JB>X) UC-NRLF B M bDl Eb7 LIBRARY OF THE University of California. RECEIVED BY EXCHANGE Class \p \^ INTRODUCTION to the GENETIC TREATMENT of the FAITH- CONSCIOUSNESS in the INDIVIDUAL BY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE COSTIN A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY BALTIMORE 1909 INTRODUCTION to the GENETIC TREATMENT of the FAITH- CONSCIOUSNESS in the INDIVIDUAL BY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE COSTIN A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy ERSlTV or WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY BALTIMORE 1909 Oj Copyright, 1909 BY William Wilberforce Costin PART I NON-RELIGIOUS FAITH Prefatory Note. The object of this dissertation is to carry into a new field, that of the reUgious; the method of approach known as the "Genetic Method," which has become so fruitful in the hands of contemporary psychologists and logicians. w. w. c. 18e^-^B CONTENTS. Part I. NON-RELIGIOUS FAITH. Chapter I Genesis of the Faith Consciousness or Pre- Logical Faith: Presumption 7-13 Chapter II Practical or Quasi-Logical Faith: Assump- tion 14-18 Chapter III Rational or Logical Faith: Presupposition and Belief 19-21 Chapter IV Ideal Faith: Postulation 22-31 Chapter V Mystic and Hyper-Logical Faith. I Mys- tic Faith: Contemplation. II Hyper- Logical Faith: The Hyper - Logical Experience as Union of Faith and Knowledge 32-43 Part II. religious faith. Appendix I (presenting a brief abstract of Part II.) . .. 44-45 Part III. the faith principle in modern philosophy. (Omitted.) Life 46-47 V OF Part I NON-RELIGIOUS FAITH CHAPTER I GENESIS OF THE FAITH-CONSCIOUSNESS OR PRE-LOGICAL FAITH! PRESUMPTION By the faith-consciousness* is meant the conscious act and con- tent of faith. The act of faith is consciousness functioning according to the demand of the faith-stimulus. Faith as act is that condition in which mental objects possess the interest and significance that make them worthy of acknowledgment, con- sideration and trust. Faith as content from the psychological point of view comprises those activities and mental states result- ing from the above condition over against which consciousness sets itself. Our first interest is not so much in the functioning of the faith- consciousness as in the consideration of what constitutes the content and genesis of the same. We pass to that considera- tion. There can be no adequate psychological study of the faith principle without raising the question of its genesis. Where in the psychic movement does there appear anything resembling that which in mature consciousness we call faith? In attempt- ing to answer this question we shall seek by comparative analysis of the various functions of the primary consciousness to set in bold relief a psychic process or principle which would seem funda- mentally to resemble the psychological principle of mature faith. In making this analysis we begin with the cognitive function. ' For a study of the natxire of consciousness, see Baldwin, Handbook of Psy. Senses and Intellect, pp. 43-45. 8 The Faith Consciousness Mere reaction against external action is not an adequate de- scription of the cognitive process. A mere hitting-back move- ment could never produce meaning. A reaction, to have cog- nitive value, must be that of an inner movement or control which gives it direction, and for which the result is meaning. Such a control would indicate a cognitive consciousness. Cognition, then, is that activity in the psychic process which accepts and unifies the impression made by stimulation, and constructs it into meaning, thereby constituting it knowledge for the reacting consciousness. Thus we are able to distinguish between cog- nitive process and cognitive content or knowledge.^ Feeling: The bombardment of consciousness by external action is something first of all felt. The feeling produced by such an attack is instantly followed by reaction. And the reaction process itself again stimulates feeling. This is true also of the presence of cognitive content or knowledge in consciousness. It produces an affection of the self,^ an affection which in turn is the index or sign of at least an emotional valuation given by consciousness to the constructs of all conscious activity. Will: Every state of consciousness is the embodiment of a mental process.^ Even reflex action is the expression of activity. There could be no such action without a psychic process. This and the other activities of mind necessary for attention, feeling and knowing, together with the power of conscious control within limits,* characterize will. The process, the genesis of which we are seeking, will gradually emerge, as we analyze and compare it with the aspects of con- sciousness sketched above. But first let us compare these activ- ities with each other as to their genesis. Prof. Dewey says, ''that, first, feeling is necessary, for unless the mind were affected in some way by the object or the truth, *Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 9. "Thought may- signify the mental activity, and it may signify the contents grasped through that activity. " ^ See Dewey, Psy., p. 16. * Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 38. * Bowne, Psy., p. 222. Pre-Logical Faith: Presumption 9 unless it had some interest in them, it would never direct itself to them, would not pay attention to them, and they would not come within its sphere of knowledge at all."* To apprehend feeling is a cognitive act as seen in the unifying process which sets it up, and recognizes it as such. Besides, feel- ing for, or interest in, a thing, or the truth, carries the attention and results in its cognition. But the attention involved a proc- ess of conation; so that the relative position in which these three aspects of consciousness stand as respects dependence would be feeling, will, cognition. That is, taking the construc- tive act of setting up feeling as cognition. We come now to the genesis of the faith principle. Faith has no meaning without an object, so that will and feeling must pre- cede the process. In order better to understand these conditions and the resulting significance of the faith principle, let us take for illustration, some object of cognition, say the child and its bottle. The nurse, with the bottle, appears and disappears. The child sees the bottle for a moment but is soon disappointed. What is the psychic state of the child's consciousness until it appears again? Many elements enter in to complicate the situation. Cogni- tion has done its work in constructing the object. As knowl- edge it is accompanied by a state of feeling, an affection of self; it comes to have value, worth, significance for consciousness. Interest is aroused.^ But the object has disappeared. What does the child do? After a moment of restless disappointment, it gives itself up to the situation, in the spirit of blind surrender to the object, to watch and wait for its return. The psychic sig- nificance of the attitude thus assumed involves the problem of the faith principle. We pass to the consideration of that significance. In the pre-logical mode consciousness may be characterized as respects its attitude in its control of a given content as a ''pre- sumption of existence, control, or reality;"^ and over against * Dewey, Psy., p. 18. ' Baldwin, Handbook of Psy. Feeling and Will, p. 139, on Nature of Interest. 3 Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. II, p. 11. 10 The Faith Consciousness this, "assumption" — the contrasted attitude towards what is not presumed, but is made "schematic for further determina- tion."^ The psychic significance of the attitude of conscious- ness while waiting and watching for the return of the absent object involves the principle of "presumption," i.e., consciousness " presumes its existence and availability in the world of its prac- tical interests. "2 The attitude thus characterized may be called "presumptive faith." We have seen that cognition, feeling and will, construct, attend and give conscious value to the object. These activities spring up the moment the stimulating conditions are present. It is not even necessary, in order to arouse these activities, that the object be familiar. A stimulus flashed into consciousness for the first time, will stimulate reaction, arouse interest, and result in cog- nition. The attitude of consciousness toward an unfamiliar and persisting object, has in it at least two elements of the faith principle, namely. Interest and Surrender. Interest once aroused in the object persists so long as the object persists, that is, if the object has any significance for conscious- ness. But in addition to, and along with, persisting interest in a persisting object, we have the attitude of consideration or sustained interest — the unrefiective attitude of primary contem- plation or first immediacy. The considering consciousness has in it the element of knomng. It persists in seeing progressive, enriching, enlarging, and changing meaning in the object. This attitude of concentrated interest in the object is an attitude in which consciousness goes out, in a process of grasping and indi- viduating the object as a unit. Interest as acceptance is akin to logical acknowledgment. It is an element in presumption (or reality-feeling). In the pre- logical consciousness it is what "belief" is in the logical. The second element of the faith principle is surrender. The object, in yielding up its meaning, must arouse sufficient interest to make it worth while for consciousness to concentrate upon it. ' Ibid., p. 11. 'Ibid., p. 12. Pre-Logical Faith: Presumption 11 But this attitude when once assumed, involving the considering consciousness, includes in its activities the process of surrender. Surrender, as here used, is an act of the will, but it is something more. It is will not only in the sense that all conscious process is will or activity, but it is a definite act of will. It is an act, however, which rests upon meaning as its stimulus. It is the process involved in consideration; not the process that wills to consider, but the process which gives itself over under the pres- sure of meaning,* value, significance, in the thing considered. It is a resting of the entire self upon the object. The thing be- comes fulfillment or end-state. Meaning becomes so trustworthy and significant, and seems to guarantee so much, that conscious- ness falls upon it, and confidently rests and reposes in it as something having value and worth while. But all this is in the presence of a persisting object. This is the second element of presumption. Take now the case where the object does not persist, as that of the disappearance of the nurse and the bottle. A new situa- tion confronts us, and new elements manifest themselves. With a persisting object the function of memory is unnecessary, unless we say that continuous recognition involves memory. But with a passing and shifting object, memory is indispensable. There could be no recognition of the object, when it reappears, without memory. And there could be no image formed of the object without it. So that when the object disappears, consciousness is able to reproduce it in memory. It is this image object for the original of which consciousness with great interest waits and watches. The element of "absence" entering into the situation, pro- duces a different state of consciousness from that of the persist- ing object. If the meaning has sufficient significance to guaran- tee "absent treatment," consciousness, remembering and imag- ing the object and feeling its worth, makes, as in the case of the persisting object, a surrender of itself to it as imaged, and waits ' On rise of psychic meanings; Baldwin, Thought and Things or Genetic Logic, Vol. I, p. 130; a work upon which many of the psychological posi- tions of this paper are based. 12 The Faith Consciousness patiently and intently for its reappearance. The act of sur- render to an object, with all that that involves as compared with the similar process when the object persists, is the further ele- ment of the faith principle. The process here is more than sim- ply will. The absence of the object gives rise to the "trustful" state of consciousness. Trust is produced. Confidence or "trust" in the unseen object, impelling consciousness to take the attitude of surrender, of waiting and watching for its return, along with the interest necessary to stimulate the process, is the first mode of faith characterized by "presumption." In "trust" there are two elements (1) trust in the conversion value of the image, corresponding to the "interest" element in faith, and (2) trust in the satisfying or worthful character of con- tent, corresponding to surrender; so that "trust" shows the same two factors in the image mode. It requires on the cognitive side what Prof. Baldwin has described as the "remote sameness" meaning.^ The faith principle takes its rise in the lowest levels of con- sciousness, as seen in the fact that certain of its elements appear in advance of the memory function. This is true even on the theory that memory is involved in continuous recognition. For before recognition is possible, interest must be aroused, while it in turn is followed by reaction. But the element of faith which appears as the result of embarrassment on the part of conscious- ness in its endeavor to relate itself to the absent object, takes its rise in consciousness, after the image has been lifted from the material object, and, by memory, recognized as in some sense the copy of the same. The reposeful, trustful state of consciousness, involving confidence in the absent and unseen, is not possible until consciousness has passed into the higher mode of memory. But even this is placing the genesis of faith at a very low level in the development of consciousness. Faith at this level attaches to "foreign" control.^ The mind under the pressure of meaning goes direct to the object, or, rather, » Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. I, p. 156. 2 On the Notion of Control, Ibid., p. 57. V CAUfO^^'^ Pre-Logical Faith: Presumption 13 to where it is expected to reappear. Everything in consciousness at this stage is becoming external. If left to itself, conscious- ness instantly seeks its object, in order to entwine itself about it, and find satisfaction in the enfoldment. Consciousness is under its control. The power to constitute the object something for consciousness in the sense of setting it up at will, for thought and consideration, is not yet developed. Faith at this stage is ration- ally blind — it "presumes." It is to be noted, therefore, that there is a difference between this simple or first consciousness, which is mere apprehension, and the consciousness of contemplation or the higher mode of immediacy. The contemplative consciousness at this stage is, not conscious that it is contemplating. It lacks the power to set up, as an object of thought, this fact or process and also the com- plex content of the logical mode for contemplation. There is no consciousness either of a distinction between the self which con- templates and the object contemplated. The dualism of sub- ject-object has not yet sprung up. There is lacking also the power of judgment, and the capacity for rational determination within the content of consciousness. It may be said that con- sciousness at this level is in the pre-logical mode, lacking all the powers that go to make up the logical function. The principle, therefore, the genesis of which we are seeking, may be called pre-logical faith or Presumption. CHAPTER II PRACTICAL OR QUASI-LOGICAL FAITH: ASSUMPTION The expression ''quasi-logical faith" may be better understood as we consider the general movement of consciousness through- out this section of its progressions, and note the larger charac- teristics of other phases. Consciousness viewed from the genetic standpoint is seen to be not something static and fixed, but an organized vital psychic process of action and reaction against stimulus to its own internal advantage developmentally and experimentally. Consciousness thought of as thus growing, expanding and enriching itself takes to itself direction, and makes for itself a history. The study of consciousness through- out the highway of its procession, and byway of its history is the work of Genetic Logic and Psychology. Throughout this ever expanding movement may be traced the vital strands of its being which taken together constitute longitudinally at least its inner fiber and structure. A study of the genesis of conscious elements is first of all an investigation as to the source, rooting and rise of the fibers constituting the strandlike structure of consciousness. In order to clearness it is necessary to explain that what we are calling the "strands of consciounsess " are in turn for pur- poses of analysis thought of as each constituting a separate mode of consciousness. Thus we may speak of the moral, aesthetic, cognitive, religious, emotional, volitional or faith-consciousness. That is to say when we find consciousness functioning habitually in a particular way — in such a way as can be definitely charac- terized and studied throughout the histoiy of that process we call it a consciousness of this or that particular kind or mode. Thus we find justification for the use of the term " faith-conscious- ness. " It is the study of a mode of consciousness theoretically Quasi-Logical Faith: Assumption 15 within the whole of consciousness and yet not actually separable from the whole; for after all consciousness functions as a unit;^ it is the one and the same consciousness functioning now as moral, now as aesthetic, now as religious, etc. The identity is not in the process but in the quality characteristic of each process. For example when consciousness in its functioning has the quality or character of faith we call it a faith-consciousness; when it has the quality of cognition we call it a cognitive consciousness. When the particular consciousness which we are analyzing out has made a beginning and a history for itself through growth, we call with Baldwin the distance covered in its development a progression; and this taken together with its beginning as a gen- esis may be designated in its entirety as a genetic progression. Still further by way of definition it may be said that when in any progression we come to a point where a new character appears and thereafter a new and distinctive quality is given to conscious- ness that the section of the progression thus formed is a mode and that the transition made from what went before into the new character is a modal transition or genesis.^ In the genetic treat- ment of the strands of consciousness it is usually found that the conscious fibers of one mode have their roots in the preceding mode, or even run back through all preceding modes into the foundation soil of consciousness itself. Minor growths or enlarge- ments within the mode may be called ''progressions." Above we suggested that a glance at some other phase of con- sciousness might be of help in understanding the meaning of the mode into which the faith-consciousness has now passed. Take for example the cognitive consciousness considered from the side of logical meaning. There would first of all be the pre-logical mode; that phase of the cognitive consciousness apparently destitute of logical meaning although the roots of the logical might be present. The objects cognized by consciousness in this state could only be those of sense and memory. From the pre- ' See Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 22. ^ See Baldwin, Development and Evolution, Chap. XIX, "The Theory of Genetic Modes;" also Thought and Things, Vol. I, for the positions immediately following. 16 The Faith Consciousness logical the passage is made into the quasi-logical mode. Here the objects cognized are those of fancy, make-believe, and sub- stantive objects. In order to clearness as to what is meant by the quasi-logical mode of the cognitive consciousness let us take one of these objects of determination and analyze it in its rela- tions both from beneath and from above, from the logical as well as from the pre-logical point of view. Take for example the make-believe determination as set forth in play. Here we have a construction of the imagination aided by memory of a situation which in part is suggested by real life — herein imitative — but at the same time is consciously unreal. While the play situation is consciously recognized as unreal it may be said to be under psychic control, and to be psychically or inwardly determined. But so soon as the play is fairly under way and consciousness looses itself in the spirit of the game the situation for the time seems real and all psychic control is with- drawn. But now and then in the midst of the excitement the player realizes that after all it is only play, and yields to it as a "conscious self-illusion." In this we see what is called in the cognitive consciousness the quasi-logical mode. Here is the element of the pre-logical, where all logical determination is withdrawn, and at the same time the logical, where conscious content is more or less under the control peculiar to the self. With this process in mind we are better able to understand the meaning of the quasi-logical mode of the faith-consciousness. We pass to the further consideration of that mode. The tendency of consciousness, observed from the beginning to go direct to its object is maintained throughout the life of the individual. It is only after persistent endeavor and laborious lifting of thought from its object that consciousness comes to realize its right and power to push and hold off from itself for purposes of thought and consideration its various mental con- structs. These two roads indicating the direction and move- ment of consciousness in its development branch from a com- mon point located in the lower levels of psychic progression. Within these overlapping spheres of conscious content are to be found certain forms of the faith principle. The first of which Quasi-Logical Faith: Assumption 17 may be considered under the head of "practical faith." By this we mean that principle which enables the individual to so relate himself to things and persons and to the constituted order of his environment as to guarantee the ongoing of his life with as little friction and embarrassment as possible. In order to fix with any degree of certainty the content and setting of this prin- ciple other related topics should have due consideration. We pass to the determination of these considerations and principles in their relation to faith. Impulse:^ An impulse is the onward pressure of ideas, feelings or perceptions as states of consciousness showing itself in activ- ity, as in producing some external physical change. An instinc- tive impulse is the feeling on the part of consciousness of being impelled to act without knowing the end to be realized yet with the power to select the proper means for its accomplishment.' While impulse is not faith it is so closely related to it in this mode as to supply the dynamic of the principle in its practical use. It often compels the exercise of faith as when one trusts another or some situation on no other ground than that of instinctive impulse. Much of the world's work is done through the dynamic of these combined principles. It leads to the "assumption" of the persistence and satisfying quality of the object. In the pre- logical mode we found the attitude of assumption "to be the use of a meaning in a control and with a reference that is not yet estab- lished, not yet a 'presumption.'" In this mode — the quasi- logical — there is not only present "pre-logical assumption," but logical as well, as existence or "reality" meaning.^ Sympathy: In sympathy consciousness identifies with itself the experiences of others, The mere fact of living in the psy- chical atmosphere of social intercourse will produce sympathy. Consciousness apprehends the feelings of others and reproduces them in itself, at the same time forgetting self and remembering that they are the feelings of others.* Sympathy is not faith, > See Hoffding, Outlines of Psy., pp. 235-256. ^ See Dewey, Psy., 353. ^See Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. II, pp. 11-12. •Ibid., pp. 329-330. 18 The Faith Consciousness but as between men it is a strong bond of union and readily becomes the occasion for the exercise of it. Often men have faith in each other and in their schemes and inventions purely out of personal sympathy for each other. The faith of sympathy is a practical force of far-reaching influence. Desire : While desire is not impulse it is often a development from it. Impulse has no presentation of the end to which it goes straight and blindly. But desire has.^ An impulsive act repeat- edly performed resulting in a pleasurable state of consciousness creates a desire for the repetition of the same or similar experience. This implies a consciousness that is able to project itself into the future and to apprehend the difference between a future or pos- sible state of consciousness and its actual experience. It is a consciousness that knows it has impulses, and as a form of pleas- urable action sets before itself the satisfaction of them. The tendency to realize desires often results in the taking of great risks and in pressing into service the function of faith for no other reason than that of personal gratification. The faith of impulse, sympathy, desire, implies a consciousness the content of which involves a play back and forth as between rational determination on the one hand, and a blind undiscriminating outgoing of spirit on the other. This quality of consciousness may be character- ized as quasi-logical, i.e., partly deliberate and rational, but at the same time undetermined in part and rationally blind in its ongoing and purpose. Such a principle may be called quasi- logical faith or assumption. It "assumes" beyond what it is entitled either to ''presume" or "believe." ' See Dewey, Psy., p. 360. CHAPTER III. RATIONAL OR LOGICAL FAITH : PRESUPPOSITION AND BELIEF. Another form of the faith principle found in the over-lapping spheres of conscious content is rational faith. Faith may be said to be rational when it rests upon the deductions of reason or involves a process of judgment. We have seen that there is a faith that trusts everything and everyone, taking on an attitude of presumption. In this consciousness loses itself in its object. All logical considerations are either not present or are set aside under the stress of a passion which finds satisfaction only in burying itself in the object of its pursuit. This kind of faith is found not only in the pre-logical state of consciousness where the logical function has not yet appeared, but often also in mature consciousness where the capacity for reflection is possible but is not exercised or controlled. We have seen pre-logical faith pass into that state of conscious progression where consciousness in the process of becoming comes to be more and more capable of self-determination, with view to ends, but not altogether so. This we call the quasi-logical state of the faith-consciousness. It "assumes" what it cannot "presume." From this the pas- sage is made more or less laboriously into the logical mode. We say "laboriously" because the popular and easy road is that of the quasi-logical mode, although the way is open for the use of the judgment. Consciousness in passing from the pre-logical to the quasi-logical mode undergoes a change not merely in expansion but in the germination of a new function, namely, the judgment; whereas the passage from the quasi-logical to the logical state of consciousness involves the addition of nothing wholly new but rather the development of what already is germi- nally there. So that the difference between quasi-logical and logical faith resolves itself into the question of the quantity of rational determination absent or present in any one conscious- 20 The Faith Consciousness ness. In approaching the question of rational faith certain funda- mental considerations are involved. There is a faith the ground of which is not rationally deter- mined and yet is probably possessed only by a rational conscious- ness. It is the faith, consciousness has in itself. No reasoning is necessary to induce consciousness to have faith in itself and yet only a reflecting consciousness is capable of selecting out and setting up that fact as part of its content or meaning. There is a faith also in self-consciousness that needs not the support of rational determination. Self-consciousness is self-knowledge not indeed without reflection, but as the presupposition of the mode of reflection. Self-knowledge is a kind of knowledge of the self that simply wells up within one without having to pass through the categories of thought. It is the consciousness of the inner control and direction of thought. Another kind of knowl- edge of the self is that which comes through reflection.^ It objectifies the self and makes it content of judgment. The faith or presupposition here involved is of the type of presumption as it is developed in the mode of reflection. It requires, however, a reflective consciousness to see that an act of faith is involved. This shows that the subject-self is presupposed just by the act of judgment that aflSrms the object-self. The same is true of our knowledge of persons and the world. Reflection shows clearly that our knowledge of a person is purely and only a mental con- struct.^ How then do we know that the subject-person and the mental construct or object-person correspond? And yet we do not hesitate a moment, but act at once on the faith that they do seeing that one is the function that constitutes the other. The same holds true when the principle is applied to the world. Every mind constructs for itself its own world. The world that is phenomenally real, to us is a mental construct. But we believe that there is also an actually real world and that there is some kind of correspondence between the two.^ The real world is presupposed by judgment as a control sphere just as the subject ' See Baldwin, Handbook, Senses and Intellect, p. 144. ' See Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, pp. 309-310. ' See Bowne, Metaphysics, pp. 16-17. Logical Faith: Presupposition and Belief 21 is. We never think, however, of making this distinction in practical hfe, and, therefore, the faith-process involved is never recognized. Consciousness must be reflective in order to see the process while the faith involved is spontaneous. What is "presumed" in the pre-logical and "assumed" in the quasi-logical is presupposed in the logical. The case is some- thing different, however, when we come to contemplate the Abso- lute. The difference is in this: The mind is compelled to con- struct the world because it lives in it, on the basis of fact and truth but the Absolute we are not compelled to construct under like limitations. It is an ideal construction making "postula- tion" beyond experience. It requires an act of faith to believe that there is a correspondence between the Infinite and the men- tal concept. It is evident again that this is the same kind of faith as that called "trust" above. By rational faith is meant that whenever faith is used we always have an adequate reason for its use. The reason for faith may not always be in consciousness when faith is employed. A mem- ory of the same may suffice many times, but rational faith must have somewhere in consciousness a basis in judgment. Illus- trations of rationally determined faith are all about us in life. A person has faith in another because he "knows" him. We have faith in the system because we have tested it and "know" it. The man of science has faith that his theory will hold even where he cannot experiment, because it seems reasonable, and held good where experimentation was possible. The chief motive of philosophy is its absolute faith in the unity of the whole, and that somewhere in the universe there is light, and that at the center everything is transparently clear to reason. From the first philosophy has been looking for plan and purpose in things with the faith that the universe is not destitute of them, and for good reasons. Another term for rationally determined faith is belief. An interesting study is that of the distinction between knowledge and belief. But this we pass over at this time. Our aim here is simply to show that there is what we are calling the rational or logical mode of the faith-consciousness in which the whole believed implicates our "presuppositions" of belief. CHAPTER IV. IDEAL faith: postulation. The ideal element in perception and memory attaches to the meaning of the perceived or remembered thing. It is tied down to some particular existence and cannot be freed until the mode of construction known as creative imagination lifts the ideal element from its connection and treats it with reference to its own significance and value, disregarding the concrete existence of the thing. Creative imagination liberates the idea from its accidental connections and as a universalizing activity reveals it in its nature as independent of varying concomitants. While the idealizing activity of imagination is involved in con- scious construction ideals as such are not constructions, as they are not describable. Ideal productions, as vague ends set up for pursuit, are elements of meaning attaching to present images. They are of the nature of interest. They have the distinguish- ing characters of the good, the beautiful and the true; to the religious ideal there attaches, in addition, the moral or ethical determinations inducing the sense of obligation and dependence. The psychic disposition to pursue identities through the con- nections of new determinations results in the setting up of the abstraction by which conception proceeds. The realization of the pursuit of identities involved, gives rise to a feeling of appre- ciation whenever desperate elements of experience " fall together in a unity of common meaning."^ The unifying process accom- panied by appreciation or gratification is necessary in order to abstraction. One of the elements of conceptual feeling, therefore, attaching to abstraction "may be best characterized as the feel- ing of unity in a whole. "^ > Baldwin, Handbook of Psy., Feeling and WiU, p. 200. » Ibid. Ideal Faith: Postulation 23 Through the process of abstraction the concept is set up as a positive construction, at the expense and neglect, however, of all experience ineligible for illustration. In generalization we have an opposite but equally important aspect of conception. Consciousness modifies conceptual content in extending its application to cover its accepted conscious experience. General- ization is a psychic process toward variety tending away from identity. The gratification of these tendencies from identity to variety results in a conceptual feeling which may be characterized as that of the harmony of parts. The conscious value of a concept in experience yields an aspect of feeling begotten of intension, as over against extension, "which excites only a feeling of its present accidental application."^ The emotion aroused by the process of intension is the "feeling formeaning. " Ideals have attached to them a kind of objectivity which may be called presentative as present in imagination; and also the same reality-coefficient attaching to every one, as not present in imagination. These aspects of conceptional emotion may be characterized as the feeling of universality. Taking the four ingredients of conceptual feeling sketched above. Ideals may be defined, "as the forms which we feel our conceptions would take if we were able to realize in them a satis- fying degree of unity, harmony, significance and universality."^ The conceptual feeling involved in ideal construction carries with it a determination which has the force of belief — a deter- mination which may be characterized as Ideal Faith. Consciousness in the ideal-faith mode goes beyond the content of reflection in an acceptance, on the basis of "trust," of the remote, when it is not fully guaranteed by thought. This out- come results from the growth of ideal and universal meaning. The attitude of consciousness involved is postulation ; it is related to presupposition as assumption is to presumption. In assump- 1 Ibid. 2 Baldwin, Handbook of Psy., pp. 201-202, also Thought and Things, Vol. I, pp. 234-238 on Ideal Meaning, and Vol. II, on Postulation, etc., as presented below. 24 The Faith Consciousness tion consciousness determines a construction of which the main element of meaning is that it has not been found real but is set up, accepted and acted upon as though it were real. Meaning is ejected into a control sphere in which there is little or no reality- correspondence ; it is made to attach to the construction — by the ipse dixit of consciousness — when in fact it is out of its proper realm. Relations of coordination and interconnection as attach- ing to the meaning are forced into the situation to satisfy the conscious impulse of the moment. The principle of assumption may be illustrated by the child and his toy-dog: "When the child goes through the process of feeding his toy-dog, he ' assumes' a sphere that he does not regularly ' presume.' " In presumption consciousness acts upon the principle that reality is what the meaning indicates, and reads into reality only such meaning as the pre-determined meaning of reality will justify. "That attitude whereby the meaning is recognized as determined for what it is, gives what we may call a 'presumption' of existence, control, or reality. The meaning is depended upon or expected to have its own appropriate coefficients, its own 'real' value; but the aspect that constitutes it thus 'real' is not isolated or asserted, as a separate element of meaning. When a child, for example, cries for an object in the next room, he 'presumes' its existence and availability in the world of his practical interests. " W^e have said that postulation is related to presupposition in the logical mode as assumption is to presumption in the pre- logical. Postulation is a schematic meaning in the logical mode. Reality treated in a schematic way may be said to be postulated ; the postulated meaning thus set up is a logical assumption. Pre- supposition on the other hand is an attitude of logical presump- tion or acceptance. " It is that determinate sphere of reference and control which attaches to the whole disjunctive meaning. It is the sphere which is accepted and acknowledged as that in which the disjunction stated in the subject-matter is finally to be resolved." In determining the content of ideal faith the material is sub- sumed under the form of postulation. The various ideals — truth, goodness, "ideas of reason" — are thought as developments V OF THE Ideal Faith: Postulation 25 in the form of postulation of assumptive or schematic meaning. We shall see in the schematic rendering necessary for the pro- duction of the "agreement of relations" we call truth that the principle of postulation performs an important role. The deter- mination of truth as an element in the content of ideal faith necessitates the consideration of other principles. The fundamental question of speculation is : What is reality? Psychologically considered the question would be: What is meant by the ''sense" of reality? Ideas to which reality is attributed and those to which it is not, have the effect in conscious- ness of producing respectively the feeling of reality, and the feeling of unreality. Reality-feeling at the earliest stage of conscious development is simply ''feeling" — feehng without meaning of any kind. "Consciousness is filled with affective sensational happenings." Reality-feeling, however, is not be- lief. There is a distinction between the feeling of reality and belief. "The phrase reality-feeling denotes the fundamental modification of consciousness which attaches to the presentative side of sensational states — ^the feeling which means, as the child afterwards learns, that an object is really there. By the word belief, on the other hand, we may denote the feeling which attaches to what may be a secondary or representative state of mind, and indicates the amount of assurance we have at the time that an object is there. The idea which has the reality-feeling may be said to have its own guarantee of its reality; it is a given, and my feeling of it is direct acquaintance with it. But the idea to which belief attaches is guaranteed by some other mental state, by what I know about it, or by its connection with ideas already guaranteed."^ Unreality-feeling takes its rise in an experience quite different from the feeling of reality. Impulse and appetite rise in conscious- ness as simply feeling but make sharp demands upon the sensi- bility. Presence-feeling — as in taste and touch — is readily con- nected with the feeling of absence, as when the stimulus is with- drawn. The mere feeling of the absence of that which is neces- ^ Baldwin, Handbook, Feeling and Will, p. 149. 26 The Faith Consciousness sary to satisfy makes the impression upon consciousness of unreality. Unreality-feeling, however, is not the "negation of belief;" it does not rise as the contradiction of reality. It is not the result of conflict, but takes its rise in natural impulse. There are degrees of unreality — as well of reality-feeling. The reality feeling attaching to food is more intense in time of hunger than of complete satisfaction. Every consciousness postulates for itself realities of varying degree. The postulation of the true as the real and eternal as over against that which is unreal and temporal has an abiding significance for consciousness. Such a reality — ideal reahty — readily becomes the object of faith. A reality corresponding to truth may be thought in the schematic meaning of this mode as an assumptive postulate of the faith- consciousness. Not to go into the various processes by which truth thus considered is finally determined, it will suffice to pre- sent the outcome, by way of definition, of the development of the principle. "Truth is a relative conversion of the contents of social acceptance into the facts of a system of external controls. Socially considered truth has an existential reference that is not removed by the statements of social desiderata."^ Again, "the true is simply the body of knowledge, acknowledged as belonging where it does in a consistently controlled context. The char- acters of truth are those attaching to the content of judgment as being under mediate control. The meaning of truth is its intent to mediate the original sphere of existence meaning in which it arose. "^ "Truth is a system of objective contents set up and acknowledged as under a variety of coefficients of control; this system is socially derived and socially valid, though rendered by acts of individual judgment; the whole movement issues in a dualism of self-acknowledging and objects-acknowledged, a dualism from which thought as such cannot free itself."' Truth as thus defined when once set up and acknowledged as such readilypasses into an abiding postulate of a reality accepted by faith. 1 Baldwin, On Truth, Psy. Rev., July, 1907, p. 283. ^Ibid., p. 287. ' Ibid., Note 2, p. 287. Ideal Faith: Postulation 27 Goodness as an ideal construction gets its determination also through the postulation of the faith-consciousness. The ideal of consciousness, that, somehow, at the heart of things there must be, not only truth, but goodness as well, is a postulate of faith upon which consciousness acts with a high degree of cer- tainty. There is no rest in the thought that everything is bad; so that consciousness in lieu of discovering the good, postulates, as a working ideal, goodness at the center of things, and has the faith that all things rest upon goodness as ultimate ground. Other ideal constructions which may be thought as postulates of the faith-consciousness are what Kant calls the "ideas of rea- son" — "the ego, considered merely as a thinking nature or soul; the conception of the Universe; and the one and all-sufficient cause of all cosmological series, in other words, the idea of God."^ "The notion of self, hke all other notions, is a gradual growth."^ We defer, however, the consideration of the development of the self as content, but enquire concerning the status of the control- self as an assumptive postulate of the faith-consciousness. The notion of the self as content is constructed upon the basis of empirical data, while that of the control-self is an ideal construc- tion existentially postulated as the "subject-agent" or "inner control" of consciousness giving direction and organization to experience. Kant says concerning the control-self that it is, "the rational conception or idea of a simple substance which is in itself unchangeable, possessing personal identity, and in con- nection with other real things external to it." "But, "he says, "the real aim of reason in this procedure is the attainment of principles of systematic unity for the explanation of the phenom- ena of the soul. That is, reason desires to be able to represent all the determinations of the internal sense, as existing in one sub- ject, all powers as deduced from one fundamental power, all changes as mere varieties in the condition of a being which is permanent and always the same, and all phenomena in space as entirely different in their nature from the procedure of ' Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 417-420. ' Baldwin, Handbook, Senses and Intellect, p. 143. 28 The Faith Consciousness thought."* And he would have us understand that the best way to meet this demand of reason is by " means of such a schema, which requires to regard this ideal thing (control-self) as an actual existence." But, "the psychological idea is meaningless and in- applicable, " he says, "except as the schema of a regulative con- ception. "^ That is, the control-self, whatever else it may be, is an ideal postulate of consciousness determined in the interest of unity as a regulative principle of reason — schematic, therefore — yet a principle in which consciousness may have practical faith. Another idea of reason is the conception of the Universe. For Kant, ''nature is properly the only object presented to us, in regard to which reason requires regulative principles. "^ But nature is two-fold — ''thinking and corporeal nature." This two-foldness of nature compels consciousness to postulate "nature in general. " "The absolute totality of the series of these conditions is an idea, which can never be fully realized in the em- pirical exercise of reason, while it is serviceable as a rule for the procedure of reason in relation to that totality. "* But the notion is an ideal construction, regulative, schematic, not constructive but postulated as a practical necessity in the interests of ration- ality and unity, and worthy of the trust and confidence of the faith-consciousness. The last idea of reason that need be mentioned is "the all- sufficient cause of all cosmological series, the idea of God." Consciousness in its contemplation of nature and the universe constructs an ideal to satisfy the demand for an all-sufficient cause of things. Kant recognizing the urgency for such a con- struction says, "The highest formal unity, which is based upon ideas alone, is the unity of all things — a unity in accordance with an aim or purpose; and the speculative interest of reason renders it necessary to regard all order in the world, as if it origi- nated from the intention and design of a supreme reason. This principle unfolds to the view of reason, in the sphere of experi- * Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 418. =^Ibid., p. 418. 3 Ibid., p. 419. Mbid., p. 419. Ideal Faith: Postulation 29 ence, new and enlarged prospects, and invites it to connect the phenomena of the world according to teleological laws, and in this way to attain to the highest possible degree of systematic unity. The hypothesis of a supreme intelligence, as the sole cause of the universe — an intelligence which has for us no more than an ideal existence, is accordingly always of the greatest service to reason."* The ideal thus constructed, however, is a postulate of faith both schematic and regulative. The progressive meaning ejected into the ideal of the Absolute on the part of consciousness in its effort to adequately satisfy the demand of its developing need is considered under the second determination of the faith-con- sciousness, namely. Religious Faith. Other elements of the content of ideal faith have yet to be recognized, namely, the postulation of the absolute as the ideal of both truth and appreciation ; the postulation of absolute experi- ence and its justification; and the postulation of the absolute- self or God. Consciousness is never content to rest in a dualism. The dualistic notion, for example, of an eternal universe as over against an eternal God presents an embarrassment to consciousness; consciousness seeks to bridge the dualism in a fundamental unity. The history of conscious development is that of a pro- gression by way of dualistic stages toward the absoluteness of conscious experience. In connection with the postulation of the absolute as the ideal of truth and appreciation certain dualistic experiences demand consideration. Consciousness in the logical mode sets up as a dualistic con- struction to be acknowledged and judged the control-self as over against the empirical-self. The embarrassment of conscious- ness thus formed by the presence of a dualism is soon disolved in the transition of experience from the logical to the feeling or appreciative consciousness. So soon as consciousness takes up the terms of the dualism in an experience of feeling and apprecia- tion the dualism disolves, and a unity of selfhood is formed. That is, for the purposes of thought, the control-self and the * Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 420. 30 The Faith Consciousness empirical-self may be set over against each other; but all the while — or whenever it attends to it — consciousness has the feel- ing that these selves are nothing more than itself functioning now in this way and now in that. It is, however, in feeling only that the duahsm is transcended; as soon as the logical consciousness is invoked the dualistic embarrassment reappears. Another form of dualistic experience is the situation necessi- tated by consciousness in getting knowledge of the world of objects. The world of objects appears in consciousness as con- tent over against which consciousness sets itself as control giving direction and organization to it as experience. The organization thus formed in experience is truth; and the dualistic experi- ence set up is that of the logical determination of conscious- ness over against the world of truth. That is, a dualism is formed within the logical consciousness. To rest here would bring thought to a standstill. All progression of consciousness would stop. Somehow the higher dualism thus formed must be trans- cended. Again the solution of the difficulty must be found in an appeal to appreciation — the aesthetic and feeling consciousness. Consciousness in this mode in addition to getting the meaning of the object, becomes so overwhelmingly absorbed in that meaning — the absorption taking the form of appreciation — as to loose itself in it and to neglect altogether the fact of its exist- ence as object as over against consciousness as subject. In other words, the dualism is transcended by a supreme abandonment of consciousness to the meaning of its content in an all absorb- ing act of appreciation. Everything that would tend to distract, all relativity and determinations of every kind are neglected absolutely in the interest and the moment of conscious aesthetic appreciation. That is a great triumph for consciousness. No longer is it the victim of dualistic embarrassment. It has worked its way through the dualism of all preceding modes and now is able to gather up in the unity of appreciation all present as well as past experiences. Consciousness in constructing for itself the meaning of the absolute ejects into it the meaning of its own experience; so that both truth and appreciation are thought as attaching to Ideal Faith: Postulation 31 the meaning of the absolute as the ideal of worship. The abso- lute is able to set up and think as object the truth — herein logical — as over against itself; but unconditioned by it, it is able also to transcend the dualism formed by itself and the truth in an abso- lute experience of aesthetic appreciation. So that consciousness is not only itself able to transcend all dualisms in this experience but postulates the absolute as having the power to unite all things in a supreme act of absolute appreciation. The construc- tion thus postulated we shall find in the determination of religious faith to be the absolute-self or God, and as such the preeminent postulate of ideal faith. CHAPTER V. MYSTIC AND HYPER-LOGICAL FAITH. MYSTIC faith: contemplation. Jacobi's theory of the rational intuitions of God, and all such determinations, are highly mystic and contemplative. The truly mystic consciousness as "religious fact" consists in "a. tendency to arrive at the consciousness of the Absolute by means of symbols under the influence of love."^ Bouchette affirms, as something less than the religious fact, that, "mysticism con- sists in according to spontaneity a larger place in the intelligence than is granted to the other faculties. "^ Victor Cousin without a true appreciation of the religious fact speaks of mysticism as "the claim of knowing God without intermediary, and, as it were face to face; in mysticism, everything that comes between God and ourselves hides him from us. "^ But Rec^jac emphasizing the religious fact of mysticism considers this the best definition: "Mysticism is the tendency to draw near to the Absolute in moral union by symbolic means."* The method of mysticism is symbolism, mysticism in its con- templation of the Absolute is highly symbolic. The mystic consciousness constructs its objects as symbols. The relation between symbolic representation and the things represented is that of analogy. Analogy is the "unique force which renders fertile the vast field of mysticism."^ Science and philosophy are * R^c^jac, The Basis of the Mystic Knowledge, p. 62. ^ Bouchette, Diet, des sciences philosophiques, p. 189. ' Hist, de la philos moderne, t, ii, IX, le, con. * R^c^jac, The Basis of the Mystic Knowledge, p. 64. •'Ibid., p. 120. Mystic Faith: Contemplation 33 much concerned with symboHc representation through analogy. SymboHsm is the only expression proper to mysticism. The function of the symbolic object is not so much to image or rep- resent as to suggest. The symbolic object has about itself a halo of sentiment which stimulates consciousness as suggestion to an emotional outbreak — joyful, sympathetic or otherwise. R6c6jac says, "symbolic signs have the same effect as direct perceptions; as soon as they have been 'seen' within, their psychic action takes hold of the feehng and fills consciousness with a crowd of images and emotions which are attracted by the force of Analogy."^ Mystic representation is purely subjective as indicated by the nature of mystic phenomena — voices, prophetic dreams, ecstasy, etc. The "inner voice" of the mystic consciousness results from the unity of God and spirit in a relation shut in from all sense-reaction or objective determination. In dreams, the external perceptions of the waking state are absent and memory and imagination must reproduce them in order to give to con- sciousness the sense of at least apparent externality. In ecstasy, empirical determinations cease to influence consciousness; the sense of externality entirely disappears and consciousness be- comes wholly absorbed in the divine presence. In all these phenomena the moral element is present in varying degree and attaches to the sense of freedom as the constant quality of con- sciousness. The elements thus described are the dominant deter- minations of the mystic faith-consciousness. The principle of surrender as in all preceding modes is here the functioning process of mystic faith, and contemplation is a form of the content of the mystic consciousness. Other elements of the mystic-faith content need to be con- sidered: for instance, the faith of feeling only, in opposition to knowledge ; faith as will — the will to believe — without knowledge ; faith as the faculty of the intuition of the ideal; and faith as union of all in the content of a new immediateness; — the aesthetic consciousness. 1 Ibid., p. 134. 34 The Faith Consciousness Faith as feeling takes the form, first of all, of desire. This is a state in which aspiration plays an important role. Conscious- ness aspires toward an object, a good, such as the heart requires, but the mind does not construct. Desire though vague in its object becomes a deep passion of the heart which finds satisfac- tion only in the grasp of faith upon the infinite, eternal, the per- fect. In ecstasy also we have a form of faith as feeling. The consciousness of ecstasy is the consciousness of unity with the object of faith; there is no intermediary; consciousness sees, touches, possesses, is merged in its object. This is not simply the faith that believes without seeing, it is the faith that believes by touching, possessing, feeling. Consciousness in ecstasy does not hold its object through idea — i.e., through knowledge — but through feehng; through a perfect unity of consciousness and object in feeling; and that feeling is faith. Faith unites without absorbing; it merges consciousness in its object, and at the same time increases the self-consciousness of each. Mystic experience is not knowledge but results from the faith of feeling which has in it the mystic element. Mysticism is not an expedient to satisfy the demands of the rational conscious- ness in its reach after the unknowable. All that it takes from the empirical consciousness is the form of its expression — the symbolic method or elements. Science as knowledge — that which grasps its objects through ideas — and mysticism never meet. While mysticism seeks a synthesis of the self and the world, it does it through the grasp of consciousness functioning in the act of faith characterized by feeling, and not through the under- standing. Knowledge as that which synthesizes through ideas can never truly grasp first principles; it must be left to the ''heart" alone to do this, and that through feeling. The mystic con- sciousness does not need, however, to disregard knowledge through ideas; the fact is that by virtue of its free and naive feeling of the absolute, it is the better able when occasion offers to synthesize experience through the understanding. IWe come now to the determination of another element in the , content of mystic faith, namely, faith as will — the will to believe — V without knowledge. There is a sense in which it is not true that Mystic Faith: Contemplation 35 we can believe what we will, and there is a sense in which it is true, that we can will to believe. When belief is defined "as the consciousness of the personal indorsement of reality — reality being found to be a general term for that kind of experience which satisfies one or more of the needs of the individual — it is evident that belief is not the feeling of volition or effort. " " It is a feeling of willingness or consent, but not of will. We often consent to reality against our wills. The effect of will upon belief is really the effect of voluntary attention upon one or more of the coeffi- cients already mentioned. Attention may intensify an image and so give greater sensational or emotional reality. It may also dwell upon and bring out certain relational connections of an image and so throw the logical coefficient on the side of those connections ; it may refuse to dwell upon those relations which are distasteful. But it is not true that we can believe what we will. To say we believe what we need, is not to say we believe what we want."* On the other hand belief used in the sense of mystic faith — i.e., knowledge without recourse to ideas — maybe said to be willed when by an act of determination consciousness seeks to merge itself in the absolute ; the result of such an act being the grasp of consciousness in its effort to touch and possess the absolute in the synthesis of feeling. Mystic faith, that is, the conscious- ness that seeks to merge itself thus does what it does as deter- mined by the will. So that in a very general sense, in this mode we may say that the dynamic of consciousness is the will to believe — i.e., the will to exercise mystic faith, the will that deter- mines the mystic faith consciousness to do what it does. While the mystic consciousness can hardly be said to decide an option between propositions in its effort to possess the absolute yet it is true that the same dynamic of volition determines its action as when consciousness is required to decide an option. In both cases it is the will to believe. Where the option is present the principle may be set forth as follows: "Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between prop- * Baldwin, Handbook, Feeling and Will, pp. 170-171. 36 The Faith Consciousness ositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, 'Do not decide, but leave the question open,' is itself a passional decision — just like deciding yes or no — and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth."* The thesis thus stated involves the will to believe as in mystic faith. Another element of the content of mystic faith is faith con- sidered as the faculty of intuition of the ideal. "Mystic intui- tion enables us to perceive the facts of freedom through and above the empirical consciousness, in a manner the inverse of abstraction. "2 Imagination serves the mystic consciousness in its production of symbols and reason exercises the intuition suited to it. Before rational determination of any kind can take place there must be the presentation to consciousness of mental images — images formed under the pressure of moral influence — which constitute the symbols of the meaning underlying the analogical representations. Reason exercises intuition proper to the sym- bols thus presented. Reason in abstracting from the symbols, however, produces that which must not be thought as in any way corresponding to objective, empirical knowledge. The product is that of the nature of analogy. The mystic purpose of reason in analogy is to merge the Absolute in consciousness and consciousness in the Absolute. The culmination of symbolic representation is the Absolute in consciousness as an abiding moral presence. That presence together with the efforts of the mystic consciousness in realizing its purpose stimulates inward action, strengthens the will, quickens the moral sense and rein- forces the natural powers in the making of character. The faculty of mystic intuition by which the Absolute is posited in consciousness is conditioned by the moral qualities of the sub- ject. Only a quickened moral consciousness would seek to merge itself in the Absolute; and the Absolute could only be posited where such moral qualities exist. Desire also as an internal driv- ing passion may be said to condition mystic intuition. Where ' James, The Will to Believe, p. 11. ^ R6c6jac, The Basis of the Mystic Knowledge, p. 137. Mystic Faith: Contemplation 37 there is little desire for the Absolute, little effort will be put forth in the realization of that desire. But desire intensified into a passion will have a decided conditioning and directing influence upon intuition. An all-absorbing desire stimulates mystic intui- tion to a transcendental reach in the two-fold effort to merge consciousness in the Absolute and to posit the Absolute in con- sciousness. Mystic intuition is instrumental as the faculty of faith in the realization of the Absolute as its Ideal. Faith as the union of all in the content of a new immediateness — the aesthetic — is a further determination of the experience which is hyper-logical rather than mystic. The process by which the aesthetic object is taken out of its relations and set up for contem- plation is called "detachment." There are two methods of detachment; one where the object is, as we say, taken up out of its setting and treated or individuated as in itself worthy of aesthetic appreciation; the other is where consciousness deliber- ately detaches the object from it relations and connections — often in an abrupt and broken way — and sets it up for idealiza- tion and contemplation without further reference to its contex- tual setting. Consciousness in its attitude toward the aesthetic object may be treated from two points of view; (1) that of the spectator, and (2) that of the artist himself. The consciousness of the spectator may be characterized in two ways: (1) there is the sense of reading into (einfiihlung) the object elements of personification — consciousness gives to the object life, thought, feeling, consciousness itself or whatever is necessary to animate it; and (2) the sense of oneness (absorption in) with the object — consciousness feels itself as one with the object — as actually doing the things which before it personified the object as doing; consciousness is absorbed, merged in the object — is at one with it. In this we see the bridging of the dualism of the self and its object, and a perfect unity established. The consciousness of the artist may be said to have these elements of aesthetic experience in common with that of the spectator, but in addition, something more, namely, the feeling of appreciation which comes from the sense of ha\nng actually produced that which gives so much real aesthetic pleasure. In mystic contemplation consciousness pro- 38 The Faith Consciousness ceeds in a quasi-aesthetic wa}'' and merges itself by faith into unity with its object of love and worship. II HYPER-LOGICAL FAITH: THE HYPER-LOGICAL EXPERIENCE AS UNION OF FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. The early type of conscious experience may be characterized as an immediacy of feeling; consciousness at this stage is in the pre-logical mode; the power of logical or rational determination has not yet developed. Memory, imagination, the conscious- ness of self, the power to construct objects of thought, to objec- tify and apprehend the world, the dualisms of "inner-outer," "mind and body," "self and not-self," the power of rationality, of contemplation, — none of these have yet arisen, and conscious- ness knows not itself or its environment; it simply is, and lives in an immediacy of mere feeling. Prof. James has character- ized this earliest stage of consciousness as "pure experience," "Pure experience," he says, "is the name which I give to the original flux of life before reflection has categorized it. Only new-born babes, and persons in semicoma from sleep, drugs, illness or blows can have an experience pure in the literal sense of a that which is not yet any definite what, though ready to be all sorts of whats; full both of oneness and of manyness, but in respects that don't appear; changing throughout, yet so con- fusedly that its phases interpenetrate, and no points, either of distinction or of identity, can be caught. True experience in this state is but another name for feeling or sensation. But the flux of it no sooner comes than it tends to fill itself with emphases, and these to become identified and fixed and abstracted; so that experience now flows as if shot through with adjectives and names and prepositions and conjunctions. Its purity is only a relative term, meaning the proportional amount of sensation which it still embodies. " Far back as we go, the flux, both as a whole and in its parts, is that of things conjunct and separated. The great continua Hyper-Logical Faith: Faith and Knowledge 39 of time, space and the self envelopes everything betwixt them and flow together without interfering. The things that they envel- ope come as separate in some ways and as continuous in other. Some sensations coalesce with some ideas, and others are irrecon- cilable. Qualities compenetrate one space, or exclude each other from it. They cling together persistently in groups that move as units, or else they separate. Their changes are abrupt or discontinuous; and their kinds resemble or differ; and, as they do so, fall into either even or irregular series. "In all this the continuities and the discontinuities are abso- lutely coordinate matters of immediate feeling. The conjunc- tions are as primordial elements of 'fact' as are the distinctions and disjunctions. In the same act by which I feel that this passing minute is a new pulse of my life, I feel that the old life continues into it, and the feeling of continuance in no wise jars upon the simultaneous feeling of a novelty. They, too, com- penetrate harmoniously. Prepositions, copulas, and conjunc- tions, 'is', 'isn't,' 'then,' 'before,' 'in,' 'on,' 'beside,' 'between,' 'next,' 'hke, ' 'unlike,' 'as,' 'but,' flower out of the stream of pure existence, the stream of concretes or the sensational stream, as naturally as nouns and adjectives do, and they melt into it again as fluidly when we apply them to the new portion of the stream."* Thus we see that consciousness begins its life with, and in, an immediacy of feeling. But with the development of consciousness in experience there soon spring up the various powers mentioned above — memory, imagination, the "inner-outer" and "mind and body" dualisms, consciousness of self, objectivity, knowledge, rationality — so that we are able to track out with some degree of certainty the vari- ous progressions or strands of consciousness, as well as the modes through which consciousness must pass in its developing move- ment. It is to be noted that consciousness through experience very soon gets out of its first immediacy of mere feeling and passes into the world of "dualisms," which, as development continues ' James, Journal of Phil., etc., Jan. 19, 1905, p. 29. See Baldwin, Thought and Things, I, p. 45. 40 The Faith Consciousness become more and more hardened into constructions of greater and greater practical utility. The history of the ''dualisms," and consequent embarrassments of consciousness in its various progressions, and the study of the development of consciousness in its manifoldness is the work of Genetic Logic/ this, however, we shall not attempt here; we wish merely to point out the fact that consciousness begins with an immediacy of feeling but soon passes out of it into the ''mediateness" of thought, in which sphere it meets \\dth the embarrassment of dualisms. Now the question is. Does consciousness ever come to the place in its development where the possibility of dissolving or bridging all dualisms is reached? The answer is that we beUeve it does, and that that stage is the mode we are calling the "hyper-logical" — an experience constituted by the union of faith and knowledge. Very early in consciousness there begins to appear in a quite germinal way a strand or progression which has in it the promise of a higher and richer immediacy; we refer to that which appears first as mere play, uninformed, impulsive and uninfected by thought or rationality. Later this progression takes the form of "semblance" and we see the beginning of art; with this the idealistic and aesthetic-consciousness emerge. In the aesthetic experience the dualisms through which consciousness has passed and in which it may at the time find itself are bridged.^ The full aesthetic experience is not possible in the pre-logical modes; this becomes the more evident as we seek to determine the marks or criteria of the logical consciousness. "It is plain that the criterion of the logical as such is found not alone in the matter thought about, but in the way we think about it ; not alone in the factors determining the "what" of which the object is made, but in the factors of control which give answer to the question "how" it is made. Looked at broadly, the mode is one of a dualism of self and the objects of its experience; logical objects, are therefore, only those objects which are meanings to a subject of experience. Again, logical objects are those which ' See Prof. Baldwin's work, Thought and Things, which the following exposition follows. Use also is made of his unpublished lectures on Aesthetics. - For the aesthetic experience see Section I, this chapter. Hyper-Logical Faith: Faith and Knowledge 41 issue from the redistribution and organization of all simpler meanings in a whole context of experience. They are individ- uated as in this organization; as related, in meanings of general, universal, particular and singular force. Here, evidently, the the characteristic mark is the elevation of relationship — actual presence of contemporaneous, like, different and otherwise re- lated wholes — into a single whole exhibiting these relations. Relation is individuated as a meaning or object of thought, one whose abstraction from the body of the former objective con- tinuum or complication, it is the special interest of this mode to achieve. Finally, the logical function is that in which these two specifications are given — a subject of experience, and a related objective whole which is experience to such a subject. This function is that to which we have given the name judgment. Judgment is the psychic control, issuing from what is now a self, exercised upon those meanings of relation which constitute ideas about things."^ It would seem from what is necessary in order to constitute an object, an object for the logical consciousness, that the aesthetic experience is impossible to the pre-logical consciousness. In fact we have just seen that the immediacy of consciousness in the beginning — in the pre-logical mode — is the immediacy of mere feeling, and is not aesthetic. The aesthetic experience would seem to be a provision for immediacy at the top rather than at the bottom. Consciousness must first develop its dualisms and pass through them before the parallel lines of progression and development, as object or meaning on the one hand and con- sciousness on the other, can be brought together in a higher and richer immediacy — "higher" because it rests upon the founda- tion of dualistic and logical experience, and ''richer" because out of this same experience it is highly informed. While the aesthetic experience is above the logical — is hyper- logical — at the same time consciousness profits by having passed through the logical; and the gain is manifest in the enriching of the aesthetic experience. At every stage in conscious progres- » Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. I, p. 271. 42 The Faith Consciousness sion the aesthetic experience partakes by way of enrichment of the aggregate of past experience up to that point. A meagerly developed and uninformed consciousness will not have as rich an aesthetic experience as the highly developed and well informed consciousness will have. Thus we see the justification for calling this the ^'hyper-logical experience;" it is not an experience for the logical consciousness as such, but is an experience for a con- sciousness which has been greatly enriched by the logical. In the hyper-logical experience so described we have a union of faith and knowledge — meaning by faith a certain dispositional attitude of consciousness, an openness of consciousness toward experience ; and by knowledge experience itself. In the aesthetic experience the object — already experienced and, therefore, knowledge — and the open consciousness — faith, dispositional and volitional — are brought together and merged into one. So that the mode of consciousness in which the aesthetic experience arises may be called from the point of view of this thesis. Hyper- logical Faith. In concluding the constructive portion of Part I, Non-Religious Faith, let us notice a few points by way of summing up. We have found throughout the progressions of the faith-consciousness that the faith principle consists fundamentally in surrender to an absent object, postulated in the higher modes as ideal. Faith we have defined as "trust," confidence — trust that reaches beyond rational grounds in its effort to grasp its object. Belief as a "personal endorsement of reality," or "as the consciousness of the presence of a thing as fitted to satisfy a need," does not involve the faith principle. The need for faith may disappear and belief take its place, but faith cannot be said prior to this to be belief. The faith-consciousness does not begin with reality or give it a " personal endorsement " as present, but rather postu- lates an ideal which it hopes is real but has no way of proving; but in the absence of proof it "trusts" in it as real and "surrenders" to it. Later the ideal of faith comes to be thought and believed in as real. Faith then may be said to give it a kind of imagina- tive reality. Conviction as to such a reality would involve the elements of the belief-consciousness. The faith-consciousness Hyper-Logical Faith: Faith and Knowledge 43 in constructing its ideal sets before itself an end for the will and thus influences it in surrender. In this faith embodies the will; on the other hand it may be said that will is directed by faith, as when it becomes the dynamic of consciousness in its effort to merge itself in its object. Farther it may be said that faith involves the emotional and dispositional attitudes of the self. Part II RELIGIOUS FA.ITH APPENDIX I AN ABSTRACT OF PART II Part II of the Dissertation^ is a treatment of Religious Faith; while Part III deals with the Use of the Faith Principle in Modern Philosophy, with special reference to Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, Paul- sen, James and Royce, closing with a chapter on Criticism and Conclusion. Part II is an attempt to sketch in a genetic way the movement of the religious faith-consciousness through its various modes or progressions. Chapter I is a study of the Genesis of the Religious Faith-Consciousness in The Sensuous-Self Mode. Chapter II is a treatment of The Supersensuous-Self Mode as Rational or Deistic. Chapter III is a study of the Immanence-Self Mode; and Chapter IV of The Spiritual-Self Mode. By way of summing up, the following concluding passage of Part II, may be taken as briefly setting forth the determinations of religious faith throughout the four stages of conscious develop- ment: In the Sensuous-Self Mode consciousness may be thought of as having the attitude of presumption of nature — the sense of mere reality-feeling in nature's presence. The meaning of this mode is largely sensational and anthropomorphic. In the Super- sensuous-Self Mode consciousness has the power of detachment or subjectivity, it rests its determinations upon rational proof; in this we have a return to acceptance or belief without trust; faith is grounded in dogma. In the Immanence-Self Mode con- sciousness constitutes its constructions by postulating ideal worth ' A bound manuscript copy of the entire Dissertation is on file at the Johns Hopkins University. It is hoped that a full treatment of Religious Paith may be published in the near future. Appendix 45 beyond logical proof. It assumes an Ideal-Self for worship, and trusts that which it cannot guarantee by belief. In the Spiritual- Self Mode the Ideal-Self construction is highly universalized and personalized as within immediate reach of consciousness. The process of its construction is that of postulation beyond the guarantee of proof. Throughout the entire movement of conscious progression we find the dominant quality or attitude of the faith- consciousness to be that of " surrender. " In the higher religious modes we find the surrender of faith to involve the postulation of meaning by trust beyond that guaranteed by belief. In the postulate of spiritual or mystic faith which is contemplative and aesthetic we have the unity of both trust and belief. The result- ing character of consciousness is that of immediateness, oneness of appreciation and feeling with the Spirit-Self. The Spirit — or Absolute — Self is thought or postulated as Absolute Ideal-Self, as Absolute-Consciousness merged in the object of its creation — including finite selves — through the unifying principles of love, feeling, appreciation. The Absolute Experience, by which all dualisms are bridged, is primarily aesthetic. In our study of the faith-consciousness throughout its progres- sion, it has been gratifying to find such a rich and important field for thought and investigation. In our genetic treatment of the subject we have been dealing — though only in an introductory way — with a very vital phase of conscious function and content. We shall find in a large treatment of "Genetic Faith" that all philoso- phy may be subsumed under the head of the "function and content of the faith-consciousness;" at least we shall find that all philosophy must be more or less mystic, and that every philosophy should have a place in its system for faith. LIFE. William Wilberforce Costin was born in Bale Verte, N. B., Canada, December 19, 1871. His preliminary education was received in the public schools of his county, and the Collegiate School of Fredericton, N. B. After spending two years at Mount Allison Male Academy he matriculated at Mount Allison College, Sackville, N. B., in 1891, where he was graduated with the degree of B. A. in 1895. The years 1895-06 and 1897-08, he spent in study at Boston University School of Theology. The year 1896-07, he was pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in County Line, N. Y. In the spring of 1898 he began his ministry in Maryland, and in 1900 was received on trial in the Baltimore Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1902 he was ordained a Deacon, and in 1904, an Elder. In the fall of 1900 while pastor of the Woodside Methodist Episcopal Church, Md., he began graduate study in the Colum- bian (now George Washington) University, Washington, D. C, where he was graduated with the degree of M.A. in 1901. Dur- ing the year 1902-03 he pursued graduate study at the same University. The year 1903-04, he spent doing special work in the Oriental Seminary of Johns Hopkins University. In the fall of 1904, he began graduate study at the Johns Hop- kins University, chosing Philosophy as his principal and Experi- mental Psychology and History of the Ancient East as his sub- ordinate subjects. His ministry in Maryland has comprised the following pastor- ates: Patapsco Circuit 1898-99, Leonardtown 1899-1900, Woodside, 1900-01, Boundary Ave. 1901-02, Hunt's 1902-05 City Station: Firsi Church, Assistant Pastor, 1905-06, Oxford 1906-08, and Chester Street 1908. He has attended the lectures of Professor Paul Haupt and Dr. Foote, in special studies, and of Professors J.M.Baldwin, Stratton, Life 47 Johnston, Griffin, and Doctors Ladd-Franklin, Farrar, Baird and Riley, in graduate work, to all of whom he would express grateful appreciation, especially to Professor James Mark Bald- win for the inspiration of his instruction, personality, advice and encouragement. CALIFQ ^^ RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW SEP 6 mh *j r>