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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