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CO
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LIBRARY
OF THE
University of California.
Class
THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
A0ENT8 IN AMERICA
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 Fifth Avenub, New York
THE
METAPHYSICS
OF NATURE
BY
CARVETH READ, M.A.
PROFESSOR OK PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC IN DNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1905
CONTENTS
INTKODUCTION
Chapter I. — Belief and Knowledge
1. The Scope of Philosophy
2. Belief, Knowledge, and Science
3. Hume on Belief.
4. Society and Belief
5. Initial difficulty of Philosophy
6. Natural Doubt, Belief, and Reason
PAGE
3
6
8
12
13
15
Chapter II. — Reality and Truth
1. Reality Empirical, Physical, Transcendent, Subjective
2. The Truth of Perception
3. The Conceptual System and the Physical Method
4. The Truth of Subjective Reality
5. The Subjective Conceptual System
6. The Truth of the Conceptual System .
7. In Metaphysics, Percepts and Concepts imply Judgments
19
23
26
28
29
31
33
BOOK I.— CANONIC
Chapter III.— The Test of Truth: Historical
1. The Greeks
2. Descartes
3. Locke ....
4. Cudworth and Spinoza, Intuition
5. Leibniz ....
6. Kant ....
7. Mill ....
8. Spencer ....
39
43
46
48
51
54
56
59
VI
THEf METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Chapter IV. — The Test of Truth : Analytic
SECT. PAGE
1. The value of (a) Sense -perception ; (b) of the distinction between
Formal and Material ; (c) of Universality ; (d) of Innateness ; (e)
of Clearness and Distinctness ; (/) of the Sufficient Reason . 64
2. Necessity and the Inconceivability of the Opposite . . .71
3. Necessity as determined by Defiuiteness of Conception and Relation . 73
4. Necessity and Consistency ...... 75
6. Though the characterisation of the Criterion be imperfect, it is not
useless ........ 78
Chapter V. — Scepticism
1. The Modality of Judgments : Pyrrhonism
2. Carneades and Probability
3. Hume .....
4. Characteristics of his * Scepticism '
6. Motives of his sceptical disguise
6. Pragmatism ....
80
83
86
88
91
93
Chapter VI. — The Eelativity of Knowledge
1. Modes of Relativity classified and illustrated . . . .97
2. Incidence of the sceptical criticism of Knowledge . . .102
3. The means of correcting Relativity are immanent in Sense-perception 105
4. The limited range of Sense-perception is no objection to its validity . 108
5. Difficulties arising from the abstract character of Science . . 110
6. — from its departmental character ..... 113
7. — and from the nature of Explanation .... 115
BOOK II.— COSMOLOGY
Chapter VII. — Substance in Experience
1. Analysis of Empirical Substance
2. Empirical Substance is prior to Self-consciousness
3. Substance and Quality ....
4. Primary and Secondary Qualities
5. How can the World be Known ?
6. ' Powers '.....
7. Permanence of Substance : Kant and Spencer upon the grounds of
this Belief .......
121
125
126
128
130
136
137
Chapter VIII. — Ontology of the World
1. Origin of the problem : Democritus and Plato
2. Materialism .....
3. Hypothetical Realism : Locke, Malebranche, Kant
4. Subjective Idealism : Berkeley
144
148
150
153
CONTENTS
▼u
6. Mill's Psychological Theory
6. Absoluto Idealism : Groen
7. Monism : Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Spencer
8. Conclusion ....
PAOE
156
160
165
170
Chapter IX. — Universal Forms of the Phenomenon
1. Time Space, Matter and Motion are co-implicated in the growth of
Perception ......
2. Time is empirically real .....
3. Space is empirically real .....
4. Time, Space and Motion are conceived as infinitely divisible ; but
the divisibility of Matter is a jihysical j)roblem .
6. Motion and Time are conceived as of infinite duration
6. Whether Space and Matter are finite or infinite quantities is a
physical problem ......
7. The interest of Reason in these questions
173
176
179
182
185
187
188
BOOK III.— PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter X. — The Subject in Experience
1. Souls ....
2. Consciousness in relation to Physics
3. Grades of Consciousness in Nature
4. Is the Subject Substance ?
5. Is Consciousness Energy ?
6. Consciousness is an activity of Transcendent Reality
7. Mind and Body ....
195
197
199
203
205
209
211
Chapter XL — The Ontology of the Subject
1. Plato and Aristotle on the Soul
2. Descartes and Materialism
3. Leibniz's Monads
8. A mind is the consLiousness of that transcendent Being whose pheno-
menon is the mind's body ......
217
218
221
4. Berkeley's "thinking, active Principle" ; Hume's "bundle" ; Spinoza 223
5. Mill's " Permanent Something" ....
6. Kant on the Unity of Apperception and the Paralogisms ; Lotze
7. Green's "Self-distinguishing Agent" ....
227
230
235
240
Chapter XIL— Natural History of the Subject
1. Experience and Heredity
2. Primitive mental functions
3. Teleology of mental development
4. Development of the Individual
5. l)e servitule humana
6. Growth of Intelligence .
7. Reason ....
242
245
247
251
253
255
256
VUl
THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
BOOK IV.— THE CATEGORIES
SECT.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Chapter XIII — The Abstract Categories
Part I. — Of Ilelation in General
Relation is the ground of every Judgment
Is Relation conceivable ?.....
Is Relation objectively valid ? .
Relations are discriminated by Understanding in Empirical Realitj'
Simple Relations of Time and Quality ....
PAGE
263
264
269
270
273
Part II. — Qualitative Relations
6. Secondary Relations of Time and Quality
7. Change and Becoming ; Potential and Actual .
8. Possible and Impossible ; Contingent and Necessary .
9. Thing and Nothing ......
10. Specimen and Species ; Event and Law ; Particular and Universal
11. Matter and Form ; Phenomenon and Substance
275
276
278
280
283
286
Part III. — Quantitative Relations
12. Scientific prerogative of Equality
13. Relations of Space and Time
14. Number
15. Indirect Measurement of Quantity
290
292
297
301
Chapter XIV. — The Physical Categories
9.
10.
Metaphysical treatment of Physics
Atoms and Ether
Rest, Change and Identity
Motion .....
Force .....
Inertia, Mass, Elasticity, Incompressibility
Actio in distans ....
Mechanics, Chemistry, Organisation
Causation as Conservation and Uniformity of Nature
Causal Instances. Causation is a Category of the physical or
tual System ......
concep
307
308
309
312
315
317
318
320
323
326
Chapter XV. — Categories of Subjective Activity
1. Activity, Interaction, Parallelism
2. Will and Free Will
3. Final Causes
4. Human Ends or Ideals .
5. Man and Society
332
337
340
349
352
INTBODUCTION
CHAPTEK I
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE
§ 1. As to the nature aud scope of Philosophy, two opinions
are current. Some regard it as no more than the organisation
of the Sciences : that further content is unattainable has been
shown, they say, by experience of repeated failure and by
reflection upon the nature of the case. According to others,
there are prescientific beliefs that still have a necessary place
in human life ; and, even if no definite predications can be
made outside the circle of the sciences, still the grounds of
the sciences themselves must be examined, and their claims to
be a comprehensive and sufficient explanation of the course
of the world and of human experience must be vindicated.
These opposing doctrines may conveniently be called the
Positive and the Critical. To me it seems that, when reason-
ably stated, they are not opposed, but that both are necessary
and complementary one to another.
Positive Philosophy, the attempt to imite the Sciences in
one system, to expound their mutual relations and the
harmony of their laws, is such a manifest demand of reason,
that almost at the beginning of European speculation it was
felt by Plato {Rep. B. VII.) ; at the beginning of modern
thought, by Bacon ; since Comte the idea has become popular,
and the first problem of the Positive Philosophy, the Classifica-
tion of the Sciences, is now a common exercise. The great
body of the Positive Philosophy (not merely Comtian) is
constituted by those sciences which give an account of the
genesis and history of the world, — Astronomy, Geology,
3
4 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
Biology, Psychology, Sociology : the Analytic Sciences, treating
of the modes of energy or activity which the genetic Sciences
imply, are, — Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Eco-
nomics, etc. : the Formal Sciences, Logic and Mathematics,
investigate the conditions of proving the relations and laws of
phenomena in general, so far as proof is possible from accepted
premises.
Critical Philosophy, which takes its name from Kant,
and which I shall usually call Metaphysics, is the study of
the validity and adequacy of knowledge and belief. Positive
Philosophy, with its premises, is, therefore, part of the object
of Metaphysics ; but only a part : for Metaphysics has two
branches, the Metaphysics of Natm'e and Science, and the
Metaphysics of Ideals. The Ideals are expressed in Polity,
Eeligion, Art, and Virtue ; but these human Ideals and their
metaphysical significance are beyond the scope of this volume.
The Metaphysics of Nature, as Nature is presented to us in
science and experience, is my subject ; but since the regions of
science are certainly greater than I can explore, I shall deal
only with their most general principles, where they come
nearest to philosophical interest, are least technical, and have
now become an element of general culture ; and it is a rule
from which I never depart, not to attempt to solve a priori
any problem, that can only be effectually treated by inductive
methods. The criticism of knowledge and beliefs, then ; and,
of course, some extensions and interpretations of them, in order
to give roundness and coherence to the whole ; in fact, an
essay toward the Prima Fhilosophia.
He who makes the Sciences of Nature or Ideals of
Himianity the object of criticism, and investigates their
validity and value, is not therefore sceptical about them. In
some ages it is a fashionable distinction of the Minute
Philosopher to doubt of the Ideals ; at present, perhaps, to
doubt of the Sciences ; but it would be very insincere of me
to claim merit upon either score. It is, indeed, foolish not to
recognise that Natural Science, so recent a growth, must be
immature, or not to admit that much even of what is
considered to have been established may be infected with
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE 5
error. It is also obvious that popular morals are little better
than barbarous, and philosophic morals often narrow, timid
and compromising ; that jjopular religion is wavering, confused
and superstitious, and that philosophical religion usually con-
sists in offering one's personal persuasions as an apology for
catholic dogma. But these things cannot hide the equally
obvious truth that our daily life depends in every detail upon
science, and for its stability and amelioration upon morals and
religion.
There is indeed one conception characteristic of our age
and sprung from its profoundest reflections, whicli may yet
paralyse us with self-suspicion and fear. So long has been
the process of the world, so long the period of human existence,
60 recent is the growth of science and moral enlightenment ;
so long is to be the future of mankind, so vast perhaps the
expansion of civilisation and intelligence : what hope that we
can yet have achieved or perfected anything ? Must not all
our culture appear shallow and vain in the comprehension of
the world to come ? May not our own descendants be the
" superior beings " to " show a Newton as we show an ape " ?
But to let ourselves be inhibited by such forebodings is the
surest way to prevent their realisation. The city founded on
science which Plato and Bacon beheld in prophetic vision, can
only be built by the continuous labour of human generations ;
of which ours is one. As the past is not abolished but re-
embodied in ourselves, so shall it fare with us hereafter.
And indeed better : for we are hardly rid of the illusion of
astonishment or even laughter at the errors of ancient or even
recent predecessors ; but Time, with equal travail the mother
of truth and error, will at last give birth to comprehensive
criticism.
Still it is true and significant that philosophy, not yet
3000 years old, is a new thing in the world, and that 3000
years hence it will still be new: whether we consider the
immense period of preparation for thought duriug the growth
of organic consciousness ; or the immense prospective period
of reflection that remains, and will remain, for the human or
Buper-human mind. Modesty, therefore, becomes us well, but
6 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
not despair. If many of our beliefs are erroneous ; if little
surprise is felt when what has passed for knowledge turns out
to involve some mistake or oversight ; if the sciences stand in
need of perpetual revision and readjustment ; yet comparison
and criticism, rejection and confirmation, analysis and integra-
tion go hopefully forward ; and in each age it is the part
of Metaphysics to carry out the process methodically with
reference to those doctrines and conceptions that at the time
are assumed to be fundamental. Scientific discoveries, social
changes and the indefinable growth of the public mind, have
again and again thrown the older criticisms and systematisa-
tions out of use, like last year's crab-shells. To readjust the
world's beliefs the philosopher was needed ; he was a social
organ for that purpose ; without him the public mind must
have remained either cramped or formless : and whatever
mental blemishes he may have had, such as fancifulness,
paralogy, megalomania, — all most incident to that sort of man,
who is as much an imagination as an understanding, he
brought the plasticity that is necessary to readjustment. And
the task which giants of old accomplished single-handed must
now be discharged by the regiment, each of us doing his
share.
§ 2. As to the use of the terms Belief, Knowledge, Science,
not much refinement is required, and I mean to avoid needless
technicality. Every one thinks of science as the most definite,
systematic, and best -ascertained kind of knowledge. The
meaning of belief is less settled. It sometimes stands for the
region of opinion or doctrine about which we are not quite
confident ; so that we recognise degrees of belief, or of subjec-
tive assent ; whereas we should hesitate to say that we had
knowledge or science of anything concerning which we felt
doubtful, or saw any reasonable grounds for doubting. Some-
times, again, a fact or doctrine is called a belief when no
logical reason can be given for it, though it may be held with
the utmost force of conviction ; whereas knowledge and science
are supposed to be grounded upon evidence that can be
explicitly stated and methodically adduced. But then, since
the grounds of science are said to be axioms and facts of
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE 7
sense-perception, for neither of whicli logical reasons can be
given, the claim is laid that knowledge and science are them-
selves based upcm belief, and are therefore even less certain
than this from which they are derived. Or, again, if it be
said that sense-perceptions and the intuition of axioms are
direct cognitions, and that this is more akin to science than
to belief, as the terms are commonly used ; it may be replied
that, at any rate, the greater part of any man's science depends
upon memory, or upon the testimony of others, and that this
is certainly called belief. Besides, there is no impropriety in
saying that a man ' believes ' the fifth proposition of Euclid,
though he may just have demonstrated it ; and even the
wildest beliefs of savages are based upon some sort of evidence
and elaborated by some sort of reasoning.
For my part, I shall use Belief as the most comprehensive
term, including Knowledge, which again includes Science. For
although a science may have some appearance of being an
independent structure, it is better to regard it as an outgrowth
of beliefs, having the original nature in every part, without
which it would have no hold upon us or serious interest.
Belief is the subjective acceptance of Eeality : whatever we
believe in is regarded as real, or as grounded in, or correspond-
ing with, reality : and whatever we take to be real is thereby
an object of belief, and determines our conduct accordingly.
Our discussions will be concerned hereafter with the validity
of Belief, Knowledge, or Science ; that is, only so far as it is
regarded as implying Eeality. Metaphysics is not like formal
Logic, which may deal with ' X is Y,' no matter what X and Y
stand for ; and it cannot, like formal Logic, deal with judg-
ments or propositions without reference to the attitude or
process of believing or knowing them. To give a full account
of belief as merely subjective, and of all the processes of percep-
tion and inference, belongs, indeed, especially to Psychology,
and the most comprehensive account of belief is given by
James Sully in The Human Mind (chap, xii.) ; but Metaphysics,
as best it can, makes use of all the sciences. "We must there-
fore consider these things so far as they throw light upon
metaphysical inquiries : though our object is Belief for the
8 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
sake of Reality, Reality cannot be isolated from the subjective
processes through which it arises for each of us and stands
there for us all.
§ 3. Psychologists seem not to have been able to carry
their investigation of the nature of belief much beyond the
point that was reached by Hume {Treatise, P. II., Sects, v. to x.;
Inquiry, Sect, v., P. 2). They have drawn more attention to
the importance of our emotions and activities in establishing
belief, but he did not overlook these factors. Now Hume
found that belief differs from ' conception ' or ' fiction,' not in
its content, but only in the manner of conception, or (more
precisely) in a certain " feeling or sentiment " it has in the
mind : a feeling that cannot be defined any more than cold or
anger, that is, than any state of mind that Locke would have
called a " simple idea " ; because, of course, such states cannot
be analysed : they must be severally experienced. This result
gives him some embarrassment : " For my part I must own
that I find a considerable difficulty in the case ; and that even
when I think I understand the matter thoroughly, I am at a
loss for terms to express my meaning. . . . And this different
feeling I endeavour to explain by calling it a superior force,
or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness. . . . And in
Philosophy we can go no further than assert, that it is some-
thing felt by the mind, which distinguishes the ideas of the
judgment from the fictions of the imagination. It gives them
more force and influence ; it makes them appear of greater
importance, it fixes them in the mind ; and renders them the
governing principles of all our actions."
Hume's embarrassment has generally been shared by his
readers : partly, perhaps, because ' feeling ' is the name of so
many experiences that are fugitive and insignificant ; chiefly
because it is paradoxical to refer the Reality of the universe
ultimately to my feeling or sentiment. But the paradox
results from identifying the metaphysical with the psycho-
logical point of view, the position of self-consciousness, which
involves metaphysical ' solipsism.' The difficulty of accepting
Hume's doctrine disappears if Reality be based upon what we
(dl feel with such ' force,' ' firmness,' ' steadiness ' : for what
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE 9
more can we say ? Modern Scepticism has descended from
Descartes not because he insisted upon proving all things,
but because he found nothing to hold fast by except self-
consciousness ; for the Hegelian interpretation of this position,
as implying universality, was far from Descartes's mind. The
existence of other people than ourselves may indeed be sup-
ported by arguments ; we may say that (a) they are like
ourselves externally, therefore internally ; (b) they proceed
from similar generative causes, therefore are similar effects ;
(c) they answer when we consult them, and thus verify the
hypothesis of their being conscious. Thus a justification may
be obtained for recognising their assent or dissent ; but such
arguments cannot be said to carry conviction, since they add
nothing to the conviction we already have ; and to urge them
seems a disparagement of the instinctive belief that existed in
full force before they were thought of.
But whatever difficulty Hume may profess to find in the
conclusion that belief is a kind of feeling, he is, of course,
pleased with the literary effect of his paradox ; and he goes
on to inquire into the causes of belief. He observes first that
belief always attends the memory and the senses. This is
universally admitted ; Kant identifies Eeality with sensuous
data. Among the senses some are more convincing than
others ; the prerogative of sight is witnessed by the proverb,
" Seeing is believing," and the still greater efficacy of active
touch, by the test of St. Thomas. That is especially real
which we act upon and which limits our activity by acting
or reacting upon us.
But Hume's next remark takes us deeper ; an impression
of the senses communicates its vivacity and force to all ideas
related to it. Hence memory is distinguished from imagina-
tion by its greater vivacity and also by the fixity in the order
of its ideas, derived from the order of the original impressions.
Further, the vigour and vivacity of mental processes, and
therefore of belief, is favoured by attention, by the associative
principles of resemblance and contiguity, and, more especially,
by causation and by repetition or custom. Even an idea of
which we have forgotten the correspondent impression may
10 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
itself become the ground of belief and inference ; because
whatever firmness or vivacity it has it must be able to bestow
on whatever is related to it. " Of these impressions or ideas
of the memory we form a kind of system, comprehending
whatever we remember to have been present, either to our
internal perception or senses ; and every particular of that
system, joined to the present impressions, we are pleased to
call a reality. But the mind stops not here. For finding
that with this system of perceptions, there is another connected
by custom, or if you will, by the relation of cause and effect,
it proceeds to the consideration of their ideas ; and as it feels
that it is in a manner necessarily determined to view these
particular ideas, and that the custom or relation, by which it
is determined, admits not of the least change, it forms them
into a new system, which it likewise dignifies with the title
of realities. The first of these systems is the object of the
memory and the senses, the second of the judgment. 'Tis
this latter principle which peoples the world, and brings us
acquainted with such existences as, by their removal in time
and place, lie beyond the reach of the senses and memory."
Hence, although the passions and the excitement of poetry
and oratory, by increasing the force and vivacity of ideas,
influence our beliefs, yet " by reflection and general rules,
the understanding corrects the appearances of the senses," and
determines the judgment, " even contrary to present observa-
tion and experience."
Thus in reviewing the causes of Belief, Hume, starting
from sensation as its origin, has effected a transition to science
as still more coercive. His explanation of this is that the
system of general rules rests upon customary experience, and
that the mass of this overcomes the strength of any particular
impression that seems to oppose it. He has not completely
guarded his position : a general rule cannot, of course, over-
come a single impression per se ; if I see ' red,' I see ' red ' :
but a rule may determine the significance of an impression ;
if I take it for blood, the rule may assure me it is claret, or
even that it has a subjective origin with no external corre-
spondence. One might also complain that only by a strained
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE 11
interpretation can our belief in systematic science be said to
be based upon the custom of experience : so much analysis
intervenes. Yet it is essentially true that, first, the reduction
of general laws under others still more general, and these
again under others, as in the systematisation of science,
confirms one by another through identification of the relations
involved, in a manner analogous to the confirmation by
repetition of particular passages of experience, such as the
striking of a flint and the outburst of fire ; for every physical
law, as a relation of cause and effect, is a repetition of every
other : and that, secondly, as a sensation or idea " transports
the mind to such ideas as are related to it," and " likewise
communicates to them a share of its force and vivacity," all
the elements of experience embodied in a general rule must
strengthen and enliven one another, and so must all the rules
related together in any system. It is easy, therefore, to
understand that in such a system the greatest intensity and
stability of belief is found ; especially in those who have not
merely learnt to rehearse its formulae but in whom it has been
renewed by experience and labour; for a hearsay system
depends upon who, or how many, are heard to say it, and may
not prevail over other prejudices.
Exception may be taken to another expression of Hume's :
he says that " we form " the system of memory, and that the
mind " forms " the system of understanding ; but this seems
to me true only in the sense that an acorn forms an oak. It
is manifest that the system of memory grows, and that in
most men a very small part of it is designedly formed ; and
the same is true of the system of understanding. Hume's
expression too strongly suggests an artificiality in our systems
of belief. On the other hand, he observes in the Inquiry that
beKef " depends not on the will, nor can be commanded at
pleasure " ; that is, belief depends not on an immediate act
of will. The Philosopher of " Common Sense " {Intellectual
Powers, vi. 4) agrees with him : " It is not in our power to
judge as we will. The judgment is carried along necessarily
by the evidence, real or seeming, which appears to us at
the time." Plainly, belief upon evidence, far from being
12 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
volitional, is a kind of acquiescence. But here, again, some
qualification is needed ; for if, as Hume says, attention and
the passions help to determine belief, it follows that, without
design, the cumulative effect of volition may be very great ;
and, accordingly, it is a common remark that people believe as
they list ; and Pasteur had reason to say that " the greatest
disorder of the mind is to allow the will to direct belief." The
passions determine belief by communicating a " greater force,
vivacity, solidity," to ideas ; that the sthenic emotions have
such influence is easily understood ; but so have the asthenic,
by the infusion of fear which (as Mosso shows) is pathologic
and exerts a fascination — whence the power of superstitions.
And voluntary action itself strengthens belief without any
direct ' will to believe ' ; for having an end in view, and being
busy with means toward it, we are concerned with relations of
causation, which (as Hume might say) afford an easy transition
of thought ; and, moreover, the reaction of our efforts irradiates
from the kinaesthesis the whole region of correlated ideas.
§ 4. There remains an important cause of Belief of which
Hume says remarkably little : the influence of social life in
the various forms of education, tradition, authority, common
sense, confirming alike our sciences and our superstitions. It
seems to have been characteristic of the Sophists to dwell upon
this topic, insisting that what was taken for truth or justice
existed only by institution or convention, not by nature ;
whereas Plato and his followers have maintained that in
nature or the reason of nature, the truth of everything is
grounded : Aristotle, for example, argues that both absolute
justice and slavery are by nature. For me this dispute turns
upon an exaggerated distinction between nature and society ;
since institutions and conventions are as natural as trees in
the forest ; where, also, poisonous weeds are found. But social
influence introduces new causes of belief; for Society has
interests besides those of which its members are aware ; and
from social relations grow many distinctively human senti-
ments, such as loyalty, honour, justice; since it is necessary
that men should co-operate : and these feelings determine our
way of thinking. The great organ of social influence is
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE 13
language, whose terms derive their meaning from experience ;
and propositions, bringing these terms together in thought, as
experience brings facts or events together, produce, where there
is no overwhelming conflict, some degree of belief. For what
else is the use of language ? But see the consequences. As
soon as we can talk, the right of private judgment is en-
croached upon by irresistible power, and every artifice is
adopted to bury the nascent understanding under a load of
prejudice. What might not happen could there ever be an
intellectus sibi permissusl Socrates, perhaps, by fighting his
way back, got nearest to it ; and no such force to make others
think has ever appeared in the world. But family, school,
church, and State instruct the boy and the man what to think
and what to do. Inheriting a nature fit for such a life, his
instincts of imitation, honour, sympathy, reverence, and the
rest, all co-operate in delivering him over to the great tutor
or arch-sophist (however you regard it), Society, till both in
thought and manners —
Custom lies upon him with a weight
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life.
The habit of believing assertions, become almost instinctive,
gives opportunity to liars and other imaginative persons.
Falsehood and romance, imperfectly differentiated, flourish
amongst children and savages ; and this is quite natural, for
deceit is common in organic Nature. Hence, if we may
assume (on the principle of natural selection) that in a
successful tribe or nation most of the prevalent beliefs are, or
have been, useful, still we cannot infer without special inquiry
that any particular belief is true.
§ 5. Philosophy, then, coming late in human life, meets
at the outset with a great difficulty : how to begin the dis-
crimination of truth and error, what to accept, what to
reject ? Hume's remark about Eeligion at the beginning of his
Natural History is true of every belief : there are two questions
to be considered — " its foundation in reason," and " its origin
in human nature." The mass of beliefs, ingrained in child-
hood and youth, abides with us ; preceding the exercise, it is
14 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
necessarily amongst the foundations of reason. Sometimes the
philosopher has affected to disregard this situation, to base all
his structure of thoughts or words upon one first principle, or
even to proceed without assuming anything at all. Whereas,
in fact, even the greatest philosophers rely on the history of
culture and the attainments of their own age, and in the
elaboration of their doctrines at last depart at but few points
from common sense ; are sometimes anxious to show that it is
the other philosophers who are at issue with " the plain man " ;
or if they venture to maintain here and there a monstrous
paradox or two, they compound for it, and excuse their treason
to King Mob, by deducing thence through unexpected links
of inference all the most popular conclusions. Who does not
see that the pretended conclusions are the real premises ?
The Sceptics abolish all knowledge, and then restore it under
the name of probability. On the other hand, though some-
thing must be assumed, we cannot begin by accepting the
whole accumulated traditions of our race. But, fortunately,
wherever Philosophy becomes possible distinctions have already
been recognised, by those who can be interested in Philosophy,
between various groups of beliefs as more or less trustworthy.
Not only belief but criticism is antecedent to Philosophy.
Why not take frank advantage of this, and assume provision-
ally all that is accepted by well-informed and sensible people ;
in fact, as much as a candid reader is likely to grant ?
Akin to the illusory purism of deductive method, evading
the traditionary foundations of knowledge, is the egotism of
some Philosophers as against their predecessors and rivals, their
claim to originality. Each man, indeed, feels bound to treat
all the problems that have formerly been dealt with, and he
recognises a closer relationship to some of the dead than to
others, and sometimes approves of an attitude of mind or even
adopts a formula ; but, on the whole, he undertakes to create
anew the intellectual world by the intervention of his own
word ; if others had the right point of view, they failed to see
the landscape in its true perspective ; if they had a glimpse of
a sound principle, they had no steady vision of it and could
nob draw the necessary inferences. As for those with whom
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE 15
the philosopher feels little sympathy but rather antipathy, his
criticisms of them are often so unintelligent that he may be
suspected of having taken little pains really to understand what
they were trying to say. In short, hitherto, by his account of
it, mankind had sat in the cave, gazing at shadows, and he first
had managed to turn round, to climb up to the sunlight, and
to behold the world of things in their truth and substance.
In consequence of such egomania, a philosopher's view, though
often ingenious or even sublime, is manifestly one-sided and
partial ; it is just his view ; we learn from his works only what
the infinite world seemed like as reflected in his little head.
Eclecticism, meanwhile, has been a term of reproach ; it
means the unreasoned adoption from others of incoherent
principles by mere subjective preference. And it must be
acknowledged that those who have been especially called
Eclectics have been second-rate thinkers ; a good deal of self-
confidence is natural to the great man. But the possibilities
of really independent performance are greatly exaggerated. The
limits of individuality are narrow ; no one man is equal to any
great task. In such a personal matter as epic and dramatic
poetry, the greatest geniuses never invent their own fables, but
are content to give a new form to that upon which the human
mind has long brooded. Similarly in science and mechanical
invention, each discoverer builds upon the labours of others.
And so, in fact, it must be in Philosophy ; the systems that
make such a figure in history age after age, are patchworks ;
the critical historian has no difficulty in tracing the materials
to former owners, and in many cases he might trace them to
folk-lore. Is it not better to acknowledge all this ; to recognise
that in experience, tradition, speculation, the foundations of
Philosophy have already been laid ; that other foundations can
no man lay ; that the work belongs to the ages, not merely to
us, and that as it was well begun long before we put hand to
it, so after we have done our best and gone away it must be
carried on by countless generations ?
§ 6. The causes of Belief manifestly give rise to both truth
and error. In simple, barbarous tribes the discrepancies of
popular tenets are slightly felt. With the growth of experience
16 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
and the keeping of records, with the change of social interests
and establishment of orderly and definite conditions of life, the
contradictions of fact with fancy and of fancies with one
another are gradually forced upon the attention of the more
reflective minds. Hence, as we said, before the rise of Philo-
sophy some beliefs have become less trusted than others. Belief
admits of all degrees of intensity, from the subjective feel-
ing of " necessity," through degrees of probability, to doubt
and suspension of judgment ; and, again, through degrees of
improbability, to disbelief. Subjective probability and improba-
bility differ from belief and disbelief, not merely in the intensity
of their feeling ; as states of mind they are more complex and
a later attainment ; and suspension of judgment is the most
complex and the latest attainment of all. Bain's ' primitive
credulity ' rules the savage life. Considerable growth in the
organisation of thought is requisite before those comparisons
are made by which it is explicitly recognised that one belief
excludes another ; which, therefore, must be rejected and
disbelieved ; and prior to such growth, beliefs persist in spite
of many and glaring contradictions of fact. A sense of
improbability depends upon a more refined appreciation of con-
flict amongst the causes of belief and therefore amongst ex-
pectations. Suspension of judgment implies that incompatible
beliefs are felt to be equally balanced in a mind susceptible to
their influence at the same time, that is, within the psycho-
logical present ; therefore, in a highly co-ordinated mind. For
an imperfectly co-ordinated mind, it is well known, may be
possessed at different times with incompatible beliefs, and never
compare them at one and the same time ; may be quite unaware
of their incompatibility, and perhaps incapable of comparing
them. We may all of us be more or less in this condition, and
the ideal Philosopher, entirely free from confusion and latent
self-contradiction, may not be born for some thousands of years
to come.
The causes of Belief are always, in the first place, regarded
as reasons for believing ; whatever, at any stage of culture,
determines the judgment, may be adduced as evidence. " I
was told so " ; " It is a story honourable to my tribe " ; "I
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE 17
saw it in a dream " : in certain conditions of society these are
reasons. But when Hobbes observes, that the last of them is
equivalent to " I dreamt that I saw it," every one smiles, and
recognises that the value of evidence changes with the mind
of man, and that to assign the cause of one's own belief is not
to give a catholic reason for assenting to it. But what security
can our own age have, or any age, that its ' reasons ' will not
excite the smiles of posterity ? Will it not be always true
that, in giving reasons for a belief, mankind must point at last
to some of its causes ? Is it possible in the case of any belief,
to draw clearly Hume's distinction between " its foundation in
reason " and " its origin in human nature " ?
Argumentative discussions and scientific investigations
having drawn attention to the methods of arranging and
formulating evidence, or of reasoning, which are especially
embodied in Logic and Mathematics ; the effectiveness of this
organon within certain limits, and the exultation of command-
ing it, have led men to identify it with Eeason itself, and to
invest it with all the glory of the differentia of the paragon of
animals. It has been supposed to carry conviction by means
altogether different from those that excite vulgar credulity ;
and in comparison with it every other kind of evidence has
been disparaged, and experience itself regarded as irrational
and inconclusive. Inasmuch as these systems of reason, Logic
and Mathematics, must have some basis, this, we are told, is
intuitive reason, which gives the axioms or necessary grounds ;
so that the formal systems are reason throughout ; intuitive
and discursive reason are ground and superstructure. If any
account of intuitive reason be asked for, it is a priori, ' innate,'
' heaven-implanted ' : all which phrases amount to a refusal
to give any explanation at all. And in this faith many a thin
enthusiast will still live and die. The theory of evolution,
however, to any one who accepts it, is, I suppose, incompatible
with any but an experiential origin of intuitions, as instinc-
tive modes of cognition developed in the human mind and
generalised by language. An intuitive axiom is a general
judgment concerning ultimate unconditional truth : its gener-
ality distinguishes it from a perception of fact, and its uncon-
2
18 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
ditionality from discursive reason, which depends on premises.
It was in attempting, under some misapprehension of the facts,
to explain the intuition of causation that Hume attributed it
to "custom"; and for this he is always charged with scepticism
concerning reason ; whereas he was only giving the best
account he could of the growth of reason as to this concept :
" Custom " is intuitive reason in the making. Intuition, then,
is at once a resultant and an element of experience, and as
such it is a cause of belief. But, further, not only is the basis
of Logic and Mathematics to be derived from experience, but
unless their forms are filled with the content of experience, they
are absolutely useless not only in practice but in the discovery
of truth, and can never make us believe anything. All reason,
therefore, rests upon, and is merely a mode of formulating,
material that is not technically rational, namely, experience.
It must be acknowledged that such a way of considering
beliefs, as wholly determined by experience, suggests a
mechanical interpretation of thought, as if Truth were the
survival of a conflict in the mind, as the equilibration of any
system depends on the cancellation of disturbing forces. More-
over, so far as experiences can be expressed in propositions
they may be exhibited as reasons, but in extensive regions of
experience this may be impossible ; for much of our experience
is subconscious, and our subconscious life powerfully influences
judgment and belief, but cannot be read into the forms of
Logic. If then, in fact, such experience determines beliefs that
are inexpugnable and a necessary complement to those in which
formal reason plays its greatest part, our judgment seems to
be given over to a power beyond our control and beyond the
reach of analysis.
But the consideration of Belief in relation to reason and
experience, draws us from the subjective to the objective side
of knowledge. An attempt to discriminate the characters of
truth and error; to collect and examine the grounds upon
which philosophers have endeavoured to justify their convictions
or their scruples ; and to inquire whether, or how far. Belief
is, or may become, co-extensive with Reason, will occupy the
following pages.
CHAPTER II
REALITY AND TRUTH
§ 1. Opposite me, at a distance of about 500 yards, a hill
rises steeply to a height of about 1000 feet. At its foot lies
a narrow meadow surrounded by dark green woods of oak,
chestnut and fir. Above the wood runs a brighter border of
ferns, then heather, and at the top grey crags. In the blue
overarching sky a few white or grey clouds drift slowly along.
From the valley at the foot of the hill is heard the rushing of
a mountain stream, hidden by trees, and from this side of it a
meadow and lawn slope up to my window. Cattle browse
across the meadows ; swallows skim by in the air, and a light
wind rustles through the woodland.
This is Empirical Eeality, matter of fact, the scene of
the activity and interest of life, the beauty of the world, which
can never be " explained away," and for which no theory can
ever be substituted. Why not be content with this, instead
of making a theory about it ?
Still, this being a working hour, terms of the Schools
begin to jangle in my ears and gurgle in my throat. I
observe grimly that the scene before me is matter in space,
a continuum of points of resistance and intervals of free move-
ment ; that I am necessarily impressed with its permanence
as a whole, in spite of changes among its parts ; and with its
independence of myself, in the sense that others will see it
when I go away, and that if I come back next year it will
seem much the same. I see that all objects in the landscape
have characteristic properties ; that only oak, and fir, and
fern, and heath, and rock look just like that : that only
19
20 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
swallows and one or two other birds with similar wings
have just that casting, sweeping flight ; that only mountain
streams make just that everlasting noise. And as to all this
no serious doubt is possible, and if any one suggests a doubt
there is no use in arguing about it. A belief so primitive as
generally to be inarticulate, no other can compare with it in
" force, solidity, firmness, or steadiness."
This Empirical Eeality is equivalent to human sense-
perception. It involves much more than sensation, more
than the sense -perception of an animal such as the cow
yonder; nay, to one man sense -perception has far more
significance than to another. As mind develops all its
functions develop, and sense - perception comes to include
more and more the elements which, considered abstractly,
are ascribed to thought. In fact no clear separation of
mental functions is possible, but only a distinction of view
for special purposes. Thought is immanent in perception
and perception is implied in all thought. We may say that
most characteristic of thought are the scientific processes of
classification and explanation ; and these are plainly involved
in the present perception : for I classify in saying that I see
oaks, chestnuts and fir trees ; and I explain in saying that
I hear the noise of a river that cannot be seen.
However, by thought these processes are carried much
further than by perception. Thought, dealing with concrete
things, has chiefly three investigations, what things are, how
they came to be so, and what they do ; or their nature, their
causes, and their effects. Not content with seeing that certain
trees are oak, chestnut and fir, according to popular recogni-
tion, we desire to know exactly the structure of each of them
and how they differ from one another. We find that the oak
and chestnut are much more alike than either of them is to
the fir. We also learn that these trees and all other plants
consist of cells, and that this is also true of cows and swallows
and all other animals ; that the cells again consist of chemical
molecules, and that this intimate structure is common to them
with the rocks at the top of the hill. This, then, it may be
said, is what things are.
REALITY AND TRUTH 21
As to liow things came to be such as we now perceive
them, the conclusions are at present less definite; but a
botanist or zoologist would give some account, or suggestions
toward an account, of how oaks or cows arose ; and a
geologist would explain that the rocks at the top of the hill
(which I believe to be weathered slate) were long ago deposited
as fine mud at the bottom of the ocean ; then covered with
other deposits, and during disturbances of the earth's crust
subjected to enormous lateral pressure at a great depth and
probably at high temperature ; whence resulted their character-
istic cleavage and the tilting and fracture of their stratification.
Beyond the deposition of the mud lies a region of surmise
concerning still earlier rocks, and farther back still the
supposed cooling of the planet, after its origin in the con-
densation of a cloud of molecules.
What things do depends upon what they are. Now they
are regarded as special arrangements of molecules; so that
what they do depends upon the nature and grouping of these
molecules according as they constitute inorganic or organic
bodies, plants or animals, oaks or cows. Amongst their
activities, it is explained, are those that enable us to see
them, hear, smell, taste them, feel them to be warm or cold ;
for these elements of experience are scientifically regarded as
merely our sensations, not belonging to the Reality as such.
The oscillations of the molecules of a body, for example,
by setting in motion the ether, stimulate the nerves of our
eyes or skin, and thereby the sense of light or warmth arises.
Since, then, as every inquiry brings us to a world of molecules
and ether, and of their movements, it is very common to
speak of these as real in an eminent degree, to the disparage-
ment of the manifold of Empirical Reality, as if this were
comparatively unreal. An obvious impropriety: to avoid
which I shall call the world, as conceived by scientific thought.
Physical Reality.
Some metaphysicians reduce Reality to much narrower
bounds. They argue that the only absolute existence in
the world we perceive is a Substance or substratum, of which
Physical and Empirical Realities are merely the manifestation
22 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
in our consciousness. The properties of the Physical World,
resistance, extension, and motion, they call primary qualities
of this substance ; and the further properties of the Empirical
World, colour, sound, etc., they call secondary qualities. There
are various ways of formulating this doctrine ; but they all
agree in degrading the world of perception and scientific
analysis to the position of a phenomenon, having only a
conditional reality and lying, in fact, as Plato says, some-
where between reality and nothingness. We may call the
substance which all appearances or phenomena are said to
depend on, or inhere in, but which is never directly known,
Transcendent Reality, or Being.
As to the nature of this substance, however, whilst the
commoner practice is (or has been) to call it Matter, others
maintain that it is essentially Thought. The activity of the
Divine Mind, they say, or the self-existent Ideas of things
(for here again there are various opinions) must be regarded
as the ultimate ground of phenomenal existence. And the
ultimate ground, thus conceived, it may be convenient to call
Noumenal Eeality.
Reality is, however, not exhausted by the object of percep-
tion and its supposed conditions. Looking out upon the
landscape, I am aware of my own delight and interest in it, an
expanding curiosity, activity, and exhilaration ; listening to the
rush of the river, I cannot help wishing that the trees on this
side of the valley were a little thinner, that I might also see
the shimmer of the waters ; if whilst watching the swallows it
occurs to me that they are catching many insects, there may
cross my mind some disturbing considerations of the raven of
nature, mitigated by further considerations of the annoyance
that would be caused by too many insects ; and so on. Now
these feelings, wishes, inferences also belong to Empirical
Reality ; it is the reality of what Locke calls * Reflection,' and
may be termed ' subjective ' to distinguish it from the objective
Reality of Perception.
There is nothing in the subjective region corresponding
with Physical Reality. Something approaching the character
of a primary quality of mind may be found in the nisus of
EEALITY AND TRUTH 23
attention ; but this cannot be regarded both as a condition
of other modes of cousciousneHS and at the same time inde-
pendent of them, as molecules are in relation to visual and
auditory sensations.
A Transcendent Reality of Reflection is generally recognised
under the names of Mental Substance, Ego, Self or Spirit ; or,
considering it as informing and animating the body, and (by
most) as capable of subsisting independently, it is called the
Soul. Concerning the nature of this mental substance, how-
ever, and its relations to the thoughts and feelings which are
its properties, modes, or activities, there is, as in the corre-
sponding case of material substance, much difference of opinion ;
and, according to Materialism, the substance of mind is the
body.
Finally, the Self, or Soul, or particular human (or animal)
consciousness is sometimes treated as an emanation or process
or phase of the Universal or Divine Consciousness ; and,
according to this doctrine, the worlds of perception and reflection
have the same fundamental Noumenal Reality.
§ 2. The notions of Reality and Truth are sometimes
identified, as when it is said that the truth of the world is
the Good : meaning that Good is the ultimate Reality. But
it seems better to say that Reality is that of which Truth is a
more or less adequate representation ; or that Truth is the
correspondence of cognition with Reality. It may be com-
plained that this is to give a secondary place and an inferior
dignity to truth ; and further that, thus understood, truth
cannot be ascribed at all to the Divine Consciousness, which
is Reality itself. Such difiiculties, arising from traditionary
associations of words, are amongst the reasons why Metaphysics
must be written. It seems to me that human consciousness
likewise is Reality itself. Whether the Universal Conscious-
ness can be called ' true,' matters little : I despair of doing
honour to the Absolute by any accumulation of predicates. But
if the word truth implies the possibility of error, it cannot be
an attribute of the Divine Mind ; and it seems an advantage
of the above definition that it regards truth as only appertain-
ing to particular consciousness, and restrains the vagaries of
24 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
speculation by the consideration that what we seek is to
avd pdnTTivov a\rj6e<;.
Truth, then, must be considered under each of the
recognised modes of cognition and representation, Percept,
Image,. Concept, Judgment ; and in relation to the various
modes of conceiving Eeality.
The Percept, indeed, may seem identical with Empirical
Reality ; and so it may be as far as it goes ; but it is never
adequate, as we may see by looking closer at an oak tree, by
tearing off the bark, making sections of the wood, examining
it under a microscope. The percept, again, may contain
representations that accurate inspection will not verify ; that
is, it may be illusory. Besides, not every one looking at yonder
hill can discriminate all the shades of its manifold coloration ;
some are blind, or colour-blind in various degrees ; there are
limits of discrimination to the most delicate sense : nor, listen-
ing to the concert of nature, can every one hear the various
tones of stream, thrush, grasshopper ; nor when night falls, the
cry of bats in altissimo, the hooting of owls and still the
rushing of the stream ; some are deaf, some hear various noises
but no music. There are, therefore, three ways in which
perception may come short of the truth of Empirical Reality :
it may be abnormal, or illusory, or inadequate.
The content of any percept is direct Empirical Reality for
the perceiving Subject ; but so far as it does not agree with
the perception of other Subjects in the same circumstances, it
is abnormal or illusory. So far as merely inadequate, it is
symbolic or representative of a whole ; and it is true so far as
it signifies further possible percepts discoverable, immediately
or conceptually, by exploration.
Perception may be especially inadequate in respect of the
relations and reciprocal influence of things. Where a thing
is, seems to perception a needless question, but it is very
difficult to answer; how far things are distant from one
another may be perceived more or less accurately, but only
within narrow limits. That a certain tree flourishes in one
situation and not in another ; that one tree shadows barren
ground, whilst another allows the growth of grass or under-
REALITY AND TRUTH 25
wood : so much we may, perhaps, be said to perceive, but not
the processes that have these results. We cannot perceive
how vegetable life depends upon soil and sunshine ; how
animal life depends upon vegetable, and vegetable upon
animal ; tlie processes and conditions of dependence are secret
and obscure. We perceive the voice of the river and the
light of the sun, but not the means by which they reach us.
Thus, when we try to trace the connections of things and
events, the inadequacy of direct perception drives us from
Empirical to Physical Reality.
Now the elements of Physical Reality, atoms and ether,
cannot be directly perceived at all, cannot be sensibly dis-
tinguished from space, being too refined to offer any sensible
resistance to our movements. Atoms massed together, indeed,
become directly perceptible by manipulation ; but this is a
very coarse means of perception, since millions of atoms may
be added to, or subtracted from, a given mass without our
being at all aware of it. The size and qualities of atoms, the
nature of the ether and the movements of these things are
altogether conceptual. Conceptual truth, which will presently
be considered, is entirely representative ; it is not only
symbolic of something else, but it is also no part of that which
it symbolises ; for the name or definition of oxygen is no part
of the gas, as the colour of a rose is part of its Empirical
Reality.
As to the truth of percepts in relation to Transcendent
Reality, Substance was supposed by Locke to resemble
Empirical Reality (ideas of sensation) in its primary qualities,
but no further. Spencer tries to show that, whilst there is
no direct resemblance, there must be a correspondence of
relations between the world as perceived and the Unknowable
Force ; others have even denied that a transcendent Substance
exists at all. Noumenal Reality presents similar difficulties :
Plato treats the truth of the phenomena (percepts) sometimes
as a participation in, sometimes as an imitation of. Ideas ; and
he shows that great perplexity arises in either course. In fact,
we are here confronted with a great traditionary question of
Metaphysics. (See Chapter VIIL)
26 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
§ 3. Less metaphysical interest attaches to the truth of
images : I mean the phantasms or traces that perceptions
leave in the mind and which fill our study of memory or
imagination. On the whole, it must be considered to follow
the truth of perception itself ; that is, images may be normal
or abnormal, or illusory, adequate or inadequate ; and, in the
latter case, either as to objects and events, or to their order
and relations. The older psychologists greatly exaggerated
the extent to which, in ordinary minds, images are copies of
their original percepts. A few people have very vivid and
complete mental pictures, most people much less perfect, some
hardly any that can be said to resemble objects or occurrences :
similarly with phantasms of hearing and of active touch ;
of other sense -perceptions still less. In general, as percep-
tion is inadequate, it is symbolic; and imagery is far more
so, as we see in the swift and synoptic career of memory;
but this is a matter of Psychology rather than of Meta-
physics. Mental imagery is a great source of illusions and
primitive superstitions ; but with the development of reason
imagery and the vague ideas it supports are superseded by
concepts, and become important chiefly as subsidiary to the
conceptual system.
If you mention an oak to any Englishman who has ever
lived in the country, it may call up some image of a tree grow-
ing in a wood or in a meadow ; it will at least suggest certain
characteristics of such a tree in verbal schemes if you ask him
to describe it ; as that it bears leaves of a certain shape and
colour, branches almost horizontal with sharp lateral twists,
has acorns for fruit, sometimes carries oak-apples, makes a
hard durable wood of a certain structure. This is his idea
of an oak. A botanist makes this idea more definite and
detailed, explains that oak-apples are not a natural product,
assigns a particular oak to its genus and species, showing how
it differs from other allied kinds. This is the concept of an
oak. The botanist may go on to explain how the oak grows,
feeding upon the soil and air ; how its leaves inhale carbon
dioxide and exhale oxygen, for the nature of which gases he
refers you to the chemist, and the chemist is ready with
EEALITY AND TRUTH 27
definitions or concepts of them and their laws. Thus, again,
the conceptual system is created to make good the short-
comings of perception and imagination, Physical Reality to
complete Empirical Reality. The creation of this conceptual
system is carried out by a combination of observation,
hypothesis, deduction and induction, for which I refer to books
on Logic and Methodology. The physical method proceeds
from percepts to concepts concerning their nature and con-
nection, and comes back to percepts again : the return to
percepts being the verification of the conceptual construction.
At every stage the conceptual process must conform to the
analogy of perception, and is checked by perceptual conditions.
By conforming to the analogy of perception, I mean that the
things conceived must be endowed only with such qualities
and movements as bear some resemblance to the qualities
and movements of things perceived, though they may not
resemble the very percepts of which they are conceptions :
the vibrations of molecules are not like the perceived fact
of heat, but they are like vibrations that are things
perceived. That the process is checked by perceptual
conditions means that if (for example) it is conceived that
plants exhale oxygen, it must be shown to perception
that the gas exhaled has the properties and reactions of
oxygen ; and the properties of pure oxygen are inferred
from the reactions of a gas obtained under conditions
such as to satisfy our perception that nothing else can be
present.
It follows from this that the conceptual process, in spite
of its highly symbolic character, is an imaginable one, at least
to those whose imagination is tolerably powerful ; and this
has two consequences. First, imagination may prepare the
way for conceptual theory; since by its means even atoms
and ether may be seen, as by an indefinitely powerful magnify-
ing-glass. Secondly, the fact that the conceptual process can
be pictured, or intuitively represented, whether by visual or
tactile schemata, brings it into the same plane with the
perceptual process; so that Empirical and Physical Reality
form one continuum, and thereby that satisfaction is obtained
28 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
for the sake of which the mind creates Physical Reality.
Without intuition, no understanding.
There remain, however, two discrepancies between these
modes of Reality. The first is that, whilst the Empirical is
mainly static, the Physical is a world of incessant movement.
The scene before me presents indeed some objects moving at
various rates — the dashing swallows, the rushing stream, the
browsing cattle ; but the meadows and mountains give an
irresistible impression of permanence, and even the sunshine
seems a steady illumination. The conceptions of Physical
Reality represent the whole as a scene of incessant change.
The motions of animals are attributed to molecular motions
going on inside them, most of which are active when the
animal lies at rest ; the hills are whirling with me through
space in a frantically complex figure, and all their rocks
vibrating with thermal and other latent forces : any apparent
rest is relative to my position or my perceptive powers. The
sunshine that gives such steady illumination dances past with
incredible activity, and its apparent steadiness is mere sensa-
tion. That introduces the second discrepancy : Physical and
Empirical Reality are only conceived as a continuum in respect
of the primary qualities of matter, as if these were not
sensation : the secondary qualities are regarded as connected
with the primary only in Empirical Reality.
§ 4. So far we have only considered the Truth of objective
consciousness, but in the subjective region we may draw
parallel distinctions. Corresponding with the perception of
things, there is introspection of mental states and processes,
whether wholly subjective (like toothache), or (like yellow)
objective in their first significance but now considered merely
in themselves or in subjective relations. Introspection may
be abnormal or pathological in various ways ; but we are here
concerned with its adequacy or inadequacy, because this is
the condition of its truth in relation to subjective Reality.
The content of every introspection is, like the content of
every percept, symbolic and, in that sense, representative of a
whole comprising far more than the immediate and distinct
consciousness of it. Generally, closer attention to any psychic
KEALITY AND TKUTH 29
content is enough to bring to light elements that at first were
undiscriminated. To realise this, any one who is not familiar
with such matters has only to read the description of Anger
or Fear in a psychological text-book ; though indeed novelists
and poets often say the same things in their own way. These
writers draw our attention to much that the distracted mind
neglects ; but there is a great deal in a fit of anger that will
never be set down in books. Perhaps the symbolic character
of consciousness may be most easily seen in this, that every
emotion develops through a series of stages, but we know
what is the matter with us as soon as one begins : the initial
stage is a sign of all that is to follow.
Direct analysis by mere attention shows us much, but
indirect analysis brings out much more, as every one must
have realised on first reading Berkeley's Th eory of Vision : the
first great triumph in Psychology of indirect analysis. This
proves to us that we must have certain sensations which it
costs some effort to become aware of. Clearly, therefore,
introspection, like perception, is inadequate and representative
or symbolic ; and it is true, as distinct from real, so far as it
signifies further possible content of introspection discoverable,
immediately or conceptually, by exploration.
§ 5. Discoverable immediately or conceptually I say ; for
here too we may distinguish the Empirical Reality of intro-
spection from something analogous to Physical Eeality, namely,
a conceptual system designed to connect and complete the
inadequate and fragmentary contents of introspection. The
possibility of such a system has been indicated by such con-
ceptions as Leibniz's petites perceptions, Spencer's atomic
feelings, and Fechner's subliminal consciousness. All these
expressions point to depths of mental life that underlie, in
indefinite remoteness and obscurity, all that can be brought
within the region of self-consciousness : a mental life the laws
of whose growth must contain the explanation (if there be
any) of the work and play of our superficial thoughts and
feelings. Such hypotheses are often scouted by those who
think that physiological conditions give a sufficient explana-
tion of the mind, and by those who teach that the limits of
30 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
introspection are the limits of analysis. But the former
group are palpably mistaken, and the latter soon surrender to
them. To take the final results of introspection as the limits
of psychological analysis is as unreasonable as to confine
Physics to the data of sense. Some would even make the
perception of space an ultimate datum, though space is the
subject of all Geometry, and has therefore an infinitely diversi-
fied content. But it seems to me that even the sensations of
blue or yellow, however apparently structureless, as they are
correlative with the functions of an ancient and complex organ,
must cany in their constitution the records of that organ's
growth. To fix upon any data as ultimate is to repeat the
error of those " limitary cherubs " who, in the name of innate
ideas or a priori forms, have affected to settle for us all the
questions of nature and genesis ; it is to infringe the interest
of Reason in everlasting labour.
This conceptual system of Psychology, as it bears many
analogies to Physical Reality, must be investigated by the
Physical Method, proceeding from introspective data, through
concepts, to introspective verification. But there are certain
differences between the subjective and objective conceptual
systems: (1) The subjective is not, like the objective system,
the scene of incessant motion ; for it is not in space, which is
a condition of motion : but it is the scene of incessant change
of quality, of intensity, and of feeling-tone. (2) The distinc-
tion of primary and secondary qualities has no place in
subjective Reality, nor in sensations considered as subjective
experience ; for the whole of consciousness is real in the same
sense and in the same degree. (3) Low-grade or sub-liminal
consciousness in the psychological conceptual system is more
difficult to imagine than the play of atoms and ether in
Chemistry and Physics ; for, by hypothesis, low-grade con-
sciousness cannot be imitated by our imagination, which is
always high-grade. One would like to be a dog, or a butterfly,
or a spinal ganglion for a time ; for the failure of imagination
to follow the lower life discourages the understanding and
makes it too readily acquiesce in merely physiological explana-
tions. An introspective magnifier would be useful ; but, if
REALITY AND TRUTH 31
relatively as powerful as those used in Physiology, it would
still (like them in their own function) fall far short of
revealing the latens schematisinus and the latens processus
of sensation. Biological and physical analogies must help,
or some other way may yet be found.
§ 6. As to the truth of concepts, it may be considered,
first, as a question of their consistency with one another ; but
this is sufficiently treated of in Formal Logic under the heads
of Division and the Predicables. Secondly, there is the
relation of concepts to Empirical Reality ; and this, again, is
treated of in Inductive Logic under the heads of Classification
and Nomenclature. But, thirdly, there is the relation of
concepts to Physical Reality ; and this at first may seem to
need no special discussion, for, it may be asked, what is
Physical Reality except concepts ? But it is much more ; for
the concept is a function of cognition, and beyond it lie the
things to be known by it. The concepts of Physical Reality
are symbolic of something ; and their truth consists in
signifying things and processes in such a way that inferences
drawn from them can be verified in Empirical Reality : where
waves from the depths of Nature come to the surface and
break in the light of day. We verify perceptually as far as
possible, but the weakness of our senses leaves a conceptual
region which is believed to correspond to something impercept-
ible ; just as perception itself does, except that perception is
identical with Reality in that character which is a sign of
the rest. That further region is conceived as if it might
be perceived ; and is, therefore, conceived on the analogy of
perception, so that it may also be imagined. For if the
conceptual system is reduced to merely arbitrary symbols,
such as mathematical equations, these may be verifiable and
very useful ; but to formulate is not to explain, for it does
not present to us the continuity of the World ; nor, therefore,
does it subserve that final use of science and philosophy, the
raising of Nature into Self-consciousness.
The difference between the question of the truth of
concepts in relation to Physical Reality on the one hand, and
on the other hand in relation to Transcendent Reality, is that
32 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Transcendent Eeality is conceived of as having its being
otherwise than as possible perception. But if, by hypothesis,
it is imperceptible, how can it be conceivable ? Undoubtedly,
" Substance " and " Idea " present themselves to us as concepts ;
but can we assign them any distinct content or connotation
and any reference or denotation beyond themselves ? This,
like the corresponding question with regard to percepts, is a
traditionary problem of Metaphysics, and we must hereafter
try to solve it. Philosophers often assure us the solution is
unattainable, that the transcendent is unknowable ; but it
presently appears that this is only an exordium to stimulate
curiosity whilst they go on to tell us all about it. They seem
anxious to restrain the vagaries of other minds ; unbridled
speculation is such a waste of time, they say : like Locke, who
nevertheless cannot restrain his own speculations concerning
cherubim. But Locke, like Sir Thomas Browne, may have
seen reason " to fear the prophecy of Elias," and that the time
of this world was running to its dregs. We have better
hopes, or at least we have longer views. Why should the
human race, now assured of its youth, be in as great a hurry
as when anticipating its decrepitude ? Is it certain that
philosophers can waste their time ? Would they, if otherwise
employed, be very useful ? But meanwhile they do no harm :
a statesman usually does more mischief by a single Act of
Parliament than the whole line of philosophers have accom-
plished since Thales.
But we cannot hope to approach Transcendent Eeality
entirely by the Physical Method, proceeding from percepts
through analogous concepts to empirical verification. To
maintain that this is the only valid method for all investiga-
tions that deserve the name of science, no matter how largely
the conceptual element may predominate in them : this I
take to be the true position of Empirical Philosophy ; and the
Physical Method must be followed as far as it will lead us.
The opposite method is to begin with concepts, to endeavour
to establish their relations to one another, and to regard
the success of this procedure, that is, the systematisation of
concepts, as the sole requisite verification. Such a method
REALITY AND TRUTH 33
needs no organon but Formal Logic. Plato's plan of Dialectic
makes the nearest approach to it, and Hegel has made the
most elaborate attempt to carry it out. We are often assured
that Hegel did not disregard the facts ; and that is true : to
disregard the facts is impossible, for without them there could
be no sense in concepts. But he had no clear view of the
place of facts in the method of investigation and proof, nor of
the uses of facts in relation to different orders of concepts.
Hence, so far as it is based upon facts, his Rationalism is only
an unintelligent Empiricism. We must begin with experience,
since otherwise there is no problem ; and return to experience,
since otherwise no solution is made good ; and proceed on the
analogy of experience, since otherwise there is a failure of
that continuity and resemblance in which explanation consists.
The use of quitting the cave is to find the essential nature
and connection of the shadows, and to return, and to interpret
them. But the chief concepts of the transcendent world,
" Substance " and " Idea," have not the definiteness of content
which the Physical Method presupposes. No inference has
ever been drawn from them that could be verified by particular
experience in perception or introspection. And the truth is,
I think, that they are not concepts of science or knowledge,
but of that background of Belief out of which knowledge has
been differentiated as science has been out of knowledge. If
such concepts are to be justified, it must be as appertaining to
the necessary background of our picture of the World ; and it
should appear possible by fair inferences (though imperfect
because unverifiable) — to trace in that obscurity a few faint
outlines of resemblance to things that stand in the foreground
and are more distinctly known.
§ 7. Reflecting on the above discussion, we find that to
question the truth of perception or of conception implies
that they are modes of Judgment. To distinguish these three
processes may be necessary in Psychology or in Logic, but
metaphysically the third is involved in the two former.
Whether the phenomenon that suggests to me an oak or a
chestnut will prove on inspection to have the further properties
of such a tree ; whether yonder rock is slate or granite, yonder
34 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
bird a swallow or a martin ; or whether any o'f them are even
solid bodies : these and innumerable other points in the region
of present perception may be doubtful ; and in deciding in
one way or another, I judge. Similarly with the concept : it
is not only that, as Hamilton observes, " every concept is a
fasciculus of judgments," implying as many judgments as it
comprises attributes and relations between the attributes ; so
that if the concept A has the attributes b, c, d, we may be
said to judge, logically, that b, c, d, coexist, and that each of
them determines A ; but, further, if the concept is used cogni-
tively, which is its only interest for Metaphysics, we judge
that b, c, d, belong to the reality that A represents, and
coinhere in that reality. Hence a doctrine of Categories or
highest Concepts is properly a doctrine of Judgments, and is
concerned with their truth or relation to reality. Kant shows
that it is the reference to objects that distinguishes the meta-
physical from the merely logical forms of the understanding.
The Truth of Judgments, then, is the ultimate question as to
truth of every kind.
A judgment comprises a sign and something signified : it
is a representation or symbolic consciousness of the relations
of connection or resemblance in which certain elements of
reality stand to one another. There is no impropriety in
saying that to judge is to conceive the relation of such or such
terms ; but it is always something more, namely, to believe in
that relation ; for in no other way can it constitute experience
or science. The elements related may belong to the same
order, Empirical, Physical, Transcendent ; or these orders may
be cross -related in a judgment: that oil of vitriol (for
instance) is H.,SO^, is an empirico-physical judgment. But
let us avoid as much as possible the humours of technicality.
Locke held that any body perceived resembled in its primary
qualities the corresponding unknown substance ; but he could
not have called this an empirico-transcendent judgment.
Metaphysics, however, does not inquire into the truth of
all possible judgments : it is enough to deal (1) with those for
which no forms of proof are given by Logic or Mathematics,
namely, judgments taken for granted by those Sciences them-
REALITY AND TRUTH 36
selves ; (2) the first principles uf the Natural Sciences, so far
as they have been ascertained ; and (3) certain judgments that
have merely been preserved by i)hilosophic{d tradition ; for
this tradition must be continuous. Metaphysics, then, is the
criticism of those judgments, whether scientific or traditionary,
whicli cannot be proved from otlier judgments, and therefore,
strictly speaking, cannot be proved at all : judgments of which
no methodical proof is possible, because method supposes some
more general principle (which must be a judgment) on which
to proceed. Yet, without method, how can there even be
criticism ? It becomes necessary to try to advance " considera-
tions determining the mind " (in Mill's phrase), in order to
induce reasonable people to grant some principle upon which
a method may be founded. Hence the fundamental problem
of Philosophy is the possibility •)f a criterion or test of truth.
BOOK I.-CANONIC
CHAPTER III
THE TEST OF TRUTH. 1. HISTORICAL
§ 1. Both in the preparatory and in the great age of Greek
Philosophy, Reason was confident in her own powers. Daring
and constructive thinkers seem to have been of Spinoza's mind
that the truth reveals both itself and error : sane sicut lux
seipsam et tenebras manifestat, sic Veritas norma sui, et falsi
est. Plato, indeed, mentions the principle of Contradiction
as a ground of discrimination {Rep. 436 b), and infallibility
(477 e) and distinctness (478 c) as characteristics of science
iu contrast with opinion ; but although these remarks remind
us of many anxious attempts in subsequent ages to define the
nature of truth, for Plato they are rather descriptive than
canonical, and show more security than caution. As in the
course of investigation difficulties accumulated, he acknow-
ledged that truth had not yet been attained, left the Good
undetermined, as to the origin and nature of the world was
content with probability ; Aristotle, too, whilst carefully
investigating the conditions of formal truth, or consistency,
admitted Chance amongst the principles of things, and irre-
ducible accidentia amongst the consequences. Yet they both
assumed that truth was attainable, and that when attained it
would manifest itself as a systematic explanation of a world
of Reason ; that such a world of Reason exists, and therefore
is by Reason knowable. It was only in the age of speculative
disappointment and of political and social depression that the
force of negative criticism drove men to seek a criterion or
test of truth : sedulous to lay sure foundations for the new
structure of practical life ; indisputable principles, if not of
39
40 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
Nature, at least of human conduct. It was in behalf of
rational action that the Epicureans and Stoics tried to solve
the initial question of Philosophy.
There were, in fact, two questions: (1) What is Reality?
and (2) How do I know that my judgment corresponds with
Reality ?
According to Epicurus, a materialist of the School of
Democritus, the criterion of truth concerning Nature is sense-
perception, which must be distinct {ivapyi]';) and ultimate, i.e.
incapable of being shaken or confirmed by reasoning {a\oyo<i).
Touch is the most trustworthy of the senses, because it gives
direct knowledge of the properties of the only reality in the
world, atoms, when in sufficient mass to be perceptible. This
is a criterion of Empirical Reality rather than of Truth.
Opinion and belief Epicurus traced to the persistence of
perceptions in the mind, and therefore held that, to be trust-
worthy, they too must be distinct and verifiable by the senses ;
at least they must not be contradicted by the senses. Even
the atoms, since they are not severally perceptible, can only be
the object of belief, and they come under the rule that " con-
cerning things imperceptible it is necessary to draw inferences
from the phenomena." This is the way of analogy, and it
implies a belief in the uniformity of Nature. It also implies
that perception is our authority not only for particular sensa-
tions but also for their relations or synthesis ; and that the
synthesis of belief must also be derived from the perceived
connections of things. The only definite synthetic principle
discoverable in Epicureanism is the maxim that " nothing
arises from nothing or perishes into nothingness." And this
is now recognised as one of the constituents of the law of
Causation ; yet the way of analogy which governed the
conjectures of Epicurus seems to have been concerned (if we
may judge from the remains of Philodemus) not with causation,
but with the properties of kinds (cf. Diog. Laert. x. 20, and
Wallace's Epicureanism, c. x.).
Epicurus claimed the attainment of positive knowledge
only so far as it touched human interests. As to the region
of stars and meteors, he was content with any hypothesis that
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 41
was not contradicted by the senses ; since any possible ex-
planation of these things on physical analogies would dispense
with the intervention of the Gods : contemplative idlers in
intramundane gardens, for whose perfect leisure and repose he
was always chiefly anxious.
The Stoics, materialists of the School of Heraclitus, also
derived knowledge from sense-perception : the test of truth,
they said, is the irresistibility of conviction (KaraXT^-v/ri?) that
accompanies impressions. Hume's " superior force, vivacity,
and solidity " is not quite the same thing ; for KaTaXTjyjnf; was
due rather to the apprehension of the Subject than to the im-
pressions themselves. In fact, of course, both physical and
mental agencies are necessary.
Next to sensations, according to the Stoics, certain con-
ceptions are trustworthy, namely, those that are common to
all men (kocvoI evvoiai). But they must have been aware that
such percepts or concepts could test only the elements of truth ;
for they had learnt from Aristotle that truth, or knowledge,
requires a synthesis and can only belong to judgments ; and
nothing is more memorable of them than their sublime con-
ception of the order, law, and unity of the World. No doubt
they tried to arrive at such judgments and to correct and
justify them by the logical methods which they studied and
elaborated ; but no logic can give an original synthesis, and
their attempts to avoid this difficulty seem to have incited the
later Pyrrhonists to attack the doctrine of the syllogism and
all first principles on which syllogisms depend.
Cicero, though in speculative questions an Academic,
followed the Stoics in moral philosophy ; and one tendency
of their school attained in his writings to great distinctness of
expression : I mean the tendency, derived from the Cynics, to
lay stress upon what seemed to them " natural " or according
to Nature, as necessarily good and true. It was this that led
them to seek the basis of truth in perceptions and in common
conceptions formed by a natural process of growth (like Aris-
totle's (f)p6vT]ai<;), in spite of their addiction to the artificial
processes of Logic and repugnance to the sensuous relations of
human life. Cicero followed them in regarding perceptions as
42 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
generally carrying conviction in spite of frequent deceit ; and
the KOivaX evvoiac (at least, of morals) appear in his writings as
the famous doctrine of innate ideas : sunt enim ingeniis nostris
semina innata virtutum {Tusc. iii. 1. 2).
"Whether indeed this notion, so contrary to the earlier
Stoic Psychology, was original with Cicero, cannot, I suppose,
be known. It may be traceable to the Platonic reminiscence,
which, Th. Whittaker tells us, in his Neo-Platonists (chap. v. § 1),
was transformed by Plotinus into a doctrine of innate ideas
potentially present. It also occurs in Epictetus, who asked,
according to Arrian (AmrptyS. ii. 11. 3), whether of good or
evil, of what we ought and ought not to do, there was ever
any one without an innate idea {€^<^vtov evvouav). This is
something more definite and universal than the hereditary
potentiality of virtue recognised by Plato and Aristotle. If the
seed of virtue were allowed to mature, Cicero thought. Nature
herself would lead us to a happy life. Moral ideas, common to
all men, are clearest in children and those who stand nearest
to the origins; being, in fact, the expression of that divine
Reason which is the life of Nature in the human mind : omnium
consensus naturae vox est (Tusc. i. 15. 35). It is vicious
customs and institutions that obscure the light of Nature.
If, however, we inquire strictly for the test of truth in
this theory, we can hardly find it in the innate ideas them-
selves, since some test is necessary to determine what they are :
such as their universal recognition, the canon of catholic truth,
quod semper, quod uhique, quod ah omnibus. The trace of this
argument is left upon Locke's polemic.
By whom self- evidence was first alleged as the test of
synthetic judgment, I cannot discover ; perhaps by the mathe-
maticians : for Plato {Bep. 510) says that the mathematicians
set forth their principles as self-evident and rejected all pro-
posals to prove them. It implies confidence not so much in
a system of reason as in specific intuitions. At any rate,
Galen {©epair. MeO. i. 4) speaks of two kinds of manifest truth
recognised by ancient philosophers : the one, perceptions of
particular sensation, the other, intellectual cognitions, indemon-
strable, but evident upon the first inspection. And of the
THE TEST OF TEUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 43
latter he enumerates : things equal to the same thing are equal ;
if equals be added to or taken from equals, the sums or re-
mainders are equal ; nothing happens without a cause ; nothing
arises from nothing or corrupts into nothing ; and, finally,
the principle of Excluded Middle.
If, then, we sum up the criteria which commended them-
selves to Greek philosophers, of various ages and schools, we
may say that (1) the earlier inquirers trusted to a systematic
or (at least) a comprehensive explanation of the world as its
own justification ; that then (2) the principles of logical con-
sistency were worked out; that next, when partly by force of
this', Logic, partly from other causes, truth seemed ftirther off
than ever, (3) trust was put in sense-perceptions, either for
their clearness or their aggressiveness, as supplying the elements
of knowledge and the means of verifying concepts and judg-
ments ; that (4) self-evidence was regarded as a ground for
accepting axioms as well as percepts; that (5) naturalness,
original endowment, universal consent — they come to the same
thing — was more and more relied on by the Stoics ; and that
(6) on the whole, in spite of some inconsistencies, the uniformity
of Nature (always implied in the belief in a rational world)
became more and more explicit amongst both the Stoics and
the Epicureans.
With the revival of Philosophy (that is, of personal
unofficial speculation, the Philosophy of private judgment) the
search for the Criterion revived; for the Middle Age, like
that of the free Greek Cities, had its own confidence, though
not exactly of the same kind; and now again criticism,
accompanying vast social and political changes, had destroyed
that confidence. The Eenascence, like the later Greek
schools, professed (at least, in its most conspicuous leaders) to
seek knowledge for the sake of life, but with far wider interests
and better hope than the Stoics and Epicureans, and in fact
disinterestedly.
§ 2. The influence of those schools upon the moderns is
very obvious. The moderns went back not to Plato and
Aristotle — the latter especially having been discredited by
new prejudices and unfashionable friends, — but to those who
44 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
stood nearest themselves ; either (like Bruno and Cudworth)
to the Neo-Platonists, or to the Stoics and Epicureans.
Bacon may be said to have had Epicurean affinities ; but
it is not easy to state his criterion briefly and satisfactorily,
nor is it necessary to attempt it, since this is not an ex-
haustive history of the subject, but an inquiry as to the main
positions ; and the unquestionable characters of Bacon's method,
observation, comprehensive comparison, experiment, elimination,
will be met with elsewhere.
The doctrine of Descartes, according to its most conspicuous
and oft-repeated statement, is that those things are true which
we clearly and distinctly conceive {Discours, P. iv) ; that
is, a clear and distinct conception answers for the fact ; and
although the terms ' clear ' and ' distinct ' remind one of the
Epicurean ivdpjeta rather than of the Stoical KaTaX7)-y^i,'i, yet
his derivation of such conceptions (according to the more
prominent passages) not from perception but from the innate
capacity of the soul, sufficiently indicates the line of tradition ;
and, indeed, he calls them communes notiones, though in some
men they, are obscured by prejudice {Frincipia, i. § 50).
The truths which he thus adduced and relied upon were not
only abstract concepts, such as self-existence and perfection,
but also axioms : if equals be added to equals the wholes are
equal (Frincipia, i. § 13), and that 'nothing cannot be the
cause of anything' {Frincipia, i. § 75).
What Descartes understood by ' clear ' and ' distinct ' is
explained in the Frincipia (i. § 45) : " Clear I call that which
to an attentive mind is present and open (aperta) ; distinct,
that which, besides being clear, is so separated and marked off
from everything else, as to contain in itself nothing but what
is clear." That, then, is a true conception which is clear in
its contents and distinct in all its relations. Descartes did
not see that such ideas imply an already completed system of
knowledge, and are to be hoped for not in the initiation but
in the consummation of Philosophy. Consider the concepts of
' self ' or ' perfection ' in all their relations ! No wonder he
should complain that many people never all their lives perceive
anything in the way in which alone it can be truly judged of.
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 45
Conceptions, clear and distinct so far as they have been
investigated, must still serve the science of many a generation.
Perhaps, however, in spite of the frequency with which
the criterion of clearness and distinctness of conception is
insisted on by Descartes, and its prominence in the famous
fourth part of the Discours de la Methode, we ought to look for
his views of systematic proof in the sixth part of that essay,
where the use of experiments is explained. He there tells us
that his philosophy, assuming at first certain principles of
nature, dependent only on the creative activity of God, and
derived from " certain seeds of truth that exist by nature in
our souls," goes on to deduce from these the phenomena of
heaven and earth ; and that when, as sometimes happens, these
phenomena are such that they seem deducible in many
different ways, there is no other expedient but " to seek out
experiments of such a kind that their results will not be the
same if the explanation ought to be in one of those ways as
it would be if the explanation should be in another way."
That is to say, the test of truth is a crucial experiment
according to the Physical Method, except that the premises
are not inductions. The Uniformity of Nature which this
method presupposes is represented by the perfect and immut-
able natui-e of God ; but the experiment itself depends on
sense-perception. And, in fact, whether Descartes is rightly
to be considered as a Rationalist, relying upon pure thought
as opposed to sensation, is very questionable. For although
when speaking of ideas and principles he uses the verb
concevoir or concipere, he also uses percipere : in the Principia
having said (i. 30) that everything is true quatenus dare et
distincte percipitur, he adds (§ 32) sentire, imaginari, et pure
intelligere, sunt tantum diversi modi percipiendi. Hence it
appears that he did not place the test of truth in conception
in opposition to sense, but held that clear and distinct know-
ledge in whatever mode is its own assurance. But he is
anxious to dissociate himself from the Epicureans (with whom
there was some risk of confusing him) ; and, indeed, he
seems to limit clear sense-perception to the subject-matter of
Geometry as the sole invariable character of body {Principia, ii.
46 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
§ 11) ; although his speculations extended to many phenomena
which did not then, and do not even now, admit of reduction
to extension, figure, and motion.
§ 3. Descartes was a born system-maker, to whom doubt
was an hypothesis and self-confidence an instinct ; his specu-
lative ambition was noble and boundless, though its expression
was restrained by prudence. But as every man is imperfect,
one must be set against another in the dialectic of History.
Speculative caution is also precious, if uninspiring. There
were more extravagant adventurers than Descartes : and Locke,
therefore, set himself " to prevail with the busy mind of man
to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its
comprehension " ; to find how far the understanding " has
faculties to attain certainty," and in what cases it can only
judge and guess {Essays of Human Understanding, i. chap. 1 ,
§ 4). He was a philosopher by occasion, not by profession ;
and it is absurd to criticise him with the same strictness as
the rest of them. Upon every subject he was content to say
the most sensible thing, and to refrain from any afl&rmation or
denial that seemed extravagant or paradoxical.
According to Locke, knowledge consists in ideas, derived
from sensation and reflection, and compared by the mind
receiving them. Truth belongs not to ideas as such, but to
propositions or judgments concerning their agreement or dis-
agreement. The excellence of an idea lies in its being clear,
distinct, and adequate ; the truth of our judgment concerning
it depends upon its agreement with its object (which it is a
sign of), namely, either an idea in another mind, or some real
existence {Essays, ii. 32, § 5). As to the latter case, sensations,
or " simple ideas, which the mind can by no means make to
itself, carry with them all the conformity which is intended, or
which our state requires ; for they represent to us things
under those appearances, which they are fitted to produce in
us " (iv. 4, § 4). But our ideas of sensation resemble the
things sensed only in the primary qualities of body ; and how
even this can be known he never explains ; ideas produced in
us by secondary qualities have no resemblance to them at all
(ii. 8, § 15). And ideas are never to be judged true of the
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 47
real essences of things, the constitution of their insensible parts
(Bacon's latens scheviatismus) ; becfiuse they are never adequate
to such a representation (ii. 32, § 24). Of such things in
nature as fall not within the reach of our senses we can only
judge by * analogy ' ; as, finding that friction produces heat, we
have reason to think that what we call heat and fire consists
in a violent agitation of the imperceptible minute parts of the
burning matter (iv. 16, § 12). Having no conception of
inductive method, it may, he says, be suspected " that natural
philosophy is not capable of being made a science " ; though
great probability is attained concerning objects, when the
general consent of mankind concurs with one's own constant
experience (iv. c. 16). So far as to material things.
Of our own existence we have ' intuitive knowledge ' by an
immediate comparison of ideas ; it is " an internal infallible
perception. In every act of sensation, reasoning, or thinking,
we are conscious to ourselves of our own being" (iv. c. 9).
This implies that our " being " is an idea immediately com-
pared with every sensation or thought. The existence of God
may be demonstrated from the knowledge of our own existence
and the maxim that " bare nothing cannot produce any real
being " : which also we know by intuitive certainty (iv. c. 10).
Further than this, truth is unattainable with regard to
particular existences ; but knowledge admits of further exten-
sion, for it includes all the agreements or disagreements of
our ideas amongst themselves, as expressed in any proposition
(iv. c. 6). General propositions concern not existence, but
only the relations of our abstract ideas. When the mind can
bring two ideas together to perceive by immediate comparison
their agreement or disagreement, this we may call intuitive
knowledge ; and this gives the greatest certainty. But if the
ideas to be compared cannot be brought together immediately,
the mind " is then fain, by the intervention of other ideas, to
discover the agreement or disagreement which it searches " ;
and this is reasoning or demonstration. Each step of such
reasoning must be intuitively certain (iv. c. 2).
Hence arise the Sciences ; of which Mathematics is a great
example ; whilst Physics and Moral Philosophy are very back-
48 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
ward. And in Physics the reason of this is, that our ideas,
being inadequate to the real essence of things, au intuitive
comparison of them is ineffectual to discover the truth. For it
can assure us of nothing that passes without the mind. But
in Moral Philosophy our backwardness is due to indifference
and infirmity ; because the " desire of esteem, riches, or power,
makes men espouse the well-endowed opinions in fashion."
For in Morals, as in Mathematics, the ideas to be compared,
such as angle and circle, murder and government, are
constructed by the mind itself, so that the nominal and real
essences coincide. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent
Moral Philosophy from becoming as demonstrative as Geometry,
except the greater complexity of its ideas, and the impossibility
of representing them to sense-perception. Unfortunately, as
examples of axioms of demonstrative morals he offers only
identical propositions : " Where there is no property there is
no injustice," and " no government allows absolute liberty "
(iv. c. 3).
In short, Locke's demand for certainty seems to have been
solely determined, like that of the Stoics and Epicureans, by
practical needs. By sensation and the intuitive comparison
of ideas we have enough knowledge to guide us in "this
twilight state " : God has made the world habitable, though
by no means transparent. The most pious of philosophers,
Locke, never thinks of man except as God's feeble creature
and ceaseless care, ill-equipped for any knowledge that sub-
serves not convenience or virtue. How near this position is to
speculative Scepticism it hardly needed the light of Hume to
show us.
§ 4. Contrast with it the primitive security of Reason in
herself as we find it expressed in Cudworth's Eternal and
ImmutaUe Morality : " Now all the knowledge and wisdom
that is in creatures whether angels or men, is nothing else
but a participation of that one eternal, immutable, and
increated wisdom of God " (i. 3). " The first intellect is
essentially and archetypally all rationes, and verities, and all
particular created intellects are but derivative participations
of it " (iv. 4). " But sense being but an idiopathy, we can-
THE TEST or TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 49
not be absolutely certain by it that every other person or
animal has the same passion, or affection, or phantasm in it
from the same corporeal object that we ourselves have."
Hence, " the necessary truth of no geometrical theorem can
ever be examined, proved, or determined by sensible things
mechanically. And though the eternal, divine intellect be
the archetypal rule of truth, we cannot consult that neither
to see whether our conceptions be commensurate with it. I
answer, therefore, that the criterion of true knowledge is not to be
looked for anywhere abroad out of our own minds, neither in
the height above nor in the depth beneath, but only in our
knowledge and conceptions themselves. For the entity of all
theoretical truth is nothing else but clear intelligibility, and
whatever is clearly conceived is an entity and a truth ; but
that whatever is false, divine power itself cannot make it to
be clearly and distinctly understood." Hence it comes to pass
that "philosophers and divines have without scruple measured
the divine omnipotence itself, and the possibility of things, by
their own clear intellections concerning them" (v, 5).
This is the doctrine of intuitive knowledge. When
Descartes says that any universal truth or axiom is " innate,"
he seems to me to claim merely that it is intuitive. Spinoza's
attitude, as we observed, shows just the same confidence :
" He that has a true idea knows that he has a true idea."
Such certainty may be attained either by deduction from
adequate ideas of the properties of things, or by intuition
{scientia intuitiva), as when 1 : 2 : : 3 : a; being given, every-
body sees that ic=6 {Ethica, ii. 40). By the latter
method, he says in the De Intellectus Emendatione, he has
not yet been able to know many things : and no wonder, for
by intuitive knowledge I understand him to mean direct
insight into what is usually discovered by deduction. But
in the examples given by Spinoza (much the same in both
works), namely, direct cognitions of the equality of simple
ratios, we have the same mental activity as in the intuitions
of Locke and the clear intellections of Cudworth. It is not
imagination, in any sense in which these three authors would
intentionally use the word ; nor is it " pure " understanding, in
4
50 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
the sense of depending on definitions alone ; but a process in
which imagination and understanding are undifferentiated.
There is an instinctive disposition to know, as well as to
do : it operates with representative ideas ; and I take it to be
essentially a kinsesthetic imagination, working under a given
cognitive interest. The typical case is geometrical intuition.
It may, or may not, have pictorial or quasi-pictorial accom-
paniments, according to a man's cast of mind, Whewell says
intuition is " imaginary looking " {Hist, of Sc. Ideas, ii. 9,
§ 5) ; and it would be an interesting inquiry, how far the
philosophers have left in their writings traces of their mental
habits, as visile, motile, etc., or only verbile, mistaking the
custom of language for insight ; and what are the correlated
doctrines. Plato and Bacon are plainly visiles ; but visual-
isation of the pictorial sort is, after all, never more than an
accompaniment or introduction to the kinsesthesis ; and whilst
in some men it persists, as a sort of generous excess or extra-
vagance of ideation, in others, for greater concentration, it is
omitted, like many other links, in the economic abbreviation
of organised processes. The depth of the differences between
visile, audile, motile, types, is easily exaggerated : motility
is fundamental in objective judgment.
But in such " imaginary looking," what is it that is seen ?
Cudworth and Spinoza are deplorably vague in their state-
ments. Locke in his fourth Book (chaps, i. ii. iii.) is much more
explicit, and indicates relations of likeness and difference,
equality and inequality, as the contents of intuition, in
contrast with relations of time and place, of which we can
very imperfectly discover uniformities, and only by experience.
It was probably from these passages that Hume derived his
doctrine ; and, I believe, he was the first to set the matter
in a clear light. In the Treatise he begins the first section of
Part III. by re-enumerating the " seven different kinds of
philosophical relation," and says : " These relations may be
divided into two classes ; into such as depend entirely upon
the ideas which we compare together, and such as may be
changed without any change in the ideas." Those that
depend " solely upon ideas can be the objects of knowledge
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— 1. HISTORICAL 51
and certainty," namely, resemblance, contrariety, degrees in
quality, and proportions in quantity or number. Of the
other three relations, situation in time and place, identity,
and causation, wc receive iuiormation I'roni experience and
not from abstract reasoning or reflection. Such remarks,
immediately following Hume's criticism of Mathematics and
introducing his criticism of Causation, constitute the central
turning-point of his work, and may be compared to the
metabasis of a tragedy. Intuition, demonstration, the self-
evident concatenation of reasoning are only possible in some
mode of resemblance. If the resemblances are merely of
qualitative terms, we are restricted to climbing up and down
in Porphyry's tree, proving that Bucephalus is an animal,
and that some animal is Bucephalus. Resemblance of
quantity opens the whole range of Mathematics. But of
coexistence, succession, identity, there is no intuition or
demonstration, but only inference from observation.
Still, even in the intuition of resemblance or equality,
the terms compared are grounded in experience. And so,
of course, are all differences, and amongst them quantitative
differences or ratios, which are the materials of an intui-
tion of equality, that is, proportion. Similarly, relations of
coexistence and succession, having been learnt by experience,
become the materials of intuitive comparison ; and it is by
this means that all the Laws of Nature (constant relations
of phenomena) are explained by discovering their resemblance
to one another. And as the ultimate form of all such
resemblance is causation, this (as Hume says) is the sole
foundation of our knowledge concerning either identity or
regularity of coexistence and succession amongst concrete
things. Compare the discussions of reasoning by intuitions
of conjunct and of disjunct relations in Spencer's Principles of
Psychology (Part VI. chaps, i.-viii.). He has not made it
clear enough that intuitions of disjunct relations involve a
comparison of the terms related ; has omitted, in fact, the
equivalent of the minor premise in a syllogism. This is true
of proportion as well as of syllogism.
§ 5. Leibniz's views of the nature of truth are, historically,
I
52 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
very important. In the first place, he divides propositions
into those of fact, those of reason, and those that are mixed,
that is, derived from premises of both the former kinds.
General propositions of Keason are necessary, and their
opposites are impossible ; those of Fact are obtained by
observation or induction, and are not necessary, because we
do not see their necessity. Mixed propositions follow as to
certitude their weaker premise, that is, the proposition of
fact upon which they depend (Nouv. Uss. iv. 11. 13; of.
Monaclologie, § 33).
The foundation of our certitude as to universal and eternal
truths is in the ideas themselves, and (like a pure and intel-
ligible idea, such as being or unity) does not depend upon
the senses {N. E. iv. 4. 2). The chief necessary truths are
the principle of Contradiction — that of two contradictory
propositions one is true and the other false, or that which
involves a contradiction is false ; and the principle de la
raison dUerminante (or suffisante) — that is, that nothing
happens without a cause, or at least a raison dUerminante,
to show a priori why it exists thus rather than otherwise.
To an omniscient Being there must be such reasons ; though
they may not be clearly known to us, or even, for the most
part, cannot be known to us at all {Tliiodicee, i. 44 ;
Monadologie, 31-32). In his Bemarques sur le livre de
M. King (§ 14) we read that one may say in some sort
that these two principles are implied in the definitions of
True and of False. Still, eternal truths are at bottom all con-
ditional, that is, they posit the existence of the subject : thus
' Every figure that has three sides has three angles ' means,
' Supposing a figure to have three sides, the same figure has
three angles' {K E. iv. 11. 11).
The first truths of fact, or a posteriori, are the immediate
perceptions of our own existence and of our thoughts {N. E.
iv. 9. 2). But of an universal truth we can never by
induction from any number of particular experiences prove the
universality, without a knowledge of its necessity by reason
{N. E. i. 1. 5). Nor is certainty of innate principles to be
based upon universal consent ; for all truths that are not
THE TEST OF TKUTH.— I. IIISTOKICAL 53
primitive should be demonstrated (N. E. i. 1. 4). Of course
' universal consent ' can only be known by induction. The
principle of sufficient reason is indeed applicable to truths of
fact, or contingent truths, though we can rarely trace it.
Every event depends upon conditions, and these upon others,
in a series leading back to God : a necessary substance out-
side of the series of contingencies, dans laquelle le lUiail des
changemens ne soit queminemment, but which is the last and
sufficient reason of them all. The foundation of all truths
is the supreme and universal spirit whose understanding is
la region des virites Sternelles ; and these contain the suliicient
reason and regulative principle of existences themselves and,
in a word, of the laws of the universe (iV. ^. iv. 11. 13;
Monadologie, §§ 36-38). This is inconsistent with the position
that eternal truths are conditional.
Most important in the history of Philosophy is Leibniz's
doctrine that an induction, never being complete, cannot give
us necessary truth. This had been an ancient sceptical topic,
but it now derived fresh significance from the progress of
physical science. Together with Hume's criticism of causation
it led Kant to write the Transcendental Analytic. The
doctrine is groundless if there is an uniformity of Nature, and
if our experience is a fair sample of Nature ; which there is
no reason to doubt : for the necessity of a law has no de-
pendence upon our seeing or feeling its necessity. Leibniz,
however, seems to have held that in our experience there
may not be any necessary order ; for although he tells us
{Discours de Mitaphysique, § 6) that there is an order in
everything that God does, yet his explanations show that to
us, in his opinion, this order may present the utmost irregu-
larity. Natural processes obey certain maximes subalternes ;
but Nature is only a coustume de Dieu (§ 7), which may be
altered whenever He sees reason. It is by Him, for Him.
This order, such as it is, can nevertheless be known
analytically from the complete concept of an individual sub-
stance : for such a concept is infinite, including all the deter-
minations of the substance, and therefore its whole history
and relations to everything else : so that every substance is a
54 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
mirror of the world. God, then, having a concept of any sub-
stance or of the world, sees in it the ground and reason of all
truths ; and every such truth is an identical proposition (§ 8).
Hence the principle of sufficient reason is not really co-ordinate
with the principles of Formal Logic ; for the analysis of the
concept of the world in the mind of God requires only
Identity and Contradiction.
The analytic method of Formal Logic and Mathematics
became for Leibniz an Idol of the Den : it was to explain
everything ; but in a mind not wholly devoted to scientific
interests it provided excuses for obscurantism, and issued in
puerile inconsistences.
§ 6. In the Transcendentale Logik {Einl. § 3) Kant says
that a criterion of material truth cannot possibly be found,
because such a criterion must hold good of all material
cognitions, whereas their truth depends upon their particular
contents, being in fact the Uehereinstimmung einer Erkenntniss
mit ilirem Gegenstande. But, as Henry Sidgwick observes in
Mind (No. 33 N.S.), this argument assumes "that true
cognitions as such cannot have any common characteristic
except that of agreeing with their objects ; but that is surely
to assume the very point in question." Accordingly, it is
easy to find in the Critiqite of Pure Reason an investigation
into the criterion of truth, and the above passage may be
considered as an oversight.
Kant followed Leibniz in holding that true or strict
universality cannot be known by experience. A necessary
and universal judgment must be known a "priori ; and such
judgments — necessary, universal, and synthetic — are found in
Mathematics, in all physical sciences, and are, indeed, implied
in the possibility of experience itself and its certainty accord-
ing to rules {K. d. r. V., Einl. ii.).
But the principle of Contradiction, so important to
Leibniz, he regarded as having only logical validity as the
criterion of all analytical cognition, and therefore altered its
form of statement. Instead of " It is impossible that anything
can at the same time be and not be," where the mention of
' time ' is foreign to merely logical use, he wrote : " Nothing can
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 55
have a predicate that contradicts it " (its definition); for in the
usual statement incompatibility is alleged between two suppos-
able predicates of the same subject, both of which may be true
at different times ; not, as it should be, between the predicate
and the subject itself, which is always the same. Tlie point
is that a predicate whose truth depends upon time implies a
synthetic judgment, and the principle of Contradiction is to
be reserved exclusively for analytic judgments. But, thus
restricted, the principle applies only to a contradiction in
terms ; whereas synthetic propositions may be contradictory
without any reference to time. Must we then invent another
principle to demonstrate that one of them is false ?
For synthetic propositions (Kant goes on), in which the
predicate is something quite different from the subject, we re-
quire some other criterion than the principle of Contradiction.
The different elements of a judgment must be brought together
by the imagination into the unity of apperception ; and,
further, if the judgment is to have objective reality, it must
be related to some actual or possible object of experience,
without which it is a mere playing with representations
( Vorstellungen). {Transcendentale Analytik, Buch II. 2nd
Hawpst. 1. 2.)
Toward the end of the same Book, under the Postulate des
empirischen Denkens, we find a fuller account of the criteria
of objective truth. That is possible, he says, which agrees
with the formal conditions of experience both as to intuition
and conception : that is to say, it must be capable of existing
in time and space and of being determined by the Categories.
But to be real (wirklich) it must also cohere with the
material conditions of experience ; perception, and therefore
sensation {Wahrnehmung niithin Empfindung), is requisite.
It is not, indeed, requisite that we should immediately per-
ceive the object itself, but we must perceive something
with whicli it is connected according to the analogies
of experience ; thus magnetic matter is not directly cog-
nisable, but only by seeing how a magnet attracts iron
filings ; though, if our senses were more acute, we should
perceive the magnetic matter itself. It is in this sense that
56 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
we must understand the expression in the foregoing paragraph :
" related to some actual or possible object of experience."
Finally, that is necessary/ whose coherence with reality is
determined according to universal conditions of experience,
that is, as an effect of known causes. The category of necessity,
therefore, is only applicable to phenomena, not to substances,
which can never be regarded as empirical effects, or as
beginning or changing.
We may be surprised that in this passage, after speak-
ing of " the universal conditions of experience," Kant only
particularises causation. But, plainly, the general meaning
is that the criterion of synthetic truth is not some principle
that may, like the law of Contradiction, be directly applied
to any given analytic judgment merely on its own merits, but
demands that every judgment shall be in harmony with all
others in a phenomenal world, or experience, which constitutes
a possible representation in one unity of apperception. This,
however, is a characteristic common to all cognitions of
material truth, the very thing which in an earlier passage
Kant had declared to be impossible. It is the complex
content of Empirical and Physical Reality according to a
system of laws, for which, in any particular detail, no general
anticipatory principle can be laid down, except that it must
involve sensation.
§ 7. The importance to Kant of the Category of Causation
as an universal condition of experience may be attributed to
the ever -increasing interest of the physical sciences. To
establish the possibility of such bodies of necessary truth
concerning phenomena, against Rationalism which disparaged
experience, and Scepticism which disparaged the necessity of
law, was one of the three leading purposes of the Critical
Philosophy. A very different procedure brings Mill to a
similar result in signalising Causation as the ultimate ground
of the sciences of Nature. He was in no way influenced by
Kant, whose writings were little studied in this country until
after Mill had completed the circle of his ideas ; and it must
always be regretted that he saw Kant only in the distorting
mirrors of Hamilton and Whewell. But having set himself
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 57
the task of explaining the methods of science, and of supple-
menting and perfecting the Aristotelian Logic by discovering
the ground of all generalisation, he was led to recognise the
law of causation as that which is implied in all the canons
of experimental proof. The want of any such governing
principle is the chief defect in Bacon's Orgauon : the defect
was made good by Hume, who showed that causation is the
ground of elimination : and by means of it Mill was able
to amend the Baconian method of observation, comparison,
elimination, verification ; to extend it by recognising the part
of Mathematics and deductive reasoning, and to draw the
outlines of the Logic of Induction in (I believe) their
permanent form.
Mill's writings present a fair summary of the results of the
Empirical Philosophy in the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Test of Truth is experience : in Psychology, introspection ;
in the sciences of the external world, the senses. But experience
needs interpretation ; it is subject to illusion ; for every state
of consciousness enters into associations with others, which
may obscure it or be confounded with it ; and all such
growths must be disentangled in order to discover the
immediately present idea or sensation. Observation always
consists partly of direct consciousness, partly of inference :
this cannot be avoided ; but good observation requires that we
should be aware of the distinction between the immediate and
the inferential factors, and verify the inferential {Logic, Book
IV. chap. i. ; Book V. chap. iv.).
But science consists not merely of observations, but of
Laws, and these are generalised after a comparison of observa-
tions : they state observed uniformities in the connections of
phenomena. In order to know and formulate such general
laws, we must have general or abstract ideas or conceptions ;
and these are arrived at by comparing individual things : a
comparison of white things forms the abstract idea ' white ' ;
of round things, the idea ' circular.' When such ideas have
been formed they become types with which to compare further
particular things (Book IV. chap. ii.).
To fix an idea it is generally connected with a word, /
58 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
though other signs may serve as the point of attachment ; and
it is then possible to carry on a train of thought by means of
the signs without always referring to the ideas or the things
they represent {On Hamilton, chap, xvii.).
Laws, however, though expressed in the signs of concep-
tions, are not laws of ideas, but of the phenomena denoted.
The chief kinds of laws are (1) those of Mathematics and (2)
those of Causation. " The axioms of mathematics are experi-
mental truths ; generalisations from observation " ; e.g. that
two straight lines cannot enclose a space ; that 1 + 1 = 2; etc.
(Book II. chaps, v.-vi.). The Law of Causation is generalised
from a comparison of less extensive uniformities of succession ;
and these are found by observation of particular sequences of
events. There is no method of proving it, because there is
no more general principle; but it rests on uncontradicted
experience. Having assumed it, a ground is obtained for the
methodical proof of all other laws according to the Canons ;
and then every law so established confirms the major premise,
the law of causation. The method must not be regarded as
superseding experience or having any authority of its own :
causation, the method of induction, and all particular laws
have only one basis, experience itself (Book III. chap, xxi.).
The evidence, says Mill, may now be considered, for
practical purposes, complete ; but theoretically we must reflect
that Causation, being based on experience, cannot be assumed
to prevail far beyond the limits of experience : e.g. in remote
parts of the stellar universe (Book III. chap, xxi.) : and that
it involves no necessity (Book III. chap. ii.). We may under-
stand ' necessity ' to mean either : (1) a strong feeling of con-
nection, which may be due to associations by no means
corresponding with universal experience; or (2) necessary
dependence on certain premises. In the latter sense, laws
of Mathematics or Causation are necessarily true, if the
axioms are (Book II. chap, v.) ; they are hypothetically
necessary.
Finally, experience is confined to phenomena ; and there-
fore all axioms and conceptions, being derived from experience,
are concerned only with the order and relations of phenomena,
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 59
have uo hold upou " matter " or " mind " ^;er se. In fact,
these very notions are only constructions from experience.
§ 8. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the
theory of evolution iu its application to mental life gave so
new a turn to certain doctrines of the Empirical Philosophy
and to the whole of Psychology, with which those doctrines
were intimately connected, that it might be expected to
throw some fresh light upon the old problem of the Criterion
of Truth.
Spencer discusses the test of truth in his Frinciples of
Psychology, Part VII., with special reference to the metaphysical
controversy between Idealists and Realists (cf. his essay on
the Test of Truth). This controversy, he says, persists because
the parties to it do not, or will not, agree upon a criterion,
yet " there must be somewhere, in some shape, some funda-
mental act of thought [some ultimate law of intelligence,
§ 417] by which the validities of other acts of thought
are to be determined" (§ 416). In chap. xi. he states
this Universal Postulate : " The inconceivableness of its nega-
tion is that which shows a cognition to possess the highest
rank, is the criterion by which its unsurpassable validity is
known" (§426).
This principle must be clearly understood and carefully
applied. The inconceivable is not to be confounded with the
merely incredible. "An inconceivable proposition is one of
which the terms cannot by any effort be brought before con-
sciousness in that relation which the proposition asserts
betwen them " : " An unbelievable proposition is one which
admits of being framed in thought, but is so much at variance
with experience that its terms cannot be put in the alleged
relation without effort." It is unbelievable that a cannon
ball should be fired from England to America, but not
inconceivable : but it is inconceivable that one side of a
triangle should be equal to the sum of the other two, not
simply incredible (§ 427).
In applying the criterion we must consider the kind of
proposition to which it is applicable, and do our best to apply
it rigorously. The kind of proposition to be dealt with is not
60 THE METAPHYSICS OE NATUEE
a complex one, of which the terms and their relations are
liable to be indefinitely conceived, but a simple one which is
"not further decomposable" (§ 428). "That there are anti-
podes," a proposition once inconceivable (as Mill urged), is too
complex to be tested in this way. Fairer examples are :
" whatever resists has extension," and the axioms of Mathe-
matics and Logic. Again, in the most sincere endeavour to
apply the criterion, we are liable to lapses of thought and
attention ; hence " that must be the most certain conclusion
which involves the postulate the fewest times " (chap. xii.).
This criterion is a higher warrant for a cognition than
any direct appeal to experiences, such as an empiricist might
make, because " it represents experiences almost infinitely
nimierous in comparison." Propositions of which the nega-
tions are inconceivable depend on nervous structures developed
through innumerable generations in correspondence with
external relations, and are fixed in proportion as the outer
relations are fixed. The inconceivableness of the negation
of an axiom results from the impossibility of inverting the
actions of the correlative nervous structures (§ 430).
Now it is not my object to discredit any useful criteria of
Truth ; I would gladly see them multiply ; but this is im-
possible as long as any of them claims to be exclusive. It is
therefore necessary to draw attention to an ambiguity in the
use of the term " inconceivable." Spencer has distinguished
it from incredible ; but there remains another cognate term,
" unimaginable," and this he seems to have overlooked. The
opposite of the judgment " whatever resists has extension "
seems to me unimaginable, but not inconceivable ; and its
unimaginability no doubt depends upon the fixed connection
of correlative nervous structures. But inconceivability re-
quires that the difficulty of conception should result from the
definitions or meanings of the terms; and I find nothing in
the meanings of ' resistance ' and ' extension ' to prevent these
terms being separated in thought. If their separation is to be
called inconceivable, it must be in a psychological, not in the
logical, sense. It is otherwise with such an axiom as " Things
equal to the same third are equal." In this case the cognition
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 61
is not indeed merely analytic, depending on the meanings of the
terms only ; but the synthesis involved is nevertheless guided
and determined by the meanings of ' equality ' and ' sameness ' :
the attempt to compare in thought the ' two things ' with the
' third ' is governed by the caution that severally they are to
be really equal to it, and that it is to remain strictly the same
thing. Hence, however, the axiom is far from being a simple
proposition.
That this distinction between the unimaginable and the
inconceivable is not impertinent may perhaps appear, if we
inquire how they are severally affected by the alleged guarantee
of neuro-psychical evolution. Such a guarantee, by the way,
is not to be mistaken for a circuhis in demonstrando : this
seems to me a puerile objection. Spencer's design is, I take
it, not to give a reason for the criterion itself, but to show
how it has come to be the foundation of reasoning .- his
argument is explanatory, not demonstrative. If we are now
to determine the test of truth, it is reasonable to do so, in
view of all our present knowledge ; for it must agree with
all the structural lines of that knowledge ; and the reference
to organic evolution has especial weight on this ground, that
the test of truth, whatever it be, must be reconcilable with
the history of the human mind. On the other hand, this
very reference draws attention to the limitations attaching to
Spencer's criterion, namely, the experiential range of the
zoological individual, a range so narrow, indiscriminate, and
merely practical in all sub-human species, that it cannot be
supposed to include ' a fair sample of all Reality.' Is it not
more reasonable to suppose that such experience would give
rise to almost inexpugnable prejudices, such as the disbelief in
antipodes, than that it would prepare a criterion of universal
truth ? But whatever influence sub-human experience has
upon our minds, it must affect imaginations rather than con-
ceptions ; for imagination is an outgrowth of perception, and
is exercised by many animals; but conception, though some
rudiments of it may exist in some species, yet attains any
degree of development only in man. There must be a con-
siderable development of the signs of thought before thoughts
G2 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
can be compared according to the meaning of their signs.
And if we consider the definiteness and the caution necessary
in conceptual thinking, and how much this depends upon
discipline (though some men have an apter disposition for it
than others), it seems that those who are judges of what is
inconceivable must be few, and to be selected rather for their
education than for their ancestry ; and not at all for their
remote ancestry ; which, beyond a few generations, is the same
for all mankind, and common to Socrates and Sambo.
Again, granting that the inconceivability of the negation
may have some value as a test of truth, still it seems to hold
a secondary place, whilst the direct intuition of relations is
the primary and essential ground of intellectual certitude.
As Spencer says, the axiom concerning equal magnitudes " was
held by the Greeks, no less than by ourselves, as a direct
verdict of consciousness from which there can be no appeal.
Each step in each demonstration of Euclid we accept, as they
accepted it, because we immediately see that the alleged rela-
tion is as alleged ; and that it is impossible to coticeive it
otherivise" (§ 428). But has not the last clause, which I have
italicised, somewhat the air of an afterthought ? Is it not
the immediate insight into the equality or inequality of the
relations compared that carries conviction to the reader of
Euclid ? They, I believe, are very few who at each step try
to think the opposite ; though to do so would certainly be a
harmless, and might even be a wise, precaution.
From this brief survey of the history of the Test of Truth
it appears that modern inquirers have, on the whole, confirmed
the conclusions of the Greeks : ( 1 ) the principles of logical
consistency have been recognised as necessary to systematic
thought; (2) sense-perception has been generally accepted as
the test of Empirical Eeality (though its merely phenomenal
character has been oftener insisted on), and the improved
analysis of Relations has shown that the connection of parti-
cular phenomena in time and space can only be known by
observation ; (3) the self-evidence of intuition has been ac-
knowledged by thinkers of schools the most opposed on other
grounds, and clearness and distinctness have been treated as
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— I. HISTORICAL 63
essential to all cognition ; (4) the value of general consent,
though not frequently appealed to and sometimes denied,
was defended by the Philosopher of Conmion Sense, and the
agreement of competent judges is generally effective, if not
conclusive ; (5) the Uniformity of Nature, as the necessary
correlate of consistent thought and a rational system of ex-
perience, and as implied in every inference and induction, has
been generally assumed, and often explicitly stated. It is at
this point that the moderns have made the greatest advance
upon ancient thought, by defining the principles of Continuity
and Conservation in all changes of the world, and by showing
their complication with the explanatory function of Under-
standing. Hume and Kant agreed in signalising Causation
as the essential judgment that gives coherence to the ever-
lasting movement of the world. This was probably suggested,
as it is continually illustrated, by the progress of the physical
sciences ; and it is this that gives us the surest grounds for
hope that in the course of ages a comprehensive and systematic
explanation of Nature may justify the confidence of Eeason
in herself.
CHAPTER IV
THE TEST OF TRUTH. II. ANALYTIC
§ 1. (a) That sense-perception is the criterion of Empirical
Reality must be assumed by every science or philosophy that
professes to be a study or explanation of experience. How-
ever remote the explanation of experience may be from its
immediacy, even if the explanation be sought in transcendent
Ideas, nothing can be done, there is no assignable problem,
unless the immediacy is accepted as matter-of-fact. After
Plato's dialectician had spent some time in that upper region
where things are to be seen in their absolute nature, his duty
was to return to the cave and instruct his former companions
concerning the shadows on the wall ; but his task would be
impossible unless these shadows had a definite character ; its
possibility would be strictly proportional to their definiteness,
and its value to their interest for human Life.
It must be further assumed that the contents of sense-
perception can be determined for a normal subject by eliminat-
ing personal errors, and that it is possible to discriminate
between what is directly observed and what is inferred,
represented, or signified. But how to ensure these conditions
is the problem of Methodology, not of Metaphysics. We can
see, however, that whether that which is inferred or signified
is really connected with that which is observed, can only be
known either by further direct observation or by hypothesis
and verification. Everything perceived — say a tree seen in
the meadow — is a visual picture, including or seeming to
include various qualities which, as they are only knowable
by other senses than the eye, cannot in fact be seen, but
64
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— II. ANALYTIC 65
are associated or integrated with the visual picture and sub-
represented in it; whetlier they are truly represented must be
discovered by exercising the other senses.
It must again be assumed, then, not only that a single
perception gives Empirical Keality, but also that the connection
of discriminated perceptions in one judgment gives Empirical
Reality. This is implied in verifying the represented contents
of a thing perceived ; and exactly the same assumption is
made in perceiving the whole context of things that constitutes
Nature or objective experience. The order of things in place
and time can only be known to the understanding by the
connection of discriminated perceptions in one judgment, and
of many such judgments in one comprehensive unity of
apperception ; but the source and the verification of such
judgments is the detail of sense-perception.
Reflective analysis of Empirical Reality has two con-
sequences. Eirst, the feeling of Reality seems to evaporate ;
immediate experience turns into a shadow - world ; and no
wonder, for the feeling of Reality depends not on discrimina-
tion and judgment, but upon the growth of perceptive powers
in organic consciousness. Empirical Reality is originally
constructed upon the animal plane of intelligence, and even
such confidence as deliberate judgment possesses is transmitted
to it from the perceptive system. Hence intuition is an
" imaginary looking." But, secondly, the reflective analysis
of immediate experience reveals its miscellaneous and frag-
mentary character. Although human perception is impossible
without classification, still the resemblances recognised in
perception by no means satisfy the himian understanding ;
and this gives rise to attempts at constructing conceptual
systems ; which, when constructed, are sometimes used to
disparage sense-perception as an illusion and deceit : data and
verification are supposed to be sublated by an hypothesis that
derives from them its whole vitality.
(b) One way of disparaging sense-perception by means of
concepts is to distinguish between formal and material truth,
and to assign certainty and necessity only to the formal.
But " formal truth " and " material truth " are both of them
66 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
contradictiones in adjecto ; for the essence of truth is the
correspondence of form with matter, the verifiable agreement
of judgment with Reality. It is in this sense that truth is
the subject of Metaphysics.
In Logic, indeed, the distinction between form and matter
is all - important : for first, it determines the limits of that
Science ; which discusses the form of propositions or judg-
ments, that is, the relations of terms, and whatever is implied
therein, without regard to any special character of the terms ;
and secondly, it thereby makes conspicuous the inadequacy
of a merely logical treatment of any concrete matter of fact
apart from observation. The Logician says (or should be
understood to say), let us see what can be said about the
relations of things without considering the things themselves,
or about the form of knowledge apart from the things to be
known. This may lead to consistency, but not to truth.
But the problem of Metaphysics is altogether different
from this ; it is to survey knowledge in relation to existence ;
if possible, the whole of knowledge in relation to the whole of
existence ; and therefore cannot regard the forms of the world
apart from the world itself, unless they exist separately. Now
they are only regarded as existing separately according to a
certain possible doctrine ascribed to Plato. But that doctrine
turns the forms or Ideas into the essential Reality, with which
our knowledge can only be a correspondence. For Metaphysics
it is true that this Ideal Theory is but a duplication of Nature,
for the metaphysical problem remains the same. And so it
must if noumenal Reality be the presence of things to the
Divine mind, where they exist not merely formally but
eminently, not in bare relation but in greater fulness and
glory than for us. Reality in whatever mode is always the
object, and can never be the content, of Metaphysics ; nor can
any conceptual system concerning Reality convince the human
mind that is not verifiable by human organs, l)y the prying
eye and the searching finger.
Hence the vanity of any such scheme as Locke proposed
for a Moral Philosophy based upon ideas which we make for
ourselves, concerning property, justice, and other presumptive
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— II. ANALYTIC 67
contents of the original contract, not upon observation of the
Empirical Reality of Morals, that is, human life. It could
only be a place of verbal propositions where the law of Con-
tradiction was supreme. Whether that law has any appli-
cation to Reality will be considered in Chapter XIV.; but as a
test of formal or analytic " truth " (more properly consistency),
the place given it by Leibniz and Kant, it can have for Meta-
physics only a methodological interest in the elaboration of
concepts.
(c) The universality of a belief, in the sense that it has
been held by all mankind, was justly rejected by Leibniz as a
test of truth. If a Church takes the universal acceptance of a
doctrine by its adherents to be evidence of truth, it may mean
that the doctrine has been acknowledged by all Councils, and
that may be ascertainable. But the assent of all mankind can
only be discovered by exhaustive observation : as impossible in
the case of man as in any other kind of natural objects.
Attempts to carry out the investigation have led to much cross-
examining of timid troglodytes and sullen anthropophagi ; but
many a tribe near to the origins, a depository of primitive
wisdom, has departed beyond the reach of your questionnaire :
those precious witnesses, the Tasmanians, have just escaped,
and we shall never know whether ex nihilo nihil was a tenet
of theirs. For my part, I deny that, in a philosophical
question concerning men, the zoological definition of Man
affords a satisfactory means of determining the individuals
referred to.
It is true, of course, that the consent of others strongly
confirms our own belief; and the support of the expert, the
specialist, the initiated, the illuminated, and the inspired is
particularly comforting. Most people are incapable of believ-
ing except in a crowd, and those who can be happy alone upon
the bleak mountains of speculation are rare indeed. Still, even
if the universality of beliefs could be established, it would only
be conditional evidence of their objective truth. Granting
that such beliefs must rest upon a correlatively wide and
lasting experience, yet we have seen that the value of any
experience depends upon whether it gives a fair sample of
68 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Nature ; if it does, the quantity of it is unimportant ; if it does
not, no amount of it is conclusive. Now many things that
are universal in the experience of men may, nevertheless, be
peculiar to human nature or to its circumstances on this earth,
and so give occasion to Idols of the Tribe. This is notorious.
Or, again, granting that universal beliefs must be useful, it
will remain to inquire how utility is to be estimated, and
whether we are prepared to maintain that it is never weU to
be deceived, and that the usefulness of a belief is a proof of its
objective truth. In short, the alleged universality of a belief,
far from proving its validity, makes it an interesting object of
history, analysis, and interpretation.
As for the doctrine of innate ideas or principles, which is
historically connected with that of notiones communes, it seems
not to have been urged by any one that innateness is an ulti-
mate criterion of truth, since reasons are given for believing
such or such ideas to be innate : as that they are common to
all men ; that they are clearest in children ; that they become
manifest (like gout) in the maturity of life ; that with furniture
so useful God must have endowed us ; that, like Descartes's
idea of perfection, they are too good for a poor man to have
invented ; or that we cannot imagine how else they came to
us, and that acceptance of traditionary phrases is more com-
fortable than suspension of judgment.
The Kantian modification of this doctrine, speaking of
a priori forms of intuition and understanding, instead of innate
ideas, explicitly infers the activity of such forms from the given
fact that there are true sciences of Mathematics and Physics.
But this separation of the form from the content of Science,
whilst it is admitted that neither of them can ever be separately
known, is the same idle whim as the belief in Laws of Nature
as having some sort of existence apart from the order of events.
The laws of Eeason are an abstraction and generalisation of
perceptions and reasonings.
The theory of mental evolution gives a new aspect to the
doctrine of innate principles ; but, instead of assigning them
any origin other than experience, it ascribes them to heredity
and selection; not suggesting that they are ultimate, but
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— II. ANALYTIC 69
assuming the uniformity of nature and an orderly world to
which they were our ancestral adaptations ; pointing as
emphatically to the limitations as to the antiquity of experi-
ence, and therefore as favourable to scepticism as to science.
Inherited dispositions to perceive or judge, though essential
to experience and influential in speculation, do not dispense
with analysis and verification, nor preclude the soothing
reflection that one hour in a physical laboratory is more
instructive than a thousand years of clambering in the
Congo forest.
(d) The clearness and distinctness of cognition, insisted on
under various conditions by Epicurus, Descartes, and Locke,
certainly increases with advancing knowledge ; and, no doubt,
it is one criterion of truth. Clearness and distinctness of
perception is instinctively held to be a test of Empirical
Reality ; and to increase the adequacy of perception we always
endeavour to make it more and more clear and distinct.
Conception, by its very nature, has these characteristics ; for
a concept is nothing but the complete determination of an
abstract or general idea by methodical analysis ; and, accord-
ingly, it is expressed by a definition. Similarly with the
more explicit acts of judgment concerning the relations of
percepts or concepts ; these, too, when they are really intel-
lectual acts and not merely associations of custom, asseveration,
or interest, are regarded as trustworthy in proportion as they
are clear and distinct. Convinced by a demonstration of
Euclid, a boy says that he clearly sees it ; and this is what
Locke and others mean by ' intuitive knowledge.' The intuition
of equality — the masterform of understanding — is the most
clear and distinct of all.
Still, whilst clearness and distinctness are characteristics
of truth, they do not seem to be peculiar to it ; and, if not,
they do not afford an adequate criterion : not, at least, if we
take the percepts or concepts so marked, in the limited sense
that would seem to have satisfied Epicurus and Descartes.
For an hallucination may be very clear and distinct. My
concept of a centaur is, I think, clear and distinct, and so is
the judgment that Hercules slew Nessus. My reason for not
70 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
regarding such things as true is not their vagueness or
obscurity, but a want of evidence that they cohere with the
material conditions of experience, and assimilate with other
concepts and judgments that have such coherence. The
reports of ancient authorities concerning centaurs are deficient
in the guarantees of observation, and are in conflict with the
teachings of Comparative Anatomy, that is, with the analogy
of experience ; whilst they assimilate readily enough with
other incredible things, — for the great world of The Incredible
has its own laws and intuitions.
It may be objected that the concept of a centaur is not
really clear and distinct ; two chests, two stomachs with the
appurtenances (it may be said), how is this conceivable ? It
is conceivable in the limited sense which seems to have
sufficed when this criterion was relied upon. The real objec-
tion is, that such a conception is not what it ought to be, in
view of the animal system ; that no concept by itself can be
adequate, because nothing in Nature is isolated. The meaning
of a concept is always relative to other concepts in some
scientific scheme, according to the character of the relations
conceived. Hence the clearness and distinctness of a cogni-
tion fer se is not a sufficient criterion : its relations must be
considered and the analogy of experience consulted.
(e) To follow the analogy of experience, then, is certainly
another characteristic of Truth, as Epicurus saw, though
vaguely. It implies the uniformity of Nature and other
concepts which cannot now be discussed without anticipating
future chapters. If interpreted as including the ' ex nihilo
nihil,' it is an essential postulate of all reasoning and explana-
tion ; and hence some such meaning has generally been
regarded as the valuable element in Leibniz's principle of
Sufficient Eeason ; bvit whatever his meaning may have been,
he has, in the spirit of the pre-Kantian Metaphysics, purposely
expressed it in such a way as to carry the train or context of
conditions beyond the bounds of experience. The same
criterion is implied in tlie belief of Bacon and Descartes as
to the value of crucial instances ; for Logicians have shown
that crucial instances derive their probative force from the
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— II. ANALYTIC 71
law of Causation, which is the chief clue to the analogy of
experience. Accordingly, Kant says that that is necessary
whose coherence with reality is determined according to
universal conditions of experience, that is, as an effect of
known causes ; and Mill regards Causation as a principle fit
to be the test of all others concerning clianges in the
phenomenal world, though not as a necessary truth.
§ 2. Whatever is true is necessary. Mill's detestation
of this word ' necessary ' probably arose from his observing
how readily men use it to consecrate their prejudices, as a
sort of taboo in defence of tradition, or as a brow -beating
term to intimidate opponents. It may seem to check inquiry
in all directions ; or, at any present stage of inquiry, to claim
too much for human certitude. Still, I suppose a principle
may be necessary " humanly speaking " ; and no doubt it is in
this sense that Spencer regards those simple propositions of
which the opposite is inconceivable as necessarily true. Now
I have already observed that inconceivability, as distinguished
from unimaginability, requires that the difficulty of concep-
tion should result from the definition or meaning of the
terms ; and those synthetic judgments are most clearly, dis-
tinctly, and confidently held that are guided and determined
by the definitions or meanings of the terms ; and in this it is
implied that the terms themselves are clearly and distinctly
conceived.
Such terms and such judgments belong to methodical
systems of knowledge, of which the whole structure has been
framed according to the analogies of experience. And those
systems of knowledge, both as wholes and in their parts, will
be most precisely conceivable (and their opposites most incon-
ceivable) whose terms and relations admit of the most clear,
distinct, and adequate definition. Such are Mathematics and
Physics, and therefore they were rightly selected by Kant as
the exemplars of necessary truth. In these sciences the
terms are precisely defined, and the relation of judgment,
Equality, is the most definite of all relations. Causation in
Physics is not merely a qualitative relation, but is treated
quantitatively as the redistribution of matter and energy ; so
72 THE .METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
that the effect, so far as quantitative, being given in the cause
and the cause in the effect, the doctrine of Hume (adopted
inconsistently by Kant) that cause and effect are different
things, and that one cannot be anticipated from the other,
ceases in this quantitative aspect of them to be true ; in other
words, the conceivability of the causal relation is determined
by the definition of the terms. For the same reason its
negative is inconceivable, and the causal judgment becomes
necessary.
If it be said that, according to this doctrine, necessity
would seem to characterise any consistent body of judgments
concerning clear and definite terms and relations, though it had
no coherence with experience, I reply that necessity would
characterise the internal relations of such a system, which
would be a gigantic illustration of formal Logic ; but that the
construction of systems so extensive as the sciences, without
the data of experience, surpasses human ingenuity. At least,
no assurance that it can be done will content me unless
accompanied by a fair sample of its accomplishment. Schemes
that, like the Ptolemaic system, depart from the analogy of
experience, even though they start from experience, break
down ; so do those that, like Rational Ontology, vaguely apply
the analogies of experience to nothing that is verifiable. And,
finally, even if such a system had an internal, relative, or
hypothetical necessity, still, since (by hypothesis) it would not
also cohere with Empirical Reality, the necessity attaching to
it would not have that quality of belief which arises from
connection with experience and practice.
But if the precise conception of relations (that is, judgment)
and the inconceivability of the opposite, result from the
determination of judgment by the definitions of the terms
compared ; and if the terms thus defined are found in
methodical systems of knowledge constructed from the data,
and according to the analogy, of experience ; it follows that
conceivability and inconceivability as tests of necessary truth,
are only modes of appealing to the analogy of experience. And
this agrees with Spencer's view that they result from an
infinite inherited experience ; and with his position in First
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— II. ANALYTIC 73
Principles (§ 40), that " there is no mode of establishing the
validity of any belief except that of showing its entire
congruity with other beliefs."
Apparently, then, a comparison of the doctrines of all the
philosophers (not being sceptics) who have investigated the
criterion of Truth, shows that they agree in regarding it as —
clear and distinct conceptions and judgments cohering with
Eeality and harmonising amongst themselves according to the
analogy of experience.
§ 3. To return to the nature of scientific necessity : it is
not, I take it, a quality of pure cognition (of course, there is
no such thing as pure cognition), but a mode of feeling that
accompanies clear intuitions, and is in some respects similar to
the feeling that accompanies other cognitions and beliefs of
very different kinds. When a " necessary belief " is in question,
it is not the fact of necessity but the feeling of it that has
to be explained ; knowledge of the fact, so far as attainable,
depends upon systematic verification, and upon the exemplary
character of our experience. For example, a man may feel
the necessary truth of Euclid's 47th Proposition, and he may
also feel that the omission of some ceremonial observance is
necessarily connected with retributory misfortune. But the
causes of the feeling in these two cases are very different ; and
the feeling, like every effect, differs according to the nature of
its causes. Every one may consult his own consciousness for
the difference between the necessity of demonstration and the
necessity of prejudice. The latter seems to be sufficiently
explained as a case of what Mill calls ' inseparable association.'
Suppose that a man has been told often, and in awful
circumstances, that omission will be punished ; that he has
conformed from childhood under fear of punishment, and has
known occurrences which he interpreted as verifications of the
fear (overlooking ' negative instances ') ; that the belief coheres
with the whole system of his religious life, and has the consent
of all his friends and neighbours ; so that it has become
impossible for him to think of breaking his custom without
having a terrifying premonition of supernatural vengeance.
No one will contend that a feeKng of necessity thus generated
74 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
is any guarantee of a corresponding reality of connection
between the terms of the belief.
But our sense of the necessity of Euclid's 47th Proposition
has quite another origin. It depends upon the clear concaten-
ation of the argument, which the inward eye seems to follow
from premises to conclusion through the definite relations of
equality. The effect is similar to that of looking around the
room and seeing the position of the walls and furniture,
the cognition of which is necessary. To be sure, the inward
rarely has the distinctness and steadiness of the bodily eye ;
but in geometrical reasoning this defect is corrected by the
definitions, which call back and illumine the mind's eye when-
ever it wanders and grows dim ; and by resort to perception
or imagination in constructed figures, by which it is plain
that any appreciable departure from the hypothesis there (say,
an ill-drawn right angle) involves a corresponding incongruity
with the conclusion.
Hence it was that, so early in the history of philosophy,
the mere rudiments of Mathematics could suggest to Plato's
susceptibility the exalted conception of science as necessary
and universal truth ; and hence his anxiety in the BepuUic to
reduce science to its pure mathematical elements, treating of
Acoustics without sounds and Astronomy without stars ; the
sensuous element of knowledge being intractable by the same
methods. Plato's conception of science descended to Kant :
that science consists of synthetic propositions universal and
necessary, is one of the main foundations of the Critique of
Pure Reason (the other is, that perception is the test of
Reality) ; and the scope of science is still regarded by him as
limited to Mathematics and mathematical Physics. The
success of his speculations upon this basis was astonishing,
and remains instructive in spite of his archaic Psychology.
And the soundness of his foundations may be judged by the
comparative failure of his attempt to derive the theory of
conduct, in a similar way, from the concept of Duty as a
command of Reason requiring unconditional obedience ; for
conduct belongs to a region in which the appropriate concepts
and their relations are not yet sufficiently determinate for
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— II. ANALYTIC 75
necessary reasoning. The same characteristics of precision
and continuity that charmed Plato continue to captivate the
scientific mind : whence the unceasing effort to extend and
universalise the quantitative and mechanical way of conceiving
Nature ; and the tendency to regard the conceptual Physical
World as more necessarily true and more real than the fulness
of Empirical Eeality.
I do not contend that association has nothing to do with
the sense of scientific necessity. Whatever judgment is taken
up into a system of judgments already held with conviction,
will be suffused with the same feeling. And any method that
has been pursued with good results in one department of
research, will retain a certain prestige when carried into
another. Eeasonings about a fourth dimension of space may
acquire plausibility from this influence. Even when the
transference of method is superficially formal and quite
illusory, this effect of quasi - necessity may be produced, as
in Spinoza's Ethics : where the simulation of mathematical
method is entirely external ; since the judgments throughout
are as often concerned with co-existence and succession as
with quantity ; and the many excellent results obtained are
due not at all to the method but to native insight and induc-
tion. This fact is but slightly obscured by giving the name
of ' axiom ' or ' postulate ' to observations and inductions : as in
the remarkable passage between Propositions 13 and 14, in
Part II.
§ 4. But besides the definiteness of conception and relation
that characterises the exact sciences, there is another condition
of the sense of necessary cognition which they share with
other departments of knowledge ; and that is the interest of
consistency. If we have the luck to form a true judgment
we adhere to it for our own sakes ; in intercourse with others
we are bound to use words in their accepted meanings and
relations ; and, indeed, such is the charm of consistency that
even if we fall into an error, there is a strong temptation to
make everything else square with it. Bain says : " It is a
fundamental requisite of reasoning, as well as of communica-
tion by speech, that what is affirmed in one form of words
76 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
shall be affirmed in another." If we say ' matter is heavy/
we must admit that it ' gravitates/ and so forth. " To these
self- consistent, though variously worded, affirmations is
applied the description Necessary Truth. A more exact de-
signation would be an equivalent, implicated, or self -consistent
assertion" {Logic, Introd. § 21). To this kind of necessary
truth belongs every verbal or analytic proposition, in which
the predicate is part of the definition of the subject, and of
which, as Kant says, the principle of Contradiction (in his
version of it) is the universal and sufficient regulative. The
doctrine of Conversion and Obversion in Logic is an out-
growth of this demand for consistency, and an attempt to
determine the formal conditions of it.
The logical doctrine of the Syllogism is also a scheme of
consistent statement, with one further condition, namely, that
its axiom be true ; and this, whether expressed as the Dictum
or Nota Notae, is an example of distinct precise judgment
guided and determined by definite concepts — ' middle term '
or 'mark.' It is characteristic of the Syllogism that the
conclusion is true if the premises are ; and Mill, extending
this characteristic to the deductive sciences in general, says :
" When it is affirmed that the conclusions of geometry (for
example) are necessary truths, the necessity consists in reality
only in this, that they correctly follow from the suppositions
from which they are deduced" {Logic, ii. 5, § 1): that is,
from the axioms and from the hypothesis that things exist
corresponding to the definitions, line, circle, and so on (which
is not quite true). Thus, so far as Mill will recognise necessity
at all in our cognitions, he identifies it with consistency. Now
the ground of the consistency of judgment and of the necessity
of it is that consistency or uniformity of Nature which, found
in fragments or divined in Empirical Eeality, is carried out
into Physical Eeality and verified.
If, then, we suppose the whole of possible Knowledge and
Belief to have been organised into Sciences, and all sciences
to have attained the precision and coherence of Physics
(especially if they should have become branches of Physics),
this body of knowledge, starting from Empirical Eeality,
THE TEST OF TKUTH.— IT. ANALYTIC 77
coherent and harmonious in all its judgments and verified in
Empirical Keality, would constitute Positive Philosophy and
would be felt to be necessary truth. It would be our nearest
approach to realising Leibniz's conception of the system of the
world as in the Divine Mind eternally extant. The derivative
laws of such a system would be necessary in the sense that
they could not be denied without denying the Axioms and
Causation. Nor could the Axioms and Causation be denied
without denying all their consequences : for although it is
generally good logic that the denial of an antecedent does not
sublate the consequent, yet in this case it does, because the
Axioms and Causation are the sole logical conditions of the
derivative laws, and indeed for human knowledge they have
no separate existence. The whole system would also have the
guarantee of Empirical Eeality, from which its concepts are
shaped and in analogy with which its judgments are determined;
so far at least as it succeeded in supplementing the inadequacy
of perceptions : but I cannot say that it would attain to equal
necessity. For, again, it is vain to apply the logical maxim
that the denial of the consequent sublates the antecedent,
since there is no hypothesis about Empirical Eeality : it
existed before any conceptual system, has survived the failure
of many, and may see the passing of many more.
How the precision and consistency of science, the great
system of definitions and equations, produce the sense of
necessity in a good mind, may be seen in the confessions of
the growth of conviction which Whewell somewhat naively
makes, and which are quoted against his own a prioi-i theory
of necessary truth by Mill (Logic, ii. 5, § 6): "Though the
discovery of the first law of motion was made, historically
speaking, by means of experiment, we have now attained a
point of view in which we see that it might have been
certainly known to be true independently of experience." And
again : " That they (the laws of chemical composition) could
never have been clearly understood, and therefore never firmly
established, without laborious and exact researches, is certain ;
but yet we may venture to say, that being once known, they
possess an evidence beyond that of mere experiment. For
78 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
how, in fact, can we conceive combinations otherwise than as
definite in kind and quality ? " Thus, even beyond the sphere
of Physics, in Chemistry, where the processes cannot be
followed with the same intuitive precision, the influence of
systematic treatment, the analogy of the concepts of uniformity
and equality to those of the mathematical sciences and,
generally, what may be called the scientific way of thinking
(and not, I think, merely, as Mill says, habitual association),
produce the effect which (as above suggested) is to be expected,
in such circumstances. And I hope the view here set forth
of the nature of necessary intuition may reconcile the historical
schools of disputants represented by Whewell and Mill ; since
it shows that whilst sense-perception is the test of Eeality
and the starting-point of the conceptual process, it is only the
test of truth when working in alliance with the intuitive
imagination and the scientific understanding.
§ 5. But it may naturally be objected that such a state
of scientific development as I have described is very far from
having been reached : the system of Positive Philosophy
contemplated is only an ideal. How then can it be used as
a criterion of truth ? Besides, if such a system were complete,
a criterion would no longer be needed. But although the
system does not yet exist, and if it did would be needless as
a criterion, the method and the character of the system are
sufficiently known to serve our purpose. It must start from,
and return to. Empirical Reality ; its judgments must consist
of definite concepts definitely related ; the things and processes
supposed to obtain beyond the region of sense-perception must
be intuited on the analogy of those within this region ;
judgments (or laws) concerning these things and processes
must harmonise with one another, and conspire to form one
system imder the presiding schemata of the axioms and
causation. Surely, these conditions admit of being applied to
any judgment, law, or hypothesis that is called in question,
due allowance being made for the different stages of progress
that have been reached in different departments of study. In
each study there is possible, at any given time, a certain degree
of definiteness of conception and intuition and a certain quality
THE TEST OF TRUTH.— II. ANALYTIC 79
of systematic co-ordination ; and (as you may have heard) a
good mind with the appropriate culture knows what it is.
But in every study, in proportion as definiteness of conception,
rigour of verification, or systematic co-ordination is wanting,
in that proportion a good mind does not experience necessar}'
conviction.
Indeed, is not this the criterion actually employed at
present, so far as method is understood or instinctively
apprehended ? Suppose that a great outburst of scientific
genius should astonish the world ; that men should arise in
every department of inquiry with power to revolutionise it,
discovering more commanding generalisations than the Atomic
Theory, the Undulatory Theory, Gravitation, the Laws of
Motion, and more certain principles than the Axioms and
Causation : how could they make good their claims, except by
greater definiteness of conception, greater strictness of verifica-
tion, and more systematic co-ordination of results ?
It may be some confirmation of this view of the criterion
to observe that definiteness, verification, and co-ordination are
the differentia of Science and Philosophy in contrast with
popular Knowledge ; that each Science as it grows, strengthens
and comforts itself (as Bacon might say) by the increase of
these characters ; and that such progress is the instinct of the
scientific mind and the aim of every philosopher : except some
Sceptics.
CHAPTER V
SCEPTICISM
§ 1. The chief dissensions between schools of Philosophy seem
to begin with their sense of the modality of Knowledge —
whether apodeictic, or assertory, or problematic. There are
thinkers, such as Kant, who maintain that some cognitions,
mathematical, physical, moral, are necessary. Others, such as
Mill, regard our knowledge as at most assertory ; we may,
they say, hold with entire confidence an extensive array of
propositions as true, according to our powers of discovering
truth ; but to treat them as absolutely true of the Universe,
or as if the objective correspondence could not have been
otherwise, is to go beyond our warranty. But besides these
schools there are the Sceptics, the mildest of whom will not
admit that knowledge can be better than problematic.
It might seem, if we considered only this sense of the
modality of knowledge, that the problematic philosophers
must be more opposed to both the assertory and the apodeictic,
than these to one another. Yet I think it will be admitted
that, historically, the closest sympathy upon general grounds
has existed between the problematic and assertory schools ;
or, let us say, since it comes to much the same thing, between
the Sceptics and Empiricists. But this grouping cannot last
much longer ; for the difference between apodeictic and
assertory philosophers tends to disappear. I, at least, cannot
understand how any Empiricist can deny that whatever is
true is necessary, and that certain intuitions are both seen to
be true and felt to be necessary, — whatever the value of such
feeling. On the other hand, the claim to know by intuition
80
SCErXICISM 81
the universal necessity in Nature of certain truths, is palpably
inconsistent on the part of Transcendentalists who accept the
argument of Leibniz ; for intuitions are only particular
experiments in knowledge, and therefore can never give
necessity to a general judgment. It is indeed a contradiction
in terms to claim for pure cognition a quality tliat is essentially
feeling. As for the tenet that mental conditions a priori are
implied in what we take to be universal and necessary
knowledge, it must be abandoned by any one who accepts (as
I do) the biological theory of the growth of the mind : and
the attempt to save it by limiting the conditions of cognition
a priori to the activity of the Subject is vain ; seeing that
the activity of the conscious organism is, of course, a doctrine
of the physiologists. Hence the spiritualistic interest of the
apodeictic character of knowledge is lost ; the issues involved
in it cannot be discussed merely on speculative grounds.
Should we then expect that the apodeictic and assertory
schools of philosophy will coalesce, recognising that all truth
is necessary, but that whether any general proposition is true,
depends upon whether human experience comprises a fair
sample of the Universe ; or is it more likely that many minds,
that in former times would have embraced the apodeictic view
of truth, will henceforth incline, at least in physical specula-
tions, to the problematic, and enforce the doctrine and discipline
of Scepticism ? As to this, one cannot read anything more
instructive than the candid chapter that brings to a close
Jevons's work on the Principles of Science.
It is remarkable that in spite of the conflict of dogmas in
Greece, Scepticism was, until the end of the fourth century,
only sporadic there. Speculative contradiction alone was not
enough to give it continuous vitality : it was social and
political decay, the loss of the City's sovranty and the citizen's
dignity, responsibility and incentive, that infected Philosophy
with the taint of vanity and failure, and gave occasion to the
parasitic sect that fed upon the corruption of systems.
Sceptics, however, may be divided into two groups: (1)
the Academics, who, like Carneades and Hume, admit that we
have at least probable knowledge, and for whom therefore
6
82 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
the modality of truth is problematic ; and (2) the Pyrrhonists,
who dispute the possibility of any knowledge whatever, —
intellectual Nihilists, undertaking to show that any proposition
and its contradictory may be supported by evidence equally
strong, that is to say, equally weak ; for whom, therefore,
truth is not so much problematic as antilogistic.
To begin chronologically with the latter doctrine : the ten
Pyrrhonic tropes (supposed to have been listed by ^nesidemus)
are given in every history of Philosophy. On reviewing them,
it is easily seen that they are all reducible to two heads, the
relativity of perception and the inconsistency of opinions.
The doctrine of Eelativity, as affecting the modality of
knowledge, I purpose to examine in the next chapter. As to
the inconsistency of opinions, to make that the test of untruth
implies the admission that a test of truth is consistency, or
the systematic harmony of knowledge, if it be attainable.
The refutation of this sceptical animadversion, therefore, must
be left to posterity ; let them construct, if they can, the
Positive Philosophy.
I do not bring against the Sceptics the stale objection,
that the denial of all certainty involves the denial of their
own position, that if they cannot be sure of anything
they cannot be sure even of that ; for these men, being not
altogether dull, at least no duller than their critics, seem to
have anticipated this tolerably obvious reflection, and to
have explained that they only balanced one argument against
another, so that judgment remained in suspense between
them ; that they employed even the forms of deductive
reasoning as a concession to opponents who would argue in
that way ; in short, that they threw upon the rest of the
world the onus of proving something.
Much less do I regard the Sceptics as legitimate objects
of moral reprobation. Their characters range through all
gradations of frivolity and earnestness. A man may hold that
to believe anything is in bad taste, at least, for a cultivated
mind ; or that if anything can be proved, very inconvenient
tenets may get a foothold ; or that if nothing can be proved,
belief becomes a matter of choice, and then one's own
SCEPTICISM 83
prejudices may get the most votes ; or that by recognising
any success in tlie attainment of truth, we limit the field
of research. In fact, Scepticism seems to be a necessary
apparition whenever, in the movement of social life, tradi-
tionary formulai become obsolescent, whilst the new-fangled
are still inadequate. If such be the actual state of affairs,
to comprehend and illustrate it, to express what many feel, to
define what many surmise, may be a useful social function ;
and the man who discharges that function effectually is, for
the most part, such a Euphues that to live the ordinary life
of honour and integrity comes easy to him without the sup-
port of priest or scholarch. Moreover, the sceptical and the
mystical evaluations of this world's good and evil lead to
much the same result ; so that the Ilissus may flow into the
Ganges.
It seems to be agreed that in the present age of the
world. Scepticism of some sort is a good thing ; that it is
a necessary condition of all prudent investigation ; that our
opponents have much too little of it in regard to their own
demonstrations ; that generally (as Mill urges) Truth lives
only whilst she is militant, so that even our own doctrines may
be the better for candid strictures. In the fulness of time it
may be possible to hold beliefs with intelligence as well as
conviction, though never called upon to defend them ; that is
to say, when man shall be a rational animal. That time is
not yet ; and meanwhile the reproach of ' scepticism ' is an
appeal to lewd fellows of tlie baser sort —
Almighty crowd ! thou pettiest all dispute ;
Power is thy eseence, wit thy attribute.
Hitherto, the crowd having been on the side of tradition,
scepticism has been a reproach to those who doubted of
tradition : ere long it may with equal vulgarity be cast at
those who doubt of science.
§ 2. The scepticism of Carneades seems to have turned at
tirst upon his theory of knowledge : distinguishing between
the Subject of cognition, its representation of the object, and
the object itself, he argued that, granting the confidence of
84 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
the Subject in its representation, it yet can know nothing of
the correspondence of that representation with the object, and
therefore can have no knowledge of the truth. It was very
natural for this difficulty to arise among the successors of
Plato. If dialectic failed to discover the Ideas, supposed to be
the only real objects of knowledge, mankind were imprisoned
in the region of the senses and therefore of mere opinion : the
senses were discredited by hypothesis, and Reason by defeat.
Ever since that time, upon this or on closely related grounds,
— in connection, that is, with the notion of Substance or of
the Thing -by -itself, — the same difficulty has embarrassed
Philosophy ; and hereafter we shall have to consider whether,
or under what conditions, it is insuperable. Meanwhile we
may note that, according to Carneades, the Subject may
entertain belief in its own representations, that is, in the
world of perception, or Empirical Eeality.
Another ground of his scepticism was, that no test of
truth can be satisfactory, because we may always ask why it
should be trusted. This is the alleged regressus ad infinitum
of all proofs, which is inevitably suggested by the syllogistic
method : granting that the premises prove the conclusion,
how are the premises proved ? Aristotle had foreseen this
question, and required that, for necessary reasoning, the middle
term should express the cause of the major. But his theory
of causes was one of the weakest points of his system ; and he
appears to have wavered as to the best way of determining
the cause, sometimes appealing to Induction, sometimes to a
faculty of Reason. The latter device was ill calculated to
check a determined Sceptic ; the arbitrariness of all prin-
ciples assumed upon that ground being urged again and again.
The former device was unsatisfactory because of Aristotle's
imperfect apprehension of what induction requires. Whatever
Carneades may have had to say upon induction, the objection
is attributed to Agrippa (a much later sceptic) that the major
premise of tlie syllogism must at last be proved by a complete
collection of all the instances, and that this must include
those which form the subject of the conclusion ; so that a
circulus in demonstrando inevitably results from the attempt
SCEPTICISM 85
to base syllogism on induction. Mill's reply to this argument
has been given in Chapter III. § 7: belated nearly 2000 years.
Carneades' criticism, then, of any possible test of truth,
such as that of the Stoics or Epicureans, that seeks to set up
one principle as a test of all otliers, was at least very plausible.
Accordingly, in discussing the criterion in the last chapter,
I avoided the dogmatic position of resting upon one only
principle, and sought to combine the view of common sense,
the general agreement of philosophers and the method and
aim of the exact and progressive sciences ; and to this doctrine
I must claim the assent of Carneades himself, upon the strength
of his theory of Probability.
For we have seen that, whilst holding a knowledge of
objects to be impossible, he recognised that our representations
of them excite belief ; they may have verisimilitude, and such
cognition may be called probable. Of probability he distin-
guished three stages: (1) the lowest degree belongs to a
single, emphatic, persuasive cognition ; (2) our confidence
increases when, on comparing a probable cognition with others
that are concatenated with it, it remains undetachable or
uncontradicted; and (3) the highest degree of probability is
attained when all these cognitions are emphatic, consistent,
and methodically confirmed (Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math.
vii. 166: quoted by Kitter and Preller). Plainly, €fi(f>a<rt<;
is the sceptical equivalent of KaTdXrjylrtq ; and the meaning
of concatenation and of methodical confirmation will vary with
the development of scientific culture.
Now to call such knowledge only probable implies that
some other knowledge of greater certainty is possible or con-
ceivable. If so, will not some one say what it is ? It is not
enough to offer a negative concept of some knowledge, defined
merely as without the imperfections of our own. One may
suppose a vision of all things at a glance, as I see the land-
scape yonder ; but this acknowledges that I do see the land-
scape : or a knowledge of all things such as we have of the
axiom of mediate equality ; but this grants the truth of the
axiom. If a knowledge be demanded that shall never be
liable to sucli change and supersession as have overtaken so
86 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
many supposed sciences ; I say that Empirical Reality has
never been discredited, nor have the axioms, nor yet the
method of intuitive and harmonious construction and verifica-
tion. In short, our standard of certainty must lie within om*
knowledge ; and, therefore, there is nothing outside of our
knowledge wherewith to disparage the whole of it under the
name of probability. We have in the Platonism from which
Carneades glissaded one of the impossible ideals that have
done so much now to elevate and now to vex mankind.
Apparently the scepticism of the New Academy was
academic in the modern sense of the word, a refined amuse-
ment, which bore about the same relation to Philosophy as
Italian fencing does to the art of war. Still, in its own day,
it seems to me to have been superior, even as Philosophy, both
to the fanatical dogmatism of the Stoics and to the gaseous
hypotheses of the Epicureans ; and the accomplished and adroit
figure of Carneades warns one of the vanity of hoping to pose
and dumbfound him. I hear him say : ' Ich bin mir selbst auch
in der Holle noch gleich.' But, alas ! poor ghost, so may
many another say who yet is every day triumphantly refuted.
Striking tableaux in the underworld, when from time to time
a new colonist arrives, have been imagined. Let us figure to
ourselves Green descending (against his proper motion) with
the edition of Hume under his arm, and envisaging the author :
whom now I see approaching ; for his turn has come.
§ 3. Yet, in fact, Hume's liability to be classed amongst
Sceptics is not so clear as common repute would lead us to
suppose. For, in the first place, he is in many directions
a constructive thinker. To Psychology, Ethics, Esthetics,
Inductive Logic, Economics, Politics, Philosophy of History
and Eeligion, his contributions are numerous and important.
It would be a useful and edifying task to collect and display
them, and thereby correct the injustice of histories of
Philosophy, which exhibit under his name nothing but bare
bones of the criticism of Cause and Substance. Few philo-
sophers, if any, have done more for the positive instruction,
as well as for the enlightenment, of the human mind.
Secondly, if we take the most deliberate statements of his
SCEPTICISM 87
opinions, it will appear that as to the Natural Sciences he was
not sceptical at all. Thus in the Treatise (111. § 11) he
writes : " Those philosophers who have divided human reason
into Knowledge and ProhaUlity, and have defined the first to
be that evidence which arises from the com2mrison of ideas,
are obliged to comprehend all our arguments from causes or
effects under the general term of probability. But though
every one be free to use his terms in what sense lie pleases ;
and accordingly in the precedent part of this discourse, I have
followed this method of expression ; 'tis however certain that
in common discourse we readily affirm, that many arguments
from causation exceed probability, and may be received as a
superior kind of evidence . . . 'twould be more convenient
in order at once to preserve the common signification of words,
and mark the several degrees of evidence, to distinguish human
reason into three kinds, viz. : that from knoivledge, from proofs,
and from j^robabilities. By knowledge, I mean the assurance
arising from the comparison of ideas. By proofs, those argu-
ments which are derived from the relation of cause and effect,
and which are entirely free from doubt and uncertainty. By
probability, that evidence which is still attended with uncer-
tainty." According to this passage, then, laws of causation
are assertory ; and the same view is required by his doctrine
of Chance : " Though there be no such thing as chance in
the world ; our ignorance of the real cause of any event has
the same influence on the understanding etc." (Inquiry, § 6) ;
and by his notorious criticism of miracles in the Inquiry
(§ 10) : "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature ; and
as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws,
the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact,
is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be
imagined." As to knowledge " from the comparison of ideas,"
it includes " Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic ; and in short
every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively
certain " (Inquiry, § 4). Though, I believe, he nowhere says
it in so many words, his statements imply that he regarded
pure Mathematics as consisting of analytic propositions, and
necessarily true because capable of being tested by the
88 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
principle of Contradiction. For thus he contrasts such know-
ledge with matter of fact, the contrary of which can never
imply a contradiction : " That the sun will not rise to-morrow
is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more con-
tradiction, than the afl&rmation that it will rise. We
should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its false-
hood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a con-
tradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the
mind." Hume's view of Mathematics is, of course, inad-
equate : but we are now only concerned to observe that,
although he treats the application of Geometry to matter of
fact as hampered by the impossibility of exact measurements,
yet he regards Pure Mathematics as necessary, laws of
Causation as assertory, and propositions of less certainty as
problematic. In what, then, does Hume's Scepticism consist ?
§ 4. In the first place, Hume doubts, or rather denies, the
supremacy of Eeason: for (1) our reasonings are not based
upon Reason but upon Custom and sentiment and imagination.
Now it was recognised by Aristotle that reasonings cannot
always be derived from antecedent reasonings, but must have
their beginnings in something else. But since it seems de-
rogatory to Eeason that it should begin from anything called
by another name and, therefore, supposed to be of lower rank ;
philosophers distinguish between Intuitive Eeason that gives
principles, and Discursive Eeason that draws conclusions. Well,
in his theory of Causation, Hume for ' Intuitive Eeason ' sub-
stitutes ' Custom ' ; and this is the chief incitement to call
him a Sceptic. But (2) he tries to show (and with no little
glee) that reasoning everywhere needs the guidance of custom,
on peril of ranging through useless subtleties to fantastic and
incredible results. Such he thinks is the fate of the mathe-
matician, speculating about infinitesimals ; and of the meta-
physician, attributing reality to a world other than that world
of sense-perception which the ordinary man takes to be real.
(3) Every decision concerning the validity of reasoning rests
with sentiment. " All probably reasoning [which here includes
causation] is nothing but a species of sensation. 'Tis not
solely in poetry and music, we must follow our taste and
SCEPTICISM 89
sentiment, but likewise in philosophy. When I am convinced
of any principle, 'tis only an idea which strikes more strongly
upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments
above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling con-
cerning the superiority of their influence" {Treatise, III. § 8).
Must not this have been painful reading to any Clerk —
That unto logik hadde long i-go ?
Can we wonder if he clung to j/oO? and ima-Ttj/xT} as better
words than ' custom ' and ' sentiment ' ?
In the second place, his observation that we never know
the soul per se but only its passing thoughts and feelings,
must seem sceptical to those who rely upon such dogmatism
as Berkeley's in proof of Spiritualism. It is, however, on the
contrary, one of Hume's positive results, and is now on all
hands accepted.
In the third place, of course, his attitude toward tradition
is really sceptical : various points of Theology are the subject
of frequent innuendo, and miracles and prophecy of direct
attack. He might have urged, however, that it is questionable
whether the term ' sceptic ' is more properly applicable to one
who believes in miracles and doubts of natural law, or to one
who believes in natural law and doubts of miracles. The really
clever thing is to believe both.
In the fourth place, a very easy - going and sceptical
temperament is suggested by his style ; which often leaves us
in doubt whether its failings are due to carelessness or design.
For instance, he says that " the ideas of the memory are much
more lively and strong that those of the imagination," and are
tied down to the order and form of the original impressions
(Treatise, 1. § 3). But this does not prevent him from say-
ing that " the memory, senses, and understanding are all of
them founded on imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas "
{Treatise, IV. § 7) ; or from attributing to the influence of
imagination that identity which the vulgar ascribe to objects
during the intervals of perception (IV. § 2). Such passages
illustrate the strain of meiosis, amounting to impropriety, that
runs through nearly all his phraseology in describing the
90 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
operations of the understanding, and tends to sap our confi-
dence in them. Take another instance of this : his account of
the work of imagination as " a propension to unite these
broken appearances (perceptions) by the fiction of a continued
existence " (IV. § 2) ;^ and again, " the identity which we
ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious one and of a
like kind to that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal
bodies " (IV. § 6) : where by ' fiction ' and ' fictitious ' he
means constmcction and constructive. But whilst it is true that
every fiction is a construction, yet we do not call it a fiction
unless we also regard it as false ; and in neither case did Hume
so regard it ; so that his language is capricious and perverse.
But the worst case of all, because it affects the foundations of
his system, is the use of the term ' custom ' in order to explain
our belief in causation. For custom, in the usual sense, is
itself a result of causation, a highly complex result depending
on many causes, and therefore variable ; and yet he makes it,
by a violent extension of meaning, the ground of our belief in
causation, though he certainly regarded causation as invariable
and the basis of all synthetic reasoning. It is true that to
find a just word for what he had to express is difficult :
" association," " integration," " routine of experience," etc., are
each and all open to exception ; but surely Hume's ingenuity
and power of language might have led him to something better
than ' custom ' had he strongly desired it : ' organic growth,'
for example, would have agreed well with his comparison of
the mind's identity to that of an animal body. But literary
weakness, the love of effect, has been not unfairly attributed to
Hume. He was an artist, and wrote as much for the joy of
it as to convince his readers. To give a quasi-literary air to
a scientific treatise, and for the sake of an impracticable
purism, he risks obscurity rather than enlarge the philosophical
vocabulary, and in avoiding neology falls into solecism.
In the fifth place, and as another instance of his love of
effect, what he grants to natural belief he often takes away
again on second thoughts, and leaves it doubtful whether he
regards the first or second thoughts as the more, or the less, valid.
In the Treatise (IV. ^4:, Of the Modern Philosophy) he says that
SCEPTICISM 91
" the fundamental principle of that philosophy is the opinion
concerning colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat, and cold ; which
it asserts to be nothing but impressions in the mind derived
from impressions of external objects, and without any resem-
blance to the qualities of the objects. On examination I find
only one of the reasons commonly produced for this opinion
to be satisfactory, viz., that derived from the variations of these
impressions, even while the external object, to all appearance
{sic), continues the same." He then recites most of the ten
sceptical tropes mentioned above, and says that " the conclu-
sion drawn from them is as satisfactory as can possibly be
imagined," namely, that primary qualities, " extension and
solidity with their different mixtures and modifications, figure,
motion, gravity, and cohesion," are " the only real ones of
which we have any adequate notion." But presently he goes
on : "I believe many objections might be made to this system :
but at present I shall confine myself to one, which is in my
opinion very decisive. I assert that instead of explaining the
operations of external objects by its means, we vitterly annihilate
all those objects, and reduce ourselves to the opinions of the
most extravagant scepticism concerning them." On examining
motion, extension, and solidity, the only qualities left to the
world by the modern philosophy, he finds that they all depend
upon solidity which can only be known by " feeling " [touch] ;
but this does not resemble solidity ; nor can it, because it is a
simple impression, and solidity supposes the pressure of two
bodies. " Thus there is a direct and total opposition between
our reason and our senses ; or, more properly speaking, betwixt
those conclusions we form from cause and effect, and those
that persuade us of the continued and independent existence
of body." So, whilst pretending to repudiate scepticism, and
leading the reader to expect a refutation of it, he concludes
with an antilogy which is the essence of scepticism. Yet
plainly in this jeu d'espjit he has a serious purpose : to
illustrate the processes of the understanding, and to show that
the dogmatic Philosophy, fairly worked out, ended in scepticism
as " hideous " as his own.
§ 5. What then is really Hume's position with regard to
92 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
the modality of knowledge ? It seems to me to lie somewhere
between the problematic scepticism of Carneades and the
assertory empiricism of Mill, but decidedly nearer to Mill.
Scepticism was to some extent a disguise with Hume : in his
ethical speculations there is very little of it. In Metaphysics
he professes, or strongly suggests, adherence to the Academic
Philosophy; but his reasons for this seem to have been as
follows: (1) To indulge his literary humour. (2) To gratify
a genuine impartiality of mind. He saw real difficulties in
every theory of knowledge, and found suspense of judgment
not disagreeable : a state of mind how superior to the eager,
anxious bigotry of your forensic philosophaster. (3) He exposed
the conflicting results of ratiocination in order to prove his
main point, that the basis of knowledge is sensitive not cogni-
tive. " My reasons then for displaying so carefully the argu-
ments of that fantastic sect [the Pyrrhonists] is only to make
the reader sensible of the truth of my hypothesis, that all our
reasonings concerning causes and effects are derived from nothing
ha custom; and that belief is more properly an act of the
sensitive than of the cogitative part of our natures" (Treatise,
IV. § 1). (4) He desired to limit the field of human inquiry
" to such subjects as are best adapted to the narrow capacity
of human understanding" {Inquiry, § 1 2, Part III.) ; had in fact
the same object as Locke and Kant. With what mixed feelings
of glee and contempt does he now, among the shades, watch
the changing fortunes of his scepticism in recent literatui-e ;
whilst he glances over the books (if any have life enough to
double themselves in Hades !) of those who enjoy the twofold
pleasm-e of rating him as a sceptic and of using his arguments
to excuse their own credulity.
It is easy to show that Hume recognises the main outlines
of the criterion of truth set forth in our last chapter. (1)
Empirical Pieality is everywhere recognised by him as the
starting-point, and as the constant guide of all effective think-
ing ; it is the ground of that 'custom' of experience that
generates the causal judgment. (2) The principle of Contra-
diction is recognised in his theory of Mathematics. (3) The
method of discovery is to pass from " impressions " (elements of
SCEPTICISM 93
Empirical Eeality) by " natural relations " to conclusions, under
the control of the canons of Induction given in the Treatise
(III. § 15). But I do not tind that he anywhere distinctly
signalises the method of hypothesis and veriiication, thougli
often employing it. (4) The verification implied in systematic
agreement is appealed to ; first, negatively, in the sceptical
procedure of opposing sense to reason, or one philosophy to
another, as a test of untruth ; and, secondly, by positively
claiming it as evidence on his own behalf : " "What principally
gives authority to this system is, beside the undoubted argu-
ments upon which each part is founded, the agreement of these
parts, and the necessity of one to explain another" {Treatise,
III. § 13).
As for the Pyrrhonists, Hume often repudiates their
doctrine upon characteristic grounds. Such people in fact
never existed : " whoever has taken the pains to refute the
cavils of this total scepticism has really disputed without an
antagonist" {Treatise, IV. § 1); "the great subverter of
Pyrrhonism, or the excessive principles of scepticism, is action,
and employment, and the occupations of common life " ; though
" it may flourish and triumph in the schools " {Inquiry,
§§ 12-13).
§ 6. Thus Hume puts forward Pragmatism as the natural
remedy for Scepticism, and the opposition between the two is
usually regarded as thorough-going ; and such probably is the
view of William James {Psych, c. 28) and of F. C. S. Schiller
("Axioms as Postulates," in Personal Idealism, ed, H. Sturt).
Yet, in a sense. Pragmatism is a kind of Scepticism, as any
doctrine must be that puts the conviction of Keason solely
upon any ground other than cognition, whether it be action
or feeling. But neither course involves Scepticism, unless
action or feeling be made the test of truth to the exclusion of
cognition : Hume, as we have seen, says that the preference of
one set of arguments over another is a matter of feeling ; but
he does not say that this feeling of preference is not determined
by the character of the arguments.
Psychologists have shown that every mental process
involves cognition, feeling, conation ; it may, therefore, be
94 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
viewed in any of these ways. A theorem of Euclid, a game
of cricket, or a Turkish bath, is a complex of feeling, or cona-
tion, or cognition, as you may choose to consider it ; but, when
speaking generally (if we wish to avoid confusion), we must
treat the first as cognition, the second as conation, and the
third as feeling, according to the predominant interests of those
experiences ; or, when speaking precisely, we must show how
every strand of the triple process is present in varying degrees
in them all. Now, how is this applicable to the consciousness
of truth in general ?
Plainly, the consciousness of truth is primarily a matter of
cognition, intuition, or synthetic attention. But this is a kind
of conation ; and its success or failure is attended by feelings
of belief, hesitation, perplexity, disbelief. Still, the conation
is to know, and its success or failure is a knowing or not
knowing. Truth, therefore, is essentially cognitive; and its
primary tests are cognitive, namely, clearness and agreement ;
which, in fact, are nothing else than successful knowing.
Since all experience involves action and reaction, it is
possible to use ' activity ' as equivalent to experience ; but such
exclusive emphasis creates a misleading abstraction. How im-
portant action is in connection with truth may be seen in this
— that Empirical Keality is brought home to us in action, and
that (biologically considered) only workable beliefs can survive.
Such is Spencer's doctrine. But let us avoid expressions that
may seem to imply that the survival of a belief merely con-
nected with successful action, without clear and coherent cog-
nitions concerning it, is a guarantee of its truth ; for as a true
conclusion may be drawn from false premises, so the same act
(Trpay/jLo) may be done under very different and conflicting
beliefs. If action is to verify belief otherwise than in universal
experience, it cannot be by 2^ost hoc, propter hoc, but must be
subject to the same conditions as other experimental proofs :
we must show (1) that the action is reaUy due to the belief it
is alleged to prove, and not merely accompanied by it ; (2)
that no other belief coald have had equally successful results;
(3) that the belief agrees with all others that are held to be
true. All this involves comparison, perhaps much subtle in-
SCEPTICISM 95
terpretation, processes of understanding : in short, we must be
enabled to see the connection. It cannot be right to adopt a
belief merely on the ground of its apparent success, without
taking any methodological precautions, and to urge it upon
others — that good may come of it.
It is also necessary to inquire what is meant by successful
action. How long a course of action is enough to establish
its success ? Witliin what limits are the consequences to be
considered ? To whom ? These questions are serious, and
difficult to answer.
Teleologiciilly, Pragmatism seems to imply the entire
relativity of knowledge to action ; that action is the end,
whilst intelligence exists merely for the sake of it, and has no
rights of its own in the world. But it is not plain that
organic activities, as such, are of any more worth than chemical
activities, or that the Universe might not have been content
to culminate in compounds with good long formulae, without
going on to develop highly conscious beings at such cost of
pain and havoc. Schopenhauer thought that consciousness
exists for the sake of organic life, but that this is part of the
blunder of things ; and that, accordingly, consciousness labours
in error and illusion, until that consummation of knowledge
which is the annihilation of Nature. But certainly much
knowledge has been attained for which we have no use present
or prospective, except the gratification of disinterested curiosity.
And why may not disinterested curiosity be the noblest of
desires, and the attainment of knowledge the only true success,
the self- consciousness of the World: and therefore, to its
humble organs the purest, the most enduring, the divinest
satisfaction, and the only one that is never poisoned by regret ?
As for the PyiThonists, they would never have submitted
to a pragmatic refutation. Hume has slipped : they did not
deny that the world is a practicable phenomenon, that the
street seems to be a place to walk in, and that bread seems to
appease hunger. The sect, however, has not revived in modern
times, and may require special circumstances in the state of
learning or of society to nourish its vitality. It is not that
its criticism of prevailing tenets was, as Hegel says, more
96 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
profound or more thorough than modern scepticism: for all
its positions have been (as we shall see) reinforced by recent
reflection ; but it was eminently Greek. Two generations
earlier than Pyrrho, the Cynics and Cyrenaics had displayed
with like extravagance a practical scepticism, rejecting all pre-
cepts and institutions as he did all opinions. These schisms
sprang from the independence and self-sufficiency of the Greek
intellect; for which even the innumerable ties of City -life
were an inadequate restraint. They did not, indeed, illustrate
the boasted principle of Measure : but was the general praise
of that principle, affectionate or precautionary ? No matter.
If the men are extinct, their arguments survive them, and the
chief of their arguments were derived from the Relativity of
Knowledge.
CHAPTER VI
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE
^ 1. The phrase " relativity of Knowledge " is used to express
the central idea of a number of doctrines to the efifect that
oiu' cognition of objects is not direct, immediate, adequate,
intimate, like the consciousness we have of our present thoughts
and sensations, but is conditional (1) upon our place in the
Universe; or (2) upon the media that intervene (like air or
ether) between objects and our organs of sensation ; or (3)
upon the structure of our own bodies ; or even upon the struc-
ture of our own minds : as having either (4) an elaborate
formal apparatus a priori, such as Kant determined; or (5)
some ultimate character, however simple, and a natural history
— in both cases making it impossible that our perception or
representation of the world can be direct or unconditional.
A lover of technical terms might hereupon distinguish Cos-
mological. Physical, Biological, Metaphysical, and Psychological
Eelativity ; but for me it is enough if the reader sees what I
mean. Eelativity in any of these ways being admitted, it is
argued that there can be no knowledge worth the name, or that
at least our knowledge must be liable to great and numerous
errors and limitations.
Now there are here two positions: (1) that all cognition
is relative or conditional, and this is a proposition in Psycho-
logy supported by other natural sciences ; (2) that knowledge
is therefore partial or invalid, and this is a metaphysical pro-
position. We are directly concerned only with the latter ; but
as it may be expedient to indicate plainly the grounds of the
difficulty before attempting to overcome it, we shall begin with
7
98 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
a little fuller, though still brief account of the ways in which
knowledge is said to be relative. In doing this nothing would
be gained by adhering to the Pyrrhouic tropes ; we shall,
therefore, set out more recent considerations that have absorbed
and superseded them.
If we suppose the Keality of Eealities to be a Substance
transcending all experience, the physical World of atoms and
ether in space may be regarded as the first stage of its pheno-
menality, having only the qualities of resistance and extension,
which are made known to a living organism by direct mechanical
pressure and by muscular reaction and movement. Empirical
Keality includes a secondary manifestation, in such qualities
as sound and light, depending upon the intervention, between
external things and the organism, of air and ether, the former
producing mechanical, the latter chemical effects upon the
corresponding sense-organs. Impressions of all kinds upon
the organs of sense require a nervous system in which fibres
conduct currents to certain central tracts (in the cortex),
where alone consciousness is believed to arise. Consciousness,
then, of what ? Of change in the brain, or sense-organ, or
physical World ? What possibility that it should resemble
transcendent Eeality ? It is entirely relative to physical and
psychophysical conditions.
It is also relative to merely psychical conditions, the first
of which, for all organic consciousness, is change. Any state of
consciousness which we know as B could never have been known
by itself, there must be a transition from A to B in order that
we may be aware of anything. It follows that a first state of
consciousness is inconceivable ; but allowing for the lapse of
inscrutable ages of growth, and assuming any starting-point, the
next state is known in relation to it. B, therefore, is known in
relation to A, and must be modified by this relation ; similarly
C in relation to B, or rather to B as modified by A. The series,
therefore, is A, B^, C^a, Dcba* ''^^^ ^o on to Z, that is to say,
to the present moment. Present consciousness is determined
by the history of consciousness ; and each individual, having
had a different personal history, must have a characteristic mode
of cognition, a ' personal equation,' in all his thinking and
THE KELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 99
feeling. But the personal history of an individual is the least
important part of his liistory : he is a mode of his species, the
history of whose consciousness has again determined its forms :
and the species is a mode of animal life ; so that our present
cognitions are determined by the history of consciousness,
stretching back at least to the earliest organic beings.
This history of consciousness is another name for universal
experience, or intercourse witli Nature ; which is also the con-
dition of the development of organised bodies and of nervous
systems. As consciousness grows and develops there also
develop sense-organs, nervous connections, ganglionic centres,
and specialised tracts of the cortex which are the organs of
specific consciousness. The sense-organs are visible signs of
the limitations of knowledge : if in any species (or individual)
certain organs are wanting or feeble, wanting or feeble must be
the corresponding cognitions.
The history of the sense-organs confirms the dependence
of present cognition upon past experience. All sense-organs
appear to be modifications of the skin. Assuming a primitive
irritability of the skin with corresponding unspecialised sensa-
tion (unlike any sensation now recognisable, perhaps as much
like Taste as Touch) ; that it was stimulated by pressure and
by chemical disturbance, and that lines of transmission of these
influences severally to central cells, and of consequent reaction
and movements, were gradually established ; that the epiperi-
pheral pressure-nerves were again differentiated, in response to
mass-contact and air-waves, into those of Touch and Hearing ;
whilst other pressure nerves, having become entoperipheral,
began to serve as the organs of kinesthetic and visceral Sensa-
tions (though the latter, or some of them, may be chemically
stimulated) ; that the chemically excited nerves were differen-
tiated into those that are influenced by material particles or
effluvia in solution, giving rise to Taste and Smell, — and those
that are influenced by ethereal and molecular vibrations, giving
rise to sensations of Light and Heat ; and that many of these
underwent further and more refined specialisation : we have
here a process similar to the differentiation of species of
animals from a generalised type. Parallel with the differentia-
100 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
tion of sense-organs goes the discrimination of sense-qualities.
Historically, then, every mode of sensation is relative to all the
others, or may be regarded as existing by contrast with them ;
since, tracing the various modes of sensation back to their
origin, all their differences merge and disappear in prmiitive
unspecialised sensation.
The assumed unity of the psychological with the biological
individual in existence and in development, leads to some
obvious reflections. It is held that no animal has faculties
incommensurate with its present or recent conditions of life :
since such endowments would imply a waste of organisation
and energy, which Natural Selection always tends to eliminate.
Applying this doctrine to the mental powers, it may appear
that cognition is relative to action, arises to enlighten action,
exists for its utility, and that there can be no kind of cogni-
tion that does not subserve life. I say no kind of cognition,
not that every specialisation of cognition, or every addition
to knowledge, must be directly ancillary to action ; so that if
some branches of Mathematics, or if astral Chemistry, cannot
be directly applied to useful purposes, this implies no conflict
with the biological law ; for such branches of science do not
differ in kind from terrestrial Chemistry and Algebra, which
are certainly useful. If, regarding science as existing to
realise the World's self-consciousness, we were to suggest that
all truths unutilisable by man subserve that purpose, it might
be retorted that we do not know what is useful to man ;
that the movement of civilisation makes ever increasing
demands upon the utmost refinements of speculation, and that
an extensive store of potential or unorganised cortex, upon
which original speculation depends, is the most general con-
dition of adaptabihty and is, therefore, of the utmost utility
to the human race or any branch of it.
Again, if there are in Nature any modes of energy such
that the expense of organising a special nervous correspondence
with them would not leave a balance of utiHty, so far no such
nervous correspondence can have arisen in animal life ; nor
if, once organised, it ceased to be economical, could it maintain
its activity in any order of animals; and this may explain
THE EELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 101
why (for example) there is in man no specific electrical sense,
nor any sense (other tlian that of heat) correlated with the
ether-rays that spread beyond the chromatic series at either
end of the spectrum, whether such senses exist in other animals
or not. De Morgan humorously supposes it " very likely that
the universe may contain a few agencies — say half a million
— about which no man knows anything." Besides those
agencies which, like electricity, certainly affect the organism,
yet have set up no specific correspondence with it, there may
be others that for some reason cannot directly communicate
with us from matter in mass,' and are also unable to com-
municate with us indirectly (like luminous bodies) for want
of any appropriate medium of transmission. Modes of energy
may exist in Nature which, within the region of our ex-
perience, are as rare as certain elements are : with such
forces a nervous correspondence could hardly have been worth
establishing, and so far our direct experience cannot be a
complete sample of the universe. Moreover, the constitution
of every sense-organ sets limits to the intensity of the stimuli
that can be sensed ; there is a minimum stimulus below which
no sensation is excited, and a maximum above which there is
no increase of sensation intensity. Ziehen suggests that this
is due to Natural Selection ; for an unlimited increase of
sensation intensity would be too engrossing, and sensibility to
the innumerable minute stimuli always assailing us would be
too distracting. For similar reasons many modes of energy
may remain entirely unsensed.
After these far-reaching considerations it seems unim-
portant to mention that all sensations vary with the con-
stitutional state of the individual in health or disease, in
youth or age. See the chapter on The Relativity of Feelings
in Spencer's Psychology (Part II. chap. iii.). In the next chapter
on The Relativity of Relations, he gives reasons for believing
that the perception of space varies in different animals accord-
ing as they have, or want, eyes ; or have more or less perfect
eyes ; and according to the size of each species of animal and
its powers of locomotion ; and even in individuals of the same
species according to their size, giants or dwarfs, because stature
102 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
is a standard of comparison. So with time, different species
have different standards of comparison, according to the
character of the subjective or objective sequences of event
that are open to their observation. Alike in time and space,
of equal magnitudes the more remote (other things equal)
seems the less. Times of monotonous waiting seem long,
because attention rests upon the time itself; times of bustle
and excitement seem short, because time is neglected in the
multiplicity of experience : but in retrospect the bustle seems
long, because there is much to remember ; the monotonous
waiting, short, because it has left the imagination a blank.
But more important than any of these is the simple relation
of Difference ; because, according to Spencer, it is from the
cancelling and compounding of this that all other relations
arise. " The relation of Difference, as present in consciousness,
is nothing more than a change in consciousness. How, then,
can it resemble, or be in any way akin to, its source beyond
consciousness ? Here are two colours which we call unlike.
As they exist objectively the two colours are quite independent,
there is nothing between them answering to the change that
results in us from contemplating first one and then the other.
Apart from our consciousness they are not linked as are the
two feelings they produce in us. Their relation as we think
it, being nothing else than a change of our state, cannot
possibly be parallel to anything between them, when they
have both remained unchanged" (§ 93). It is one of
^nesidemus's objections to the principle of causation, that it
is a relative conception, exists therefore only in the mind, and
can have no external existence. In short, not only modes of
sensation, but the manner of their occurrence, their order and
grouping and the quasi -blank forms or schemata of their
occurrence, are determined by our own nature and by disposi-
tions inherited from an indefinitely remote ancestry, whereby
we conceive of things as like ourselves, not like the World.
§ 2. Since, then, it is generally admitted that Truth is
relative in so many ways, both as to its matter and as to
its form, to the species, the individual and the present con-
ditions of each witness, we cannot wonder if many regard it
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 103
as unattainable, on the ground that we can never have any
confidence in the correspondence of our judgments with their
objects. To deal with this difJiculty is the chief task of
constructive Metaphysics ; it will meet us in one shape or
another throughout this book, and in the present chapter we
can only begin the undertaking. First of all, it is necessaiy
to be clear as to what the object is with which our judgment
is required to correspond. In the passages of Spencer's
Psychology above quoted from, he argues that our sensations
are "produced by objective agencies that are unknown and
unknowable," and that their relations cannot resemble, or be
in any way akin to, their " sources beyond consciousness."
And in Part VII. chap. xix. he explains, by his theory of
Transfigured Eealism, how a correspondence may be conceived
to exist between consciousness and transcendent Eeality, though
nothing of the nature of the correspondence or of the Eeality
itself can ever be known.
Now no one can mistake Spencer for a sceptic ; he bears
no resemblance to Carneades ; he certainly holds that truth
is attainable and partly published : yet the position that
human knowledge is at fault, because it does not and cannot
comprise the truth of transcendent Reality, is essentially
sceptical. The ancient Sceptics granted that we have per-
suasions concerning phenomena, probable knowledge ; but
taking advantage of the Dogmatist's belief in something
more real (to vTroKelfievov of the Stoics, or the imperceptible
atoms of the Epicureans), they urged that, except of that
Reality, no knowledge can properly be called truth. They
needed not to be so inconsistent as to believe in such Reality
(and here Spencer differs from them) ; it was enough for
their purpose to balance the inconsistent doctrines of their
opponents : urging, for example, that the Causation which
they recognised could not merely be a principle of phenomena,
but if real must be true of Reality, of things imperceptible.
That the belief in an unknowable ' substratum ' furnishes a
continual excuse for scepticism, is one reason for Berkeley's
attack upon the notion of Matter; and for Kant's Dialectic
of Pure Reason, which aims at the establishing of Physical
104 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Science by excluding the transcendent Ideas from any consti-
tutive part in science or in causation ; and here, again, we
may see how little Hume was a Sceptic, inasmuch as he
first proved that causation is discoverable in phenomena
only. Therefore, Spencer, in spite of his own professions to
the contrary, must be understood throughout nearly all his
works, not as engaged in interpreting the unknowable by
the symbols of its transfiguration, but in endeavouring, more
successfully than most inquirers, to complement the inadequacy
and fragmentariness of Empirical Keality by constructing the
conceptual system of Physical Eeality. In this sense he has
discovered enough truths to make the reputation of a dozen
other men, truths which are not at all invalidated by most
of the tropes of Relativity. These tropes may afford good
grounds for disputing the pretensions of some philosophers
to a knowledge of transcendent Eeality ; but give little, if
any, excuse for denying the possibility of truth as the
correspondence of our judgments with the world of possible
experience.
For my own part, I am no enemy of the Ding an sich,
nor one to glory in its incognoscibility, and therefore I am
not pleased with the argument (noticed above) against the
possibility of our knowing anything but phenomena, namely,
that, granting the existence of transcendent Eeality, still the
indisputable facts of Physical and Biological Eelativity, the
interposition of media and nerve-fibres between the supposed
Eeality of things and our consciousness, must destroy any
possible agreement between the first and last terms of the
process. It may be said, for example, that the Eeality
represented by a resonant body cannot be like the vibration
of that body ; that this is not like the waves of air it sets
agoing ; that air-waves are not like a process in the aural
nerve ; nor is this like a sensation of sound : how then can
such a sensation resemble the Eeality at the other end of
this series ? But why not ? If A is unlike B, B unlike C,
C unlike D, why may not D be like A ? The conclusion of
the above argument may be true, but a worse argument I
never met with. It is needless to ask how we know what
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 105
an uir-wave or a nerve-current really is like : the genuine
ditliculty is that Likeness, a mode of consciousness, cannot be
predicated between consciousness and the real World-process,
because the World-process is assumed to be unconscious. But
what if this is an error, what if the World-process has its
own consciousness comparable with ours ?
§ o. However this may be, turning to the relativity of
Empirical and I'hysical Truth, we must consider what extent
of comprehension and what degree of certitude is reasonably
to be expected : bearing in mind that the truth we have
here in view is merely the truth for man ; how short a time
he has given to methodical investigation ; that no one can
suppose a complete system, without error or hiatus, to be near
attainment, but that this is a task for the living and posterity,
of which posterity must bear the greater burden : so that
though many problems may be unsolved, the general method
hitherto pursued and the results attained may be justified, if
we are able to show that allied problems have been solved
and that the kinds of error we are subject to are corrigible.
Since the question is whether the relativity of knowledge,
as found in Empirical Eeality, is an objection to the validity
of science and an argument against the possibility of construct-
ing the system of experience, let us first recall the account of
Empirical Eeality given in Chap. II. § 1 : where we saw
that for man it includes a considerable conceptual element,
even for unsophisticated man inevitably, since without it the
life of an adult is impossible. Now the development of the
conceptual element of common experience is the means of
correcting errors that are due to relativity, by discovering the
cause and law of every error.
Some of the chief difficulties of Philosophy before the
recent growth of Psychology, arose from assuming a separation
between sense and understanding, the matter and form of
thought. A desire to refine human life has led to errors
of logic analogous to asceticism. The pride of reason, as of
sanctity, demands something to despise. To this mood it is
not repugnant that there should be in sense-experience a
remnant of inexplicable chaos ; and the supposed interests
106 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
of supernaturalism fall in with the malice of the sceptic.
Availing themselves of the traditionary Animism, men have
assumed the separability of body and soul as a " colour "
easily acceptable, and have even represented the body as the
temporary prison of the soul, restraining its activities and
corrupting its powers in damp and darkness : so that to
escape from sense-perception is necessary to the native sovranty
of thought. But this is abdication, and leaves the senses
lawless. According to Plato in llie EepuUic, even the
very stars (though in The Timaeus he makes them gods) are
too coarse a kind of data to enter into a true Astronomy.
There is a vestigial Animism in Aristotle's doctrine of active
Eeason : which is no part of the soul as the form of the body,
but has a diviner source and destiny. The whole history of
innate ideas illustrates the same well meant error ; and so does
Kant's difficulty in applying the pure categories of Under-
standing to the manifold of sensation : it assumes that sensa-
tion itself is not in the realm of law. But the solution of all
such puzzles is, that in organised consciousness (which is
necessarily our point of view) these elements of experience,
sensation and understanding, the matter and form of thought,
never exist separately, and are only discriminated by a
" distinction of reason " : that is to say, as sensation and
understanding occur in very various proportions at different
stages of animal and human life, and at different levels of
each man's consciousness, they are certainly distinguislmble ;
and by carrying out the series of varying proportions symboli-
cally, we may suppose ourselves to conceive of " blind
sensation " at one end and " pure thought " at the other,
especially as we can phrase them. But " blind sensation " on
its ovjn level (not merely as subliminal to us) is a contradiction
in terms : and the highest thought, if genuine, is the most
sense-representative, as well ; as impure by its dependence on
some word or sign : which word or sign is both itself sensuous,
and derives its value, as representing that thought, from its
profound and intricate sensuosity, from roots wide-ramifying
in the detail of experience.
If, then, form or relation is immanent in the life of the
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 107
senses, the reality of perception is merely a subject of investiga-
tion. In human life the conceptual element even in Empirical
Reality is extensive ; the growth of knowledge during savage
and barbarous ages continually extends it, and embodies in
language the resulting classifications and judgments concerning
things and their active properties ; and, finally, in civilised
life the methodical pursuit of science gives it still greater
refinement and comprehension : and all this is nothing else
than the surmounting of those objections to the validity of
knowledge, which are drawn from the doctrine of relativity.
The relativity of knowledge, as an argument for the invalidity
of knowledge, is itself the result of an early stage of scientific
culture ; but its weight is diminished by every forward step
of scientific discovery ; and it is a reproach to understanding
only as long as it is not understood.
Some old fashioned difficulties are so easily overcome, that
it may seem needless to mention them. That a straight stick
looks bent when plunged in the water, is explained by the
laws of refraction. That the same object seems of different
magnitudes according to its distance from the spectator, is
explained by the laws of perspective. The error of judging an
object warm or cold according to the temperature of our hand
in touching it, is corrected by using a thermometer. If the
old and the young, the sick and the hale have different
sensations of weight in lifting the same mass, they come to
agreement by using a pair of scales. Conflicting subjective
estimates of time have an arbitrator in the clock and the
system of chronology. To suppose that any of these differences
of perception are in the nature of logical contradictories is
only possible to a man to whom, as to poor Hegel, the
principle of Contradiction is the insuperable j^ons assinorum.
They are merely incentives to the discovery of laws : which
would be impossible if they really were contradictory.
As to the doctrine that every sensation is so modified by
its context (B by A, C by B, etc.) that none can have a
character of its own, it has been badly overstated. Such
modification is greatest where it is most useful, as in the
comparison of temperatures. But with the progress of
108 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
organisation, all the most delicately discriminated and objec-
tively significant sensations have attained a quasi-absolute
character. Natural Selection must insure this, since nothing
else would be compatible with their utility as signs, unless
we suppose that there are really no special stimuli. The
phenomena of complementary colours are not yet clearly
understood, but nobody despairs of them. In these and in all
similar cases we try to avoid the misleading influences of
relativity by finding objective standards and general laws ; that
is to say, by extending the conceptual system that is im-
manent in Empirical Reality.
§ 4. The differentiation and fixation of sensations goes
along with the development of sense-organs ; and the existence
of apparently different sense-organs, or organs of special structure
(like insects' eyes), or at different stages of perfection, no doubt
implies corresponding differences of experience in zoological
species. Of course, if animals that possess the same senses as
ourselves, have the eye, the nostril, tactile organs, etc., developed
in much greater power and refinement than our own, still, in
most cases the use of instruments and apparatus gives to
civilised man an immeasurable superiority of apprehension.
But some animals are supposed to have organs of sensation
correlated with natural forces, with which we have no direct
correspondence : a specific electrical sense is conceivable.
Evidence has been found that ants and other insects are affected
by the ultra-violet rays, and that, therefore, if the sensation of
those rays is a colour different from all the others, all complex
light effects into which it enters must also be unknown to us.
Even if the octave of colour repeats itself, and ultra-violet is a
higher value of red, still all its particular and blended effects
must be unknown to us. Such reflections indicate the narrow
range of sense-perception in any species, but do not invalidate
its reports. Each sensation is what it is as sensation ; and
its truth as a sign depends not on its quality but on the
uniformity of its connections.
De Morgan's opinion concerning unknown forces, that there
may be 500,000 of them, has been quoted; and it is rash for
a mere spectator of the physical sciences to surmise that if
I
THE EELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 109
there were 500 such forces as electricity, or 50, some evidence
of their activity would by this time have been detected. If
such forces exist, specific senses dealing with them may have
been developed in animals off our line of ancestry ; or even in
our own line, though long lost and superseded by others more
useful On the hypothesis that every faculty is relative to its
utility, it is intelligible that we should want those senses, if our
present organs are economically the most efficient for guidance
in life such as it has been. It is even possible that other
organs would now be more useful, but that organisation long
ago advanced too far to leave room for their initiation.
On the hypothesis that a purpose of Nature, in the develop-
ment of animal and rational life, is self-knowledge, this purpose
may seem to fail in man so far as he is a ' defective ' in the
powers of sense. But such a failure is very natural of Nature,
and many things suggest that man may not be amongst her
most successful variations. In Mars or some satellite of Sirius
all possible organs may exist, the speculations of Micromegas
may be far outdone ; and it may be enough if such mere
sensation-knowledge be attained somewhere. If animals on
this planet really have senses correlated with unknown forces,
the study of such species may enable us to learn something of
the nature and laws of those forces, and to establish an indirect
correspondence with them. Plainly, our knowledge of natural
forces does not depend upon a direct sensing of them : the X
rays and Electricity were not discovered in that way. What-
ever force leaves a trace in our experience, whether directly or
indirectly, may be pursued by the Physical Method. And as
the classification of chemical elements has indicated the
existence, and even some of the qualities, of elements not yet
discovered ; so possibly the study of known forces may reveal
a scheme within which every possible force must find a place.
In fact, the solar spectrum is part of such a scheme : a series,
the various sections of which are gradually filled, as phenomena
are discovered and interpreted with reference to them. But
granting that our ignorance of the extent of Nature's powers
may in some respects be incurable, still the question con-
cerning the truth of our knowledge bears with far heavier
no THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
stress upon its validity, than upon its adequacy or compre-
hensiveness.
§ 5. Many objections, then, to the possibility of science
which have been suggested by the character and conditions of
the human mind, the progress of science has set aside ; but
it has brought forward others more serious. Some of these
cling to the very methods of investigation ; which, because of
our mental limitations, are necessarily (a) abstract and (&)
departmental. The human mind is unequal to the copiousness
and complexity, as well as to the subtlety of Nature. Hence,
despairing to deal directly with the fulness of Empirical
Eeality, it expends its energies chiefly upon quantitative
problems ; and finding the total object far exceed the grasp of
one inquirer, resorts to the division of labour.
In pure science of quantity, the difficulties of actuality
are avoided by substituting a supposed absolute Space, Time
and Motion for the infinite variability of experience, neglect-
ing whatever cannot be exactly calculated. But to avoid an
enemy (it may be said), though justifiable strategy, is not to
defeat him, and this one is entrenched behind the constitution
of the World. For it has been discovered that all bodies in
the World, masses and molecules alike, are in perpetual
gyration and agitation, and in such reciprocal infiuence that
the motion of each, as to velocity and direction, is always
affected by the approach or recession of every other. It
follows that no fixed points are known by relation to which
direction in space can be determined; and that there is no
uniform motion, and therefore no ultimate measure of time,
so that the obtaining of exact quantitative data is even
theoretically impossible. See the masterly working out of
this subject in James Ward's Naturalism and Agnosticism
(Part I.). To me such reflections are not exhilarating.
Bain's remark, that " we may not see the world from a
commanding point of view," is just but not consolatory.
Though I began by declaring that the truth possible to man
is all we can hope for, yet when another enforces and illustrates
the same doctrine, it hurts : and this reminds me to apply
Spinoza's observation, that " we should attend to that which
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 111
is good in everything, in order that we may be actuated by
pleasurable feelings." It is more strengthening to reflect
that, although scientific method is new, and although we
inhabit a poor planet of a poor sun, perhaps in an obscure
corner of the galaxy, yet we have discovered concerning the
planet, solar system, and even the galaxy, a good deal about
which there is in fact no doubt, in spite of any theoretical
impossibility. The ground of this antilogy is, that the
theoretical impossibility can be explained in few words and
understood at a glance ; whereas the scientific demonstrations
(which it would be senseless to call ' practically ' true) depend
upon innumerable observations, calculations, corrections, ever
accumulating and mutually confirmatory, the effect of which
is indescribable. Hence the antiscientific argument has a
great rhetorical advantage over the defence ; although the
experience which the defence can never fairly represent in
words is entirely convincing, and although the attack depends
entirely upon the truth of that experience.
It is another characteristic abstraction of the physical
sciences to treat external Reality as constituted solely by the
Primary Qualities of matter (resistance and extension), and
to regard the Secondary (colour, sound, temperature, etc.) as
in themselves subjective reactions, though excited by the
Primary and objectified by association with them. The
reasons for this abstraction seem to be that, in the first place,
the Primary Qualities are the most strongly contrasted in
experience with those feelings that are most subjective —
pleasure, pain, and the ccenesthesis ; and that, secondly, they
are the most constant and unconditional in experience. For
both our own bodies and all the things around us present
them in all circumstances ; whilst many things have neither
sensible odour nor savour, may feel warm or cold according to
conditions, and are colom^less or coloured according to the
supply of light. Illusions are chiefly of seeing or hearing,
but to touch or grasp a thing is conviction. It next follows
from the constancy of the Primary Qualities, that they are
conceived to have the greatest coherence ; so that the breaks
that occur in our seeing or hearing of things (say, dui'ing the
112 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
night) are supposed to be filled up by a " permanent possi-
bility " of touching them ; and even our own existence during
sleep is commonly so conceived, and all lacunae of conscious-
ness to be filled up with " cerebration." It is in their
Primary Qualities, again, that things are most precisely
measurable in dimension, weight, movement, and most
uniform in their variation, and for these reasons most
calculable. Hence in respect of the Primary Qualities the
processes of Nature can be imaginatively intuited (by the
hand, if not by the eye), when they cannot be actually
observed, as a continuous transition ; and this continuity of
process, measurable and calculable, is a ground of the peculiar
confidence felt in mathematical Physics. Finally, the supposed
reduction of all other qualities to the Primary, or at least to
a dependence on them, seems to gratify our instincts of
explanation and simplification.
It is easily intelligible, then, that the sciences should
regard the Primary Quahties as pre-eminently real, and should
carry on in terms of them the whole conceptual extension of
Empirical Eeahty. Yet it is, I suppose, generally admitted
that (as Hume showed) the Primary Qualities are, as truly as
the Secondary, grounded on sensations (namely the tactile and
kinsesthetic), and that therefore, reflecting on the conditions of
experience, they are (to use a Kantian expression) " transcen-
dentally subjective." It cannot be denied that the Second-
ary Qualities are an essential element of Empirical Eeality ;
indeed, by visual qualities we habitually think of all the rest.
If then things are hard, why should they not be coloured and
scented ? If pressure and movement correspond in any way
with transcendent Eeality, why may not colour and odour
correspond with it in some other way ?
The immediacy of Empirical Eeality makes it impossible
that the Secondary Qualities should be ' explained away ' and
denied any place in the world. It is probable that in primitive
organic consciousness the manifold of sensation is undeveloped ;
but somehow the progress of organic consciousness is certainly
toward fuller knowledge ; human and adult faculty is the
truest. The very relativity of the Secondary Qualities, de-
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 113
termined by the process of organic differentiation, may point
to some specific function of theirs in the representation of
transcendent Eeality. Natural Selection guarantees the growtli
of a more and more effective correspondence ; and we ought to
consider whether there are sufficient grounds for Huppo.sing
that this growth of practical efficiency by the differentiation
of sensation, is at the same time a growth of mental illusion.
May not the equivalent of all that we perceive, and far more,
exist in inorganic consciousness, I mean in the consciousness
of what we call inorganic Nature ? If such a view should,
on the whole, give the greatest coherence to our conception
of things, it would appear that the organisation of conscious-
ness is a gradual realisation of the truth of the World, not
merely as an atomic skeleton, but as the infinite glory that
we know and delight in.
§ 6. By the division of scientific labour many departments
of study have been created, to each of which men devote their
whole lives. Passing over all sub-divisions of the sciences
and omitting the merely descriptive investigations, there
remain five great groups : Mathematics, Astronomy and
Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology. Each of these
sciences has been explored with the greatest ardour ; and the
result is that, whatever the internal consistency of each, a
certain unconformability has appeared amongst them, making
it difficult to conceive of them as one system of Nature ; yet
human understanding requires that they shall be so conceived.
Besides the theoretical impossibility of applying pure
Mathematics to Astronomy and Physics, of passing from the
postulates of absolute Space, Time and Motion to the intricate
relativity of actual phenomena, there is the practical difficulty
of obtaining exact measurements of phenomena, seeing that
such measurements must depend at last upon an appeal to
sense-perception, and must be stated, after every precaution has
been taken, as lying within certain limits of error. Yet, with-
out exact measurements, how establish between the processes
of Nature those equations which constitute explanation ? The
reply to this is that the more nearly actual measurements
approach ideal exactness, the better is the verification of
8
114 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
physical theories, and the systematic cohesion of laws : so
that a belief in the soundness of the methods employed, and
in the uniformity of processes explored, continually increases.
In passing from Physics to Chemistry a difficulty emerges
which is usually conceived of as if it were necessarily a
problem to reduce chemical action to mechanical principles ;
and, similarly, in passing from Chemistry to Biology, it is
often assumed that the phenomena of life in plants and ani-
mals must be reduced to chemistry and mechanics. To find
some definite resemblance between all three orders of phenomena,
the physical, chemical, and biological, is indeed, according to
our present conceptions of explanation, a regulative principle
of the philosophy of Nature ; but the end would seem to be
equally attained were it possible either to reduce any two of
these orders of phenomena to the third, or to find some further
ground upon which all three are explicable. The former of
these courses has not yet succeeded ; whilst the latter (I
believe) has never been attempted.
But the transition from Biology to Psychology brings to
light a far greater difiiculty of explanation, the greatest
problem known to speculation. For whilst Physics, Chemistry,
and Biology have at least this in common, that they all treat
of matter and motion, Psychology calls for a theory of the
manifold of sensation, pleasure and pain, passion and volition ;
and the Philosophy of Nature, as a whole, requires that these
phenomena shall be explained in harmony with the theories
of matter and motion, in fact that Matter and Consciousness
shall be reduced to the same concept. Now, subjectively, such
a reduction can be made ; for one's own organism and the
whole external world are manifestly a construction of sen-
sations and ideas in consciousness ; but, objectively, whoever
believes that there are other minds than his own must find it
impossible to suppose that matter stands for nothing but his
own construction ; and approaching the question as the
natural sciences do, it is plain that an organic consciousness
capable of constructing a World is a late and recent product in
the history of things. This opposition between the subjective
or analytic and the objective or historical views, has been
THE KELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 115
forcibly presented by Shad worth Hodgson in liis Philosophy
of Rejlection. Various theories of intercausatiou, parallelism,
or other connection of Mind and Body will confront us in
future chapters. Here I shall merely, by way of anticipation,
state my own opinion : namely, that in our own consciousness
we have an immediate knowledge of ultimate Reality, and
that the remainder of Empirical Eeality, including our own
bodies and the external world, is a system of phenomena
constructed in consciousness and in some manner representing
the ultimate Eeality. That lieality is universally conscious,
but its whole being cannot be fully expressed by consciousness ;
so that as to the remainder of its being, it is transcendent, and
can only be miderstood, partly, from the laws of phenomena,
which represent it objectively, and partly, from the laws of
self-consciousness, which does not represent it and is not a
phenomenon but the Eeality itself subjectively conditioned.
What from these data can be inferred of transcendent Eeality
will hereinafter be considered : but it is not unknowable.
From what has been said it follows, that Matter and
Consciousness cannot be wholly reduced to one concept. In
Empirical Eeality indeed, they are merely contrasted areas of
consciousness itself — matter is in consciousness ; in Physical
Reality, matter is reduced to certain quantitative aspects of
objective consciousness ; but in ultimate Eeality, matter has
no place, being a phenomenon or representation of that Eeality
so far as Reality is not consciousness. It follows further that
the concept of ultimate Eeality is not simple but contains a
duality, namely. Consciousness and the Transcendent Being or
Idea that is conscious ; and that, therefore, the ambition of
Philosophy to attain to absolute simple Being, without differ-
ence or relation, is overstrained and illusory.
§ 7. Explanation is shown by logicians to consist in the
discovery of Likeness between phenomena, or ideas, or their
relations. The nature of explanation, then, is the last strong-
hold of those who impeach human knowledge on the ground
of its relativity ; for there is no Likeness unqualified by
Difference. But this impeachment derives all its force from
the rashness of those who demand an absolute simplicity of
116 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
conception. Apart from this infatuation, there is no reason
why the Relativity of Knowledge should be a bar to the con-
struction by the human mind of the scientific system of ex-
perience, or in other words, to the rise of the World to self-
consciousness. The love of simplicity is a treacherous in-
stinct ; the belief in simplicity promises a theory of the world
to dialectical ignorance if only enthusiastic or presumptuous
enough.
But, fortunately, in the foundations of the human mind
there is provision for our discovery of the fulness and variety
as well as of the unity of the world. For the occurrence of a
change or difference in some diffused, indefinite, potential
sensibility, is the nearest approach we can make to a conception
of the beginning of organic consciousness ; and a reversal of
this change or return to the antecedent condition, which thus
by contrast obtains a higher degree of actuality, may be con-
ceived as the experience from which a sense of likeness gradu-
ally emerges and grows into recognition. Eecognition (if I
may use the term in a generalised sense) is a condition of all
the organism's adaptive correspondence with Nature, from
reflex action to the highest scientific inference. It has been
shown experimentally that conscious recognition is intrinsically
pleasurable: and explanation is recognition amidst disguise.
As the surprise of a new explanation subsides, there ensues a
feeling of relief, familiarity, security. So strong is the pleasure
of recognition that a merely customary familiarity of experience,
or dogma, is often mistaken for understanding, and offers
resistance to any profounder analysis ; which, by requiring a
rearrangement of ideas and bringing to light unnoticed differ-
ences, gives at first a feeling of strangeness allied to fear. But
for this very reason the sense of difference, or discrimination,
is as important as the sense of likeness, or assimilation, to the
full explanation of the world. For men are too easily content
to find the unity of thought in superficial resemblances, or in
the use of some one word (such as the ' Absolute ') to bundle
up all differences. But the differences from which likeness
emerges cling to it at every level of mental growth, alike in
the detail of perception and in the widest reaches of specula-
THE KELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 117
tive thought. Discrimination saves us from swallowing stones
for bread, and destroys the authority of premature systems of
Philosophy. Bread, indeed, must be recognised, if starvation
is to be avoided ; and new systems of Philosophy must be
established upon deeper resemblances, if our spiritual instincts
are to be fulfilled. But a system that ends in unqualified sim-
plicity, as the ultimate character of Reality, can never, strictly
speaking, be conceived ; and, therefore, I accept the reproach of
not attempting to construct such a system.
The sceptical doubt must indeed remain, whether there be
in the empirical world, in Natura naturata, any such unity
as can satisfy the love of explanation in the human mind ;
and the only possible answer to this trope is the completion by
posterity of the system of Positive Philosophy. If there be,
in fact, no unity, discrimination will forbid the prolonged reign
of any system of error, until the habit of recognising the irre-
concilable differences of things shall give rise to resignation in
that last scene of the tragedy of Reason.
Bacon found a chief som'ce of the idols of the Den in the
tendency of one man to perceive the resemblances, and of another
to insist on the differences of phenomena ; and Kant saw in
these two kinds of men the constructive and critical thinkers.
As in our present imperfect development every quality carries
its defect, the assimilative mind is often too hasty in subsump-
tion, and even resentful of exception ; whilst the discriminative
seems almost to hate explanation and to exult in the dilapida-
tion of systems : for every animal uses its own weapons and
rejoices in its own strength.
From the intellectual cravings after assimilation and dis-
crimination spring our conceptions of the unity and unifor-
mity of Nature amidst all the variety of phenomena ; and those
more definite conceptions of the persistence of matter and
energy, or of the quantitative likeness or equality of the
contents of Nature, amidst all changes throughout all time ;
and all the sciences, and our whole endeavour after a system-
atic knowledge of the world. These, in fact, are those forms
of thought that necessarily govern our interpretation of things ;
not such products of psychic growth as Space and Causality,
118 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
forms that have a natural history. Hence the Metaphysical
Eelativity of the Kantian system needs no examination.
But what shall we say to the limits of explanation pointed
out by Mill, namely, wherever in comparing phenomena we
can find no resemblance ? For the experimental psychologists
have shown that there are more than 40,000 different sensa-
tions known to the human mind alone, to say nothing of
other animals and the sons of Mars and of the Dog-star ; and
each distinguishable sensation must have its own law of gener-
ation. A solution of this difficulty may be attempted upon
the basis of Spencer's speculation, that all different sensations
are only different groupings of one original shock of change,
the atom of consciousness ; but this theory seems to be in-
applicable to those sensations whose stimuli are chemical
changes. Or, again, it may be said that the differences of our
present consciousness are deceptive, since our differentiated
sensations exhibit only a cross-section of consciousness develop-
ing in time, just as existing plants and animals exhibit
only a cross -section of all the great processions of life, that
are yet united by a common ancestry. For similarly all
consciousness, whatever contrasts it now comprises, is one
growth from age to age, by infinitesimal gradations self-
distinguishing. But, strictly speaking, this conception of con-
sciousness does not efface, but multiplies, the differences that
frustrate explanation. If, as many considerations indicate, the
differences that we perceive disguise innumerable imperceptible
shades that come infinitely near resemblances, on the other
hand, where our apperceptive consciousness finds miqualified
sameness, there may again lurk as many imperceptible differ-
ences. It follows that the explanation of the World is not to
be sought in the region of sensations or their proper laws,
which only express its inexhaustible fulness and variety, and
are common to us and the animals ; but in the region of con-
cepts, of laws of laws, and of the harmony of laws which lies
open to human understanding.
BOOK II.-COSMOLOGY
CHAPTER VII
SUBSTANCE IN EXPERIENCE
§ 1. That the World should be a necessary existence,
whilst yet we continually wonder at it: these things, says
Schopenhauer, are contradictory. Not only do we continually
wonder at it, but some have brought themselves to believe
that it is but a dream. To one it is too monstrous, to another
too insignificant for reality. And with apparent sobriety
metaphysicians dispute, above all, whether the World is
Substance ; and, if so, in what sense.
Bodies moving in space or relatively at rest are often
called ' substance ' in an unsophisticated way of speaking ; in
Chemistry, too, one may speak of substances to be analysed,
or resulting from analysis : they may also be called ' matter.'
Substance and matter are regarded by Common Sense as
immediately given in Empirical Reality, for otherwise it
would not deserve to be called Reality. But most meta-
physicians, if the ghosts of the study haunt them in the
street, must fall in with the popular usage not without qualms
and reservations ; for they are accustomed to employ the
terms Substance and Matter for something extremely subtle
and obscure : something common to all concrete things without
being discoverable in any of them ; or something which makes
itself indirectly known through things without ever being an
object of experience ; or something that by natural illusion is
thought into things, though in fact there is nothing there.
These hypotheses will be reviewed in the next chapter : in this
one we are concerned witli the substance accepted by Common
Sense, empirical substance.
121
122 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
Now it is generally admitted that by reflection an empirical
substance is resolvable into a group of qualities, founded
severally on sensations, cohering in one place, or all moving
together, and regarded as one perdurable whole. The meta-
physical aspect of qualities, as distinguished from qualities of
sense-perception, depends further upon a comparison of things
perceived and an abstraction of their resemblances ; and the
relative unreality of the quality is the contrast of it as thought
with the sensation-complex perceived. The coherence of the
qualities of any substance is not side by side, like the physical
cohesion of particles, but in interfusion, so that however small
a part of any homogeneous substance be taken (provided it is
still an object of actual, not merely conceptual, experience), it
exhibits all the qualities characteristic of the whole. The
foundation of the qualities in sensation, does not mean that
each quality is derived exclusively from one corresponding
kind of sensation, but that each of them may be derived from
sensation simple or complex. Even the colour of an object (say
gold) does not correspond to one pure sensation, but is a mixed
result of chromatic and achromatic vision, and, as an extent of
colour, involves movements of the eye ; and such a quality
as elasticity, though depending essentially on certain varying
degrees of muscular strain, may be habitually signified by the
image of something stretching or contracting and recovering
itself in a regular manner.
The realisation of this position, that a substance is a group
of qualities all of which are grounded in sensation, may be said
to be the first step in Metaphysics, and whoever takes it never
again looks reflectively upon the world with quite the same
eyes ; and yet it is a very simple step, and necessarily results
from the fact that in analysing an object, or empirical
substance, we are dealing with something that occurs in our
consciousness, and can never find in it anything that is not a
factor of our consciousness ; for even if we discover in it
qualities before unknown, these very discoveries appear in
consciousness.
But as to the nature of the qualities, not merely in their
subjective grounds, but in their present and universal objec-
SUBSTANCE IN EXrEEIENCE 123
tivity, and as to their relation to one another, to the substance
they constitute or " inhere in," and to the Subject or mind
that perceives them, there are many inventions.
According to Hume, the idea of a substance " is nothing but
a collection of simple ideas, that are united by the imagination,
and have a particular name assigned them " ; either referred
to an unknown something in which they are supposed to
inhere, or at least supposed to be inseparably connected by the
relations of contiguity and causation : the principle of union
being regarded as the chief part of the complex idea (Treatise,
Book I. Part II. § 6); and when such unity seems inadequate the
imagination is apt to feign something unknown and invisible,
which it supposes to continue the same amidst all variations,
a substance, or original and first matter (Treatise, Part IV. § 3).
To refer the connection of the simple ideas or qualities to the
" imasrination " without further ado, is characteristic of Hume,
and must proceed either from carelessness, or the love of
frightening his reader ; for in § 3 of Part I. he has told us that
imagination is not restrained to the same order and form with
the original impressions. Therefore, it cannot be the condition
of union amongst ideas that are "inseparably connected."
Similarly Kant, as if following Hume, after observing that the
elements of our representation of an object, or the synthesis of
objects which is Nature, must be first given serially in experi-
ence, makes it the function of imagination (Eirihildung) to
retrieve the past or lapsing members of the series and repre-
sent the whole simultaneously. But he explains that the
order of representations in the object cannot be capricious
or arbitrary, because they are necessarily connected in one
pure consciousness ; that is, in the Universal Understanding
in the World ; in subservience to whose Categories, again,
imagination analyses, classifies, and interprets individual ex-
perience according to rules, and thus (e.g.) subsumes an object
as Substance (K d. r. V., transscendentale Deduktiov).
Whether this is a just account of Kant's view his own
perplexity leaves me uncertain. But there is no doubt that
Hume and Kant agree verbally as to the importance of
the part played by imagination in constructing our idea of
124 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Substance; and I think they are both right in what they
mean, though their language is crude. That the qualities of
what we now perceive as a concrete body were gradually
united or differentiated in experience is highly probable, and
that they now are in some way simultaneously presented is
certain ; and we must try to name the condition of this
process and result, and of course imagination is our name for
much later and more superficial mental activities. It is
plainly that function which more recent writers have called
' retentiveness,' ' reinstatement,' ' integration.' We cannot ex-
pect to find ready-made any term to express such unique and
obscure conditions ; but perhaps it will be least misleading to
call it " growth."
The qualities which we regard as belonging to a substance
are sensations, or sensation-modes, that have been ' projected '
and objectified, or differentiated in the course of organic history
from the subjective life of feeling, by their special alliances
with the sensations of movement and resistance. A point of
colour (e.g.) is found to coincide with a point of pressure and
resistance when, putting forth one's hand and touching an object,
the colour of the object has the same relative brightness and
distinctness as that of the hand, and a different relative bright-
ness from that of the hand when not put forth so far : it thus
comes to be regarded as at the end of such a possible movement
or distance in space. Similarly with resonance, odour, warmth ;
they are found to increase as we approach the place of a thing,
until their maximum intensity coincides with the solid core of
resistance in that place. An account of this process will be
found in books on Psychology : though some indeed dispute
it ; James (vol. ii. chap, xvii.) maintaining that sensations are
external in space as perceived ah initio. But certainly he cannot
directly know this, and it is inconsistent with his other state-
ments. Mill's view, that sensation is originally neither internal
nor external, seems to me the true one. But whilst in general
this hypothesis is (I believe) correct, the reading of a thousand
text-books will not enable us fully to realise it ; because the
process described is a growth, and involves the changes of
character that always occur in growth ; and because the essential
SUBSTANCE IN EXPEEIP:NCE 125
part of the process has not taken place within our own niemoi}-,
nor within our own life, nor even within the life of tlie human
race, but originates deep in the animal kingdom, how far back
we cannot say.
§ 2. Now if any such hypothesis is true of the construction
of an object as Substance, it is true of that context or synthesis
of objects which is Nature on the perceptual plane. Nature
has been projected in organic history as an Object in contrast
with a Subject ; but for the human individual it is preformed,
or prepared for, in his inherited organisation ; for the organic
growth of perceptions in the mind corresponds with the growth
of the nervous system. It is true that in man the complete
formation of perception is delayed until some time after
birth ; he is born only half-baked. Hence our early post-natal
growth and development are indeed accompanied by some small
amount of ' experience ' (for perhaps a disciple of Locke is bound
to apply this term even to vague and confused sentience) ; but
such experience bears no proportion to the development that
takes place, and cannot be considered as " the cause " of it, or
as more than a condition whose value depends upon the activities
aroused in the central nervous regions by peripheral stimuli
and limb-movement : activities which promote the differentia-
tion of the brain and the co-ordination of its organs. We must
consider that in a few months before birth the whole history
of early animal life has been traversed ; that the power that
has brought this about cannot be supposed to cease at birth ;
that, accordingly, both before and after birth a man grows of
his own impulse, like everything else in organic natm-e ; and
that the proportional influence of experience, inappreciable at
first, grows greater and greater, in comparison with that of
inherent development, up to some variable date.
Perception and the nervous system grow together ; and
whilst the perceptive powers are being established, and long
afterwards, other more plastic powers of the mind appear,
corresponding with nervous growths of a less stable character.
Perhaps the necessity of completely interlacing the later powers
of the mind (dependent on experience) with the perceptual
system, is the chief reason why man is born with a perceptual
126 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
system so incomplete. However this may be, it is the later
and more plastic powers of the mind that are properly called
' imagination,' ' reflection,' ' understanding ' ; and nothing can
be more perverse than to explain the facts of perception by
referring them to imagination or understanding, it is the
anthropomorphic fallacy. The concept " Substance " is indeed
a function of understanding ; but what it stands for, the ex-
perience it subsumes, belongs to the perceptual plane and is
shared by men and animals.
The objects as perceived are stable ; and stable are the
cerebral organs and connections of the perceptive apparatus,
and therefore the correspondingly grouped sensations and
suggestions or subrepresentations which, being " projected,"
constitute those objects. The objects and the brain are alike
empirical substances, regarded as existing and perduring,
whether we sleep or wake ; and if we believe in a trans-
cendent Substance, this must stand in the same relation to
objects and to the brain, and must be regarded as the ulti-
mate ground of the objective synthesis.
Because perception precedes the growth of reflection, the
Object precedes Self; and therefore by all animals as well as
by unsophisticated men, it is assumed to be an object for all,
the context of which, or Nature, is alike for all ; and therefore
Hegel is mistaken when he says that " all consciousness of
another object is also self-consciousness. The object is my
idea : I am aware of the object as mine ; and thus in it I am
aware of me" {Encycl. iii. § 424). Not more than one man
in a million can ever be got to say, in the moment of percep-
tion, " the object is my idea " ; and he mistakes reflection for
perception. For with perception goes the fact (it is more than
conviction) that the tree stands there for everybody, since it
belongs to the prepersonal life, and corresponds with stable
nervous growths ; whereas ' Self ' and * mine ' belong to reflec-
tion, and correspond with the less stable nervous growths
that are characteristic of human development.
§ 3. If then, an empirical substance yields to analysis
nothing but a group of interfused qualities regarded as perdui'-
able in one place, how can we be justified in speaking of a
SUBSTANCE IN EXPERIENCE 127
" quality " at all, since this term is correlative with " substance "
which, apart from the qualities, is a mere space ? On the plane
of Empirical Reality there is not much difficulty about this.
Each quality, taken severally, is referred to the rest of the
group : the scheme of judgment — S is Q — predicates co-exist-
ence or coinherence. That because it is possible to refer any
one quality to the group, we may refer the whole list of
qualities to something that still remains, may illustrate the
common fallacy of " Division and Composition " : for certainly
we do not mean to refer them merely to the place in which
they are found to co-exist. It is true that one quality is more
important than all the rest, namely resistance ; for in any
circumstances wherever we find this, we say there is a Body ;
whilst any phenomenon in which this is wanting is declared an
illusion. Still resistance is itself a quality and not Substance ;
for we do not refer other qualities, such as size or colour,
merely to resistance.
Unity of place is, indeed, essential to the concept of Sub-
stance ; as we see in the axioms that " a body can occupy only
one place at the same time," and that " two bodies cannot
occupy the same place at the same time." These are statements
of universal experience in the jostling, collision, fracture and
recoil of things, and in the manage of our own bodies ; since
we can only occupy the place of anything by removing it, and
if it is too massive to be moved we cannot get there at all.
Yet the fact that most things can be moved and, indeed, that
all things do move, makes it impossible to identify substance
with place. Nor is it the abstract of places ; for each substance
is in a particular place ; and the common notions that qualities
" inhere " in substance, and that substance " supports " its
qualities, imply something more than place : it is hard to say
what — a " confused idea of something," as Locke expresses it.
Perhaps this " something " is to be found in a primitive
subjectivising of the object, the attributing to it of a sub-
consciousness of weight and other sensations, like that
consciousness of our own bodies that stands in the background
of all our thoughts. And such a belief may be justifiable ;
but as soon as this idea of an object's inwardness is made
128 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
explicit, it loses the character of substance, and becomes an
attribute, even if we shrink from calling it a quality. It
cannot be regarded as ' supporting ' qualities, nor as that in
which they ' inhere.' Such expressions still seem a sort of
illusory verbiage. And, indeed, it is plain that nothing that
is represented in consciousness as belonging to a thing, can
be regarded as the substance of it : for, as Spinoza says, " an
attribute is that ivhich the intellect perceives concerning
substance, as constituting its essence." Cointerfusion of
qualities must always be, for reflection, the content of Empirical
Eeality : otherwise in this region substance is unknown to
analysis.
§ 4. The Qualities of Substances are usually distinguished
as Primary and Secondary : those that are derived from
" muscle sensations " of resistance and movement — solidity,
size, weight and motion ; and those that are derived from
other senses — heat, colour, sonority, taste and smell. The
distinction seems to have originated with Democritus or
Leucippus in connection with the doctrine of atoms, and so
far prevails at the present day that the physical sciences
generally assume that the ' real ' world, the world of Conceptual
Eeality, has only the primary qualities, and that the secondary
depend upon the presence of a sensitive organism that, being
stimulated by contact with the primary world, reacts in these
astonishing ways.
The distinction thus drawn has both a practical and a
speculative interest. For the primary world is (1) the seat
of mechanical and chemical energy, which for our life's sake
it behoves us to respect at every hour and in every action ;
(2) it is perdurable and unconditional, the same by day and
night, whether we are present or absent (necessarily assumed
to be so) ; (3) it is objective, that about which we can all
agree, or come nearest to agreement ; (4) it is measurable in
three dimensions of space, in duration of existence or rate of
change, and in energy : for these reasons it is the object of
the conceptual system. But the secondary world is not
satisfactorily measurable in any way except by referring its
phenomena to primary standards. For even the discrimina-
SUBSTANCE IN EXPEKIENCE 129
tion of differences of quality is relative to the capacity of our
senses, which varies even in normal subjects ; and although
degrees of intensity are doubtless felt, it is only within narrow
limits, and how far they are from being measurable is shown
by the difticulty of interpreting the subjective side of Weber's
law, in deciding whether " least noticeable differences " are
equal or proportional, or what else. The secondary world,
again, is not perdurable but conditional, and goes and comes
accordingly ; it is not a unity or continuum, but consists of
distinct genera of sense-qualities, visual, auditory, etc., related
by their common dependence on the kineesthesis ; and its
chief interest lies not in itself (though it is coloured far
more constantly than the primary world by pleasure and pain),
but in being a system of signs, whose significance lies in that
outer region of possible utility and destruction.
Yet what a recondite, sophisticated, and difficult way of
thinking, is this ; and how many spectres it conjures up for
one that it lays, if it can be said to lay any at all. Is it
supposed to explain the meaning of Eeality, by contrasting
the primary world with one comparatively transient and
therefore um-eal ? But both are real, empirically considered ;
and both are unreal, if all external experience is considered as
merely phenomenal of something unknown.
Is it supposed that the distinction between the two
worlds enables us, through the conceptual system, to explain
the secondary by the primary, and thereby to reduce the
number of elementary problems of existence ? But every law
of connection between mechanical or chemical change in the
primary world and its corresponding sensation in the secondary,
is (as we have seen) an unique fact, distinct in some character
from every other ; and this is the opposite of explanation.
Secondary qualities cannot be deduced from the primary ;
they are connected with them by laws of experience, just as
the connection between cause and effect (qualitatively) is a
law of general experience. This does not impugn or render
doubtful the connection of qualities, for there is no better
assurance than constant experience ; which, as a condition of
consistency, is implied in all proof. But every law of the
9
130 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
connection of qualities is an extension of knowledge ; and its
explanatory value consists (1) in the collection of many
experiences into the law itself, and (2) in ha\'ing the same
general character as other laws of such connection and not
conflicting with them. By " the same general character "
prevailing amongst laws of the connection of qualities, I
mean (for example) that differences of colour correspond
regularly to differences in the vibration rate of light-rays,
though we cannot see any resemblance between the two series
of differences ; and again, that all sensations are classifiable
with reference to chemical and mechanical stimuli ; and that
both kinds of stimuli operate upon nervous organs having
specific differences but the same general constitution : and in
all this there is no conflict. But this kind of explanation
does not (except in the summarising of laws) reduce the
number of the elementary problems of existence. And if we
turn to the purely subjective side of experience, and consider
that " mechanical and chemical stimuli," though referred to
the primary world, are nevertheless grounded in sensations, it
becomes impossible to think of explaining sensations by
stimuli. Here, indeed, the distinction between primary and
secondary qualities vanishes ; for it belongs to the conceptual
treatment of Nature as a perdurable thing. The muscle-
sensations upon which the primary qualities are grounded,
when considered merely as sensations, have no more claim
than colour or sound to be the seat of energy, or perdurable,
or unconditional, or objective, or directly measurable.
§ 5. Does then the distinction between Primary and
Secondary Qualities throw any light upon the problem of
external cognition, by contrasting the primary world as some-
thing known, with the secondary as a means of knowing it ?
But if cognition implies that the thing known is something
distinct from the process or medium of knowing it, the primary
world is no such object of cognition ; for it is itself, by
analysis, a fact in consciousness. Or if cognition implies the
ancient doctrine that " like is known by like," we cannot be
helped toward the understanding of it by a distinction that
claims to be fundamental.
SUBSTANCE IN EXrERIENCE 131
This brings us to oue of the most harassing problems of
Philosophy, the cognition of the World ; for ever since
Democritus and Plato the cognition and the Being of the
"World Iiave been inseparable problems.
It is usually assumed by philosophers that the thing
known is other than the cognition of it, that the tree yonder
(to take Berkeley's example), whether seen or grasped, is not,
as a cognition or percept, identical with the ' real ' tree, the
Tree-by-itself ; and although this is not the view of cursory
irreflective Common Sense, yet to dispute it leads to obvious
difficulties. The tree or any other thing in Nature, is
certainly not merely identical with my cognition of it, or any
other man's ; since all normal men know it in much the same
way, and yet each of us with a certain difference ; and each of
us believes that it is perdurable and exists in some sense
though none of us be looking on. If there is nothing but the
cognition, there must be for each thing that we take to be
one, as many in fact as there are observers of it, as many
worlds as there are minds ; and each thing in each world
exists only as long as each mind perceives it. I really do not
think this nonsense can be directly refuted ; but fortunately
refutation is needless, as it obtains no public sympathy or
adhesion.
To avoid this unpopular conclusion it may be suggested
that when we identify the object with our cognition, we are
to mean — ' so far as it is cognised,' and that a distinction
may still be made between our knowledge of it and all there
is of it that remains to be explored. ' Our cognition,' it may
be said, ' does not indeed exhaust the object, for even about
things already well known we often learn more. The object
as distinguished from our cognition is the whole list of its
properties known and unknown.' But this way out of the
trap is immediately closed by two simple reflections : first,
what is the present condition of those properties of an object
that are not yet known ? — and, secondly, if all were known
would there not still be as many worlds as there are
Subjects ? For whatever further we may discover, thereupon
becomes a fact of consciousness ; so that the whole object
132 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
may be regarded as exhausted by my cognition actual and
possible.
If, however, the thing known is something distinct from
our knowledge of it, how shall we set any limits to the
divergence ? Indeed, may not the thing and the knowledge of
it be so separate as to admit of no comparison ; since, as
Berkeley says, " how can an idea [percept] be like anything
that is not an idea ? " And in that case how can there be
said to be any knowledge ?
Next, let us suppose some one to take up the dogma that
' like is known by like,' and to find some support for it in
modern monistic and animistic theories, such as occur in this
volume : he may observe that in the animal organism a body
and consciousness are, in some inexplicable way, always
associated, and he may ask : ' May not Nature at large be like
an organism in this, that consciousness in some form accom-
panies all things, or perhaps rather the energy of all things ?
— though this comes to much the same, since all things are
always energising. If so, may not our consciousness of objects
correspond with, and even resemble, the consciousness that is
in objects or that accompanies their movements ; so that our
consciousness is indirectly, but not the less definitely, con-
stantly and necessarily, a cognition of the things ? '
It may be replied that such a suggestion is of no use to
Common Sense, because that authority holds that perception
is a knowledge of things themselves, not of how they feel.
But is this just ? Does not Common Sense hold that the
tiles of the house yonder are red whether seen or not ; and
what sense is there in saying that things are red when none
is looking, if they do not feel red ? How common the belief
is that secondary as well as primary qualities exist in the
object, every one knows. Plato in the BepuUic (507) says, as
a matter of course, that colour is in the object ; though later
in Thecctetus (153) and Timcev.s (67) he treats it as sensation
arising from collision between the activities of objects and
those of the eye. Th. Whittaker has pointed out to me that
in Plotinus' opinion qualities are not generated by the
collisions of bodies, but that colours, tastes, etc., whether
SUBSTANCE IN EXrERTENCE 133
aggregated in bodies and sensible, or dispersed and insensible,
are imperishable (En7i. iv. 4, 29). But how completely
moderns have rejected this belief may be seen in Mr. Spencer's
remark {Psych. § 318) that, strictly, the secondary qualities
are " not attributes of body at all," but are reactions upon
" certain forces which pervade the universe " ; they are a
" product of the subject, the object, and the environing
activities."
The difficulty of imagining that sensible qualities should
exist in bodies (as uninstructed Common Sense assumes) just as
they are known to us, must be acknowledged. It is not
logically impossible ; but it requires that our elaborate sense-
organs with their cerebral connections should have been so
adjusted during tlie evolution of the nervous system, that all
the changes and disturbances implied in the excitation of cog-
nition through various media with different modes of motion,
are corrected by them ; making our sensations not merely
correspond with, but resemble, the qualities of things as they
exist in the consciousness of Nature ; whereby Nature is truly
manifested to us, that is, known in phenomena.
To some minds, on the other hand, it may seem equally
incredible that the manifold glories of the world should exist
only for the higher animal life ; that there should be no
austere joy in deserts, no rapture in tropical wildernesses ;
that the music of winds and waters, and the colours of sky
and sea, should be deaf and blind.
Yet what has Common Sense to say, in the case of
temperature ? Objectively, it is a continuous scale of vibra-
tion rates ; but subjectively, intensity of heat or cold ; and
these are quite different sensations of special nerves. Every-
body instinctively believes that fire is itself hot, and snow
cold, not merely that they make us feel so. A defender of
the immediate truth of sense-preception might possibly replji
that our organism need not be supposed to respond to all the
feelings of Nature ; that our knowledge may be true, or supply
the grounds of truth, without being exhaustive ; that the
diffusion of the temperature sense, necessary to preservation,
is incompatible with such a differentiated organ as the eye for
134 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
light ; but that, did such exist, we might perceive a heat-
spectrum, and with further organs another spectrum of the
' chemical rays,' etc. ; that possibly these are repetitions in
lower and higher pitch of the light-spectrum ; and that, if so,
we know what they are, as we might fairly be said to know
the musical scale even if able to perceive only one octave.
It is not, however, common sense to regard heat and cold
as a sort of colours in lower octaves. Still, what refined
hypotheses concerning the correspondence of our sensations
with Nature may be within the power of an ingenious mind
to frame, it is not for me to say. I decline to assert that a
problem is insoluble merely because it baffles me ; and any
man may come to look very foolish who presumes to set a
limit to the speculations of posterity. Nor can I condemn such
speculations as a waste of time, as if there was not to be
plenty of time before the sun goes out. There is really no
hurry. Even if we fail to do some piece of work, or to
make some discovery ourselves, posterity may be trusted to
catch it up before the desolate end. Future generations may
have reason to thank those who left them something to do,
more than those who anticipated everything. How many
grateful monuments may hereafter commemorate the men who
did nothing and discovered nothing !
That the thing known should be without any ground of
resemblance to the cognition of it, is a contradiction in terms.
In such a relation there is no knowledge. But the ground of
resemblance is not to be sought in feeling or sensation, though
in some cases (say mechanical exertion) a resemblance is more
imaginable than in the special sensations. It is rather in
certain ultimate relations that we must look for the agreement.
Things as phenomena and the brain as a phenomenon, are so
differently constituted that we cannot suppose their energising
to accompany similar consciousness ; for, as Spinoza says, * the
emotions of animals differ from those of man as their nature
differs from his' {Eth. iii. 57); and this principle extends to
the inorganic world. But consciousness is Reality, and there-
fore Time, being a form of consciousness, is a form of Reality.
Comparative consciousness, again, involves co-existence within
SUBSTANCE IN EXPERIENCE 135
tho spau of the empiricjil Now ; aiul therefore, although
we may not be able to show that all consciousness is com-
parative, still CO- existence is a possible form of Ideality;
and the co-existence of phenomena in Space suggests that
co-existence is a universal condition of things transcendent or
Being, that is, so far as Reality is not consciousness ; though,
since Space is a construction of organic consciousness, it may
not be justifiable to treat co-existence in Space as a condition
of things-by-themselves. And I may say here that I speak
of things transcendent as things-by-themselves, because
Reality so far as it is not consciousness cannot be an
immediate object of consciousness ; for then it would be a
phenomenon. Nevertheless, since all Reality is conscious,
things transcendent are not "by themselves" in the sense
of being without consciousness.
There are, then, fundamental relations in which the thing
known may agree with the cognition of it through phenomena :
we are not obliged to maintain that the thing known is
unknowable : and the meagre contents of knowledge here
indicated may be enriched by further reflection. But, now,
what are we to think of the vast extent and variety of oui-
knowledge of the World ? How does it stand to that faint
Thing transcendent which, as Plato says of the Good, can
hardly be discerned ? The contrast of riches and penury seems
to make the riches unreal and a kind of illusion. But this
feeling is itself an illusion arising from the demand, that that
which is not consciousness shall be an immediate content of
consciousness, or a phenomenon ; and from treating as empty
that which is necessarily hidden. For knowledge is a
consciousness, and, if there is anything other than consciousness,
the knowledge of it can only be a representation in conscious-
ness. Now the growth of such representation in life and
mind I take to be a function of the evolution of Nature ; and
it is a true knowledge of Nature because it is her Self-
knowledge. The universal consciousness grows into such
knowledge. That in the course of its development it is very
imperfect may be true ; but that its central character and
tendency should be deceptive, is a foolish anthropomorphic
136 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
superstitution. On the whole, there is nobody to deceive. It
may have the defect of economy but not of ostentation.
§ 6. Besides the Secondary Qualities of a Body, interpreted
as effects of certain energies of it upon a sensitive organism,
and hence called by Spencer " dynamic qualities," it has other
properties, by Locke called "powers" {Of the Understanding,
Book II. chap, xxi.), whereby it acts on other bodies, altering
their positions or their sensible qualities; and both the
energies known to us as the secondary qualities and those by
which it acts on other bodies, as well as their reactions and
sensible changes, are traced to the primary qualities or to modi-
fications of them. They are powers of attraction and pro-
pulsion, of absorbing, reflecting, or radiating light and heat, of
generating or conducting electricity, of synthesis, growth, and
reproduction ; all generally regarded as reducible to movements
or tendencies to move on the part of the atoms, molecules, cells,
or whatever units constitute a body. To investigate the laws
of all such energies belongs to the natural sciences. The
facts are sometimes sensibly manifest, sometimes are insensible ;
and in the latter case may sometimes be made sensible by
instruments or indirectly by indices, or may be given over to
conceptual analysis and description according to the analogy of
experience, — that is to hypothesis, which must be made definite
enough to be tested by sensible experience or observation.
The metaphysician notes that the scientific treatment of the
energies of bodies always regards them as objects of actual or
possible perception, or at least of intuition trained by percep-
tion, that is, as facts of objective consciousness. The latens
schematismus and the latens processus are not regarded as ap-
pertaining to things-by-themselves ; and all attempts to treat
them as ' occult qualities ' have been resultless. The ' positive '
method prevails, and a metaphysician who proposed to adopt
any other would hardly be considered worth a shrug.
Yet 1 suppose it is generally felt that the positive method
is adhered to not as absolutely satisfying, but as the only
possible one to work with for definite results. If the World,
as it is known, is a construction and projection of the per-
ceptual apparatus of our consciousness, how can ' power,' ' force,'
SUBSTANCE IN EXPERIENCE 137
' energy,' have any place in it ? In using such words we
certainly attribute to objects a feeling corresponding with our
own feelings of muscular exertion, which is in fact the ground
of all primary qualities; and yet we ctmnot attribute this
feeling to objects considered merely as our own perceptions ;
but can only mean that there goes along with the changes
(however inconceivable) of things-by-themselves, manifest as
movements and pressures of masses, a feeling of exertion in
some way analogous to our own feeling of exertion ; though
the power or force, whatever it may be, belongs not to the
thing's feeling but to the activity which that feeling accom-
panies. The greater diffusion of the feelings of temperature
and exertion, connected with nearly every part of our bodies,
not specially localised in organs like the retina, may make it
easier for us to suppose that they are shared by inorganic
Nature. From Nature comes all that we have, and we can
hardly help allowing her (though under protest) the most
vague and (during most of our life) the most submerged and
neglected sensations of all that she has endowed us with.
According to this hj^othesis. Laws of Nature, primarily
descriptive of phenomena, have, through the mediation of
phenomena, a correspondence with the powers and activities of
things-by-themselves, that constitute transcendent Eeality so
far as that Eeality is not itself consciousness. And we have
seen that the assumption of such a Reality is forced upon us
in many ways : by this instinctive belief in something not
oiurselves that consciously moves and strives ; by the fact that
the World, reflected on as a phenomenon, exists only in con-
sciousness, and as such is a distinct world for each of us,
whilst some common ground of all our experience is indis-
pensable ; by our need for some permanent condition of all
the things of which we have occasional glimpses, which were
already familiar to our life before subjective reflection began,
are figured to us by the history of the world as antecedent to
organic life, and in all our preparations for the future.
This ontological hypothesis has, I believe, the merit of not
making the slightest difference to any scientific proposition.
§ 7. The fundamental physical quality of a body is
138 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
inertia : any ostensive body that wants it is considered an
hallucination. It is sensibly known by the resistance things
offer to our movements or efforts to move, or (more abstractly)
by their resistance to acceleration. This is a measure of their
mass, and coincides with the measurement of mass by weight.
And it is in relation to mass that the physical principle is
generally understood which Kant gives as the First Analogy
of Experience : in all the changes of phenomena the substance
is permanent, and its quantity in Nature is neither increased
nor diminished.
The scientific evidence upon which the persistence of mass
rests is, first, the verifiability of mechanical calculations made
upon that assumption ; and secondly, the results of chemical
analysis and synthesis. And upon this basis the more positive
minds are sometimes content to rest the ancient principle
of the permanence of substance, or the persistence or conser-
vation of matter, as an universal truth or axiom. But recent
speculation as to the nature of atoms has tended to undermine
the position, by attempting to resolve atoms into some condi-
tion of the ether ; and plainly if atoms are in any way formed
out of ether, and by parity of reason may return into it, the
principle of persistence cannot be maintained with reference
to the number of atoms in the world ; nor could chemical or
mechanical investigations be appealed to as disproving the
increase or decrease of mass, since measurements are confessedly
imperfect, and addition or subtraction of atoms might take place
so slowly or in such remote parts of the universe as to escape
detection.
This is a physical question which physical inquiry must
determine by the appropriate methods ; but there is a manifest
speculative interest in the position that atoms and ether are not
everlastingly distinct modes of existence. How else can the
impulse to generalise to the utmost be satisfied ? And should
it be established, although the empirical evidence for the
persistence of matter may be impaired, the principle (we may
be sure) will not be abandoned : it will be extended from the
mass of the world, or the number of atoms, to the sum of atoms
and ether.
SUBSTANCE IN EXPERIENCE 139
Kant observes that, in all ages, not only the philosopher
bub even the popular understanding has assumed the per-
manence of a substratum amidst all changes of phenomena.
He does not mention the evidence he had for the popularity of
the belief, and probably many of us could tell amusing stories
of men who were far from believing it ; but it is remarkable
how easily the notion is grasped as soon as it is explained.
Primitive genesis-myths assume something original by which
the present world was begotten, hatched, or otherwise produced.
All the Ionic cosmologies based on the transmutability of the
elements, manifestly assume the permanence of the whole, and
even perhaps of a substratum (as Kant says) in the sense that
one of the elements — water, air, fire — is regarded as primordial
and essential, — a notion that grows especially clear in Anaxi-
mander's aireipov. Heracleitus gives the doctrine quantitative
expression : " This order, which is the same in all things, no
one of gods or men has made, but it was ever, is now, and
ever shall be an everlasting Fire, fixed measures of it kindling
and fixed measures of it going out" (Fr. 20, Burnet's trans-
lation). Still, as the exact measurement of ' Fire ' is not an
easy thing to conceive of, it is to the Atomists that we usually
trace the modern conception of the persistence of matter.
But, says Kant, no one has attempted to prove this pro-
position ; and, indeed, his own proof is such as might deter
others from attempting any. Time, according to him, is a
permanent form of intuition, but cannot be itself perceived.
Consequently in perceptions or phenomena there must be a
substratum representing time in general, so that every change
or co-existence can be perceived in the act of cognition by the
relation of phenomena to such substratum. This is Substance
{Analogien der Erfahrung — A). The derivation of the per-
manence of substance, then, depends on Kant's peculiar tenets :
first, that time is a priori whilst phenomena are empirical ; so
that their order can only be interpreted in relation to time :
secondly, that change can only be conceived in contrast with
something permanent. But it is better to regard the order
of phenomena and the cognition of time as emerging correl-
atively ; and our belief both in the infinity of time and in
140 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
the everlastingness of the world, as arising from our inex-
perience of any limit, and from the difficulty of conceiving any
end, break, or loss, in the regress or progress of changes ; and
this belongs to Causation rather than to Substance so far as
these can be distinguished. And for the perception of change,
it is enough that phenomena themselves should change at
different rates, some being relatively permanent ; and such is
our experience. And hence time is not permanent, and
cannot be so conceived except by confounding it with the
spatial representation of a line ; which is merely a device for
calculation, for chronology, or for picturing memories in a vista,
because space is the more vivid and definite form of perception.
Hamilton identifies the permanence of Substance with the
principle of Causality, and goes on to deduce it from " the
imbecility of the human mind " which results in the law of
the Conditioned. Hence an increase or decrease in the totality
of existence cannot be " construed in thought" {Metaphysics,
38, 40). '\A1ien Spencer began to write on Metaphysics he
was a good deal influenced by Hamilton, and adapted a priori
arguments to his own theory of mental evolution. " Our
conception of Matter," he says {First Principiles, § 48), " reduced
to its simplest shape, is that of co-existent positions that offer
resistance, as contrasted with our conception of Space, in which
the co-existent positions offer no resistance." And the inde-
structibility of Matter is a datum of consciousness ; for
" conceive Space to be cleared of all bodies save one. Now
imagine the remaining one not to be removed from its place,
but to lapse into nothing whilst standing in that place. You
fail. The space which was solid you cannot conceive becoming
empty, save by transfer of that which made it solid." This
results from the nature of thought as consisting in the
establishment of relations ; there can be no relation nor thought
" when one of the related terms is absent from consciousness.
Hence it is impossible to think of something becoming nothing,
for the same reason that it is impossible to think of nothing
becoming something — the reason, namely, that nothing cannot
become an object of consciousness " (§ 53). Such necessities
of thought have been rendered organic by immense accumula-
SUBSTANCE TN EXPERIENCE 141
tious of experieuces, received partly by the individual, but
mainly by all ancestral individuals whose nervous systems he
inherits (§ 54, note, referring to Fsych. §§ 426-433).
To these arguments it may be replied, (1) that when
challenged to imagine a body disappearing without being
removed, I do not fail. To imagine a disappearance is possible,
because it sometimes occurs in perception. To conceive it
with belief is, indeed, impossible, because it is in contradiction
with well-established concepts. But as Hamilton incon-
sistently says, " it is not competent to argue that what cannot
be comprehended as possible by us is impossible in reality " ;
and the validity of concepts depends partly upon the quantity
of experience they represent, partly upon the method of their
framing. (2) That the disappearance of a body is not in-
compatible with relational thought, since what remains is not
" nothing " but the space the body occupied, which is as
positive an object of experience as the body itself was. (3)
That the appeal to ancestral experience is inconsistent with
the demand to be judged by " disciplined thought " ; for this
has only been attainable during two or three generations ; and
two or three generations must be admitted to count for hardly
anything in comparison with our infinite lines of loose-thinking
ancestors. In fact, the inductive evidence indicated by Mr.
Spencer in § 5 2 (which might be indefinitely extended) is the
means of disciplining thought, rendering the belief definite and
the contrary truly inconceivable according to the analogy of
experience, though far from unimaginable.
Still, when the indestructibility of Matter is first proposed
to a boy, although the doctrine may be surprising, a little
explanation makes it readily conceivable and a thing to be
believed as a matter of course ; so that an hereditary predis-
position to understand and accept it may reasonably be assumed
to exist ; and such a predisposition needs to be accounted for.
The aspect of most things in Nature is relatively static
and permanent : the ground under our feet, the distant hills^
forests and watercourses. When increase or diminution takes
place, some conditions are usually obvious, as that the swelling
of streams and growth of plants depend upon rain, that the
142 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
growth of animals depends upon food. The chief contrary
experiences are evaporation and certain meteoric phenomena ;
but as soon as men lit fires it became possible to interpret
evaporation and the dispersal of clouds by analogy with smoke ;
lio-htning and shooting-stars were like the hurling of brands.
These dumb suggestions became more intelligible with the rise
of industries. In the shaping of arrow-heads or clubs, they
grew lighter ; but chips strewed the ground, and showed that
alteration of form was not a destruction of material. The
cares of a pastoral or agricultural life drew closer attention to
the conditions of growth and destruction. Building impressed
the belief that the construction of a new body needs the con-
sumption of materials. Building and the division of land
gave rise to the arts of measurement ; and commerce to definite
ideas of the measurement of all things. We may trace this
in another aphorism of Heracleitus closely connected with that
above quoted : " All things are exchanged for fire, and fire
for all things; as wares are exchanged for gold, and gold
for wares " : cf. Fr. 29, in which to exceed measure is regarded
as injustice.
Whilst, however, experience of Nature and of human
economy may explain the predisposition to understand the
permanence, transmutability, and measurability of things, yet
the permanence of Substance amidst all changes, considered
as a scientific postulate, depends upon something else and
still more primitive, namely, the growth of all relational
consciousness by discrimination and assimilation. To be dealt
with, all things must be discriminated; but they must be
assimilated to be understood. Hence it is an accepted doctrine
that the explanation of Nature consists in discovering the
resemblances of phenomena; and the most exact resemblance
is equality of magnitudes. It follows that Nature cannot be
intelligible unless amidst all changes exact equality is traceable
in the fundamental properties of matter or substance. The
conception, therefore, is employed in all investigation, and
methodical investigation defines and justifies the conception.
That the permanence of Substance must be an universal
truth because our understanding needs it and our narrow
SUBSTANCE IN EXPERIENCE 143
experience does not contradict it, may seem too great a claim
to be made by creatures whoso sublimest discoveries have
taught them their physical insiguiticauce. liut as laws of
Nature are established in ever greater numbers and in ever
throwing harmony, and are confirmed by success in applying
them to the arts on which our life securely builds, belief in
the first postulate of concrete science will certainly increase
in strength ; unless there be reason to suspect that the portion
of the universe within the range of investigation is not a fair
sample of the whole. At any rate the belief rests not on
" the imbecility of the human mind," but springs from the
function that has created science and made possible the reign
of Man.
CHAPTER VIII
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD
§ 1. The belief in Substance is immanent in Empirical Reality
and the concept of it has a place in popular understanding.
But we have seen that reflective examination of the empirical
notion leads to an ontological hypothesis concerning trans-
cendent Substance, and we must review the various forms
which this hypothesis has taken ; forms which are nearly all
of them still living, not merely fossil; though it may often
seem to the student of Metaphysics as if, amidst familiar
species of the modern world, he was confronted in some dark
jungle with monsters of the Jurassic Age.
Bodies perceived in relative rest or motion, and popularly
taken to be substantial, differ in many ways, and differences of
cohesion and specific gravity are amongst the most obvious
and general. Hence, very early, earth, water, air, and fire
were discriminated as the four elements ; and the first impulse
of the philosophic instinct amongst the Greeks, when they
attempted to explain the nature of the World, was to adopt
this distinction of elements and try to find some common
ground to which all might be reducible. Some surmised
that one or another element was primordial, and that the rest
were modifications of it by condensation and rarefaction.
Anaximander suggested a boundless something that was not
any one of the elements, but an indefinite totality out of
which they all arose and into which they all relapsed. After
a time, the conception of atoms was reached : minute, invisible
bodies, infinite in number, of various but definite size, shape
and weight ; being themselves none of the four elements,
144
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 145
but in their ever-changing combinations giving birth to
the elements and to all particular things. Then with the
increasing tendency to abstraction came the notion of a certain
characterless condition of things, itself without form or quality
{vXrj, uTTOKetfiivov), which might be supposed to subsist in or
underlie whatever has form or manifestation.
Now although, before this last stage was arrived at, a
change had come in the positing of the problem, yet all these
doctrines might have been the direct result of what may be
called inductive reflection, a serious thinking about the facts
without methodical analysis or experiment. They represent
an enterprising but necessarily crude inquiry in Physics,
Chemistry, or " Natural Philosophy," and do not partake of
the characteristic difiiculties of the metaphysics of Substance.
These are due to that change in the positing of the philo-
sophical problem that followed the attempt to construct a Theory
of Knowledge.
In the Theory of Knowledge there are two capital investi-
gations — by no means separable but convenient to distinguish —
into (1) the possibility of Perception, and (2) the possibility
of Science. The first may be traced to Democritus (or
Leucippus), the second to Plato, and both issue in speculations
that render the notion of Substance ever more and more
obscure and mysterious. In offering some preliminary
remarks upon the positions of these philosophers, it will fall
in best with the plan of this chapter if we violate chronology
and begin with Plato.
Plato's inquiry into the possibility of Science starts from
the conception of Science itself as universal and necessary
Knowledge ; such, therefore, as cannot, he thought, be
obtained from Empirical Eeality, considered (according to
the insight of Heracleitus) as subject to perpetual change.
Another region of things must exist as the object of Science ;
a region of things changeless and eternal : Ideas visible to
the mind, not to the senses, which nevertheless are the true
natures and the causes of all objects of perception according
to their kinds. A knowledge of the Idea, because it is one,
must be universal ; and necessary, because it is unchangeable :
10
146 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
and such knowledge is the only means of interpreting
Empirical Reality. These Ideas corresponded to the Defini-
tions sought by Socrates ; and in the earlier of Plato's dialogues
in which the theory occurs, they are a comprehensive collection,
natural and artificial, substantive and relational ; from which,
in his later reflections, what Mill terms ' Natural Kinds ' seem
to have emerged as the most important. Plato, however,
never succeeds in explaining the dialectic method by which
these Ideas are to be discovered, nor their relations to one
another, nor to the objects of perception and opinion ; and, in
fact, in the first part of the Farmenides, he is much more
successful in demonstrating the impossibility of his own theory
than he is in the Fhccdrus, Republic, or Phcedo, where he
endeavours to explain it. In his most ambitious constructions,
he has recourse to parables of a glorified Animism, the earliest
hypothesis of the human mind, upon which it always falls
back with relief when fatigued and perplexed by speculation.
So far as his positive conceptions are traceable he seems to
have held in the later phases of his philosophy, that the Ideas,
as objects and conditions of scientific thought and paradigms
of Nature, are themselves thoughts of the avro^Mov, itself the
supreme Idea {Tiin. 30, 31 and 52a); and this doctrine
was developed by the Neo-Platonists, and has been recast by
Hegel and his followers. The theory of Ideas was a state-
ment of what is demanded by a certain conception of Science ;
a conception overstrained and erroneous. Kant pursued the
same method, with results that are much more like Plato's
than a hurried reader is apt to perceive. But we cannot help
being astonished at the precocious audacity of Plato's philo-
sophical instinct in demanding universal and necessary
knowledge of the whole universe, when as yet no science
existed but a little elementary Arithmetic and Geometry.
From them the conception was derived ; and yet they were
regarded as an inferior kind of knowledge, compared with the
divine comprehension that would be attainable by a dialec-
tical intercourse with Ideas.
Elementary Mathematics also perhaps determined the
statical way in which the Ideas were generally taken, for
ONTOLOGY OF THE WOKLD 147
numbers and figures were amongst the Ideas. It is true that,
in the Philehus and Sophistes, Plato came to describe the
Ideas (Cause or Being) as living, rational, and active ; but
these conceptions are obscure, and incoherent with the rest
of his doctrine. It is true, again, that he saw the need and
the possibility of Dynamics, a pure science of Motion (for so I
interpret his account of Astronomy in the Repuhlic, 529-30):
but he never followed this indication. Had he been able to
do so, he might have found that the true character of Ideas,
as interpreters of the world of birth and change, is to be
Universals (or Laws) of process : thereby avoiding the diffi-
culty of connecting unchangeable Ideas with the Heracleitan
flux of phenomena.
However, we are here chiefly concerned with the ontological
consequences of the Ideal Theory ; and we observe that it re-
gards the truth of Being (or Substance, ovcrLa) as (1), in a
vague sense, the cause of Empirical Reality; whilst (2) it is
divorced from that Reality, as having another nature. Such
is Aristotle's interpretation, the justice of which is much
disputed ; and a history of the theory must discuss this question
at length. But, again, om- concern is with the opinions of
philosophers, or with opinions ascribed to them, only so far as
they have had an important influence upon the course of
classical thought ; and it will hardly be denied that the
Platonic Ideas have, until recently, had most effect upon
speculation according to this way of understanding them — the
Scholastic universalia ante rem.
The hypothesis of Democritus concerning Atoms necessarily
demanded a theory of Perception. For the atoms themselves
were invisible and intangible and differed from one another
only in shape, size, weight (proportionate to size) and position.
Objects of perception are formed of tangible groups of atoms,
from which some atoms emanating affect the soul (itself consist-
ing of the finer sort of atoms) ; and thence arise sensible heat,
colour, sound, smell, taste, in short the secondary qualities ;
whereas in the atoms and groups of atoms only the primary
qualities are present. We perceive things, therefore, not as
they really are, except perhaps in a gross way by touch, but
148 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
by a subjective representation which is entirely deceptive ;
though the real nature of things may be discovered by reason-
ing as distinct from sense-perception.
Now this fascinating paradox has haunted physical and
metaphysical inquiry ever since ; has been more prolific of
hypotheses than even the theory of Ideas ; has become so
familiar that many thinkers take it for granted, as an ultimate
fact, and as if the only business of speculation must be to
shape a theory agreeing with it.
We may distinguish four principal doctrines concerning
Substance which proceed from the Democritan theory of
Perception : Materialism, Hypothetical Eealism (as Hamilton
calls it), Subjective Idealism, and Nihilism.
§ 2. Materialism holds that the world of Atoms with their
primary qualities and motions, is the only real world ; that it
would exist much as it is now, if the finer atoms in animal
bodies (nervous system) had no consciousness ; that all sub-
jective phenomena, including the secondary qualities of bodies,
are relative, transient and non-essential — in Hobbes' words,
" as striking the eye makes us fancy a light."
The radical error of Materialism is to assume that scientific
theories are ontological doctrines. Hence three fallacies : (1) to
regard that gTeat mass of experience which consists in the
secondary qualities of bodies as relatively unreal, though it
comprises most of the data upon which scientific analyses are
founded; (2) to disparage consciousness and thought, as a
function of the brain, or epiphenomenon, though it is the very
seat of science ; and (3) to treat the remainder of Empirical
Eeality, the primary qualities of the object, together with the
conceptual interpretation of it in terms of atoms and ether,
as having independent Eeality ; though it is manifestly un-
known except as object of a Subject, that is, as a phenomenon.
The plausibility of Materialism has been greatly extended
in modern times by the theory of gravitation, which has taken
the place of the Epicurean clinamen ; by proofs of the persist-
ence of matter and energy, giving definiteness to the ancient
ex nihilo nihil ; by the physiological researches that have
discovered the chemical character of many vital processes, and
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 149
have on the whole streugthened the hypothesis that the animal
body is an automaton independent of consciousness ; and by
the explanation that Natural Selection gives of the appearances
of design in Nature.
On the other hand, the ontological significance of these
discoveries has been unexpectedly weakened by the theory of
Natiu-al Selection. For it is a leading idea of that theory that
every property of organic life is acquired and developed for
its usefulness ; and this condition must apply to consciousness,
if consciousness is acquired ; since it not only accompanies
animal life (at least) but increases and develops step by step
with the progress of organisation.
Now, if consciousness, as such, is useful, it must be a
vehicle or mode of energy correlated with the physical forces,
and therefore a reality in the same sense as they are. But if
it is not useful, it must be necessary or essential ; that is to
say, it must be not an acquired attribute but inherent in Nature,
and must appear in its organic form when organised animals
appear, as a matter of course and because it cannot be other-
wise. Whether, then, consciousness is a mode of energy
correlated with the physical forces, and therefore capable of
intervening in animal activities, is an all-important question.
If it is not, and if all animal activities admit of a purely
physiological explanation, consciousness cannot be regarded as
an effect of organic matter and energy ; because all the efficacy
of physical energy (outward stimulus and inward potential) is
absorbed in physical activities and their consequences in the
environment. This is precisely why consciousness has been called
an epiphenomenon, because the physical, chemical, and bio-
logical laws that explain phenomena, have not the slightest
hold upon it. But to consciousness, as to anything else, the
principle ex nihilo nihil and the Law of Continuity apply.
Unless then, these principles be abandoned, consciousness must
be regarded as a continuum self-generated and self-perpetuative
from everlasting to everlasting. But if consciousness be a
mode of energy, though it must then be real in the same sense
as physical heat and light are, yet it is, like them, material,
and it is conditional in its manifestations ; and therefore
150 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
conceivably its realisation may be interrupted ; it may be
for vast periods of time non-existent, if the conditions of its
manifestation nowhere exist. In short, to establish Materialism,
the one requisite is, to show that consciousness absorbs, trans-
mits, or propagates energy.
To me, certainly, it seems next to nonsense, or next after
nonsense, to speak of consciousness as possibly a mode of
physical energy ; and it is as useless to identify it with the
ether as with molecular nervous structures. How, in fact,
do such notions differ from those of Epicurus, who thought
the soul consisted of the finer sort of atoms ; or from those of
the Stoics, who said it was a kind of fire ?
§ 3. Hypothetical Realism differs from Materialism (as I
understand it) chiefly in two ways: (1) the Materialist holds
that we perceive things as they really exist (at least in their
primary qualities), whereas the Hypothetical Eealist says that
even in the primary qualities we perceive only signs or re-
presentations of the true Reality. (2) The Materialist holds
that perception arises from the interaction of the inorganic
world and organic (animal) bodies, both being of the same
substance ; whereas the Hypothetical Realist regards perception
as due indeed to some stimulus from the material world, but
as essentially depending upon the reciprocal activity of a
Subject, soul or spirit, w^hose nature it is to perceive and know ;
and therefore he believes in two substances, a material and a
spiritual.
As to what is the object of perception, the thing
perceived. Hypothetical Realists are not agreed. Locke, e.g.,
appears to have held that it was a tertium quid between mind
and matter ; for he speaks of abstract material substance as
something of which we have only a confused idea ; whilst
particular substances (or things) exist in such a way that their
primary qualities belong to them whether we perceive them
or not ; and of these particular things we obtain ideas by
sensation. He thus recognises four factors in perception, —
Material Substance, Things, Ideas, Spirits (FssaT/ concerning
Human Understanding, Book II. chap, xxiii.).
Malebranche, again, thought that the Cartesian distinction
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 151
between Mind and Matter (Thought and Extension) made
any intercourse between the two impossiVjle ; that the material
world, thougli it exists as created, is incapable of stimulating
a mind to perceive it ; but that what we perceive is the ideas
of the world in God, by means of sensations (joined to the
ideas) which He causes in us on the occasion of objects being
present {Recherche de la V., Bk. IIL Pt. II. ch. vi.). This is
what Malebranche calls " seeing all things in God " ; but he
should rather have said " understanding them there." For so
far as perception is sensible, it is not in God, but caused by
Him in us ; whereupon the idea, which we know in God,
interprets the thing to us according to its kind.
If the ideas in God are supposed to be distinct from our
own, they constitute a sort of tertium quid, in as much as
they are neither material things nor our ideas, though allied
to our ideas, as beings also of intelligible, though more perfect
nature. But perhaps Malebranche's view rather is, that the
ideas of things in God are also our own by a limited
participation — God being the place both of ideas and of
spirits — a mystical doctrine which he pretends not to explain :
neither do I.
To take another example : there can be no question that
in Kant's view the thing perceived is a modification of our
own minds, being constructed out of sensations by the
imagination according to the forms of intuition and
understanding. As for the sensations, they are due to the
stimulus of some apparently alien condition, the Ding an sich ;
which, however, it is suggested may have the same source as
Reason ; and so it must in order to satisfy Kant's ethics.
Now, although Substance, according to the system of the
K d. r. v., is a category applicable only to phenomena, yet in
the second edition, at least, the Ding an sich is either Substance
or nothing at all ; and Kant is very anxious that it shall not
be nothing at all. In fact it is much like Locke's abstract
Substance.
Every one knows how useless the notion of Substance is
to the Hypothetical Realists. Malebranche received it as a
burden laid upon him by the first chapter of Genesis : he had
152 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
no use for it. In other systems, where Substance is a mere X
without assignable quality or character, it can resemble
nothing in experience, and therefore can explain nothing.
Perhaps, however, one character is always ascribed to Substance,
namely, perdurability ; and this is felt to be important, as
corresponding with the continuity of the empirical World in
past and future time, or during the sleep or absence of the
empirical Subject. Still, such perdurability is of little avail
unless some connection can be indicated between the supposed
substance and the qualities of actual bodies ; and all the
terms once in use for suggesting the relation proposed, such as
" support," " underlie," " inhere," " depend," are undisguisable
metaphors. In Mill's opinion the notion of substance is
partly due to our supposing that something must exist,
related to the primary qualities of bodies in a way analogous
to that in which the primary stand to the secondary. As the
secondary qualities stand to the primary so do the primary
to X — is a plausible adaptation of the " rule of three." But X
remains a blank qucesitum. The form of inference is unful-
filled ; for whilst the relation of secondary to primary
qualities can be determined as a matter of fact by induction,
to find the relation of the primary qualities to X we are left
groping about in the emptiness of pure reason.
In this situation it is natural to the natural man to try
to reduce Substance to Cause ; and formerly the attempt was
excusable, so easily current was the word Cause, and so desti-
tute of precise meaning. But the excuse no longer exists :
for —
(1) On any view of the grounds of the law of Causation,
whether Humean, Kantian, or evolutionary, Causation is a
category of experience, and to apply it to X is to make a
transcendent use of it.
(2) Causation is the explanation of events, and neither
substance nor quality is an event ; in other words, Causation
involves a series in time and the relation of Substance and
Attribute does not.
(3) Again, every Cause is absorbed in its Effect; but
Substance is not absorbed by its Attributes.
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 153
(4) The Cause is quantitatively equal to the Effect ; but
no quantitative relation between Substance and Attriljute is
intelligible.
(5) Causation implies the reciprocity of co-existing
empirical substances or agents, as localised groups of interfused
qualities : it cannot, therefore, explain the origin of such groups
of qualities, nor the reciprocity obtaining between them.
The inapplicability of Cause and Effect — a category of the
synthesis of phenomena — to the case of Eeality and Pheno-
menon was insisted on by Schopenhauer.
Still, the notion of perdurable transcendent Substance has
a function of its own in giving coherence to the system of
experience. As a refuge from Solipsism and Nihilism, it is
ancient, popular, and classical ; and the modern academic outcry
against the Ding an sich is hysterical. Taking consciousness
to be immediate Reality, does it express or comprise the whole
of Reality ? If not, the remainder of Reality is not in
consciousness but is manifested in consciousness by phenomena.
The relation of Substance and Attribute is the same as
Noumenon and Phenomenon, and accordingly Kant calls the
unconditioned world the cosmological Idea. But these
relations are incurably static and otiose ; and therefore it may
be better to name a new Category — Manifestation (" Objecti-
vation," Schopenhauer called it) — and to recognise fully its
one-sided character. It stands for a relation of which there
is only one term in experience : it is therefore an Imperfect
Category, not constitutive but only indicative or orectic ; for
the other term, lying beyond experience, is inapprehensible.
But I think it reasonable (as shown in Chap. VII. § 5) to
transfer to the transcendent term some of the forms of sub-
jective Reality, if not also those of phenomena in space.
Let us first see whether there is not some other way of
interpreting Substance which may make my hypothesis
superfluous.
§ 4. Subjective Idealism — the doctrine that, since whatever
we directly know is reducible to ideas (percepts or images), the
world consists entirely of Spirits and their ideas — follows
very naturally upon the recognition of the otiose and
154 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
ineffective character of X, the abstract Substance of Hypothetic
Eealism. Some critics suppose that Berkeley, the founder of
Subjective Idealism, derived the doctrine from Malebranche, his
senior contemporary, in whose theory Matter is most otiose
and superfluous. But it seems a juster view that Berkeley
proceeded from Locke, rejecting the " confused notion of Sub-
stance," which Locke had done much to discredit, and developing
an hypothesis of the world as perceived, according to his own
view of the impossibility of abstract ideas.
It is needless nowadays to explain that by ' ideas ' Berkeley,
following Locke, meant " whatever is the object of the mind,"
and therefore sensations and perceptions (contrary to the use
of Malebranche) as well as images or representations of memory,
imagination, reason ; though the overlooking of his meaning,
carefully explained by Berkeley, and obvious to every one who
studies systems in their historical context, has misled innumer-
able critics, not only Dr. Johnson but even Kant. Natural
objects, such as cherry trees, are percepts (or ideas) ; they are
objects of a mind : a perceiving mind is essential to the
existence of things perceived ; whose esse is percipi ; and to
attempt to think of them as not perceived is to try to frame
an abstract idea : which is impossible. By means of images,
words, or signs, taken in a representative way, general thinking
is possible, but not abstract thinking, as Locke had supposed.
We can never separate in thought what may not possibly exist
separately : a percept cannot exist without a percipient, and
therefore cannot be thought to do so : it implies a contradiction.
We cannot consider objects of the mind as even resembling
things that are not objects of the mind : only an idea can be
like an idea: colour cannot be like something invisible. A
material substratum, without qualities and imperceivable, is the
most monstrous and contradictory abstraction of all.
But besides ideas there are spirits. A spirit is a perceiving
active being " entirely distinct from ideas." Ideas depend upon
a perceiving mind or spirit ; and as they only exist as per-
ceived, we know all that they contain ; and we do not perceive
in them any power. They are passive and inert, and therefore
we can have no idea of a spirit, but only a sort of notion got
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 155
by intuition, or reflection upon our own thinking and activity.
All power resides in spirits : " I have no notion of any action
distinct from volition," nor of volition except in a spirit {Hyl.
and Phil. iii.).
Ideas in the narrow sense, those of memory and imagina-
tion, are under my control ; but those of sensation, dis-
tinguished by greater vividness and by a certain unalterable
order, are not. These latter " have an existence exterior to my
mind, since I find them by experience to be independent of it."
They cannot be caused by the supposed ' Matter,' for that is
inert (such was the prevalent belief), and, moreover, has no
ideas to communicate. Yet they exist in the intervals when
I do not perceive them, preceded my birth and would survive
my annihilation. And all finite spirits are in the same case
in relation to such ideas. They must therefore be known to
an omnipresent eternal Mind. Such a mind cannot be known
to us by an inert idea, but only by a notion " obtained by
reflecting on my own soul, heightening its powers and removing
its imperfections." For God is of infinite power, creates and
upholds the world, and presents it to our perception. Not
that it is present to Him sensibly as it is to us ; but " there is
a twofold state of things, the one ectypal or natural, the other
archetypal and eternal The former was created in time"
[made perceivable to finite minds — angels] ; " the latter existed
from everlasting in the mind of God " {Hyl. and Phil. iii.).
It thus appears that Berkeley acknowledged the need of a
perdurable Substance corresponding with the continuity of
Physical Eeality, but found this in the Theological Idea and
could dispense with the cosmological. The hypothesis is com-
plicated by archetypal Ideas, merely taken for granted ; and by
the relation of these to the ectypal, which, whether by imitation
or participation, introduces all the controversy concerning the
universalia ante rem. I fear, too, he ought to have seen that
a mind without sensibility is an impossible abstract idea.
But were the divine ideas sensible and qualitatively the same_
as ours, yet their existence would not help the problem of ex-
ternal perception ; for, as Mill says, the divine ideas are not
identical with those of a finite mind, and cannot constitute or
156 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
sustain my world. And, finally, spirits are not only perceiving
but active ; they are agents : their whole being is not expressed
in perceiving or knowing ; for ideas cannot be like a power,
nor can a " notion " we have of it. A notion of our activity is
not itself that activity. The power of God is a separate thing
from the natural World in time and in consciousness. Con-
sciousness, then, is not power ; the consciousness of power is
not power ; there is something more than consciousness in
Berkeley's ultimate Being.
§ 5. Nihilism is the doctrine that there is no Substance of
either matter or mind, that perceptions and ideas are the only
realities. To ascribe this position to Hume is an unwarrant-
able grafting of a dogma upon his scepticism. Some oriental
scholars tell us that Nihilism is to be found in the metaphysics
of Buddhism ; but Karma, the synthetic principle of the world,
according to that philosophy, a sort of mystical causation allied
to Nemesis, implies that in Keality there is something else
than consciousness. Again, Mill's Psychological Theory of an
External World, expounded in his Examination of Hamilton's
Philosophy (chap. xi. and Appendix to chap, xii.), has this in
common with Nihilism, that it attempts to restate the doctrine
of Subjective Idealism without Berkeley's theological hypothesis.
Mill undertakes to show that the belief in an external World
is not intuitive but acquired, if it be granted (1) that the
human mind is capable of expectation, and that the Laws of
Association describe the course of its ideas ; and (2) that in
Nature sensations occur in uniform orders simultaneous and
successive. The belief to he explained is, that things exist
when unperceived and unthought of, and even before being
known either by ourselves or others, and would exist if we were
all annihilated, and that there is something perdurable and
independent of us, which is moreover a sort of substratum and
cause of our sensations.
The first instructive experience is that when some sensa-
tions are actual others are possible, namely, those obtainable in
the next room and in all parts of the world ; and these are
generally far more important to me than my present actual
sensations. Then, every particular object presents the same
ONTOLOGY OF TliP: WORLD 157
contrast : it is a group of sensations, sonic actual, otliers pos-
sible. If the sensation of colour is actual, resistance is possible ;
so that there arises the notion of a permanent background or
substratum to any actual experience. Call this group a thing,
instead of a group of sensations, and we easily imagine it is
something else than sensations. Again, sensations have laws
of recurrence ; but the most important of all laws. Causation,
prevails, chietly, amongst not the actual but the possible
sensations, effecting changes in them and consequently in our
actual sensations. If the changes occur in our absence we have
different sensations on returning, and we learn to expect such
changes according to laws. Distribution of things in place is less
regular than causation, but it is definite ; any absent thing or
group of sensations (say, a chair in the next room) can only be
realised by going through certain definite series of sensations.
Such law and order is independent of our will ; therefore the
possibilities of sensation are believed to be independent of us.
The possibilities and the order of them are the same for us and
for other minds ; therefore they are external to us. Finally,
the notion of Matter as something dilt'ering from and underlying
all series and groups of sensations, is generated by our conceiv-
ing, negatively, something which differs from all experience as
the elements of experience differ from one another, and which
stands in the background of all sensations as the possible
sensations underlie the actual. Thus we inevitably grow up
in the belief that there is something permanent, independent,
external, unlike all sense-experience and yet the ground and
cause of that experience and its laws.
Remembering the state of Psychology when Mill wrote, it
will be admitted that his theory was well-reasoned : some-
thing closely allied to it was accepted by Bain, Huxley and
others. Bain, indeed, in his Life of J. S. Mill (chap. iv. ; cf.
Senses arid Intellect, "Intellect," chap. i. § 38), says that more
stress should have been laid upon the sense of resistance
as fundamental in our objective consciousness, and upon the
fact of the object being common to others as proving its
independence of ourselves. He also explains the importance
of the definite changes which sensations of sight, hearing, etc.,
158 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
undergo according to our own movements : in strong contrast
with the relation between our movements and subjective
feeUngs. It should also, I think, be pointed out that the
connection between our own mind and one sensation-group
(our body), being transferred by analogy (whether justifiably
or not) to other sensation-groups, saves the notion of Matter,
as something differing from and underlying all groups
and series of sensations, from being entirely negative. Mill's
assumption that our most profound forms of cognition can be
explained by conscious experience, allowing nothing for organic
inheritance and growth, is merely a clue to the date of
his book.
But it will be observed that Mill's original purpose was
to give a merely psychological account of external perception
— an analysis of the behef in an external World, and of how
that belief is arrived at ; and had that been the whole result,
his doctrine could hardly have figured in our present ontological
investigation. He would have repudiated Ontology as a
delusive place of spectres ; but that many of his readers took
the " possibilities of sensation " in an ontological sense, is
plain from the criticisms they published ; and I think their
misapprehension modified Mill's own conception of his theory.
For in the Appendix to chap. xii. he writes, that almost
all philosophers are agreed " that Substance need only be
postulated as a support for phenomena, or as a bond of
connection to hold a group or series of otherwise unconnected
phenomena together : let us only then think away the support,
and suppose the phenomena to remain, and to be held
together in the same groups and series by some other agency,
or without any agency but an internal law, and every con-
sequence follows without Substance, for the sake of which
Substance was assumed." In this passage " some other agency "
might be the Divine Mind, as in Berkeley's theory ; " without
any agency but an internal law," suggests that ' law ' may be
an ontological agent, — but this is only a verbal slip. Mill
must be understood to say that a law of the order of experience,
or the uniformity of experience itself, is enough without any
ground beyond experience.
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 159
Distinctions that may appear pedantic are often indispens-
able. There are three ways of considering the external World :
(1) to give a psychological explanation of our belief in it:
Mill's original purpose, as to which we may say of liis work
— so far good. (2) To determine the methodological con-
ception of Nature ; that is, a conception adequate to the
demands of the Natural Sciences : for which Mill's suggestion
of ' groups and series of phenomena connected only by laws '
may suffice ; it is equivalent to the region of Empirical and
Physical Reality. This is the supreme methodological postu-
late, and according to some philosophers the determination
of it is the limit of Metaphysics (see the discussions in
Karl Pearson's Grammar of Science). But (3) there remains
the ontological question, whether to complete the whole
circuit of our Knowledge and Belief anything must be
assumed besides the phenomena ? As to Mill's theory, what,
after all, are the " possibilities of sensation " ? How can
" phenomena " be supposed to remain in the absence of a
Subject ?
Two points seem to me of chief importance : (1) to account
for changes of phenomena that go on in the absence of any
known percipient — say the burning away of a fire whilst we
are out of the room. No doubt we think of this according
to the analogy of experience, as a series of perceptions which
we should have had if present. But, then, as we were not
present, there was for us no real possibility of sensation but
only one of the conditions — a condition of the Non-Esro.
What was it ? Clearly, there can be no " permanent possibility
of sensation " unless a Subject is permanently present : in his
absence, there can be merely some unknown condition of things,
such that the realisation of sensations is contingent only on
the Subject's return. The case of the World before the
genesis of animal life or sensitive beings, is in the same position.
We think of it as we should have perceived it had we been
present : but as we were not there, and yet must either hold
that there was something there, or else give up our belief in
the continuity of the World, we may if we like call that some-
thing ' a permanent condition not ourselves of tlie possibility
160 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
of sensation/ but this seems only long-hand for Ding an sich,
or Being, or X.
Then (2) there is the fact that the external world is
believed to be common to oneself and others. Mill says in the
Appendix to chaps, xi. xii. : " On the same evidence on
which I recognise foreign threads of consciousness, I believe
that the Permanent Possibilities of sensation are common to
them and to me : but not the sensations." The Permanent
Possibilities then, are not themselves sensations ; they are not
themselves objects of cognition, but one side of the conditions
of cognition ; and, as such, in their one-sidedness, permanent
and apparently independent, but unknown. What is this but
Hypothetical Kealism ?
Thus even the working out of the Psychological Theory
seems to involve Ontology : and the interest of this for us is,
that we are inquiring whether any svich theory of Substance
is necessary to complete the system of Empirical Eeality.
Physical theories of Nature assume the presence of the Subject
as a latent term in all their propositions ; even atoms and
ether are conceived in analogy with objects perceived ; the
continuity of Nature in all directions is an unfailing
contingency of one phenomenon upon another. But if we
admit the possibility of any state of the World in which no
organic consciousness exists, there is no longer a possibility of
organised percepts. How then shall we conceive or express
that state of the World ?
§ 6. This surd of analysis, then, this perdurable somewhat,
independent certainly of our private minds, can it be rationalised
by any of the doctrines that descend to us from Plato ? They
are chiefly three : ( 1 ) That Ideas are the sole Eeality of the
World, self-existent and the ground of all particular things ;
(2) that the Ideas are archetypes of all things, but exist in
the Divine Mind ; (3) that Ideas or Forms are the essence
of all things and immanent in them — universalia in re.
The third doctrine was never able to give any account of
the accidents or differences of things without referring to
Matter ; and, if interpreted according to modern Methodology,
in which ' Universal ' is equivalent to Definition or Law, it is
ONTOLOGY OF THE WOELD 161
compatible with Materialism. The first doctrine is no longer
maintained ; the second, that the Ideas exist in a Divine
Mind, is a compromise with Theology. It gives by anthro-
pomorphic analogy a factitious unity to the Ideas, whereas
their unity must subsist in their relations ; but it rests the
World upon Reason, not Will, and makes (as Hooker says)
the Being of God a kind of law to His working.
Berkeley, in his earlier writings, made only a tentative
alliance with Hellenic thought ; but in Siris we find that its
influence has grown upon him ; so that by suggestion rather
than assertion he leads us to the nobler view of an Universal
Reason, and of our relation to it, citing the authority of Plato,
Aristotle, the Neo-Platonists, and others ; though not without
hints of their probable indebtedness to Moses. More explicitly
the doctrine is stated by Cudworth {Eternal and Im. Mor.
Book I. chap. iii. § 7), and it seems to be the sense of many
theologians who follow the Johannine Gospel. But it had
taken little hold of our Philosophy until the imposing vogue
of such theories in Germany gained the adhesion of certain
English thinkers, most notably Coleridge and Green. As it
cannot matter which exposition of this view we take, I shall
consider it chiefly as it appears in Green : he being the most
recent and the most explicit, and availing himself of modern
scientific doctrines in his exposition.
According to Green, Nature is a system of relations ; it
is [essentially knowledge : in the experience of each man the
manifold particulars presented to him are combined into one
orderly whole by the activity of his intelligence ; and if his
experience is imperfect and fragmentary, implying a greater
whole beyond it, that greater whole can only be conceived as
real and orderly and one, by means of a unifying principle
analogous to — say, rather, the original of — human thought :
namely, the Universal Reason {Prolegomena, Book I. chap. i.).
Such is the ground of the perdurability of things and of their
independence of the particular Subject, which are unexplained
by Mill and Berkeley ; for they make the mistake of beginning
with inert sensations or ideas that have no principle of unity.
Should Green be asked how sensation is to be explained if
11
162 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
we begin with understanding, his reply is, that we have no
knowledge of sensation merely as such and unrelated, and that
what we regard as the sensation-element in perception is
found on examination to be determinable only in its relations
ad infinitum (cf. Hegel's Encyklopadie, § 20). Sensation is
an illusion of subjective consciousness. In the real world of
knowledge there is nothing that needs a Ding an sich to
account for it, or anything other than the spiritual principle in
Nature (§§ 42-51).
Now it is true, in my judgment, that wholly unrelated
sensation is unknown : from the fact that our consciousness is
relational it follows that if sensations are known it must be
in relations ; but it also follows that there must be terms for
relations to relate, and that at last these terms cannot
themselves be relations. Nature, as a system of relations that
at last relate nothing, is both a contradiction in thought and
a divorce of experience. Even Plotinus found a place for
Matter as to ea-j^aTov : no bad name for elementary sensation,
whatever that may be.
Instead of this abstract method of explaining away
sensation, an Hegelian may resort to confusion of metaphors.
In Hutchison Stirling's Secret of Hegel (Book I. chap, iii.) he
says that the thought which constitutes the world is not
" subjective thought ; it is objective thought ; it is thought
really out there, if you will, in that incrustation that is named
the world. It, this world and all outer objects, are but
sensuous congeries, sensuous incrustations of these thoughts.
Did a human subject not exist, it is conceivable that this
congeries and incrustation would still exist." But it matters
little, for " Thought is a system and this system is the
universe, and the element of sense, or what we conceive as
that element, is nothing as against this system, and can only
be named with propriety the Other." Sensuous incrustations
of thought, then, are independent of man (or of a sensuous
Subject), and for the Absolute they are the Other. It is
useless to ask, how can there be an Other for the Absolute, or
how the Absolute's own thoughts can incrust and congest
themselves into an Other ; for in this system the Absolute is
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 163
constructed to contain whatever it may be convenient to find
there.
It occurs to Green that the word " thought " is hardly
strong enough to characterise the unifying principle in
Nature; for of course our thoughts are transient and often
erroneous, and we correct tliem by Nature which is permanent
and unchangeable ; and he suggests that the true character of
thought is rather to be sought in the unity of its object, that
is, in Nature itself (§ 47). To understand Nature he has
referred us to our own thought ; and now for the truth of
thought he refers us to Nature. Pursuing the latter sugges-
tion, he goes on to argue that our thought is not a process in
time. But it would be an intricate task to pursue his
argument in detail ; so seeing that, in fact, thought does take
time, I shall be content to exhibit under three heads the
difficulties of understanding Nature or the Laws of Nature as
thought.
In the first place, it cannot be admitted that the system
of Nature is only to be understood as the content of an
Universal Unity of Apperception. The analogy of the human
mind gives no support to such a view ; every mind comprises
and depends upon an infinity of indiscernible elements that
never enter into the unity of apperception ; and, moreover,
every mind once contained a vast deal that, having passed
through that unity, has disappeared beyond its grasp.
Again, in human minds the unity of apperception does not
determine the laws of growth, but is itself a gradual outcome
of those laws : so that, by analogy, an Universal Unity of
Apperception would cast little or no light upon the reciprocity
and causation of things in the World, but must rather be
explained as a result of them — as, in fact, the brain of the
philosopher must be explained. Hence physical science
conceives the world as unified by Gravity, the Conservation of
Energy, etc.
In the second place, most laws of the perdurable and
independent contents of Nature, are not like laws of the
human mind. A fire which, during my absence, burns itself
out and falls to the bottom of the grate, follows chemical and
164 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
mechanical laws ; whilst the laws of the mind are (or are
analogous to) those of organic life, or else peculiarly subjective.
In the third place, to speak of objective Thought as so
" incrusted and congested " as to become common to all per-
cipients, or in any way directly to manifest itself to all beholders,
is to overlook the essential subjectivity of thought in the usual
sense of the word. Thought may be objective in the sense that
all can agree to think it ; and in this sense every scientific law
is an objective thought. But in the sense of being an object
of perception to others, " objective thought " is a contradiction
in terms. Thought in the individual is only known to himself ;
and can only be expressed to others by grimace, gesticulation,
speech, or some other bodily activity. Hence, if in such a case
it is possible at all to pursue an analogy, we ought to infer that
the objective Thought of Universal Reason can only find public
expression (so to speak) through the activity of bodies ; and
this I take to be the Semitic or popular sense in which God is
said to reveal Himself in His creation. But if there is no
analogy with human thought, there is no meaning in the words.
I conclude, then, that to speak of Nature as itself the
Universal Reason or Thought, is an abuse of language (cf.
Hegel's Uncyklopddie, § 24) ; that the objectifying or hypos-
tatising of thought does not give us the differential characters
of inorganic Nature ; and that it does not explain the fact of
Empirical Reality, where thought and sensation meet in the
perceptions and experience of normal men.
There are three senses in which the World may by a figure
of speech be called rational: (1) in the Semitic or popular
sense, according to which it is believed to be a created material
thing, operating by laws imposed by God and, of course, by the
Reason of God, — it is a work of Reason. (2) By a sort of
metonymy, transferring to an object the name of an activity
concerned with it ; for as the interpretation of Nature is the
work of Reason, the interpretation itself, when discovered, may
be called rational. (3) Since every result of the interpretation,
displaying continuity and universality, is admitted to govern
every subsequent inquiry, the World, whose character is given
by that interpretation, comes more and more to be regarded as
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 165
the judge, or as the type and fulfilment of Reason herself.
But it may be a left-handed compliment to ascribe to the
World our own faculties ; and whether it is finally justifiable
to do so is a consideration beyond the Metaphysics of Nature.
§ 7. It remains to consider certain systems of Monism, in
which Absolute Substance is conceived as neither Mind nor
Matter, but as a somewhat of which both these are manifesta-
tions. It will suffice to notice three : Spinoza's, Schopenhauer's
and Spencer's.
According to Spinoza, God is a Substance of infinite
attributes, of which two enter into human nature and are known
to us, namely, Thought and Extension. The attributes are
diversified into modes: every mode of thought corresponds
with a mode of extension, and all changes or processes of the
world run a parallel course in both modes : there is no causation
between the lines of change. God is both a thinking Thing
and an extended Thing; and the full knowledge of this in
all its relations and consequences is human perfection and
happiness.
Now, in so far as God exists in other attributes than
Thought and Extension, He is to us unknowable ; but must
be known to some mind ; for an attribute implies mind to
perceive it. Hence it may be said that since an attribute is
only a way of perceiving Substance, and since Substance is a
perceiving Thing, Spinoza's system works out into Absolute
Idealism. But certainly Spinoza did not intend this. That
there is something other than consciousness, is necessary to
his doctrine, that it is only as the human body is a mode of
extension that the human mind is able to perceive extended
things and to understand the order of Nature. That God can
only be known to mind is an identical proposition ; but it is
not merely as mind that He is known.
The existence of God appears in a system of rigidly
mechanical and mental determinations. Substance apart from
the attributes has no place in the course of the world, which
conforms to the requirements of a scientific Methodology.
The name of God in Spinoza's system is a kind of rhetoric,
softening the intellectuality of his philosophy, but never
166 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
modifying its career ; and we see in his reception by mankind
that the rhetoric was effectual with himself rather than with
his readers. Not that he was insincere : the place of God in
his system was derived both from his racial traditions and
from his Cartesian culture : and if every one is to be called
insincere who clings to certain words that have little intel-
lectual significance for him, few of us can pass for honest.
But I hold that the general judgment of men in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, that the author who often uses the
phrase ' God or Nature ' was a Naturalist rather than a Theo-
logian, is defensible. In his heart he was, as Coleridge said, a
" God-intoxicated man " ; but his system, apart from his own
feelings about it, — as a moment in the history of thought, —
cannot be called " Acosmism," as by Hegel, without confusion
of ideas. Hence, although the name of God gave him strength
to cast out many scholastic prejudices, it remained a name and
a feeling.
Schopenhauer's theory is that the Eeality of the World is
Will ; but this Will is originally blind : Ideas, consciousness,
understanding, phenomena in space, are all of them results of
its activity. The primordial exertion of the Will is as obscui^e
as the beginning of things in every system that from the One
pretends to derive the many. According to Schopenhauer's
verbal formula, the first objectifying of the Will takes place
in the species of things (Ideas) ; the second, in individuals in
Time and Space : all the forces of Nature and all the desires
of beasts and men are also modes of its manifestation. He
adopts Kant's position in the Transcendcntale Analytik that
Causality is a judgment applicable only to the synthesis of
phenomena, and therefore not to the objectifying of the Will
in phenomena. We find in our own being that Will is the
Eeality, our body its phenomenon ; and the same is true of the
whole World.
Now the Will is evil : its crime is to forsake its absolute
condition, sole and eternal, and to multiply itself in in-
dividuals ever striving and perishing. That this endeavour
is evil the universal pain of animal life declares : in which
life, through the advent of consciousness and perception, a
ONTOLOGV OF THE WORLD 107
manifold existeuce first becomes recognisable in Time and
Space ; for these, as Kant showed, are forms of perception,
and are the principles of individuation. It follows that our
existence as individuals is illusory; in Eeality the one Will
lives in each and all. Intelligence increases with organisation
to meet the increasing complexity of life ; it culminates in
Man, or rather in men of genius ; and then the Will meets
with Nemesis ; for by art-intuition, by sympathy and, above
all, by philosophy the falsehood of individuality with all its
strife and pain is felt and seen and repudiated.
Schopenhauer, then, regards consciousness as a secondary
and ancillary thing in the World, brought forth for the
ser\ace of the individual life ; and he gives no intelligible
derivation of it. Bewustlosigkeit ist der urspriingliche imd
natlirliche Zustand aller Dinge. Most things remain in this
state : plants have at most a faint analogue of consciousness ;
the lowest animals merely a glimmering of it ( Welt als W. u.
v., Ergiinzungen, Book I. chap. xv.). Yet at the end of the
previous chapter he has specidated upon grades of subcon-
sciousness in man, and might have extended the conception
to inorganic Nature. I seem to remember that somewhere
he does so, but cannot recover the passage. The term ' Will '
suggests consciousness ; but for Schopenhauer Will is the
genus of all forces, not (as often conceived) a species of force
{W. a. W. u. v., Book II. chap. xxii.). Will, as subjectively
experienced, is consciousness ; but consciousness is not force,
and can never be derived from force, nor traced to anything
that is not consciousness. It is of no avail, for instance, to
invent the name of ' metakinesis ' to bridge the gulf between
kinesis and consciousness. It is like Kant's attempt to bring
Understanding to Sense by means of Imagination ; or like the
series of emanations or generations by which Plotinus derives
Matter from the One. A middle term between concepts
cannot make them agree ; it can only exhibit their agreement ;
where no agreement exists no middle term can make it
conceivable. If we propose a middle term that does not
agree with either extreme, we then have not one inconceivable
but two inconceivables ; and to increase the number of
168 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
inconceivables does not decrease their inconceivability. Hence,
if Schopenhauer's system is not sheer Dynamism, its Reality
is altogether distinct from Consciousness.
In Spencer's philosophy {Psychology, Part VII.) the
Absolute is described as something existing beyond conscious-
ness, and unknowable except as the Force implied in our
sense of resistance to muscular efforts, and as corresponding
in its relations, or rather in the variation of its relations,
with changes in the world of our consciousness. He calls
his ontological doctrine Transfigured Realism. The develop-
ment of our consciousness from a primitive sentiency in which
there is no distinction of Object and Subject, gradually gives
rise to that distinction and, at last, to a full recognition
within the world of consciousness of two contrasted orders of
phenomena which respectively are vivid and faint, original
and copy, etc., each order controlled by characteristic laws.
Thus what are usually called mind and matter are both of
them departments of consciousness, and take their rise, during
the development of organic life and mind, from something
which is neither one nor the other, but is co-manifested in
both. Belief in such an entity is necessarily generated by
experience, and is indispensable to an understanding of the
permanence and continuity of things.
There is some resemblance between this view and Spinoza's,
that God is unknowable to us in all but two of His attributes,
and in these two is simultaneously manifested ; but there are
these differences. According to Spinoza, the attribute of
Extension is only indirectly known to us through modes of
thought, that correspond to modifications of our extended
body as affected by other modes of extension. Extended
things in the rest of the world are not directly perceivable.
According to Spencer, however, the whole of the object-
world is directly given in experience, and is a division of
consciousness itself. For Spinoza, again, the attributes are
the Substance in its own knowledge ; whereas for Spencer
Object and Subject imply unassignable correspondences with
the Absolute.
Now, admiring as I do Spencer's account of the develop-
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 169
ment of the knowledge of Object and Subject so far as it is
psychological, I am unable to follow the ontological inferences.
His argument starts from what I have called Empirical
Eeality, in which (as he says) the opposition of Self and Not-
self is immediately given. Against Idealism he urges that
the conviction of Eealism concerning tlie reality of the Not-
self is («) prior to reflective Idealism ; (b) direct, and so
simple as to seem iindecomposable ; (c) vivid and distinct ;
(rf) implies the Universal Postulate (inconceivability of the
opposite) only once (chaps, vi. vii. viii. and xii.). But every
one of these arguments is more favourable to what he calls
' Crude Realism ' (Empirical Eeality) as against Transfigured
Realism ; wliich is (a) later ; (b) indirect and far from simple ;
(c) exceedingly faint and indistinct ; (d) implies the Universal
Postulate a great many times : indeed we must presently
inquire whether it is conceivable at all.
Then, the psychological analysis of the conviction of
Eealism discloses at the basis of our objective consciousness, a
feeling of resistance to our efforts, and the representation of a
force in the Not-self opposed, but akin, to that w^hich we exert
(chap. xvii.). But, strictly, this analysis of the Object into
sensation is more favourable to Subjective Idealism than to
Realism of any kind ; and it is more favourable to Crude
than to Transfigured Realism, because to speak of the ob-
jective power as akin to our own is to diminish its unknow-
ability. To illustrate his theory of Transfigured Realism,
Spencer takes (chap, xix.) two symbolic cases : first, the per-
spective drawing of a tree-trunk, " in which along with extreme
unlikeness between the symbol and the actuality, there is an
exact though indirect correspondence between the varying
relations " among their component lines ; and, secondly, the
image of a cube projected on a cylinder, in which the corre-
spondences of lines and angles are even more complicated
but still absolutely definite. Here the perspective drawing
and the projected image of the cube stand severally for
perception ; the tree-trunk and the cube themselves, for objects
of perception ; and the comparison shows " how it becomes
possible that a plexus of objective phenomena [sic] may be so
170 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
represented by the plexus of subjective effects produced, that
though the effects are totally unlike their causes, and though
the relations among the effects are totally unlike the relations
among their causes, and though the laws of variation in the
one set of relations differ entirely from those in the other : yet
the two may correspond in such a way, that each change
in the objective reality causes in the subjective state a
change exactly answering to it — so answering as to cause a
cognition of it."
"Well, merely protesting against the unknowable entities
being called ' phenomena,' and against the interpretation of
perception by the category of cause and effect, what I have
chiefly to draw attention to in this theory is, the conception
of a correspondence between perceptions and states of Being
beyond consciousness. Correspondence is a kind of likeness,
here conceived as a likeness of relations of relations of rela-
tions, etc. ; very remote and refined, but originating in, and (as
Spencer has shown us) depending on, the simplest perception
of likeness. A likeness, then, is asserted between our percep-
tions (ideas in Berkeley's sense) and things that are not and
cannot be perceptions, nor in any sense states of consciousness ;
and, therefore, we must ask Berkeley's question : " How can
an idea be like anything that is not an idea ? "
§ 8. My own hypothesis concerning Keality bears a closer
resemblance to these monistic doctrines than to any others ;
and of late years such doctrines have multiplied — Fechner,
von Hartmann, Hiickel — and may now be said to predominate
in the speculative world. But no amount of authoritative
support will console me unless I can give some answer to
Berkeley's question : " How is it possible to predicate any-
thing of that which is other than consciousness?"
My first position is that consciousness is Eeality. But,
then, it is not the whole of Keality ; and we have seen that
no metaphysical system has been able to avoid the assuming,
or implying, of something else.
Secondly, consciousness is a factor of all Eeality ; because
it cannot be derived from anything else ; cannot be explained
by its utility ; and is manifested by all living organisms,
ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 171
which participate in chemical and mechanical forces, and are
hypothetically resolvable, like everything else, into protyle.
Thirdly, an organism's consciousness is not on a level with
the organism itself; for the organism is a phenomenon in con-
sciousness ; but that in which phenomena exist is not a
phenomenon. No doubt in I'sychology, one may conveniently
speak of processes of consciousness as phenomena ; but meta-
physical reflection shows that such expressions are for con-
venience only. The true correlation of conscious processes is
not with the organism as phenomenon, but with the trans-
cendent Eeality whose phenomenon it is ; and similarly with
all lower grades of consciousness. This distinguishes my
hypothesis from Hylozoism.
The notion of a relation between consciousness and some-
thing beyond is necessarily an imperfect one ; for there can
be no second term for the relation to take hold of: the cate-
gory of Transcendence, like its correlative, Manifestation, is
one-sided, or merely indicative or orectic. Nevertheless, since
all metaphysical specidation points to transcendent Being, I
submit, fourthly, that we may give this vacuum some body,
or at least a skeleton, by transferring thither something from
its correlative consciousness : namely —
(1) Time or, at least, Succession; and (2) Change: for
these are the forms of all consciousness.
(3) Coexistence : for this is found even in subjective con-
sciousness, and is the most insistent of all relations amongst
material phenomena in space. But whether space-relations,
a construction of the activity of consciousness, are predicable
of the transcendent Reality, I cannot determine.
(4) Order, or uniformity, of change may be predicated of
the Transcendent upon both subjective and objective evidence ;
and perhaps something equivalent to that which we know in
phenomena as Causation (not between the Real and phenomena,
but in the changes of the Real) ; but this with less confidence,
because (as with space) the evidence is objective only.
That which is thus defined cannot be called " Subject," for
that term is applicable only to its conscious activity. Nor is
" Substance " a satisfactory name ; for it suggests that con-
172 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
sciousness is an attribute and therefore a degree less real.
" Soul " has the merit of meaning a conscious thing having
also other characters ; at least, in popular belief, — the only
test of truth in such matters. Perhaps the most colourless
name for it is the Transcendent, or merely Being.
But I do not care what it is called. Let us quit this
Limbo where Anthelios seems to reign, making darkness visible,
and revisit the comfortable daylight, or (if you will) return to
the old familiar cave with its cheerful bonfire.
CHAPTER IX
UNIVERSAL FOKMS OF THE PHENOMENON : TIME, SPACE, MATTER
AND MOTION
§ 1. The Universal is the philosopher's quest, his quarry ; the
more abstract anything is the more it fascinates him, and the
more ardently he pursues it, like the Wild Huntsman, through
the watches of the night. Hence the lustre and music of the
World interest him less than Time, Space, Matter and Motion.
These things have provoked his eloquence for ages ; and the
Schools have established a tradition of investigating certain
problems concerning them that must never be interrupted.
The being of Time and Space especially, has engrossed the
imagination of philosophers and children : sages have toiled in
vain to comprehend it ; and youths have swooned, whilst the
first excursions of their wonder sounded that bottomless
abyss.
It was by a misleading abstraction that Kant signalised
Space and Time as pure forms of experience. For, first, they
are not merely forms, but are at the same time objects of
experience ; and, secondly, they are not pure, but have a sen-
sational ground. Moreover they are inseparable in objective
cognition from Matter and Motion. It is true that Time has
a greater generality than Space, Matter and Motion, since it
it is an universal form also of subjective Eeality ; but it is
not cognisable as such until Space, Matter and Motion have
been fully developed in consciousness.
The inseparability of these forms in experience appears
in the attempts of psychologists to analyse them severally ;
whereby it is shown that the sensations on which all these
173
174 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
cognitions depend are those of movement and resistance, and
that the relations involved in their genesis are those of suc-
cession and co-existence. The relativity of these data may be
exhibited thus : —
w !25 Q ^
E2. P <t g
Matter p • rf Space S' • g Time
Matter traversing Space in Time
>■ ->
Motion
The germinal experience is our own movement ; though it
cannot be known as such till all its latent contents have been
differentiated.
None of these cognitions can have grown up without the
others ; and although they are not equally prominent in all
objective cognition, and probably are very unequally devel-
oped in different species of animals and even vary amongst
men, yet to attend to, or treat of, any one of them apart from
the rest can never be a complete but only a quasi-abstraction.
I am assuming that the analysis of external perception
given by Bain, Spencer and most English psychologists, is
essentially sound ; though a good many psychologists, such
as Kiilpe, reject it as too speculative. For whilst I admit
that the effect of the argument, as urged by Spencer or Sully,
does not amount to conviction, yet reflection always increases
my sense of its probability ; and the failure of direct con-
viction seems to me sufficiently explained by the immeasur-
able antiquity of the organic preparation for these perceptions.
It is unreasonable to expect that the growth of countless ages
can be adequately unravelled and reconstituted in a few pages
of reasoning that are read in half an hour.
Now if it is true that the cognitions of Time, Space,
Matter and Motion all have their root in the same experiences,
namely, in the kinsesthesis, or sensations of muscular contrac-
tion resisted and unresisted (with the correlative relaxations),
and in the adjustment of limbs and eyes, and their sliding
TIME, SPACE, MATTER AND MOTION 175
from one adjustment to another (with the accompanying tactile
and retinal sensibility) ; if this is true, the finished percepts,
or concepts, of Time, Space, Matter and Motion can never be
distinguished, compared and contrasted, without the danger
of isolating in words and half-thoughts the things that are
inseparable in Nature and experience. They are four factors
of th3 Siime experience ; discriminated factors of the same
empirical Eeality. Hence, moreover, such being the mutual
implication of Time, Space, Motion and Matter, any concepts
of them that are incompatible with this fact are bad concepts ;
or else any dialectic that seems to exhibit the concepts as
incompatible with the facts or with one another, is mere
eristic. It is indeed the natural sophistry of the analytic
understanding to assume that distinct concepts stand for
possibly separate existences ; to treat the results of analysis
as independent factors of creation. Then, what more reason-
able than to treat Time or Space, or both, as existing in their
own right, and to introduce Matter and Motion to them as if
from outside ? But any question as to their relations raised
in this way, must be stated in such a form as to pester the
answer. There is not the smallest reason to suppose that
any one of the four. Time, Space, Matter, Motion, ever existed
separately or was experienced separately, and it is a delusion
to suppose that any one of them can be separately explained.
Kant says that Time and Space cannot be represented as
non-existent, but can be represented as empty. The former
clause is, I think, true ; for though in some conditions even
human consciousness may be so narrow and dark that neither
Space nor even Time defines its content, this is not the
deliberate suppression of Space and Time that Kant declares
to be impossible. But as to our ability to represent Space and
Time as empty, he is mistaken ; for, even granting it possible
to exclude the representation of all other bodies or images
(which is not true), still our own body from which all Spaces
radiate, and our present consciousness from which Time flows,
are quite inexpugnable.
I have here used ' representation ' as equivalent to Kant's
Vorstellung ; but for the ensuing discussion we shall need
176 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
terms to distinguish three modes or grades of cognition :
(1) Perception — particular, concrete cognition; organised in
experience and aroused by the stimulus of immediate sensation.
(2) Imagination, derived from perception and having its con-
crete character, and sharing many of its limitations, but not
dependent on present sensation, nor restricted to the scale of
perception, nor to the order of perception in experience. (3)
Conception, dependent on perceptions or imaginations for its
contents ; yet not upon any in particular, but on the comparison
and analysis of many, and therefore not concrete but abstract.
A concept may be sustained by an image taken in a repre-
sentative character, or by a word, or other symbol : the
representative character being preserved by definition. By
operating with symbols the power of conception extends far
beyond the limits of perception and imagination ; and therefore,
for the sake of sanity, it must proceed from perception, follow the
analogies of perception, and return to it for verification. We
have seen that perception is in general the ground of Empirical
Reality ; that conception is the means of completing and
explaining Empirical by Physical Reality ; that to be imagin-
able or intuitable in a representation is a condition imposed
on any concept in order that Empirical and Physical Reality
may form one continuum ; but that to be perceivable or
imperceivable, imaginable or unimaginable, conceivable or
inconceivable, is no proof of Reality or Unreality in any
particular case apart from systematic confirmation.
§ 2. Time, Space, Matter and Motion are all empirically
real. Kant, however, when he says that Time and Space are
empirically real, is inconsistent ; for he also says that they
are pure (non-sensuous) intuitions, and that sensation is the
test of Reality. That pure forms may be empirically real, it
is not enough that they should be excited to activity by
sensation ; and in fact it is as inconceivable that pure forms
of intuition should be aroused by sensation, as that pure forms
of judgment should connect sensations : if knowledge is to be
one it must all grow together from one root.
The reality of Time is immediately known in the " psycho-
logical Now " : every experience has a certain duration, some
TIME, SPACE, MATTEK AND MOTION 177
seconds ; but tlie ' how much ' i.s variable and cannot be
generally determined : every experience also involves a change
or changes ; and Duration and Change are the elements of
Time. No experience is simple ; it is a process whose phases
blend and overlap, and this is the condition of the inteirration
and comparison of experience. Human experience is at every
reach of it an immeasurably complex process ; the more you
investigate it, the more you discover ; for the brain acts as a
whole. If, neglecting this basis of fact, we treat Time con-
ceptually as a line divisible, the present moment becomes
infinitely small, is inappreciable in experience as duration or
change. The past has gone ; the future is not yet ; the present
is iucognisable : therefore the World is a nonentity. Such
puzzles distress the youth of speculation, and reward the
speculations of youth. But in the moment of true experience
the whole of reality is grounded : the past is recorded as Effect
and the future germinates in its Causes ; and, therefore, to a
sufficient intellect it carries the World siih sjjecie eternitatis.
The reality of Time is known in the Now ; but the com-
prehensive consciousness of Time is the vastest abstraction (if
justly called abstract) of the human mind. As the form and
enfoldment of all possible experience, it is another name for
the Universe in its everlasting movement. For as there is but
one Universe and one process. Time as a whole cannot be
considered apart from its actual contents. Hence the true
character of Time is disguised by the methodological device of
treating it as of one dimension, representable by a straight
line. This can only represent the lapse of Time by an image
of dui-ation (no matter what it is that endures). But Time
beyond the Now has no duration ; and even there it is
consciousness rather than Time that endures ; for it reposes
on the universal process. This process, again, is co-extensive
with moving bodies in Space of three dimensions. Time,
therefore, comprehends the height and the breadth and the
depth of the galaxy, and something more, the life and mind
of all that world.
It may also be a convenient fiction to treat Time as made
up of moments ; but in experience all moments are fused in
12
178 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
the continuity of movement. Moments are occurrences in the
course of time and are marked upon a background of obscurer
changes. Nothing can be less like our consciousness of Time
than a series of moments. It is indeed probable that the accents
of attention (sensations of adjustment) help in defining for us
the process of Time by giving a subjective measure : the fixation
of attention takes about three-fourths of a second, and this is the
period of which our subjective estimate is most exact. But
the point of attention is neither the whole of consciousness nor
the sole determinant of its growth : it is a selection within
consciousness, and all that lies about or beyond to the most
obscure marginal sentience (and, no doubt, still farther) has its
influence and its registration. Hence Time, as the form and
content of all experience of movement and change, is the whole
mass of consciousness ; but since in the Now, or in any given
lapse of time, the contents of experience continually vary (for
even the accent of attention is of unequal intensity and is
sometimes suspended), a concept of Time has been developed
having no particular content, but as a " quasi-blank form " of
any possible content. And this, I suppose, is Kant's pure
form of intuition.
The perception of any particular time beyond the Now is
vague, because it is one-sided ; I mean that its sensation-
element lies in the Now from which we measure, whilst at the
other end of the period there is only a memory, expectation, or
representation. The perception of a space, or body in space
(which comes to the same thing), is supported by sensation in
the Self measured from, in the object of regard, and in others
on every side of the line of vision : it has, therefore, a high
sensation-vivacity. But the most distinct personal memory is
supported by sensation only in the present ; the fact
remembered has only an idea's vivacity, which faintly illumines
neighbouring objects, but leaves dark the intervening hours or
years.
The vagueness and subjectivity of times perceived or
remembered makes them hard to measure and arrange. So to
measure them we turn to things external and take the motion
of some body as a constant ; then construct a calendar and
TIME, SPACE, MATTER AND MOTION 179
insert iu it our own history, and are apt to think we remember
the order of events when in fact we read them there.
Without a calendar, the best way of arranging our past life is
by reference to our movements and where we have lived, for
this is the best clue to causation. Altliough Time may be
primarily subjective, the human idea of it is developed by
means of objective experience and by need ; yet it now far
transcends any need we have for it. In animals who have little
need of memory and foresight, the development of the
perception of Time is backward in comparison with Space,
Matter and Motion. And this seems also to be true of
children ; still even in them the sense of Time is so far
developed before the rise of self-reflection, that it is known as
that in which we live and not as our invention. And though
less clear and distinct than Space, Time is more comprehensive ;
for Space is only the form of phenomena, but Time of all
consciousness ; and therefore it is more real than Space,
because consciousness is Reality. Nothing, therefore, is more
preposterous than the notion of a 7iunc stans : which, in fact,
is the mistaking of Space for Eternity. Such is the penalty of
manipulating concepts in contempt of experience. But the
comprehension of Time by man, transcending all utility, belongs
to the World's self-knowledge ; and, I suppose, the dimness of
our comprehension is the still unlifted veil of that knowledge.
§ 3. The reality of Space in experience is given primarily
in sensations of movement, which in the development of
perception come to be signified to us by every touch, by
every limb-adjustment, by every eye-adjustment, and hence by
every coloured expanse ; nay, further, by every focussing of
the eyes upon a point that yields no retinal sensation, and by
every experience of not touching, for this (though less attended
to) is as real an experience as touching is. But it may be
said, if Space is real, what sort of reality is it ? It is not
Substance. No : but we must not assume that we have
already named every Category that is needed for thinking
Reality ; any more than that all the Categories we name have
a correspondence in Reality. Space is not Substance ; for
the fundamental attribute of empirical Substance is resistance,
180 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
and this is the opposite of Space. And yet it has an attribute,
of which it may be said to be the subject ; for as the defining
attribute of Matter is resistance to movement, so that of
Space is non-resistance, known by freedom of movement ; and
this is quite as positive as impeded movement. I say non-
resistance is the attribute of Space, for it is not the same thing
as Space. Space is a construction, or rather a mental organic
growth, to which other experiences, tactile and visual, con-
tribute ; and the product is not the same as any of its elements
or even all of them together. It is something known on
occasion of them, most vividly by movement.
As this growth is complete before the rise of self-conscious-
ness, it is empirically objective, and, like Time and the material
World, something into which the self-conscious individual is
born. Hence the natural man laughs when he hears of
Kant's doctrine that Time and Space are (transcendentally)
subjective forms of intuition. But in my opinion Kant did
not really mean that they were forms of merely individual
intuition, but of the universal Knower in Nature ; though the
misunderstanding is Kant's own fault, not only by bad statement,
but by not clearly conceiving what he meant : influenced
perhaps by the Cartesian innate ideas.
It may be asked whether, then, Kant was wrong in arguing
that, since every sensation has degree, empty Space, a vacuum,
cannot be proved from experience {Anticipationen der Wahrneh'
mung) ; because the kinsesthesis has degree, and this is the
essential condition of the perception of Space. But we must
consider that empirical Space is not empty, but tilled with
ether (according to current hypothesis) ; which, however, offers
no sensible resistance. An ether-vacuum cannot be obtained ;
and if it could be we might discover that movement of a body
as a whole is impossible in such a vacuum, because any body
entering it would instantly turn into ether, and therefore, as
a body, could move no farther. The kinsesthesis or sense of
our own movement, therefore, is conditional upon Space not
being empty. I know not what a physicist would think of
this speculation.
There is no perception of pure Space, but only of spaces
TIME, SPACE, MATTER AND MOTION 181
variously bounded by (or measured I'roni) bodies at diflerent
distances and directions in a variously -coloured patchwork,
or in an active-tactile exploration. The dill'erences of colours,
adjustments and movements being abstracted from our percep-
tions, there remains what is common to them, the concept of
pure Space, which Kant mistook for a pure intuition. Kant
was unfortunate in every way : first, in denying tlie conceptual
character of pure Space ; secondly, in supposing pure Space
to be the object of Geometry, which treats of determinations
of Space ; and thirdly, in supposing that Geometry treats of
intuitive Space, whereas in intuitive Space no determination
satisfies the conditions of pure Geometry. Clearly Geometry
in treating of points, lines, surfaces, etc., and their relations,
deals with abstractions from experience of the determinations
of Space, conceived as existing in a Space similarly abstracted
from experience.
Space as perceived has three dimensions, and is so conceived
by Euclid and his followers ; but that it may be conceived
as having four, or more, is a liberal paradox. Granting
Space in four dimensions to be conceivable (that is, definable),
whether it be real or not in any other sense Heaven knows :
we shall never know in this life ; because the matter in such
Space can never influence our experience. Just as surface is
not a physical but only a geometrical property of Matter in
three dimensions, and therefore our Matter can never disturb
the inhabitants of a superficies ; so three dimensions constitute
no physical property of Matter in four dimensions, and such
Matter can never intrude upon us ; because in our Space it
would be destroyed by its own definition, annihilated by its
own essence !
Whether all Space is really curved, so that it is impossible
to draw a straight line in it, seems to be a physical question.
Does the assumption of curvature fiicilitate the solution of any
physical problem ? Does the assumption of straight lines ever
give rise to appreciable error within the limits of calculation
and of verifying by measurement ? We cannot determine
this by reference direct to Empirical Eeality ; for within such
limits the measurable segments of innumerable curves might
182 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
not differ from straight lines. As to the further speculation
that Space may not only be essentially curved, but even change
its curvature with the process of Time, and that this may be
the truth of Motion ; abstractly considered, this is conceivable,
because Motion is a traversing of Space in Time, and it is a
mere translation of this to consider Space itself as changing in
Time. But tui'ning to the experience of many bodies traversing
adjacent spaces at different velocities, to conceive of this as a
wriggling of Space itself is painful to a sympathetic mind.
And, to avoid hypocrisy, I must confess that to me these
speculations have an air of belonging to the play rather than
to the work of Reason. Still, play may be serious enough, and
Nature shows that it is the best preparation for work, and this
is the best excuse for many shelves of Philosophy ; and, to be
sure, there is time enough to be all in earnest, and there is
posterity to fall back upon.
§ 4. Time and Space then are real, and in Chap. VII. we
showed in what sense Matter is real in experience ; and since
Motion is nothing else than Matter traversing Space in Time,
this too is real. We next take up the problems of infinite
divisibility.
Our immediate perception of the Now, the Time-process, is,
of course, not infinitely divisible ; in other words, in the
psychological Now there is a minimum sensibile (for sound
_!._ sec.) ; so that if the Now lasts 6 seconds, it comprises
3000 minima. But conceptually Time is infinitely divisible;
because, taking any unit in experience, we may apply the
symbolic system of numeration and divide ad libitum, or
save ourselves this trouble by an algebraic sign. And the use
of this device as far as may ever be requisite is justified by
the appalling calculations of physical science concerning the
movements of atoms and ether. Moreover, since such move-
ments affect our organisms they must our minds, and we may
reasonably regard the minimum sensibile of the Now as having
been, in our own and ancestral experience, subliminally divided
according to the minutest differences of Nature : an infinite
division is not required. Whoever supposes that the mind
cannot be affected by less than the Empirical minimum
TIME, SPACE, MATTEIt AND MOTION 183
sensihile, should consider the organ of Hearing, how it counts
and multiplies and does sums in proportion, as if it had an
over-mind of its own. But even tlie minutest sensible
ditt'erences are not to be treated as moments constituting
Time, for they are events in Time, and are fused together in
Time by the continuity of Motion and Experience. The dis-
continuity of Time is inconceivable, not beaiuse there must be
an interval of Time between any two moments, but because
each moment would then be an origination and cessation of
existence. There would be no Time and no Understandins:.
In perceptual Space there is a minimum sensihile (for
the retina "005 mm.). But conceptually, of course, any unit
measure of Space may be divided ad infinitum ; and the
smallest part, considered as Space, contains the conditions of
all Geometry. And, as in the case of Time, the use of this
device as far as requisite is justified by the calculations of
physical science ; and it is futher justified by the discovery
of space -relations which are incommensurable except by
reference to an infinitely small unit. Nor would it be
reasonable to regard the immediate perception of our minds
as a standard of Nature, seeing that all our perceptions are
immeasurably compounded in correspondence with our bodily
organisation.
Nor, of course, does Space consist of distinguishable
minima or points, whether in the visual expanse or in eye-
and-limb adjustments, for all such points are fused by the
continuity of movements. The discontinuity of Space is
inconceivable, not because there must be an interval of Space
between any two points, but because we should find an
immeasurable and impenetrable barrier between them. The
movements of primary importance in the cognition of Space
are, doubtless, those of our own (and ancestral) limbs ; which,
extended to all practicable distances and turned in all possible
directions, have carved out that geometrical character of Space
in which the human mind seems to be exploring its own
infinite resources. But in experience the exploration of Space
is relative to bodies that occupy and determine it : for it
happens through the movements of our own body or limbs.
184 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
sometimes leading to contact with other bodies, sometimes
swinging free.
Space, therefore, is not known as relation without terms ;
for bodies in Space are terms in the experience of space-
relations ; and even when the arm swings free, the relation
perceived is not without its appropriate term, for there is
special sensation in the finger-tips when they do not, as truly
as when they do, touch a body. And further experience
shows that the tingling absence of contact is a sign of possible
further movement, which again must be imagined to end
either in contact or not. Similarly the focussing of the eyes
on an unoccupied point has its own sensitive registration.
But, again, since the same movements and adjustments have
under different conditions different results, it becomes possible
to conceive of Space apart from any particular perceptions,
and to study the relations of distance and direction from any
points assumed. For, by the way, distance and direction are
the fundamental relations of Space, or of points in Space ;
not relations in the abstract, of which to be sure there could
not be parts ; but distance and direction are defined by lines
and angles, and of these there may be parts.
Body is known as occupying Space by its offering resistance
to pushing and grasping. When a moving limb explores a
greater or less extension, and all the way its tactile organs
obtain continuous stimulation, a muscular contraction that
intensifies the tactile sensation at any point has a certain
quality of strain in contrast with the sliding ease of those
muscular contractions that lessen, or put an end to, the tactile
sensation. Body being extended, then, it is conceived to be,
like Space, infinitely divisible ; that is to say, geometrically
considered, it is infinitely divisible. But whether it is so in
fact, considered physically, is entirely a question for physical
science. It is in vain to say with Descartes, who identified
Body with Space, that whatever is extended must consist of
parts ; for whether every Body has physical parts is the very
question at issue. To say that whatever the force of its
coherence, a greater force is conceivable, which may, therefore,
break it up, is to commit two fallacies. For, first, to speak of
TIME, SPACE, MATTER ANJ) MOTION 185
its coherence is to assume that it has parts that cohere, the
geometrical conception is slid into the physical question.
And, secondly, the assumption is made that if we can conceive
a force capable of breaking up a given whole, such a force in
fact exists ; and there can be no worse prejudice. There may,
therefore, be physical atoms : the existence or non-existence
of atoms is to be determined by scientific method in the con-
ceptual interpretation of experience.
Even if it should be shown that a chemical atom consists
of ether, it would not follow that it consists of parts, unless
it were shown that ether itself consists of parts ; and if this
should be shown, the question would return as to the ether-
atom (the physical as distinguished from the chemical),
whether that consists of parts. Similar reasoning holds good
of the electrons, of which chemical atoms are now supposed
to consist ; whether electrons be ultimate and indivisible, or,
again, condensed ether. That if the chemical atom consists
of ether or electrons, its distinctive character is conditional and
may be temporary, has hardly any metaphysical significance.
Since Motion is a traversing of Space in Time, it is
conceived to be infinitely divisible ; that is to say, there is
no limit to the smallness of the Space that may be considered
as traversed, nor to the smallness of the Time that elapses in
the traversing of a given Space. Such conceptions are easy
symbolical extensions of Empirical Reality, and are justified
by the verification of physical calculations.
§ 5. It remains to consider whether Time, Space, Matter
and Motion are finite or infinite in duration or extent. This
question is often argued upon the ground of what we can
imagine or conceive. But imagination depends upon empirical
perception, and as the untutored mind often perceives Matter
or Motion originating or ceasing, there is no difficulty in
imagining it. Nor, it seems to me, is there any difficulty in
forming an isolated concept of the beginning or ending of
things. But how does all this affect the question of fact ?
When for empirical we substitute experimental perception,
the beginning and cessation of Matter and Motion is no longer
perceived, and to scientific investigators (I understand) it
186 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
ceases to be imaginable ; and the conception of it is in con-
tradiction with the principles of scientific explanation. If
the principles of the persistence of Matter and Energy be
admitted, and extended throughout the stellar system, on the
ground that some at least of the chemical elements exist, and
the laws of mechanics and physics prevail, in remote stars ;
and if it be acknowledged that explanation consists in the
discovery of resemblance, especially in causes, and that equality
of ca,use and effect in all changes is the most complete explana-
tion ; it follows that the everlasting existence of the World
and its everlasting movement are necessary concepts.
It is merely the logical obverse of this doctrine that in
the phenomenal World a First Cause is inconceivable ; and that
any suspension or interruption of the order of equivalent
changes is inconceivable. It is true that, for the same reason,
the explanation of the present World can never be complete,
because the regress of causes can never be followed to infinity,
and no unconditional beginning can be found in the infinite
series. It is also true that within the period during which
the World is known to have existed the series of events is still
very imperfectly articulated in thought ; many things — of
which perhaps the origin of life is the most interesting — are
not understood. And some minds are so constituted that
whenever they are unable to explain an event by natural
antecedents, according to the usual principles of explanation,
they feel no difficulty in referring it to an extra-mundane
cause. Sometimes it is even said that science itself points
to such a cause ; but that is impossible. Whatever the
shortcomings of scientific inquirers, the ideal of science can
never require any explanation for anything, except equivalent
antecedent phenomena according to a law. Not appreciating
this limitation, those who appeal to extra-mundane causes do
not take enough pains to make clear the principles of their
reasoning. Unless they state in precise terms (1) the marks
by which we may know that an event not yet explained is
essentially insusceptible of scientific explanation, and (2) in
what sense any extra-mundane power can be a cause, or can
be the ground of explanation according to any analogy of
TIME, SPACE, MATTER AND MOTION 187
experience, although their authority may weigh with those of
us who muft rely upon authority of some kind, they will
hardly convince the more rellective part of their fellow-
creatures. An exact treatise on the Logic of Extra-mundane
Inference and Explanation is still a desideratum.
If an infinite regress of the World's movements is required
by the principles of explanation, so of course is an infinite
Time. It happens that a finite Time cannot be imagined,
because it is never perceived : since in experience every
movement follows, and is followed by, others. But, on the
other hand, an infinite Time cannot be imagined : like
perception, imagination can only proceed to a given point and
beyond it. The imagination of Time is indefinite : to follow
the regress of movement to infinity requires an infinite Time
in which to accomplish it. But infinite Time may be
adequately conceived as exceeding any assignable limit. For
this is all that is required by the principle of explanation, that
to whatever point the history of the World may be traced
back, it remains to investigate the cause of the state of things
then existing.
§ 6. In Space it is our constant experience that wherever
we go, there lies Space beyond us ; hence we cannot imagine
limits to Space. On the other hand, we cannot imagine it
infinite, for want of time to complete the exploration. Space
may be conceived as infinite or exceeding any assignable
limits, and Motion will then be conceived as having the same
range. And although it is often denied that Space can be
conceived as finite, I do not see any difficulty, if we do not
confound conception with imagination. The conception of a
limited Space implies a limited range of Motion. The concept
of infinite Space is not, like infinite Time, required by the
principle of explanation.
That Matter exists in Space is proved to us by oiur
grasping, circumambvdation and circumnavigation of things,
and by Astronomy. It follows that if Space is limited so is
Matter ; and if Matter is infinite in quantity. Space must be
infinite to contain it ; but if Space is infinite. Matter may still
be limited. The prevalence of a belief in the boundlessness of
188 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
the material World (except amongst the Epicureaiis) seems to
be modern. But, recently, the evidence has l)ee^ interpreted
as indicating that Matter is a limited quantity, and attempts
have even been made to weigh the Universe.
Whether the World is finite or not has some metaphysical
interest. For supposing the atomic World to be finite and
the ether infinite, it must, according to the principle of the
degradation of Energy, run down in a finite time ; and
therefore, contrary to the principle of explanation, must have
had a beginning, in the sense that no known laws of
phenomena will explain how it began to work. But if the
ether is finite as well as the atomic World, there may be a
limit to the dissipation of Energy, and after that has been
reached the Universe may recover itself, and pulsate through
infinite series of evolutions and dissolutions. If the material
World is infinite, it can never run down. If Space is finite,
so is the ether ; but if Space is boundless, the ether may still
be a limited whole in the midst of it — unless subject to some
law of expansion and interminable diffusion which I have not
seen mentioned amongst its versatile properties. The whole
problem is essentially physical, and to attempt a metaphysical
solution of it a priori would, in my opinion, be ridiculous.
Still, it is a problem upon whose solution the principle of
explanation is staked, and Metaphysics is indirectly concerned
in it. Should the progress of physical inquiry make it appear
that Space is limited, it would at the same time accustom the
imagination to follow it ; for proceeding from experience, and
following the analogies of experience, the inquiry would itself
give experience of a limit without a beyond.
§ 7. The nature of Time, Space, Matter and Motion, as at
present understood, presents no necessary limit to the elabora-
tion of Positive Philosophy. The foregoing discussions treat
of the problems which Kant, in his criticism of Rational
Cosmology, sets out in the form of Antinomies of Pure Reason.
Reason, he says, in endeavouring to explain the World, falls
into a dialectic within itself, because it assumes that the
conditioned phenomena of experience indicate an Unconditioned
Cause or ground; and its dialectic leads to contradictory
TIME, SPACE, MATTER AND MOTION 189
conclusious because, as no such Unconditioned is given in
experience, but only as an Idea, there is no intuitive basis of
all the logoniacliy.
The Antinomies may be abbreviated thus : —
I. The World has a beginning
in Time and limits in Space.
II. Everything is either simple
or composed of simple parts.
III. Causality through freedom,
as well as by natural law, is
necessary to explain phenomena.
IV. A necessary Being exists as
part or cause of the World.
The World is infinite in Time
and Space.
There is not in the World any-
simple substance.
Everything happens according to
natural law.
There is no such necessary
Being.
Now, any one who reads through these propositions can see
that no Unconditioned Cause is assumed except by the first, third
and fourth theses, and that these three have the same meaning.
The antitheses are notliing but dogmatically expressed prin-
ciples of empirical Methodology ; namely, that no limit to
analysis is to be assumed, and that all investigation presup-
poses uniformity. Therefore, the whole imposing criticism
of Rational Cosmology — the origin of the problem, the strife
of Reason, the critical solution — is groundless. It is not
Philosophy but literary invention. De Quincey observes that
Kant's writings belong not to the literature of knowledge but
to the literature of power. Kant saw that " human reason is
naturally architectonic," and he essayed to gratify this instinct
by a prodigious exertion of constructive genius akin to the
faculty of Titanic artists. He explains nothing, but he is
deeply affecting. Both the architectonic instinct and the
impulse to gratify it, no doubt, prognosticate the future develop-
ment of knowledge.
Kant next discusses the interest of Reason in the
Antinomies : if we must take sides, which set of propositions
should we desire to see victorious ? First, there is a practical
interest in favour of the theses ; because, that the World has
a beginning and depends upon a necessary Being, and that the
190 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
course of the World is determined not only by natural law
but also by free causality — these are the grounds of religion
and morals. Secondly, there is a certain speculative interest
on the side of the theses ; for if there was a beginning of the
World, and if every compound consists of simple parts, we
may hope to carry our investigation of Nature to an end and
complete our scientific system. And, thirdly, there is a
popular interest on the same side ; for the vulgar mind would
gladly see speculation finished and done with. Besides, in
the dogmatism of Reason (so Kant calls the theses) the vulgar
find themselves on a level with the learned ; have indeed this
advantage, that the philosopher feels some qualms, but the
vulgar none at all, in accepting the incomprehensible. Hence,
he says, the antitheses of Empiricism, demanding exact
thought and endless labour, will never prevail outside the
Schools or find favour with the crowd. For the speculative
interest of Empiricism lies in this very fact, that it knows no
limits to the exploration of Nature ; whose laws it may trace
with certainty, dealing with the facts themselves in perception,
or with conceptions that can be verified by distinct percepts.
Such an attitude of mind is incompatible with the expectation
of finding a beginning of the World or any breach in its order.
But, therefore, it is contrary to the practical interests of
morality and religion : " If there is no Urwesen distinct from
the World ; if the World is without a beginning and there-
fore without a Creator ; if the Will is not free and if the Soul
is, like Matter, divisible and perishable ; moral ideals and
principles lose all their validity, and fall along with the
transcendental Ideas which were their theoretical buttresses."
It is impossible to find in literature a more desperate
sentence than this, or a more false. It is false that morality
or religion depends upon the dogma of creation. It is false
that morality or religion depends upon the dogma that the
will is exempt from natural law. That there is any opposi-
tion between empirical science and morality is false. Happily
too : for is it not plain that science is what every one now
trusts, and believes in, more than in anything else ? And
what can be more pernicious to human life than to put
TIME, SPACE, MATTER AND MOTION 191
morality in conflict with men's convictions ? Yet in sympathy
with Kant's most imluippy delusion, persistent attempts arc
made to di.sparage the sciences ; not merely by necessary criti-
cism, but in the spirit of scepticism for the sake of faith : a
fatal error! For faith is always born of faith, and scepticism
has no offspring but scepticism.
BOOK III.-PSYCHOLOGY
13
CHAPTER X
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE
§ 1. Having arrived at the early maturity, or prematurity, of
Reason, Man finds himself amidst a world of which he is
indisputably the head. The earth is covered with his works,
his cities and possessions, his empires. That other things
about him are conscious and even intelligent, serves only to
emphasise his superiority. Glancing down over the ranks of
living things and seeking for the widest and most decisive
difference between himself and them, he defines himself the
" rational animal." Long ago he recognised the other animals
as his kindred ; then he doubted and even denied their claim
to relationship ; now he acknowledges it again, but is loath to
draw any inferences from it, except to excuse his own vices, or
to find fresh grounds for self-satisfaction.
But he has long been accustomed to believe in another sort
of kindred : even other men who have left their palpable bodies
and become impalpable and invisible, except sometimes at night
when the conditions are least favourable to distinct vision.
These others, the doubles, shades or ghosts of men, once had a
world of their own much like ours, and their life there was
something entirely natural and matter of course. As they had
not wholly lost their interest in our world, nor forgotten their
former affections, antipathies and fixed ideas, the neighbourhood
of their viewless world, which might at any moment invade
our own, became a disturbing but also a restraining power
over men's actions. As human society developed and division
of labour, rank and government were established, a parallel
development happened in the kingdom of the dead ; and in
1Q5
196 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
the great religions those kingdoms attained a power and
exaltation far above all fleshly rule ; supernatural and divine,
overwhelming imagination with wonder and awe.
Man's relationship to this unseen world became an absorb-
ing interest ; and since rank was there distinguished by
intelligence as well as by power, the dignity of his rational
nature was enhanced ; whilst his animal nature was degraded,
until the body, as seat of the animal nature, became the prison
of the soul, or a wild beast, or a corrupting corpse to which the
soul was un wholesomely fettered. The reward of the religious
life was honour there and the expansion of reason ; of the
irreligious the reward was degradation to a brutal life and the
obscuring of reason, or else to a shameful life in the dungeons
of demoniacal wrath amongst the " dejected and downtrodden
vassals of perdition." As the unseen world was more lasting,
more powerful, more vital and comprehensive than this one, so
it was more real ; and therefore the shade or soul that should
dwell there was more real than the body. Hence when onto-
logical discussion arose it was easily decided that, since the
most real things are called substances, the soul must certainly
be a substance.
In modern cities men are safe, busy and prosaic. Gradually
there grow up systems of thought and habits of thinking that
readily assimilate positive interpretations and exclude the
mythological. The interference of things unseen is no longer
traceable ; and, unsupported by either experience or utility,
the too elaborate structures of celestial and diabolical tradition
disintegrate and fall by their own weight. At first slowly,
then rapidly, the ancient beliefs lose form and content :
their imaginations become unimaginable ; the supernatural,
unnatural ; the wonderful, merely perplexing. In the history
of Philosophy the change came late, but very suddenly. At
the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth
centuries, Locke and Leibniz still speak of angels as familiarly
as we do of pterodactyls, and then they are no more heard of.
But man is still defined as a " rational animal," and the soul,
under the name of the conscious Subject, is still generally
assumed to be a substance.
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 197
§ 2. Approaching the study of life and mind from the
side of Physics, we find Consciousness, the essential character
of the Subject, a sort of mystery ; it is like nothing that has
hitherto been met with, and therefore wants the ground of
explanation. As Huxley says, the rise of consciousness after
the stimulation of a sensory nerve is as mysterious as the
appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp. Not
only on the strictly mechanical, but on any physical theory —
even admitting mechanics, chemistry and vitality, to be ulti-
mate and irresolval)le processes — consciousness seems a useless
' extra ' ; and a thinker may pose himself with doubts whether
he has any right to think before he has explained how thinking
is useful or possible. As Subject, he is told that he is an epi-
phenomenon, a secondary, accidental and rather inconvenient
result, a sort of by-blow or parergon of the play of molecules
constituting the real phenomenon, his body, especially his brain,
most particularly the grey matter of his cortex. To protest
that he is indeed there, places him in the ridiculous position
of poor Partridge after the Examiner had announced his
funeral. Nevertheless, since to trust the conceptual system of
Physics apart from Empirical Eeality, is to cut off the bough
on which you sit, it is necessary to return to the security of
primitive fact ; and there the Subject recovers his rights.
Whilst the reality of the Object is in my opinion not seriously
disputable, still, even if it is, at any rate the reality of the
Subject is not disputable at all : it is conceded even by
mechanical engineers.
Consciousness being real, why from the side of Physics
should it seem inexplicable ? Because it is not regarded as a
mode of energy in correlation with those modes that Physics
investigates ; and if this is true, a living body may be con-
ceived to go through all its changes and discharge all its
functions without the aid of consciousness. Consciousness,
therefore, appears as something detached, otiose, and useless.
As detached, it has no value in the equations of change
through which matter and energy pass in the evolution and
dissolution of animal bodies. To take account of it spoils the
equations ; for with life, or at some stage of life, consciousness
198 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
is manifest, and yet there is no traceable antecedent ; so that
the principle of continuity, in the form ex nihilo nihil, seems
to be violated. Again, as useless, consciousness is equally
inexplicable by the biological theory of Natural Selection,
according to which every organ and function of an animal is,
or has been, useful to it (allowing for possible " correlated
growths "). Here also, then, no antecedent can be traced.
So it seems to follow either that consciousness is really a mode
of energy, or that the principle of Causation and Continuity
is not true. There are, however, three other suppositions : (1)
that consciousness is created when it first appears in animal
life; (2) that it is due to a soul which at some stage of
evolution is united with the animal body; (3) that conscious-
ness is universal in Nature, inorganic as well as organic, and
that its special manifestation in organic life is a correlated
growth of the organisation.
Of these suppositions (1) and (2) involve many considera-
tions that lie outside the scope of the present volume. Here,
however, we may say that the concept of absolute creation ex
nihilo can never be an explanation of anything, because it is
not like any known process ; so that if it should appear that
Religion requires such a concept, nevertheless, it cannot find
a place within any philosophical system. Some points
i/ connected with the notion of a soul — namely, substance and
personality — we shall presently discuss. Meanwhile it may
be observed that supposition (3), that consciousness is universal
in Nature, allows us to understand that all equations of
change in the redistributions of matter and transformations of
energy may be treated without error in terms of those things
that are measurable ; whilst at the same time the equations
are satisfied by corresponding values of consciousness on each
eide of them ; though these cannot be precisely measured and
are only known to us as accompanying certain changes in our
own organisms : and further to understand that, if in the
activities of our organisms consciousness cannot be shown to
be specially useful, that is (as we have said before) because it
is universally necessary.
It may be asked — Why universal in Nature ? Why not
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 199
rather as accompanying the activities of those elements that
enter into organic life — H, O, C, N, S, P, etc. ? For by no
means all tlie elements are concerned : man is not in this
sense a microcosm. Phosphorus especially, it may be said,
has been thought the essential condition : but the evidence of
its special relation to consciousness has (I believe) been over-
stated. And as to H, O, C, N, it does not follow that, because
they have the character that best fits them for organisation
on this planet, they are therefore the sole conditions of con-
sciousness, or even of organisation. And if all elements have
a common ground (ether or protyle) it is more reasonable to
look to the activities of that as the concomitant of conscious-
ness than to any special groupings of it ; and if consciousness
exists there, it may be supposed to exist in the activities of
all the elements that have arisen from that common ground.
It would, however, be more correct to say that consciousness
accompanies the activities of that of which the elements,
ether, protyle, are phenomena ; for all phenomena have their
Eeality by existing in consciousness.
§ 3. Now it is certain that consciousness exists in many
degrees of fidness and intensity, several of which are known
to us. First, there is discursive thought with the infinite
variety of ideal and emotional life which we consider to be
distinctively human : and this we may call self-consciousness
or apperception. Secondly, there is the narrower region of
perception, activity and feeling which we share with (at least)
the higher animals : it is a state of mind which incursions of
the higher powers perturb and hinder, the state in which a
man plays billiards or a dog noses about for rabbits. Both
these degrees of mental activity in their greatest efficiency are
characterised by the attitude of attention, in which conscious-
ness is focussed. But, thirdly, in contrast with such ' focal,'
there is ' marginal ' consciousness (to use Lloyd Morgan's
pregnant terms), the much greater volume of sensation and
feeling which is present in consciousness without being
attended to, sometimes seems struggling to attract attention
and sometimes succeeds, and is always ready to become more
lively and prominent whenever attention relaxes or wanders.
200 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Then, fourthly, there is (as it seems to me) a far vaster region
which rarely comes into distinct consciousness at all — petites
perceptions — which may sometimes be discovered experiment-
ally or by trained introspection, is sometimes made known in
abnormal or diseased conditions, is sometimes only hypothetic-
ally discoverable (such as the elements of sensation integrated
or fused in the perception of space, in an emotion, in the
coenfiesthesis) : and this I propose to call sentience.
So far we have modes of consciousness and sub-conscious-
ness that are all in some sort known to us as entering into or
profoundly affecting our lives, and of which the more obscure
are believed to be shared in some degree by lowlier organised
animals even down to the simplest forms. I do not mean
that these grades of consciousness are mutually exclusive or
exactly defined. On the contrary, the higher grades depend
on the lower and consist chiefly in the co-ordination of them ;
and within each grade, again, finer distinctions might be
made. In sentience, especially, it is impossible to say
how many degrees there are of faintness and indistinctness.
Perhaps Binet, in his Psychology of Micro-Organisms, has
exaggerated the variety and definiteness of their consciousness ;
and similarly Wundt, when he says in his Outlines (§ 14) that
" the movements of the lowest animals are all evidently simple
volitional acts." Lloyd Morgan, in his Animal Behaviour, is
judiciously sceptical : whether a certain process in Paramecium
is accompanied by sentience, he says, we do not know. " That
it is controlled and guided by any consciousness in the cell
is most improbable" (p. 13). The "profiting by individual
experience is the criterion of the effective presence of conscious
guidance and control " (p. 31). But this means " the influence
of certain nerve-centres which have for their concomitant what
we have termed effective consciousness " (p. 51). So that in
no case is there a question of anything but concomitance of
consciousness : its degree varying with organisation. Whoever
grants consciousness to the new-hatched chick but denies it
to the new-laid egg, can only excuse his rejection of continuity
by some device for conjuring a ghost into the chicken.
But, again, the simplest forms of life are indistinguishably
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 201
animal or vegetal; and if the least organised plant life is
indistinguishable from animal life that is admitted to be
conscious, it is arbitrary to deny consciousness of such plant
life ; and, if so, it is still more arbitrary to deny it of more
higlily organised plants. This may offer some excuse for those
poets who, like Shelley and Wordsworth, have believed in the
sentiency of tlowers and trees. But evidence of it, or at least
strongly suggestive matter, may be found in the phenomena
of irritability, contractility and purposive movement exhibited
by plants. These ideas have been entertained by many
botanists and biologists since Darwin published his investiga-
tions into plant-movement. Plants possess what may be most
naturally called sense-organs in relation to gravitation, contact,
light and perhaps other stimuli; these organs seem to have
developed like those of animals from the epithelium; and
their stimulation excites reflexes, which, according to Francis
Darwin {Nature, Nov. 1901), are of the same type as action
in animals by association, and therefore allied to habit and
memory.
Having got so far beyond the range of human sympathy
as the level of plant-life, the principle of Continuity carries us
further and points to some actuality even in inorganic Nature
corresponding with animal consciousness, however vague and
undifferentiated. Of course, we cannot imagine what it is
like. The feeling of movement, energy, striving, which we
commonly read into the operations of Nature, is with us
a specialised sensation having its own organs, peripheral,
afferent, central. There is a natural hesitation to ascribe
consciousness not only to things that have no nervous system
(for this is not traceable lower than the Medusse) but even to
those that have not the special form of matter from which
nerve-fibres and ganglia develop, such as we suppose to exist
in simple animals and plants.
But perhaps ere long it may be shown that the differences
between the organic and inorganic are much less than we are
now accustomed to assume. J. C. Bose, in his Response in the
Living and the Non-Living, after showing that under electrical
stimuli plants exhibit fatigue, etc., and are affected like animals
202 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
by ansesthetics and poisons, goes on to prove the same pro-
perties of tin and platinum wire. These also become fatigued ;
there is a threshold of response ; subliminal stimuli become
effective by repetition ; response increases with the intensity of
stimulus up to a certain point at which another limit is
reached ; response is affected by temperature, and the median
range is most favourable to it ; some substances act as stimulants
upon tin and platinum, others like anaesthetics, others as
poisons (destroying all response) ; a small dose may increase
the response, and a large dose of the same agent abolish it.
The resemblance of these results to some of those obtained in
Physiological Psychology is obvious.
Inorganic matter is much simpler than organic, and so is
its molecular activity; the simpler an organism, the simpler
its consciousness; hence no doubt inorganic consciousness is
the simplest of all. If it be true that one organic cell may
comprise 300,000,000,000,000 atoms; and if it is difficult
to imagine what the consciousness of a cell can be like, compared
with our own ; the consciousness of an atom must seem to us to
be pretty near the vanishing point. But so is the magnitude
of physical atoms and of some ether waves at the vanishing
point. By the standard of customary ideas, all physical
speculations seem monstrous and maniacal. I make the very
reasonable request that the same possibility of infinite refine-
ment should be recognised in consciousness, as already has
been acknowledged in the case of " gross, dead, brute matter,"
as it used to be called. Whoever refuses this, ought to say
whether he denies the principle of Continuity, or knows of some
magic by which a ghost is conjured into every organic cell.
It is true that the characteristic of our own consciousness
is relationality : petites perceptions are only knowable when
occasionally they come into relation v^ith the larger masses of
our experience, and the most convincing ground for believing
that our minds correspond with our nervous systems is the
manifest fitness of these systems for carrying out the relational
processes of our minds. But if from the analysis of our own
minds we infer that consciousness can only exist through the
continuous relation of its elements, it is impossible to explain
THE SUBJECT IN EXrERIENCE 203
the beginning of consciousness in organic life; or in any indi-
vidual, unless it be said that such consciousness is transmitted
by germs in virtue of their predisposition to develop a nervous
system ; or on awaking from sleep, except by maintaining that
we are apperceptive all night without being aware of it. But
how many people would rather maintain a contradiction than
follow an argument !
If the ether be that from whose activities all things arise,
its psychoses have an inexpressible simplicity, purity and calm
— invidious to contemplate : having the best claims of any-
thing to the whole list of predicates that have always been
ascribed to the Absolute — one and the same, universal, un-
changing, self-active, everlasting and supra-substantial. We
cannot indeed, at the present stage of our argument, regard
this absolute consciousness as a Subject ; for subject implies
object, whilst consciousness (as such) does not. Consciousness
is not necessarily a knowledge of something else ; that contrast
arises with the increasing volume and differentiation of organic
minds ; though even we, in spite of our highly specialised
growth, sometimes pass through experiences during which the
distinction of subject and object is nearly, or entirely, lost.
But even the denial of subjectivity to the absolute conscious-
ness need not be resented ; it is a condition of limitation,
opposition and of all pain : and, therefore, it is no compliment
to the Universal Ether to insist upon calling it " Subject " after
the model of ourselves.
§ 4. According to this hypothesis of the universality of
consciousness in Nature, it everywhere accompanies the move-
ments or activities of that which is manifested to sense-percep-
tion and which, conceptually, is figured to exist as atoms and
ether, but which itself is necessarily transcendent. On the
other hand, each human Subject at least is still regarded
as a Substance. Every one knows that Descartes defined
the Self to be a thinking Substance, and how many later
philosophers have discussed that position of his. I shall have
to return to it in the next chapter on the Ontology of the
Subject ; but here it is necessary to consider whether the
Subject is Substance, or how far it may be considered so, on
204 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
empirical grounds, just as we have already done in the seventh
chapter concerning objects or bodies; and we may conveniently
begin with Locke's opinion. In his Essay of H. U. (Book II.
chap, xxiii.), having shown that we have no distinct idea of the
substance of bodies, but only a supposition of one knows not
what support of such qualities as are capable of producing
simple ideas in us — an obscure and relative idea, — he goes on
to maintain (§ 15) with much humour that, "by putting
together the ideas of thinking, perceiving, liberty and power of
moving themselves and other things, we have as clear a
perception and notion of immaterial substances, as we have of
material. For our idea of substance is equally obscure, or
none at all, in both." The primary ideas of body, he says,
are the cohesion of solid, and consequently separable, parts,
and a power of communicating motion by impulse ; figure is
only a consequence of finite extension : the ideas peculiar to
spirit are thinking and will, or a power of putting body into
motion by thought ; existence, duration, mobility are common
to both (§§ 17-18). "We have by daily experience clear
evidence of motion produced both by impulse and by thought.
. . . Pure spirit, God, is only active ; pure matter is only
passive ; those beings (such as men) that are both active and
passive, we may judge to partake of both " (§ 28).
Here then we may seem to be taking our stand upon
experience ; though in fact the ground is mined by scholastic
prejudices. Substances are known by their attributes ; that
could be assumed : matter especially might be taken for
granted. As to spirit, Locke knows there will be greater
difficulty in bringing home its substantiality to the ordinary
reader ; but, he urges, the argument is as good for this as for
that. Here too there are certain attributes or "peculiar ideas,"
namely, thought and will, or the power of moving bodies by
thought : these attributes are distinct from those of matter,
and imply a distinct substance — so far as we can form any idea
of substance ; why is not the argument convincing ? Partly,
no doubt, because most men are so continuously engrossed in
manipulating material bodies and think so seldom of their own
minds, that they are not accustomed to apply to the latter any
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 205
category : partly, by mere force of association between the word
substance and bodies. But even to the psychologist or meta-
physician retiection discovers many diflicul ties in maintaining the
substantiality of the Self. Subjective consciousness is so different
from the objective qualities of bodies, solidity, movement, etc.,
that it does not directly suggest a substance in the same
sense as they do : it wants vividness, steadiness, independence,
permanence, continuity and measure in its changes. Its most
constant character, the nisus or kinujsthesis, had until recently
gone unnoticed or unnamed. Few philosophers have adopted
such a doctrine as Hamilton's of "unconscious mental modifica-
tions," according to which all past thoughts still exist in the
substance of the soul, as bodies are supposed to when out of
sight ; and no one, I believe, except Leibniz (of whom in
Chap. XL), has suggested that future thoughts already exist
like undiscovered bodies. But all this seems necessary in
order to put the substance of mind on the same footing as the
substance of matter. It is very natural to regard consciousness
as an activity of the organic body ; and in fact that is what
happens when consciousness is attributed to the soul or ghost;
for this is a shadow, double, or imitation of the body and is
intensely imagined as an objective thing. Being less palpable
and visible than the body, it is now conceived by meta-
physicians as of a wholly different nature. But, surely, con-
sciousness would never have been supposed to imply a distinct
substance from the body, had not the belief in ghosts arisen
from other causes, and been universally popular before the
beginning of philosophical reflection. Besides, if substance is
an obscure relative idea of I know not what even when referred
to bodies ; how much more obscure it becomes if we attempt
to refer it to bodies and also to such a different thing as
consciousness.
§ 5. Whether Subject is Substance, then, must depend
upon that other attribute which Locke ascribes to it, the
power of moving bodies. But this attribute is common to
bodies and created spirits ; and if Locke regarded bodies as
having received their original impulse from God, he certainly
regarded all the powers of created spirits as derived from the
2a6 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
same source ; and there is no difference between a body's
moving another by impulse, and a spirit doing the same by
thought, except that the latter process is more obscure because
we can trace no equivalence. If, then, the attribute of
motivity be the same in bodies and spirits, it points to the
same substance as common to both. However, in Locke's
view, God has endowed spirits with self-activity and has
denied this to matter; he held that spirits and bodies are
entirely different ; so, as it is of little use to argue with him
now, I will turn to more recent ways of thinking.
If thought itself moves bodies, it must be either as a
mode of energy correlated with others, or not. In the former
case it belongs to the system of material things, just as they
do. But as this may seem to imply a charge of " materialism "
against such a way of thinking, I beg leave to say that the
term " materialism " is here used descriptively, not contume-
liously. A system of Materialism is, in my esteem, as respect-
able as a system of Spiritualism, if it is as well reasoned ; and
if better reasoned, it is more respectable. Why not, seeing
that our knowledge of bodies shows them to be far more
wonderful than anything we have been told of spirits ?
But now in the alternative case, that thought moves bodies,
not as a mode of energy, but in some way peculiar to itself;
what shall we say of it ? I say that whatever is peculiar can
neither explain anything nor be explained, and has no place
in philosophy.
If indeed consciousness could be separated from organised
bodies and experimented with in isolation, empirical laws
might conceivably be discovered concerning its relation to
moving bodies ; but such laws would merely make a list by
themselves, not only irrelevant to, but in conflict with, the
laws of energy.
Let us then inquire what evidence there is that thought
moves bodies. It is now generally held that our consciousness
of activity, or sense of effort, is excited by muscular, tendinous,
articular stimuli in moving, straining, etc., just as colour or
sound is due to the stimulus of the optic or aural nerve ; that
is to say, it points to the influence of body on mind rather
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 207
thuu of mind on body. Thus what was formerly the most
popular iU'gument in favour of the moving power of thought,
or will-force, has quite lost its significance.
Spencer, however, thinks that states of consciousness are
" factors " in our nervous and physical activities, and for this
opinion he gives three reasons: (1) the facts of habit "prove
that states of consciousness which were at first accompaniments
of sensory impressions and resulting motions, gradually cease
to be concomitants " ; they suggest that consciousness " exists
in any line of communication in course of establishment and
disappears when the communication becomes perfect." But I
do not see that this proves anything more than that distinct
consciousness accompanies the activities of the more plastic
and less organised matter of the cortex, and sinks to some
lower degree of consciousness or subconsciousness when organi-
sation has so far advanced that the current passes more rapidly
or by a shorter circuit. We must not exaggerate the uncon-
sciousness of habit : true habit, formed within the individual's
experience with little or no inherited predisposition, is not
only a conscious process, but is always liable to disturbances
and interruptions in which the fuller original consciousness
revives. Spencer's examples of reading and knitting fully
illustrate this. (2) "Sundry facts appear to imply that con-
sciousness is needful as an initiative in cases where there are
no external stimuli to set up the co-ordinated nervous changes :
the nervous structures, though capable of doing everything
required if set going, are not set going unless there arises an
idea. Now this implies that an idea, or co-ordinated set of
feelings, has the power of working changes in the nervous
centres and setting up motions : tlie state of consciousness is
a factor." But whilst it is true that in many cases the
nervous structures are not set going unless there arises an
idea ; can we suppose that the idea arises without any
corresponding nervous change ? There may be no external
stimuli, or none traceable ; but this does not exclude central
excitation. And although the antecedents, whether physical
or mental, are by no means always known, and accordingly
psychologists discuss "free" or "spontaneous" ideas; yet
208 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
they do not suppose such ideas to be absolutely free or spon-
taneous ; but regard them as having, of course, some physio-
logical concomitant, and therefore propose hypotheses, such as
local congestion, or omitted links. (3) There are "passive
emotions," such as grief, which, though directly dependent on
nervous changes, do not initiate actions ; so that the feeling
seems to be produced by the molecular activity and to absorb
it, since otherwise it must have further effects {First Princ.
71 b). But surely there are other ways, besides external actions,
by which the molecular activity accompanying grief may be
relieved. The vaso-motor discharge gives a sufficient accoimt
of it, and, by affecting the blood-supply to the voluntary tracts,
partly (at least) explains the passivity which characterises this
emotion.
In § 71c, Spencer declares the relation of consciousness
to nervous action to be on any hypothesis inconceivable ; he
mentions particularly the supposition that " consciousness in-
heres in the all-pervading ether," which may be capable under
special conditions in certain parts of the nervous system, of
being affected by nervous changes so as to result in feeling,
and reciprocally of affecting the nervous changes. But then,
he says, " we must assume that the potentiality of feeling is
universal," though realised only in special conditions ; and
such an explanation is merely verbal, since we know not what
the ether is. How mind and matter affect one another is a
mystery, but not a profounder one " than the transformation
of the physical forces into one another. All ultimate problems
are insoluble." To these positions, however, it is again
impossible to assent. The transformation of physical forces is
not a mystery in the same sense as the relation of mind and
body is : for it has been experimentally ascertained in detail,
and generalised in such a way as to satisfy the requirements
of explanation. But consciousness, besides the not being
definitely measurable, and therefore not equatable with physical
forces, is further of such a different character from them that
an equation is inconceivable : and where the conditions of
scientific explanation are wanting there is some sense in pro-
claiming a mystery. That any physical force and consciousness
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 200
are so different that an equation, or any exchange between
them, is inconceivable, is in my judgment intuitively plain or
self-evident ; but this argument can have no weight with those
who see otherwise.
§ 6. The very suggestion that possibly the ether may be
that in which " consciousness inheres," shows that consciousness
cannot be put upon the same footing with physical forces ;
for no one, I presume, would speak of light as " inhering " in
the ether. Physical light is the ether itself in a certain state
of vibration, but consciousness is nothing like vibration. The
truth is that neither the ether, nor the cerebral cortex, nor
any other phenomenon, can be the seat, or basis, or vehicle
of consciousness, even because all phenomena exist in
consciousness and cannot be related to it as they are to one
another. For exactly the same reason consciousness is not a
substance or a force ; all empirical substances and forces are
phenomena. To a free consideration consciousness does not
even suggest any substance : the dogma of its substantiality is
a mixture of savage superstition and scholastic gibberish. As
for its alleged simplicity, nothing is more contrary to every
man's experience. Its boasted unity is a mystical derivative
from the Greek's amazement at Arithmetic : organic totality
is the character of an individual Subject.
It ought not to be surprising that consciousness, or any
Subject, should not need to be a substance, seeing that itself
is Reality : with phenomena it is otherwise, and therefore they
need to be referred to a substance. But how is this : was it
not agreed that the world of sense-perception, i.e. phenomena,
constituted Empirical Reality, the ground and beginning of all
inquiry and of all confidence ? That is a very natural question ;
and I reply, first, that Empirical Reality is a mode of conscious-
ness, and in that sense has the reality of consciousness ;
secondly, that Empirical Reality is, as to confidence, more real
than the Transcendent Being, which (in Chap. VIII.) seemed
to be required by reflection upon experience ; and thirdly, that
it is only with reference to Transcendent Being that Empirical
Reality has the character of a phenomenon. The phenomenon
is constructed by the Subject, but is not subjective : reflection
14
210 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
finds a difficulty in this, and tries to overcome it by considering
the phenomenon as representing something not subjective,
from which relation it has its objective character. It is
another way of expressing this relation to speak of the
phenomenon as consisting of the attributes of a substance.
There is no contradiction between simple experience and
reflection. Happily, this is impossible ; because the un-
sophisticated man has not our concepts, and we have not his
simplicity. If we try to put ourselves in his place, and say
— Now that tree is indisputably real ; yet, on reflection, it is
a phenomenon — this can only seem a contradiction from not
reflecting enough. To suppose that to be " representative " is
to want reality, confuses the philosophic with the popular or
political uses of this word. More reasonably it might be
contended that since the phenomenon has the reality of
consciousness and is also representative of the Ding an sich, it
has the power of both, and hence is more real than either of
them ; as, in fact, to simple experience it is. Representative-
ness is merely a way of considering phenomena in relation to
a Being which is half thought by an indicative or orectic
category for the sake of filling up a sort of blind-spot in
experience.
But if the Subject is not substance how is it related to
Transcendent Being ? Is it a phenomenon or an attribute of
that mysterious thing ? It is not a phenomenon, because it is
a condition of all phenomena ; and it is quite useless to call
it an attribute. We have seen (Chap. VII.) that even in
experience the category of Substance and Attribute can have
significance given to it only if we treat a part of any group
of attributes as substance in relation to some other of the
group : we cannot, therefore, by this analogy, transfer it
beyond experience. Further, Substance and Attribute in-
evitably suggest " prior and posterior in Nature," " higher and
lower," degrees of dignity in the list of the ten Categories, the
metaphysician's table of precedence ; and it is intolerable that
Self-consciousness should be logically inferior to an hypothesis.
Besides, to quote again Spinoza's definition, an attribute is
that which the intellect regards as of the essence of substance ;
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 211
jind this is tlie necessiiry and linal definition : for what else
can an attribute be ? But, then, strictly speaking, intellect
knows only its own contents, and therefore the essence of
substance is exhausted by modes of consciousness. To call
consciousness the attribute of Being, then, would lead to a
contradiction with the conclusion already drawn that conscious-
ness is not the whole of Being. Of course, no words can
meet this dithculty ; but, perhaps, to think of consciousness as
an activity of Transcendent Being may be least misleading ;
and for the particular Subject, if any one must have a ' Thing '
that thinks, he may take that Being of which the body is
phenomenon, and may (if he likes) call it the Soul. It would
be convenient, and I might do so myself, but for the latent
rhetoric of technical terms, that often gains adhesion without
unanimity and assent without understanding.
§ 7. I have been drawn by the trend of ideas into that
region beyond experience which belongs to our next chapter ;
but before closing this one there remains for discussion the
" relation of body and mind " as conceived by empirical
Physiology and Psychology. A belief in some connection of
body and mind is instinctive : Greek psychological speculation
is full of it; and with the development of modern Physiology
it has become increasingly definite. It is now almost
impossible to try to theorise about the mind without appealing
to what is supposed to be the bodily correspondence. It is
true that no physical theory can ever be an explanation of
mental activity; for the category of Causation fails us, and
even Eesemblance cannot be traced between mental and
physical processes but only between the relations of such
processes : I mean, there is no resemblance between the
excitement of the retina and a colour, nor yet between the
activity of the eye muscles and the kinaesthesis, but the retina
and the muscles co-operate, and so do colour and the
kinsesthesis, in the act of perception. Yet a physiological
theory of the processes corresponding with the mental life,
though so remotely explanatory, is strongly desired.
The reasons for desiring it, I take to be these : —
(1) Mental states cannot be developed by introspection,
212 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
and traced in their connections and retraced, with enough
fulness, certainty and constancy to produce the conviction that
we are observing a thorough continuity of events according to
laws. I shall not sneer at the laws of association, which
in their day constituted the best Psychology extant ; but is
it not a great relief to have discovered " association-fibres " ?
Moreover, one's own consciousness is full of fag-ends. As
James Ward says, sensation cannot be explained by antecedent
psychoses : it is always beginning. It seems to me, further,
that most trains of thought never definitely end ; but
presently we find ourselves thinking of something else. The
fluctuation of attention is notorious : the occasion of it may be
external distraction as often as internal, or mere fatigue : but
what is the meaning of consciousness being fatigued ?
(2) Mental states give little opportunity for measurement :
except as to their time-relations, duration and interval, they
have no definite quantity. And in mental processes of any
complexity so much is subconscious that measurement is out
of the question. If, for example, we could measm-e the more
intense or conspicuous of our motives to any action, the
indefinite remainder would far outweigh them. This vagueness
and uncertainty of our subjectivity may be ascribed, partly, to
the withdrawal of attention from it by the predominant interest
of action in the external world : hitherto few people have seen
much use in introspection. Partly, it is due to the symbolic
character of apperception : this is necessary to the co-ordination
of consciousness, but it submerges all that which G-. F. Stout
calls the " meaning " of images and signs — incomparably the
greater portion of the consciousness involved ; so that more
and more of it lapses into subconsciousness.
(3) The first object of Psychology is to explain the nature
of the mind so far as it is common to us all : we therefore
turn to that upon which we can agree, physical fact. Each
man is a physical fact to all others : for you, your volition
precedes your action ; but for me, your action is a conversion
of potential. Introspective Psychology can never explain a
completed volition. In the region of physical fact we find
measurement, continuity, law : we find it as instructive con-
THE SUBJECT IN EXrERIENCE 213
cerniiig idiosyncrasies as concerning our common nature : we
learn from it facts most important to the mental life which
introspection could never have discovered ; for example, the
function of the semi -circular canals.
(4) Througli Physiology, Psychology is connected with
Biology, obtains the aid of biological retrospect, biological laws
and the comparative method. This alliance has been the re-
birth of the science.
(5) It is througli our physical nature that society exists,
since our bodies are the sole means of communication ; and
consequently on our despised bodies depend religion, art, polity
and morals : upon all which subjects Physiology and Biology
are very instructive.
In short, self-observation or introspection does not afford
sufficient grounds for the construction of mental science ; and
it seems to me that this belongs to the nature of the mind as
immediate Reality ; that which admits of prolonged and exact
study by experiment and demonstration is the phenomenon.
Hence the attraction of physiological method. Psychologists
who, being also physiologists, attempt to construct mental
science by introspection alone, cannot eliminate the influence
of their physiological knowledge. An investigation the most
comprehensive possible into the physiological phenomena
is necessary ; and along with it a generalisation of the
conditions, so far as ascertainable, of the rise, activity and
lapse of the correlative consciousness. In pursuing these
inquiries it is now usual to assume a " parallelism " between
physical and mental processes ; for criticisms of that doctrine
James Ward's Naturalism and Agnosticism (Part III.) may be
consulted. In my judgment, if the doctrine of parallelism is
understood metaphysically, it makes the mistake of treating
consciousness as a phenomenon on the same footing as nervous
changes. For scientific purposes, indeed, any hypothesis that
is helpful is justifiable ; and in psychological discussions, it
would be pedantic to object to the practice of describing
processes of consciousness as phenomena of mind. But the
border between Psychology and Metaphysics is not always easy
to determine. Of course, it is not expected that an exact
214 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
purallel should be discoverable between nervous or cerebral
changes on the one hand, and on the other those degrees of
consciousness that are open to introspection : the sinking into
subconsciousness of innumerable processes is a condition of the
unembarrassed supremacy of apperception, whether in control-
ling conduct or enlarging knowledge.
We have inferred the universality of consciousness, and
free-living cells are generally held to be conscious ; so that as
the human body is an organisation of cells and atoms, it is
natural to regard the human mind as an organisation of
consciousness. This consideration may remind the reader of
certain doctrines of " mind-stuff" ; but those doctrines, though
well meant, have (such of them as I have seen) the same fault
as the popular doctrine of parallelism ; namely, that they put
phenomena and Reality upon the same footing. Still, if I am
asked how my hypothesis is to be defended against the
assaults of William James in chap. vi. of his Principles
of Psychology, I reply (1) that he takes for granted that
a combination of mental processes must be causative and
mechanical, and that I have shown these Categories to be
inapplicable; and (2) that his assertion that an unity cannot
be formed of atoms except as it affects something else, is merely
a denial in the case at issue that this unity is a consciousness.
It is true he hints here that there is much to be said for
regarding the soul as that which is conscious ; but as, in chap.
X., he very candidly explains that the conception of the soul
is in his opinion quite useless, and that the present section of
the stream of consciousness may be regarded as carrying the
whole of it— and that for itself, not for some one else — I do
not see how he differs from his opponents ; especially the
Associationists : whom he misunderstands.
But, again, if there is an organisation of consciousness
into a more comprehensive unity, it does not follow that the
elements were originally discrete. No cells, since the origin
of life, are discrete (at least in the same line of descent) ;
they are discrete in space, but continuous in time, which we
have shown to have the greater reality. As to the molecules
of which cells are composed, whether they are really discrete
THE SUBJECT IN EXPERIENCE 215
or in some way continuous through the ether, we do not know.
So far, theu, as we may infer from these phenomena to the
conscious Eeality, we have no ground for denying that all
Consciousness may be one continuum, though under special
conditions it rises at many points into special fulness.
If the question be put — How the rise of special minds
is possible ? the reply must serve, that the corresponding
growth of the body offers the best analogy for interpreting
the growth of the mind. What is ultimate is unique : there
can be no true analogue to the development of mind; but
organisation is the nearest we have. Because organisms alone
of things have their single interests in the series of birth,
youth, maturity, decay and death, they alone have a continuous,
unified teleological consciousness, and probably they alone
know pleasure and pain. Organic life is a constant struggle,
or co-operation, of the organism with other things that are
contrasted with itself; and the increasing consciousness of this
is self-consciousness. To make an extraordinary wonder of
self-consciousness has no ground but the love of wonder. Self
is the continuity of the consciousness and interest of that of
which the body is the phenomenon. The more widely the
interests of the organism extend to events in space and time,
the more comprehensive consciousness becomes, and the higher
self- consciousness rises : yet Schopenhauer rightly held that
this progress tends to the obliteration of individuality, through
recognition of the unity of the World whose self-consciousness
the individual is: for as a whole it cannot be self-conscious
for want of contrast.
If it be urged that, nevertheless, consciousness seems to be
of no more use to the world than to a single animal, since all
physical changes might go on just as well without it, such a
speculation ranges beyond my power of flight. A world
without consciousness would be a very different world from
the present one ; and what might be possible in it, is not for
me to say. That an animal, considered from the outside, may
be construed to lead its life independently of consciousness,
and, therefore, seems to have no need of it ; whilst we, being
animals ourselves, have no doubt that, inside, it is somehow
216 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
conscious according to its organisation : this is good ground
for inferring that consciousness is the inside of all Nature,
from which plants and animals and men arise. But when we
turn to Nature herself, to speculate as to what may be useful
to her is grotesque. Shall we hear it suggested that the
present world is conscious in virtue of Natural Selection, all
other unconscious worlds having been annihilated in an
antecosmic struggle for existence, and that thereby tlie utility
of consciousness is proved ? Use is for them that lack ; for
you and me because we are limited and poor : for us, who
want and desire, utility seems a great matter. But these
things have no place in the world of Nature, serene above
hope or fear, and tranquil in inexhaustible sufficiency.
CHAPTER XI
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT
§ 1. According to the earliest beliefs concerning ghosts, they
were a kind of bodies, though of a more subtle material than
ordinary bodies. This was also the view of the early Greek
philosophers, even of Anaxagoras, and of the Stoics and
Epicureans for centuries later. Nay, though such a notion
would now by most people be verbally disavowed, all popular
stories and all the practices of Sludge imply that it still
prevails. It is generally held by scholars that the clear
conception of immaterialism was first reached by Plato. In
various Dialogues he describes the soul as most real, living,
self-active, unitary, by nature divine, without beginning or
end. On the other hand, his separation of the soul's faculties
is not easily reconcilable with its alleged unity, and the
doctrines of metempsychosis, degradation and purification, of
animal souls and plant souls and specific souls (that is the
Ideas) are all derived from traditionary mythology ; and the
parables by which he tries to explain himself are so thick with
suggestions of material things, that if we discard the imagery
it is impossible to say what remains. Still it is undoubtedly
from Plato chiefly that all these predicates concerning the
Soul — unity, simplicity, substantiality, immortality — descended
to the Rational Psychology of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries that suffered so severely under the criticism of Kant.
According to Aristotle, soul is the form or entelechy of an
organic body : the nutritive soul of plants exists in subordina-
tion to the sensitive soul in animals, and both to the rational
soul in man. Memory and imagination belong to the sensitive
217
218 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
soul and are shared with man by the higher animals ; and
even in man reason itself has two functions, a passive and an
active, and its passive fimction is dependent on the i^avrda-
jxara of memory and imagination, consisting in what may be
called picture-thinking, whilst the higher processes of abstrac-
tion and unification belong to active reason. The sensitive
soul is transmitted by generation, grows with the individual
and dies ; but active reason, though born with a man, is not
generated but comes from without, and at death remains akin,
and returns, to the Keason of all things, thought of thought —
equivalent to form of form, — or absolute abstraction of actual
Being. Hence in Aristotle's view the soul is immaterial in
the sense that form is distinguished from matter in his system.
The individual soul is neither simple nor immortal, and is
self-active only in the sense that every living thing is self-
moving : it implies the existence of a body (its matter) and
each soul implies a particular body whose form it is ; so that
metempsychosis is impossible. On the whole, Aristotle's
doctrine is much further removed than Plato's from the
ghost-theory and all popular notions ancient or modern. It
is the most attenuated version of Animism : Spinoza's stands
nearest to it, amongst philosophic doctrines.
Immaterialism in the modern sense is much more explicitly
stated by Plotinus, developing the teaching of Plato ; but for
details I shall be content to refer to T. Whittaker's Neo-
Platonists (chap. v. § 1, on the Psychology of Plotinus). It
is, of course, Christian Theology that has moulded the great
body of existing belief about the soul: at least verbally, and sub-
ject to the influence of local traditions and to the limitations
of the popular mind when trying to apprehend metaphysical
concepts. Its doctrine of the immateriality of the soul is
explicit, in spite of the theory of a celestial body and many
imaginative forms employed in exposition ; the effect of which
upon the unmetaphysical disciple is to beget in most cases a
very materialistic way of thinking.
§ 2. In the modern schools of philosophy discussions of
the soul or ego date from the definitions of Descartes. Matter
he defined by the single attribute of Extension, and Mind by
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 219
the single attribute of Thought. Since thinking was the only
f^round for believin<r in his own existence, it followed that he
was " a certain thing or substance whose whoh^ nature consists
in thinking, and needs for its existence neither any place nor
any material thing or body " {De Methudo, iv.). From this
passage subsequent speculations concerning the Subject set out
in three directions.
First, a strong current has followed the course ostensively
taken by Descartes himself : the Ego is a thinking Substance.
Little, indeed, can be said for his own argument : however we
may justify the inference from thought to existence, the further
transition to Substance is not formally legitimate. It is so
bad that, considering it in connection with other remarkable
paralogisms in this part of his philosophy, as well as other
data, some critics have suspected his sincerity ; but this has
no bearing upon the issue. A bad argument is bad even in
the mouth of a martyr ; yet there may be a legitimate way of
reaching the same conclusion. So strong is the sense of the
reality of consciousness, and so persistent the influence of the
ghost -theory in determining the way in which its reality
shall be conceived, that in every age some of the greatest
philosophers have striven to establish, or re-establish, the
position that consciousness, thought, or the ego is a Substance
or (by a vain refinement) an Agent. If the position ever
seems to be captured, it soon seems to be retaken : as we may
see in the Continental series, Leibniz, Kant, Lotze ; or in the
English series, Berkeley, Hume, J. S. Mill.
Secondly, reconsidering Descartes' data, instead of defend-
ing his conclusion, the more scientific inquirer recognises the
Empirical Eeality of consciousness, but sees that, whilst the
mind or Self is an immediate fact, yet it is not immediately
given as Substance but only as Subject. As to this Subject
problems arise similar to those that concern the Object : only
fragmentary experience being directly attainable, to find the
conceptual system that completes it ; its reality being granted,
to determine its relation to other real things, and this both
as to existence and as to knowledge. According to the
temperament of the men who undertake such inquiries, they
220 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
may lead to the Scepticism of Hume or the Criticism of
Kant.
Or thirdly, considering the ostentatious feebleness of
Descartes' argument for the substantiality of the Soul, and
finding his mechanical Natural Philosophy of the world and
of the animal body far more interesting and fruitful, other
thinkers have been content to regard consciousness as a
function of the body : I mean the Materialists. Eare in
philosophical schools, common in laboratories, they are oftener
feared than understood, and are liable to be condemned for
their doctrine's inferential consequences rather than for its
inconsequential inferences.
The error of Materialism concerning the Subject, lies in
regarding it as dependent on a thing given in experience or
in the conceptual extension of experience. It hypostatises
the phenomenon, assumes that Substance is presented by
Empirical Reality ; where, in fact, only the Object is pre-
sented, whilst the notion of Substance is immanent there and
must be elicited by reflection and criticism. Materialism,
then, treats the Subject as dependent on the Object and
inferior to it in persistence and reality : dependent, however,
on the organic form of the body, not on the particular mole-
cules organised, since their presence is long outlived by
memory and purpose ; so that the particular molecules that
come and go must be considered substitutable for one another
as to their psychic activities. The special seat of the Ego or
centre of psychic life, which Descartes placed in the pineal
gland, may now be sought by some speculative physiologists
in the frontal lobes, as the chief organ of attention, because
there the movements of the head and eyes are controlled ; by
some, again, more especially in the third left frontal con-
volution (in right-handed people — precision being desirable
in such a matter), because that is the organ of speech,
essential to the using of the pronouns of the first person ; by
others in the brain as a whole, because it acts as a whole, and
nothing less can explain those alterations of personality by
which the same body exhibits at different times distinct
egos, each complete in all its psychic functions. But,
THE OXTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 221
interesting as such speculations are (and to me they are
deeply interesting), I am obliged to say as before, that the
body is a phenomenon to the Subject, and cannot be the
ground of its existence or activities.
§ 3. It will be convenient to take the other hypotheses
concerning the Subject nearly in historical order, and to begin
with Leibniz's Monadology as, after Descartes, the most
original account of the Soul's substantiality. The Monad is
a simple substance having no extension, figure or divisibility.
Monads are the true atoms of Nature and, in a word, the
elements of things. Tliey are regarded as created by God
and dependent solely on His will ; but otherwise, in the
course of Nature, they are without beginning or end. Having
no internal structure of parts, no internal movement is
possible, nor any change due to external causes : they have
no windows. According to their internal qualities, which
consist in perceptions, each is different from every other ; for
these perceptions represent to each the relations of all other
Monads, and therefore must in each be different. Being
created, they are subject to change ; but since external
influence is impossible, there can only be a change of per-
ceptions caused by an internal principle of appetition.
Monads further differ in the distinctness of their perceptions ;
which in some are only petites or faint, as in ourselves whilst
asleep : but in others they rise to full consciousness or apper-
ception, as when we are awake ; and similarly with desires.
All changes of perception in a Monad follow upon appe-
tition or final causes ; but they also represent the changes
taking place in the relations of other Monads, as if these
were movements only to be explained by efficient causes ; and
the correspondence between a Monad's internal changes and
the changes in the relations of other Monads, is maintained
by the pre-established Harmony,
A body is an aggregate of Monads, but as an aggregate
of points cannot make a real body, its unity comes from our
perception ; it is un Stre de raison, ou plutot d' imagination,
un FhdnoriUne {Examen des Principes du E. P. Malehranche).
And so is its movement ; for space and time are not real
222 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
things, but ideal. Space is the order of possible co-existences,
time of possihiliUs inconstantes, mais qui ont pourtant de la
connexion (JRdplique aux R6Jlexions de Bayle). They are
eternal truths holding alike of the possible and the existent
(that is, of positions whether occupied or not) {Nouveaux
Essais, ii. 14, § 26).
Such is the artificial Idealism of Leibniz, ingenious and
circumspect, adroitly adapted to contemporary prejudices, yet
suggesting important truths ; bizarre and in a manner revolt-
ing, yet easier to ridicule than refute. We may first observe
that a nominal Idealism was easy in that age when the word
' idea ' was commonly used for every object of the mind :
danger lay in the temptation to transliterate material into
mental terminology, and so produce an Idealism nominal and
nothing more. Has not Leibniz fallen into this snare ?
Certainly, time, space and body are all ideal in the sense
that the given Real is an Object or Phenomenon ; but in this
sense ' ideal ' and ' real ' are not contrasted.
It is disappointing to find that the faint ' perceptions '
which in each Monad, however fast asleep, represent the
relations of all others, or mirror the world as if it were a
scene of moving bodies, are merely substituted verbally for
mechanical forces, through which the rest of the world
is conceived to influence (or be mirrored in) each atom.
There is no design to alter the interpretation of Nature, but
only to provide an excuse for regarding it as an hallucination.
The plan is harmless, useless and negligible. The appetitions
that are the only means of changing a Monad's perceptions,
and are identified by Leibniz with Final Causes, become if
possible still more disappointing, when we consider that an
appetition cannot be a Final Cause unless it represents the
change about to happen ; that is, unless it is a perception (P)
anticipating a perception (Q) ; and, again, that P can only
have arisen from an earlier anticipation (0) ad infinitum.
By this device Final Causes depend on antecedents, and
do not differ from purely natural determination. In fact,
of course, this is always true : those who take the notion
of Final Causes from human action must suppose that it
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 223
is possible to lay u plan without character aud without
experience.
As in this system forces are called percej)tions without
prejudice to their objectivity ; and appetitions are called Final
Causes without ceasing to be Effects ; so time and space are
called ideal without any loss of reality. They are said to be
only the orders of things that do or may exist. But time at
any rate is an order of changes of perception in the Monad ;
and it is a real order, unless experience goes for nothing. It
would be vain to say that time is ideal because it is an order
of ideas ; for (1) an order of ideas is itself real; and (2) if
ideas are not real, Idealism is another name for Nihilism ; or,
contrast having been abolished, why not call it Materialism ?
Let us see. Space, being ideal in the same sense as time, is
in fact real. Therefore movements represented in space
are real ; and so are moving bodies. But real bodies can-
not consist of unextended parts : therefore the Monads are
physical Atoms. Observe, moreover, that time and space are
" eternal truths," whose seat is the Divine Mind and whose
apprehension is the highest reach of human reason ; yet they
are not anything real or absolute. This is flat contradiction
and the negation of Idealism. It sets God thinking to no
purpose.
Leibniz offers no proof of the substantiality of the Monad :
it is an hypothesis depending upon the adequacy of the
speculative superstructure as a working model of the World ;
and the superstructure turns out to be veibal and nugatory.
"VVe may be sure that in Philosophy ingenuity will never long
avail. The taint of it always warns us that the author is
inventing a scheme for himself, not discovering the plan of
Nature. And how shall he escape detection ? Even if a
pliant adaptation to prevailing prejudices should conciliate
contemporary criticism, it is impossible to square posterity.
Leibniz is a salient example of the men who are too clever
by half.
§ 4. Berkeley's Idealism on its subjective side is less of a
departure from the natural way of thinking than the Monad-
ology. His discussion of the Self or Subject is brief and
224 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
confident. It first occurs in the Princ. of H. K. (§§ 2 and 27).
The spirit, he argues, is not anything of which we have an
idea, since ideas are inert, whilst spirit is perceiving, active
substance. It is distinct from ideas, though, it must be owned,
we have some notion of it. — But can anything that is not an
idea be distinct from an idea ? — Again, in a passage of the
third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous, inserted in
the third edition, Philonous having granted that he has
no idea like unto the nature of God, whilst yet he infers
His being and power, is asked by Hylas why similarly one
may not conceive the existence of Matter \_per se] without
having an idea of it ; and he replies that " all the notion
I have of God is obtained from reflecting on my own soul."
For ideas are altogether passive and inert, and therefore
can never represent active spirit. But I know that I am
a spirit or thinking substance, — an indivisible, unextended
thing which thinks, acts, and perceives — " immediately or
intuitively, though I do not perceive it as I perceive a
triangle, a colour or a sound." From this notion of self
we may by reflection know God, and from our dependency
infer His creative power. But the case is different with
material things, the notion of which is (1) inconsistent, and
(2) unsupported by any evidence. When Hylas suggests
that Philonous seems after all to be " only a system of fleeting
ideas," Philonous repeats that he is conscious of his own
being, as a thinking active principle, one and the same self,
perceiving colours and sounds, whereas they cannot perceive
one another. Rational beings have in the production of
motions only limited powers, though " sufficient to entitle them
to all the guilt of their actions." As to the existence of
extended things, houses and trees, in the unextended mind,
most mental operations (he says) are signified by words
borrowed from sensible things, and the meaning here really is
that the mind comprehends or perceives such things, as it is
affected by some active being distinct from itself.
But how vain was this attempt to evade the consequences
of Empirical Idealism is shown by Hume ; who accepts
Berkeley's criticism of material substance and his denial of
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 225
the activity or power of sensible things, greatly strengthening
hie reasonings, especially about causation ; but then goes on
to direct a similar criticism against the notions of mental
substance and mental activity.
Hume's polemic {Treatise, Part IV. § 5) is not in the first
place directed against Berkeley, but against Materialists and
Spiritualists alike ; against all the curious reasoners about
" material and immaterial substances, in which they suppose
our perceptions to inhere." Observing that the notion of
substance and inherence is unintelligible, he argues that in
]>articular it is inconceivable that a thought or a passion can
be conjoined to anything divisible and extended ; it cannot be
to the right or left, inside or outside, imless at one point
wliich is indivisible ; and if it were coextensive with an
extended thing, we must suppose the possibility of a passion
being a yard long, a foot broad and an inch thick : but, again,
it is equally inconceivable that an extended perception, such
as a table, can incorporate with a simple and indivisible
Subject ; for this cannot lie to the right or left of that, nor be
entire in every part of it though itself unextended, without
leading to absurdities and justifying the supposed union of
our indivisible perceptions with an extended substance.
It is, I suppose, admitted that this argument of Hume's
disposes of the vague notion of inherence as explaining per-
ception : Berkeley had already repudiated it, and substituted
a spiritual power or activity sui generis. But Hume next
discusses the cause of our perceptions, and he argues that
whether or not they are caused by the motions of matter is
purely a question of experience and evidence ; since (as he
has shown) we are never sensible of any connection betwixt
causes and effects, and a priori anything may produce any-
thing. And it is in vain, he says, to appeal to the action or
power of ourselves or of the Deity, since it has already been
shown that " we have no idea of a being endowed with any
power, much less with infinite power."
Hume then (§ 6) makes a more direct attack on Berkeley :
he argues that we have no idea of Self in " its perfect identity
and simplicity," for if we had there must be in self-conscious-
16
226 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
ness some impression " invariably the same through the whole
course of our lives," whereas " there is no impression constant
and invariable." We are always conscious in introspection
of " some particular perception or other." Setting aside some
metaphysicians, the rest of mankind are (each of them) nothing
but a " bundle or collection of particular perceptions which
succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in
a perpetual flux and movement." Whilst, then, the strict
conception of identity or sameness is of an object that remains
invariable and uninterrupted through a supposed variation of
time, the identity of a self or person is analogous to that we
attribute to a plant or an animal. In the successive exist-
ence of a mind or thinking person, the " fictitious " identity
we ascribe to it is due, first, to the resemblances amongst
successive states in which memory consists, and, secondly, to
causation which links together its different perceptions in a
system. The soul, therefore, may best be compared to a
" commonwealth in which the several members are united by
the reciprocal ties of government and subordination, and give
rise to other persons, who propagate the same republic in the
incessant changes of its parts." As to the soul's simplicity,
" an object, whose different coexistent parts are bound together
by a close relation, operates upon the imagination after much
the same manner as one perfectly simple and indivisible." We
therefore " feign a principle of union as the support of this
simplicity and the centre of all the different parts and qualities
of the object."
In spite of the instructiveness of this section, the use
of such expressions as " fictitious " for what is entirely natural,
" feign " for a process instinctive and undesigning, " bundle "
for what he acknowledges to have organic unity, and the
analogy of a commonwealth adopted in preference to the
closer organic structure of an animal — all suggest an endeavour
to minimise the integrity of personal life as against the over-
strained statements of Berkeley and the dogmatic philosophers.
Still, the essential conclusion, that the mind does not immedi-
ately know itself as a Substance, was supported by Kant, and
has never since been shaken.
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 227
Spinoza's philosophy bears a greater rosemblauce to Hume'«
than h;is generally been recognised. The scepticism of the
one and mysticism of the other are so opposed in tone as to
disguise the fact that both issue in u strict phenomenalism
according to laws of Nature. In their views of the Subject
this is very plain : for according to Spinoza the mind is the
idea of the body (Part II., 13); and as the body consists of
innumerable small parts of extension, so does the mind of
corresponding ideas (Part II., 1 5); and, finally, the union among
ideas of the mind corresponds with the organisation of the
body. For "in so far as a body is better fitted to do or
suffer many things, in that degree is its mind more fit to
perceive many things at the same time; and the more the
actions of a body depend solely on itself, and the less other
bodies concur with it in action, the more capable is its mind
of distinct understanding" (Part II., 13, Schol. ; cf. IV. 38), and
therefore of blessedness and self-control (Part V., 39). At least,
I do not see how we can translate a ' fitness to do or suffer
many things ' and ' depending in action upon itself,' except by
the word ' organisation.'
§ 5. Mill, turning like Hume from the analysis of material
to that of mental Substance, inquires in his Examination of
Hamilton (chap, xii.) whether the conception of the mind as a
permanent existence is an original datum of consciousness.
He observes that " our notion of Mind, as well as of Matter,
is the notion of a permanent something, contrasted with the
perpetual flux of the sensations and other feelings or mental
states which we refer to it"; and that this permanence,
supposing that there were nothing else to be considered,
might (like Matter) be explained as "a Permanent Possi-
bility of states," sensations, etc. : in sleep, e.g., my capability
of feeling is not destroyed, but only conditionally suspended.
But there is something else to be considered, namely. Memory :
which has the peculiarity of involving " a belief in more than
its own present existence. A sensation involves only this :
but a remembrance of sensation involves the suggestion and
belief that a sensation of which it is a copy or representation
actually existed in the past " ; and not only that it existed
228 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
but that I myself, and no other, formerly had the sensation
remembered. Thus I am not only a series of feelings or
possibility of them, but am aware of myself as such ; and it
is a paradox that a series of feelings should be " aware of
itself as a series." In the Appendix, Mill adds a good deal
to this. " The organic tie," he says, " which connects the
present consciousness with the past one of which it reminds
me, is as near as I think we can get to a positive conception
of Self." He will not decide whether " we are distinctly
conscious of it in the act of remembrance," or, " according to
the opinion of Kant, are not conscious of a Self at all but are
compelled to assume it as a necessary condition of memory."
But further, whilst the Mind is only known to itself pheno-
menally, as a series, " we are forced to apprehend every part
of the series as linked with the other parts by something in
common which is not the feelings themselves, any more than
the succession of the feelings is the feelings themselves ; and
as that which is the same in the first as in the second, in the
second as in the third, * * "^ must be the same in the first as
in the fiftieth, this common element is a permanent element."
We have here a significant transition of expression from
" the notion of a permanent something," which " we figure as
remaining the same while the particular feelings, through
which it reveals its existence, change" (p. 235, 3rd ed.) —
to a common and permanent element in the feelings, which
is not the feelings themselves (p. 257), nor any definite mode
of consciousness, but which belongs to experience and is not
merely the ' notion ' of something. Now there is a relatively
stable element in the flux of consciousness, namely, the
coenaisthesis or somatic feeling; it is not indeed permanent,
but may remain much the same for hours in the background oi
consciousness whilst the distinct foreground rapidly changes ;
and this, as Eibot says, is a decisive factor of the empirical per-
sonality; but Mill does not seem to have meant the coeniesthesis.
And he can hardly have meant that every mental state has
the character of memory ; for though the fact of memory (or
" retentiveness ") is involved in every state, that is a very
different thing from its having consciously the specific quality
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 229
of being remembered. Nor does he seem to have meant that
the judgment " I think " accompanies every act of consciousness.
Mill's notion of a permanent self in introspection, though
approacliing Berkeley's belief, falls far short of it in confidence
and definiteness. As to the Permanent Possibility of feeling
that is figured to remain during the lapse of consciousness in
sleep, since (in chap, xv.) he is inclined to admit Hamilton's
" unconscious modifications in the only sense in which I can
attach any very distinct meaning to them, namely, unconscious
modifications of the nerves " — why should not the nervous
system have served him equally well as the Permanent Possi-
bility of feeling, or indeed, of memory ?
Finally, as to the paradox of Memory, the difficulty of
conceiving a series of conscious states conscious of itself as
a series : if we really mean a series of " feelings," it is not
only paradoxical but impossible : for ' feeling ' is the lowest
term of consciousness and can never amount to memory. But
memory is not " peculiar in involving a belief in more than
its own present existence." Mill knew, and has explained,
that every cognition has this character, being significative or
representative — reason of the universal, even sense-perception
of some object ; and a series, or stream, or organic activity of
consciousness, conscious of its own former existence, is one in
which occur ideas having the significative character which we
call memory and believe to represent past reality. In this
there is no peculiar paradox.
It is impossible to appreciate the reality of consciousness
whilst treating its processes as phenomena. In Mill's Essay
on Theism (Part III.) he goes somewhat further : " Feeling and
thought are much more real than anything else, they are the
only things which we directly know to be real." And as to
the mind's substantiality, he says : " Substance is but a general
name for the perdurability of attributes : wherever there is
a series of thoughts connected together by memories, that
constitutes a thinking substance." But, surely, such a series
constitutes not a substance but a continuous activity. In
his work on Hamilton, he says that our notion of Mind is
" a permanent something, contrasted with the perpetual flux
230 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
of mental states " ; which is not really perpetual because of
sleep. No one would call that a substance which, as Mill
supposed, might be suspended for several hours every day.
What has become of the " permanent possibility " ? In his
Theism, then. Mill has emphasised the reality of the Subject,
but he has committed an impropriety and a contradiction in
calling it a thinking substance.
§ 6. Had Mill appreciated Kant's philosophy he could
hardly have written his chapters on the Self without some
discussion of the famous doctrines of the Unity of Appercep-
tion and the Paralogisms of piu-e Eeason, Without taking up
disproportionate space it is impossible here to examine all the
passages in which Kant labours to explain these matters ; but
I must attempt a summary of his teaching.
The unity of Apperception, that is, of explicit conscious-
ness, first becomes prominent in the Deduction of the Categories
(§ 16). "The / think" he says, "must be able to accompany
all my representations ; for else something would be represented
in me that could not at all be thought, which is as much as
to say the representation would either be impossible or for
me at least nothing at all," All the manifold of intuition,
therefore, is necessarily related to the I think in any Subject ;
and this is an act of spontaneity not of sense (which is only
receptive). It is called pure consciousness to distinguish it
from the empirical ; and original consciousness because it is
that self-consciousness which, inasmuch as it gives rise to the
representation / think accompanying all representations and
in all consciousness one and the same, cannot be derived from
anything further. It is also called the transcendental unity
of self-consciousness to indicate the possibility of cognition
a priori. It is the highest principle of all synthesis in both
intuition and understanding; the ground of the categories, of
the unity of objects, of the necessity and universality of
experience or Nature : at least it is so for the human mind,
though perhaps not for a mind whose representations should
merely as such be actual — an intuitive Understanding (§ 17).
Therefore, this objective unity of consciousness must be dis-
tinguished from the subjective unity of the internal sense.
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJPXT 231
which is empirical and contingent and varies in different men
(§ 18), and consists of phenomena in time, which are thought
under the categories (§ 24) ; that is, the unity of the empirical
Subject is that of a something thought as one ; but the pure
unity of consciousness is the condition of all thinking, by the
category of unity or any other. Herein I am conscious of
myself, not as I appear to myself, noch wie ich an mir selbst
bin, but only that I am : it is a thought not an intuition ; so
that the consciousness of self is far from being a knowledge of
self (§ 25).
Now, to overlook this fact was the error of Eational
Psychology (as in Descartes and Leibniz), which took the pure
consciousness / think for an object, and proceeded to prove
that it is (1) a Substance; (2) simple; (3) identical at all
times ; (4) in relation to possible objects in space, a soul.
The proofs err, first, by assuming that the Self which is always
a subject, never a predicate to thought, is therefore a Sub-
stance ! Secondly, by inferring that the Ego, which is of course
a single subject, is therefore a simple Substance. Similarly
with the third case, identity. Fourthly, I distinguish Self as
a thinking being from things in space ; but it does not follow
that the consciousness of myself is possible without things
outside of me through which representations are given to me,
or that I can exist merely as a thinking being, not as man.
Such are the Paralogisms.
Although I cannot regard as historically true Kant's
derivation of Eational Psychology from the mistake of treating
the / think as a given object, since Rational Psychology is
manifestly a scholastic recension of the ghost-theory ; still,
seeing the general truth of Kant's position that only the
phenomenon (in his sense) is given, and that Self at any rate
is posited as subject only, one cannot help wondering at Lotze's
attempt to establish the independence of the soul as a simple
substance merely on the evidence of the unity of Apperception.
He explains indeed {Metaphysics, § 243) that this is in
accordance with his own definition of a substance as " every-
thing which possesses the power of producing and experiencing
effects, in so far as it possesses the power " ; and presently he
232 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
adds : " The fact of the unity of consciousness is eo ipso at once
the fact of the existence of a substance : we do not need by a
process of reasoning to conclude from the former to the latter
as the condition of its existence " (I quote the translation).
But this is hardly reconcilable with other passages. In § 241
he says : " Any comparison of two ideas, which ends by our
finding their contents like or unlike, presupposes the absolute
indivisible unity of that which compares them : it must be
one and the same thing which first forms the idea of a, then
that of h, and which at the same time is conscious of the
nature and extent of the difference between them." "What is
this but arguing (I will not call it reasoning) from the unity
of consciousness to a substance, a " thing " that " forms an
idea " ? It is the style of mythology. The unity of consciousness
can have a " power of producing and experiencing effects " only
if it is one of the phenomena related. But this it certainly is
not. Common modes of speech would excuse a man's writing
of the Soul as a Thing having a unity of consciousness in its
activities ; but there can be no excuse for describing the unity
itself as a thing producing and experiencing effects, which are
nothing but the consciousness of which it is the unity. Hence,
Lotze has in fact inferred Substance from Subject. But we
have seen that a relation between substance and phenomena
or between soul and activity (if it can be thought at all)
is not the relation between cause and effect : and still less
is this the relation between the unity of consciousness and
the phenomena of consciousness. The unity of consciousness
neither acts nor suffers.
As to Kant's doctrine of Apperception, it is only intelligible
in connection with the deepest thoughts of his philosophy,
which are left in a sort of secret script to be deciphered as
best we can. Every one knows how the Ding an sich plays
hide-and-seek with us throughout the K. d. r. V. ; but in the
ethical and religious writings it becomes as manifest as words
can make it. There we learn that the reality of our life and
fate is homo noumenon ; and we may easily suppose that there
is a multitude of noumena, one for each of us, besides those of
other rationals. But on reflection it must appear that this is
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 233
iuconceivable ; for noumena out of Time and Space cannot be
many ; there cannot be a numerical individuation, but at most
a ciualitative difference, and this only a moral one — holy and
uot-lioly. That individual men, not only in this life but ad
infinitum, are sensuously determinate is implied in the
argument for immortality : homo phenomenon does not become
a noumenon by death in this world, since it is the persistence
of sensuous opposition to Keason that guarantees his own per-
sistence.
The noumenon, then, is one with two aspects — the Absolute
Rejison, and homo noumenon who is fallen. The fall (we
learn in the Religion i. d. G. d. hi. Vernunft) is a mystery, its
origin unaccountable, and of course not to be thought of as
occurring in time; but, seeing that evil is due to the influence
of Sense upon Reason, we may suppose that homo noumenon
is nothing else than the aspect of Reason in a sensuous world
— whose self-diremption in Time and Space, or the ' taking
of flesh,' is, as such, a ' fall ' from Absolute Reason. Hence
we may understand the objectivity of Reason in experience
or Nature ; which in the K. d. r. V. is such a monstrous
doctrine, if we understand it as the constitution of Nature by
the individual human mind. The individual, as rational,
shares in the knowledge of Reason which is the law of Natiu-e,
but in his limitations only knows the outlines of the world-
scheme, and must find out the details as best he can.
Now, pure transcendental original Apperception is the
common consciousness of Nature, in which all objective
knowledge resides ; of which Time, Space and the Categories
are the most general functions, but every detail of fact and
relation is equally and as necessarily a function. Accordingly,
it is widely distinct from the mere subjective empirical unity
of Apperception. As the condition of the representation of
objects in Space, it is the condition of the existence of any
homo phenomenon ; and, through Time and the Categories, it
is the condition of the synthesis of his subjective experience
and of the thought of its unity, even to himself. But the
Categories are conditions of his thoughts as Laws of Nature ;
they are not his private organs of thinking ; he must be
234 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
content to do his private thinking with the Schemata of
Imagination. Hence transcendental Apperception itself is One
in a qualified sense — not under the Category of Unity, not
numerically then ; and, therefore, if spoken of as Self-conscious-
ness, this is also in a qualified sense ; for ' self ' implies others
on the same footing, and what is above unity is above plurality,
and else it could not be pure. In short, we may best interpret
it as the Kantian Logos.
But as for the subjective unity of apperception, or
empirical self-consciousness, yours or mine, it is merely a
limited particular fact, and to make great ado about it is very
unphilosophical. For it is far from being the whole even of
oneself; since beyond it lies the vast region of sub-consciousness
(much more than ^^ of oneself), and the period of infancy,
and all the forgotten experience that once was conscious, and
a considerable part even of consciousness as it flies. Kant
fully recognises this in his Anthropologie (Book I. § 5); and
even Lotze says {Metaphysics, § 241) that he does not
" repeat the frequent but exaggerated assertion, that in every
single act of feeling or thinking there is an express conscious-
ness which regards the sensation or idea simply as a state
of self; on the contrary, every one is familiar with that
absorption in the content of a sensuous perception which often
makes us entirely forget our personality in view of it." This
is as true of attentive thought as of perception. Lotze adds :
" But then the very fact that we can become aware that this
was the case, presupposes that we can retrieve what we omitted
at first, viz., the recognition that the perception was in us, as
our state." How much can we retrieve ? Often next to
nothing of all that has passed.
I must not be supposed to contend that the above
interpretation of Kant is borne out by every passage in which
he treats of Apperception. Far from it: at the very outset
the proposition, " I think accompanies every act of conscious-
ness," suggests the individual unity, and is both false and
misleading. He did not from the first distinguish clearly in
his own mind the universal and individual unities ; else he
must have seen that the latter necessarily includes the sub-
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 235
jective unity of the internal sense. But, viewing his philosophy
as a whole, I have given the only sensible meaning of tranH-
cendentul Apperception ; for the notion that this am be a
function of the individual is so intolerably foolish that any
other is comparatively sane.
§ 7. The esoteric Kantian doctrine of homo phenomenon,
then, is akin to the ancient theory of emanation in the
Vedanta and Neo-Platonism. Lotze expresses it (§ 246) :
" Nor again is it out of nothing that the soul is made or
created by the absolute; but, to satisfy the imagination, we may
say it is from itself, from its own real nature that the absolute
projects the soul, and so adds to its one activity, the course of
nature, that other which, in the ruling plan of the absolute,
is its natural completion." Even in the history of English
Philosophy similar doctrines have been held at various times by
Oudworth and others ; of whom the most recently interesting
is the late T. H. Green. Green says {Prolegomena, § 67) that
our consciousness " can only be explained by supposing that in
the growth of our experience, in the process of our learning to
know the world, an animal organism, which has its history in
time, gradually becomes the vehicle of an eternally complete
consciousness."
Apparently, the marks by which, according to Green, our
consciousness may be identified with the Divine are five: (1)
it is not itself in time, as may be proved by the very fact of
its perceiving events in time ; (2) in every act of consciousness
it distinguishes itself from the content of its activity ; (3) it
is a unifying principle to the contents of consciousness by
relating them together; (4) it is therefore an agent, and (5)
a free agent.
All these marks, except the fifth (for which see § 77),
are given in the following passage {Prolegomena, § 32):
"Thus in order that successive feelings may be related in
objects of experience, even objects related in the way of suc-
cession, there must be in consciousness an agent which
distinguishes itself from the feelings, uniting them in their
severalty, making them equally present in their succession."
Many similar passages might be quoted : this is the essence
236 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
of Green's Metaphysics, and every position is gained by a
paralogism.
For (1) human consciousness is entirely determined in
time : not only are relations of succession cognised as such
and by an actual succession of their terms in thought, but
this is even true of relations of co-existence ; and if there is
any mysterious question here it is, not how succession can be
presented as such, but how co-existences can be recognised at
all. Green seems to have mistaken the " psychological now "
for the nunc stans.
(2) That in every act of consciousness the agent (soul or
ego) distinguishes itself from the content of its activity is
(a) untrue, because in fact self-consciousness does not accom-
pany every act of human consciousness, (h) There is probably
here a confusion between the total empirical content of the
ego at any time, which contrasts with any fresh feeling or
cognition (if distinct), and the abstract Subject, which (as
such) is never known at all. For (c) to suppose that the
abstract Subject can be distinguished from any particular
content, is to make it one term of a relation of difference, and
therefore an object needing another Subject for its presenta-
tion (Third Man). The same objection applies to the descrip-
tion of the Unity of Apperception as the " correlate of all
experience " ; for a ' correlate ' is a term related.
(3) Self-consciousness is not the unifying principle even
in knowledge ; for all knowledge begins with perception, and
the integration of psychic elements in perception which gives
it its significative character, is infinitely more ancient and
profound than any individual human consciousness. Hence
the unsatisfactory character of the psychological analysis of
perception : hence the fact that the unity of perception is
felt as depending on the object. At present the unity of
perception can best be understood as a growth. Similarly,
the integrations of instinct, habit, and even memory are
growths, as truly as the physical tissues are. Memories,
indeed, both in acquisition (as a rule) and in revival, are
clearer and more analysable than the more ancient functions
of the soul, but their connection or unity is not determined
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 237
by self-consciousness, but (rather) determines it. The inven-
tions and discoveries of imagination and discursive thought,
though they appear in consciousness, do not come by the
routes of consciousness : the lines that signal and summon
them run through the dark. What a shallow thing our
explicit consciousness is we have not yet enough considered.
(4) To assume that the unity of consciousness is the
activity of an agent, is precisely the paralogism of treating
the Subject as Substance. " What is the use (poor Kant
might ask) of writing, or refuting, or proving anything ^ —
Were it not better done as other use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade ? "
But (5) that human consciousness should be a free agent
is in conflict with the principles of Green's philosophy.
Having inferred from human consciousness a divine Conscious-
ness as sustaining the world, he finds that it must be timeless,
uniting all existence in eternal knowledge, and in this aspect
he calls it a " free cause." But he does not mean that it is a
cause in any ordinary sense of the word by which some
" separate particularity " is implied in cause and effect : for
" the agent [divine Consciousness] must act absolutely from
itself in the action through which that world is — not, as does
everything within the world, under determination by some-
thing else. The world has no character but that given it by
this action ; the agent no character but that which it gives
itself in this action" (§ 76). Now, how such a relation is
possible we are to understand by comparing our own activity
in knowledge ; which is " an action as absolutely from itself,
as little to be accounted for by the phenomena which through
it become an intelligent experience, or by anything alien to
itself, as is that which we have found to be implied in the
existence of the universal order " (§ 77). But this explanation
raises appalling difficulties. How is it possible that in know-
ing I should be a " free cause " of knowledge, seeing that the
object known is always a fact of the eternal Mind ? Whilst
awake I necessarily know something, and must know it as it
is. I cannot choose how I shall know a thing, and the thing
238 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
takes no character from my knowledge of it, nor is my
character merely equivalent to my knowledge of the thing.
In knowledge, then, man is not a ' free cause,' and does not
help us to bring the divine Consciousness under that odd
category. In experience causa libera is without example or
analogy : it neither explains anything, nor can it be
explained.
It is especially odd that any one should apply the adjective
" free " to the Divine ' Agent ' as above described. According
to Leibniz, God was not free to choose any world but the best
possible (namely, this one) ; and Green cannot have meant
that the Divine Agent was free to cognise another world ; for
he explicitly asserts that " it has no character but that which
it gives itself in this action " (knowledge of the world). This
world therefore is not merely the best but the only possible
one. And the Divine Unity of Apperception, as Green con-
ceives it, cannot be an ' agent ' at all. For agency implies
activity, implies changes brought about; and this is impos-
sible in the world known to such a Being, a world without
beginning, or end, or process, or development, or decay.
Still, such a world, a nunc stans, being granted, it may
seem a fair inference that it can only be represented in Time
by an invariable order ; and this agrees with Green's remark
that "all results are necessary results" (§ 109). But then all
human knowledge and actions are necessary.
We may conclude that there is no way of comprehending
man as resembling the Divine Consciousness in being a free
agent, unifying the object of knowledge from which it dis-
tinguishes itself as a timeless principle ; and that therefore
Green was right in saying that " the indivisible reality of our
consciousness [at once divine and human] cannot be compre-
hended in a single conception. In seeking to understand its
reality we have to look at it from two different points of view ;
and the different conceptions that we form of it, as looked at
from these different points, do not admit of being united "
(§ 68). This seems quite just; but things that '^cannot be
united in a single concept " have no resemblance, and can never
help to explain one another. Such is the truth : and, having
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJP:CT 239
perceived it, is it uot ustouishiug that this most earnest, sincere
and benevolent man sliould try to make an impossible concep-
tion the basis of human maunei's and of family and social life {
Has the house of our life no foundation but tliis impalpable
sand ?
Unless a scheme of notions is in fact merely verbal, if it
cannot be clearly rendered in concatenated concepts, there is
no support for it but some sort of incoherent imagery. Theories
of emanation are not merely verbal, and they cannot be clearly
concatenated ; but such words as ' emanation,' ' the absolute
projects the soul,' etc., not only had orignally a physical mean-
ing (in which, as in so many mythologies, ' generation '
predominated), but they still retain it ; and physical sugges-
tions, half suppressed by habits of technical thought, are still
that which gives them all the sense they have. In short,
Emanation is essentially a materialistic theory, in spite of
every effort to refine away its sensuous dross. If I am asked
whether the outological suggestions of this volume are purely
verbal, or clearly concatenated, or vaguely imagined ; my
answer is that, so far as conceptual, the imperfect character of
the concepts employed has been explicitly shown, and that
nothing will be built upon them without fair warning ; and
that, where these concepts fail, there is a dim impulse of
imagination to supplement the quasi-intelligible, which of course
likewise fails, and, as far as it goes, is materialistic. But here,
indeed. Materialism and Mysticism meet ; for Mysticism is
always an attempt to walk by imagination where perception
has left no vestiges. This cannot be helped in any Ontology.
The nature of human thought and language makes it impossible
— once we quit the ground of immediate consciousness, — to
imagine the non-material or to define it except by blank
negations of materiality. And the remedy for this defect of
thought is to find a way of looking at the "World so as to see
that ' Material-Spiritual ' is a crude, strained and indefensible
opposition. It is not a case in which any theory can be proved
by the physical method and incorporated with the sciences,
but one in which we have to consider, in view of the sciences
and the whole of experience, what scheme of notions will best
240 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
serve us to fill up that background of experience which all
admit to be obscure. Such is the purpose of these specu-
lations.
§ 8. We iiave seen, then, that the ego or consciousness is
not, and cannot be explained by, any Substance, material or
spiritual. Hume and Kant (in his speculative Philosophy)
recognise what are called the phenomena of the Soul ; and, if
interpreted dogmatically, they might be supposed to be
Nihilists, denying any Substance ; but if fairly treated as
sceptic and critic, they are Agnostics, demonstrating the grounds
of our ontological nescience. The sequel of Kant's Philosophy
shows that this Agnosticism was unsatisfactory to himself;
and it is so to me, as well as to many others who acknowledge
the force of the sceptical and critical arguments. Therefore, I
am recommending as the most coherent and natural way of
thinking, on the whole, this hypothesis that the World is
essentially a conscious thing ; that in consciousness we have
immediate knowledge of Keality, but not of the whole of Being ;
that the rest of Being is made known to us by phenomena ;
that it is everywhere conscious, but in various degrees, and
that the higher degrees are known to us by the phenomena of
organisation. In support of this view I argued in Chap. X. from
the phenomena, and it has been necessary to show why other
hypotheses are less satisfactory. It remains to consider, in
this chapter, how it compares with other hypotheses in the
account it gives of Perception and Volition.
Neither Materialism nor Spiritualism can give any account
of perception or volition. To Materialism all consciousness is
a miracle, and therefore so is perception : to Spiritualism no
perception is possible, because there is nothing to perceive.
Dualism, maintaining the reality both of a material and of a
spiritual Substance, has, from Descartes to Hamilton, tried in
vain to circumvent the truism that between Substances
divided by definition there is no community. Our own way
of representing these things, on the hypothesis that there is
an intimate parallelism between consciousness and the rest of
Being which is manifested in phenomena, such that conscious-
ness may be considered as an activity of Being, may be put
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE SUBJECT 241
in this way : Sensation arises when a disturbance in the
transcendent Being of the brain is set up by changes in the
Being of other phenomena ; and perception is the integration
of sensations that takes place under certain conditions in
which one sensation becomes a sign of the others. An idea
consists of perceptions and their associations centrally excited ;
that is, accompanying disturbances propagated from other
parts of the Being of the brain. Volition, or the acting upon
the idea of an action, implies a specific disturbance in the
Being of the brain corresponding with the idea of the action,
and a propagation of this disturbance by the Being of nerves
and muscles into the outer world.
This story contains so many queer phrases that it asks
some courage to write it ; and, in fact, it would not have been
written if I had thought that it expressed merely notions of
my own. But, however crude the expression (and I have
deliberately refrained from refining it), I believe it is the
way in which many, perhaps most people now think, who
have given any attention to Psychology and also to the recent
progress of the physical and biological sciences. For they
hold (1) that consciousness has no mass or energy ; (2) that
it cannot be explained by any other mode of existence; (3)
that phenomena do manifest mass and energy ; and (4) that
phenomena (as such) are not the reality of Being. My
account of perception and volition follows from these four
propositions.
But how little I can venture to infer concerning Being
that is not Consciousness, has been shown in Chap. VIII. § 8 ;
namely, Succession, Change, Co-existence, Order. And amidst
the contempt into which Ontology has now fallen it is lonely,
wearisome and depressing to write about it. Once more let
us return to the common daylight, to the fresh green fields of
primitive credulity, to the great conjuring entertainment where
seeing is believing.
IS
CHAPTER XII
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT
§ 1. ' Phenomena of consciousness ' is a convenient phrase in
treating Psychology as a Natural Science, which is my purpose
in the present chapter : for we must trace in outline the
development of the rational life, without which there could be
no Metaphysics. ' Phenomena of consciousness ' is also a very
natural phrase, for it is only by late reflection, and not
without difficulty, that the conviction can be reached that in
fact consciousness is not a phenomenon, but the direct and sole
revelation of the ultimate Being of the universe.
Consciousness seems a fragmentary thing, not only by the
intermissions of sleep and other lapses, but because each man
has some first recollection, and it is always of something that
happened a very little while ago ; and a few relics of events
from then till now are all that he directly knows of conscious-
ness : like the bridge that Mirza saw stretching out across an
unfathomable sea, many of whose arches were broken, whilst
its further end was hidden in mist. We learn from others
that we lived before we can remember ; but they know us
only by our bodies, as we know them ; and it is only by
expression, gesture, behaviour that we can infer anything of
them or of the animals, upon which to poise still more
hazardous conjectures concerning the rest of Nature. By such
a dim and flickering lamp is the vast world warmed and
illumined.
We have, therefore, no choice but to recognise human
society and animal life and the sciences of these, as conditions
of psychological inquiry : not that the psychologist fails to
242
NATUKAL IIISTOKY OF THK SUBJECT 243
make u full returu for what he takes, but that his f»\vn
experieuce is isolated, incoherent and meaningless apart from
the environing and antecedent activities of other men and
other animals. To understand the growth of any single
human mind, we must begin with the inherited organisation
and disposition to development presented by its body, and
with the social circumstances into which it is bom. And the
psychologist's first problem is to determine, if possible, how
much of a man's mental development is traceable to education
and experience, and how much to the intrinsic maturing of
the germ-plasm of his psycho-physical being.
This problem will not soon be solved ; but I shall not
disguise my own inclination to lay great stress upon the
organic development, which is a growth of the body as a sign
of the soul. Works of Psychology give elaborate accounts of
how we learn to perceive objects and to will movements. I
admire these writings, their penetrating insight and subtle
analysis, and eagerly acknowledge how much I owe them.
Yet they seem to me to describe what may be supposed to
have happened in the infancy of our minds rather than what
really happened. In my view we cannot properly be said to
learn any of those things. We come to perceive objects by
organic growth, before discriminating the sensations that
are the ground of the qualities that constitute objects ; and
by the same means we acquire many voluntary actions before
we are able to attend to motor ideas. Our interpretations are
apt to be as anthropomorphically misleading in studying the
mind of a child as in studying the minds of other animals.
To perceive an object, to perceive it at a distance and to
acquire control of the movements necessary to reach it, are all
involved in the generic development of the neuro-muscular
apparatus. Since that development is greatly furthered by a
child's activities, which imply a varied consciousness, we easily
regard such acquisitions as " outgrowths of the same experi-
ences," as they would be were a child's mind like our own ;
but this is impossible. When the time comes for learning by
experience, we already live in an orderly world, and are in
possession of the general scheme of our faculties.
244 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Our early growth is accompanied and influenced by
experience, but is rapid out of all proportion to experience, and
may be attributed to that inherent activity by which every
seed develops according to its kind. Before birth far greater
progress is made than during the whole of an individual's
subsequent life ; and this self-development continues for many
years, is conspicuous again at puberty, and gradually slackens
and ceases at ages varying in different races and in different
men of the same race. Then come middle age and old age,
considered to be especially the time of experience ; but the
essential characters of these periods express, no less than those
of infancy, the individuality of each organism. Why do
children of the same family, families of the same folk, various
races of liomo sapiens, grow up even under similar conditions
with widely different abilities, aptitudes, characters ? The
whole range of capacity from idiocy to genius has little to do
with experience.
The period of infancy in man is much longer than in other
animals of equal bulk at maturity, and in some races of men,
and in some men of the same race, longer than in others. As
this is manifestly inconvenient, it may be asked why the
period of gestation should not have been lengthened instead.
Mechanical difficulties connected with the size of the head
at birth may be alleged ; but gestation is said to be already
three months longer with man than with the gorilla.
Longer gestation might have been inconvenient to savages
(our recent ancestors) still nomadic ; but it would have
been safer for the offspring. Long infancy is favourable
to the development of family life, and of active sympathy
and affection, which are advantageous to a co-operative
animal. All these are considerations ; yet I think some-
thing must still be allowed for the necessity of thoroughly
interfusing from the first the animal growths of perception
and instinct with the growths that are stimulated by free
activities in the beginning of experience, and with the
gradual differentiation of the great plastic reserve in the
cortex which corresponds with the specifically human
powers of imagination and reason ; though even these later
NATUKAL IIISTOKY OF THE SU3UECT 245
growths are controlled iu their main features by inherited
predispositions to organisation.
The human child, according to Romanes, at about the
sixteenth month, reaches the gorilla's level of intelligence.
The poor gorilla ! Perhaps Romanes has a little antedated
the success of our rivalry ; for we know nothing about the
gorilla's intelligence under natural conditions. However,
thenceforward the proportion iu which human development
depends upon experience, as compared with the internal forces
of organisation, increases. But to maturity and even to the
close of life (as we see in the oncoming of insanity) it seems
that the general type of intellect and character, as distinguished
from the details of knowledge, accomplishment and behaviour,
is a realisation of hereditary conditions.
§ 2. In the biological evolution of mind we first see the
relation of its cognitive and active qualities in the sequence of
stimulus and contraction ; when a nervous system begins to
appear this relation is concentrated in the reflex arc ; and when
the energy of reaction grows greater and greater in proportion
to the energy of a stimulus, a release of intra-organic potential
is implied to which the psychic parallel is feeling and emotion.
Mr. Spencer has admirably traced and illustrated the develop-
ment of the correspondence between the living mind and the
conditions of its existence ; he has shown how the corre-
spondence extends in space and time, and increases in
speciality, generality and complexity (Psychology, Part III.).
Tiiroughout, the character of the mental organism and all its
powers and activities are conditioned by Natural Selection ;
whereby it becomes, through obedience, the interpreter of the
law and reason of the world.
" The essential feature of living matter," says A. D. Waller,
" ia its instability." Every organic body is metabolic : it can
only maintain its existence if a moving equilibrium be
established between waste and repair, that is, as long as the
anabolic balances the catabolic process. Every change in it,
therefore, has a reference to some further change : tliis is its
teleological character ; and it is sanctioned by Natural Selection,
which favours those forms that live best, and best conduct the
246 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
activities that preserve life. Self-preservation, said the Stoics,
is the first effort of Nature. It is only by internal forces that
inorganic compounds are preserved ; but self-preservation, by
the very process of change, is characteristic of the organic — by
" the adaptation of internal to external relations." Hence
everything, so far as it is conscious, always strives to live, to
obtain food, to find its mate, to escape enemies or defeat them.
All activity is destructive and must be repaired ; the
individual dies at last and must be replaced : hence the
appetites of hunger, thirst and sex. In the satisfaction of
these appetites lies the primary interest and attention of
animals : success is pleasure and " corroboration of vital
motion " ; failure is pain and enfeeblement.
In attention, all the organism is focussed, and all its powers
are brought to bear on whatever is interesting. This attitude
is certainly favoured by Natural Selection ; and the same may
be said for the primary functions of cognition, assimilation
and discrimination. Assimilation is, in the first place, the
ground of action ; because, a known situation having been
reinstated, an action formerly successful may be repeated, an
action formerly unsuccessful inhibited ; and the pleasure of
former success reinforces repetition, and the pain of former
failure inhibits it. By discrimination, assimilation is defined
and guarded. At their first appearance in micro-organisms
these functions have a quasi-chemical aspect ; there the living
thing blends with inorganic Nature ; whilst, in the progress of
animal and human life, we find them to have contained the
germs of reason and science. Since, when we know what a
thing is and where we are, we know also what to do, assimila-
tion is pleasurable ; and from this humble source is derived
the impassioned joy of explanation.
When images begin to enter into the mental life, the
difference between them and perceptions is a condition of
sanity, and to this difference is proportioned the energy of
their motor reactions. Images subserve foresight and adap-
tation to things remote ; and their guiding power depends
on the processes of Association ; which are determined by
Natural Selection. For association and suggestion according
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 247
to contiguity, correspond with the connections that muke one
thing a mark of another in time and place ; and the con-
tirraation of association by repetition ensures a tendency to
think of things in some proportion to the frequency of their
recurrence. True, these tendencies may be very misleading,
and must often be destructive ; but animal life is generally
confined to a narrow routine in which approximate adaptation
is enough for the species. Interest and attention confirm
associations, because, in the routine life, that is interesting
which is preservative. The unhappiness of human life is due to
the failure of routine, and the persistence of primitive interests
in conditions that require analytic reason and circumspect
control, whilst these powers are still undeveloped.
§ 3. Whilst the adaptation of the organism to deal
directly with things remote in space has reached a high degree
of perfection in many animals, particularly in some birds of
prey, its aoaptation to deal with events remote in time is
characteristic of man. Teleology, as we have seen, is inherent
in all organic life, as a series or system of co-ordinated self-
and - species preservative changes : this begins with the
appetites ; is carried further by many instincts having a
remoter reference, in which there is a consciousness of the
action and a s-.rong feeling for it, but no distinct consciousness,
or even none at all, of the end : in human life it is increas-
ingly taken up into an explicit consciousness of ends and
means, though bhis process is far from complete ; I mean that
human nature is still largely instinctive and full of ideas and
impulses whose purpose it does not understand.
To deal successfully with events remote in time, there
must be a certain spontaneous orderliness of thought or
expectation, of which animals exhibit the beginnings ; but,
further, a power cf discovering the order of Nature, laws of the
relations of events, and of calculating their results with some
degree of precisioL or probability — in a word, reason. Of this
I shall speak presently ; but here I draw attention to a third
condition of the attainment of remote results, namely, the
growth of corresponding feelings. Plato had regarded certain
passions as the natural allies of reason, and even the later
248 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
Stoics found a place in their death's-head dogma for rational
emotions. Aristotle saw that " thought moves nothing " ;
though his expressions are not always consistent with this
truth ; for he talks of desire being opposed to reason, instead
of to the desire to act reasonably. But Spinoza was the first
to see clearly that " a passion can only be controlled by
another and stronger passion," and that the orderliness of our
life requires the development of emotions fit for human nature ;
though the, influence of Aristotle led him to put a too exclu-
sive stress upon the philosophic nisus. We see, then, the
inadequacy of defining man merely as ' rational ' : since
reason must be unavailing without the growth of correspond-
ing feelings, these must equally be differentiae of human
nature.
Perhaps it is not quite true that thought, or its physical
process, moves nothing ; it has some energy, but not enough
to move twelve stone ; for that there must be a release of
potential, and therefore (where organisation is imperfect) a
wave of feeling. But purposive actions arise in special
situations, such as aggression and escape, and thence acquire a
speciality of feeling. I take it that every special emotion is
an integration of the algedonic experiences of actions of the
same kind as those that they now reinforce and sustain.
Under the influence of less specialised feeling, efforts to escape
or hide generated the emotion of fear ; habits of hoarding
were the precondition of prudence ; the practice of equal
sharing gave rise to the sense of justice ; aud the worship
preceded the love of God.
With the development of animal life adaptation to a
greater and greater variety of circumstances becomes necessary ;
in man most, and especially in civilised man. Every situation,
as determined by purposes and the relations of persons and
things, has its own feeling ; and therefore our feelings are
shaded and blended in endless variety, so ihat Malebranche
may have been justified in saying that perhaps no two men
ever felt the same passion. Still, certain situations frequently
recur which approximate to an average tfpe, and there are
emotions corresponding with such situations having a suf-
NATUKAL HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 249
ficiently specific character to be readily recognised, though
they cannot be precisely classified.
The emotions exist either to intensify expression, like Joy
and Grief, or to reinforce action. Tlie latter are either
Impulsive, like Fear, Anger, Affection, which are common to
the higher animals, — the interpretation of their apparent
manifestation in the lowest animals is conjectural, - — or
liegulative in many degrees of co-ordination : the inferior
degrees being shared by some animals, whilst the superior are
proper to man, or even to some civilised men.
The regulation of action implies inhibition ; and this may
be due to the asthenic influence of an emotion tinged with
fear, or dread, like Prudence ; or to the fact that if one action
is effectually reinforced all incompatible actions must be
suppressed, as Justice suppresses Arrogance.
The regulative feelings, like the impulsive, are at first
instinctive ; that is, they direct conduct to an end without a
distinct prevision of that end, and with most men such is
still their condition. Quasi-rational, they help to secure the
ends of reason during the immaturity of reason ; they are
provident without circumspection, and but for them, reason-
ing, even to the last, would be ineffectual.
Various emotions may be considered as specially subserv-
ing the interests of the Individual, the Family, the Tribe ;
but in a normal civilised man all emotions are socialised, or
modified in the interests of the tribe or society.
Some emotions are concrete, like Love. Others are
abstract, like Pride — the integration of all satisfactions in
success of whatever kind, but especially in competition ; or
like Fairness — the integration of all satisfactions in pro-
portionate dealing. The differential circumstances in either
case cancel, and the common body of feeling remains with a
corresponding reflex or expression, the stiffening of the spinal
column or the opening out of the hands.
The social emotions are (1) Ego-altruistic, representing
what we believe to be the feelings of others toward us, such
as Vanity, Shame, Honour ; or (2) Altruistic, sympathetic
affections toward others, such as Pity, Generosity, Benevolence
250 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
(cf. Spencer's Psychology, Part VIII.) ; or (3) what I can only
call Panic emotions, meaning that they depend for their
development upon a sympathetic rajpport of the tribe, such as
Loyalty, Religion, Duty. If it be said that these last in their
highest form, so far from having a panic quality, brace the
solitary protestant and most shine against the face of tyranny
and clamour, we must remember that this happens in few
men, that it is not solitary where God is, and that every
mental structure in its highest organisation attains a relative
independence.
I need not show how all these feelings, though instinctive,
regulate and rationalise our life ; and this is not the place to
show how all emotions, whilst they remain instinctive, involve
more or less illusion, guiding the conduct of the individual to
ends of Nature other than those which he proposes to himself.
Play imitates all the actions of life and, therefore, all its
feelings. Hence every emotion is experienced in two ways :
first, in earnest as a motive or reinforcement, and then in
recreation. From the play -instinct the Fine Arts are an
outgrowth with a panic inspiration, especially in the rhythmic
Arts ; and under this influence the emotions suffer a further
transfiguration ; grief turns to pathos, terror to sublimity,
laughter to comedy. In this form their motive force is
nearly lost ; indeed, the possibility of its suspension is the
limit of Art : whence the rule not to intrude poetry into
oratory ; which urges to do something, except the encomiastic.
Still, indirectly, the Fine Arts are regulative, especially by
enhancing loyalty, religion and personal ideals. They unite
mankind ; sympathy reconciles us most in suffering, but Art
in rapture.
The effort to reason and to know, the more necessary as
the interests of life grow more enduring, has its own in-
stinctive passion — Curiosity. Plato and Aristotle traced the
beginning of Philosophy to Wonder ; but Wonder presides
chiefly over the mythopoeic stage of explanation : from which
indeed Plato half emerges, like
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts.
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 251
Wonder wants the permanence that is requisite to sustain
long and arduous research. Curiosity, derived from remote
animal progenitors, and at first directly subserving the simpler
needs of life, only finds its true field when the complexity of
human society demands the discovery of general truths
applicable to various circumstances, and at the same time
makes it possible to carry out the division of labour between
thought and action. To ensure the service of men at tasks
the least directly and plainly useful, like those of Art and
Science, Nature infuses master-passions into those whom she
calls ; who labour often unrewarded and careless of reward,
accounting themselves blest in their toil ; though to the
bystander they seem a sort of victims. Becoming aware of
this, they justify themselves by proving that science cheapens
bread, cotton and pig-iron ; but this is a concession to the
illusions of the world ; for amongst all the passions of man-
kind Philosophy alone is without illusion. Science truly is
a condition of civilisation ; but civilisation is for the sake of
Science.
§ 4. Every man is born to develop a peculiar organic
structure of impulse and emotion, more of this and less of
that, through the whole range of feeKngs. Such a struc-
ture varies inexhaustibly from man to man, as faces and
finger-prints do, and constitutes his character (the dominant
tendencies of his reaction) ; so far as this can be distinguished,
on the one hand, from behaviour, which is determined partly
by experience ; and, on the other hand, from temperament,
which depends upon the ccensesthesis.
In intra -uterine consciousness, wherein the feeling of
nutrition and growth is contrasted with the sense of move-
ment and resistance — or ccensesthesis with kinsesthesis —
begins the differentiation of Subject and Object.
The kinaesthesis accompanies all the special sensations,
and becomes the connective tissue of the objective mind or
Nature. It is that which every other sensation signifies ;
and because of the weight and resistance of my body, always
pressing on the earth, the significance of perception is always
reinforced by present experience : that star, that cloud, that
252 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
church is like this — this earth beneath my feet. My body
itself is such a thing ; such things favour or hurt the body
and affect the coenaesthesis. Hence the conviction of Physical
Reality, and the necessity of the conceptual system of the
physical sciences.
The coeuaesthesis is the original and the most permanent
factor of subjective consciousness, the background of all
changes of thought and feeling; so that some psychologists
regard it as the essence of the personal life. But to me it
seems rather to be the essence of subjectivity, and generic in
character ; too little individualised to constitute a person ;
who springs from it like a tree from the soil, or (say) like a
leaf from the tree. The utmost subjectivity brings us nearest
of all that we know to eternal and universal Being ; but a
man inhabits Time and Society. Expectation, memory, endur-
ing interests, concatenated endeavours, achievements and plans
mark out the cycle of his life, his individuality.
The living organism, moreover, cannot be understood
merely as the Subject ; it is the union of Subject and Object ;
for the kinaesthesis is as constant an experience as the
coensesthesis ; and hence spring our surmises concerning the
truth of the World.
But neither can man be understood merely as an individual,
for his interests are fused with other men's ; sympathy signifies,
as Schopenhauer shows, the kindred of mankind, and even of
organic nature ; and so do religious beliefs. Biological theory
explains this by the continuity of all life in Time, which (aa
we say) is more real than Space, the divider ; and doubtless
the coensesthesis is continuous, derived from germ to germ.
Hence a man's personality is inseparable from the family
and its possessions and traditions ; and hitherto it has been
inseparable from the Tribe or State. There, on the one hand,
grows up a consciousness of the relation of self to others,
according to rules implying responsibility and defining the
individual ; on the other hand, suggestion, imitation, education,
emulation and specialised industry and rank, modify hie
individuality, and disguise his character by codes of behaviour.
And further, since society is the greater part of every man's
NATUKAL HISTORY OF THP: SUBJECT 253
environment, it operates selectively, eliminating those who
fail to ' behave,' and thus determining the possible types of
character itself.
Different social conditions, town or country ; different
constitutions, despotic or free, operate differently in the
selection of character ; and of all considerations bearing upon
the comparison of social or political affairs, this is the most
important to mankind. Mill thought that Democracy tended
to favour uniformity and mediocrity of character, because he
dreaded uniformity and mediocrity ; Plato thought that
Democracy produced the utmost variety and extravagance of
character, because he hated Democracy and variety ; and it is
certainly odd that the worse motive should have prompted
the better inference.
§ 5. Nothing so clearly proves the secondary and dependent
character of the individual as a study of his appetites, desires,
emotions ; for they all refer to things or persons beyond him,
in relation to which he endeavours, so far as he is aware of
them, to adjust his actions, in order to save, or to better, him-
self, his family, his tribe. His actions depend upon what he
is aware of and what he is capable of desiring ; neither of
which can be arbitrarily altered. Nay, his desires further
determine what he shall be aware of ; confine his eyes within
the deep-trodden lane of customary life ; or if he ever looks over
the hedge, determine what shall interest him in the world
around, and therefore what he shall see there. Hence in the
quality and limits of our desires lies the true poverty of
human nature : it springs from a poor root.
A few generations ago we were little better than savages ;
a few generations farther back, and what then ? If the state
in which we live is civilisation, it has come too soon ; we have
not had time to prepare for it. The reign of man has been
established before he is fit to govern. Power has been acquired
over Nature ; but for most men there is no further use for
it than to provide a frivolous variety of satisfactions for the
same cravings of the same soul that 5000 years ago was
happier upon a kitchen-midden.
So unready are we that every country swarms with
254 THE METAPHYSICS OE NATUKE
thieves, harlots, faith -healers, gamblers, idlers, miracle-mongers,
quacks, politicians, and all sorts of parasites and impostors.
And for the rest of men, or not much less than half, who can
give a sincere reason why they should live in such toil and
darkness ? For some indeed there is ease and comfort, — a
noble result of Nature's travailing and groaning ; for a few
there is even wealth and ostentation. There is social gaiety,
possible by the grace of oblivion. Philanthropy, more truly
honourable than hopeful, and Art and Science remain,
Nothing is more depressing than the poetry of magic and
devil-conjuring: there we see the hero armed with super-
natural power, and helpless because he remains himself.
Hence Shakespeare treats such power ironically : Prospero
makes an exalted marriage for his daughter, and recovers the
duchy which, when formerly possessed, was never valued.
Superstitious prejudice, exasperated by the Eenascence, produced
the legend of Faustus ; and Marlowe's genius cannot disguise
its fatuity. According to Goethe, Faust escapes the devil and
satisfies his own soul by reclaiming waste land and founding
an industrial colony. We find with some disappointment
that the devil cannot help us to anything that cannot be
done without him. The same thing happens when epic poets,
from Homer to Milton, treat of the gods. The gods, it
seems, have the same narrow interests as we have ; or, indeed,
narrower ; for to idealise is to impoverish. So there is no
escape from our lot ; even imagination is as helpless as the
devil. Popular pictures of Heaven would be extravagantly
comic, if one did not reflect how desirable must seem eternal
rest to the weary, clean linen to the dirty, and a decent
participation in glory to the down-trodden and despised.
I do not suggest that human nature is always the same ;
far from it : but progress is slow, the average man of a race
advances little in 3000 years; the head of the procession
drags after it an appalling tail, and sometimes there is
retrogression. There has been during the last 100 years.
For it is an obvious truth that whenever any species has
unusual facility in getting a living, it degenerates ; since many
poor specimens then survive who, imder normal difficulties,
NATUKAL HISTOKY OF THE SUliJECT 255
must have perished. This is the condition under which the
population of North-west Europe and America, by the aid of
machinery and expanding industries, has so rapidly increased.
It cannot continue indefinitely, but will probably end in a
period of remorseless selection and misery. Modern industry
has done nothing for human happiness ; but it was necessary
to the inventing and perfecting of scientific apparatus.
§ 6. As our character determines our actions so it deter-
mines our thoughts ; for thought is a kind of action. Char-
acter, that is, determines our thinking, so far as we are able to
think; but the ability to think depends upon the plan or
structure of that which thinks, or upon its original disposition
to produce such a plan. As we are now speaking of phenomena,
this means that the ability to think is objectively represented
by the plan and structure of the brain. I suppose that every
brain has a certain innate disposition, generic, specific, in-
dividual, to develop certain connections of its tracts or sub-
organs ; and, in the case of the higher animals and man, an
aptitude for falling from time to time into new combinations,
which constitute a further development of its structure (if
confirmed) and exhibit the same specific or individual traits.
Plasticity of structure corresponds with originality of thought.
At first, all cognition and thought merely subserves the
organism, as a lamp before the footsteps of desire. Then with
the adaptation of man and society to more and more remote
conditions, thought discovers the objects of our true desire ;
that which is good for us on the whole, co-ordinates best our
conduct, is consented to by the preponderant weight of our
character ; which implies the inhibition of " chance desires "
that tend to frustrate the attainment of that good. Mean-
while, in these labours thought becomes self-impassioned and
obtains strength to lead its own life ; and we learn that he who
would discover truth must have in view no interest but truth.
Adaptive intelligence begins not from reflex action, nor
from instinct, but from expectation, which is a simple out-
growth of perception : differing from it in this, that some
interesting factor of an experience-complex is deferred. Ex-
pectation is not a projection of conscious memory, but of
256 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
experience ; for the predominant course of the stream of con-
sciousness is forward ; the primitive movement of attention is
watchfully forward ; at the lower levels of life no power is
possessed that is not useful, and memory (as distinct from re-
tentiveness) only becomes useful when there is sufficient
fulness and plasticity of mind to compare and discriminate,
and so to adapt conduct to new cases by the light of the old.
It may be, indeed, that primitive expectation is not even
illuminated by an idea of that which is expected ; for it seems
enough that there should be an attitude of preparation, and
a subactivity of certain nervous tracts facilitating the per-
ception of certain objects, and inhibiting all actions excited
by irrelevant objects. Certainly expectation is exhibited by
animals much lower in the scale of organisation than the
level at which evidence can be found of dreaming, hallucina-
tion, or home-sickness : the three criteria of the capacity for
free ideas according to Komanes, — the last of which is
questionable (^Mental Evolution in Animals, chap. x.).
From this lowly stage of adaptive intelligence, the rise of
memory and free generic ideas, or recepts, leads to " reasoning
from particulars to particulars " ; that is, to a judging of the
present in the light of parallel cases recalled. Not that such
reasoning supersedes the early expectant judgment ; for this
still serves us well, even after the last stage of reasoning has
become possible by means of principles, generalised or abstracted
from aggregates of remembered or recorded experience, and
methodically verified.
§ 7. Generalisations concerning the relations of things
and events are possible only by means of language ; and,
therefore, if generalised thought is a human differentia, society,
in which alone the growth of language is possible, is older
than man. This truth, that man never by contract or other-
wise formed society, but that society is older than he, and
that from the first he has grown up and been moulded in all
his traits in relation to society, is of the utmost importance to
Moral Philosophy ; but what we are here concerned to note is
that the language that has developed in social life is the
necessary organ of Reason.
I
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 257
That we should reason chiefly by means of language seems
a superficial and probably deceptive arrangement, and in fact
so it is ; but the possibility and even necessity of it appears
when we consider that the advantage of economising time and
energy has imposed a symbolic character on all mental opera-
tions. The reasoning by means of signs is not an unintelli-
gible change in the process of mental growth ; we find the
same thing in perception, where (normally) visual sensations
are the signs of complex objects and motions ; and in memory
and imagination, not only as derived chiefly from vision in
most of us, but also by the use of fragments of images to
signify extensive tracts of potential representation, or of words
to supersede even the fragments of images. This is the
condition of that " quickness " commonly ascribed to thought ;
for if in such processes of representation we could not be
content without reviewing the whole phantasmagoria of our
associations, thought would by no means be quick. And the
same device facilitates volition : for the most part it is only in
acquiring control of an unused muscle, or of a new muscle-
grouping, that ideas of actions are explicit in consciousness ;
but otherwise they are taken for granted, — complicated with
the idea of the end to be attained, as the weight of an object
is complicated with its visual presentation, — whence the tran-
sition is easy to secondary automacy.
In all these cases the effectiveness of abbreviation depends
upon the strength of integration or association between the
signs and the facts signified. Without this condition, reason-
ing, whether with ourselves or with others, could not, as it
often does, take the form of a verbal continuum, comparable
with the visual continuum that, as we look round, presents to
us the realm of Nature. Accordingly, the fitness of language
to lead our thoughts is ensured by its three-fold roots in the
mind and a corresponding intricacy and pervadingness of asso-
ciation : namely, as received by the ear, as articulated, and as
seen by the eye — not only when written but in lip-movement
and in the accompanying gestures and expression. And being
in all these ways, but especially in articulation, an active experi-
ence, it is an apt organ of attention and of universal control.
17
258 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Still, whilst language is an indispensable organ of human
reason, it implies the existence of a reason of which it is the
organ, that is, the organisation of the mind as a whole, which
has come into existence for the use and for the sake of
reasoning, because the world itself is orderly and predictable.
Spencer has given the most elaborate account of the growth of
this organisation : see his Principles of Psychology, especially
Part III., ou Mind as a Correspondence, and Part V., on the
Evolution of the Nervous System ; also Part II. chap, ii., on
the Composition of Mind, and Part VIII. chap, iii., on the
Development of Conceptions. The chief defects of his theory
are its extreme abstractness, as if the process of development
depended not at all upon the endeavour of the individual mind
to know ; and its giving no part to language itself in aiding
the evolution of Eeason.
The essential features of rational organisation are, on the
one hand, the perceiving, imagining, thinking as totalities
those things, events, ideas that have a physical or logical
cohesion ; and, on the other hand, the discriminating and
identifying as such the properties and relations of those
totalities. Both these processes, grouping and abstraction,
whatever crude beginnings of them may exist in the animal
world by the " logic of recepts," depend in the degree in which
they are performed by ourselves upon the words and construc-
tions of language. The groupings range from such simple
percepts as " stone " or " flying bird " to such complex ideas
as " History of Home," " Astronomy," " Self," " World " ; the
abstractions range from such recepts or generic impressions
as " sweet," or " edible " to such categories as " gravitation,"
" number," " equality " ; and it cannot be supposed that the
later terms of these series could possibly be fixed and manipu-
lated without language.
In considering the rational organisation of experience by
grouping and abstraction, or synthesis and analysis, it is
usual to confine the term reasoning to the analytic process ;
but, in fact, the two processes are inseparable. High abstrac-
tions imply vast aggregates of experience to be compared, and
the aggregates themselves, though largely formed by associa-
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT 259
tion, are extended by iuferences, and limited by discriminative
judgments. According to Wundt, to reason is to analyse a
total idea that has been formed by " apperceptive synthesis "
(selective attention) ; but this is too narrow a view. We do,
indeed, analyse an aggregate idea, as we do a percept. We
analyse (say) an orange, by attending to its visual properties,
prepared to grasp whatever other properties suggest themselves.
Similarly, we may attend to the sign of an aggregate idea
(usually a verbal sign), — say, Cartesianism, — and note the
contents that suggest themselves, — initial doubt, certitude of
self-consciousness, innate ideas, mutual exclusiveness of thought
and extension, etc. ; and further, the relations between those
ideas that constitute the total, and which, like the whole, are
known to us by their verbal signs. But the more original
functions of reasoning are the breaking up of aggregate ideas
erroneously formed, and the building up of others upon juster
conceptions of community ; for example, to judge that the
idea of Monarchy as including Constitutionalism and Autocracy
is superficial and misleading, and that the true connection of
Constitutional Monarchy is with Republics : or, again, the
identification of aggregates commonly assumed to be opposed ;
for example, to judge that human life, animal life, and plant
life agree in this, that Malthus' law of population is equally
true of them all. It could be shown, I think, that our
advances in reasoning, including the great scientific discoveries,
conform to these types.
When aggregates are named they are apt to acquire not
only unity but isolation ; more especially when their names
signify opposition, the aggregates they stand for have a mutual
repulsion. Words spread a sort of skin over their meanings :
such ideas as buying and selling, rational and brutal, mind
and matter, become so strongly delimited, that until the
barriers are broken through by some exceptional nisus of
thought, there is an end of understanding.
The faculty that carries forward this disruptive and
recombining process is the primitive function of discrimination
and assimilation, raised to various powers under the name
of abstract thought. William James happily describes the
260 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
procedure as " dissociation by varying concomitants." I
believe the credit of first explaining the matter is due to
Hume in his Treatise, Book I. Part I. § 7, 0/^ Abstraction,
especially the last two paragraphs on the " distinction of
reason." When any quality or relation is repeated amidst
complex experiences that otherwise vary, it attains a quasi-
independence ; and the same is true when a quality varies
amidst complexes otherwise constant. In either case, attention
is attracted and assimiliation is accomplished; and thence-
forth the identification of the quality or relation is facilitated
should it occur in further experience. Its fixation is assured
by a name or proposition.
The primitive function of assimilation is therefore also
the ground of the explanation of Nature ; for this consists in
the progressive identification of the properties and relations
of things and events under all the disguises of variety, and
the co-ordination of them in a system of concepts and laws,
the most general or abstract of which are called Categories
and Axioms.
We have now considered self-conscious reason as arising
in individuals in the course of nature by natural laws. If
this is the explanation of the individual, it is also the
guarantee of the reality of the World. In no other way is
that explanation and guarantee possible ; no otherwise can
the knower be related to the known ; and only so far as
there is law can there be any system or any truth. The
development of reason carries with it the criteria of truth : it
becomes clear and definite, excludes contradiction, presupposes
uniformity, and tends to establish universal consent.
Whether, or in what sense, the World itself is to be
thought rational, we are not yet ready to discuss. To declare
that that which reason interprets must be rational, may be
rash and even impious. Discursive reason is tentative and
fallible ; in Nature there are no paralogisms nor " provisional
hypotheses." But if it be hazardous to speak of the World
as Universal Reason, at least we are sure that it is the
ground, the measure, the law, the judge, and in every way
the superior of human reason.
BOOK IV.-THE CATEGORIES
I
CHAPTER XIII
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES
I. Relation in General
§ 1. In Formal Logic a Judgment is analysed into two
Terms (subject and predicate) and a Eelation between them
(marked by the copula) ; and it is usual to speak of subject
and predicate as concepts, but not to call the relation between
them a concept. Yet it expresses the same judgment to say
' A is like B,' or ' A and B are alike ' ; ' A is the cause of B,'
or * A and B are cause and effect.' Thus the relation of the
terms is turned into a predicate, and so becomes manifestly a
concept. It is true, though not immediately relevant, that,
as Hamilton says, every concept, though in the place of the
subject or predicate term, itself involves relations, and is a
" fasciculus of Judgments." Now the Metaphysic of Logic is a
reflective evaluation of conceptual knowledge ; but of course it
examines not all concepts, — an infinite task, — but those that
are variously called the highest, or most abstract, or universal,
or fundamental ; and such are the concepts that are most
conspicuously relations because commonly in the place of the
copula in judgments : wherefore Kant called them " judging
concepts " ; and, following him, it has become fashionable to
call them Categories.
The recognition of Eelation as the nexus of all judgment
and knowledge is a late result of analysis ; it was, I believe,
original with Locke, and is one of his chief services to
Philosophy. Plato had reckoned some relations amongst the
Ideas which he regarded as constitutive conditions of experi-
263
264 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
ence; Aristotle had given Kelation the fourth place in the
list of Categories. But the vague logical copula was for ages
allowed to disguise with superficial facility both the true
unity and the variety of thought ; so that, although Locke's
doctrine was illustrated and reinforced by Hume, Kant, misled
by his admiration of the Scholastic Logic, treated Relation as
only one genus of the Categories ; although Eelation is as
essential, if not as conspicuous in the Categories of Quality
and Quantity as in Substance and Attribute, Cause and
Effect. Moreover, whilst indicating a special connection
between the three categories of each genus, he declared them
to be all equally original and independent. Hegel, following
Fichte, added to the number of the Categories and pretended
to deduce them one from another in a series, beginning with
Being and ending with the Idea (or Thought of the Universe),
by a necessary process of dialectic. But no enterprise was
ever more irrational. The argument is sometimes fallacious,
depends often upon bare assertions and arbitrary definitions.
Relation first emerges under the rubric of Appearance, and is
naively investigated in special cases after having been assumed
again and again : being in fact the nerve of every dialectical
process, since this takes place (by the way) in the mind of
some thinker, not amongst Categories in vacuo. But recent
Psychology and Metaphysics agree in restoring Relation to
its true place as the essential character of apperceptive con-
sciousness, the universal of cognition and thought of thought.
§ 2. The Categories, or most general forms in which
men judge, are, then, the object of our present inquiry ; and,
first. Relation itself, whether it is clear or (in other words)
possible ; and, if so, whether it is valid : for both points are
disputed.
In the Theory of Logic (chap, ii.) I observed that " A
relation cannot be defined, for we know of nothing more
elementary. The only way of bringing it to light is by
contrasting it with its co-ordinate abstraction, the term.
Every relation lies between, or connects, or ties two terms,
and no more. All terms are connected and tied by relations.
* * * The world consists of related terms or terminated
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 265
relations. This seems to be the eud of all analysis, whether
of the Object or Subject." In this somewhat figurative way
I sought to express the necessary form of all judgment ; and
I still hold that every sound Logic or Metaphysics of Logic
must make this its starting-point. Accordingly, it was a
great satisfaction to tind that in Appearance and Reality
(chap, iii.) F. H. Bradley takes a similar view of the indissoluble
co-implication of these elements of thought. He says in § 1 :
" Qualities are nothing without relations. * * * We have
seen that in fact the two are never found apart. We have
seen that the separation by abstraction is no proof of real
separateness. And now we have to urge, in short, that any
separateness implies separation, and so relation, and is there-
fore, when made absolute, a self-discrepancy." Nothing can
be truer or better stated ; nevertheless, he j&nds the conception
full of intricate puzzles.
In § 2 he writes : "We have found that qualities without
relation have no intelligible meaning. Unfortunately, taken
together with them they are equally unintelligible. They
cannot, in the first place, be wholly resolved into relations.
Hence the qualities must be, and must also be related. But
there is hence a diversity which falls inside each quality. It
has a double character, as both supporting and as being made
by the relation." To recognise these two aspects of the
quality is, of course, to relate them ; and then each aspect
may be treated in the same way ; and the process is endless.
But why should the process begin ? For a quality to
" be " and to " be related " are not two facts : to treat them
as different is a breach of the conditions already laid down,
that " qualities are nothing without relations." To treat the
being of a quality as distinct from its relatedness, is to make
abstract separateness absolute, and leads (as foretold) to self-
discrepancy. Whose fault is that ?
In § 3 we read : " We may briefly reach the same dilemma
from the side of relations. They are nothing intelligible
either with or without their qualities. In the first place, a
relation without terms seems mere verbiage, and terms appear,
therefore, to be something beyond their relation." A relation
266 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
without terms is " a false abstraction, and a thing which
loudly contradicts itself." " But how the relation can stand
to the qualities is, on the other hand, unintelligible. If it is
nothing to the qualities, then they are not related to it at
all ; and, if so, as we saw, they have ceased to be qualities,
and their relation is a nonentity. But if it is something to
them, then clearly we now shall require a new connecting
relation. For the relation hardly can be the mere adjective
of one or both of its terms ; or at least as such it seems
indefensible. And, being something itself, if it does not
itself bear a relation to the terms, in what intelligible way
will it succeed in being anything to them ? " This process
also is endless.
The dilemma assumes that a relation must be either
" nothing " or " something " to the qualities ; and then comes
proof that it can be neither : therefore, the notion is unin-
telligible. But the whole process depends upon our forgetting
the original position that terms and relations imply one
another. When it is said, " If it [the relation] is nothing
[or something] to the qualities," are we to understand by
" it " the relation considered in abstraction from the qualities,
or the relation in actuality along with the qualities ?
In the latter sense (the only legitimate one) the supposition
is — 'if the relation of qualities is to be nothing to the qualities
as related, they are not related at all ; if something, we requu'e
a new connecting relation.' But these horns are only made of
paper : for the relation of qualities and the qualities as related
are the same thing ; so that the supposition of one being
nothing to the other, or of tlieir needing fiurther relation, is
merely supererogatory.
If, on the other hand, we are to understand by " it " the
relation considered in abstraction from the qualities, this is
precisely what has been condemned (quite justly) as a " false
abstraction." Yet now it is described as being " something
itself," and " bearing a relation to the terms," apart from
which, we have just been told, it cannot be conceived at all.
The fact is that the author, after having declared terms and
relations, taken severally, to be false abstractions, is still a
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 267
victim of the natural illusiou that separate words imply
separate things, and that therefore terms and relations must
be such things. His whole argument is a misapplication of
the ' Third Man ' : which always consists in showing that a
certain position involves the " finding new relations without
end." But the position against which this objection is valid
is always a denial in some form that ' relation of terms ' is
ultimate : such a position as Plato's Idea, or Green's Self-
consciousness, or Spencer's Absolute. The ' Third Man ' shows
that relation of terms is ultimate ; and the third chapter of
Appearance and Eeality shows the same thing: but this is a
very different matter from the showing that 'relation of terms'
is unintelligible, which was the point to be proved.
Some light may be thrown upon this matter if, instead of
illustrating related terms by A-B, we take a particular case,
such as greenness and transparency , terms related as coinhering
in emerald. Suppose it to be said that we may take either
term and compare it with the relation, say, greenness with
coinherence ; and that as the relation of difference then
emerges, we may again take this and compare it with either
term ; and so on. But there are some oversights in this
dialectic. For, first, in comparing coinherence with greenness
we are not comparing a relation with a term ; coinherence has
become a term in the act of comparison. To overlook this is
to assume that relations are self-existent things or species ;
whereas they are functions of thought, so that a relation of
terms in one process may be the term of a relation in another.
But, secondly, the relation of difference emerging from the
above comparison, is not a new fact ; for it was involved in
the original thought of greenness as a quality related to
another by coinherence. This rests upon the classification of
the elements of thought according to their functions into
terms and relations ; and this is justifiable because " separation
by abstraction is no proof of real separateness."
The abstract consideration of terms and relations is only
possible by means of language. We have here the extreme
case of the ' distinction of reason.' Starting from the position
that Relation of Terms is ultimate for thought, there is no
268 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
difficulty in seeing how either terms or relations may acquire
a quasi-independence. We need only reflect that, though
there are no terms unrelated, yet each term may stand in
many different relations to other terms. Hence it is inde-
pendent of any particular relation or relationship ; and this is
the nearest we can get to its heing as distinct from its heing
related. Similarly, any general relation is independent of any
particular terms. As red is unlike yellow and also unlike
green, and yellow is unlike green and also unlike blue ; and
as the tone C is unlike D, and D unlike E, and so on through
all orders of phenomena; it becomes possible, by means of words,
to think of Unlikeness apart from any given contrast, although
without supposing some terms the word is meaningless, or (as
F. H. Bradley admirably expresses it) it is a " false abstraction."
He says, " The conclusion to which I am brought is that
a relational way of thought — any one that moves by the
machinery of terms and relations — must give appearance and
not truth." And with this position, if it means that relational
thought can yield only relative not absolute truth, I have no
quarrel ; for it is a familiar doctrine of the good old-fashioned
Empirical Philosophy. And I agree heartily when he adds :
" Our intellect " (that is, the Absolutist's intellect) " has been
condemned to confusion and bankruptcy " ; for, in fact, it
never yet honoured a single draught.
The Absolute, I believe, is a whole without internal
contradiction ; and knowledge of the Universe as a whole will
not be obtained in this or the next generation, even if thought
do not involve an infinite regress. Whether our knowledge
involves an internal contradiction, is indeed a serious question ;
but an infinite regress is not an internal contradiction. And,
odd as it may seem, relation is the one thing that c^u never
be self-contradictory ; for the Principle of Contradiction runs :
It is impossible for anything to be and not be in the same
relation. The principle, therefore, applies to terms as related,
and assumes the validity of relation ; and this is the same
thing as to say, what is obvious and trite, that the validity of
relation cannot be denied, except by a judgment that takes it
for granted.
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 269
§ 3. If the concept of Relation is clear and valid in the
sense of being free from internal contradiction, it still remains
to inquire into its objective validity : do the relations
established in apperception correspond with Reality ? We
saw in Chap. VI. (§1) that Spencer disputes this. In the
passage there quoted he says, that our sense of the diflierence
of two colours corresponds with notliing in the outward fact ;
for it is merely a change of our consciousness, whilst the
colours remain unchanged. From the context, however, it
appears that by " two colours " Spencer means two " objective
agencies unknown and unknowable " (Frinc. of Psych. § 93).
It is of no use to ask how any one can know that unknow-
able agencies are two, are mutually independent and are
unchanged. It is a desperate question. But confining
ourselves to a consideration of the correspondence between
Judgment and Empirical Reality, I venture to say that, when
two colours — say red and blue — side by side are seen by us
to be different, to find whether or not there is any conscious-
ness of them and of their difference other than that of organic
Subjects, is a problem, if not a very prosperous one, and not
an occasion for dogma.
Further, to speak of the relation of such colours, " as we
think it, being nothing else than a change of our state," is to
give a very inadequate account of the matter. Such may
have been the germ of relational cognition in primitive
organic consciousness, but for us at present the consciousness
of red and blue is an essential part of the consciousness of their
difference. Sense-qualities, from the multiplicity of their
relations in an experience coinciding with the differentiation
of the organism, have become independent of any particular
relations. They cannot be resolved into relations ; the older
doctrine of Psychological Relativity, according to which even
every sensation varied with its context, was much overstated :
it confused the sensation with the relations in which it is
known. But the progress of organic consciousness is toward
fuller and more definite knowledge : manifestly, red and blue
and the other sense-qualities exist in Empirical Reality, and
our perception of their differences is based upon that fact. In
270 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
other words, things are objectively different, whether there is
an objective non-organic consciousness of their difference, or
whether non-organic consciousness is non-relative.
The validity of Relations, as corresponding with facts of
Empirical Reality, is confirmed by tracing the correspondence
back into the Conceptual System, That the grounds of our
relative judgments are facts and not merely cognitions, is
implied in all scientific inquiries, and confirmed by every
verification of any hypothesis or calculation according to the
Physical Method. That the Demiurgus, as Plato puts it,
mingled the Same and the Other with the essence of the
World, is not a mere hypostatisation of intelligence or of the
principles of explanation ; it is the condition of intelligence
and of the World's Self-knowledge.
§ 4. Terms that may be related are all things whatsoever :
bodies and their qualities, sensations and all subjective modes,
positions in time and space and all relations themselves.
Relations related have, of course, their own terms, express or
implied, which may be other relations with further terms.
It is not to be understood that all pairs of terms may be
related in all ways : a body cannot be definitely like a pleasure ;
a position in time cannot be sequent to a position in space :
but any terms that are not related in other ways are still
different in a common consciousness : and this common ground
of all comparison in consciousness is signified by the differ-
entiation of all sense-organs from a common origin in the cells
of the epithelium, and by the co-ordination of all organs of the
cortex.
Hume was unfortunate in describing Difference as " rather
a negation of relation than anything real and positive " ;
for certainly it is as real and positive as Likeness ; and,
although less fruitful in positive results, it is, as Henry Sidg-
wick shows {Philosophy , its Scope and Belations, Lect. I. § 3),
equally important to Philosophy. Spencer's view that Dif-
ference is primordial in consciousness, and that Likeness is at
first of a comparatively negative character, as the cancella-
tion of a Difference {Psychology, Part VI. chap, xxiv.), is in-
teresting ; but Metaphysics is chiefly concerned with mature
ABSTKACT CATEGOEIES 271
and explicit judgmeuts in apperceptive consciousness. There
Likeness and Diflerence are upon the same footing : both clear,
each having its distinctive feeling, neither resolvable into the
mere absence of the otlier.
Apperceptive consciousness and tlie analysis of judgment
and reality into terms and relations seems to be possible only
by means of some sort of language or appropriate signs. It
is indeed an important truth that relationality is implicit in
perception and in all modes of organic consciousness ; but it is
questionable whether the highest sub-human mammalia are
capable of explicitly recognising it; picture -thinking (or
'reception') seems to limit their powers (see Lloyd Morgan's
Comparative Psychology, chap. xiv.). Even in the simpler
forms of language the apparatus of comparative thought is
extremely imperfect, and is eked out by gesticulation ; and the
growth of language is marked by nothing more emphatically
than by increasing power of expressing relation : whether by
more precisely determining the relative places of words, by
inflections, by specialised words (prepositions, conjunctions,
etc.), or by the differentiation of names for relations themselves
(equality, coexistence, etc.), a process continually carried further
in scientific terminology.
As for the names of relations, they are derived from con-
crete terms and point to perceptual comparison as the original
ground of thought. Likeness is from A.S. lie, the body ; alike
(A.S. ordic) indicates agreement tested by superposition. So,
' it likes me ' means, it suits or fits me. Equal is ' as one ' ;
same, similar, resembling, simultaneous, all primarily meant
' together,' hence matched ; whilst different meant ' put
asunder.' Comparison, in short, as the word itself suggests,
begins with an actual distribution or arrangement of objects ;
and, as we now see in a Museum, this is still necessary to exact
knowledge. Yet, contrary to every one's experience, it has been
supposed that relational words subserve the expression of pure
thought: so that bad Metaphysics, rather than Mythology,
deserves to be called a " disease of language."
The fiict is that the Categories take their rise in human
perception, — which is not a separate thing from human
272 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
understanding, and therefore may itself be classificatory and
apperceptive, — in the direct attentive consciousness (at once
analytic and synthetic) of Empirical Reality. This is the
strength of Kant's position, that the Categories constitute
Nature, for there they must be sought and justified. But
Kant treats them as primarily forms of pure understanding ;
and so can never bring them home to the experience of the
individual, except by the vicarious Imagination.
To attempt to systematise the Categories by abstract
reason has the worst character of Scholasticism. It assumes
the possibility of a purely deductive method, but there is no
such thing as abstract deduction ; every logical process arises
out of unfathomable depths of experience. In this sense
Empiricism is re-established. The term ' Empiricism,' indeed,
is now sometimes used as if it stood for a doctrine of the
complete passivity of the Subject in experience. But this
makes it meaningless ; for such was not the position of Locke
or Mill, and cannot be the position of any physiologist. If
' Empiricism ' is thus employed by those who are essentially
Empiricists but wish to avoid classification, I sympathise
with any one who dislikes being labelled. The name of a
School is usually a nickname for each of its members. But
I do not sympathise with the avoidance of a nickname by
any one who does not repudiate it also for his allies. Let
every man take what name he pleases without prejudice to
others ; or let him, if he likes, like a savage, conceal his true
name to avoid cursing and incantation.
To look for the Categories in Empirical Reality saves us
from the absurdity of presuming that the system of them
(that is, of the World) already exists finished and round for
human reason. We must often ask not merely how the
Categories are thought but how they ought to be ; since
many scientific controversies are concerned with definitions —
as of ' force,' 'cause,' 'species,' — and such controversies can never
be ended except in full view of the perceptual World ; which
to explain is the test of the conceptual system.
The appeal to experience also saves us from the whim of
attempting a linear deduction or any formal scheme of the
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 273
Categories. Not only in psychological history but also iu
logical dependence, the Categories branch out in all directions,
like a family tree, from common roots. No doubt it would
be a relief to arrange them in a square, like the elements ; or
iu a circle, like the serpent, tail in mouth. Dichotomy seems
to save tlie labour of learning anything ; triads lend a colour
of romance to pure reason. But the expectation of greater
symmetry than exists in Nature, is justly classed by Bacon
amongst the Idols of the Tribe.
§ 5. If the category of Relation is clear, it cannot be by
force of definition ; for, of course, the ultimate form of all
cognition cannot be itself defined. And the same is true of
Likeness and Difference, and even of their specific modes in
simple judgments of Time, Quality and Quantity. They are
abstract intuitions, analytic growths (according to the universal
process of abstraction) from the experience in which they are
implicit, and where they are now perceived by their own
assimilative power.
According to speculative Psychology, the beginning of
organic consciousness is a change of consciousness ; and this
implies (a) a Succession of states, which in the course of
mental development becomes known as a Difference and
Succession in Time ; and (b) a difference of states, which
becomes known as a Difference of Quality or of Quantity.
In adult consciousness every experience either involves a
change, and therefore Succession and Difference ; or, if
Difference be instantaneously apprehended, it is by an organ
which has been developed and trained to interpret simultaneous
experience as equivalent to that which originally could only
be learnt in succession. And differences are still most clearly
apprehended when experienced in immediate succession. In
such experience therefore, whether the Difference or the
Succession is attended to, depends upon the direction of our
interest. Whether the difference is of Quality or Quantity,
is an ultimate contrast of experience : Quality has not here
the sense of ' reference to a Substance,' but is a certain aspect
of terms that may vary in certain ways, in contrast with
another aspect of these terms (or others) that vary in the
18
274 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
characteristic way of Quantity, that is, more or less. There
is no defining power in these sentences : all the expressions
imply one another.
Relations of Time are : —
(1) Succession, or Difference of Time.
(2) Contiguity, or immediate Succession.
(3) Interval, where succession is not immediate and we
are interested in the terminal changes.
(4) Duration, where we are interested in the experience
that fills the interval.
(5) Simultaneity, or Likeness in Time ; a relation applic-
able only to events, not implying place or more
than instantaneous duration,
(6) Co-existence, or Likeness in Time, predicated of bodies,
qualities, or positions in space, and compatible
with unequal duration of the terms.
(7) Coinhereuce, a relation especially of the qualities of
a body, generally implying coexistence, but not
necessarily.
Relations of Quality are indicated by several names whose
precise reference has never been determined. Even Likeness
is ambiguous ; but I cannot enter here upon a long psycho-
logical discussion. Whoever would examine the matter should
turn to E. B. Titchener's Instructor's Manual of Ex'p. Psych.
§ 14, and the references there given.
(1) Likeness and Difference are the most general ex-
pressions of qualitative comparison.
(2) Sameness is the relation of terms that in respect
of Quality are indistinguishable ; whether (a) the
successive moments of a continuous simple experience
(a red light), or (h) experiences separate in time
or place (two red lights) ; or (c) groups of the
same qualities related in the same ways. ' Identity '
is sometimes used in all these senses, but should
(I think) be reserved for the persistence of concrete
things.
(3) Similarity is compatible with some Difference, and
seems to imply a less Difference than some other.
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 275
If any Quality is perceived to undergo a slow
change, it presents at tirst a slight Difference,
but still a Similarity, until at last a state is
reached which presents a decided Difference, We
have no appropriate names for the distinguishable
places in such a series ; it presents degrees of
Similarity and DifiFerence until we reach a
(4) Contrast, or a striking Difference upon a common
ground of Similarity.
(5) Resemblance seems to mean a relation of concrete
things, the same or similar in some qualities,
differing in others, when our interest in the Likeness
preponderates.
If this seems to be the road to pedantry, I shall probably
atone for venturing upon it by not observing such distinctions
myself ; but fallacies arise from neglecting them ; thought
cannot be clear if language is indiscriminate.
Quality of sensation (say, heat) remaining the same, its
Quantity may change, grow more or less intensive or extensive :
this is Degree or Amount. Quantity of sensation remaining
equal, its Quality may change (say, from blue to green). As
to Time : Simultaneity, Interval, Duration, and Coexistent
Positions in Space imply also relations of Quantity, that is.
Equality, or More and Less.
The qualitative Likeness of Relations is called Analogy.
II. Qualitative Relations
§ 6. The Categories take their rise in human perception, from
which they are partially released by language. In the ex-
perience of Reality things and their qualities coexist, or succeed
one another and change, and are of this or that kind ; that is
to say, are alike or unlike {a) in Time, (&) in Quality. Hence
follow two series of Concepts that have an astonishing pro-
minence in the history of Philosophy. From the unanalysed
experience of relative permanence and change issues the
series : —
276 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Changeable Unchangeable
Becoming Enduring
Potential Actual
Possible Impossible
Contingent Necessary
From the experience that things are of various kinds, and
kinds of kinds, in Nature issues the series : —
Thing Nothing
Specimen Species — Genus
Event Law
Particular Universal
Matter Form
Phenomenon Substance
Having thus arranged such words, simple inspection may
convince us, that to treat them as of independent import is a
delusion. We must briefly review them.
§ 7. As for Change, it has always been regarded as the
enemy of knowledge and felicity. But so common a concept
lies open to misconstruction from its indiscriminate usage.
That something changes, and that there is a change in some-
thing, may easily be taken as equivalent expressions ; but
they are very different. That there is a change in something
frequently implies that the ' something' still retains on the
whole its identity : that something changes implies no such
thing, but rather denies it. Hence ' that something changes *
is the more appropriate expression for describing the experience
{Kara irdOos:) in which one quality disappears and is succeeded
by another : whilst 'that there is a change in something*
rather suggests a process in some concrete whole, one or more
of whose qualities may change although, in some relevant
way, it may still bear the same name ; like Timon, who is
still the son of Echecratides though he was happy once and
now is grey. Neither of these meanings is self-contradictory.
However abstract the concept of Change, it is steeped in
sentiment. If to any one who should complain that all things
change, I were to reply, ' And a good job, too ! ' — he would
count me a ruftian. Yet what is it that is good enough to
last for ever ? Perhaps if Space is limited, the Infinite can
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 277
only be expressed in Time. But in unhappy ages men see
their native country decadent, as happened to Plato. The
decline of our own powers begins at last for all of us, and in
our memories pleasurable images fill most of the old rooms.
Then there is the pernicious and fatal desire of rest and ease.
Again, there is bereavement ; there are premonitions of death ;
there are affections, and labours unfulfilled, and the instinct to
persist in being, and egotism resenting to make room for
others. Few are content with the permanence of the Universe,
and understanding, and acquiescence, and the intellectual love
of God.
Indeed, does not Change frustrate understanding along
with our other hopes ? It has been thought so ; and the
Unchangeable has been proclaimed the only true object of
knowledge and the Reality of things — the Idea, the nunc
stans : whilst the apparent succession of events has been said
to warrant only opinion and even to be an illusion of our
perceptive constitution, or the parallax of our own inconstancy.
The Reality some one has compared to a row of pillars, which
seem to us to move because we are condemned to be always
passing by them. This hypothesis will presently recur ; but
if it were true, the progress of investigation ought to have led
to a static instead of a more and more dynamic view of
Nature, by which we seek in laws of change the explanation
of what seems even the least changeable. And it has already
been shown that Transcendent Reality is in Time, and that
nothing else can be conceived to be manifested in Empirical
Reality. Even the creation and sustentation of the world by
divine Power must be considered as an activity implying
change ; and one may learn from the theology of Cudworth
that it is not in this attribute that the Divine Being is
unchangeable, but in Thought. Now Thought unchangeable
may be manifest in unchangeable Laws ; for it is not the
object but the form of knowledge that is unchangeable suh
specie eternitatis ; it matters not whether in the thought of
God or man.
Becoming is a less abstract concept than Change, for it
more strongly implies termini a quo and ad quern, with the
278 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
suggestion that such termini are at least relatively enduring ;
although the Enduring can only be relative, since change is,
in truth, all prevailing amongst the modes of Existence, and
all beginnings and endings are selections of interest and
distinctions of thought. At this height of abstraction birth
and death are the same thing.
As the object of knowledge is changeable, but the form of
knowledge is unchangeable ; so Becoming is a character of
experience and Keality, not of laws or concepts themselves.
If we add to or substract from a concept it does not become
another ; we merely make a fresh one, the old remaining.
Each concept is an identity ; and this is the logical meaning
of the Principle of Identity. Still a concept, though un-
changeable, cannot be called enduring ; for Time is irrelevant :
it is therefore eternal.
When we consider any process of Becoming, C to D, C is
called the Potentiality of D, and D the Actuality of : not
that either has a greater reality than the other ; for all
things that exist are actual ; and C is admitted to be the
Actuality of a foregoing B, and so on. The distinction,
therefore is essentially relative ; and the relativity is imperfect.
Not to abuse it, we must observe that B (say the seed of a
tree, or a cloud about to fall in rain) is not by itself the
Potentiality of C, but only under favourable conditions.
The truth is that the interest has gone out of these old
Categories of Heracleitus and Aristotle : they are vague
anticipations of Causation and of the processes known to
natural science. Motion, conversion of energy, chemistry,
organic metabolism ; it is these things that give definite
meaning to Change, Becoming, Potential and Actual ; and for
a logician to discuss under vague and antiquated terms the
truth of Nature in general, without knowing anything in
particular, is too comic an enterprise to be carried on much
longer.
§ 8. Much the same may be said of the Possible and
Impossible, Contingent and Necessary. In fact logicians have
given up the attempt to treat by their own old methods the
Modality of Judgments, and have substituted outlines of the
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 279
Theory of Probabilities. Logically, Possible is anything that
18 conceivable, and any combination of attributes is conceiv-
able tliat is not self-contrudictory. But this only means
that it is possible to think of it, not that any corresponding
individual is possible in reality or even in imagination. Each
attribute of a concept is derived from perception, and there-
fore must comply with the forms of perceptual consciousness,
that is, it must be capable of entering into relations of Like-
ness, Difference, Succession and Coexistence with the rest of
experience ; but it does not follow that the combination of
attributes in a concept occurs or can occur in Nature : for
example, centaur, ghost, planetary influence, phlogiston. Every
new concept or hypothesis is a regrouping of elements of
knowledge that have severally a perceptual ground : its truth
depends upon whether the concept corresponds as a whole
with real, if hitherto unrecognised, groupings in Empirical
Reality.
Referred to Empirical Reality, the Possible is that which
agrees with the laws of Nature, and of which the causes and
conditions exist or are to exist ; but, in this sense, whatever
is possible is also Necessary.
The Impossible is, logically, the self-contradictory; and
this is the meaning of the Principle of Contradiction : physic-
ally, it is whatever does not agree with the laws of Nature, or
of which the causes and conditions have no existence.
Obviously, the Impossible-to-be is the same as the Necessary-
not-to-be.
Except in the formal interpretation of Conditional Propo-
sitions, Contingency has no specially logical significance.
Physically considered, whatever is possible but not yet extant,
is contingent upon the occurrence of its causes. But unless
its causes exist at some time it cannot be contingent ; whilst
whenever they do exist it is necessary. The character of
Necessity has been discussed in Chap. IV. § 4.
Thus the Categories of Possibility, Impossibility, Con-
tingency, Necessity, have only subjective value : things seem
Possible or Contingent when we do not know enough about
them to see that they are Impossible or Necessary. And,
280 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
further, the Changeable, the Becoming, the Potential and
the Actual, are all Necessary as to their existence, and
as to the time, place and manner of existence they are
Unchangeable.
From this position, the notion of a nunc stans looks not
unattractive, for the concrete system of the World in which
every part is necessary becomes here more prominent than the
abstract Time in which everything is contingent. We must
remember that Time is the form of Consciousness, and that
Consciousness is the only known Reality. Still, objective
existence is not merely present existence, the tense of
predication : to forget this makes people afraid to die ; afraid,
that is, of losing hold of the pyschological Now. But, as
Spinoza says, there is necessarily in God an idea of each
human body under the form of Eternity. Whatever belongs
to past or future has existence or Reality, neither more nor
less than the present. None but the most immediate Solipsist
can dispute this. Whoever admits that there is any present
existence beyond perception, must on the same grounds admit
that past and future exist or are real, namely, by universal
integration and continuity.
§ 9. The usefulness of the word Thing depends upon its
vagueness : to define would only spoil it. Still, we may say
that the notion of a Thing implies that it can be recognised,
and that it is somehow different from all others. Any given
Thing is said to exist, and the predication of this fact is called
an Existential Proposition or Judgment, as if it involved
nothing further. But everything exists in some determinate
part of Space and Time, which is conditioned by, and exclusive
of, every other part.
On the removal of any given Thing something else holds
its place : this experience is the ground of the Principle of
Excluded Middle. We cannot say in general what that
something will be ; but there is no such experience as
nonentity, the common uncritical acceptation of ' Nothing ' :
it is a self-contradictory concept, a supposititious offspring of
the negative particle. Tliere is always something or other
(fir) 6v = erepov). This reflection, far from being frivolous, is
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 281
80 important that it accompanies every exact investigation.
When in the ordinary careless life one says ' on opening the
cupboard there was nothing tliere ' (that is, nothing of the kind
required), such an expression represents a double experience :
(1) in the absence of the thing required, something else is
peitjeived — this is a Difference ; (2) there is a failure of expected
Likeness : the seeker had a mental phantasm of the thing
wanted (or, at least, a symbol of it and a preparedness to
recognise it), and the perceptual satisfaction of this expectation
is denied him. The latter experience, as the more interesting,
absorbs the whole attention, and is generalised in the term
Nothing, or non-satisfaction of any expectation whatever ; but
of expectations based upon definite experience there is no such
universal failure.
Tlie philosophers have taken up the problem of Nothing,
and it suits some of them perfectly ; but the best essay upon
it is Henry Fielding's. Kant distinguishes four kinds of
Nothing, according to Quantity, Quality, Relation and Modality
{K. d. r. V. — end of Transcendental Analytic) :
(1) There may be a conception of an object that cannot be
found in experience, such as noumena, or a supposed new
force in Nature.
But here we have a confusion of ideas, for though the
conception of nouraena, as such, involves no contradiction, the
conception of them as given in experience does : in experience,
therefore, they are logically impossible, and not on the same
foot as a supposed new force that involves no contradiction,
although it may be physically impossible. Such a supposed
but indiscoverable force is a case of disappointed expectation,
and one always finds something else.
(2) The conception of the absence of an object, such as
cold, or shadow.
But these examples are definite experiences, by no means
Nothing ; and, apart from examples, the conception of an
object that is absent is a disappointed expectation.
(3) The form of intuition without content — pure space, or
pure time.
But there are no such forms of intuition apart from
282 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
experience. The perception of space or time involves a
kiniesthesis, and so does the representation of them.
(4) The object of a self-contradictory concept, such as a
figure bounded by two straight lines.
But the " object of a self-contradictory concept " is itself a
self-contradictory concept : where there is self-contradiction no
concept has been formed : and self-contradiction can only be
called Nothing in so far as the frustrated endeavour to frame
a concept resembles disappointed expectation in seeking an
object.
There are not, then, four Nothings, but one Nothing ; and
that is generalised from one side only of our experience of the
absence of things expected, namely, from the merely subjective
side, to the neglect of the objective and real side of that
experience, that something else is there. Hence the meta-
physical conception of Nothing is the Indefinite Other. Now
the Indefinite Other is always matter of experience, but the
noumenon never is : therefore, the noumenon is not the
Indefinite Other ; that is, transcendent Eeality, or Being, is
not Nothing. If the noumenon has often disappointed the
expectations of those who sought it, that was because they had
not noticed that whatever is discoverable must be within
consciousness, whilst the transcendent Real always lies beyond.
Their expectation of finding such Reality was not based upon
any foregoing experience of it ; for, on the other hand, it is
never Something. In short, we cannot do better than agree
with the Bhagavad-gita, that Brahm is neither Sat nor Asat.
All concrete things compared together have resistance
and extension in common. Add Space, and compare, and
only the common attribute of extension remains. Add plea-
sure, or relations of Succession, and again compare, and there
is no common quality or connotation, no one distinguishable
mode of consciousness left, but only comparison itself ; that
is, relation of Difference. On account of the supposed empti-
ness of the abstract of All Things, it has been identified
with the uncritical Nothing, or Nonentity, but, in fact it is
Consciousness itself or absolute Reality. And it is not the
Indefinite Other, but the discrimination of Otherness. Dividing
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 283
All Things, the Summmn Genus, by dichotomy, with auy
assignable fundamentum, we have Something or Other.
Nothing, therefore, is not on a foot with the Sumvium Genus,
but is a counter-class, infinite term, or remainder, relative to
a given Species, or Something.
It may be said, If Nothing is the Other, how can it be
true that ' Nothing can come of Nothing ' ? For does not each
thing come of another ? I suppose, in the ancient maxim,
the Nothing that is for ever barren, means Nonentity, a mere
grammatical negation. But it is still true if we understand
Nothing as the Indefinite Other, for no one thing has an
indefinite antecedent. The material World does not arise from
the Other in objective existence, namely, Space. Objective
Existence, the Phenomenon, does not spring from the Other
in experience, namely, the subjective processes now contrasted
with it ; and to experience as a whole there is no Other in
experience. Concerning Nothing, then, and its true inwardness,
may so much suffice.
§ 10. That Things are alike in some ways and unlike in
others is the fact of Species in Nature, and the likeness and
unlikeness of Species is the fact of Genera ; that is to say.
Species have no other existence in Nature than in the resem-
blances of Things. A Thing, considered as exhibiting the
qualities of any specific resemblance, is called a Specimen, A
statement of the specific resemblance is a Definition of the
Name of any Species or of its connotation, and therefore a
Limitation of its denotation, that is, of the things that can be
considered Specimens. The thought of a Species, usually by
its name and, more precisely, according to the Definition, is a
Concept.
The Concept of a Species being unchangeable, it may seem
a matter of course that it should be perdurably represented
by specimens in Nature. A brief experience seems to confirm
this assumption, and then there may easily arise the notion
of Classificatory Sciences in which all things are to be arranged
according to Genera and Species. Ancient Idealism, too, was
beset by the prejudice that since the Concept or Science is
unchangeable, it must have, either in or above Nature, an
284 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
unchangeable object. More comprehensive experience shows,
however, that not only everything but every kind of thing
has a determinate existence in time : and that, therefore, any
given Species may cease to be represented by specimens in
that present time during which men can think and have
concepts. A Species, then, does not exist perdurably, and yet
it has a permanent existence within certain limits of time,
and this is the grain of truth to be found in the older doctrines.
But if a Species comes at a certain time into existence,
and again comes to an end, to sum up its characteristics in a
Definition is not an adequate Science of it ; we must also
know the conditions of its coming to birth and death, and
therefore of its having such and such characteristics. Hence
a scientific classification is only a preparation for Science.
The words genera and species are apt to suggest plants
and animals, but we are here dealing with merely logical
categories. Whenever anything is definable by its likeness to
other things, there is a species. The coming or going of any
such thing, or any modification of it, is an Event, and the
statement of the conditions under which it comes or goes is a
Law. As a specimen is to a Definition, so is an event to a
Law, and Laws have no other existence in Nature than in the
resemblances of events. Hence, again, though a Law, as
conceived, is unchangeable or eternal, yet it may be represented
by events in Nature only during some definite period of time.
Therefore, Definitions and Laws do not determine the
existence of anything, but only describe it : inasmuch as they
remain in thought unchanged, whether any facts agreeing with
them exist or not in present time.
As there are species and genera and still wider classes,
according to the more or less resemblance of specimens, so
Laws are of less or greater generality according to the greater
or less resemblance of events. The greater the generality,
the longer the period of time during which a Kind or Law is
realised in Nature. The more complex Kinds have the less
duration. Not only animals and plants, but all inorganic
integrations, even the chemical atoms, may be supposed to
have a beginning and a dissolution. The ancient belief in a
ABSTKACT CATEGORIES 285
Great Year of the World, during which all things and all
kinds of things, even the gods or (in modern prose) the Laws
of Nature, are born and reabsorbed, has been renewed by the
doctrine of Evolution. All things rush down into the maw
of Siva ; that is to say, they are resolved into Protyle. And
if the existence and character of all bodies is conditional and
transitory, so is the realisation of all Laws that are dependent
upon the collocations presented by such bodies.
It is, therefore, rash to draw up a list of Categories of
Absolute Eeason as necessarily determining the nature of
the Universe. There may be some temptation to put down
(1) the conditions of Knowledge, Likeness, and Difference;
(2) the relations of Time, Space, and Number, which are
independent of any particular concrete existence ; (3) Protyle
and the Laws of whatever dynamic conditions prevail in
Protyle. These last Categories have not yet been definitely
embodied in our new mythology, though the process may have
been begun by our Hesiod, Ernst Haeckel, in his Riddle of the
Universe (cf. chaps, xii.-xiii.). If there should not be sufficient
ff rounds for an inductive treatment of such things, the pos-
sibility would remain not only that the scheme of the World
is never repeated, but even that such Laws as those of gravita-
tion or of constant proportions are only realised in the present
Great Year.
Generalising the correlatives. Specimen and Species, Event
and Law, we find the contrast of Particular and Universal.
A particular Thing or Event is this or that, exists here and
now, or there and then : determinate time and place are its
indicative characters. It is further constituted by qualities
and relations to everything else, and these qualities and
relations, so far as they are the ground of resemblances,
are Universals. Such even is its time, for at the same time
there are many things in different places, and such also is its
place, for in the same place there are many things at different
times; it is only by time and place together that a Particular
is determined, since this character is different for each. But
this character colours all its other qualities and relations,
making them all grounds of difference as well as of resemblance :
286 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
for example, the whiteness of two shillings may be the same,
but is not identical. We cannot conceive how it should be
so, but we perceive it plainly enough : it belongs to the
Empirical Reality of things.
Since the qualities and relations of every Particular are
infinite, it cannot be logically defined; since its localisation
is relative to points of measurement, which again are relative
to others ad infinitum (such is our present knowledge or
ignorance) it cannot be mathematically defined ; and since
every quality and relation of it carries a difference as well as
a resemblance, it cannot be fully understood according to laws.
Hence there can be no science of Particulars as such, but only
so far as their essence can be expressed by the universality
of their qualities and relations ; for differences apart from
resemblances do not constitute knowledge nor Nature.
Such reflections have sometimes led metaphysicians to
disparage the Particular as unreal, because it has not the
character of an Universal, which is definite and unchangeable:
forgetting that neither has the Universal the characters of
the Particular, which is original, infinite and inexpugnable.
Other metaphysicians, remembering these things, are for
disparaging Universals as mere abstractions ; forgetting that
human perception involves Universals, and that every valid
Universal is an apprehension of experience. Every abstract
principle is as truly a statement of matter-of-fact as the most
detailed description of a battle or a beetle. Perhaps an
education chiefly literary lays a man open to opposite errors:
familiarity with abstractions may lead one to exaggerate their
independent value; want of familiarity with the exact pro-
cesses by which abstractions are elicited from experience may
lead one, in a different mood, to treat them as empty formulae,
that possibly, or even probably, are at war with the facts.
§ 11. Any Particular may be considered {a) as of such a
Kind, by a selection of certain resemblances which it bears to
certain others ; or (2) so far as it resembles things of many
or all Kinds. In the former case, the Kind to which it is
assigned is called its Form ; in the latter case, that by which
it belongs to no one class rather than to another, is called its
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 287
Matter. Taking Form and Matter as correlatives, what is
Matter in relation to one thing (pig-iron to knife-blades) may-
be Form in relation to another (pig-iron to iron), as in the
logical subalternation of genus and species. Taking Matter
as opposed to Form and an utter privation of every character,
we have the Indeterminate. Taking the doctrine of Form
and Matter in connection with some vague notion of the
development of Nature, we may identify the Indeterminate
with Protyle, out of which all Forms ultimately emerge ; but
in the more definite modern hypothesis of development Protyle
is not exactly the Indeterminate, however hard to determine.
Every Form is an universal, and Matter is also an
universal, whether something less determinate in relation to a
given Form, or in relation to all Forms quite indeterminate.
Matter is regarded as distributed in space, as divisible and
as " informed " in multitudinous ways to constitute Particulars.
But the Indeterminate cannot be distributed, nor divided, nor
informed, and no combination of universals. Form and Matter,
can produce a Particular ; for, as we have seen, the Particular
cannot be generated by conception, it belongs to Empirical
Reality and can only be perceived. Form and Matter are
ways of considering Particulars, they are abstractions not
elements.
Materialism considers the Forms of Nature as chanfrino'
the Matter as persistent, because Materialism, like Empiricism,
starts from perception, in which alone the change of Forms is
manifest. It resorts to the notion of Matter as the common
ground of Forms, but goes astray from the path of experience
by forgetting that Matter is not something independent of
perception. Matter, in fact, is a methodological Category : it
is for the physical sciences to decide how it may best be
defined, as a means of understanding phenomena.
Idealism considers the Forms as eternal, and Matter as
something relatively unreal, incessantly changing as it passes
through the Forms ; because Idealism starts from thought
and the forms of thought are universal and unchanging. But
since Forms are manifestly transient in experience, they have
to be regarded as, in their true nature, transcendent Realities ;
288 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
either per se, which is Absolute Idealism (Plato in the
BepuUic) ; or in the Divine Mind, which is transcendent
Subjective Idealism (Cudworth). But neither of these doctrines
casts the faintest light upon the problems of human knowledge
and empirical existence. For, however such Ideas exist, we
cannot directly know them, having no power of transcendent
intuition but only powers of analysis and induction, according
to the measure of our feeble race. If they stood before us we
could only know them by comparison; in our tables of instances
they must be entered with the rest ; for the weakness of
knowledge, whatever it is, lies in us not in the facts : and,
therefore, an Idea of truth unrealised would still appear to
mock us. And as to Existence, Ideas cannot be the causes of
phenomena, because they lie out of the order of causation, and
their unchangeableness is repugnant to causation. Even the
creative activity assumed by transcendent Subjectivism, belongs
not to the Ideas but to the divine Power ; and if we carry
the category of causation into the noumenal world even the
divine Will becomes subject to it. Of course. Ideas of Laws
have no more energy than Ideas of Species. And they can
no more be the essence than the causes of phenomena, for how
can the essence of things exist in separation from them ? Or
if the doctrine be adopted that Forms are not transcendent (a
mere reduplication of existence) but immanent in phenomena,
each universal identical in all its manifestations, there is the
difficulty that in different times and places there cannot exist
an Universal numerically one, but only the same according to
the definition such as analysis may give ; and to dispute this
is to deny the reality of Time and Space, and then the Forms
become again transcendent. But we have seen that experience
is real. Finally, since Forms cannot explain the failures and
shortcomings of Nature, or the accidents of things, these are
attributed either to Matter, and then that shapeless shadow is
endowed with quality and energy ; or else to Necessity or to
Ahriman, and this leads to Fatalism, Manicheism, and Devil-
worship.
Nevertheless, one Idea is indispensable to speculative
philosophy, namely, transcendent Substance or Being. And it
ABSTRACT CATEGORIt^J 289
hfis, I am sorry to say, all the characteristics of a genuine
Idea : we cannot adequately know it, it is never found in
experience, and is of no definite use in explaining either
knowledge or existence ; neither practical life nor special
science feels the need of it. Even in the philosopher's vision
it is a blind spot only discovered when he searches for it, yet
it is irresistibly suggested by all lines of metaphysical
reflection.
Most of these objections to Idealism were urged by Plato
himself in the Parmenidcs, at the height of his impassioned
curiosity, before relapsing into his later dogmatism. But how
is it possible to wish him to have abandoned it, or to have
thouglit otherwise than he did, if we have any sense of
sublimity in the retrospect of Philosophy, or of necessity in
the development of thought ? His conception of Reality as
static could only be overcome by calling in a personal agency.
The nature of concepts and his admiration for Arithmetic and
Greometry were opposed to any coherent theory of change ; for
Number and Space seem the most everlasting of all things
conceivable, and may well be undisturbed by the systole and
diastole of the Great Year. Aristotle's notions of the process
of phenomena were embarrassed by his doctrine of Causes.
The Stoics and Epicureans had better views of Causation, and
some specialists, like Hipparchus and Archimedes, made
memorable investigations ; but the vitality of classic civilisa-
tion declined before inductive method became fruitful. The
modern sciences resumed the conceptions of the Stoics and
Epicureans with two great advantages : improved powers of
mathematical analysis, and greater energy of the inductive
disposition. The activity of this disposition in antiquity
unfortunately coincided with the decline of Greek national
life, in modern times most fortunately with the early maturing
of the European nations ; for there is a sympathy between the
achievements of men, and their enterprises wax and wane
together.
Every Particular Thing is a Phenomenon and, as such, by
correlativity implies Substance. Consciousness is also usually
held to need a Substance ; but if, as we say, consciousness is
19
290 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
immediate Reality, to consider it as dependent on Substance
is contradictory. Substance, then, is an objective category
correlative with Phenomenon. But we have seen that, on
analysing the Phenomenon, nothing can be tbmid but a group
of qualities, themselves phenomena, cohering in one place, per-
durable and moving as a totality. In view of this fact there
are three ways of treating the category of Substance: (1) to
reject it as illusory. But whoever does this should be careful
how he speaks of phenomena, for his words may seem coherent
by force of the implied concept of Substance, although his
repudiation of that concept has rendered his argument logically
empty. (2) To recognise Substance as a transcendent category,
inadequate, one-sided and orectic, signifying or indicating that
Reality which is not immediately expressed in consciousness,
but mediately by phenomena. In this use the term Substance
might well, perhaps, be replaced by Being. (3) To regard
Substance as a category necessary to the understanding of
phenomena, whether it be (as Kant says) a priori, or the result
of reflection upon experience, but merely methodological. It
is then hardly distinguishable from Matter ; it is the formal
way of considering Matter, and its precise definition must be
left to the physical sciences ; though we may be confident that
the Primary Qualities will be the core of the definition,
because these constitute the measurable aspect of Nature and
the ground of the conceptual system.
III. Quantitative Relations
§ 12. As to Relations of Quantity, or Ratios, exact like-
ness is Equality ; difference is Greater or Less, according to
the order of terms in the act of comparison. A ratio of ratios
is called Proportion. Inasmuch as, in certain cases, exact like-
ness of Quantity is unattainable, things may be called equal
when there is less tlian any assignable difference between
them, or when one may be substituted for the other without
affecting the result.
The judgment of Equality has, for scientific purposes, the
following advantages : ( 1 ) It is more definite than qualitative
ABSTRACT CATEGOPJES 291
Likeness, because of the two-fold contrariety — neither Greater
nor I^ss ; whereas Likeness of quality has only the contra-
dictory, Unlikeness. To give " neither Greater nor Less " as
a definition of Equality would be, in strict logic, a tautology
of relative terms : but though this is formally true, it is not
true for intuition, which is kept straight (as it were) by warn-
ings on either hand. Hence Likeness admits of degrees, but
Equality does not. Simultaneity, it is true, has also the double
contrariety of Before and After ; but whenever there is a
question not merely of instantaneous judgment but of
methodical determination, Simultaneity must be deduced from
measurements. The clear appreciation of Before, Simultaneous,
After, introduces the conception of a Series or order in Time,
the positions in which are relative to a given point from which
they are measured, and from which their distances are Less,
Equal or Greater. Finally, the judgments Greater or Less
when made definite (how much) require a common measure
and, therefore, judgments of Equality.
(2) The relation of Equality is simply convertible without
change of expression or risk of error : if A = B, B = A. This
is also true of Likeness : if A is like B, B is like A, But with
' A > B .*. B < A,' the expression changes; and with *A is
simultaneous with B, therefore B is simultaneous with A,'
tliough the expression is the same, there is risk of error unless
we know that both events are either instantaneous or altogether
isochronous ; and this requires another judgment of Equality.
(3) The Relation of Equality may be repeated in judgment
any number of times without loss or change of significance.
Hence it is the chief means of mediate comparison, and gives
such immense range to the Mathematics. Qualitative Likeness,
being vaguer and admitting degrees, cannot be so transferred
without loss of confidence.
(4) The Relation of Equality admits of the most precise
application to things and events by the arts of measurement :
whereby the use of Mathematics in the Physical Sciences
becomes possible.
For these reasons, and because (as we have seen) Likeness
is the ground of Explanation, Equality, as the most exact
292 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
Likeness, is the supreme category of Understanding. There-
fore, we seek to reduce Causation to equations, and to find the
explanation of Nature in those Primary Qualities that are
measurable and to which Causation is referred.
In subjective experience the modes of Quantity are Degree,
Duration and Amount (volume or extensity). But in the same
objective circumstances different Subjects appreciate differently
these modes of experience ; and there is no direct means of
comparing their judgments ; nor even those of the same Sub-
ject at different times with any certainty or exactness. We
therefore agree to recognise some grounds of comparison as if
they were the same for all Subjects, and for each Subject at
all times ; and we naturally adopt as such grounds the forms
of experience whose development precedes the consciousness of
subjectivity, namely, the space -relations of bodies and the
movements of bodies in space. Although the agreement of
subjective estimates with objective measures is relative and
approximate in each case, yet the accumulation of experience
in which differences are neutralised, has produced the disposi-
tion to accept such physical standards as thermometers and
balances. For example, that weights are equal when, being
equidistant from a common fulcrum, they hang evenly, is a
theorem accepted by every one as soon as proposed, because our
own bodies, being approximately symmetrical, are pairs of scales.
Standards and apparatus having been fixed upon and elaborated,
we are able to follow and estimate the forces of Nature far
beyond the lower and higher limits at which they can excite
recognisable sensations or sensation -differences in ourselves ;
and our instinctive confidence in such methods is confirmed
by the agreement of the results of calculation and verification.
§ 13. Space -relations between bodies are Distances and
Directions measured by Lines and Angles. Lines and Angles
are given in perception ; but not mathematical lines, nor
therefore true angles formed by the meeting of lines that do
not coincide. Sigwart, indeed, says that the straight line is
the line of sight in depth, the line in which we originally
projected objects from ourselves {Logic, § 67). But even in
Berkeley's time it was admitted that the line of sight iu
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 1293
depth, being end-wise to the eye, cannot be seen at all ; and,
if it were seen, it need not be straight, since that depends
upon the medium. Or if the true line of sight is not
exactly end -wise to the eye, because it starts from between
the eyes, no other line is more diificult to see than this one.
As for the original projection of objects, it happened a long
time ago, some millions of years before the birth of Man ;
which I can hardly remember. An adequate experiential basis
of abstract science is, however, found in the lines approximately
straight that are seen in other directions by retinal sensation
interpreted by movement. Whether space-relations can be
known by retinal stimulus alone is disputed ; but, surely, no
peripherally initiated sensation without muscular reaction exists;
and if it did exist, it would be isolated and could give no aid
to judgment. The movements of the eye and hand yield a
perception of straightness ; and of the whole body, not in the
line of sight, but in the line from our feet to an object. It
is not ease of movement or economy of effort that determines
the matter ; for, from the structure of our organs, many motions
in a curve cost least effort : it is the importance of straight move-
ments to the activities of life, as in chasing and striking, that has
produced an instinctive judgment of straightness, and a quick
sense of all deviations from apparent straightness, as in dodging
round a tree. And, surely, it is far from true that, in Nature,
lines straight enough to give rise to a generic idea of straight-
ness, are rare. Innumerable pines and palms present them,
every stalk of grass or bamboo from knot to knot, the sea and
sky-line ; and the edges of split rock must have been familiar
to the troglodyte. Moreover, ages ago men learned to make
things straight — spears and arrows — of necessity, because they
fly best.
Approximately straight lines being perceived, the forma-
tion of the concept by abstraction is simple : to doubt this is
greatly to imderrate the power of abstraction. Similarly,
curves and angles are known by the sweep of the arm and by
pointing here and there ; besides what may be witnessed in
the flight of birds and missiles, in the stoop of trees, the set
of boughs to their trunk, of leaves to their stalk. The right
294 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
angle is that at which most trees, and men themselves, stand
to the ground : it has the emphasis of equilibrium. It may-
be suspected that points were originally fangs and thorns.
Generic ideas of all these things were formed by unsophisticated
man, and named, and used in dealing with his world. To
Science remained the exact definition of the concepts ; the
discovery of methods for measuring angles by the division of
the circle, and for determining position by relation to points
assumed ; and processes of ratiocination by which properties
of figures not directly apprehensible are disclosed and
demonstrated.
Kant's error has already been referred to (Chap. IX. § 3),
namely, that Geometry is a science of the immediate intuition
of Space ; which leads him to contend that Space is pure form
of perception and not a concept. Space is certainly a percept,
but we never perceive pure space : our perception of space is
full of details, which differ from moment to moment ; so that
for us, intent upon what is essential, the differences cancelling,
a concept also forms itself; and without this there could be
no science. Geometry was at first a collection of devices for
measuring bodies and the relations between bodies ; but in
acquiring its scientific character it began to deal not with
particular space-relations but with the concepts of them.
Now such concepts are eternal and unchangeable, and therefore
all that is demonstrated concerning them is universal and
necessary. Geometry, then, is Abstract Science in the sense
that it is abstracted from the facts ; and, therefore, it is true
of the facts and verifiable, so far as percepts approximate to
their concepts.
Abstract Geometry, as the truth of experience, presupposes
the Uniformity of Space : its concepts, abstracted from a
narrow and coarse perceptual knowledge of the World, are
assumed to hold good of the remotest regions and of the most
minute and obscure recesses : their verifiability, then, can
hardly ever be placed beyond cavil ; though the incessant
accumulation of wide and complex deductions, involving
geometrical principles, gradually overcomes the doubts of all,
except a few ingenious and suspicious minds. On the one
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 295
hand, it may be said that Geometry is to be trusted as the
truth of experience, unless facts are found in contradiction
with it : meaning by facts such experiences as are accepted
by trained investigators, not silly ghost -stories such as, in
the modern recrudescence of superstition, we sometimes hear
alleged as only explicable on the hypothesis of a " fourth
dimension." At present no irreconcilable facts are known.
But, on the other hand, it may be urged that Geometry can
never be regarded as true and adequate as long as any region
of Empirical Reality remains unexplored ; and, remembering
that Space is a phenomenon constructed in experience, this
distrust of our conceptual Space must mean, that there may
be some conditions of Being of which Space is the phenomenon,
which are not represented in our perceptual construction, but
might in certain regions or conditions disturb our experience.
The Uniformity of Space implies that a straight line does not
alter its length or lose its straightness, to whatever part of
the universe it may be transferred ; that, supposing it
presented in some physically unchangeable body, it could be
used as a measure of all spaces. If any one disputes this,
there is no reply. Sigwart says he cannot conceive that, if
objects shrank when moved, we should not discover it by our
memory-images (upon which he thinks comparison depends) ;
that is, it is more conceivable that bodies in common Space
should change in magnitude than that the shallow traces of
our personal experience should vary ! He does not seem to be
jesting ; but this sort of argument comes of yielding to the
prevalent whim that any bare suggestion of nonsense imposes
an obligation to refute it.
The simplest perception of Time comprises a Duration in
which Future, Present and Past are all present : although this
seems a paradox, because we are in the habit of substituting
the conceptual instantaneous Present for our present experience.
The contents of such experience incessantly change ; and,
abstracting from the variable contents, we conceive of a
Duration that may be represented by a straight line ; though
nothing can be less like a line than our actual experience of
Time. Then, to this line all the determinations of one
2 96 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
dimension of Space become applicable. Any point within it
being taken, the opposite directions from this point repre-
sent Future and Past, which may be measured by any unit ;
and then durations may be compared. Equidistant events in
the same direction are conceived as simultaneous ; if not
equidistant, the interval of their succession may be computed,
and so on.
To these abstractions, there correspond in experience the
perception and imagination of an indefinite duration of the
World-process, with its past, present and future diversified,
though uninterrupted, by countless events of all degrees of
interest, and more exactly marked by rhythms subjective and
objective. These rhythms are periodic movements, which may
be traced or conjectured throughout Nature, from vast revolu-
tions of remote celestial bodies to the undulations of ether
that are conceived as necessary to explain our perceptions of
the physical forces. From amongst such rhythms one must
be selected as the standard of duration ; whether the rotation
or the revolution of the Earth be taken, or some physical
standard from the region of molecular or etherial vibrations
shall be deemed more constant. The verification of the
standard (that is, the determining of its constancy) depends on
a comparison of observations or experiments with computations.
Observation and experiment involve reliance on subjective
testimony, and, as this is variable, problems arise in the
elimination of error. The best method for the elimination of
error is that which gives the most consistent results ; that is
to say, we refer again to objective measurements, and regard
the greatest agreement amongst these as the test of our
standard of Time, when freed as much as possible from the
influence of subjective rhythms and the idiosyncracies of self-
consciousness. We take for granted an uniformity of the
objective world into which we were born and which had laid
down the conditions of our conscious lives before we were
conscious of ourselves. So from the first it cannot be sup-
posed that the adoption of a standard (say, the day or
month) was made upon a subjective estimate of Time elapsing,
— a series of ideas, equal sums of which the standard was felt
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 297
to comprise and, therefore, to measure : it must have been
instinctive.
Time, then, is measured by the Motion of a Body, that is
assumed and computed to occupy a constant duration in tra-
versing a certain Space ; and some unit of Time being taken,
whether the standard or some multiple or division of it, all
other Motions are measurable by that imit. Thus velocity is
determined by the Space traversed in an unit of Time.
Berkeley tried to prove the impossibility of framing an abstract
idea of Motion without a moving Body ; and using ' idea,' as
he did, to mean ' image,' it is impossible ; for no such thing
can be perceived, nor therefore imagined. But there is no
difficulty in conceiving it ; for abstracting from all differences
(qualitative and quantitative) of moving bodies, there remains
a point moving in a line. And this concept is convenient in
computing the motions of masses by their centres of gravity,
and of atoms : being nearer to a representation of the truth of
atoms than any concrete image can be.
§ 14. Measurement of Continuous Quantities, such as
Space, Time, Motion, supposes the recognition of a Unit, and
of laws of the addition, subtraction, etc., of units ; that is, of
Number. But it cannot be imagined that the laws of Number
were originally discovered by the analysis of Continuous
Quantity. Pure intuition comprises no data for any sort of
science, and Time and Space, being continuous even in percep-
tion, though diversified in their contents, and being purified in
conception from all diversity, do not, as such modes of
Quantity, offer the data for perceiving Plurality and learning
to count it. And in fact the history of this great acquisition
of culture is pretty well known. The Plurality of mere diversity
is given in every act of perception. The Indefinite Plurality of
things of a kind is also given, and is recognisable by the
higher animals. Deer in a herd, eggs in the nest, children in
the family, warriors in the tribe, articles of barter, are felt as
' more or less ' before they are known as ' so many ' ; and to
analyse the Plurality of things of a kind is the problem of
learning that art of counting of which all arithmetical pro-
cesses are only abbreviations. The instinctive solution of the
298 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
problem seems to have consisted in the taking of one standard
group, the best known, — that is, the fingers of the hand, each
of which generally has its distinctive name, and then comparing
all other groups of things with this standard as a common
measure of plurality. To compare five warriors, with the
thumb, forefinger, middle finger, stiff finger, and little finger
is the primitive equation. If there are more to be reckoned,
the other hand, or even the toes may be appealed to. This
detailed comparison unit by unit is often used in primitive
barter (say, one stick of tobacco for one glass bead); the
children and even the adults of modern Europe may still be
seen counting on their fingers ; and our semi-civilised world
has settled down by force of habit to the decimal system in
spite of its imperfections.
Still, comparison in detail with a standard group is not
true counting ; it is only a perceptual equation. True counting
requires : (a) abstraction, from all the differences of individuals,
except their distinctness as objects in a series ; (6) the recog-
nition that all arrangements of the series are indifferent ; (c)
the consequent freeing of the names of numbers from all con-
nection with particular objects or arrangements. Numbers
can then be analysed and defined and their relations compared
as abstract science ; and they can be applied conventionally or
arbitrarily to any objects, groups of objects or ideas, qualities
or relations, or to hypothetical divisions of continuous
quantities — Space, Time, Motion; always subject to the
condition that the predications made or conclusions drawn in
terms of number do not assert or imply anything as to the
qualitative character of the things counted, nor anything as to
their quantitative character except the numerical. Whether
the things counted are qualitatively alike, or whether the
continuous quantity has been evenly divided (say, into inches),
is a distinct consideration : the likeness or equality of things
counted implies not merely a numerical unit but a Unit-
measure.
In counting we attend to the things counted ; and the
abstract character of Numbers has led to the hypothesis that it
is the common facts of all counting — acts of Attention — that
ABSTRACT CATE(a)IUES 299
are the basis of Number. But to attend to acts of Attention
is the most difficult exercise of introspection, and nobody
dreamt of it when Arithmetic was formulated.
Nevertheless, in counting it is always assumed that the
things counted belong to some group, or come under some
general denomination or siip-positio, though they may differ
widely in both (juality and quantity : a traveller may count
the ' items ' of his luggage, or the contents of any parcel ; a
farmer may count a flock of sheep, or the number of pounds
that one sheep weighs ; a chemist may count the elements, or
the qualities it is convenient to recognise in defining a given
element. Thus the suj)positio may be indicated by the nature
of the case, or by general convention, or may be quite arbitrary.
However determined, the swppositio is a Totality or Whole, of
which the items counted are numerical parts ; and any Total
may be treated as a Unit under a less comprehensive sup-
yositio. Thus all the things we usually deal with as concrete
units are chemical and physical Totals.
Nothing can be more obvious than these considerations,
yet on the neglect of them depend most of the puerile fancies
that have been entertained concerning the One and the Many :
fancies excusable enough in the beginnings of speculation, but
which we see persisting age after age in the writings of men
who invoke the name of Plato,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise.
That there should be one Idea or concept and many particulars,
is due to this, that when a man counts ideas he does not
count particulars, and that when he counts particulars he does
not count ideas : the suppositio is different. We might as
well express amazement that one strap should bind up many
sticks. That particulars should agree in some qualities
(determining the concept) and differ in others (locality, for
example), has nothing to do with Arithmetic, but is a physical
result: conditions of production being more or less similar,
so are the products ; but as the conditions are not exactly the
same, neither are the products.
That one Substance should have many Qualities can raise
300 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
no surprise in any one who considers, that empirical Sub-
stances are metaphysical totalities and are counted under a
different suppositio from their qualities, which are metaphysical
parts. As for Substance transcendent, my advice is — not to
try to apply the ready reckoner in that region ; but, at least,
there is no contradiction in Spinoza's conception of one
Substance with infinite Attributes. We must, however,
distinguish this arithmetical consideration from the pseudo-
physical question how the One, if a prius, can become a
Many. This involves one of two fallacies : (1) either the
notion of Becoming or Generation, thus used for procession
from the Absolute, is a mere ghost of physical causation,
meaningless and inapprehensible — a " transcendent use of the
category "; or (2) it is assumed that the One must be simple,
confounding the suppositio ; for the One may be a meta-
physical totality of Attributes, or a physical totality of (say)
Atoms, or a numerical totality of anything. Unity has
nothing to do with simplicity ; the unity of Apperception,
for example, is in the highest degree complex. But, again,
the procession of the Many from the One, or self-diremption
of the Absolute, cannot be shown to be logically necessary on
the ground that One implies Many as correlative ; for the
One, as Idea, is not correlative with the Many as Phenomena.
And hence too, the vulgar objection to the doctrine of the
Trinity, that there cannot be One Substance and three Persons,
is absurd and laughable. Not that I can approve of the
pseudo-Athanasius's use of the number "three"; it is a
transcendent application of Arithmetic.
But this reminds us that the word ' One ' is often used
negatively, or mystically ; for when we say that God is One,
we are not about to count gods ; we merely repudiate Poly-
theism. The One of Plotinus was not a digit. Where there
can be no second, ' One,' numerically used, is a meaningless
predicate. That the Universe is one, is tautology ; that the
Absolute is one, is verbiage. But should we call them ' One,'
it would not follow that God, or tlie Universe, or the Absolute
is simple ; and they are very rash who maintain that whatever
consists of parts must perish : a shallow, empirical prejudice !
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 301
Oiir own investigations indicate that, beginning with the
actual World in Self-consciousness, this implies Universal
Consciousness and Being ; but whether these shall be reckoned
One, or Two, or Three or Four, let them decide who think
more highly of Arithmetic than I do.
§ 15. Tiie indirect measurement of Quantity (as Comte
defined the Mathematics) depends upon the Axioms of Mediate
Relation, which are reducible to two: (1) magnitudes equal
to the same third are equal ; and (2) if equal magnitudes be
added to equals, the sums are equal. Equality implies that
the magnitudes compared shall be of the same order (Degree,
or Duration, or Extension), since else they cannot be compared.
There is a resemblance between the mathematical Axioms
and the Dictum de omni et nullo, but much disparity in the
fruitfulness of these forms. For if logical comparison deals
with Classes, these are definitely related only within the
rings of Porphyry's tree, and elsewhere overlap one another
with endless irregularity ; and if with Causes, indefinitely
conceived as subject to plurality or vicariousness, no causal
series can be formally reversed. But in Porphyry's tree,
though we ascend it securely enough, the progress is always
brief, and we cannot descend again except by limitation at
every stage ; and as soon as we leave its shelter and attempt
to explore the neighbouring wood, on the strength of the like-
ness of Class A to B, B to C, C to D, from A to D becomes a
perilous leap, because the likeness may differ in each relation.
Or, again, if in general A is a cause of B, B of C, C of D, it
cannot be inferred that in any particular case D is the effect
of A, because at each step backwards there may have been
other causes. On the other hand, comparisons of Equality
admit of endless concatenation, reversal and substitution.
Hence the advantage of treating causal series as presenting
equations in the transformation of matter and energy.
The power of the Equation sometimes tempts meta-
physicians to imagine that they are wielding it when, in fact,
they have no more than the relation of Genus and Species at
command. Thus Schopenhauer establishes to his own satis-
faction the following series : The Will to live is an effort at
302 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
individualisation ; individuality is limitation ; limitation is
exclusion ; exclusion is opposition ; opposition is strife ; strife
is pain ; pain is evil, therefore the Will to live is (morally)
evil. But only some opposition is strife, some strife pain,
some pain (moral) evil ; and even earlier in the series, though
limitation, exclusion, opposition may be abstractly correlative,
moral associations creep subtly in. Similarly deceptive series
are not uncommon in dialectic. Whilst ostensibly employing
abstract comparison, the meaning of terms is at every step
enriched, and it is not acknowledged, as it should be, that the
source of enrichment is experiential. No richer category was
ever derived from a poorer one: experience is the common
ground of them all.
In perception an equation may be determined more
exactly than any other comparison ; but as direct comparison
is limited by our powers of perception, so is the direct veri-
fication of the Axioms. The Axioms are, in the first place,
instinctive judgments, assumed and acted upon by men long
before they are formulated : not only in man but throughout
the animal kingdom, each creature's body is necessarily a
measure to it of all other things. That the comparisons of
active experience should be exact is not essential to the
practical use of the Axioms. It is enough that the nearer
other things are to being equal in length to a foot or a cubit,
the more nearly they are equal to one another : the short-
comings cancel, and the universal instinctive assumption
emerges. That if A is greater than B, and B than C, much
more is A greater than C, is a still commoner experience, but
less interesting, as its generalisation is now less fruitful. It
is necessary, however, to the further formation of progressive
quantitative series; and, therefore, cannot be derived from
such series.
When under definite ideas of method the Axioms are
formulated, the relation of Equality is conceptualised, and it is
thereby required that every comparison shall be not merely
in perception but unconditionally exact ; and in this sense
the Axioms can never be directly verified. But their truth is
known not merely by intuition but by the consensus of all
ABSTRACT CATEGOKIES 303
deductions from them, and they are applicable to particular
experience in proportion as the relations determined in ex-
perience approximate to conceptual equality.
Quantitative reasoning then consists in the mediate com-
parison of Times, Spaces, Motions, Series, Groups, as conceived
and defined. When such quantities are measured in terms
of some unit they are expressed by Numbers. Number is
usually opposed, as discrete — to Time, Space and Motion, as
continuous. But how Number itself should be discrete I
cannot understand ; the predicate is only applicable to things
counted. In counting items in a group (say, sheep in a flock)
the things numbered are discrete ; in counting inches in a
rule, the things numbered are only discriminated. So far
from being opposed to a continuum. Number is essential to
the conception of it. A continuum is conceived as that which
can never be exhausted by division ; but this implies the con-
ception of a division infinitely continuable. That in fact the
process stops, has nothing to do with the conception of it.
Wherever it stops the result will be expressed by a finite
number ; but to say that if one divides for ever, an infinite
number will never be reached, is a rather bad bull.
The definitions of numbers are obtained by addition of units
up to 10 (that is, by counting), then by adding 10 to 10 or
part of 10 ; and arithmetical processes consist in establishing
equations between different ways of constituting a Number
according to the Definitions. The analytic process founded
upon the definitions has sometimes been mistaken, as
(apparently) by Hume (who may have followed Leibniz,
Monadologie, §§ 33-35), for the whole method of Mathematics ;
and, if there were nothing more, these sciences would consist
wholly of verbal or identical propositions. But, as Kant saw,
there is a synthesis, though he was not happy in the examples
he gave of it. In fact there are two synthetic processes in
Arithmetic: (1) the counting, upon which definitions of the
numbers are based; and (2) the intuition of Axioms that
justify the concatenation of equations. Similarly, geometrical
reasoning consists in establishing equations between difiierent
ways of constituting the same facts of distance and direction,
304 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
according to the Definitions and in reliance on the Axioms.
As for the geometrical figure, given or constructed in percep-
tion or imagination, it is necessary to the analysis and helps
to confirm our sense of the conclusion ; but the demonstra-
tion is conceptual and, therefore, universal and necessary.
Algebraic reasoning carries out the comparison of quantities by
substituting symbols for the quantities themselves or their
relations ; and abbreviates the process of ratiocination by sub-
stituting signs of operations to be performed for the detailed
performance of them.
Negative quantities, expressed by the minus sign, may be
interpreted in the same way as Logical Negation. We saw in
§ 9 that Nothing always means some Other ; and so does
negative quantity in Mathematics ; but whilst in Logic the
Other is quite indefinite, here it is always the Other of a given
quantity. Thus in measuring distance (say, a mile) we start
from some point in some one direction ; and the negative of
this, or minus quantity, is an equal distance measured from the
same point in the opposite direction. Similarly with degrees :
representing them upon a scale, any point in the scale may be
taken at convenience as zero ; and all degrees above it being
called positive, all below it are negative ; and if y stand for
any positive degree, the corresponding negative is — y. Zero,
of course, is not nothing, but a certain point in a scale.
Absolute zero of temperature is another state of matter than
that in which the molecular motion of physical temperature
exists.
It is a standing paradox that in manipulating algebraic
symbols, the multiplication of minus quantities into one
another should give a positive result : minus a multiplied by
minus 6 is db. But the apparent difficulty depends upon our
regarding the two minus expressions as independent of one
another : in fact, they are like clauses in a sentence, one of
which qualifies the other. That a degrees below zero taken
negatively (the reverse of below) h times, should be ab above
zero, is a truth corresponding with Obversion in Logic and
with the rules of English Grammar.
As for " irrational expressions " such as fj — a, they are
ABSTRACT CATEGORIES 306
methodological devices whose justification is far from being
agreed upon amongst experts ; so that it is useless for a
layman to discuss them. Taken as they occur in a process of
calculation, they seem to me to stand for operations to be per-
formed subject to the context. Puzzles arise from assuming
that every expression must be good in any context ; but mathe-
matical symbols depend for their meaning upon what is being
reasoned about. De Morgan's explanation of ^ — 1 {Elements of
Trigonometry , chap, iv.) is the most intelligible I have ever
seen.
There is more promise of metaphysical interest in in-
commensurable quantities, but no fulfilment. According to
Sigwart, incommensurable magnitudes in space are " the most
striking proof against all empirical theories of Space ; no actual
measurement could convince us that it is impossible to express
the side of a square and its diagonal by numbers of the same
unit" (§ 67). I am not aware, however, that any empirical
theory of Space requires actual measurements. It would be
more plausible to urge that no rational theory of Space is
compatible with the discovery of incommensurables. It is a
discovery of fact made by discursive reasoning ; but Reason
is formed and guided by experience. The empirical growth
of Space-perception dates from the antiquity of organic life ;
but to urge that incommensurables are therefore due to the
imperfect manifestation of Being in the Phenomenon, would
need an extraordinary power of keeping one's countenance.
The approximate solution of such problems depends upon
the conception of infinitesimal quantities and a Limit. If any
factor of conceptual Reality cannot be exactly measured so as
to compare it with another, some third factor may be found
which can be so measured, and which differs from the first by
a very small quantity ; and we may suppose this difference to
be indefinitely reduced, until the third factor may be sub-
stituted for the first without assignable error. This is the
familiar conceptual process of fixing upon that which is common
to things and neglecting their differences. The difference
between a straight line of less than any assignable length and
its arc, whether in length or direction, is negligible, and a
20
306 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
Limit is that stage of an operation at which differences become
negligible. Berkeley might have overcome his antipathy to
fluxions by carrying out the doctrine ofTJie Principles of Human
Knowledge, that general reasoning depends upon the use of
ideas, words, or other signs, in their representative character,
and he would then have avoided the irony of irony misplaced.
It may be doubted whether he fully grasped the significance
of his own reasoning in the Principles ; for in the Analyst his
argument turns entirely upon the confusing of conception with
imagination. On the ground of experience, comparison and
abstraction, a suflQcient account may be given of the Abstract
Categories ; and on no other hypothesis is it intelligible that
their application should be fruitful in the Physical Sciences.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES
§ 1. Physics, in the widest and most natural sense of the
term, includes the whole theory of concrete existence, usually
distributed under the head of Mechanics, Physics (in the
narrower sense). Chemistry and Biology. The metaphysical
treatment of this universal science of Nature differs in many
ways from that of the special sciences. It deals only with
the most general notions of the subject. It may regard certain
concepts as still worthy of commemoration, though the special
sciences have discredited them. It endeavours to construe in
each case the whole fact of experience; whereas the special
sciences, limited by methodological considerations, may neglect
or even disparage whatever aspects of the fact cannot be
quantitatively valued and prepared for mathematical com-
putation ; and these aspects include the subjective character of
every fact. The metaphysician (in his proper function) seeks
in the special sciences their objective construction of Concepts
and Laws ; or, if the construction is still incomplete, he must
wait until it is completed : for this construction is concerned
with what is not ourselves ; it is essentially an inductive and
tentative process, and to attempt it by any other method is a
self-stultification. Still, whilst it is true on the whole that
Science, by the very fact of its progress, is its own criticism,
the metaphysician or any other bystander may require that
concepts and laws used in the interpretation of Nature shall
conform to the principles of explanation and consistency ; for
even the most exact knowledge ought to be intelligible : and
he must consider whether concepts are possible, or have veri-
307
308 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
similitude in view of their history and alliances. If such
matters are neglected, there seems to be a justification of the
opinion that the sciences do not seek truth but are content
with " working hypothesis " ; an opinion which (I believe)
every sincere investigator repudiates.
§ 2. That the progress of Science is its own criticism was
never better illustrated than it is at the present hour, when so
many beliefs are being modified or abandoned. The bystander
knows not where to find footing for the soles of unblest feet.
A short time ago he might have taken it as agreed upon that
the factors of concrete existence were Ether and Atoms. Now
the Atoms, on the one hand, are supposed to be ' knots,' ' kinks,'
or vortices in the Ether, produced by some process of ' pyknosis ' ;
the Ether, on the other hand, is said to be conceived too
inconsistently to explain anything, and it is even hinted that
by the new conceptions of Atoms the Ether may become
superfluous.
The theory of the atomic structure of bodies seems to
have been based upon their sensible comminutability. Kocks,
rubble, sand, powder : the series suggests an indefinite divisi-
bility, only checked by the reflection that division can never
be destruction, and that the smallest parts must have some
extension and mass to account for such properties in the
whole. Hence the antiquity of the doctrine introduced into
Philosophy by Democritus. And the most recent speculations
on the decomposition of chemical atoms into electrons,
similarly appeal to the experience that under certain con-
ditions pieces can be broken off from atoms, and that some of
the heaviest atoms, if not all, break down, or radiate, by their
own instability. Ether, according to Aristotle, was the matter
of the celestial regions, having the properties of permanence
and circular motion, in contrast with the elements of terrestrial
things that are perishable and move in straight lines. Never-
theless the notion was taken by him from folk-lore, in which
the ether, or upper air, was figured as something more refined
than that which we breathe. When the ether was adopted
into modern Physics it was endowed from time to time with
such properties as it seemed to require, as a vehicle for modes
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 309
of energy, and as a medium correcting the discontinuity of
the atomic structure of things. These notions, then, of Atoms
and Ether are entirely empirical : they do not involve the
deepest principle of the understanding. The Atomic Theory
appeals to familiar analogies in the formation of bodies, from
an animal organism to Silurian rocks ; whereas the continuity
of the Ether is without any physical analogy in familiar
experience. But even the Atomic Theory is on a different
footing from the doctrines of Conservation and of Continuity
in Time. Conservation and Continuity in Time cannot be
disputed without abandoning all possibility of explanation ;
but the notions of Atoms and Ether may be modified at
discretion, until by a series of trials the scientific mind shall
have reached at last the most comprehensive analysis of con-
crete existence.
§ 3. In empirical Eeality all things in Time and Space
move and change, and sometimes seem to come to rest and
to remain unchanged. Movement, Change, Rest are plainly
given to our cursory perception : do they retain their reality
when we attempt a systematic interpretation of experience ?
Rest, although even Spinoza writes (perhaps unguardedly,
Eth. ii. 13) as if it were a phenomenon co-ordinate with
Motion, quickly disappears in the light of investigation.
Whilst a body may often be said to rest in relation to certain
other objects, it is easily shown that every body must be in
incessant movement both as a whole and (if composite) in the
configuration of its parts : the direction, velocity and com-
plexity of its movements baffling imagination.
Change was said by Aristotle to comprise (1) the origina-
tion and destruction of particular things, (2) growth and
decrease, (3) alteration of quality, (4) locomotion ; and he
showed that the last is a condition of all the others, but
maintained that it does not wholly account for alteration of
quality. The fact is that origination and destruction, growth
and decrease of particular things, are processes common to
empirical and conceptual Reality ; and in the latter region,
in which things exist only in their primary qualities, motion
is the ground of all changes : but alteration of quality in
310 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
empirical Eeality includes those changes of secondary qualities
that depend on subjective reaction of the special senses ; and
this cannot be explained by motion, being the subjective
Eeality of that of which motion is itself the phenomenon and,
therefore, an ultimate experience. Qualitative Change is more
real than Motion, as Time is more leal than Space.
Kant said that the consciousness of Change requires the
contrast of something permanent in consciousness : but it is
enough that something more enduring be there. The
existential correlative of Kant's argument is that Change
implies some identical thing that changes ; and this seems to
involve a contradiction, for Identity and Change are incom-
patible predicates ; but the knot is at once loosened by
observing that Identity is predicated of different things in
different senses. If in space there be any simple and ultimate
phenomenon, its Identity excludes every sort of Change
except locomotion, which is not incompatible with Identity ;
and, strictly speaking, nothing else can be called self-identical.
In all generated things Identity is regarded as compatible
with some amount of Change, because there are limits to the
appreciation of Change, and in many classes of things con-
tinuous Identity implies a series of changes. A State or a
living Body is called the same, though undergoing such
metamorphoses as overtake a caterpillar or a constitution ;
without which the existence of the thing is not fulfilled
according to its nature.
Hume observed that Identity depends upon Causation
{Treatise, Book I. Part III. § 2), and this is true of all things
changeable, as we may see in several ways. Popularly, a
thing is no longer called the same so far as its effects become
different : a darned stocking may be the same in the economy
of ownership, but not in the market. Again, as to the re-
cognition of Identity : whereas Plurality depends upon the
determination of particular Things in time and place ; so
that different Things may at different times be in the same
place, and the same Tiling may at different times be in
different places, but not in different places at the same time ;
it follows that to trace the Identity of anything, we must
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 311
know what causes are capable of moving it and of substituting
something else that is perceptually indistinguishable from it.
Hence we may observe that, since Identity depends uy)on
Causation, Causation cannot be explained by Identity : Causal
Instances (even were they qualitatively and quantitatively
the same) are numerically different. And since Thinghood
involves Identity, we see that Causation, the latest concept
to be clarified, is necessary to the understanding of Thinghood ;
which, seeming primitive and simple, is in some ways arbitrary
and ambiguous and illusory.
But to see this still more clearly, let us consider that, as
Locke says, Identity implies that a Thing has only one
beginning (Assays of H. U. ii. 27, ^ 1); and this is obviously
true of all generated Totalities. Now its beginning is a
change or process of Causation, and its whole existence depends
upon the equilibrium thence resulting. That this equilibrium
should in certain cases be relatively permanent, because in
fact forces capable of overthrowing it are rare or no longer
active, may be admitted possible ; and in that case, in the
absence of adequate causes, there will be a relatively persistent
Identity. Nevertheless, so far as it is true that whatever
begins perishes, every such thing is a temporary result of
processes of change ; and, even granting that anything that
begins can be permanent, yet all its qualities are traceable to
the persistence of internal strains and movements implied in
its constitution ; nor can it be doubted that these are modified
by changes in its external relations. Amongst sensible
phenomena, then, an unchangeable thing has no existence ;
and, therefore, the question, ' how a Thing can change,' is
misleading. A Thing is a process of change ; even its tem-
porary persistence is due to the uniformity of changes, that
is, to Causation — master-concept of the concrete world. And,
therefore, the law of Contradiction, that A is not not-A, must,
in its physical application, be understood of processes : there
cannot be two moving bodies in the same relations of place
and time.
The concepts of Change and Identity, then, are not
impossible or contradictory, although they must be cautiously
312 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
used in the interpretation of immediate experience. The
possibility of forming the concept of Identity depends, first,
upon the phenomena of relative Eest and relative persistence
of Quality ; secondly, upon the unchangeable nature of concepts
themselves. But whether Unchangeableness is a predicate
necessary to the ultimate interpretation of experience, remains
a question for physical science : is it necessary in any way,
qualitative or quantitative (other than Conservation), to the
formation of an universal Science of Nature ? If so, it is in
that relation verifiable ; and, because it is verifiable, its use is
truly immanent and not transcendent ; it applies to phenomena
and not directly to Being.
§ 4. Heracleitus' profound intuition of the universality
of Change in the sensible world is still a paradox, but less
alarming perhaps to the public than Zeno's arguments against
the conceivability of Motion. The public approves of Diogenes'
answer, which was — to walk away : though it has been urged
that this was a most disgraceful blunder, since the arguments
were directed not against the fact but the concept of Motion.
According to J. Burnet, however {Early Greek Fhilosophy, chap,
viii.), Zeno's attack was made not so much upon the general con-
cept of Motion as upon the Pythagorean doctrine of Space.
The Pythagoreans seem to have held that Space is made up of
points ; and, if so, they must have admitted that any given
Space, being infinitely divisible, contains an infinite number
of points. It follows in four ways, according to Zeno, that
Motion is impossible. For, first, no such Space can be
traversed in a finite time. This, however, could present no
difficulty to the Pythagoreans unless they denied that Time,
likewise, is infinitely divisible. Now Zeno's third argument
was that a flying arrow is really always at rest, since at each
moment of time it is at some particular point of space.
Burnet approves of Aristotle's observation that this " depends
upon the assumption that Time is made up of ' Nows,' that is,
of indivisible instants " ; adding that " this, no doubt, was the
Pythagorean view." So that if the Pythagoreans were really
so simple as to assert infinite divisibility of Space, and deny
it of Time, they cut themselves off from what might seem an
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 313
easy answer to the first argument. Apart from this blunder
attributed to the Pythagoreans, it may be supposed that Zeno's
argument starts from the assumption that Motion in an
infinitesimal moment is not Motion but Rest ; that is to say,
that it merely begs the question. In any case, it is im-
possible to conceive of Motion unless Space and Time are
conceived as continua ; and that they are continua is the
ground of Aristotle's solution of these puzzles. Motion is a
traversing of Space in Time ; it cannot be completely analysed
into Space and Time ; something further — an ultimate ex-
perience — is of the essence of it : and this is some excuse for
Diogenes' retort. The right reply to the doctrine that Space
is made up of points, is that ' divisible ' and ' discrete ' are
very diSerent notions ; if Space, Time and Motion were not
divisible they could not be measurable : but if Space consisted
of discrete points, the impossibility of Motion would follow
from this, that between any two points there is no room to
move.
The Eleatic's fourth argument was, that if two bodies
move with equal velocity past one another in opposite
directions, they will do it in half the time that either of them
takes in passing a fixed body — that is, each of them has in the
same time different velocities. Grote thought this observation
designed to show that velocity is not absolute but relative ;
and, in that case, it is a sound argument. However, Burnet
approves of an explanation offered by Tannery : that it " was
directed against a possible answer to the preceding one,
namely, that in each indivisible instant the arrow is passing
from one point to the next. If so, answered Zeno, motion
must always have an equal velocity, for all instants, being
infinitely small, are equal." But that all infinitely small
instants are equal, is not necessarily true ; and if it were, to
assume that all motions in equal instants must traverse equal
spaces, is flatly to beg the question whether different velocities
are possible. It is just because velocities do in fact differ,
however small the time supposed, that it is necessary to fix
upon some actual motion of a body (say, a revolution of the
Earth) as a standard of comparison.
314 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
But it is the second sophism (in the usual enumeration)
that has excited most amazement and scalp -scratching — the
famous race between Achilles and the tortoise. Should the
hero give the reptile a start, he can never overtake it : for
(granting, for argument's sake, that they can move at all) by
the time Achilles reaches the tortoise's starting-point, it will
have got beyond it a certain distance ; whilst Achilles is
covering that space, the tortoise will have moved on again :
and so forth ad infinitum. This description of the event, how-
ever, takes no account of the diminishing times of the several
distances. For suppose that, as Grote puts it in his Plato
(chap, ii.), whilst Achilles advances 100 yards (say in one
minute) the tortoise advances 1 yards ; then whilst Achilles
covers these 1 yards (in x^th of a minute) the tortoise covers
1 yard more, and Achilles walking that yard (in x^tj*^ °^ ^
minute) is still xV^^ ^^ ^ yard behind the tortoise. Therefore
Achilles will never overtake the tortoise in the times supposed,
as I have supplied them (or t-f- j-\j^-f xo(y, etc.). But this
implies that the race is not to last very long ; for if it only
lasts one and one-fifth minute, Achilles will be nearly 9 yards
ahead (cf. Mill, On Hamilton, chap. xxiv.). So much in dis-
charge of the duty, imposed upon every writer on Metaphysics,
to offer some reflections upon the father of Dialectic : it was
not left to him to make men puzzle-headed ; but he first had
a happy knack of displaying our natural endowment. Motion
is so far from being inconceivable that only by a conceptual
treatment can we get any clear view of it. It cannot be
necessary here to show that all motions are relative both
in direction and velocity ; nor to answer the question how
Motion can originate from Eest or subside into Eest, seeing
that there is no such thing as Eest.
Motion, then, being an universal condition of all bodies,
there can be no cause of it in general, but only of its changes
or transformations, that is, of Acceleration or Eetardation, or
of Direction, or in the form of Energy. The specific forms of
Energy and their characters are a modern discovery, owing
little to early philosophers, and still less to primitive folk-lore :
for from these sources came the notions of Animism, occult
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 316
principles, fluids, which were rather a hindrance than an aid
to positive investigation ; except that the subjective notion
of Force, vaguely generalising all manifestations of energy,
mechanic<il, chemical, organic, gave a certain unity to the
object of investigation. But as to the phenomena of Accelera-
tion and Deflection, these are instinctively mastered by most
of the higher animals, conspicuously by birds, necessarily by
all men in the hunting stage of culture, most perfectly by the
champion of the billiard- table. In this sense, all who study
science begin with an organic knowledge of the laws of
Motion.
The conditions of the movements we are continually
witnessing are, for the most part, extremely complex ; and a
theory of Motion requires an analysis of these conditions into
their elements. In the experimental sciences attempts are
made to isolate the causes of movements ; but as experiments
are always imperfect, they serve chiefly to verify the theories
of Statics and Dynamics, which proceed from abstractions.
Newton's Laws of Motion, for example, are plainly abstracted
from experience by neglecting the differences of experience and
following amidst all perplexities the common fact. This pro-
cess is aided by the scene the heavens present of motions under
comparatively simple conditions. In experience every move-
ment is reinforced, opposed, or deflected, and therefore alters its
velocity or direction ; ' below the Moon ' the molar motion of
particular bodies is always at last frittered away until they
come to relative rest ; and even in the heavens the direction
and velocity of all bodies change according to the position of
other bodies : but, omitting all the conditions of change, infinite
and infinitely differing, there remains movement itself, un-
conditional, uniform and everlasting. Such is Newton's first
Law : the second and third declare the conservation of Motion
(or Force) amidst all interactions ; that is, Continuity and
Equality, the principles of the Understanding.
§ 5. Motion implies some Matter that moves, a tangible
mass, or molecule, or the ether. Our own movements
are accompanied by ' sensations of effort,' which usually are
more intense the more rapid our movement. Sensations of
316 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
the same class are felt in dragging a load or in trying to stop
or deflect another moving body : hence we form a notion of
Force as the cause of movement or of the checking of move-
ment. In interpreting the movements of Nature, man, before
the rise of discrimination and reflection, reads this experience
into other bodies ; not only into other men and animals, but
into swaying trees, rushing rivers, falling rocks : it is one of
the roots of Animism. And although this interpretation
would be defended by very few men in cold blood, it still
haunts our imaginations, and makes it easy to speak of
motion as due to Force. According to the doctrines of this
book, such an instinctive view of Nature is not false, but only
crude. It is, nevertheless, misleading ; for, using different
words, men regard them as standing for different things, and
speak of Force as impressed upon Matter and of causes as forces.
Force, however, can nowhere be found, nor imagined, nor even
conceived as a phenomenon, apart from Matter; there is no
way of measuring or conceiving it as a fact of the objective
world, except through the very movements it is supposed to
cause.
' Force ' does not explain " the particular go " of anything.
Effort, being subjective, cannot be directly compared, it cannot
be a standard or a unit of measurement : in producing the
same effect (movement or resistance) it varies in different men
according to their strength, and in the same man according to
his age, health, etc. So far from giving a measure of Motion
it is supposed to be measured by Motion, according to the
doctrine that " causes are measured by their effects " : a doctrine
only applicable to " occult " causes ; since in true causation
amongst phenomena both cause and effect can be measured
and equated.
Hence arises a tendency to disparage the notion of Force,
and even to discard it altogether, because it is useless in
Mathematics. But, after all, to act upon this principle would
sadly impoverish the world. The facts of experience, even
though subjective, cannot be abolished for the convenience of
Methodology. Mach, in his Science of Mechanics, writes thus :
" Force is any circumstance of which the consequence is motion.
THE THYSICAL CATEGORIES 317
... In the motions which we ourselves determine, as well as
in those to which we are forced by external circumstances,
we are always sensible of a pressure. Thence arises our habit
of representing all circumstances determinative of motion as
something akin to volitional acts — as pressures. The attempts
we make to set aside this conception as subjective, animistic
and unscientific fail invariably. It cannot profit us, surely, to do
violence to our own natural-born thoughts and to doom our-
selves in that regard to voluntary mental penury " (chap. i.
§ 5). In strict science, on the other hand, " force is not a some-
thing that lies latent in the natural processes, but a measurable
actual circumstance of motion, the product of the mass into
the acceleration " (chap. ii. § 8). That is, if used in science
at all, so the notion must be understood.
§ 6. The Matter that moves or seems to rest is known
to us by various properties — Inertia, Mass, Space-occupancy
(volume with some limit to compressibility), Elasticity, etc.
— all of which are derived from the experience of Eesistance
to our efforts, which presents the world of Not-self in the
most irreducible and uncompromising form. Inertia is usually
said to be the property that all bodies have of remaining at
rest unless some cause sets them in motion, or of persisting in
rectilinear motion at constant velocity unless some cause im-
pedes or accelerates or deflects them. But since Rest is an
illusion, to " set in motion " is always to alter a body's
direction or velocity. The notion of Rest has led to the
coupling of ' inert ' with ' dead ' : so that ' inert, dead Matter '
is familiar rhetoric. Mass is the same property as Inertia
conceived in a more definite way. The Mass of any body is
measured by the effect produced by it upon any other body
that alters its velocity or direction. The attempt has been
made to define it by the number of atoms contained in a
body ; if all atoms are alike inert, and gravitate equally, and
are all of the same size, the greater the number of them in
any aggregate the greater the mass ; and the greater the
number of them in a given volume the greater the density.
This doctrine is specious because it brings several concepts —
Mass, Weight, Density, Atom — into a simple relationship.
318 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
But the atoms here assumed are not the ordinary chemical
atoms, which differ in size and weight : they are not any
known atoms, but merely units of Mass, obtained by hypo-
thetically dividing that which their multiplication is to explain.
It is, therefore, no true explanation, though it may prove to
have been an anticipation of the truth if the chemical elements
should be resolvable into homogeneous particles of Protyle.
Meanwhile we may be content with Mach's definition : " All
those bodies are bodies of equal mass, which, acting on each
other, produce in each other equal and opposite accelerations "
{pp. cit. chap. ii. § 5).
The doctrine that sensible bodies are aggregates of atoms
at short distances apart, has also been thought necessary to
the explanation of Elasticity : when an elastic body is com-
pressed and re-expands, it is easy to suppose that the inter-
spaces of its structure decrease and recover, but not that the
atoms themselves change their shape or volume ; for they
have no parts capable of changing their relative positions.
But although an ultimate physical Atom has (by definition)
no pliysical parts, yet if it has any volume there must be
geometrical parts : and that these are incapable of altering their
relative positions, of being compressed and re-expanding, seems
to be an assumption of that which should be left to inductive
investigation. That there is, in any case, some limit to com-
pressibility is asserted by the axiom, that ' two bodies cannot
occupy the same place at the same time ' ; and this is supported
(1) by experiments upon bodies under pressure at the lowest
temperatures, and (2) by the principle of Understanding,
equivalence or conservation. Otherwise, under sufficient pres-
sure. Matter ceases to differ from Space ; which is absurd, for
if it be the same as Space, how can it offer auy resistance at
aU?
§ 7. The tendency of bodies to move or to maintain an
equilibrium is imagined as impact, attraction or repulsion, by
analogy with our own experience of striking, pulling or pushing.
That bodies gravitating pull one another is easily believed,
because, when we lift weights, they seem to pull us ; that a
magnet pulls another magnetic pole with one pole and pushes
THE PHYSICAL CATEGOEIES 319
it away with the other may (with strong magnets) be sensibly
felt, if we hold eitlier magnet in our hand. If we consider
the commotion of molecules in a gas, it may be supposed that,
could we tie one of them by a fine thread, and were our
muscle-sense sufliciently discriminative, it would bo possible
to feel it twitching and rushing hither and thither like a
trout in a pool. In a luminous body the agitated molecules
may be thought of as pushing the adjacent ether and throwing
it into waves. Yet, on reflection, the analogies with our own
exertions in striking, pushing or pulling, fail in all those cases
in which one body influences another at a distance, without
apparent contact. Hence the possibility of actio in distans, or
rather the conceivability of it, is often denied, on the ground
that there is no sensible experience on which to base such a
concept ; the exertion of force without contact is supposed to
be too unfamiliar to the imagination. Lange assumes that
action at a distance is less picturable than impulse {Hist, of
Materialism, iii. 3). Gravitation being the most conspicuous
case of what looks like action at a distance, many attempts
have been made to explain it by molecular or etherial pres-
sure : hitherto (I believe) without much result.
I cannot see that action at a distance is less picturable
than impulse ; and the alleged difficulty of conceiving it is
obscure to me. That the concept exists in fact is shown by
this, that the law of gravitation assumes it : for that reason,
indeed, Newton did not regard it as a final explanation.
But the concept is also supported by sensible experience, and
is, therefore, imaginable : when we lift a weight, it is true
that we are in contact with it, but the weight is not apparently
in contact with the ground. In falling or jumping we have
the experience of being pulled to the ground without being
pushed or grasped ; and even of reciprocally pulling the ground
to us, though this side of the fact is submerged by the relative
smallness of our own mass. It may be said that when we
jump from a height, there is no muscular effort needed to get
to the ground ; and that is true, but a pure mechanist will
hardly urge it ; for it implies that ' force ' is to be interpreted
not by acceleration but by sensation. It may also be said
320 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
that by Inertia a body is incapable of moving itself; and
this may be true of any body in isolation, but all movements
of actual bodies take place in relation to one another. Nothing
in the concept of Inertia requires that the reciprocal action of
bodies shall always be by contact, never by remote determin-
ation. And I agree with those who think that the maxim
that " a body only acts where it is," has been greatly over-
valued : in discussing action at a distance, it is a petitio
principii. It would be quite as reasonable to say that a body
is where it acts, that its existence is not necessarily limited
by its tangible superficies.
Perhaps to speak of bodies ' acting ' needs caution : the
methodological problem is to generalise the conditions of
Motion ; if a relation of remote bodies be sufficient, let it be
admitted ; if pressure be the only cause, let it be shown.
The alternative to absolute Mechanics is to accept the
contrast of Actual and Potential Energy, Energy of Motion
and Energy of Collocation. This contrast seems necessary in
other cases than gravitation ; and there is perhaps a certain
fanaticism in insisting upon a single ground of physical
changes. Simplification may be illusory : duality, contrast,
opposition, may be universal in Nature ; just as discrimination
is as fundamental as assimilation in the Understanding.
Hence there might be an error of the same kind in arguing
that all physical changes are actions at a distance ; that, for
example, chemical combination happens between molecules at
a distance, however small. If all matter is discrete (a sceptic
might say), certainly our bodies are, as an X-ray photograph
will show ; and therefore our own pulls and pushes imply
only a relative contiguity of parts. It may be doubted
whether immediate impact or contact is ever possible. To
reply that in none of these cases is there action at a distance,
because everywhere the Ether intervenes, is vain without
some definite account of how the Ether is helpful. Such an
explanation must be given in each case, and the explanations
must agree together : otherwise (the sceptic might conclude)
the Ether is no better than Mumbo Jumbo.
§ 8. The phenomena of chemical Affinity must needs set
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 321
the poets agog : to whoHO warm iniagiuutious the distracted
elements seem to rush iuto each otliei's arms. Cooler heads,
looking througli microscopes, and seeing things happen
amongst the simpler forma of life in which bisexual generation
prevails, have supposed that sexual attraction even in higher
grades of organisation may be, in subconscious regions, nothing
else than the impulse of the spermatozoid seeking the ovule
— actio in distans notwithstanding — and, further, that this
impulse may be of a chemiail nature. Here are two ways
of identifying chemistry with holy matrimony : in their
aesthetic tone how different ! But according to the doctrine of
Chap. X. § 3, the various degrees of consciousness in the world
have their transcendent Being manifested by corresponding
degrees in the evolution and organisation of matter ; they
are all of them real, and none of them is to be confounded
with another.
Chemistry is more selective than gravitation, and in
this approaches life; and reviewing the series — Mechanics,
Chemistry, Organisation — the philosophic investigator is dis-
satisfied as long as they appear to be three separate and
irreducible manifestations of energy. All known bodies display
inertia and gravitation unconditionally. The constituents of
all bodies are capable of chemical activity, but its operation is
conditional on temperature, relative position, heterogeneous
structure and other circumstances. Life is shown only by
comparatively small portions of the material world; its
activities are the most special and complexly conditional of
all. Hence, the first impulse of generalisation is to attempt
the reduction of the forces of chemistry and life to those of
mechanics ; and a " mechanical theory of the world " has been
regarded as possible or even as a regulative aim of natural
science. The mechanical theory excites in some men an aversion
which is perhaps due to the illusion, that deduction effaces the
differential features of that which is deduced; although it
might have been supposed that this prejudice could only be
fostered by exclusively mechanical studies. But the suggestion
to explain the known activities of body by deriving from one
grade of them the remainder of the scale, may be misleading :
21
322 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
another course may be necessary, though it seems more obscure,
namely, to explain all the known laws of material activity by
discovering still more general laws of protyle from which
the known laws may be derived. Gravitation, Chemistry,
Vitality may be differentiated derivatives of those laws of
protyle. At least such an explanation would agree with the
general character of evolution, as not a linear procession of
forms, but a differentiation of them from some type which is
for the most part no longer directly known.
The proposal to reverse the mechanical theory, to explain
all nature by the type of living activities, overlooks the
conditions of explanation in the region of phenomena, namely,
the discovery of resemblance. Living bodies gravitate, and
consist of chemically definite elements ; they are full of
machines and chemical experiments ; and so far they may be
explained by Mechanics and Chemistry ; for the fact that in
living bodies mechanical and chemical properties subserve
organic ends, has nothing to do with such explanations. But
the characteristic marks of the living body — cell-structure
with the functions of assimilation, adaptation, reproduction
(implying heredity) — are nowhere found in the inorganic world,
and throw no light upon its processes. It is not in the region
of phenomena, but in the region of Being that life, as the
vehicle of consciousness and self-consciousness, illumines the
abyss : not, it is true, by scientific explanation but by
metaphysical suggestion, indicating the unity of all phenomena
as co-manifestations of that which is known to us in thought
and feeling.
Organisation implies a totality generated under certain
special conditions, increasing by growth and differentiating its
structure, in such a way that its parts depend each upon all
and all upon each, and that all parts tend to preserve the
totality for some normal period which is closed by dissolution.
The notions of generation, growth, development, dissolution,
belong to Biology ; they are also of great interest in Politics
and Morals, and some of their metaphysical significance has
already been indicated. But the chief metaphysical interest
of organisation lies in that co-operation of parts to a common
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 328
result which we instinctively interpret as Means and End.
This is a subjective Category and belongs to the next chapter.
§ 9. The sum of the movements and changes of bodies
makes up the course of Causation in the World. The category
of Causiition comprehends the conservation of matter and
energy, and the truth that in similar conditions of change
there are similar redistributions of matter and transformations
of energy (cf. Spencer, First Principles, §§ 63-65): Con-
tinuity and Equality in the contents of existence and Uni-
formity in its changes.
We have seen in Chap. VII. § 7, how ancient is the belief
in the persistence of Matter: announced by the Ionian
Cosmologists ; traceable in barbaric cosmogonies and mytho-
logies, however extravagant and incoherent ; forced upon
primitive man by the experience that things which come into
existence are modified from others, particularly in generation,
growth, corruption, and above all in the works of men's
hands. Direct experience, however partial and immethodical,
whilst begetting a general expectation of constancy and
routine, and a disposition to accept precise views when
demonstrated, yet fails to give a prevailing and definite belief
in the Uniformity of Nature. This may be seen both in the
popiilar mind in our own day, in spite of the increasing
exactness of modern industry and commerce (though I believe
this is a more effectual schooling in causation than is generally
known), and also in the history of Philosophy. For we find
that even Aristotle recognises as determining conditions of
events not only Divine Reason and Necessity but also Spon-
taneity and Chance. In this he seems inferior to Plato, who
ascribes the World's formation to the Divine and rational
Good, and even its deterioration to a certain Necessity in
things. But we may trace Aristotle's apparent backsliding to
his closer attention to human affairs and all kinds of matter
of fact, and to his love of truth, which compelled him to
recognise much that he could not explain ; for what are
Accident, Spontaneity, Chance, but the acknowledgment of
this ? We are apt to overrate Aristotle's love of system, and
to underrate his loyalty to fact such as he found it. The
324 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
Stoics aud Epicureans had simpler and juster conceptions of
causation, though far less care for accurate inquiry ; still the
Epicureans retained the notion of Chance at the basis of their
system. The Stoics, although by thrusting upon Divine
Reason the function of Providence they used the notion of
Final Causes in a weak and tinkering fashion as subserving
particular utility, yet in their stricter Logic they resolved it
into antecedent plan and result (Zeller's Stoics, chap, vi. B
2) ; and by the conception of Divine Reason as the active
force in Nature they got rid of Chance ; for whoever in earnest
makes Reason king necessarily expels Spontaneity, Accident,
Chance and every other sort of rebel from the realm. But
how little right had they to this exalted conception, if the
right to a conception depends upon one's power of verifying
it ! We must recognise the part played in the progress of
thought by unjustifiable deduction. The Stoics' Law was
merely deduced from the idea of active Reason : and to them
it was less philosophy than fanaticism. In fanaticism Aristotle
was deplorably wanting : therefore he could not assert the
creative power of Reason, nor deny the automatism of
phenomena, and therefore the better man had the worse
doctrine.
I do not know how far to attribute to the growth and
establishment of the belief in Reason (that is, God), as the
creat6r and sustainer of the world, the fact that in modern
Philosophy a belief in Chance hardly appears, except in
imperfect notions concerning the freedom of the human will.
But in the special sciences the discovery of Laws and the
discrediting of Chance and Spontaneity has been the work of
a small class of minds, in whom the tracing of Continuity,
Equality, Uniformity, is a constructive instinct. They or
their ancestors have somehow profited more than the rest of
us by common experience, and the result is this genius. That
the laws of Mechanics, for instance, are based upon instincts
that spring from the self-analysing process of experience itself
in a growing mind, has been shown by many writers, and by
Mach with especial force, from his intimacy with the history
of the subject and from his own lucidity of introspection.
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 325
If the conservation of energy is less traceable in popular
thought than the persistence of matter, we may perhaps
account for this by the doctrine of Animism ; which, by
supplying an internal source for the movement of everything,
distracted attention from its transfer from one thing to
another. Internal sources of movement in fact there are,
that is, stores of potential ; and this may account for the
infrequent statements even in the history of Philosophy of
general principles concerning Motion, and also for the assumed
reality of Rest. I know of no earlier statement of anything
like the Conservation of Energy than that of Epicurus in his
Epistle to Herodotus (preserved by Diogenes Laertius), namely,
that the atoms are constantly in motion, and that from the
non-resistance of the vacuum their velocity is always the same.
Descartes says it seems clear to him that God in the beginning
created matter together with motion and rest, and maintains
them in the same quantity {Principia, ii. 36). Yet Kant
finds no principle of Motion amongst the Analogies of
Experience. Within certain limits the conservation of Energy
was expressed by mechanicians and astronomers, as in Newton's
Laws of IMotion ; but its detailed investigation in the theories
of Heat, Electricity and other modes, and its universal state-
ment, remained for the nineteenth century.
The conservation of Matter and Energy is usually regarded
as confirmed and even established by the results of Mechanics,
Physics and Chemistry; though it is admitted that neither
the mass nor the energy of the atomic world alone need be
constant, because of its relation to Ether or Protyle (supposing
this to be in no sense atomic), and that, on account of the
degradation of energy, we cannot be confident that the world's
capacity for work is conserved. We have already seen that
the equality of contents in all the transformations of Nature
is a necessary condition of Understanding ; but that
objectively, as a Law of Nature, it is a postulate that can
only be verified conditionally within a limited experience, and
can never be submitted to exhaustive proof. Of our limited
experience it may be unreasonable to assert either that it is,
or that it is not, a fair sample of the Universe. Still, con-
326 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
servation is true as far as our knowledge reaches; we are
aware of no exception, and no alternative is offered in the
shape of any definite physical doctrine. Whoever doubts the
universality of conservation would do well, if he entertains
any Philosophy of Nature, to offer some alternative hypothesis
clearly formulated, in order that we may see what it is like.
To disclaim a Philosophy of Nature as too ambitious an
enterprise, is to relinquish the problem of Understanding,
not only as to the whole world but as to any fact or process
that occurs in it : for the understanding of any part implies
some view of the whole. At present, all definite explanations
of phenomena are afl&liated to the principle of Conservation.
And whoever shall construct a system of Nature, as compre-
hensive and consistent as the existing sciences, upon some
other principle, will do more to quell the arrogance of text-
books than all the Sceptics that ever lived.
In modern Methodology a place is found for ' Chance,'
but the analysis of it presupposes Causation. Contingency
is recognisable as dependence on a cause of whose occurrence
in any given case we are uncertain. Necessity, on the other
hand, a refuge to Plato and Aristotle, is a term malodorous
to some moderns who accept the Uniformity of Nature. No
doubt it may be misused to identify moral obligation with the
actual order of the world, or to raise personal prejudices to
the rank of universal laws : it lends itself to rhetoric ; and,
in fact, by association with Fate and Predestination, it has
acquired a mythological tinge. Moreover, there is not yet
sufficient ground for asserting the necessity of natural law.
I say this because, speculatively, it seems just ; though for
myself I cannot feel it. Still, the invariability of law is
necessary to reasoning, to generalisation and inference, and
from Reason nothing could proceed but Law ; so that I
bear with those who, knowing no higher praise, give the
name of Reason to Law itself; for it is the ideal of reason,
universal and unerring, and to human reason the way, the
guide and the goal.
§ 10. Narrowing our view from the Uniformity of Nature
as a whole to the particular events selected and defined for
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 327
observation and experiment, us Causes related to Eirects, we
meet with many ditliculties in the isohition, measurement and
comparison of phenomena, concerning which the works on
Logic and Method must be consulted. The existence of the
World in its everlasting movement and change, is conceived
of as a process in Time, continuous, invariable in its laws,
unconditional (since there is nothing outside it) and always
equal to itself; and an ideal Causal Instance, or particular
relation of events to be investigated, may be conceived to
elapse as an independent system, and to have the same char-
acters as the World-process. That no such Instance is obtainable
in a test-tube, your sceptic never wearies of rejoicing. It is
true, of course, that no Causal Instance is ever unconditional,
and that (strictly) none can ever be repeated ; and it is
inferred that generalisation must always be fallacious.
Similarly, to the moral maxim ' that what is right for one is
right for all in the same circumstances ' ("their actions having
the same consequences), it may be objected that the circum-
stances of two men are never the same. The solution of these
puzzles is, that observation or experiment is not the whole
process of investigation ; that what we seek is the law of each
tendency, and the resultant of the tendencies combined in any
event ; and these are found by reasoning on the empirical
data. That the conceptions of tendency and resultant are
clearer in Mechanics than in more concrete sciences, is one
reason why mechanical explanations are preferred.
The complexity of the Category of Cause and Effect has
hindered its elaboration in the human mind ; it is the latest
of the master-categories to have become definite, and yet it
may not be finished ; but many have worked by it with clear
intelligence who could not enounce it in terms. Since move-
ment with consciousness precedes the consciousness of move-
ment reflected in apperception, there is an ancestral or
congenital basis of this Category as a disposition to perceive ;
may we not say that it is the core of the disposition to ex-
pectant attention ? Again, since sensible Causes are moving
bodies and collocations of bodies, a familiarity with certain
regular series of events is acquired during the growth of the
328 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
individual's perception of an external World ; and even a
practical command of such series, as we see in children and
even low-type animals, before the rise of self-consciousness ;
and this is the ground of the Category's objectivity.
In the human race, the understanding of Causation was
very early confused by the doctrines of Animism and
Sympathetic Magic. The development of imagination in
primitive man had certain disastrous consequences, moral and
speculative. It encroached upon the objectivity of Nature,
and often left its victim less intelHgent than an unembarrassed
ape. The mind seems to have grown faster than it developed,
and so was given over to picture-thinking without the power
of analysis and abstraction. In a rich but unco-ordinated cortex
excitement is localised, and therefore intense and uninhibited,
and issues in violence and absurdity. Whenever total ideas
are relatively isolated and, therefore, uncriticised, they are apt
to be reified and to compete with perception ; and whatever
objects enter into them are believed to be physically connected.
Hence clothes, weapons, locks of hair, whatever belongs to a
man, especially his name ; and, again, effigies, mimicry, descrip-
tions, whatever resembles him, is believed to be a part of him
in such a way that whatever good or evil happens to them, or
is invoked by means of them, falls upon him. This is not
merely association of ideas, but is supported by a theory of
some continuity of existence between such things, along which
influences travel as by media, such as the air blowing or breathed,
or shafts of light and shadow. The idea of sympathetic Magic
is thus a confused matrix in which all sorts of relations.
Likeness, Coexistence, Succession, are huddled together as
equally connections of Causation, and from which the true
relation must be gradually eliminated.
In the course of dissociation, relations of Succession
as characteristic of Causation became predominant. On the
whole, this had happened amongst the Greeks ; as we may see
in Plato's satirical description of the men in the cave, who sat
watching the shadows and trying to remember which were
accustomed to go before and after, and to guess which would
come next : an odd anticipation of Hume ! But meanwhile
THE PHYSICAL CATECxORIES 329
the type of humuu agency, uud the belief in Animism, had
filled the world with purposes, established the doctrine of Final
Causes, and prechuled the distinguishing between conscious
activity and physical ciiusation. And the successiveness of
Causation was not so definitely conceived as to prevent its
being confused with the relation of Substance and Attribute ;
as appears from the causal conception of Ideas by Plato and of
Forms by Aristotle, and even by Bacon. For I take it that
Bacon's Form is the latens scheviatisvius which determines the
attributes ; so that, when altered by a latens processus, other
attributes appear. Moreover, the notion of Substance as a certain
undiscoverable inwardness of things had become allied with
the doctrines of sympathetic Magic to form the theory of
Occult Powers. According to this doctrine, we must apply the
term cause " to a certain conception, force, abstracted from all
special events and considered as a quality or property by which
one body affects the motion of another. And in like manner
in other cases, Ciiuse is conceived as some abstract quality,
power or efficacy by which change is produced."
Hume's great service to the metaphysics of Causation was
to supersede occult causes by the notion of a sequence of
phenomena. His definition of Cause is clumsily expressed,
but amounts to this, that the cause of a phenomenon is its
constant antecedent. Occult causes were not conceived as
transcendent ; and the doctrine of this book that there are
changes in transcendent Eeality or Being, of which the course
of phenomena is a manifestation, is not a doctrine of occult
causes : I have shown in Chap. VIII. that Manifestation is a
distinct Category, one-sided and merely orectic. The phrase
" immanent Causation " involves a confusion of ideas. Occidt
causes were regarded as entering into the tissue of natural
processes, but as essentially unsearchable; and, under the name
of powers or virtues, were the discouragement of induction,
the refuge of ignorance, and a fastness of Scepticism. That
causation is concerned with things unseen and, therefore, gives
no explanation of phenomena, was one of the tropes of
j^^nesidemus.
It is a serious fault of Hume's definition of Cause that he
330 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
calls it an " object precedent " instead of an event. Another
fault was pointed out by Mill, namely, the being content with
the constancy of the antecedent, without requiring the absence
of other conditions ; but Hume's second definition of Cause —
" where, if the first object had not been, the second never had
existed," — may imply its uuconditionality. Mill, at any rate,
insisted on the uuconditionality of Causation ; although it is
true that to discover the antecedent that is all, and no more
than all, that is necessary to the occurrence of a given effect,
is impracticable in a particular investigation. The conditions
constituting a Cause are relations of Space and Time, and
Agents. Agents are material things, popularly regarded as
exerting force, and contrasted with "patients," but of which
all that we can say is, that without their presence in such kind
and quantity, and the movement of some of them relatively to
the rest, the effect we have in view does not happen. Their
agency (if the term be allowable) depends upon their Reciprocity
or relations to one another in space, that is, upon distances and
directions of movement. But as it also depends upon their
velocity, and as all movement implies time, time is also a
condition. It is true that if we conceive the reduction of
causation to its simplest type, it is an immediate sequence, or
the time of its happening is infinitesimal : because (1) motion
is continuous, and (2) any interval admits other agencies and
destroys the unconditionality of the process. But observable
processes take an appreciable time ; and causal instances may
be selected occupying a less or greater time according to the
character of the inquiry : the causes of double refraction and
of coral-reefs are contrasted cases. Still, the simplest type of
causation is also the ideal of knowledge concerning it, and is
pursued by tracing in the unwieldy instances (say) of Geology
an indefinite multitude of chemical and physical instances.
With Mill causation remained a qualitative conception,
although the ancient doctrine of the persistence of matter and
the maxim causa aequat effectum strongly drew attention to its
quantitative aspect. Until the conservation of energy was
discovered the quantitative content of the notion could not be
definitely formulated ; yet J. R. Mayer, one of the discoverers
THE PHYSICAL CATEGORIES 331
of that principle, begins his first essay by deducing it from
the maxim of equality in causation {Forces of Inorganic Nature).
Bain then, in his Inductive Logic, identified Conservation with
Causation, and used it in deducing the canons of experiment.
The principles of Conservation increase the definiteness of
Uncontlitionality as a mark of Causation. For when is a
cause unconditionally adequate to an effect ? Wlien the two
are equal : for if the effect is the greater, the whole cause
cannot have been discovered ; and if the cause is the greater,
some portion of the effect must still be unexplored. This brings
us back to the principle of explanation.
Nevertheless, the interpretation of Causation as merely a
redistribution of Matter and Energy withdraws it from the
foreground of Empirical Eeality into the conceptual world of
the physical sciences. Causation becomes an exclusively
physical Category. At the same time some excuse is made
tor the old doctrine of occult causes : which now appears as
one of those shadows of approaching truths that so often fall
across the path of Philosophy, and now lead, and now mislead,
the wayfaring man.
CHAPTER XV
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY
§ 1. Causation is an exclusively Physical Category, but
its common use gives it a much wider scope. Sensations are
said to be caused by stimuli ; and many have held (on various
grounds) the position of Schopenhauer, that volition is an
immediate consciousness of causation ; that, therefore. Will is
indicated as the essence of the World, and that all the forces
of Nature are manifestations of Will. But whilst it is true
that our experience of voluntary action has had great influence
in moulding the concept of physical causation, since the actions
and reactions of phenomena have been interpreted in analogy
with our own experience in moving or being moved, in striking
or resisting ; still it appeared in Chap. X. that consciousness
is neither substance nor energy and, therefore, cannot be a
cause ; and this was confirmed in Chap. XI. by a review of the
history of doctrines concerning the Soul. At the risk of some
repetition I must offer further reflections upon the relation of
mind and body ; but the pith of it all is, that organised bodies
and all things in Nature are phenomena, whilst consciousness
is not a phenomenon but immediate Reality. The phenomenon
is empirically real, and even immediately real, considered as a
construction in consciousness itself; but standing, as it seems
to, in opposition to the Subject, it is not Being, but only
represents it. The phenomenon, however, is not a construction
in Self-consciousness, for it exists before that arises (whence its
opposition to the Subject) ; but in the generic growth of
consciousness the phenomenon is differentiated as the symbol
of Being, and defined by Inertia, Motion and other attributes,
332
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 333
as if these were ultimate facts of experieuce ; whereas Volition
is a development of consciousness in its subjective Reality,
having no Inertia, Mass, Motion, Solidity, Elasticity, Attraction,
Repulsion, nor any single physical quality.
For all subjective changes the term Activity seems to me
the most suitable that can be found. In subjective changes
there are many degrees of Activity, and at the top of the
scale lie the intense experiences of volition : or near the top,
for there is a vision and a felicity of achievement beyond
endeavour.
If the term Activity be adopted as the Category of
subjective change and (more particularly) of purposeful change,
in speaking technically we ought to restrict it to that sense. It
is quite useless to set it up as a higher concept, inclusive of
Causation : that is, to substitute one obfuscation for another.
The present use of Causation for both subjective and objective
processes (as by Wundt), and also for the supposed " inter-
action " of Object and Subject, is extremely confusing ; and to
use Activity in the same way would be no gain at all. But
' subjective Activity ' and ' objective Causation ' are an intelli-
gible contrast. For the " interaction " of the heterogeneous
some expression should be found as colourless as possible :
' parallelism ' is in vogue, but is too diagrammatic ; for
psychological purposes, ' correlation ' is enough and is, therefore,
to be preferred.
To use any one expression for these three facts, sub-
jective Activity, objective Causation, and the Correlation
of body and mind, is to disguise the profound differences
that ought to be recognised between consciousness and
energy, reality and phenomenon. Energy and consciousness
cannot be assimilated without either depriving energy of mass
and movement, or bestowing these properties on consciousness ;
materialising consciousness, or dematerialising energy. Body
and mind cannot be considered as interactive, or even parallel,
without placing them on the same level, either as both
substances or both phenomena, Descartes conceived them as
both substances, but in such a way that interaction was
impossible without the assistance of God ; still the co-ordination
334 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
of them upon the same plane of existence facilitated the
notion of their mutual influence, whether direct or indirect.
As a matter of fact, however, body and mind are in no sense
two substances, and are so far from being on the same level
that the notion of interaction between them is the greatest
absurdity that speculation has adopted from popular delusions.
The body is an empirical substance, and the mind is not : the
mind is a process of ultimate Reality, and the body is not ;
for empirical substance is itself a phenomenon. Now a pheno-
menon cannot influence that upon which it depends ; it cannot
influence the transcendent Substance or Being on which it
depends for existence, nor yet the Subject on which it depends
for representation. It cannot, therefore, be the stimulus of
sensation ; for sensations are what the phenomenon is, or
(rather) sensations are the elements out of which it is con-
structed. And again, Being cannot influence the phenomenon
as knowledge ; nor can the Subject influence it as existence,
or in the modes of its existence. Volition, therefore, cannot
be the cause of movement; it is the consciousness of some-
thing that happens in Being and becomes manifest in the
phenomenon, but it does not determine the happening.
Absolute unconditional Eeality is conscious Being : in
experience it is individuated as a World of bodies presented
to conscious Subjects ; and amongst these bodies are the
organisms that are the phenomena of Being so far as it is
conscious in each Subject. Every change or movement in the
"World of things makes manifest a change in Being ; it is not
caused by, but is the phenomenon of, that change. Those
changes of subjective consciousness which we call sensations
imply changes in Being so far as it is manifest in other bodies,
transmitted to Being so far as it is manifest in that body in
whose consciousness the sensations occur. And those changes
of consciousness which we call volitions imply changes in
Being so far as it is manifest in the organism of the Subject
that wills, transmitted to Being so far as it is manifest in
some other body or bodies and in their movements.
If this painful account of what seems so familiar and easy,
until you try to understand it, has any truth or likeness to
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY^ 835
the truth, it follows that the doctrine of the parallelism of
bodily and mental changes, invented to circumvent the
Cartesian impasse, errs in the opposite way. For whilst
Descartes took body and mind to be two substances, this
hypothesis treats both of them as phenomena. According to
Spinoza, ideas and bodies are modes of the attributes of
thought and extension. Tliere is no interaction between ideas
and bodies ; each idea is to be explained by antecedents in
its own kind, and so is each body ; but the two series of
modes always correspond, because they are eftects of the same
Substance ; and they are so entirely upon the same level that
Substance or God, so manifested, may be called " a thinking
thing," and "uu extended thing" {Ethica, ii. 1, 2). But when
we remember that Spinoza defines an attribute as " that
which intelligence knows of Substance as constituting its
essence " (Book I. Def. 4), it seems clear that intelligence cannot
know anything as an ultimate character of existence except
consciousness. It is, therefore, justifiable to say that Substance,
or God, or Being, is a thinking thing, but not that it is an
extended thing. It has been shown that extension and body
are phenomena constructed in the generic consciousness to re-
present the transcendent Being ; and we cannot help inferring
that relations corresponding with the coexistence and order of
phenomena in space appertain also to Being, especially as they
are found in Self-consciousness ; but extension is a character of
the phenomenon alone. Mind and body, therefore, are not
upon the same footing, and metaphysically the doctrine of
parallelism is untrue.
Upon the ground of Hume's phenomenalism (by the way)
an attempt may be made to resuscitate the popular delusion
that a volition moves the body, or that a stimulus causes a
sensation. For causation, according to Hume, is an invariable
succession of phenomena ; why then may not bodily and
mental phenomena, if uniformly thus related, be reciprocally
cause and effect ? But this comes of overlooking the uncon-
ditional! ty of a cause. Suppose that a certain stimulus
is always followed by a certain sensation: this is not the
whole effect. Suppose that a certain action always follows a
336 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
certain motive : this is not the whole cause. Without
molecular disturbance in the cortex, a motive would not issue
in actions, nor a stimulus arouse a sensation.
But although processes of consciousness are not phenomena,
it is convenient to treat them as such for the purposes of
Psychology, working as a natural science ; and in determining
the physiological conditions of sensation and volition the
hypothesis of parallelism or correlation is indispensable. Not
that a complete parallelism between mental and organic
changes is open to observation or to simple inference ; for only
the higher grades of consciousness are observable ; and if these
are correlated with the cortex, there remain profound regions
of subconsciousness to be otherwise assigned. Wundt, indeed,
holds that " there are two concepts that result from the
psychical combinations, which, together with their affective
elements, lie entirely outside the sphere of experience to which
the principle of parallelism applies. These are the concepts
of vahoe and end " {Outlines, § 22). But since the words
value, end, better, worse, with their associates, whether spoken,
heard or thought, are admitted to have parallel physical
processes, if there are no physical processes parallel with their
meanings, the course of physical causation must be interrupted
whenever they are intelligently acted upon ; for it is their
meanings that determine volition. Such a thrusting of
mysticism into a natural science is most mischievous. It stirs
up a cynical opposition, and sets men upon calling the mind
an " epiphenomenon," perhaps the most foolish phrase that ever
was coined ; and it may arouse the unjust suspicion that
Psychology is not written disinterestedly, but modified to
conciliate the supposed trend of contemporary Schwarmerei.
There is a better way of thinking nobly of the soul. Still, the
study of Physiology and Psychology should never blind us to
the truth that consciousness is not really an activity of the
body, but of transcendent Being so far as the body expresses
it. The transcendent nature of that activity I do not pretend
to explain, or understand, or name : parallelism, correlation,
unity, are alike unavailing in a region where none of our terms
can be just.
CATEGOIUES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 337
§ 2. Volition, then, as a conscious process, is an activity
of Being, not dependent on phenomena, nor (strictly speaking;
upon natural laws ; and such is Kant's doctrine of Freedom.
But this immanency (if I may so express it) of volitional
activity, this non-dependence upon phenomena or upon laws
of Nature, does not imply spontaneity, contingency, irregularity,
or any deviation of character from the uniformity of Nature.
For volition and the laws of phenomena are manifestations of
the same Being, the former immediate, the latter conditional ;
the laws of Nature bear witness to the order of thp transcendent
World, its universality of character in all its activities ; and
we judge accordingly of volition. We judge this the more
necessarily, because the body of a voluntary Subject is a
natural body, and its movements, which express volition, are
according to law in the natural context. For it is thus that
the activities of the Keal manifest themselves ; and though it
is only subjectively that they are immediately known, yet it is
only objectively, or in the course of Nature, that they can be
clearly understood as actions or events in a context of causes
and consequences, springing from and reacting on the agent as
a phenomenon in relation with the rest of phenomena : since
the region of motives is obscure and profoundly subconscious.
This doctrine of volition, therefore, differs entirely from
Kant's. He treats Freedom as Causation, thus making
(contrary to his own principles) a transcendent application of
that category : but here causation is confined to the region that
can be studied scientifically ; and no advantage is sought from
the use of such a term in recommending the metaphysical
hypothesis of Being. Kant regards all particular states of
mind as phenomena, and thereby is left with no clue whatever
to the character and activities of the intelligible World ; and,
accordingly, he falls into mysticism : but it has been shown
above, that subjective processes are immediate Eeality, so that
we have immediate knowledge of it. Kant, finally, treats all
that he calls phenomena as having a sensuous character, not
merely distinguishable from, but opposed to. Reason ; he uses
the laws of Nature as merely a type of what Morality ought
to be, flatly and fanatically denying that Morality can itself
22
338 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
be natural : but we know that there is no opposition between
sensation and Eeason, and that Morality, as the growing
custom and conception of human life and the necessary con-
dition of its welfare, is truly natural ; so that nothing more
insane or pernicious can be conceived than to set Morality in
opposition to Nature.
But, be the source of volition what it may, if it belongs to
an invariable order, and if actions occur according to natural
laws, must not a belief in this oppress the sense of personal
Freedom ? Laws state the necessity or invariableuess of the
actions of agents and of the resultants of the co-operation of
agents ; the future of the World at any moment depends upon
the combination of existing agents, and of these agents each
man is one. His actions follow upon his character by neces-
sity ; for his character is expressed by his body ; but because
he acts according to his character he feels himself free. The
necessity of his action in this sense, far from weighing upon
him, is precisely what makes the action his own. It is true
that if the course of the World were known to be predetermined
by Fate, or Providence, he would feel oppressed and helpless.
Or if it were merely known to him as a process independent of
himself, he might despair ; and sometimes, say in a shipwreck,
when the predominance of the Not-self, though not absolute, is
overwhelming, this really happens. But such happenings are
rare : usually the course of the World, so far as it directly con-
cerns a man, cannot be known apart from his own actions ;
because, in fact, he is one of the agents that determine that
course, having the greater influence the more he exerts himself,
the more a force, the more a man he is.
But, it may be said, our characters being what they are,
we are not really free any more than other things in the world ;
for everything acts according to its nature. Certainly, no
more than other things ; for everthing is free, and, doubtless,
so far as conscious, feels free and rejoices in its power. Does
not a tiger feel free, slaying a deer ; or a blackbird, chaunting
to the dawn ? The feeling of coercion only arises when our
purposes are thwarted, never when they are fulfilled. The
notion that matter acts under constraint, that the Earth (e.g.)
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 330
is constrained in her orbit by the Sun, is animistic. Where
there is no purpose there is no compulsion. The agents in
any material system co-operate, and in the resultant every one
of them tells with its full weight (cf. Sliadworth Hodgson's
Metaphysic of Experience, iii. 6, § 5). That we have these
feelings of freedom and constraint more clearly than other
things, is due to our more explicit consciousness of all that
happens, to our self-consciousness and purposefulness. To say
that our characters at any moment are what they are, is to
revive Zeno's sophism of the arrow ; for it is characteristic of
the development of organisation to produce forms more and
more modifiable by experience ; so that it is nearer truth to
say, that a man's character at any moment is changing as it is
changing, and that he can never twice be the same. Character
is not a fixed but a growing thing, and (as Mill said) our
desires to alter it (if we have any) are important conditions
(say, rather, symptoms) of its growth and transformation.
And even though a man's desires are the symptoms of his
character, and though he may feel no strong desire for good,
this ought not to discourage him ; for he never knows the
depths and resources of his own soul.
It is indeed most unreasonable to suppose that there are
no limits to the development of a man's character ; for it
must depend partly upon the circumstances that call upon him
to act, and finally upon the scope of his original congenital
endowments. But for a man of understanding to desire an
imconditional life is impossible. What, however, the con-
ditions are, circumstantial or congenital, that limit his
development, is always far from being fully known, and,
therefore, the knowledge of it cannot be oppressive. In short,
whether as to character or outward conduct we are, as Aristotle
said, at least avvairtot, joint-causes, of our own actions ; and
moralists seem justifiable in their tenet that we have more
power over our characters than over circumstances.
It may, perhaps, be further objected that our characters
belong to consciousness, and therefore cannot be causes of
physical events or have any power over the course of Nature.
But to this my reply may easily be anticipated : character in
340 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
consciousness is our immediate knowledge of that Eeality
which is also manifested in our bodies. A man's body
expresses his character as much as his mind, and even more-
than his apperception ; for it is the phenomenon of his whole
Being, including that which is only subconscious but which
influences the apperceptive mind in innumerable ways, though
rarely or never rising into apperception. Hence by his body
a man is a cause in Nature to the full extent of his Eeality,
and accomplishes there what he wills ; sometimes less, some-
times more, than he had thought possible.
§ 3. Volition, as a function of apperceptive consciousness,
not mere instinctive or even ideo-motor action, implies pur-
poses more or less remote, upon the prosecution or hindrance
of which depend the feelings of freedom or restraint, success or
failure, as they are characteristic of human life.
A purpose realised in action is a Final Cause ; and this
concept has been transferred to the operations of Nature, and
plays a somewhat spectral part in Metaphysics. Aristotle
uses TO ov eveKa in connection with human affairs, such as
house-building, in the sense of purpose ; but in the theory of
Nature as equivalent to to etSo?, the form or specific character
which everything, aspiring toward God, strives to realise in
itself according to its kind.
A Final Cause, as that which is the end of any human
action, may be analysed, as by the Stoics, into (1) a repre-
sentation of the end desired, which is an antecedent determin-
ing the action ; (2) the effect of the action when it has been
successful, and we say, ' This was what I aimed at.' Now
in this process we have two steps of cause and effect : A, the
representation (or its neural correlate), causing B, the action,
which causes C, the result. Nothing liere distinguishes final
from antecedent Causation ; unless it be supposed that by
a vis afronte A, the representation, is caused by C, the result.
Such a notion sometimes haunts the dialectical mind ; but of
course A, the representation, is derived from former experiences,
or reports, of things resembling it. That it was not caused
by the future event C, appears whenever the action B is
unsuccessful ; for then A may be notliing like C, although our
CATEGOEIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 341
uusuccessful actions are as purposeful as our successful ones.
In fact, meiins and ends differ from causes and effects not as
processes or events but merely in this, that ends imply desire,
and means a choice on the part of the desiring Subject ; an
End is an event desired, and regarded as a possible effect of
certain causes, which are in the power of an agent, and are
therefore adopted as Means. Transferring these conceptions to
the region of Nature, and assuming the welfare of Man to be
the most desiraltle of all things, we may try to explain all the
fiu-uiture of the world as means of promoting that end ; in
which vein the ingenuity of the Stoics and others is known to
have laboured; though Montaigne would have pointed out
that a cat understands the world quite differently.
The Aristotelian doctrine of Nature is less encumbered
with difficulties of detail, and is more genial in its recognition
that everything exists by its own right ; but it lies open to
this general objection, that there is no way of showing that
the specific Form that seems to be realised in anything needs
any other explanation than as the effect of physical antecedents.
To say that anything sub-human strives to be what it becomes,
is only to say that from time to time it becomes what it
is. If we admit f^iilures in realising a type, it is easier to
reconcile our imaginations to them as due to the variable
concurrence of physical agents, than by attributing them to
the impotence of Nature. Moreover, to ascribe to Nature (or
to Being manifested in her) such a consciousness as the terms
' aspiration,' ' endeavour,' ' purpose,' ' end,' imply, is only possible
if you recognise a dualism in the World, such as Matter and
Form, and along with it, upon one side, an inherent inferiority
and imperfection. Want, insufficiency, inferiority, something
unattained, can never characterise the Universe, if you say
with Spinoza {Ethics, ii. Def. 6), per realitatem et perfectionem
idem intelligo.
Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, requires all phenomena
in Nature to be explained by causation ; since Nature is so
constituted by pure Understanding. But in the Critique of
Judgment it appears that organic life cannot in fact be under-
stood in this way by the human mind ; so that an Antinomy
342 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUKE
is established by confronting the Thesis of pure Understanding
with the Antithesis : " the production of some material things
cannot be explained by merely mechanical laws." And the
solution of the Antinomy is that, whilst the Category of
Causality requires a mechanical explanation of Nature, it does
not exclude every other kind of Causality ; there remains the
possibility that, in the unknown inwardness of Nature, mechani-
cal and final Causation are united as one principle in the same
things (§ 70). Hence we are to pursue the mechanical explana-
tion as far as we can ; and for inorganic Nature it suffices.
Even in organic forms much may be so explained, but never
the specific fact of a natural End. For that we must find
another principle ; as the universal laws of Nature are
determined by the Understanding, so particular laws of
empirical fact, that cannot be subsumed by the universal laws,
must also be explained as if an Understanding (not our own)
had presented them to us (§ 4), Organisms display such an
intrinsic adaptation of parts to one another and to the whole,
whole and parts being reciprocally end and means, that, with our
limited powers of reasoning, they are only to be explained by
Final Causes, as the work of a purposeful, intelligent First Cause
of the World (§ 71). In Kant's system, then, Causation and
Teleology are not upon the same footing as principles of explana-
tion ; for Causation is a category of the Universal Understand-
ing, not subjective, but constitutive of Nature; whereas Teleology
is a subjective principle, derived from reflection upon certain
groups of phenomena which we are unable to explain otherwise.
Indeed, he himself concludes that, whilst the notion of Final
Causes is indispensable to us men, and an useful clue to the
study of Nature, seeing that phenomena are given to us in
a fragmentary and accidental way, and have to be subsumed
under universals by discursive reasoning ; still by a higher
Understanding, an intellectus archetypus, free from such limita-
tions and intuitive. Nature throughout might be compre-
hended under one principle, and teleological explanation, with
which even we men are not long content, might be needless
(§ 77). Now such an intellectus archetypus, I should say,
is implied in Kant's doctrine of the Categories of pure Under-
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 343
standing as constitutive of Nature. His own dissatisfaction
with anything else than mechanical explanation was proved
hy his theory of the Heavens. And why else does he assume
that the intuitive Understanding will comprehend Nature
under Causation, rather than under Teleology ?
Kant thought it absurd even to hope that a Newton should
ever arise to explain organic life by physical causes ; but
Darwin has done much to explain the appearances of design
in plants and animals without resorting to Final Causes. The
theory of Natural Selection assumes that organisms vary in
every species ; that those unsuited to the conditions of life are
destroyed ; whilst those best suited survive, and transmit their
constitution to descendants, so that from generation to
generation there is an improvement in adaptation to the
conditions of life. But as the theory thus stated gives no
account of the origin either of the conditions that determine
the form of species, or of the variations which the conditions
select, it may be urged that at both these points there is room
for the intervention of design. Herder (in his Ideen z. Phil.
d. Geschichte d. Menschheit) suggested that the Earth had been
prepared as the scene of human life. In a popular book on
Astronomy, I have seen it taught that the remoter planets are
supplied with many moons because they receive so little light
from the sun. But with or without satellites, Saturnians,
being what the prepared circumstances determined, would
think it all for the best, and prefer a dim light, as more
favourable to love and meditation. For every living thing
necessarily approves of the conditions in which it flourishes ;
and, exerting the reflective understanding, naturally regards
them as providential. However, we can give some account of
our Earth to the close of the Tertiary Period without appealing
to Final Causes.
As for the direction of variations, so many germs perish
for one that survives, so many rapacious and treacherous types
prevail, that to us men (as Kant might say) the process seems
wasteful and merciless. To the charge of wastefulness it may
be replied, indeed, that to the Universe economy can be no
concern ; Kronos engulfs his children, and yet nihil in nihilum
344 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
revertit. And if it be urged that even in the conservation of
matter, there is a degradation of energy, rejoinder may be
made that, if the Universe be finite, the power of work may
under certain conditions be restored ; whilst, if the Universe
be infinite, its powers must be inexhaustible. The last point,
however, cannot be pressed in the defence of Final Causes, if
Final Causes imply a system of the World ; for an ' infinite
system ' is a contradiction in terms. Moreover, the riches of
the World cannot really be any ground of justification against
the charge of wastefulness in the method of Natural Selection ;
the gravamen of which lies here, that such a wasteful process
is an unintelligent one. It is as if the potter should make
pots by the gross, and appoint 90 per cent to destruction. If
any plan be hidden in such work, how can it help the intelli-
gence of us men ?
The merciless character of organic evolution appears to us,
first, in reckless propagation, and the consequent destruction.
Every species is as prolific as it can be compatibly with the
development of its individuals ; and the deaths that ensue from
inanition, disease and violence, present a stupefying scene.
The best one can say for it is that, as life rises in the organic
scale, the death-rate declines. Yet even man still suffers
outrageously by violence, disease, inanition : the notion that
" Malthus's Law " no longer holds of civilised man is a
foolish delusion. But more sinister than the direct destruction
of life is the spectacle of innumerable species profiting by a life,
parasitic or predatory, at the expense of others. The parasites
refute the vulgar prejudice that evolution is, by the measure
of man, progressive ; adaptation is indifferent to better or
worse, except as to each species, that its offspring shall sur-
vive though by atrophy and degradation. The predatory
species flourish as if in derision of moral maxims : we see
that, though human morality is natm'al to man, it is far from
expressing the whole of Nature. Animals, at first indistin-
guishable from vegetables, devour them and enjoy a far richer
life. Animals that eat other animals are nearly always
superior not only in strength and grace and agility but in
intelligence. There are exceptions to this rule ; some snakes
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 345
eat monkeys (thanking rrovidence), and the elephant is
content with foliage ; Uut compare cats and wolves with the
ungulates that make a first concoction of herbs for their sake.
It is true that our monkey kin are chiefly frugivorous; but
this leads to the worst case of all ; for it may be plausibly
argued that man was first differentiated by becoming definitely
carnivorous, a sociable hunter, as it were a wolf-ape. Hence
the advantage of longer legs, the use of weapons, the upright
gait and defter hands to use and make weapons, more strategic
brains, tribal organisation ; and hence liberation from the
tropical forest and citizenship of the world. The greater
part of his subsequent history is equally unedifying : having
made the world his prey, he says that God made the world to
that end ; and those who have preyed upon their fellows, and
enslaved them, and flourished upon it, have declared that to
have been the intention of Nature. Whose are the kingdoms
of this world ? Slowly, through humiliation and martyrdom, a
better life has emerged.
It would be excusable if, like Kant, one were not very
anxious to carry out the explanation of such a world by Final
Causes : it seems to labour under a curse and sigh for atone-
ment. But the hope persists that the sinister indications of
Nature may be evaded, and to that end such considerations as
follow are laid before us. In various forms, by Plato, Leibniz,
Mill, it is suggested that the evil aspect of Nature should be
explained by a certain limitation of power on the part of the
Artificer in relation to certain necessary conditions of existence ;
and this suggestion might be acceptable if the evil were always
a sort of weakness, failure and incapacity ; it may excuse the
parasites, if we forget their victims. But how can the limita-
tion of power account for the shark, the tiger, and Jenghis
Khan ; or for the display of ingenuity and technique being as
great in the cobra's fang as in the cow's udder ? It is sometimes
said, again, that we do not, indeed, understand the whole
purpose of Nature, but that we cannot reasonably expect it ;
or even (at hazard) that the Universe may not recognise our
code of morals. But such arguments will never do : the
doctrine of Final Causes is an attempt to explain Nature by
346 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
what is most familiar in ourselves ; and it is a strange
inversion to defend the doctrine on the ground that it passes
all understanding.
The course of our discussion tends, in my judgment, to
impair one's confidence in the reality of Design in Nature, and
even in the desirability of tracing it there ; but by no means
excludes its possibility ; and to show its possibility seems (I
fear) to some friends of Final Causes all that is required of
them. But that is a great mistake ; if no more can be done,
the belief must grow every day more attenuated and ghostly.
If Teleology is still to command adherents there must be
built up a definite system of the Design in Nature, comparable
in extent, detail and coherence with the system of physical
Causation that daily gains in power and prestige ; and the
explanation by Final Causes must have the continuity of
thought, the conceivableness, if possible the imaginableness, of
scientific explanation. For example, if it is suggested that the
conditions of any species' life may have been prepared, or that
useful variations may have been predetermined, was the work
done by physical antecedents or by miraculous intervention ?
One's choice between these alternative methods should be
plainly stated ; and whichever of them be adopted, the " partic-
ular go of it " should be made quite clear. For my part, I
decide in favour of physical antecedents, and regard Kant's
suggestion that in the inwardness of Nature physical and final
Causation may be the same principle, as the only possible
way of reconciliation.
In a Divine Consciousness, to which all existence is equally
present, there can be no causation physical or final, no process,
no distinction of End and Means, since whatever is possible is
eternally known there and realised. Yet it is from the con-
ception of such a state of Being, which no power of speculation
has ever been able to connect with the temporal world of birth
and decay, that the notion of a vis afronte seems to have been
derived, a turning back of the effect upon its cause, and a
determination of Means by Ends ; for it has been supposed
that whatever End may be represented, it already exists in the
eternal world and energises there ; but as it exists as much as,
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 347
and no more than, the Means, its efficacy is unintelligible.
The difficulties which such a conception imposes upon the
problems of Evil and Freedom are sufficiently well known ;
and so is the difficulty of understanding how the very notion
of an End as something desired, or represented as a better, can
be reconciled with it.
According to the views taken in this volume. Eternity is
not a State of Being, but Law ; and Eeality is essentially a
process in time, as witnessed by the nature of consciousness ;
and there is no incongruity in regarding such a process as
expressed amongst phenomena in space by Causation. But
Means and End, as distinguished from Cause and Effect, are
irreconcilable with the conceptions of transcendent Being that
have been established by the great Religions, excluding
from that region of thought such differences of value as are
implied in Means and End. It is true that in its popular-
isation Religion is never consistent ; on the other hand,
consistency leads to such obscurity of thought (be it even by
excess of light), that all meaning seems to disappear : and
between vacuity and contradiction the choice is hard. Spinoza's
identifying of existence with perfection is a stroke of rhetoric :
to complain of a man for indulging his turn for style once in
a hundred pages would be too exacting; but 'perfection' is a
term of praise ; and praise or blame of the Universe is equally
impertinent. And the same may be said of any estimate
we may form of a Divine Purpose from phenomena that
interest us.
Besides, every use of teleological categories depends upon
a partial abstraction ; for the means to any end are only known
to us by experience, and we can hardly suppose that the
Universe learns in that way ; that through a series of Great
Years it serves an apprenticeship, and, correcting the blundera
of its immaturity, staggers forward to some remote accomplish-
ment. If such an hypothesis threw some light upon what we
may think the failures of our present World, it would also
prevent our inferring anything as to the true purpose of it
all. These suggestions are only fit to be put into the mouth
of one's opponent in a Dialogue.
348 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
A system of Teleology, iu which ends determined means,
and these other means, and so forth, would have the same
character of uniformity, us a physical system in which causes
determined effects and these in turn became causes : the alphabet
is the same whether we read it from Z to A or from A to Z :
Spinoza's determinism and Calvin's predeterminism alike
exclude every sort of accident, caprice and spontaneous
deviation or intervention. Apparently, therefore, we may
interpret the course of the World in either way. What hinders
us in doing so is, that physical causes are in any case
intelligible ; but final causes are not, unless they present some
analogy to human purposes. Now, in Nature many things
have no human purpose ; many others suggest purposes quite
inhuman ; hence we hesitate about the remainder.
Again, an end, in the full sense, is contradictory of an
infinite process ; but so it is in human life, where every end or
effect is only a transition to new means, or causes ; and death,
the terminus, is not regarded as the purpose of our existence.
Thus, even in an infinite process, the End of Being might be
manifested through the World, as known or divined by us, in
certain culminating epochs in the history of things ; and so
we might read the course of Nature, if it were possible to
accommodate our reason, or our feelings, to such a conception of
Being that the contemplation of an End could be ascribed to
it. Then the spectacle of evolution would suggest that the
end of existence is the development of consciousness : first
the life of feeling and sense, that grows into all the riches
of subjective emotion and objective quality and form ; then
the life of self-consciousness, culminating in science and philo-
sophy, the self-knowledge of the World.
Frankly, I wish it were possible to prove or make credible
the teleology of Nature, because we might then follow Aristotle
in identifying the End of Nature with the End of Humanity ;
but I cannot help feeling that the weight of argument is
against the doctrine of Final Causation. Like transcendent
Being, it remains a merely indicative, orectic Category. The
adaptation of organisms is a fact ; and so far as we can follow
the history of the World from age to age, its gradual rise to
CATEGOIUES OF SURIECTIVE ACTIVITY 349
self-consciousness is a fact ; but the teleological interpretation
of all this baflles our understanding. We see the usual
conflict between recent conceptions of Causation and the ancient
Animism, with the usual result. Because our forefathers stood
nearer to the gods than we do, they had greater confidence in
interpreting their purposes.
§ 4. Man, at any rate, is subject to want and desire, and
lives by the representation and partial realisation of ends ; and,
however it may be with the Universe, for the philosopher, its
' secretary,' life is chiefly an effort after the fulness of under-
standing, as Ai-istotle declared, Spinoza assenting. To discover
the end or chief Good of human life is the central problem of
Ethics. It cannot, therefore, be a vain inquiry whether there
are ends in Nature, and whether they are to be realised
especially in Man ; for, if there be, to discover them must
necessarily be to discover his end also. As the power of
external causes is, as Spinoza says, greater than that of Man,
the pursuit of ends that Nature does not sanction must lead
to disaster : for every nation this is an instant truth. It is
clear that pleasure is not the end, but a means of guidance ;
nor riches, but a means of leisure ; nor virtue, but a means
of co-ordination and an incentive of enterprise. May we not
say the same of knowledge, and, like Bacon, view it as a means
to the reign of Man ? That cognition, as well as pleasure and
virtue, is a guide to action, cannot be denied ; and the
structure of the nervous system, in which every stimulus has
its reaction, strongly points to the intermediate place of
knowledge in the process of life. But it has already been
shown that the end of Nature, or of human life, cannot be a
terminus, but only a transition. Therefore, it does not follow
that action, because it is a result of cognition, is also its end
or Good ; and it seems impossible it should be so, seeing that
action is a fact of the body or phenomenon, whereas knowledge
belongs to Eeality. Our knowledge far exceeds our power of
utilising it ; and the proportion of theoretical to applied science
is not likely to decrease in the future; because the synthesis of
principles necessary to the employment of knowledge is far
more difficult than the analysis of events that leads to new
350 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
discoveries. That many who engage earnestly in investigation
look for their reward to the utility of their results, — by
no means to themselves, perhaps, yet to mankind, — is compat-
ible enough with the supremacy of speculation, if we consider
how common illusion is in the desires and efforts of men, and
how widely the result often differs from the intention. Thus
the love of fame and of riches provides leadership and capital,
not merely personal but social goods ; and the desire of a
scientific investigator to be useful may have other consequences
than the cheapening of cotton-yarn and pig-iron. Besides, the
use of applied science is always to increase the efficiency of
labour ; and what is the use of that, unless it be to shorten
the hours of labour, and to give the workmen more leisure for
culture and reflection ?
But if self-knowledge be the end of Nature, or mental culture
the chief Good of every normal man, these ends are plainly
not so predominant as to exclude all others. To philosophise
is not every man's ruling passion. The attempt to set up
the same ideal for all men is one of the greatest errors of
philosophy. Social life is not to be understood except as
constituted by various species of men, — not merely ethnological
but moral species. The differentiation of the human stock
into such species is due (apart from ethnological causes) in a
superficial way to the division of labour, but more profoundly
to congenital differences of capacity and disposition. This was
recognised by Plato and Aristotle, but obscured by Stoicism
and other forces ; so that it may now seem pagan and invidious,
whereas it is merely humanity and common sense. The dif-
ferent species of men have different systems of desire and
activity ; and the lonum consummatum is the harmonious ful-
filment of all our ends.
To impose one ideal upon all men is an intolerable torture,
that never has been, and ought not to be, submitted to.
The notion that such a thing is possible seems due chiefly to
a confusion of Virtue with Innocence. There is a certain list
of abstinences, such as we are familiar with in the Decalogue,
to which every one is necessarily subject, because their neglect
is manifestly injurious to others, and, therefore, tends to the
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 351
dissolutiou of Society. The observance of these abstinences
is Innocence. Because no more can be enforced by positive
law or opinion ; because so much, though attained by few, is
abstractly possible to all, and because false notions of equality
require that here, at least, the dififerences of men shall be
obliterated, this negative standard is exalted into an universal
Ideal. Then, because even this standard is beyond the
attainment of most people, whilst the social grounds of it are
also misunderstood, morbid men turn to asceticism ; because
it is easily imitated in behaviour, cunning men turn to
hypocrisy ; because it is mistaken for the limit of human
excellence, the compatibility of great virtue with imperfect
observance is often denied.
But the belief in one universal Ideal has another root in
the truth that the chief Good, Philosophy or Culture, may be
participated in some degree by all ; or, rather, that no society
is other than barbarous in which any normal man is precluded
from participation. Philosophy or Culture (as I say, to avoid
a limitation of the notion to merely technical discipline) is, in
the first place, the greatest Good in itself; in the second
place, it is the object of a strong and tutelary passion (by
Spinoza too much weighted), though in most men ill-nourished ;
but, in the third place, it enlightens and guides the other
passions, which, for good or evil, are the forces of life. With-
out such enlightenment even the noblest passions, such as
patriotism and justice, although they contain in themselves a
sort of instinctive rationality and guidance, may yet issue in
actions the most injurious and unjust.
Still, under oppressive industrialism and our present
division of labour, little culture is possible for the majority
even of civilised men ; and we present, in fact, so many types
of character and ability, that to preach the chief Good as the
universal Ideal would be a preaching to the winds. This
variety of types is well adapted to the division of labour ; and
the greatest happiness of each man (so far as it depends on
circumstances) is to obtain employment according to his own
nature. Then activity in his vocation (as it may then be
truly called) becomes the first trait of his ideal ; caring for
352 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATUEE
honour more than for wealth, and more for achievement than
for honour ; to which must be added public spirit in relation
to the reforms that may ameliorate and civilise our life,
and affability in domestic and friendly intercourse, where the
instinctive rationality of the passions is most naturally
fostered.
It is possible that the future amelioration of human life,
of which the last generation was more confident than we are,
may at last establish an universal Ideal ; and, if so, a little
reflection will show any one that it can be no other than
Culture. But hitherto even individuals, who have formed
ideals and lived near them, have been very scarce ; and a
subjective ideal, constructed for oneself, is likely to be partial
and misleading, since it is only in long years of experience
that we can learn what manner of men we are. Probably the
safest course for nearly every one is (as Plato tells us) to rely
chiefly upon activity in one's own vocation. A truly rational
life, in which all actions were co-ordinated to one end, would
be for most of us worse than prison or a strait-waistcoat.
Our lives are like Nature, in which a purpose seems sometimes
clear, and many mechanical adaptations are traceable ; whilst
for many other things no reason can be given and none is asked.
§ 5. Science, Philosophy, Culture depend upon social life ;
for Society is the co-operation of minds manifest in bodies
wliereby they have power over Nature ; and this power is
necessary to free us from primary wants, to give leisure for
reflection, and to provide the means of investigation. In
society men appear as co-operative, yet in mutual opposition,
and order appears as an equilibrium of conflicting forces.
Hence the individual may suppose that his own realisation
in happiness, or virtue, or knowledge, is the end, at least for
him. But this delusion is dissipated by clearer insight. For
tlie subordination of the individual and the unity of the World
are indicated not only by industrial and social division of
functions, by the absolute dependence of every man upon his
fellow, and by sympathy and imitation ; but still more by the
biological evidence, that each of us is to organic Nature only
as a bud upon an ever-living tree. For in time all life is
CATEGORIES OF SUBJECTIVE ACTIVITY 353
continuous, aud this is the form of Reality ; whereas the
separation aud opposition of men is a phenomenon of bodies
in space. It is true that social life provides the conditions of
greater individual development ; only in society is it possible
to secure method, and continuity in labour, and some approach
to the rationalising of one's own life under one end, and there-
fore integrity of character and systematisation of thought.
And how otherwise than through individuals can speculation
flourish ? But social services are reciprocal and interdependent ;
the development of character embraces public interests, and the
expansion of speculative thought has that universal significance
which I have indicated.
The growth of societies, the taming of mankind, the over-
coming of tribal isolation, the establishment of industry, — a
long and miserable story, is now being deciphered. The
primitive customary life of wandering tribes was gradually
superseded by the organisation of governments, which obtained
a formal unity for the people, partly by fear, partly by utility,
partly by loyalty ; largely by imaginative fictions (not unin-
formed with truth), such as the embodiment of the people in
the king, and (more powerful) his affiliation to the gods.
Polity could never have succeeded without Religion and the
immortal gods, who united generation to generation, who pro-
tected the laws even against kings, whose legends served for
history and philosophy, whose kinship drew mankind from
their brutal neighbours, who knew what was done in secret
and read the heart. In no other way could Morality have
been distinguished from Observance than by conscience of that
which the gods and no others knew. Thus the current of life
was traced to that secret fountain which is the witness of the
reality of Nature and of Man.
We must not forget or disguise the hideousness of most of
this story : worse, had it not been transfigured by poetry and
song and the plastic Arts, that have helped to humanise the
gods and to deify mankind. But greater has been the power,
indefinable and indescribable, of social and moral development,
that has slowly moralised government aud religion and liberated
private life. Though industry and the growth of reflection
28
354 THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE
have served us well, there is more in human history than our
own efforts and designs. Pestilence and famine have not been
useless allies ; and who shall say whether we owe more to
institutions, or to the destruction of those nations whose
institutions were or became perverse ? For in government
and religion there is a natural tendency to parasitism ; in
their growth they often strangle the people they had formerly
sustained. Only those constitutions can be always good that
train the individual to live by the law and inspiration of his
own heart. The essential changes in our life are the gradual
realisation in politics and religion of freedom to act and think ;
the growth of moral courage, and of the co-operative spirit
that makes authority needless ; and the increase of that
scientific enlightenment which, by giving control of physical
forces, makes possible the diffusion of leisure and culture, and
even if these be rejected by us, unworthy and bent upon
getting anything rather than understanding, still has its own
value and its own career, self-determined, disinterested, and
inevitable.
THE END
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