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 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 J3D 
 BY
 
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 '-{
 
 j^ortljiDestern Uniticr^itv 
 
 THE N. W. HARRIS LECTURES 
 FOR 1907
 
 %\)t i^. Wi. l^arris; ilectureg 
 
 •were founded in 1900 throug-h the generosity of Mr. 
 Norman Wait Harris of Chicago, and are to be given 
 annually. The purpose of the lecture foundation is, 
 as expressed by the donor, " to stimulate scientific 
 research of the highest type and to bring the results 
 of such research before the students and friends of 
 Northwestern University, and through them to the 
 world. By the terra 'scientific research ' is meaut 
 scholarly investigation into any department of human 
 thought or effort without limitation to research in the 
 so-called natural sciences, but with a desire that such 
 investigation should be extended to cover the whole 
 field of human knowledge."
 
 PERSONALISM 
 
 BY 
 
 BORDEN PARKER BOWNE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1908
 
 COPYRIGHT 1908 BY BORDEN P. BOWNE 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published February rqo8
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Early in the last century, M. Comte, the 
 founder of French positivism, set forth his fa- 
 mous doctrine of the three stages of human 
 thought. Man begins, he said, in the theologi- 
 cal stage, when all phenomena are referred to 
 wills, either in things or beyond them. After 
 a while, through the discovery of law, the ele- 
 ment of caprice and arbitrariness, and thus of 
 will, is ruled out, and men pass to the second, 
 or metaphysical stage. Here they explain phe- 
 nomena by abstract conceptions of being, sub- 
 stance, cause, and the like. But these meta- 
 physical conceptions are really only the ghosts 
 of the earlier theological notions, and disappear 
 upon criticism. When this is seen, thought 
 passes into the third and last stage of develop- 
 ment, the positive stage. Here men give up 
 all inquiry into metaphysics as bootless, and 
 content themselves with discovering and regis- 
 tering the uniformities of coexistence and 
 sequence among phenomena. When this is
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 done we have accomplished all that is possible 
 in the nature of the case. Metaphysics is ruled 
 out as a source of barren and misleading illu- 
 sions, and science is installed in its place as a 
 study of the uniformities of coexistence and 
 sequence which are revealed in experience. 
 
 In this view Comte was partly right and 
 partly wrong. By explanation Comte under- 
 stood causal explanation, and he was quite right 
 in pointing out that explanation in terms of 
 personality is the one with which men begin. 
 He was equally right in saying that abstract 
 metaphysics is only the ghost of the earlier per- 
 sonal explanations. Later philosophic criticism 
 has shown that the conceptions of impersonal 
 metaphysics are only the abstract forms of the 
 self-conscious life, and that apart from that life 
 they are empty and illusory. Comte was equally 
 right in restricting positive science to the in- 
 vestigation and registration of the orders of 
 coexistence and sequence in experience. But 
 he was wrong in making caprice and arbitrari- 
 ness essential marks of will, and equally wrong 
 in rejecting all causal inquiry. The history of
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 thought has judged his doctrine in this respect. 
 Causal inquiry, though driven out with a fork, 
 has always come running back, and always will. 
 It only remains to give the causal doctrine the 
 form which is necessary to free it from the ob- 
 jections of criticism. 
 
 The aim of these lectures is to show that 
 critical reflection brings us back again to the 
 personal metaphysics which Comte rejected. 
 We agree with him that abstract and imper- 
 sonal metaphysics is a mirage of formal ideas, 
 and even largely of words, which begin, con- 
 tinue, and end in abstraction and confusion. 
 Causal explanation must always be in terms of 
 personality, or it must vanish altogether. Thus 
 we return to the theological stage, but we do so 
 with a difference. At last we have learned the 
 lesson of law, and we now see that law and will 
 must be united in our thought of the world. 
 Thus man's earliest metaphysics reemerges in 
 his latest ; but enlarged, enriched, and purified 
 by the ages of thought and experience. 
 
 In war the success of a campaign seldom 
 depends solely upon sheer flighting and direct
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 assaults upon the enemy's position. It often 
 depends equally, and even more fundamentally, 
 upon seizing and holding certain strategic po- 
 sitions which may command the enemy's com- 
 munications, or threaten his rear, or make his 
 position untenable. Intellectual campaigns are 
 subject to the same law. They are commonly 
 decided at points quite remote from the appar- 
 ent battlefield, and without any " thunder of 
 the captains and the shoutings." These are 
 the strategic points that command the field and 
 decide the day. They lie in our epistemology 
 and metaphysics — subjects which seem to 
 have little or no practical bearing, yet out of 
 them are the issues of intellectual life or death. 
 Our notions of knowledge and its nature, 
 our conception of reality and causality, our 
 thoughts respecting space and time, — the 
 two great intimidating phantoms, — these are 
 the things that decide our general way of 
 thinking and give direction to our thought 
 even in morals and relig'ion. Some harmless- 
 looking doctrine is put forth in epistemology, 
 and soon there is an ajrnostic chill in the air
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 that is fatal to the highest spiritual faiths of 
 the soul, or some seusual blight and mildew 
 spread over the fairer growths of our nature. 
 Space and time are made supreme laws of ex- 
 istence, and determinism and materialism and 
 atheism are at the door. This g'eneral fact ex- 
 plains the form of the campaign. The " thun- 
 der of the captains and the shoutings " are 
 omitted, in order to deal with the questions 
 which both experience and reflection show to 
 be the really strategic points in philosophic 
 discussion. 
 
 BORDEN P. BOWNE. 
 
 February 1, 1908.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY 1 
 
 II. THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 54 
 
 HI. PHENOMENALITY OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 111 
 
 IV. MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 159 
 
 V. THE FAILURE OF BIPERSONALISM 217 
 
 VI. THE PERSONAL WORLD 268
 
 PERSONALISM 
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, AND 
 PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Common sense has always thought rather 
 meanly of philosophy, either as losing itself 
 in abstract verbiage which makes no connec- 
 tion with reality, or else as falling into dan- 
 gerous and destructive errors. Aristophanes, 
 wishing to deride philosophy, represented So- 
 crates as floating in the clouds and uttering a 
 deal of nonsense, which was supposed to be 
 philosophical. And we are all familiar with 
 the formula which refers to "science," that 
 is, philosophy, " falsely so-called," and which 
 couples " philosophy and vain deceit " in a 
 way not intended to be complimentary. 
 Goethe expressed the same opinion when he 
 made Mephistopheles say, " A speculating fel- 
 low is like a beast on a blasted heath led round 
 in circles by an evil spirit, while all about are
 
 2 PERSONALISM 
 
 pastures fair and green." Milton is even more 
 pronounced, for he mentions philosophizing- 
 as one of the pursuits of hell. One group of 
 devils is described as holding high debate over 
 
 " Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, 
 And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." 
 
 Much of this popular opinion is due to ig- 
 norance, but the warmest friend of philosophy 
 must admit that there is also much in the his- 
 tory of thought to justify the popular view. 
 Philosophers themselves are not always clear as 
 to their own meaning, and have often spoken 
 a language "not understanded of the people." 
 Nonsense and pernicious errors mingle in about 
 equal proportions in philosophical literature. 
 Many a navigator has sailed away over the 
 misty seas of speculation and never come back ; 
 and many an ambitious climber, imitating the 
 "Excelsior" youth, has climbed out of sight 
 and never returned to earth again. Fogbanks 
 have often been mistaken for land, and islands 
 of mist have passed for solid continents. A 
 fearful proportion of philosophical discussion 
 at best is barren and often pernicious. Prob-
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 3 
 
 ably nine tenths of the treatises on this subject 
 might be burned up without any loss to the 
 world, and with some small gain to the fuel 
 pile. Could the good Caliph Omar return to 
 life and make a bonfire of our philosophical 
 literature, as he did of the Alexandrian library, 
 it would not be an unmitigated calamity. 
 
 And this is no judgment of outsiders 
 merely, but of philosophers themselves. The 
 ever-recurrent outbreaks of skepticism and 
 agnosticism among them remind us of the 
 instability of the philosophical structure ; and 
 just now the pragmatists, distantly echoing 
 Kant's doctrine of the primacy of the practi- 
 cal reason, are pointing out what sorry stuff 
 the traditional philosophy is, and more in sor- 
 row than in anger, as in true friendship bound, 
 are inflictins" numerous " faithful wounds." 
 It is not surprising, then, that common sense 
 should propose to throw philosophy, along 
 with physic, to the dogs and have none of it. 
 
 We might well conclude, then, that we 
 should let philosophy alone, as at best a use- 
 less science. Unfortunately this cannot be
 
 4 PERSONALISM 
 
 done. Every one has a philosophy of some sort, 
 wittingly or unwittingly. Every one has some 
 notions about reality, the nature of things, the 
 meaning and outcome of life, and the like ; 
 and these constitute his philosophy. Monsieur 
 Jourdain in Moliere's play, as you remember, 
 talked prose all his life without knowing it, 
 and many persons do the same thing with 
 philosophy. For philosophy is simply an 
 attempt to give an account of experience, or 
 it is a man's way of looking at things. The 
 common-sense man finds a lot of bodies about 
 him in space and a series of changes going on 
 in time, and in these he rests as final. That is 
 his philosophy. The materialist conceives that 
 the world of experience can be explained by 
 molecules and atoms, endowed with forces of 
 attraction and repulsion which work forever 
 through space and time. That is his philoso- 
 phy. The agnostic holds that we can know 
 nothing beyond phenomena. The causal power 
 behind is forever hidden. That is his philoso- 
 phy. The theist holds that the order of things 
 can be explained only by an intelligent cause
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 5 
 
 back of all appearance and manifestation. 
 That is his philosophy. But every one has a 
 philosophy of some sort, implicit or explicit, 
 and commonly he is all the more controlled 
 by it the less he is aware of its presence. If 
 men could and would let philosophy alone I 
 sometimes think I should be willing to have 
 them do so ; for there is a great deal of false 
 and pernicious philosophizing. We might even 
 say that strait is the gate and narrow is the 
 way that leadeth to philosophical insight, and 
 few there be that find it; while wide is the 
 gate and broad the way that leads to philo- 
 sophical confusion and destruction, and many 
 there be who go in thereat. But since we 
 must have a philosophy, whether we will or 
 not, it is important that we get the best. If 
 we do not sow good seed the enemy will sow 
 tares, and by and by we have to reap the tares 
 that have been sown. The whole system of 
 naturalistic thought, with its materialistic and 
 atheistic tendencies, is but the outcome of the 
 crude metaphysics of common sense, and it 
 can be permanently overthrown only by dis-
 
 6 PERSONALISM 
 
 crediting that metaphysics. So long as space 
 and time and matter and force are openly or 
 tacitly assumed to be the standard realities, 
 or the standards of reality, there will always 
 be a root of bitterness in our speculation 
 which will spring up again and again to 
 annoy us. 
 
 It is not, then, a question of having or not 
 having a philosophy, but of having a good or 
 a bad one. And this question is of great prac- 
 tical importance, for, while a good philosophy 
 may not have much positive value, a bad one 
 may do measureless harm. Nations may be 
 paralyzed, and individuals may be wrecked, 
 by a fatalistic and pessimistic philosophy. A 
 sense philosophy may tend to mildew the life 
 of a peojjle and cast discredit upon all the 
 spiritual aspirations of man. An agnostic 
 philosophy may paralyze both the mental and 
 moral nature and leave men thwarted and 
 despairing in impenetrable darkness. The 
 most destructive errors that have devastated 
 humanity have been rooted in philosophy, and 
 many of the worst aberrations of religion run
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 7 
 
 back to some philosophical doctrine as either 
 their source or their justification. And a little 
 reflection shows that philosophy is no unim- 
 portant affair. It would not be a serious mat- 
 ter if we made an error in our theory of the 
 double stars, or if we mistook the order of 
 the geological strata, or blundered in the 
 atomic weights of some of the elements ; but 
 it would be a very serious matter if we went 
 astray in those fundamental conceptions of 
 life, its worth and destiny, with which philo- 
 sophy deals. It would be a serious matter if 
 philosophy reached a conception of life and 
 the world which was incompatible with those 
 high faiths of humanity by which hitherto 
 nations have nourished themselves into great- 
 ness and men have nobly lived and bravely 
 died. Would it, then, make no difference to 
 personal life or to civilization if we should 
 replace these faiths by materialism or atheism? 
 Could we safely exchange our Christian phi- 
 losophy for that of India ? Would life go on 
 just as well if, with the agnostic, we decided 
 to restrict all thought to things seen and tern-
 
 8 PERSONALISM 
 
 poral, and forbade any reference to the unseen 
 and eternal ? These questions answer them- 
 selves. Mr. Spencer in his last work, " Facts 
 and Comments," seems not to have weakened 
 in his agnostic conviction, but he advises the 
 skeptic not to say too much about agnosti- 
 cism ; as faith is a comfort to many who have 
 no other support. Such considerations show 
 that philosophy is not a matter of practical 
 indifference. It may not " bake bread for us," 
 it has been said, " but it gives us God, free- 
 dom, and immortality ; " and, we may add, it 
 gives even the bread which it does not bake 
 a savor it would not otherwise possess. 
 
 We need, then, a sound philosophy at least 
 as a kind of intellectual health officer whose 
 business it is to keep down disease-breeding 
 miasms and pestiferous growths, or as a moral 
 police whose duty it is to arrest those dan- 
 gerous and disturbing intellectual vagrants 
 which have no visible means of support, and 
 which corrupt the people. 
 
 This negative function is very important. 
 A great crop of errors readily springs up on
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 9 
 
 the plain of sense and mechanical thought. 
 In this way sensualism, materialism, atheism, 
 like weeds, are sure to grow unless there be a 
 philosophy of higher character to keep them 
 down. These lower philosophies tend to usurp 
 possession of the mind; and in their presence 
 the higher faiths of the soul soon wither and 
 perish. And these lower views cannot be dis- 
 pelled by authority, but only by a careful 
 examination of their philosophical founda- 
 tions. Then they are seen in their baselessness 
 and fatuity. Positively, philosophy has the 
 function of formulating and systematizing life 
 \y and experience so as to bring out into clear 
 consciousness our aims and principles. It must 
 close up the ways of error and open the high- 
 ways of progress. With all its shortcomings, 
 philosophy deserves well of humanity in this 
 respect. It has driven away nightmares and 
 enabled us to see visions. Only a good philo- 
 sophy can displace a bad one. 
 
 The generation just passed had abundant 
 illustration of the practical importance of phi- 
 losophy. That was a time of great develop-
 
 10 PERSONALISM 
 
 ment in the physical sciences and in the com- 
 mercial application of science to our control 
 o£ nature. There were great generalizations in 
 physics, such as the conservation of energy, 
 and the correlation of the physical forces ; 
 and equally great generalizations in biology. 
 The application of scientific method to histor- 
 ical study, also, and the ever-widening dis- 
 covery of law, leading to the belief in its uni- 
 versal reign, had great influence. New facts 
 crowded upon us and new interjjretations were 
 demanded. The old mental equilibrium was 
 broken up and the new one had not yet been 
 established. The new wine of science and evo- 
 lution went to the head and produced many 
 woes and more babblings. It was a matter of 
 course" that at such time religion should seem 
 to be imperiled. To the passive mind even 
 new truth seems dangerous until it has be- 
 come familiar. All who had any grudge against 
 religion loudly proclaimed its baselessness, and 
 many who were interested in religion were 
 profoundly disturbed by the new order. Every- 
 thing^ seemed to be in solution. The foun-
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 11 
 
 tains of the great deep were broken up. The 
 elements melted with fervent heat, and some 
 things passed away with a great noise. Natural- 
 ism came to the front with a mechanical phi- 
 losophy, and commercialism tended to fix all 
 eyes on gain as even better than godliness. 
 The latter produced a feeling that we could 
 do just as well without religion as with it, 
 and the former found no place for it. It was 
 proclaimed by many, and feared by more, 
 that the high hopes and dreams of humanity 
 were baseless. The truth about man had been 
 found out, and the truth was that instead 
 of being a child of the Highest he is merely 
 the highest of the animals, having essen- 
 tially the same history and destiny as they, — 
 birth, hunger, labor, weariness, and death. 
 Man was viewed as simply an incident in the 
 condensation of dispersed matter, or the cool- 
 ing of a fiery gas. 
 
 For a time the religious world was in a con- 
 dition of stampede and panic, but after a while 
 it became clear that the difficulty lay not in 
 the facts themselves but in the philosophy by
 
 12 PERSONALISM 
 
 which they were explained. The great source 
 of the disturbance of that time, apart from 
 the horror of change natural to the passive 
 mind, was the lack of any adequate philosophic 
 equipment. The new facts were interpreted on 
 the basis of a crude sense-realism, and this 
 view has always had a tendency to materialism 
 and atheism. But now that we have a better 
 critical apparatus the difficulties have disap- 
 peared. We are now able to live in peace and 
 quietness with the facts once thought so 
 threatening, and we look back on that period 
 of panic only to wonder at the superficiality 
 that caused it. We smile at the naive dog- 
 matism and the extraordinary logic of the 
 movement. Had we had a generation ago our 
 present philosophical equipment there would 
 have been no flurry over evolution, the trans- 
 formation of species, the reign of law, and the 
 many other things which were supposed to be 
 fatal to man's higher faiths. The storm we 
 had was part of the price we paid for being 
 philosophically unprepared. 
 
 It is clear, then, that philosophy is practically
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 13 
 
 important. It is not necessary, of course, that 
 everybody should be a philosopher, any more 
 than that everybody should be a physician or 
 a lawyer, but just as it is important that these 
 professions should be represented in the com- 
 munity so that all may share in their advan- 
 tages, so it is equally important that philoso- 
 phy should be represented in the thought of 
 a community, and without it there is no se- 
 curity against all manner of superstitions and 
 intellectual aberrations. Religion, conscience, 
 and even intellect itself grovel or fall into 
 \y vagaries when not subject to critical super- 
 vision. But it is equally clear from a survey 
 of conditions that philosophers themselves 
 need to bring forth fruits meet for repent- 
 ance, if their science is to receive general 
 respect. Some improvement in this direction 
 may be hoped for from the pragmatists' criti- 
 cism. We need to pay more attention to first 
 principles and to practical bearing and out- 
 come. Mr. Huxley tells of an Irish cabman 
 who was told to drive fast. Without waiting 
 to inquire where he was to go, he drove off
 
 14 PERSONALISM 
 
 furiously. When the passenger asked him 
 where he was going he replied, " Oi don't 
 know, yer hanner, but annyway Oi 'm drivin' 
 fast." One is often reminded of this good man 
 in reading current philosophical literature. 
 
 Philosophers themselves by no means always 
 clearly understand their own aims, and the 
 teachers of the science are sometimes confused 
 as to its meaning and contents. It cannot be 
 doubted that a great deal of time and strength 
 is wasted in philosophical study because of 
 misdirection and failure properly to analyze 
 the problems. Teachers often lose themselves 
 in details and reach no insight into the essen- 
 tial questions. Even distinguished occupants 
 of philosophical chairs sometimes come under 
 this condemnation. They are experts in the 
 bibliography and biography of the subject. 
 They are full of information on the editions 
 and the commentaries, and in short seem to 
 know everything about philosophy but phi- 
 losophy itself. The scholastics distinguished 
 " knowledge of the thing " from " knowledge 
 about the thing," and the latter is what we
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 15 
 
 too often find when we are lookino- for the 
 former. The principle which gives meaning 
 and unity to the whole is missed altogether, and 
 any criticism which may be made is " unprin- 
 cipled " and superficial in consequence. There 
 is abundant knowledge of details, but when 
 we come to the subject itself we often find 
 some naive and uncritical dogmatism or per- 
 haps no idea whatever; and sometimes it is 
 even held to be a mark of especial mental 
 breadth to have no system at all ; as if the 
 '-^/inability to think organically and consistently 
 were a sure sign of greatness. Such philoso- 
 phers are strong on the history of philoso- 
 phy. They remind us that we can understand 
 a thing only by studying its evolution. As if 
 a man could write edifyingly upon the his- 
 tory of a subject which he did not himself 
 thoroughly understand ; or as if a man could 
 read to much edification the history of a sub- 
 ject of which he knew nothing. The only 
 result would be barren superficialities in the 
 work and a fluency of speech without under- 
 standinof in the reader.
 
 16 PERSONALISM 
 
 When we are dealing with concrete insti- 
 tutions, legishxtion, etc., there is truth in the 
 claim that they must be historically studied 
 for their complete understanding ; but when 
 we are dealing with the formal truths of in- 
 telligence, they are to be understood in and 
 through themselves. Any student of average 
 ability can be made to see the truth of the 
 binomial theorem by reflection upon the proof 
 offered, and he can equally well learn how to 
 apply the theorem by inspection of its terms. 
 In neither case is any historical study needed 
 for insight, though it might be interesting 
 in itself. But a history of mathematics as an 
 introduction to mathematics would not tend 
 to edification. Equally inverted pedagogically 
 is the history of philosophy as an introduc- 
 tion to philosophy. Either it must confine 
 itself to worthless platitudes which will enable 
 the student to talk without understanding, 
 or it must be as unintelligible as a history 
 of the higher mathematics would be to one 
 who had never studied algebra. While, then, 
 we must always have the highest respect
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 17 
 
 for the historical method, it manifestly ap- 
 plies to some things better than to some other 
 things, and we must not allow a mechanical 
 repetition of formulas to obscure this fact. 
 The men who have helped philosophy forward 
 have seldom been men learned in the biblio- 
 graphy of the science, but men who grap- 
 pled with the problems themselves. Descartes, 
 Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant are illustra- 
 ^4ions. Hobbes said that if he had read as much 
 'as some of the stall-fed philosophers of his 
 time he should have known as little as they. 
 Again, philosophers, from failure to keep 
 in touch with reality, have often run into 
 barren elaborations of obvious commonplace 
 which might well justify the contempt of 
 common sense. Here logic reminds us that 
 explanations which leave matters as dark as 
 ever lose from that fact all reason for exist- 
 ence. Philosophers sometimes forget this and 
 in their theoretic zeal for their formulas un- 
 wittingly give awful examples of theoretic 
 obsession. A distinguished philosopher fur= 
 nishes us with illustrations.
 
 18 PERSONALISM 
 
 How does a child learn to write ? To most 
 of us it seems sufficient to say that he must 
 try and try again. But the distinguished phi- 
 losopher gives a more elaborate account, as 
 follows : — 
 
 " What he [the child] actually does is to 
 use his hand in a great many possible ways as 
 near as he can to the way required ; and from 
 these excessively produced movements, and 
 after excessively varied and numerous trials, 
 he gradually selects and fixes the slight suc- 
 cesses made in the direction of correct writing. 
 It is a long and most laborious accumulation 
 of slight functional selections from overpro- 
 duced movements." 
 
 The next selection is still more profound, 
 and illuminates a deeper mystery. 
 
 " Selective thinking is the result of motor 
 accommodation to the physical and social 
 environment, this accommodation taking place 
 in each case, as all motor accommodation does, 
 from a platform of earlier ^ systematic deter- 
 mination ' or habit. In the sphere of the phys- 
 ical environment as such, the selection is from
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 19 
 
 overproduced movements projected out from 
 the platform of the habitual adaptations of 
 the members brought into play ; in the sphere 
 of the social environment it consists in the 
 accommodation of the attention, secured by the 
 overproduction of motor variations projected 
 from the platform of the habitual attention 
 complex. The presentations from which the 
 selected motor variations issue are believed, or 
 called ^ true,' while the organization which the 
 ^^ motor complex gradually attains holds the data 
 C^of knowledge in relations of theoretical and 
 analytical ' validity.' " 
 
 Fortunately life can go on in its main inter- 
 ests on a less complicated platform than this. 
 These operose and stilted elaborations of com- 
 monplaces remind one of the man mentioned 
 by Swift, who, thinking that the ordinary 
 method of being measured for a suit of clothes 
 was too crude, had himself surveyed for a suit, 
 as much more scientific. After an elaborate 
 measurement of lines and angles and much 
 intricate calculation, a result was reached 
 which could have been gained directly and
 
 20 PERSONALISM 
 
 more effectively by a moment's use of a tape 
 line. 
 
 So, then, two things are plain : first, the 
 importance of philosophy, and, second, the 
 very general confusion which attaches to the 
 subject, not only in popular thought, but also 
 in the minds of supposed experts themselves. 
 The first step out of this confusion must lie 
 in seeking to reduce it and help to a better 
 understanding of the problem by looking for 
 some starting-point which will serve as a com- 
 mon ground for common sense and philoso- 
 phers of all schools, something on which all 
 may agree as a point of departure. 
 
 We find such common ground in the fol- 
 lowing postulates : — 
 
 First, the coexistence of persons. It is a 
 personal and social world in which we live, and 
 with which all speculation must begin. We 
 and the neighbors are facts which cannot be 
 questioned. 
 
 Secondly, there is a law of reason valid for 
 all and binding upon all. This is the supreme 
 condition of any mental community.
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 21 
 
 Thirdly, there is a world of common expe- 
 rience, actual or possible, where we meet in 
 mutual understanding, and where the great 
 business of life goes on. 
 
 These conditions commend themselves as 
 absolutely necessary in order to give any ra- 
 tional standing to our investigations, and they 
 cannot be questioned by any one without 
 immediate and obvious absurdity. If any one 
 should doubt the coexistence of persons and 
 assume that he was the only being in existence, 
 ^t would not be worth while to argue with 
 him. And if any one should doubt that the 
 laws of thought are essentially the same for 
 different persons he could not rationally pro- 
 pose to argue with any one else, for his argu- 
 ments could only show what was reasonable 
 for himself, and this by hypothesis need not 
 be rational for any others. Again, if any one 
 questioned the world of common experience, 
 this experienced world in which we all live 
 and meet one another in mutual understanding 
 and to which we have to adjust ourselves in the 
 direction of our lives, he also would shut him-
 
 22 PERSONALISM 
 
 self off from any intelligible communication 
 with others. It is only, then, as we assume and 
 admit these general postulates that our dis- 
 cussion could have any rational standing. If, 
 however, any one chooses to deny them we 
 have no objection. We only insist that he 
 shall keep the peace and not disturb the rest 
 of us by his inconsistent outcry. 
 
 It is well, however, to note that these facts 
 do not admit of being speculatively deduced 
 or demonstratively established. If they need 
 demonstration it cannot be given. They in- 
 volve some very deep mysteries and carry us 
 into the depths of metaphysics, the philosophy 
 of the infinite and its relation to the finite. 
 But, on the other hand, they do not need de- 
 monstration, being so cogently forced upon us 
 that any skepticism regarding them can never 
 be more than verbal. In dealing with them of 
 course we must be careful not to find more in 
 them than the facts themselves necessitate, or 
 not to impart into them a system of crude 
 metaphysics, as if this were a part of the ori- 
 ginal datum. But when this condition is duly
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 23 
 
 regarded the facts themselves are not open to 
 question. Every system of whatever kind has 
 to beo'in with somethino; behind which there 
 is no SToinof and which is to be uncondition- 
 ally accepted. In our human thinking we must 
 begin by admitting the points in question. 
 
 It is also well to bear in mind that we have 
 here a common ground for all intelligent 
 thinkers, whatever their philosophic theories 
 may be. Hume and Berkeley and Mill would 
 accept these postulates as readily as Reid and 
 Hamilton and the most dogmatic of realists in 
 '\^ general. For Hume matter was substantially 
 nothing in theory ; for Berkeley it was an idea 
 only ; for Mill it was a " permanent possibility 
 of sensation," — but practically matter was 
 the same to them as to every one else. They 
 had to adjust themselves to material things 
 and their laws, and had precisely the same 
 kind of experience as their realistic neighbors. 
 The differences among the philosophers do 
 not concern the facts of experience or any- 
 thing which they can be shown to imply for 
 possible experience. The differences begin
 
 24 PERSONALISM 
 
 with the philosophic interpretations. The facts 
 are interpreted by diiferent schemes of meta- 
 physics, or perhaps the possibility of interpre- 
 tation is denied, thus producing different phi- 
 losophies; but the facts themselves cannot be 
 practically questioned without insanity, or even 
 with it. Agnosticism, idealism, nihilism, all 
 leave exjDerience untouched, and for experi- 
 ence they all agree with common sense. There 
 is an order of experience which we do not 
 make but find, with which we have to reckon 
 and to which we must adjust ourselves in 
 order to live at all. In this conviction of com- 
 mon sense all philosophers agree, whatever 
 reasons they may give for it. 
 
 Thus we secure an intelligible and manage- 
 able problem. We have the world of persons, 
 the laws of reason, and the world of experi- 
 ence, or the world of perception, and the 
 world of life and history for our data, and 
 the just claims of common sense are recog- 
 nized. Common sense has always claimed 
 that we are not living in a world of illusions, 
 but in the real world, and this we not only
 
 O- 
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 25 
 
 admit but affirm. The basal facts, therefore, 
 for philosophy are the personal world, the 
 common reason, and the world of experience. 
 With this living, aspiring, hoping, fearing, 
 loving, hating, human world, with its life and 
 history and hopes and fears and struggles 
 and aspirations, philosophy must begin. We 
 are in a personal world from the start, and 
 all our objects are connected with this world 
 in one indivisible system. And this world of 
 experience stands absolutely in its own right, 
 and is independent of our metaphysical the- 
 ories concerning it. We may have various 
 theories about it, but the experience itself is 
 what it is, and its contents are revealed only 
 in life. 
 
 This personal beginning of all speculation 
 should be emphasized, as oversight of the fact 
 has led to some of the great aberrations of 
 philosophy. In particular naturalism begins 
 with matter and force under the conditions 
 of space and time, and at once we have an in- 
 soluble dualism in our theory, and also a strong 
 tendency toward materialism and the elimina-
 
 26 PERSON ALISM 
 
 tion of personality altogether. Such errors are 
 avoided when we recognize the primacy of the 
 personal world from the start. This matter 
 and force of naturalism are a pair of abstrac- 
 tions broken from the system of living expe- 
 rience, and probably having only an abstract 
 existence. 
 
 Returning now to experience, and confining 
 our attention for the present to the physical 
 world, we point out first that we speak of the 
 system of experience instead of the world of 
 things, as that is a phrase which carries with 
 it many questionable metaphysical impHca- 
 tions. The order of experience cannot be ques- 
 tioned, but when we import into it the notion 
 of material and impersonal substances under- 
 lying it we have already transcended experi- 
 ence. Here is where the idealistic systems 
 break off. They all agree on the data of ex- 
 perience, its laws, and the practical expecta- 
 tions we may form for our guidance, but they 
 find neither proof of the existence of these 
 substances nor any use for them, supposing 
 them to exist. By experience, then, we mean
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 27 • 
 
 the world of objects, so far as they can be the 
 subjects of a real or possible experience, and 
 we imply nothing beyond this by way of 
 metaphysics. How the order of experience is 
 possible is a matter for later inquiry. 
 
 But after yielding thus far to the scruples 
 of the idealist, we must next point out in the 
 name of common sense that this world of ex- 
 perience is real in the sense of being trust- 
 worthy, or something which can be practically 
 depended upon. It is not illusion, as illusion 
 ;means somethino^ which does not fit into the 
 ystem of common experience on its own plane, 
 and is therefore a fancy or phantom of the 
 individual, like the visions of a fever patient. 
 But all that we find or can find in the order 
 of common experience is to be unhesitatingly 
 accepted as real, and for the very good reason 
 that there is no help for it. And this is all that 
 common sense means by reality in general, — 
 something which is there for all and which 
 can be depended upon. 
 
 But these terms, real and unreal, are ex- 
 ceedingly vague, and their meaning deserves
 
 28 PERSONALISM 
 
 some further specification. They are so far 
 from having a single meaning, that the same 
 things may be called real and unreal at the 
 same time, according to our standpoint. Thus 
 finite things may be called real on their own 
 plane of finitude, and unreal as contrasted with 
 some basal and absolute existence. But there 
 is no contradiction, for the unreality of the 
 finite is only a denial of its eternal self-exist- 
 ence, and this gives it a temporal and phenom- 
 enal character in comparison with the eternal. 
 But real and unreal are proper contradictions 
 only when applied in a given class or on a given 
 plane. Thus unreal appearance in space is such 
 only because it does not fit into our general sys- 
 tem of space experience ; but when it does thus 
 fit and is consistent with the totality of space 
 experience, it is real in the only intelligible 
 sense of the word. To ask whether the totality 
 of space experience is real or illusory is to 
 confuse ourselves by mixing two realms. The 
 reality of space experience lies in its validity 
 for experience. It is possible that this real ex- 
 perience might be looked upon as only phenom-
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 29 
 
 enal from a deeper metaphysical standpoint, 
 but that would in no way modify the reality of 
 the experience, but only the interpretations 
 which we might draw from it. 
 
 As matter of experience, then, experience 
 is real, that is, valid and trustworthy, and not 
 illusory. This point is to be emphasized, as 
 confusion here has led to not a few philo- 
 sophical errors and some religious aberrations. 
 Some philosophers, especially in the Orient, 
 deciding that only the self-existent is real, pro- 
 «eted to rule out all finite existence and exjDe- 
 rience as illusion; but all they are justified in 
 doing is to say that finite existence and expe- 
 rience are not real in the sense of absolute and 
 eternal existence. They may yet be entirely 
 real as experiencing subjects and experienced 
 objects. It would lead to a great clear- 
 ing up in Oriental thought if these terms 
 were clearly defined and consistently applied. 
 Considerable maia would disappear forthwith. 
 In like manner some persons among our- 
 selves have thought it a sufficient proof of the 
 unreality of pain and disease to call them un-
 
 30 PERSONALISM 
 
 real, that is, not substantial. In tliis sense, of 
 course, they are unreal, but they remain very 
 real forms of experience notwithstanding; and 
 in dealing with them as forms of experience 
 we are not helped in any way by our meta- 
 physics. Suppose we decide that hunger and 
 cold are illusions. As such they remain just 
 as insistent and peremptory as before. Hun- 
 ger may be an illusion and food may be an illu- 
 sion and cold may be an illusion, but the only 
 effective way of dealing with the illusions, 
 hunger and cold, is to apply certain other illu- 
 sions known as food and clothing and shelter 
 and warmth and so on, and it is just as hard 
 and just as necessary to get these under the 
 name of illusion as under any other name 
 whatever. Berkeley did not find his butcher's 
 bill or grocer's bill in any way changed by his 
 metaphysical theory; and in general this world 
 of experience, real or possible, is not modified 
 by our metaphysical notions about it. Even if 
 we go to the extent of utter nihilism, life itself 
 ought not to be affected. Thus, if we call our 
 own selves illusions and our life an illusion, life
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 31 
 
 remains just what it was before, and inasmuch 
 as it goes on fairly well now as illusion there 
 is no assignable reason why it might not con- 
 tinue as illusion and even pass into better and 
 better forms of illusion. It might be possible, 
 therefore, for one to fall back upon experience 
 and ignore the metaphysician altogether, with 
 the understanding' that life itself is what it is 
 and that it is not modified by what we call it. 
 
 But if experience be thus undeniable, what 
 need of philosophy in any case, or what func- 
 tion does philosophy have? It might almost 
 seem as if it were a species of psychological 
 vermiform appendix, without any remaining 
 function, and only a seat of dangerous in- 
 flammations. 
 
 In reply it must be said that there might 
 well be beings the contents of whose experi- 
 ence should be perfectly plain and open to 
 thought, so that nothing would be needed but 
 to describe and register those contents with 
 their laws. We find, however, in our own case 
 that experience, while fundamental and also
 
 32 PERSONALISM 
 
 true on its own plane, is not necessarily final. 
 Our experience is such that when we reflect 
 upon it we find ourselves unable to rest in it 
 and are compelled by the necessities of thought 
 to go beyond it, not for its reality or trust- 
 worthiness, nor for its truth, but for its ex- 
 planation and understanding. For instance, 
 the visible heavens are something whose truth 
 is not to be questioned; but on the other 
 hand, when we compare the phenomena of the 
 visible heavens we find that we cannot rest 
 in them, but must go beyond them to the 
 astronomic heavens as their only adequate 
 explanation. We find here the true relation of 
 experience and its interpretation. Experience 
 itgelf must be accepted as unconditionally 
 trustworthy. If it is not so we have nothing 
 on which to build. Here is the dilemma of all 
 systems of traditional phenomenalism. They 
 begin by denying the truth of experience, and 
 then seek from the untrue experience to 
 deduce something which is to be called true. 
 In that case we are seeking to infer trustwor- 
 thy conclusions from untrustworthy premises,
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 33 
 
 something which logic will not permit. The 
 correct order is to recognize the truth of expe- 
 rience, so far as it goes, but to see that experi- 
 ence may need interpretation, as in the case of 
 the visible and astronomic heavens again. 
 
 Brother Jasper made considerable merri- 
 ment years ago by insisting that the sun 
 moved, for he said he had seen the sun on one 
 side of the house in the morning and on the 
 other side of the house in the afternoon, and 
 as the house had not moved the sun had 
 moved, and therefore the sun does move. Now, 
 in BrothietJasper's original contention he had 
 a fact which astronomy could not ignore and 
 one which astronomy was bound to explain, 
 under penalty of seeing its theory condemned ; 
 and the proof of the astronomic theory rests 
 on the fact that it includes not only Brother 
 Jasper's fact, but a great many other facts of 
 which Jasper had no knowledge; but Jasper 
 was right as to his fact. He only failed to see 
 that his fact admitted, and indeed demanded, 
 another explanation. 
 
 Now in this respect Brother Jasper very
 
 34 PERSONALISM 
 
 well represents the position of common sense 
 respecting experience. It is rightly persuaded 
 that experience is something which can be 
 depended upon, and it proceeds to explain this 
 fact by certain assumptions which may be 
 doubted. In this way the crude metaphysics of 
 common sense is produced, at which critical 
 philosophy has always taken offense. Reflec- 
 tion, however, shows that this experience, 
 when critically studied, does not allow us to 
 rest in it as final, but requires us to go beyond 
 it for its ultimate explanation. If we bear this 
 in mind we shall see that it is possible to hold 
 at once the trustworthiness of experience and 
 also the necessity of transcending it. 
 
 We may, then, speak of experience as true 
 or false according to our standpoint, but we 
 must be very careful in applying these terms 
 lest they lead us into error. We see that the 
 untaught rustic in some sense lives continually 
 in a world of illusion. He takes the visible 
 heavens as final, and has no suspicion of the 
 astronomical heavens. He takes his experience 
 of material things also as final, and has no
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 35 
 
 suspicion of the truths which physical science 
 reveals concerning them. He is living, then, in 
 continuous gigantic illusion, in this sense, that 
 his eyes are holden, yet not in the sense that 
 his experience is false. His experience is true 
 so far as it goes, but his interpretation of it 
 is mistaken. Or we might say his experience is 
 very Hmited and hence admits of an interpreta- 
 tion which would be seen to be inadequate if 
 the experience were more extensive. The whole 
 cycle of scientific truth is hidden from him, 
 not contradicting anything that he knows, but, 
 because he knows so httle, lying entirely be- 
 yond, his horizon. If, however, his experience 
 should enlarge, he would not find his old 
 truths contradicted, but a good many of his 
 old limited notions would disappear, and many 
 other notions would receive proper limitation. 
 This astronomical illustration is not intro- 
 duced as being perfectly parallel to the meta- 
 physical interpretations of philosophy, but it 
 serves to show at least how experience may be 
 at once true and not self-sufficient, requiring 
 us to go beyond it for its interpretation.
 
 36 PERSONALISM 
 
 Returning again to experience we discern 
 that it has certain contents and ways of being 
 and happening, and this leads to the partition 
 of territory between science and philosophy. 
 Things hang together in certain ways, and 
 events come along together according to cer- 
 tain rules. These uniformities of coexistence 
 and sequence admit of being studied and 
 described and registered without reference 
 to metaphysics. Whatever our metaphysical 
 scheme, be it realistic or idealistic or agnostic 
 or nihilistic, things do hang together in expe- 
 rience in certain ways. In the outer world of 
 perception, in the inner world of mind, and 
 in the social world of history, there are certain 
 orders of likeness and difference, of coexist- 
 ence and sequence, and concomitant variation 
 among the facts of experience. These are re- 
 vealed only in experience, and whether we like 
 them or not, and whether we can make any- 
 thing out of them or not, they are undeniably 
 there. If there be any question as to the order 
 of chemical change, we make the experiment 
 and the fact is established. If we would know
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 37 
 
 the arrangement of the geological strata, we 
 look and see. Things occur and happen and 
 hang together in certain ways, and all the 
 king's oxen and all the king's men could not 
 alter this fact. Some ecclesiastical authorities 
 once took offense at the doctrine of the earth's 
 motion and denounced it with all their might; 
 but the world kept right on moving after texts 
 had been quoted and anathemas had been 
 uttered against it. 
 
 The knowledge of these uniformities is of 
 the utmost practical value for the guidance of 
 our lives. When we have learned what they 
 are *^e can find our way from point to point 
 in the world of experience. We avail ourselves 
 of our knowledge to reach desired effects by 
 arranging their antecedents, or to escape un- 
 desired effects by removing their antecedents. 
 Our entire control of the inner and outer world 
 is reached in this way, and the knowledge thus 
 reached is the sum of practical wisdom. This 
 knowledge, as said, can be gained only by 
 observation and experiment. No amount of 
 reflection upon ideas will enable us to deduce
 
 38 PERSONALISM 
 
 a priori any of these facts. In this work also 
 we are independent of metaphysics except in 
 the most general sense. We need not have a 
 theory of gravitation to discover that certain 
 changes can be formulated in the law of the 
 inverse square. We need not have a theory of 
 electricity or magnetism to notice that a cer- 
 tain set of physical changes have such and 
 such laws. Hydrogen and oxygen may be in 
 themselves things or phenomena or nothings, 
 yet we know that a certain measure of what 
 we call oxygen and hydrogen will unite to 
 form a certain amount of what we call water. 
 This matter may be highly mysterious in its 
 innermost essence, but for practical purposes 
 we know how to deal with it, and know what 
 will happen vmder circumstances open to ob- 
 servation and experiment. And, as said, this 
 order of experience remains even if we decide 
 to call things nothings, for the hydrogen 
 nothing and the oxygen nothing would still 
 unite to form the water nothing, and we are 
 as well off as ever, no better and no worse, for 
 our metaphysics. This knowledge of the con-
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 39 
 
 tents and laws of experience is originally be- 
 gun by common sense. The spontaneous and 
 unreflective experience of humanity has got 
 together a good deal of information. To carry 
 on this work with greater precision and wider 
 range is the work of science. Science has pro- 
 perly no principles beyond those of common 
 sense observation and trial. It only applies 
 those principles more thoroughly and invents 
 more accurate methods of observation and ex- 
 periment, but scientific methods move along 
 the lilies of common sense. And this work of 
 science is full of beneficence, and every intel- 
 ligent person should wish it success. No one 
 can find any reason for objecting to it, for 
 every one must recognize in it one of the most 
 beneficent forms of human activity. It is the 
 great source of our mastery over nature, and 
 must go on until that mastery has been vastly 
 extended, leading to the casting out of old 
 forms of disease, the better guidance of life, 
 the putting off of human drudgery upon mus- 
 cles of steel, and the subjection of what we 
 call the forces of nature to human service to
 
 40 PERSONALISM 
 
 a degree hitherto undreamed of, a degree of 
 "which our present control of nature gives only 
 the faintest suggestion. In this work science 
 has inalienable rights, and no philosopher or 
 theologian may molest or make it afraid. It is 
 in this work, too, that science does invaluable 
 service, for it is just this knowledge of the way 
 things hang together in an order of law that 
 gives us our control of nature and makes civ- 
 ilization possible. We cannot overestimate the 
 importance of science in its own field. 
 
 But this field is limited. If these spatial 
 and temporal facts with their various uniformi- 
 ties were all known, an important question 
 would remain untouched. This is the question 
 of meaning and causal interpretation, and this 
 question the mind insists upon asking. After 
 we have found that things exist and hang to- 
 gether in certain ways in space and time, we 
 next need to know what they mean, and what 
 the cause is that underlies the cosmic pro- 
 cesses. What is the nature of the causality, 
 and is it moving toward any goal? This 
 question belongs to philosophy. Nothing that
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 41 
 
 science does or can do even tends to answer 
 it. Science discovers, describes, registers the 
 facts ; philosophy interprets them. It seeks to 
 penetrate to the hidden seat of the power that 
 underlies the world and to detect the secret 
 meaninof that animates it. Both the scientific 
 and philosophic inquiry are equally necessary 
 for the full satisfaction of the human mind, 
 but their codrdinate rank has not always 
 been recognized. The positivists rule out the 
 causal inquiry altogether. They hold that all 
 we^i^n do is to register the orders of coexist- 
 ence and sequence in space and time. All 
 beyond that is fruitless. The agnostics come 
 to the same conclusion by a somewhat different 
 road. The causal inquiry is one that we are 
 bound to make, but one that we can never an- 
 swer. Practically, then, we must be positivists, 
 with, however, a sense of the omnipresent mys- 
 tery upon which all things depend and from 
 which they proceed. Common sense does not 
 distinguish the questions at all. It believes in 
 causality, but finds it in sense objects, and 
 there is no mystery about them. When this
 
 42 PERSONALISM 
 
 view is carried out it gives us the familiar nat- 
 uralism of materialistic and atheistic thought. 
 
 But a more critical philosophy declines any 
 of these views. Time has judged both posi- 
 tivism and agnosticism, and the human mind 
 has rejected them. Common sense remains on 
 the surface and has no suspicion of the depths 
 of the problem. These depths critical reflec- 
 tion seeks to reveal or to sound. 
 
 But here the objection may be raised : if ex- 
 perience is to be unconditionally accepted there 
 would seem to be little need for any puzzles 
 over the causation in the case, for things 
 about us are manifestly causal, and so what 
 need is there to go beyond those things, simply 
 describing them not only in their temporal 
 and spatial relations but also in their causal 
 relations ? This leads to the insight that the 
 question of causality is very much deeper and 
 more mysterious than is commonly supposed. 
 This appears from the study of physics as well 
 as from abstract metaphysical reflection. 
 
 A first thought, of course, is that causality 
 is given in immediate experience of things ; but
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 43 
 
 since the time of Hume this notion has been 
 obsolete among practiced thinkers. There is of 
 course no question that causality is in play in 
 the production of physical changes, but where 
 the causality is to be located and how it is to 
 be conceived is a problem not so easily man- 
 aged. Common sense locates it in the things 
 themselves, but as new facts are discovered 
 and reflection upon them is extended this is 
 seen to be an impossible view. Thus, take this 
 desk at which I stand. It is easily described 
 in tferms of experience, and in such terms there 
 is no mystery about it. But when I proceed 
 to ask concerning the nature of the material 
 of which it is composed I soon find myself be- 
 ginning to grope. The wood, according to the 
 physicists and chemists, is composed of mole- 
 cules, which . in turn are built of atoms, and 
 nowadays these atoms themselves seem to be 
 systems of particles still more minute. And 
 when inquiry is continued we are told of still 
 deeper mysteries, of vortex rings in an ether, 
 with other dark sayings, the result of which 
 is to show that the things about us are not
 
 44 PERSONALISM 
 
 substantial things, but rather processes of an 
 energy beyond them ; and at last we are led, in 
 the words of Mr. Spencer, to recognize " the 
 one absolute certainty that he [man] is ever 
 in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal 
 Energy, from which all things proceed." How- 
 ever true this conclusion may be, the facts 
 adduced serve to show that the problem of 
 causation has deeper mysteries in it than we 
 at first suspected. We are still sure, as said, 
 that causation is in play as the ground of phy- 
 sical changes, but we seem compelled to locate 
 it, not in the phenomena themselves, but in 
 the basal energy beyond them on which they 
 depend and by which they are coordinated. 
 This inquiry takes us into the depths of meta- 
 physics. 
 
 Thus we see a way of harmonizing common 
 sense, science, and philosophy. They are not 
 mutually contradictory or indifferent realms, 
 but rather mutually supplementary aspects of 
 the mind's effort in the attempt to under- 
 stand itself and its experience. All conflicts 
 between them, then, are entirely the outcome
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 45 
 
 of misunderstanding and ignorance. Common 
 sense and science must discover the facts, their 
 contents, their spatial and temporal laws, other- 
 wise philosophy has nothing to work upon ; 
 but, on the other hand, after science has done 
 this work, the higher interpretation remains 
 necessary, and without it the mind cannot 
 fully satisfy all its tendencies and come to rest. 
 Each inquiry is justified and highly important 
 in its own field, and each must recognize the 
 coordinate importance of the other. 
 
 Science, we have said, studies the laws of 
 coexistence and sequence among the facts of 
 experience, and leaves their interpretation to 
 philosophy. A certain extension of the sci- 
 entific field, however, must be made in this 
 way. Science may undertake a certain kind 
 of interpretation in its own field of space 
 and time without going into the metaphysical 
 field which belongs to philosophy. The astro- 
 nomical illustration, which we have already 
 given, serves to show this. The astronomer 
 need not go beyond his own spatial phe- 
 nomena and the laws which obtain therein
 
 46 PERSONALISM 
 
 in order to reach his astronomical conclu- 
 sions. Proceeding on the experience of the 
 variation of the apparent size of bodies ac- 
 cording to their distance, we can infer from 
 the given spatial phenomena how they would 
 appear from another point of view, and in 
 this way we may pass to affirm the astro- 
 nomical heavens as the way in which the 
 system would look if we extended our space 
 vision. If the visible heavens are only appa- 
 rent we can argue to their appearance if their 
 distances from us were diminished. Passing, 
 then, in imagination, back and forth in space, 
 we can form some conception of the great 
 sidereal system and its mighty spaces. In 
 so doing we use no new principle, but only 
 apply the familiar laws of space and space 
 appearance. 
 
 And thus, in general, we find that phe- 
 nomena interpreted by their own laws give 
 a hint of past conditions and also point to 
 future conditions. From a given state of 
 things we can infer the past state of things 
 or look forward to a future state of things.
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 47 
 
 in accordance "with the laws observed to hold 
 among; them. Thus we can read back the 
 geological history of our earth to some ex- 
 tent, and also its biological history, or its 
 astronomical history. From given erosions 
 and strata, and from a succession of fossil 
 forms in these strata, and from various astro- 
 nomical data, we can do somewhat in the 
 way of reading back into the past of the sys- 
 tem. In-Nlike manner, from the present con- 
 ditions, laws, and tendencies, we can infer 
 something respecting the future. But in all 
 of these cases the inference remains within 
 the phenomenal realm, or among the phe- 
 nomena of space and time, and they involve 
 no new metaphysical principle beyond the 
 simple recognition of those phenomena and 
 their observed laws. In this sense, then, sci- 
 ence not merely discovers and describes and 
 registers the facts of experience, but it also 
 infers from them many other facts as existing 
 elsewhere in space, or in past or future time. 
 It is to be observed, however, that this 
 scientific inference is hypothetical and can-
 
 48 PERSONALISM 
 
 not claim to have the certainty of the facts 
 of experience which can be verified in expe- 
 rience itself. It has a certain measure of 
 probability and is not to be gratuitously re- 
 jected. But, on the other hand, it can never 
 lay claim to be assured matter of fact, as it 
 rests upon certain assumptions which are far 
 from being necessary truths. This inferred 
 knowledge of the past assumes that we know 
 all the determining circumstance^j^that the 
 order of change is constant, and that no 
 manifestation of a new force from without 
 or within occurs ; and as this is something 
 we never can know, we are not entitled to be 
 dogmatic. Of course the reasoning in such 
 cases may be sound, but the premises may be 
 open to doubt. For example : If a certain 
 valley is being cut away at a fixed rate, we 
 can readily calculate how long it has taken to 
 form it. Or if the delta of the Mississippi is 
 extending a given distance every year, we 
 can by simple division tell how long it has 
 been in forming. Or if a certain peat-bed 
 has a given thickness and has been deposited
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 49 
 
 one inch a year, we can easily tell how long 
 the deposition has taken. In such cases, as 
 said, the reasoning may be exact, the math- 
 ematics perfect, but the conclusion depends 
 upon the assumed truth of the premises. It 
 might be in the case of our peat-bed that we 
 should find at the bottom of the bed, say a 
 Roman shoe, or coins of the date of Augus- 
 tus Csesar, in which case, if our mathematics 
 had given us a million or two of years as 
 the quotient, we should know that, while the 
 mathematics was right, the inference itself 
 was wrong. 
 
 Again, we can never be sure that there 
 might not have been manifestations of unsus- 
 pected forces, bringing about new conditions 
 which would make our reasoning invalid. For 
 instance, if there were a number of beings liv- 
 ing in a world of oxygen and hydrogen, they 
 might conceivably learn the physics of gases 
 very thoroughly, and they could infer that the 
 gases would contract with cold or expand with 
 heat, but they would not have any hint of 
 what would happen if an electric spark should
 
 60 PERSONALISM 
 
 pass through. In that case there would be a 
 sudden manifestation of unsuspected chemical 
 properties, resulting in very different physical 
 and chemical properties in the water vapor 
 which would result. If these hypothetical 
 beings should survive the process, they might 
 then proceed to study the physics of water 
 vapor and become dogmatic again as to what 
 was possible on the basis of the law of con- 
 tinuity; and their reasons would be valid until 
 the vapor cooled below a certain point, when 
 there would be another break of continuity ; 
 and the result would be water with another 
 set of hitherto unsuspected properties. And 
 if the speculators still lived and should once 
 more grow dogmatic about continuity, their 
 conclusions might be justified until the water 
 was cooled down to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 
 when another wonder would happen. The 
 water would pass into ice, in bold defiance of 
 the law of continuity, and still a new set of 
 properties would appear. This serves to show 
 that we must be somewhat careful not to be 
 too dogmatic in our inferences from the pre-
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 51 
 
 sent state of things, for what we have illus- 
 trated here in the large may take place in the 
 small all the time. Indeed, the system of spa- 
 tial changes and successions, based upon purely 
 kinematic considerations of the composition 
 of motions, is continually suffering modifica- 
 tions from the dynamic realm, conceived either 
 as the nature of the elements or as some en- 
 ergy outside of them and working upon them. 
 To what extent this is possible in general is 
 of course unknown, but enough is known to 
 warn us ag^ainst a confident doo-matism based 
 on the supposed law of continuity. Only the 
 self-confident dogmatist knows that the system 
 has already manifested all its essential poten- 
 tialities. 
 
 Logic makes the further suggestion at this 
 point to the effect that no moving system can 
 ever give an account of its origin ; for when a 
 system of law is given it is logically possible 
 to read the system backwards, but the back- 
 ward reading in such a case does not repre- 
 sent any actual fact, but simply what would 
 have been the fact if the system had existed
 
 62 PERSONALISM 
 
 through that time. Every such system, then, 
 has what may be called a virtual past. Thus, 
 if we should suppose the solar system created 
 outright, the equations which express the com- 
 positions and motions of the planets at the 
 moment of creation could be read backward, 
 but the backward reading would refer to a 
 virtual past, not a real one. The same is true 
 for any order of law in a changing world. It 
 admits of being read backward, and there is 
 no sure test whereby we can distinguish the 
 virtual from the real past. Our analytic 
 thought naturally assumes that the simple ele- 
 ments preceded compounds ; but this is only a 
 logical precedence, and we find no warrant for 
 turning it into a temporal relation. If there 
 have always been chemical elements, for all 
 we can say they may always have been chem- 
 ically active and chemically united in any 
 order of complexity. Dogmatizing on origins 
 is logically a very perilous business. It gener- 
 ally ends in mistaking the simplifications of 
 analysis for the original forms of existence. 
 Wisely, then, did Mr. Mill say even of the so-
 
 COMMON SENSE, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 53 
 
 called laws of nature that we should confine 
 our affirmations to a " reasonable degree of 
 extension to adjacent cases." 
 
 Science, then, has the world of temporal and 
 spatial phenomena for its field ; but it is ne- 
 cessary to remember that this world has its 
 roots in an invisible and impicturable world 
 of power and possibly of purpose, and the 
 real reason for all spatial and temporal mani- 
 festation must ultimately be sought in the 
 world of power. And as this and its implica- 
 tions are very largely hidden from us, we need 
 to beware of all dogmatism respecting either 
 past or future which is far removed from our 
 practical interests. 
 
 Our first step toward the personal inter- 
 pretation of experience consists in the insight 
 that we are in a personal world from the start, 
 and that the first, last, and only duty of philo- 
 sophy is to interpret this world of personal life 
 and relations. Any other view can only lead 
 to the misleading abstractions and aberrations 
 with which the history of thought abounds.
 
 II 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 How is experience possible ? This is the ques- 
 tion with which Kant inaugurated a new era 
 in philosophy. Before his time there had been 
 two views respecting the origin of knowledge. 
 One was that all knowledge is from experience. 
 Mind is purely passive in knowing, and impres- 
 sions are made upon it from without. The fa- 
 mous metaphor of the tabula rasa has served 
 this school as both doctrine and argument ever 
 since the time of Plato. Knowledge, then, is a 
 mere reading off of what the mind passively 
 receives. The other view was that the mind 
 may know many things independently of ex- 
 perience. The former view had been reduced 
 to absurdity by Hume, and the latter view 
 had run into a barren formalism in the hands 
 of Leibnitz's disciples. Both views were super- 
 ficial. The empirical school had never decided
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 55 
 
 what experience means when the mind is ut- 
 terly passive, and they had fomid it easy with 
 Locke to deduce many rational principles from 
 a passively received experience. But Hume 
 came and showed that such an experience must 
 become a vanishing phantasmagoria, which per- 
 ishes as fast as it is born and leaves nothing 
 articulate behind it. Since, however, we do 
 have an articulate experience, it is plain that 
 the question of the origin of knowledge is sub- 
 ordinate to the deeper question respecting the 
 origin of experience itself. If it should turn 
 out that experience is a product of our rational 
 nature, the folly of seeking to deduce reason 
 from experience would be manifest. Hence the 
 epochal significance of the question, How is 
 experience possible? 
 
 Kant's answer is well known. Experience is 
 not something given ready-made from without, 
 but is actively constructed by the mind within. 
 Experience is possible only through a certain 
 constitutive mental activity, according to prin- 
 ciples immanent in the understanding. In this 
 way the raw material of sense impressions,
 
 m PERSONALISM 
 
 which in themselves are fleeting and discontinu- 
 ous, is built into a rational world of experience. 
 This insight was Kant's great contribution to 
 philosophy, and it remains, in spite of all 
 criticism, a permanent possession of reflective 
 thought. 
 
 This result finally vacates the traditional em- 
 piricism which views the mind as only passively 
 receptive in knowledge. Hume showed the in- 
 articulate nihilism to which the doctrine must 
 come when made consistent, and Kant showed 
 that actual experience is a mental product. In 
 this result he had been forestalled by Hume, 
 in a somewhat left-handed way, in his admis- 
 sion that there is much in thought which cannot 
 be found in an experience of the passive type, 
 and which he ascribed therefore to a " mental 
 propensity to feign." When carefully studied, 
 it turns out that this "propensity to feign" 
 is a very active faculty in Hume's system. Be- 
 tween Hume and Kant the old sense empiri- 
 cism is deprived of all visible means of ra- 
 tional support. It now belongs to the family 
 of superstitions.
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 57 
 
 The principles of knowing are primarily im- 
 manent laws of mental activity. This we must 
 now endeavor to bring out into clear vision, as 
 the great difficulty in popular philosophizing 
 and all the strengfth of traditional naturalism 
 lie in the apparent immediacy of knowledge, 
 so that it seems to be no problem at all. This 
 makes it easy to believe that a great system of 
 things can exist and be known without the 
 activity of any rational and spiritual principle. 
 This assumption is the corner-stone, and indeed 
 the whole foundation, of all mechanical philo- 
 sophizing. Hence the need of making this 
 activity evident. 
 
 Knowleds'e of course cannot be defined ex- 
 cept in terms of itself, neither can it be deduced 
 from that which is not knowledge. There must 
 always be a certain unique and immediate char- 
 acter to knowledge which can rest on nothing 
 but itself. In some sense, then, there is no an- 
 swer to the question. How is knowledge pos- 
 sible? for there is nothing deeper or other 
 than knowledge by which to explain it. Still 
 the study of knowledge may reveal certain con-
 
 58 PERSONALISM 
 
 ditions and implications which are unsuspected 
 by unreflective thought and which have pro- 
 found significance for philosophical theory. 
 This fact gives us our next subject of inquiry. 
 We do not aim to tell how knowledge is pos- 
 sible, in the sense of giving a recipe by which 
 it might be compounded from that which is 
 not knowledge, but in the sense of studying 
 the conditions and implications of the knWmg 
 process. And, first of all, we must make clear 
 the problem and our starting-point. 
 
 A fundamental distinction in knowing is that 
 between the " me " and the " not-me." I place 
 all other things or persons as my objects in 
 changeless antithesis to myself as conscious 
 subject. But inasmuch as this "not-me" in- 
 cludes my fellow men, the " me " is soon enlarged 
 by their addition, and then the antithesis be- 
 comes the " us " and the " not-us." We human 
 beings become the " us," the subjects, and the 
 cosmic order with whatever else there may be 
 becomes the "not-us." Then the "not-us" 
 breaks up again into the cosmic order, so far as 
 it is an object of scientific study, and its cause.
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 59 
 
 If we could attain to clear and definite know- 
 ledge on all of these points, we should have 
 made great progress in philosophy. 
 
 It will very likely be objected by some that 
 we have made too sharp an antithesis between 
 the "me " and the "not-me," the " us " and 
 the " not-us." This objection is due to the fact 
 that many persons have contracted the habit 
 of talking about monism without any very clear 
 conception of their own meaning, and still less 
 of its concrete possibility. Whatever monism 
 can do for us, it can never confound us with one 
 another so as to identify Jesus and Judas, or 
 make Mr. Spencer's critics the authors of his 
 philosophy. Whatever universal elements the 
 fact of knowledge may contain or imply, as a 
 concrete process knowing is necessariljnndivid- 
 ual, a gathering by the " me" of information 
 respecting the " not-me" ; and any other method 
 of treatment will result in confounding all dis- 
 tinctions and telling us, perhaps, that the sub- 
 ject of the universal experience is the same as 
 the subject of the particular experience — a
 
 60 PERSONALISM 
 
 dark saying, to which unfortunately no key has 
 been furnished, not even for teachers. 
 
 In addition, we must note that our knowing 
 in its very nature implies being in the sense 
 of a content which is the object of the know- 
 ing. Knowing as an act never ends in itself 
 as a psychological fact. It always relates itself 
 to a content which the knowinof act does not 
 make but reproduces. There is, then, in th^ , 
 very idea of our knowing a presupposition of 
 something existing apart from the knowing 
 as a mental event, and this, indeed, is the very 
 essence of the idea. This fact has always been 
 overlooked by empiricists, who have thought 
 the only problem of knowledge was to group 
 particular sensations in the individual con- 
 sciousness, and when this has been done to 
 their own satisfaction they have supposed that 
 the problem of knowledge was solved. In fact, 
 however, they have not even seen the problem, 
 to say nothing of solving it. If their associa- 
 tional mechanism worked perfectly, it would 
 only give sensations associated in some par- 
 ticular consciousness, and could never give
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 61 
 
 anything beyond it. Solipsism would be the 
 only result. This outcome is escaped by the 
 ambiguity of the term sensation, which means 
 primarily an unqualified and particular impres- 
 sion in the individual sensibility, and which 
 then, without warning, is transformed into a 
 symbol or revelation o£ a world of things exist- 
 ing beyond itself. But this is something very 
 different. If the sensations are only affections 
 of the sensibility, they never carry us beyond 
 themselves; but if they point to and reveal a 
 world beyond them, we have something more 
 than sensationalism. All the apparent success 
 of sensationalism rests upon this ambiguity, 
 as Green has shown with such thoroughness 
 in his Introduction to Hume. 
 
 Assuming, then, this world of things other 
 than myself, in the sense that they cannot be 
 identified with myself, we have the question. 
 How is a knowledge of such things possible? 
 
 Knowledge is conditioned both by the na- 
 ture of the subject and by the nature of the 
 object. In order that a thing may be known, 
 the subject must act in certain ways and the
 
 62 PERSONALISM 
 
 object must be of a certain nature. If the sub- 
 ject remained passive and inert, there would 
 be no knowledge; and if the object were such 
 as to admit of no rational construction, again 
 there could be no knowledge. We consider the 
 activity of the subject first. How is know- 
 ledge possible as a subjective apprehension of 
 objects other than the knowing subject? 
 
 The general answer to this question is that 
 our human knowing of other than purely sub- 
 jective states must depend upon some form of 
 interaction between the "me" and the "not- 
 me." This "not-me," so far as yet appears, 
 might conceivably be the world of things about 
 us, or it might be an all-embracing impersonal 
 energy, or it might be a supreme spirit upon 
 whom we all depend. Common sense, of 
 course, assumes that the interaction is between 
 apparent objects and ourselves, for there seems 
 to be nothing else in sight. This view, how- 
 ever, loses its plausibility as soon as we come 
 to see the phenomenality of the world of ob- 
 jects. Then we find ourselves shut up to one 
 or the other of two views ; but for our present 
 
 n
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 63 
 
 purposes it makes no difference what view we 
 take of the " not-me." Whatever it be it can- 
 not give us ready-made knowledge, or do any- 
 thing; but furnish a stimuhis to our own mental 
 activity. In all interaction between things the 
 reaction is but an expression of the agent's own 
 nature, for the manifestation of which other 
 thing's but furnish the occasion. Hence the 
 mental reaction which we call knowledge can 
 be looked upon only as an expression of our 
 mental nature according to principles immanent 
 in itself. But this statement is too abstract for 
 easy understanding by the unpracticed reader, 
 and we must attempt a more concrete explana- 
 tion. 
 
 Common sense begins by taking knowledge 
 for granted. In the beginnings of mental de- 
 velopment knowledge is not even a problem. 
 Things are there, and are reflected by the mind 
 as a matter of course. Of the complex and 
 obscure processes and postulates of cognition, 
 spontaneous thought has no suspicion, and 
 knowledge woidd have always been taken as 
 a matter of course had not experience revealed
 
 64 PERSONALISM 
 
 difficulties and contradictions in our thinking. 
 Men stumbled at an early date upon these 
 difficulties and skepticism was awakened, and 
 thus thought was gradually forced to consider 
 its own methods and to inquire into the pos- 
 sibility of knowledge itself; but the problem 
 did not receive its full and adequate statement 
 until the time of Kant. From his time epl§>-^ 
 temology has been a leading department of phi- 
 losophy. Common sense supposes that know- 
 ledge arises without any process of mystery, 
 but epistemology shows that the matter is ex- 
 ceedingly complex. The existence of things 
 is by no means the same as our knowledge 
 of them, and reflection makes plain that if 
 things existed precisely as they appear to us 
 the knowledge of them could arise only as the 
 mind by its own action reproduces the con- 
 tents of things for thought. Knowledge is 
 nothing which can be imported ready-made 
 into a passive mind, but the mind must actively 
 construct knowledge for itself. We see this 
 most readily in the case of conversation or any 
 form of mutual understanding between per-
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 65 
 
 sons. In sueli cases no ideas pass from one mind 
 into another, but each mind for itself con- 
 structs the other's thought, and thus appre- 
 hends and comprehends it. This is self-evi- 
 dently the case in all personal communion, and 
 every one would see the absurdity of any other 
 supposition. Thoughts are not things to be 
 exchanged or handed along. They exist only 
 through thinking, and to perceive another's 
 thougfht is to think it for ourselves. But this 
 equally expresses the fact in all knowing. To 
 know things is to think them, that is, to form 
 thoughts which truly grasp the contents or 
 meanings of the things. The things do not 
 pass ready-made into the mind. Indeed they 
 do not pass into the mind at all, but upon oc- 
 casion of certain action upon the mind the 
 mind unfolds within itself the vision and know- 
 ledge of the world. And this it does, accord, 
 ing to the physiologist's report, without pat- 
 tern or copy, and in consequence of certain 
 nervous changes of which moreover it knows 
 nothing directly and commonly knows nothing 
 whatever. This being the case, it is manifestly
 
 66 PERSONALISM 
 
 idle to think of knowledge as impressed on a 
 passive mind, or as carried ready-made into 
 the mind. The knowledge originates within, 
 and the laws and forms of knowledge must 
 primarily be the laws and forms of thought 
 itself. Just as little as ideas pass from the 
 teacher's mind into the pupil's mind, just'as 
 little do they pass from things without into 
 the knowino; mind. 
 
 This matter is plain enough upon reflection, 
 but common sense has its difficulties. We ven- 
 ture therefore another illustration. Suppose a 
 man who had lived all his life in a telegraph 
 office and who had to get all his information 
 respecting the existence and nature of an ex- 
 ternal world by the clicks of the instrument. 
 »The clicks are like nothing but themselves. 
 They resemble neither the things they are 
 supposed to represent, nor the thoughts they 
 are supposed to evoke. But if under such cir- 
 cumstances the man did read them back into 
 the external world, it is manifest that he must 
 have the key in himself, as only thus could 
 he pass from clicks to meanings. But this
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 67 
 
 illustration hardly even adumbrates the ob- 
 scurity and difficulty of the actual process of 
 perception. The sense clicks left to themselves 
 mean nothing ; it is only as they are made the 
 bearers of a rational content that they acquire 
 any significance. Sensations at best in their 
 perceptive relation are only symbols, the 
 meaning must be furnished by the percipient 
 mind. 
 
 This conclusion must stand even on the 
 supposition that we simply apprehend or read 
 things in sense perception without modifica- 
 tion. But most of our objective knowing is 
 not perception, but interpretation. The world 
 as it is for sense is very difi^erent from the 
 world as it is for thought. In looking at a 
 picture the colored surfaces and outlines are 
 in the sense. The meaning^ is in thoug'ht. In 
 reading a book the printed page is in the 
 sense. The sio^nification is in thouoht, and 
 only in thought. One who does not know how 
 to read would look in vain for meaning in a 
 book, and in vain would he seek to help his 
 failure by using eye-glasses. The same is true
 
 68 PERSONALISM 
 
 also for our knowledge of the world. That 
 which is in sense is very different from that 
 which is in thought. The sense world is flit- 
 ting, fleeting, discontinuous. Epistemology 
 shows that it is all an inarticulate, phantasma- 
 goric flux or dissolving view until thought 
 brings into it its rational principles and^^fixes 
 and interprets it. The sense world, so far as 
 it is articulate, is already a thought world. Its 
 permanences and identities are products of 
 thought. The complex system of relations 
 whereby it is defined and articulated is a 
 thought product, which can in no way be given 
 to sense. The far-reaching inferences of sci- 
 ence whereby our spontaneous thought of the 
 world is so profoundly transformed, are some- 
 thing which exist for neither eye nor ear, but 
 for thought only. The world of science differs 
 from the world of sense as widely as the con- 
 ceptions of the astronomer differ from the 
 algebraic signs by Avhich he expresses them. 
 
 At first glance this is a hard saying for the 
 plain man of common sense. He is perfectly 
 sure that the things he sees are really there,
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 69 
 
 and there as he sees them, and he is not 
 aware of any of these processes of which we 
 speak. But the question now is, not whether 
 the things be there, but how they come to be 
 there for us ; and when this distinction is made 
 even the " plain man " can be made to see 
 that there are more things in this matter than 
 have been dreamed of in his philosophy. By 
 common consent the last term on the physical 
 side of the perceptive process is some form of 
 nervous change, and this is but a fleeting 
 impression with nothing abiding about it. 
 When these facts are remembered it becomes 
 plain that a permanent and rational world can 
 be reached from these antecedents only as the 
 mind reacts upon them and by laws imma- 
 nent in itself proceeds to build up the rational 
 order of experience. The flitting and discon- 
 tinuous impression is interpreted into a con- 
 tinuous and abiding world only by a perma- 
 nent self with its outfit of rational principles ; 
 and if this were taken away there would be 
 only an inarticulate flux of impressions with- 
 out rational contents.
 
 70 PERSONALISM 
 
 Some further illustration may be useful 
 in illuminating this matter. The work of 
 thought is so quick and subtle that it is easy 
 to overlook it altogether and to take the 
 products of thought as original data antece- 
 dent to thouofht. Thus it seems self-evident 
 that sensation, at least, is something which 
 may be given without any rational activity. 
 But this is true only for the fleeting temporal 
 impression, and not for the sensation as any- 
 thing rationally articulate. But the temporal 
 impression itself is nothing for intellect until 
 it is fixed into an abidinof meaning;. As oc- 
 curring, the impression is dispersed through 
 the divisibility of time into an indefinite 
 number of parts each of which is external to 
 every other and different from every other. 
 But thought cannot grasp any such elusive 
 thing as this unless it be able to fix this van- 
 ishing flow into a single and permanent mean- 
 ing, and only thus does the impression become 
 anything for thought. Similarly with regard 
 to recurrence of sensations, this is impossible 
 as a psychological and temporal fact. Past
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 71 
 
 sensations can recur as little as past time can 
 recur. Recurrence is possible only as the mind 
 fixes its experience into abiding meanings 
 and identifies those meanings in successive 
 phases of the sense flow ; and apart from this 
 synthesis and identification by the mind, the 
 sense flow would have neither fixity nor per- 
 manence nor recurrence of any kind. The 
 same is true for the discontinuity of our sen- 
 sations and the continuity of the world of 
 thinofs. The sensations are discontinuous, and 
 if they were all, there would be equal discon- 
 tinuity in things ; but the mind interprets the 
 discontinuous sensations into a world of con- 
 tinuous things on its own rational warrant, 
 and apart from this interpretation there would 
 be no framework nor systematic connection 
 at all in the world of experience. Thus it 
 is manifest that without this synthetic and 
 interpretative action of the mind there could 
 be no world whatever for us. 
 
 And now to complete the paradox, it must 
 be said that no one can ever perceive any world 
 but the one he makes. I can perceive another's
 
 72 PERSONALISM 
 
 thought only on condition that I think that 
 thought ; and the thought so far as I think it 
 can never be other than mine. I may have the 
 sure conviction in connecti^n^with it that it 
 reproduces the content of another's thought, 
 but it can exist for me only as it becomes my 
 own thought, the product of my own think- 
 ing. In the same way and with equal evidence 
 the world I perceive is the world I construct. 
 When we are looking at a series of moving 
 pictures we see a great many things that are 
 not there. The train rolls up to the station. 
 Passengers leave or enter the cars. The plat- 
 form is thronged with persons hurrying to 
 and fro. Yet this busy scene is all in the 
 beholder's mind. The things he sees are the 
 things he constructs. And the same is true 
 in all perception. These "constructs " are all 
 any one can possibly have in consciousness, 
 though it may be that they all carry with them 
 a reference to existence beyond the percipient 
 consciousness. This reference constitutes their 
 objectivity, and makes them possible objects 
 for others also ; nevertheless the " construct "
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 73 
 
 itself, with of course this objective reference, 
 is the only possible content of the percipient 
 consciousness, and this " construct " must 
 always be the mind's own product. And be 
 the object what it may, we never can come 
 any nearer to it than this " construct " will 
 bring- us. 
 
 These considerations show how exceedingly 
 complicated the perceptive process is upon 
 analysis, and how utterly mistaken those per- 
 sons are who speak of an immediate knowledge 
 of reality as if it involved no process what- 
 ever. But it would be a mistake to infer any 
 doctrine of idealism from these facts. They 
 belong to the process of perception, but this 
 process itself never decides as to the reality of 
 the object perceived. Reflection shows that 
 in any case perception must arise in this way, 
 that is, through a reaction of the mind against 
 action upon it so as to build up or construct 
 the world for itself. It is not merely and only 
 a construction by the mind, it is a construction 
 which carries with it a reference to the con- 
 tent existing apart from the perceptive act.
 
 74 PERSONALISM 
 
 All thinking has this objective reference. It 
 claims not to produce but to reproduce a 
 content existing ap^it from the knowing act 
 itself. Furthermore, if we should pass to an 
 idealistic affirmation on the strength of this 
 reasoning the immediate consequence would 
 be solipsism, for it is just as true of the neigh- 
 bors as o£ things, that our knowledge of them 
 is a mental construction. Primarily our thoughts 
 of our neig-hbors arise within our own minds 
 as a mental interpretation of our sense experi- 
 ence, and if we are to deny any kind of an 
 existence to things on account of the process, 
 we must equally deny the neighbors for the 
 same reason. Any tenable idealism, therefore, 
 must rest not upon the process of perception, 
 but upon an analysis of the product of per- 
 ception. That is, we must examine our objects 
 with the aim of seeing which of them, or how 
 much of them, is to be viewed as having 
 proper existence and how much of them has 
 only phenomenal existence, that is, existence 
 for intelligence. To illustrate: the world of 
 sense qualities is found to have only phenom-
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 75 
 
 enal existence, not because of the process of 
 perception, but because a study of them shows 
 that they have no meaning apart from intel- 
 lect with its function of sensibility. 
 
 Thus far we have spoken of knowledge as 
 conditioned only by the nature and activity 
 of the subject. But it is manifest that the 
 nature of the object is also a determining 
 factor. We have spoken of the mind as im- 
 posing its laws and forms upon experience and 
 thus reaching objects ; but it is manifest that 
 this is only part of the matter. For unless 
 the objects themselves were harmonious with 
 these laws and forms, the latter could not 
 be imposed upon them. It is manifest that I 
 can understand another person's speech only 
 as I think his thought for myself, but it is 
 equally manifest that I cannot understand his 
 thought unless there be some thought to 
 understand. Or, again, in the interpretation 
 of an inscription which I might discover, I 
 can interpret it only as I have the key in my- 
 self, and it is equally evident that interpre- 
 tation presupposes that the inscription has
 
 76 PERSONALISM 
 
 rational meaning. It would be hopeless to at- 
 tempt to understand random scratches. The 
 same is true in the interpretation of the sense 
 signs by which we reach the knowledge of 
 nature. The mind must have the key in it- 
 self, but there must also be an objective order 
 and fixed meaning as the presupposition of 
 interpretation. Otherwise we should be (^ek- 
 ing to understand mere noises or random 
 scratches, which would be absurd. When this 
 thought is carried out it implies an objective 
 rational order parallel to our subjective think- 
 ing. As speech implies a mind at both ends 
 of the process, so knowledge under our hu- 
 man conditions equally implies a mind at both 
 ends. Noise becomes speech only as thought 
 is expressed in it, and understood through it. 
 So the affections of sense become knowledge 
 only as they are the media for expressing and 
 transmitting thought beyond them. 
 
 And here it might occur to some uncon- 
 vinced empiricist to return to his claim that 
 the sensations are all. For, after all, he might 
 ask, what is there in experience but the sense
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 77 
 
 content, actual or possible, and what is there 
 that cannot be expressed in terms o£ sensa- 
 tion, real or expected, or conceived as possible ? 
 How can motion be expressed except in terms 
 of changing sensations, and how can dis- 
 tance and size be figured except in sensational 
 terms ? 
 
 Such questions, if seriously asked, would 
 show loyalty and determination rather than in- 
 sight into the problem. They would not touch 
 the question respecting the form of experience 
 at all ; and this is one of the matters at issue 
 between empiricism and apriorism. The spatial 
 and temporal form, and the relations of iden- 
 tity, substantiality, and causality are not in the 
 sense experience at all as a mere affection of 
 the sensibility. Bearing this fact in mind, the 
 questions only imply a certain phenomenalistic 
 doctrine of sense objects. Applied to persons 
 they lead straight to solipsism ; for other per- 
 sons could be reduced to groups of my sensa- 
 tions, real or possible, in the same way and with 
 the same right. Finally, as applied to sense 
 objects, they reach no " common to all," which
 
 78 PERSONALISM 
 
 is the presupposition of a mutually intelligible 
 experience. Mr. Mill, working along this line, 
 defined matter as a " permanent possibility of 
 sensation," but left us in very great uncer- 
 tainty as to its whereabouts. If it were per- 
 manent in time and space, it would be very 
 like a reality instead of a mere possibility. If 
 it be said to exist only in consciousness we 
 are embarrassed, remembering that there are 
 many consciousnesses, and we need to know in 
 which one it has its seat, and also how there 
 can be any common system of experience at 
 all on this view. This difficulty recurs in all 
 phenomenal systems, and there is no removing 
 it until we plant behind the phenomenal sys- 
 tem, sensational or otherwise, a Supreme In- 
 telligence which manifests his thought through 
 it and thus founds that objective unity of the 
 system of experience which is presupposed in 
 all our knowing. 
 
 But this doctrine of knowledge as taking 
 place through our own " constructs " can 
 hardly fail to raise the question as to the valid- 
 ity of knowledge. May not these " constructs "
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 79 
 
 be really only shadows of our own minds, 
 rather than true apprehensions of reality? 
 
 Looked at abstractly this possibility cannot 
 be denied, but the question itself is by no 
 means without confusion. It speaks of a true 
 apprehension of reality as if this were a per- 
 fectly clear notion, which is by no means the 
 case. We must remember that experience it- 
 self, with ourselves as having it, is the only 
 sure reahty in the case ; and to ask whether 
 this be a true apprehension of reality is not 
 self-evident in its meaning. Surely, before we 
 seek to know any other reality than this we 
 should show that such reality exists. 
 
 But whatever reality there may be, it is 
 plain, as said, that our knowledge of it must 
 arise in this way ; and it is equally plain that 
 our knowledge of anything in the heavens 
 above or the earth beneath must consist in 
 seeing how we must think about it. Our 
 thought cannot become the thing, neither can 
 the thing pass bodily into our thought. We 
 can only think about the thing and see if we 
 reach any result which satisfies our reason and
 
 80 PERSONALISM 
 
 fits into the system of experience so as to har- 
 monize with it. In that case we have the only 
 positive proof possible of the validity of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Now the first fact that meets us here is the 
 validity of our personal knc^^vledge, or our 
 mutual understanding- of one another. If we 
 should attempt to justify this knowledge by 
 any insight into the process we possess we 
 should never succeed. But the knowledge ver- 
 ifies itself. In spite of the obscurity of the 
 process and the impossibility of any demon- 
 stration that this process must result in valid 
 knowledge, we contrive to be quite sure of one 
 another's existence and of our mutual under- 
 standing. We find the same thing extending 
 also into the field of experience, and this shows 
 that our conceptions are valid there also. 
 Whatever mystery attaches to the process of 
 knowledge and whatever verbal doubts may 
 be raised about it, the knowledge vindicates 
 itself within its own sphere by the clearness 
 of our apprehension and by its consistency in 
 experience. But this discharges the skeptical
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 81 
 
 doubt for all practical purposes by showing 
 that it has no foundation in our personal life 
 and experience, and is therefore only an ab- 
 stract doubt without any concrete grounds. 
 Any further question that may arise must deal 
 with the contents of experience itself. It may 
 be that reflection on these contents would lead 
 to many modifications of popular notions in 
 order to make our spontaneous thought con- 
 sistent with itself ; but there would be no 
 scepticism in such a result. But this doubt has 
 played such a role in modern philosophy that 
 we must consider it. 
 
 The distinction of appearance and reality 
 in common use is a familiar one and occasions 
 no embarrassment of any sort, as it lies entirely 
 within the sphere of sense experience. Thus, 
 a straight stick looks bent when one end is 
 thrust into the water. A large thing looks very 
 small at a great distance. The mountains look 
 blue when seen through a haze, and distance 
 lends many an enchantment. When a house 
 is seen from afar it has a certain appearance, 
 which varies constantly as we approach it. In
 
 82 PERSONALISM 
 
 all these cases common sense distinguishes the 
 appearance from the reality, hut proceeds to 
 rectify the appearance hy referring it to the 
 report of other senses or by comparing it with 
 our total experience of the object. The reality 
 of a house is not the visual presentation, but 
 it is a building of a certain size which we would 
 come to if we moved in a certain direction. 
 The reality of the bent stick is the stick as it 
 appears when drawn from the water and han- 
 dled and measured, etc. In such cases, then, 
 reality and appearance are contrasted, but the 
 contrast carries with it no doubt or difficulty, 
 at least for common sense. It would of course 
 be very embarrassing for a theory of pure 
 sensationalism, as in that doctrine a varying 
 sensation would mean a different object. 
 
 But out of the Kantian theory of know- 
 ledge a series of difficulties emerged which 
 , tended to confirm agnosticism respecting real 
 things and to limit us simply to a knowledge 
 of appearances or phenomena. This doctrine 
 we now have to consider. It has played a great 
 role in all philosophy since Kant's time and
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 83 
 
 is very far from being entirely clear in its 
 meaning as well as sound in its foundations. 
 
 Kant's general claim was that the laws of 
 thought or categories of the understanding, 
 as he called them, are valid only for phe- 
 nomena and are not valid for thino-s in them- 
 selves. He said their only function consists in 
 giving form to our sensations, and that apart 
 from these sensations they are entirely empty. 
 Now, the sensations themselves are simply 
 affections of sense which have nothinof corre- 
 sponding to them apart from the mind. In 
 that case, being subjective in their nature, no 
 possible arrangement of them can make them 
 other than subjective. The categories are 
 merely principles of arrangement of this sub- 
 jective material, and by consequence the ap- 
 parent knowledge, or the seeming knowledge, 
 is only a knowledge of appearances or phe- 
 nomena, and cannot claim to have existence 
 beyond the range of human experience. 
 
 This is Kant's famous doctrine of relativity, 
 and it is by no means clear even in its mean- 
 ing and still less satisfactory in its logic. We
 
 84 PERSONALISM 
 
 shall find that Kant is here under the influence 
 of sundry untenable notions. 
 
 In clearing up the doctrine it is plain first 
 of all that Ka^t has failed to consider the 
 position in his doctrine of the plurality of per- 
 sons, which he everywhere assumes. As we 
 have before pointed out, any doctrine of per- 
 ception which rests upon an analysis of the pro- 
 cess only must end in solipsism. Hence if we 
 make the world of things subjective presenta- 
 tions because the knowledge of them arises 
 through our mental construction, we must do 
 the same thing with the world of persons, for 
 the knowledge of them has an equally subjec- 
 tive character. Kant passes from " me " to 
 "us" without telling us how he makes the 
 transition. He really begins with " us," — not 
 merely with the individual self, but with the 
 whole collection of individual human beings, 
 — and gets an experience valid for us all in 
 exceedingly obscure ways. But what Kant did 
 not do the critic must do, and we must inquire 
 into the relation of these many minds to one 
 another in a system of phenomenal knowledge.
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 85 
 
 To begin with, it is not clear in what sense 
 other minds can be called phenomenal to me. 
 Phenomena are appearances, and only in an 
 accommodated sense can minds be said to ap- 
 pear at all. If, however, we make other minds 
 phenomenal on the strength of our theory of 
 knowledge, it would really seem that personal 
 communion vanishes altogether. For we can 
 know these other minds only through our 
 thought of them, and that thought is said to 
 give us merely appearances, which, moreover, 
 do not appear. Thus all contents of other con- 
 sciousness vanish entirely from our knowledge. 
 But Kant never considered this application of 
 his theory and had no doubt whatever of the 
 possibility of mutual understanding in as in- 
 timate a sense as any one would care to affirm. 
 
 But Kant affirms the phenomenality of 
 knowledge not so much of other minds as he 
 does of " the mind," or " the Ego." Even our 
 own minds are phenomena, or our knowledge 
 of ourselves is phenomenal only. This Kant 
 tries to make out by showing that we have no 
 proper knowledge of the transcendental or
 
 86 PERSONALISM 
 
 ontological self, but only of the empirical self. 
 Much of this is a deduction from his own the- 
 ory of knowledge, rather than a demonstration 
 on the basis of experience. The transcenden- 
 tal ego, in distinction from the living, con- 
 scious, active self of experience, is a fiction, 
 like all the other "noumena," and is as base- 
 less and worthless as they. Kant finds various 
 " paralogisms " in rational psychology, none 
 of which, however, makes out his case. The 
 rational psychologists of Kant's time had laid 
 claim to a knowledge of the nature of the soul 
 which they really did not possess. For the dis- 
 proof of this knowledge no doctrine of phe- 
 nomenalism is needed, but solely a criticism of 
 the arguments offered. This part of Kant's 
 work was well done. But his general disproof 
 of all real knowledor'e of the thinkino- self did 
 not satisfy Kant himself apparently, as we 
 find from the modifications made in the second 
 edition of the " Critique." He omits a large part 
 of the argumentation of the first edition in the 
 second and says, " It would be a great, nay, 
 even the only, objection to our Critique if
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 87 
 
 there was a possibility of proving apriori that 
 all thinking beings are by themselves thinking 
 substances ; that as such (as a consequence of 
 the same argument) personality is inseparable 
 from them and that they are conscious of their 
 existence as distinct from all matter, for we 
 should then have made a step beyond the world 
 of sense and entered into the field of noumena, 
 and after that no one could dare to question 
 our right of advancing further, of settling in 
 it, and as each of us is favored by luck, taking 
 possession of it. . . . Hence synthetical pro- 
 positions apriori would be not only admissible, 
 as we maintain in reference to objects of pos- 
 sible experience, but would be extended to 
 things in general and to things by themselves, 
 a result which would put an end to the whole 
 of our Critique and bids us leave everything 
 as we found it." Here it seems pretty clear 
 that Kant would have liked to admit a real 
 knowledge of the self, but he fears that to 
 admit it would undermine the whole of the 
 Critique, and of course that could not be per- 
 mitted. Hence he allows himself some exceed-
 
 88 PERSONALISM 
 
 ingly doubtful reasoning in support of his re- 
 jection of the knowledge of a noumenal self. 
 But on the other hand what a phenomenal 
 self would be which in turn had other pheno- 
 mena appearing to it is something left alto- 
 gether undecided by him. The fact is we have 
 here a very distinct contradiction. A phenom- 
 enon which is not an appearance to somebody 
 is a logical impossibility. It is possible to look 
 upon things as phenomenal only ; but to look 
 upon the self which views these phenomena as 
 itself phenomenal in the same sense is alto- 
 gether impossible. Where there is no perceiv- 
 ing subject there can be no phenomena ; and 
 when we put the subject among the phenomena, 
 the doctrine itself disappears. So, then, Kant's 
 doctrine of phenomenalism with regard to the 
 self must be withdrawn. Of course many ques- 
 tions may be asked respecting the self which 
 we are not able to answer, but the self itself as 
 the subject of the mental life and knowing and 
 experiencing itself as living, and as one and the 
 same throughout its changing experiences, is 
 the surest item of knowledge we possess.
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 89 
 
 The Kantian doubt, then, must be Kmited to 
 the world of external things ; and here, too, its 
 meaning and application are by no means ob- 
 vious. It is clear in the first place that any 
 doctrine of phenomenalism which affirms a 
 series of unknowable noumena behind phenom- 
 ena is in unstable equilibrium. For phenomena 
 are the immediate fact, and if they do not medi- 
 ate for us any valid knowledge of noumena, 
 the latter are philosophically worthless and logi- 
 cally unaffirmable. For we must never forget 
 that experience itself, with ourselves as its sub- 
 jects, is the primary fact ; and anything which 
 we affirm beyond this fact must be for its ex- 
 planation. This makes it strictly impossible to 
 affirm anything to which no laws and forms of 
 thought apply. If, then, the categories apply 
 only to phenomena the noumena disappear 
 altogether. For these forms include space and 
 time, unity and plurality, cause and effect, 
 substance and attribute, reality and negation, 
 and so forth. Hence the thing in itself is in 
 neither space nor time, is neither one nor many, 
 neither cause nor effect, neither substance nor
 
 90 PERSONALISM 
 
 attribute, neither real nor unreal. Manifestly 
 such a thing is nothing, either in thought or 
 existence. 
 
 To this result any doctrine which denies the 
 application of the categories of thought to re- 
 ality must certainly come. The thing in itself, 
 or things in themselves, must be brought 
 within the range of thought or must go out 
 of existence. As soon as we remember that 
 these things are affirmed solely for the sake of 
 making experience intelligible to us, the emp- 
 tiness of this kind of agnosticism immediately 
 appears. Accordingly the agnostic soon finds 
 himself compelled to apply some of the cate- 
 gories of thought to his unknowable reality. 
 The most naive illustrations of this fact ap- 
 pear in Mr. Spencer's manipulation of his 
 Unknowable. When he is dealing with reli- 
 gion and theology he will hear of no affirma- 
 tion whatever respecting the Unknowable, but 
 when he has once imposed upon them the in- 
 junction of perpetual silence, he soon begins 
 to know a great deal about the Unknowable. 
 It forthwith appears as one and eternal and
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 91 
 
 causal, and moreover we are told that the like- 
 nesses and changes among things point to like- 
 nesses and changes in the fundamental reality 
 itself, so that from the former we can get a great 
 deal of information respecting the latter. This 
 led to Mr. Mill's remark that in this way we seem 
 able to get a " prodigious amount of knowledge 
 respecting the Unknowable." Contradictions 
 of this kind are necessary in the nature of the 
 case. The thing which is invoked to explain 
 the world of life and experience must neces- 
 sarily stand in causal relations to it and admit, 
 to some extent, of being known thereby. 
 
 Returning now to the Kantian view, it is 
 plain that it mainly rests on a naive assump- 
 tion of uncritical thought. For common sense 
 all things except our individual ideas are ex- 
 tra-mental. They exist apart from our con- 
 sciousness and are supposed, as a matter of 
 course, to exist apart from all consciousness. 
 This gives us a world of things in themselves. 
 When next epistemology shows that we can 
 grasp these things only through the thoughts 
 we form of them, and further points out the
 
 92 PERSONALISM 
 
 exceedingly complex and obscure nature of the 
 processes of knowledge, we then seem to have 
 all the conditions for a doctrine of agnosticism. 
 The mind is now clearly limited to the thought 
 sphere, and things exist beyond that sphere ; 
 hence, manifestly, we can know only phe- 
 nomena and can never reach things in them- 
 selves. Here the assumption is that things are 
 first and undeniable in their extra-mentality, 
 and then thought is challenged to know them, 
 which it is manifest thought can never do 
 under these conditions. 
 
 But the true way out is to show that no 
 such problem as is here proposed exists. By 
 extra-mental existence common sense really 
 means to deny individual illusion, and if it 
 could secure this common sense would be sat- 
 isfied. But a truly extra-mental existence, in 
 the sense of something beyond thought and 
 independent of it and in no way amenable to 
 it, is an impossible conception. If we assume 
 that the world of thing's oris^inated in thouo-ht 
 and expressed thought they would be homo- 
 geneous with thought, and there would be no
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 93 
 
 apriori reason why we should not know them. 
 This theistic suggestion brings the world of 
 things within the thought sphere and assimi- 
 lates the problem of knowledge to that of 
 mutual understanding among persons. In that 
 case things are indeed independent of our 
 thinking for their existence, but they are not 
 independent of all thinking. They lie within 
 the thought sphere, and that impassable gulf 
 between the thought world and thing world, 
 into which the agnostic tumbles, does not exist. 
 This theistic suggestion Kant nowhere recog- 
 nizes in his epistemology, although it mani- 
 festly puts an entirely different aspect upon 
 the question. It makes the thought sphere 
 all-embracing, but within that sphere it dis- 
 tinofuishes between the finite knower and the 
 world of things, thus leaving the antithesis 
 between them as it exists for common sense. 
 At the same time by making the world of 
 things the expression of thought, it leaves 
 them open to our apprehension and under- 
 standing. This is the result to which idealism 
 is fast leading us. And when we combine this
 
 94 PERSONALISM 
 
 theistic suggestion with the fact already men- 
 tioned, that nothing whatever can be affirmed 
 which does not stand in articulate rational 
 relation to the world of experience, we see 
 how empty any doctrine of absolute agnos- 
 ticism must be. 
 
 Indeed, this whole doctrine of phenom- 
 enalism must be revised to bring it into 
 accord with the demands of thought. By 
 phenomena, if the term is to be anything 
 more than another word for fact, we must 
 understand those things which exist only in 
 and for intelligence. They are not phantoms 
 or illusions, nor are they masks of a back- 
 lying reality which is trying to peer through 
 them ; they are simply what they purport to 
 be in experience. At the same time they have 
 no extra-mental existence, although they may 
 well have an extra-human existence. The 
 world of sense qualities illustrates the con- 
 ception. These have no existence in space 
 apart from intelligence. They are really only 
 effects in the sensibility, and would disappear 
 if the sensibility were away. If the ideahty
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 95 
 
 of space and time be allowed, then all that 
 appears in space and time, the whole physi- 
 cal world in short, is only phenomenal. At 
 the same time it is to be noted that these 
 phenomena are not illusions, but have their 
 special type of reality. They have the reality 
 of being forms and factors of our experience, 
 and our knowledge of them and practical 
 dealing with them make up the great bulk 
 of life. Noumena, on the other hand, or 
 things in themselves, are to be ruled out 
 altogether as myths. The antithesis of phe- 
 nomena and noumena rests on the fancy that 
 there is something behind phenomena which 
 we ought to perceive but cannot, because the 
 masking phenomenon thrusts itself between 
 the reality and us. Phenomena, however, are 
 not the masks of anything, but so far as cog- 
 nition goes they are what they seem to be. 
 They are effects of something, which may 
 possibly be known through th^m, and in no 
 other sense are they to be spoken of as 
 masks, or even as manifestations of a hidden 
 reality. The only intelligible and permissible
 
 96 PERSONALISM 
 
 question concerns not their nature but their 
 causality. What is the power at work which 
 produces the phenomenal order? This is an 
 intelligible question, and the only permissible 
 one at this point. 
 
 When this question is raised we see at once 
 that it can never be solved in picture terms. 
 Metaphysics shows that true substantial exist- 
 ence can only be conceived under the causal 
 form. For the explanation of the world we 
 need an agent, not a substance. With this 
 insight all thought of describing the agent in 
 static or picture terms vanishes. Causes are 
 revealed in their deeds only. They do not 
 look, they act. Thus the question of know- 
 ledge becomes this : Can we know anything 
 of the invisible power behind the phenomenal 
 system, or rather which produces the phe- 
 nomenal system ? Of course we can know 
 nothing in picture form, but can we know 
 anything in any way ? Something indeed 
 we must know, or the thought vanishes 
 altogether; but it may be that we can only 
 form such general notions as that it must
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 97 
 
 be causal and unitary and permanent, and 
 for the rest must content ourselves with de- 
 scribing the orders of coexistence and se- 
 quence among the products of its activity. 
 On the other hand, it is possible that a 
 study of these products should reveal pur- 
 pose, plan, and character in this unpicturable 
 power. Only a study of the facts can decide 
 this point ; but if such a knowledge of this 
 power be possible, we have all we care to 
 know. And if it should prove impossible, it 
 would be because of the ambiguous indica- 
 tions of the facts, and not because the real 
 things in themselves are hidden by masking 
 phenomena. 
 
 Thus we set aside the Kantian agnosticism, 
 or at least the agnosticism based upon Kant's 
 system. At the same time we point out that 
 there is a good deal of value even in Kant's 
 relativity of knowledge. A thorough-going 
 limitation of the catesrories to our human sub- 
 jectivity ends, as we have seen, in the denial 
 of independent objectivity altogether. At the 
 same time there is a large element of such
 
 98 PERSONALISM 
 
 subjectivity in our thinking. The practical ap- 
 plication of the categories is largely formal 
 only and relative to our intellectual conven- 
 ience. The unities and identities and substan- 
 tialities which appear in our human thought 
 and speech are mostly our own products. They 
 result from the application of the categories 
 of thousfht to the fluent and unsubstantial 
 manifold of sense, and have only relative val- 
 idity. Thus the unities we find in experience 
 are mainly formal. This is the case with all 
 spatial and temporal unities; for these can 
 have only conceptual existence. Reality, or 
 substantiality, also, is largely formal and rel- 
 ative in its application. Most of our substan- 
 tive conceptions present no real thinghood, but 
 only processes or phenomena or activities to 
 which the mind has given a substantive form, 
 but which are never to be mistaken for things. 
 Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and a great 
 multitude of abstract nouns are illustrations. 
 Identity, too, is more often formal than real. 
 We find very few real identities in experience, 
 where certainly most things are in perpetual
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 99 
 
 change and flow. In all such cases the identity 
 is formal, imposed by the mind for its own 
 convenience and expressing no ontological 
 fact. Our classifications also are largely rela- 
 tive, not representing any eternal ideas or ver- 
 itable cosmic groupings, but solely conven- 
 iences and points of view of our own. They 
 are relative to our sensibility or to our pur- 
 poses, and can lay no claim to be looked upon 
 as any abiding part of the cosmic furniture. 
 They are what Herbart would call ''accidental 
 views." In calling attention to this fact, thus 
 shutting off the hasty dogmatism of the pre- 
 Kantian period, Kant has done a great service 
 of lasting value. Hereafter we have to proceed, 
 not dogmatically but critically, in seeking to 
 eliminate the purely relative and accidental 
 point of view. 
 
 There is another limitation of knowledge 
 springing out of phenomenalism which is of 
 great value. This is the claim that the cate- 
 gories of thought have no application apart 
 from ^he objects of a real or possible expe- 
 rience. This does not imply any things in
 
 100 PERSONALISM 
 
 themselves to which the categories may not 
 be appHed, but only that experience, real or 
 possible, is the field of their fruitful applica- 
 tion. This is perfectly valid when by experi- 
 ence we mean the whole of experience, not 
 merely the sense experience of the outer world 
 but also the inner experience of the conscious 
 self. With this understanding the doctrine is 
 this. The categories in themselves are simply 
 forms of mental arrangement and merely 
 prescribe the form in which experience is to 
 be ordered when it is given. In this respect 
 they are like the rules of grammar, which 
 prescribe how we shall speak if we speak at 
 all, but which in themselves have no concrete 
 contents. Living speech, then, is not merely 
 grammar, but definite meanings expressed 
 accordinof to orrammatical rules, and when there 
 is no specific meaning the grammar itself moves 
 in a vacuum. All experience, according to 
 Kant, is real only through some given fact, 
 and apart from such facts is empty. Thus we 
 might talk of sensations of a class we have 
 never experienced, as the sensations of a tenth
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 101 
 
 sense ; but it is plain that such talk, however 
 learned it might be, would be formal and 
 empty, as there would be no concrete sensa- 
 tion to give significance or substance to our 
 words. In the case of real sensation, on the 
 contrary, there is an actual experience which 
 gives content to our reflection. Until the actual 
 experience is given there is no security that 
 there is anything whatever corresponding to 
 our formal phrases ; but when experience is 
 given we have no longer simple logical con- 
 cepts, but we have something lived and realized. 
 Now Kant said that the categories are applied 
 only to such sense experience and otherwise 
 are empty. Here he made the mistake of limit- 
 ing experience to the physical sensations and 
 did not extend his doctrine to the data of self- 
 consciousness. When this limitation is removed 
 it then becomes strictly true that the categories 
 have simply the function of forming and ex- 
 pressing some matter which is directly experi- 
 enced or which can be assimilated to experi- 
 ence, and apart from that relation they are 
 formal and empty. They must always be brought
 
 102 PERSONALISM 
 
 into contact with experience in some way in 
 order to acquire reality, or to make sure they 
 represent any possible object for thought. 
 Thus if we talk of the categories of being, 
 unity, identity, causality, substance, etc., in 
 abstraction from any given experience, they 
 are utterly vacuous, so that we cannot tell 
 whether there be any corresponding fact or 
 not ; and it is only as we find these categories 
 realized in living self-experience that they ac- 
 quire other than a formal meaning, or pass for 
 anything more than purely verbal counters. 
 They are like grammar when there is no 
 speech, or rules for saying something when 
 there is nothino- to be said. 
 
 Thus, take the category of being. Suppose 
 we ask what we mean by it. At last it would 
 be found that it means either objectivity in 
 experience, or else it means just our own con- 
 scious life. Any other conception passes into 
 abstraction and emptiness. Similarly with 
 identity. This may mean the formal identity 
 of logical meaning or it may be taken to mean 
 a continued existence through a period of
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 103 
 
 time. In the latter case, which is supposed to 
 be the metaphysical meaning, we really do 
 not know by speculation whether such a thing 
 be possible or not. Successive existence is not 
 identity, and changeless existence cannot be 
 found. Here again we have to fall back upon 
 experience. Identity is given as the self -equal- 
 ity of intelligence throughout experience, and 
 any other conception destroys itself. In like 
 manner unity also may be purely formal, as 
 when we call a thing one ; but when we come to 
 real unity only experience can tell us whether 
 it be possible and what form it must take on. 
 There can be no real unity in anything exist- 
 ing in space and time, for in that case every- 
 thing would be dispersed in infinite divisi- 
 bility. We find the problem solved only in* 
 the unity of a conscious self, which is the only 
 concrete unity that escapes the infinite disper- 
 sion of space and time. In like manner when 
 we attempt to think causality abstractly and 
 impersonally we find ourselves lost in the in- 
 finite regress, and if we escape it we have no 
 means of telling whether there is anything
 
 104 TERSONALISM 
 
 corresponding to our ideas or not. It is abso- 
 lutely necessary to find in experience some- 
 thing that will insure that our ideas have some 
 corresponding concrete existence; or else we 
 are simply shuffling verbal counters, as when 
 we speak of sensations of the tenth sense, or 
 we are indulging in a calculus of imaginary 
 quantities. In the latter cases there may be a 
 certain formal grammatical and logical con- 
 sistency in our utterances, but there is no con- 
 .tact with reality. In the case of causation we 
 escape this mere conceptualism only as we find 
 in the self-conscious causality of free intelli- 
 gence the meaning of causality and the assur- 
 ance that it represents a fact. 
 
 This view might well be called transcen- 
 dental empiricism, in distinction from the 
 traditional sense empiricism. The meaning is 
 that all thought about reality must be rooted 
 in experience and that apart from experience 
 we never can be sure whether our concep- 
 tions represent any actual fact or not. The 
 categories themselves are not something which 
 precede the mind and found its possibility.
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 105 
 
 They are rather modes of mental operation. 
 They are the forms which the mind gives to 
 its experience, but the mind is not to be under- 
 stood through them. Rather they are to be 
 understood through the mind's living expe- 
 rience of itself. 
 
 An important bearing of this result upon 
 speculative thought should be noticed. Expla- 
 nation largely consists in classification ; that 
 is, in gathering similar things into groups or 
 series. Such explanation always remains on 
 the surface and leaves the mystery of things 
 absolutely untouched. No amount of classifi- 
 cation gives us any insight. It merely puts the 
 new fact into a familiar class or refers it to 
 a familiar law ; but it leaves the fact itself 
 as mysterious in its essential nature as ever. 
 Thus when the fall of a body or the floating 
 of a ship or the rising of smoke is referred 
 to the law of gravity, we get no insight into 
 the nature of gravitation. We simply see such 
 facts to be cases of a familiar kind, but the 
 kind itself in its inner nature is as opaque 
 as ever. Whenever we transcend this type of
 
 106 PERSONALISM 
 
 explanation we pass into the causal realm ; 
 and here again we get no real insight but only 
 superficial classification, unless we somewhere 
 come upon something which is capable of real 
 explanation so as to give us rational insight. 
 And this we find only in the case o£ free intel- 
 ligence. This is the only causality of which 
 we have any knowledge and the only causality 
 which really explains. Hence either we must 
 content ourselves with superficial classifica- 
 tion, or else we must find in free intelligence 
 the only principle of causal explanation. 
 
 This result introduces great simplicity into 
 speculative thinking and vacates a great deal 
 of speculation as formal and empty. When 
 our conceptions cannot be verified in spatial 
 and temporal experience nor realized in self- 
 consciousness, they make no connection with 
 reality and are to be unconditionally rejected 
 as fictitious or barren. When, then, any new 
 speculative explanation of any fact whatever is 
 offered us, we ask. Is the explanation classifica- 
 tory or causal? If the former, we point out that 
 it remains on the surface and really explains
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 107 
 
 nothing. If the latter, we point out that it 
 equally explains nothing unless the conception 
 of causality admits of being verified in self- 
 consciousness, as something actual and not 
 merely formal. If it does not meet this require- 
 ment, then into the fire with it, along with the 
 mob of verbal theories which have confused 
 and deluded the human mind from the begin- 
 ning. 
 
 By this time, probably, we may begin to 
 fear that there is not much basis left for 
 objective knowledge, or possibly we may think 
 when so much is made phenomenal, that we 
 are not grasping reality at all ; and the query 
 arises whether, after all, we are not li\ang in 
 the midst of illusion, and whether if we knew 
 things as they really are we shoidd not find 
 them altogether different from what we think 
 them to be. This thought springs out of the 
 illusion that there is an absolute system of 
 reality to which our thoughts ought to corre- 
 spond in order to be true. This is one of the 
 dogmatic fictions. For us the real can never 
 be primarily anything but the contents of
 
 108 PERSONALISM 
 
 experience and whatever we may infer from 
 them. Back of experience we find no truly 
 real of the noumenal type, but we infer or 
 affirm a cause which is founding and maintain- 
 ing the order of experience. To ask whether 
 this order be true is really meaningless, unless 
 we suppose some absolute system of impersonal 
 reality back of experience ; and this notion is 
 baseless. When this is seen the only permis- 
 sible question becomes this : Does our experi- 
 ence exhaust the possibilities of experience and 
 consciousness ? From a theistic standpoint the 
 universe itself is no proper static existence, but 
 only the divine thought finding realization 
 through the divine will, and that thought for 
 us must find expression in the order of our 
 experience. But it is quite credible that our 
 present experience does not exhaust the con- 
 tents of that thought and so does not exhaust 
 the possibilities of experience. If further pos- 
 sibilities should unfold we should not have a 
 truer experience, but a more extensive one. 
 Our present experience is of a certain type, with 
 certain contents and limitations, and it is en-
 
 THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 109 
 
 tirely possible tliat there should be other beings 
 with different types and contents of experi- 
 ence. It is equally possible that we ourselves 
 shall pass into a new order of experiences, in 
 which case we should have no right to say that 
 the present order is false, but merely that it 
 is not all and final. In Hke manner the new 
 order would not be rightly described as more 
 true than the present order, but only as perhaps 
 higher and richer in content, giving a fuller 
 and more abundant life. In this sense there 
 may be any number of universes of experience, 
 each of which is relative to its own subjects, 
 and all of which are embraced in the thought 
 or plan of the Infinite Mind and Will on which 
 they all depend. 
 
 Thus we dispense with the extra-mental uni- 
 verse of unreflecting thought. That view arises 
 from confounding extra-human with extra- 
 mental. We equally dispense with the unknow- 
 ables of agnostic systems. These systems have 
 a crudely realistic foundation and a self-de- 
 structive losric. We also set aside those anti- 
 climactic notions of transfigured realism which
 
 110 PERSONALISM 
 
 attempts to define reality apart from intelli- 
 gence and ends by presenting- us with a set of 
 barren and worthless abstractions as the truly 
 real, while the whole system of living experi- 
 ence is excluded from reality altogether. The 
 static universe which eludes knowledge equally 
 disappears, and in its place we have the known 
 world of experience which points to intelli- 
 gence as its source. Thus we conserve the 
 sense of reality and validity in knowledge, and 
 at the same time recognize the results of criti- 
 cism. We remain w4iere we began, in the world 
 of personal experience, and with the strength- 
 ened conviction that this world can never be 
 explained on any impersonal plane. The world 
 of experience exists for us only through a ra- 
 tional spiritual principle by which we repro- 
 duce it for our thought, and it has its existence 
 apart from us only through a rational spiritual 
 principle on which it depends, and the rational 
 nature of which it expresses. This is our second 
 step toward personalism.
 
 Ill 
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF THE PHYSICAL 
 WORLD. 
 
 In our last lecture we saw how complex 
 is the process of knowledge. The object be- 
 comes an object for us only through a con- 
 structive activity of our own whereby we 
 constitute the object for consciousness. But 
 this fact in itself, while preparing the way for 
 phenomenalism, does not establish it. We 
 have now to consider the phenomenality of 
 the physical world. This is the next step in 
 the estabHshment of personalism. 
 
 For spdntaneous thought all sense objects 
 exist as they seem, veritable substantial things 
 in space and time. Later reflection, however, 
 turns them into phenomena, that is, into 
 things which exist only for and through in- 
 telligence. It must be noted, however, in ac- 
 cordance with our previous discussion, that 
 this does not turn them into illusions or de-
 
 112 PERSONALISM 
 
 lusions. It allows them still to be real in their 
 way, but finds that their reality is not a sub- 
 stantial and independent existence, but rather 
 consists in their being forms and factors of 
 our common experience. We have seen that 
 there are two kinds of reality, phenomenal and 
 ontological. Only the latter is substantial ; the 
 former is real for and in experience ; but re- 
 flective thought shows that it is properly phe- 
 nomenal, existing only in and for intelligence. 
 Spontaneous thought, again, has no doubt 
 that space and time exist as veritable things 
 of some sort. Indeed, it generally regards them 
 as the most undeniable of thing-s. Thinos in 
 the ordinary sense might conceivably be non- 
 existent. We can conceive that space which 
 is now filled might be void, and that time in 
 which events occur should be empty, but the 
 void space and time would still, according to 
 common sense, exist, the space in its boundless 
 extension and the time in its continual flow. 
 For the present we allow this belief to stand, 
 and point out that even then many of the 
 things which we suppose to exist in space and
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 113 
 
 time cannot so exist apart from the mediation 
 of intelligence. In this way we may possibly 
 accustom ourselves to the thought that this 
 world which is known only through intelligence 
 also exists only through and for intelligence. 
 We shall see that very many things which we 
 suppose exist apart from intelligence would 
 really disappear if intelligence were away. 
 
 Conceive a musical symphony. At first sight 
 we might say the symphony exists in space 
 and time. It is inclosed within the walls of 
 the room and lies between certain temporal 
 limits, and therefore has temporal and spatial 
 existence. This, however, is superficial ; for the 
 symphony, apart from the synthetic and uni- 
 fying action of intelligence, really cannot exist 
 in any assignable sense. It exists, as anything 
 articulate and intelligible, only for the com- 
 poser and performer on the one hand, and for 
 the audience on the other. As something in 
 space and time it would consist of air waves 
 mutually external and without unity or con- 
 nection. The corresponding sounds are also 
 mutually external as spatial or temporal events.
 
 114 PERSONALISM 
 
 If, then, one were bent on finding the sym- 
 phony within the walls of the room, and should 
 proceed to chase the mutually external waves 
 in space and the successive waves in time back 
 and forth throughout the hall and the time of 
 the playing, he would soon become aware that 
 the symphony, apart from the unifying action 
 of consciousness which unites the many and 
 the successive into one, would be something 
 strictly non-existent for intelligence. However 
 real the waves or the coexistent and successive 
 sounds may be in themselves, it is not until 
 they are united in a consciousness which grasps 
 and unifies them all in one complex musical 
 apprehension that the symphony exists or can 
 exist. All that can take place in space or time 
 in connection with such music is but the means 
 for making the musical conception pass into 
 act and revealing it to other consciousnesses, 
 the audience ; but the symphony itself exists 
 primarily for the composer or performer, and 
 secondarily for the audience, and all else is 
 but a means for mediating the thought of the 
 composer for the hearers.
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 115 
 
 Probably all would admit this for a sym- 
 phony. We might say there is nothing sub- 
 stantial in a piece of music, and hence we can 
 hardly regard it as anything abiding or exist- 
 ing objectively. But the same must be ad- 
 mitted for anything whatever that has its 
 existence successively, that is, in time. Every 
 such successive thing, in itself, is made up of 
 mutually external existences, and these attain 
 to any abiding existence only through the 
 activity of some non-successive being which is 
 able to unite the successive existences into the 
 thought of something fixed and permanent. 
 Every such successive thing must be phenom- 
 enal, for, like the symphony, it exists and can 
 exist only for and through intelligence. Or if 
 we prefer to say the thing exists, then the 
 claim is that it exists only through intelligence. 
 This we now proceed to show. 
 
 Experience shows only two kinds of perma- 
 nence, fixity of meaning and permanence of 
 the thinking subject. The first is logical same- 
 ness, or identity of meaning, and is absolutely
 
 116 PERSONALISM 
 
 necessary to any thought whatever. If the 
 meaning of things could change from moment 
 to moment, no thought would be possible. 
 Sensation itself, as we have seen, is possible 
 as anything articulate only as the flowing 
 impression is fixed into an abiding meaning 
 of which the impression may be the bearer or 
 manifestation, while the meaning gives the 
 significance of the impression. Without such 
 fixed meaning even the simple sensation van- 
 ishes into an inarticulate impression, about 
 which nothing whatever can be said. Simi- 
 larly in the case of any changing or develop- 
 ing thing, we form some conception which 
 gathers up all the phases of the thing into 
 one thought which expresses the true nature 
 of the thing. If it were impossible to express 
 the nature of the thing, however changing, 
 by some abiding conception, then we should 
 need a new thought for each new phase of 
 the thing; and as the thing is incessantly 
 changing, we should need an incessant stream 
 of new conceptions, with the result that we 
 should lose the thing altogether in the mul-
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 117 
 
 tiplicity of conceptions which would be 
 affirmed. 
 
 This formal or logical sameness, as the su- 
 preme condition of thought, is formulated in 
 the law of identity : A equals A, which means 
 that everything, whatever it may be, fixed or 
 changing, must admit of being conceived in 
 such a way as to be an abiding object or have 
 an abiding meaning for intelligence. Without 
 this, as said, it vanishes altogether. 
 
 But it is plain that this formal sameness is 
 only for intelligence. The fixed meaning, as 
 such, does not and cannot exist in space and 
 time, for there everything is flowing and 
 changing. The fixed meaning is simply what 
 the object is for intelligence, but the thing 
 conceived of as temporal never at any instant 
 realizes that fixed meaning. The meaning is 
 only successively translated into the temporal 
 form, and never really exists except for the 
 mind, which by means of it masters the flow- 
 ing succession. The symphony again illustrates 
 the fact. The symphony never exists in time, 
 and never can so exist except for a non-tem-
 
 118 PERSONALISM 
 
 poral consciousness. In the same way the flow- 
 ing world of change exists for us only through 
 the system of changeless ideas, and these are 
 impossible and meaningless apart from intelli- 
 gence. Thus intelligence appears as the su- 
 preme condition of the existence of those things 
 which seem to us independent of all intelli- 
 gence. If the things themselves are really pro- 
 cesses in space and time, they become any- 
 thing articulate for us only through the ideas 
 by which we fix the processes into a meaning. 
 But, on the other hand, it is plain that these 
 processes could not be grasped through these 
 ideas unless they were really the expressions 
 of ideas. It would be incredible that we should 
 know things by ideas essentially unrelated to 
 them ; and as the ideas by which the things 
 are constituted are independent of us, there 
 must be a supreme intelligence behind the 
 thinsfs which makes them the bearer or ex- 
 pression of the ideas. We cannot understand 
 noises unless they are informed with thought, 
 and they can be informed with thought only 
 as there is a thinker at the other end. In the
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 119 
 
 same way things can be grasped by thought 
 only as they are the products of thought. 
 
 The same problem reappears in the debate 
 between nominalism and realism, and this also 
 admits only of an idealistic solution. The 
 realist rightly holds that the particular is 
 nothing except as the expression of an idea, 
 and the nominalist rightly holds that the idea 
 is nothing apart from concrete realizfi^tion. A 
 pure particular, without any universal element, 
 would disappear entirely from thought ; and 
 a pure universal, with no local habitation or 
 name, would float in the air without contact 
 with reality. There can be no living experi- 
 ence without both elements, and there can be 
 no experience apart from an immanent intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 These formal identities of classification, 
 also, common sense woidd be fairly ready to 
 hand over to phenomenalism. Classes as such 
 have only conceptual existence ; but the case 
 is thouofht to be different with thing's. There 
 is in them a substantial identity, which re- 
 mains the same through change. In addition
 
 120 PERSONALISM 
 
 to the formal fixity of meaning-, there is also 
 a real sameness of being. Here, then, we have 
 not merely the identity of logic, but also the 
 concrete and substantial identity of things ; 
 and this, common sense holds, cannot be argued 
 away into any shadowy phenomenality. This 
 brings us to consider the problem of change 
 and identity in impersonal things. 
 » 
 
 On this point there have been two posi- 
 tions since the earliest times in philosophy. 
 One school, the Eleatic, has held to identity 
 and permanence in things and has excluded 
 change from their existence ; the other, the 
 Heraclitic, has maintained the reality of 
 change and has found it impossible to dis- 
 cover any permanence in existence. Change 
 penetrates into being itself, so that all things 
 flow. Each school has been able to convict 
 the other of irrationality, but on the imper- 
 sonal plane neither school has been able to 
 set its own house in order so as to satisfy 
 reason and log^ic. 
 
 In criticism of the Eleatic view, it is plain
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 121 
 
 that the changing world of experience, which 
 is the fact immediately given, can never by 
 any possibility bring us to a world of change- 
 less existences in any literal and absolute sense 
 of the term ; for if there were a world of such 
 changeless character, it could never be brought 
 into any assignable relation to the changing 
 world. We could never logically reach it from 
 that world, and we could never make any use 
 of it for the explanation of the changing 
 world. The common-sense view of the matter 
 seeks to make a kind of division of labor in 
 the case of the thing, putting the permanence 
 or identity into some back-lying core, and put- 
 ting the change into the activities or qualities 
 of the thing. These are supposed to change, 
 while the permanent core simply abides and 
 maintains its identity. But it is manifest that 
 this view is altogether impossible ; for if there 
 be no change in things, there is no assignable 
 reason why there should be any changes in the 
 activities of things or among things. The rigid 
 monotony and identity of substance must lead 
 to an equally rigid monotony and identity of
 
 122 PERSONALISM 
 
 activity or manifestation of whatever kind. But 
 since the actual world is a world of change 
 and motion, we cannot, reasoning backward by 
 the law of the sufficient reason, come to any- 
 thing unchanging, and in that sense perma- 
 nent. Common sense may be perfectly correct 
 in saying that there must be something per- 
 manent, but it is certainly incorrect in finding 
 that permanence in some rigidly changeless 
 and identical substance. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the disciple of uni- 
 versal change has failed to inquire what the 
 perception or existence of such change would 
 demand. Manifestly if all things changed, 
 the thinking subject among the rest, the no- 
 tion of change could never arise ; for it is only 
 as this change is projected upon and con- 
 trasted with an abiding background of some 
 kind, possibly the self-consciousness of the 
 thinking subject, that even the conception of 
 change is possible. We have already seen 
 that the formal identity of meaning is neces- 
 sary in order to think at all; and now it 
 appears that in some way an identity of the
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 123 
 
 subject is equally necessary in order to make 
 even the conception of change possible. 
 
 Thus it appears that the only identities we 
 can find in the thing; world are the formal 
 identities of logical meaning, and when we 
 attempt to find anything more in the way of 
 concrete identity in the thing world we look 
 for it in vkin. All that we come upon is fixity 
 of form or process, and the only concrete iden- 
 tity we can find anywhere turns out to be the 
 unity of the conscious subject. But this iden- 
 tity is not to be viewed as any rigid core of 
 being, but rather as the self -equality of intel- 
 ligence through its experience, and the change 
 which we discover is not a successive running 
 off of events in abstract time, but is rather 
 and only the form under which the self-equal 
 intelligence realizes its conceptions under the 
 relation of succession. On the impersonal 
 plane this problem of change and identity ad- 
 mits of no solution. We cannot find the ab- 
 stract identity, and we cannot find the abstract 
 changes when we look for them. We have 
 simply a world of experience in which the same
 
 124 PERSONALISM 
 
 ideas and forms remain valid, and through 
 which the conscious subject remains as the 
 only fixed point to which everything, both 
 permanence and change, has to be referred. 
 Self-consciousness is the origin of ordinates in 
 this field, and whenever we transfer the prob- 
 lem to the impersonal world of space and time 
 and abstract principles, we soon find it eluding 
 us or vanishing in insoluble contradictions. 
 
 Similar reflections on the problem of caus- 
 ation, as metaphysics shows, would compel us 
 to regard the so-called world of things as 
 merely processes of an energy not their own ; 
 such processes, then, would be necessarily phe- 
 nomenal. Having in themselves no substan- 
 tiality, they would become only phases of an 
 activity beyond them. As such they would 
 have only the permanence of a process which 
 is essentially successive, and as such, again, 
 they can exist only for intelligence ; that is, 
 these supposed substantial things become like 
 our symphony. In the symphony a musical 
 idea is successively unfolded, and in the unity 
 of that idea and the continuity of its manifes-
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 125 
 
 tation through the activity of the performer 
 and the receptivity of the audience the sym- 
 phony has its only existence; but in itself, in 
 abstraction from the idea and the performer, 
 it breaks up into an inarticulate and chaotic 
 mass of sounds. In the same way impersonal 
 things are reduced to processes in which a 
 phenomenal form may be maintained or an 
 idea continuously or successively manifested, 
 but which nevertheless exists only in and 
 through the continuous process and the abid- 
 ing meaning, and in abstraction from these 
 they also became meaningless and as empty 
 of significance as the symphony would be in 
 abstraction from the performer and the audi- 
 ence. 
 
 These considerations serve to show that in- 
 telligence plays no small part in the existence 
 of those things which we regard as existing 
 independently of intelligence in space and 
 time. Upon analysis we fail to find the sup- 
 posed core of being or stuff upon which com- 
 mon sense relies in its picture logic in this 
 matter, and in place of it we discover simply
 
 126 PERSONALISM 
 
 the idea, the process, the succession, which 
 needs intelligence to sum it up and inform it 
 with meaning-, so that it becomes anything 
 intelligible and articulate for us. 
 . This result would be valid for the world of 
 things in space and time, even if we supposed 
 space and time to be themselves real existences 
 as common sense views them. Even then the 
 things of experience could be helped to real 
 existence only through a constitutive and syn- 
 thesizing intelligence. But there are many 
 reasons for saying that space and time them- 
 selves are only phenomena, and that of course 
 carries with it the phenomenality of everything 
 that appears in them, that is, the phenomenal- 
 ity of the whole system of objective experience. 
 
 This view, however, seems so great a para- 
 dox as to border on the limits of absurdity if 
 it does not transcend them. Nevertheless, it is 
 a view to which we seem to be shut up, and 
 the view to which reflective thought is quite 
 generally coming. We will seek, therefore, to 
 explain it, so as to remove something of the
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 127 
 
 paradox and help ourselves to a better under- 
 standing" of what it means. 
 
 And, first of all, we must distinguish between 
 phenomenal and ontological reality in the case. 
 For experience, space and time are perfectly 
 valid as forms or laws of the same. We can- 
 not have experience of a certain type which is 
 non-spatial, neither can we have experience 
 into which the temporal form does not enter. 
 Phenomenally, then, space and time are real, 
 that is, they are valid in and for our experi- 
 ence, and there can be no thought of deny- 
 ing this validity. In this sense, spontaneous 
 thought is quite correct in maintaining the 
 reality of space and time; but when on the 
 other hand they are taken to be something 
 independent of experience, lying beyond and 
 behind experience as its pre-condition, then 
 common sense has wandered into metaphysics 
 and has hypostasized the conditions of experi- 
 ence into independent existences. In this way 
 the two great phantoms of space and time have 
 been produced, which have exercised so per- 
 nicious an influence in the history of thought.
 
 128 PERSONALISM 
 
 To common sense it is at first sight incred- 
 ible that this view should ever be held by any 
 one, because it would seem that we are im- 
 mediately aware of ourselves as in space and 
 time. And therefore only a person insane or 
 irredeemably frivolous would think of arguing 
 about their existence ; and moreover the exist- 
 ence itself is so manifest, so obvious, so unde- 
 niable, that there is no mystery about it, and 
 no question as to its reality. 
 
 So indeed it seems, but first of all episte- 
 mology points out that space and time, how- 
 ever real they may be in themselves, cannot 
 become real to us except as they are principles 
 of thought or principles immanent in our 
 mental operation. For us space, like all other 
 things, exists only through our own mental 
 construction, and apart from that construc- 
 tion, however real it might be, it would not 
 exist for us at all. The primary fact epistemo- 
 logically is that we relate our objects in the 
 spatial and temporal form because of the space 
 and time law immanent in intelligence ; and 
 all our experiences or intuitions respecting
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 129 
 
 space and time must be understood from the 
 side of the mental law. Thus, with regard to 
 space, we have no original intuition of an 
 existing space which is one and infinite and 
 all-embracing, but we relate all our objects of 
 a certain kind in a common scheme in which 
 we can find our way from any one to any 
 other by a continuous and homogeneous pro- 
 cess. Hence we regard space as one. Again, 
 this synthesis applies to all objects of a cer- 
 tain kind, so that we cannot conceive any 
 such objects as lying beyond its range. Hence 
 we regard space as all-embracing. Finally, 
 the synthesis admits of no exhaustion, but 
 rather provides for indefinite repetition. As 
 we cannot exhaust number by counting, so 
 we cannot exhaust space by any progressive 
 synthesis. Hence we regard space as infinite. 
 But the unity, the infinity, and the all-em- 
 bracing character of space depend entirely 
 upon the nature of the space law. They are 
 but the results of the inexhaustibility and uni- 
 versal applicability of the space law within its 
 own sphere.
 
 130 PERSONALISM 
 
 The same is true for the unity and eternity 
 of time. There is no immediate apprehension 
 of time as anything one and eternal, but the 
 time law by which we relate the objects of ex- 
 perience to one another and the conscious self 
 admits of no exhaustion, and hence we regard 
 time as eternal ; but the unity and eternity of 
 time, like that of space, mean only the one- 
 ness and inexhaustibility of the synthetic law 
 by which we relate objects. Now, given this 
 law, we should have temporal and spatial ex- 
 perience, whatever the independent fact might 
 be. Or we should have temporal and spatial 
 experience if there were no objective space 
 and time whatever. Illustration of this occurs 
 in every vivid dream. The dream time and 
 space have nothing in common with the time 
 and space of waking experience. They are 
 simply the form of the dream, the form which 
 the mind itself gives to its dream objects; and 
 when the dream breaks up and vanishes, we 
 do not suppose that the space in which the 
 dream occurred is left over for later dreams, 
 but the space and time vanish with the dream
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 131 
 
 experience, as simply the space and time of 
 that experience. 
 
 That this is the ease with the dream expe- 
 rience every one will admit. We see that the 
 space and time relations of the dream have 
 nothing in common with our waking space 
 and time relations, and we also see that those 
 space and time relations are instituted by the 
 mind in its dream activity such that the ob- 
 jects often stand out for us with all the vivid- 
 ness of waking experience. In such cases we 
 have a clear illustration of the fact that the 
 mind can build for itself an experience in the 
 space and time form out of its own resources 
 without any corresponding space and time in 
 existence. But the same general view must be 
 taken of our so-called real space and time. 
 They are really only the form of our outer 
 and inner experience. They consist of rela- 
 tions among the objects of experience, and if 
 we should conceive the experience itself to be 
 canceled there would be nothing left behind 
 corresponding to space and time, so that in- 
 stead of being veritable somewhats in which
 
 132 PERSONALISM 
 
 things exist and events occur, they are rather 
 and only the forms of experience and have 
 their heing only in and through intelligence 
 itself. 
 
 The general reason for this conclusion is 
 the fact that as soon as we break space and 
 time from their connection with experience as 
 its form, and regard them as something inde- 
 pendent of it which contains experience, then 
 all manner of contradictions emerge at once 
 and existence itself is made impossible. Thus 
 in the case of space, the general law of space, 
 when space is conceived of as independently 
 existing, would be the mutual externality of 
 points and parts. Every point and part is out- 
 side of every other point and part, and the 
 distinction of points and parts admits of no 
 end, the result being that space, conceived 
 of as independently real, admits of indefinite 
 division, and in that case the things which 
 are in space would likewise admit of indefinite 
 division, and in that case, again, being itself 
 would be dispersed into endless plurality with- 
 out unity through the endless divisibility of
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 133 
 
 space. Thus, conceive a cubic foot of space. 
 It has in itself no unity except the formal one 
 which we give it by calling it a cubic foot ; 
 but in itself, if we make the cubic inch a unit, 
 the cubic foot is not one but seventeen hun- 
 dred and twenty-eight, and each cubic inch is 
 in the same condition ; and, again, there can be 
 no unity, but plurality and mutual externality 
 without end. If, however, we conceive a sub- 
 stance to exist in a real space of this kind, the 
 same fact applies. If there were a cubic foot 
 of such substance, then the parts in the seven- 
 teen hundred and twenty-eight cubic inches 
 would also be mutually external, and these 
 again could be divided indefinitely; and thus 
 once more we lose ourselves in the infinite 
 divisibility. These mutually external parts 
 could be no true units, as each would lie out- 
 side of every other, and they could be held 
 together and held apart only as we make each 
 part the centre of attractive and repulsive 
 forces of some sort, whereby each should pre- 
 scribe to every other its place ; and thus again 
 the supposed unitary being would disappear
 
 134 PERSONALISM 
 
 in an indefinite plurality, to which no limit 
 could be assigned. No unit could be found, 
 because in the nature of such a process there 
 is no unit possible. The nature of the sjDace 
 law forbids any unit in such a case. If, how- 
 ever, we regard space as only phenomenal, we 
 then have to continue our divisions only so 
 far as experience may indicate. We are not 
 required to affirm an infinite extension and 
 divisibility of space, but an indefinite exten- 
 sion and divisibility of phenomena ; for while 
 the space law itself, like the law of number, 
 contains no provision for stopping, its concrete 
 ajDplication, as in the case of number, must 
 always depend upon the nature of experience 
 and not upon the abstract law itself. In that 
 case, as Kant showed in the first two antino- 
 mies, we escape the impossibilities involved in 
 the notion of a finite or infinite space or a 
 finite or infinite divisibility of space. 
 
 Similarly in the case of time, the notion of 
 time as the form of our experience is perfectly 
 simple and level to every intelligence. As 
 Berkeley has it, I may make an engagement 
 
 1
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 135 
 
 to meet a person at a certain place and a cer- 
 tain time, and every one understands what this 
 means. But when I abstract from these rela- 
 tions of concrete experience and begin to con- 
 sider space and time in themselves, then I am 
 lost and embrangled in inextricable difficul- 
 ties. Berkeley added that the consideration 
 of this abstract time led him to "harbor odd 
 thouofhts" of his own existence. 
 
 In the case of time these "embranoflino;" 
 difficulties appear in the fact that time itself, 
 considered as a real something flowing along, 
 is full of contradictions. Indeed this con- 
 ception of time is the chief source of those 
 puzzles by which, to use another phrase of 
 Berkeley's, speculative thought in all ages has 
 been so "miserably bantered." As specimens 
 of the "bantering," consider the difficulty in 
 the notion of a standing or flowing time. If 
 time stands, then time as a whole exists, that 
 is, past and future coexist. Thus the time 
 idea disappears. But if time as a whole flows, 
 we can form as little idea of this as we can of 
 a moving space. An infinite space that moved
 
 136 PERSONALISM 
 
 to the right, and left a spaceless void on the 
 left, would be no more absurd than a moving 
 time. Such a time must move out of itself in 
 the past and leave a timeless void behind it, 
 and it must move into a timeless void before 
 it, or it must move into itself and telescope 
 itself — all of which notions are impossible. 
 Again, supposing time to be substantially real, 
 rather than a form of experience, it is clear 
 that things can exist only in the present. 
 They cannot exist in the past and they cannot 
 exist in the future. But on the other hand 
 they cannot exist in the present, for the pre- 
 sent is only the timeless plane of separation 
 between the past and the future. If we should 
 conceive the present itself to have duration in 
 it, either we should have a past and future in 
 the present, or we should deny the continuity 
 of the temporal flow. But if, on the other 
 hand, the present has no duration, then things 
 cannot exist at all. Results like these make 
 plain to us that we are on the wrong track in 
 seeking to make time and space independent 
 somethings apart from experience. They are
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 137 
 
 rather the forms of that experience. They have 
 their meaning only in relation to that experi- 
 ence, and considered in abstraction from that 
 experience they become simply the portentous 
 phantoms of unreflective thought, and, like all 
 phantoms, they disappear upon investigation. 
 What was said of the finitude or infinitude 
 of space may be repeated respecting time. If 
 time were a veritable existence, we should have 
 to resrard it as either finite or infinite ; but the 
 caseis different when time is made phenomenal. 
 The time law, indeed, makes no provision for 
 beginning or ending, but its concrete applica- 
 tion must always depend upon the nature of 
 experience and not upon the abstract law itself. 
 On the basis of experience we can af&rm 
 neither the finitude nor the infinitude of the 
 temporal series, but must confine ourselves to 
 what we find in experience. Hence to the claim 
 that space and time must be either finite or 
 infinite, and finitely or infinitely divisible, the 
 claim out of which Kant developed the first two 
 antinomies, the reply is that as forms of expe- 
 rience they are neither finite nor infinite, and
 
 138 PERSONALISM 
 
 that experience finds no occasion to decide for 
 one or the other of these alternatives. 
 
 To this result thought assuredly comes ; but 
 some further exposition is needed to bring it out 
 into clearness. For we and all things seem to be 
 so manifestly in space and time that any argu- 
 ment against it, however irrefutable it might 
 be in logic, would still produce no conviction. 
 This thou«;ht rests to some extent on the over- 
 sight of the distinction already made between 
 phenomenal and ontological reality. As we 
 have so often said, there is no thought of deny- 
 ing the phenomenal reality of space and time, 
 but only their ontological existence. If, then, 
 we are asked. Are things in space and time? we 
 answer. Yes, or no, according to the standpoint. 
 Things are in space and time as having space 
 and time relations in our experience. They are 
 not in space and time as something independ- 
 ent of experience, and which would be there if 
 experience were away. For the rest, the diffi- 
 culty in accepting the view rests on the failure 
 to observe the relativity in the spatial and tem- 
 poral judgment which arise from the limitations
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 139 
 
 of the judging subject. The whole matter 
 takes on a different aspect from this stand- 
 point. 
 
 In the previous lecture, when speaking of the 
 relation of our mental forms to the independ- 
 ent object, we pointed out that these forms 
 cannot be arbitrarily imposed upon the object, 
 but that the object itself must have an af&nity 
 for some forms rather than others ; otherwise 
 the connection of thought and thing would be 
 purely a random one. But we cannot see the 
 square as round, or the crooked as straight, or 
 change the forms and positions of things at 
 pleasure. And, in general, in order that spatial 
 phenomena shall appear as they are and where 
 they are, there must be something in the dy- 
 namic relations of the system which demands 
 just this order and no other. The space rela- 
 tions, then, are not arbitrarily imposed upon a 
 system which is indifferent to them ; they are 
 rather the translation into intuitional forms 
 of the unpicturable dynamism of the system. 
 The same is true for time relations also. We 
 cannot reverse the time order so as to make the
 
 140 PERSONALISM 
 
 antecedent the consequent, or put yesterday 
 after to-day. Here is an order whicli, while 
 phenomenal, is also fixed ; and this fact can 
 be understood only as the time relation is con- 
 nected with a deeper dynamic relation. From 
 this dynamic standpoint both the spatial and 
 the temporal judgment in their concrete ap- 
 plication are greatly modified, and their rela- 
 tivity is placed in a clearer light. 
 
 We note this first in the case of space. 
 When we attempt to locate the percipient mind 
 in space, we find it impossible to do so. The 
 unity of the mental subject will not unite 
 with the spatial form of existence. Neverthe- 
 less we have in our experience the antithesis of 
 here and there, and all concrete judgments of 
 space depend upon it. In the purely geometri- 
 cal judgment there is nothing concrete, and the 
 whole matter lies within the spatial intuition. 
 But in concrete experience the matter is differ- 
 ent, and the position of the person himself be- 
 comes the origin of all space judgments. The 
 subject establishes himself in a central here, in 
 antithesis to an all-surrounding there. Into this
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 141 
 
 judgment the organism itself enters to a not- 
 able degree, and the here of the subject cannot 
 be determined as a point in objective space, as 
 that would eliminate the subject altogether. 
 On the contrary, the here is determined by the 
 subject's immediate activity. Instead of saying 
 we act where we are, we must literally reverse 
 the proposition and say we are where we im- 
 mediately act. No other definition of presence 
 or location can be given. In that case our 
 presence, or our here, becomes relative to the 
 ranofe of our immediate action. If we could 
 act as immediately and effectively on things 
 beyond the sea as we do upon things at arm's 
 length, we should be as present beyond the sea 
 as we are in our immediate neighborhood. Or 
 if our organic activities embraced the whole 
 earth as immediately and intimately as they 
 embrace what we call our body, we should be 
 present to the earth in the same sense as we 
 are now present to the organism. Thus we see 
 that concrete presence is nothing that can be 
 geometrically determined in an absolute space, 
 but is rather a function of our dynamic rela-
 
 142 PERSONALISM 
 
 tious. It is the dynamic relation that deter- 
 mines the space relations. And we also see 
 that presence in sj)ace is relative to our dy- 
 namic range. Immediate action is presence ; 
 immediate action on all things is omnipre- 
 sence. But neither presence nor omnipresence 
 is to be conceived as filling a spatial volume 
 by a limited or unlimited bulk. Now from 
 this dynamic point of view, being in space ac- 
 quires an entirely new meaning. We are not 
 in space as existing somewhere in a boundless 
 void or in a void of any kind ; but we are in 
 space as limited in our dynamic range and as 
 able therefore to work only mediately on most 
 things. It is this dynamic relation and limita- 
 tion which underlies our spatial experience. 
 And so long as the limitation continues, so 
 long we shall have the corresponding spatial 
 limitation in experience. The ideality of space 
 therefore does not permit us to transcend space 
 in experience, but it does enable us to dismiss 
 the great phantom of an all-embracing void. 
 But only the infinite and absolute being can be 
 said to transcend space in the sense of limita-
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 143 
 
 tion. On the other hand, while space relations 
 obtain among the objects of experience, the 
 totality of things does not exist in space at all, 
 but rather and only in the infinite conscious- 
 ness and will. If we will ask for the place 
 of the world, we must say the Divine IntelH- 
 gence is that place, and this in turn is space- 
 less but establishes space relations. And the 
 system of things spacelessly and unpicturably 
 depends on the spaceless and unpicturable 
 God. 
 
 Much the same thing is to be said of the 
 time judgment. There is a great deal here also 
 that is relative to our human limitations, and 
 for understanding the ideality of time it is 
 necessary to bear this in mind. Time can be 
 interpreted only from the side of experience, 
 and more especially from the standpoint of 
 self-consciousness. Experience, we have seen, 
 cannot be in the present as a separate point 
 of time, but rather the present is in experience. 
 We cannot define the present as a point in 
 an independent time, and if we could it would 
 be simply the plane of separation between past
 
 144 PERSONALISM 
 
 and future, and existence would be made im- 
 possible. The present of experience is simply a 
 relation in self-consciousness which gives the 
 origin for all time measures and judgments, 
 and the range of this present depends solely 
 upon the range of the apprehending activity 
 of the mind. The present, therefore, is no 
 fixed measure, but is relative to our mental 
 power. Epistemology shows that to introduce 
 a real objective succession into thought would 
 destroy it. Subject and predicate must be 
 simultaneously grasped in one timeless act, 
 or they fall asunder and thought cannot even 
 begin. The present of experience therefore is 
 not in some independent time, but is only a 
 special relation in consciousness. The person 
 who can grasp only a few things has a small 
 present ; one who can grasp many things has 
 a larger present ; and one who can grasp all 
 things has an all-embracing present or a 
 changeless now. 
 
 This bringing of the present, with the re- 
 sulting time judgment, into relation to activity 
 greatly modifies the subject. Supposing time
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 145 
 
 to be an independent fact, our experience is 
 all in the past, for as soon as it occurs it passes 
 with its date. In that case what we call our 
 present consciousness becomes a memory of 
 things which no longer exist. This result 
 would lead to some grotesque inferences if it 
 were duly analyzed. Fortunately the fact is 
 otherwise. We call those things present which 
 we possess in a certain immediacy of con- 
 sciousness ; and if we possessed all our expe- 
 riences in a similar immediacy, the whole ex- 
 perience would be present in the same sense. 
 There would still be a certain order of arrange- 
 ment among the factors of experience which 
 could not arbitrarily be modified, but all the 
 members of the series would be equally present 
 to consciousness. If now there were a being 
 who could retain all the facts of his experience 
 in similar immediacy, he would have no past ; 
 and further, if such being were always in full 
 possession of himself so as to be under no law 
 of development and possessing no unrealized 
 potentialities, he would also have no future, at 
 least so far as his own existence might be con-
 
 146 PERSONALISM 
 
 cerned. His present would be all-embracing, 
 and his now would be eternal. 
 
 Taking up once more the question, Are we 
 in time? we see that it has several meanings 
 and the answers must vary to correspond. If 
 it means. Are things and events in a real time 
 which flows on independently o£ them ? the an- 
 swer must be. No. If it means. Does our expe- 
 rience have the temporal form? the answer 
 must be. Yes. If we further inquire concern- 
 ing the possibility of transcending temporal 
 limitation, it is clear that this can be affirmed 
 only of the Absolute Being, for only in Him 
 do we find that complete self-possession which 
 the transcendence of time would mean. In 
 this sense temporality is a mark and measure 
 of limitation. 
 
 We may be helped to some extent in the 
 reception of this view if we remember the 
 large element of relativity in our time judg- 
 ment in any case. Without going deeply into 
 metaphysics, we can see that if our present time 
 rate were modified our estimate of time might 
 be profoundly affected. We can easily conceive
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 147 
 
 the present rate to be so modified as to make 
 a day seem a thousand years or a thousand 
 years a day. The life of an ephemeron might 
 be stretched out into ages, or the slow motions 
 of the hills might be made to seem like the 
 shifting of the clouds. Or, if we should think 
 away the various periodicities of experience, 
 which are no necessities of thought, the 
 changes of day and night, the movements of 
 the seasons, the alternations of rest and labor, 
 sleeping and waking, youth and age, it is hard 
 to tell how much would be left of the time 
 judgment. In fact nothing would be left 
 except our conviction of antecedence and se- 
 quence among the factors of our experience, 
 and our estimate of this would have in it 
 a large element of relativity. Thus, suppose a 
 mind were engaged in a process of thought 
 which it could conduct without weariness, it 
 is hard to see what temporality such a process 
 would have ; or if a mind were engaged in any 
 activity into which the element of weariness 
 did not enter, again it would be fairly difficult 
 to tell what the temporal element would meau
 
 148 PERSONALISM 
 
 for the working mind. The relation of ante- 
 cedence and sequence would remain, but that 
 would be only the form of the activity and 
 would not implicate the agent any more than 
 the temporal form of a romance or drama would 
 implicate the author. 
 
 Thus we see that the space and time of 
 experience are very different from the space 
 and time of the geometrical and numerical 
 intuition, and that they are very largely rela- 
 tive to ourselves. This relative element must 
 of course be eliminated from the divine relation 
 to space and time. Immediate action on all 
 things means spatial omnipresence, and com- 
 plete self-possession and self-realization mean 
 temporal omnipresence. The Absolute there- 
 fore cannot be included in any necessary and 
 successive development without speculative dis- 
 aster ; and any temporal relations we may affirm 
 must be limited to the cosmic system. But if 
 we attempt to view this system as the projec- 
 tion of a corresponding temporal system in 
 the divine consciousness, we commit ourselves 
 to the infinite regress and end in an impossible
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 149 
 
 dualism. The successive can exist only for the 
 non-successive ; and self-possessing, self-suffi- 
 cient intelligence is the only thing that can be 
 non-successive. But we are not to think of this 
 Supreme Intelligence as a rigid monotony of 
 being, but rather as the perfect fullness of life, 
 without temporal ebb or flow. Until we reach 
 this view, thought must remain in unstable 
 equilibrium. The antithesis of the permanent 
 and the changino; is unmediated ; the infinite 
 regress yawns for us ; and we fall back from 
 personality, which alone explains anything, 
 into some impossible impersonal mechanism. 
 But we must bear in mind that this non-tem- 
 porality for God means essentially his abso- 
 lute self-possession and lack of our human 
 limitations which grow out of our dependence. 
 Otherwise we shall eliminate God from the 
 cosmic movement altogether, and put Him out 
 of all relations of sympathy with the world of 
 finite spirits. Then the last end would be worse 
 than the first. We escape this result by re- 
 membering that our problem is to explain the 
 world of experience, and this cannot be done by
 
 150 PERSONALISM 
 
 affirming a staticably immovable and intellectu- 
 ally monotonous being, but only by positing 
 a self-sufficient, self-possessing, all-embracing 
 intelligence, which, as such, is superior to our 
 finite temporal limitations. 
 
 Now, gathering up these considerations, we 
 see how completely phenomenal the whole sys- 
 tem of objective experience is. It is not some- 
 thing running off in an infinite space and time 
 by itself, but is rather a great mental function 
 depending upon self-consciousness and the 
 synthetic activity of intelligence. But as we 
 have said before, things are not thereby ren- 
 dered illusions. They remain still undeniable 
 factors of experience, only we have discovered 
 that intelligence itself is the great constitutive 
 factor and condition of this experience. Things 
 are still real, but real for intelligence ; and those 
 outlying things in themselves, the noumena of 
 Kant's philosophy, or the unknowable of other 
 systems, are to be looked upon as fictions of 
 unclear thought. The thought sphere is all- 
 embracing, and beyond it is nothing. Of course 
 this does not mean simply the thought of the
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 151 
 
 finite individual, but cosmic thought, on which 
 the cosmic movement itself depends. 
 
 A final word may be added respecting 
 the ontoloo-ical character of mechanics and 
 mechanical science. Metaphysics shows that 
 neither matter, force, nor motion has any such 
 existence as common sense attributes to them. 
 Mechanics, then, must be looked upon as at 
 best only a science of phenomena, and a good 
 part of it must be viewed as of the nature of 
 a device for calculation. The compositions and 
 decompositions of forces and motions, the an- 
 alysis of motion into abstract laws, the break- 
 ing up of complex facts into simple ones, are 
 to be looked upon as devices of method, and 
 not as some actual process in reality. They are 
 purely relative to ourselves, as much so as the 
 degrees of the circle, or the meridians and par- 
 allels of the geographer. Considered as an ab- 
 stract logical system, the science of mechanics 
 is of course perfectly valid. The manipulation 
 of the assumed data is entirely independent 
 of concrete facts ; but when it sets up to be an
 
 152 PERSONALISM 
 
 account of what is actually going on in space 
 and time, we then have to point out the mis- 
 take. At the same time we also insist upon the 
 practical value of the science, for as a matter 
 of fact phenomena have laws. They come to- 
 gether, vary together, and succeed one another 
 according to rule. These laws are largely 
 spatial and temporal, and admit of geometric 
 and numerical expression. Every such expres- 
 sion is valuable if it helps us to a knowledge 
 of the order of phenomena, and especially if it 
 gives any practical control of them. As said, 
 they are useful if they help us; but consid- 
 ered as veritable transcripts of reality, they are 
 only hypostasized abstractions. They do not 
 give us the essential dynamism of the system. 
 The true efficient causality lies in a realm into 
 which science as such has neither the call nor 
 the power to penetrate. It follows, then, that 
 science must always be classificatory and de- 
 scriptive. In this field it has absolute right of 
 way, and it is one of life's most useful hand- 
 maids ; but when it claims to be more than 
 this and becomes metaphysical, it is pretty
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 153 
 
 sure to err and stray from the way, and some- 
 times it falls into the pernicious errors of ma- 
 terialism and atheism. 
 
 Of course on this view nature is phenomenal, 
 existing only in and for intelligence. Nature 
 itself is process, and it has continuity only for its 
 causeand for the observer. In some sense, then, 
 we may say that nature is never the same from 
 one instant to another, — as in a progressive 
 piece of music the performance is continually 
 varying. In one sense it may be called the same 
 and in another sense not the same, but it really 
 has sameness and continuity only for the per- 
 former and the audience. And it continually 
 takes on the form which the musical idea calls 
 for, and hence is continually becoming some- 
 thing else. This is the general view which we 
 take of the natural system. As process it has 
 continuity only for its cause and for the ob- 
 server, and the continuity consists simply in the 
 continuity of the laws according to which the 
 process moves, and the unity of purpose which 
 underlies it. In the strictest sense a moving 
 world has no continuity in itself, but only for
 
 151 PERSONALISM 
 
 the observing or producing mind. Apart from 
 this mind, nature, supposing it to exist at all, 
 would be but the mirage of vanishing phan- 
 toms, each and all perishing in the attempt to 
 be born. But granting the observer and the 
 phenomenal world, the only continuity possible 
 would be the continuous validity of the laws 
 and purposes of the process. New phenomena 
 as events would differ from the old, however 
 similar they might be, as another day is a new 
 day, notwithstanding the likeness to old days ; 
 but all the phenomena, new and old alike, would 
 be comprehended in the same scheme of law 
 and relation, and this fact constitutes the unity 
 and continuity of the system. It does not con- 
 sist, then, in any rigid identity and monotony 
 of the facts of the system from everlasting to 
 everlasting, but in a subordination of all, new 
 and old alike, to the same laws. 
 
 In the next place it may be pointed out 
 that on this general view many systems may 
 be conceived as possible. Our human world, 
 when we look at it carefully, has after all a 
 large element of relativity. We look upon its
 
 PHENOMENALITr OF PHYSICAL WORLD 155 
 
 contents and rightly view them as objective, 
 that is, as independent of our human wills. 
 But when we inquire into its contents we find 
 that they largely consist of our own sense life 
 put into rational forms, yet in such a way 
 that if we should conceive the sense element 
 dropped out it might be exceedingly difficult 
 to tell what would remain. Take away the 
 sense qualities and the resistances and the 
 distances, all of which are relative to our- 
 selves, and we should find nothing left that 
 could be called a world ; and so, however 
 much we may regard this human world of 
 ours as being objectively founded, we must 
 nevertheless query whether it be not after all 
 a certain human world only and of such a sort 
 that we are not able to affirm it to have any 
 existence for beings who might be differently 
 constituted from ourselves in -their sensuous 
 nature. The world of ether, for instance, is 
 not adjusted to our senses, and it has there- 
 fore only a theoretical existence for us. We 
 cannot make anything out of it for ourselves, 
 beyond a somewhat obscure assistant of our
 
 15G PERSONALISM 
 
 optical equations; and, on the other hand, 
 many of our solid things seem to be practi- 
 cally transparent for various influences which 
 we seem to detect. It is, therefore, by no 
 means an impossible thought that the things 
 which are solid for us mig^ht be vacua for 
 others, and the things which are vacua for us 
 might be solid for others. 
 
 This leads again to the surmise, mentioned 
 in the last lecture, that there may be widely 
 different systems of reality for beings who are 
 differently constituted, or for the same beings 
 in different stages of their development. Being 
 in this world means nothing^ more than bavins: 
 a certain form and type of experience with cer- 
 tain familiar conditions. Passing out of this 
 world into another would mean simply, not 
 a transition through space, but passing into a 
 new form and type of experience differently 
 conditioned from the present ; and how many 
 of these systems are possible, or to what extent 
 this change might go, is altogether beyond 
 us. Of course these many systems would all 
 be objectively founded ; that is, they would be
 
 PHENOMENALITY OF PHYSICAL WORLD 157 
 
 rooted in the will and purpose of the Creator ; 
 and they would also be one in the sense that 
 the creative purpose would embrace them all 
 in one plan ; but they would not be one in the 
 sense of being only phases or aspects of one ab- 
 solute reality. They would be stages in God's 
 unfolding plan, but not aspects of a static uni- 
 verse. This static universe is a phantom of ab- 
 stract thought. Apart from the finite spirit, 
 the only reality is God, and his progressively 
 unfolding plan and purpose and work. 
 
 Thus we find reason, first, for limiting our 
 affirmations in any concrete sense to our hu- 
 man world ; and, sec6nd, for keeping open the 
 door of possibility. As we have said in the 
 previous lecture, the possibilities of conscious- 
 ness seem unbounded. We have here and now 
 only a simple experience, and it is permitted to 
 us to think that we may yet pass into new types 
 of experience in which new possibilities of con- 
 sciousness shall be realized. Of course, so far 
 as positive conception is concerned, this is 
 only a dream. But yet it may be well to keep 
 the way open, for dreaming is sometimes a
 
 158 PERSONALISM 
 
 useful exercise, provided always we distin- 
 
 iruish what we dream from what we know. 
 
 t5 
 
 For common sense the world of things is 
 something which, for the present at least, 
 exists by itself without any assistance from 
 intelligence. But upon reflection it appears 
 that this world is a function of intelligence 
 in such a way that apart from intelligence it 
 has neither existence nor even meaning. Space 
 and time existence and self-conscious existence 
 exhaust the possibilities for us. Any other 
 conception is purely verbal and without any 
 corresponding thought. ^But space and time 
 existence is phenomenal only, existing only 
 for and through intelligence. Thus the claim 
 of personaHsm is being estabhshed.
 
 IV 
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL 
 CAUSALITY 
 
 The world may be considered from the stand- 
 point of contents and meaning. From this 
 point of view a world of rational contents 
 and meanings leads us to affirm a supreme 
 reason behind it all as its essential source 
 and abiding condition. The meanings we find 
 are really there for intelligence, but they 
 are there only through intelligence. But the 
 world must be regarded also from the stand- 
 point of causality. It is not merely an idea, 
 it is also a deed. It is not merely a pre- 
 sentation to us which ends in itself, it is also 
 a revelation of the cosmic activity of the 
 Supreme Will. Some idealists would seem to 
 have held the former view, and it must be 
 admitted that as a psychological possibility 
 it cannot be disproved ; at the same time the 
 total impression of experience is such that it
 
 160 PERSONALISM 
 
 cannot be allowed. The world has a history 
 and an existence apart from us. God's cos- 
 mic activity is not confined to producing pre- 
 sentations in us, but is rather directed to pro- 
 ducing the great cosmic order itself, which 
 thus has existence for Him apart from its 
 relation to us. Thus the world becomes not 
 merely a thought, but a thought expressed in 
 act. It is God's idea ; it is also God's deed. 
 Both elements are necessary for the full ex- 
 pression of our thought respecting the world. 
 Of course, if any one chooses to say that the 
 world is only a presentation in us and is no 
 great system of activity apart from us, no 
 sufficient logical injunction can be issued 
 against him. But no injunction would be 
 necessary ; simple contact with experience 
 would soon dispose of the notion. 
 
 This insight introduces us to the question 
 of causality. We have now to extend our 
 personal interpretation of the world into the 
 field of causality, by showing that this cat- 
 egory also vanishes in contradiction until 
 raised to the personal plane. By causality in
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 161 
 the proper sense we mean dynamic deter- 
 mination. There is a logical determination 
 of ideas and relations which is not dynamic. 
 Such is the case with the premises which 
 determine a conclusion, or with the sides of 
 a figure which determine the angles. There 
 is nothing dynamic here. But it is otherwise 
 with antecedents and consequents, or with 
 concomitant variations among things. Here 
 there is more than a time relation of co- 
 existence or sequence; there is also a rela- 
 tion of dynamic determination which we call 
 causal. This we now proceed to examine. 
 
 This notion of causality on examination 
 proves so difficult that many have denied 
 both the idea and the fact. This is generally 
 due to some exigency of system. The em- 
 piricists have studied to reduce the idea to 
 succession, saying that by causality we really 
 mean invariable sequence, and if we think 
 we mean more than this, it is due, as Hume 
 said, to " a mental propensity to feign." This 
 claim, of course, results from their empirical
 
 162 PERSONALISM 
 
 docti'ine. According to that, sensation is the 
 only original mental fact, and out of it all 
 later conceptions are built. But as simple 
 sensation has in it no causality, but is only 
 a simple impression in the sensibility, there 
 is no way of reaching the idea of causality 
 from their data. Accordingly, it must be re- 
 duced to invariable sequence, because their 
 system provides for nothing else. Again, 
 some rationalists have taken offense at the 
 idea as not fitting well into their logical 
 scheme. Logic, simply as an order of inclu- 
 sion and exclusion, or the relation of* pre- 
 mises to conclusions, makes no provision for 
 dynamics, and equally no provision for time 
 in any form. Accordingly, rationalists of this 
 kind have their own manifest troubles with 
 the idea, and conclude before long that the 
 idea must be ruled out altogether. Any ra- 
 tionalistic theory must do this that seeks to 
 construct a theory of intelligence without 
 including; the will. The traditional intuition- 
 alists also have seldom been clear as to the 
 form of the idea, and have oscillated con-
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 163 
 
 fusedly between power and will and other 
 conceptions even more abstract. Because of 
 such confusion and the practical barrenness 
 of the question in the concrete, Comte ad- 
 vised us, as we have seen, to give up causal 
 inquiry entirely as useless in any case. The 
 agnostics also recognize the causal inquiry 
 as one we are bound to make, but one we 
 can never answer. Practically, then, we must 
 be positivists, as we have said, with, how- 
 ever, a sense of omnipresent mystery on 
 which all things depend and to which we re- 
 fer whenever we get into speculative trouble. 
 Common sense, however, has no difficulty in 
 the case. It believes in causality and finds it 
 permanently in sense objects, and there is no 
 mystery about them or their activities. 
 
 We must agree with common sense as to 
 the necessity of affirming causality, and no 
 theorist has ever escaped this necessity. Even 
 those who deny causality always assume it in 
 one place or another. Thus the thoroughgoing 
 empiricist, who, like Hume, reduces causality 
 to nothingness and unconnected succession,
 
 164 PERSONALISM 
 
 forthwith proceeds to deny his own view by 
 explaining how our later ideas arise, or are pro- 
 duced by their antecedents. Of course on that 
 theory this is hopelessly inconsistent, for no- 
 thing arises from anything, or is due to any- 
 thing; but certain things were, and certain 
 other things are; but in the sense of a deter- 
 mining connection nothing is because anything 
 was, but everything simply is, is for no reason 
 whatever. This inconsistency, as said, is one 
 that no empirical system has ever succeeded 
 in avoiding, and, if it should avoid it, at once 
 our thought system would become a curious 
 sort of apriorism in which the influence of 
 experience vanishes entirely, and any insight 
 which we may have or acquire is not to be 
 referred to any past experience, but stands 
 absolutely in its own right. It is further plain 
 that on such a view the system of objective 
 thought would perish altogether, for in that 
 case things, if real, would be mutually indif- 
 ferent and non-existent. Events would be 
 groundless, and experience would fall asun- 
 der into chaos. Our perceptions, too, could
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 165 
 
 never be related to a real world in any way, 
 and would be only groundless phenomena in 
 the individual consciousness. Thus perception 
 would perish in solipsism, and being itself 
 would become only the momentary and vanish- 
 ing presentation. Nihilism would be the end. 
 We conclude, therefore, that the idea and 
 fact of causation cannot be dispensed with in 
 any philosophical system. 
 
 At the same time, however, it is manifest 
 that this does not decide the form of the idea 
 and the location of the causality. Causality as 
 the ground of cosmic changes is to be affirmed 
 beyond any question, but whether it 'is to be 
 located in the things of sense perception or in 
 some power beyond them, is not yet apparent. 
 And whether it is to be conceived as imper- 
 sonal power or as living active intelligence 
 also remains to be decided. The phenomenal- 
 ity of the sense world has a profound bearing 
 on the location of causaHty and also on its 
 meaning. 
 
 But the subject itself is so complex that we 
 need to distinguish the factors that enter into
 
 166 PERSONALISM 
 
 it lest we lose ourselves in confusion. In addi- 
 tion to the validity of the idea, we have, as we 
 have just seen, the question of form and loca- 
 tion, and we have also a use of the word in 
 popular speech and inductive science which 
 must be noted if we would have the metaphys- 
 ical problem clearly before us. If we divide 
 we may conquer. 
 
 Let us distinguish, then, first of all, causal- 
 ity in the inductive sense from causality as 
 dynamic or productive efficiency. The first 
 may be called causality in the scientific sense, 
 the second causality in the metaphysical sense. 
 
 A large part of our speech into which the 
 idea of causality apparently enters is con- 
 cerned only with inductive causality, and this 
 is really a question of phenomenal relations 
 merely, and does not touch the question of 
 causality at all. We illustrate the distinction. 
 
 As a matter of fact, we find that events 
 occur under certain conditions. When the con- 
 ditions are fulfilled the event appears. We may 
 call the total group of conditions the cause, 
 and upon occasion we may call any one of the 
 
 i
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 167 
 
 conditions the cause. The complete cause and 
 the only adequate one is the whole group. 
 Nevertheless, if the group were given with the 
 exception of one member, we should call that 
 member the cause of the event which would fol- 
 low its addition to the group. Any event with 
 complex antecedents would have only one ade- 
 quate cause, but it might also be said to have 
 as many causes as antecedents. Or any one of 
 these might upon occasion complete the group 
 and then be viewed as the cause. This is caus- 
 ality in the inductive sense. It has nothing to 
 do with efficiency, but only with the order in 
 which events occur. In other words, we find 
 when we look into experience an order of con- 
 comitant chanofe and an order of invariable 
 succession. When we have change here, there 
 is change yonder, fixed in kind and in degree. 
 This for practical purposes may be called the 
 interaction of the things, but it is really only 
 the fixed order in which these concomitant 
 changes occur together. Similarly, in the case 
 of succession we find that when certain ante- 
 cedents are given, certain consequents result.
 
 168 PERSONALISM 
 
 And this we may call causation, again. But, 
 in fact, it is merely the fixed order in which 
 events succeed one another. 
 
 That the study of this order, or the way in 
 which things hang together in the order of 
 change, is of the utmost importance, is plain 
 upon inspection. The chief part of practical 
 wisdom lies in our knowledge of it. This study 
 must be pursued inductively, and not specu- 
 latively. It can be prosecuted on any theory 
 of metaphysics, and need not concern itself, 
 except in the most general way, about meta- 
 physics at all. The phenomenal conditions 
 under which events occur, are quite distinct 
 from the metaphysical agency by which they 
 are brought about, and they may be studied 
 by themselves. By insisting on this distinction 
 we make a field for inductive study unembar- 
 rassed by metaphysical scruples, and we also 
 rescue the metaphysical problem from the con- 
 fusion which results from confounding the 
 empirical and the metaphysical points of view. 
 It is further plain that this is all that is 
 needed for science and practical life. We may
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 169 
 well believe that there is some hidden causa- 
 tioD in play, but we do not need it for practi- 
 cal purposes. Neither do we observe it. It is 
 a thought problem, and not a problem for in- 
 duction. In electricity we need not have any 
 theory about the metaphysics of electricity. 
 We need only to know that certain changes, 
 which we call electric, follow upon certain 
 other changes which we may produce, and 
 that they in turn result in still other changes. 
 When we know this law of succession we have 
 all that we need for the practical application 
 of what we call electricity. The thing itself 
 may be never so mysterious, but whatever it 
 may be, we know in experience that the order 
 of sequence is such and such, and then by 
 producing the antecedents we get the conse- 
 quents. The power at work finds out for it- 
 self how to produce the consequents, but we 
 need to know only the actual order and law of 
 change. Similarly in chemistry, we need have 
 no theory of the elements themselves or no 
 deep metaphysics. We need only to know 
 that things which we call chemical bodies may
 
 170 PERSONALISM 
 
 be SO manipulated that certain other things 
 will result. Given this knowledge, we have 
 all that we need to know for the complete de- 
 velopment of chemistry as a practical science. 
 So also in astronomy, we need have no theory 
 of gravitation in its metaphysical nature. We 
 need only to know that the acceleration of 
 bodies takes place according to the formu- 
 lated law of gravitation. Given this, we are 
 able to construct our equations and find the 
 whereabouts of the planets without any theory 
 whatever of a metaphysical nature. We may 
 still believe, or indeed may be sure, that there 
 is causality in the case, but yet sense does not 
 reveal it or locate it. We do not need any 
 theory of it for practical purposes. Without 
 doubt the underlying causality will find out 
 for itself how to do the work. We need only 
 to know the rules according to which the work 
 is done. Milton had an angel leading the earth 
 around the sun. The astronomer could get 
 along just as well with the angel as with some 
 theory of central forces, provided of course the 
 angel brought his accelerations and motions
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 171 
 
 under the law of the relative masses and the 
 inverse square of the distance. In that case 
 the astronomer could locate the angel as well 
 as the planet, and would be quite indifferent 
 whether the planets were moved by angels or 
 by central forces of whatever kind, since all 
 he needs to know is that the motions take place 
 according to the law as formulated. Similarly 
 in mechanics the causal idea is needless. This 
 has long been thought to be a dynamic science, 
 since one department of it bears the title of 
 dynamics ; nevertheless it has been reduced to 
 a set of equations of relation, from which all 
 properly causal relations have been eliminated. 
 And this is rightly regarded as a great ad- 
 vance by the masters of the science, so that 
 there is no longer anything dynamic whatever 
 in science, whether observational or theoreti- 
 cal, but simply a study of the way in which 
 phenomena hang together in the observed or- 
 der of law. Of course, as said, this does not 
 deny the idea of causation, but simply locates 
 it in another realm.
 
 172 PERSONALISM 
 
 We now pass to causality in the sense of 
 dynamic efficiency. The necessity of affirming 
 a causal ground is stringent, and, as we have 
 said, no theorist has ever succeeded in long 
 maintaining a denial of it. But it is not so 
 easy to fix the form and place of that ground 
 as we mig-ht at first siofht think. The tradi- 
 tional intuitionalist has been very strenuous 
 in maintaining the reality of causation, against 
 Hume and all his disciples, but he has been a 
 little hasty in locating the causality he affirms, 
 and quite unclear as to its meaning. In par- 
 ticular, he has located it with all assurance 
 between the physical antecedent and the phys- 
 ical consequent. Under the influence of his 
 crude realism, he has regarded both of these as 
 things in real space and time ; and as he could 
 see nothing else in the neighborhood, of course 
 the antecedent must become the efficient cause. 
 Hence this realism has had no end of causes, 
 of which the existence is never to be doubted. 
 But as soon as we come to distinguish be- 
 tween phenomenal and ontological reality and 
 to reflect upon the antithesis of the phenome-
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 173 
 
 nal and the real, this dogmatic assurance be- 
 gins to be shaken. It is possible antecedent 
 to reflection that the cause is found in the 
 things of perception, but it is equally possible 
 that these things are only phenomenal pro- 
 cesses of an energy beyond them and mani- 
 festing itself in them, in which case the caus- 
 ality is no longer in them but elsewhere. This 
 is the conception which physicists themselves 
 now largely hold, and to which physical dis- 
 covery more and more lends itself. This view, 
 it will be seen, does not question the reality 
 of causation in the case. It only questions its 
 location and the form in which we conceive 
 it. That in interaction and causal sequence 
 we really see no causality but only change 
 according to rule for which we affirm and seek 
 causality, is a commonplace since the time of 
 Hume and Kant. We may be sure that there 
 is causality in play, but whether in the things 
 themselves or beyond them is not plain. This 
 brings us to consider the notion of efficient 
 causality, its form and location. 
 
 We have seen in the previous lecture how
 
 174 PERSONALISM 
 
 difficult it is to connect being at all with time. 
 We there found that no being that has its 
 existence successively and without any non- 
 temporal principle can be said properly to 
 exist at all. It is a flow in which nothing flows 
 and nothing abides. The same applies to caus- 
 ality. In the universal flow we have a causing 
 in which nothing causes, and a continual 
 changing for which no abiding ground can 
 be discovered. This view makes all thought 
 impossible. There are no abiding subjects and 
 no abiding predicates, but only a vanishing 
 razzle-dazzle in the place of both. In addi- 
 tion some further puzzles emerge in the case 
 of causality, arising from the relation of the 
 past to the present and the future in any 
 system of mechanical and realistic thought. 
 
 First, it is plain that if the future is to be 
 the product of the past or is to be explained 
 by the past, it must in some way be included 
 in the past. Otherwise it is a groundless be- 
 comins!"; the law of connection and reason van- 
 ishes, and experience faUs hopelessly asunder. 
 If we could exhaustively think the past without
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 175 
 
 finding the future in it, in the sense of being 
 necessitated by it, the future would be ground- 
 less ; and if on the other hand we find the 
 future in the past, we are at a loss to know 
 just what this means. The future was not in 
 the past, in the sense of being present there, 
 and yet must have been in the past in the 
 sense of being necessitated by it or grounded 
 in it. Otherwise it could never have risen out 
 of it. Now how can these things be ? 
 
 Manifestly this problem is not a fictitious 
 one, but arises necessarily out of the attempt 
 to think causality in relation to time. We 
 cannot allow the future to be independent of 
 the past w^ithout dissolving all connection so 
 that thought itself would perish ; but when 
 we make the future dependent on the past we 
 are bound to make some provision in the past 
 for it, and it is not easy to see just what this 
 will be. 
 
 Here we help ourselves by a word which in 
 one form or another has been with us since 
 the time of Aristotle ; and no more striking 
 illustration can be found of the ease with
 
 176 PERSONALISM 
 
 which problems can be verbally solved to our 
 entire satisfaction, though the solution really 
 solves nothings. The word in the case is 
 potentiality. The present and future were not 
 in the past actually, but potentially ; and this 
 word is to a great many so satisfying that 
 no questions remain after it is pronounced. 
 And yet manifestly this solution makes more 
 problems than it solves. This potentiality 
 must in some way have been an actual deter- 
 mination of the real ; otherwise it would ex- 
 plain nothing. It was, then, an actuality of 
 some sort, and yet not an actuality of a strictly 
 actual type. But how to represent the differ- 
 ence between a potential actual and an actual 
 actual is something quite beyond us. If we 
 have recourse to description and say that 
 potential means only that future conditions 
 develop out of past conditions, we see at once 
 that " develop out of " in a strict sense has 
 the same difficulties, for how can that come 
 out which was in no sense in ? But if we mean 
 only that new conditions temporally follow old 
 conditions, then we affirm mere succession
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 177 
 
 and miss the idea of ground and connection 
 altogether. 
 
 If our aim were only to talk without very 
 much thinking, then probably the best method 
 would be to write or pronounce the word 
 potentiality and its derivatives with all pos- 
 sible gravity, and consider the problem as 
 sufficiently solved ; but if in addition to talk- 
 ing we also desire to think, we might well in- 
 quire whether this notion of potentiality re- 
 presents any real thought whatever, or if so, 
 then under what form it must be conceived. 
 We shall do well to recall here some things 
 said in our second lecture. We there pointed 
 out that all these terms of the understand- 
 ing in themselves are only forms of thought 
 which leave it entirely undecided whether there 
 be any concrete reality corresponding to them, 
 and we said that they have application only as 
 we find some concrete experience which illus- 
 trates them. Otherwise they are abstractions 
 without any real content, or they are formal 
 principles which float in the air until some 
 concrete experience tells us what their actual
 
 178 PERSONALISM 
 
 meaning is. Now in the case of potentiality 
 it is clear that when we are thinking on this 
 problem of the relation of past and future, 
 we must provide for this fact which we name 
 potentiality. But when we thus name it we 
 have not yet found the form under which it 
 is to be conceived, and the further fact is that 
 on the impersonal plane nothing whatever can 
 be found which shows us that the fact is in 
 any way thinkable. There is nothing whatever 
 in experience which indicates to us that the 
 problem contained in the word admits of any 
 solution, and it is not until we bring the mat- 
 ter up from the plane of necessity and imper- 
 sonal causation to the personal plane that we 
 get any hint that the problem can be solved 
 at all. Potentiality is a clear notion only on 
 the plane of freedom. Here it means the self- 
 determination of the free agent. It is the fact 
 that the free agent can do or not do, that he 
 has therefore various possibilities open to him, 
 and these we may speak of as potentialities. 
 Here the problem is solved in experience, and 
 we find a possible and permissible meaning to
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 179 
 
 the words. But on the plane of the necessary 
 it is pure opacity. It must be something which is 
 at once real and not real, actual and not actual. 
 Unless we can master this, the alternative is to 
 refer all motion, progress, development, evolu- 
 tion, to a supreme self-determination which 
 ever lives and ever founds the order of things. 
 In that case the past is not potential of the 
 future, any more than the summer is poten- 
 tial of the winter, or the setting of the sun is 
 potential of the rising of the moon; but both 
 past and future are phases of a movement 
 which abuts on freedom, and of which the suc- 
 cessive phases are but implications and mani- 
 festations of the one thought which is the law 
 and meaning of the whole. This is a meaning 
 of potentiality that finds illustration in experi- 
 ence, and is understood through experience. 
 In any other sense it eludes us altogether, and 
 only expresses a problem for which on the im- 
 personal plane we can find no solution. 
 
 In popular thought mechanical and voli- 
 tional causality are differentiated by their re-
 
 180 PERSONALISM 
 
 lation to time. The former is pushed out of 
 the past, the latter looks toward the future. 
 This is essentially the form of intellectual 
 causality, the great mark of which is the for- 
 ward look. It is causality self-moving toward 
 ends which lie before ; hence, it is called final 
 causality, or a causality which looks toward 
 ends. In mechanical causality what was deter- 
 mines what is; in volitional causality free in- 
 telligence chooses things which are to be and 
 works for their realization. It is between these 
 conceptions that we have to decide. 
 
 But before proceeding to the discussion we 
 point out in passing that the inductive argu- 
 ment for intelligence in the power behind 
 phenomena rests chiefly on this forward look 
 on things. Mechanical causality in itself is a 
 resultant of past conditions, and has no refer- 
 ence to future ends. Everything is product 
 and nothing is purpose. But in final causality 
 the movement is toward ends which are to be 
 reahzed, so that the present is determined with 
 reference to the future, and this is possible 
 only as causality becomes free and purposive.
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 181 
 
 The future as such cannot determine the 
 present. This is possible only as the future 
 results exist as present conceptions in con- 
 sciousness for the realization of which intelli- 
 gence is acting. Apart from intelligence final 
 causality is literally preposterous, as Spinoza 
 said ; for it turns the effect into a cause of 
 itself. It is plain, too, that this inductive ar- 
 guriient depends solely upon the relation of 
 present and future, and not upon any details 
 of method. Historically the argument has 
 largely proceeded upon some particular con- 
 ception of method, and thus has seemed weak 
 or worthless when the conception of method 
 changed. Hence the doctrine of evolution has 
 seemed to many to weaken the argument for 
 purpose in nature. In fact, however, for all 
 who see in the antecedent stages of evolution 
 a preparation for things to come, or the earlier 
 phases of a progressive movement, the facts 
 of evolution become the most impressive of all 
 the inductive arguments for purpose in the 
 world ; for in that case the entire movement 
 in its great outlines has the forward look, and
 
 182 PERSONALISM 
 
 is thereby marked as rooting in the causality of 
 intellio-ence. And the aro^ument becomes more 
 impressive than the argument from detailed 
 marks of special contrivance, by as much as its 
 boundless range in space and time transcends 
 the petty extensions and durations of the tra- 
 ditional discussion. We return now to the main 
 question of mechanical or volitional causality. 
 Mechanical causality for spontaneous 
 thought is the great type. Such thought is 
 busy mainly with material and mechanical ob- 
 jects, and hence its conception of causality 
 necessarily takes on a material and mechanical 
 form. Thus mechanical causation tends to be- 
 come the great type, if not the only type, of 
 causation, while volitional causality is looked 
 upon as something portentous and anomalous. 
 And if it be allowed at all, the attempt is often 
 made by some doctrine of determinism, or voli- 
 tional necessity, to reduce it to the mechanical 
 form. This conception is manifestly dependent 
 on the notion of an independently existent 
 time, which is supposed to be the supreme 
 law of all other existence. The things that
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 183 
 
 were, were the causes of the things that are ; 
 and all causality is from the past to the future, 
 as a kind of universal parallelogram of forces 
 according to which antecedents determine 
 their consequents, and so the stream goes on 
 unceasingly. When this is connected with the 
 space form, material and mechanical causation 
 seems to be the only possible type of causality. 
 Thus the great space and time phantoms are 
 seen to be the source of the mechanical con- 
 ception. But when we recall the ideality of 
 space and time, this view at once begins to lose 
 its self -evidence. Indeed, this ideality reduces 
 every doctrine of mechanism to phenomenal 
 significance, and deprives it of all claim to 
 represent the essential dynamics of the world. 
 Its value Kes entirely in its practical conven- 
 ience, and it must never be allowed to intimi- 
 date us into supposing that it is the real fact 
 of existence. We might, then, set the mechan- 
 ical doctrine aside without further discussion; 
 but there are certain confusions in the doc- 
 trine, even on its own temporal basis, which 
 it is worth while to point out. In this way we
 
 184 PERSONALISM 
 
 may succeed in loosening our dogmatic faith 
 in the chimera. 
 
 A Httle reflection soon reveals that this me- 
 chanical causality is far from being the easy 
 notion it at first sight seems to be. By its es- 
 sential nature it is supposed to be conditioned 
 by its antecedents. The effect cannot be given 
 until the antecedents are given, and when 
 they are given it is given. But this involves a 
 pair of contradictions, neither of which can be 
 removed. In such a scheme, and assuming the 
 independent reality of time, the whole series 
 of causal events must coexist or run off in the 
 same instant. For unless we make the gro- 
 tesque assumption that empty time does some- 
 thing, we must allow that when the dynamic 
 conditions are completed the effect is there 
 without delay. Hence in the mechanico-tem- 
 poral series, as soon as the dynamic antece- 
 dents are given the consequents are given, and 
 their consequents in turn are given, and so on 
 to the end of the series, so that the beginning 
 and the end temporally coincide. This is one 
 member of the antinomy.
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 185 
 
 The other member consists in the infinite 
 regress which this conception of causality in- 
 volves. On this view everything refers to some- 
 thing behind it, and so on in endless regress. 
 Hence the real ground of everything lies be- 
 yond and below the horizon and can never 
 be reached. Thus the law of causation itself 
 disappears. There can be no causality on this 
 view without a first, and on the other hand 
 this view forbids us ever to find a first. There 
 can be no first moment in time, for back of 
 any moment there is an indefinite number 
 of moments. Likewise there can be no first in 
 a mechanical order of conditioned causality, 
 without assuming something non-mechanical 
 beyond it. The causal idea demands com- 
 pleteness in the series of conditions, and it 
 never can be completed on the mechanical 
 plane. No first day or first night can be found 
 by any regress along the series of days and 
 nights as such, for each day has a preceding 
 night and each night a preceding day. 
 
 In the very old days, when animals had the 
 gift of speech, the cat waited on the owl to
 
 186 PERSONALISM 
 
 know what philosophy deals with. The owl 
 replied, "Philosophy considers such questions 
 as this : Which was first, the hen or the egg?'' 
 " Why," said the cat, " that question admits 
 o£ no answer." " Of course not," rejoined the 
 owl, "and for that I give the gods very great 
 thanks. For only consider : what would we 
 philosophers have to do if the question were 
 settled?" 
 
 This fable well illustrates the impossibility 
 of reaching a first by any regress in a condi- 
 tioned series, or a series of conditioned mem- 
 bers. We can indeed describe the temporal 
 relations of the hens and eggs, and this serves 
 all practical purposes; but the hen-and-egg 
 series can never be explained in this way. Re- 
 gress, however long continued, does not even 
 tend to explain it. It is like seeking to sup- 
 port a chain by adding extra links to the upper 
 end, yet without providing any hook for the 
 support of the whole. This is the second 
 member of the antinomy. 
 
 But here it may occur to us that there is 
 DO more need to affirm a dynamic first than
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 187 
 
 there is to affirm a temporal first ; and since 
 time itself is unbegun, causality also may be 
 unbeoun. This calls attention to a curious 
 difficulty in the notion of an independently 
 existing time. There certainly can be no first 
 in an independent time, for back of any mo- 
 ment whatever in a temporal series an indefi- 
 nite number of earlier moments could be found. 
 But if there be no real first there is equally 
 no real second, or any other number, with the 
 result that all finite time measures are purely 
 relative and have no significance in the infini- 
 tude of time. The conclusion would be that 
 the time of experience is relative to experience 
 only, and we could never relate it to the infinite 
 time of abstraction. We have simply another 
 argument for the phenomenality of experienced 
 time, and the non-existence of this self-exist- 
 ent time, which is but the phantom shadow 
 of the temporal process abstracted from expe- 
 rience. Not in this way can we escape the ne- 
 cessity of a dynamic first, that is, a dynamic 
 act which refers us to no other. In this sense 
 every truly causal act is a dynamic first. The
 
 188 PERSONALISM 
 
 true cause is never to be sought at the unattain- 
 able beginning of an infinite series, but is rather 
 immanent throughout the series, as the living 
 power by which all things exist and all events 
 come to pass ; and this cause is as near and as 
 active in the last as in the first. 
 
 To the infinite regress, then, and the result- 
 ing failure of the causal idea we are certainly 
 shut up if we adopt a temporal and linear con- 
 ception of the hen-and-egg type. The hen-and- 
 egg series demands explanation as much as 
 any particular hen or egg ; and no particular 
 hen or egg is really explained until the hen- 
 and-egg series is also accounted for — which 
 it never can be by any endless regress. This 
 is so manifest that the general effort has been 
 to exchange the linear causality for an abid- 
 ing cause, which was and is and is to come, 
 and this cause abides from asfe to asre, so that 
 we have no succession of causes, but only one 
 cause throughout the series of effects. We 
 seem in this way to escape the infinite regress, 
 also, as we have only to refer effects to this 
 cause without further specification. We may
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 189 
 
 also drop the word mechanical, which is a 
 little too susfSfestive of the coarse machines 
 of human contrivance to apply to this invis- 
 ible and unpicturable energy; and instead of 
 it let us rather speak of necessary causality in 
 distinction from volitional causality. .Thus we 
 find the fixed and abiding one in the chang- 
 ing and passing many. 
 
 This looks well until examined, and it cer- 
 tainly sounds better than the previous putting; 
 but it really shows good intentions rather than 
 insight into the problem. In fact, we have in 
 it once more the attempt of common sense 
 to find something which abides through the 
 world of chang-e. It allows that a succession 
 of causes as distinct things would never do, 
 but it is quite clear that an impersonal cause 
 might well exist as one and the same from 
 everlasting to everlasting, and produce a great 
 variety of effects without losing its proper 
 identity. There is in the view, however, the 
 common-sense oversight of the dialectic in the 
 metaphysics of change and identity. In discuss- 
 ing that problem, we found in the last lecture
 
 190 PERSONALISM 
 
 that on the impersonal plane no identity can 
 be discovered. We came to the phantasmagoric 
 flux of Heraclitus, which is the destruction of 
 both thought and thing. We also saw the 
 impossibility of making any use of the world 
 of rigid identity, in case we found it. In the 
 view before us all this is overlooked, and it 
 is assumed as a matter of course that both 
 change and identity can be united in the 
 impersonal. But when this is seen to be im- 
 possible, we no longer have one cause or one 
 being, or indeed ^ny cause or being whatever, 
 but simply a causing in which nothing causes 
 and nothing is caused, and a movement in 
 which nothing moves and nothing is moved. 
 We have a kind of metaphysical vermiform 
 peristalsis, or peristaltism, in which nothing 
 worms itself along from nothing to nothing, 
 and is mistaken for something on the way. A 
 moving body without continuity and identity 
 would not be a moving body, but only a suc- 
 cession of optical phenomena ; and if there 
 were no observer, not even this could exist. 
 The impersonal changing cause is in this case.
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 191 
 
 Its unity and identity are not in the flow it- 
 self, but in the observing mind ; and when that 
 is removed, there is nothing articulate left. In 
 addition, it is clear that the view does not 
 escape the infinite regress if it assumes that 
 this causing is in time ; for instead of an infi- 
 nite series of conditioned causes, we have an 
 infinite series of conditioned causings, each of 
 which points to an earlier causing, — and we 
 are no better off than before. 
 
 All that we bring away from these crude 
 notions is the conviction that causality must 
 be af&rmed, but that it cannot be conceived in 
 the mechanical and temporal form. The sug- 
 gestions of uncritical common sense prove to 
 be only phrases which contain a problem rather 
 than a real solution. In every mechanical doc- 
 trine of causality every present change finds 
 its causality in an infinite regress, which can 
 never be completed and in which thought 
 perishes. In volitional causality we trace the 
 act to the personal purpose and volition, and 
 there the regress ceases. 
 
 Another difficulty in the mechanical notion
 
 192 PERSONALISM 
 
 is its tautology. Whenever we think of caus- 
 ality on the plane of mechanical necessity, we 
 find ourselves forthwith reduced to motions 
 which contain no progress. What may be 
 called the law of the logical equivalence of 
 cause and effect in all necessary schemes of 
 thought at once confronts us. The cause 
 which is to explain an effect in such a system 
 must always be the cause which in principle 
 contains the effect. If it did not contain it, it 
 would not explain it. But if, on the other 
 hand, it contains it, then the explanation is 
 tautologous, because the explanation itself 
 contains the very fact to be explained. If we 
 could think the cause exhaustively without 
 finding the effect provided for in it, it would 
 not explain the effect ; but if we find the effect 
 already provided for in the cause, then the 
 effect is indeed explained, because the explain- 
 ing cause already contains it. This is the 
 hopeless deadlock of all mechanical thinking 
 along causal lines, and it can never be escaped 
 by any device of logic whatever. Thus we see 
 that the net result of all such thinking is tau-
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 193 
 
 tology and infinite regress. The logical equi- 
 valence of cause and effect in such a scheme 
 takes all progress out of it. In such a system 
 there is nothing new, but only an unfolding of 
 alleged eternal potentialities, and the notion 
 of these potentialities we have already seen to 
 be hopelessly obscure and contradictory. Thus 
 once more the notion of mechanical causality 
 shows itself as entirely unmanageable. If this 
 is what causality means we might as well be- 
 come positivists at once, for surely there is no 
 more barren business conceivable than this. 
 Time and strength are wasted, and expenses 
 are not paid. 
 
 And this is not all, for a further difficulty 
 emerges. No change of any kind is provided 
 for in such a scheme. If the connection of 
 antecedent and consequent is purely logical, 
 the premises and conclusion must coexist, and 
 all things are there at once and forever. If, 
 on the other hand, there is some dynamic prin- 
 ciple which passes from form to form, we can- 
 not explain this without making the change 
 all-inclusive ; and then all things flow. If we
 
 194 PERSONALISM 
 
 think to rest the change on necessity, we are 
 not helped, for the necessity of change means 
 a changing necessity. If the necessity re- 
 mained rigidly the same throughout the series, 
 no reason for any change whatever could be 
 found. The change, then, must penetrate into 
 the necessity itself, and a changing necessity 
 means another necessity, and once more our 
 unity breaks up into indefinite plurality. There 
 is no way of connecting the multitudinous ne- 
 cessities with any principle that unites them 
 and makes them possible, or prescribes the order 
 of their manifestation. In some way the many 
 must be referred to the one, and change must be 
 referred to the changeless, but this can never 
 be done on the mechanical and impersonal 
 plane. The only one we can find is the unitary 
 intelligence, and the only changeless we can 
 find is the self-equal intelligence. All other 
 unities and identities vanish into plurality and 
 the Heraclitic flow. There is, then, no one 
 changeless necessity which explains all things, 
 but an infinitude of necessities with nothing 
 to coordinate them.
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 195 
 
 And here again it may be well to remind 
 ourselves once more that this is not a ques- 
 tion of inductive science or common-sense 
 experience, but solely of consistent thinking. 
 Nothing that we have said has any bearing on 
 the study of succession and concomitant vari- 
 ation, which is the great field of practical sci- 
 ence. Neither does it concern the fact of caus- 
 ation, but only its form and nature. Unless 
 we bear this constantly in mind, we might 
 think it sufficient to say causality is there any- 
 way, and hence our objections are unavailing. 
 Diogenes, in reply to Plato's arguments against 
 motion, simply got up and walked. So here we 
 may say the problem is solved by walking. But 
 the answer to this is that the problem is not 
 thus solved, for it is really not the question 
 whether there be causality, but how we shall 
 conceive it. It is a question between two com- 
 peting conceptions of causality, the mechanical 
 or the volitional. As we have so often said, 
 only the order of change is given. Its causal 
 explanation is a problem for thought, and the 
 explanation must be self-consistent. There is
 
 196 PERSONALISM 
 
 no doubt that causality is there, but liow to 
 conceive it is the problem. Shall we view it 
 as mechanical or volitional, necessary or free, 
 blind or seeing ? These are questions for 
 thought to solve, and the value of competing 
 solutions is to be found in their adequacy to 
 the facts and to the demands of our reason. 
 
 Thus we see that the way of mechanical 
 causality is hard. Instead of being a manifest 
 intuition, as at first seemed to be the case, it 
 rather turns out to be a perfect nest of contra- 
 dictions and impossibilities. Volitional caus- 
 ality is the only causality of which we have 
 experience. Of mechanical causation we have 
 no experience whatever, and when we attempt 
 to think it and note its implications and the 
 difficulties into which it brings us in connec- 
 tion with the problem of time, the infinite re- 
 gress, the barren tautology, and the Heraclitic 
 flux, we see that the notion itself is so full 
 of difficulties as to be worthless, if it were 
 otherwise possible. But with volitional caus- 
 ality the case is different. Here we have the
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 197 
 
 causality of conscious intelligence which pos- 
 sesses and directs itself. Here we have a 
 cause that can make new departures without 
 losing itself in the infinite regress, — a cause 
 that was and that also is, — a cause that does 
 not lie temporally behind the process, but is 
 immanent in the process as the abiding power 
 on which it forever depends. Here is a unity 
 which in the oneness of consciousness can 
 posit plurality and remain unity still. Here is 
 an abiding power which can form plans, fore- 
 see ends, and direct itself for their realization. 
 Here is a cause which in the self-equality 
 of intelligence remains identical across the 
 changes which it originates and directs. And 
 ' this is the only conception that meets the de- 
 mands of the causal idea. It is not only the 
 only conception of which we have any con- 
 crete experience, and the only one, therefore, 
 of which we can be sure that it represents any 
 actuality at all, but it is the only one that does 
 not shatter on its own inherent inconsistency 
 and the only one that is really compatible with 
 intelligence itself ; for, as will appear later on,
 
 198 PERSONALISM 
 
 will is an important and essential function in 
 what we call intellect. Intellect, conceived 
 simply as a logical mechanism of ideas, is 
 something that is totally incompatible with 
 rational thought, and lands us in the midst of 
 antinomies worse than those of the Kantian 
 system. 
 
 This brings us to the question of freedom, 
 a matter which has been very much misunder- 
 stood by most speculators. These have dis- 
 cussed it from the standpoint of the reality of 
 time, and with various mechanical analogies 
 and metaphors in their minds, and without 
 any suspicion of the emptiness of mechani- 
 cal causality in general. Motives have been' 
 treated as mechanical forces of one kind or 
 another, which may be quantitatively compared 
 on a dynamic scale and their resultant deter- 
 mined. The great time phantom has lent its 
 misleading suggestions further to confuse the 
 matter, and so it has come to be an accepted 
 dogma with many that freedom itself is a con- 
 siderable affront to reason, so much so that the
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 199 
 
 pure reason left to itself is always determinis- 
 tic ; and belief in freedom, if held at all, is 
 maintained only for moral or sentimental rea- 
 sons. This, however, is a fundamental miscon- 
 ception, as we have seen and shall further see. 
 Freedom itself has the deepest speculative sig- 
 nificance for reason and science, as well as for 
 morals and religion. 
 
 Concrete problems can never be safely con- 
 sidered in the abstract. Many a proposition may 
 seem self-evident when abstractly taken, which 
 looks very different when put into concrete form. 
 And many ideas are mutually contradictory 
 when abstractly compared, which harmonize 
 admirably when concretely realized. This is es- 
 pecially the case with the doctrine of freedom. 
 The difficulties in it have largely arisen from 
 an abstract consideration, which puts asunder 
 things that belong together. Our first care, 
 then, must be to decide what we mean by free- 
 dom in the concrete. If we succeed in vindi- 
 cating a real freedom, we may dispense with 
 the abstract freedom of the closet speculator. 
 
 By freedom in our human life we mean the
 
 200 PERSONALISM 
 
 power of self-direction, the power to form 
 plans, purposes, ideals, and to work for their 
 realization. We do not mean an abstract free- 
 dom existing by itself without relation to in- 
 telligence or desire, but simply this power of 
 self-direction in living men and women. Ab- 
 stract freedom is realized only as one aspect of 
 actual life, and must always be discussed in its 
 concrete sig'nificance. 
 
 With this understanding of what freedom 
 is, we recur to its speculative significance. This 
 appears first in its bearing on the problem of 
 error. That problem lies in this fact. First, it 
 is plain that unless our faculties are essentially 
 truthful, there is an end to all trustworthy 
 thinking; but, secondly, it is equally plain 
 that a large part of thought and belief is er- 
 roneous ; hence the question arises as a matter 
 of life and death for rational thought, how 
 to reconcile the existence of error with faith 
 in the essential truthfulness of our faculties. 
 Freedom is the only solution which does not 
 wreck reason itself. If our faculties are es- 
 sentially truthful and trustworthy, but may be
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 201 
 
 carelessly used or willfully misused, then we can 
 understand how error should arise without 
 compromising the truthfulness of our faculties. 
 But on any other basis error becomes cosmic 
 and necessary, and reason is overwhelmed in 
 skepticism. 
 
 This matter has never been adequately con- 
 sidered by necessitarians, or generally by phi- 
 losophers. They have been content to take 
 knowledge for granted, and have failed to see 
 that any philosophic theory must develop its 
 doctrine of knowledge out of its own resources, 
 and to see that many theories are suicidal and 
 therefore are fatal to the first condition of all 
 theorizing, — trust in reason itself. Such is 
 the case with all materialistic, atheistic, neces- 
 sitarian, and mechanical schemes of thinking 
 in general. In any such system the distinction 
 between truth and error disappears, and one 
 notion is as good as another while it lasts, 
 since all alike are equally necessary. Hence 
 any one wishing to find his way into the prob- 
 lem of freedom will do well to consider first of 
 all the relation of freedom to intelligence itself,
 
 202 PERSONALISM 
 
 and the collaj)se of rationality involved in the 
 system of necessity. 
 
 Necessity, on the other hand, is commonly 
 supposed to be a perfectly clear and self-evident 
 notion. This view is pretty sure to arise in the 
 early stages of reflection, but deeper study dis- 
 pels it. The only clear conception we have of 
 necessity is rational necessity, that is, the neces- 
 sity which attaches to the relation of ideas, as 
 in logic and mathematics ; but this necessity is 
 not found in experience, whether of the inner 
 or outer world. The elements of experience 
 and their connections are all contingent as far 
 as rational necessity goes ; that is, we cannot 
 deduce them from ideas or connect them by any 
 rational bond. The necessity, then, if there be 
 any, is metaphysical, and this logic finds to be 
 an exceedingly obscure notion, and one which 
 eludes any positive conception. It can be nei- 
 ther sensuously cognized nor rationally appre- 
 hended, and the more we wrestle with the idea 
 the worse our puzzle becomes. We have already 
 found it impossible to do anything with the 
 notion without adding to it the further notion
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 203 
 
 of potentiality, and what a necessary metaphys- 
 ical potentiality might be we have found it im- 
 possible to say. It must be in some sense an ac- 
 tuality, or it could never affect reality ; and yet 
 it cannot be an actual actuality without ante- 
 dating itself. We are driven, then , to distinguish 
 two kinds of actuality, potential and actual, 
 without, however, the least shadow of insight 
 into the distinction between them ; and in order 
 to do this we have to make causality temporal, 
 which is impossible. Non-temporal causality, 
 on the other hand, would be motionless on the 
 impersonal plane, and would lead to nothing. 
 Thus the doctrine of necessity finds itself in 
 unstable equilibrium, between the groundless 
 becoming of Hume's doctrine, in which events 
 succeed one another without having any inner 
 ground or connection, and a doctrine of free- 
 dom, in which the ground of connection and 
 progress is to be found, not in any unman- 
 ageable metaphysical bond which defies all un- 
 derstanding, but in the ever-present freedom 
 which posits events in a certain order and thus 
 forever administers all that we mean by the
 
 204 PERSONALISM 
 
 system of law, and founds all that we mean by 
 necessity in things.^ In addition, we recall the 
 overthrow of rationality involved in all neces- 
 sary systems. 
 
 Some traditional misunderstandings con- 
 cernino; the meaninsf of freedom must next 
 be considered. First, it is supposed that free- 
 dom asserts pure lawlessness. This is sheer 
 fiction. Freedom everywhere presupposes a 
 basis of fixity or uniformity, to give it any 
 meaning. Without this, of course, thought 
 perishes. Now that this freedom and uni- 
 formity can coexist, is something which can- 
 not be speculatively decided. The fact must 
 be given as real before its possibility can be 
 known. The abstract notion of freedom and 
 the abstract notion of necessity are contra- 
 dictory, just as the abstract notion of unity 
 and pluralit}'^, or simplicity and complexity, 
 is a contradiction ; but then abstractions have 
 no jurisdiction in the case. We must look 
 away from the abstract notions to the concrete 
 
 1 For a fuller discussion, see the Author's Metaphysics, re- 
 vised edition.
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 205 
 
 facts, if we would get any light on this prob- 
 lem. There is no abstract freedom and no ab- 
 stract necessity. Turning now to experience, 
 we find given a certain measure of self-con- 
 trol and a certain order of uniformity. The 
 former represents the only concrete notion 
 of freedom we possess, and the latter repre- 
 sents the only concrete notion of necessity. 
 Anything beyond this is abstract and ficti- 
 tious. 
 
 The clearest illustration of the concrete 
 union of these antithetical elements is found 
 in thought itself. The laws of thought repre- 
 sent absolute fixities of mental procedure. 
 They are the constants of the mental equa- 
 tion, representing no legislation of the will 
 but the changeless nature of reason. They 
 admit, then, of no abrogation or rebellion ; 
 and yet, while thus secure from all tampering 
 and overthrow, they do not of themselves se- 
 cure obedience. For this there is needed an 
 act of ratification by the free spirit. The mind 
 must accept these laws and govern itself in ac- 
 cordance with them. Only thus do we become
 
 206 PERSONALISM 
 
 truly rational, and that by our own free act. 
 Thus we discover freedom and uniformity 
 united in reality, or rather we discover reality 
 as having these opposite aspects. It is not com- 
 pounded of them as if they preexisted, but it 
 manifests itself in this antithetical way. Thus 
 we see that the assertion that freedom means 
 lawlessness is mistaken. An element of uni- 
 formity must always be allied with freedom, 
 even in the absolute being ; at the same time 
 we see that this element becomes controlling 
 only through freedom. 
 
 The further objection that freedom would 
 make science impossible is equally superficial. 
 We must remind ourselves once more of the 
 essentially practical nature of concrete science, 
 and also of the hypothetical character of its 
 deductions. Science exists to help us to under- 
 stand and master our living experience, and 
 only so far as it does this has it any real value 
 or loo-ical foundation. When it is freed from 
 this aim, it becomes simply a baseless dogma- 
 tism. The debate between empiricism and 
 apriorism also shows that neither school can
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 207 
 
 answer the question whether experience can 
 be depended upon. The very stiff est apriorism 
 can do no more than show that certain prin- 
 ciples represent our mental constitution and 
 determine the general form of our experience, 
 but they give no security for the actual order 
 of life. Space and time are mental forms, but 
 they do not decide what shall appear in space 
 and time. Causality is a necessity of thought, 
 but it does not determine what events shall be 
 caused or what the method of causality shall 
 be. Thus all the laws of nature are contingent. 
 They are specifications under certain apriori 
 principles, but they are not necessary impli- 
 cations of any or all of them. Accordingly 
 Mr. Mill has told us th^ we may never erect 
 them into absolute laws, but must rather limit 
 them to a "reasonable degree of extension to 
 adjacent cases." This is really the sum of 
 wisdom in the case. We are to refrain from 
 dogmatism about the infinities and eternities, 
 and hold our science for what it is worth. And 
 if we are asked to explain the formula and tell 
 what constitutes "adjacency" and what "de-
 
 208 PERSONALISM 
 
 gree of extension" is "reasonable," the an- 
 swer must be found in the range of our practi- 
 cal needs; that is, our faith must be practical 
 rather than speculative, and must become 
 vasTue and uncertain when the matter is far 
 and permanently removed from any practical 
 interest. 
 
 Now applying these considerations to the 
 claim that freedom would make science im- 
 possible, we see how baseless it is when applied 
 to any real science. Concrete science, as we 
 have so often said, concerns itself solely with 
 the modes of being and happening among 
 things and events, or with the uniformities of 
 coexistence and sequence to be found in expe- 
 rience. This work is entirely independent of 
 the question of freedom. The belief in free- 
 dom vacates no science, whether of psychology 
 or physics or chemistry. As we have seen, any 
 actual freedom presupposes law and vanishes 
 without it; and as we have also seen, no expe- 
 rienced law is incompatible with our freedom. 
 We use the laws for the realization of our 
 purposes. We govern the world and ourselves
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 209 
 
 through the laws revealed in experience. The 
 laws left to themselves would realize none 
 of our plans and products, but just as little 
 could we ourselves realize them apart from the 
 order of law. Freedom, then, is not opposed 
 to physics or chemistry or psychology or any 
 other modest science which studies the laws 
 of things and events, but only to some abso- 
 lute "Science," that is, that speculative theory 
 which ignores the indications of experience 
 and the practical aim and foundation of con- 
 crete science, and seeks to bind all things to- 
 gether in a scheme of necessity; and this, so 
 far from being science, is only inconsistent 
 and illiterate dogmatism, a pseudo-science and 
 an enemy of humanity. 
 
 The abstract treatment of the subject has 
 led to the fancy that the free person must be 
 indifferent to all considerations of wisdom and 
 knowledge. If he regards them at all, he shows 
 that he is influenced by motives, and in so far 
 is not free. This is pure abstraction. Suppose 
 there were a free person with experience of 
 life's meanings and insight into its values and
 
 I 
 
 210 PERSONALISM 
 
 oblig-ations. There is nothing- in his freedom 
 to hinder his acting rationally or to excuse 
 him for acting irrationally; but how he will 
 act does not find its sufficient g-round in the 
 " antecedent phenomena " alone, but also in 
 the mystery of self-determination. And this is 
 something which cannot be mechanically an- 
 alyzed or deduced as a necessary resultant — 
 it can only be experienced. The attempt to 
 analyze it contradicts it. The attempt to con- 
 struct it denies it. It can only be recognized 
 as the central factor of personality, the con- 
 dition of responsibility, and the basis of the 
 moral life. Criticism cannot hope to construe 
 it ; it can only point it out as a fact, and show 
 that the objections to it rest only on an im- 
 perfect understanding of thought itself. 
 
 Persons untrained in philosophic reflection 
 will likely think that this view makes a poor 
 foundation for science and philosophy, but 
 they must be told that really it is the best 
 foundation there is ; and apart from closet in- 
 timidations it is good enough, and it works 
 well enough in practice. We have no need to
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 211 
 
 inquire what science as abstraction demands, 
 but rather what we human beings may demand, 
 or assume. And here it is plain that we may 
 not assume anything beyond those practical 
 uniformities which we find verified in life; 
 and when we go beyond this we are ventur- 
 ing at our own risk, and commonly with the 
 more hardihood the less we know. There is no 
 security for anything in the notion of necessity, 
 as we have so often said ; for as a matter of 
 fact if the world be the expression of necessity, 
 it is one which is compatible with change, and 
 that being so, no one can tell how much change 
 it may be compatible with. No reflection upon 
 the pure notion of necessity tells us anything 
 more than this, — that whatever happens or 
 may happen is necessary, but what it may be 
 that will happen we can tell only by waiting 
 and seeing. From our point of view, the reason 
 for the uniformity of things, or the progress of 
 things, or the coming or the going of things, 
 must be found at last in the will and plan of 
 God. There is no better security than this in 
 any abstract speculative principle, for every
 
 212 PERSONALISM 
 
 such principle helps us only by begging the 
 question. Indeed, there is really no other secu- 
 rity, for intelligence is the only foundation of 
 uniformity of which we have any experience. 
 We know that intellect in its self-conscious 
 activity can maintain uniformity throughout 
 change; and when we thus assimilate the 
 world order to self-consciousness we have a 
 sense of insight and satisfaction which is lack- 
 ing on any other view, apart from the fact 
 that every other view simply begs the ques- 
 tion. Our confidence in the orderliness of 
 nature is really of a semi-ethical character, 
 and so far as its existence as a mental fact is 
 concerned, it is less a logical warrant than a 
 psychological expectation. We give up, then, 
 the whole scientific apparatus, from mechanics 
 on, as anything ontological, and hold it only 
 for its practical value in mastering experience. 
 The fancy that it is reality itself, the true 
 existence and dynamics of the universe, has 
 been definitely set aside. 
 
 Now it is not science proper that opposes 
 this view, but dogmatism ; and this dogmatism
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 213 
 
 understands neither itself nor its problems. 
 " We, the people," have an interest in discov- 
 ering the practical uniformities in experience ; 
 " we, the people," are equally interested in 
 vindicating the rational and moral values of 
 life — which are also facts of experience ; 
 and "we, the people," are the only realities 
 in the case, and the final court of appeal. 
 
 From this theistic point of view, as was 
 pointed out in the second lecture, the universe 
 is no fixed and completed static fact, but 
 rather a process in which the divine thought 
 is being progressively realized. When we com- 
 bine this view with the subjectivity and re- 
 lativity of time, we are freed from all the 
 puzzles about the finitude or infinitude of the 
 universe. Science is permitted to discover all 
 it can about the space and time relations of 
 events, and philosophy is permitted to discover 
 all it can about the power and purpose behind 
 events, but neither is permitted to erect the 
 forms of our experience into absolute exist- 
 ences which would make experience itself im- 
 possible. The space and time laws, as we have
 
 214 PERSONALISM 
 
 seen, contain no provision for stopping, but 
 that decides nothing as to the space and time 
 contents. On this point only experience can 
 decide, and experience gives no indication. 
 Similarly, we cannot do much with the notion 
 of the universe as a " whole " or a " totality." 
 In a vague way we must believe that all things 
 have their place in the divine thought, but 
 when we go beyond this and analyze the no- 
 tion of a whole or totality as applied to the 
 system of things, the air becomes so thin that 
 breathing is difficult and flight impossible; and 
 we fall a prey to logical chimeras and verbal 
 illusions. 
 
 Mechanical causality vanishes with the in- 
 dependent existence of time, which is its fun- 
 damental condition. There is a certain pic- 
 turability to it when its objects and events 
 are spatially and temporally separate, but this 
 completely disappears when space and time are 
 made subjective. After that the doctrine be- 
 comes only a formal shuffling of verbal phrases, 
 and we have absolutely no means of showing 
 that there is any corresponding reality. We
 
 MECHANICAL OR VOLITIONAL CAUSALITY 215 
 
 have seen that any concept of the understand- 
 ing must be formal and empty until some ex- 
 perience certifies it as real. We have no such 
 experience in the case of mechanical causality, 
 and hence, even if it were a consistent notion, 
 it could never be shown to be a fact. Expe- 
 rience certifies only volitional causality as real, 
 and our thought of causality must be either 
 that or nothing:. 
 
 And if it be asked how such causality is 
 possible, the answer must be that the question 
 itself is irrational. The basal fact, whatever it 
 be, can never be construed in its possibility ; 
 that would be a denial of its fundamental 
 character. All that can be done in the nature 
 of the case is to show it to be a fact, and a 
 fact that accounts for all other facts. Here we 
 come again upon our transcendental empiricism. 
 Intellect explains everything but itself. It ex- 
 hibits other things as its own products and as 
 exemplifying its own principles ; but it never 
 explains itself. It knows itself in living and 
 only in living, but it is never to be explained 
 by anything, being itself the only principle of
 
 216 • PERSONALISM 
 
 explanation. When we attempt to explain it 
 by anything else, or even by its own princi- 
 ples, we fall down to the plane of mechanism 
 again, and reason and explanation disappear 
 tog-ether. But when we make active intelli- 
 gence the basal fact, all other facts become 
 luminous and comprehensible, at least in their 
 possibility, and intelligence knows itself as 
 their source and explanation. 
 
 When we consider the world as an object 
 of knowledge, we come to personalism as the 
 only tenable view. When we consider it from 
 the standpoint of causality, we come equally 
 to personalism as the only tenable view.
 
 THE FAILUEE OF IMPERSONALISM 
 
 Impersonalism might riglitly be ruled out, 
 on the warrant of our previous studies. We 
 have seen that when our fundamental philo- 
 sophic principles are impersonally and ab- 
 stractly taken, they disappear either in con- 
 tradiction or in empty verbalism. In all our 
 thinking, when critically scrutinized, we find 
 self-conscious and active intelligence the pre- 
 supposition not only of our knowledge but of 
 the world of objects as well. We might, then, 
 rest our case and demand a verdict. Peda- 
 gogically, however, it seems better to con- 
 tinue the case. The naturalistic obsession is 
 not easily overcome, and it takes time to form 
 right habits of thinking, even when the truth 
 is recognized. The present lecture, then, is 
 devoted to showing somewhat more in detail 
 the shortcomings of impersonal philosophy. 
 Impersonalism may be reached in two ways.
 
 218 PERSONALISM 
 
 The sense-bound mind sees a great variety of 
 extra-mental, impersonal things in the world 
 about us, and these very naturally bulk large 
 iu thought. Thus things, with of course such 
 modifications of the conception as a superficial 
 reflection may suggest, tend to become the 
 basal fact of existence. In this way naturalism 
 arises, with its mechanical way of thinking 
 and its materialistic and atheistic tendencies. 
 This is one form of impersonalism. 
 
 The other form of impersonalism arises 
 through the fallacy of the abstract. Uncritical 
 minds always attempt to explain the explana- 
 tion, thus unwittingly committing themselves 
 to the infinite regress. Accordingly when they 
 come to living intelligence as the explanation 
 of the world, they fancy that they must go 
 behind even this. We have the categories of 
 being, cause, identity, change, the absolute, 
 and the like ; and intelligence at best is only 
 a specification or particular case of these more 
 general principles. These principles, then, lie 
 behind all personal or other existence, as its 
 presupposition and source, and constitute a
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 219 
 
 set of true first principles, from which all defi- 
 nite and concrete reality is derived by some 
 sort of logical process or implication. This is 
 a species of idealistic impersonalism. In its 
 orio-in it is antipodal to naturalism, but in the 
 outcome the two often coincide. Strauss said 
 of the Hegelian ideahsm that the difference 
 between it and materialism was only one of 
 words ; and this was certainly true of Hegel- 
 ianism of the left wing. 
 
 These two forms of impersonalism we have 
 now to consider, and we begin with natural- 
 ism. 
 
 As is the case with so many other terms, 
 naturaHsm may have two meanings. It may 
 be a principle of scientific method, and it 
 may be a philosophic doctrine. In the former 
 sense it is about identical with science itself, 
 and is full of beneficence. By making the 
 notion and fact of law prominent, it has given 
 us control over the world and ourselves, and 
 has freed the human mind from endless super- 
 stition and ignorance. Nature is no longer the
 
 220 PERSONALISM 
 
 seat of arbitrary caprice; and life no longer 
 swarms with omens, portents, and devils. One 
 must read at length in the history of human- 
 ity to recognize our debt to naturalism in this 
 sense. We live in peace and sanity where our 
 ancestors lived among; dans^erous and destruc- 
 tive obsessions, because a wise naturalism has 
 displaced the false supernaturalism of earlier 
 times. When, therefore, we speak of the fail- 
 ure of naturalism, we do not mean the failure 
 of scientific naturalism, for this is one of 
 humanity's best friends. 
 
 But philosophical naturalism is another 
 thing. This is not a science, but a philosophy, 
 and it has to be subjected to philosophical 
 criticism in order to estimate its value. This 
 general view is closely allied to common-sense 
 realism, and is indeed but a kind of extension 
 or refinement of it. As the untrained mind is 
 naturally objective in its thinking, the things 
 and bodies about us are taken for substantial 
 realities as a matter of course, and they tend 
 in advance of reflection to become the stand- 
 ard by which all else must be measured and to
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 221 
 
 which all else must conform. Things that we 
 can see and handle are the undeniable reali- 
 ties. About them there can be no question; 
 but things invisible are, for common sense, 
 doubtful; and as these things of sense experi- 
 ence by an easy generalization may be gathered 
 under the one head, matter, and their activ- 
 ities ascribed to the one cause, force, matter 
 and force come to be the supreme and basal 
 realities of our objective experience. When 
 their realm is extended, they often come to be 
 viewed as the sole realities. But these realities 
 are in space and time, which are looked upon 
 as undoubted facts of a sort, and when they 
 are combined with matter and force we get the 
 fundamental factors of the scheme. Space and 
 time furnish the scene; matter furnishes the 
 existence; and force, manifesting itself in 
 motion, furnishes the causality. These five fac- 
 tors constitute nature, and from them nature 
 is to be construed and comprehended. Mr. 
 Spencer presents them as the factors on which 
 an interpretation of the world must rest, and 
 according to him cosmic processes consist in
 
 222 . PERSONALISM 
 
 an integration of matter and concomitant dis- 
 sipation of motion. Here space and time are 
 implied, matter and motion are expressed, and 
 force, as the backlying causality, is under- 
 stood ; and all interpretation of nature, it is 
 said, must be in terms of these factors. This 
 might be called the programme of philosophic 
 naturalism. It aims to explain all the higher 
 forms of experience, including life and so- 
 ciety, in terms of matter and force working in 
 space and time under the forms of motion. 
 To what extent this is a coherent and con- 
 sistent system we have now to consider, and 
 for a time we shall limit our inquiry to its 
 explanation of the objective world of bodies, 
 postponing any inquiry into its explanation of 
 life and mind and society. 
 
 This system, as said, is allied in its begin- 
 nings with common-sense realism, and never 
 gets entirely away from it. Whatever changes 
 may be made in the common-sense view in the 
 direction of transfigured realism, it still com- 
 monly holds on to the conception of an imper- 
 sonal order of things ; and even when it trans-
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 223 
 
 forms things themselves into phenomena or 
 processes, it still affirms the existence of energy 
 under mechanical laws, producing a series of 
 impersonal effects and moving from phase to 
 phase according to the parallelogram of forces. 
 It is an attempt to explain the world by imper- 
 sonal and mechanical principles. Of course 
 there is no suspicion that transfigured realism 
 and phenomenalism are veritable Trojan horses 
 for the theory. 
 
 This view was perfectly natural and almost 
 necessary for spontaneous thought, when it 
 became a little reflective and sought to un- 
 fold the implications of its crude sense meta- 
 physics. But in this view we have a double 
 abstraction. First, the objects of experience, 
 which are given only in experience and which 
 analysis shows are conceivable only as func- 
 tions of intelligence, are abstracted from all 
 relation to intellect as the veritable fact in 
 itself which is later to explain intellect. This 
 is as much as if one should abstract language 
 from intelligence and then adduce language 
 as the explanation of intelligence. The second
 
 224 PERSONALISM 
 
 abstraction is that even in experience itself 
 only one aspect is fixed on, that of extension 
 and motion, and this is supposed to be the 
 real. All else is accidental and subordinate, 
 but matter and motion are beyond any ques- 
 tion. The world of qualities, all that gives life 
 to experience, is ignored, and only the quan- 
 titative aspect is retained. But this is another 
 product of fiction. There is no such world 
 except among the abstractions of physicists. 
 It is as little real as the forms of abstract 
 mechanics by which we represent the relations 
 of phenomena, without, however, pretend- 
 ing to reproduce the actual causality. Oddly 
 enough, there is a strong idealistic factor in 
 this naturalistic mechanism. Looking at the 
 moving atoms with critical eye, nothing but 
 quantitative distinctions and relations are dis- 
 covered to exist. Qualitative distinctions and 
 relations are contributed by the spectator, and 
 they are the chief part of the real problem. 
 According to the theory, the fact would be a 
 great multitude of elements falling apart and 
 together according to the laws of motion, but
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 225 
 
 tlien there is very much more than this in 
 experience. Indeed, this is not experience at 
 all. A mind which could completely grasp the 
 moving elements as they are in themselves 
 and not in the appearance, would miss the 
 most important part in the system, that is, 
 the whole world of sense qualities and dis- 
 tinctions, in the midst and enjoyment of 
 which we live. Thus the most important part 
 of experience is not explained at all, but is 
 handed over to a kind of subjective experi- 
 ence somewhere in consciousness, while the 
 theoretical explanation applies only to ab- 
 stractions. Thus we invert the true order of 
 fact. We discredit the real experience, or ig- 
 nore it, and triumphantly solve an imaginary 
 problem. As pointed out in a previous lec- 
 ture, we are shut up by this way of thinking 
 to transfigured realism and all its fictitious 
 problems, with the result that the world we 
 experience becomes more and more subjective, 
 while the alleged real world becomes less and 
 less accessible and less and less worth know- 
 ing. This result we reach quite apart from
 
 226 PERSONALISM 
 
 the phenomenality of the whole mechanical 
 scheme as shown in Lecture III. 
 
 A further reflection on this view as it com- 
 monly appears in popular discussion is that 
 on its own realistic ground it is throughout 
 ambiguous. There are two entirely different 
 types of explanation in logic, explanation by 
 classification and explanation by causality ; and 
 naturalism oscillates confusedly between them. 
 At times we are told that explanation consists 
 entirely in discovering the uniformities of ex- 
 perience, and that the ultimate explanation 
 must consist in discovering the most general 
 uniformity of experience. At other times, 
 however, the causal idea shuffles in and the 
 attempt is made to explain by causality. We 
 must consider both types in our criticism. 
 
 Explanation by classification always remains 
 on the surface. Things are grouped together 
 by means of some common factor of likeness, 
 but we never get any insight into the inner 
 nature of things in this way. Such explana- 
 tion has only a formal convenience, but we 
 never can reach causes or reasons by this road.
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 227 
 
 We merely unite similar things in groups or 
 series, and thus rescue them from their iso- 
 lation and o'et a common name for them all. 
 Such explanation merely drops out the differ- 
 ences of things and retains the point or points 
 in which they are similar, and then regards 
 that as their true explanation. How little this 
 in itself helps us to insight is manifest upon 
 reflection. We may gather all living things 
 under the one head, organism, but in this case 
 •we simply find a common term for a multi- 
 tude of things, which are not identified in any 
 way by the classification, but simply brought 
 under a simple head for purposes of logical 
 convenience. Organism applies to every living 
 thing whether animal or vegetable, spore or 
 tree, microbe or elejjhant; and these differ- 
 ences, which are really the essential things in 
 the case, are simply dropped out of sight, and 
 we have the one term, organism, by which we 
 are to understand the multitudinous plurality 
 of living things. In the same way we may 
 regard all objects as cases of matter and mo- 
 tion. But we get by such classification exceed-
 
 228 PERSONALISM 
 
 ingly little information. The generalization is 
 so vagfue as to include all tliincrs at the ex- 
 pense of meaning practically nothing. We get 
 very little valuable insight by classing all the 
 products of human invention in the world as 
 machines, or by classing all living organisms 
 as integrations of matter and motion. It may 
 be that they all come under the head of mat- 
 ter and motion in some aspects of their being, 
 but even then we have no valuable informa- 
 tion. It is, indeed, possible that some sciences 
 would need to consider only the matter and 
 motion aspect, just as a shoemaker might con- 
 sider men only as shoe-wearing animals, and 
 no harm would be done if this aspect were 
 seen in its partial and superficial character. 
 In some respects our human life is a case of 
 matter and motion, and in some other respects 
 it is not a case of matter and motion. There 
 may be matter and motion in connection with 
 thought, but thought is not matter and motion. 
 If the naturalistic formula, then,, confines 
 itself simply to such classification, it is plain 
 that it might be in a way true, and equally
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 229 
 
 plain that it would be at best only a partial 
 view and might be worthless, inasmuch as it 
 would leave all the differences of things, which 
 constitute their special peculiarities and the 
 leading problem in dealing with them, out of 
 consideration, and merely find their explanation 
 in some one point in which they should agree. 
 It would be scarcely more absurd if we should 
 decide to explain all human bodies by the fact 
 that they all had noses and ears, and should 
 then leave out of consideration the multitud- 
 inous personal peculiarities whereby each is 
 constituted a separate and incommunicable 
 individual. 
 
 It is plain, then, that if the naturalistic ex- 
 planation is to be of any use to us, it must go 
 beyond these superficial generalities of classi- 
 fication, and must descend into the realm of 
 causation, and also give account of the specific 
 peculiarities or differentia of concrete things. 
 And here difficulties begin to thicken. 
 
 Objects in space, large or small, can be pic- 
 tured, and it seems at first as if the natural- 
 istic view admitted of being really conceived.
 
 230 PERSONALISM 
 
 We can easily imagine a variety of bodies in 
 space variously grouped and moving, and 
 these bodies might conceivably be very small, 
 so as to give vis the molecules or atoms of 
 theoretical physics. These also admit in a way 
 of being pictured in their spatial relations or 
 combinations; but when we come to add to 
 these the notion of causality, so as to explain 
 the order of spatial and temporal change, we 
 find ofrave difficulties arisins-. With bodies of 
 the kind described, the only thing we can ex- 
 plain is amorphous masses ; that is, with bare 
 lumps we can explain only heaps. Unless we 
 assume a mover without, we must posit moving 
 forces within ; and unless these forces are un- 
 der some structural law, they will explain only 
 amorphous masses again. Simply pulling and 
 pushing in a straight line, as central forces are 
 supposed to do, make no provision for organi- 
 zation. Assuming, theiij the existence of such 
 forces, we have a double order of facts, one of 
 spatial change and one of a metaphysical na- 
 ture. The former is a changfe amonof thinsfs ; 
 the latter is a change in things. The former
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 231 
 
 depends on the latter. All substantial changes 
 amono- thing's must be viewed as translations 
 into phenomenal form of dynamic relations in 
 things, and the spatial system can be under- 
 stood only through the dynamic system. No 
 spatial change explains itself or anything else 
 until it is referred to a hidden dynamism. If 
 we subtract a chemical element from a given 
 molecule no one can see the slightest reason 
 in that fact for the resulting chemical change, 
 unless we assume a system of dynamic rela- 
 tions within the elements themselves which 
 determines the form of their manifestation 
 and interaction, and this system must be as 
 complex and various as the phenomena them- 
 selves. 
 
 If we had a great mass of type no one 
 would be dull enough to suppose that that 
 would explain literature, even in its mechan- 
 ical expression. It might indeed be said that 
 literature in its mechanical form arises throusrh 
 the differentiation and integration of type; but 
 while this would be true it would hardly pay 
 expenses, for the work of the compositor can-
 
 232 PERSONALISM 
 
 not be done by polysyllabic words. But if we 
 were determined to get along without the type- 
 setter, we should have to endow the type with 
 highly mysterious forces if they are to be equal 
 to their task. Plain pushes and pulls would 
 simply give us type in heaps or scattered 
 about, as the pushes or pulls predominated, 
 and this would not meet the case. We must 
 have type which will pull and push themselves 
 into the order demanded by the thought. Thus 
 if the type were to set up " Paradise Lost," they 
 would have to be such that sundry type would 
 come to the front and arrange themselves in 
 the following order : — 
 
 " Of man's first disobedience and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into our world and all our woe, 
 Sing, heavenly muse." 
 
 The other type must likewise march to their 
 proper positions in order to make up the work. 
 But in that case it is plain that the idea of the 
 work is already immanent in the constitution 
 of the type, otherwise we should be seeking to 
 explain the orderly result by the chance jos- 
 tlings of the type. That this is impossible every
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 233 
 
 one can see in the case of typesetting. Every 
 one sees here that the arrangement of the type 
 is as much a part of the problem as their exist- 
 ence, and that the existence does not imply 
 the arrangement. But if we insist on making 
 the existence imply the arrangement, we must 
 carry the arrangement into the existence in 
 the form of '' subtle tendencies " and " mys- 
 terious potentialities ; " and these, in addition 
 to being of exceedingly elusive meaning, do 
 not illumine the problem at all, but rather 
 darken it. To complete the parallel we must 
 suppose that the type themselves were not 
 originally given in their separate character, 
 but only an indefinite, incoherent, unknowable 
 homogeneity, which through continuous differ- 
 entiations and integrations produced the type 
 with all their specific characters and subtle 
 tendencies and mysterious potentialities. This 
 gives us an idea, on the naturalistic basis, of 
 the necessity of a hidden dynamism for the 
 explanation of spatial grouping and also of its 
 unmanageable complexity. 
 
 This invisible dynamic system is overlooked
 
 234 PERSONALISM 
 
 altogether by spatial thought. Such thought 
 has only the atoms and the void as data, and 
 it can easily conceive the atoms as variously 
 grouped within this void. The spatial imagina- 
 tion serves for this insight and nothing more 
 is demanded ; but when thought is clarified to 
 the point of seeing the necessity of forming 
 an unpicturable dynamism behind the system 
 of spatial changes, then the dark impenetra- 
 bility of our physical metaphysics begins to 
 appear. Spatial combination we can picture ; 
 volitional causality we experience ; but what 
 that is which is less than the latter and more 
 than the former is an exceedingly difficult 
 problem. The fact is, we are simply using 
 formal counters here, and are unable to tell 
 whether there is anything whatever corre- 
 sponding to them. We believe that there must 
 be cause and ground, and then we suppose 
 that the atoms themselves can be causes; but 
 when we attempt to think the matter through, 
 then we soon find that we are applying the 
 categories, as Kant would say, in a region 
 where we have no experience, or rather no in-
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 235 
 
 tuition. The result is, our thought may be in 
 a way formally correct, but we have no assur- 
 ance that it represents any actual fact what- 
 ever. This, then, shows first of all the dark 
 unpicturability of naturalistic metaphysics 
 from the dynamic side ; and remembering the 
 results of the discussion of the previous lec- 
 ture, we find reason for saying that this meta- 
 physics is entirely fictitious. It is an attempt 
 to apj)ly the notion of causality under circum- 
 stances, and in a form, which it is impossible 
 for us to construe. 
 
 Can life and mind and morals and society 
 be explained on a naturalistic basis? These 
 questions were warmly debated in the last gen- 
 eration, but seldom understood. How naive it 
 all was, is manifest as soon as we look at the 
 matter from a more critical standpoint. The 
 space and time world of phenomena explains 
 nothing ; it is rather the problem itself. The 
 real account of anything must be sought in 
 the world of power ; and this world eludes us 
 altogether, unless we raise power to include in- 
 telligence and purpose. The unpicturable no-
 
 236 PERSONALISM 
 
 tions of the understanding, as substance, cause, 
 unity, identity, etc., elude all spatial intuition, 
 and vanish even from thought when imperson- 
 ally taken. Concerning life and mind and man, 
 it is permitted to look for all the uniformities 
 we can find amono; their antecedents and con- 
 comitants, but this is only classification and 
 reveals no causality. And any fairly clear- 
 minded critic is willing to have anything what- 
 ever discovered in the space and time realm ; 
 for he knows that the only question of any 
 real importance is that of causation. Those per- 
 sons who expect to find matter to be the sufii- 
 cient cause of life, and those who fear it may 
 be, reveal thereby such profound ignorance of 
 the true state of the problem that, while charity 
 is called for, they merit no further considera- 
 tion. Even if so-called spontaneous generation 
 proved to be a fact, it would only mean that 
 living things may arise under other phenome- 
 nal conditions than those that generally obtain ; 
 it would not mean that " material causes " are 
 able of themselves to produce living beings. 
 The wonder would lie altogether in the phe-
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 237 
 
 nomenal realm, and would leave the question 
 of the power at work as obscure as ever. Thus 
 as soon as we distinguish the question of clas- 
 sification and sjDatial arrangement from that of 
 causality, we see how superficial naturalistic 
 philosophy has been. Classification has passed 
 for identification, phenomena have been made 
 into things, and sequence has been mistaken 
 for causality. This naive confusion has made 
 speculation very easy. 
 
 But supposing this dynamic difficulty in a 
 way removed, we next meet another puzzle 
 arising from overlooking the distinction be- 
 tween concrete and exhaustive thinking- and 
 symbolic or shorthand thinking. In other 
 words, popular naturalism assumes that we have 
 the simple physical elements in simple spatial 
 relations, and that they are endowed with cer- 
 tain central forces of no very comj^lex kind, 
 but such that they admit of producing a great 
 variety of complications, thus passing from the 
 simple to the complex and from the homo- 
 geneous to the heterogeneous. Every one will 
 recall at this point the current formula of evo-
 
 238 PERSONALISM 
 
 lution, which claims to proceed from the like 
 to the unlike, from the simple to the complex, 
 from homogeneity to heterogeneity, through 
 continuous differentiations and integrations. 
 This difficulty is only a specification in detail 
 of the tautology which inheres in every me- 
 chanical doctrine of causation, as pointed out 
 in the last lecture. 
 
 This fancy is almost the sum of naturalistic 
 philosophizing. If the infinite complexity of 
 the concrete problem, in spite of all the sim- 
 plifications and identifications of words, were 
 seen, naturalism would lose all credit. The fancy 
 in question is simply the fallacy of the univer- 
 sal, and rests upon mistaking the logical pro- 
 cess for an ontological one, or from mistaking 
 logical application for ontological implication. 
 The class term applies to every member of 
 the class, but it implies no one of them. Thus 
 the term man applies to every human being, 
 but it does not imply any living human being 
 whatever. But this is overlooked by the spec- 
 ulator, and he thinks it very possible to pass 
 from complexity to simplicity, from heteroge-
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 239 
 
 neity to homogeneity, and in this way he suc- 
 ceeds in reaching some simple, almost content- 
 less, terms, and these, which are really the last 
 terms of logical abstraction, are supposed to be 
 the first terms of real existence. Then these 
 terms, because very simple and vague and in- 
 definite in themselves, seem to raise no ques- 
 tions and excite no surprise. They may well, 
 then, be taken as original starting-points for 
 world building and similar cosmological ex- 
 ploits. In this way, then, such abstractions as 
 matter and force are reached, and they take the 
 place of the physical elements, which are the 
 only realities in the case. But in all this we 
 simply forget the concrete facts. They remain 
 as complex and multiform as ever. There is no 
 simple thing, matter, and no simple fact, mo- 
 tion, to be distributed, but rather an indefinite 
 number of moving things of various quantity 
 and quality and in the most complex and mys- 
 terious dynamic relations. When we pass to 
 the concrete we see the difference between the 
 logical concept and the concrete reality, and 
 we also see that logical simplification does not
 
 240 PERSONALISM 
 
 affect the reality at all. When, then, we re- 
 place the physical elements by the logical ab- 
 straction, matter, we do not reach anything 
 indefinite or incoherent or homogeneous. Each 
 of these elements has its own definite qualities 
 definitely related in a definite system of defi- 
 nite law. There is no incoherency in the real 
 system, and no progress toward greater cohe- 
 rency, except in relation to standards which 
 we impose upon the system. If we take the 
 solar system as a standard, we may call the 
 nebulous period incoherent. If we take a solid 
 body as a standard, we may call a gas incoher- 
 ent. If we take a mature organism as a stand- 
 ard, we may call the embryo incoherent. But in 
 all these cases the incoherency is relative to an 
 assumed standard, and is non-existent for the 
 underlying nature of things and the system of 
 law. The homogeneity and heterogeneity, the 
 coherence and incoherence, are relative to the 
 speculator and his point of view, and in fact 
 are but shadows of himself. 
 
 We may, then, admit the evolution formula 
 as a description of the order in which things
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 241 
 
 come along, such that the earlier forms were 
 simple and homogeneous and the later forms 
 more complex and differentiated; but we can- 
 not admit that this represents any possible 
 order of mechanical causality or any simplifi- 
 cation of the concrete problem. We can never 
 by classification reduce our problem to lower 
 terms. If we begin with the complex no logic 
 will enable us to escape into the simple on the 
 impersonal plane, and if we begin with the 
 simple we can never advance to the complex. 
 Whatever we begin with, we are compelled to 
 retain, however far back we may reason. The 
 law of the sufficient reason compels us to find 
 in the premises full and adequate preparation 
 for the conclusion ; and if the conclusion be 
 complex, then there must be corresponding 
 complexity in the premises. We may call it po- 
 tential rather than actual, but all the same we 
 are compelled to make our antecedents such 
 that when they are exhaustively understood 
 they are seen to contain, even to the minutest 
 detail, all that will ever appear in the conclu- 
 sion. The logical equivalence of cause and
 
 242 PERSONALISM 
 
 effect in any necessary scheme to which we 
 referred in the last lecture makes this abso- 
 lutely necessary, and hence makes it forever 
 impossible to look upon the evolutionary doc- 
 trine as valid in causation. If we suppose a 
 cause apart from the movement, which is suc- 
 cessively manifesting a plan beginning with 
 the early and simple forms and then proceeding 
 to higher and more complex and differentiated 
 forms, we can understand that by assimilating 
 it to our own intellectual life ; but apart from 
 that the doctrine is absolutely impossible. We 
 are compelled on the impersonal plane to as- 
 sume everything either actually or potentially 
 at the beginning, or, if there was no begin- 
 ning, then to assume it from everlasting. 
 
 The two conceptions of evolution, evolu- 
 tion as a description of the phenomenal order 
 and evolution as a doctrine of causation, have 
 never been sufficiently distinguished by the 
 rank and file of speculators in this field. They 
 have ' taken the phenomenal order for the 
 causal order, and have seldom raised the ques- 
 tion as to what their evolution really means and
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 243 
 
 what its conditions may be. Accordingly we 
 have the proposition to evolve the atoms, with 
 all the familiar formulas about passing from 
 the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, etc. 
 Nowadays that the supposedly fixed elements 
 seem to be combinations of something simpler, 
 this attempt is frequently met with. It is sug- 
 gested that the atoms of those substances 
 which lie in the same chemical group are per- 
 haps built up from the same ions, or at least 
 from ions which possess the same mass and 
 electric charge, and that the differences which 
 exist in the materials thus constituted arise 
 more from the manner of the association of 
 the ions in the atom than from differences in 
 the fundamental character of the ions which 
 build up the atoms. Well, here we have the 
 same thing — the attempt to explain qualita- 
 tive by quantitative difference, and the same 
 failure to inquire what the attempt really pre- 
 supposes. 
 
 If we should conceive a half-dozen bricks 
 placed one at each angle of a pentagon and 
 one at the centre, and should then conceive
 
 244 PERSONALISM 
 
 an additional brick added so as to have one at 
 each angle of a hexagon and one at the centre, 
 we see no reason whatever for any particnlar 
 change of quality of the combination arising 
 from the addition of the new brick. And that 
 is all that bare quantity can do. No variations 
 of quantity contain any explanation of quali- 
 tative change, unless we assume a qualitative 
 system in connection with the quantity. We 
 can add elements to atomic groups or sub- 
 tract them ; but unless the elements them- 
 selves stand in definite dynamic relations which 
 imply particular groups and qualities, to the 
 exclusion of other groups and qualities, we 
 cannot deal with the problem at all. If the 
 atoms are not in such relations, the problem is 
 of course insoluble ; and if they are in such 
 relations, we assume the fact to be explained 
 from the start. It is then conceivable that 
 our present elements might be analyzed into 
 other elements which might be called simpler, 
 but the thing which is not possible is by such 
 an analysis to escape from the complexity of 
 the existing system, because we should have
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 245 
 
 to trace into those antecedents which are to 
 produce the present complexity and difference 
 the same complexity and difference in one 
 form or another. 
 
 Moreover, in thinking the matter through 
 we should have to inquire whether evolution 
 as such assumes anything or not. Does it 
 begin with something vague, formless, and 
 lawless, or does it begin with a definite sys- 
 tem and reign of law, so that everything is 
 determined in its place and relation ? In the 
 former case we can take no step whatever in 
 the way of understanding anything. It would 
 be simply the notion of pure being, which is 
 nothing, and which, if it were anything, could 
 never be used for the understanding of ex- 
 perience. But if we begin with a definite sys- 
 tem of law, in which all the factors are sub- 
 ject to the reign of law, then it is plain we 
 never can introduce anything new into the 
 system, for everything is determined from 
 the beginning ; and if there was no begin- 
 ning, everything was determined from ever- 
 lasting. In any mechanical system, under the
 
 246 PERSONALISM 
 
 law of the logical equivalence of cause and 
 effect, it is forever impossible to make new de- 
 partures or to reach anything essentially new. 
 We can only oscillate between the present 
 actuality and the past potentiality, potential- 
 izing the present as we go back in our thought, 
 and actualizing the potentiality as we come 
 forward in our thought, but always so that 
 potential plus actual must remain a constant 
 quantity. In popular thought about this 
 matter there is a continual oscillation, for 
 the most part unsuspected, between the two 
 points of view. We try to explain everything 
 by antecedents, and so by the aid of the fal- 
 lacy of the universal as we go backward we 
 succeed in reaching to our satisfaction some 
 indefinite, incoherent homogeneity. But logic 
 forthwith shows the emptiness of this notion 
 and the impossibility of reaching it. Then we 
 begin again, mindful this time of the reign of 
 law, and assume an order of law, and then fail 
 to notice that as soon as we do that, on the im- 
 personal plane we have determined everything 
 for all future time, so that nothing new may
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 247 
 
 hereafter be introduced without some irrup- 
 tion from without. No new departures are 
 possible in a mechanical scheme. 
 
 The same difficulty appears when we work 
 the question forward instead of backward. 
 Here again the naturalistic speculator has com- 
 monly been under the influence of sense 
 bondage and has tacitly assumed that what 
 he could not see was not there, so that differ- 
 ences which did not manifest themselves to the 
 senses might be regarded as non-existent. But 
 the same law which we have been referring to 
 makes it clear that no developing thing can 
 ever be understood or defined by what it mo- 
 mentarily is, but only by all that which it is 
 to become. It can be explained, then, not by 
 reference to its crude beginnings, but only by 
 reference to the finished outcome. Aristotle 
 reached this insight two thousand years ago. 
 When, then, the biological speculator tells us, 
 as if it were a very conclusive fact, that the 
 embryos of many of the higher animals look 
 alike in their earliest stages, we are not so much 
 impressed as perhaps we are expected to be;
 
 248 PERSONALISM 
 
 for, however much things may look aUke, if 
 they are under different laws of development 
 they are, to the eye of reason, even in the 
 earliest phases, unlike with all the unlikenesses 
 that later appear. The human embryo, when 
 it is undistinguishable by sight from the em- 
 bryo of a dog or sheep, is after all a human 
 embryo, and not the embryo of a sheep. It is 
 already under the law of human development, 
 and when it quickly passes into the human 
 form this is not something adventitiously taken 
 on through some verbal hocus-pocus about 
 differentiation and integration, but is simply 
 the manifestation of the immanent organic laws 
 under which it holds its existence and its de- 
 velopment takes place. 
 
 The whole question of the transformation 
 of species has been equally confused in natu- 
 ralistic discussion. There are really two ques- 
 tions to be considered. One is. Can existing 
 organic forms be genetically traced to earlier 
 forms so that the lines of descent as we go 
 backward converge to some common origin, as 
 the branches of a tree all meet in a common
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 249 
 
 trunk ? The other question is, What are the 
 individual things themselves, and what is the 
 power that produces them? The former ques- 
 tion belongs to science, the latter belongs to 
 philosophy. 
 
 The former question has only a subordinate 
 interest, and philosophy is content to have the 
 answer fall out as it may, provided fact and 
 logic be duly regarded. Its supposed impor- 
 tance is due to the implicit assumption of a 
 self-running nature which does a great many 
 unintended things on its own account, and to 
 the fancy that such genetic connection would 
 mean identity of nature in the successive mem- 
 bers of the series. 
 
 The second question is the only one of any 
 real importance. In considering it we must 
 first note the nominalism of the doctrine of 
 descent. 
 
 A species as such is nothing but a group 
 of individuals which more or less closely re- 
 semble one another. In the case of the more 
 prominent living species we should probably 
 add the notion of genetic connection, but this
 
 250 PERSONALISM 
 
 would iu no way affect the nominalism of the 
 doctrine. If, then, the so-called transformation 
 of species took place, the objective fact, apart 
 from our logical manipulation, would be this : 
 If individuals were taken from points widely 
 apart in a line of descent, they would be so un- 
 like that we should not class them together. 
 But this would not identify individuals, or 
 higher and lower forms. The fact would be 
 a power producing individuals in such a way 
 that they could be variously classified, possibly 
 on an ascending scale and in adaptation to 
 hiofher and fuller life. In that case we should 
 have the familiar progress from the simple 
 to the complex, from the low to the high, and 
 all the rest ; but it would be entirely free from 
 all those fearsome identifications of man with 
 the monkey, etc., which have so infested the 
 popular imagination. For one holding the 
 phenomenality of nature and the volitional 
 character of all so-called natural causality, 
 there is nothing to excite alarm in any per- 
 missible doctrine of the transformation of spe- 
 cies.
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 251 
 
 We find naturalism, then, entirely in its right 
 when it seeks to give a description of the 
 phenomenal order according to which things 
 have appeared, but we find it as a philosophy 
 exceedingly superficial and uncritical. Apart 
 from the critical doubts which we have discov- 
 ered in the previous lecture respecting mechan- 
 ical causality in general, and the necessity of 
 lifting the problem of causation to the personal 
 plane in order to keep it from vanishing in 
 the Heraclitic flux, we find that this doctrine 
 vanishes in complete and barren tautology as 
 soon as we take it concretely and exhaustively, 
 instead of symbolically and in a shorthand 
 way. This way of thinking is compelled to 
 carry the present into the past, or into its ma- 
 chinery of whatever sort, in such a way as to 
 empty it of all progress of any kind. When, 
 then, in such a scheme we make a cross section 
 of the cosmic flow qr any part of it anywhere, 
 we are compelled to find potentially or actually 
 present all that ever will be ; and if we choose 
 to carry the regress never so far back, the same 
 necessity attends us; and if at last we reach
 
 252 PERSONALISM 
 
 some nebulous period of dispersed matter or a 
 fiery cloud, even there, when we look around 
 upon the situation with our eyes open, we are 
 compelled to find latent and potential all that 
 will ever emerge in all the future through which 
 the system may endure. In addition, when 
 naturalism becomes mathematical and seeks to 
 reduce all qualitative distinctions to quantita- 
 tive ones, it leaves the real world altogether, 
 and becomes a pure abstraction like the 
 world of abstract mechanics. Like that world, 
 it has only representative value, and is never 
 to be mistaken for the world of real existence. 
 These are the leading difficulties of natural- 
 ism as a philosophy. There are numberless 
 difficulties of detail, but into these we forbear 
 to enter. The doctrine is sufficiently convicted 
 and judged by its doctrine of causaHty, and 
 the hopeless tautology and endless regress to 
 which it is condemned, and also by the impos- 
 sibility of verifying as actual any of its lead- 
 ing conceptions. They must forever remain, 
 at best, mere conceptual forms, to which no 
 reality can be shown to correspond.
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 253 
 
 Naturalism may be dismissed as a failure. 
 It remains to show that impersonalism as 
 idealism is equally so. When we approach the 
 metaphysical problem from the side of know- 
 ledge, it is easy to overlook the fact of will and 
 causality in existence, and conclude that things 
 are only ideas. And then, since the mind also 
 is an object of knowledge, it is easy in the 
 same way to reach the conclusion that it too 
 is only an idea or group of ideas. The next 
 thing is to eliminate the personal implication 
 from these ideas, and then we forthwith reach 
 the conclusion that the mind itself is a func- 
 tion of impersonal ideas. Thus impersonalism 
 is once more installed. 
 
 It is easy to see how this view arises. The 
 epistemological interest makes us unwilling to 
 admit anything that cannot be conceptually 
 grasped. Accordingly it seeks to make ideas 
 all-embracing. At the same time it is clear 
 that this view is a tissue of abstractions. The 
 impersonal idea is a pure fiction. All actual 
 ideas are owned, or belong to some one, and 
 mean nothing as floating free. We have al-
 
 254 PERSONALISM 
 
 ready seen that the various categories of 
 thought, apart from their formal character as 
 modes of intellectual procedure, get any real 
 significance only in the concrete and self-con- 
 scious life of the living mind. Apart from this, 
 when considered as real they become self- 
 destructive or contradictory. The idealism of 
 the type we are now considering assumes that 
 these categories admit of being conceived in 
 themselves, and that they are in a measure 
 the preconditions of concrete existence, and in 
 such a way that we might almost suppose that 
 a personal being is compounded of being plus 
 unity plus identity plus causality, etc. Thus 
 personal existence appears as the outcome and 
 product of something more ultimate and fun- 
 damental. The fictitious nature of this view 
 has already appeared. When we ask what we 
 mean by any of these categories, it turns out, as 
 we have seen, that we mean the significance we 
 find them to have in our self-conscious life. In 
 the concrete the terms have no meaning except 
 as it is abstracted from our own personal experi- 
 ence. The only unity we know anything about.
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 255 
 
 apart from the formal unities of logic, is the 
 unity of the unitary self ; and the only identity 
 we know anything about is no abstract con- 
 tinuity of existence through an abstract time, 
 it is simply the self-equality of intelligence 
 throughout its experience. And the change 
 which we find is not an abstract change run- 
 ning off in an abstract time, but is simply the 
 successive form under which the self-equal in- 
 telligence realizes its purpose and projects the 
 realizing activity against the background of 
 its self-consciousness. Similarly for being it- 
 self ; in the concrete it means the passing ob- 
 ject of perception, or else it means existence 
 like our own. 
 
 So much for the nature of the categories. 
 But still graver difficulties arise when we in- 
 quire concerning the place of their existence 
 and the ground of their combination and 
 movement. If we suppose them to precede 
 personality, we must ask where they exist. 
 The only intelligent answer that can be given 
 would be that they exist either in space and 
 time, or in consciousness. The former supposi-
 
 256 PERSONALISM 
 
 tion would turn them into things, and then they 
 would dissolve away in the dialectic of spatial 
 and temporal existence ; the latter is contrary 
 to the hypothesis, which is that they are pre- 
 conditions of consciousness. Thus they retreat 
 into some kind of metaphysical ?2th dimension, 
 where we cannot follow them because they 
 mean nothing. 
 
 A further difficulty emerges when we ask 
 for the ground of grouping and movement of 
 these ideas. If we conceive their relations to 
 be purely logical we should make immediate 
 speculative shipwreck. The intellect conceived 
 of as merely a set of logical relations is totally 
 incapable of explaining the order of experi- 
 ence, for logic is non-temporal. Conclusions 
 coexist with the premises. There is no before 
 or after possible in the case. If, then, the uni- 
 verse as existing were a logical implication of 
 ideas, it and all its contents would be as eter- 
 nal as the ideas. There would be no room 
 for change, but all their implications would 
 rigidly coexist. In this view also finite minds, 
 with all their contents, as implications of eter-
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 257 
 
 nal ideas, would be equally eternal ; and as 
 error and evil are a manifest part of these 
 contents, it follows that they likewise are ne- 
 cessary and eternal. Hence we should have to 
 admit an element of unreason and evil in the 
 eternal ideas themselves ; and by this time 
 the collapse of the system would be complete. 
 There is no escape from this result so long as 
 we look upon the intellect as a logical mech- 
 anism of ideas. Only a living, active, personal 
 intelligence can escape this fatalism and sui- 
 cidal outcome of the impersonal reason. A 
 purely logical and contemplative intellect tliat 
 merely gazed upon the relations of ideas, with- 
 out choice and initiative and active self-direc- 
 tion, would be absolutely useless in explaining 
 the order of life. 
 
 The claim that thought must comprise 
 everything is itself unclear in its meaning. In 
 our human thinking of course there is a world 
 of objects which we do not make but find, and 
 this dualism can never be eliminated from our 
 thinking. But this world of objects is retained 
 within the thought sphere by being made the
 
 258 PERSONALISM 
 
 product and expression of intelligence, and as 
 such it is open to apprehension and compre- 
 hension by intelligence. But when it comes 
 to the self-knowledge of intelligence, there 
 is always an element which mere conceptual 
 knowing can never adequately grasp. We have 
 seen that concepts without immediate experi- 
 ence are only empty forms, and become real 
 only as some actual experience furnishes them 
 with real contents. Hence there is an element 
 in self-knowledge beyond what the concep- 
 tions of the understanding can furnish. This 
 is found in our living self-consciousness. We 
 conceive some things, but we not only con- 
 ceive, we also live ourselves. This living in- 
 deed cannot be realized without the concep- 
 tion, but the conception is formal and empty 
 without the living. In this sense intelligence 
 must accept itself as a datum, and yet not 
 as something given from without, but as the 
 self-recognition of itself by itself. Intelligence 
 must always have a content for its own recog- 
 nition. The recognition would be impossible 
 without the content, and the content would be
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 259 
 
 nothing^ without the recogfiiition. In this fact 
 the antithesis of thouo-ht and beino- finds re- 
 cognition and reconcihation ; but the fact itself 
 
 CD ^ 
 
 must be lived, it cannot be discursively con- 
 strued. Thouo-ht and act are one in this mat- 
 ter, and neither can be construed without the 
 other. 
 
 In closing this discussion we recall once 
 more our doctrine of transcendental empiricism. 
 The meaning and possibility of these terms 
 must finally be found in experience itself, and 
 not in any abstract philosophizing. When the 
 terms are abstractly taken without continual 
 reference to experience, it is easy to develop 
 any number of difficulties and even contradic- 
 tions in our fundamental ideas. No better 
 proof of this can be found than Mr. Bradley's 
 work on Appearance and Reality. This is a 
 work of great ability, but written from the 
 abstract standpoint. The result is that it 
 might almost be called a refutation of im- 
 personalism, although such refutation was far 
 enough from Mr. Bradley's purpose. He finds 
 all the categories and relations of thought
 
 260 PERSONALISM 
 
 abounding in contradiction. Inherence, predi- 
 cation, quality, identity, causality, unity, space, 
 time, things, and even the self, swarm with 
 contradictions. Mr. Bradley seems to think 
 that these difficulties are all removed in the 
 absolute, but he fails to see that his logic 
 would pursue him even into the absolute, un- 
 less it be personally conceived. Otherwise the 
 absolute is simply a deus ex macJwia kept 
 strictly behind the scenes, and worked only by 
 stage direction from the manager. 
 
 But the difficulties urged by Mr. Bradley 
 do exist for all impersonal philosophy; and 
 they can be removed only as the problem is 
 raised to the personal plane, and we take the 
 terms in the meaning they have in living ex- 
 perience. Thus identity is entirely intelligible 
 as the self-identification of experience in in- 
 telligence. We can easily give identity a 
 meaning according to which the soul is not 
 identical, but there is no loss in this, as we have 
 no interest speculative or practical in such 
 identity. Again, unity is entirely intelligible 
 as the unity of the self in the plurality of its
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 261 
 
 activities. Here again it is easy to define unity 
 in such a way as to exclude plurality ; but 
 here also nothing is lost, for we have no in- 
 terest of any sort in such a unity. The same 
 may be said of the other categories. They 
 may easily be defined in such a way as to in- 
 volve contradictions or make them worthless, 
 but philosophy is not concerned over the fate 
 of such abstractions ; it cares only to know 
 the forms the categories take on in living ex- 
 perience. And here we find, as we pointed out 
 in discussing freedom, that many things which 
 when abstractly taken seem contradictory prove 
 quite compatible in the concrete. 
 
 Finally, the notion of the self can easily be 
 taken in such a way as to be worthless. We 
 are asked of what use the self is, after all, in 
 explaining the mental life. How does its unity 
 explain the plurality and variety of conscious- 
 ness ? And the answer must be that in some 
 sense it does not explain it, and yet the unity 
 is no less necessary. For the consciousness of 
 plurality is demonstrably impossible without 
 the fact of conscious unity. This unity does
 
 262 PERSONALISM 
 
 not indeed enable us to deduce plurality, and 
 hence the plurality must be viewed as an as- 
 pect o£ the unity, but not as an aspect of an 
 abstract unity without distinction or difference, 
 but a living, conscious unity, which is one in 
 its manifoldness and manifold in its oneness. 
 Taken verbally this might easily be shown to 
 be contradictory, but taken concretely it is the 
 fact of consciousness, and none the less so 
 because our formal and discursive thought 
 finds it impossible to construe it. And in gen- 
 eral the self taken abstractly is indeed worth- 
 less, as all causes are on the impersonal plane. 
 The law of the sufficient reason, which is sup- 
 posed to demand causation, always shuts us 
 up to barren tautology when impersonally 
 taken. In such cases all our explanations only 
 repeat the problem. But the self is not to be 
 abstractly taken. It is the living self in the 
 midst of its experiences, possessing, directing, 
 controlling both itself and them ; and this 
 self is not open to the objection of barrenness 
 and worthlessness, being simply what we all 
 experience when we say me or mine. This self
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 263 
 
 can never be more than verbally denied, and 
 even its verbal deniers have always retained 
 the fact. The language of the personal life 
 would be impossible otherwise. 
 
 On all of these accounts, then, we affirm 
 that impersonalism is a failure whether in the 
 low form of materialistic mechanism or in the 
 abstract form of idealistic notions, and that 
 personality is the real and only principle of 
 philosophy which will enable us to take any 
 rational step whatever. We are not abstract 
 intellects nor abstract wills, but we are living 
 persons, knowing and feeling and having vari- 
 ous interests, and in the light of knowledge 
 and under the impulse of our interests trying 
 to find our way, having an order of experi- 
 ence also and seeking to understand it and 
 to guide ourselves so as to extend or enrich 
 that experience, and thus to build ourselves 
 into larger and fuller and more abundant per- 
 sonal life. 
 
 The metaphysics of impersonalism is cer- 
 tainly impossible, but it may be objected that
 
 264 PERSONALISM 
 
 personalism itself is open to at least equal 
 objection. Some of these have become tradi- 
 tional and conventional, and seem to call for 
 a word in passing. 
 
 In cruder thought the attempt is always 
 made to solve the problem by picturing, and 
 this ends by confounding the person with the 
 physical organism. Of course it is easy to 
 show that personality as thus conceived is im- 
 possible. The more significant objections arise 
 from an abstract treatment of the subject and 
 an attempt to construe personaHty as the out- 
 come of impersonal principles. But abstrac- 
 tion can do nothing with the question, as the 
 indications of living experience are the only 
 source of knowledge in this matter. Person- 
 ality can never be construed as a product or 
 compound ; it can only be experienced as a 
 fact. It must be possible because it is given 
 as actual. Whenever we attempt to go behind 
 this fact we are trying to explain the explana- 
 tion. We explain the objects before the mir- 
 ror by the images which seem to exist behind 
 it. There is nothing behind the mirror.
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 265 
 
 When we have Hved and described the per- 
 sonal Hfe we have done all that is possible in 
 sane and sober speculation, I£ we try to do 
 more we only fall a prey to abstractions. This 
 self-conscious existence is the truly ultimate 
 fact. 
 
 Of course our human existence, with its 
 various limitations and its temporal form, 
 readily lends itself to the thought that per- 
 sonality develops out of the impersonal. If 
 we should allow this to be the fact in our own 
 case, we should still have to admit that the 
 impersonal out of which our personality de- 
 velops has already a coefficient of personality 
 as the condition of the development. The 
 essentially impersonal can never by any logi- 
 cal process other than verbal hocus-pocus, 
 which is not logical after all, be made the 
 sufficient reason for a personal development. 
 But our existence does not really abut on, or 
 spring out of, an impersonal background; it 
 rather depends on the living will and purpose 
 of the Creator. And its successive phases, so 
 far as we may use temporal language, are but
 
 266 PERSONALISM 
 
 the form under which the Supreme Person 
 produces and maintains the personal finite 
 spirit. 
 
 The objections to affirming a Supreme Per- 
 son are largely verbal. Many of them are 
 directed against a literal anthropomorphism. 
 This, of course, is a man of straw. Man him- 
 self in his essential personality is as unpic- 
 turable and formless as God. Personality and 
 corporeality are incommensurable ideas. The 
 essential meaning of personality is selfhood, 
 self-consciousness, self-control, and the power 
 to know. These elements have no corporeal 
 significance or limitations. Any being, finite 
 or infinite, which has knowledge and self-con- 
 sciousness and self-control, is personal ; for the 
 term has no other meaning. Laying aside, 
 then, all thought of corporeal form and limi- 
 tation as being no factor of personality, we 
 must really say that complete and perfect per- 
 sonality can be found only in the Infinite and 
 Absolute Being, as only in Him can we find 
 that complete and perfect selfhood and self- 
 possession which are necessary to the fullness
 
 THE FAILURE OF IMPERSONALISM 2G7 
 
 of personality. In thinking, then, of the Su- 
 preme Person we must beware of transferring 
 to him the Hmitations and accidents of our 
 human personality, which are no necessary 
 part of the notion of personality, and think 
 only of the fullness of power, knowledge, and 
 selfhood which alone are the essential factors 
 of the conception. 
 
 Thus impersonalism appears as doubly a 
 failure. If we ask for the positive foundation 
 of its basal conceptions, we find that there is 
 none. They are empty forms of thought to 
 which no reality can be shown to correspond, 
 and upon criticism they vanish altogether. If 
 we next ask what insight impersonalism gives 
 into the problems of experience, we find 
 nothing but tautology and infinite regress. 
 Such a theory surely does not pay expenses. 
 The alternative is personalism or nothing.
 
 VI 
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 
 
 One great difficulty in bringing popular 
 thought to better philosophical insight lies in 
 its bondage to sense objects. Things that can 
 be seen and handled are preeminently real, and 
 there is always a tendency to think that only 
 such things are real. In this state of mind 
 it is exceedingly difficult for any doctrine of 
 idealistic type even to get a hearing, as it 
 seems so plainly absurd. Some relief from 
 this obsession may be obtained by pointing 
 out how large a proportion of our human life 
 is even now invisible and impalpable. In this 
 way the sense-bound mind may be made more 
 hospitable to the thought of invisible and non- 
 spatial existence in general. 
 
 First of all, we ourselves are invisible. The 
 physical organism is only an instrument for 
 expressing and manifesting the inner life, but 
 the living self is never seen. For each person
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 269 
 
 his own self is known in immediate experience 
 and all others are known through their effects. 
 They are not revealed in form or shape, but 
 in deeds, and they are known only in and 
 through deeds. In this respect they are as 
 formless and invisible as God himself, and 
 that not merely in the sense of being out of 
 sight, but also in the sense of not lying within 
 the sphere of visibility in any way. What is 
 the shape of the spirit? or what the length 
 and breadth of the soul? These questions re- 
 veal the absurdity of the notion without criti- 
 
 cism. 
 
 Indeed, the most familiar events of every- 
 day life have their key and meaning only in the 
 invisible. If we observe a number of persons 
 moving along the street, and consider them 
 only under the laws of mechanics, and notice 
 simply what we can see or what the camera 
 could report, the effect is in the highest de- 
 gree grotesque. A kiss or caress described in 
 anatomical terms of the points of contact and 
 muscles involved would not be worth having 
 in any case, and would be unintelligible to
 
 270 PERSONALISM 
 
 most of us. And all our physical attitudes 
 and movements seem quite ridiculous whenever 
 we consider them in abstraction from their 
 personal meaning or the personal life behind 
 them. What could be more absurd than a 
 prayer described in physical terms of noise and 
 attitude, apart from the religious meaning? 
 Or what could be more opaque than a descrip- 
 tion of a scientific experiment in terms of 
 bodies and instruments, apart from a know- 
 ledge of the problem and of the unseen per- 
 sons who are trying to solve it? But the gro- 
 tesqueness in these cases does not exist for us, 
 because we seldom abstract from our know- 
 ledge of personality so as to see simply what 
 sense can give. These physical forms we re- 
 gard as persons who are going somewhere or are 
 doing- somethino;. There is a thoug-ht behind 
 it all as its meaning and key, and so the matter 
 seems to us entirely familiar. Thus out of the 
 invisible comes the meaning that transforms 
 the curious sets of motions into terms of per- 
 sonality and gives them a human significance. 
 Indeed, our estimate even of the body itself
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 271 
 
 depends largely upon its connection with the 
 hidden life of the spiiit. A human form as an 
 object in space, apart from our experience of 
 it as the instrument and expression of personal 
 life, would have httle beauty or attraction ; and 
 when it is described in anatomical terms there 
 is nothing in it that we should desire it. The 
 secret of its beauty and value lies in the invis- 
 ible realm. 
 
 The same is true of literature. It does not 
 exist in space or time or books or libraries, 
 but solely in the invisible and non-spatial 
 world of ideas and consciousness. A person 
 looking for literature in a book or in a library 
 would hopelessly err and stray from the way, 
 because all that can be found there would be 
 black marks on white paper and collections of 
 these bound together in various forms, which 
 would be all that eyes could see. But this 
 would not be literature, for literature has its 
 existence only in mind and for mind as an ex- 
 pression of mind, and is simply impossible and 
 meaningless in abstraction from mind. Sim- 
 ilarly with history. Our human history never
 
 272 PERSON ALISM 
 
 existed in space and never could so exist. If 
 some visitor from Mars should come to the 
 earth and look at all that goes on in space in 
 connection with human beings, he would never 
 get any hint of its real significance. He would 
 be confined simply to integrations and dissi- 
 pations of matter and motion. He could de- 
 scribe the masses and groupings of material 
 things, but in all this he would get no sugges- 
 tion of the inner life which gives significance 
 to it all. As conceivably a bird might sit on 
 a telegraph instrument and become fully 
 aware of the clicks of the machine without 
 any suspicion of the meaning or existence of 
 the message, or a dog could see all that eyes 
 can see in a book yet without any hint of its 
 meaning, or a savage could gaze at the printed 
 score of an opera without ever suspecting its 
 musical import, so this supposed visitor would 
 be absolutely cut off by an impassable gulf 
 from the real seat and significance of human 
 history. The great drama of life, with its likes 
 and dislikes, its loves and hates, its ambitions 
 and strivings, and manifold ideas, inspirations,
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 273 
 
 and aspirations, is absolutely foreign to space, 
 and could never be in any way discovered in 
 space. So human history has its seat in the 
 invisible. 
 
 Similarly with government. The govern- 
 ment does not exist in state-houses or halls of 
 Congress. It is a relation of personal wills, as 
 all society is likewise a relation of personal 
 wills, with their background of conscious af- 
 fection, ideas, and purposes. It is in this hid- 
 den realm that we live, and love or hate, obey 
 or disobey, and live in peace or strife. Wars 
 have not existed in space, and real battlefields 
 are in the unseen. They are the conflicts of 
 ideas, of aspirations, of mental tendencies, and 
 all the fighting that ever took place in space 
 was but a symbol and expression of the inner 
 unpicturable strife. And this illustrates what 
 is true of the whole life of man. Love and 
 hate, desire and aspiration, exaltation and de- 
 pression, the whole contents of human life, in 
 short, are invisible, and the spatial is merely 
 the means of expressing and localizing this 
 unpicturable life ; it has only symbolical sig-
 
 274 PERSONALISM 
 
 nificance for the deeper life behind it. All 
 this our Martian visitor would miss, that is, 
 he would miss man and his history alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Thus we see to what a large extent human 
 life is now in the invisible realm, and that, as 
 said, not merely in the sense of being out of 
 sisfht, but as somethins^ that does not admit 
 in any way of being pictured. It may use 
 spatial phenomena as a means of expression, 
 but in itself it is strictly unpicturable. And 
 for this great world of reality, if we must have 
 a whereabouts, we must say that not space but 
 consciousness is its seat. These things belong 
 not to a space world, but to the world of con- 
 sciousness, which is something very different. 
 This is the seat of the great human drama 
 of individual life and of human history. This 
 would be the case on any view of space what- 
 ever, but it is self-evidently the case when we 
 view space as subjective, for then the world of 
 consciousness becomes the seat of all worlds, 
 not merely the world of history and personal 
 relations, but also and equally the seat of the
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 275 
 
 world of space appearance and the world of 
 physical science. It will be noted, however, 
 that this view in no way denies the reahty of 
 the human world. It merely relocates it. That 
 world remains all that it was before and is just 
 as real as ever. We have simply discovered 
 that it is not to be thought of in phenomenal 
 terms of space and time, but rather in terms 
 of itself, in the incommensurable terms of life 
 and feeling, and love and hate, and aspiration 
 or dejection, and hope and despair, etc. Simi- 
 larly the space world is not made unreal by 
 this general view. We simply mean that it is 
 not a self-sufhcient something by itself, but is 
 rather a means of expression of the underly- 
 ing personal life which is the deepest and only 
 substantial fact. 
 
 The more we dwell upon this view the more 
 mysterious our life becomes for the imagina- 
 tion. We see that our Hfe now actually goes 
 on in the invisible, and that space has only a 
 symbolical function with respect to this hidden 
 life. We impress ourselves upon the spatial 
 system and manifest our thought and purpose
 
 276 PERSONALISM 
 
 in it and through it, but the actors never 
 appear. So far as concerns man, the space 
 world has the ground of many of its deter- 
 minations in the invisible v^orld of human 
 thought and purpose, and is constantly tak- 
 ing on more and more our human image and 
 superscription. In its relation to man the 
 space world is largely a potentiality, waiting 
 for realization by man himself. There are 
 harvests waiting to grow and flowers waiting 
 to bloom, but it cannot be until man sets his 
 hand to the work. The flora and fauna of the 
 earth are increasingly taking their character 
 from our will and purpose. Even climate itself 
 is not independent of our doings or misdoings. 
 So far as we are concerned, the space world is 
 nothing complete and finished in itself, but is 
 forever becoming; that which we will it to be. 
 And when we recognize our own invisibility 
 and the symbolical character of space as only 
 a means of expressing our hidden thought 
 and life, we find a growing hospitality toward 
 the view that there is a great invisible power 
 behind the space and time world as a whole,
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 277 
 
 which is using it for expressing and communi- 
 cating its purpose. 
 
 Unless, then, appearances are unusually 
 deceitful in this case, it is plain that man is 
 no impotent annex to a self-sufficient mechani- 
 cal system, but is rather a very significant fac- 
 tor in cosmic ongoings, at least in terrestrial 
 regions. He is an inhabitant of the invisible 
 world, and projects his thought and life on 
 the great space and time screen which we call 
 nature. But naturalism, in its sense bond- 
 age, misses all this, and seeks for man in the 
 picture world of space images, where, in the 
 nature of the case, he can never be. With 
 this initial blunder, man becomes less and less 
 in the system, first a phenomenon, then an 
 " epiphenomenon," and finally he tends to 
 disappear altogether. Meanwhile matter and 
 motion go on integrating and dissipating as 
 per schedule, and ^3f V^ remains a constant 
 quantity. The whole history of thought con- 
 tains no more grotesque inversion of reason. 
 
 A world of persons with a Supreme Per- 
 son at the head is the conception to which we
 
 278 PERSONALISM 
 
 come as the result of our critical reflections. 
 The world of space objects which we call na- 
 ture is no substantial existence by itself, and 
 still less a self -running system apart from in- 
 telligence, but only the flowing expression 
 and means of communication of those per- 
 sonal beings. It is throughout dependent, in- 
 strumental, and phenomenal. But a problem 
 remains in the relation of these finite spirits 
 to the Absolute Spirit. This problem also has 
 suffered from an abstract treatment, which has 
 led to many pernicious errors. 
 
 Metaphysics shows that we cannot explain 
 the existence and community of the many 
 without affirming a fundamental reality which 
 is truly one, and which produces and coordi- 
 nates the many. When we ask for the relation 
 of the many to the one, the imagination tries 
 to solve the problem by some quantitative 
 conception, as that the many are made out of 
 the one, or are included in the one, as the 
 parts are included in the whole. The multi- 
 tudinous suo['o;'estions of this kind are set aside 
 by the insight that these quantitative ideas
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 279 
 
 are incompatible with the true unity o£ the 
 one. Metaphysics shows that the fundamental 
 reality must be conceived not as an extended 
 stuff, but as an agent to which the notion of 
 divisibility has no application. When we fur- 
 ther recall that this agent must be regarded 
 as self-conscious intelligence, the untenability 
 of any quantitative conception becomes self- 
 evident. The conception of the many as made 
 out of the one, or as resulting from any fission 
 or self-diremption of the one, or as being the 
 parts of the one, — its "internally cherished 
 parts," — is seen at once to be an attempt of 
 the uncritical imagination to express an unpic- 
 turable problem of the reason in the picture 
 forms of the spatial fancy. When these reflec- 
 tions are continued, we reach the result that 
 the unpicturable many must be conceived as 
 unpicturably depending on the unpicturable 
 one. 
 
 This result has been perhorresced by many 
 able thinkers in recent times as committing 
 us to a destructive and pernicious pantheism, 
 and they have taken refuge in an impossible
 
 280 PERSONALISM 
 
 pluralism. Some have gone so far as to hold 
 that the many have always existed, as the 
 only means of rescuing finite personality. But 
 surely this is to throw the child out with the 
 bath. The dangers against which these think- 
 ers protest are indeed real, and their perni- 
 cious character is clearly seen in the Vedanta 
 philosophy of India. But there is no reUef in 
 such a despairing pluralism. The way out 
 must be sought in a careful scrutiny of our 
 terms and a resolute adherence to experience 
 itself in its form of transcendental empiricism. 
 It would be easy to fall into pantheism at 
 this point by emphasizing the dependence of 
 the finite spirit, or by taking that dependence 
 in an abstract and absolute sense. We must 
 guard against this by observing that words here 
 can never be adequately defined by the diction- 
 ary, but only by carefully noting the facts they 
 are meant to express. Now when we consider 
 our life at all critically, we come upon two facts. 
 First, we have thoughts and feelings and voli- 
 tions which are inahenably our own. We also 
 have a measure of self-control, or the power
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 281 
 
 of self-direction. Here, then, we find in our 
 experience a certain selfhood and a relative 
 independence. This fact constitutes our per- 
 sonality. The second fact is that we cannot 
 regard ourselves as self-sufficient and inde- 
 pendent in any absolute sense. And a further 
 fact is that we cannot interpret our life with- 
 out admitting both of these facts, and that to 
 deny either lands us in contradiction and non- 
 sense. Now our independence means just that 
 experienced limited self-control ; and our de- 
 pendence means just that experienced lack 
 of self-sufficiency. How these two aspects of 
 experience can be combined in the same being 
 we cannot tell, any more than we can tell how 
 freedom and uniformity can be united in the 
 same beings. But we find them thus united 
 nevertheless. It is only as we take the ideas 
 abstractly that we find them contradictory ; 
 what they may be in reality can be learned 
 only from experience. We have no insight 
 whatever into real possibility or impossibility 
 which will enable us to decide one way or 
 the other apart from experience. The depend-
 
 282 PERSONALISM 
 
 ence, then, of the finite spirit, in the sense 
 of its non-self-sufficiency, does not prove its 
 nothingness or unreahty ; and this depend- 
 ence, as said, must be interpreted by the facts 
 and not by the dictionary. It is permitted to 
 mean only what we find it to mean in living 
 experience. 
 
 The pantheistic view, on the other hand, has 
 insuperable difficulties. The problem of know- 
 ledge, we have before seen, is insoluble except 
 as we maintain the freedom of both the finite 
 and the infinite spirit. That all things depend 
 on God is a necessary affirmation of thought, 
 but that all things and thoughts and activities 
 are divine is unintelligible in the first place, 
 and self-destructive in the next. That God 
 should know our thoughts and feelings and 
 should perfectly understand and appreciate 
 them is quite intelligible, but that our thoughts 
 and feelings are his in any other sense is a 
 psychological contradiction. If, however, we 
 insist on so saying, then reason simply commits 
 suicide. It is God who thinks and feels in our 
 thinking and feeling, and hence it is God who
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 283 
 
 blunders in our blundering and is stupid incur 
 stupidity, and it is God who contradicts him- 
 self in the multitudinous inconsistencies of 
 our thinking. Thus error, folly, and sin are 
 all made divine, and reason and conscience as 
 having authority vanish. 
 
 In addition to these difficulties the divine 
 unity itself disappears. What is God's relation 
 as thinking our thoughts to God as thinking 
 the absolute and perfect thought ? Does he 
 become limited, confused, and blind in finite 
 experience, and does he at the same time have 
 perfect insight in his infinite life ? Does he 
 lose himself in the finite so as not to know 
 what and who he is, or does he perhaps ex- 
 haust himself in the finite so that the finite is 
 all there is ? But if all the while he has per- 
 fect knowledofe of himself as one and infinite, 
 how does this illusion of the finite arise at all 
 in that perfect unity and perfect light ? There 
 is no answer to these questions so long as the 
 Infinite is supposed to play both sides of the 
 game. We have a series of unaccountable il- 
 lusions, and an infinite playing hide and seek
 
 284 PERSONALISM 
 
 •with itself in a most grotesque metaphysical 
 fuddlement. Such an infinite is nothing but 
 the shadow of speculative delirium. These 
 difficulties can never be escaped so long as 
 we seek to identify the finite and the infinite. 
 Their mutual otherness is necessary if we are to 
 escape the destruction of all thought and life.^ 
 This mutual otherness is equally demanded 
 by the moral and religious relation which we 
 have next to consider. Pantheism is not a re- 
 ligion, but an inconsistent philosophical specu- 
 lation. Religfion demands the mutual otherness 
 of the finite and infinite, in order that the rela- 
 tion of love and obedience may obtain. Both 
 love and religion seek for union, but it is not 
 the union of absorption or fusion, but rather 
 the union of mutual understanding and sym- 
 pathy, which would disappear if the otherness 
 of the persons were removed. Any intelligible 
 or desirable longing after God or identifi- 
 cation with him would vanish if we should 
 " confound the persons." The extravagant 
 language of mysticism on this point is the 
 
 ' See Author's Metaphysics, revised edition, p. 102.
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 285 
 
 expression of religious desire, and is never to 
 be literally taken. 
 
 The metaphysical relation of dependence in 
 itself has no religious quality. It applies to all 
 finite things alike, and is compatible with com- 
 plete lack of spiritual sympathy and fellowship, 
 as it equally comprises both the good and the 
 bad. But while it does not imply a religious 
 relation, it is nevertheless a pre-condition of it. 
 There would be no religion in a world of self- 
 sufficient beings. The religious relation, then, 
 is something superinduced upon the more gen- 
 eral relation of dependence. 
 
 In general, the question of religion has a 
 much better standing in the intellectual world 
 than it had years ago. The sensational philo- 
 sophy long held that religion, as a late growth, 
 is to be understood through its psychological 
 antecedents as a product of evolution. Thus 
 it was largely regarded as an adventitious ex- 
 crescence upon human nature and without any 
 real significance for human life, and many 
 held that it would be a decided gain for hu- 
 manity, and especially for the treasury, if re-
 
 286 PERSONALISM 
 
 ligion could be finally exorcised. In all this the 
 essential ambiguity of empirical and evolution 
 doctrine was completely overlooked, and it was 
 assumed as a matter of course that that which 
 was temporally first in psychological develop- 
 ment was the truly real, or the material out of 
 which all later developments were made. Ac- 
 cordingly, as the earlier phases of religion, like 
 the earlier phases of all things human, were 
 pretty crude, it was supposed that these were 
 the true originals and essential meaning of 
 religion. Now all this has passed away. We 
 have come to see that this historical study at 
 best could give only the order of temporal 
 development, without deciding whether there 
 was not some immanent law underlying the 
 unfolding. We have equally come to see that 
 no development is possible without assuming 
 such a law, and that the true nature of a de- 
 veloping thing can be learned, not by looking 
 at the crude beginnings, but only by studying 
 the full unfolding of the finished product. If 
 we would know what intelligence is, we must 
 consider it in its mighty works and not in its
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 287 
 
 first, blind gropings. So if we would know 
 what religion is, we must consider it in its 
 great historical manifestations, rather than in 
 the dim imaginings of undeveloped men. 
 
 On all these accounts religion has come to 
 be recognized as a great human fact. It is not 
 an invention of priests or politicians, nor an 
 unimportant annex of life, but it is deep rooted 
 in humanity itself. Neither is it something 
 that has significance only for the future life; 
 for religion is clearly seen to have profound 
 significance for this life, either for good or 
 evil. There are religions that debase and de- 
 file; there are religions that industrially cripple 
 and politically paralyze the people. The forces 
 that make for evil or for obstruction have 
 in many cases incarnated themselves in the 
 people's religion, and there can be little in- 
 dustrial progress, or social development, or po- 
 litical improvement, until the grip of these 
 religions has been broken. And, on the other 
 hand, religion may be a great source of pro- 
 gress, of illumination, of inspiration, both for 
 the individual and for the people. This
 
 288 PERSONALISM 
 
 changed point of view is everywhere apparent 
 to one acquainted with the course of thought 
 in the last twenty-five years. I never so fully 
 realized it before as I did at the World's Fair 
 in St. Louis. I attended there an International 
 Congress of Arts and Sciences, the members of 
 which were scholars from all over the civil- 
 ized world, and I was greatly impressed by the 
 fact that whenever religion was mentioned, or 
 whenever any question arose that directly or 
 indirectly bore upon it, the references to re- 
 ligion were all of a friendly kind. It was taken 
 for granted as a great human fact, as a fact 
 in which human nature culminates, and as a 
 fact having the same warrant as all other hu- 
 man facts. It is to be studied sympathetically, 
 therefore, and with an open mind. This is 
 indeed progress. 
 
 It is equally gratifying to note that the 
 Christian attitude also toward the non-Chris- 
 tian religions has greatly changed in recent 
 years. Christians themselves have been slow 
 in understanding the truth and glory of the 
 Gospel, the good news of God. For a long
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 289 
 
 time it was held that God was good only to 
 those to whom the Christian revelation had 
 come, and that all others were uncondition- 
 ally lost. But at last we have learned that 
 God is not made good by the Christian reve- 
 lation, but only declared and shown to be 
 good ; he has always been good ; he has 
 always been the Father Almighty, ^nd has 
 always had purposes of grace concerning his 
 children, whether they knew him or not. 
 The insufferable blasphemy that condemned 
 the whole non-Christian world indiscriminately 
 has utterly disappeared among intelligent 
 Christians. The God who has been dealing 
 with all past generations is the God of grace 
 whom our Lord has revealed, and they are 
 still in his hands, whether in this world or in 
 any other. 
 
 Similarly, Christian thought has changed 
 concerning the great outlying non-Christian 
 systems. These also were thought at one 
 time to be evil and only evil, and without any 
 value whatever for their adherents. Accord- 
 ingly, it was the fashion to deride and decry
 
 290 PERSONALISM 
 
 these religions, to emphasize their shortcom- 
 ings and faihires, and to oppose to tbem 
 Christianity in its ideal form. But further 
 study has revealed how unjust all this was, 
 and now we have come to believe that the 
 great non-Christian systems also had their 
 place in God's providential plan for men. We 
 find it possible to think of Confucius, Men- 
 cius, and Buddha, and many another as veri- 
 table prophets of the Most High, and as hav- 
 ing done an important work among the people 
 for whom they wrought ; not indeed making 
 anything perfect, but preparing the way and 
 contributing much to the organization and 
 development of the people. And this, too, 
 should not surprise, still less offend, any 
 Christian, for we are told that " a portion of 
 the Spirit is given to every man," that "there 
 is a light which lighteth every man that com- 
 eth into the world ; " that " God is no respec- 
 ter of persons, but that in every nation he 
 that feareth God and worketh righteousness 
 is accepted of him." With this faith and our 
 conviction that the world always has been in
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 291 
 
 the hands of God, we are not surprised but 
 rather delighted to find traces of divine guid- 
 ance and inspiration in other than Christian 
 lands ; and when we read the Sacred Books of 
 the East we rejoice to find indications of the 
 Holy Spirit's presence. This does not mean, 
 of course, that these systems are perfect or 
 final; on the contrary, criticism shows how 
 far from perfect they are, and that they never 
 could build humanity into its best estate ; but 
 it does mean that God has not been absent 
 from the religious history of the race, and has 
 never left himself anywhere without a wit- 
 ness. The sun does not envy the stars, yet 
 they disappear in the brightness of its shin- 
 ing; so Christianity does not envy any of 
 these lesser lights, but gathers up into itself 
 all their illumination so that they, too, disap- 
 pear in the brightness of its shining. And if 
 one should point to the aberrations of these 
 other religions in disproof of this view, the 
 obvious remark is that Christianity itself has 
 gone astray in not a few times and places, 
 sinking now and then to as utter supersti-
 
 292 PERSONALISM 
 
 tion as could be found in sorcery or incanta- 
 tion. 
 
 Any one inclined to emphasize as decisive 
 the failure of the non-Christian religions to 
 reach their ideal might profitably reflect on 
 the history of the Christian churches of west- 
 ern Asia and northeastern Africa, or on the 
 religious rabble that gather and fight, except 
 as restrained by Turkish soldiery, about the 
 church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 So, then, religion also is a fact of human 
 experience, and must receive its recognition 
 and interpretation as belonging to reality. 
 This fact preeminently leads to a personal 
 conception of existence. Pantheism, as said, 
 is a philosophy rather than a religion, and 
 whenever it is held as a philosophy the need 
 of personality soon vindicates itself by some 
 form of polytheism. We must now consider 
 the direction the normal development of re- 
 ligion must take. 
 
 Religion can begin with almost nothing, 
 but it can have a normal unfolding only un- 
 der appropriate conditions. Religion is no sim-
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 293 
 
 pie and changeless thing, but it is a func- 
 tion of our whole nature and varies with our 
 development. Intellect, heart, conscience, and 
 will alike contribute to our religious concep- 
 tions. Hence when there is little mental or 
 moral development the religious instinct can 
 cling to a stick or a stone or some low and 
 hideous animal. But as life unfolds and intel- 
 lect is clarified and conscience becomes reg- 
 nant in our religious thinking, it then appears 
 that there are certain conditions that must 
 be met by any religion that is to command 
 the assent of developed humanity. First of 
 all, the object worshiped must be something 
 which satisfies the intellect. As I have just 
 said, when intellect is asleep almost anything 
 can be made a religious object, but when in- 
 tellect is awake and alert and thought has 
 done its work, it then becomes impossible for 
 the intellect to worship any being lower than 
 the Highest. Religion in idea aims at the per- 
 fect, and will have the perfect or nothing. 
 When our insight is scanty we may content 
 ourselves with very imperfect notions; but
 
 294 PERSONALISM 
 
 when once the larger vision comes, the older 
 conception must either be abandoned or must 
 be enlarged to meet the newer insight. This 
 fact does away with all low superstitions ; they 
 flourish only in the darkness of ignorance. 
 But when the mind has been nourished on 
 the great truths of science, the great revela- 
 tions of world study and historical and philo- 
 sophical study, it becomes simply impossible 
 for that mind to rest in any of the forms of 
 polytheism and idolatry. Such a mind may 
 make the motions of religion for selfish or 
 other reasons, but it never really worships in 
 any temple where the god is lower than the 
 Highest. And if it be said that these images, 
 etc., are but symbols, the answer is the same. 
 No developed mind can find any worthy sym- 
 bol of the Hiofhest in animal forms and idola- 
 trous rites and practices. The intellect stands 
 in such a temple either silent or scoffing, and 
 this is equally true whether the temple be 
 Christian or non-Christian. Intellect has its 
 inalienable rights in religion ; and when they 
 are not regarded, religion is sure, sooner or
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 295 
 
 later, to grovel in abject and paralyzing super- 
 stition. The history of the Christian religion 
 furnishes abundant illustration. 
 
 And equally religious development must take 
 the direction of affirming not only a supreme 
 reason but also a supreme righteousness. As 
 a matter of fact, humanity has been distress- 
 ingly slow in uniting the ethical and religious 
 ideal, and historically there has been a great 
 deal of religion that was either non-ethical or 
 immoral, the two factors, the religious and the 
 ethical, being brought into no vital union. We 
 see this in both the ethnic religions and the 
 non-Christian universal religions, and we see it 
 also even in Christian lands. A great many 
 people who are nominally Christians and who 
 verily believe themselves to be really such, 
 seem to have little thought that their religion 
 makes any demands upon their conscience and 
 that it should root and result in righteousness. 
 Mechanical devices of ritual and the repetition 
 of verbal forms appear to be the sum of their 
 religion. They differ from other idolaters, not 
 in the spirit of their worship, but in the acci-
 
 296 PERSONALISM 
 
 dent of its form. But there can be as genuine 
 idolatry with words and phrases as with wood 
 or stone images. "■ God is a spirit, and they 
 that worship him must worship him in spirit 
 and in truth." " He hath showed thee, man, 
 what is good ; and what doth the Lord require 
 of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, 
 and to walk humbly with thy God ? " These 
 great words strike with doom all superstitions 
 and all immoral and mechanical religion. It is 
 manifest that nothing can claim to be the per- 
 fect religion in which the religious and ethi- 
 cal factors are not indissolubly blended. The 
 failure to unite these two factors is the great 
 source of the hideous and destructive aberra- 
 tions that have defiled religious history and 
 made many religions the enemies of humanity. 
 All these must wither away under the rebuk- 
 ing gaze of the develoj^ed intellect and con- 
 science. 
 
 And not only must the object of worship 
 be supreme reason and supreme righteousness, 
 it must also be supreme goodness. This is a 
 continuation of the somewhat negative con-
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 297 
 
 ception of righteousness into the positive con- 
 ception of ethical love. It is at this point 
 that relisfious thinkinsf has often est come 
 short. If God is to be of any religious value to 
 us and an object of real and adoring worship, 
 he must be supremely good. This demand 
 has by no means always been understood, 
 and in consequence we find a kind of sub- 
 conscious effort in religious development to 
 think a truly ethical thought about God in 
 connection with a world like this. The outly- 
 ing religions have largely conceived God as 
 indifferent and selfish. The gods of Epicurus 
 were deaf or indifferent to human sorrow. 
 The God of philosophy has largely been of 
 the same sort, a kind of absolute metaphysi- 
 cal being, with no active moral quality, or if 
 moral at all, in an abstract and unreal way. 
 Likewise the God of theology for a long time 
 hardly attained to any real active goodness, 
 such as the thought of ethical "love implies. 
 This God, too, was rather metaphysically con- 
 ceived, and his holiness consisted mainly in 
 making rules for men and in punishing their
 
 298 PERSONALISM 
 
 transgression. He was conceived largely after 
 the fashion of the medieval despot, and the 
 conception of any obligation on his part to 
 his creatures would have been looked upon 
 almost as blasphemy. But now we have begun 
 to think more clearly and profoundly as to 
 what ethical love demands, and with this 
 thought the immoral, selfish, and indifferent 
 gods have disappeared, and the God of theo- 
 logy, also, has been greatly modified. We see 
 that the law of love applies to power as well 
 as to weakness, that the strong ought to bear 
 the burdens of the weak and not to please 
 themselves ; that the greatest of all must be 
 the servant of all, and the chief of burden 
 bearers. This insight has already wrought a 
 great change in our traditional theology, and 
 the end is not yet. We are no longer con- 
 tent with an absolute being selfishly enjoying 
 himself, or with a simply benevolent being 
 who gives gifts to men at no cost to himself. 
 Such a being falls below the moral heroes of 
 our race, and even below the ordinary man and 
 woman who live lives of devotion and sacri- 
 
 I
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 299 
 
 fice. We cannot worship any being who falls 
 below our human ideals of love and good- 
 ness. 
 
 It is but an extension of the same thought 
 to add that the final religion must be one that 
 has a worthy thought of man, and provides a 
 task for hun which will furnish the will with 
 an adequate object and a supreme inspiration. 
 We might conceivably get along without any 
 religion, but when thought is once awake we 
 see that a religion which is to command our 
 lives must be one which brings man also to 
 his highest estate. We cannot believe in man 
 without beUeving in God, and we cannot be- 
 lieve in God without believing in man. God's 
 goodness itself would disappear if the religion 
 did not mean our highest life and blessing ; 
 and if our life is to end with the visible scene 
 and we are to be cast aside hke the worn-out 
 straw sandals of the coolies, then religion it- 
 self collapses ; the universe is a failure, and 
 God is a failure, too. It is not a selfish interest 
 on our part which dictates thoughts like this. 
 It is rather the desire to think worthily of
 
 300 PERSONALISM 
 
 God and of his work, and that is impossible 
 so long as we fail to think worthily of man 
 and of his destiny in God's plan. 
 
 Here again the non-Christian religions have 
 largely come short : they have not been able 
 to think consistently, and in such a way as to 
 carry conviction, of the destiny of man. They 
 have wavered between annihilation and a 
 dreary round of undesirable existence, with 
 no power to awe or attract. And here again 
 Christianity is a revelation of supreme signifi- 
 cance and magnificent audacity. Looked at 
 from the outside we are animals like the other 
 animals, having the human form, indeed, and 
 yet subject to the same general laws as the 
 animal world, — birth and death, hunger and 
 pain, labor and weariness. But our Christian 
 faith holds that this is only the outward ap- 
 pearance, not the inward spiritual fact. We 
 are now the children of God, and it doth not 
 yet appear what we shall be, but we know 
 that when he shall appear we shall be like 
 him, for we shall see him as he is. And thus 
 our life is transformed. We are not simply the
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 301 
 
 highest in the animal world, we are also and 
 more essentially children of the Highest, made 
 in his image likewise, and to go on forever- 
 more with him ; made, as the old catechism 
 had it, to glorify God and to enjoy him for- 
 ever, growing evermore into his likeness and 
 into ever deepening sympathy and fellow- 
 ship with the eternal as we go on through 
 the unending years, until we are " filled with 
 all the fullness of God." This is the true 
 evolution. Man is making, he is not yet 
 made. 
 
 " All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and 
 
 fade, 
 Prophet eyes may catch a glory slowly gaining on the 
 
 shade." 
 
 There is darkness enough in the valleys, 
 no doubt, but there is also a gleam upon the 
 hills and a glow in the upper air. 
 
 These are great dreams. They are not 
 dreams that speculation can justify, neither 
 are they dreams that speculation can discredit. 
 They are rooted in the spiritual nature and 
 historical life of our race. If criticism denies 
 knowledge it equally overthrows unbelief, and
 
 302 PERSONALISM 
 
 leaves all room for belief if life and its un- 
 folding- needs point that way. This is no small 
 service. This is not a machine and dead world, 
 but a world of life and personality and morals 
 and religion ; and in such a world it is per- 
 mitted to see visions and dream dreams, to 
 form ideals and live in their inspiration, and 
 to venture beyond knowledge in obedience 
 to those " high instincts " which have always 
 been, and still remain, the " fountain hght " of 
 all our spiritual day. 
 
 Reference was made in the beginning to 
 Comte's doctrine of the three stages of human 
 thought, — the theological, the metaphysical, 
 and the positive. Comte held that the first two 
 must disappear, and only the last remain. He 
 was right as respects the abstract metaphysical, 
 but we retain the other two. We are positivists 
 in respect to science, and theologians as re- 
 spects causation. This view conserves and sat- 
 isfies all our essential human interests in this 
 field, and vacates a mass of impersonal philo- 
 sophizing which criticism shows to be baseless,
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 303 
 
 and which in experience has often proved itself 
 to be an enemy of humanity. 
 
 And now I wish, with expressions of apology 
 for the repetition it will involve, to consider 
 the practical bearing and application of per- 
 sonalism in dealing with our concrete problems. 
 The abstract method, with its resulting abstrac- 
 tions, has taken such hold of popular thinking 
 that no single exhortation will serve to root it 
 out. 
 
 We have again and again pointed out that 
 experience is first and basal in all living and 
 thinking, and that all theorizing must go out 
 from experience as its basis, and must return 
 to it for verification. With this understanding, 
 we see that science of the saner and deeper 
 type is in no way disturbed by our phenome- 
 naUstic teaching. We know that there are 
 various ways of behavior among things, or 
 ways of being and happening among the facts 
 of experience, and that science has the func- 
 tion of investigating these, and of discover- 
 ing, describing, and registering them for the 
 guidance of life. This study can go on practi-
 
 304 PERSONALISM 
 
 cally on the basis of any metaphysical scheme ; 
 for even our metaphysics, while of use in un- 
 derstanding life, does not really in any way 
 make or modify it. As was pointed out in our 
 first lecture, if we should become nihilists or 
 agnostics it would not alter the way in which 
 things actually do hang together in the order 
 of experience, and would leave the practical 
 work of life untouched. What would really 
 follow in that case would be simply that by 
 way of speculation we could not interpret life, 
 but life itself with its practical expectations 
 and their practical verifications in experience 
 would still remain, and we should be practi- 
 cally no worse off than before. The only thing 
 that is forbidden by our general view is sci- 
 ence as a dogmatic system, which, however, is 
 not science, but merely a species of philosophy 
 without foundation. 
 
 As was said in treating of empiricism and 
 apriorism, both doctrines leave a very impor- 
 tant question untouched, namely, whether the 
 order of life can be practically depended upon. 
 No system of philosophy gives any answer to
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 305 
 
 this except a dogmatic one, which simply mis- 
 takes the monotonies of dogmatic thinking 
 for the fundamental laws of existence. Our 
 view, therefore, leaves science in no worse 
 plight than it is on any other scheme of 
 thought. The practical trustworthiness of hfe 
 can be learned only from experience and 
 verified only in experience. When then our 
 affirmations respecting the order of nature 
 are far and permanently removed from any 
 practical bearing, they must become vague 
 and insecure. This insight must be regarded 
 as a distinct advance in philosophical reflec- 
 tion. Those dogmatic systems that deal with 
 the infinities and eternities never had any 
 proper foundation, as Kant taught us to see, 
 and they were continual sources of theoretical 
 onslaughts on the practical interests of life. 
 It is therefore something to be clear of them. 
 At the same time all fruitful practical science 
 remains untouched. We may go on looking 
 for the uniformities among things and events, 
 and applying the knowledge thus gained to 
 the control of life, with all practical confi-
 
 306 PERSONALISM 
 
 dence. Yet we must always remember that 
 the space and time world of phenomena roots 
 in a mysterious world of power, and that we 
 must therefore refrain from erecting our space 
 and time system into anything absolute and 
 self-contained. 
 
 The question of the warrant of knowledge 
 has never been conceived with perfect clear- 
 ness. The debate between the empirical and 
 the apriori school has been carried on on the 
 assumption that the validity of knowledge 
 absolutely depended upon it. This is only 
 partly true. There are two questions at issue 
 between these schools, — the form, and the val- 
 idity of knowledge ; and these two are to some 
 extent independent. The empiricist seeks to 
 explain the subjective form of knowledge by 
 the association of sensations, and here his 
 failure is complete. The rationalist rightly 
 points out that the form of experience, even 
 as mental fact and without any reference to 
 its validity, cannot be explained in this way. 
 Hume himself could not account for this form 
 without assuming a very active " mental pro-
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 307 
 
 penslty to feign," that is, without admitting 
 the rational nature. Thus sensationahsm is 
 canceled ; it cannot explain the form of know- 
 ledge and still less the validity of knowledge. 
 As between the two schools, then, we must 
 side with the rationalists. But, unfortunately 
 for our speculative peace, it turns out when 
 the question of validity is raised that the two 
 schools are not so far apart ; for the apriori 
 doctrine itself has been used for limiting 
 knowledge to appearances only. Kant and 
 Hume were far enough apart in their doctrine 
 of knowledge, but they agreed more nearly in 
 their metaphysics than is commonly recog- 
 nized. Hume said that reason is a weak faculty, 
 so that by way of speculation we can attain to 
 no knowledo^e or science. Kant said that the 
 reason is full of illusions when it transcends 
 experience, so that a knowledge of things in 
 themselves, or other than appearances, is for- 
 ever denied to us. But both Hume and Kant 
 admitted that we cannot practically rest in 
 this result, but must fall back on faith in the 
 practical needs and interests of life. Thus the
 
 308 PERSONALISM 
 
 two men, who were antipodal in their epistem- 
 ology, practically coincided in their metaphys- 
 ics. Again, Kant belabored Berkeley for his 
 subjective idealism, but here, too, the differ- 
 ence was rather epistemological than meta- 
 physical ; for Kant's own doctrine of pheno- 
 mena, when made consistent, differs little from 
 Berkeley's view. And, in general, as we have 
 seen, the apriorist can never do more than out- 
 line the general forms of experience, without 
 giving any security for its concrete contents 
 and relations. But without this security it is 
 plain that knowledge is theoretically exposed 
 to doubt, and thus, it may be said, skepticism 
 finally triumphs. 
 
 The answer is that this is only a formal tri- 
 umph of no practical significance. For a uni- 
 versal skepticism is really none. It casts equal 
 doubt upon everything, and thus leaves all our 
 beliefs in the same relation to one another as 
 before. The only significant skepticism is one 
 which finds ground for special doubt, and the 
 only dangerous skepticism is one that discred- 
 its the higher interests of our nature in the
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 309 
 
 name of the lower. But to doubt everything 
 is practically to doubt nothing. Such a doubt 
 is only a question of the general trustworthi- 
 ness of hfe, and this question can be solved 
 only in living. Theoretically it is always in- 
 consistent, and practically it becomes only a 
 pretext for rejecting anything we dislike. For 
 the inferences that have been drawn from uni- 
 versal skepticism have generally been illogical 
 and partisan. One of the humors of the his- 
 tory of thought is the zeal with wdiich Hume's 
 doctrine has been played off against religion, 
 in complete unconsciousness of the fact that 
 it is quite as effective against science. In both 
 cases the true conclusion is that by way of 
 speculation we can justify neither religion nor 
 science ; but since speculation itself is discred- 
 ited, we need not be concerned at its failure. 
 But life still remains with all its practical in- 
 terests, and we are permitted to believe and 
 assume whatever this practical hf e may suggest 
 or demand, and that without being molested 
 by speculative philosophy. It is true that no- 
 thing can be speculatively justified, and just as
 
 310 PERSONALISM 
 
 little can anything be speculatively discredited. 
 Logic and reason being set aside as guides of 
 life, our instincts remain and we may live by 
 them if we choose. As was pointed out in the 
 first lecture, we might even become nihilists 
 in metaphysics without changing any practical 
 belief or expectation. For life is as it is and 
 may well be worth living, whatever our meta- 
 physics ; and for all we can say life may go on 
 through an indefinite variety of future forms, 
 whatever our metaphysics. The fearsome con- 
 clusions drawn by the skeptic are due to the 
 attempt to reason after reason has been dis- 
 credited. 
 
 We are greatly helped in this matter by the 
 growing insight into the practical nature of 
 belief. One of the superstitions of a superfi- 
 cial intellectualism has been the fancy that 
 belief should always be the product of formal 
 logical processes. But, in fact, the great body 
 of our fundamental beliefs are not deductions 
 but rather formulations of life. Our practical 
 life has been the o-reat source of belief and 
 the constant test of its practical validity, that
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 311 
 
 is, of its truth. Such beliefs are less a set of 
 reasoued principles than a body of practical 
 postulates and customs which were born in 
 life, which express life, and in which the fun- 
 damental interests and tendencies of the mind 
 find expression and recognition. In this way 
 the great organism of belief is built up. It 
 grows out of life itself. It is wrought out in 
 action rather than in speculation, and has the 
 significance of any other great natural pro- 
 duct. As soon as we bring the order of life 
 and belief under the notion of law, we see 
 that it has in a way cosmic significance. It 
 is no accident or whim of the individual, but 
 is rooted in the nature of things. Thus the 
 great catholic beliefs of humanity become ex- 
 pressions of reality itself, and on any theory 
 of knowledge they must be allowed to stand, 
 unless there be some positive disproof. Their 
 teleological nature is manifest. They are not 
 here for themselves, but for what they can 
 help us to. They are the expressions of life 
 and also the instruments by which life realizes 
 itself. This insight is a great advance upon
 
 312 PERSONALISM 
 
 the method of rigor and vigor, which sought 
 formally to deduce whatever is to be beheved. 
 At last life and experience themselves are in- 
 stalled as the great source of practical belief, 
 and we have sufficiently recovered from the 
 superstition of intellectualism to be able once 
 more to trust the order of life and our moral 
 and spiritual instincts. 
 
 Science, we have before said, must always 
 be classificatory and descriptive, and can never 
 deal with the true causes and reasons of thing's. 
 This, we have pointed out, is true even for 
 dynamical science, which many think gives the 
 real agencies of the world. It should be added 
 as an implication of this fact, that the several 
 sciences should deal with their various classes 
 of facts as they are given in experience, with- 
 out distorting them to make them fit some 
 other group. What we really desire is a deal- 
 insc with the facts in accordance with their 
 true nature, and not a wresting of the facts for 
 the sake of some all-inclusive generalization 
 which explains nothing. Oversight of the rel- 
 ative and nominalistic nature of much of our
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 313 
 
 classification, together with the unchastened 
 hankering after totality and systematic com- 
 pleteness, is perpetually leading the dogmatic 
 mind to sweep all things together into some 
 vague but pretentious generalization which 
 promises to make all things one, but which 
 succeeds only by ignoring all the essential 
 characters of things. 
 
 This resolute adherence to experience is a 
 counsel of perfection which cannot be too 
 much insisted upon. In the mental realm it is 
 of such importance that we may be excused 
 for further dwelling upon it. In this realm 
 beyond all others there has been a tendency 
 to distort the facts, or to substitute something 
 else for them. In fact there has been com- 
 paratively little properly logical and scientific 
 work done in psychology. A truly scientific 
 procedure under the guidance of a critical 
 logic would aim of course to find what the 
 psychological facts are without any admixture 
 of theory, and to determine their laws in their 
 own terms. This would give us at least the 
 psychological facts, and might also give us
 
 314 PERSONALISM 
 
 some of the uniformities that obtain among 
 them. Unfortunately, for various reasons, 
 another method has been largely followed. 
 The result is that theories about the facts have 
 very largely been substituted for the facts, and 
 various metaphors, drawn from the physical 
 realm, have wrought no small damage. It is 
 plain that language in this region must be fig- 
 urative or metaphorical. We have no direct 
 means of telling or describing our internal 
 states except by the use of physical figures, 
 which never accurately represent the facts, but 
 which we set forth as symbols of the facts, in 
 the hope that others may understand us. But 
 when, as often happens, the figure itself is 
 mistaken for the fact, then confusion lieth at 
 the door. There is really no physical fact or 
 analogy that rightly represents any intellect- 
 ual fact or process whatever. But by identi- 
 fying the physical figure with the mental fact, 
 it becomes easy to mistake an exegesis of the 
 metaphor for a dealing with the fact. Thus 
 language has been a great source of aberration 
 in psychology. Another source of error closely
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 315 
 
 allied to this is the fact that we tend to think 
 of things under space forms and to substitute 
 the body for the personality. This tendency 
 also serves to hide the mental facts from us 
 in their true nature, and when it is finished 
 it not infrequently bringeth forth materialism. 
 The mythologies of cerebral psychology serve 
 as illustration. For errors of this kind the 
 sufBcient prescription is to adhere to the con- 
 crete experience. When the mental facts are 
 seen in their true nature, the impossibility of 
 assimilating them to any kind of physical fact 
 is at once obvious. 
 
 The same prescription must be observed in 
 dealing with the physical conditions of the 
 mental life. The relations of mind and body 
 can be described only in terms of concomitant 
 variation. From an inductive standpoint the 
 causality between them is mutual; that is, 
 physical states are accompanied by various 
 mental states, and conversely various mental 
 states are accompanied by physical states. 
 There is a field here for study of these con- 
 comitant variations, a knowledge of which
 
 316 PERSONALISM 
 
 may have considerable practical value. But 
 we must be equally careful here to confine 
 ourselves to the data of experience and not 
 proceed to romantic excesses of theory as has 
 often been done. A misunderstanding of the 
 doctrine of the conservation of energy has led 
 to some very naive work on the part of psy- 
 chologists and physicists aHke. It has been 
 thouofht that we must never hold that the 
 mind affects the body or that the body affects 
 the mind, because to do so would be to violate 
 this great doctrine, which is often mentioned 
 as the corner-stone of science. If we take this 
 notion in earnest it would imply that our 
 thoughts have nothing whatever to do with 
 the control of our bodies, and that our physi- 
 cal conditions contain no reason for our men- 
 tal states. Of course the scientific doctrine 
 contains no warrant for any such romantic 
 nonsense as this. The doctrine itself simply 
 af&rms a certain quantitative equivalence in 
 the transformation of energy, and that only 
 on certain assumed conditions. It does not 
 tell us, for instance, that there might not be 
 
 i
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 317 
 
 direction of our bodies from some spiritual 
 principle in interaction with them ; it leaves 
 that to be decided by experience. Within the 
 inorganic realm there is good reason for be- 
 lieving that this equivalence is maintained, 
 thouo'h even here we must beware of erectino^ 
 the doctrine into an absolute principle. This 
 would be to fall a prey to the uncritical dog- 
 matic desire for totality in the physical realm. 
 But whether our thoughts and purposes have 
 any influence upon our physical states is to 
 be determined by experience only, and in con- 
 ducting experiments for deciding the matter 
 almost any one is as wise as the wisest physi- 
 cist. If anything more than a small measure 
 of good sense were needed, sufficient evidence 
 would be found in the emphasis which the 
 medical world is now placing on mental states 
 as cause or cure of disease. Discounting, then, 
 the vagaries of continuity theorists, we may 
 look for such laws as we may discover for the 
 interaction of physical and mental states, and 
 make what use we can of them without being- 
 disturbed by the conservation of energy. In
 
 318 PERSONALISM 
 
 general we must maintain a somewhat agnostic 
 attitude towards all speculation on this sub- 
 ject, which goes beyond some few principles 
 which may be verified in experience. Such are 
 the laws of concomitant development, laws of 
 habit, laws of health, laws of rest and repair, 
 general laws of the mutual influence of body 
 on mind and mind on body. We know the 
 physical echoes the mental, and that the men- 
 tal varies with the physical. Laws of this kind 
 lie open to investigation, but whatever lies be- 
 yond them in the way of abstract speculation 
 must be received with the utmost caution. 
 
 Not to form abstract theories but to formu- 
 late and understand this personal life of ours 
 is the first and last duty of philosophy. This 
 must be done in its own terms. To tell us 
 that this life as lived is a case of matter and 
 motion is nonsense. To tell us that this life 
 is explained by matter and motion is equally 
 nonsense. This is simply to introduce an ab- 
 straction from experience as the explanation 
 of experience. We must indeed be careful to 
 recosmize the order of law which we call na-
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 319 
 
 ture, but we must also be careful not to erect 
 it into any self-sufficient existence or power 
 that does thino['s on its own account. For us 
 nature is only an order of uniformity, estab- 
 lished and maintained by an ever-living and 
 ever-acting Intelligence and Will. Nature is 
 a function of the will and purpose of the ever- 
 present God. And this uniformity, so far from 
 oppressing us or destroying our freedom, is 
 the absolute pre-supposition of our having 
 any freedom or rational life whatever. It is a 
 fancy of dogmatic naturalism that a system 
 of law shuts up everything to a rigid fixity 
 which can be modified only by irruption and 
 violence ; but this is true only for a fictitious 
 system, the product of the dogmatic imagina- 
 tion. In actual experience we find an order 
 of law and we also find that order within cer- 
 tain limits pliable to our will and aims. The 
 order of law is the one thing that founds 
 our control of nature, and by means of it we 
 continue to bring to pass many things which 
 the system of law, left to itself, would never 
 accomplish. All machines of human invention
 
 320 PERSONALISM 
 
 owe their value to the order of law, but that 
 order alone would never have produced any 
 of them. We plant some wheels and shafting 
 at the foot of a waterfall, and the force of 
 gravity is at our service for the driving of 
 looms, the grinding of flour, the lighting 
 of a city, etc., but gravity alone would never 
 have done it. The order of law is a pre-sup- 
 position of it all, but we count for something 
 after all. 
 
 This is the way the facts lie in experience, 
 and when we duly consider it we see that the 
 uniformity we call law is by no means incom- 
 patible with the self-direction we call freedom. 
 Even in thought itself, as we saw in discuss- 
 ing freedom, uniformity can as little dispense 
 with freedom as freedom can dispense with 
 uniformity. The laws of thought, which are 
 absolute uniformities of reason, do not insure 
 right thinking without the self-control of the 
 free spirit. There is no self-control without 
 the laws, and there is no effective rationality 
 without the self-control. And in the mental 
 life as a whole we find the same fact ; there
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 321 
 
 are laws which found self-control, and there 
 is self-control which realizes itself through 
 these laws. If there were no dependable order 
 in our mental states, all self -direction, educa- 
 tion, mental development, mutual intercourse 
 would cease. 
 
 When it comes to combination, the order of 
 law merely prescribes the outcome or result- 
 ant of the component factors. If magnets are 
 revolved under certain conditions, there will 
 be an electric current. If a lighted match be 
 touched to dry gunpowder, there will be an 
 explosion. If a certain law is passed under 
 given social conditions, it will have certain 
 consequences. The consequences are at once 
 uniform and conditional. The laws will apply 
 to all conditions if they arise, but do not pre- 
 scribe how the conditions shall arise nor what 
 they shall be. In this respect they are hke 
 the rules of grammar, which never tell us- 
 what shall be said, but only how it shall be 
 said. The system of law, then, as experienced, 
 is no self-inclosed system, but one capable 
 of receiving modifications from without, yet
 
 322 PERSONALISM 
 
 •without any violation of the laws. Thus for 
 every believer in freedom there are mental 
 states or acts which cannot be deduced from 
 the antecedent mental states. By their very 
 nature they lie beyond scientific explanation, 
 yet when they have arisen they become subject 
 to the fundamental laws of mental action. 
 So with our sensations, they cannot be de- 
 duced from the antecedent state of mind, but 
 are excited from without. But after they have 
 been excited they then combine according to 
 certain laws inherent in the nature of the 
 mind. Hence the integrity of the mental order 
 does not consist in a self-inclosed continuity 
 of mental states, but in the identity of the 
 mental laws which determine the combina- 
 tion and succession of mental states, however 
 produced. The same must be said of the cos- 
 mical order. Here, too, there is much which 
 cannot be explained by antecedent states of 
 the system. Human thought and purpose have 
 realized themselves in the physical world, and 
 have produced effects which the system, left 
 to itself, would never have reached. But these
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 323 
 
 interventions violate no laws of nature. The 
 effect produced enters at once into the great 
 web of law, and is combined with other effects 
 according to a common scheme. Hence the 
 integrity of the cosmic order does not con- 
 sist in a self -in closed movement, but in the 
 subjection of all its factors to the same gen- 
 eral laws. It is only in this sense that we 
 can speak of the continuity of nature. The 
 continuity is not in any substantial something 
 called nature, but solely in the sameness of 
 the laws according to which nature is admin- 
 istered, and of the purpose which is being 
 realized through it.^ 
 
 In the strict sense of the word, nothing what- 
 ever can be explained by the antecedent state 
 of the system. When we have had experience 
 of the order the antecedents may often be such 
 as to lead us to expect certain consequents, 
 but they are never such that we can deduce 
 the consequents as any necessary implication. 
 Even the familiar order of life is opaque to 
 us, and we know not the ways of the power 
 
 ^ See Author's Metaphysics, revised edition, p. 267.
 
 324 PERSONALISM 
 
 at work. We can as little deduce the later 
 phases from the earlier as we can deduce the 
 later parts of an opera from the first act. It 
 all depends on what is going on in the invisi- 
 ble world of powers ; and for even the show 
 of real insight we must have recourse either 
 to the empty notion of the " nature of things," 
 or to the conception of purpose which is guid- 
 ing the power. Temporal and spatial antece- 
 dents explain nothing so long as we remain 
 in the phenomenal realm. Suppose two per- 
 sons of traditional ways of thinking, but one 
 traditionally religious and the other tradition- 
 ally irreligious, should discuss the question 
 whether a cold and rainy season, with resultant 
 bad crops, were a divine admonition to men, 
 lest they forget. They would likely wrangle 
 indefinitely over the adequacy or inadequacy 
 of the " antecedents," whereas the only real 
 question would be whether the event, taken 
 in connection with all its circumstances, sug- 
 gested purpose on the part of the hidden 
 power. 
 
 Thus I have sought to explain and illustrate
 
 THE PERSONAL WORLD 325 
 
 what is meant by speaking of nature as a func- 
 tion of will and purpose, and to do it in such 
 a way as shall conserve the interest of all sane 
 and sober science of the non-dogmatic type, 
 and at the same time provide for the higher 
 moral and spiritual interests of humanity. Na- 
 ture is not here for its own sake, or to keep 
 ^M V^ a constant quantity. If we are in 
 a personal world, the final cause of nature 
 must be sought in the personal and moral realm. 
 Criticism frees us from all the naturalistic night- 
 mares of necessity and a self-running material 
 world, and allows us to trust our higher human 
 instincts once more. Philosophy replaces the 
 infinitely far God by the God who is infinitely 
 near, and in whom we live and move and have 
 our being. But for the practical realization 
 of this divine presence, logic and speculation 
 can do little for us. This behef must be lived 
 to acquire any real substance or controlling 
 character. This is the case with all practical 
 and concrete beliefs. If we ignore them prac- 
 tically we may soon accost them skeptically ; 
 and they vanish like a fading gleam. Or we
 
 326 
 
 PEKSONALISM 
 
 may build them into life and organize our lives 
 around them, and they become " truths that 
 wake to perish never." '^ To as many as re- 
 ceive him, to them gives he power to become 
 the sons of God."
 
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