 end must as distinguished from an artificial product im- 
 ply, in its self or its inner possibility, relation to an end : 
 must be possible as a natural end, irrespective of any intel- 
 ligent cause external to it. Accordingly, the parts of such 
 a natural product, which combine in the unity of a whole, 
 must be " reciprocally cause and effect of each other's 
 form. Only an organized and ^^"-organizing product is 
 a natural end. Organized beings are the only things in 
 nature which in themselves and apart altogether from their 
 relation to other things can be conceived to exist at all 
 only as ends. The notion of an end of nature, as distin- 
 guished from a practical end, first obtains objective reality 
 from a consideration of such beings, and apart from them, 
 the teleological consideration of nature as a special prin- 
 ciple of judgment would have no justification whatever." 
 The principle and definition of internal adaptation is : 
 An organized product of nature is one in which all the parts
 
 KANT. 351 
 
 are reciprocally end and means. Nothing in it is useless, 
 purposeless, or ascribable to blind mechanism. This prin- 
 ciple finds its occasion in the methodical observation of 
 experience ; but as it affirms the adaptation to be of uni- 
 versal necessity, it cannot be derived from experience, but 
 must be a priori. But as ends exist only as an idea in the 
 judging subject, not in any efficient cause, it is merely a 
 regulative principle or maxim for judging of the internal 
 adaptation of organized beings. A natural end is a very 
 different thing from an end of nature. The latter pre- 
 supposes an ultimate end (scopus) of nature, which must 
 be sought beyond nature. An end of nature is not a mere 
 natural product. The notion of natural end is necessarily 
 demanded by organized matter only ; but when once ob- 
 tained, it necessarily leads to the idea of the whole of 
 nature as a system of ends, and to this idea all natural 
 mechanism must be subordinated in accordance with the 
 principles of reason. It in no way interferes with the 
 principle of mechanical causality, nor does it entitle us 
 to regard anything whatever as a purposive end of nature. 
 Even the beauty of nature, /'. e., its harmony with the free 
 play of our faculties of knowledge, as apprehending and 
 judging of its appearance, may be regarded as a sort 
 of objective adaptation of nature as a systematic whole, 
 of which man is a member, after the Ideological judg- 
 ment by natural ends as applied to organized beings 
 has brought us to the idea of a great system of ends of 
 nature. 
 
 Dialectic of Teleological Judgment. It may very well 
 happen that judgment in its reflection proceeds from either 
 of two principles, viz., that given to it a priori by the under- 
 standing, or that which on occasion of particular experiences 
 calls reason into play to estimate corporeal nature and its 
 laws by a special principle. Hence it comes that these two 
 maxims seem to be mutually exclusive, and there arises a 
 Dialectic which leads judgment to err in applying the prin- 
 ciple of reflection. The first maxim of judgment is the thesis :
 
 ,352 
 
 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 
 All production of material things, and the forms of material 
 things, must be judged as possible on purely mechanical 
 laws. The second maxim is the antithesis : Some products 
 of material nature cannot be judged as possible on purely 
 mechanical laws (but require a quite different law of caus- 
 ality, namely, of final cause). Now, if these regulative 
 principles in the investigation of nature are converted into 
 constitutive principles, determining the possibility of objects 
 themselves, they will run thus : All production of material 
 things is possible on purely mechanical laws (thesis). Some 
 production of material things is not possible on purely 
 mechanical laws (antithesis). These last propositions 
 constitute an antinomy ; not so the first two : they are not 
 necessarily contradictory. The notion of natural end is 
 merely a notion of the reflective judgment, and due to the 
 peculiar character of our intelligence. We must look out 
 for a certain contingency in the nature of our intelligence as 
 related to its faculty of judgment, by the discovery of which 
 we may learn how our intelligence differs from other possi- 
 ble intelligence. This contingency is readily found in the 
 particular which judgment is to bring under the universal 
 supplied by notions of the understanding ; for the universal 
 of our understanding does not determine the particular, and 
 it is contingent in how many ways different things which 
 agree in a common mark may present themselves to our 
 observation. For a perceptive intelligence there would not 
 be that contingency in the adaptation of particular laws of 
 nature to understanding which makes it so hard for us to 
 reduce the multiplicity of nature to the unity of knowledge. 
 In order to think the possibility of an adaptation of natural 
 things to our faculty of judgment, we must at the same time 
 conceive of another intelligence by reference to which, and 
 apart from any end attributed to it, we may represent as 
 necessary that harmony of natural laws with our faculty of 
 judgment, which for our intelligence can be thought only 
 through the medium of ends. For discursive intelligence, 
 like ours, the idea of the parts does not necessarily presup-
 
 KANT. 
 
 353 
 
 pose the whole, but rather the idea of the whole explains the 
 form of the whole and the connection of the parts. Now, 
 such a whole is an effect or product, the idea of which is 
 treated as the cause that makes it possible, and such a pro- 
 duct is called an end. It therefore arises from the peculiar 
 character of our intelligence that we regard certain natural 
 products as due to a different sort of causality from that 
 of material laws of nature, namely, that of ends and final 
 causes. This principle, therefore, does not determine the 
 manner in which things themselves, even when they are 
 regarded as phenomena, are capable of being produced, 
 but merely the manner in which our intelligence can alone 
 judge them to be produced. If we make a distinction be- 
 tween phenomena and noumena, the principle of the mechan- 
 ical derivation of natural products exhibiting adaptation is 
 quite consistent with the teleological, but by no means ena- 
 bles us to dispense with it. " In the investigation of a thing 
 which we are forced to regard as a natural end (an organ- 
 ized being), we may try all the known and yet to be dis- 
 covered laws of mechanical production, and may even hope 
 to make good progress in that direction, but we need never 
 hope to get rid of the quite different principle of causation 
 by ends in our explanation of natural products. No human 
 intelligence, and indeed no finite intelligence, however it 
 surpass ours in degree, need expect to comprehend the 
 production of even a blade of grass by purely mechanical 
 causes. The teleological connection of causes and effects is 
 absolutely indispensable in judging of the possibility of such 
 an object. There is no adequate reason for regarding ex- 
 ternal phenomena as such from a teleological point of view ; 
 the reason for it must be sought in the supersensible sub- 
 strate of phenomena. But as we are shut out from any S 
 possible view of that substrate, it is impossible to find in j 
 nature grounds for an explanation of nature, and we are j 
 compelled by the constitution of our intellectual faculty to j 
 seek for the supreme ground of teleological connection in an J 
 original Intelligence as cause of the world." 
 VOL. i. 23
 
 354 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Appendix on Method : Moral Proof of the Existence 
 of God. " Moral teleology has to do with the relation of our 
 own causality to ends, and even to an ultimate end neces- 
 sarily set by us as our own goal in the world, as well as with 
 the possibility of realizing that end, the external world being 
 what it is. The question necessarily arises whether reason 
 compels us to seek in a supreme intelligence outside of the 
 world for a principle which shall explain to us even the 
 adaptation of nature to an end relatively to the law of mor- 
 ality within us. There is, therefore, a moral teleology which 
 is concerned on the one hand with the no mo the tic of free- 
 dom, and on the other with that of nature. . . . From the 
 teleological point of view, it is a primary proposition admitted 
 by every one that there can be no ultimate end at all pre- 
 supposed by reason a priori, unless that end be man 
 under moral laws. A world consisting of mere lifeless 
 beings, or even living but unintelligent beings, would have 
 no meaning or value, because there would be in it no in- 
 telligent being to appreciate its value. Again, suppose that 
 in the world there are intelligent beings whose reason enables 
 them to value existing things for the pleasure they bring, 
 but who have not themselves any power of imparting a value 
 to things originally by means of freedom : then, there 
 will indeed be relative ends, but no absolute or ultimate 
 end, for the existence in the world of such intelligent beings 
 can nt-ver have an end. Moral laws, however, are of this 
 peculiar character that they prescribe for reason something 
 as an end without any condition, and therefore exactly as the 
 notion of an ultimate end requires. The existence of a reason 
 which may be for itself the supreme law in the relation of ends, 
 in other words, the existence of rational beings under moral 
 laws, can alone be conceived as the ultimate end of the 
 existence of the world. On any other supposition its exist- 
 ence does not imply a cause acting from any end, or it im- 
 plies ends but no ultimate end." Moral law prescribes as 
 goal of our efforts the highest good possible in the world 
 through freedom. The highest good possible in the world
 
 KANT. 355 
 
 is happiness, and this end we must seek to advance as far as 
 in us lies, but always under the objective condition of the 
 harmony of man with the law of morality as worthiness tb 
 be happy. " But it is impossible, in consistency with all the 
 faculties of our intelligence, to regard the two requisites of 
 the ultimate end presented to us through the moral laws as 
 connected by merely natural causes, and yet as conforming 
 to the idea of that ultimate end. We must therefore sup- 
 pose a moral cause or author of the world in order to set 
 before ourselves an ultimate end conformable to the moral 
 law ; and in so far as the latter is necessary, so far, /. <?., in 
 the same degree and on the same ground, the former also 
 must necessarily be admitted ; it must, in other words, be 
 admitted that there is a God. . . . The ultimate end, as 
 merely a notion of our practical reason, is not an inference 
 from the data of experience for the theoretical explanation 
 of nature, nor can it be applied in the knowledge of nature. 
 Its only possible use is for practical reason in relation to 
 moral laws." We have a moral ground for representing in 
 the world an ultimate end of creation, but we cannot " as- 
 sume that in an ultimate end we have a reason for admitting 
 not merely a moral ground or ultimate end of creation (as 
 effect), but also a moral being as original ground of creation. 
 But we may certainly say that according to the constittition 
 of our reason we cannot make intelligible to ourselves the 
 possibility of an adaptation relative to the moral law, and 
 to its object as it is in this ultimate end, apart from an 
 author and ruler of the world, who is also a moral law- 
 giver. ... To prevent a very natural misunderstanding, these 
 two points should be carefully borne in mind. In the first 
 place, we can think the attributes of the Supreme Being 
 only by analogy. How, indeed, should we attempt to in- 
 vestigate directly the nature of a Being to whom nothing 
 similar is given in experience? Secondly, in thinking the 
 Supreme Being through these attributes, we do not thereby 
 know him, nor can we theoretically predicate them of him ; 
 for to contemplate that Being as he is in himself, reason as 
 speculative must take the form of determining judgment."
 
 356 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Metaphysics. We pass now to Metaphysics, 1 ( i ) of 
 Nature, (2) of Morals. 
 
 ' The Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Science? In- 
 troduction. The science of nature, or the sum total of 
 phenomena, has two main divisions corresponding to the 
 divisions of sensibility (/'. e., outer and inner sense) ; namely, 
 the doctrine of body and the doctrine of soul. It is either 
 empirical (dealing with mere facts) or rational (dealing 
 with laws), the latter alone being science in the proper 
 sense of the term. Rational science, again, has two parts 
 corresponding to a purely a priori method of treating its 
 subject and to a treatment of it according to empirical 
 laws. Rational science in the former sense is the meta- 
 physics of nature. The metaphysics of nature, again, has 
 two branches, one of which (the transcendental branch) treats 
 of the laws rendering possible the conception of nature in 
 general, the other of some particular empirical conception, 
 e. g., the empirical conception of matter. In every special 
 natural doctrine only so much science proper is contained 
 as there is mathematics. Chemistry and psychology are, for 
 this reason, not properly natural sciences. A pure (transcen- 
 dental) philosophy of nature in general is possible without 
 mathematics. That there may be a real (/. e., mathemati- 
 cal) science of body there must be certain " principles of 
 the construction of conceptions belonging to the possi- 
 bility of matter in general." These are furnished by a 
 pure philosophy, a metaphysics of corporeal nature. The 
 fundamental attribute of a thing that is to be an object 
 of external sense must be motion, for only by motion 
 can this sense be affected, and natural science is (there- 
 fore) throughout either a pure or an applied doctrine 
 of motion. The Metaphysical Principles of Natural 
 Science may therefore be brought under four main divi- 
 sions, of which the first, " treating of motion considered 
 as pure quantum according to its composition, without any 
 
 1 See above, p. 317. 
 
 2 See the translation of Kant's " Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde 
 der Naturwissenschaft," by Belfort Bax.
 
 KANT. 357 
 
 quality of the movable," may be termed Pkoronomy ; the 
 second, " regarding motion as belonging to the quality of 
 the matter under the name of an original moving force," 
 may be called Dynamics; the third, treating of "matter 
 endowed with force, conceived as, by its own reciprocal 
 motion, in relation" is Mechanics ; and the fourth, treating 
 of motion (or rest) merely in reference to the mode of pres- 
 entation or modality, or, in other words, as determined as 
 phenomenon of the external sense, is Phenomenology. 
 
 Phoronomy. Matter is the movable in space. Space 
 which is movable is relative ; space which is immovable and 
 a condition of all motion is absolute. All motion that is an 
 object of experience is relative. Motion is change of external 
 relations to space ; rest is permanent presence in the same 
 place. Rest cannot be regarded as motion, which is zero in 
 value, as zero does not admit of being constructed. Rest 
 may be constructed as motion of infinitely small velocity 
 throughout a finite time. Every motion as an object of 
 possible experience may be viewed at pleasure as motion of 
 a body in a space that is at rest, or as rest of the body and 
 motion of the space in the opposite direction, with equal 
 velocity, etc. 
 
 Dynamics. Matter fills a space, not by its mere exist- 
 ence, but by a special moving force. This is demonstrated 
 as follows : The penetration into a space is a motion. The 
 resistance to motion is the cause of its diminution, and also 
 its change into rest. Now, nothing can be connected with 
 any motion as lessening or destroying it but another motion 
 of the same movable in the opposite direction. Thus the 
 resistance offered by matter in the space which it fills to 
 all impressions of another matter is a cause of the motion 
 of the latter in the opposite direction ; but the cause of a 
 motion is called moving force. Thus matter fills space by 
 moving force, and not by its mere existence. Matter can 
 be compressed to infinity, but can never be penetrated (or 
 deprived of its extension) by matter ; since for the pen- 
 etration of matter a compression into an infinitely small
 
 358 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 space, and therefore an infinitely compressive force, is re- 
 quired, which is impossible. Besides the special moving 
 force by which matter fills space (a repulsive force) there 
 is required in matter a force of attraction. Contact, in the 
 physical sense, is the immediate action and reaction of im- 
 penetrability. Action at a distance is possible even without 
 intermediate matter or through empty space ; the attrac- 
 tion essential to all matter is an immediate effect on other 
 matter through empty space. The repulsive force by means 
 of which matter fills a space is merely a superficial force. 
 The original attractive force in which the possibility of 
 matter itself rests, extends itself directly through the 
 universe to infinity from every part of the same to every 
 other part. All that is real in the objects of our external 
 sense, that, namely, which is not mere determination of 
 space (as place, extension, figure), must be regarded as a 
 moving force ; there is no mere solid or absolute impene- 
 trability, no empty mediate spaces within matter. 
 
 Mechanics. All mechanical laws presuppose dynamical. 
 The quantity of matter may be estimated in comparison 
 with every other only by the quantity of motion at a given 
 velocity. No difference can obtain between " living " and 
 "dead "force (since all force is a function of motion). 
 The first law of motion. is, "With all changes of corporeal 
 nature the quantity of matter remains on the whole the 
 same." The demonstration of this law is as follows. "In 
 every matter the movable in space is the ultimate subject 
 of all accidents inhering in matter, and the mass of this 
 movable is the quantity of substance. Thus the amount of 
 matter as a substance is merely the mass of the substances 
 of which it consists. Hence the quantity of matter is there- 
 by neither increased nor diminished, but remains the same 
 as a whole." The second law of motion is, All change of 
 matter has an external cause : every body remains in its 
 state of rest or motion in the same direction and with the 
 same velocity, if not compelled by an external cause to for- 
 sake that state. This is true, since matter has no abso-
 
 KANT. 359 
 
 lutely internal determinations and grounds of determination 
 (matter as such is lifeless). The third law of Mechanics. 
 In all communication action and reaction are always equal 
 to one another. This appears from the principle of " uni- 
 versal metaphysics," that all action is reciprocal action. 
 There is no such thing as a vis inertia : motion can resist 
 nothing except opposite motion. Inertia of matter, or mere 
 incapacity to move itself, is not a cause of resistance. 
 
 Phenomenology. The rectilinear motion of matter is in 
 respect to an empirical space (as distinguished from an op- 
 posite motion of the space), a merely possible predicate. 
 The circular motion of a matter, as distinguished from the 
 opposite motion of space, is a real predicate of the same ; 
 while, on the other hand, if the opposite of a relative space 
 be taken instead of the motion of the body, there is no real 
 motion of the latter, but a mere illusion. In every motion 
 of a body whereby it is moving in respect of another, an 
 opposite and equal motion of the latter is necessary. 
 
 The Metaphysics of Morals* Man is presented to him- 
 self in two (and only two) ways, by outer sense and by 
 inner sense. In the former aspect he is a subject of the law 
 of right, in the latter of the law of morals ; " right " having 
 to do with man's actions, " morals " with his motives. 
 
 Theory of Right. Self-conscious beings, being ends in 
 themselves, and not mere means, may come into seemingly 
 irreconcilable opposition. The great problem of Right is 
 to prevent conflict and to secure for all individuals the free- 
 dom to which they lay claim as ends in themselves. To 
 this end it is necessary that there be reciprocal recogni- 
 tion by individuals of the will of each. " Legal right is, 
 therefore, just the whole compass of the conditions on 
 which the independent will of the one can be united with 
 the independent will of another according to a universal 
 law of freedom." The idea of freedom according to a 
 
 1 See Caird's " Critical Philosophy of Kant " (vol. ii ), from which 
 this account of the substance of Kant's Metaphysics of Morals is 
 borrowed.
 
 360 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 universal law requires that when a particular use of free- 
 dom is a hindrance to a freedom according to universal 
 law it be counteracted by compulsion ; and, strictly speak- 
 ing, right must have a certain basis in the possibility of com- 
 pulsion. " Right and claim to apply compulsion are one 
 and the same thing." Right inheres in persons, and in all 
 persons equally. The right to things comes into existence 
 by their being used as expressions of personality ; thus they 
 become parts of man's "intelligible" existence, they be- 
 come an " intelligible possession," the interference with 
 which is a violation of personality. The right in things is 
 therefore an exclusive right. A right acquired by an act 
 of mine, coupled with the neglect of another, is a " right in 
 thing" {jus in rem), A right acquired through the assent 
 of another is a " right in person " {jus in personairi), which 
 is a right, not against all, but against one person. This 
 right involves as condition a contract, expressing two pre- 
 paratory and two constitutive acts of will, viz., " an offer 
 and an expression of willingness to receive it, and a promise 
 and an acceptance of it." A third sort of right, viz., " right 
 in person as thing " (jus realiter personale) occurs in the 
 relation of husband and wife, parent and offspring, etc. 
 Such a right is a reciprocal right. The foregoing three 
 rights form the substance of natural right (jus naturale) , or 
 " right flowing from the rational principle in every man." 
 Natural right is not possible to men outside of civil society. 
 There is required for its establishment and maintenance a 
 collective universal will possessing the power of compulsion. 
 This will comes into being by the formation of a contract 
 " whereby all members of the people give up their freedom, 
 to take it up again as members of a commonwealth, i. <?., 
 of a people regarded as a State. We are therefore to say 
 that a man in the State has sacrificed a part of his innate 
 external freedom to secure an end ; we are to say that he 
 has surrendered the whole of his wild and lawless freedom 
 in order to find it all gain, undiminished, in a dependence 
 regulated by law." The act of forming the State is a vol-
 
 KANT. 361 
 
 untary act of those performing it, and the State is therefore 
 merely a higher expression of the self-determination of 
 reason, and an expression to be recognized by those 
 entering into the State. The social contract, once entered 
 into, is holy and inviolable ; the dictum that " all powers 
 be ordained of God," though not meant to express the his- 
 torical basis of the civil constitution, expresses an idea 
 which is a principle of practical reason, that we ought to 
 obey the existing legislative power, be its origin what it 
 may. Since the State is an embodiment of the principle 
 of self-determination, its legislative power must rest with 
 the people ; the ideal form of State is, therefore, the repub- 
 lican form of State. But the republic must be a repre- 
 sentative system, since only under a representative system 
 is it possible to separate the legislative from the executive 
 power, a union of which powers in one and the same per- 
 son or persons would be comparable to a union in a single 
 proposition of the major premise, which expresses the 
 general rule, with the minor, which subsumes the particular 
 under it. The executive power should be ultimately un- 
 der the control of the legislative. All public institutions 
 should be directly subordinate to the State. The right of 
 free speech should be admitted as an inviolable right of 
 citizens. " To deny to them such freedom is not only to 
 take away from them all claim of right in relation to the 
 sovereign, but to withdraw from the sovereign who issues 
 commands to his subjects as citizens only because he 
 represents the universal will of the people all knowledge 
 of wrongs which he would redress if he were properly in- 
 formed, and so bring him into contradiction with himself." 
 The sovereign has no possessions " except himself; " for if he 
 had anything of his own, and so stood alongside of others 
 in the State, a dispute between him and them would be 
 possible, and there would be no judge who could be called 
 in to settle it. The principle that the individual is self- 
 determining and responsible for his own deed makes it 
 necessary that punishment be meted out according to the
 
 362 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 lex talionis (" law of retaliation "), that, e.g., in the case of 
 murder, the punishment be (except in very few classes of 
 instances) death. A jus gentium, or law of nations, founded 
 on the jus civile, is not a wholly impossible ideal. The 
 whole of the jus gentium is contained in the principle to 
 " avoid everything which could make the state of nature, 
 the state of actual or possible war, permanent ; and, on the 
 other hand, to act even in the state of nature on those 
 maxims out of which a lasting peace is most likely to 
 spring, even if we are not yet able definitively to secure 
 it," though in place of the positive idea of a World- 
 Republic, we must be satisfied with the negative substitute 
 of a continually advancing league of States to prevent war. 
 And such a league might and should among other things 
 make possible citizenship of the world. The foundation- 
 principle in all political philosophizing should be that the 
 practicable should be measured by the right, not the right 
 by the practicable. " What is right is ascertainable, what is 
 practicable according to the laws of nature is beyond calcu- 
 lation." Free discussion should be allowed to philoso- 
 phers, in order that the State may be able to profit by 
 their wisdom. 
 
 Theory of Virtue. As right depends on public compul- 
 sion, so morality depends on private compulsion, or self- 
 compulsion. I am bound by my (peculiar) nature to have 
 an end or ends which I as a free being propose for myself. 
 (Besides this end or these ends, there are others given me 
 by objects. The former alone are moral ends.) Of moral 
 ends there are two classes, contained in the duty of per- 
 fection of self and that of seeking the happiness of others. 
 (Towards God there are no special duties, all duties being 
 duties towards him ; and so-called " duties towards the 
 lower animals" are merely forms of duty towards our- 
 selves.) The duty of promoting the happiness of others 
 consists, not in seeking their perfection (for no one can 
 seek the perfection of another) or their mere pleasure, but 
 rather in avoiding conduct that might " mislead them into
 
 KANT. 363 
 
 actions for which their conscience might afterwards give 
 them pain." We have to distinguish " obligations of right," 
 or obligations to do or not to do certain actions, and " ob- 
 ligations of virtue," or obligations to follow certain maxims ; 
 or " perfect " and " imperfect " duties. Merit attaches 
 only to the former. Governing the estimate of duties are 
 three special rules : ( i ) There is but one ground of obli- 
 gation for each duty; (2) Vice and virtue must be treated 
 as differing, not in mere degree, but in kind ; (3) We 
 must not estimate duty by our capacities, but our capa- 
 cities by our duties. Duties towards self may be classed 
 as " positive," relating to " preservation of moral health," 
 and " negative," relating to " moral improvement ; " or, ac- 
 cording to a different principle, as duties of man " towards 
 himself as an animal who is also a moral being, and duties 
 towards himself purely as a moral being." The negative 
 duties in relation to our animal nature are the duties of 
 self-preservation, preservation of the species, the " main- 
 tenance of his faculty for the purposeful use of his powers, 
 and for the enjoyment of life." The negative duties to 
 self as a moral being are veracity, humility, and a duty 
 opposed to avarice. The positive duties of man to himself 
 are comprehended in the duty of physical, intellectual, and 
 moral self-development. Our duties to others are duties of 
 respect and of love. These are in a certain sense antago- 
 nistic, since by means of the principle of mutual love men 
 are called on reciprocally to approach each other, while they 
 by the principle of respect which they owe to each other, 
 are called on to preserve a certain distance from each 
 other. The duties of love or benevolence are beneficence, 
 gratitude, and sympathy. Respect has as opposites the 
 vices pride, evil- speaking, and readiness to mock and 
 insult. 
 
 Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason. 1 The doc- 
 trine of religion, within the limits of mere reason, has the 
 four principal parts, (i) Concerning the Radical Evil in 
 
 1 See Caird's " Critical Philosophy of Kant."
 
 364 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Human Nature; (2) The Conflict of the Good Principle 
 with the Evil for the Mastery in Man; (3) The Found- 
 ing of a Kingdom of God upon Earth ; (4) True and 
 False Religious Service, or Religion and the Priesthood, 
 (i) There is in human nature a natural bias towards evil, 
 and a consciousness of it as such. This bias does not lie 
 merely in the sensuous nature, for this nature " contains 
 too little " for such a bias ; nor in the rational nature of 
 man, for this makes of man neither more nor less than a 
 devil. "The distinction whether a man is good or bad 
 cannot lie in the difference of the motives which he takes 
 up into his maxims (i. e., not in the matter of such mo- 
 tives), but only in their relative subordination (/. e., in 
 their form). The question is simply which of the two 
 kinds of motives he makes the condition of the other. 
 Man, even the best man, is bad only because he perverts 
 the moral order of the motives in taking them up with 
 his maxims, makes the motives of selfism the condition of 
 obedience to the moral law, whereas the latter ought to be 
 made the universal maxim of will, as the highest condition 
 of the satisfaction of the former. Under this perversion 
 the idea of happiness, which is only the generalization of 
 the ends of desire, takes that central place which properly 
 belongs to the moral law as the principle of unity for all our 
 maxims" (Caird). This perversion is due to an "intel- 
 ligible act, which we can know only through reason, and not 
 as empirically given in sense under conditions of time." 
 This act is incomprehensible, as also that by which man 
 turns from evil to good. The conversion (in the will) is 
 an instantaneous act : it can be realized in the phenomenal 
 nature only by a progresses in infinitum. (2) The evil 
 principle in man can be counteracted only by the spiritual 
 power within us from which it originates, but in the form of 
 moral perfection, " God-pleasing Humanity," by virtue of 
 which man is a Son of God, or Christ. Inasmuch, never- 
 theless, as man, though he has turned from evil, suffers the 
 penalty of deeds while evil, there is truth in the Scripture
 
 KANT. 365 
 
 representation that the guiltless Son of God bears as a sub- 
 stitute the guilt of sinful humanity, and so redeems human- 
 ity. All the dogmas of Christianity may, like this of the 
 Atonement, be interpreted as an expression of the moral 
 revolution whereby the bias of man to evil is overthrown ; 
 and if so, it is well for us to " continue to pay reverence to 
 the outward vesture, that has served to bring into general 
 acceptance a doctrine which rests upon an authority within 
 the soul of every man, and which, therefore, needs no 
 miracle to commend it to mankind." Miracles were useful 
 at the first introduction of the Christian faith : they have 
 no importance for us. (3) That the good principle may 
 permanently triumph over the evil, there is required "a 
 union of men to guard against evil and to further good, a 
 permanent ever-extending society for the maintenance of 
 morality." As it was the duty of mankind to abandon the 
 legal state of nature, and to enter into a political union for 
 the maintenance of justice, so we may say that it is their 
 duty to leave the ethical state of nature, and combine into 
 a church for the furtherance of moral virtue. And as it is 
 only a universal republic which can finally put an end to 
 war and fully realize the legal unity of men, so it is only 
 a universal church which can realize the moral unity of 
 men. Such a universal republic, according to laws of 
 virtue, however, differs from the civil society in this, that no 
 force can be the instrument of its realization ; for violence 
 can do nothing to secure a moral end. A universal church 
 implies a union of men which is (in regard to the cate- 
 gory of quantity) universal (independent of accidental 
 differences) ; (as regards quality) absolutely pure (as 
 regards the motives by which the members of it are 
 actuated) ; (as regards relation) free both in the relation 
 of the members to each other and to the community as a 
 whole ; and (as regards modality) unchangeable (as to the 
 principles of its constitution). Such an institution can only 
 be approximated. The history of religion is a history of 
 the conflict between the religion of "divine service " and the
 
 366 A HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 religion of " morality," and especially the progress whereby 
 the latter gains more and more the mastery of the former. 
 "As we cannot deny the possibility of the divine origin 
 of a book which in a practical point of view contains 
 nothing but divine truth, ... as it seems impossible that 
 without a sacred book, and a church-faith grounded on it, a 
 religious union of men can be formed and maintained ; and 
 as we cannot expect, in the state of enlightenment we have 
 now reached, that a new revelation should be introduced 
 with new miracles, it is best to take the book which we find 
 generally recognized as sacred, and make it the foundation 
 of the teaching of the church." The Christian mysteries 
 are all merely symbolic. (4) True service is obedience to 
 the moral law; false, is priestly and ritual service. False 
 service is positive and arbitrary, not merely in form (as re- 
 vealed religion of necessity must be), but also in matter. 
 A true revealed religion is identical with natural religion in 
 matter, though not in form. All the services of the church 
 may be of use as means of piety, baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper have a relative value ; all means of grace are ways 
 of working, not upon God, but upon ourselves. 
 
 Resitlt. The system of Kant is, on the very face of 
 it, a synthetic attempt, an attempt of the sort peculiarly 
 characteristic of the Third Period of Modern Philosophy. 
 Kant will reconcile (sceptical) empiricism with (dogmatic) 
 rationalism, unite object and subject in experience, con- 
 sciousness and self-consciousness. All this he attempts 
 gather from the side of rationalism than of empiricism, as 
 the necessities of the case required. As regards the knowl- 
 edge of mere phenomena, Kant's attempt may be said to 
 have been successful on the whole, Kant, in other words, 
 provided, in his doctrine of sense and of the understanding, 
 a fairly substantial philosophic basis for the natural sciences. 
 As regards noumena, Kant certainly has the credit of having 
 first really brought to light in modern philosophy (perhaps 
 we may as well say in the whole history of philosophy) the 
 fact of spiritual freedom, as well as that of the predomi-
 
 KANT. 367 
 
 nance of self-consciousness in our perception of beauty and 
 order in art and in nature ; but it is nevertheless true 
 that in relation to the noumenal Kant's system is (even 
 avowedly) little else than a pseudo-reconciliation of op- 
 posites, a purely subjective reconciliation of them in moral 
 and aesthetic intuition. The fact that Kant does not 
 clearly get rid of the thing- in-itself, that freedom, immor- 
 tality, God, are merely postulates, that nature and art are, 
 only for our intelligence, manifestations of absolute spirit, 
 make his system one of intuitionalistic rationalism (or, in 
 the more common designation, subjective transcendental 
 idealism). In a purely historical regard, at least, the name 
 of Kant (it is scarcely necessary to say) is the most im- 
 portant in the Third Period of Modern Philosophy. The 
 number of thinkers, since Kant wrote, who have not been 
 influenced by his thought, is comparatively small. 
 
 114- 
 
 The Reception of the Kantian Philosophy* Although 
 the Kantian philosophy was hardly of a character to be- 
 come a popular doctrine, it gradually obtained a very wide 
 audience, and before the end of the last century, or within 
 about twenty years after its first promulgation, was not 
 only taught in most of the German universities, but was 
 eagerly studied outside the universities, even, it is said, by 
 German women ; and it was beginning to be known in Hol- 
 land, England, and France. It had opponents as well as 
 disciples (and semi-disciples) : it was opposed " in the 
 name of revealed religion, of older schools of metaphysics, 
 particularly the Leibnitzean and Wolffian, of empirical and 
 sceptical schools of philosophy, of mere sentiment." We 
 give the names of the more important Kantians, Semi- 
 Kantians, and Anti-Kantians. (i) Kantians were Johann 
 Schulz (1739-1805), professor of mathematics and "sec- 
 ond court-preacher " at Konigsberg ; Karl Leonhard Rein- 
 hold (to be noticed later) ; Karl Christian Ehrhard Schmid 
 (1761-1812), professor at Giessen and Jena; Christian
 
 368 A HISTORY OF AIODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Gottfried Schiitz (1747-1832), professor at Dederstedt 
 and Jena, and editor, together with Hufeland, of the Jena 
 " Allgemeine Literaturzeitung," the chief literary organ of 
 Kantism in Germany; Jacob Sigismund Beck (to be 
 spoken of later) ; and the poet Schiller (also to be noticed 
 hereafter). (2) Semi- Kantian were: Johann Heinrich 
 Abicht (1762-1816), professor at Erlangen and Wilna; 
 August Wilhelm Rehberg (1757-1836); Christian Jacob 
 Kraus (1753-1807), professor at Konigsberg; Wilhelm 
 Traugott Krug (1770-1842), Kant's successor at Konigs- 
 berg, and professor also at Leipzic, a man of encyclopedic 
 learning rather than depth of thought, who exerted a very 
 considerable influence for the spread of interest in philo- 
 sophical studies; Friedrich Bouterwek (1766-1828), pro- 
 fessor at Gottingen; Georg Hermes (1781-1848), professor 
 (of theology) at Bonn; Bernhard Bolzano (1781-1848), 
 professor in Prague ; Jacob Friedrich Fries (to be noticed 
 hereafter). (3) Anti-Kantian were : Christian Garve (1742- 
 1798), a litterateur ; Johann Heinrich Feder (1740-1821), 
 professor at Gottingen and joint author, with Garve, of the 
 most important of the early criticisms of Criticism ; Cristoph 
 Meiners (1747-1810), professor at Gottingen, and editor, 
 with Feder, of a journal (called the " Philosophische Bib- 
 liothek ") established to oppose Kantism ; Johann August 
 Eberhard (1739-1809), professor at Halle, and editor of a 
 " Philosophisches Magazin " (1787-1792), conducted for 
 the purpose of combating Criticism ; Johann Christoph 
 Schwab (1743-1821), professor in a school at Stuttgart; 
 Ernst Plainer (1744-1818), professor in the University of 
 Leipzic; and Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Salomon Maimon, 
 Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried Herder, Fried- 
 rich Heinrich Jacobi, all of whom will be spoken of 
 hereafter. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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