THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE GUT OF H. Dean Gulnac A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY BY ARTHUR KENYON ROGERS, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN BUTLER COLLEGE AUTHOR OF "A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY NEW EDITION, REVISED |f crrft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. rights reserved 6 T* RU COPTWGHT, 1901, 1907, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1901. Reprinted October, 1902; July, 1904; July, 1905; January, October, 1906. New edition June, 1907 ; May, 1908 ; July, 1909 ; January, 1910 ; January, 19"; February, 1912 ; August, December, 1913. Norfaoot) J. 8. Cashing & Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE I HAVE tried in the present volume to give an account of philosophical development, which shall contain the most of what a student can fairly be expected to get from a college course, and which shall be adapted to class-room work. What I have attempted to accomplish will be sufficiently covered in the following statements : i. The chief aim has been simplicity, in so far as this is possible without losing sight of the real meaning of philosophical problems. In summing up the thought of any single man, I have left out reference to the minor points of his teaching, and have endeavored to emphasize the spirit in which he philosophized, and the main prob- lems in connection with which he has made an impression. Similarly, I have passed over many minor names without mention, unless some literary or historical interest creates the presumption that the student is already acquainted with them in a general way. Of course, the relative space that can most profitably be given to different topics is a matter of judgment, and I cannot hope that my choice will always be approved. But it is clear, I think, that the same principle can hardly be used in an introductory work that would suit more advanced students. I have tried con- tinually to keep in mind the results that can reasonably be hoped for from a college class. So, for example, the mediaeval period is intrinsically of great importance. But, from the standpoint of an introductory course, it has also marked disadvantages, and I have, accordingly, only given it a brief space. Similarly, I have not attempted to trace vi Preface the more technical lines of influence from one philosopher to another, as they are almost impossible for the student to grasp. Whatever the success of the present attempt, I think there is a place for a book with this selective purpose, alongside such a volume as, e.g., Weber's. The attempt to give a summary of all the important facts which a stu- dent with a more technical interest in philosophy would find useful, serves a valuable end, and an end with which the present volume does not pretend to compete ; but it seems to me that the two aims are not altogether com- patible in the same book. The wealth of material is bound to confuse the beginner, no matter how clearly it is put. I have attempted rather to create certain broad, general impressions, leaving further details to come from other sources. 2. Whenever I could, I have given the thought of the writers in their own words, particularly where the literary interest can be made to supplement the philosophical. In this way it is possible to give the exposition an attractive- ness which no mere summing up could have, and it will often supply, I think, by its suggestion of the personality back of the thought, a needed clew for the understanding of the thought itself. I hope also it may be the means of arousing an interest in the masterpieces of philosophy at first hand, and may suggest that they have a really human and vital side. The desirability of a considerable amount of such reading at first hand it is hardly necessary to insist upon. The literary interest is also responsible for my giving one or two things an amount of space which is perhaps not entirely proportionate to their philosophical importance. 3. I have assumed that the study of the history of phi- losophy will centre about the systems of individual men ; Preface vii but I have tried also to bear in mind the need of relating these to the more general history of civilization. This I have attempted through the medium of a somewhat mild reproduction of the Hegelian philosophy of history. Doubtless this might have been made much more attrac- tive and illuminating; but I do not think that, given the concrete knowledge that can be presupposed in the aver- age student, it would be wise to attempt to make this aspect of the study otherwise than subordinate in a text- book. In the lists of references which are added to nearly every section, the aim has been to give such as the stu- dent is likely to find helpful. The list might have been enlarged indefinitely, especially by the addition of French and German books ; but these can so seldom be made use of by the college student to advantage that a reference to them did not seem necessary. I have to acknowledge my own obligation to very many of these volumes, perhaps to Windelband most of all. Acknowledgments are due to the following publishers for their permission to utilize various translations of philo- sophical works : Macmillan & Co. ; Geo. Bell & Sons ; A. & C. Black ; Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. ; Cambridge University Press; Henry Holt & Co.; Chas. Scribner's Sons ; G. P. Putnam's Sons ; Houghton, Mifflin & Co. In several cases acknowledgments are due also to the authors for a personal permission. PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION IN the present revision I have corrected some errors of fact, and a large number of mistakes of judgment and infelicities of expression. In several cases the exposition has been in greater or less part rewritten. I have also added references in connection with passages quoted, and have brought the bibliographies down to date. I have in the revision tried to profit by the criticisms that have come to my notice. I have not considered it advisable, however, to add essentially to the fulness of the treatment, even in the case of matters which in themselves are well worthy of greater emphasis. Any number of things of interest could have been brought in, but it seemed unwise to increase the bulk of the volume. Of course the teacher who uses it as a text will naturally in any case supplement it to a greater or less extent. In the concluding sections only has there been a slight expansion. Most of my critics have recognized what were intended to be the limitations of the book, and have not blamed me too severely for failing to do what I have made no pre- tence of attempting. That there was a legitimate field for a work of the sort would appear to be indicated by the kindly reception which has been given to it; and I trust that it is now a little more adequate to its purpose. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION i i. The Nature of the History of Philosophy. Primitive Con- ceptions of the World I I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY THE SCIENTIFIC PERIOD 2. The Origin of Greek Philosophy 8 3. The Milesian School. Thales 12 f^ 4. Heracleitus 14 5. The Eleatic School. Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno . . 20 *^ 6. The Mediators. Empedodes, Anaxagoras, Leucippus and Democritus 24 > 7. The Pythagoreans 33 THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. TRANSITION TO THE STUDY OF MAN 7j 8. The Sophists 37 9. Socrates 49 10. The Schools of Megara and Elis. Aristippus and the Cyre- naics. Antisthenes and the Cynics 59 THE SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHERS II. Plato. The Academy 67 -f I. Ethical Philosophy 69 -^ 2. Social Philosophy 82 .K, "* 3. The Nature of Knowledge. The Theory of Ideas . 86 1 12. Aristotle. The Peripatetics ... . . . 101 \ i. Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology .... 102 -L 2. Ethics, Politics, ./Esthetics 109 xii Contents THE LATER ETHICAL PERIOD PAGE 13. Introduction 119 14. Epicurus and Epicureanism 122 15. Zeno. The Stoics 137 1 6. The Sceptics &<[''' J 6o 17. The Scientific Movement. Eclecticism. Philo . . .165 THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD 1 8. Introduction 170 19. Plotinus and Neo-Platonism 174 20. Christianity. The Church Fathers. Augustine . .184 II. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE TRANSITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY THE MIDDLE AGES 21. Introduction 197 22. The First Period. Scotus Erigena, Anselm, Abelard . 202 23. The Second Period. The Revival of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotiis, William of Occam . . .213 TRANSITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY 24. The Renaissance. Bruno 223 25. Bacon 231 26. Hobbes 242 III. MODERN PHILOSOPHY 27. Introduction 251 SYSTEMS OF RATIONALISM 28. Descartes. The Cartesian School 257 29. Spinoza 278 ~\_v^ i. Spinoza's Metaphysics 283 2. The Doctrine of Salvation 294 30. Leibniz 305 Contents xiii THE GROWTH OF EMPIRICISM AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT PAGE 31. Locke 322 1. The Source of Knowledge 325 2. The Nature and Extent of Knowledge . . . 339 32. Berkeley 346 33. Hume 365 34. The English Enlightenment. Deism. The Ethical Devel- opment 386 35. The French Enlightenment. Voltaire and the Encyclo- pedists. The Materialists. Rousseau. Lessing and Herder 395 GERMAN IDEALISM 36. Kant 412 37. The Idealistic Development. Fichte and Schelling . . 440 38. Hegel 445 1. The General Nature of Hegel's Philosophy . . 446 2. The Stages in the Development of Spirit . . . 452 PHILOSOPHY SINCE HEGEL 39. Schopenhauer 468 40. Comte and Positivism 479 41. Utilitarianism and Evolution. Spencer . . . -487 42. Conclusion 501 INDEX 507 A STUDENTS HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION I. The Nature of the History of Philosophy. Primi- tive Conceptions of the World i. WHEN we at the present time first begin to think about the world in a conscious and systematic way, we discover that our thought already has a tendency to fol- low certain general lines, which seem to us natural, and sometimes almost inevitable. We find ourselves familiar, e.g., with the conception of a world of nature a world wherein lifeless and unconscious bits of matter group them- selves according to unvarying laws. There are a multitude of words which we use in speaking of this material world thing or substance, cause and effect, force, law, mechan- ism, necessity ; and we suppose, ordinarily, that these words convey a well-defined and obvious meaning. In like man- ner, there is the very different world of the mental or con- scious life, described by such terms as will, intellect, feeling, sensation. This also has laws which it follows ; only they are what we call psychological, or logical, or ethical laws, in opposition to the physical laws of the outer world. Finally, while there is no general agreement in our ultimate religious or philosophical attempts to sum up the facts of reality, here too there are a few main attitudes, or types of theory, within which our choice is confined, and which go by such names as dualism, theism, idealism, materialism, pantheism, agnosticism. We do not find it very difficult B I 2 A Student's History of Philosophy to understand in a general way what these words mean, even if we do not accept the theories for which they stand. These concepts, then, or notions which we frame to serve as shorthand expressions for certain facts, or aspects of reality, come to us with so little labor on our part, that we often are tempted to regard them as self-evident, and certain to present themselves as the manifest points of view whenever men stop to think. But a little examina- tion will show that this is a mistake. We are the heir of all the ages in our intellectual life, and so can utilize the results of those who have gone before us. In their origin, however, these results were reached in no such simple way as their obviousness to us would seem to suggest, but were wrought laboriously with pain and travail. It is a com- mon experience, after we have arrived at the solution of some problem that has been engaging us, to be struck with wonder that we should so long have been baffled by it, when in reality the matter is so plain ; yet, as a matter of fact, it did baffle us. Now every point of view from which man regards the world, is thus at some period of his history a hard-won acquisition. It may stand for a truth an obvious truth even when it comes to be recog- nized. But the mere existence of a truth is nothing to us, until we have brought it into connection with the current of our own experience and knowledge ; and this requires special circumstances and conditions. The History of Philosophy attempts to give an account of the more important and comprehensive of these concep- tions, in terms of which we are accustomed to think of the world, and to trace the mental and social conditions out of which they took their rise. It is an account of the growth of man's power to formulate the universe. To give some connected view of this growth is the object of the present volume. But now, when we consider the field which it covers, it will not be strange if there are to be found in the History of Philosophy no such clearly visible lines of Introduction 3 development as certain other branches of human knowledge seem to reveal. When the subject-matter of investigation is so enormous, we can only expect to approach the goal by zigzag courses, hitting now upon one aspect of the world, now upon another. In two obvious ways, nevertheless, we may look for an advance. It may con- sist simply in bringing to light some new point of view which before had been neglected, in abstracting some aspect of things which had not hitherto been clearly iso- lated from the rest of experience. Or, instead of striking out such a new conception, we may try to combine more organically those which the past history of philosophy has already succeeded in elaborating. Now, while progress in philosophy follows no single well-marked path, and we are very likely to lose our way on account of the infinite com- plexity of the material, yet in both these directions it is possible to discover a real development. The very con- fusion of many points of view, which makes the introduc- tion of order and unity so hard a task, is itself evidence of the fact that a real development has taken place. Each of these standpoints represents some significant feature which the world presents ; and it is not till all the manifoldness of the world has been distinguished, and grasped in an intel- lectual form, that we are in a position to sum up our knowledge so that it shall fairly represent the truth. And in the other way, also, philosophy has progressed. Ideas get a richer and more adequate content, systems become more comprehensive, as thought proceeds ; and while they may go by the same names as former systems, in reality they mean something very different. In spite of its being so frequently asserted, it is untrue that nothing definitive has been the result of so much pains and labor. Many opinions which were once dominant are now finally super- seded, and no one but the amateur in philosophy would think of going back to them. They are superseded, how- ever, not in the sense that they have been proved entirely false, and rejected, but in that they have taken their place 4 A Student's History of Philosophy as a subordinate factor in a larger conception, and have been interpreted in accordance with this. 2. If, now, we throw off the prejudices which we have inherited from a long past of intellectual effort, and at- tempt to look at life through the eyes of one who comes fresh to its problems, we shall find ourselves in a new and strange world. We get some notion of what this would be, when we look at uncivilized man as he exists at the present day. The sharp lines of cleavage into which, for us, the universe divides, melt away into a vague whole of indistinctness and intermixture. That fundamental sepa- ration of the universe into dead matter, and living^ con- scious soul, has not yet been brought about, and this alone makes necessary an entire reconstruction of our notions. What the primitive man is conscious of is not a material body, and an immaterial mind, but rather an acting, feel- ing, thinking body. And if such phenomena as dreams and ghost-seeing made him conceive the possibility of a separation of himself from his earthly body, yet this con- ception never took the form of anything we should call immaterial. The inner self, the soul or ghost, is still only a thinner and more tenuous body. And as no clear separation was made between the man's own body, and the life and consciousness which inform it, so neither could this separation be carried over into the outer world. Knowing his own body as a living thing, which acts according to desires and purposes, other things also are interpreted by him after the same pattern. Stones, trees, and streams are living creatures, animated by the same vital impulses that dwell in men and animals. This animistic view of things is universal among primitive peo- ples. Of course it carries with it an absence of that con- ception of the reign of law, which is so familiar at the present day. The world is an anarchic world, a world of miracles, in which anything whatever may be expected to happen. Gods, spirits, and demons inhabit it. These act after their own arbitrary will, which can never be predicted Introduction 5 with certainty; and they must, therefore, be won over with bribes, or forced into acquiescence by charms and magic. This indistinctness in the lines of objective nature is, however, counterbalanced by a sufficiently exact marking out of the limits within which man's own personal and social life moves. Here there is little of the freedom which is sometimes attributed to the savage life, but an all-pervading spirit of regulation. From birth to death, the life of the savage is ordered for him by custom and tradition. There is no free play of the mind about the sanctions of conduct, no sense of proportion in it, and of the relative importance of things. In every department of life, custom attaches to itself the sanction of a religious rite, and any deviation from it carries the stigma alike of religious impiety, and social treason. Of course there is a reason for this. Savage customs are, normally, survivals which become fixed because they stand in some utilitarian relation to the needs of economic life or tribal organiza- tion. And since men are not yet in a position where they can be trusted freely to use their reason, and to discrimi- nate and choose, their habits have to be riveted upon them mechanically and irrevocably for their own salvation. Of course, in such an atmosphere, there can be none of that sense of individuality, or personality, which marks the modern conception of selfhood. The man is swallowed up in the tribe. So, also, the intellectual side of his life, as represented in his beliefs about the world, and his reli- gious conceptions, is bound down so closely to the lowest and most pressing needs of his nature, that it lacks entirely the freedom and disinterestedness of spirit, the largeness of view, which the acquisition of solid truth demands. There is in it, morever, no possibility of self-directed growth. This cannot come about until the individual is emancipated from his bondage to custom and tradition, and recognizes himself as a free agent, with rights and a value of his own, who can freely question accepted dogmas, 6 A Student's History of Philosophy and freely modify his social actions to meet new de- mands. This, then, will suggest the general course which the his- tory of civilization is to follow. Things can be changed for the better, only as man ceases passively to acquiesce in the dogmas and institutions that come to him from without, on authority external to him. He must become himself the centre of initiative, who can trace all these objective crys- tallizations of thought and conduct back to their source in his own nature, and control and modify them accordingly. This, however, necessitates an intervening period of stress and change. Existing beliefs and social forms have to be disintegrated to give room for the expanding spirit ; and for a time there will be chaos and anarchy, until man has learned how to use his new-found liberty. Of this progress of civilization, the history of philosophic thought is one aspect ; and this is the third and more ultimate way in which we can look to find a unity in it. Thought is but an instrument by which man attempts to bring himself into harmony with life ; and therefore the inner spring of thought's movement will be found in that underlying pro- cess of life, which we know as history. The final goal, on the philosophic side, is such a statement of the world as shall enable man to feel at home in it, and see himself as a unified and harmonious being in all the expressions of his nature. On the side of life itself, or history, the goal con- sists in realizing this unity practically, a unity, not of mere confused feeling, as in the beginning, but of clear and conscious knowledge, which grasps the principles of its own action, and so can direct it freely to rational ends. GENERAL LITERATURE WHOLE PERIOD: Erdmann, History of Philosophy, 3 vols. Hegel, History of Philosophy, 3 vols. Lange, History of Materialism, 3 vols. Lewes, Biographical History of Philosophy. Introduction 7 Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, 2 vols. Schwegler, History of Philosophy. Weber, History of Philosophy . Windelband, History of Philosophy. Turner, History of Philosophy. Sidgwick, History of Ethics. Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, 2 vols. Hunter, History of Philosophy. Davidson, A History of Education. Janet and Seailles, A History of the Problems of Philosophy. Articles in Encyclopcedia Britannica. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY: Benn, The Greek Philosophers, 2 vols. Benn, The Philosophy of Greece considered in Relation to the Character and History of its People. Burt, History of Greek Philosophy. Grote, History of Greece. Ferrier, Lectures on Greek Philosophy. 2 vols. Mayor, Sketch of Ancient Philosophy from Thales to Cicero. Windelband, History of Greek Philosophy. Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. Marshall, Short History of Greek Philosophy. Gomperz, The Greek Thinkers, 3 vols. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (Bohn's Library). Bussell, The School of Plato. Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers. Hyde, From Epicurus to Christ. MODERN PHILOSOPHY: H off ding, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy. Burt, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Falckenberg, History of Modern Philosophy. Cousin, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, 2 vols. Adamson, The Development of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Levy-Bruhl, History of Modern Philosophy in France. Dewing, Introduction to the History of Modern Philosophy. I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY THE SCIENTIFIC PERIOD 2. The Origin of Greek Philosophy I. THE beginnings of philosophy are commonly attrib- uted to the Greeks. Of course before the time of the Greeks, men had thought about the meaning of things ; but the conditions had been lacking which were necessary to precipitate their thought into sufficiently well-defined con- cepts to serve as effective intellectual tools. The task of forging the intellectual framework, in the shape of abstract ideas or generalizations, by means of which it should be possible to analyze, and bring into order, the incoherency of the world as it makes its first impression upon us, fell to the Greek mind. And for this task it had special quali- fications. Its sanity, its healthy human interest, its clear- ness of vision and hostility to confused ness of every sort, its sense of measure, and the single-heartedness with which it confined itself within the field of concrete fact where it felt at home, enabled it to leave behind, as no previous race had done, an articulate objective expression of itself which survived its own existence, and could enter into the spiritual history of mankind. All these qualities relate themselves closely to the artistic temperament of which Greece is pre-eminently the type, and between which and the philosophic spirit there is an intimate connection. The same sense for form and proportion which enabled the Greek to originate the art types that have stood as models ever since, kept him within the bounds of clearly defined ideas in his philosophical thinking, and prevented him from losing himself in the realm of vague feeling, and adumbra- 8 Greek Philosophy 9 tions of the infinite, which have brought shipwreck to so many attempts at philosophizing, and which, whatever their meaning to the individual, have no objective significance, until a foundation at least of clear conceptions has first been acquired. The Greek frankly moved within the realm of the finite, where definition and order reigned, and he could know just what he was talking about. The infinite was to him the region of chaos, and stood on a distinctly lower plane of reality. So also, along with its feeling for form, the artistic spirit involves a certain disinterestedness of mood. Beauty, as Kant has said, gives us pleasure in the mere contemplation of itself, apart from the vulgar thoughts of possession and use. And this quality, too, enters into the philosophical attitude. Long before the time of the Greeks, there had been a very considerable development of knowledge in the Orient, particularly in Egypt and Chaldaea ; and the Greeks were able to presuppose and to build upon this. But the attitude which they adopted toward this knowledge was their own. Previous science had been on the empirical and rule of thumb order, not based on essential principles ; it had remained largely bound down to the concrete particu- lars, and to the practical uses from which it had sprung. Geometry, e.g., was cultivated in Egypt, whence the Greeks derived it ; but it was cultivated as little more than a set of approximate rules for use in land measuring. We do not have philosophy proper until we can get clear of the entanglement of special cases, and practical utility, and take a disinterested delight in principles on their own account ; and this the Greek temperament was able to accomplish. It could find pleasure in the free play of ideas for their own sake, could treat them as a work of art, apart from their immediate practical bearing; and the existence of this attitude is marked by the rise of Philoso- phy, or disinterested love of wisdom as such. It was not, however, in Athens, which stands to us as the centre of Greek culture, nor in any other of the cities of io A Student's History of Philosophy Greece proper, that the new intellectual movement began. It was rather in the Greek colonies, which the mother country had from very early times begun to throw off, first in the Eastern colonies of Asia Minor, and then in Southern Italy. Athens itself, even at the height of its power, never took very kindly to freedom of philosophic speculation, and was inclined to treat its prophets with a full measure of the traditional severity. The political fickleness incident to a popular government, and the reli- gious intolerance on the part of the masses, resulted in more than one act of injustice, of which the judicial mur- der of Socrates is of course the most famous instance. "Then I must indeed be a fool," Socrates is made to say to Callicles in one of Plato's dialogues, " if I do not know that in the Athenian state any man can suffer any- thing." In the colonies, however, tendencies were at work which already had greatly weakened the force of these unfavorable conditions, long before the breath of the new spirit had touched Greece itself. The transplanting of Greek life to a new home, necessarily resulted in a gen- eral shaking up of former habits of thought. Ceremonial observances, and the religious beliefs embodied in the na- tional mythologies, could not fail to lose something of their rigidity and inevitableness, as their roots were torn from the local environment, and the concrete spots and objects to which they were attached ; and the further adjustment that would have continually to go on, as they came into competition with more or less antagonistic traditions, would tend still further to beget a temper of openness and flexi- bility. In Asia Minor, moreover, the colonists were brought in contact with the highest culture and learning of the day. The new knowledge of the world, which was open to them in their character as a race of seafarers and traders, was also continually enlarging their ideas, and breaking down the superstitions of mythology. Their active and adven- turous life gave them a versatility and alertness of mind, Greek Philosophy il which was as yet wanting to their less enterprising kins- men ; while the rapid fortunes which were thus built up in trade by the merchant princes, offered the possibility of the leisure which the intellectual life demands- It was at Miletus, the wealthy and active Ionian capital, on the coast of the ^Egean, that the new intellectual movement found its centre ; and accordingly the earliest school of Greek phi- losophy is known as the Milesian School. 2. Our knowledge of the beginnings of Greek philosophy is very fragmentary, and it is only with difficulty that it can be pieced together to form a connected whole. Still it is possible to read into it a certain amount of unity. At any rate, it is clear that, within this century and a half, there gradually emerged the more fundamental of those distinctions and terms, by which the mind attempts to intro- duce order and connection into the processes of the world. They were grasped in a definite, even though rudimentary way, and were consciously employed in attempts to build up a comprehensive view of the universe. This took place, however, within certain limits, which need to be kept in mind continually. It is necessary to recall, once more, that the fundamental distinction between consciousness and matter has not yet been clearly attained. Mental qualities and physical qualities are still more or less mixed up together. There is, consequently, as yet no conception of a strictly immaterial existence. Real existence is that which lies outside us in space, which we can see and touch ; and nothing else is real. It is true that this material and spatial existence is not wholly identical with the modern conception of matter, for it has to find room within itself for qualities which we call conscious and mental. But if matter was not regarded as dead and unconscious, at least there was no way of separating mind, or thought, from its spatial embodiment. To attempt to think of anything that was not material in its nature, and so space-filling, was to think of nothing. Within the limitations of this inability ] to conceive of anything as real, which did not have tangible 12 A Student's History of Philosophy and visible reality, the first period of philosophical thought moved. And the outgrowing of the assumption which this involves, may be regarded as one of the main results, for the development of thought, of the entire period. The speculative difficulties which philosophy meets on the basis of this assumption, pave the way to a recognition, in Plato, of the possibility that a thing may be real, with- out being identical with spatial reality ; and when this point is reached, an entirely new field is opened up to thought. 3. The Milesian School. Thales i. The first attempts at philosophy, then, are occupied with the only world which men can present clearly to them- selves the world of nature. In general, these attempts take the shape of a search for some unitary principle for ex- plaining the world, some one kind of real existence out of which the diversity of the universe has sprung, some per- manent ground lying back of the never ending process of change. The decisive step is attributed to Thales, a mem- ber of one of the leading families of Miletus, and a man apparently versed in the learning current at his time. He is said to have predicted the eclipse occurring in the year 585 B.C., which put an end to the war between the Lydians and the Medes. All that is known of Thales' answer is this : that he found the ultimate substance in water. In the light of modern science, this may seem to be absurdly inadequate as a statement of the universe ; but the new attitude which it involves, gives it a real significance. There had been cos- mologies from time immemorial, which attempted to ac- count for the origin of the world by all sorts of fancies, and which had gathered about them the sanctions of religion. Thales broke from the sway of religious tradition, and from its whole method, by adopting what was essentially a scien- tific, as opposed to a mythological, point of view. Instead Greek Philosophy 13 of a supernatural, he attempted a natural explanation ; instead of telling a mythical story of what might have hap- pened in the past, he looked to the world of fact as it actu- ally lay before his eyes, in order to find there his principle of interpretation. And it is possible to see reasons why he should have hit upon the answer which he did. Water has that mobility which might seem to go along with the power of universal transformation. It is easily changed to steam, and solidified to ice. It is essential to growth and genera- tion everywhere. The process of transformation might appear to be taking place visibly in nature. The sun draws water, which then is given back in the form of rain ; and the rain, in turn, sinks into the ground, where it completes the process by turning into earth, and the manifold prod- ucts of the soil. Of Thales' followers, it is enough to men- tion the names of Anaximander and Anaximenes. The school as an organization came to an end with the destruc- tion of Miletus by the Persians in 494 B.C. 2. In their beginnings, philosophy and science are thus identical. The Milesians are physicists and astronomers, bringing their hypotheses to bear, first of all, upon the natu- ral processes which constitute the subject-matter of science; and the same interest continues also to play a large part in the work of their successors. Each has his more or less novel theories to propound concerning the general course of the world's development, and the explanation of the phenomena which it presents; particularly of such facts as might naturally be expected to interest a seafaring peo- ple meteorological phenomena, and the movements of the heavenly bodies. It would only be confusing to give an account of these theories here ; but it should never be forgotten that we are dealing throughout with what is essen- tially a physical and scientific philosophy. But also there begins, at this point, a development with a more purely philosophical interest. This development occupies itself, not only with the explanation of concrete physical processes, but also with the ideas which are 14 A Student's History of Philosophy presupposed in the intellectual formulation of these pro- cesses, and with the logical and metaphysical implications of such ideas. These ideas, it is true, are not yet fully ab- stracted from their physical embodiment, and looked at wholly apart from the physical processes which imply them; but the interest is in the ideas, nevertheless. And the centre about which the controversy turns is the concept of change, a concept which involves one of the most funda- mental problems with which metaphysics has to deal. The Milesians had assumed the fact of change as some- thing self-evident, and they had assumed, too, that there must be an underlying unity to this changing world. But here are two ideas which are sure to make trouble as soon as they are distinctly recognized. The reality which changes must all the time be one and the same reality at bottom, or there is no meaning in the statement that it changes. Nothing changes, except as it becomes different from what it was before ; and there is no " it," no "something which changes," unless there is an identity, or sameness, which persists through the successive moments of change. And yet if it changes, it must be different from itself, and so not one reality, but more than one ; it must at once persist, and pass away. How are these seemingly very op- posite notions the one and the many, sameness and dif- ference, permanence and change to be reconciled and combined ? The next step in Greek philosophy, was to bring about a clear recognition of this problem. In Her- acleitus, and in Parmenides, the two opposing factors re- ceive each a formulation, one-sided, indeed, but for that reason all the more impressive and influential. Later on, in the mediating schools which succeeded, the attempt is made to bring about a reconciliation. 4. Heracleitus The side of multiplicity and change was championed by Heracleitus, one of the profoundest thinkers of ancient Greek Philosophy 15 times. Heracleitus was an Ephesian, of aristocratic fam- ily and high position, who lived about 536-470 B.C. There was much, indeed, in the political condition of the cities of Asia Minor, to force the stern reality of change upon men's notice. This shows itself in the lyric poetry of the period, with its graceful melancholy, and its fond- ness for dwelling upon the endless vicissitudes of fortune, and the uncertainty of human life and happiness. Apart from the perils which grew out of external relations to the great Oriental powers, there was also, within each city, an ever present danger from civil strife. The aristocratic gov- ernments which had replaced the monarchies of Homeric times, were themselves now in conflict with the people ; and everywhere tyrants were springing up, who made use of the popular favor to overthrow existing authority, only to retain in their own hands, by force, the power they were thus enabled to usurp. Heracleitus was among those who had suffered from these conditions, and it was his con- tempt for the democratic tendencies of his day which turned him from public life to philosophical pursuits. His reputation for gloomy misanthropy gave him in antiquity the title of the Weeping Philosopher ; while the Delphic character of his writings they require, says Socrates, a Delian diver to get at the meaning of them caused him co be designated as Heracleitus the Obscure. Heracleitus gets rid of the difficulty of reconciling per- manence with change, by the simple denial that any such thing as permanence exists at all. There is no static Be- ing, no unchanging substratum. Change, movement, is Lord of the universe. Everything is in a state of becom- ing, of continual flux (Trdvra pet). " You cannot step twice into the same rivers, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." 1 Man is no exception to the general rule ; he is "kindled and put out like a light in the night-time." Heracleitus formulates this conception by saying that 1 This, and succeeding quotations from the earlier philosophers, are taken from Burnet's "Early Greek Philosophers " (A. & C. Black). 1 6 A Student's History of Philosophy \ not Water or Mist, but Fire is the ultimate ground of the world. " All things are exchanged for Fire, and Fire for all things, as wares are exchanged for gold, and gold for wares." This is not intended to be figurative ; Hera- cleitus means literal fire, just as Thales meant literal water. But it is fire as embodying primarily the fact of change; that is why he chooses it, rather than earth or water. Nor could his thought have found a better embod- iment than in the all-transforming, shifting flame, ever passing away in smoke, ever renewing itself by taking up the substance of solid bodies, which are undergoing destruc- tion that it may live. We have the appearance of perma- nence, just as the flame seems to be an identical thing ; in reality, however, its content is every moment changing. Now this doctrine that everything, as Plato mali- ciously puts it, is in a flux like leaky vessels, that there is no rest or permanence anywhere in the universe, no solid foothold which is not, the very moment we try to occupy it, silently shifting beneath us seems at first to be paradoxical and unwarranted. We are not satisfied to give up all identity and permanence in things. If what we call a white object, e.g., has already come to be something different before we can give a name to it, how are we to make any articulate utterance at all? When we reflect, however, we see that, in spite of the difficulties, this is very similar to the doctrine of modern science. For sci- ence, too, there is nothing that stands still. The stone that seems to lie unchanged and motionless is, on the one hand, whirling through space along with the planet which bears us with it on its surface, while, on the other hand, it is itself a little world of quivering molecules, a battle-ground of struggling forces, where the most intense activity reigns. Our own bodies, likewise, are changing every moment of our lives, and our minds are changing with them. There is no such thing as stopping the flow of consciousness, without blotting it out altogether. Hera- cleitus has, accordingly, emphasized a very important fea- Greek Philosophy 17 ture of reality, which will need to be taken account of in every future attempt at philosophizing. Is there, then, no unity at all to the world ? If so, how can we account for even the appearance of permanence ? Heracleitus does not deny that there is a unity, and here also he anticipates the conception of modern science. For the unity is not one of unchanging substance, but of law. The process of change does not take place in an un- regulated and lawless way, but it is rhythmical change, kept within the bounds of definite proportions, and ruled by an immutable law of necessity. As the heavenly fires are transmuted successively into vapor, water, earth, so a corresponding series of transformations ascends upward to fire again, only to start once more on the same ceaseless round. The universe is, therefore, a closed circuit, in which an ascending and a descending current counterbalance each other. It is this opposition of motions, and the measured balance between them, which produces the de- lusive appearance of rest and fixity. Nothing in the world, then, is self-contained and self- complete. Everything is forever passing into something else, and has an existence only in relation to this process. " Fire lives the death of earth, and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of air, earth that of water." We have, accordingly, in Heracleitus, the first philosophic statement of the famous doctrine of relativity, which, in one form or another, has played an important part in sub- sequent thought down to the present day. Heracleitus' conception of the two contrary currents of change, enables him to formulate his doctrine more precisely ; not only is everything passing into something else, but it is forever passing into its opposite. All reality is born of the clash of opposing principles, the tension of conflicting forces. " Homer was wrong in saying : Would that strife might perish from among gods and men ! He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away." 1 8 A Student's History of Philosophy Strife is "father of all, and king of all." This relativity, and union of contrasts, Heracleitus is never weary of trac- ing out. Organic life is produced by the male and the female ; musical harmony by sharp and flat notes. " The sea is the purest and the impurest water. Fish can drink it and it is good for them ; to men it is undrinkable and de- structive." " God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, hunger and satiety ; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with different incenses, is named according to the savor of each." The same thought enabled Heracleitus to round out his philosophy by a suggestive treatment of the ethical life. Just as the light and the heavy, the warm and the cold, plenty and want, are relative terms, so likewise are good and evil. " Physicians who cut, burn, stab, and rack the sick, then complain that they do not get any adequate recompense for it." " Men would not have known the name of justice if there were no injustice." " It is not good for men to get all they wish. It is disease that makes health pleasant and good ; hunger, plenty ; and weariness, rest." Good implies evil to be overcome, con- quests to be made, a life of unremitting endeavor. It is no gift that we may sit and wait for with folded hands, but an achievement. So also the bad has no existence, except in relation to a possible better. Were either of the related terms wanting, the moral life would cease to exist. One other problem begins faintly to emerge in Hera- cleitus the problem of knowledge. Since the vulgar notion is that the things which the senses reveal to us are more or less solid and permanent, a distinction has to be drawn between sense knowledge, and the higher thought knowl- edge which is open to the philosopher. True knowledge is no easy transcript of popular opinion, but the scanty gleanings of hard intellectual labor : " Those who seek for gold dig up much earth, and find a little." Sense experi- ence is fallacious, and the source of all sorts of illusion ; it is only by thought that we can rise above the realm of Greek Philosophy 19 changing appearance, and attain to true reality the gov- erning Law. But it is not at all apparent how we are to account for this difference of value. Knowledge is due to the response between the inner Fire which constitutes our rational nature, or soul, and the outer Fire which is the re- ality of the world. But since the two can only commingle by the pathway of the senses, there is no means as yet of drawing a psychological distinction between sensation and thought. The objectivity and necessity of knowl- edge is given, however, a certain explanation. Man can know objective truth, because in essence he is identical with that truth; he is no mere separate individual, but a part of the all-comprehending Fire which constitutes the universe. The answer which Heracleitus gave to the problem of philosophy, is one which is likely to grow in force the more one thinks of it. But can we ever be really satisfied with it ? Can the fact of law furnish all the unity and perma- nence that we require? Will not the conception of law, in connection with the material world, only raise new ques- tions ? What is a law, over and above the multitude of particular facts and changes, each distinct and unrelated ? If it is only an ideal fact in our minds, it has no relation to the material world without; and if it is a material fact, does it not furnish simply another element to be brought into unity, and not a unifying bond at all ? At any rate, it hardly satisfies our first feeling of what the situation de- mands. We instinctively require a solid and permanent background for this universal flow of events, an unchanging subject of change, which shall bind the multiplicity into a real whole, and give us a definite something to grasp and rest upon, that shall not be forever slipping from us. This factor of permanence, of static Being, which Heracleitus denied, is brought into an equally one-sided prominence by an opposing group of thinkers, whose connection with the city of Elea, in Southern Italy, has given them the name of the Eleatic School. 2O A Student's History of Philosophy 5. The Eleatic School. Xenophanes. Parmenides. Zeno I. The reputed founder of the Eleatic school was Xenoph- anes (570-480 B.C.), a native of Colophon, whence he fled in consequence of the Persian conquest of Ionia. He maintained himself as a wandering poet, or rhapsodist, and finally settled down in Elea, where he died at an advanced age. In spite of his place among philosophers, Xenoph- anes seems to have been not so much a metaphysician, as a poet turned satirist and reformer. As a satirist, he sets himself against the somewhat florid culture of Magna Graecia, with its luxuries, its purple garments, its fops " proud of their comely locks, anointed with unguents of rich perfume," in favor of an ideal of plain living and high thinking, of Greek simplicity, moderation, and artistic good taste. He ridicules the exaggerated athleticism of the day, the preference of muscle to brains, " strength to wisdom," the immaturity and affectation of the intellectual interests. "There is nothing praiseworthy in discussing battles of Titans, or of giants and centaurs, fictions of former ages, nor in plotting violent revolutions." In opposition to this, he strives to exalt the true intellectual life; and the very modern tone which pervades his conception of what such a life is, shows clearly how far Greek thought has already advanced. It is modern in its sceptical caution, and its feeling for the necessity of sober truth-seeking and in- vestigation. "There never was nor will be a man who has clear certainty as to what I say about the gods and about all things ; for even if he does chance to say what is right, yet he himself does not know that it is so. But all are free to guess." "The gods have not shown forth all things to men from the beginning, but by seeking they gradually find out what is better." It is especially modern in its thorough naturalism. And here Xenophanes comes in contact with religious beliefs, in connection with which his influence was to tell most directly on the future. At the start, philosophy had grown directly out of reli- Greek Philosophy 21 gious speculations. It was not the independent work of sin- gle men, but rather of schools, or guilds, which had, and continued to have for some time, a religious or semi-reli- gious organization. There will be occasion to notice again the close connection of religion and philosophy in the Pythagorean school. But when the change to the scientific attitude was once effected, the tendency was necessarily away from the religious dogmas. The whole philosophical movement was, from the religious standpoint, a scepti- cal one. Within the schools, belief in the old polythe- istic mythology was quietly dropped, as suited only for the masses ; and in its place were set up more or less purely naturalistic explanations. Xenophanes was not content to leave this as a mere esoteric doctrine. His impatience of the intellectual futility, and low moral grade, of many of the old beliefs and stories about the gods, leads him to a fierce polemic against the popular theology. " Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among men, thefts and adulteries and deceptions of one another." " But mortals think that the gods are born as they are, and have perception like theirs, and voice and form." " Yes, and if oxen and lions had hands, and could paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen. Each would represent them with bodies according to the form of each." " So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed ; the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes." Let us rid ourselves, then, of the paltry notion of a multitude of gods made after the likeness of man, and subject to the same ignoble passions : " There is One God, the greatest among gods and men, comparable to mortals neither in form nor thought." This is evidently not a statement of monotheism, in the ordinary religious sense, for the One God of Xenophanes is expressly said to exclude all anthro- pomorphic elements. Besides, he is declared to be ' great- est among gods,' so that other gods seem also to have a 22 A Student's History of Philosophy certain reality. What Xenophanes is trying to assert is, not that the reality of the universe is God, as, the religionist uses the term, but, rather, that what we name God is the one immutable and comprehensive material universe, which holds within it and determines all those minor phenom- ena, to which an enlightened philosophy will reduce the many deities of the popular faith. The conception is not unlike that of Spinoza in later times : God is the world of nature, regarded as absolutely one, eternal and unchanging. 2. This conception of the identity and permanence of reality, which with Xenophanes was largely the result of a poetic insight, becomes, with Parmenides of Elea (about 470 B.C.), a clearly denned philosophical doctrine, with important consequences. Of all philosophical systems, that of Parmenides is, perhaps, the most paradoxical. It is based on the absolute denial of change and multiplicity in the world, and their reduction to pure illusion. Only the One exists, and that One is eternal, immutable, immov- able, indivisible. Now the practical refutation of this, by facts, is perfectly easy ; it does not describe the world as we actually know it, and if the world really were such a world, then all philosophies, and their reasonings about Being, would immediately be wiped out, along with everything else that is partial. The illusions which philosophy attempts to correct would be impossible, even as illusions. Parmenides' philosophy, however, does not pretend to be based upon facts ; it declares that facts themselves must be subjected to the laws of thought, or logic, and, if they prove to be self-contradictory, must be rejected. If we can- not think them, we have no right to say that they are facts. Now, to Parmenides the idea of change is unthinkable. That a thing should arise out of that which is different from itself, seems to him a contradiction. Even that form of change which -apparently is most simple change in place, or motion, Parmenides declares is inherently impos- sible. Motion implies the validity of a certain concept the concept of empty space, within which the move- Greek Philosophy 23 ments may take place. But is empty space thinkable ? Is it not mere emptiness, mere absence of being Not-being, in a word ? And so long as thought is true to itself, can any effort make the being of Not-being intelligible ? And if it is not intelligible, if it is incapable of being thought, it does not exist. Only Being exists ; and since Being is still thought of as identical with body, the absence of Being, or empty space, has no reality. Hence Being is a solid block, immovable and unchanged. " Being cannot be divisible, since it is all alike, and there is no more of it in one place than in another to hinder it from holding together, nor less of it, but everything is full of what is." There can be no break between its parts ; if such a break is real, it is itself Being, or body ; and so body is continuous after all. It is without motion ; for it could only move in space, and space either is or is not. If space is, it is Being, and Being moves in Being, which is equivalent to saying it is at rest. If space is nothing, it does not exist, and so nothing can move in it. If sense perception tells us the contrary, then the testimony of the senses must be rejected. 3. The paradoxical arguments of Parmenides, appear- ing as they did at a time when the human mind was first be- ginning to taste the delights of metaphysical inquiry, had an immense influence. Among his adherents, the best known were Melissus of Samos, a politician and general who gained a victory over Athens in 442 B.C., and Zeno of Elea (about 490-430 B.C.). Zeno undertook to strengthen his master's position by showing, on the negative side, that the diffi- culties which it involves in the eyes of common sense, are matched by difficulties quite as great in the views of those who assert the reality of change and motion. Of his argu- ments, which became famous, it will be enough to mention the two which are known, respectively, as the flying arrow, and Achilles and the tortoise. In order that an arrow fly- ing through space should reach its destination, it must suc- cessively occupy a series of positions. But at any moment we may choose, it is in a particular place, and therefore is 24 A Student's History of Philosophy at rest ; and as no summing up of states of rest can result in motion, it can never move. The other argument involves the relation of two different motions. Achilles never can overtake the tortoise, because, while he is reaching what at any moment is the starting-point of the tortoise, the latter will have gained a certain amount of ground ; and as Achilles always must reach first the position previously occupied by his competitor, the tortoise will forever keep just a little ahead. Of course the character of the Eleatic conclusions ren- dered it impossible that they ever should produce any great advance in substantial knowledge ; and in Gorgias of Leon- tinum (483-375), whom we shall meet again as a Sophist, the same style of reasoning that had proved so destructive was turned against the Eleatic doctrine itself, and made to prove the non-existence of Being as well. Indirectly, how- ever, this later development of the Eleatic doctrine had certain valuable results. The polemical interests of Zeno and his associates caused them to direct a good deal of at- tention to the processes of argument and refutation ; and in this way a beginning was made of what afterward was to be one of the special divisions of philosophy, namely, Logic. 6. The Mediators. Empedocles. Anaxagoras. Leucippus and Democritus i. Empedocles, the first to be mentioned of the more independent successors of Parmenides, was a native of Sicily (490-430 B.C.), and a man of note and political influence v He sided with the popular party, and was offered the leadership of his city, but refused the honor, perhaps from a just estimate of the value to be placed upon popular favor. His extensive knowledge, and his skill in medicine, caused him to be regarded as the pos- sessor of supernatural powers, and he may himself have helped to foster this belief ; according to tradition, he met his death by throwing himself in the crater of Mt. ^Etna, Greek Philosophy 25 that the mysteriousness of his disappearance might give rise to the belief that he was a god. A mixture of char- latanism, with what is essentially a true scientific spirit, has not been uncommon at periods when new possibilities of knowledge are beginning to dawn upon men's minds ; Par- acelsus is a more modern illustration. At such times, there seem no limits to what science can hope to accomplish. " And thou shalt learn," Empedocles says at the beginning of his great philosophical poem, " all the drugs that are a defence against ills and old age, since for thee alone shall I accomplish all this. Thou shalt arrest the violence of the weariless winds that arise and sweep the earth, laying waste the cornfields with their breath ; and again, when thou so desirest, thou shalt bring their blasts back again with a rush. Thou shalt cause for men a seasonable drought after the dark rains, and again after the summer drought thou shalt produce the streams that feed the trees as they pour down from the sky. Thou shalt bring back from Hades the life of a dead man." If science has not done precisely these things, it has actually enabled men to perform wonders almost as great in the way of controlling natural forces. It is only the desire to reach these results by short cuts, and the failure to perceive that they require a long process of patient investigation, that turns men's thoughts in the direction of magical and occult powers, in the manipulation of which they are partly self-deceived, in part conscious deceivers. The significance of Empedocles, however, depends upon his real perception, underlying all this, of the value and necessity of true scientific knowledge. Man is by nature weak, ignorant, and self-deluded. " For straitened are the powers with which their bodily parts are endowed, and many are the woes that burst in on them, and blunt the edge of their careful thoughts. They behold but a brief span of a life that is no life, and, doomed to swift death, are borne away and fly off like smoke. Each is convinced of that alone which he has chanced upon as he is hurried 26 A Studenfs History of Philosophy to and fro, and idly fancies he has found the whole. So hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by the ears of men, so hardly grasped by their mind ! " Man's only salvation, his only road to freedom, is knowl- edge, or science. " Mind is the spell which governs earth and heaven ; " and in his own philosophy, Empedocles thinks that he has found the key to the true explanation of things. It would seem that Empedocles had known the reason- ings of Parmenides, and been strongly impressed by them. But he could not rest content with their one-sidedness. Change and generation undoubtedly exist, and have to be explained. Now, even if Parmenides' proof of the non- existence of empty space be allowed, one possibility of motion still remains. The parts of this solid mass might conceivably change their position with reference to one another, without the need of empty space between them ; one slipping continuously into the place left vacant by its neighbor, just as to the ordinary vision the parts of water seem to do. There would, indeed, be no gain in this, if each part were exactly the same as every other. But if we conceive a primitive difference in the nature of the parts, then their shiftings of position with regard to one another might be utilized to account for the changing phenomena of the sensible world. This is Empedocles' new thought : generation is merely change of composition. " There is no coming into being of aught that perishes, nor any end for it in baneful death, but only mingling, and separation of what has been mingled." " When the elements have been mingled in the fashion of a man, and come to the light of day, or in the fashion of the race of wild beasts or plants or birds, then men say that these come into being ; and when they are separated, they call that, as is the custom, woful death." "Just as when painters are elaborating temple offerings, men whom Metis has well taught their art, they, when they have taken pigments of many colors with their hands, mix them in a har- Greek Philosophy 27 mony, more of some and less of others, and from them produce shapes like unto all things, making trees and men and women, beasts and birds and fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and gods that live long lives, and are exalted in honor, so let not the error prevail over thy mind, that there is any other source of all the perishable crea- tures that appear in countless numbers." This, accordingly, marks out the path by which the rec- onciliation of change and permanence was to be attempted. If reality is One, as Parmenides had assumed in common with all previous philosophy, then, indeed, his arguments are irrefragable, and the world of generation has no exist- ence. But if reality is Many, and not One, then we can account for both factors ; permanence belongs to the ele- ments in themselves, change to their shifting relations. So by setting up four separate elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, Empedocles thought that he could explain, through their varying combinations, all the apparent differ- ences in the world of individual objects, which Parmenides had left himself no way of accounting for even as illusion. It was not until, in Plato, the idea of Being had been freed from its materialistic implications, that the unity of reality could be reasserted in an intelligible way. In another direction, also, Parmenides' influence seems to have been felt. Heretofore it had been assumed that matter is itself alive, and that it possesses in its own na- ture the principle of movement. But Parmenides, by his doctrine of the absolute immobility of Being, had detached the quality of motion from the conception of matter. Em- pedocles, accordingly, finds it necessary to have recourse to a separate principle, in order to get bodies to moving again. So he is led to postulate, in addition to his four elements, two other agencies to manipulate them. He gives to these agencies the names of Love and Hate. Love acts in a way to bring about a complete intermixture of the different elements, "as a baker cementing barley meal with water." Hate breaks up this intermixture, and 28 A Student's History of Philosophy brings elements of the same kind together. The history of the universe is thus an oscillation to and fro between complete discord, and complete harmony. It is difficult to interpret this obscure conception of Love and Hate with any great precision. In modern terms, it perhaps stands most nearly for what we should name the forces of attrac- tion and repulsion, with which, however, certain elements of the ethical and rational life are confusedly intermingled. But at any rate, we are not to look upon these forces as strictly immaterial. Empedocles is still unable to think of anything as real which does not occupy space; and so, when he tries to define Love and Hate more closely, he makes them, after all, as material as his other elements. One other problem, which had already appeared in Her- acleitus, receives a somewhat fuller treatment at the hands of Empedocles the problem of knowing. We can know everything, because we are ourselves compounded of every- thing. All the elements enter into our make-up earth to form the solid parts, water the liquid, air the vital breath, fire the soul. We perceive any particular thing, then, because we are that thing ; like is known by like. " For it is with earth that we see earth, and water with water ; by air we see bright air, by fire destroying fire. By love do we see love, and hate by grievous hate." In its materialis- tic form, it is impossible to make this really intelligible. Knowledge is not, and cannot be, a spatial and material function. In the thought, however, that it is our ultimate kinship with the world we know, which makes the bond of knowledge possible, there is the germ of an insight which later on has a fruitful development, and finally breaks down the materialism which conditions its first appearance. 2. With the name of Anaxagoras, we come for the first time into connection with the city of Athens. Anaxagoras (500-429 B.C.) was a native of Clazomenae in Ionia, but about the middle of the fifth century he emigrated to Athens. There for a number of years he was one of the most prominent figures in the brilliant circle which raised Greek Philosophy 29 Athens to its position as the intellectual centre of Greece. He became the intimate friend of Pericles, the leader of the new movement, and of such men as Euripides, Thucyd- ides, and Protagoras. Popular feeling, however, was aroused by the naturalistic and sceptical tendencies which Pericles and his friends represented. This feeling, accen- tuated by the growing political bitterness between the democracy, and the aristocratic few within whose ranks alone the new learning was affected, chose Anaxagoras as a victim. His natural explanation of the sun as a red-hot stone not, therefore, a divine being was made the pre- text for an accusation of impiety. He was thrown into prison, and forced to save his life by leaving the city. Empedocles had thought that by the admission of four distinct elements, the infinite variety of the world could be explained. He does not seem, however, to have attempted seriously the difficult task of showing how this could be in detail. And it appeared to Anaxagoras that the task was impossible. How one substance can change into another, how, i.e., there can be a change of quality, it is impossible to conceive ; all that we can understand is change in position. Since, therefore, the qualities revealed in the world are in- finite in number, we cannot stop short with four elements, but must postulate an unlimited multitude of them, as many as there are distinct qualities. This may be called a qualitative atomism, as distinguished from the quantitative atomism to be mentioned presently. Reality consists of a countless number of " things," or qualitatively simple ele- ments, representing every distinguishable aspect of the world. These, elements are infinitely divisible, and are everywhere diffused in the universe ; so that in each indi- vidual particle of matter all elements whatsoever are rep- resented, everything is in everything else, and objects are not separated strictly, or "cut off from one another with a hatchet." Nevertheless, the varying proportions in which the elements appear, and the fact that in any par- ticular object some of them are present in such infinitesi- 30 A Student's History of Philosophy mal quantities as to be unrecognizable, render possible the apparent differences that meet the eye. The only change is change of spatial position, by which the qualities are intermingled in varying proportions. Along with this atomistic hypothesis, Anaxagoras is celebrated in antiquity as the originator of another concep- tion, which was to play a very important part in the devel- opment of philosophy. Parmenides' arguments, which resulted in stripping matter of every principle of change or motion, had left Anaxagoras, as it had left Empedocles, in a position where he needed some outside source of move- ment. Now Anaxagoras was impressed by the fact that the movement of the elements has not taken place in a purely haphazard way, but has given birth to an ordered and harmonious world. In the motions of the heavenly bodies, in particular, there had long been recognized an inner law and rhythm. This had brought about, indeed, the rise of science ; and to the harmony-loving mind of the Greek it was especially impressive. But law and order is, to unsophisticated thought at any rate, a product of intelli- gence ; and when it is considered, further, that only things possessing life or consciousness have the power of self- movement, it will not appear strange that Anaxagoras should have been led to identify the moving and ordering principle of the universe with intelligent Mind. In this way a dualism was set up. On the one hand are the ele- ments, entirely inert ; while over against them stands Nous, or Reason, which alone is self-moved, and which is the cause of motion in everything else. This is the first conscious separation of the rational life of mind, under its own proper name, from its en- tanglement with the rest of the universe ; and as such, it marks an important step. It gives an intimation of that view of the world which subordinates material pro- cesses to a conscious rational purpose, and which, under the name of teleology, has ever since been contesting with the mechanical theories of science the right to the ^ axU-^c+jL Greek Philosophy 31 supreme place in the interpretation of the universe. With Anaxagoras, indeed, the conception still remains confused and obscure. In spite of his separation of reason from the material elements, Anaxagoras cannot get clear of the limitations of his predecessors ; and when he comes to a description of the Nous, it still retains among its rational and ideal qualities others that we should have to call material. So, too, he fails to put his principle to any practical use in explaining natural phenomena ; it serves only to give the initial fillip which sets the elements in motion. Socrates, in one of the Platonic dialogues, tells of the disappointment he met when he came to the study of Anaxagoras' system. He had been told that here everything was accounted for by Mind. Accordingly, he had expected to have the pur- pose of things pointed out to him the reason for the earth's shape, e.g., or the motions of the planets, explained by reference to the end they serve. And instead of this, he found Anaxagoras having recourse to just the same ele- ments of air and earth and water, in mechanical interaction, which were to be met with in other philosophers. What- ever we may think of Anaxagoras' consistency, however, it was a significant thing merely to have asserted the suprem- acy of Reason in the universe. It was left for others to point out more clearly what the assertion meant. 3. Meanwhile atomism took a different, and what was afterward to prove a more fruitful direction, in Leucippus, and in his greater pupil, Democritus of Abdera. Leucippus denied the differences in quality among the elements, which Empedocles and Anaxagoras had supposed, and went back to the Eleatic conception of Being as mere body, stripped of all qualitative characteristics. As he did not go further, however, and give up the reality of change, he had to have some explanation of the apparent qualitative facts which make up the phenomenal world ; and the only agency open to produce them was change in spatial position. But this made it necessary to admit what the Eleatics denied the real existence of Not-being, or empty space. Ac- 32 A Student's History of Philosophy cordingly, the solid lump of existence, which for Parmen- ides had constituted reality, was broken up into an infinite multitude of reproductions of itself in miniature, or atoms. These atoms, too infinitesimal to be visible to the eye, and differing from one another only in shape and size, are eternal and unalterable, and possess, indeed, individually, the characteristics of Parmenides' Being, except its im- mobility. They, and their changing relations, alone are real ; all else is appearance, which is explained ultimately by these real movements in space. In Leucippus, we have the first clear statement of phil- osophical materialism the reduction of true reality to what afterward came to be known as the primary qualities of body. This proved to be a point of view of the greatest value for scientific thought ; by its reduction of qualitative to quantitative differences, it opened the way for the mathematical treatment of phenomena, which belongs to scientific method. The same result flows from its rejec- tion of teleology and final causes, in favor of a mechanical explanation. Since all reality alike is qualitatively indif- ferent, there is no room for a special kind of existence which shall impart motion and direction to the rest; motion, therefore, has to be restored to each atom as its original possession. And as thus all the data necessary for understanding the world are immanent in the notion of matter itself, it is not necessary to appeal to purpose, or intelligence, or to anything except the necessary laws of mechanical interaction. Mind, or soul, is no exception to the rule ; it is composed of the fire atoms, which are the finest and most active of all. These soul atoms exist everywhere; but they are only endowed with sensation when they come together in certain quantities, as they do in the human body. Consciousness, therefore, disappears with the dissolution of the body. The scientific elaboration of this standpoint at the hands of Democritus (about 460-360 B.C.), was one of the great philosophical achievements of antiquity. Democritus Greek Philosophy 33 is to be classed, indeed, not with the earlier philosophers, but rather with Plato and Aristotle, whose older contem- porary he was, and whom he rivals in the comprehensive- ness of his system. In particular, he goes beyond his predecessors by the more elaborate treatment which he gives to the philosophical doctrine of knowledge. His whole theory compels him to insist upon a difference between our ordi- nary perception, which gives us the unreal appearance of things as qualitatively distinct, and thought, which discloses their true atomic structure ; and it only is in thought terms that science deals. On the other hand, his materialism' forces him to explain knowledge in terms of contact, and so to reduce it ultimately to the form of touch. He does this through the theory of effluxes, or images, a theory which remained influential even down to the time of Locke. External objects shed minute copies or images of themselves. These enter the sense organs which are fitted to receive them, and, by setting in motion the soul atoms, give rise to perception. How, then, does false knowledge differ from true, sensation from thought? This question, which the earlier philosophers had been unable to answer, Democritus seems to have solved with- out admitting any difference in kind between them. Thought is caused by those finer images which copy the atomic structure of things, and which, as they give rise to a gentler motion of the soul, are able to affect us only as more violent disturbances are prevented. Sensation, on the contrary, being due to the larger and coarser images, which aggregates of atoms give off, throws the soul into the violent commotion which results only in confused per- ceptions, i.e., in subjective and phenomenal appearance. 7. The Pythagoreans i. At the same time with the development which has just been traced, another interconnected movement was gain- ing numerous adherents. The originator of this movement is the semi-mythical figure of Pythagoras, a native of 34 A Student's History of Philosophy Samos, who lived about 580-500 B.C., and who, after many travels, finally settled down at Crotona in Italy. The facts about Pythagoras are not easy to discover, but it is apparent that, besides being a philosopher, he had also certain practical aims. He was the founder of a religious society, in which more or less ascetic ethical and social ideals appear to have been at least as important as scien- tific doctrines. The school was a brotherhood, bound together by common beliefs and rules, and common intel- lectual pursuits. Some of the rules of the order have come down to us, and they throw an interesting light on its character. Apart from the injunction of celibacy and ascetic practices, of meditations, devotions, and the social virtues, there are other requirements of a more ambig- uous nature. Do not sit on a quart measure ; do not eat the heart ; do not stir the fire with iron ; do not look in a mirror beside a light ; when you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together and smooth out the impress of the body : these are a few that are sufficiently characteristic. So, also, the prohibition of animal sacrifices, of the use of wool, of the eating of beans. Most of these rules seem so trivial, that the later Pythagoreans were driven to inter- pret them metaphorically, and to find in them all sorts of hidden wisdom. But anthropology throws a different light upon them, and makes it plain that they are simply survivals of primitive savagery, based on the notion of taboo, and similar customs and superstitions. They seem to have appealed to Pythagoras as a suitable instrument for bringing about a reform of the widespread luxury and license which marked the age, and which have made the neighboring city of Sybaris a byword for self-indulgence. There are other indications that a wave of religious revival had been passing over Greece, marked by a deepened sense of guilt, and of the need of expiation. Such a revival always tends to turn back to the authority of ancient customs, with which the religious feeling is deeply implicated, particularly on its more gloomy side. This Greek Philosophy 35 sense of guilt shows itself in the doctrine of the trans- migration of souls, which plays a large part in the Pythag- orean teaching, and which has its chief attraction in its emphasis on the fact of moral retribution. The rapid growth of the new society, its inner coherence, and its possession of scientific knowledge, soon gave it a pre- ponderating political influence in Crotona, and other Ital- ian cities. Its exclusiveness, however, and its rather supercilious and self-righteous attitude, gave strength to its opponents, and finally resulted in its overthrow at the hands of the popular party. 2. Deprived of political power, the movement continued to exert a more permanent influence through the medium of those philosophical and scientific aspects which probably had been present to some extent from the start. The doc- trine of the Pythagoreans is summed up in the statement that the reality of things consists in number. If we take number in the modern sense, as distinguished from the concrete objects to which it applies, this is too abstract a conception to mean anything, even to us ; and it certainly would not have been intelligible at so early a period. It is necessary to interpret it, therefore, if it is to be made consistent with the rest that is known of Greek thought ; and the most probable interpretation seems, briefly, to be this : It is the common presupposition of the Greek type of mind, that the real is the definite. It is only as Chaos takes on ordered and harmonious form, that we have any- thing deserving to be called a world. But if existence is spatial and material, then such regularity is most obvi- ously to be found in the geometrical forms to which space lends itself. With the Pythagoreans, this takes shape in the doctrine that the Cosmos is the result of bringing together two factors the Unlimited, or infinite and formless empty space, and the Limit which is given to this. The result is the world of definite forms, which partake of the character- istics of both. They are spatial in their nature, but it is limited space. It was with this ascending series of geomet- 36 A Student's History of Philosophy rical forms regarded, however, not as abstractions, but as concrete physical facts that the number series seems to have been identified, and so to have got its entrance into the theory. Thus, the number one is the point, two the line, three the surface, four the cube, and so on. The interest of the Pythagoreans in musical theory, and their discovery of the numerical relations of the length of the strings, may have helped to emphasize this identification. Of course, the actual scientific results which they had to show from their investigations, were scanty. The inquiries just mentioned, concerning the numerical relations involved in musical harmony, had some value ; but the extension of the same idea to phenomena on a larger or a different scale for example, their fancy about the " music of the spheres," and their theory that the soul is merely the harmony of the body, as a melody is the harmony of the lyre led them into the realm of pure guesswork, or poetic imagination. For the most part, their procedure consisted in attempting to discover, through the use of more or less fanciful analo- gies, a special number for every sort of existence. Thus, opportunity is represented by the number seven ; marriage by the number five the first harmony between the male (odd) and the female (even). The triviality of these results should not lead us, however, to ignore the real value of their fundamental thought. The recognition that the aim of scientific inquiry is the discovery of numerical relation- ships, was destined, under more favorable conditions, to be taken up again, and, in connection with the atom- ism of Democritus, to be made the basis of all modern science. LITERATURE Burnet, Early Greek Philosophers. Blackie, Horae Hellenicae, p. 255. Grote, History of Greece. Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece. Symonds, Greek Poets, Vol. I. Zeller, The Pre-Socratic Schools, 2 vols. THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. TRANSITION TO THE STUDY OF MAN 8. The Sophists i. The Growth of Critical Inquiry. So far, the powers of the Greek mind have been directed chiefly to the theoretical solution of the objective, cosmological problems that are connected with processes in nature. And along this line the results have been somewhat re- markable. In the space of a few generations, a concep- tion has been elaborated which is strikingly similar to what has been, up to within a short time at least, the hypothesis of the most modern science. The reduction of qualitative to quantitative differences, the connection of mathematics with scientific method, the resolution of all phenomenal bodies into a multitude of minute moving particles, or atoms, of all change into change of position on the part of these atoms, and all efficiency into mechanical impact, is expressed with a definiteness that leaves little to be de- sired. Nevertheless, this development now stops abruptly, and for nearly two thousand years the course of human thought takes, in its dominant aspects, an altogether dif- ferent line. How does Greek atomism differ from modern science, that the one should be so barren, and the other so rich in results ? Evidently the most far-reaching difference consists sim- ply in this : that modern science is no mere guess at the ultimate nature of things in general, but an experimental investigation of the way in which things really act in de- tail. It is this which gives it its immense influence on modern life. To know the actual laws of things is to con- 37 38 A Students History of Philosophy trol them ; and this practical service which it renders, is what has made of science one of the most powerful instru- ments of growth in civilization that has ever been devised. The Greeks, on the contrary, had not reached the point where they could master the concrete behavior of objects. Their atomism is less a science than a mere philosophy, in which the chief interest is the theoretical one of reducing all the complexity of life to a single formula. And as such, it has no great contribution to make to the concrete human ends, out of which the larger movements of human thought always flow. It is not far enough advanced to touch human life on the practical side, like modern science ; and in rela- tion to the more spiritual interests of man, it is plainly inadequate. The mechanical view of the world tries to re- duce things to a statement which ignores all reference to the facts of conscious life, of spiritual value, of aesthetic, and ethical, and social ideals. And because it is such an abstraction, it has no real interpretation to give of the as- pects which it leaves out. But philosophy cannot long ignore what interests men most; and as the physical theories of the early period had thus no great contribution to make to the good of human life, it was natural that they should be laid aside for the time being, and attention directed to the more concrete facts of individual and social conduct, i.e., to Ethics. It was only when this more press- ing problem had to some extent been worked out and formulated, that philosophy was able to come back with profit to the mechanical and physical aspects of the uni- verse. Meanwhile, in a negative way, the theories of the phys- ical philosophers had helped prepare for this subsequent movement a movement which represents most characteris- tically the genius of Greek thought, and of which the Sophists were the immediate precursors. At first, philoso- phy had directed its criticism only against such ideas as were primarily theoretical in their nature, and had left com- paratively untouched the realm of conduct. Any real Greek Philosophy 39 tampering with the foundations of social life would, indeed, at the start have been vigorously resented. A society which is still based upon the morality of custom and tradi- tion, cannot afford to allow too free an examination of its foundation and sanctions, if it does not wish to disinte- grate. Indirectly, however, philosophy had served seri- ously to weaken these sanctions. Morality and the social life always stand for the mass of men in close connection with religious ideas and practices, and this is particularly true of early society, where religion is still intimately bound up with every detail of life. The physical philosophy had thoroughly shaken the hold of the popular religion for a multitude of educated men. The stories of the gods, offen- sive alike to the scientific and to the moral sense, were rationalized and explained away; and while philosophers might not go to the length of denying outright the gods' existence, even the materialist Democritus supposed that the interplay of atoms had given rise to beings, not immor- tal indeed, but far more perfect than ourselves, whom we call gods, still the clearly defined conceptions of the past were all the time being attenuated into a vague naturalistic pantheism, which lost all grip on the concrete conduct of life. The growth of naturalism, and the decay of an active belief in the old mythology, shows itself plainly, e.g., in the Greek historians. Instead of the Homeric gods, who concern themselves with the smallest details of human life, and are called in to explain even that which obviously needs no explanation, there is already in Herodotus a fair development of the historical spirit, which tries to get at true causes, and which stops to weigh the evidence even in the case of stories that are sacred. In spite of a good deal of native piety, Herodotus is glad to rationalize when he sees his way to it. So, e.g., he explains the legend of the rape of Europa, as perhaps growing out of what was historically a capture by pirates. And when we reach Thucydides, we have a thoroughly modern historian, whose narrative has become purely secular, and who has nothing 40 ^4 Students History of Philosophy to do with anything except human and natural motives. When, therefore, the ideas of conduct came themselves in turn to be criticised, they had already lost a large measure of their sacredness and solidity. There had already been a certain amount of ethical reflection among the Greeks. The writings of the so- called Seven Wise Men, e.g., were largely moralistic. The early moralists, indeed, had been content for the most part with the enunciation of disconnected ethical and prudential maxims of which moderation is the key-note on the basis of the customary morality ; while their social and political applications were partisan, rather than theoretical and fundamental. Nevertheless, the mere fact that such a literature was called forth, indicates a growing unrest, and a feeling of the insecurity of the foundations of con- duct which demanded counteracting forces. In particular, the appearance everywhere in the Greek cities of the Tyrant, usually a vigorous personality, who, from the rdle of a popular hero, ended by setting up his private will as superior to the whole state, had impressed a stamp of egoism and individualism upon the age. A new literary movement gave expression to this individualism ; it was fostered especially at the courts of the new rulers, and its characteristic was the personal note of lyric poetry. The tendency to make criticism more thoroughgoing, was par- tially checked by the Persian wars. The pressure of a national crisis, and the wave of moral enthusiasm called forth by the heroic way in which it was met, lent a new life to traditional institutions and beliefs. But as the dan- ger passed, and Greece, especially Athens, entered upon a career of prosperity unknown before, the tendencies already present in the Greek life became more and more insistent. This result was inevitable. The tacit acquiescence in the status quo, the unquestioning acceptance of law as divine and obligatory, the merging of one's individual life as a matter of course in the community and civic life, and Greek Philosophy 41 the recognition of the superior claims of the latter, could not long remain unchallenged under the conditions which marked Greek political life during the fifth century. The constant revolutions and changes of government growing out of the struggles of the popular party with the aristoc- racy, and the wide extension of democratic principles, made it impossible that the old attitude should be persevered in. No one could permanently preserve a feeling for the divinity and inviolability of laws which were changed from year to year, laws which he had seen his neighbors tinker- ing at in the popular assembly, under the influence of prejudices and passions, and which he himself had had a hand in constructing. In this turmoil of social conditions, when the old ideals, based on the life of custom, were slowly yielding to new circumstances, it could not fail to come about that there should be an effort to discover the real basis of social life as such, of law, and justice, and morality, and to justify at the bar of individual reason the institutions which hitherto had been accepted on authority. It is the sense of this conflict between the new and the old, which gives rise to some of the characteristic problems of the drama. The old tribal conceptions of guilt and retribu- tion, comparatively unmoralized and external, are being undermined by the new feeling for the worth of the in- dividual, and the need that his acts should be grounded in his personal will and choice to become ethically signifi- cant. In ^Eschylus the old ideals still largely maintain themselves ; it is only when we get to Euripides, with his pervasive scepticism, and individualism, and modernity, that we realize how far thought has advanced from its primitive caution. 2. The Sophists. It was largely the class of men known as the Sophists, who were responsible for bringing this change of attitude to clear consciousness. The Sophists were an outgrowth of the peculiar political conditions of the time. For the young man of good birth, who had to keep up the r61e of "gentleman," the natural, almost the 42 A Student's History of Philosophy only, career to look forward to, was connected with the political life of his city. Now for this, the most obvious and indispensable qualification was the ability to speak well and persuasively. In the small states of Greece, where each citizen had an immediate voice in determining public policy, political preferment, success in carrying one's meas- ures, and even self-preservation against the attacks of op- ponents, depended directly on one's skill in carrying his audience with him. A demand arose, accordingly, for teachers who should train men for public life; and the Sophists came forward to meet this demand. The repre- sentatives of the higher education of the day, they made, like the modern university professor, the teaching of wis- dom a profession. As there were no settled seats of learning, they wandered from city to city, picking up their pupils, mostly the sons of rich men, wherever they could find them, and supporting themselves by the fees they re- ceived. The basis of their work was apt to be rhetorical, but with the abler Sophists, this was broadened out to cover the field of an all-round and liberal culture. Any knowl- edge that was available of the workings of the human mind, of literature, history, language, or grammar, of the principles underlying the dialectic of argument, of the nature of virtue and justice, was clearly appropriate to the end in view. And so in the case of the greater Soph- ists Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, and Gorgias are the names best known to us we meet with men possessed of a varied, in some cases of an encyclopaedic, learning, and able to present this systematically and skilfully. Now all this seems to be innocent enough, and to supply no justification for the extreme hostility and suspicion with which the Sophists were regarded by the populace, and by such reactionary upholders of tradition as Aristophanes. In reality, however, there were some grounds for this sus- picion. On the practical side, merely, there always was a danger lest the Sophistic skill be prostituted to unsocial ends. In Aristophanes' Clouds, the worthy Strepsiades, Greek Philosophy 43 driven to his wits' end by the debts in which his son has involved him, is represented as turning to the Sophist Soc- rates, for the means to extricate himself by cheating his creditors. And when, after he proves too stupid himself to master the new learning, his son takes his place, and ends by winning his suits in the court, the latter shows himself a proficient disciple by ill-treating his own father in turn, and then justifying his actions in true Sophistic style. Apart, however, from such chances for abuse, which no doubt were often taken advantage of, there was a more fundamental reason for the popular distrust. The habit of unrestricted inquiry and discussion which was crys- tallized by the Sophistic movement, the free play of the mind over all subjects that interest men, meant the over- throw of much in the existing civilization. But men do not like to have the foundations of their lives shaken ; and when these foundations have never been rationalized, and have no better warrant than unthinking custom, the mere motion to examine them critically, seems to be risking the solidity of the whole social structure, and is resented accordingly. Nor, indeed, was there very much in the thought of the Sophists to counteract this disintegrating tendency. In so far as their teaching implied a criticism of existing things, it was negative in its effects. Thought had not yet been exercised sufficiently to discover a rational stand- ard, to take the place of the standard of authoritative tra- dition which was being destroyed. Just the admission that each man has the right to test the truth of anything whatsoever, by referring it to his own private judgment, seems at first to do away with the possibility of an abso- lute criterion, and to resolve society into a mass of ele- mentary units, each recognizing no principle of authority outside himself. This was strengthened, as has been said, by the practical aim of the Sophistic teaching. The goal of the politician was not so much truth, as victory. This made it necessary that, like the modern lawyer, he should 44 A Student's History of Philosophy be nimble-witted enough to take any side, to seize any loophole of argument, to be able, if need be, to make the worse appear the better reason a procedure likely to obscure rather than clarify the ultimate principles of truth, if any such there be. 1 On this basis, it was easily possible for a conception to arise which should reduce society to a mere complex of individual men, each looking out primarily for his own private interests, a conception which had its counterpart in that atomism in the outer world, with which the theories of the physical philosophers had already fa- miliarized men's minds. In the case of the earlier and greater Sophists, there is no evidence that there was any intention thus to under- mine the foundations of society, or to promote an extreme scepticism and individualism. For the most part, these were men of excellent moral ideals, who honestly meant to train their pupils to a life of virtue and usefulness in the state ; the famous Choice of Hercules by Prodicus, and 1 This, for Aristophanes, is all that the Sophist stands for, and no doubt in many cases the emphasis in their teaching looked sufficiently in this direction to give grounds for his strong dislike. Cf. the following lines from the Birds (Frere's translation) : " Along the Sycophantic shore, And where the savage tribes adore The waters of the Clepsydra, There dwells a nation, stern and strong, Armed with an enormous tongue, Wherewith they smite and slay : With their tongues, they reap and sow, And gather all the fruits that grow, The vintage and the grain; Gorgias is their chief of pride, And many more there be beside Of mickle might and main. Good they never teach, nor show But how to work men harm and woe, Unrighteousness and wrong; And hence the custom doth arise, When beasts are slain in sacrifice, We sever out the tongue." Greek Philosophy 45 the eloquent discourse of Protagoras, in Plato's dialogue of the same name, are examples of what their teaching could be at its best. Nevertheless, the forces which they set in motion inevitably led beyond their own position. The first step had been to abandon the naive acceptance of the obligatoriness of law as such. The growing recognition of the great diversity in the practice of different communities, and the habit, which democracy fostered, of setting up the citizen himself to judge the laws, gradually tended to break down their sanctity. As, however, men were not ready all at once to give up their old feeling about law, there resulted an important distinction. This was the distinc- tion between merely statute law, and those ultimate prin- ciples on which the moral life and society rest ; or, as it came to be expressed, between what is right only by cus- tom or convention, and what is right by nature. This latter was at first found somewhat vaguely in the law of the ethical life, or "justice," which thus was still taken largely for granted. But the same criticism which had destroyed the abso- luteness of ordinary law, was presently extended to the conception of moral law as well. The almost universal assumption which lay back of moralizing reflection and ethical exhortation in early times that virtue and justice are the only safe way of getting on in the world, and should be sought as a matter of far-sighted prudence became less obvious the more it was pondered over. Such an assumption needs, perhaps, to be made by the majority of men, if they are to remain held by the traditional virtues ; but does it approve itself to reason ? To the intelligence enlightened by the casting off of unthinking habits of moral judgment, as to the writer of the book of Job, it does not seem evident that the righteous always prosper, and the wicked come to grief. Injustice has its full share, if not more than its share, of the good things of life, and apparently enjoys them none the less for the crimes that have been committed to procure them. If, 46 A Students History of Philosophy then, the motive of conduct is our own advantage and happiness, and what other end can maintain itself ? and if the fear of the gods, whose very existence is in question, is no longer before the eyes of the emancipated man, have virtue and justice themselves any other title to our respect than mere convention ? It may be advisable often to yield to the prejudice in favor of these things ; but if we can disregard them safely, and it clearly is to our interest to do so, it is only folly to allow mere words like "right" and "good," "injustice" and "evil," to stand in our way. There were not lacking men to draw this final conclu- sion. In the last resort, might is right. The law of nature is to satisfy, if we can, those appetites which nature has implanted in us, in common with the rest of her creatures. Moral terms, with their implication of praise or blame, are only conventional, either the invention of the many to restrain the more powerful few, or of rulers who wish thereby to rivet the chains of their subjects. " For nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker, and in many ways she shows among men as well as among animals that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. If there were a man who had sufficient force, he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws, sinning against nature ; the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and natural justice would shine forth." 1 The outcome of such a tendency was bound to be fatal to the welfare of Greek society ; and the perception of the danger is one of the main things which justify us in separating Socrates and Plato from the Sophists in the narrower sense. It is true that these conclusions were not often expressed so nakedly; but they were in the air. 1 Plato, Gorgias, 483. This, and the subsequent quotations from Plato, are from Jowett's translation. (Oxford University Press. American ed. by Chas. Scribner's Sons.) Greek Philosophy 47 Their real source lies, not in any group of individual thinkers, but in the whole state of political life, in " that great Sophist, the Public," as Plato expresses it. The utter unscrupulousness and rapacity which had invaded the relations of the different Greek states to one another, could not fail to be carried over into the realm of private morals ; it is no Sophist, but a practical politician and man of the world, a despiser of all philosophy, who stands in Plato as the most extreme and outspoken representative of the gospel of force. The Sophistic movement was not a cause, but a symptom; its danger lay in its stimulation of pre- cisely those tendencies which needed control. "The Soph- ists do but fan and add fuel to the fire in which Greece, as they wander like ardent missionaries about it, is flam- ing itself away." 1 If, now, we attempt to estimate the value of the move- ment, it may be said that, in spite of its failings, it represents an important stage in the growth of human intelligence. The attitude which accepts without question the moral and social obligations of the society into which a man is born, avoids a vast amount of friction and unrest, but it has its drawbacks as well. In such a society, there is no inward principle of conscious and self -directed growth. Because men have simply inherited the forms of their belief and conduct, and have not been accustomed to ask why these are accepted, and whether they really perform the service that would justify the tenacity with which they are held, there is no way of going to work consciously to change conditions. And when changes are forced upon society through the stress of outward circumstances, men are helpless to adapt themselves to the new situation. This power of adaptability, which is so necessary to progress, implies that the individual man is no longer swallowed up in his tribe or state. It implies that he has recognized his own individuality, his right to appeal from the bar of mere authority, and justify to himself the grounds on which he 1 Pater, Plato and Platonism. 48 A Students History of Philosophy is to believe and act. So long as primitive social condi- tions are fairly satisfactory, and maintain themselves in a reasonable degree of integrity, the positive advantages which they offer, as the safeguards of a settled life, are of too much value to be lightly trifled with. But as soon as this stability begins to weaken, as it was commencing to do in Greece, a change of attitude is a necessity of self-pres- ervation. Men can no longer rest upon the traditional forms that have served their day ; and so they have to fall back upon themselves, and upon their ability to strike out paths in a measure different from the old. And the first step is, to recognize their independence of the old ; to recognize that there is at least a sense in which man is greater than society, and has the right to make society, with all its creeds and institutions, subservient to his own needs and wishes. But in coming to recognize this, there is great danger of swinging to the other extreme, which itself stands in need of correction. Let it be granted that no mere author- ity of gods, or king, or fellow-citizens, has, as such, any absolute claim on the individual man ; that he is essen- tially free, and in his freedom can demand that every- thing claiming authority over him, should first approve itself to his reason. In what, nevertheless, does this reason and this freedom consist ? Is man the measure of all things, in the sense that each man has his own private reason, incommensurable with that of any one else ? And is freedom, similarly, the mere right to do as one individ- ually pleases? It is to this that the Sophistic thought tends to swing ; and in so doing, it opens up one of the central problems of philosophy. What, namely, do we mean by the Individual? Is he simply the self-centred unit which at first glance he seems to be ; a body distinct from all other bodies, with its private appetites and desires, seeking to compass its own preservation and gratification, without reference to any one else ? Is he a reality quite outside his relation to society as a whole, whose existence, Greek Philosophy 49 therefore, is immaterial to him, except as it serves to further his individual and sensuous interests ? Or, is man's nature to be taken as something wider than this ? Is it possible, without falling back upon the purely external restraints of custom and authority, to find in man's own self the laws that shall connect him again with the larger life of the world, and enable him to establish securely once more the concrete institutions of society and the state ; not now as something impressed upon him from the outside, but as an outgrowth of his own needs, and an expression of his own inmost being ? In opposition to the growing individualism of the age, Socrates is the starting-point for another tendency, which became more clearly conscious in his successors, Plato and Aristotle. This is the tendency to emphasize the more universal and objective sides of man's life and knowledge. Socrates is, in the large sense of the word, himself a Sophist. He is as convinced as any one, of the necessity of subjecting the grounds of conduct to a rational examination, instead of accepting them uncritically on the basis of tradition. And so Aristophanes, as an adherent of the Old School, selects him as the arch-Sophist, to pillory in his comedy of the Clouds. But Socrates also is fully and consciously possessed of the unwavering conviction that morality and society can stand the test of this inquiry. Far from landing us in scepticism and ethical anarchy, criticism will establish all the more firmly the subordina- tion of the individual man to the larger social order. In his dawning perception of the way in which this result is to be brought about, Socrates is the forerunner of some of the most important philosophical tendencies of the future. 9. Socrates Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the son of an Athenian sculptor, but early abandoned his father's profession for the more congenial pursuit of philosophy. There is no 50 A Student's History of Philosophy more picturesque figure in the history of Greece. In per- sonal appearance the very opposite of the Greek ideal, with protruding eyes, thick lips, and snub nose, all this was forgotten when one came under the charm of his per- sonality and his conversation. And conversation was the one business of his life. Living in the most frugal man- ner, his meat and drink of the cheapest sort, without shoes to his feet the whole year round, and clinging to a single threadbare cloak that served for summer and winter alike, he spent his time in the market-place, or wherever men came together, satisfied if only he could find some one with whom to discourse upon the questions in which he took a perennial interest. " I have a benevolent habit," he says jokingly in one of Plato's dialogues, " of pouring out my- self to everybody, and I would even pay for a listener if I couldn't get one in any other way." It is to no lack of seriousness, however, on Socrates' part, that we are to attribute this mode of life. It is rather due to a genuine moral purpose, which he followed consist- ently from beginning to end. As he tells the story in Plato's Apology, the report had come to him that Chaero- phon, a friend of his, had put to the oracle at Delphi the question : Is any man living wiser than Socrates ? and the reply had been, that Socrates was indeed wisest of man- kind. Unable, in the consciousness of his own ignorance, to understand this, and yet not wanting to doubt the word of the god, Socrates had gone from one man to another who was reputed wise, that he might test this wisdom; and in every case he had found a conceit of knowledge, with nothing in reality back of it. A little questioning had quickly brought to light that each man was as igno- rant as he of all the higher concerns of human life ; the only difference lay in the fact that all the rest supposed themselves to be very wise indeed, whereas Socrates, though he was as ignorant as they, at least knew that he knew nothing. He concluded, therefore, that it was this consciousness of his own ignorance to which the oracle Greek Philosophy 51 had been referring, and that, by thus commending him, the god had chosen him out as an instrument for pricking the bubble of universal self-deception. Convinced pro- foundly that knowledge alone is salvation, he saw that the first and the essential step toward getting rid of the con- fused mass of opinion going by the name of knowledge, was to make its inadequacy apparent. He was the divinely appointed gadfly given to the state, " which is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life." This condition of ignorance was to Socrates, however, always to be a prelude to something better, not an end in itself. In spite of his insistence upon his own ignorance, no one can be more thoroughly convinced that there is truth, and that this truth is attainable by man. It is moral v truth, however, not scientific or metaphysical. " This is \ the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might, perhaps, fancy myself wiser than other men that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know. But I do know" and this suggests the positive side "that in- justice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil." 1 As regards the problems with which the physical philosophers had been busy, he is as sceptical as any one. But if we cannot know the movements of the heavenly bodies, or the number of the primitive elements, at least we may console our- selves with the thought that such knowledge would be of no use to us if we possessed it. All that man really needs is the knowledge of himself, his own duty and end : It was of the things, therefore, that lie nearest to man's human interests, that he was all the time questioning and debating piety and impiety, the beautiful and the ugly, the noble and the base, the just and the unjust, sobriety 29. 52 A Student's History of Philosophy and madness, courage and cowardice, what a state is, and what a statesman, what a ruler over men. Of anything whose practical bearing was not at once manifest, he was openly impatient. All that really concerns man is how to live to live his concrete life as citizen in a state. So long as there is ignorance almost complete on this all-important point, we have no energy to spare for guesses about non- essentials. The carpenter, the smith, the flute-player, the pilot, each knows his own business. He trains himself for one definite thing, and he can tell you just what that thing is, and what purpose it serves. For citizenship alone, in spite of its being vastly more complicated, and vastly more important, there is no special training, and there is no defi- - nite formulation of the end in view. Here every man is supposed to be competent by nature to pronounce on the most abstruse questions. If a man were to imagine that his mere inclination to be a physician, was a sufficient qualification to justify him in hanging out his sign, he would be laughed at. But men will aim at an important office in the state, on no more solid grounds than that they desire the office, and think they can get enough of their friends to vote for them to secure it. If we need knowl- edge, then, for the simplest and humblest pursuits, most of all do we need it for that pursuit which is the supreme end of man's life. And given adequate knowledge, nothing:! else is needed. No man will voluntarily do that which is against his best interests ; since, then, right, or justice, and these best interests of his nature, are identical, man has only to know the right, and he will do it freely. Virtue is \ knowledge this is, of all the doctrines that go back to ! Socrates, perhaps the most characteristic. /"" Socrates' mission is, therefore, in his own eyes, funda- i^mentally a moral and religious one. " Men of Athens, I honor and love you ; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting every one whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, Greek Philosophy 53 saying : O my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom, and truth, and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?" x He aims at knowledge, accord- ingly, not on its own account, but that it may be put in practice ; and since, in the field of ethics, there is no break between knowing and doing, in making men wise, he is at the same time making them good. Such a close connec- tion between knowledge and action may seem, indeed, to overlook certain obvious facts the many times we see and approve the better, and yet choose the worse. Per- haps there is more truth than we commonly admit in the answer, that such knowledge is no real knowledge, and that, when knowledge is truly vital and realized, it always carries action with it. But at any rate, there is one point which stands out with sufficient clearness. The statement; that virtue is identical with knowledge has at least this meaning : that virtue does not merely consist in following the customs of our forefathers, but is rationalized conduct. \ And so it has nothing to fear, on the contrary it has every- thing to hope, from the most thorough scrutiny of reason. The method by which Socrates attempted to secure these results, had a twofold aspect. He begins by shaking the foundations of a false assurance of knowledge. Starting in with an appearance of agreement, and a depreciation of his own wisdom, as compared with that which his interlocutor undoubtedly possesses, he induces the latter to offer a defi- nition of the matter in hand. Then, by a series of skilful questions, he develops the most contradictory conclusions from this, until, as Euthyphro says, " somehow or other our arguments, on whatever grounds we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away ; " and the one with whom he is arguing is compelled to confess that he has never carefully considered the subject, and that his notions about it are 29. 54 -^ Student's History of Philosophy indefinite, and based on mere confused opinion. This is the famous Socratic irony. For example, Euthydemus is very certain that he knows what an upright and righteous man is. I see, he says, you are afraid I cannot expound the works of righteousness ! Why, bless me, of course I can, and the works of unrighteousness into the bargain. Very well, replies Socrates, let us write the letter R on this side, and the letter W on that; and then anything that appears to us to be the product of righteousness, we will place to the R account, and anything that appears to be the prod- uct of wrong-doing, to the account of W. Where, then, shall we place lying ? Euthydemus is quite confident that this will go under W ; and so also will deceit, and chicanery, and the enslavement of f reeborn men. It would be quite monstrous to put these on the side of right and justice. But now, says Socrates, suppose a man to be elected general, and suppose he succeeds in enslaving an unjust and hostile state ; or he deceives the foe while at war with them, and pillages their property : are we to say that he is doing wrong ? And if he is not, shall we not be compelled to set these same qualities down also to the account of R ? As Euthydemus is forced to admit this, it becomes neces- sary to change the definition ; we will say now that it is right to do such things to a foe, but it still is wrong to do them to a friend. But stay a moment, Socrates goes on ; suppose a general invents a tale to encourage his demoral- ized troops, or a father uses deceit to get his sick child to take some medicine under the guise of something nice to eat, or you rob a friend of a knife which he is liable to use against himself ; are these things wrong too ? Is a straightforward course to be pursued in such cases, even in dealing with friends ? Heaven forbid ! the young man exclaims ; if you will let me, I take back my former state- ment once more. And so Socrates continues, until Euthy- demus comes to the conclusion that it is high time for him to keep silence altogether, or he will be proved to know absolutely nothing; and he goes off with his self- Greek Philosophy 55 confidence entirely shattered, though for that very reason in a much more teachable spirit than at the start. 1 Along with this negative aspect, however, there was a more positive side. Socrates' method rests on the assump- tion that every man has within him the possibility of knowl- edge. If the elements of knowledge did not exist down below the surface of opinion, he would have no standard by which to correct his first thoughts. Socrates' questioning serves only to disentangle what implicitly is there already ; he is an intellectual midwife, to bring truth to its birth. This is noteworthy by reason of the fact that it brings to the front the value of clear and exact definition, in opposition to the confused, self-contradictory, altogether loose and popular character of most that goes under the name of thinking, faults belonging not merely to com- mon opinion, but even to such pretenders to scientific knowledge as the Sophists, with their fondness for florid rhetoric and exhortation. But, furthermore, this emphasis on definition had other and far-reaching results. It has al- ready been noticed that the earlier philosophers were com- pelled to make a distinction between ordinary opinion, and philosophic thought, without, however, being able to define this very clearly. Since there was often a complete contra- diction between their own views, and the popular beliefs, the two evidently could not be on the same plane. The method of Socrates supplied a way of conceiving in what the dis- tinctiveness of thought consists. If knowledge is possible, then down beneath the unessential differences due to in- dividual prejudices and opinions, there is something in which all men agree, or can be led to agree. The method of philosophy will consist in stripping off these outer husks, and laying bare the common, universal element which they conceal. Thought, i.e., deals with what we call the concept, or general notion. This gets away from mere special cases and illustrations, and sums up the essential nature of the thing, which marks its point of 1 Memorabilia, IV, 2. 56 A Students History of Philosophy identity with other things of the same sort, and without which it would cease to be what it is. Instead, then, of taking our terms for granted in a dogmatic way, we need to criticise and test them, and find out what we really mean by them ; only when we have brought out this universal and essential element have we anything that can be called science, or true knowledge. It was left to Socrates' suc- cessor, Plato, to recognize the full importance of this idea. But even in Socrates it clearly points away from the sceptical and individualistic tendency. Instead of finding man's essential nature in those private desires, feelings, and sensations, which in a way separate him from other men, Socrates looked rather to the rational and universal elements in him, which bind all men together in the bonds of a valid knowledge, and in subjection to the dictates of an authoritative conscience. Socrates himself was never able fully to justify this view of man in a theoretical way. His surety rather took the form of faith a faith that in obedience to the laws of conscience and of society, man's true life would be found to consist. It was in large measure this unswerving confidence in the truth of the ethical ideal, which does not tolerate the least paltering with duty, even while our theoretical inquiry is still incomplete, that gave Socrates his great influence. He himself was a living and most impressive embodiment of the ideal which he preached, simple in his manner of life, unflinching in his courage, exercising the most rigid self-control over his desires and appetites. " It must have been," so he declared, " by feeding men on so many dainty dishes, that Circe produced her pigs." In consequence of this moderate and abste- mious life, his powers of endurance were remarkable. On military campaigns, besides showing great bravery in bat- tle, he had an extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue, and going without food ; " and when during a severe winter the rest either remained indoors, or, if they went out, had on no end of clothing, and were well shod, and had their Greek Philosophy 57 feet swathed in felts and fleeces, in the midst of this Socrates, with his bare feet on the ice, and in his ordinary dress, marched better than any of the other soldiers who had their shoes on." x His courage was shown in peace as well as in war. When acting as president of the prytanes, he had declined, in face of the popular clamor, to put to vote illegally the resolution condemning the generals at Arginusae; and once again, in the perilous times under the Thirty Tyrants, he had, at the risk of his life, refused to act contrary to the laws at their bidding. This combi- nation of rectitude of character, with striking intellectual gifts a combination which his personal peculiarities served rather to heighten than obscure gave to Socra- tes an influence on the thought of his day equalled by that of no other man. It is not strange, however, that he should have raised up enemies as well as friends. Few people can bear with equanimity the public exposure of their own igno- rance ; and Socrates' conception of his moral mission made him careless of the hard feelings he might excite. He fell, too, under the public suspicion which the sceptical and irreligious tendencies of the Sophistic movement had aroused in the minds of lovers of the old way of things, although he was himself of a deeply religious nature, and an observer of the customary forms of worship. Not long after the overthrow of the Thirty, therefore, he was pub- licly accused of denying the gods of the city, and of corrupting its youths, and was brought to trial. If he had been willing to adopt a conciliatory tone, he probably would have escaped ; but he refused to lower himself by flattering the people, when he was conscious of no guilt, and by a narrow vote, he was condemned to drink the hemlock. "And Crito made a sign to the servant; and the ser- vant went in, and remained for some time, and then returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Soc- 1 Symposium, 220. 58 A Student's History of Philosophy rates said : You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to pro- ceed. The man answered : You have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act. At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, as his manner was, took the cup and said : What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god ? May I, or not ? The man an- swered: We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough. I understand, he said ; yet I may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that other world may this, then, which is my prayer, be granted to me. Then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow ; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast ; so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed ; and at that moment Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out into a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness : What is this strange outcry ? he said. I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience. When we heard that, we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs ; and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and Greek Philosophy 59 asked him if he could feel ; and he said, No ; and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said : When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said (they were his last words) he said : Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius ; will you remember to pay the debt ? The debt shall be paid, said Crito ; is there anything else ? There was no answer to this question ; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendant uncovered him ; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, and justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known." 1 LITERATURE Plato, esp. Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Ton, Meno, Euthyphro, Protago- ras, Gorgias, Apology, Crito, Phcedo, Symposium. Xenophon. Memorabilia, Apology, Banquet. Grote, History of Greece, Vol. 8. Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools. Forbes, Socrates. 10. The Schools of Megara and Elis. Aristippus and the Cyrenaics. Antisthenes and the Cynics The influence which Socrates left behind him, while it was widespread and profound, was not so much the influ- ence of a definite philosophical doctrine, to which, indeed, he never wholly attained, as of an impressive personality. There are, accordingly, a number of distinct schools trac- ing their origin to him. In addition to the more impor- tant development of Socrates' teaching in Plato, there were 1 Phcedo ', 117. 60 A Student's History of Philosophy also the relatively unimportant schools of Megara and Elis, founded respectively by Euclides and Phcedo; and the more striking tendencies represented in the Cynics and Cyrena- ics. In these latter, we meet the first definite formulation of the two great types of ethical theory, which ever since have been contending with each other in the history of thought. Both of them profess to go back to Socrates. As we have seen, Socrates' own conception of the true end of human life was vague in its outlines. That virtue is the highest good, and that virtue is intimately bound up with the possession of knowledge or insight of this he was assured. But virtue, or insight, is good for what? For its own sake ? That leaves no content to virtue. To say that the supreme good is virtue, and that virtue is insight into the good, seems to be going in a circle ; good for what ? we ask again. Now the one obvious and seemingly unam- biguous answer to this is : pleasure, or happiness. This gives at last a definite content. All men will agree that pleasure is a good in its own right, needing no justification by reference to a more remote end ; and it is the only good about which they would so agree. i. The Cyrenaics. Socrates himself had had a leaning toward this solution, although he had not been altogether satisfied with it ; but with Aristippus of Cyrene, it is elevated to the position of a central doctrine. Pleasure is man's sole good pleasure in the most concrete form, and so, first of all, the more intensive pleasures of the body, although not such pleasures exclusively. If we could live from moment to moment, filling each with the fullest delight that sense and mind alike are capable of receiving, that would be the ideal of life. Unfortunately there are difficulties practical diffi- culties in the way of this. Our acts have consequences that we do not intend, and so in our well-meant pursuit of pleasure, we are apt nay, we are sure continually to be blundering upon pain and loss. Here, therefore, is the place for the Socratic insight. Only the wise man can be truly and permanently happy, he who does not let him- Greek Philosophy 61 self be carried off his feet by the rush of his passion ; who can enjoy, but at the same time be above enjoyment, its master. Wisdom is thus no sober kill-joy. It means simply the ability to weigh and compound our pleasures well ; the ability, while we seize the fleeting moment, at the same time, in full possession of ourselves, to look be- yond the moment, foresee the consequences our acts will entail, and choose accordingly. Since, then, it is the part of wisdom to avoid pain, as well as to win pleasure, the life of purely sensuous enjoyment will have to be checked and moderated in some degree, in favor of the less intense, but safer, joys of the mind. We are not to suppose that there is any shame attaching to the life of the senses as such, or any higher law to which this is subordinate; " nothing is disgraceful in itself." The necessity is based merely on prudential grounds, because to the abuse of such bodily pleasures, more definite penalties are attached. This conception of the end of life is known as Hedonism, and it never has been formulated more consistently and forcibly than in this statement of it first given by Aristip- pus. It is true that it affords no room for the play of those finer sentiments about the good and the just, the beauty of righteousness, the nobility of duty. But in compensation, it offers a well-defined view of life, with no nonsense about it, which lends itself to what is intellectually the simplest and most clear-cut of theories, and which, besides, appeals powerfully to the natural man. Naturally, this cutting away of the roots of the moral sentiments also carried with it religion. Theodorus is known as the Atheist ; and Euhemerus is the originator of a philosophy of religion on a naturalistic basis, in which the stories of the gods are carried back to historical events in the lives of human kings and heroes, misinterpreted by tradition a theory which had great notoriety in ancient times. Evidently, in all this, the really characteristic element in Socrates' thought has been lost. The universal factor in human life and knowledge, on which Socrates had so 62 A Student's History of Philosophy strongly insisted, has no place in the Cyrenaic scheme. Pleas- ure is essentially an individual matter, and the Cyrenaics were too logical to try, as more modern Hedonists have done, to make it yield as a result the desirability of the common good the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The pleasure which each man should seek for is, of course, his own. He is an individual looking out for number one, and beyond this has no obligations to society or the state. Society, in consequence, breaks up into a bundle of indi- vidual units. It is a mere name, with which the wise man will not concern himself. " I do not dream for a moment," says Aristippus to Socrates, " of ranking myself in the class of those who wish to rule. In fact, considering how serious a business it is to cater for one's private needs, I look upon it as the mark of a fool not to be content with that, but to further saddle oneself with the duty of providing the rest of the community with whatever they may be pleased to want. Why, bless me, states claim to treat their rulers pre- cisely as I treat my domestic slaves. I expect my attend- ants to furnish me with an abundance of necessaries, but not to lay a finger on one of them themselves. So these states regard it as the duty of a ruler to provide them with all the good things imaginable, but to keep his own hands off them all the while. So, then, for my part, if any one desires to have a heap of pother himself, and be a nuisance to the rest of the world, I will educate him in the manner suggested ; but for myself, I beg to be enrolled amongst those who wish to spend their days as easily and pleasantly as possible." 1 So also Theodorus : " It is not reasonable that a wise man should hazard himself for his country, and endanger wisdom for a set of fools." The difficulty of this is, that the universe does not seem to be arranged for the purpose of enabling gentlemen to avoid all disagreeable duties, and live " as easily and pleas- antly as possible." It is this logic of experience, which leads the Cyrenaics to a recognition of the impossibility of 1 Xenophon, Memorabilia, II, I. Dakyn's translation. (Macmillan & Co.) Greek Philosophy 63 getting pleasure unmixed with pain, and so to a growing tendency to substitute mere freedom from pain, for posi- tive happiness. This reaches its issue in the open pes- simism of Hegesias. Hegesias feels so strongly how ill-calculated life is to yield even a balance of pleasure, except for the favored few, that he denies to it all value : " Life only appears a good thing to a fool, to the wise man it is indifferent." He finds his only comfort in the utter painlessness of death ; and he presents this thought so per- suasively, that he is known as Treio-iddvaros the inciter to death, or suicide. 2. The Cynics. In opposition to Aristippus' one-sided in- sistence on pleasure, Antisthenes and the Cynics fastened on another aspect of Socrates' doctrine, which might be taken to represent his real spirit more adequately ; although in their hands it becomes equally one-sided. It has been seen that while Socrates is quite sure that man's chief good is virtue, and that virtue is bound up with knowledge, this leaves the content of virtue undetermined, and, consequently, gives no practical guidance for the direction of our lives. But another hint also had been offered by Socrates to supply the deficiency. When Socrates is taunted by Antiphon with his frugal way of living, and with the absence of all pleasures from his life, Socrates concludes his reply in these words : " Again, if it be a question of helping our friends or country, which of the two will have the larger leisure to devote to these objects ? he who leads the life which I lead to-day ? or he who lives in the style which you deem so fortunate ? Which of the two will adopt a soldier's life more easily ? the man who cannot get on with- out expensive living, or he to whom whatever comes to hand suffices ? Which will be the readier to capitulate and cry mercy in a siege ? a man of elaborate wants, or he who can get along happily with the readiest things to hand ? You, Antiphon, would seem to suggest that happiness con- sists in luxury and extravagance ; I hold a different creed. To have no wants at all is, to my mind, an attribute of 64 A Student's History of Philosophy godhead; to have as few wants as possible, the nearest approach to godhead. And as that which is divine is mightiest, so that is next mightiest which comes closest to the divine." * Now if virtue, as the rational conduct of life, is to be an end in itself, and bring satisfaction quite apart from all external aids, it follows that the course of our life must be freed as much as possible from the chances of the outer world, which are constantly liable to interfere with our happiness, if this is dependent upon them. It must be freed, that is, from everything which does not lie wholly within the power of the mind itself. And this can only be done by suppressing the desires which make things attractive or fearful. According to Antisthenes, then, that is the truest, and the only rational and virtuous life, which has the fewest possible wants, and which is thus, in so far as may be, self-centred, and independent of all external vicissitudes. Such an ideal as this might be interpreted in a way to make it decidedly inviting to a mind with any tinge of moral enthusiasm. As it is exemplified in Socrates him- self, e.g., it possesses a high degree of charm. Socrates does not inveigh against the pleasures of life as such ; in- deed, he commends his own life as in reality yielding more solid pleasures than the self-indulgent man ever can attain. The zest of a healthy appetite will give a relish to the coarsest and most moderate fare, which no spices can afford the jaded palate. But the wise man never will fall a slave to his appetites, and let them become necessary to his existence ; he estimates the worth of his own man- hood too highly for that. And he will find his main de- light rather in those higher pleasures which belong more intimately to his nature as a man friendship, conversa- tion, the joys of the intellect, and of service to the com- munity. His independence of the world is not the casting away of all obligations to his fellow-men, but rather the steadfast pursuance of duty regardless of its consequences. 1 Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, 6. Greek Philosophy 65 But this, again, implies a concrete and positive content to virtue. If virtue is really made to consist in a purely negative freedom from wants, it loses at once its inspiration, and lands us in the same individualism that had resulted from Aristippus' doctrine of pleasure. The ideal of the Cynic is to rid himself, not only of those artificial wants which complicate and enervate life, but of all ties whatso- ever that relate him to the rest of the world. He places himself deliberately outside the current of the world's life, but it is not because, like the early Christian, he finds here no abiding city, and so looks for another and a heavenly. He breaks all national and civic bonds, not to enter into some higher life, but to be free from bonds altogether. Like the Cyrenaic, he is a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world; but in neither case does this term stand for any enthusiasm for humanity, but only for a negation of social duties. In the midst of civilized society, he tries to live in a state of nature, and lead the existence of a savage. Diog- enes wanders about Greece with no other shelter than a tub, and throws away his cup as a last useless luxury, on seeing a child drink from his hands. This attitude might call for sympathy as a somewhat ostentatious acceptance of an enforced exclusion from the goods of civilization. Cynicism was, indeed, essentially the philosophy of the poor man, who already knew what it was to feel wants unsatisfied, before he made a virtue of his necessity. But the Cynic did not stop here. Decency itself he places among the conventions of which he prides himself on being rid ; and even such doctrines as the com- munity of women, and the harmlessness of eating human flesh, are propounded in the most offensive way. Under such conditions, ethical and intellectual ideals cannot long survive. When the human relationships which constitute the central fact of the ethical life are torn away, it is not strange that there should have resulted a moral temper, which sometimes approached the grossness of the animal ; and with no content for the intellect to feed upon, it, too, F 66 A Student's History of Philosophy could have no healthy growth. The dominant characteristic of the Cynic came to be a Pharisaic pride in his own spiritual poverty, which showed itself in a flaunting of his peculiarities in the face of every one, and in sneers at the practices which he condemned. The independence which he prized almost more than anything else, was the freedom of a sharp tongue, which held no man in reverence ; and his apparent self-abasement was only the mask for an arro- gant criticism of others. I see your pride, says Socrates to Antisthenes, through the holes in your cloak. The typical figure of Cynicism is Diogenes in his tub, ordering Alex- ander to stand out of his sunlight. The truth in Cynicism passed over to the later Stoics, as the Cyrenaic philosophy was revived in Epicureanism ; but in Stoicism this is so much more impressively formulated, that we may postpone any further consideration of it for the present. / LITERATURE Watson, Hedonistic Theories. Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles . Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, THE SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHERS II. Plato. The Academy For the history of philosophy, however, the movements which have just been considered represent only by-paths; the main development from Socrates passes through Plato and Aristotle. Plato, who stands among the supreme men of genius that the world has produced, was born in 427 B.C. He was a thorough aristocrat, alike by birth and in his whole temper of mind. He has a profound contempt for the opinions of the masses, and a true aristocrat's dislike of any taint of the shop or the workman's bench. Accord- ingly, in spite of exceptional opportunities for a political career, he never entered public life in Athens, choosing not to sacrifice his own freedom of thought and action to an ambition which must make him the servant of a fickle and Philistine democracy. In Plato, consequently, phi- losophy begins to take on that character of remoteness from practical concerns, and absorption in the affairs of the pure intellect, which, save in certain exceptional periods, it has had a tendency to retain ever since. This is very different from the spirit of Socrates. Soc- rates, himself a man of the people, was, in spite of his own disinclination to meddle very much in matters of practical politics, all the time looking toward the practical life of citizenship in his speculations. It is the end of life in its most concrete sense that he is endeavoring to formulate. This end is attained, not in the philosopher who stands aloof from the world, absorbed in transcendental dreams and abstractions, but in the citizen and man of affairs, who has something definite to do in the actual life about him, 67 68 A Student's History of Philosophy and needs to do it in the best way. This, however, implies a confidence in the ability of social institutions to meet the strain to which they were being subjected; and this confidence became less easy to maintain as time went on. The growing revelation of the insecurity of a civilization founded on custom, and the signs that the Greek states were already beginning to break down, are registered in this difference of attitude in the case of Socrates and of Plato. Plato still holds, in a way, to the Greek conception of true life as essentially a life in the state, although this already is being hard pressed by the opposing ideal of dis- interested philosophic contemplation, which finds salvation in the kingdom of the mind alone. But at least he no longer expects to find the conception realized in actual conditions in Greece, and turns instead to an ideal state, a Utopia, a pattern laid up in the heavens, which there is only a faint hope will ever be embodied upon earth. Plato came under the influence of Socrates when he was about twenty, and remained with him until Socrates' death, eight years later. We have little knowledge of him during this period, though he seems to have been within the inner circle of Socrates' disciples and friends. After his master's death he left Athens, and spent ten years in travel. During this time he became acquainted with other philosophical tendencies of the day, particularly at Megara, and among the Pythagoreans in Southern Italy. These influences tended to modify and broaden his own thought, and to lead him away from the exclusively ethical interests of the Socratic philosophy. In Sicily he came in contact with the celebrated tyrant Dionysius, and got along with him so ill, that he is said to have been sold into slavery, from which he was ransomed by a friend. On his return to Athens, a group of disciples gathered about him, and he became himself the founder of a school. This took the name of the Academy, from a gymnasium just outside the city, where Plato had a small estate, and where the members of the school were accustomed to meet. Here The Systematic Philosophers 69 he spent an uneventful life as a teacher, broken if we can accept the accounts that have come down to us by two more visits to Sicily. Dion, the brother-in-law of Dionysius, had become an ardent disciple of Plato's. After the tyrant's death, he induced Plato to come to Sicily, and undertake the education of the weak and dis- solute Dionysius the Younger. Here was an opportunity such as PJato had looked forward to : the combination of the supreme power in a state, with the possibility of a true philosophical training, might conceivably result in the philosopher-king of Plato's imagination, and the con- sequent establishment of the ideal government which should regenerate men. At first he was measurably suc- cessful, and made an impression on the better side of the young king's nature. For a time philosophy was the fashion in the Sicilian courts ; the floors were strewn with sand, and the courtiers suspended their revels, and busied themselves tracing geometrical figures. But Dionysius's nature was too feeble, and court influences too profoundly opposed to a reign of virtue and reason, to allow the experiment a very long life ; and Plato finally returned to Athens. He died in 347 B.C. I. Ethical Philosophy I. The Problem of Ethics. Perhaps we can best get hold of the spirit of Plato's thought, by starting from the ethical problem which he inherited from Socrates, since the ethical conception of the ultimate end of life, the highest good, is closely bound up with even his more purely meta- physical speculations. Now, when we begin to ask what con- stitutes the end of human life, the most obvious suggestion will be, once more, that it consists in happiness, or pleasure. There is, however, a difficulty here at once, unless we guard ourselves ; for no one will deny that pleasure may quite as well be an evil as a good, and may even be the most serious of evils. A moment of enjoyment may bring in its train a 70 A Students History of Philosophy swarm of disastrous consequences, which vastly overbalance it ; and that pleasure is rare indeed, which has not some attendant ill. " How singular a thing is pleasure," says Socrates, as his leg is released from the chain, before he takes the poison, " and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it ; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. I cannot help thinking that if Esop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together ; and this is the reason that, when one comes, the other follows, as I find in my own case pleasure comes following after the pain in my leg which was caused by the chain." 1 We need, then, to modify our first unqualified statement that pleasure is the good, and at least restrict it to such pleas- ures as are regulated by wisdom. There is nothing which men call desirable money, position, beauty which may not, if it fall into the hands of a fool, bring about his ruin, and so be the greatest of evils to him ; of what avail is it to possess a gold mine, if we do not know how to use our wealth except to bring harm on ourselves ? We are all the time misjudging thus what is best for us. A pleasure close at hand looks larger than far weightier ones in the distance, and so, misled by passion, we choose to our own hurt. Pleasure, then, apart from wisdom, has no right to be exalted to the place of the supremely good. Can we, then, say that wisdom is the good, to the exclusion of pleasure ? Evidently not, if wisdom is to be accompanied by positive pain. About a state of wisdom that is neither pleasurable nor painful, there might be more chance for debate. Such we may deem the felicity of the gods to be ; and Plato evidently feels a drawing toward such an ideal. But he is ready to admit that to the natural man the thought has no attractions, and that wisdom, divorced from the feeling side of life, is as little to be set up to o, 60. Tlie Systematic Philosophers 71 strive after, as pleasure unregulated by judgment. The supreme end, therefore, will combine the two. " Here are two fountains that are flowing at our side ; one, which is pleasure, may be likened to a fountain of honey ; the other, which is a sober draught in which no wine mingles, is of water pure and healthful. Out of these we may seek to make the fairest of all possible mixtures." * But how is the mixture to be made ? Are we to let in all pleasures on the same footing ? And if not, on what principle are we to draw a distinction ? Now it is clear that pleasure is a word which applies to a very wide diversity of facts. " Do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance ? that the fool is pleased when he is filled with foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom ? and may not he be justly deemed a fool who says that these pairs of pleasures are respectively alike ? " 2 Roughly, then, we may make these two divisions Plato adds still another : pleasures that belong to temperance, and wisdom, and virtue ; and those so-called lower, bodily pleasures, which appeal to the ordinary sensualist. We feel instinctively that these do not stand precisely on a level ; the pleasure of the saint in sacrificing himself for others, is not an equivalent of the pleasure of the debauchee, although they may go by the same name. But how are we to decide between the two? Plato makes the suggestion, which has been repeated in modern times, that we are bound in reason to accept here the judgment of the expert, the man who knows them both. The sensualist and the fool know nothing of the pleasures of self-control and of the mental life, and so their preference for the bodily pleasures stands for nothing. To the philosopher, however, the joys of the body are open equally with the joys of the mind ; and if he chooses the latter rather than the former, this means that the higher pleasures are the greater. T-Philebus, 61. 2 Philebus, 12. 72 A Student's History of Philosophy And the more we examine into the nature of pleasure, the more we see this judgment verified. How poor a thing, indeed, is that which we call pleasure of the senses, how fleeting in its existence, how compounded with pain. In truth, there is some reason to believe that it is noth- ing at all outside this relation in which it stands to pain. When our bodily functions have gone wrong, we feel a relief when the equilibrium is restored ; but this relief is only pleasant, in contrast with the pain which has preceded. Indeed, how can we conceive that that has any positive value, whose whole existence depends upon desires, and so upon the longing for something which we lack ? If the want is removed, the pleasure ceases; and if it is still present, we are still unsatisfied, and in pain. He, then, who thinks to satisfy himself with a life of bodily indul- gence, is like one who, as his ideal, should desire that he might be ever itching and scratching. The act of scratch- ing gives pleasure, but only as it affords relief to a positive evil behind it. The wise man asks, therefore, not merely for pleasures, but for pleasures that are pure, i.e., unmixed, so far as possible, with pain. As a little pure white is whiter and fairer than a great deal that is mixed, so man would do well to seek in his pleasures, not quantity, but quality. The so-called greater pleasures, by their very vehemence and lack of restraint, entail upon us all sorts of irremedi- able ills ; " a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure, all others are a shadow only." J If, then, neither pleasure alone, nor wisdom alone, is to be admitted as the final good, at least wisdom is far nearer to this than pleasure. Pleasure can only be admitted as it is tempered and controlled by wis- dom ; and the highest pleasure is not of the bodily appe- tites, but of the mind. Those who enslave themselves to the former never know what real existence means, nor do they taste of true and abiding pleasure ; " like brute 1 Republic, 583. The Systematic Philosophers 73 animals, with their eyes down and bodies bent to the earth, they fatten and feed and breed, and in their exces- sive love of these delights they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs that are made of iron, and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsub- stantial and incontinent." J But after all, if we leave the matter here, and agree that the life of philosophy and virtue should be chosen in preference to the sensual life, because, after taking every- thing into account, it turns out to be the pleasantest life, we have not reached the goal for which Plato is striving. If pleasure continues to be our final term, and it is but one pleasure balanced against another that turns the scales in the end, we are still at the mercy of a purely individual taste in morality. The philosopher may prefer the joys of the mind to those of the body, temperate pleasures to immoderate indulgence ; but how if other men have a different taste ? And they surely do have a different taste, or we should all be philosophers and virtuous. If, then, they claim the right to gratify this taste, who is it that shall say them nay ? Now Plato evidently feels, not simply that the life of reason is on the whole the most pleasurable life, but that it is our duty to prefer this life, whether in point of fact we do prefer it or not. Above pleasure, i.e., there is a higher principle by which pleasures are to be judged. One pleas- ure is purer and truer than another, not merely in the sense of being greater in quantity, or of being less intermixed with pain, but by reason of an absolute qualitative difference, which carries with it the obligation to prefer the one to the other. It is just as in the case of aesthetic taste. The excel- lence of music may be measured by pleasure, but the pleas- ure must not be that of the chance hearer; "the fairest music is that which delights the best and best educated, and espe- 1 Republic, 586. 74 A Students History of Philosophy cially that which delights the one man who is preeminent in virtue and education." J It is not, accordingly, the great- ness of the pleasure which constitutes what is best. It is knowledge of the best, which decides what judgment we are to pass on the various pleasures. In such a contest, the numbers of the contestants, or the quantity or intensity of their feelings, are as nothing when compared with worth. Pleasure, then "ranks not first, no, not even if all the oxen and horses and animals in the world in their pursuit of enjoyment thus assert, and the many, trusting in them, as diviners trust in birds, determine that pleasure makes up the good of life, and deem the lust of animals to be better witness than the inspirations of divine philosophy." 2 Ulti- mately, we cannot express the highest good in terms of pleas- ure at all, although no doubt happiness, or felicity, in some sense enters into it. Pleasure is subordinate to the good, and, far from forming the one end of existence, is often a thing which we have resolutely to fight against and subdue. But now, again, there comes up the question : How are we to define the good, if not in terms of pleasure ? Men say, e.g., that justice, which is the typical virtue, is honor- able and good ; what is their ground for such a statement ? In point of fact, unless they simply take it for granted on the evidence of a general moral agreement among man- kind, they always go to work to substantiate and to recommend it by an appeal to consequences, and to self- interest. It is assumed that a just life is counselled by the dictates of prudence, and an enlightened regard for one's own welfare. The just man will get along better, get rich faster, attain more surely to positions of honor and trust in the state, than the unjust. And if for any cause these results seem to be delayed, the gods stand ready to restore the balance by dispensing punishments, either in this life or another. " Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but why? Not for the sake of justice, but for 1 Laws, 658. 2 Philebus, 67. The Systematic Philosophers 75 the sake of character and reputation, in the hope of ob- taining some of those offices and marriages and other advantages that Glaucon was enumerating as accruing to the just from a fair reputation ; and they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of blessings which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious. And this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says that for the just the gods make "'The oaks to bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle, And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their own fleeces.' And Homer has a very similar strain ; for he speaks of one whose fame is " ' As the fame of some blameless king, who like a God Maintains justice, for whom the black earth brings forth Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish.' Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son offer the just; they take them down into the world below, where they have the saints feasting on couches with crowns on their heads, and passing their whole time in drinking; their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. But about the wicked there is another strain ; they bury them in a slough, and make them carry water in a sieve ; that is their por- tion in the world below, and even while living they bring them to infamy." 1 But now what if one sees fit to doubt the cogency of this appeal? What if, as he looks about the world, he sees the wicked triumph and the righteous man despised, injustice seated in high places tyrannizing over the just, and making their lot miserable ? What if his reason tells him that the gods of whom the poets sing are only myths, or, if they exist, have no concern with human affairs; and so men can look beyond the grave, with 1 Republic, 363. 76 A Student's History of Philosophy no fear of meeting there with any punishment for their misdeeds ? Is there still any reason why a man should v follow j ustice rather than its opposite ? Doubtless the \ reputation for justice passes current in the world for a certain value ; but if one could keep the appearance, with- out being hampered with the reality, would he not be so much better off ? Suppose we take the most extreme case imaginable: an unjust man who possesses all the things that men call blessings, and who, in spite of his inner corruption, contrives that every one should deem him righteous, and passes to his grave full of years and honors ; and, over against him, the just man, who has no reward whatever beyond his own consciousness of rectitude, who goes through life a prey to every kind of wretchedness and misfortune, brought on him by his very righteousness, and who, moreover, has the reputation everywhere of being actually unjust. Can we still say in such a case, that the life of the just man alone is truly blessed, or that justice is anything but an evil ? Yes, says Plato; in spite of all, it is only the just life that has any real worth. The consequences in the way of pain or pleasure make not the slightest odds. The good man who suffers unjustly, is still more to be envied than the tyrant who persecutes him. The wrong-doer who enjoys his ill-gotten gains unmolested is not the happier for his immunity ; nay, rather, he is the more miserable, if he be not made to meet with retribution. This, then, is the paradox which Plato's theory of the good must establish : how will he go about it ? 2. The Psychology of the Soul. Clearly it will be necessary to know, first, what it is we mean by justice, and the just life ; and the necessity of answering this, leads Pla"to to make the first serious attempt at an adequate psy- chology of the human soul. For if virtue is an attribute of man's nature, we must be able to define in what this nature consists. The beginnings of a science of the soul, or of psychol- The Systematic Philosophers 77 ogy, had already been made along two separate lines. On the metaphysical side, there was the primitive conception of the soul, or ghost, as a sort of fine matter, which in Ho- mer may be seen separating itself from the body like a smoke at death, and about which there centred such vague notions as the Greeks possessed of immortality, and future retribution or rewards. Closely connected with this strain, is the modern idea of a soul substance a something, pos- sessing faculties, which underlies the conscious life. But the soul in this sense is of very little account as an expla- nation of the concrete processes that make up our actual consciousness. Toward a psychology in this latter sense, also, the Greeks had made some progress in an unsystem- atic way. It had been a necessity, indeed, of their politi- cal life. When political affairs are carried on by free discussion, and influence won, not by arbitrary force, but by persuasion, a certain rough knowledge of the workings of the . human mind is indispensable. The successful orator must to a certain extent have classified men in types, and made himself familiar with the sort of motive that is likely to appeal to each ; and thus there had grown up a considerable body of practical wisdom that dealt with psychological processes. A union of the two tendencies, and the beginnings of a more scientific treat- ment of both, had likewise been attempted by the philoso- phers, but hitherto without any great insight into the actual complexity of the conscious life. They had singled out the more obvious fact of sensation, and assumed, rather than proved, that everything was reducible to this. Plato's ethical motive compels him to dissent from this sensational- ism, and, consequently, to undertake a more complete analysis of the real nature of the mind. The method of psychology is still, however, too little developed to permit him to go at his task directly, by an examination of the individual consciousness; and so he approaches it in a roundabout way. What we are after, is to get an understanding of what virtue, or justice, is, as 78 A Students History of Philosophy applied to the human soul. But the word "justice" is also used in an objective sense, in connection with the life of the state. If we turn first, then, to the study of justice as it is writ large in the state, we shall make our task an easier one ; afterward, unless the two are quite distinct, we can transfer our results to the more obscure problem, or, at any rate, can get a clew for its solution. What, then, is justice in the state ? ' " Without going into detail, it is enough to say that Plato \finds the essence of justice in order. The end of the state is the common good, and injustice makes this unattainable. It sets men at variance with their neighbors, and renders harmonious action for the welfare of the state impossible. Justice, then, is the condition in which each man has his own work to do, and does it without trying to go outside his proper sphere, and take on himself the function which some one else is better fitted to perform ; it is " minding one's own business." Now in any self-sufficing state, there will be three classes of citizens needed. First there is the working class, the farmers and artisans, on whose shoulders rests the burden of providing the material goods without which life and civilization are impossible. The special virtue which belongs to this class is obedience, self-control, or temperance. Above them is the warrior class, on whom devolves the defence of the state against attack ; and their chief virtue is, of course, courage. And, finally, there are the rulers, who must be possessed, first of all, of wisdom, since upon them rests the decision as regards the policy of the state. Justice will consist in the proper coordination of these separate classes, each with its characteristic virtue. When each attends to its own business, and does not try to step outside the sphere which belongs to it, we have an ordered and harmonious whole, in which all the parts work smoothly together, not in the interests of one individual, or of one class only, but for the common good of all the citi- zens alike. And such a state is what we call a just state. When we take this clew, and apply it to the individual The Systematic Philosophers 79 soul, we find that an analogy exists. To the lower class there corresponds, we may say, that more ignoble part of man's nature, the sensations, desires, and appetites. These have in themselves no principle of order, and are only tol- erable as they are brought under the sway of some foreign and higher faculty, which shall rein them in, and subject them to the rule of temperance. This higher power is the mind, or reason, wherein wisdom resides, and as it is the function of the appetites to obey, so it belongs to the mind by divine right to rule. Between these, and corresponding to the warrior class in the state, there is a third faculty, which it is less easy to define. This is the forceful, energetic side of man's nature, which Plato calls spirit (as we use the adjective " spirited "), and which we may think of as active impulse, or will. This is not in itself evil and ignoble, as are the sensations and appetites. It is the basis of certain very admirable virtues the heroic virtues, as opposed to those that are due to wisdom ; and, when properly directed, it is the instrument of great achieve- ments. Since, however, it is in itself unintelligent, and liable to turn into blind passion, it stands on a lower level than reason ; it also is the servant of mind, but a servant which is meant to be used for taming the unbridled desires of the lower nature, and which thus is an ally rather than a hindrance. The seat of the lower faculty is in the breast below the midriff ; that of the mind is in the head ; while between them, just below the neck, is the abode of the spirit, which thus is in a position to help restrain the appetites, and still be under the control of the mind. These three faculties are, according to Plato, in a real sense distinct. If man's nature were a unity, it would be impossible to explain how it comes to pass that the reason often has to fight with all its strength against the sensuous desires. It is the mind which constitutes what properly may be called the soul ; the senses, on the other hand, are mere functions of the body. Still we are not to think of them as entirely unrelated. " We are not Trojan horses, 8o A Student's History of Philosophy in which are perched several unconnected senses," *but our lower faculties are intended to be subject to and used in the service of the higher ; the body is for the sake of the soul. 3. The EtJiical Ideal. This relation Plato expresses in the famous figure of the charioteer and the winged horses. One of these is of noble origin, and the other of ignoble ; and so naturally there is a great deal of trouble in managing them. The noble element is striving continually to mount to the region of the heavens, where it may look upon the images of divine beauty and wisdom that are proper to its nature ; but the body is ever dragging it down to the earth and earthly delights. Now just as, in the state, justice con- sists in the proper subordination of the different classes, so the just soul is one in which a similar subordination of parts exists ; where the charioteer has got control of his steeds, and can guide them to the heights of heaven ; where the body submits itself to the sway of the soul, the beast in man to that in him which is truly human. " For the just man does not permit the several elements within him to meddle with one another, but he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master, and at peace with himself ; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he will begin to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treat- ment of the body, or in some affair of politics, or of private business ; in all which cases he will think and call just and good action, that which preserves and cooperates with this condition, and the knowledge which presides over this, wisdom ; and unjust action, that which at any time de- stroys this, and the opinion which presides over unjust action, ignorance." 2 Why, then, is virtue honorable and to be desired ? Just because man is man, and not a brute ; because he cannot win any true and lasting satisfaction, except as he realizes 1 Thecetetus, 184. 2 Republic, 443. The Systematic Philosophers 81 his own essential nature, that which constitutes his truest and deepest manhood. What advantage is it to a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " How would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst ? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received ? and will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable, and has no pity. Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe to compass a worse ruin." J Mere life is in itself of no account ; it is only the good life which' pos- sesses any worth. Virtue is the health of the soul ; with- out it there is nothing but disease and deformity. "If when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer en- durable, though pampered with every sort of meats and drinks, shall we be told that life is worth having when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and cor- rupted, even though a man be allowed to do whatever he pleases, if at the same time he is forbidden to escape from vice and injustice, or attain justice and virtue?" 2 The wicked man vainly imagines that his is the life of liberty. It has neither order nor law, and this he deems joy, and freedom, and happiness. He does not know that he is in reality a slave a slave to his passions, and no longer master of himself. In spite, then, of appearances, and all that men may say, it is only the virtuous life that brings true happiness. The wicked man may start out well, but he never reaches the goal; only the just can endure to the end, and receive the crown of victory. Such is Plato's ideal of character, the statement of which may fittingly be brought to a close with the beautiful prayer of Socrates at the conclusion of the Phcsdrus : Republic, 589. Republic, 445. G 82 A Student's History of Philosophy "Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as none but the temperate can carry. Anything more? That prayer, I think, is enough for me." 2. Social Philosophy I. It is clear that in such an ideal, individualism and scepticism in the moral life have been transcended. In- deed, they are transcended so completely, that we run the risk of losing the element of value which they contain. The individuality of a man, in the interpretation which Plato goes on to give, has all the time a tendency to be thrust into the background by that universal, rational element, which he has in common with other men, and which makes him first of all a member of the state, and a part of the universe. It is, indeed, no longer the purely traditional order of society which Plato exalts to a position as arbiter of man's life. His Republic is an ideal fashioned by reason, and differing widely in many respects from any- thing that history has to show. But when the ideal has once been set up, it is to rule with a rod of iron. Instead of the conception of man as a mere unit complete in himself, we have what appears sometimes to be at the very opposite extreme. Man has no real life at all apart from his direct participation in the life of society and the world ; and, therefore, it is the state which logically is supreme, rather than the individual. Why should man prate of his rights and his liberty ? the right to forfeit his birthright as a man, the liberty to do things to his own hurt. Since, then, men cannot be trusted always to know their true rational interests, and to prefer them to those which are more specious and evanescent, the state must have the authority to compel them to the ways of righteousness, to weed out all tendencies and desires that are merely private, The Systematic Philosophers 83 and to enforce the interests of the whole, as against those of the individual. All this goes to intensify his natural aristocratic dis- like of democracy. Of all the forms of government that are not entire perversions, a democracy is the worst. Its liberty is only license. " No one who does not know would believe," he says, with a touch of satire, " how much greater is the liberty which animals who are under the dominion of men have in a democracy than in any other state. For truly the dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses come to have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of free men, and they will run at anybody whom they meet in the street, if he does not get out of their way, and everything is just ready to burst with lib- erty." 1 With this talk of liberty and equality, Plato has no sympathy. Men are not equal, and it is but a perver- sion that the worst should rule the best. The mass of men have not the brains to know what is for their own good, and inevitably they will make shipwreck of the attempt. Accordingly, they will be vastly better off if they cease bothering their heads about affairs of state, and turn over the conduct of their lives to those whose wisdom gives them the right to rule the philosopher, or the " hero " of Carlyle. Then only, with a philosopher-king who knows what is best, and a state that will submit itself to wise direction, shall we have a remedy for the ills of the world, and a chance for man to realize his highest life. The ideal of such a state Plato sets forth in the Republic, and also, in a less Utopian form, in the Laws. Based as it is upon the thought that the claims of the state come first, and that the mass of men are not of themselves ca- pable of living the true life of reason, Plato's Republic represents the carrying out, in the strictest and most logi- cal way, of paternalism in government. Everything must 1 Republic, 563. 84 A Students History of Philosophy bow to the supposed interests of the whole. We have already seen that the citizens are to form three classes, or castes : the artisans, on whom the material foundations of the state rest ; the warriors or guardians ; and the rulers. These castes are not, however, entirely hard and fast; according to the promise which children show, they are to be advanced or degraded with reference to the caste in which they happen to be born. The lower class receives least attention ; its duty is to obey the rulers blindly, and perform its work faithfully. No free citizen is allowed to earn his living by an illiberal trade. The in- dustrial life is for Plato, as for ancient thought generally, a degradation, and renders attention to the true art of living impossible ; and, consequently, society has neces- sarily to be built up on the basis of a large class of men, who fail to share in its spiritual benefits. To produce the right kind of citizen, there is devised a most elaborate social machinery. In the first place, chil- dren are to be examined at birth, and those who do not ap- pear physically strong and perfect are to be put out of the way, with due regard to decency and order. The survivors are then to be subjected to the most rigid system of state education, whose provisions, when once established, are not to be altered by a hair. Even the playthings for children are carefully selected, and no innovations are to be allowed under severe penalties ; for if change once begins even in small things, no one can set limits to it. The same paternal supervision follows the citizen throughout his life ; for it is of no avail, so Plato thinks, to make laws concern- ing the public relations of men, unless we regulate their pri- vate life also. In the case of the warrior class, especially, extraordinary precautions are to be taken. " In the first place, none of them should have any property beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house, with bars and bolts, closed against any one who has a mind to enter ; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are The Systematic Philosophers 85 men of temperance and courage; their agreement is to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more, and they will have common meals and live together, like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God ; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of that earthly dross which passes under the name of gold, and ought not to pollute the divine by earthly intermixture, for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds ; but their own is unde- filed. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and the salvation of the State." x Ideally, even wives should be held in common, and children should be brought up by the state, and kept in ignorance of their real parents. By doing away with private interests in this wholesale fashion, and by compelling men to have their pleasures and pains in common, Plato hoped to eliminate those occasions of discord, which grow out of separate and clashing aims among the citizens. The history of the Roman Catholic priesthood shows how powerful an instru- ment it is actually possible to create in this way. So in every direction, the state was to be guarded carefully from all influences that might seem in any way harmful. It was to be isolated as much as possible from foreign trade and foreign intercourse. Amusements and the arts were to be under strict supervision. All music that was emotional and exciting in its naturewas to be prohibited, and the theatre to be put under the ban. So in the case of poetry, a strict censorship was to be preserved, and everything whose moral tendency was not immediate and apparent, was ruth- lessly to be rejected, no matter what its artistic excellence. The poet was to be confined to singing the praises of vir- tue, and hymns to the gods. The suggestion that the way of vice might have its attractions, or that virtue some- 1 Republic, 416. 86 A Student's History of Philosophy times proves a thorny road, was not to be tolerated. And of course religion is, likewise, absolutely under the control of the state. 3. The Nature of Knowledge. The Theory of Ideas I. The World of Ideas. In the conception of human life which has thus been briefly sketched, we may notice, once more, two aspects in particular, that will serve as a transition to Plato's more general theory of knowledge and of reality. Plato has been concerned throughout with the search for ends, or ideals ; and this same thing it is which continues to guide him when he comes to his wider and more fundamental problems. The real continues always for him to be in terms of the Good. We know reality in its essence only as we grasp its meaning ; Ethics is the starting-point of Metaphysics, and suggests the form which a final philosophy is to take on. But now, furthermore, the ideal can be regarded as no fleeting, shifting matter of individual preference. By the very nature of an ideal, it seems to claim universality, coercive validity. The entire search has been for that which shall rise above the world of particularity and rela- tivity, for something which is authoritative and abiding. How, then, are we to make the transition ? How, in the world of change in which we are immersed, are we to grasp the truth that is eternal ? To answer this question, we need to turn to Plato's theory of knowledge. The starting-point of the theory, as has been said, lay in Plato's certainty that truth, particularly ethical truth, exists, and that truth is steadfast and abiding. There were theories current in Plato's day which denied this. Such theories, which usually related themselves more or less closely to the " flowing philosophy " of Heracleitus, empha- sized the thoroughgoing relativity of knowledge, to the exclusion of any absolute standard of truth. Such a theory Plato connects, probably without historical warrant, with the name of the Sophist Protagoras. There was a The Systematic Philosophers 87 famous utterance of Protagoras', that " man is the measure of all things." This Plato interprets in the sense" that each individual man is the measure of all things, that that is true for each man which seems to him to be true, and that for the opinions of different men there is no common meas- ure. This pretty certainly was not Protagoras' meaning ; but, as has been said, some of Plato's contemporaries, and particularly Aristippus the Cyrenaic, had been led to just this position as the outcome of an attempt to reduce all knowledge to the changing and subjective facts of sense perception. Now to such a philosophy Plato was unalterably op- posed. In denying the existence of absolute truth, the theory is suicidal. Let us retort upon Protagoras with the argument ad hominem. " If truth is only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and each man is to be the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, why should Protagoras be pre- ferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom ? " 1 Why should the "truth" that all truth is relative, be more true than its opposite ? It is true to the man who thinks it so, and that is all. "The best of the joke is, that Pro- tagoras acknowledges the truth of their opinion who be- lieve his opinion to be false; for in admitting that the opinions of all men are true, in effect he grants that the opinion of his opponents is true." 2 We cannot, then, give up our belief in knowledge ; even the sceptic assumes some truth the truth of his scepticism. A consistent scepticism would have to be completely speechless. And knowledge implies fixity, an abiding nature somewhere ; for it would no longer be knowledge, if a transition were going on in it continually. Now already Socrates had pointed out where this fixity is to be found. It is present, not in the flux of sense ex- 1 Theatetus, 161. ^Ibid., 171. 88 A Students History of Philosophy perience, but in thought, or the concept. Philosophy, ac- cording to Socrates, has to do with the common nature which makes a thing what it is ; with those essential characteristics which are present in individuals, and which, when detected, go to form what we call the concept, or general idea. If we want to know what a man is, or what is virtue, it is not enough to name this or that man, or to enumerate a string of virtues ; different men are not dif- ferent in kind, but each is a man by reason of certain char- acteristics which belong to man as such. Such fixed and universal ideas, then, constitute the " truth " of which the scientist and the philosopher are in search. But, now, if they are true, may we not naturally ask true of what? Where is the object to which they refer, of which they are valid ? In the sense world we can find no such object ; there everything is ephemeral, in constant process of change. Is, then, the Idea a mere fiction ? Does it point to nothing in the world of reality ? This would be intolerable. Are there to be real objects corresponding to our sensations, and nothing real to cor- respond to thought, whose dignity is so much greater, and to which we bring our sense perception to be tested ? No, over against the world of perception, with its change and unrest, there must be another realm. This is the realm of Ideas, of concepts, of true and abiding existence. Accord- ingly, instead of the one world of previous philosophers, the universe has fallen apart into two sections. On the one hand is the world of individual things, which we see when we open our eyes ; and this is given over without reserve to change, multiplicity, relativity, the Heracleitean flux. To this sense world belongs all the uncertainty that the individualist and the sensationalist had found in knowl- edge. It is in very deed a perpetual process of change, as Heracleitus had said, and there is no such thing as absolute truth or fact in its shifting play of appearances. It will not stand still long enough to give rise to the possi- bility of an authoritative standard. But for just this reason The Systematic Philosophers 89 it can be only a phenomenal world, and not the world of true being. This latter is the world of the Idea absolute, abid- ing, without variableness or shadow of turning, which sensa- tion never can attain to, but thought alone. " Over against that world of flux, " * Where nothing is, but all things seem,' it is the vocation of Plato to set up a standard of unchange- able reality, which in its highest theoretic development be- comes the world of eternal and immutable ideas, indefectible outlines of thought, yet also the veritable things of experi- ence ; the perfect Justice, e.g., which if even the gods mis- take it for perfect injustice, is not moved out of its place ; the beauty which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for- ever. In such ideas, or ideals, eternal as participating in the essential character of the facts they represent to us, we come in contact, as he supposes, with the insoluble, immovable granite, beneath and amid the wasting torrent of mere phenomena." 1 The ordinary man may be con- tent to dwell in this lower world, and put up with mere empirical knowledge of things as they come to him in their particularity. He is ready to stop with virtuous actions, and beautiful objects, and not bother his head about Virtue or Beauty as such. But not so the philosopher. " He who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succes- sion, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or in the likeness of a face, or hands, or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, nor existing in any other being ; but Beauty only, absolute, separate, simple, everlasting, which with- out diminution and without increase, or any change, is im- parted to the ever growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He only uses the beauties of earth as steps 1 Pater, Plato and Platonism. 90 A Students History of Philosophy along which he mounts upward for the sake of that other Beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute Beauty, and at last knows what the essence of Beauty is." 1 In knowing, then, this supersensible world, we are in pos- session of ideas that go far beyond the mere data of sense experience ideas that are perfect and immutable. The very fact that we can judge particular things to be imper- fect, shows that we already have a standard with reference to which they fall short. Take an instance from geometry : We never have seen a perfect circle, and yet we know that any given circle comes short of perfection ; how can we know this, except as we can compare the circle which we see, with the idea, or ideal, of the circle which it calls up, and which we never can see with the bodily eye ? If, then, such ideas are not revealed to us through the channels of sense, how do we attain them ? The answer which Plato gives takes the form of the famous doctrine of thought as recollection. Since the idea is nothing that can come origi- nally from sense experience, and since, again, it evidently has not been consciously present in our minds from birth, we can only conjecture that thought represents the traces left upon our souls by a previous existence. Before that union with the body which has immersed it in the world of sense, the soul lived in the realm of true reality, and beheld with unveiled eyes the changeless Ideas which constitute this realm. Such a former vision may even now on occa- sion be restored ; and the process of recalling it to con- sciousness, is what we know as thought. Perhaps Plato does not intend his statements here to be taken too literally. But what is thus expressed in more or less mythical form adumbrates, at any rate, an important truth, which is taken up again and again in later philosophy. Somehow or other, the mind by which we think the universe is the source of 1 Symposium, 211. The Systematic Philosophers 91 an interpretation of things which cannot be reduced to any mere collection of sense particulars. 2. Interpretation of the Theory. What, now, are we to think of the stand which Plato has taken ? Can we actually suppose that man is more real than men, beauty than beauti- ful objects, equality than things which are equal ? A man I can see, and hear, and touch ; but what is man in the ab- stract ? What can beauty be like which is not embodied in some beautiful form, but which is just beauty, and nothing else ? Well, Plato says, people find a difficulty in this, simply because they are so enamoured of the senses, and because they have not trained the only organ by which the Idea is to be attained the organ of conceptual thought. For the outer barbarians, who " believe in nothing but what they can hold fast in their hands," the Idea may be unreal, but this is only because there is lacking in them the sense through which it is perceived ; for the philosopher, the object of thought is the most real thing in the world. But still, from our modern standpoint, we are compelled to ask again : How can that exist which is nothing in par- ticular, but only something in general ? Is the concept " man " anything more than the abstraction of a certain number of characteristics, which we have seen in individual men, and which now are held together in the mind ? The thought of man is real, indeed, as my thought ; but has it any other reality, except as we go back again to the par- ticular men from whom the qualities were abstracted ? How, indeed, are we possibly to conceive of that as having any actual existence, which is neither an inch, nor a foot, nor a yard long, nor possessed of any definite length, but which is only length in general ? To us there seems to be but little meaning to the statement that it is beauty which makes things beautiful, or duality which makes them two in number. What is this beauty or duality, apart from the concrete individual objects themselves ? But now, on the other hand, when we try to go a little deeper, it seems clear that Plato's problem was by no means 92 A Students History of Philosophy a wholly artificial one. Do we not constantly assume that, through the thought which transcends particular objects, we are getting nearer to the truth ? For whom is the tree or the flower more real, the child who sees it barely in its separate- ness in space, or the naturalist, to whom it epitomizes the history of ages dead and gone, and sends forth lines of relationship to all living things ? And yet it is in terms of " ideas " that this wider knowledge is embodied. We are stating more and more adequately what " kind " of a thing it is, interpreting it in terms of general notions. That our ideas are -valid of reality, we cannot possibly get away from, without destroying the worth of thinking alto- gether. And if valid of the real world, must they not some- how be represented in that world ? We come closer to the real force of Plato's thought, if, instead of such a concept as " man," we substitute the notion of a scientific law. Put in such terms, we find ourselves even at the present day led naturally to think of the "idea" as something real, something actually belonging to the world beyond us, and not a mere fact in our private minds. The law of gravita- tion is a " universal," an unchanging truth, which we distin- guish from the particular events which are the expression of the law. And yet we hardly feel satisfied, ordinarily, to suppose that the law has no reality beyond our mere faculty of generalization, that it represents nothing in the outer world over and above the separate events themselves. Or, again, we may turn back to the aspect of Plato's prob- lem, to which reference has already been made. Plato's Ideas are also " ideals." Now for our ideals, too, we tend to claim objective validity, and not a mere particular and subjective existence. Ideals are, or pretend to be, universal, superior to bare phenomenal fact, exercising sovereignty over our present and fleeting desires. And unless we can find some place for them in reality, their whole function would seem to fall away. We may, then, interpret, somewhat broadly, Plato's em- phasis on the world of universals, of Ideas, as fundament- The Systematic Philosophers 93 ally the demand for an ethically significant world, as against a reduction of reality to nothing save a string of particular events. Is the universe no more than a col- lection of individual things, in which alone reality inheres ; or do these things depend on the more ultimate reality of the one world to which they belong, and which has its final interpretation in ethical terms ? Is the world a mere world of particular facts, or is it a whole of meaning, by reference to which the particular facts get their significance ? In opposition to the individualism of the later Sophists, and the materialistic atomism of the scientific philosophers, Plato asserts, with all the strength of a profound conviction, that the truth of the world lies in its universal and abiding significance, in the Idea, or the Good; and that no particular thing retains for a moment any validity apart from this all-embracing whole. " The ruler of the universe has ordered all things with a view to the preservation and perfection of the whole, and each part has an appointed state of action and passion. And one of the portions of the universe is thine own, stubborn man, which, however little, has the whole in view ; and you do not seem to be aware that this and every other creation is for the sake of the whole, and in order that the life of the whole may be blessed, and that you are created for the sake of the whole, and not the whole for the sake of you." 1 In its highest aspect, the world is not mechanical, but ideological. Every- thing comes within the compass of an end or meaning, which is at once the supreme fact, and the highest good, and perfect beauty. 3. Difficulties of the Theory. But now in the form in which Plato has cast his theory, there are serious difficulties. And the great difficulty is this, that, as he conceives it, there is altogether too sharp a distinction between the Ideas, and the particular facts. Plato's tendency has been to think that within the same world there is no way of rec- onciling the One and the Many, Permanence and Change, 1 Laws, 903. 94 ^ Students History of Philosophy Sameness and Otherness. And the result is, that in at- tributing to the Ideas only the first terms of these pairs of correlates, he has to thrust into the outer darkness all the concrete matter that makes up the stuff of experience as we actually know it. But this is suicidal. We demand, for knowledge, that which will explain things, not that which leaves them inexplicable. And the more the lower world is cut off from the Ideas, the more impossible it is to understand even its partial and derivative reality. The Good, instead of being the concrete whole of life, which trans- forms all the desires and facts of sense by bringing them into connection with a worthy end this is what Plato is feel- ing after is, instead, hardly more than a name, which in the nature of the case he finds it impossible to define, and fill out with a real content. Such a content could only come from the particular facts which he has rejected. In the human soul, again, a parallel division is made neces- sary between the organs through which these different realms are apprehended, between thought, i.e., which is the soul proper, and the senses, which are the organs of the body. Accordingly, there appears in man's nature a cleft, which to all appearance is impassable. Not only when man turns to true knowledge, does he get no help from the senses ; they are an actual hindrance to him. To behold the Idea, he must get rid, so far as he can, of eyes, and ears, and the whole body, and rely solely upon the pure light of the mind. To the body are due only our aberrations and failures to see the truth : " it draws the soul down into the region of the changeable, where it wanders and is confused : the world spins around her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence. " 1 "For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food, and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth, and, by filling us so full of loves, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, pre- 1 Phado, 79. The Systematic Philosophers 95 vents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought. For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions ? whence but from the body, and the lust of the body?" 1 We are shut up behind the bars of a prison, whence we can only catch an occasional glimpse of the fair sights which our soul desires. This conception of the sense world as a mere appearance, which only serves to veil the reality behind it, Plato expresses in the famous figure of the Cave : " After this, I said, imagine the enlightenment or igno- rance of our nature in a figure : Behold ! human beings living in a sort of underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light, and reaching all across the den ; they have been here from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they can only see before them. At a distance above and behind them the light of a fire is blazing, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have before them, over which they show the puppets. And do you see men passing along the wall carrying vessels, which appear over the wall ; and some of the passengers, as you would expect, are talking, and some of them are silent ? " That is a strange image, he said, and these are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied ; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. " True, he said ; how could they see anything but the shadows, if they were never allowed to move their heads ? " And if they were able to talk with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them ? And suppose, further, that the prison had an echo which came from the other side ; would they not be sure to fancy that the voice which they heard was that of a passing shadow ? And now look again, and see how they are released and cured of their folly. At first, when 1 Phado, 66. 96 A Student's History of Philosophy any one of them is liberated, and compelled suddenly to go up and turn his neck round, and walk, and look at the light, he will suffer sharp pains ; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows. And then im- agine some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now he is approaching real being ; what will be his reply ? Will he not fancy that the shad- ows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him ? " J By practice, however, he can accustom his eyes to the new conditions. First he will perceive only the shadows and reflections in the water ; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars ; and at last he will be able to see the sun itself, and behold things as they are. How he will rejoice then in passing from darkness to light; how worthless to him will seem the honors and glories of the den out of which he came! And now imagine further that he descends into his old habitations. In that underground dwelling he will not see as well as his fellows, and will not be able to compete with them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there will be many jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes ; and if those imprisoned there find any one trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they will put him to death if they can catch him. Of course philosophy is the means through which this enfranchisement is to be attained. " When returning into herself the soul reflects, then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred ; and with them she ever lives, and is not let or hindered. There she ceases from her erring ways, and being in com- munion with the unchanging, is unchanging; and this state of the soul is called wisdom." 2 Only partially, indeed, can we reach this in our present life, for we are still clogged by the weights of the body. 1 Republic, 515. z PAado, 79. The Systematic Philosophers 97 But we shall reap the perfect fruits of wisdom in another and truer life. The immortality of the soul thus enters into Plato's philosophy, and he supports it by a number of proofs, most of which seem to us rather fantastic. It is, however, not easy to say to what extent Plato has in mind an individual immortality in the ordinary sense, or indeed to sift out, in his whole treatment of the matter, what is intended to be mere L myth and poetry, from the philosophical truth that underlies it. After the separation of the soul from the body, the former undergoes various adventures, which Plato describes in a mythical vein in the Phczdo. Only the soul of the philosopher may pass at once to the realm of the Ideas, and be purged completely from the taint of earth ; others, after undergoing purifica- tion, are subjected to a new incarnation, in which they take on the body for which their previous life has made them most fitted. It will be apparent that such a conception carries with it a decided disparagement of the body, and of the world to which the body belongs. This, no doubt, is due in part to the wise man's perception of the futility and worthless- ness, when judged by the true standard, of many of the interests which seem so important to us, when our immer- sion in trivial things deprives them of their true perspec- tive. "Political ambition and office-getting, clubs and banquets, revels and singing maidens, do not enter into the philosopher's dreams. Whether any event has turned out well or ill in the city, what disgrace may have descended to any one from his ancestors, male or female, are matters of which he no more knows, than he can tell, as they say, how many pints are contained in the ocean." J And even when this attitude passes to the extreme of asceticism, it has a sufficient justification in the facts of life, to give it a certain measure of plausibility. " Each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail, and rivets the soul to the body, and engrosses her, and makes her believe that l Thetztetus t 173. H 98 A Students History of Philosophy to be true which the body affirms to be true ; and from agreeing with the body, and having the same delights, she is obliged to have the same habits and ways, and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always saturated with the body." 1 But, also, there are serious consequences which flow from such an attitude. It implies that the philosopher is isolated from the common joys and common activities of his fellow-men. Occupied with the high things of the mind, absorbed in the beatific vision, he has no real interest left even for the political assemblies, the laws of the state, or " what has turned out well or ill in the city." " He is like one who retires under the shelter of a wall in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, and when he sees the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content if only he can live his own life, and be pure from evil or unrighteous- ness, and depart in peace and good will, with bright hopes." 2 It is evident how far this has travelled from the Greek ideal accepted without question by Socrates of man's life as essentially a social life, a part of the state. With the separation that Plato makes, everything that pertains to this world becomes logically a matter of indifference. " The truth is, that only the outer form of him is in the city ; his mind, disdaining the littleness and nothingness of human things, is flying all abroad, as Pindar says, measuring with line and rule the things which are under and on the earth, and above the heaven, interrogating the whole nature of each and all, but not condescending to anything which is within reach." 8 It is this very marked dualism, then, between the world of Ideas and the world of things, the thought life and the life of the senses, the realm of moral activity and that of the natural desires and passions, the state and the indi- vidual, which is the greatest difficulty for Plato's philoso- phy as a system. How are we to bring the two sides into o, 83. 2 Republic, 496. 8 Theatttus, 173. The Systematic Philosophers 99 relation ? for clearly they must have a relation of some sort. There is no being satisfied with a theory which calmly denies the validity of the larger part of our nature. Why were senses and desires bestowed upon us? just in order that they might hinder us, and prevent us from . attaining our true destiny ? And if we carry the difficulty back to the more ultimate problem, and lay the blame on the inherent depravity of matter, why should there be a material world at all alongside the world of Ideas, and what is their connection ? If the Ideas alone have a true reality, why should anything else exist ? What is the na- ture of that which is not real, and yet is real enough to furnish a problem. 4. Plato's Later Philosophy. It is not to be supposed that these difficulties did not appeal to Plato himself. It is, indeed, not wholly fair to attribute outright to him the theory which leads to them. On the whole, his tendency is toward a dualistic separation. But to some extent he feels its unsatisfactoriness all along ; and he constantly is coming back to a tardy recognition of the rights of concrete experience. In the later years of his life, this recognition led Plato, in the opinion of some modern scholars, to at least a par- tial recasting of his theory. At any rate, it is clear that he saw its difficulties very plainly. In the Parmenides, he marshals these objections against his own philosophy. The connection between the Ideas, and things, on the sup- position of their essential duality, is shown to be unin- telligible. To say, as Plato has done, that things " imitate," or " participate in," the Idea, is to convey no concrete meaning. How, e.g., can the Idea of man be spread out to form the essence of a multitude of individual men, unless it is divisible ? and if it is divisible, where is its unity as an Idea ? Nor, again, is the knowledge of the Ideas by the human mind conceivable, if they exist thus in a realm apart; whatever they may be for God, they are beyond our reach entirely, and so they help us not at all in explaining things. ioo A Student's History of Philosophy Whether, or to what extent, Plato has succeeded in over- coming the defects of his earlier standpoint, is a matter on which there is a difference of opinion. There is some ground for thinking that in his later works, influenced very possibly by his pupil Aristotle, he has attempted to get away from his previous dualism, to remove the Ideas from their isolation and bare self-identity, and make them give an account of themselves as actual principles for ex- plaining things. So, in the Timceus, Plato takes in hand for the first time the problem of the physical world of science, though, again, in a more or less mythical form. By postulating over against the true and positive exist- ence of the Ideas, a second principle, with at least a nega- tive sort of reality, Plato attempts, through its union with the true reality of the Idea, to explain the phenomenal world, which we could not explain as coming from the Idea alone. This relationship is expressed as a timeless act of creation, by which God, the Demiurge, informs the chaos of Not-being with order and harmony, after the pattern which is represented in the Idea. Through the relation of the world of phenomena to this pattern in which it participates, the explanation of facts is ultimately teleological, as opposed to the mechanical explanation of the Atomists. Things exist for the sake of the whole ; and since this whole is in the form of reason, and so of meaning, they can only be accounted for by being placed in their relation to the idea which represents the End, or Highest Good. In other dialogues, Plato deals more di- rectly with the problem of knowledge as such. Since, however, his later theory, if he has one, is decidedly un- certain, and at any rate did not determine the direction of Plato's historical influence, we shall perhaps be justified in not considering it further. 5. The Academy. The school which Plato founded, and which was called the Academy, continued in existence several centuries after his death, although it passed through a number of vicissitudes. At different periods of its exist- The Systematic Philosophers 101 ence, it represents different tendencies, and is known suc- cessively as the Older Academy, the Middle Academy, and the New Academy. Plato's real successor, however, and the one who succeeded in developing his thought in a genuinely significant way, is not found among the more orthodox followers who formed the Academy, but rather in Aristotle, the originator of a new and rival school. LITERATURE Plato, Dialogues, esp. Protagoras, Gorgias, Phcedo, Phadrus, Re' public, Euthydemus, Parmenides, Thecetetus, Timceus. Van Oordt, Plato and his Times. J. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles. Nettleship, Philosophical Lectures and Remains, 2 vols. Nettleship, Theory of Education in Plato's Republic (in Hellenica). Bryan, The Republic of Plato. Bosanquet, A Companion to Plato" 1 * Republic. Zeller, Plato. Pater, Plato and Platonism. Ritchie, Plato. J. S. Mill, Essays and Discussions. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory. Martineau, Essays. Grote, Plato, 3 vols. Grote, History of Greece. Collins, Plato. Shorey, The Unity of Plato } s Thought. 12. Aristotle. The Peripatetics Aristotle was born at Stagira, in 386 B.C. His father came of a family of physicians, and was himself physician to the king of Macedon. Aristotle received his philosoph- ical education at the Academy in Athens, but owing to certain differences of standpoint, he ceased later on to call himself a disciple of Plato, and became in a way his rival. He was, however, profoundly influenced by the teachings to which he had listened, and perhaps is inclined, in the interests of his own originality, to exaggerate the real ex- tent of the difference between himself and his former mas- IO2 A Student's History of Philosophy ter. In 343, he became the tutor of Alexander, afterward to be called the Great a position which he held for three years with marked success. In 335, he founded a school, in the walks of the Lyceum at Athens. After the death of Alexander, he was accused by the patriotic party of fa- voring the political pretensions of Macedon, and was com- pelled to go into exile on the island of Euboea, where he died in 322 B.C. In passing from Plato to Aristotle, we are conscious of a marked change of atmosphere. Instead of the deeply poetic temperament, which sees all things in relation to a unitary ideal, fuses them to form a single picture, and en- deavors, by all sorts of partial lights, to adumbrate the infi- nite and unspeakable, we have what is more closely allied to the scientific type of mind, parcelling out the universe into its several spheres, untiring in its search for facts, fer- tile in explanations which are marked by practical good sense, and which are based on historical and scientific con- siderations. However, this does not mean that Aristotle is no metaphysician. Indeed, he combines in himself, as few other philosophers have done, the scientific and the metaphysical interests. And we may, accordingly, turn first to his more general point of view for regarding the universe, since this makes itself felt in all his other work. I. Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology I. The Conception of Development. Aristotle's philo- sophical system grows out of the problem which he had inherited from Plato, and is presented most systematically in a number of writings collected under the title of Meta- physics. The name is probably derived from the fact that, in the collection of Aristotle's works, this volume came after the writings on physics (/iera TO, fyva-iica). Plato had left his two worlds the world of the Idea, and the world of matter standing in strong opposition, and practically separate. How is it possible, now, to get rid of this dual- The Systematic Philosophers 103 ism ? Aristotle's answer is technical in its nature, and when arrayed in the special terminology which he uses, it is apt to seem rather formidable. Perhaps, however, the essential part of his thought may be simplified, to make its bearing more obvious. To begin with, Aristotle recognizes clearly the impossi- bility of setting up Ideas apart from things. We could not prove the existence of such Ideas, if they were wholly separate from the world in which we have our being, and to which our knowledge extends ; nor, if they existed, should we be able to explain by reference to them, anything what- ever in this lower world, since we have so carefully removed the two from contact. The statement that things partici- pate in the Idea is, if the Idea has a separate being, only a metaphor, which conveys no intelligible meaning. But it does not follow that the Idea has no existence, and that the only reality is the world of individual objects. The Idea does exist, and it forms a very essential part of real- ity ; only it exists in the world, and in things, not outside of and apart from them. The best way to gain a clear notion of what Aristotle means by this, is to take a concrete illustration. We shall find such an illustration in what we call an organism. What is it we mean, e.g., by an oak tree ? Is it merely a collec- tion of the particular parts which go to make it up as an object in space? But where shall we start to make such an analysis ? If we take the acorn and there surely is a sense in which the oak already exists in the acorn we shall get one result ; if we wait till the tree is full grown, we shall get another and a very different one. The idea of the tree i.e., evidently includes more than can be summed up in any one moment of the tree's existence ; all the pro- cesses by which it changes from one stage to another from the acorn to maturity, from maturity to decay also belong to the complete notion of what a tree is. Nor is this all. The mere description of the parts, misses com- pletely the unity of the organism, that which makes it a IO4 A Student's History of Philosophy single object ; we must also bring in the use which each part serves, in relation to the other parts, and to the entire organism to the Idea of the tree as a whole. If there were no Idea, if the particular facts were everything, there would be no tree, but only a series of molecular changes. There are two things especially to be noticed in this con- ception. In the first place, the reality becomes a process of development. Any complete definition of the tree, will have to include in some way the whole course of its life; for only by reference to this entire process can the particular stages and organs be placed and understood. It is by means of this notion of development, that Aristotle overcomes the dualism of Plato. Just as long as reality is regarded as something unchanging and complete, we are obliged to separate it from the material world, where there is no such perfect fulfilment, but only approximation. But, further- more, this process is no mere series of disconnected changes ; it is a real development, or growth. Looked at from the standpoint of physical science, the tree can be reduced to a succession of molecular changes, entirely continuous with all the other changes in the universe. But a tree is, for our knowledge, more than this ; it is a single process, possessing as an organism its own peculiar unity of end. Only, again, it is not an end which comes literally at the finish such an end is but the end of death ; nor does it exist in any sense outside the life of the tree. That life process is itself the end. The tree fulfils the purpose which it embodies, in the very act of growing. Now this is essentially what Aristotle means. As the tree is nothing outside the whole process of growth and decay, regarded as bound into a unity by its relation to the type or Idea of the tree, so the concept in general does not exist separate from the material world of gen- eration, but only in that world. Matter, and concept, or Idea, are relative terms, neither of which has any real existence apart from the other. Matter is the organic pro- cess looked at from the side of potentiality, of what as yet The Systematic Philosophers 105 is unrealized, as the acorn is the material from which the oak will spring. It is the possibility of the realization of the Idea. There is no such thing as pure matter ; it always has some definite characteristics, or form. Form, or the concept, is the same process on the side of actuality, fulfilment. It is the inner meaning expressing itself concretely in material form ; the end which governs the series of particular changes. It is only as it thus em- bodies the Idea, that anything becomes an object of knowl- edge. The transition from the potential to the actual is motion, or evolution, or development. True existence is thus not something apart from the phenomenal world, but realized in it ; it is possibility made real, the potential actualized, Aristotle's entclechy^ Such a conception involves, if it is taken seriously, an important change in philosophical standpoint ; it substitutes a changing, or dynamic, reality, for the purely static and all-complete perfection with which ultimate existence had been identified by Plato. Heracleitus, indeed, had sug- gested the same thought, when he made reality a process of Becoming ; but by introducing the concept of end, or purpose, into the process, Aristotle succeeded in giving it a unity beyond anything that Heracleitus had been able to formulate. There is, however, another side to Aristotle's theory, which would seem to prevent our taking this too strictly. A different type of illustration will sug- gest the point more clearly. Instead of taking his examples from organic life, where matter and form are in truth only distinguishable, and not separate, Aristotle also turns fre- quently to illustrations from human workmanship, especially in artistic creation. Take a statue, e.g. : the reality of the statue is the marble shaped to body forth the sculptor's ideal. Here evidently we have two sides again the material which furnishes the conditions for the artist's work, and the idea in his mind which represents the cause of his activity, and the end toward which it is directed. But there is a separation here which did not exist in the lo6 A Student's History of Philosophy organism. From the standpoint of the statue, the > two things are related, it is true. The marble is not mere brute mass, for the sculptor sees in it, even in the rough, the possibility of the realization of his ideal; his ideal, too, is not a mere dream, but something to be actualized in the marble. Still, in the illustration, the idea, or form, and the matter, are two distinct things, before they meet in the statue ; and the idea exists in a certain degree of completeness, or it could not guide the artist's hands. Now if we apply this to the world at large, it leads to the conception of a graded series of realities. Each step in this series reveals more and more those universal relation- ships which go to render it intelligible, an object of true knowledge. In the actual world of generation, we have not, indeed, anything more than a relative purity of the formal element. Everything is alike matter and form matter to what lies above it in the scale, form to what is lower down. The marble is matter to the statue ; but it is not pure matter. It also has definite characteristics, and so, in relation to a lower grade of matter, it stands itself as form. The tree is form in relation to the elements that are taken from the soil to further its growth, matter in rela- tion to the house which is made from its timber. But now, from another point of view, the Reason which reveals itself in the world process is not, for Aristotle, actually generated by the process as such. Rather, it is eternally implied as the necessary condition for the world's intelligibility. At the end of the series, therefore, lies that which no longer is relative merely, but absolute. It is pure form, the pure Idea, since there is nothing beyond it to which it can stand in the relation of matter. God is thus absolute Spirit, with no touch of the corporeal. His is the life of pure thought, which has as its content no foreign matter, but only thought itself. Unmoved himself, he is the mover of the universe, not as an active agent, but as the final end of all, the ideal toward which the whole The Systematic Philosophers 107 creation moves by an inner necessity, as the beautiful and the good stir up our endeavor to realize them, not by anything they themselves do, but by the appeal they make to our desires as worthy of being realized. Whether, in this final outcome of his philosophy, Aristotle has wholly escaped the difficulties that beset Plato, may be ques- tioned. But the entire conception is in any case a remark- able achievement, to which the modern philosopher may still return with profit. 2. Logic. Leaving his general standpoint, we may turn next to an examination of some of the details of Aristotle's system. And we are struck, first of all, by the great ad- vance which has been made in the distinction of problems, and their accurate definition. Even with Plato, the various different aspects of the world are still largely bound up together ; in Aristotle, however, this gives place to a divi- sion into separate fields, each with fairly well-defined boun- daries. Logic, Ethics, Metaphysics, Physical Science, Psychology, Political Science, Rhetoric, ^Esthetics, all are thus subjected to treatment by themselves, in an essen- tially modern way. Aristotle's most perfect achievement is his Logic, found chiefly in the collection of writings called the Organon. Of course there had been, before his day, some isolated treatment of logical details, especially among the Sophists ; but there was no connected body of logical doctrine. Aristotle not only succeeded in creating such a science, but he did his work so thoroughly that, in the field which it professes to occupy, it has remained practically un- changed ever since. The so-called Formal Logic, the analysis of the processes of deductive argument as this is taught to-day, does not differ essentially from the formu- lation which Aristotle gave it over two thousand years ago. But while, with us, this Logic is regarded as in truth purely formal, and as representing a somewhat abstract method of proof or argumentation, rather than the actual process of scientific inquiry and explanation, in Aristotle's io8 A Students History of Philosophy mind it had no such restriction. We have seen that, for Aristotle, all changes are determined by reference to the realization of an end the Idea or form. The form is thus also a cause ; and the form is equivalent to what we call the concept. Scientific procedure, then, consists in bringing about a proper subordination of concepts ; the logical process, instead of being only a method of proof, constitutes a scientific explanation as well. Logic, accordingly, centres about the syllogism the process by which there is deduced the relation of two con- cepts, in the way of logical subordination, through the medium of two premises and a middle term. This latter, by standing in a relation to each concept separately, dis- covers their relation to one another. Aristotle worked out the different forms which it is possible for the syllogism to assume, in practically an exhaustive way. 3. Natural Science and Psychology. With Aristotle, Logic was not so much a special science, or branch of knowledge, as an introduction to all sciences, a determina- tion of the form of the mind's action, which might be applied to every subject-matter alike. If we turn now to these special branches to which Aristotle's encyclo- paedic activity directed itself, it will be sufficient merely to notice those writings, which to-day we should class under the head of science in the strict sense. Most im- portant, from the philosophical point of view, is the relation of this mass of knowledge, to his metaphysical doctrine of matter and form. Since every two successive grades of complexity in the world process stand to each other in the relation of matter and form, the result is a well-knit theory of teleological evolution. As we pass upward from purely mechanical changes, to chemical changes of quality, and thence to organic life, involving growth and decay ; as, in organisms, we advance from the vegetative life of the plant, to the animal soul, capable of sensation and motion ; and from the animal soul to man, from sensation to reason : we find each step governed by The Systematic Philosophers 109 an upward impulse toward the succeeding step, which constitutes its perfection, or entelechy the goal toward which it is striving. The whole world is moving toward the realization of the Idea ; reason is everywhere present and working in it. The lower reality is not destroyed in the higher, but is utilized. Mechanical and chemical changes still take place in the organism ; but a new form is impressed upon them, which causes them to realize the organism's life. The vegetative soul the mere life prin- ciple is not lost sight of in the animal, but, again, is directed and utilized for something higher. The most significant application of this conception comes out in Aristotle's treatment of psychology, a treatment which, though somewhat slight, is very interesting and valu- able. By considering the human soul as the entelechy of the body, in whose service the whole body is enlisted, Aris- totle is in the way of getting rid of the dualism of the two, and attaining the modern position, which takes the whole psycho-physical man as the subject-matter of psychology, not mere mind by itself. Man is still an animal ; the vegetative and animal souls still exist in him. But they exist now for the sake of the higher life of reason ; and so mere impulses, and mere sensation, become transformed, and take on the specifically human character of knowledge and will. The different aspects of the soul thus form a real unity, and do not simply exist in juxtaposition, as with Plato. In detail, Aristotle's treatment of the conscious life is in general very suggestive ; and many of the things he has to say about memory, desire, the processes of sensa- tion, the unity of consciousness, the association of ideas, are striking anticipations of modern psychological doctrines. i^ 2. Ethics, Politics, ^Esthetics I. Ethics. It is, however, Aristotle's treatment of Ethics and Political Science, which is of greatest interest to the modern reader. Here, again, we start from the same ques- no A Student's History of Philosophy tion which Plato had raised : What is the highest good, the end of life ? If we were to ask the opinion of men in general, we probably should find most of them agreeing, both that happiness, and virtue, enter into the composition of the good. But what is the content of these terms ? Here Aristotle's metaphysics helps him out. The end of a thing is the fulfilment of its Idea, the realization of the potentialities of its own peculiar nature. If, then, we are able to define that which constitutes a man as such, we can determine what is for him the Summum Bonum. " Perhaps it seems a truth which is generally admitted, that happiness is the supreme good ; what is wanted is to define its nature a little more clearly. The best way of arriving at such a definition will probably be to ascertain the function of Man. For as with a flute player, a statuary, or any artisan, or in fact anybody who has a definite function and action, his goodness or excellence seems to lie in his function, so it would seem to be with Man, if indeed he has a definite function. Can it be said, then, that while a carpenter and a cobbler have definite functions and actions, Man, unlike them, is naturally functionless ? The reasonable view is, that as the eye, the hand, the foot, and similarly each several part of the body, has a definite function, so Man may be regarded as having a definite function apart from all these. What, then, can this function be ? It is not life, for life is appar- ently something which man shares with the plants, and it is something peculiar to him that we are looking for. We must exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and increase. There is, next, what may be called the life of sensation. But this, too, is apparently shared by Man with horses, cattle, and all other animals. There remains what I may call the practical life of the rational part of Man's being. But the rational part is twofold ; it is rational partly in the sense of being obedient to reason, and partly in the sense of possessing reason and intelli- gence. The practical life, too, may be conceived of in two The Systematic Philosophers 1 1 1 ways, but we must understand by it the life of activity, as this seems to be the truer form of the conception. The function of Man, then, is an activity of soul in accordance with reason, or not independently of reason. Again, the functions of a person of a certain kind, and of such a person who is good of his kind, e.g., of a harpist, and a good harpist, are in our view generically the same, and this view is true of people of all kinds without exception, the superior excellence being only an addition to the function ; for it is the function of a harpist to play the harp, and of the good harpist to play the harp well. This being so, if we define the function of Man as a kind of life, and this life as an activity of soul, or a course of action, in conformity with reason, if the function of a good man is such activity or action of a good and noble kind, and if everything is successfully performed when it is performed in accordance with its proper excellence, it follows that the good of Man is an activity of soul in accordance with vir- tue, or, if there are more virtues than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue. But it is necessary to add the words 'in a complete life.' For as one swal- low or one day does not make a spring, so one day or a short time does not make a fortunate or happy man." 1 Virtue, then, or the supreme end of man's life, con- sists in the unobstructed realization, or exercise in conscious and voluntary action, of his rational nature. And since pleasure is but the accompaniment of suc- cessful activity, and the pleasure is better in proportion to the excellence of the faculty exercised, the highest virtue is, by that very fact, the greatest happiness. Aristotle, with his characteristic love of common-sense opinions, is careful not to depreciate the importance of happiness. " Happiness is the best and noblest and pleas- antest thing in the world, nor is there any such distinc- tion between goodness, nobleness, and pleasure, as the epigram at Delos suggests : * Ethics, I, 6. Welldon's translation. (Macmillan & Co.) 112 A Student's History of Philosophy tl l Justice is noblest, health is best, To gain one's end is pleasantest.' " 1 But this of course does not refer to any and every pleasure. " Pleasures are desirable, but not if they are immoral in their origin ; just as wealth is pleasant, but not if it be obtained at the cost of turning traitor to one's country ; or health, but not at the cost of eating any food however dis- agreeable." 2 Nor are we speaking of purely trivial pleas- ures. " Happiness does not consist in amusement. It would be paradoxical to hold that the end of human life is amusement, and that we should toil and suffer all our life for the sake of amusing ourselves." 3 Aristotle tends to confine the term " happiness," to the activity of what seems to him the best part of our nature. " It is reasonable not to speak of an ox, or a horse, or any other animal, as happy even of a child. For happiness demands a complete virtue and a complete life." 4 By reason, however, of the division in man's soul between the pure intellect, and the lower desires and impulses, which are only capable of acting in subjection to reason, without being rational in their own nature, virtue becomes sub- divided into intellectual and moral. The highest virtue, since reason is the esssential element in man, is the life of philosophy, of purely rational insight, or contemplation. The pleasure of speculation is of all pleasures the highest, the most continuous, the purest, the most self-sufficient. " If, then, the reason is divine in comparison with the rest of man's nature, the life which accords with reason will be divine in comparison with human life in general. Nor is it right to follow the advice of people who say that the thought of men should not be too high for humanity, or the thought of mortals too high for mortality ; for a man, so far as in him lies, should seek immortality, and do all that is in his power to live in accordance with the highest part of his nature, as, although that part is insignificant in I,9. 2 X, 2. 8 X,6. 1, 10. The Systematic Philosophers 113 size, yet in power and honor it is far superior to all the rest." J Moral virtues are human ; this one is godlike. " Our conception of the Gods is that they are preeminently happy and fortunate. But what kind of actions do we properly attribute to them ? Are they just actions ? But it would make the Gods ridiculous to suppose that they form con- tracts, restore deposits, and so on. Are they, then, coura- geous actions ? Do the Gods endure dangers and alarms for the sake of honor ? Or liberal actions ? But to whom should they give money ? It would be absurd to suppose that they have a currency, or anything of the kind. Surely, to praise the Gods for temperance is to degrade them ; they are exempt from low desires. We may go through the whole category of virtues, and it will appear that whatever relates to moral action is petty and unworthy of the Gods. Yet the Gods are universally conceived as liv- ing, and therefore as displaying activity ; they are certainly not conceived as sleeping like Endymion. If, then, action, and still more production, is denied to one who is alive, what is left but speculation ? It follows that the activity of God, being preeminently blissful, will be speculative, and, if so, then the human activity which is most nearly related to it, will be most capable of happiness." 2 " Again, he whose activity is directed by reason, and who cultivates reason, and is in the best state of mind, is also, as it seems, the most beloved of the Gods. For if the Gods care at all for human beings, as is believed, it will be only reasonable to hold that they delight in what is best and most related to themselves, i.e,, in reason ; and that they requite with kindness those who love and honor it above all else, as caring for what is dear to themselves, and performing right and noble actions." 8 But also the ordinary individual, who is not a philoso- pher, is capable of leading a life of moral conduct, or of virtue in the secondary sense, as opposed to pure specula- tive activity. And here Aristotle tries to overcome the i X, 7. * x, 8. x, 9. i H4 ^ Student's History of Philosophy dualism which Plato left standing between the sensuous and the higher nature ; and to find an ideal, even if not the highest ideal, within the realm of common experi- ence. Such virtue goes back to man's natural impulses, but not as they are exercised in a purely impulsive, and so spasmodic, way. Aristotle continually insists that vir- tue is no mere natural gift of disposition, but a result ;of doing. " It is neither by nature, nor in defiance of nature, that virtues are implanted in us. Nature gives us the capacity of receiving them, and that capacity is perfected by habit." * As builders learn by building, and harpists by playing the harp, so it is by doing just acts that we become just. "As in the Olympian games, it is not the most beautiful and strongest persons who receive the crown, but they who actually enter the list as comba- tants, so it is they who act rightly that attain to what is noble and good in life." 2 Even philosophy will not make a man virtuous, till it is put into practice ; those who imagine otherwise, are like people who listen attentively to their doctors, but never do anything that their doctors tell them. Virtue, then, stands for a definite habit of mind, brought about by a continual repetition of acts, in which the impulse is directed by voluntary and intelligent effort, in such a way as to express man's essential nature. It is thus not the suppression of the natural impulses, as with Plato, but their regulation. The necessary rational principle, Aristotle finds in his doctrine of virtue as a mean. An impulse has in it the possibility of giving rise to a virtue, by taking the middle course between excess and deficiency, and then by being repeated until it becomes a second nature. " The first point to be observed is, that in such matters as we are con- sidering, deficiency and excess are equally fatal. It is so as we observe in regard to health and strength; for we must judge of what we cannot see by the evidence of what we do see. Excess or deficiency of gymnastic exercise is 111,1. ai, 9 . The Systematic Philosophers 115 fatal to strength. Similarly, an excess or deficiency of meat and drink is fatal to health, whereas a suitable amount produces, augments, and sustains it. It is the same, then, with temperance, courage, and the other vir- tues. A person who avoids and is afraid of everything, and faces nothing, becomes a coward; a person who is not afraid of anything, but is ready to face everything, becomes foolhardy. Similarly, he who enjoys every pleas- ure, and never abstains from any pleasure, is licentious ; he who eschews all pleasures, like a boor, is an insensible sort of person." 1 In like manner, liberality lies between avarice and prodigality, modesty between impudence and bashfulness, sincerity between self-disparagement and boastfulness, good temper between dulness and irascibil- ity, friendly civility between surliness and obsequiousness, just resentment between callousness and spitefulness, high- mindedness between littleness of mind and pompousness. Put in a somewhat less mechanical way, moral virtue is the sort of action which adequately meets the situation that confronts us. It consists in accepting the conditions of life, not resting content, on the one hand, with less than the full possibilities, nor, on the other, neglecting the pos- sible for unattainable ideals. 2. Politics. Man, however, is more than an individual. By nature he is a political animal, who can attain his high- est good only in society ; and so Ethics is subordinate to Politics. Society arises out of the physical needs of man, who is not self-sufficing, but has to cooperate with his fel- low-men in order to be sure of subsistence ; but this is not its sole ground. Originating in the bare needs of life, it continues for the sake of the good life. The state, there- fore, and the science which deals with the state, have the highest ethical aim. " Political science is concerned with nothing so much as with producing a certain character in the citizens, or, in other words, with making them good, and capable of performing noble actions." 2 1 II, 2. 2 1, 10. n6 A Student's History of Philosophy Aristotle goes on to discuss various problems relating to the theory of government, and the different forms which the state assumes, with a good deal of sound sense, and frequent appeal to history ; but the absence of any one illuminating point of view renders his treatment a little confused, and robs it of the peculiar interest which attaches to Plato's Republic. Plato's ideal state is, indeed, criticised by Aristotle with more or less effectiveness, par- ticularly in its communistic features. Aristotle sees that no machinery of government will be of much avail, so long as human nature remains what it is ; it is not the institu- tion of property alone which is responsible for all our ills. In particular, the abolishing of family life, by de- stroying the roots of natural affection, would work quite contrary to Plato's purpose. Aristotle himself refuses to be content with setting up a single ideal. He has his own notion of what is abstractly the best form of government the absolute rule, namely, of a single man, provided we could find one preeminently wise and good. But a politi- cal treatise also should recognize actual conditions ; and practically the "best" government is a relative term, and will differ with the degree of development of the people who are to be governed. In general, there are three types of government, according as the state is ruled by one, by the few, or by the many monarchy, aristocracy, and constitu- tional republic. When one man stands out preeminently among his fellow-citizens, a monarchy is, as has been said, the natural form ; when a few men are obviously superior in virtue, an aristocracy. It is not to be forgotten, however, that mere numbers give a certain stability and massive wisdom in affairs of government ; while, accordingly, the individual members of the multitude may be inferior to a chosen few, yet, taken collectively, their wisdom may con- ceivably be superior, since they supplement one another. In particular, they may be the best judges of what affects themselves, as a guest is a better judge of a feast than the cook who prepares it ; though they may not possess the The Systematic Philosophers 117 constructive skill to bring about what they want. Sd, also, a mass of men is apt to be more incorruptible than a single man. Each of the three types of government may be perverted, when the ruling class ceases to aim at the common interest, and, instead, keeps its own advantage in view. For the average state, a mixture of the types is advisable, since this cements the interests of the different classes ; and for the same reason, a state in which the middle class is strong, is likely to be more permanent than where either of the extremes predominates. Of course, to a large extent, the reasonings of Aristotle apply to conditions very dissimilar to those which any modern country has to meet. Greek society was founded on the institution of slavery an in- stitution which Aristotle justifies theoretically, on the ground that some men are not fitted to guide themselves by reason, but find their whole life in bodily action, and, consequently, are slaves by nature. Another important difference is to be noticed, in his attitude toward the worker in general. No man can practise virtue, he says, who is living the life of a mechanic or laborer; and the assertion that greatness is impossible to a state which produces numerous artisans, but few soldiers, reveals a 'social condition far removed from our modern industrial society. So, again, the fact that the principle of representative government lies beyond his ( point of view, renders it inevitable that the state of which he speaks, should be very limited in size ; a democracy in the modern sense, as distinct from the city-state of the Greeks, he is unable to imagine. Still, the Politics is interesting even at the present day, and in spite of differ- ences in detail, the modernness of tone and of method is very noticeable. 3. Aesthetics. The Poetics is rather slight in nature, but as the first attempt to treat in a separate way that side of philosophy which, in its larger aspect, is now known as ./Esthetics, it deserves some mention, and I will borrow the brief summary which Mayor gives: n8 A Student's History of Philosophy " In the Poetic, Aristotle takes Plato's view of poetry as a branch of Imitation, and divides it into three parts, Epic, Tragic, and Comic. All imitation is a source of pleas- ure, but the imitation of the poet or artist is not simple rep- resentation of ordinary fact, but of the universal or ideal which underlies ordinary fact; whence poetry is more philosophical than history. This is most conspicuous in Tragedy, where the characters are all on a grander scale than those of common life ; but even Comedy selects and heightens in its imitation of the grotesque. Tragedy is not, as Plato thought, a mere enfeebling luxury ; rather it makes use of the feelings of pity and terror to purify simi- lar affections in ourselves, i.e., it gives a safe vent to our feelings, by taking us out of ourselves, and opening our hearts to sympathize with the heavier woes of humanity at large, typified in the persons of the drama ; while it chastens and controls the vehemence of passion by never allowing its expression to transgress the limits of beauty, and by rec- ognizing the righteous meaning and use of suffering." 1 The school which Aristotle founded was known as the Peripatetic school. It maintained an existence alongside the Academy for many years, but produced no new doc- trines of any great importance. LITERATURE Aristotle, Chief Works : Organon, Metaphysics, De Anima, Nicho- machean Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Rhetoric. Translations : Welldon (Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric) ; Jowett (Politics) ; Wallace (Psychology} ; Hammond (Psychology) ; Wharton (Poetics). Also translations in Bohn's Library. Zeller, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics, 2 vols. Grote, Aristotle, 2 vols. Wallace, Outlines of Aristotle's Philosophy. Lewes, Aristotle. A. Grant, Aristotle. Davidson, Aristotle and Ancient Edticational Ideals. Bradley, Aristotle's Theory of the State (in Hellenica). 1 A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy. (Cambridge University Press.) THE LATER ETHICAL PERIOD 13. Introduction WITH Aristotle, the period of great speculative systems comes to a close. In his successors, the course of philoso- phy takes a new turn, which it is to follow for several centuries. The reason for this new departure, there has already been occasion to notice ; it is due to the breakdown of Greek political and social life. From Socrates to Aristotle, Philosophy had made an attempt to stem the current of dissolution, and to set up again, on a rational basis, that ideal of a corporate life which, resting originally on the foundation of a customary morality, had begun to totter when this morality was attacked, alike by political corrup- tion and by philosophical scepticism. But the attempt was not successful ; and from one philosopher to another, we see the recognition of its hopelessness in the grow- ing prominence assigned to the theoretical life, and the substitution of philosophy for active participation in social interests. After the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War, and the fall of Athens, things went from bad to worse in Greece. Feuds and jealousies increased among the numer- ous petty states into which the country was divided. Per- sonal ambitions led to the solicitation of foreign interference, especially from Persia ; and the employment of mercenaries still further threatened the existence of freedom. With the loss of Greek independence, and the supremacy of Mace- don, the failure of the Greek civilization became a settled fact, however much the attempt might be made to nurse the forms of freedom. The appearance of isolated 119 I2O A Students History of Philosophy patriots only brought into clearer relief the disintegration, and incapacity for united action, on the part of Greece as a whole; so that the final loss of all chance of indepen- dence, by the intervention of the Roman power, was a real blessing to the country. After the capture of Corinth by Mummius, in 146 B.C., Greece became a Roman province, under the name of Achaia. It is not strange, therefore, that philosophy turned from the ideal of man as an organic member of a social order that no longer had any true existence, and occupied itself instead with the individual man, and the way in which he might obtain such satisfaction as he could, in the troublous times in which his lot was cast. A new social ideal with any vitality in it, could only come into being as history prepared the way, by giving rise to a form of society more adequate than that of the Greeks, and possessing those elements through lack of which Greek civilization had failed. Meanwhile, however, men must have some- thing as the guiding principle in their lives, to take the place of that which formerly had been supplied by the traditional duties of citizenship, and the authoritative sanc- tions of the state religion. And to get this, they turned in one of two directions. On the one hand, there begins now to some extent that frantic running after Oriental cults, which forms so striking a feature in the life of the Empire later on. Belief in the old gods and the old religion, was undermined by scepticism, only to be replaced by a super- stition which grasped at every novelty. The more sober minds, on the other hand, turned to philosophy for guidance and comfort. For the next few centuries, then, philosophy assumes an intensely practical aspect ; it aims to be nothing more nor less than a complete art of living. You pretend that you are not calculated for philosophy ? says Diogenes ; why then do you live, if you have no desire to live properly ? " Philosophy," writes Seneca, "is not a theory for popular acceptance and designed for show ; it is not in words, but in deeds. It is The Later Ethical Period 121 not employed to help us pass the day agreeably, or to remove ennui from our leisure ; it forms and fashions the mind, sets in order our life, directs our action, shows what ought to be done and to be left undone ; it sits at the helm and guides the course through perplexities and dangers. Without it none can live fearlessly, none securely ; count- less things happen every hour which call for counsel, and this can only be sought for in philosophy. Whether fate constrains by an inexorable law, or God is judge of the universe and arranges all things, or chance without reference to any order impels and confounds the affairs of men, phi- losophy ought to be our safeguard. It will encourage us to obey God willingly, to obey fortune without yielding ; it will teach us to follow God, to put up with chance." J Furthermore, in all its various tendencies, the philoso- phy of the next few centuries is practically agreed in this : that if there is any good attainable at all, it must be found by each man within himself. Circumstances have passed beyond man's power of control ; but if he cannot remedy the ills of the outer world, or find in the life which sur- rounds him a worthy field for his endeavor, he can at least make himself independent of this world, cultivate that philosophic calm and poise which finds all the elements of happiness within the mind itself, and thus be put be- yond the power of chance to harm. Both of the two more original philosophical currents of the period have primarily in view this practical end. Although they are reached by very different roads, the atrdOeia (freedom from emotion) of the Stoics, and the arapa^ia (imperturbability) of Epi- cureanism, have, superficially at least, a close resemblance. The same thing is true of another characteristic ten- dency of the time, viz., Scepticism. A distrust of the powers of reason naturally succeeds a period of great speculative activity. As the ideals which give rise to systems of thought in such a period lose their freshness, the theoretical gaps in the arguments on which they have 1 Letters, II, 4. 122 A Student's History of Philosophy been based, begin to monopolize attention. And since be- lief always is at bottom a matter of faith, rather than of demonstration, and no new enthusiasm has yet appeared to bind knowledge into a unity again, and back it with conviction, a sceptical distrust of the possibility of knowl- edge is the result. But here, also, the interest was not primarily theoretical. Scepticism, like its rivals, is only a discipline to prepare the mind for assuming such an atti- tude toward life as will enable it to secure what satisfac- tion it may. Such disinterested intellectual curiosity as remained, directed itself largely to the investigation of literary, grammatical, and historical details, where no great theoretical principles were involved. The same lack of intellectual grasp, which showed itself on the one hand in the sceptical abandonment of the possibility of knowledge, and, on the other, in a mere painstaking collection of facts, gave rise also to the tendency to Eclecticism. Unable to deal with fun- damental principles, there was a growing disposition to settle the disputes of philosophy by an uncritical combina- tion of the various systems, brought about on the basis of no deep insight, but, again, to meet practical needs. The intensely practical nature of the Roman mind, and its dis- inclination for metaphysical thinking, gave a special im- pulse to this tendency. And, finally, as the inability of Philosophy, as mere ethical doctrine, to satisfy men, became more and more evident, a union of the two move- ments that toward philosophy, and that toward reli- gion was gradually brought about, culminating in the religious metaphysics of the Church Fathers, and, espe- cially, of the Neo-Platonists. We shall consider these tendencies in their order. 14. Epicurus and Epicureanism i. Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) was an Athenian, who was born, however, in Samos. About 306 he founded his The Later Ethical Period 123 school, which was held in his own gardens at Athens. Here he gathered about him a group of enthusiastic dis- ciples, including among their number even women and slaves. Bound together by the closest ties of intimacy and friendship, they formed a group which was famous in antiquity, as furnishing an ideal of friendly intercourse. In this group Epicurus reigned supreme. His followers regarded him with the utmost veneration a veneration which is expressed in the words of Lucretius in later days : " For if we must speak as the acknowledged grandeur of the thing itself demands, a God he was, a God, most noble Mummius, who first found out that plan of life which is now termed wisdom, and who by trained skill rescued life from such great billows and such thick darkness, and moored it in so perfect a calm and in so brilliant a light." 1 His teachings were memorized by his pupils, and accepted without change, down to unimportant details. So rigidly did he impress his views upon them, that, in spite of the long life which the school enjoyed, its speculative opinions scarcely altered to the end. Partly for this reason, the names which represent the later history of the school are only of very secondary importance ; Lucretius, among its Roman adherents, is indeed famous, but rather as a poet than a philosopher. Epicurus' philosophy is a combination of the Hedonism of the Cyrenaics, with the Atomism of Democritus. First of all, however, it is Hedonism a theory of the end of life, the highest good. Like Aristippus before him, Epi- curus found in pleasure the one obvious and undeniable good. Even when we speak of virtue as a good, as no doubt we do and may, it is really the pleasure which ac- companies the exercise of virtue which we have in mind, not virtue on its own account. But here begin certain complications. When Aristippus had said these same things, he had been pretty clear what he meant ; pleasure stood to him for the same positive content that it does to 1 Lucretius, V, 1. 7. Munro's translation. (Geo. Bell & Sons.) 124 A Student's History of Philosophy the ordinary man. Nor could Epicurus very well deny that such pleasure is a good. He makes the declaration, indeed, that no conception of the good is possible apart from bodily enjoyments ; while Metrodorus, one of his followers, even asserts baldly that everything good has reference to the belly. But philosophy is more sophisticated now than it had been in Aristippus' time ; the stumbling-blocks in the way of pleasure-getting are more clearly recognized. And in endeavoring to take account of this in his theory, Epicurus goes farther than he would seem to be justified in doing. In part, he lays stress on the necessity of selecting our pleas- ures, of avoiding those unregulated impulses which bring evils in their train, of preferring simple and natural joys to the questionable delights of luxury and extravagance ; and, so far, there is no inconsistency with his starting-point. But when he goes on, also, to disparage all positive pleasures, in favor of a philosophic poise of mind (ataraxy), a quiet and undisturbed possession of one's faculties free from pain of body and trouble of spirit, it is not easy always to distinguish his position from that of his opponents, the Stoics ; and he is led to adopt an attitude toward sensuous satisfaction, hardly to be expected of a Hedonist. He even takes up the theory that positive pleasures but represent the relief that results from the removal of a pain. And there- fore they are only the preliminaries of a true satisfaction, which, in itself, is nothing but the freedom from pain that leaves the mind without craving, and without agitation, and which, once attained, is incapable of quantitative increase. " The end of our living is to be free from pain and fear. And when once we have reached this, all the tempest of the soul is laid. When we need pleasure is when we are grieved because of the absence of pleasure ; but when we feel no pain, then we no longer stand in need of pleasure." * This calm of mind may even render a man contented in spite of physical tortures, if he will only assert his inde- 1 Diog. Laertius, Life of Epicurus, 27. The Later Ethical Period 125 pendence of adventitious aids to happiness, and refuse to let himself be disturbed ; torn on the rack, the philosopher may exclaim, How sweet ! So far have we travelled from the conception of happiness as a mere agreeable excitation of the senses, with which Hedonism started out. But whether or not Epicurus is logically consistent in his position, at any rate he created an ideal which appealed powerfully to a certain type of mind, and which even to- day, as a working theory of life, exerts a wide influence. It is not a strenuous ideal ; it calls for no heroism or sacri- fice; but this very fact constitutes its charm for certain moods, which to few men are wholly unknown. And the attitude of opposition which, in the interests of an aes- thetic simplicity, it assumes toward the more flagrant vices and follies, gives it a sufficient moral flavor to hide its more ignoble aspects. What so its burden is does man's fret, and ambition, and busy toil, after all avail him ? Does all the boasted advance of civilization add one real pleasure to his life ? Does it do anything, indeed, but plague him with added cares, and weary him with war and strife ? He longs to be rich, and famous, and powerful, and is dragged hither and thither by his ambition, only to expose himself to envy, and the daily risk of ruin, and win nothing in the end; a frugal subsistence joined to a contented mind alone is true riches. " If any one thinks his own not to be most ample, he may become lord of the whole world, and will yet be wretched." The wise man will not despise pleasure when it comes to him, but he will not be dependent on it. He will be able to get along contentedly with little, finding his satisfaction in the common things and incidents of life, and getting an added zest from the very consciousness of his ability to go without. " He enjoys wealth most who needs it least. If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches, but take away from his desires." Epicureanism is, then, in one aspect, like the message of Rousseau in modern times, a summons to return from the complexities of civilization, to nature and natural pleasures; 120 A Student's History of Philosophy to take life easily and artistically, and cease to worry over trifles ; to depend for happiness less on highly spiced foods and elaborate banquets, than on a good digestion, and the company of friends. This ideal was fully exemplified in the life of the early Epicureans. " When," says Seneca, " you come to the gardens where the words are inscribed : Friend, here it will be well for you to abide ; here pleasure is the highest good : there will meet you the keeper of the place, a hospitable, kindly man, who will set before you a dish of barley porridge, and plenty of water, and say : Have you not been well entertained ? These gardens do not provoke hunger, but quench it ; they do not cause a greater thirst by the very drinks they afford, but assuage it by a remedy which is natural, and costs nothing. In this pleasure I have grown old." 1 " For myself," writes Epicurus to a friend, " I can be pleased with bread and water ; yet send me a little cheese, that when I want to be extravagant I may be ; " and he boasts that while Metrodo- rus had only reduced his expenses to sixpence, he himself had been able to live comfortably on a less sum. The parallel with Rousseau extends also to Epicurus' estimate of science, and human learning. Although he finds his chief joys in the mental world, he is very far from commending the strenuous intellectual life which for Plato, e.g., constitutes man's highest good. He is quite as easy- going here as in the rest of his theory. Intellectual enjoy- ment means refined conversation, pleasant intercourse between friends, and not any anxious and soul-disturbing inquiry after the hidden truth of things. For what com- monly goes by the name of learning and culture, Epicurus has little respect ; he was himself not a trained thinker, and he did not require more than the rudiments of education for his disciples. If they were able to read and write, they had all that was essential ; mathematics, logic, and rhetoric, the theory of music and art, the researches of the grammarian and historian, were disparaged by him, as contributing noth- 1 Letters, II, 9. The Later Ethical Period 127 ing to human happiness, and so as a mere waste of time. " One need not bother himself," says Metrodorus, "if he has never read a line of Homer, and does not know whether Hector was a Trojan or a Greek." How does it happen, then, that the scientific explanation of the universe, as represented in the theories of Democritus, plays so large a part in the Epicurean teaching ? Why does Epicurus in- sist upon this as an essential part of his philosophy, and impose it in the most dogmatic of ways upon his followers ? 2. The primary reason is not that Epicurus had, like the modern scientist, a feeling for positive and concrete facts, in opposition to the verbal subtilties of logic, gram- mar, and metaphysics ; it is an entirely practical reason. Physical science is, for Epicurus, a mere instrument for making possible that calm of mind, in which the end of life consists. And it does this because it rids us, once for all, of that which is the greatest foe to inward peace, and a contented acquiescence with the world namely, religion. "Will wealth and power," writes Lucretius, "avail anything to cause religious scruples scared to fly panic-stricken from the mind, and that the fears of death leave the breast un- embarrassed and free from care ? But if we see that such things are food for laughter and mere mockeries, and in good truth the fears of men and dogging cares dread not the clash of arms and cruel weapons, if unabashed they mix among kings and kesars, and stand not in awe of the glitter of gold nor the brilliant sheen of the purple robe, how can you doubt that this is wholly the prerogative of reason, when the whole life is withal a struggle in the dark ? For even as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, thus we in the daylight fear at times things not a whit more to be dreaded than those which children shud- der at in the dark, and fancy sure to be. This terror, there- fore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of nature." J 1 II, 1.43- 128 A Studenfs History of Philosophy Religion, then, is the great bugbear of the Epicureans. The evils that have attended religious belief and practice have filled their minds, until it seems to them the one cause of wretchedness in the world ; and it is the chief merit of philosophy, and of Epicurus, that the reign of religion has been brought to an end. " When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth," says Lucretius, "crushed down under the weight of religion, who showed her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his mortal eyes to her face, and first to withstand her to her face. Him neither story of Gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven with threatening roar could quell ; they only chafed the more the eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the fast bars of nature's por- tals. Therefore the living force of his soul gained the day ; on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world, and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasur- able universe, whence he returns a conqueror to tell us what can, what cannot come into being, in short, by what principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark. Therefore religion is put under foot and trampled upon in turn ; us his victory brings level with the heavens." 1 Accordingly, this is the function of science : to sweep aside the chimeras and religious scruples which enchain men, and make them slaves to their own diseased fancies ; which upset the calculations of life, trouble all the future with superstitious fear, and put repose and happiness beyond their reach. And it does this by substituting a purely natural and mechanical explanation for events, and so making religion superfluous. Men have imagined that the world is made and ruled by Gods, whose favor, there- fore, they must secure, and whose wrath they must propi- tiate. These Gods are continually interfering in the affairs of men, punishing and rewarding, hurling the thunderbolt, 11,1.63. The Later Ethical Period 129 and sending plagues and earthquakes. The soul, more- over, is immortal, and so we must still look forward to possible vengeance in the future, and the woes of Tartarus. Doubtless such stories had, with the rise of science and philosophy, long since come to be more or less discredited in the eyes of educated men. But now that everything in the world was in a state of change, and the landmarks which had guided men were disappearing, the need for something to which to cling began to manifest itself, in a return to the superstitions which it was supposed had been outgrown. Against this tendency, Epicurus resolutely sets himself in opposition. Only by finally ridding oneself of the vague hopes and fears which tear and distract the mind, and prevent it from rinding its satisfaction in the present, can the true end of lif e be attained ; and hence the value of science. Only our ignorance lets us imagine that events are brought about by supernatural interference ; true rea- son tells a very different story. Given atoms and the space in which they move, and we have the data for ex- plaining everything. Is it said that we have no reason for supposing such atoms, which are forever invisible and intangible ? But so is the wind invisible, and yet it has the force to stir up the sea to a fury, and overwhelm great ships; to sweep the plains and the mountains, and tear up the trees of the forest by their roots. And countless facts go to show that it is of such minute particles that things are made. A ring on the finger is thinned by wearing; the dropping from the eaves hollows a stone ; the iron ploughshare imperceptibly decreases in the fields ; the stone-paved streets are worn down by the feet of the multitude. And granting such a vera causa, what use have we for any other explanation, beyond the chance impact and combination of these ultimate seeds of things? How should Gods have the power to frame the mighty fabric of the world? or why should they trouble them- 130 A Student's History of Philosophy selves to do it if they could ? Is this the sort of world a God would make, with all its evils and imperfections ? " In the first place, of all the space which the vast reach of heaven covers, a portion greedy mountains and forests of wild beasts have occupied, rocks and wasteful pools take up, and the sea which holds wide apart the coasts of different lands. What is left for tillage, even that nature by its power would overrun with thorns unless the force of man made head against it, accustomed for the sake of a livelihood to groan beneath the strong hoe, and to cut through the earth by pressing down the plough. Unless by turning up the fruitful clods with the share and labor- ing the soil of the earth we stimulate things to rise, they could not spontaneously come up into the clear air. And even then sometimes when things earned with great toil now put forth their leaves over the lands and are all in blossom, either the etherial sun burns them up with exces- sive heats, or sudden rains and cold froacs cut them off, and the blasts of the winds waste them by a furious hurri- cane. Again, why does nature give food and increase to the frightful race of wild beasts dangerous to mankind both by sea and land ? why do the seasons of the year bring diseases in their train ? why stalks abroad untimely death ? Then, too, the body, like to a sailor cast away by the cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, speechless, wanting every furtherance of life, soon as nature by the throes of birth has shed him forth from his mother's womb into the borders of life. He fills the room with a rueful wailing, as well he may whose destiny it is to go through in life so many ills." x It is idle, then, to look for anything in the world which shows an intelligible end. " For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of things station themselves each in its right place by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain, sooth to say, what motions each should assume; but because the first-beginnings of things, many in number, 1 Lucretius, V, 1, 200. The Later Ethical Period 131 in many ways, impelled by blows for infinite ages back, and kept in motion by their own weight, have been wont to be carried along and to unite in all manner of ways and thoroughly to test every kind of production possible by their mutual combinations ; therefore it is that, spread abroad through great time, after trying unions and mo- tions of every kind, they at length meet together in those masses which suddenly brought together become often the rudiments of great things, of earth, sea, and heaven, and the race of living things." 1 Accordingly, all those events in which men in their igno- rance have seen the finger of God, must be deposed from their high place. There is the lightning e.g., the dreaded thunderbolt of Jove ; it is a purely natural fact fire, it may be, struck out by the chance collision of the clouds. Who, indeed, can see a divine judgment in that which strikes down the innocent and guilty alike ; which buries itself harmlessly in desert, and forest, and sea ; which does not even spare the holy sanctuaries of the Gods, and the images of Zeus himself ? And if we do not have to fear the vengeance of the Gods in this life, no more is there any reason why we should look forward to punishment in another world. This fear of hell seems to the Epicurean one of the greatest evils which religion brings in its train ; not only is it a source of mental disquiet, but it is an actual provocative of crime. But for hell, there is no place in the world which science knows. " No Tantalus in a lower world fears the huge stone that hangs over him ; the true Tantalus is he who vexes himself by a baseless dread of the Gods, and fears such fall of luck as chance brings to him." 2 Eternity, indeed, for anything, except for the ulti- mate atoms, is a vain imagination. All things are for- ever changing; and just as even stones are conquered by time, huge towers fall, and rocks moulder away, so this whole visible universe has within it the seeds of decay, and one day shall come to naught, and give place to a 1 Lucretius, V, 1. 420. 2 III, 1. 980. 132 A Student's History of Philosophy wholly different world which the never-tiring atoms will construct. Still more mortal and unenduring is the soul of man. Born with the body else we should remember something of its prior life, changing with the body's changes, thrown into disorder by the most trifling sickness or accident how are we to imagine that this subtle breath, which is so light and airy that its loss at death makes not a particle of dif- ference to the body's weight, is to continue to exist when, deprived of the body's protection, it must battle by itself against the fierce winds and tempests ? Or in what could its life consist, bereft of all the senses through which we get our knowledge of things? If, then, death for us ends all, why should we fear it ? There are no evils it can bring us, for there is no life or consciousness in the grave to which we go. As in time gone by, before our birth, we felt no distress when the wprld was convulsed with wars, so at our death dust will return to dust, and there will be an end of all our cares. " Where we are, death is not yet ; and where death comes, there we are not." " Now no more shall thy house admit thee with glad welcome, nor a most virtuous wife and sweet children run to be the first to snatch kisses and touch thy heart with a silent joy. No more mayest thou be prosperous in thy doings, a safeguard to thine own. One disastrous day has taken from thee, luckless man, in luckless wise, all the many prizes of life. This do men say, but add not thereto : And now no longer does any craving for these things beset thee withal. This question therefore should be asked of this speaker : What, then, is in it so passing bitter if it come in the end to sleep and rest, that any one should pine in never-ending sorrow ? This too men often, when they have reclined at table, cup in hand, and shade their brows with crowns, love to say from the heart : Short is this enjoyment for poor weak men ; presently it will have been, and never after may it be called back. As if after their death it is to be one of their chiefest afflictions that thirst and parching drought is to The Later Ethical Period 133 burn them up, hapless wretches, or a craving for anything else is to beset them. What folly ! no one feels the want of himself and life at the time when mind and body are together sunk in sleep ; for all we care this sleep might be everlasting, no craving whatever for ourselves then moves us." 1 In spite, however, of thus rejecting alike the threats and the consolations of religion, Epicurus does not deny alto- gether the existence of the Gods. His theory of knowledge, adopted from Democritus, which requires for perception and thought alike an objective cause, in the shape of filmy images which objects continually are shedding, leads him to accept the real existence of divine and glorious forms, to account for man's belief in them. But such Gods are neither to be feared nor loved. Living a calm and unruffled life in the interspaces of the heavenly regions, away from the whirl and jar of stars and worlds, " where neither winds do shake n6r clouds drench with rains, nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall, an ever cloudless ether overcanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round. Nature supplies all their wants, and noth- ing ever impairs their peace of mind." 3 Enjoying perfect felicity, they feel no concern for human things ; the good and ill of the world alike fail to move them ; wrapped in eternal repose, in want of nothing from us, they are neither to be gained by our prayers, nor stirred by us to anger. Accordingly, notwithstanding the way in which Epicu- reanism allied itself with the scientific view of the world, it was lacking in the genuine scientific temper, and was devoid of fruitful results. Its attitude was throughout dogmatic. Its interest lay, not in getting at truth for its own sake, but in bolstering up the particular view of life which it wished to adopt. In consequence, it lays but little stress on the details of scientific explanation. Certainty is not attainable, or even very much to be desired. A phenomenon might i Lucretius, III, 1. 907. 2 III, 1. 19. 134 A Student's History of Philosophy very well be explained in more ways than one, and it makes little difference which explanation we choose to adopt, so long as it enables us to exclude the supernatural. One point in particular shows that Epicurus had not the purely scientific interest at heart. The essential thing in Democri- tus' theory is his conception of the atoms as rigidly subjected to mechanical law. But it is just the element of the su- premacy of law, which Epicurus fails to retain, and which is actually repellent to him, because it seems to put a barrier in the way of individual freedom. " It would be better to believe the fables about the Gods, than be a slave to the fate taught by the physical philosophers ; for the theologi- cal myth gives a faint hope of averting the wrath of God by giving him honor, while the fate of the philosophers is deaf to all supplications." J Accordingly, as the centre of his ethical theory is the individual, with the full right and liberty to do as he pleases, so he feels that he must find the basis for this freedom in the nature of things them- selves. And when, therefore, he comes to account for the beginning of the world process, he introduces a feature which is inconsistent with Democritus' conception. For as all things naturally fall downward in a parallel direction, and fall equally fast so long as there is nothing to oppose them, they never would come in contact, were it not for an original deviation from a straight line, which must have been voluntary and uncaused. The result of this is, that certain atoms clash, and so set up the world process. This notion of freedom, or free will, as something entirely uncaused and unmotived, due solely to an arbitrary fiat, later came to play a rather important part in the history of thought. 3. Some of the reasons for the success which Epicurus' teaching met, have already been suggested. It offers a clear-cut conception of life, which is intelligible to the aver- age man, in his average moods. It is easily formulated, is free from mystical and transcendental elements, and J Diog. Laertius, Life of Epicurus, 27. The Later Ethical Period 135 calls for no flights of moral or intellectual enthusiasm. But this constitutes also its limitation. The charges of sensuality and loose living, frequently brought against Epicurus himself, were certainly far from being true ; and while, in later times, many who called themselves Epicu- reans made his doctrine an excuse for an unregulated pursuit of pleasure, this is by no means characteristic of the stricter members of the school, nor is it countenanced by the words of the founder. Pleasure and virtue are synonymous with Epicurus ; it is impossible to live pleas- antly, without living wisely and well and justly; and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly, without living pleasantly. It may be argued, it is true, that there is really nothing in Epicurus' premises, which can fairly be opposed to any indulgence in pleasure, provided it be pursued judiciously, and with due regard to consequences. That all pleasure is in so far a good, Epicurus cannot deny ; and therefore a man is bound to get as much as he can, without prejudice to the future course of his life. Nor are there any barriers of right and wrong which he can oppose to the pursuit of pleasure, apart from this same criterion of expediency or prudence. To be sure, acts of injustice are opposed to certain prejudices on the part of mankind at large, and so, if they are detected, will meet with punishment. But these moral prejudices are, for the philosopher, theoretically a matter of convention. What if one can commit a crime, and reap the benefits without discovery ; is there any reason why he should refrain from gratifying his desires in the unconventional way ? All that Epicurus can answer is that, even if the criminal is not found out, the possibility of detection will always be present, and, by rendering him continually uneasy, will destroy that peace of mind in which happiness consists. It is not, however, the flagrant abuses to which it may lead, which constitutes the great weakness of Epicurean- ism, but rather the flabbiness of moral fibre which it 136 A Students History of Philosophy reveals, even when it is at its best. It is, as Cicero calls it, a bourgeois philosophy ; the very virtues which it calls for have only to be turned at another angle to seem common- place. Cheerfulness of mind, pleasant conversation, a life ordered by good taste and aesthetic moderation, are good in themselves ; but they are won at the expense of the more positive and manly qualities. Heroism, self-sacrifice, an honest enthusiasm for the noble and true in conduct, or even in art for these things Epicureanism has no place, if it does not actually disparage them. It sets its face against ambition, and money-getting, and vulgar pleasure-seeking, not because there is a worthier life for man to lead, but because there is nothing after all that is worth while. I am no doubt a fool if I weary myself with striving after wealth and luxury, fame and position ; but I should be equally a fool if I were to delude myself with fine phrases about virtue and humanity, patriotism and duty, and seek to get satisfaction by going out to right the wrongs of the world, and to be a benefactor to human kind. " It is not our business to work for crowns by saving the Greeks, but to enjoy ourselves in good eating and drinking." What difference does it make to me how the world goes, so long as there is a quiet spot in which I may recline, a crust to eat, and a friend to talk with ? I will lie back, and watch the current of the world's misery, as from a safe shelter on the shore I might watch a tem- pest-driven vessel, taking a mild satisfaction in the thought that it is some one else's peril, not my own. Such a con- ception of life is crystallized in the Epicurean notion of the Gods, as they sit beside their nectar, careless of man- kind, and paying no heed to the cries of agony from the downtrodden race of men below. That such a conception should seem the highest ideal of life, and that the Epicu- rean should find it unthinkable that one who had the power of attaining such felicity, should voluntarily take upon himself cares and responsibilities for the sake of others, is his severest condemnation. The Later Ethical Period 137 LITERATURE Zeller, Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics. Lucretius, De Natura Rerum. Wallace, Epicureanism. Courtney, Epicureanism (in Hellenica). Pater, Marius the Epicurean. Horace, Odes. Masson, The Atomic Theory of Lucretius. Watson, Hedonistic Theories. 15. Zeno. The Stoics If Epicureanism was of a nature to appeal strongly to the world weariness of the Roman courtier under the Empire, when despotic power had come as a relief to inces- sant civil war, and experience of the corruption of Roman society had dulled the edge, in less strenuous minds, of any pronounced belief in virtue, it was a very different sort of philosophy that would recommend itself to the typical Roman of the Republic, and to those men who carried on the traditions of the Republic. The same intellectual temper which in public life produced a Cato, received expression in the world of philosophy as Stoicism. It is true that Stoicism is not Roman in its origin. But neither is it wholly Greek, although Athens, as the intellectual centre of the world, was naturally chosen by Zeno (340- 265 B.C.), the founder of the school, as the most fitting place in which to establish himself as a teacher. Zeno was himself, however, a merchant of Cyprus, and probably of Semitic origin ; and nearly all the succeeding heads of the school were also born outside of Greece ; so that the more ascetic temper which Stoicism displays, may perhaps be traced in part to this Oriental strain. At all events, Stoicism offered, to the nobler minds of the day, a welcome refuge from the trivialities and anarchy of the life which surrounded them ; and it succeeded in evolving a type of character and belief, superior in some respects to anything else that the ancient world produced. 138 A Student's History of Philosophy i. Metaphysics. Objectively, the Stoic philosophy is aiming at a result which has many points of contact with Epi- cureanism. For both, the true end of life might be described as freedom from disturbing desires, and from the pressure of external wants; and a discipline of the mind that should enable it to find satisfaction within itself. For both, the attaining of this end is the one aim of philosophy, which thus is severely practical in its nature. But the real meaning of the end, and the attitude of mind for which it called, were in the two cases wholly different. As the Epicurean went back to Aristippus, and his doctrine of pleasure as the end of life, so the Stoics connected themselves with that develop- ment of Socrates' thought, which, in the Cynics, made vir- tue the highest good. But whereas the Cynics stopped with negative results, and so found it difficult to give to their conception any definite content, in the case of the Stoics the possession of a more adequate -theoretical ground- work introduced elements which helped correct the one- sidedness, not only of their predecessors, but also of their rivals, the Epicureans. Instead, that is, of accepting the individualism and atomism of Epicurus, they start from the other end. Reality is an organic whole, an intimate combi- nation of form and matter, soul and body, through which one universal life pulsates. This connected whole is indiffer- ently God, or nature. Since, then, man, like everything else, constitutes a part of the universal nature, conform- ity to nature becomes a formula which has in it the pos- sibility of giving a real content to the life of virtue. It is true the negative interpretation of the life of nature, which it had with the Cynics, still persists very largely, and dictates the character of the Stoic teaching on its more paradoxical side. But still the positive conception lies back of this, and becomes eventually more prominent. The mere protest against convention, and the emphasis on ascetic endurance, is transmuted into a positive law of duty. The knowledge in which virtue consists, becomes a knowl- edge of the true nature of things; and virtuous conduct, The Later Ethical Period 139 such conduct as will further the life of nature of that whole to which we belong as parts, and which is interpre- table in terms of our rational life. Before examining this ideal more carefully, a few words may be added to complete the account of the general meta- physical theory of the school. The conception of the uni- verse as a whole, instead of as a mere collection of atomic elements, implies the reality of its rationality, or what Plato calls the Idea. But the Stoic agrees with Aristotle in denying that the two things, matter and form, are at all separate. Meaning exists in the world, not in the realm beyond it. Even Aristotle, however, had ended up with pure form, as something entirely separate from matter. The Stoics get rid of all transcendentalism whatever, by reducing form itself to matter. s The result is a material- istic pantheism. The world of material nature is the sole reality ; but it is not dead matter. It is living, informed by a rational soul; and so is God. This soul of the world, the Logos, or rational principle, is everywhere' present as a more active and subtle kind of matter; just as the human soul is present in the body, ruling and directing it to rational ends. Indeed, what we call the soul pneuma, breath or spirit is but a part of this world soul, participating in its rational qualities, and received back finally into the uni- versal reason, where its individuality is lost. In opposition, therefore, to the explanation of the world processes by chance or mechanism, the Stoic conception is throughout teleological. Everything flows of necessity from the nature of the whole ; and since that whole is Reason, everything has its place in an intelligible scheme. The combination of so thoroughly idealistic a tendency with outspoken materialism a materialism which argues that an emotion, e.g., is matter, since it would have no power to move a man unless it came in spatial contact with him does indeed give rise to serious difficulties. It shows the decline of first-rate philosophical insight, that men were able to ignore these difficulties, and rest content 140 A Student's History of Philosophy with so crude a metaphysic. But here, also, practical needs were uppermost. For a philosophy that was to prove a real guide to men, in a life which needed such guidance, the Ideal of Plato was too remote ; it must be brought down to the actual world, even at the risk of losing something from the standpoint of theory. 2. The Ethical Ideal. With this general sketch of the Stoic metaphysics, we may turn again to their ethical concep- tion. First, then, virtue is knowledge. But this does not mean, as it does with Aristotle, that the highest end of life is pure contemplation. Knowledge, for the Stoics, is practical knowledge knowledge which grows out of the needs of conduct. Accordingly, the Stoic has but little respect for much that passes for learning and philosophy in the world. " What does it concern us which was the older of the two, Homer or Hesiod ; or which was the taller, Helen or Hecuba? We take a great deal of pains to trace Ulysses in his wanderings, but were it not time as well spent to look to ourselves, that we may not wander at all ? Geometry teaches me the art of measuring acres ; teach me to measure my appetites, and to know when I have enough. Were not I a madman to sit wrangling about words, and putting of nice and impertinent ques- tions, when the enemy has already made the breach, and the town is fired over my head ? The wisdom of the ancients was no more than certain precepts, what to do and what not, and men were much better in that simplic- ity ; for as they came to be more learned, they grew less careful of being good." 1 Once more, then, virtue is the sole end of man, and of philosophy ; and since reason is the essential part of man, the life of virtue is the life of reason. But what is the relation of reason to the lower, appetitive nature, which also forms a part of man ? In answering this question, the Stoics introduce an innovation into the psychology of Plato and Aristotle. Instead of making the desires and 1 Letters, XIII, 3. The Later Ethical Period 141 emotions constitute, as in Plato, a second and separate part of the soul, standing over against the reason, they repre- sent them rather as a disease, an imperfection, a disturb- ance of the reason itself. And from this an important ethical result follows. The emotions are not something, as with Aristotle, to be simply regulated and held in check by the reason ; they must be destroyed utterly. As a disease, emotion is not to be tolerated for a moment. If we give it ever so slight a foothold, it is bound to grow, and spread its contagion. The true ethical ideal, there- fore, is entire freedom from the emotions. ' It is not a question of tempering one's passions ; that is to rest satis- fied with being only a little mad, a little sick. The wise man must aim at perfect health of soul ; he must have no passions at all. But may we not be sad in adversity, or pity a friend in distress ? Relieve our friend, by all means; but as for indulging in pity, no. Such a thing seems harmless ; but as sure as we give way to it, we shall find it gaining strength, and becoming ungovernable. Pity, too, is apt to make a man bungle in his work, and thus actually to defeat its own end. It is true, so at least the later Stoics had to admit, that there are certain weaknesses of the flesh the blush that rises unbidden to the cheek, the instinctive shrinking before pain and suffering which I may not be able wholly to control ; but these are no more than affections of the body, and need not touch the mind, unless the mind itself shall so permit. An emotion is a disturbance of the mind; and over that the mind has full control, and may give or withhold its consent. True virtue and happiness, then, will consist in living free and undisturbed ; and that will only be possible, as we refuse to allow our will to be coerced by those external things and events, which lie outside the power of the mind itself. Let us recognize that that only is an evil which we choose to regard as such ; if we refuse, then, to call it evil, it may, indeed, harm our body, but it cannot touch our real self. 142 A Student's History of Philosophy " Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay." * " Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint : I have been harmed. Take away the com- plaint : I have been harmed, and the harm is done away." 2 Instead of striving to win this and avoid that, let us rid ourselves of the desires which make things attractive or dreadful. It is the good fortune of the wise man not to need any good fortune. " One prays thus : How shall I be released of this ; another thus : How shall I not de- sire to be released. Another thus : How shall I not lose my little son? Thou thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him ? Turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes." 3 That only is a real evil, which degrades the soul from its true dignity; and that only a good, which enables the soul to stand fast in its integrity. " Soon thou wilt be ashes or a skeleton, and either a name, or not a name even. And the things which are much valued in life are empty and rotten and trifling, and like little dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling and laughing, and then straightway weeping." 4 What is pleasure, for which men fight and die ? Transitory, tiresome, sickly, it scarce outlives the tasting of it. " I am seeking," says Seneca, " to find what is good for a man, not for his belly. Why, cattle and whales have larger ones than he." 5 Are we taken with a life of luxury and outward show ? " As we sit at table, let us consider that this is but the dead body of a fish, that the dead body of a bird or of a pig ; and, again, that this Falernian is only a little grape juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed with the blood of a shellfish." 6 Or do we work for fame, that future gen- erations may praise us ? Let us remember that men of after 1 M. Aurelius, Thotights, XII, 22. 2 Ibid., IV, 7. 8 Ibid., IX, 40. * Ibid., V, 33. 6 Seneca, Dialogues, VII, 9. 6 Thoughts, VI, 13. The Later Ethical Period 143 times will be exactly such as those whom now we de- spise and cannot endure, just as foolish and unthinking, just as short-lived. Let us, then, stand steadfast in the faith that nothing can harm us, unless we ourselves open the gate to the enemy ; that nothing is necessary, save those inner possessions of which no one can rob us. Such an ideal of character the ideal of the wise man, or sage is, however, in danger of becoming somewhat stern and unlovely in its nature. In the rigor of their concep- tion, the Stoics seemed to make no allowance for the frailty of human nature. As in the later Christian doc- trine, a man was either wholly saved or wholly lost, perfect and complete, or else with no good thing in him ; just as a stick is either straight or crooked, and there is no middle alternative. The man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus. For virtues are not many, but one, since all go back to the inner unity of the will which alone is good, and to the attitude which this adopts. If, there- fore, the will is sound, the man possesses at one stroke all possible goods and perfections ; if it is weak in one point, it is weak in all, for no chain is stronger than its weakest link. The Stoics speak of the sage, accordingly, in the most extravagant terms ; since all goods are one, he alone is just, wise, beautiful, brave, a king, an orator, rich, a legislator. So, also, there is no gradual progress toward virtue. The wise man becomes wise by a sudden conver- sion, which in a single moment bridges the gulf between total depravity and perfection. Accordingly, the world becomes divided between the two classes : the sages, a scattered few, and the vast multitude of men, mostly fools. And the tendency was strong to make this division a source of Pharisaic pride, and to transfer the contemptuous dis- regard in which outer things were held to the men also who took delight in these things that is, to mankind in general. 144 -A Student's History of Philosophy But time tended to soften the asperity of this attitude. The ideal sage, in his perfection, was too rare a phenom- enon in the world, and the failure of the average Stoic to live up to the standard thus set, was too obvious to himself and to his opponents alike ; and so concessions necessarily were made. It had to be allowed that, after all, there are various grades of attainment, and that one is higher than another. So also, it was found impossible, without too great paradox, to hold that the good will is the only good in the world, and that everything else is wholly indifferent. Common sense will never admit that health and fortune, because they are more or less fortuitous, and can at a pinch be dispensed with, have therefore lost entirely the claim to be called good, and are quite on a level with disease and penury. Accordingly, in addition to the absolutely good and evil, the Stoics were led to make a distinction between those external things which tend to promote the good life, and supply it with material, and those which have the opposite tendency. And it was admitted that, although the former are not good in the proper and ulti- mate sense, they yet are good in a secondary way, and relatively ; while the term " indifferent " was now applied to the third and more limited class of things, which are recognized by common sense as having no important bearing on our lives. Indeed, the assertion that pleasure and pain are absolutely indifferent and on an equality, is obviously only a paradoxical overstatement of certain truths which, stripped of exaggeration, would be gener- ally admitted ; apart from these, it would carry no convic- tion at all. The elements of truth in it are, of course, that pain may be endured with cheerfulness by the brave man when it is inevitable, and even welcomed when it is a step toward some higher good ; that pleasure is subordinate to character, and unworthy to engross the affec- tions, and stand in the way of the life of virtue. And while the Stoic always retains his tendency to paradox, this more moderate attitude comes to be adopted also on The Later Ethical Period 145 occasion. The desirable thing is not to have the fire burn me, that I would willingly avoid if I could, but that it cannot conquer me. Pleasure is not wholly to be disdained. It is true, virtue remains the final aim. But still, if pleasure follows virtue naturally, it may be wel- comed ; " as in a tilled field, when ploughed for corn, some flowers are found amongst it, and yet, though these may charm the eye, all this labor was not spent in order to produce them." 1 This tendency toward softening the harsh contrasts in the Stoic system, and making it more human, was helped out by an idea contained in the Stoic metaphysics. So far, we might seem to have an ideal of life as self-centred and individualistic as that of Epicurus. But in the con- ception, already mentioned, of the universal nature, there was the possibility of a more adequate development, which assumed greater prominence in the school as time went on. The Pharisaic opposition of the sage to the fool became tempered by the thought of the essential brother- hood of man. As entering into the unity of nature, we are all members one of another ; every man alike, as par- ticipating in some measure of reason, forms a part of the being of God. And so a life according to nature, as the control of the passions by the reason, becomes defined ob- jectively by the addition of the very important thought, that such a life of reason is a life in and for society. No man can live to himself ; " sooner will one find anything earthy, which comes in contact with no earthy thing, than a man altogether separated from other men." 2 A life, then, which regards the life of others, a life in a community or state, is an essential element of the life of reason. To be sure, as states then were constituted, the Stoic might be excused from taking an active part in politics ; but theoretically he was still in his private life working for the public weal. "The services of a good citizen are never thrown away; he does good by being 1 Dial., VII, 9. ' Thoughts, IX, 9. L 146 A Students History of Philosophy heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very walk." * Nor is this limited, as with the ancient Greek it was limited, to one's own par- ticular state or city. " My nature," says the Emperor Aurelius, "is rational and social, and my city and my country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome ; but so far as I am a man, it is the world." 2 This cosmopolitanism, which prided itself on the sentiment, I am first of all a man Homo sum is not, indeed, the outcome of any very vital or deep-seated feeling. It is a result of the breaking down of national bonds which followed the empire of Alexander, and the Hellenizing of the world ; and it does not neces- sarily imply any great sense of obligation toward man- kind. Often it is no more than the throwing off of na- tional responsibilities. Most of the Stoics, as has been said, were not citizens of Greece, but rather, in the Greek sense, barbarians, and so they naturally would not find it so hard to enlarge their sympathy, and recognize the essential oneness of men. The superstition of birth had begun to be criticised even at an earlier period. " It is true," Antisthenes had replied to a slur upon his family and origin, "that I am not the son of two free citizens; but neither am I the son of two people skilled in wrest- ling, and nevertheless I am a skilful wrestler." With all its limitations, however, this cosmopolitanism shows the growth of a broader view of life, which only had to receive a more positive meaning to bring about a real revolution. This conception of nature was carried a step higher. Man is not only a citizen of the world ; he is a part of the fabric of the universe : and with the religious tinge which this thought took on, is connected a good deal of the power and attractiveness of the Stoic system. Merely as a part of the universe of matter, man is of necessity subjected to the law of the whole, and enters into the unvarying chain of cause and effect which nature exhibits. But what might 1 Dial., IX, 4. 2 Thoughts, VI, 44. The Later Ethical Period 147 have been the sting of this conception, if nature were looked at as an unmeaning play of atoms, with no regard for man's welfare, becomes an added motive, as she as- sumes those attributes which bring us into an emotional relation to her, and which enable us to use the name of God. It is perfectly true that we have no independence as opposed to the one great reality ; we are but a part of the deity who acts in us. " Among the animals who have not reason, one life is distributed, just as there is one earth of all things ; and among reasonable animals one intelligent soul is distributed, just as we see by one light, and breathe one air." 1 Like the course of a river fate moves forward in an irresistible stream. He knows little of God that imagines it may be controlled. There is no changing the purpose even of a wise man, for he sees beforehand what will be best for the future. How much more unchange- able, then, is the Almighty, to whom all future is eter- nally present. But this also is our comfort. What might be hard to bear as Fate or Destiny, takes on another aspect when we call it by its true name of Providence. God alone knows what is best for us, nor have we any right to urge our private desires against the good of the whole. " To her who gives and takes back all, to nature, the man who is instructed and modest says : ' Give what thou wilt, take back what thou wilt.' And he says this, not proudly, but obediently, and well pleased with her." 2 Taken at its best, then, in the person of its more worthy representatives, Stoicism offers an ideal of life which has rarely been surpassed for noble simplicity. " I will look upon death or upon comedy," says Seneca, "with the same expression of countenance. I will submit to labors however great they may be, supporting the strength of my body by that of my mind. I will despise riches when I have them as much as when I have them not. Whether fortune comes or goes, I will take no notice of her. I will view all lands as though they belong to me, and my own as 1 Ibid., IX, 8. 2 Ibid., X, 14. 148 A Students History of Philosophy though they belonged to all mankind. I will so live as to remember that I was born for others, and will thank nature on this account ; for in what fashion could she have done better for me ? She has given me alone to all, and all to me alone. Whatever I may possess, I will neither hoard it greedily, nor squander it recklessly. I will think that I have no possessions so real as those which I have given away to deserving people. I never will consider a gift to be a large one if it be bestowed upon a worthy object. I will do nothing because of public opinion, but everything because of conscience. Whenever I do anything alone by myself, I will believe that the eyes of the Roman people are upon me while I do it. In eating and drinking, my object shall be to quench the desires of nature, not to fill and empty my belly. I will be agreeable with my friends, gentle and mild to my foes. I will grant pardon before I am asked for it, and will meet the wishes of honorable men halfway. I will bear in mind that the world is my native city, that its governors are the Gods, and that they stand above and around me criticising whatever I do or say. When either nature demands my breath again, or reason bids me dismiss it, I will quit this life, calling all to witness that I have loved a good conscience and good pursuits ; that no one's freedom, my own least of all, has been im- paired through me." * So Epictetus : " My man, as the proverb says, make a desperate effort on behalf of tran- quillity of mind, freedom, and magnanimity. Lift up your eyes at last as released from slavery. Dare to look up to God and say : Deal with me for the future as thou wilt, I refuse nothing that pleases thee ; clothe me in any dress thou choosest. Who would Hercules have been if he had sat at home ? He would have been Eurystheus, and not Hercules. But you are not Hercules, and you are not able to purge away the wickedness of others. Clear away your own ; from yourself, from your thoughts cast away, instead of Procrustes and Sciron, sadness, fear, desire, The Later Ethical Period 149 envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intemperance." * " Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self- respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and cur- tains." 2 A God dwells in the breast of every good man ; let us not disgrace the abode of divinity. And if once we have attained this salvation and intreg- rity of soul, we are able to meet life cheerfully and confi- dently, without fearing anything it can do to us. Other delights are trivial in comparison with this serene and sober peace of mind. They are greatly mistaken who take laughter for rejoicing. The seat of true joy is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolution of a brave mind that has fortune under its feet. Virtue needs no external rewards. " As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season." 3 The life of virtue is all-sufficient. It fills the whole soul, and takes away the sensibility of any loss. What matters it if a stream be interrupted or cut off, if the fountain from whence it flowed be still alive ? As the stars hide their diminished heads before the brightness of the sun, so afflictions are crushed and dissipated by the greatness of virtue ; and all manner of annoyances have no more effect upon her, than a shower of rain upon the sea. In the presence of these true and eternal joys, mere pleasures seem poor and worthless. We are in the world not to live pleasantly, but to quit us like men ; and in thus acting in accordance with our real nature, we shall derive the only true satisfaction. " In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present : I am rising to the work of a human being. Why, then, am I dissatis- 1 Discourses, II, 16. 2 Thoughts, III, 7. Ibid., V, 6. 150 A Students History of Philosophy fied, if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for which I was brought into the world ? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm ? But this is more pleasant. Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion ? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order their several parts of the universe ? and art thou unwilling to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is according to thy nature P" 1 So external advantages, riches, and position, have no real value. It matters not whence we come, but whither we go. For a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, which serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business. It is the edge and temper of the blade that makes a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard ; and so it is not money and possessions that makes a man considerable, but his virtue. " They are amusing fellows who are proud of things which are not in our power. A man says : I am better than you, for I possess much land, and you are wasting with hunger. Another says : I am of consular rank ; another : I have curly hair. But a horse does not say to a horse : I am superior to you, for I possess much fodder and much bar- ley, and my bits are of gold, and my harness is embroid- ered ; but he says : I am swifter than you. And every animal is better or worse from his own merit or his own badness. Is there, then, no virtue in man only, and must we look to the hair and our clothes, and to our ances- tors?" 2 Every man is worth just as much as the things about which he busies himself. Let our riches consist in coveting nothing, and our peace in fearing nothing. Secure, then, in the eternal possession of himself, a man can afford to despise the buffets of fortune, and can even welcome them, in the confidence that all things are work- ing for his good. It does not matter what you bear, but 1 Thoughts, V, I. 2 Epictetus, Fragments, 16. The Later Ethical Period 151 how you bear it. Outward circumstances are not our masters ; where a man can live at all, he can also live well. A wise man is out of the reach of fortune, and attempts upon him are no more than Xerxes' arrows ; they may darken the day, but they cannot strike the sun. " I must die. Must I then die lamenting ? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment? Tell me the secret which you possess. I will not, for this is in my power. But I will put you in chains. Man, what are you talking about ? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower. I will throw you into prison. My poor body, you mean. I will cut your head off. When, then, have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off ? " 1 Thus not even death is to the wise man a thing to dread ; like birth and all that the seasons bring, it is but one of the things which nature wills. " For as to children masks appear terrible and fearful from inexperience, we also are affected in like manner by events for no other reason. What is death ? A tragic mask. Turn it and examine it. See, it does not bite. The poor body must be separated from the spirit either now or later, as it was separated from it before." 2 " Pass, then, through thy little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew." 3 Life itself is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil. This the Stoics carried to the extent even of advocating the voluntary giving up of life by suicide, if occasion seemed to call for it. When life is so questionable a good, why not renounce it? it is but ridding ourselves of a trouble- some burden. " The house is smoky and I quit it " that is all there is to say. " The door is open ; be not more timid than little children, but as they say when the thing does not please them : I will play no longer, so do you, 1 Discourses, I, I. 2 Ibid., II, I. Thoughts, IV, 48. 152 A Student's History of Philosophy when things seem to you of such a kind, say : I will no longer play, and be gone. But if you stay, do not com- plain." 1 Temperance in prosperity, courage in adversity, and a pervading faith in the oneness, rationality, and good- ness of the universe this is the whole duty of man. " Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe ; nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit for me which thy seasons bring, O Nature ; from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. The poets say : Dear City of Cecrops, and wilt not thou say : Dear city of Zeus ? " 2 3. The Problem of Evil. Before closing the account of Stoicism, it will be well to mention two problems in particu- lar, which the requirements of their theory led the Stoics to give a special prominence. These are the problems of evil, and of human freedom. The Stoic, as has been said, accepts the teleological explanation of the universe, as opposed to the theory of unmeaning mechanism ; to him it is self-evident that the world is framed in accordance with a rational pur- pose. " Every man knows without telling that this won- derful fabric of the universe is not without a governor, and that a constant order cannot be the work of chance ; for the parts would then fall foul one upon another. The motions of the stars and their influences are acted by the command of an eternal decree. It is by the dictates of an almighty power that the heavy body of the earth hangs in balance." 3 Accordingly, the world must be a perfect world ; and this the Stoics attempted to establish by appeal- ing to the harmony and beauty in it, and the apparent adaptation of means to end, especially in organic life. Thus, the peacock is made for the sake of its beautiful tail ; horses are made for riding ; sheep to supply clothing for man, and dogs to guard and help him ; asses to carry his burdens. Such reasoning, however, unless a severe restraint were put upon it, was clearly in danger of de- 1 Discourses, I, 24. 2 Thoughts, IV, 23. Dial., I, I. The Later Ethical Period 153 scending to trivialities ; and at its best it still has to meet difficulties, by reason of the numerous cases where, espe- cially if we take human life as the end of creation, the products of nature seem quite irrelevant, or else positively harmful. So the Stoics were put upon their mettle to meet these objections, and still maintain the perfection of the world. In doing this, they succeeded in bringing out a suggestion, at least, of most of the considerations by which subsequent thought has tried to vindicate the ways of God to man. As regards physical evils, at any rate, they had already met the difficulty consistently, even if paradoxically, by their denial that such things are evil at all. " Many afflictions may befall a good man, but no evil, for contraries will never incorporate ; all the rivers of the world are never able to change the taste and quality of the ocean." 1 Or, again, if we wish to take it on somewhat less high ground, let us remember that we only have to live each moment at a time. It is neither the future nor the past that pains me, but only the present. If then I do not let my thoughts embrace at once all the troubles I may expect to befall me, but consider each occasion by itself, I shall be ashamed to confess that there is in it anything intolerable and past bear- ing. Put besides this, there are other more positive con- siderations. The conception of the world as a unity enables us to explain a seeming imperfection by its relation to the larger scheme of things into which it enters ; a partial evil becomes a universal good. " Must my leg then be lamed ? Wretch, do you then on account of one poor leg find fault with the world ? Will you not willingly surrender it for the whole ? Know you not how small a part you are com- pared with the whole ? " 2 " If a good man had foreknowl- edge of what would happen, he would cooperate toward his own sickness and death and mutilation, since he knows that these things are assigned to him according to the uni- versal arrangement, and that the whole is superior to the 1 Ibid,, I, 2. 2 Discourses, I, 12. 154 -d Student's History of Philosophy part" 1 " But how is it said that some external things are according to nature, and others contrary to nature ? It is said as it might be said if we were separated from society ; for to the foot I shall say that it is according to nature for it to be clean ; but if you take it as a foot, and as a thing not independent, it will befit it both to step into the mud, and tread on thorns, and sometimes to be cast off for the good of the whole body ; otherwise it is no longer a foot. We should think in some such way about ourselves also. What are you ? A man. If you consider yourself as detached from other men, it is according to nature to live to old age, to be rich, to be healthy. But if you consider yourself as a man, and a part of a certain whole, it is for the sake of that whole that at one time you should be sick, at another time take a voyage and run into danger, at another time be in want, and in some cases die prematurely. Why then are you troubled ? Do you not know that as a foot is no longer a foot if it is detached from the body, so you are no longer a man if you are separated from other men ? " 2 It is true that often this does not carry us very far practically, since we are unable to put ourselves at the point of view of the whole ; and so we may be forced to fall back on the blind faith that nature can do no wrong. But sometimes also we can see how evil may work for good. "Just as we must understand when it is said that ^Esculapius prescribed to this man horse exercise, or bath- ing in cold water, or going without shoes, so we must understand it when it is said that the nature of the uni- verse prescribed to this man disease, or mutilation, or loss of anything of the kind." 3 As a master gives his most hopeful scholars the hardest lessons, so does God deal with the most generous spirits. Life is a warfare, and what brave man would not rather choose to be in a tent than in shambles ? In reality no one is more unhappy than the man whom no misfortune has ever befallen. 1 Ibid., II, 10. 2 Ibid., II, 5. 8 Thoughts, V, 8. The Later Ethical Period 155 How many are there in the world that enjoy all things to their own wish, whom God never thought worthy of a trial. If it might be imagined that the Almighty should take off his thought from the care of his whole work, what more glorious spectacle could he reflect upon than a valiant man struggling with adverse fortune ? Calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind, that resolves to live and die master of itself. Adversity is the better for us all, for it is God's mercy to show the world their errors, and that the things they fear and covet are neither good nor evil, being the common and promiscuous lot of good men and bad. 1 4. The Problem of Freedom. The other problem which received attention in the controversies between the Stoics and the Epicureans was the problem of freedom. The whole standpoint of the Stoics, as the preceding quota- tions will show, involved an insistence upon the supreme reality of duty, and the responsibility which goes along with duty. But on the other side stood their doctrine of necessity, according to which man is but a part of the universe which is acting through him. Their op- ponents were quick to point out the apparent contra- diction, and to insist that no place was left for real freedom and responsibility. A reconciliation of freedom with determinism was, accordingly, attempted by the Stoics with considerable acuteness ; and in this way there was evolved the conception of a freedom opposed to the mere causeless liberty of indifference which the Epicureans upheld. Such a freedom acts, indeed, in accordance with law ; but this law is an expression of man's own inner nature, and not something forced upon him from without. What I will to do is my action, whether I could have acted differently or not ; and so I am strictly responsible for it. If the result sometimes takes on the aspect of fatalism, this is natural in an age in which political free- dom had disappeared before the despotism of a great world 1 CL>ia/., I, 4, 5. 156 A Student's History of Philosophy empire, and the policy of submission was forced upon all minds as the only safe one. Nevertheless, it is not an ignoble submission, for we are yielding, not to brute force, as in the political world, but to the law of reason, which is the law of our own being. Is not this, indeed, the only true liberty ? The wise man does nothing unwillingly, for whatever he finds necessary, he makes his choice. We are born subjects, but to obey God is perfect liberty. " But you say : I would like to have everything result just as I like, and in whatever way I like. You are mad, you are beside yourself. Do you not know that freedom is a noble and valuable thing ? But for me inconsiderately to wish for things to happen as I inconsiderately like, this appears to me not only not noble, but even most base. For how do we proceed in the matter of writing ? Do I wish to write the name of Dion as I choose ? No ; but I am taught to choose to write it as it ought to be written. And how with respect to music ? In the same manner. If it were not so, it would be of no value to know any- thing, if knowledge were adapted to every man's whim. Is it then in this alone, in this which is the greatest and the chief thing I mean freedom that I am permitted to will inconsiderately ? By no means, but to be instructed is this : to learn to wish that everything may happen as it does." 1 It is evident that the esoteric belief of the Stoics was far removed from the popular religion, and lay in the direction of a monotheism or pantheism. Still, their whole temper of mind disposed them not to attack the religious faith of the times, as the Epicureans did, but rather to accommodate themselves to it, as an expression, inade- quate indeed, but still the best attainable, of a real truth. Accordingly, they were not averse to speaking in the ordinary language about the Gods, provided they were allowed to put their own construction upon their words. According to that construction, the different deities are, of 1 Discourses, I, 12. The Later Ethical Period 157 course, only the several functions of the one nature, the one almighty power. "When," says Seneca, "men speak of him as the father and the fountain of all beings, they call him Bacchus ; and when under the name of Hercules, they denote him to be indefatigable and invincible ; and in the contemplation of him in the reason, proportion, order, and wisdom of his proceedings, they call him Mercury ; so that which way soever they look, and under what name soever they couch their meaning, they never fail of find- ing him, for he is everywhere, and fills his own work. If a man should borrow money of Seneca, and say that he owes it to Annaeus or Lucius, he may change the name, but not his creditor ; for let him take which of the three names he pleases, he is still a debtor to the same per- son." J 5. Stoicism and Christianity. If we try to sum up briefly the influence of Stoicism, we may say that it created, at a time when ideals were sorely needed, an ideal of personal life and character more profound than the Greek world had yet seen; and in so doing, it pro- vided the only available refuge for minds of the nobler sort. In many ways it offers obvious points of contact with the Christian religion, and it played an important part in the preparation which rendered the triumph of Christianity possible. The conception of the omni- presence of God in the world as pneuma, or spirit ; the emphasis, unknown until now, which was laid upon duty as the inner law of man's nature ; the ideal of a life of self-denial, easily passing into an ascetic contempt for the things of this world these, and many other points of resemblance, will suggest themselves. But on the other hand, there are important elements of difference. In the first place, while the God of the Stoics is preeminently one of impersonal intelligence and power, the God of Christianity is a God of love. The outlines of the Stoic conception are almost uniformly hard and uncompromising. 1 Seneca, On Benefits, IV, 8. 158 A Students History of Philosophy God looks after the perfection of the whole, but this may or may not be compatible with the happiness of the in- dividual. The same hardness was carried over into the relations of man to man ; more truly, perhaps, the former fact is a reflex of the latter. We should help our fellows, indeed, as reason demands ; but we should do it simply as our duty, without letting ourselves be betrayed into feel- ings of pity or tenderness. Theoretically, the Stoics recom- mend an insensibility which is nothing short of inhuman. A wise man is not affected by the loss of children or friends. " To feel pain or griefs for the misfortunes of others," says Seneca, one of the mildest of Stoics, "is a weakness unworthy of the sage ; for nothing should cloud his serenity or shake his firmness." It follows that Stoicism can only appeal to the sense of satisfaction in one's mere power of dogged endurance, as his sole reward ; Christianity, on the other hand, is a reli- gion of hope and consolation. Even when, with Stoicism, it holds to the necessity of rejecting the solicitations of pleasure and ambition, it does not make this negation an end in itself, but a means to a fuller life in another world, if not in this. The love of God to men will never permit them to drop out of his scheme ; and the demand for brute endurance is not, therefore, the last word. The value of endurance is in relation to the reward for endur- ance which is sure to come. To the Stoic, immortality is only a possible hypothesis, which carries no special consola- tion with it, even if it is not rejected outright ; and in any case, it is but an extension of life, not an absolute immor- tality. For even if our self-identity continues for a time after death, yet at last the final overthrow of this world of ours will come, and in the universal conflagration which will then take place, all finite souls will be re- absorbed into the great world soul, and lose their separate existence. And, finally, Stoicism is primarily an Ethics, not, like Christianity, a Religion. The philosopher attains virtue The Later Ethical Period 159 by his own efforts ; he looks to himself for help, not to God. The wise man, so the Stoic could say, is as neces- sary to Zeus, as Zeus to the wise man. In one way he even can surpass God : God is beyond suffering evil, the wise man is above it. God surpasses the good man in this only, that He is longer good ; the good man can excel God in the patience with which he bears the trials of his mortal lot. The result is, at its best, a respect for one- self, and one's own integrity, which is wholesome and heroic ; at its worst, a Pharisaic pride in one's individual achievements, and a contemptuous disregard for those less strong. But in any case, it is not a creed for the masses, but only for exceptional natures. It fostered ideals which proved a saving leaven in the corruption of social life ; but it was too cold, intellectual, and self- centred to regenerate society. In the need that was felt for something that should appeal, not simply to the intellect or the bare will, but to the feelings and emo- tions as well, which should take man out of himself, more- over, and help out his weakness by relating him to a higher power, ethical philosophy was passing into religious philosophy. LITERATURE Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts. Seneca, Dialogues, On Benefits, On Clemency, Letters. Epictetus, Discourses and Encheiridion. Cicero, Philosophical Works. Plutarch, Morals. Capes, Stoicism. Bryant, The Mutual Influence of Christianity and the Stoic School. Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. Pater, Marias the Epicurean. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles. Matthew Arnold, Marcus Aurelius (in Essays). Jackson, Seneca and Kant. Watson, Life of M. Aurelius. Bruce, Moral Order of the World in Ancient and Modern Thought. 160 A Students History of Philosophy 1 6. The Sceptics i. Before turning, however, to the development of reli- gious philosophy, it is necessary to give a brief account of the other tendencies of the period that has already been considered. Of these, the most important is Scepticism. The first representative of Scepticism was Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 B.C.), a contemporary of Aristotle. Like Zeno and Epicurus, Pyrrho comes to philosophy with a practical end in view. But instead of attempting to find satisfaction through the medium of a positive and dogmatic system of belief, he thought that it was just in this direction that inquietude and perplexity lay. For after all that men have thought, what agreement have they reached on the simplest questions ? Each school has its own special answer, which differs from the answer given by any other school. Let us recognize, then, that -much thinking is a weariness to the flesh; that speculation only involves us in doubt and uncertainty; that every question may be argued equally well on either side, so that a final decision is impossible. Let us find peace of mind by acquiescing in our enforced ignorance, holding our minds in suspense, and regarding as indifferent to us all external things, since we cannot possibly know the truth about them. In later days, stories were current of the way in which Pyrrho exemplified his own philosophy on the practical side ; how, for example, he declined to trust his senses even to the extent of turning out for a wagon, or precipice, or what- ever might be in his way, and so had to be rescued by his friends. Pyrrho had no very great influence on the thought of his own day ; the field was not yet ready for him. But as the period of originality in speculative thinking became more distant, a new sceptical reaction grew up against the dogmatism of the dominant schools. This reaction suc- ceeded in finding a home temporarily in the Academy, where it was adopted in the first place chiefly as a weapon The Later Ethical Period 161 against the Stoics. The most important names in connec- tion with the Middle Academy, as it is called, are those of Arcesilaus (315-241 B.C.), and his more brilliant successor Carneades (215-130 B.C.). By Carneades, Scepticism was carried over into the realm of Ethics as well ; and it is .re- lated that while on a political embassy to Rome, he created a great sensation by arguing very eloquently in a public discourse in behalf of justice, and then the next day speak- ing with equal effect against it. The Academic doctrine had, however, a more positive side also. Although cer- tainty cannot be had, yet practical needs require that there should be something to render decision possible. This the Academics tried to give in their doctrine of probability. A thing may not be capable of proof, but it still may be more probable than its opposite ; and the logic of proba- bility, which for practical needs is as good as demonstra- tion, they worked out in some detail. A third tendency in Scepticism, which considered that the Academy was still too dogmatic, and so professed to go back to the more thoroughgoing doctrine of Pyrrho, is found among the so- called Empiricists, who are chiefly physicians. Of these the most important are ^Enesidemus of Cnossus, and Sextus Empiricus. 2. The arguments of the Sceptics may be divided roughly into two classes, those empirical proofs, drawn chiefly from sensation, which show the actual uncertainty and con- tradictoriness of our knowledge, and the more theoretical considerations from the nature of thought or reason. These arguments have become familiar at the present day, and may be reproduced briefly as follows : 1 There are, first, the differences in the organization of animals, and the consequent difference in the impressions which the same object makes upon them. What is pleas- ant to one is disagreeable to another ; what is useful to one, to another is fatal. Thus, young branches are eagerly 1 Taken largely from Diogenes Laertius' life of Pyrrho (Bonn's Classical Library). K 1 62 A Student's History of Philosophy eaten by the goat, but are bitter to mankind ; hemlock is nutritious to the quail, but deadly to man. So animals differ vastly in the degree of development of their faculties. The hawk is far more keen-sighted than man, the dog' has a much acuter scent. Must it not be a different world, then, that reveals itself to different beings ? and who is to decide which is the true world ? So among men themselves, how vast is the variety in the ways in which things affect them ? According to Demo- phon, the steward of Alexander used to feel warm in the shade, and to shiver in the sun. Andron the Argive travelled through the deserts of Libya without once drink- ing. Again, one man is fond of medicine, another of farming, another of commerce. How are we to set up any standard in the midst of the confusion that meets us ? Everything goes back to personal tastes, and about tastes there is no disputing. Again, look at the different ways in which the same object will appear to the different senses. An apple presents itself to the sense of sight as yellow, to the taste as sweet, to the smell as fragrant. Does not this very fact, that each sense modifies the report which an object sends in, so as to change its character entirely, show that we never get the true object at all ? Conceivably there might be countless other senses, and each of these would have just as much, or just as little, title to be believed as those we possess. And in the same person there are continual changes going on, which affect his whole view of things. Health, sickness, sleep, waking, joy, grief, youth, old age, courage, fear, want, abundance, hatred, friendship, warmth, cold, ease or difficulty of breathing, all determine us to the most varied and contradictory notions about the real nature of facts. What are we to take as the normal state, where things appear in their truth ? And what opinion can we have of a being whose powers and faculties can be so easily upset and confounded by the most trifling cause ? The Later Ethical Period 163 Consider, next, the all-important matter of custom and tradition, and the effect which habit, education, and envi- ronment have in determining a man's beliefs. In the face of this, how can we suppose that there is any absolute foundation of true or false, right or wrong ? In one community certain customs rule, and everybody regards them as eminently right and natural. Pass into the next country, and you will find these same customs condemned as absurd and vicious. The same action is just in the eyes of some people, and unjust in those of others. The Persians do not think it unnatural for a man to marry his daughter ; but among the Greeks it is unlawful. The Cilicians delight in piracy, but the Greeks avoid it. Dif- ferent nations worship different Gods, and worship them by different rites. And in the same country, customs are all the while changing. "We see scarcely anything just or unjust that does not change quality in changing climate. Three degrees of higher latitude overturn all jurispru- dence. A meridian decides the truth. Fundamental laws change ; right has its epochs. Pitiable justice, bounded by a river or a mountain ! Truth this side the Pyrenees, error that side." a But in the object, as well as in the subject, there are causes of confusion. Nothing is seen by us simply and by itself ; but in combination either with air, or with light, or with moisture, or heat, or cold, or motion, or evaporation, or some other power. Sounds, for example, are different, according as the air is dense or rare. Purple exhibits a different hue in the sun, and in the moon, and by lamp- light. A stone which one cannot lift in the air, is easily displaced in the water. Accordingly, we cannot know posi- tively the peculiar qualities of anything, just as we cannot distinguish the real properties of oil in ointment. Another fruitful cause of uncertainty is the position, distance, and spatial relations of objects. Objects that we believe to be large, sometimes appear small ; those that we 1 Pascal, Thoughts. 164 A Students History of Philosophy believe to be square, sometimes appear round ; those that we fancy even, appear full of projections ; those that we think straight, seem bent; those that we think colorless, appear colored. A vessel seen at a distance seems station- ary. Mountains at a distance look smooth, but when beheld close at hand, they are rough. The sun on account of its distance appears small ; and it has one appearance at its rise, and quite another at midday. The neck of the dove changes its color as it turns. Since, then, it is impos- sible to view things irrespectively of place and position, it is clear that their real nature is not known. Again, qualities differ according to quantities. The horn of the goat is black ; the detached fragments of this horn are whitish. A moderate quantity of wine invigorates, while an excessive quantity weakens. Certain poisons are fatal when taken alone ; in mixture with other substances, they cure. The frequency or rarity of a thing determines our view of it. Earthquakes excite no wonder among those nations with whom they are of frequent occurrence ; nor does the sun astonish us, because we see it every day. Finally, we cannot say anything about an object, without involving, explicitly or implicitly, a comparison or relation with other things. Thus light and heavy, strong and weak, greater and less, above and below, right and left, are obvi- ously only relative terms. In the same way, a man is spoken of as a father, or brother, or relation to some one else ; and day is called so in relation to the sun ; and every- thing has its distinctive name in relation to human thought. We cannot strip off these relations and have any content left ; and consequently all our knowledge is relative never of the thing in itself. 3. If perception is incapable of giving us truth, so, equally, is thought ; and the difficulties in the process of syllogistic reasoning are accordingly pointed out. And if neither sensation by itself, nor thought by itself, can attain to certainty, their combination is clearly in no The Later Ethical Period 165 better case. The whole matter is summed up in the dis- cussion about the criterion of truth. Every demonstration depends on the validity of certain premises, and these must themselves in turn be established, if the whole process is not to hang in the air. Accordingly, unless we go on for- ever establishing one truth by another, we are compelled to find somewhere a starting-point that is absolutely cer- tain in itself. But what way have we of recognizing such a truth ? The Sceptics of course deny that there is any criterion. Sensation will not give it, for sensations have been shown to be utterly unreliable. Shall we say, with the Stoics, that it is the clearness and self-evidence with which a truth comes home to us ; or its universal acceptance by mankind ? But universal agreement does not exist, and would prove nothing if it did ; and we are often very clear and very positive about what turns out to be no truth at all. The Sceptics went on to show in detail, and with much acuteness, the flaws in the reasonings and results of the dogmatic philosophers. The most extensive account that we possess of the sceptical arguments is in a work by Sextus Empiricus entitled Against the Mathematicians. In this it is interesting to note that, among other things, the idea of causality is subjected to a destructive criticism. It is this same problem which occupied the greatest of modern sceptics David Hume. LITERATURE Maccoll, The Greek Sceptics. Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. Patrick, Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism. 17. The Scientific Movement. Eclecticism. Philo I. Meanwhile, in another part of the world, a very con- siderable intellectual activity had been going on, which, although it lies outside the main philosophical movement, 1 66 A Student's History of Philosophy deserves a brief mention. In Athens, which, after its loss of political importance, had become practically a University town, the speculative interest continued to be predominant ; but elsewhere, the scientific side of Aristotle's work was being carried on with a considerable degree of success. Alex- andria, in Northern Egypt, had been founded by the con- queror in the second half of the fourth century, and, under the enlightened rule of the earlier Ptolemies, it sprang to a place among the centres of the world. What its position did for it commercially, the founding of the great University of Alexandria accomplished in other lines. To this im- mense school, the greatest of ancient times, students came from all over the world. Its magnificent equipment, its botanical garden, observatory, and anatomical building, its collection of animals from every land, and its great library, amounting at one time to seven hundred thousand volumes, gave a great impetus to scholarship and science. A series of eminent scientists made the Museum illustrious : the best known are the mathematician Euclid, and the astronomer Ptolemy, who gives his name to the system which maintained itself down to the time of Copernicus, and whose Geography was used in the schools of Europe for fourteen centuries. So also literature was encouraged, and had a considerable development. It is true that, for the most part, there was no great originality shown ; still, the very dependence upon the standards of the past gave rise to valuable results, in the creation of a new inter- est in literary and linguistic studies. The history of liter- ature, the critical investigation of problems of style, and the study of language and grammar, were put upon some- thing like a systematic and scientific basis. In other cities, too, such as Rhodes, Antioch, and Tarsus, similar schools sprang up, and became centres of an active intellectual life. 2. But in the realm of speculative thought, also, there is one more tendency to be noted. Scepticism was itself too negative to satisfy any save a peculiar few. The age The Later Ethical Period 167 had need of knowledge, and this practical need was cer- tain to cause the mass of men to ignore the subtle argu- ments of the Sceptics. Nevertheless, Scepticism was not wholly without effect even in wider circles. The criticism which it brought against all philosophies alike would, at least, tend to prick the conceit that in any one school the absolute truth was contained. And the necessary recog- nition of the many points of similarity between Stoic, Academic, and Peripatetic, which constant discussion brought about, also helped to lessen their opposition. This had its counterpart on the political side, in the softening down of national peculiarities which had begun with the Macedonian world-empire, and the spread of the Greek language and ideas, and which reached its culmination in the Roman conquests. As political and national extremes were worn away, and compromises accepted to the end that all men might dwell together in a practical unity through- out the Roman Empire, so the various schools began to unite on a common philosophical basis, from which the more extreme differences had been eliminated. At least this was true of all except the Epicureans, who for the most part continued to stand out as heterodox, and to whose mechanical and hedonistic tendencies the other three schools found themselves opposed on a common ground. This eclecticism was largely stimulated when the Greek philosophy came in contact with the Romans. Themselves without any strong theoretical interests, and caring for philosophy, if they cared for it at all, only for its practical ends, the Romans would have but little sym- pathy with subtle metaphysical distinctions. To the hard- headed Roman, the disputes of the philosophers were trifling and uncalled for, and capable of being easily settled by a little shrewd management. The pro-consul Gellius actu- ally took upon himself to urge the Athenian philosophers to come to a compromise, and offered his own services as mediator. Of this syncretistic temper, Cicero is the most eminent representative. Without any great philo- 1 68 A Student's History of Philosophy sophic gifts himself, his chief service is as a popularizer of Greek ideas. 3. What has been said so far of Eclecticism has in view chiefly the philosophy of the West. In the East, the same attitude brought about another movement which proved of great importance, the union, namely, of Oriental ele- ments with the stream of European thought. It was at Alexandria, again, that this tendency crystallized. Among the inhabitants of Alexandria there were a very large num- ber of Jewish colonists, who, by their activity and abilities, quickly made themselves a power. Among these exiles the Hellenizing tendencies, which, in opposition to ortho- dox Judaism, had very nearly won the day even in Pales- tine itself, had an opportunity to work out freely. As early as the third century a translation was made of the Hebrew scriptures into the Greek of the Septuagint, and a considerable literature sprang up in which Jewish views of life are modified by contact with Western ideas. Some of this is preserved among the books of the Apocrypha. When, in the second century before Christ, the influence of the University at Alexandria waned, and many of the Greek professors left the city, the Hellenistic Jewish thought became the dominant intellectual force. And in Philo, a Jew of great learning and ability, a systematic attempt was made, about the beginning of the Christian era, to show the inner harmony between Plato and Moses, Jewish religious thought and Greek philosophy. This attempt gave evidence of a very considerable power of original thought, and influenced the future development alike of philosophy and of Christian doctrine. According to Philo's conception, God, like the monarch in the Oriental state, stands apart from the world in ineffable and unthinkable perfection, and has, accordingly, to be connected with actual things by a series of lesser, but more intelligible forms, which are regarded, sometimes as Platonic ideas, sometimes from the standpoint of the Old Testament angelology. These are somehow an offshoot from God's nature, without actually The Later Ethical Period 169 belonging to it as component parts. The conception has its consummation in Philo's doctrine of the Logos the mediator of God's revelation of himself. The repugnance of the Hebrew scriptures to Greek conceptions was over- come by having recourse to an ingenious allegorical inter- pretation. And what Philo did for Jewish thought was being done in less systematic ways wherever East and West came in contact. LITERATURE Cicero, Philosophical Works (Bohn's Library). Schiirer, History of the Jewish People, 5 vols. Philo, Works (Bohrfs Library). Drummond, Philo-Judceus, 2 vols. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought. Mahaffy, Silver Age of the Greek World. THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD 1 8. Introduction I. THE tendency which has just been described was in part accountable for, in part the outgrowth of, a new di- rection which was imparting itself to philosophic thought, and through which philosophy was passing from an ethical, to a religious or theosophic basis. Even where the Oriental influence was less strong, as in Stoicism, there had been a gradual modification. Stoicism in particular, among the philosophical schools of the period, had at- tempted to act the part of a substitute for religion, and to meet the needs for satisfying which the national religion had long since lost any real capacity. Alongside the priest, who was absorbed in the ceremonial and political duties of his office, the philosopher was generally rec- ognized as the real spiritual guide of his time. He occupied a position similar in many respects to that of the modern clergyman. Peculiarities of dress and appearance his cloak and long beard marked him off from the rest of men. He was called on for advice in difficult moral problems. A philosopher was attached to many of the Roman families as a sort of family chaplain. He was called in along with the physician at a death -bed. The discourses which he was accustomed to deliver had a close analogy to the modern sermon, and, indeed, are historically related to it. Unfortunately, however, this close relation to the needs of life was continually in danger of becoming obscured in the history of the Stoic school. The theoretical and logi- cal interest which, in its origin, had been purely prepara- tory, and subservient to the ideal of character in the sage, 170 The Religious Period 171 tended to break loose from this practical aim, and to intro- duce a great deal of dry and unprofitable formalism into philosophical discussions. The public discourses, also, like the modern fashionable sermon, often came to sacrifice real edification to the desire for rhetorical or argumenta- tive display. And meanwhile a demand was growing more and more insistent for some cure for the ills of life, more thoroughgoing than philosophy, even at its best, was offering. The whole age was filled with a sense of spirit- ual unrest. The rapidly increasing corruption of the ruling class, the glaring contrasts of luxury and misery, the insecu- rity of life and property, the sense of world weariness which marked the passing away of moral enthusiasms, all brought home to men the feeling that the world was growing old, and that some catastrophe was impending. The new sense of sin and evil was fast outgrowing the ability of Stoicism to cope with. The ideal of virtue was felt by bitter experi- ence to lie beyond the reach of unaided human effort ; some higher power must intervene to save us, if we are to reach salvation. This deepened sense of need showed itself in one direc- tion by a change in Stoicism itself. In the later Stoics, such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, we have a strong reaction against logical subtilties, and an impres- sive reaffirmation of the essentially practical nature of philosophy. But in this reaffirmation, a new emphasis is laid upon certain elements. The religious side becomes pronounced as it had not been before. Nature takes on more the character of a God whose sons men are, and with whom they can enter into an emotional relationship of love and gratitude. " We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres," says Seneca, " or a little money ; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, as life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation. If a man be- stows upon us a house that is delicately beautified with painting, statues, gilding, and marbles, we make a mighty 172 A Student's History of Philosophy business of it, and yet it lies at the mercy of a puff of wind, the snuff of a candle, and a hundred other accidents to lay it in the dust. And is it nothing now to sleep under the canopy of heaven, where we have the globe of the earth as our place of repose, and the glories of the heavens for our spectacle ? " * In like manner, as has been said, a more human feel- ing toward our fellows, which also connects itself closely with the religious motive, takes the place of the hard self-righteousness of the older Stoic. How shall we despise one another? Are not Alexander the Macedo- nian, and his groom, alike parts of nature, and brought to the same level by death ? Or why should we be angry with our fellow-men, and blame them for their injurious and evil deeds ? Nature is working in them with the same necessity as in every part of her domain, and we may as well be angry that thistles do not bring forth apples, or that every pebble on the ground is not an Ori- ental pearl. The immortal Gods are not vexed because during so long a time they must tolerate men continually ; and they in addition take care of them in every way. Shall you, whose life is so brief, become wearied of en- during the wicked, and that too when you yourself are one of them? Our nature is too closely bound up with the fabric of the universe to make it possible to adopt an attitude of antagonism toward our fellows. "A branch cut off from the adjacent branch must of necessity be cut off from the whole tree also. So, too, a man when he is separated from another man has fallen off from the whole social community. Now as to a branch, another cuts it off, but a man by his own act separates himself from his neighbor, when he hates him, and turns away from him ; and he does not know that he has at the same time cut himself off from the whole social system." 2 2. It was outside of Stoicism, however, that the demands of the time were met most completely. x The sense of guilt, l Cf. Seneca, On Benefits, IV, 6. 2 M. Aurelius, XI, 8. The Religious Period 173 the experience of the weakness of the human will for self- reformation, and the weariness which followed a long at- tempt to find salvation in the purely intellectual processes, apart from the feelings and emotions, all resulted in an immense impetus to the religious life, especially on its superstitious side. Adherents of the religions of the East poured into Rome, and gained converts and wealth on every side. Their ascetic practices, their fantastic mythologies, their mysterious purificatory rites, were grasped at eagerly in the vain hope of finding something on which to rest. Given a more articulate statement, these same Oriental and reli- gious tendencies found an expression in philosophy. The attempt at a combination of Eastern and Western thought from the Oriental side, by the Jew Philo, has already been mentioned ; the same attempt was made by Greeks as well. A point of departure was secured by going back to some of those aspects of the previous philosophy which the more recent ethical development had neglected. The earliest attempt centres about the name of Pythagoras a name which, by reason of the mythical haze by which it was sur- rounded, and the ascetic features which were attached to it, offered a convenient handle. A Neo-Pythagoreanism arose in Alexandria, as a half-religious sect with ascetic tendencies, to which belongs especially the name of the religious teacher and wonder-worker, Apollonius of Tyana. But Pythagoras furnished no sufficient theoretical frame- work for a philosophy, and it was, accordingly, to Plato that the thought of the time more and more turned, as the highest source and authority for its philosophical stand- point. In Plutarch and Apuleius we have a position closely allied to that of the Neo-Pythagoreans ; it appeals, how- ever, to Plato rather than to Pythagoras, though without any great depth of insight, and with a large intermixture of magic and demonology. It is not till the third century A.D. that we have the culmination of the whole religious period, in the last great system of Greek thought Neo- Platonism. 174 A Student's History of Philosophy LITERATURE Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus. Apuleius, Works (Bohn's Library). Lucian, Dialogues. Plutarch, Morals. Tredwell, Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Mahaffy, Greek World under Roman Sway. 19. Plotinus and Neo-Platonism Plotinus (204-269 A.D.), of Lycopolis in Egypt, came to Rome about 244, and taught philosophy there for twenty- five years. He was a disciple, at Alexandria, of Ammonius Saccus, who is sometimes reckoned as the founder of Neo- Platonism ; but the latter's fame is dwarfed beside that of his greater pupil. Plotinus had also come in contact with Persian ideas, having taken part in an expedition of the Emperor Gordian against that country, in which he barely escaped with his life. In Rome his success was pro- nounced, and he even included an emperor and an em- press among his disciples. i . The Doctrine of God. Neo-Platonism is a religious philosophy, and so connects itself with the consciousness of evil, and the felt need for salvation, which is characteristic of the age. It presupposes, therefore, a certain dualism in the ethical life. Such a dualism, and the ascetic tendency which flows from it, runs through most of the thought of the times, Christian as well as pagan. The consciousness of a moral struggle in ourselves reports itself metaphysi- cally as a division of the world into a good principle and a principle of evil. This dualism, in its most thoroughgoing form, is the basis of a number of Oriental philosophies of religion, the Persian, for example, in which the history of the world reduces itself to a contest between Ormuzd and Ahriman, God and the devil, light and darkness. Now, according to the psychology of the self which was current, the obvious interpretation of evil in ourselves is by The Religious Period 175 reference to the dominance of those lower appetites more directly connected with the body; it was natural, there- fore, to find the root of evil in the body, i.e., in matter. This way of thinking came, in the course of time, to mark almost all the thought of the period. In some instances, as in the semi-Christian sect of the Manichaeans, the dualism is set up in the most extreme form ; and even where there is no desire to make it absolute, as in the case of the more orthodox Christian teachings, and in Neo- Platonism itself, the influence still makes its presence felt. There is a sense that matter is somehow evil, and that the aflesh always and necessarily must war against the spirit. The only salvation, therefore, lies not in regulating our ( bodily desires, but in exterminating them ; in outgrowing the life of the senses and leaving it behind, while we find our blessedness in the pure life of the spirit, unsoiled by any taint of the body. Plotinus is said to have been ashamed that he had any body ; he would never name his parents, or remember his birthday. From the human side of life the side of feelings, emotions, and everyday activities all worth is thus taken away ; it is as nothing to the soul, the real self. The sensuous life is a mere stage play all the misery in it is only imaginary, all grief a mere cheat of the players. To find the theoretical justification for this, and to con- nect it with the doctrine of Plato, was comparatively a simple task. If it does not represent the whole of Plato, or even the best part of him, still there is much in his writings which lends itself to such a mode of thought. He, too, had disparaged the life of sense, and extolled the life of pure thought, or contemplation. For him the highest good had lain in a world transcending the world of matter. Matter was an unreal and untrue existence, a limit to the true being of the Idea. But this conception of Plato's is carried farther by the Neo-Platonists ; and as a result we have emerging a philosophical attitude which may perhaps best be described roughly by the term mysticism. God, 176 A Student's History of Philosophy the highest reality, had still been for Plato the world of Ideas ; and the Ideas represent an intellectual and rational existence. But the intellect requires data to work upon ; it presupposes distinctions and differences, which it binds together into a unity of the whole : while the way in which Plato had on the whole tended to formulate the Idea had involved rather the dropping away of particulars, and finite distinctions, in order to get to the ultimate reality. The logical outcome of such a process of abstraction would really be simply that highest abstraction of all mere Being. Plato did not accept this result because, whatever the form in which his theory was cast, it did not represent the innermost motive of his thought But in Plotinus the logical issue of the tendency stands revealed. God, ac- cordingly, becomes the infinite blank, before which all human thought is powerless. There is a way in which this might be interpreted, that would be very generally accepted, not only as true, but as a truism even. And this may perhaps confuse us as to the consequences and real significance of the conception. Expressed in religious terms, it might be made to mean that God is far beyond our perfect comprehension. We cannot, with our limited thought processes, exhaust the depths of His nature ; His goodness is unsearchable, and His ways past finding out; and we degrade Him when we confine Him within the boundaries represented by our finite notions of what the truth must be. But there are two meanings that may be attached to such words as these. We may mean, on the one hand, that our knowl- edge, though it may be real as far as it goes, is not ex- haustive ; that the relations under which we see the truth are but a small part of all the relations which would con- stitute it for a perfect intelligence ; and that, consequently, there are many things that we should see differently were we able to grasp the whole. Or, on the other hand, we may mean that intelligence itself is transcended in God ; that in His truth He is wholly unintelligible, wholly un- The Religious Period 177 knowable, the infinite background marked by an utter absence of relations. We attain to Him, not by making our knowledge more complete, correcting what we know by a richer and deeper knowledge, but by giving up our attempt at comprehension, and allowing the distinct con- ceptions of the intellect to fade away into the haze of an immediate identity of feeling. It is this latter path which mysticism takes. To know God it is not enough, as with Plato, to get rid of the sen- suous and bodily life ; we must get rid of the intellect as well. We must separate ourselves from all things and be alone ; must cut loose from every definite fact that can occupy the mind, and reduce this to a blank. God thus lies beyond even the Idea itself. All we can say of Him is that He is the ultimate unity ; nay, we cannot say even so much as this, for in speaking of Him as unity, we are predicating an idea of Him, and so are limiting His abso- , lute indeterminateness. God transcends everything that we can say or think. We cannot say so much as that He exists, for He transcends existence itself. He does not live, for it is He who gives life. He is not good, for He stands above goodness. He neither knows anything, nor has anything of which He is ignorant, for knowledge has no meaning in connection with His nature. We recognize Him only by a blind feeling of 'something real,' "as those who energize enthusiastically, and become divinely inspired; perceive, indeed, that they have something greater iriv themselves, though they do not know what it is." 1 The ' only truth is a negative truth ; to reach Him we must i abstract from all positive attributes. The result is, that no intellectual processes will bring us into that immediate contact with God which is salvation. The ultimate method of religion is not thought, but mystic contemplation, or feeling. The Neo-Platonist does not, indeed, as some mystics have done, despise the intellectual life, and attempt by a single leap to reach the consumma- 1 Plotinus, V, 3, 14. N 178 A Student's History of Philosophy tion of identity with God. The cultivation of the intel- lectual insight is an essential task ; but there remains a step still to be taken. " The wizard king builds his tower of speculation by the hands of human workmen till he reaches the top story, and then summons his genii to fashion the battlements of adamant, and crown them with starry fire." 1 The final goal is that ecstasy in which all our finite personality, thought, and self-consciousness drop away, and we melt to a oneness with the Absolute, wherein no shade of difference enters. 2. The Relation of God and the World. But now we seem to have reached a position which is not wholly consistent with the one from which we started. This final standpoint appears to be that of a pantheistic absorption^ of all things in the one Absolute, whereas we started,! on the ethical side, with a dualism which sets matten as a principle of evil over against God. The same diffi- culty existed for Plato as well, and he never was able to account satisfactorily for there being such a thing as a material universe, in addition to the pure Ideas. With Neo- Platonism the difficulty is even greater. If all distinctions are essentially unreal, and the sole reality is the One, un- knowable and unapproachable, cloaked in ineffable noth- ingness, do we not seem by one stroke to have blotted out the whole universe of our experience as less even than a dream ? Is there any possible way of accounting even for the delusive appearance of its existence? The Platonist I has the hard task of trying to reconcile the dualism which not only his ethical presuppositions, but the indubitable facts of life also, force upon him, with the unity for which, alike as a metaphysician and as a mystic, he is bound to strive. / In reality the task is an impossible one. So long as we I admit the existence of finite experience in any sense, there j is a flaw in the perfection of such an Absolute which no logic can overcome. But the Platonist conceals the impos- 1 Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, I, 77. The Religious Period 179 sibility by two considerations, which it seems to him help solve the problem. In the first place, he declares, with Plato, that this principle which lies at the basis of matter is not a positive something, but wholly negative. Matter is no substantial substratum out of which, as material, the world is built, but mere not-being, absence of being, a negative limit to reality. Evil, therefore, is not, as the Man- ichaeans, e,g, t thought, a substantial fact standing over against the good as a positive constituent of the world. Just in so far as a thing is, as it partakes of reality, it is good ; it is evil or material only in so far as it is not, in so far as it lacks being. But while verbally this seems to make evil and matter nothing at all, it is still a positive sort of nothing. Why, otherwise, should not all reality be wholly positive, as God is, and possess no lack ? The not- being which constitutes evil evidently stands opposed to the good as a real limit which infects its perfection, and the dualism, however attenuated it may appear, is still a stubborn fact. But there is another device still which is characteristic of the Neo-Platonist philosophy. The feeling is wide- spread throughout the attempts at religious philosophiz- ing to which the period gives rise, that the gap between God and matter can be bridged over, if we can introduce a graduated scale of existence, connecting the two ex- tremes by a series of smaller differences. In the Logos doctrine of Philo, the countless aeons of the Christian Gnostics, the demonology of Plutarch and others of the Greeks, we have such attempts to mediate between the supreme God, and those facts of the material world which are thought to be unworthy of him. Of course, theoreti- cally, there is not the slightest advantage which a small gap has over a large one ; the difficulty is that there should be any gap at all. Still it is a help to the imagination if the transition can be made less noticeable. And the delegation of the responsibility for imperfections to some lesser and derived power provides a makeshift which, 180 A. Student's History of Philosophy temporarily at least, seems to render it possible to retain, along with these imperfections, the notion of perfection also. In Neo-Platonism this takes the form of a theory of I Emanation. Finite existence is accounted for as a pro- gressive falling away from an original perfection. Of course the ground of this downward passage is ultimately unexplainable ; but granting that its reality is required to account for the facts of existence, we may by the use of metaphor shadow it forth to ourselves partially and ob- scurely. It cannot be regarded as a partition of the origi- nal unity, for that is no sum of parts ; it is an indivisible whole, which still abides in its completeness. The process may more truly be compared to the gleaming of a bright body, to the radiation of the sun, to a cup which eter- nally overflows because its contents are infinite and can- not be confined within it. The figure of light is the one which on the whole is least inadequate. As light shines into the darkness and illuminates it, without at the same time suffering in its own existence, so the workings of the Eternal One overflow from its central being, without thereby lessening in any degree the reality of their source. And as the brightness of the light decreases continually in in- tensity, until it loses itself in the surrounding darkness, so the power of the Absolute expresses itself in more and more diluted form in the hierarchy of the phenomenal , world. In general, this hierarchy is represented by the three stages of mind or rational spirit, soul, and body. : Each stage has a dual aspect. On the one hand it looks toward, and is constituted by, the truer reality in the scale of being above ; it is an imitation of this, as the spoken words imitate or represent the thought in the mind. On the other hand, it serves to carry on the working of this reality to the next lower stage. The material world is the lowest stage of all an image in an image, the shadow of a shadow, where the negative element, not-being, reaches its maximum. Still it is not positively evil ; it is evil only The Religious Period 181 in so far as it is not. All the reality which it possesses is due to the working of spirit, and in so far as it is at all, it is good. In this way Plotinus finds a suggestion for the first sys- tematic attempt at a metaphysics of beauty, a special phi- losophy of aesthetics. Beauty is the shining through of the spiritual reality, in the material forms whose truth this reality constitutes. And this tempers the asceticism of Plotinus. " To despise the world, and the Gods, and other beautiful natures that are contained in it, is not to become a good man. He who loves anything is delighted with everything which is allied to the object of his love ; for you also love the children of the father whom you love. But every soul is the daughter of the father of the universe." J " His mind must be dull and sluggish in the extreme, and incapable of being incited to anything else, who, in see- ing all the beautiful objects of the sensible world, all this symmetry and great arrangement of things, and the form apparent in the stars, though so remote, is not from this view mentally agitated, and does not venerate them as admirable productions of still more admirable causes." 2 3. The Process of Salvation. As the phenomenal world has its being in this falling away from the Abso- lute, so there remain in it traces of its lost estate, and the longing to return to its original perfection. This return forms the substance of the ethical and religious life. We must rid ourselves of the restrictions of mat- ter, and, rising above the realm of the particular and finite, retrace our steps toward God. In general, the process I consists in penetrating to the universal ideas which f underlie the world of phenomena, and so accustoming/ the soul to its own proper food. " The soul perceives temperance and justice in the intellection of herself, and of that which she formerly was, and views them like statues established in herself which through time have become covered with rust. These she then purifies, just 1 Plotinus, II, 9, 1 6. 2 Ibid. 1 82 A Students History of Philosophy as if gold were animated, and, in consequence of being incrusted with earth, not perceiving itself to be gold, should be ignorant of itself ; but afterward, shaking off the earth which adheres to it, should be filled with admira- tion in beholding itself pure and alone." 1 This is neces- sarily a slow process. The soul is like "children who, immediately torn from their parents, and for a long time nurtured at a great distance from them, become ignorant both of themselves and their parents ;" 2 and so it does not respond at once. It is not fitted for the sudden burst of light which marks the final vision, and so it must be prepared by degrees, through the contemplation of beautiful objects, beautiful sentiments, beautiful actions, beautiful souls. " All that tends to purify and elevate the mind will assist in this attainment, and there are three different roads by which the end may be reached. The love of beauty which exalts the poet, that devotion to the one and that ascent of science which makes the ambition of the philosopher, and that love and those prayers by which some devout and ardent soul tends in its moral purity toward perfec- tion these are the great highways conducting to that height above the actual and the particular, where we stand in the immediate presence of the infinite, who shines out as from the deeps of the soul." 3 But in all this the soul must be on its guard continually not to remain entangled in mere particulars. This consti- tutes the imperfection of the life of moral conduct as an ulti- mate end. In a good deed there is implicit a certain univer- sal value ; but it is only ascetic contemplation which is able to free this ideal fact from the unessentials in which it is immersed. As Ulysses from the magician Circe, we must flee to our native land, and abandon wholly this dangerous realm. The love of God means the giving up of all earthly loves. And when one has seen God face to face, he cares for no minor beauties. As one who, entering 1 Plotinus, IV, 7, 10. 2 V, I, i. 8 Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, Vol. I, p. 81. The Religious Period 183 into the interior of the adytum, leaves behind all the statues in the temple, or as those who enter the sanctu- aries purify themselves, laying aside their garments, and enter naked, so should the soul approach its goal. " This, therefore, is the life of the Gods, and of divine and happy men a liberation from all terrene affairs, a life unac- companied with human pleasures, a flight of the alone to the alone." 1 An immortality in the ordinary sense is only a denial of true life ; " a resurrection with body is a transmigration from sleep to sleep, like a man passing in the dark from bed to bed." 2 The true goal is only reached;: when the soul loses all thought, desire, and activity, all individual life, in an ecstasy of immediate union with God.; " This is the true end of the soul, to come into contact with his light, and to behold him through it, not by the light of another thing, but to perceive that very thing itself through which it sees." 3 In this ' darkness which transcends all gnostic illumination,' it does not see an- other, but becomes one with God, absorbed, conjoining centre with centre. 4. Later Neo-Platonism. The spiritualization of the world in which Neo-Platonism results, and the, absence of any adequate feeling for natural law, opened the way for an appeal to non-physical agencies in the explanation of events, which might easily become fantastic ; and among the suc- cessors of Plotinus this is what took place. The world becomes a great hierarchy of souls Gods, demons, men, and the mystical affinities and relationships between souls, which find expression in divination, astrology, and magical rites, tend to take the place of sober investigation. Jamblicus, the founder of Syrian Neo-Platonism, has a special connection with this tendency. Historically, this last outcome of Greek thought gets an importance through making itself the champion of Paganism, in the now losing struggle which this was carry- ing on with Christianity. The struggle was wholly unsuc- i Plotinus, VI, 9, 1 1. 2 III, 6, 6. V, 3, 17. 184 A Student's History of Philosophy cessf ul. The future belonged to Christianity ; philosophy could hope to survive, not by antagonizing it, and joining forces with its rival, but by accepting the new and vig- orous contribution which it was making to the life of the world, and moulding this into its own forms. For a moment Paganism seemed to have a chance of success, when the Emperor Julian, called by Christians the Apos- tate a man trained in the school of the Neo-Platonists attempted to reverse the verdict of history. But a half- sentimental regret for the beauty of the pagan past was no match for the living forces of the present ; and at the death of Julian his plans came to nothing. The last refuge of Neo-Platonism was the Academy at Athens, in connection with which the name of Proclus is the most important. But in 529 A.D. the Academy was closed by order of the Emperor Justinian, the teaching of heathen philosophy was forbidden, and the philosophers driven into exile. LITERATURE Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics. Plotinus, Enneads (Bohn's Library). Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists. Bigg, Neo-Platonism. 20. Christianity. The Church Fathers. Augustine i. The new power which thus seemed to have sup- planted the old was, in its inception, not a philosophy, but a life. Questions of theory occupied the early disciples but little ; belief in God, and the influence of the dominant personality of Christ in renewing the life of the soul and shaping it into His own likeness, were the central features of the new religion. The evidences of acceptance with God were the fruits of love, peace, righteousness, not a belief in any set of doctrines. ' The Religious Period 185 Originally, then, Christianity had no conscious depend- ence on philosophical thought. And among many of the early fathers, as, for example, Tertullian, there was a disposi- tion to be openly hostile to the encroachments of philosophy, or reason, as opposed to the purity and simplicity of faith in the gospel. Nevertheless, if Christianity was to con- tinue to expand, its coming under the influence of Greek forms of thought was a foregone conclusion. As converts began to come in from the Gentile world, they would bring with them inevitably their former modes of thinking. Some of them, like Justin Martyr, had been philosophers before they became Christians. They had sought for truth as Stoics, and Peripatetics, and Pythagoreans ; and now that they had found the goal of their seeking in the religion of Christ, they could not but look at this in terms of the problems they had previously been trying to solve, and regard it as the true philosophy, as well as the true life. The necessity for justifying themselves to the heathen world would lead in the same direction. Of course there was danger in this. In many cases the theoretical interest began to overshadow the practical, even sometimes to displace it. By a very considerable body of Christians, the essential thing came to be looked upon, not as a Christ-like character, but as a superior and eso- teric knowledge (gnosis), which was really only a philos- ophy, constructed, though more fantastically, along the lines of Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism. The Christian tinge was sometimes merely nominal. This attempt by Gnosticism to capture the new religion in the interests of Grseco-Oriental philosophy, constituted one of the earliest and gravest dangers to the Church, which was only averted after many years of stubborn controversy. But although the Gnostics were defeated, they left their mark upon their antagonists. The Church never went back to the primitive form of undogmatic Christianity which had represented its early type ; orthodoxy became identi- fied with a middle course between the two extremes. It 1 86 A Student's History of Philosophy rejected such doctrines as were inconsistent with the genius of Christianity ; but it began, nevertheless, to lay greater stress upon doctrinal agreement and theoretical formulation. For this work it had of necessity to make use of the intellectual tools which Greek philosophy had forged. There was a more conscious use of these in some cases than in others. In Alexandria, especially, where philo- sophical traditions were strong, there arose a school of philosophical theologians, of which Origen (185-254) is the most important representative. These attempted with clear insight, and very considerable ability, to Plato- nize theology. And even when theology supposed it was dispensing with the help of philosophy, it was still de- pendent upon it at every step. From one point of view this involved a loss to Christianity. The substitution of dogma for the free spirit of devotion, which finds the end of the religious life in a personal love and service, went along necessarily with a certain lowering of the standard, and misplacement of emphasis. But still the change could hardly have been avoided, if Christianity was to do the work it actually succeeded in doing. As time went on, the whole character of the Church altered. It became, of course, larger and more unwieldy. Instead of the little groups of earnest disciples, fully permeated by the spirit of the Gospel, there began to flock to it, attracted by its growing success, a multitude of men who were only super- ficially affected by their new professions. Later on, when the Empire fell, it was the Church which more and more was compelled to assume many of the civil functions of society, if anarchy was to be averted. Under these con- ditions, nothing but a strong ecclesiastical organization, and a definitely formulated creed, could have held the Church together as a single catholic body ; and without such a unity its work could not have been done. The Church creed preserved Christianity on a distinctly lower level than was represented in primitive Apostolic times, but The Religious Period 187 it did preserve it. It formed a standard of belief and a rally ing-point which was definite and objective, and which, by bringing to bear a strong authority, prevented the breaking up of the new faith into a multitude of jarring local sects. 2. This creation of an orthodox body of doctrine was no immediate result, but a work which extended through several centuries. During this time the Church had to meet and conquer numerous heresies tendencies, that is, which afterward were pronounced heresies by their vic- torious opponents, though there were moments when it seemed that they might themselves conquer and be ac- cepted as the orthodox opinion. In the long run, however, the Church was led to avoid such dogmas as were incon- sistent with the work marked out for it. If now we com- pare the standpoint which finally became fixed as the standpoint of the Church, with the purely philosophical development of Neo-Platonism which falls within the same general period, we shall find that while the two were en- gaged in general with much the same problems, their answers naturally differ in considerable degree. Christian theology of course agrees with Neo-Platonism in being a religious philosophy a philosophy dealing with God and His relation to the world, the nature of sin, or evil, and the way of salvation. They agree, furthermore, in that both find the source of knowledge, not in the discur- sive exercise of reason, but rather in an immediate revela- tion. But here they tend to separate. For the Platonist, the revelation is the one which comes directly to the phi- losopher in those moments of ecstasy in which his soul becomes identical with the divine being itself. This recog- nition of the side of immediate experience is also found, it is true, in Christianity, in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit ; and in Christian mysticism a direct Neo-Platonist influence continues even until modern times. But circum- stances compelled the Church to emphasize rather the fact of a single historical revelation. In the primitive Church, 1 88 A Student's History of Philosophy where conditions were freer, and the spiritual life more spontaneous, the claims to inspiration were common, and prophets, teachers, and apostles were numerous. But even here a dangerous license began to show itself; and the farther Christianity got away from the original source, the more the need of some commonly accepted standard became evident. That standard could be nothing but con- formity with the teachings of Christ and His immediate disciples. Accordingly, the insistence upon the authority of a definite historical revelation in the past came to be more and more the position of the orthodox body of Chris- tians. This was mediated at first by oral tradition ; and then, as time made tradition less reliable, by a gradually formed canon of sacred writings, that were believed to go back to Apostles and eye-witnesses. And when now the Montanists claimed the right to do just what the early Church had done, and to supplement this historical author- ity by the immediate testimony of prophetic inspiration, the attempt was recognized as dangerously lawless, and condemned as a heresy. The problem of evil also reached its orthodox solution only after continued controversy. In the various heretical sects, nearly every current answer to the problem was reproduced, down to the baldest dualism of the good and evil principle. The temptation to find the root of evil in matter was very strong. Nowhere was the antagonism between the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit more pronounced than in the experience of Christians, or the necessity more keenly felt of mortifying the deeds of the body for the salvation of the soul. But the central fact of the Incarnation, along with a feeling for the dignity and the infinitude of God, caused the Church to reject all attempts to regard matter as essentially evil. The stronger sense of sin which characterized the Christian consciousness kept it also from being satisfied with the Neo-Platonist doctrine of evil as mere privation, or absence of reality. Christianity found a solution, instead, in the moral realm, The Religious Period 189 by having recourse to the freedom of the will. God created all finite beings good, even the very devil ; but He gave them the power to choose for themselves. By falling away from God and choosing evil, they have perverted the pow- ers which might have brought them blessedness. Evil is thus the fault of the creature, not of the creator. It is true that along with this there was a good deal of practical dualism. The tendency to regard the body as naturally evil and apart from God, and the ascetic life resulting from such a conception, gained a firm foothold in the Church, and became invested with an odor of superior sanctity. But this feeling did not succeed in getting itself expressed consistently in the form of dogma. On the contrary, in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, the Church definitely cut loose from the Neo-Platonic conception of blessedness as a complete emancipation from the bodily life. By including the body within the scope of salvation, it admitted this as an essential part of man's nature, and, therefore, potentially at least, as sacred. By rejecting dualism, Christianity was left the problem of reconciling the existence of the phenomenal world with the absolute nature of God; and here also its attitude is opposed to that of Neo-Platonism. The combining of a refusal to regard the world as an independent and eternal existence opposed to God, with the refusal to make it either a part of God Himself, or an emanation from His being, gave rise to the orthodox theory of the creation of the world out of nothing. In this way the world can be looked upon as dependent wholly upon God's power, and yet as not in any sense identical with Him. This latter pan- theistic standpoint the Church consistently frowned upon, in spite of the fact that the philosophical frame- work of its theology, in so far as it was taken from the Greeks, was all the time drawing it in that direction. But counteracting this logical compulsion, and counter- acting it for the most part successfully, there was another factor which the influence of Christianity had much to 190 A Student's History of Philosophy do in raising to a position of importance the feeling for personality. In early times, as has been said, the individual had been largely swallowed up in the community life. The tribe or state, as representing this, had stood before his vision as supreme, and his own rights and importance as nothing in comparison with thjp whole to which he belonged. The Sophists had broken up this unity, and had set the private individual over against the state ; but they had made the separation too violent, and so their work had been only negative and revolutionary. The same general outcome was brought about now in connection with the Roman state. The early Roman, in a peculiarly pronounced way, lived his whole life with reference to the Republic, and made the glory of his country the main end of all his labor. But now that the heroic days of Rome were over, the negative tendencies of philosophy again had a chance to assert themselves. The young and vigorous Republic might seem an end to which it was worth while for a man to devote his life ; an Empire, luxurious and corrupt, where the will of a single man was supreme, and that man often a monster of iniquity and madness, could not continue to arouse the enthusiasm necessary to give it a place among rational motives and ideals. Meanwhile the rule of Rome appeared so inevitable, that any other and worthier national life to take its place seemed hopeless. The individual man was thrown back upon himself, and a demand was set up for a satisfaction which should come home to him singly ind personally. In the case of the few to whom belonged strength and the assurance of success, this showed itself in an un- bridled egoism and self-seeking. But for the mass of men, for whom the prizes of life were out of reach, some more definite philosophy was needed. The hopelessness of the outlook, however, reported itself in the prevalent severity and rigor of the ideal. In Stoicism, and in the asceticism of the religious tendencies, there is the same inability to The Religious Period 191 get any positive and hopeful content into life. Since man must needs suffer, let him make a virtue of necessity. Let him cease striving for the happiness which is beyond his reach, and take what satisfaction he can in his power to do without. Meanwhile such a conception could not attract to itself any great enthusiasm, and it was too negative to set in motion forces that should influence powerfully the life of mankind at large. The natural desire of men in general was for a warmer and more comforting ideal ; they were not ready to abandon the dream of happiness. Vague hopes began to stir of a deliverer who should come to raise the burden of the poor, and introduce a new and better era hopes which found expression here and there in slave insur- rections. But still the repressive and ascetic ideal did help to deepen the feeling of individuality. It called forth the sense of power and responsibility in the man who thus was bending all his energies to crushing out his desires and passions; and in this way it cleared the path for a more positive meaning to personality. Such a content to the individual life Christianity brought. Here, also, there was repression and conflict; but it was no longer a hopeless conflict, ending with itself. Man crushed out the old self, only that God might enter and bring a more abounding life. The feelings no longer were starved ; they were set free, and stimulated to the utmost. And with this appeal to his emotional life, the value of man as such was felt as it had not been before. The concep- tion of God as a potentate, to be approached only through rites and ceremonies which were primarily a state matter, gave place to the thought of Him as a father, in direct contact with each of His children. And when God could reveal Himself immediately to the humblest man, when He loved him, and was seeking for his love in return, and eager for his salvation, then not simply humanity in the large, but each individual man, became a thing of infinite worth. Wherever this conception really came home to men, it worked an immediate and a vast change in all the ideals 192 A Student's History of Philosophy of society. The artificial barriers of rich and poor, slave and free, noble and common, became a thing of no impor- tance. A new respect for human life grew up amid the almost incredible callousness of the Roman world. Hope and confidence took the place of despair, or a forced un- concern ; the goodness of God, and the worth of the human soul, must in the end lead to happiness. With the new sense of active life and moral agency which this involved, the vague pantheism of past philoso- phies was no longer felt to be satisfactory. Man's life could no longer be wholly absorbed in the divine life. Man is a being created in the image of God, who may even oppose himself to God, as the fact of sin shows. It is in this persona] relationship that the very essence of his religious life consists, and must always consist. Per- sonal immortality, which in Greek philosophy had either been rejected outright or held with much hesitation, be- comes a fundamental article of the Christian creed. The same thing, also, determines the doctrine of God. In order to render possible that intimate relationship which is the core of the religious life, God also must be conceived, not as the abstraction of Neo-Platonism, above all definite conceptions, the conception of personality included, but a true self, whom men can call Father. All things flow from Him, not by any fatalistic law of necessity, but in accord- ance with His intelligent purpose, and by an act of free creation. 3. The process by which, under the influence of such dominant ideas, the fluid beliefs of the early Church were gradually shaped into a highly complex dogmatic system, belongs to the history of theology ; it is necessary only to say a word about the last and greatest of the Fathers to whom this shaping was due. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, marks the transition between the constructive period of Christian thought, and the long period of the Middle Ages, when dogma had become fixed, and no freedom was allowed the mind outside the narrow limits of an ecclesiastical sys- The Religious Period 193 tern. Augustine is not only one of the great thinkers of the world, but he also has a particularly interesting per- sonality a personality of which we know a great deal through his own Confessions. He was born in Africa, in 354 A.D. His mother was a woman of great strength of character, and a devoted adherent of Catholic Christianity ; and it came to be her one aim in life to see her son a Chris- tian also. For many years this wish did not seem likely to be fulfilled. Augustine's youth in the corrupt city of Carthage made him familiar with a life of dissipation ; and the ambition which his brilliant intellectual gifts justified, turned him to secular pursuits. He became a rhetorician, and after leaving Carthage practised for a time in Rome, and then in Milan. Meanwhile he had discovered an aptitude for philosophy, and had made himself familiar to a considerable extent with philosophic thought. At an early age he was attracted by the Manichaeans, and their solution of the problem of evil. But from the first he felt the crudity of their metaphysics, and while it was some time before he was ready definitely to reject their doc- trines, his further intellectual development carried him continually away from them. In Milan he came under the influence of Ambrose, whose preaching made a profound impression on him. Finally, after a violent struggle against the complete self-abnegation which seemed to him to be demanded by Christianity, he passed through an experi- ence which led him once for all to abandon his old life. Thereafter, till his death as Bishop of Hippo in 430, he devoted his time and abilities wholly to the service of the Church and Catholic Christianity. In Augustine we find two strains of thought opposing each other. As a philosopher and he was a philosopher before he was a theologian he anticipates in a remark- able way the standpoint of modern thought. The modern movement, beginning with Descartes, which turns away from objective knowledge as a starting-point, and comes back to the self as the clew to the interpretation of reality, 194 A Student's History of Philosophy finds its counterpart, often very exact, in Augustine's writ- ings. Augustineeven goes beyond Descartesby the empha- sis which he places on the nature of the self as an active will, in opposition to the intellectualism which had characterized ancient philosophy. The freedom of the will, accordingly, assumes a prominent place in his earlier thought. But in this purely philosophical tendency, Augustine was too far in advance of his age to have any immediate effect. What the peculiar needs of the time demanded was something quite different. It was, therefore, the second tendency in Augustine which became the dominant and im- portant one, both in its influence on the Church, and in his own development. For the present, the need was for author- ity, and this authority the Church alone was in a position to exercise. The Roman mind was by nature of the legal type. It tended to think of God, not as working in a world akin to him, by coming home to the lives and consciences of men; but as a judge and lawgiver, promulgating a defi- nite constitution and definite enactments, and holding men rigidly to obedience under pain of punishment. Such a forensic conception made necessary a definite mediator between God and man an institution which should act as conservator of God's interests on earth. And this need for a Church possessing a clearly defined body of doctrine, guaranteed by an external authority, grew all the time greater, the more the weakness of the Empire became apparent, and the danger from the inroads of bar- barians increased. This alone could preserve men from intellectual anarchy during a period which neither produced the ability, nor offered the external opportunity, for an attainment of truth by the individual ; this alone could pre- sent the objective organization and prestige to stand up against the social anarchy which was impending. Both of these things appealed powerfully to Augustine himself. He also had experienced the impotency of reason, and had passed from one stage of thought to another, until he had reached at one time a more or less complete Academic The Religious Period 195 scepticism. The ideal of a Church which offered an infallible system of doctrine, based upon authority, and satisfying his religious needs, attracted him, as it has many others since. On the other hand, the outer splendor and impressiveness of the Milan Church also affected a mind by nature ambitious and eager for a career. Accordingly, when, as Bishop of Hippo, he himself had reached a posi- tion of authority, we find Augustine the philosopher be- come Augustine the theologian, and devoting all the powers of his mind to the support of the Church whose authority he was to help establish securely for future ages. This new standpoint involved more or less collision with the old. If the Church is to be the absolute mediator between God and man, the emphasis can no longer rest on the subjective side, or on the idea of man as a free will. If God reveals himself directly in the. consciousness of the individual, who has the power freely to assent to the reve- lation or reject it, the importance of the Church as an organ- ization is entirely secondary. The doctrine that there is salvation only within the limits of the Church is a necessity, if its authority is to be maintained. Augustine is not ready to deny outright the principle of free will, but he limits its application in such a way as practically to transform it into determinism. The first man Adam was, indeed, free ; he had the power to choose what course he pleased. But having thus saved his general principle, Augustine can go on to deny freedom elsewhere. By his apostasy from God, Adam corrupted human nature, and the race lost its power of free action. Henceforth man is predetermined to sin, and cannot possibly escape from its power, save by the super- natural aid of God's grace. This grace comes only through the Church, by the rite of baptism. Accordingly the Church has the key to salvation, and none outside its organization can hope to escape the condemnation deserved by their guilt. But if freedom is denied to man, it is asserted all the more strongly of God, in the doctrine of election. God chooses to save certain men and damn others, solely because He 196 A Student's History of Philosophy wills to do so, without reference to any merit on their part. In the City of God, Augustine formulates his view of the Church in the most elaborate philosophy of history that had ever been attempted. All history is regarded as a conflict between the earthly city, which belongs to the children of the world, and the City of God, the Church a drama to end in the final victory and felicity of the saints. Already Rome had been sacked by the Goths, and its glory was nearing a close. The prophetic vision of a triumphant theocracy filled Augustine's mind, and like many another prophecy, it helped to bring about its own fulfilment. It is the Church which is to be the dominant factor in the next period of human history. LITERATURE Donaldson, Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine. Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought. Mansel, Gnostic Heresies. Augustine, Confessions, City of God. Harnack, History of Dogma. Hatch, Hibbert Lectures. Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine. II. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE TRAN- SITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY THE MIDDLE AGES 21. Introduction NOT long after Augustine's death, the Roman Empire fell, and we enter upon a new era in the history of the world and of thought. What is the general character and significance of this period ? 1. The Greek Element. Our modern thought is a com- pound into which three main elements enter. The frame- work of our thought, the concepts and ideas which we use, come to us largely from the Greeks. It was the business of the long development of Greek speculation to frame these conceptions, on the basis of which every future phi- losophy was to build. But philosophy is not simply an exercise of intellectual comprehension. It grows out of the needs of human life, and can only get its final justifi- cation as it succeeds in organizing this, and making it effective. And here the Greeks may be said to have failed. All the Greek philosophizing could not prevent the break-up of Greek social and political life ; indeed, philosophy was one of the elements which hastened this dissolution. And the Greeks had not the necessary poli- tical genius to enable them to work out a practical substi- tute for the forms which were proving inadequate. 2. The Roman Element. This lack was supplied by the Roman. However he might be wanting in intellectual subtilty, the Roman was preeminently fitted to impress upon the world the value and the reality of government and law. The principle of authority ran through his life 197 198 A Student's History of Philosophy the authority of husband over wife, of father over son, of master over slave, of state over citizen. And while the outcome was often harsh and forbidding in appearance, yet the rule of blood and iron was the only means of reducing the world to at least a measure of order. The result of this genius for organization passed over to later times, even after the Empire itself had fallen. To the Roman is largely due that external framework of society and government, without which the spiritual side of civilization would be impossible. The most important form in which this inheritance was transmitted, was that combination of Roman practical efficiency with Greek philosophy, which resulted in Roman law. The Stoics, it will be remembered, had reached the conception of a law of nature, binding upon all men alike ; and of a consequent cosmopolitanism, which recognized the essential equality of all men as expressions of the universal reason working throughout the universe. This conception had important results by being brought into con- tact with practical legislation. As the power of Rome gradu- ally extended, there grew up, alongside the civil law, the so-called jus gentium, which governed her relation to those who were not citizens. It was the policy of Rome to bring all her subjects under a common law, but at the same time to make this broad and tolerant in its provisions, and to leave local customs as much as possible unchanged. The jus gentium, accordingly, was made up largely of those ele- ments common to the laws of different countries, which were sifted out in the interests of simplicity and uniformity. In this way there arose, alongside the ordinary Roman procedure, the idea of a more common and universal law; and under the influence of Stoic thought, this came to assume a position of special importance. As opposed to the particular, and more or less conventional enactments due to local or temporary conditions, it came to be regarded as the law of nature, universal, binding upon all by the original constitution of man's being, and recognized by him intuitively as such. This conception had a very con- The Middle Ages 199 siderable influence in rendering possible a more rational and scientific treatment of legislation. In particular, it gave the theoretical basis for that codification of the laws of the Empire, represented in the Justinian and in other codes, which still remains the legal groundwork of our modern life. 3. The Christian Element. The work of the Romans was thus the work of embodying in actual institutions the ideas which, for the Greek philosophers, had been mere theory. While, however, by their political genius they performed a service of the greatest value for civ- ilization, in the system of law and government by which they welded society together, in one essential element they were lacking. Roman civilization tended too much to overbear and suppress the individual, and so to fur- nish no motive power for growth and progress. It was necessary to have not only the external forms of society, but a sense of the value of human endeavor which should make these forms living and significant. Man must be revealed to himself at his true worth, and be given an inspiration which should set him to work. This needed emphasis on the subjective side, on the development of the personal life of the man himself in its completeness, as the only security for the stability and growth of the social whole, Christianity came in to supply. By its appeal to the feelings, it set free the latent forces of man's nature ; and by directing these in the channels of a life which at once looked toward God, and expressed itself in love and ser- vice to man, it created a wholly new sense of the value of the individual. It did not isolate and narrow man's life as if it were something complete in itself, but related it to the life of all men, through their common relation to God. It is true that this ideal of Christianity was more or less unstable. It depended too much upon an appeal to the emotions, which necessarily lost something of their force as time went on. There was lacking the definite intellec- tual grasp, and the concrete institutional forms, to direct 2OO A Student's History of Philosophy the emotional life, and give consistency and permanency to its workings. Consequently Christianity needed sup- plementing by the contributions which Greece and Rome had to offer. It took many centuries for this union to become a vital one, and often in the meantime the charac- teristic spirit of Christianity seemed on the point of dying out. But its influence never was completely lost in the darkest ages, and under more favorable conditions it was destined to contribute to modern life and thought some of their most essential features. 4. The German Element. There is still a fourth element which enters into modern life the Teutonic. The contribution which it makes, however, is not so much any new idea, as the human material in which the Roman, Greek, and Christian contributions were to be brought together and realized. The problem of the future was to create a new ideal of human life. This ideal should take its stand, indeed, upon law and social institutions; but instead of accepting these on authority, it should base them upon, and let them grow out of, the essential nature of man himself, and so combine stability with the possibility of growth. It should be free to understand the world ; but instead of making this under- standing an end in itself, it should relate it to the needs of man's physical and spiritual life. It should get the pur- chase of an appeal to the feelings, and through them to the will; but it should not allow the feelings to lead us blindly, apart from definite intellectual guidance, and definitely organized forms of social activity. Conceivably, the Roman world might have had within it the power to make a fresh start, and assume this new task. But his- torically this is not what happened. The German hordes which were always pressing the Empire from the north, had been held in check for a long time, but they became more and more threatening the more the vigor of the restraining forces was impaired. At last the exhaustion of the Empire became too great to hold them back any The Middle Ages 201 longer. In successive waves they overran the provinces, and Italy itself. Rome was captured, and the conquerors set up kingdoms of their own. If civilization was to be carried on at all, it could only be by the assimilation of this new material. Hopeless as the task appeared, in reality the Teutons, though barbarians, had in them the possibilities of a higher development than any that had preceded. Their most striking characteristic was a pronounced sense of individ- uality and love of freedom ; but along with this there went a simplicity of character and ruggedness of moral nature, and a cleanness of life, which furnished admirable soil for Christianity. Before, however, the Teutons could realize their destiny, a long period of training was required. A new individualism must arise out of the absolutism of the Roman Empire ; but a freedom on the basis of their present attainments would at once have degenerated into chaos. It was the great work of the Middle Ages and of the Church to take this raw material, and mould it into a definite shape ; to impress upon it, by external authority, the ideas and institutional forms which could be rescued from the wreck of the ancient world. It was only when, after cen- turies of training, these checks and guiding principles had been worked into men's natures, so as to form an integral part of themselves, that they could safely begin to find their way to freedom again. The time came once more when a criticism of beliefs and institutions was possible and necessary ; that it did not result, as it had in the case of Greece, in the overthrow of society, was due, partly to a difference in racial characteristics, but also to the thoroughness with which the Middle Ages had done their work of education. The result was not a violent break from the past, but a gradual transformation, on the founda- tion of the essential truth in the old, which still persisted and guided the process of emancipation. Briefly, then, we may say that as it was the peculiar task of the Middle Ages to effect by external authority the training 2O2 A Student's History of Philosophy of barbarian Europe, so their philosophical interest lies in the gradual appearance of those principles of freedom of thought and action which, in opposition to the principle of authority, were to characterize modern times. From this standpoint we may turn to a short account of the main features of mediaeval philosophy. 22. The First Period. Scotus Erigena. Anselm. Abelard i . The Church and the Barbarians. When Rome fell, the only institution which could stand effectively for law and order was the Church. Since this was divorced largely from political life, it would arouse no special antagonism on the part of the victors, while its sanctity and external magnificence would stir feelings of awe in the minds of barbarians accustomed only to the rudest life. When the Goths sacked Rome, they still respected the Church, and offered it the privilege of asylum ; and during the period which followed, it was the Church which stood as a defence against anarchy. Stretching as it did throughout the Empire, with a strong internal organization, it at once set about the task of conquering the victors. And in a sur- prisingly short time it accomplished the task. The Ger- mans, separated from the local associations of their own religion, showed a readiness to accept the cult of a higher civilization which displayed so much to impress the senses, and such skill to adapt itself to the natures with which it was dealing. The Church begins, accordingly, the victori- ous career which was to make it, not simply the arbiter of the intellectual beliefs of the world, but, as a vast hierarchy centring in the Pope at Rome, a great, and at times the ultimate exponent of civil authority also, able to enforce its commands upon kings and emperors. Meanwhile the intellectual life of antiquity seemed on the point of being entirely eclipsed. In the centuries fol- lowing the fall of the Empire, the literature and the culture of Greece and Rome became almost as if they never had The Middle Ages 203 been. Outside the Church there was no leisure for such things, and inside the Church no inclination. All true wisdom was given in the Church creed all that was nec- essary to salvation. Heathen learning and philosophy were useless, as heathen art was vicious, and if they were not regarded as positively un-Christian, and deserving to be rooted up and destroyed, they were at least a matter of indifference. " A report has reached us," writes Gregory the Great to the Bishop of Vienne, "which we cannot mention without a blush, that thou expoundest grammar to thy friends. Whereat we are so offended and filled with scorn that our former opinion of thee is turned to mourning. The same mouth singeth not the praises of Jove and the praises of Christ." Some slight respect for intellectual cul- ture still persisted in the monasteries, but it was elementary, and chiefly ecclesiastical in type. Previous philosophy survived for the most part only as it filtered through the writings of the Fathers, who ordinarily were hostile to it. Of the works of Plato and Aristotle only the merest frac- tion was known, and this through translation and com- mentary. It was not till the twelfth century that the great Greek philosophers began to be accessible at first hand. 2. Scholasticism. When, accordingly, about 900 A.D., a somewhat greater activity shows itself in the life of thought, these new intellectual interests which form the beginning of what is known as the scholastic or school philosophy the philosophy of the Catholic Church take a particular direction. Scholasticism has two main characteristics. It is, in the first place, a philosophy of dogmatic religion, assuming a certain subject-matter as absolute and unquestioned. The Church could not con- 1 sistently allow the search for truth, since she herself already possessed the truth by an infallible revelation ; the limits within which thought could move were neces- sarily strictly defined. There was no neutral field of secular knowledge ; in all spheres alike, history and science as well as matters of religion in the stricter sense, 204 A Student's History of Philosophy the Church conceived herself to be possessed already of final truth. But meanwhile a certain work was left for the intellect which was not obviously dangerous. This was the work of showing how the doctrinal content, whose truth was taken for granted on authority, was also self- consistent and rational. Granting that the dogma was given as an established fact, it yet might seem a pious task to show that these doctrines, when given, are accept- able to the reason, and capable of being justified to it. There was indeed danger in this, as the Church was later on to discover the danger that the rational justification should become a requirement, and the dogma be measured by its standard, and derive authority from it. But mean- while to oppose the tendency would have been to oppose all intellectual life whatever, and this not even the Church would have been powerful enough to do successfully. The most prominent characteristic of Scholasticism, then, was its function as a systematizer and rationalizer of re- ligious dogma. But in connection with this there was an important circumstance which also largely determined its peculiar character. This was the extraordinary barrenness and abstractness of the material with which it had to work. The very considerable sum of concrete knowledge about the world which antiquity had collected knowledge of history and of the natural sciences had dropped out of existence for the Middle Ages as useless, or worse than useless. Instead of being able, therefore, to utilize in their thinking the fruits of a rich experience and knowl- edge, the attitude which the Schoolmen were compelled to assume was almost wholly an abstractly logical attitude. All they could do was to spin out fine distinctions and implications from the most general statements about the world statements in large measure empty of the real con- tent that gives them meaning. And while to this task they often brought a surprising ability and acuteness, the lack of a worthy subject-matter vitiated all their efforts, and gave their speculations that air of unreality and triviality The Middle Ages 205 which strikes the modern mind so forcibly. " Surely," says Bacon, " like as many substances in nature which are solid do putrify and corrupt into worms, so it is the prop- erty of good and sound knowledge to putrify and dissolve into a number of subtile, idle, unwholesome, and as I may term them, vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality. This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign among the schoolmen, who, having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle their dictator, as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and col- leges ; and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite agita- tion of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of learn- ing which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contem- plation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby ; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh its web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fine- ness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit." 3. Erigena. Realism and Nominalism. The first period of the scholastic philosophy may be taken as extending to about the twelfth century, and it is marked in the beginning by a comparative degree of specula- tive freedom. After the long night of the intellect, men rediscovered the delights of reason with a feverish joy. The most trivial logical questions had the power of rous- ing an unbounded enthusiasm. And the naive confidence in the accordance of reason with dogma a confidence which could not be shaken until experience had shown something of where reason was to lead made possible a less guarded attitude than afterward could be allowed. It is true that in the case of the first great philosopher of the Middle Ages, John Scotus Erigena (about 810-880), the 206 A Students , History of Philosophy Church was already inclined to be on its guard. Neverthe- less, we find in not a few instances a frankness and bold- ness in the expression of entirely rationalistic opinions, which indicates the absence of anything like the effective censorship and control of a later period. In general, the determining influence upon this period of philosophy was Plato. It was Plato, however, not at first hand, but through the medium of Neo-Platonism. Erigena was a native of Ireland, a country in which the best learning of the day had taken refuge ; his scholarship was varied and profound for his time, and he possessed the very unusual accomplishment of a knowledge of Greek. He was, therefore, fitted to bring about that first infusion of ancient thought, which was to be repeated on a larger scale at each new step of advance, down to the times of the Renaissance. It was his revival of the abstract and transcendental standpoint of Neo-Platonism, with its graded hierarchy of existence, which was largely influential in shaping the course of the great philosophical problem of the Middle Ages, as opposed to the more purely theologi- cal problems dealing with the interpretation of dogma. This is the question as to the reality of universals, or abstract notions a question which goes back to Plato him- self. It divided the thinkers of the Middle Ages into three great schools the Realists, the Nominalists, and those who tried to mediate between the two. The Real- ists, who are represented by Erigena, take their stand with Plato, and declare that class terms are real more real than the individual things which come under them. The more general a term is, the more reality it possesses ; man is more real than particular men, the circle than particular circles. The Nominalists, on the other hand, taking up the cause of common sense, denied that the con- cept, or class, has an existence of its own beyond the individuals which make up the class ; these individuals alone are real. For the extreme Nominalists, of whom Roscellimis is one of the earliest, the concept is absolutely The Middle Ages 207 nothing but a name, which can be applied to a number of particular things. In ringing the changes upon this problem, a great share of the philosophical energies of the Middle Ages is ex- pended. So far as the net result is concerned, it is for us not very large. The problem had been treated by the Greek philosophers with far more concrete knowledge and genuine insight. The Scholastics added some logical de- tail, and an elaborate philosophical terminology which has not proved altogether a blessing ; but as for bringing out the real truth of Plato's doctrine, and freeing it from its inadequate expression, neither Realist nor Nominalist had the necessary insight. There is a significance, however, which the controversy possesses, apart from the question of metaphysics that is directly involved. It represents one aspect of the fundamental struggle between the dominant modes of thought of the Middle Ages, and the begin- nings of the modern scientific and individualistic spirit which was destined to overthrow the power of the Church and create a new civilization. It was natural that the Church should be realistic. The hierarchical system of reality, which absorbed the part in the whole, the less general in the more general, was a counterpart, in the intellectual world, of the graded hierarchy of the Roman ecclesiastical system, at the top of which the Pope stood supreme, as the representative of the Church universal. To admit that the individual alone is real, and not the class, would have been to deny that solidarity of the human race, on which the whole Church doctrine of sin and redemption was based. It would have been to admit that particular persons and particular churches have reality, while the one Holy Catholic Church is a mere name ; and so that the mediation of the Church is unnecessary in religion. Again, if Nominalism were true, and particular things alone were real, then consistently men's attention ought to be directed to such things, and secular and scientific interests 208 A Students History of Philosophy must take the place of religious and ecclesiastical. Nomi- nalism was the natural ally of the scientific spirit, even if this was not consciously present in the minds of the earlier Nominalists ; and science is incompatible with an exclusive and overwhelming interest in personal salvation such as the Church endeavored to foster, and on the existence of which its authority rested. When it was worked out, moreover, Nominalism was bound to conflict with the whole principle of dogmatism. A dogma is a past generalization which is divorced from the correcting influence of new facts, and taken as necessarily and absolutely true in itself. With such traditional generalizations the Church was identified ; it stood for authority rather than investigation the authority of some one else's experience in the past. To concentrate attention on the particular facts out of which generalizations grow, and to maintain the superior validity of these facts, was to substitute the principle of private judgment. In its earlier history, Nominalism was not aware of all its implications. In taking its stand upon the common-sense denial that class terms have an objective existence apart from things, it supposed itself to be entirely orthodox. And, indeed, it was able to retort the cry of heresy against its rivals. Without doubt the logical tendency of Realism was in the direction of Pantheism. If individuals exist only in the class, and not by themselves, then the highest concept, or God, is the sole reality, in whom alone all lesser facts the world and man have being. " God is everything that truly is," says Erigena ; and again, " This is the end of all things visible and invisible, when all visible things pass into intellectual, and the intellectual into God, by a marvellous and unspeakable union." It is true that he adds, " yet not by any confusion or distinction of essences or sub- stances;" but it is a question how far he really can maintain this. In spite of the danger, however, the Church remained realistic. The great need of the world was still for a unifying and ordering force in opposition to The Middle Ages 209 the disintegrating tendencies which were present in Feudal- ism. Realism alone supplied a theoretical basis for this, and Nominalism had, accordingly, to wait for a more favor- able opportunity. 4. Anselm. The typical exponent of Realism in the first period of the Middle Ages is Anselm. Born in Aosta in 1033, he was attracted to the famous monastery of Bee, in Normandy, by the name of Lanfranc, whom he after- ward succeeded as Abbot. Later he was again made Lan- franc's successor, as Archbishop of Canterbury, under William the Red ; and in this office, after a career marked by numerous vicissitudes which his conscientiousness and uprightness occasioned, he died in 1109. Anselm com- bines in a remarkable way a genuine piety, and an un- flinching acceptance of the orthodox creed, with a strong speculative bent, and a confidence that reason and reve- lation will lead to the same goal. With Anselm, there is no question of doubting the doctrines of the Church. Faith must always precede knowledge. We do not re- flect in order that we may believe ; we believe in order that we may know. The unbeliever, who does not first perceive the truth by faith, can no more arrive at an understanding of the truth, than the blind man who does not see the light can understand the light. Our duty, therefore, is to accept the teachings of the Church in all sincerity and humility, and strive to comprehend them. If we succeed, we may thank God ; if we do not, let us simply end our search, and submit to God's will, instead of deny- ing the dogma, and allowing our reason to stray outside the limits which it sets. Anselm himself, however, is strongly convinced that the attempt will be successful. In the endeavor to make the objects of faith intelligible to reason, he examines acutely the fundamental doctrines of the Church, particu- larly the doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement, in a way that deeply influenced subsequent theology. On the more distinctly philosophical side, his most lasting work 2io A Student's History of Philosophy was in connection with the proof of the existence of God. He threw himself into this problem with an intensity of earnestness which often made him go without food and sleep. The most characteristic result of his meditations was the famous ontological argument an argument which has appealed to some of the greatest thinkers since An- selm's day, and which still retains an influence and a fas- cination. The argument is substantially as follows : We define God as a being than which nothing greater can be thought. Now there is in the mind the idea of such a be- ing. But also such a being must exist outside the mind. For if it did not, it would fail to be a being than which noth- ing greater can be thought ; a being with the added at- tribute of existence is greater than one merely in idea. Therefore God exists not merely in the mind, but also as a real existence outside the mind. The obvious criticism on this argument was seen by a contemporary of Anselm, a monk named Gaunilo. He points out that it bases itself solely upon the idea of perfection and the idea of existence, and does not prove anything whatever about an objective reality corresponding to these ideas of ours. In essence this objection is commonly regarded nowadays as well founded. 5. The Growth of Rationalism. Abelard and Conceptu- alism. The various tendencies which Anselm's personal- ity had held in equilibrium could not, however, be expected always to exist together in entire harmony. The rational and logical spirit, grown by exercise, was bound to show a disposition to break loose from its connection with theologi- cal tenets, and to set up on its own account. In place of the unified intellectual life in which reason acted as the obedient handmaid of the Church, three somewhat specialized atti- tudes can be distinguished in the thought of the day. On the one hand stood the theologians proper, who fell back upon authority, and aimed simply to set forth the dogmas as they had been handed down from the Fathers. On the other hand, the pure interest in dialectical and logical skill The Middle Ages 211 for its own sake, apart from the services which it ren- dered to theology, was also beginning to manifest itself. The results might be trifling, but the tendency involved a dangerous principle. If reason were given an independent footing, next in order it would grow bolder, and attempt to dictate. Meanwhile a third attitude also was assuming importance. Dissatisfied alike with the cold formalism of the theologians and with the abstract rationalism of the philosophers, many of the more religious natures, revert- ing to a tendency which had come down from the Neo- Platonists, found refuge in Mysticism. This movement connects itself in particular with the abbey of St. Victor. Besides Hugo of St. Victor (1096-1140), and his followers Richard and Walter, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1 153) may be regarded as its best-known representative, though from a standpoint less philosophically grounded. By its cultivation of freedom and spontaneity in the religious life, Mysticism had a part to play among the influences which later were to bring the Middle Ages to a close. For the present, however, the growing rationalistic spirit was of special significance. This has its most remarkable representative in the famous A belard (1079-1142). Abe- lard was the possessor of a typically French intellect keen, clear cut, impatient of all mysticism and obscurity ; and his striking talents early gave promise of a brilliant career. He became a pupil of William of Champeattx, in Paris, but soon came into collision with his teacher, and defeated him so signally in argument that William's popu- larity waned, and Abelard was the hero of the day. At the age of twenty-two he had opened a school of his own at Melun, and both here, and later on in Paris, was extraor- dinarily successful as a teacher. William was an extreme Realist, and in opposition to him Abelard took an inter- mediate position. Traditionally he is regarded as the founder of Conceptualism ; and while there is some doubt about his real teaching, it would seem to have contained the elements at least of this position. Conceptualism is 212 A Students History of Philosophy substantially identical with the commonly accepted opin- ion about the nature of abstract ideas at the present time. The class term has no objective existence as such ; it exists only as a thought, a concept in our minds. But neither is it a mere breath or word, out of all relation to things them- selves. The concept exists in the particular things as a similarity or identity of qualities, through whose abstraction by a mental act the concept is formed ; and as the expres- sion of this similarity it is objectively valid. There is even a sense in which we might say that the concept exists inde- pendently of the things as an idea, that is, in the mind of God. A divine idea, then, a likeness existing among qualities in objects, and an abstraction of these qualities by the human mind to form a class term with a universal meaning these for Conceptualism are the factors which enter into the problem of universals. But the clearness and independence of Abelard's mind showed itself in other fields also. He brought the same rationalistic temper to subjects more directly connected with the dogmas of the Church. With surprising frank- ness he condemns the credulity which is willing to take beliefs on trust, without a rational justification. "A doc- trine is not believed," he declares, "because God has said it, but because we are convinced by reason that it is so." Doubt is no sin, as the Church thought; "by doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth." He confesses to an admiration for the ancient philosophers, and finds expressed in them the essential doctrines of religion and morality. The noteworthy at- tempt is made to establish a theory of ethics independent of dogmatic sanctions. Christianity itself seems to him first of all the rehabilitation of the natural moral law, which was revealed to the Greek sages as well ; that which was mysterious in Christianity he decidedly inclined to mini- mize. " Shall we people hell," he says, " with men whose life and teachings are truly evangelical and apos- tolic in their perfection, and differ in nothing, or very The Middle Ages 213 little, from the Christian religion ? " This naturalistic tone appears in his treatment of the particular dogmas; the three persons of the Trinity, for example, are resolved into three attributes of God power, wisdom, and goodness united in a single personality. 23. The Second Period. The Revival of Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas. Duns Scotus. William of Occam I. Arabian Philosophy. The Crusades. Abelard's views were condemned by the Church ; but this did not prevent the spread of the rationalistic and independent spirit which he embodied. For a time it almost looked as if the Renaissance might be anticipated by several cen- turies. A large factor in this was the growing influence of Arabian thought. While Europe had been asleep, learning had taken refuge among the Mohammedans. The works of Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle's, were preserved and studied when they were known to Christian scholars only in the most fragmentary form. In the courts of the Eastern caliphs, and in the kingdom of the Moors in Spain, there came about a brief period of culture in which a considerable scientific activity went along with a vigorous, though not very original, philosophical revival. The most important name among the Arabian commenta- tors and philosophers who influenced the later Scholasti- cism, is that of Averroes (i 126-1 198). The reception of this influence was made easier by a change which was beginning to come over the whole spirit of the age, and which was furthered in particular by the Crusades. These great religious wars had turned out quite otherwise than their promoters had anticipated. The religious results, from the standpoint of Catholicism, were almost nothing, while of consequences entirely op- posed to the Church's desires there were a great number. The men of Europe had their dormant wits violently and effectually shaken by contact with other peoples, and by 214 A Student's History of Philosophy the novel experiences which their wanderings brought them. Christendom found to its surprise that those whom it had been accustomed to look upon with contempt as heretics, were in reality a brave and warlike people, with many virtues of their own, and a civilization in some respects superior to that of Europe. Contact with them inevitably rubbed off to some extent the provincialism, and the unreasoning horror of ideas at all dissimilar to their own, on which the hold of the Church largely depended ; and the feeling of respect which the field of battle engen- dered facilitated an exchange of ideas. So also two other tendencies, which were to weaken the power of the Church, received a decided stimulus from the Crusades. The emu- lation and rivalry resulting from a coming together of men from every country in Europe, brought to the surface a new sense of national spirit, which was opposed to the pretensions of the Church. Furthermore, commercial ac- tivity was given an immense impetus, owing to the neces- sity of transporting the large armies of the Crusaders, and furnishing the supplies required, as well as to the closer communication brought about between the East and the West, and the revelation of new luxuries and new wants. Both of these things tended to give an emphasis to the new secular spirit as opposed to the religious. Many of the conditions, accordingly, seemed to be favorable to a breaking away from the authority of the Church. And, indeed, on a small scale, many of the features of the Renaissance were anticipated. The widespread in- terest in learning is shown in the rise of the great Uni- versities, while in the court of Frederick the Second, especially, a new culture was introduced which was as thoroughly pagan as that which characterized the Italian cities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To Frederick all religion was alike untrue ; Mohammed and Christ alike impostors. But the movement was premature. It had no sufficient knowledge to back it, and the hold of the Church was still too great to be broken. The new forces were '*7 ~*?**r~frv *- - x~-v -/ ""^/ ""***-* j~9***0~+ ,oKj.~e- -^ . Middle Ages 215 turned safely into ecclesiastical channels, and spent them- selves in infusing fresh life into Scholasticism, rather than in breaking away from it. The Church philosophy got possession of the Universities, where it remained in- trenched even after a different spirit had come over the outer world ; and the awakening was postponed for several centuries. I. The Revival of Aristotle. Aquinas. In turning the new tendencies to her own account, the Church showed her usual astuteness. The chief incentive to the threatened revolution in the intellectual world was due to the opening for the first time to Europe of a knowl- edge of the real Aristotle, and the coming of its scholars into contact with a mind of the first order, whose think- ing was not specifically theological. It is the influence of Aristotle which is the dominant factor in the whole of the following period. At first the Church had been alarmed at the evident dangers involved in the situation, and it had tried to avert them by condemning Aristotle. But as the Greek text came to be known, and the rationalistic and pantheistic tinge which Aristotle had taken from his Ara- bian commentators was found not to be necessary to his interpretation, the attitude of the Church was altered. She began to realize that she had in Aristotle a possible instrument for her own ends. And so effectively did she use this, that when, later on, the emancipation of the intel- lect was brought about, Aristotle, instead of being, as he now promised to be, the agent of that emancipation, was the one chiefest obstacle against which the new spirit had to make war. By setting up the dictatorship of Aristotle, the Church had set bounds to the intellect more effectually than she had ever been able to do by means of dogma. There had been no recognized authority in the realm of pure reason in the earlier Middle Ages, and accordingly, within the limits of certain dogmatic results, the reason had had free play. By establishing now the supreme authority of Aristotle in every sphere to which reasoning 216 A Student's History of Philosophy applies the natural world as well as the metaphysical, and by interpreting Aristotle in her own way, a tool was at hand for holding the reason in check, without at the same time denying it its rights. Aristotle was himself identical with reason, not to be denied or questioned. Even in matters of science the question was, not what does nature reveal, but what does Aristotle say ; and when sci- ence began to emerge, the authority of the philosopher was actively used to check its growth. " My son," so, accord- ing to an anecdote, was the reply made to one who thought he had discovered spots in the sun, " I have read Aristotle many times, and I assure you that there is nothing of the kind mentioned by him. Be certain therefore that the spots which you have seen are in your eyes, and not in the sun." In the formulation of Scholasticism in Aristotelian terms by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor (1225- 1274), the most comprehensive task of mediaeval thought was performed, and Catholic philosophy was determined definitely for the future. In Aquinas, the formula was at last attained which was to be accepted by the Church as the final statement of the relation that exists between philosophy and revelation, be- tween reason and faith. The na'fve confidence in the abil- ity of reason to justify the full content of religious belief had not been supported by experience. It came to be rec- ognized that there are heights to which reason cannot pos- sibly reach. The higher truths of revelation belong to a sphere where it is incompetent to decide ; they are mys- teries, to be accepted only on the ground of faith in authority. But while the fields of reason and of faith are thus not co- extensive, and while therefore philosophy cannot hope to make theology fully intelligible to the limited powers of the human mind, there need not for all that be any actual contradiction between the two. So far as it goes, reason is harmonious with faith ; but there comes a point where it no longer is able to pass judgment, and here faith steps in as a more ultimate principle, which stands to the natural The Middle Ages 217 powers of the mind as their final consummation. This relationship is typical of the central thought of Aquinas' whole system of philosophy. By means of the Aristotelian concepts of matter and form, all existence is arranged in a hierarchical system, in which the lower is subordinated to the higher body to soul, matter to spirit, philosophy to theology, the secular power to the ecclesiastical with a thoroughness and acuteness which left a lasting impression. 3. Religion and Reason. The Revival of Nominalism. In the system of Aquinas, the scholastic philosophy reached its height. From this time on the interest centres in the emergence of those tendencies which finally were to undermine it, and introduce the modern period. Without dwelling upon individual thinkers, it will be sufficient here to point out the more important factors in this evolution. The distinction which had now been clearly drawn between natural and revealed religion, reason and theol- ogy, was not of a nature to stop within the limits to which Aquinas had tried to confine it. The notion of revelation as being above reason, furnished a basis for a separation between the two realms which grew continually more pronounced. In accordance with this distinction, religion comes to be taken as having a special organ faith, or feeling with regard to which reason has nothing to say. In one form or other this has been a widely influential attitude down to the present day. To the man of religious nature who longs to be undisturbed in his cherished beliefs, and who chafes at the violence which often seems to be done alike to these, and to his reason, by the attempt to bring the two together, it often seems a welcome relief to give up the whole endeavor to harmonize his knowledge with his faith, and be able to deny to reason the right to interfere in the separate province of religion. At the same time he gains for reason a free play in its own proper field, un- checked by the irritating feeling that it must continually be squared with some preconceived result. To-day, for example, it is common to find men securing for themselves 218 A Student's History of Philosophy the right to follow the leadings of science, and still to re- tain the religious beliefs upon which science seems to cast doubt, by adopting the principle of a division of labor, ac- cording to which reason is to be allowed its validity, but only in a lower and phenomenal sphere. Even if it comes to an apparent contradiction, therefore, between scientific and religious truth, that contradiction means nothing. The intent of this is to save religion, but it is easy to see that the same attitude may just as well be adopted from a different motive. Especially in an age when reli- gious authority is strong, and requires evasion if thought is to have free scope, it may be seized upon as a pretext by men who have no concern for religion, and only want a chance to rationalize the universe. If revelation and reason are distinct, there can be no harm in pushing the conclusions of reason to any result, however extreme, since religion is not prejudiced thereby. This attitude found expression in the famous doctrine of the " twofold truth" the doctrine, namely, that a thing might be true according to reason which was not true theologically, and vice versa. In the case of many who practically adopted this point of view, there was no intention of undermining the authority of religion or the Church. Nevertheless, the tendency was due at bottom to a demand for the emanci- pation of the reason from Church trammels, and this as a matter of fact must destroy her authority. The conten- tion of Aquinas, that certain doctrines are above the dis- covery of the unassisted reason, was gradually widened. The doctrines which natural theology, or rational thought, could attain to and defend successfully, decreased in num- ber, until, in William of Occam, even the arguments for the existence of God were held to be insufficient. Philosophy, then, is no longer in any positive way a minister to theology, as it had started out by being. It has become a mere critical inquiry into the nature of reason, which ends in discrediting the capacity of knowledge for reaching ultimate truth, or for dealing with anything except The Middle Ages 219 the phenomenal world. This is, in one aspect, the meaning of a controversy which forms one of the central points about which the thought of the later Middle Ages turns the question as to the primacy of the intellect or of the will. The Thomists, or followers of Aquinas, maintained the ancient doctrine that intellect is original and supreme, and that God's will is determined by His knowledge. Their opponents, who are represented by the Franciscans, Duns Scottts and William of Occam (Thomas was a Dominican, and a rivalry between the two orders intensified the philo- sophical rivalry), maintained, on the contrary, that if God's will is limited by an eternal truth, then there is something above God which determines him. Accordingly, God must be conceived as an absolutely free will; and therefore truth and falsehood, right and wrong, are nothing in them- selves, but are established by God's arbitrary act. On the practical side, this means that religion is no longer identi- fied with a reasoned statement of truth, but is a disposition of will, a moral life, which obeys the law of duty imposed upon it by authority. If truth rests upon the inscruta- ble will of God, it must of necessity be unknowable by the natural reason. The only sphere which is left to reason is, accordingly, the lower, natural world, which does not come in contact with the realm of ultimate reality. But when it has thus been forced to become purely naturalistic in tone, it is ready for a further step. Men cannot continue indefinitely to hold to truth which not only has no rational ground, but is contradicted by all we mean by reason. That which has reason on its side cannot fail in the long run to get an advantage ; the subjects with which it deals are going to gain constantly in interest, and in consequent reality for us. And if it has been admitted that reason leaves us in pos- session only of the natural world, from which all super- sensible realities are excluded, then inevitably the conclusion will be drawn that this world is the only true one, and that the supersensible realities do not exist. Attention will be 220 A Student's History of Philosophy directed toward these verifiable and rational facts, which, as a result, will be emphasized at the expense of the others. The supersensible world may still be handed over to theology to do with as it pleases, and there may be no open break so long as theology confines itself to faith or feeling, and does not attempt to compete with scientific explanations. This, for instance, is Bacon's attitude later on. But to all intents and purposes theology has been dispossessed of all real rights. The tendency, therefore, of the doctrine of twofold truth was to confine philosophy to the physical world, and so to prepare the ground for scientific inquiry, as the highest truth about the world which we are capable of knowing. The same tendency shows itself in the revival of Nomi- nalism. The older Nominalism had failed, because the age was still in need of the unifying authority of the Church, and Realism had been the philosophical justifi- cation of this authority. Aquinas was a Realist, although somewhat influenced by the mediating tendencies repre- sented in such men as Abelard ; and so also was Duns Scotus. In Scotus, however, the movement is already toward Nominalism, which finally triumphs in William of Occam. Individual things are the only realities ; concepts have no existence extra mentem. Interpreted, this means that the period of authority is past, and that the period of individualism is at hand, which is to lay the foundations for modern progress. Nominalism, by its insistence upon the reality of particular things, justified the growing scien- tific spirit in its attention to facts rather than to a priori dogmas. It justified the revolt of individuals against the ready-made generalizations of the past, and of nations against the absolutism of the Catholic Church. It was no longer, therefore, opposed to the needs of the age, but was in line with a very essential aspect of what was soon to become a dominant tendency. 4. The Beginnings of Science. By itself, however, the mere philosophical development within Scholasticism would The Middle Ages 221 have had no great result. It needed to be reenforced by the concrete growth of knowledge about the world, before it could affect in any very thoroughgoing way the life of the times. During the Middle Ages them- selves this was rendered impossible in any consider- able degree. An interest in science had been aroused through contact with the Mohammedans, and acquaint- ance with the works of Aristotle. But it was not en- couraged either by the Church or by public opinion. The Church felt more or less clearly that the growth of knowledge was a menace to its own position, while to the popular mind, a too close familiarity with the works of nature was supposed to argue an unholy connection with the powers of evil. Even the office of Pope did not pre- vent the possessor of unusual scientific knowledge from being looked upon with suspicion, while a less influential man, like the monk Roger Bacon (1214-1294), was com- pelled to pay the full penalty for being in advance of his age. Bacon saw the problems of science with remarkable clearness, and his Opus Majus is a monument of industry and insight. But as a result he only gained the popular name of being a wizard and magician, while by the Church his work was condemned, and he himself confined for many years as a prisoner in his cell. In spite of everything, however, the scientific spirit persisted, and grew in strength ; and when at last the conditions were ripe, it suddenly at- tained a development which has been the means of deter- mining the whole course of modern thought. LITERATURE Poole, Illustrations of Thought in the Middle Ages. Adams, Civilization in the Middle Ages. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages. Emerton, Mediceval Europe. Townsend, The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. West, Alcuin. 222 A Students History of Philosophy Church, St. Anselm. Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux. Compayre", Abelard. Laurie, The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics. Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. Deane, Translation of Anselm's Proslogium, Monologium, Cur Deus Homo. TRANSITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY 24. The Renaissance. Bruno I. The Renaissance and the Reformation. The neces- sary conditions for the introduction of the modern period were brought about by the great movement which, from its various aspects, is called the Renaissance, or the Re- vival of Learning, or the Reformation. It has already been seen that this was no sudden appearance, but that the influences bringing it about had been at work at least as early as the Crusades. From that time on soci- ety was gradually becoming transformed, away from the ecclesiastical, and toward the secular ideal. The rapid growth of commerce and industry necessarily gave an emphasis to secular interests. The new social class which consequently rose to importance alongside the nobles and clergy, tended to ally itself with the king in his struggles with the feudal lords, since only through a strong cen- tral authority could trade and industry be protected; and this joined with other influences in building up a new national spirit. Presently nations began to attempt, with growing success, to break away from ecclesiastical control, and to separate the civil power from the spiritual. Here, again, the Nominalism of the later Scholastics threw in its lot with the new tendency, and we find Occam openly on the side of national authority, in its conflicts with the Pope. It was in Italy that the Renaissance first became an accomplished fact. Here the greater commercial activity, and the intense rivalry between the different cities, had early given rise to a pronounced and aggressive individual 223 224 A Student's History of Philosophy ism, and a sharpening of the wits without much reference to moral scruples. As early as the fourteenth century the main features of the Renaissance its interest in life, and its keener appreciation of the past, and the literature of the past appear in Petrarch and Boccaccio. But it is from the year 1453 that the Renaissance is commonly dated. In that year Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Empire, which had continued, up to this time, to maintain an ignoble existence, was taken by the Turks. Many of the Greek scholars, driven from their country, took refuge in Italy. Here they found the soil prepared for them, and the result was immediate and revolutionary. The revelation of the real spirit of classical antiquity, to men beginning to feel the possession of new powers of life and capacities of appreciation, and heartily sick of the dry and tasteless theological nourishment with which they had had to satisfy themselves for centuries, completely over- turned all their old ideas. The shackles of the Church fell from their minds, and they turned back to the past with a passionate delight. A civilization sprang up which, as op- posed to the religious civilization of the Middle Ages, was thoroughly pagan in its spirit pagan not only in its love of beauty and literature, and its delight in living, but also as a reaction against the asceticism of the Church in its vices, and its frank sensualism and egoism. The whole scale of values was shifted. Men cared more for an old manuscript of the poets than for the prophets and apos- tles ; for a Greek vase or statue, than for temperance and holy living. A new zest for all that was human and beauti- ful found expression in a great period of artistic creation. Even the court of St. Peter's was paganized, and we have the spectacle of a series of Popes, sunk in vices, indeed, which have made their names synonyms of infamy, but still accomplished scholars, artistic dilettantes, and patrons of art and learning. In philosophy, nearly every system of ancient times was revived. Plato, the artist among philosophers, attracted a large following, and a Platonic Transition to Modern Philosophy 225 Academy was founded in Florence. In opposition to him, other scholars set up Aristotle, interpreted not as he had been by the Church, but freely and naturalistically. So also Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, Epicurean- ism, and Scepticism, and even some of the earlier Greek schools, found adherents. And in all there was the same eagerness to throw off ecclesiastical restraints, in the inter- ests of a real intellectual activity. Beyond Italy, the Renaissance took on a somewhat different form. In Germany, where it had to do with a type of mind naturally profounder and more religious, and where, moreover, the religious life had already been deep- ened by the mysticism of Eckhart, and Tauler, and the Brethren of the Common Life, its most characteristic result was the Reformation of Luther. Even its Human- ism, as typified in Erasmus and Melancthon, had more or less strong religious sympathies. But the Reformation was still in principle the same revolt against authority. By its doctrine of justification by faith, apart from any exter- nal mediation, and its appeal to immediate Christian ex- perience, it stood directly for individual freedom, as opposed to the pretensions of the Church. With whatever differences of form, however, the change in the attitude toward life was a permanent one. The human spirit, once freed from the restrictions which ecclesiasti- cism had put upon it, could never return again to the same bondage. By the impulse which had thus been given, the whole aspect of the world had been changed. National life and secular pursuits had received a strength which made it impossible that the Church should ever usurp again in any universal way its old power. And along with these, there followed other changes, which in a short space still further revolutionized existing conditions. The voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama, Balboa and Magellan, result- ing, among other things, in the discovery of America and of the road to the Indies, opened up vast possibilities which had not been dreamed of before. They changed the map of the Q 226 A Student's History of Philosophy world, and furnished a powerful spur to the imaginative and creative spirit witness the Elizabethan age. In quick suc- cession came also a series of inventions of world-wide signifi- cance. The discovery of gunpowder revolutionized the art of war, and put the common soldier and the noble on an equal footing ; printing first made possible a generally diffused knowledge and culture ; while the telescope laid open the structure of the heavens, and the compass enlarged the boundaries of the earth. And, finally, there came forward, to realize the new possi- bilities in the way of knowledge, a brilliant group of scientists of the first magnitude Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and others whose investigations gave a firm foundation to those scientific methods and conceptions which were destined to enter so vitally into all future thought. In particular Copernicus, by shifting the centre of the universe from our earth, and making this but a point in a vast system, created a profound impression on men's imaginations, and perhaps more than any other one influence helped to cut the ground from beneath the narrow and earth-centred theological view of life, which hitherto had dominated men's minds. " The earth moves " became the recognized formula of advance. God could no longer be conceived as having His local habitation in the heavens ; the whole geography of the spiritual world was thrown into con- fusion, and the way opened for a deeper conception of God's relation to the universe. The results of all this appear in the emergence of a wholly new way of looking at the world the way of the modern man. Nothing could be more modern in tone, for example, than the essays of Montaigne. In their cool common sense, their cautious scepticism the assertion of the right of a man to think and judge for himself, their clear condemnation of super- stition and religious fanaticism, and their wide spirit of toleration, they represent the complete divergence of cultivated thought from ecclesiastical influence, and the secularization of human life and interests. Transition to Modern Philosophy 227 2. Bruno. Turning now to the way in which this enor- mous change is mirrored in philosophical theory, we may pass over the transition period with just a word. At first, as has been said, men had been compelled to go back to the remoter past to get that concrete content to life, the lack of which repelled them in the Middle Ages, but which they were not yet ready to supply from their own resources. But soon the mere renewal of ancient systems gave place to more original attempts to satisfy the needs of the time, though these are still so closely bound by the influences they are trying to escape, that their results are necessarily un- clear, and suggestive rather than final. Starting at first within the general limits of Scholasticism, these attempts soon passed, in Giordano Bruno, into a bitter hostility to the Church and the Church theology. Bruno's philosophy is, in many ways, the most characteristic product of the Renaissance period. He himself was a Dominican monk, born near Naples in 1548. His fiery spirit and poetic temperament soon turned him, however, from sympathy with dogmatic and ascetic Catholicism. Persecuted in consequence by the Church, he passed a varied and un- happy life, wandering from country to country Switzer- land, Germany, England, France, but nowhere finding peace. At last he fell into the clutches of the Inquisition, and was burnt at the stake in Rome (1600). In Bruno there are all the elements which go to make the Renaissance period so attractive. There is the ardent enthusiasm for nature and beauty ; the revolt from asceti- cism and Scholasticism alike ; the consciousness of a new and vaster universe suddenly laid open to man, and the confidence that it can be grasped as a whole, without the long process of careful investigation whose necessity time was to show ; and, finally, along with this, the inevitable ferment and unclearness of new ideas imperfectly appre- hended. In his zeal for life Bruno goes back to the an- cient Hylozoism. All nature is alive. A world soul permeates everything. The universe is a great organism, 228 A Students History of Philosophy whose dwelling-place is the infinite reaches of space. To this emotional realization of the infiniteness and divineness of the natural world, which sweeps away the restrictive barriers of theology, his eyes had been opened first by the Copernican theory. " By this knowledge we are loosened from the chains of a most narrow dungeon, and set at lib- erty to rove in a most august empire ; we are removed from presumptuous boundaries and poverty to the innumerable riches of an infinite space, of so worthy a field, and of such beautiful worlds." Nothing now is limited and restricted, and nothing is dead matter. As he looks forth on the world, man comes in contact everywhere with a power akin to him, which is nearer to him than he to himself, and yet which pulsates through the remotest regions of the heavens, and informs all things. " It is not reasonable to believe that any part of the world is without a soul life, sensation, and organic structure. From this infinite All, full of beauty and splendor, from the vast worlds which circle above us, to the sparkling dust of stars beyond, the conclusion is drawn that there are an infinity of creatures, a vast multitude, which, each in its degree, mirrors forth the splendor, wisdom, and excellence of the divine beauty." The stars have intellectual and sense life, "those sons of God who shouted for joy at the creation, the flaming heralds his ministers, and the ambassadors of his glory, a living mirror of the infinite Deity." Accordingly we must rid ourselves of the paltry thought that it is for us that all things are created. " Only one bereft of his reason could believe that those infinite spaces, tenanted by vast and magnificent bodies, are designed only to give us light, or to receive the clear shining of the earth." "If in the eyes of God there is but one starry globe, if the sun and moon and all creation are made for the good of the earth and for the welfare of man, humanity may be exalted, but is not the Godhead abased ? Is this not to straiten and confine His providence? What! is a feeble human creature the only object worthy of the care Transition to Modern Philosophy 229 of God? No, the earth is but a planet, the rank she holds among the stars is but by usurpation ; it is time to dethrone her. The ruler of our earth is not man, but the sun, with the life which breathes in common through the universe. Let the earth eschew privilege; let her fulfil her course, and obey. Let not this contemplation dispirit man, as if he thought himself abandoned by God ; for in extending and enlarging the universe, he is himself ele- vated beyond measure, and his intelligence is no longer deprived of breathing space beneath a sky meagre, narrow, and ill-contrived in its proportions. And better still, if God is everywhere present in the whole of the world, fill- ing it with his infinity and with his immeasurable great- ness, if there is in reality an innumerable host of suns and stars, what of the foolish distinction between the heaven and the earth ? Dwellers in a star, are we not compre- hended within the celestial plains, and established within the very precincts of heaven ? " And so the distinction between the divine, and the secular, or earthly, disappears before a wider knowledge. " This is that philosophy which opens the senses, which satisfies the mind, which enlarges the understanding, and which leads man to the only true beatitude; for it frees him from the solicitous pursuit of pleasure, and from the anxious apprehensions of pain, seeing that everything is subject to a most good and efficient cause." x In this conception of the universe it will be noticed that there are two sides, both of which Bruno wishes to emphasize. On the one hand, he insists upon the unity of the whole. Reality is an eternal spirit, one and indivisi- ble, and as such alone possesses truth. All things that appear are but images of this ultimate reality. "The heavens are a picture, a book, a mirror, wherein man can behold and read the form and the laws of supreme good- ness, the plan and total of perfection." " From this spirit, 1 Taken from Frith, Life of Bruno, pp. 42-46. (Paul, Trench, Triib- ner & Co.) 230 A Student's History of Philosophy which is One, all being flows ; there is one truth and one goodness penetrating and governing all things. In nature are the thoughts of God. They are made manifest in figures and vestiges to the eye of sense ; they are repro- duced in our thoughts, where alone we can arrive at con- sciousness of true being. We are surrounded by eternity and by the uniting of love. There is but one centre from which all species issue, as rays from a sun, and to which all species return. There is but one celestial expanse, where the stars choir forth unbroken harmony. From this spirit, which is called the Life of the Universe, proceeds the life and soul of everything which has soul and life, the which life, however, I understand to be immortal, as well in bodies as in their souls, there being no other death than division and congregation." 1 All differences seem at times to disappear in this eternal whole ; and by reason of the emphasis which he puts upon it, Bruno may be said to anticipate the pantheism of Spinoza. But his thought has also the other side, which tends away from the mere ab- stract form of unity. God is the whole, but a whole which is present in its completeness in each single part. He is in the blade of grass, in the grain of sand, in the atom that floats in the sunbeam, as well as in the boundless All. Each man is a point in which the fulness of the Godhead is reflected ; it represents the whole ; it is the microcosm which in miniature reproduces the great macrocosm of the universe. With Bruno " man is a mirror within a mirror, and his perception of things is a reflection of nature, which is the reflection of the thought of God." 3. Paracelsus. Evidently, then, the return to nature lends itself, in this its early form, rather to a poetical glori- fication of the world, an imaginative interpretation which reaches its goal by a subjective leap, rather than to the sober attention to details which was needed before science could be established. For a time, the revival of the essen- tially true ideal of control over nature as a main end of hu- 1 Ibid., p. 278. Transition to Modern Philosophy 231 man knowledge, showed itself in the form of an interest in magic, astrology, alchemy, a search for the philosopher's stone. The control was to come about, not by patient industry, but by the possession of some secret wisdom, some all-compelling formula or word, which should force the powers of the spiritual world to do man's bidding. Paracelsus is the type of a host of men who sprang up all over Europe men of enthusiasm for nature, and to some extent of original and high ideals, but men whose un- disciplined imaginations led them beyond the bounds of sober thinking. In the immense activity which resulted, some valuable knowledge about the world was, it is true, attained. In alchemy, in particular, the search for that which should turn everything to gold was the means of giving a start to the science of chemistry. It was neces- sary, however, not only that the barren logomachies of Scholasticism, but also that these more attractive, but almost equally unfruitful methods of magic and theosophy, should be definitely rejected, and the foundations laid for an entirely different view of the world, before progress could be secure. LITERATURE Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance. Montaigne, Essays. Cellini, Autobiography. Owen, The Sceptics of the Italian Renaissance. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, 7 vols. Frith, Life of Bruno. 25. Bacon I. The Defects of the Existing Philosophy. The man who came forward to attempt this task was Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The way in which philosophy now begins to pass out from the hands of ecclesiastics and School- men is itself significant of the change that has taken place. In the Middle Ages, all the philosophers were con- 232 A Student's History of Philosophy nected with the Church ; even Bruno was a Dominican monk. But Bacon is a lawyer and statesman, Hobbes a private tutor, Descartes a soldier, Spinoza a grinder of lenses. Bacon's personal character is not one that we can view with unmixed satisfaction. Pope's phrase "the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind" is no doubt ex- aggerated for the sake of antithesis. Nevertheless there is, in Bacon's checkered career a career ending in his disgrace, and removal from the Lord Chancellorship too much truckling to those in power, too elastic a con- science, and too obvious a lack of any delicate sense of personal honor and dignity, to be altogether attractive. Nor, indeed, as a thinker, is Bacon deserving of the ex- cessive admiration which has sometimes been bestowed upon him. On the more ultimate questions of philosophy he has little to say ; and even on the side of science and the world of nature, his work is not in any sense final. He continually promises more than he is able to perform. It was other men who were actually doing the things whose neces- sity Bacon was pointing out, and Bacon was not always able to recognize the value of their work. He never accepted the Copernican theory ; and the valuable investigations of Gilbert, an Englishman, in connection with the properties of the magnet, he was inclined to depreciate, on the ground that they covered only a limited field. Nor, again, is the method which it was his main purpose to elaborate, accepted nowadays as an adequate account of scientific procedure. But in spite of these defects, the work which Bacon accom- plished was a highly important one. What the times needed was not simply men to carry out practically the new methods of science in a detailed investigation of the world, but also some one with the breadth of vision to realize clearly, and in a large way, what these methods meant, to emphasize their relation to previous methods, and to set them in con- nection with some worthy end in terms of human life as a whole. For this task Bacon was admirably equipped. The catholicity and universality of his scientific interests, which Transition to Modern Philosophy 233 might have hindered him in the actual investigation of scientific detail, enabled him here to keep in view and call attention to the larger and more important aspects. His reputation as a statesman lent to his words a special weight ; while the gifts of a great writer, helped out by a wide learning, gave his exposition an impressiveness and attractiveness which much increased its influence. Bacon starts out with the recognition that philosophy has broken down, and is in general disrepute. What now is the reason for this, when other things are prospering ? Take the mechanical arts "they grow and perfect them- selves daily as if enjoying a certain vital air, while philos- ophy, like a statue, is adorned and celebrated, but moves not. The former also are seen rude and commonly with- out proportion and cumbrous in the hands of their first authors, but afterward get new strength and aptness ; the latter is in its greatest vigor with its first author, and after- ward declines." This is a feeling about philosophy which frequently finds expression, but in Bacon's time it had a special justification. " The fable of Scylla is a lively image of the present state of letters, with the countenance and expression of a virgin above, the end in a multitude of bark- ing questions, fruitful of controversy, and barren of effect." 1 Now this unfortunate state of affairs has three main roots, three " distempers of learning " : the first fantastical learning, the second contentious learning, and the last deli- cate learning. By delicate learning, Bacon means the dilet- tante spirit which the Renaissance had made fashionable. Here words usurp the place of substance ; matters of style and polished phrases are substituted for real weight of meaning. " Of this vanity Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem ; for words are but the images of matter, and ex- cept they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture." The second distemper is that which the Schoolmen exemplify, and the image of Scylla will stand for it. The first, or 1 Great Instauration, Preface. 234 -A Students History of Philosophy fantastical learning, which manifests itself alike in impos- ture and credulity, is the spirit which makes men run after old wives' tales, wonders, and ghosts, and miracles ; or, in a pseudo-scientific form, gains credence for the fancies of alchemy and natural magic. From these three roots grow the numerous errors which infect philosophy, and of these Bacon names a long list. There is the extreme affecting, either of antiquity, or novelty, " whence it seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice of the father. For as he devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the others ; while antiquity envieth there should be new addi- tions, novelty cannot be content to add, but it must deface. Antiquity deserveth that reverence that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way ; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression. And to speak truly, those times are the ancient times when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient by a computation backward from ourselves." Another error, depending on this, is a "distrust that anything should be now to be found out which the world should have missed and passed over so long time;" and again, the " conceit that of former opinions the best hath still prevailed and suppressed the rest, so that the result of new search will be nothing save to light upon exploded errors. The truth is, that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowndeth that which is weighty and solid." So, again, we may mention the premature formulation of knowledge which checks its growth ; an extreme speciali- zation ; too much confidence in man's own wit and under- standing, apart from the contemplation of nature; an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment ; a lazy content with discourses already made. And, finally, there is the greatest error of all, " the mistak- ing or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge. Transition to Modern Philosophy 235 For men have entered into a desire of learning or knowl- edge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite, sometimes to entertain their minds with vanity and delight, sometimes for ornament and reputation, some- times to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction, and most times for lucre and profession ; and seldom to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men. As if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a restless spirit; or a tarasse for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention ; or a shop for profit or sale ; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the creator, and the relief of man's estate. Howbeit I do not mean, when I speak of use and action, that end before mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre and profession ; for I am not igno- rant how much that divideth and interrupteth the prosecu- tion and advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden ball, thrown before Atalanta, which while she goeth aside and stoppeth to take up, the race is hindered. But as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man, so the end ought to be for both natural and moral philosophies, to separate and reject vain speculations, and whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve and augment whatever is solid and fruitful." 1 2. The Aim of Philosophy. For Bacon, then, philoso- phy, in opposition to the practical barrenness of the Scholastics, has the definite function of serving for the benefit and relief of the state and society of man ; for a " restitution and reinvesting of man to the sovereignty and power, in that wheresoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true name, he shall again command them which he had in his first state of creation." 2 Such an ideal is pictured in the unfinished fragment of the New Atlantis. Here Bacon imagines an island, shut 1 Adv. of Learning (Spedding's ed., Vol. VI, pp. 117-135). 2 Interpretation of Nature, Vol. VI, p. 34. 236 A Student's History of Philosophy off from the rest of the world, and raised to a 'high point of felicity and civilization ; and this is brought about simply by a systematic application of the human mind to a discovery of the secrets of nature, and the utilization of these for inventions intended to secure man's control over his environment. In a sort of scien- tific society called Solomon's House, this aim is carried out with a high degree of organization and efficiency ; and Bacon gives rein to his imagination in anticipating all sorts of possible results of inventive skill, including the microphone and telephone, the flying machine and submarine vessels, to say nothing of several kinds of perpetual motion. But now this whole conception is thoroughly practical and secular. All speculative ques- tions relating to God and His purposes, or to the ultimate destiny of man, are excluded from the realm of reason, and handed over to theology and faith. At most a con- templation of the world and this is the true sphere of philosophy may be made to refute atheism ; but it can give no more positive content. To be sure, Bacon still is ready to acknowledge the truth of theology in its own sphere ; but he deprecates any mingling of theology and reason. " The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath ; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation." 1 " If any man shall think by view and inquiry into sensible and material things to attain to any light for the revelation of the nature and will of God, he shall dangerously abuse himself. It is true that the contemplation of the creatures of God hath for end, as to the natures of the creatures themselves, knowledge, but as to the nature of God, no knowledge, but wonder, which is nothing else but contemplation broken off or losing itself. Nay, further, as it was aptly said by one of Plato's school, the sense of man resembles the sun, which openeth and revealeth the terrestrial globe, but obscureth and concealeth 1 Adv. of Learning, Vol. VI, p. 207. Transition to Modern Philosophy 237 the celestial ; so doth the sense discover natural things, but darken and shut up divine." 1 Theology is grounded only upon the word of God, and not upon the light of nature ; to the latter it may be but foolishness, as " that faith which was accounted to Abraham for righteousness was of such a point as whereat Sarah laughed, who therein was an image of natural reason." 2 Whether the profession of faith in theology is altogether sincere or not is a matter of some doubt ; at any rate, the thing that Bacon is most con- cerned with is, not to establish faith, but to free reason, and give it full play in its proper sphere. As reason has nothing to say about the concerns of theology, so the- ology, on its side, must not meddle in matters which do not belong to it. The Bible is made to teach religion, not science ; and to endeavor, as some have done, to build a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, or other parts of Scripture, is to seek the dead among the living. 3. Method of Induction. To sum up, then, the past ill success of science has been due solely to the lack of a true method. Those who have treated of it have been empirics, or dogmatical. " The former, like ants, only heap up and use their store; the latter, like spiders, spin out their own webs. The bee, a mean between both, extracts matter from the flowers of the garden and the field, but works and fashions it by its own efforts. The true labor of philoso- phy resembles hers, for it neither relies entirely or prin- cipally on the powers of the mind, nor yet lays up in the memory the matter afforded by the experiments of natural history or mechanics in its raw state, but changes and works it in the understanding." 3 What, accordingly, is the new method by which Bacon, with the self-confidence charac- teristic of a century to whose fresh and vigorous powers no achievement seemed impossible, looked to see human thought and life straightway revolutionized ? 1 Inter, of Nature, Vol. VI, p. 29. 2 Adv. of Learning, Vol. VI, p. 393. 8 Novum Organum, 95. 238 A Student's History of Philosophy In the first place, it is Empiricism, as opposed to the a priori syllogistic reasoning of the Scholastics. Bacon thought that "theories and opinions and common notions, so far as can be obtained from the stiffness and firmness of the mind, should be entirely done away with, and that the understanding should begin anew plainly and fairly with particulars, since there is no other entrance open to the kingdom of nature than to the kingdom of heaven, into which no one may enter except in the form of a little child." 1 These prepossessions, of which it is our first duty to rid ourselves, are what Bacon metaphorically calls Idols : Idols of the Tribe, or the predispositions which by the natural working of the mind more or less beset every one ; Idols of the Cave, " for every one, besides the faults he shares with his race, has a cave or den of his own which refracts and discolors the light of nature," due to mental and bodily structure, habits, education, or accident; Idols of the Forum, of society and language, " for men believe that their reason governs words, but it is also true that words, like the arrows from a Tartar bow, are shot back and react upon the mind ; " and Idols of the Theatre, or those which get into men's minds from the dogmas of philosophers, so called because all received systems are but " so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion." 2 Abandoning these presuppositions, we are to begin with the particular facts, and only arrive at generalities by a gradual process, instead of at a single leap. The syllogism, on which the Schoolmen rely, is a useful instrument in cer- tain cases, but it is incompetent to reach the truth of nature. Dealing as it does with words and ideas, rather than with things, whenever these ideas happen to be vague, incom- plete, and not sufficiently defined, and this is usually the case, it falls at once to the ground. Let us abandon all such trifling with nature, and come to her with open minds to learn what she has to teach. " If there be any humility Organum, 68. 2 Ibid., 39 ff. Transition to Modern Philosophy 239 toward the Creator, any reverence for or disposition to mag- nify His works, any charity for man and anxiety to relieve his sorrows and necessities, any love of truth in nature, any hatred of darkness, any desire for the purification of the understanding, we must entreat men again and again to discard, or at least set apart for a while, these preposterous philosophies, which have preferred theses to hypotheses, led experience captive, and triumphed over the works of God, and to approach with humility and veneration to unroll the volume of creation, to linger and meditate therein, and with minds washed clean from opinions to study it in purity and integrity. For this is that sound and language which went forth into all lands, and did not incur the confusion of Babel; this should men study to be perfect in, and, becoming again as little children, condescend to take the alphabet of it into their hands, and spare no pains to search and unravel the interpretation thereof, but pursue it strenuously, and persevere even unto death." 1 Induction from empirical particulars is thus the general method of science. But induction must itself escape the perils that attend it as it has commonly been applied. What Logic has had in a meagre way to say of induction, as a mere enumeration of particulars, is vicious and incom- petent. " To conclude upon an enumeration of particulars without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a con- jecture ; for who can assure in many subjects, upon those particulars which appear of a side, that there are not others on the contrary side which appear not. As if Samuel should have rested upon those sons of Jesse which were brought before him, and failed of David, which was in the field." 2 True induction, accordingly, must not be in too great haste to generalize, but must consider carefully all opposing instances. It must not specialize and confine itself to a few objects, but must be universal in its scope; for no one can successfully investigate the nature of any 1 Nat, and Exp. Hist., Vol. IX, pp. 370-371. 2 Adv. of Learning, Vol. VI, p. 265. 240 A Student's History of Philosophy object by considering that object alone. It must not be too ready to run after immediate utility, but must look for experiments that shall afford light rather than profit, " imi- tating the divine creation, which only produced light on the first day, and assigned that whole day to its creation, without adding any material work." J And it must subject its data to the most careful experimental examination, "not following the common example of accepting any vague report or tradition for fact ; so that a system has been pursued in philosophy with regard to experience, resem- bling that of a kingdom or state which would direct its councils or affairs according to the gossip of city and street politicians, instead of the letters and reports of ambassadors and messengers worthy of credit." 2 The thing most to be desired, then, is the creation of a definite method, which shall enable us to avoid these pit- falls, and put in our hands an instrument for conquering nature. " For the fabric of the universe is like a labyrinth to the contemplative mind, and the guides who offer their services are themselves confused. In so difficult a matter we must despair of man's unassisted judgment, or even of any casual good fortune ; we must guide our steps by a clew, and the whole path from the very first perceptions of our senses must be secured by a determined method. Nor must I be thought to say that nothing whatever has been done by so many, and so much labor. But as in former ages, when men at sea used only to steer by their observation of the stars, they were indeed able to coast the shores of the continent, or some small and inland seas ; but before they could traverse the ocean, and discover the regions of the New World, it was necessary that the use of the compass a more trusty and certain guide in their voyage should be first known ; even so the present dis- coveries in the arts and sciences are such as might be found out by meditation, as being more open to the senses, and lying immediately beneath our common notions ; but 1 Great Instauration, Preface. 2 Novum Organum, 98. Transition to Modern Philosophy 241 before we are allowed to enter the more remote and hidden parts of nature, it is necessary that a better and more perfect use and application of the human mind should be introduced." 1 More definitely, the new method from which Bacon hoped so much was briefly this : After clearing the mind of presuppositions, the next step is to gather and carefully tabulate all possible knowledge of the facts of nature ; for it is useless to clear the mirror if it have no images to re* fleet. These facts are not to be taken at haphazard, but are to be the result of careful and exact experiment, in which the natural imperfections of the senses are to be assisted by whatever instruments and processes may be necessary. Such a catalogue of facts Bacon himself started, and he expected that a determined and con- certed effort on the part of men of science would soon render it practically exhaustive. The problem of science now is to discover what, following the scholastic terminol- ogy, Bacon calls the "forms" of things. Every "simple nature," that is, or ultimate quality, has a form, or essence, or law, which is always present where the quality is, and which, if it can be discovered, will always serve to super- induce the quality in any particular object. Suppose, then, that we wish to discover the form of a simple nature like heat. Using the tabulations we have made of all the cases in nature where heat appears, and, again, of cases where it is absent, we find, by a process of comparison and exclu- sion, what the form of heat must be. It cannot be weight, e.g., for we find heavy bodies in both lists ; nor can it be a host of other things for the same reason. And at last we hit upon motion as the one thing which always is pres- ent when heat is present, and absent when heat is absent. Finally, we may draw up a third list, which represents the presence of the quality in varying degrees ; and in this we ought to find the form presenting a similar variation. This is, in brief, Bacon's scientific method, though of course it 1 Great Instauration, Preface. B 242 A Students History of Philosophy admits of working out in much greater detail, particularly in the way of formulating certain kinds of cases which are especially illuminating as test instances. The results of Bacon's work were incommensurate with the promises he had held out. What he did do was to call attention in an impressive way to the necessity for induc- tion, experiment, and the empirical study of facts. But his great work remained at his death a mere sketch of a method which he had found it impossible to exhibit in its actual working ; and he had not sufficiently understood the conditions of science to lay out a path for others. In particular, he was almost wholly blind to the important part which deduction plays in scientific inquiry. As he conceived it, Bacon's method was almost mechanical in its nature, leaving little to that scientific imagination and bold fertility of hypothesis which characterizes the great scientists. " Our method of discovering the sciences," he says, " is such as to leave little to the acuteness and strength of wit, and, indeed, rather to level wit and intellect. For as in the drawing of a straight line or accurate circle by the hand, much depends upon its steadiness and practice, but if a ruler or compass be employed there is little occa- sion for either, so it is with our method." J LITERATURE Bacon, Chief Works: Advancement of Learning (1605); Novum Organum (1620) ; De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (1623) ; New Atlantis. Fowler, Bacon. Spedding, Life and Times of Francis Bacon, 2 volg. Fischer, Bacon and his Successors. Nichol, Bacon, 2 vols. Morris, British Thought and Thinkers. 26. Hobbes I. The deductive side, whose importance Bacon had overlooked, was emphasized by another Englishman, who 1 Novum Organum^ 61. Transition to Modern Philosophy 243 also attempted to raise science to a philosophy. Thomas Hobbes, the son of a clergyman, was born at Malmesbury in 1588. After passing through the University of Oxford, he became a tutor in the Cavendish family, with which he remained more or less closely connected throughout the course of a long life. In his earlier years he gave no spe- cial philosophical promise. He took no interest in the scholastic doctrines, which still were taught at Oxford, but neither did he actively revolt against them ; his tastes lay rather in a different direction. It was not till his fortieth year that an accidental event gave a new turn to his thought. Picking up a book on geometry, of which to that time he had been ignorant, he was greatly impressed by it. " It is impossible," he is reported to have said as he read the 47th proposition ; and as he went back, and traced the steps which led up to the proof of the proposi- tion, an interest was aroused which set him at once to the study of mathematics. And the result of this new study, combined with a growing interest in the mechanical sci- ences which had already transformed the educated thought of the day, was the emergence of the idea which he was to make the basis of a complete philosophy. This idea was, that the cause of all events whatsoever can be reduced to motion, and thus can be made amenable to mathematical and deductive treatment. Philosophy is the reasoned knowledge of effects from causes, and causes from effects ; and since these are always motions, philoso- phy is the doctrine of the motion of bodies. Such an idea meant the freeing of science from esoteric natures, Aristo- telian forms, final causes, and its restriction to exact quan- titative investigations. It is true that Hobbes was only pointing out what was already the conscious method of his great scientific contemporaries. Nor was he able to con- tribute to the history of science any results to be compared in value for a moment with theirs. He came to the study of mathematics too late ever to be a master of it, and in his extended controversies with mathematicians of his day, he 244 ^ Students History of Philosophy committed himself to positions that were hopelessly in the wrong, as, for example, in his insistence on the possibility of squaring the circle. But with Hobbes it is not a matter simply of scientific method. He intends to assert a philo- sophical principle, which is absolutely universal, and which results in an entirely mechanical and materialistic world view. Not only is a mechanical explanation to be given to events in the material world, but the same method is to be followed in psychology and sociology. The life of man is to be shown to result from a higher complex- ity of motions ; and the life of society, in turn, is a still more complex mechanism, strictly determirfed, and so capable of being treated deductively. Accordingly in Hobbes' original plan, a trilogy of works De Corpore, De Homine, and De Give was to follow up these mechan- ical principles through all their workings, in order to cover the whole sphere of existence. A significant part of Hobbes' position is thus the re- duction of consciousness to motion. He identifies it, that is, with those changes in the nervous system which accom- pany and condition it a confusion which is the peculiar vice of materialism. Consciousness is only the feeling of these brain changes. All the conscious life thus reduces itself to sensations, which are combined in various ways. Since knowledge is due simply to the setting up of motions in the brain, the old theory that images or copies of things enter the mind must be rejected. Our sensations are not mirrors of external realities, but wholly subjective. 2. It was not, however, as a physicist or psychologist, but rather as a social philosopher, that Hobbes won his greatest influence. As it happened, he was induced by the course of events to change his original plan, and produce the last part of his work earlier than he had intended. The occasion of this was the political situation in England, which resulted in the beheading of Charles the First and the exile of the Royalists. Hobbes, by his connection with the Cavendishes, was naturally in sympathy with the Transition to Modern Philosophy 245 Royalist party, and thought that he had a message for the times. The fundamental importance of his theory, for subsequent thought, lies, not so much in its actual details, as in the fact that it set up the ideal of a purely natural- istic treatment of the ethical and social life of man, an attempt to understand it simply in terms of its natural environment. Hobbes starts from the conception of man as naturally self-seeking and egoistic, and nothing more. A man loves only himself ; he cares for others only as they minister to his own pleasure. " If by nature one man should love another as man, there is no reason why every man should not equally every man." This idea of human nature Hobbes corroborates by various facts drawn from a cynical observation of men's foibles. In a company, for example, is not each one anxious to tell his own story, and impatient of listening to others ; and when one leaves, are not the rest always ready to talk over his faults ? There is no dis- interested satisfaction in social intercourse ; " all the pleas- ure and jollity of mind consists in this, even to get some, with whom comparing, it may find somewhat wherein to triumph and vaunt itself." J Now in a state of nature, where selfish characteristics rule unrestrained, the result must be a condition of contin- ual warfare, in which every man's hand is raised against his neighbor. All men will have an appetite for the same things, and each man's selfishness, accordingly, will lead him to encroach upon his fellows whenever he has the opportunity. Under such conditions there is no satisfac- tion possible in life, no place for industry, navigation, commodious building, knowledge of nature, arts, letters, society; "and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Does any one doubt that this is what human nature, unrestrained, would lead to ? " Let him therefore consider with himself," says Hobbes, "when 1 De due, I, 2, 5. 246 A Student's History of Philosophy taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied ; when going to sleep, he locks his doors ; when even in his house, he locks his chests ; and this when he knows there be laws and public officers armed to revenge all injuries shall be done him." 1 It is the intolerableness of this state of affairs which gives rise to society and government. Society, indeed, does not call into play any new or non-egoistic impulses. All social life springs either from poverty or vainglory, and it exists for glory or for gain. But it is found that selfishness can be gratified better by peace than by war. " The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious liv- ing, and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement." 2 An enlightened self- interest will lead a man to see that it is vastly preferable for him to give up the abstract right to everything which he is strong enough to wrest from other men and keep, and to refrain from aggression upon their liberty and pos- sessions, provided he is thus certain of securing a like immunity for himself. But this is only possible on two conditions : First, all men alike must enter into this agreement to respect one another's rights; and, second, the carrying out of their compact must be guaranteed by the creation of a single power, sufficiently strong to enforce its demands upon individuals, since the only way to keep men to their con- tracts is by physical compulsion. " Covenants without the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all ; " 3 witness the acts of nations, and the almost entire lack of good faith and honor in their dealings with one another, since here there is no such authority to com- pel them to live up to their promises. For the sake, then, of peace and protection, men will be willing to hand over their individual rights and powers to one man, or ^Leviathan, 01.13. *Ibid. * Ibid., Ch. 17. Transition to Modern Philosophy 247 assembly of men, submit their wills to a single will, which they thus endow once for all with the supreme authority necessary to maintain order. All men will find this to their advantage, for there is no one enough superior to his fel- lows to be secure against aggression. " For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by con- federacy with others that are in the same danger with himself." An even greater equality exists in natural gifts of the mind ; " for there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of a thing than that every man is contented with his own share." x When this agreement comes about, then, society and government succeed to the original state of anarchy. Now one consequence flowing from this theory is that right and morality are a creation of the state ; they relate to man only in society, and not in his original solitude. Naturally, man has nothing but instincts of self-seeking and self-preservation, and there is no limit to these except the power of gratifying them. Obligation, duty, right and wrong, have as yet no meaning. Duty only arises when there comes in an outside power to impose laws ; and this power is the state. Right and wrong, then, are identical with the commands and prohibitions of the state; law is the public conscience. "The desires and other passions of men are in themselves no sin ; no more are the actions that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them, which, till laws be made, they cannot know ; nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it." 2 A man can have no individ- ual morality, therefore, which conflicts with these com- mands of his rulers. In making such a claim, he would be breaking the contract which gives rise to morality, and putting himself outside the pale of society, in which alone the words have meaning. So religion, also, must necessarily be a state affair; as i Ibid., Ch. 13. *ibid. 248 A Student's History of Philosophy the commonwealth is one person, it should exhibit to God but one worship. Hobbes takes for granted that each man will, if left to himself, attempt to force his own opin- ions on other men ; and so the central authority of the state is necessary, here as elsewhere, to keep men within bounds. Rights of conscience and of private judgment are, accordingly, mere impertinences. Religion is not some- thing to be believed on reason, but accepted on authority. " For it is with the mysteries of our religion as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole have the virtue to cure, but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect." 1 We must trust in him that speaketh, though the mind be incapable of any notion at all from the words spoken. But now who shall judge the claims of the revelation to be from God ? who shall guar- antee the authority of the Bible itself ? Evidently, unless we go back to private judgment again, not individuals, nor any arbitrary collection of them in a church, but only the commonwealth as a whole. Outward conformity to the worship of the Established Church, therefore, and a profession of belief, is a necessity of civil order. Mean- while in your own heart you may believe what you please, if only you keep it to yourself. If this is thought disin- genuous, Hobbes bids you remember that, in your profes- sion of belief under compulsion, the king is really acting, not you, and so that you are not responsible for the contradiction. The practical issue of all this is that the will of the state that is, of the king, or the authorities who represent the established government is supreme, and that disobedi- ence or rebellion is in every case unjustified. Nothing can release the subject from the duty of obedience. The con- tract is not between people and ruler, but is a covenant of the people with one another, to which the ruler is not a party; and accordingly no possible act of his can be a breach of contract, and furnish an excuse for rebellion. * Ibid., Ch.32. Transition to Modern Philosophy 249 Nothing the sovereign can do to a subject can properly be called injustice. The king is acting by the authority given him by the people, and to complain of his act is to com- plain of oneself ; if the subject dissents, he has already voluntarily made his dissent a crime. Does the king seize a man's property ? He has property rights only with ref- erence to others, not to the sovereign. The king is the recipient of power freely handed over to him, and once given, this cannot be recalled. For what would such a recall mean ? It would mean that society no longer exists, that no one remains to judge disputes, and that the original anarchy has returned ; and any conceivable act of despot- ism on the part of the ruler is preferable to this. 3. The philosophy of Hobbes had shown a clear under- standing of certain aspects of the scientific problem, but it was not altogether fitted to give the new impetus for which philosophy was waiting. In the first place, its theory of knowledge was not satisfactory. Like the whole scientific movement of the day, Hobbes accepted Nominalism, and denied the reality of universals. Concepts, accordingly, are mere counters which the mind uses to reckon with, and represent no objective realities. Now so long as we insist upon the empirical side of science, as Bacon did, there is not so obvious a difficulty in attributing reality simply to individual things. But when, with Hobbes, we lay em- phasis on deduction and mathematical laws, trouble arises. For these laws are concepts, or universals, and so, instead of having the highest reality for science, they would seem to have no reality at all. By his theory of knowledge, mathematical deduction is a mere manipulation of subjec- tive counters in the mind, which have no objective validity. To make his science of any value, however, they ought to have precisely that external truth which they do not possess. In the second place, a universal philosophy should give its due, not simply to material facts, but also to the human, conscious side which makes up the other great division into which phenomena fall. Hobbes' materialism fails to 250 A Student's History of Philosophy do this, and so it comes short of an adequate philosophy. It is true that physical laws can be appealed to more or less successfully to account for the appearance and con- nection of mental phenomena. Hobbes' position has thus a methodological value, and is an anticipation of modern physiological psychology. But as metaphysics it is crude and unsatisfactory. The two facts cannot be identified, and a sensation made quite the same thing as a motion of brain particles, except by a confusion of thought. It needed a clearer recognition of the distinctive character of consciousness, and an appreciation of the great prob- lems which its relationship to the material world involves, to bring about the rise of modern philosophy in its fullest sense. This is attained in Descartes. LITERATURE Hobbes, Chief Works : On Human Nature (1650) ; De Cive (1642) ; Leviathan (1651); De Cor pore (1655); Of Liberty and Necessity (1654) ; De Homine (1658). Sneath, The Ethics of Hobbes. Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy. Robertson, Hobbes. Morris, British Thought and Thinkers. Patten, Development of English Thought. Watson, Hedonistic Theories. Stephen, Hobbes. Woodbridge, The Philosophy of Hobbes in Extracts and Notes col- lected from his Writings. III. MODERN PHILOSOPHY 27. Introduction I. BEFORE proceeding with the series of great modern philosophers, it will be well to sum up briefly what the Middle Ages had accomplished, and what problems were left for later philosophy to attempt to solve. It has been said that the task of the Middle Ages was essentially a task of training. It took the unformed material which the Germanic races offered, and by a process of centuries of authority, and by ways which were often harsh, crude, and arbitrary, it succeeded in instilling into them so thoroughly certain habits of thought and action, that these remain a part of our inheritance to the present day. Now of course such an attitude of unreasoning acceptance does not repre- sent the highest attainment. In the stress of conditions in the mediaeval period, the specific contribution of Chris- tianity the bringing back of conduct to the inner per- sonality, and the founding of all the outer life on the individual will and conscience had tended to be obscured. The great work of modern times was to bring this again to the front, and to replace external law by free activity, which, however, should not be lawless, but a law to itself. Without abolishing the restraints of institutions originally established on authority, it should rather regard these as themselves necessary means to the realization of inner freedom ; but it should do away with their externality, rigidity, and incapacity for growth. But now the value of the Middle Ages began to show. In order that this new spirit of freedom and individuality should get a foothold, there must first be a negative move- 251 252 A Student's History of Philosophy ment to clear the ground, a repudiation of authority as mere authority, and a consequent emphasis on an abstract freedom, which might easily lend itself to anarchy. The same situation had arisen before, in the Greek Enlighten- ment at the time of the Sophists ; and the scepticism and criticism of authority then had meant a social disintegra- tion fatal to Greek life. That the same result did not fol- low now, was due in considerable part to the thoroughness with which the period of the Middle Ages had done its work. The value of the institutions for which it stood had been so thoroughly tested, that instead of crumbling at once before hostile criticism, they continued to exert a power over the practical life of men. Save in exceptional periods, like that of the French Revolution, they regulated and restrained the spirit of change in a way to prevent any violent catastrophe, and substituted for this a process of gradual modification and improvement. Society, accord- ingly, was able to tide over the intervening period of nega- tion. It could hold together until, when the non-essentials had been sifted out, the more positive and valuable elements, that for the time had been confused with these, could be appreciated in turn, and utilized in the interests of human advancement. The history of modern thought is, therefore, in brief, the history of the way in which a life according to authority passes, by an intermediate period of protest and criticism, into a recognition that those acts and institutions which formerly had been accepted unreasoningly, are after all not inconsistent with the freedom which is now demanded, but are rather its necessary expression. Freedom is not opposed to law, but is the self working in accordance with the law of its own nature. This process has, in the past, embodied itself unconsciously in institutions and beliefs, but now can be made conscious, and directed in the interests of advance. It is about the social life of man, therefore, that the great philosophical movements of modern, as of ancient times, revolve; and they express themselves primarily in the Modern Philosophy 253 new emphasis upon individuality. But if this is to be firmly grounded, it makes necessary also a development along more purely theoretical lines, which may not seem to have a very immediate relation to social questions in the narrow sense. It is only as man understands himself, and the world in which he lives, that he can move effectively for practical freedom. Intellectual enfranchisement is an intimate part of social progress. Apart, then, from social philosophy in the strict sense, the more technically philo- sophical growth will lie along two interconnected lines, according as it is concerned predominatingly with the world of external nature, or with the spiritual interests of man's conscious life. The interaction between these two inter- ests continues through the course of modern thought ; and it is the attempted combination and reconciliation of the motives which are derived from each, and the more general relating of them both to the unitary life of man as a social being, which furnishes the main problems with which modern philosophy is engaged, and the most general clew to its understanding. 2. It has already been said that the peculiar characteristic of modern thought is the way in which it bases itself upon the individual man. Its watchword is progress, and it is only through individual initiative that conscious progress can take place. So long as men receive their principles from external authority, these stand over against them as an unchangeable and absolute ideal, to which they may not set themselves in opposition. In science, this individual- ism takes the form of free investigation and experiment, of direct interrogation of nature, influenced by traditional opinions. In the world of human life, it means the asser- tion of the right of private judgment, the privilege of criticising all the dogmas of religion and political authority, the setting up of the individual reason as the final court of appeal. The first phase, then, of modern thought, is a scientific Rationalism an appeal to reason, which takes its method and criterion from the new scientific inquiry, 254 A Student's History of Philosophy whose remarkable results had been a revelation of what the mind of man could accomplish. Accordingly, from Descartes to Leibniz, there is a period of great metaphysical systems, having a close connection with science, and show- ing a firm confidence in the power of reason to discover the ultimate secrets of the universe. 3. This Rationalism, however, had its dangers. In the re- action against authority and the past, reason came to mean a rather abstract thing. It was emphatically the individual reason, testing everything by certain necessarily abstract principles, which were supposed to reveal their truth directly to the individual, in his isolation from the life, experience, and institutions of the race. Accordingly, it assumed a somewhat hard and narrow aspect. The histor- ical sense, the sense of perspective, was almost entirely wanting. With no regard for how beliefs and institutions had come into being, or what in their historical environ- ment was the value which they possessed, men were accustomed to judge and to condemn, often in a very supercilious and shallow fashion, everything that did not approve itself with demonstrative certainty to these narrow and abstract principles which they had set up as the ultimate criterion. Reason, in this meaning, inevitably separated itself from other aspects of the human spirit, and became actively opposed to all feelings, aspirations, and enthusiasms, which could not meet its narrow tests. Hence the peculiarly cold and unimaginative type which presents itself in the so-called Enlightenment. One by one the graces of life were stripped away. The so-called natural religion of Deism took the place of revealed reli- gion, which at least had had something to say to the emo- tional nature of man. God was pushed farther and farther into the distance, as the mere starter of the universal ma- chine, to be pushed out, finally, altogether. 4. But the process did not stop here. After being used as an instrument for getting rid of other beliefs, reason began itself to be called in question. Ancient scepticism had Modern Philosophy 255 already thrown doubt upon its principles, and this scepti- cism had been revived by men like Montaigne and Pascal. One great fact, however, tended to prevent such an atti- tude from having much weight the evident and marvel- lous success of science. So long as men were actually showing by the use of reason what undeniable results could be obtained, it needed more than a mere revival of discon- nected ancient doubts to shake the hold of Rationalism. Meanwhile, however, a more original and more profound movement had been gaining headway. As the question was at last forced upon philosophy : What is the origin and sanc- tion of these metaphysical principles that have been used so freely? the current of thought for the time being changes its direction, and becomes primarily a theory of knowledge. And the result of this is that Rationalism is gradually undermined. Locke, the Englishman, institutes an inquiry into the origin of knowledge, and, true to the English traditions represented in Bacon, he finds this to be wholly empirical. Experience is the source of all we know ; the innate and universal ideas of reason, on which more or less consciously the Rationalists had relied, have no existence. But if this is true, then, sooner or later, an absolute science must follow in the steps of dogmatic reli- gion ; one is as little to be demonstrated as the other. 5. The result is Scepticism, and this result is reached in Hume. Along this line it was impossible to go any farther ; and had there been nothing to supplement it, we might have had again the spectacle of a society whose whole foundation was brought into question. But meanwhile still another movement was preparing, which was destined to give a new turn to the thought of the age. In a sense, Rousseau may be taken as the precursor of this movement. Having in him- self many of the faults of the preceding period, he yet set himself in conscious opposition to it, by an emphasis, one- sided indeed, but unavoidably so, on those facts of human life which Rationalism had neglected, especially the fact of feeling. In France, the negative side of his influence pre 256 A Student's History of Philosophy dominated, and had its issue in the Revolution. But in Ger- many there were found men of genius who were prepared to receive from him a more positive inspiration. The brilliant period of German literature, beginning with Lessing and Herder, seized upon the vital part of Rousseau, but supple- mented it in a way to create a new conception of life. The thought of man as an integral part of the life of the world, instead of a mere separate individual ; of God as an imma- nent spirit, rather than a far-off abstraction ; of beliefs and institutions as having their roots in history, and needing to be judged in their concrete settings; of this historical process as necessary to give content to our notion of the world, which cannot be built up by mere abstract arguments; of the value of art and religion, and the whole emotional life, as opposed to the deification of the abstract reason all these things were brought in to vitalize and renew philosophy. Put in philosophical form, they constitute the chief signifi- cance of the series of great names from Kant to Hegel, which makes this period of German thought one of the most illustrious in the history of the world. 6. Finally, German Idealism needed in turn to be supple- mented. Concerned with the spiritual facts of experience most of all, it ran the risk of paying too exclusive attention to these, and of neglecting the equally insistent facts of the independently existing external world. To this lack another great scientific epoch, whose most important prod- uct is the theory of Evolution, called attention almost in our own day. With the reconciliation of these two contri- butions, the work of the present is largely occupied. With this brief and abstract statement of the general course of modern thought, we may turn to a more detailed account. SYSTEMS OF RATIONALISM 28. Descartes. The Cartesian School I. The Method of Philosophy. It is with Descartes (1596-1650) that modern philosophy is generally regarded as beginning. There were several things which helped to give his philosophical doctrine this importance. In the first place, it was based upon a definite method, and this method the mathematical was a clear recognition of the sci- entific spirit. That a new method was needed in philos- ophy was generally recognized, and men stood ready to hail it when it should appear. Descartes, moreover, en- joyed the advantage of being himself a mathematician of the highest order, who came to his philosophy after a practical demonstration of the triumphs which he could win in a nar- rower field. Again, the modern principle of individuality and subjectivity was recognized by Descartes. The exist- ence of the self forms the basis of all his constructive efforts ; and the test of truth, again, is the clearness with which it justifies itself to the individual reason, by which all the authority of tradition has been rejected. Finally, Descartes' dualism, his clear distinction between mind and body, with their different and irreconcilable attributes of thought and extension, was the necessary starting-point for a fruitful development. By this separation, the purely mechanical nature of physical processes was vindicated ; and at the same time the existence was shown of a wider problem than the merely scientific. By the fact of setting up an immaterial reality alongside the material world, the need for some means of connecting the two was forced into notice. It is true that the violence of the separation s 257 258 A Student's History of Philosophy itself gave rise to difficulties; but until the two distinct motives which are represented in matter, and in mind or spirit, were sharply set apart, the attitude toward the philosophical problem must necessarily be confused. The interest of Descartes' life lies in the story of his mental history. He came from a well-to-do family, and possessed through life an independent fortune, so that he was able to devote himself to the things that appealed most strongly to him. Educated in the Jesuit school of La Fleche, and led to believe that a clear and certain knowledge of all that was useful in life might be acquired by education, he had an extreme desire for learning. But his course of study completed, he found himself compelled to change his opinion. " For I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that it seemed to me that I had derived no other advantage from my endeavors to instruct myself, but only to find out more and more how ignorant I was. And yet I was in one of the most celebrated schools in Europe, where I thought there must be learned men if there were any such in the world. Moreover, I knew what others thought about me, and I did not per- ceive that they considered me inferior to my fellow-students, albeit there were among them some who were destined to fill the places of our masters." He began to doubt, therefore, whether there existed in the world any such wisdom as he had been led to hope for, although he did not cease to think well of some of the scholastic pursuits, if followed with discretion. Language and history, which bring us into contact with men of other times, are, like travelling, of great value. " It is well to know something of the manners of foreign peoples, in order that we may judge our own more wisely. But if one spends too much time in travelling in foreign coun- tries, he becomes at last a stranger in his own ; and when one is too curious to know what has been done in past ages, he is liable to remain ignorant of what is going on in his own time." Eloquence, again, and poetry he held in Systems of Rationalism 259 high esteem, but he regarded both as the gifts of genius, rather than the fruit of study. "Above all I was delighted with the mathematics, on account of the certainty and evidence of their demonstra- tions ; but I had not as yet found out their true use, and although I supposed that they were of service only in the mechanic arts, I was surprised that upon foundations so solid and stable no loftier structure had been raised ; while, on the other hand, I compared the writings of the ancient moralists to palaces very proud and very magnificent, but which are built on nothing but sand or mud. I revered our theology, and, as much as any one, I strove to gain heaven ; but when I learned, as an assured fact, that the way is open no less to the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that the revealed truths which conduct us thither lie beyond the reach of our intelligence, I did not presume to submit them to the feebleness of my reasonings, and I thought that to undertake the examination of them, and succeed in the attempt, required extraordinary divine assistance, and more than human gifts. I had nothing to say of philosophy, save that, seeing it had been cultivated by the best minds for many ages, and still there was nothing in it which might not be brought into dispute, and which was, therefore, not free from doubt, I had not the presumption to hope for better success therein than others ; and con- sidering how many diverse opinions may be held upon the same subject and defended by the learned, while not more than one of them can be true, I regarded as pretty nearly false all that was merely probable. Then, as to the other sciences which derive their principles from philosophy, I judged that nothing solid could be built upon foundations so unstable. . . . And finally, as for the pseudo-sciences, I thought I was already sufficiently acquainted with their value to be proof against the promises of the alchemist, the predictions of the astrologer, the impostures of the magician, the artifices and vain boasting of those who profess to know more than they actually do know. 260 A Student's History of Philosophy " For these reasons, so soon as I was old enough to be no longer subject to the control of my teachers, I abandoned literary pursuits altogether, and, being re- solved to seek no other knowledge than that which I was able to find within myself, or in the great book of the world, I spent the remainder of my youth in travelling, in seeing courts and armies, in mingling with people of various dispositions and conditions in life, in collecting a variety of experiences, putting myself to the proof in the crises of fortune, and reflecting on all occasions on what- ever might present itself, so as to derive from it what profit I might. ... It is true that, while I was employed only in observing the manners of foreigners, I found very little to establish my mind, and saw as much diversity here as I had seen before in the opinions of philosophers. So that the principal benefit I derived from it was that, observing many things which, although they appear to us to be very extravagant and ridiculous, are yet commonly received and approved by other great peoples, I gradually became emancipated from many errors which tend to obscure the natural light within us, and make us less capable of listening to reason. But after I had spent some years thus in studying in the book of the world, and trying to gain some experience, I formed one day the resolution to study within myself, and to devote all the powers of my mind to choosing the paths which I must thereafter follow a project attended with much greater success, as I think, than it would have been had I never left my country nor my books." 1 " I was then in Germany, whither the wars, which were not yet ended there, had summoned me ; and when I was returning to the army, from the coronation of the emperor, the coming on of winter detained me in a quarter where, finding no one I wished to talk with, and fortunately having no cares nor passions to trouble me, I spent the whole day shut up in a room heated by a stove, where I had all the 1 Discourse upon Method, Part I. Torrey's translation. (Henry Holt & Co.) Systems of Rationalism 261 leisure I desired to hold converse with my own thoughts. One of the first thoughts to occur to me was, that there is often less completeness in works made up of many parts and by the hands of different masters, than in those upon which only one has labored. . . . And so I thought that the sciences contained in books, at least those in which the proofs were merely probable and not demonstrations, being the gradual accumulation of opinions of many differ- ent persons, by no means come so near the truth as the plain reasoning of a man of good sense in regard to the matters which present themselves to him. And I thought still further that, because we have all been children before we were men, and for a long time of necessity were under the control of our inclinations and our tutors, who were often of different minds, and none of whom, perhaps, gave us the best of counsels, it is almost impossible that our judgments should be as free from error and as solid as they would have been if we had had the entire use of our reason from the moment of our birth, and had always been guided by that alone. . . As for all the opinions which I had accepted up to that time, I was persuaded that I could do no better than get rid of them at once, in order to replace them afterward with better ones, or, perhaps, with the same, if I should succeed in making them square with reason. And I firmly believed that in this way I should have much greater success in the conduct of my life, than if I should build only on the old foundations, and should rely only on the principles which I had allowed myself to be persuaded of in my youth, without ever hav- ing examined whether they were true." 1 In a word, then, what Descartes resolved to do was to strip himself completely of all that he had formerly believed, and start de novo, with the intention of admitting only that which was absolutely certain, in order to see if on this basis a system of philosophy might not be erected which sjiould escape the uncertainties of the old. To do 1 Discourse upon Method, Part II. 262 A Student's History of Philosophy this he required a definite method of work ; and as the old logic was unsuitable for the discovery of new truth, he drew up a code of rules for himself. " The first rule was, never to receive anything as a truth which I did not clearly know to be such ; that is, to avoid haste and prejudice, and not to comprehend anything more in my judgments than that which should present itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind that I should have no occasion to entertain a doubt of it. The second rule was, to divide every difficulty which I should examine into as many parts as possible, or as might be required for solving it. The third rule was, to conduct my thoughts in an orderly man- ner, beginning with objects the most simple and the easiest to understand, in order to ascend as it were by steps to the knowledge of the most composite, assuming some order to exist even in things which did not appear to be naturally connected. The last rule was, to make enumera- tions so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing." 1 The basis and suggestion of these rules of Descartes is mathematical reasoning. Briefly, the two steps involved are intuition and deduction the only two ways open to man for attaining a certain knowledge of truth. By intui- tion is meant the immediate self-evidence with which a truth forces itself upon us, " the conception of an attentive mind so distinct and so clear that no doubt remains to it with regard to that which we comprehend." Most of our ideas are confused and obscure, because we try to take in too much at once. He who is bent on taking in too many things at one look sees nothing distinctly ; in the same way, he who in one act of thought would attend to many objects, confuses his mind. The first thing to do, therefore, is to analyze out from our habitual thinking those clear and axiomatic principles whose certainty cannot be doubted. These clear axioms are what Descartes calls innate ideas. As they are necessary to give us any starting- 1 Discourse upon Method, Part II, (Torrey's translation, p. 46). Systems of Rationalism 263 point for our demonstration, and as they cannot be the result of empirical experience, since in that case they would not be certain and universal, they must represent primitive germs of truth which nature has planted in the human intellect, and which the mind is capable of finding clearly within itself when it goes to work the right way. To this criterion of clearness, the objection may be made that all ideas which we believe to be true seem clear to us. " This way of speaking," says Hobbes, " is metaphorical, and therefore not fitted for an argument ; for whenever a man feels no doubt at all, he will pretend to this clearness, and he will be as ready to affirm that of which he feels no doubt, as the man who possesses perfect knowledge. This clearness may very well then be the reason why a man holds and defends with obstinacy some opinion, but it cannot tell him with certainty that the opinion is true." Descartes tries to parry this objection by drawing a distinc- tion between a natural inclination impelling me to believe a thing that nevertheless may be false, and a natural light which makes me know that it is true. But now to intui- tion is to be added also deduction the process by which, through a series of steps each intuitively certain, we are able to reach new conclusions. Two ideas whose connection is not immediately self-evident are shown to be connected through this string of intermediate intuitions ; and if each step is in reality seen as we take it to be necessary, the result has an equal certainty, and it too is an innate idea. Now of all human knowledge, mathematics is the clear- est, and furnishes the most self-evident axioms. Descartes, therefore, will begin with mathematics, and by accustoming his mind to nourish itself upon truths, and not to be satis- fied with false reasons, he will get himself in readiness for more ambitious efforts. So successful was this endeavor, that in the course of a few months he found himself with a mastery over his science, and an ability to advance to new truths in it, which surprised and delighted him. Thinking, 264 A Students History of Philosophy however, that it needed a riper age than his present twenty-three years, before he should be capable of dealing with fundamental questions, he postponed the considera- tion of these until he should have gained a sufficient disci- pline. 2. The Existence and Nature of the Self. At length, considering that his capacities are now matured, he sits down to the serious task of ridding himself of all the false opinions he has hitherto received, in order to begin entirely anew from the foundation. Now, " all that I have hitherto received as most true and assured I have learned from the senses, or by means of the senses. But I have sometimes found that these senses were deceivers, and it is the part of prudence never to trust entirely those who have once deceived us. But although the senses may deceive us sometimes in regard to things which are scarcely perceptible and very distant, yet there are many other things of which we cannot entertain a reasonable doubt, although we know them by means of the senses ; for example, that I am here, seated by the fire, in my dressing gown, holding this paper in my hands, and other things of such a nature. And how can I deny that these hands and this body are mine ? Only by imitating those crazy people, whose brains are so disturbed and con- fused by the black vapors of the bile, that they constantly affirm that they are kings, while in fact they are very poor ; that they are clothed in gold and purple, while they are quite naked ; or who imagine themselves to be pitchers, or to have glass bodies. But what ! These are fools, and I should be no less extravagant if I should follow their example. Nevertheless, I have to consider that I am a man, and that I fall asleep, and in my dreams imagine the same things, or even sometimes things less probable than these crazy people do while they are awake." It seems to me now, indeed, that my present state is different from dreaming. But then I remember that I have often had a similar illusion while asleep, so that there seems to be no Systems of Rationalism 265 certain mark by which the waking can be distinguished from the sleeping state. " Let us, then, suppose that we are asleep, and that all those particular events that we open our eyes, shake our heads, stretch out our hands, and such like things are only false illusions ; and let us think that perhaps neither our hands nor our entire bodies are such as we perceive them. Nevertheless, we must at least admit that the things which we imagine in sleep are like pictures and paintings, which can only be formed after the likeness of something real and veritable. Accordingly, these things in general namely, eyes, head, hands, body are not imaginary, but real and existent." At least the simple ele- ments of which they are made up must be real, corporeal being in general and its extension, the figure of things ex- tended, their quantity or size, their number, and the like. Even if the compositions are illusions, and the sciences which deal with them false, yet how can I doubt those ele- mental truths of which, e.g., arithmetic and geometry treat that two and three make five, or that a square always has four sides ? " Nevertheless, I have long cherished the belief that there is a God who can do everything, and by whom I was made and created such as I am. But how do I know that he has not caused that there should be no earth, no heavens, no extended body, no figure, no size, no place, and that, nevertheless, I should have perceptions of all these things, and that everything should seem to me to exist not otherwise than as I perceive it? And even in like manner as I judge that others deceive themselves in matters that they know best, how do I know that he has not caused that I de- ceive myself every time that I add two to three, or number the sides of a square, or judge of anything still more simple, if anything more simple can be imagined ? " He certainly does permit me to deceive myself at times ; why may I not always be deceived ? " I shall suppose, then, not that God, who is very good, and the sovereign source of truth, but 266 A Student's History of Philosophy that a certain evil genius, no less wily and deceitful than powerful, has employed all his ingenuity to deceive me. I shall think that the heavens, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all other external things, are nothing but illusions and idle fancies, which he employs to impose upon my credulity. I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, as having no senses, but as believing falsely that I possess all these things. I shall obstinately adhere to this opinion ; and if by this means it will not be in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, at all events it is in my power to suspend my judg- ment." 1 " I make the supposition, then, that all things which I see are false ; I persuade myself that nothing has ever existed of all that my memory, filled with illusions, has represented to me ; I consider that I have no senses ; I assume that body, figure, extension, motion, and place are only fictions of my mind. What is there, then, which can be held to be true ? Perhaps nothing at all, except the statement that there is nothing at all that is true. But how do I know that there is not something different from those things which I have just pronounced uncertain, concern- ing which there cannot be entertained the least doubt ? Is there not some God, or some other power, who puts these thoughts into my mind ? That is not necessary, for perhaps I am capable of producing them of myself. Myself, then ! at the very least am I not something ? " But I have already denied that I have any senses or any body ; nevertheless I hesitate, for what follows from that ? Am I so dependent upon the body and the senses that I cannot exist without them ? But I have persuaded myself that there is nothing at all in the world, that there are no heavens, no earth, no minds, no bodies ; am I then also persuaded that I am not ? Far from it ! Without doubt I exist, if I am persuaded, or solely if I have thought any- thing whatever. But there is I know not what deceiver, 1 Meditations, I. Systems of Rationalism 267 very powerful, very crafty, who employs all his cunning continually to delude me. There is still no doubt that I exist if he deceives me ; and let him deceive me as he may, he will never bring it about that I shall be nothing, so long as I shall think something exists. Accordingly, having considered it well, and carefully examined everything, I am obliged to conclude and to hold for certain, that this proposition, / am, I exist, is necessarily true, every time that I pronounce it or conceive it in my mind." The foundation of Descartes' philosophy, that through which he is to secure a firm foothold, is thus the existence of the self an existence which is in no wise to be doubted, since even in this doubt the self appears. But now what is the nature of the self whose existence is so certain ? I am accustomed to think of myself as made up of a body and a mind. As for my body, I commonly suppose I know what that is it is something that possesses shape, can fill space so as to exclude other bodies, and can have sensations from outer impressions. But none of these attributes pertain to that self which is a necessity of thought. Suppose I admit the possibility of an evil genius who deceives me : then every one of these bodily attributes may be open to doubt. If now I turn to the soul, is there anything here which belongs to me intrinsically ? Yes, there is the attribute of thought. So long as I think, so long certainly I exist, although, so far as I can see, I might immediately cease to exist if once I were to stop thinking. " I am, then, to speak with precision, a thing which thinks, that is to say, a mind, an understanding, or a reason terms the significance of which was unknown to me before. " But I am a truly existing thing ; but what thing ? I have said, a thing which thinks ; and what more ? I stir up my imagination to see whether I am not still something in addition. I am not this collection of members which is called the human body ; I am not a thin and penetrating vapor diffused throughout these members ; I am not a 268 A Student's History of Philosophy wind, a breath, a vapor ; nor anything at all of all that I am able to picture or imagine myself to be, since I have assumed that all that is nothing at all, and that without changing this assumption I find that I do not cease to be certain that I am something. " But what is it, then, that I am ? A thing which thinks. What is a thing which thinks ? It is a thing which doubts, which understands, which conceives, which affirms, which denies, which wills, which wills not, which imagines also, and which perceives. Surely, it is no small matter if all these things belong to my nature. But why do they not belong to it ? Am I not that even which now doubts almost every- thing ; which nevertheless understands and conceives cer- tain things ; which is assured and affirms these only to be true, and denies the rest ; which wills and desires to know more ; which wills not to be deceived ; which imagines many things, even sometimes in spite of myself; and which also perceives many, as if by the interposition of bodily organs? Is there nothing of all that which is as true as it is certain that I am, and that I exist, even al- though I were always sleeping, and he who gave me my being were using all his skill to deceive me? Is there also any of these attributes which can be distinguished from my thoughts, or which can be said to be separate from my- self ? For it is so evident of itself that it is I who doubt, who understand, and who desire, that there is no need here of adding anything to explain it. And I also certainly have the power of imagining ; for, although it might hap- pen (as I have already supposed) that the things which I have imagined were not true, nevertheless this power of imagining does not cease really to exist in me, and to form part of my thought. " Finally, I am the same being which perceives, that is, which has the knowledge of certain things as if by the or- gans of sense, since in reality I see light, I hear noise, I feel warmth. But I have been told that these appearances are false, and that I am asleep. Granted ; nevertheless, at Systems of Rationalism 269 least, it is very certain that it appears to me that I see light, that I hear noise, and that I feel warmth ; and it is just that which in me I call perceiving ; and that, precisely, is nothing else than thinking. From this point I begin to know what I am with more clearness and distinctness than heretofore." 1 The basis, then, on which Descartes builds, is the un- deniableness of consciousness. This alone it is impossible to doubt ; this alone comes home to me as a directly felt experience, whose reality depends, not on an inference, but on the immediate fact of its being experienced. I may be mistaken about the object of my thought, but that casts no shade of doubt upon the thought itself, and the immaterial * I ' who thinks. I am, it is true, accustomed to suppose that things, bodies, are the one undeniable fact, and to overlook the thought by which these things are known. I see, e.g.y a piece of wax before me; can anything be more certain than this ? " What, then ! I who appear to conceive of this piece of wax with so much clearness and distinct- ness, do I not know myself not only with much more truth and certainty, but even with much more distinctness and clearness ! For if I judge that the wax is or exists, from the fact that I see it, certainly it follows much more evi- dently that I am, or that I exist myself, from the fact that I see it, for it may be that what I see is not in reality wax ; it may also be that I have not eyes even to see anything ; but it cannot be that while I see, or what I do not dis- tinguish therefrom while I think I see, I who think am not something." Cogito, ergo sum here is the one certain fact from which, as an axiom, we are to start, in order to get back again, with a new certainty, the wider reality which provi- sionally we have doubted. And the test has also been given by which the validity of these new truths is to be measured. If they can approve themselves to us with the same clearness and certainty that goes with the perception 1 Meditations, II. 270 A Student's History of Philosophy of our own existence, we may take them as demonstrated. What now is the process by which we are to make our way back to the world again ? 3. The Existence of God and of the World. The first step is the proof for the existence of God. This proof takes in Descartes more shapes than one, but it is sufficient here to state it in the simplest form. We find a great number of ideas in the mind. Some of these it seems to us come from our own nature, others from an external compulsion, while others, again, we regard as mere fictions, which the mind has put together of its own invention. But what evidence is there that anything exists outside our minds to correspond to these ideas? We have, it is true, a natural compulsion to believe that some of them actually exist in the outer world. But such a compulsion proves nothing philosophically. We have found that many of our ideas do so fail to correspond with their supposed objects, and why may this not conceivably be true of the others ? If, then, their external archetype is not ca- pable of being proved, is there any way in which we can be certain that reality exists at all beyond our own thoughts ? This certainty, according to Descartes, can be reached through the medium of the principle of causality. It is a thing manifest and self-evident, by the same natural light which assured us of the existence of the self, that there must be in every cause at least as much reality as reveals itself in the effect. Otherwise, we should have a portion of the effect arising out of nothing. If, therefore, in my mind there exists any single idea which evidently is too great to have originated from my own nature, then I can be sure that outside of me there is a cause commen- surate to this idea. For the most part, I discover nothing in my ideas which thus evidently requires something more than my own nature to produce it. But to this there is one exception. I find in myself an idea of God, as a sub- stance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipotent, by which myself and all other things have Systems of Rationalism 271 been created and produced. Is it conceivable that attri- butes so great and so exalted ever should have come from the imperfect and finite nature which I know my own to be ? Furthermore, my nature cannot have been derived ultimately from my parents, or from any other cause that falls short of the perfection of this idea which is a part of me. Accordingly, I have bridged the gulf between my- self and external reality; the real existence of God Him- self must be postulated, as the only being great enough to account for the presence in me of this idea of God, which indubitably exists. The idea must have been im- planted in my mind at birth, as a mark of the divine workmanship. And now with the self and God established, the re- mainder is easy. We were prevented from resting in our natural conviction that a material world exists beyond us, by the final doubt whether a malignant power might not pur- posely be deceiving us. But the act of deception necessarily grows out of some defect, and cannot be attributed to the God whose perfection we have established. Accordingly, this doubt must now be put aside, and, in so far as it is clearly conceived, the reality of matter must be admitted, else God would be responsible for making us believe a lie. 4. The Nature of Matter. Such, in brief, was the metaphysics by which Descartes supposed that, with the same certainty and clearness that are found in a geomet- rical proof, the essential features of a world philosophy were to be established. It will be evident on considera- tion that the process of proof contains various assump- tions, which Descartes did not clearly bring into view, and which might 'be questioned much more easily than he thought possible. But whether we consider his reasoning valid or not, there are two things at any rate which he had accomplished. He had set up the ideal of a method which, in intention at least, discarded all assumptions based on authority, and thus had broken free from Scholasticism. And he had also marked out the main distinctions which it 272 A Students History of Philosophy is the task of philosophy to reconcile, with a clearness and a precision which had never been attained before. In so doing he opened up a new set of problems, that were to occupy the succeeding period. The main point about which this development centres is the sharp distinction which Descartes draws between mind and matter the two substances into which the world of experience is divided. The nature of mind, or soul, has already been considered ; it is a thing which thinks. However we may regard the adequacy of this term to express the essential character of the soul, at least it emphasizes the entirely immaterial nature of conscious- ness, and makes it possible for exact thinking to avoid that confusion of the conscious life with the outer world, which lies at the bottom of the obscure hylozoism of earlier philoso- phers, and the conscious materialism of more modern times. When we come, however, to inquire more closely into the corresponding attribute of matter, a difficulty arises. The matter which the common man knows, and which he feels a natural compulsion to believe in, is matter as he sees, and hears, and touches, and tastes it, extended, colored, sonorous. But some of these qualities, as, e.g., color, taste, and sound, science tells us are not original, but are effects upon us which have no counterpart in the thing itself ; and it is upon science that Descartes is building. Very well then ; but we have found it possible to demonstrate the existence of matter at all, only by means of the veracity of God ; and if some of the qualities which God has led us to believe in are demonstrably false, is not our whole cause lost therewith? Descartes saves himself by his theory of truth and fal- sity. When I judge, e.g., that I see a certain red object, there are two elements that enter in. There is, first, the fact that I have a perception of red ; and this, as a fact of experience, is an absolutely certain fact, about which no doubt whatever is possible. But I may also go beyond this, and draw the inference that this red is the counterpart Systems of Rationalism 273 of a real quality out in space. But while I may be inclined to draw this inference, I do not need to do so ; it is a mat- ter of choice on my part, or of will. False judgments, then, are due to the fact that I go beyond the certain knowledge which I have, and draw inferences that are not warranted ; and for this I am responsible, not God. If God chooses to give us a knowledge which is less than perfect, it is nothing of which we can complain. And if, again, he has given us a power of willing which is unlimited, and so goes beyond our knowledge, that also is no hardship. He would only be deceiving us, if that were false which we see clearly and distinctly to be true. This is the criterion by which we are to distinguish between what we commonly, but erroneously, regard as the qualities of matter, and those qualities which really belong to it. We are to resist the unthinking inclina- tion to judge hastily, and withhold our assent until the truth approves itself to us clearly and axiomatically. In this way we shall find, so Descartes thinks, that ex- tension is the only quality that can be conceived clearly. That extension can be so conceived, is evident from the fact that it is extension to which the truths of geometry, the clearest of all the sciences, apply. The other qualities, on the contrary, so Descartes thinks, involve no such self- evident intuitions. They are like the sensation of hunger, which furnishes no knowledge, but only serves a utilitarian purpose, by giving us a warning with reference to bodily needs. The essence of matter, consequently, is extension. It is infinite, and infinitely divisible ; this last point in- volves a denial of the theory of atoms. Again, since space, as extension, is an attribute of matter, there is no such thing as empty space. By identifying matter with extension Descartes is compelled, also, to regard it as entirely passive ; and so in order to get a foundation for science he has to introduce from the outside a new conception that of motion whose place in his meta- physics is accordingly somewhat anomalous. Through these two conceptions matter and morion the entire natu- 274 A Student's History of Philosophy ral world is to be explained as a necessary and mechanical system. 5. The Relation of Mind and Body. But the very clearness of Descartes' conception was the means of giv- ing rise to a problem which from this time on becomes an insistent one. If mind and matter are so abso- lutely and totally different in their nature, how can they come together to form a single world ? How are they to react upon and affect each other, as apparently they do ? The larger aspects of this problem did not at once present themselves, but the beginning of the later development is found in a point which became for Descartes himself a matter of considerable importance. It is in connection with the human organism that matter and mind come into closest contact. Now as the body is a part of the material world, its actions would logically come under the same mechanical and mathematical laws that govern other things ; and this is the direction in which Descartes is almost irresistibly led. It is shown clearly in his famous doctrine of the au- tomatism of brutes. "The greatest of all the prejudices we have retained from infancy is that of believing that brutes think. The source of our error comes from having observed that many of the bodily members of brutes are not very dif- ferent from our own in shape and movements, and from the belief that our mind is the principle of the motions which occur in us ; that it imparts motion to the body, and is the cause of our thoughts. Assuming this, we find no difficulty in believing that there is in brutes a mind similar to our own ; but having made the discovery, after thinking well upon it, that two different principles of our movements are to be distinguished, the one entirely mechanical and corporeal, which depends solely on the force of the animal spirits, and the configuration of the bodily parts, and which may be called corporeal soul, and the other incorporeal, that is to say, mind or soul, which you may define as a substance which thinks, I have inquired with great care whether the motions of animals proceed from these two principles, Systems of Rationalism 275 or from one alone. Now, having clearly perceived that they can proceed from one only, I have held it demon- strated that we are not able in any manner to prove that there is in the animals a soul which thinks. I am not at all disturbed in my opinion by those doublings and cun- ning tricks of dogs and foxes, nor by all those things which animals do, either from fear, or to get something to eat, or just for sport. I engage to explain all that very easily, merely by the conformation of the parts of the animals." 1 And if it is true that the life of animals can be explained without reference to intelligence, this is also conceivable of the vast majority of the activities of men as well. In the Tract on Man, Descartes undertakes to show how, assuming the body to be nothing but a statue or machine of clay, the mere mechanical motion of parts is enough to account for what we call its life ; " just as you may have seen in grottoes and fountains in the royal gardens, that the force alone with which the water moves, in passing from the spring, is enough to move various machines, and even to make them play on instruments, or utter words, according to the different arrangement of the pipes which conduct it. And, indeed, the nerves of the machine that I am describing to you may very well be compared to the pipes of the machinery of these fountains, its muscles and its tendons to various other engines and devices which serve to move them, its animal spirits to the water which sets them in motion, of which the heart is the spring, and the cavities of the brain the outlets. Moreover, respira- tion and other such functions as are natural and usual to it, and which depend on the course of the spirits, are like the movements of a clock or a mill, which the regular flow of the water can keep up. External objects, which, by their presence alone, act upon the organs of its senses, and which by this means determine it to move in many different ways according as the particles of its brain are 1 Letter to Henry More (Torrey, p. 284). 276 A Student's History of Philosophy arranged, are like visitors who, entering some of the grot- toes of these fountains, bring about of themselves, without intending it, the movements which occur in their presence ; for they cannot enter without stepping on certain tiles of the pavement, so arranged that, for example, if they approach a Diana taking a bath, they make her hide in the reeds ; and if they pass on in pursuit of her, they cause a Neptune to appear before them, who menaces them with his trident ; or if they turn in some other direction, they will make a marine monster come out, who will squirt water into their faces, or something similar will happen, according to the fancy of the engineers who construct them. And finally, when the reasonable soul shall be in this machine, it will have its principal seat in the brain, and it will be there like the fountain maker, who must be at the openings where all the pipes of these machines dis- charge themselves, if he wishes to start, to stop, or to change in any way their movements." 1 The last words of the quotation just given, show that Descartes was not ready to carry out his conception to the final consequences. That would have been to deny alto- gether the influence of the will of ourselves, in other words upon our actions ; and Descartes was not prepared to sacrifice this apparent fact to suit his theory. Accord- ingly, he admits that while our more habitual and reflex actions are due to mechanism alone, yet it also is possible for the mind to interfere, and alter the motions of the body. The seat of this interaction he supposed to be a part of the brain known as the pineal gland. Here the animals spirits, or fine particles of the blood, whose en- trance into the various nerves determines the body to one action or another, may be deflected by the influence of the soul, and so made the instrument by which the soul moves the body. From the other side, this relationship of mind and body gives rise to a distinction between two classes of conscious facts. As the activity of the mind wholly by 1 Tract on Man (Torrey, p. 278) . Systems of Rationalism 277 itself, there is the power of pure thought. This the mind possesses in its own right. But the mind is also influenced by its connection with the body, and this gives rise to certain modes of consciousness emotions, sensations, and the like which, intellectually at least, are of a lower order. For Descartes, as for most of the ancients, the true type of life is the intellectual life. 6. The Cartesians. Occasionalism. The influence which Descartes exerted was immediate and profound. By his disciples, his words were taken almost as those of one inspired. In Holland a school of enthusiastic Cartesians sprang up, but the most important speculative development was in France. Here a number of famous names, notably those of Geulincx and Malebranche, are found among the thinkers who professed themselves Cartesians. Only one point in connection with these men will be mentioned here. Descartes had admitted the fact of a mutual influence between the soul and the body, without going on to explain its possibility. With this his followers were not wholly satisfied. The main difficulty for them lay in the question how, if matter and mind are so absolutely diverse in nature, there can be any such thing as an influence of one upon the other. The answer given by Geulincx took the form which became known as Occasionalism. The difficulty of an interaction was admitted, but it was solved by falling back on the omnipotence of God. It is no power of the human mind that effects an alteration in the physical world, but a direct act of God. A particular exertion of the will does not move the human body, but on occasion of this act of will God intervenes, and changes the direction of the body in a way to secure the same result. There is thus no need of any influence passing between the two unlike substances. Occasionalism proved to be only a temporary stopping- place ; it did not reach the deeper aspects of the problem. But already it showed the direction in which the logic of Descartes' standpoint was to lead. Descartes had left the 278 A Student's History of Philosophy world divided into three constituent parts the two sub- stances, mind and matter, and a third more ultimate reality, God. Now it was by appealing to this last reality that the division could, it seemed, most naturally be over- come, if the distinction which Descartes had so clearly drawn was not again to be confused. Descartes, indeed, had recognized this. Denning a substance as that which can be conceived through itself alone, he had seen that after all mind and matter are no true substances, since they are not to be conceived apart from God ; and so that in the strict meaning of the term only one substance God exists. Consequently Occasionalism had a glimpse of the true problem when it fell back upon an appeal to God's power. But this solution remained only an external one ; the way to a more intimate connection between God and the world was brought to light by Spinoza. LITERATURE Descartes, Chief Works : Discourse upon Method (1637) ; Medita- tions (1640) ; Principia Philosophies (1644) ; Emotions of the Soul (1649). Translations: Veitch {Method, Meditations, Selections from the Principles') ; Lowndes (Meditations) ; Torrey (Selections'). Mahaffy, Descartes. Fischer, Descartes and his School. Huxley, Methods and Results. Caird, Essays on Literature and Philosophy. Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy. Iverach, Descartes, Spinoza, and the New Philosophy. Haldane, Descartes, His Life and Times. 29. Spinoza Baruch Spinoza was a Portuguese Jew, born in 1632 in Amsterdam, where his parents had taken refuge from per- secution. On account of the scandal growing out of his heretical opinions, he was excommunicated from the syna- gogue, in 1656, after vain efforts to bribe him to maintain at Systems of Rationalism 279 least an outward conformity. So bitter were the feelings against him that an attempt was even made to get rid of him by assassination. His opinions were hardly less objec- tionable to Christians, however, than to Jews, and he spent the rest of his days apart from men and social life, supply- ing his very simple wants by grinding lenses, for which he earned a wide reputation. His profound intellect and the beauty of his character attracted, however, a few friends and disciples. His fame gradually extended, and he was offered at one time the chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg ; but he preferred the liberty to hold without restriction his own beliefs, and think his own thoughts. Money possessed no greater attraction for him than fame and position. The patrimony of which his sisters had attempted to deprive him, he voluntarily relinquished, after first securing his title to it by a legal process. He refused a present from the French king, which a simple dedication would have secured. An admirer, Simon de Vries, who proposed to leave Spinoza his property, was dissuaded by him in favor of the natural heir ; and when the latter, after De Vries' death, fixed a pension which had been willed to Spinoza at five hundred florins, he declared the sum too great, and refused to take more than three hundred. His own death occurred in 1677. It is not easy to give a brief account of Spinoza's phi- losophy that shall at once be intelligible, and do justice to its inner spirit. Couched as it is in abstract and scholastic terms, and given the form of rigid mathematical demon- stration, an understanding of the chain of close reasoning which constitutes his system calls for a somewhat tech- nical acquaintance with metaphysics. Furthermore, the acknowledged inconsistencies in Spinoza's thought render a systematic exposition complicated. Without attempting this, accordingly, it will be enough to suggest in a more general way what it is that Spinoza, in his philosophy, is trying to accomplish. The estimates of Spinoza have been somewhat startling 280 A Students History of Philosophy in their divergence. For the most part, he has been exe- crated, by Jew and Christian alike, as an atheist and a foe to religion. And yet, by others, his philosophy has been thought to be so fundamentally religious, that Novalis gave to him the name " God-intoxicated." Both these judgments stand for factors in his thought that are necessary for its proper understanding. From the standpoint of orthodox theology, there is no doubt that Spinoza is irreligious. He denies outright the personal God of the Christian, the government of the world according to purpose, and the freedom of the will. It is often difficult to distinguish his theory from a thoroughgoing naturalism, which identifies God with the necessary laws of the physical universe. But, on the other hand, Spinoza evidently supposes that he is vindicating the only worthy idea of religion ; and he opposes the ordinary conceptions as themselves, in reality, irreligious. God is the beginning and the end of his phi- losophy. This philosophy is not, in the last analysis, merely theoretical, in spite of its abstractness. As the title Ethica of his most important book implies, it is practical, a philosophy of life and of redemption. The central idea of Spinoza, and that which gave him his deep influence somewhat later on, when the period of the Enlightenment was drawing to a close, is his recognition of the unity of things ; and that not only as an intellectual necessity, but as a requirement of feeling, a religious re- quirement, as well. Descartes had split the world up into two substances distinct from each other, and a God sepa- rate from both of them. The Rationalism which took its rise from him, tended still further to remove God from the world, until he became a mere far-away observer, with scarcely any relation to his work. Such a separation was fatal in two ways. It emptied the idea of God, on the one hand, of all content, and so made him superfluous; and it rendered it impossible to give any ultimate and uni- tary explanation of the world of things. In opposition to this, it was Spinoza's task to insist upon the connection of Systems of Rationalism 281 God with the world, and to find in him the ultimate reality, alongside which the independent reality of other so-called substances fades into nothingness. This, then, is the starting-point of Spinoza's thought the perception of the unreality of finite things. Man begins by taking the world as a collection of independent persons and objects, each complete in itself and real in itself. But he soon discovers the futility of this. Intel- lectually, he cannot stop with any object by itself. He finds he is unable to understand it apart from its connec- tions with other things ; and he thus is led continually on from one relationship to another, in an endless series. Nor, emotionally, can he rest his affections on the chang- ing facts of the finite world. They are ever leaving him disappointed and disillusioned, and he craves some perma- nent and perfect object to satisfy his ideal. " After expe- rience had taught me," Spinoza says, in a passage which describes how he was led to philosophy, " that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile, seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communi- cate itself, which would affect the mind singly to the ex- clusion of all else ; whether in fact there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness." Such happiness, he saw very clearly, neither riches, nor fame, nor pleasures of sense could give. " Further reflec- tion convinced me that if I could really get to the root of the matter, I should be leaving certain evils for a certain good. I thus perceived that I was in a state of great peril, and I compelled myself to seek with all my strength for a remedy, however uncertain it might be; as a rich man struggling with a deadly disease, when he sees that death will surely be upon him unless a remedy be found, is com- pelled to seek such a remedy with all his strength, inasmuch 282 A Student's History of Philosophy as his whole hope lies therein; all the objects pursued by the multitude not only being no remedy that tends to pre- serve our being, but even act as hindrances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them. All these evils seem to have arisen from the fact that happiness or unhappiness is made wholly to depend on the quality of the object which we love. When a thing is not loved, no quarrels will arise concerning it, no sadness will be felt if it per- ishes, no envy if it is possessed by another, no fear, no hatred, in short, no disturbance of the mind. All these arise from the love of what is perishable, such as the ob- jects already mentioned. But love toward a thing eternal and infinite fills the mind wholly with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness ; wherefore it is greatly to be desired, and sought for with all our strength." 1 What is the end of philosophy then ? It is the practical end of escaping from the fleeting show which the phenom- enal world presents, since this gives no real happiness ; and of finding blessedness by identifying ourselves with that true reality without variableness or shadow of turning, which alone is worthy to call forth our love, and able to satisfy it. And this which alone approves itself to heart and intellect alike, is the one eternal unity of the universe, which embraces all finite facts in its grasp, and gives to them whatever reality they possess ; in religious language, it is God. Instead of God being a hazardous inference from the undoubted reality of finite things, it is these latter which are doubtful ; it is their insufficiency which leads us necessarily to the all-sufficient whole in which they have their being. For philosophy, the starting-point is not from them, but from the one reality which alone is absolutely certain, and from which they are themselves to be deduced. Stated in this general way, Spinoza's aim, on the theo- retical side, is that which every philosophy, which is not content with a chaotic atomism, has striven to accomplish. 1 Improvement of the Intellect. (Elwes 1 translation, Vol. II, pp. 3-5.) Systems of Rationalism 283 An understanding of the ultimate unity of things is, in- deed, the reason for philosophy's existence. It remains to ask how successfully Spinoza accomplishes his task. What is the nature of the connection of God and the world with which he leaves us, and how far does it satisfy alike the head and the heart ? I. Spinoza's Metaphysics I. Substance and Attributes. And first, a brief state- ment of the intellectual construction of the world which Spinoza makes the basis of his ethical conclusions. Every fact that can exist must come under one of three heads : it is a substance, or an attribute, or a mode. A substance is " that which is in itself, and is conceived by means of itself, that is, that the conception of which does not need to be formed from the conception of any other thing." An attribute is " that which the understanding perceives as constituting the essence of substance." A mode is a " modification of substance : in other words, that which is in, and is conceived by means of, something else." 1 The term "mode," to put it more simply, stands for the whole list of particular, finite facts, that made up our world external things, and inner states of consciousness. But now Descartes had already seen that, strictly speaking, there is only a single substance. Matter and mind are not conceivable in themselves, but can only be understood by reference to God ; and Spinoza, accordingly, is entirely consistent in reducing them, from substances, to mere attributes of the one substance, God. Reality, then, is one, eternal, infinite. On the one substance all things depend attributes as its eternal essence, finite things as the modifications of these attributes. Just as in geometry eternal truths about spatial relations are deduced from self-evident premises, so from the bare definition of 1 Ethics, Pt. I. Def. This and the following quotations are from Professor Fullerton's translation. ( The Philosophy of Spinoza, Henry Holt & Co.) 284 A Student's History of Philosophy God his attributes are to be derived, and from these, other lesser truths. To be sure, Spinoza does not actually succeed in showing how these deductions from the defi- nition of God are to be made; but he assumes their possibility. The nature of the real connections in the world is not that of cause and effect, but of logical de- pendence. Spinoza's doctrine of substance opens up to him a new solution of the problem which had occupied Descartes and the Cartesians that which concerns the relation of mind and body. Of the infinite number of attributes which belong to the nature of God, we know only these two thought and extension. Now on the surface these seem clearly to be connected An act of will apparently causes a bodily movement ; an external impression gives rise to a sensation or a thought. But, on the other hand, there are difficulties in understanding this interaction. Des- cartes felt these difficulties, and they led him to his belief in the automatism of brutes, and the all but automatism even of human beings. We cannot, for one thing, get any clear notion of how one substance can act upon another of a wholly different nature. But there is a more formidable difficulty still. If we follow out scientific method with entire consistency, we are forced to look for the same physical and mechanical explanation for our own bodily movements, as for the movements of lifeless things ; and this excludes a reference to acts of will, which have no place in the physical world. Occasionalism might seem to obviate the first difficulty, but it hardly touched the second. Spinoza's doctrine of substance enabled him to offer a new solution. If the attributes of thought and extension are not two separate things, but only aspects of one and the same thing, they cannot interfere with or act upon each other ; for a thing cannot interact with itself. Never- theless, a definite relation will exist between them, because it is the same substance of which they both are attributes. Systems of Rationalism 285 That which in one light appears as a mode of extension or physical fact, will be, in another light, a mode of thought or fact of consciousness; and so the two modes will correspond, and a complete and exact parallelism will hold between the attributes, without, however, there being any interaction. In this way Spinoza justifies the claim of science to give an explanation of all physical events, including the move- ments of the body, in purely physical terms. For each mode of thought, a mode of extension will exist. But since there is no interaction, thought can only be ex- plained by reference to the thought series, extension by reference to other modes of extension; never the one by the other. " A mode of extension, and the idea of that mode, are one and the same thing, but expressed in two ways: a truth which certain of the Hebrews appear to have seen as if through a mist, in that they assert that God, the intellect of God, and the things known by it, are one and the same. For example, a circle existing in nature, and the idea, which also is in God, of this exist- ing circle, are one and the same thing, manifested through different attributes ; for this reason, whether we con- ceive nature under the attribute of extension or under that of thought, we shall find there follows one and the same order, or one and the same concatenation of causes, that is, the same thing. I have said that God is the cause of an idea, for instance, the idea of a circle, merely in so far as he is a thinking thing, and of the circle, merely in so far as he is an extended thing, just for the reason that the formal being of the idea of a circle can only be perceived through another mode of thinking as its proximate cause, that one in its turn through another, and so to infinity. Thus, whenever we consider things as modes of thinking, we must explain the whole order of nature, or concatenation of causes, through the attribute of thought alone ; and in so far as we consider them as modes of extension, we must 286 A Student's History of Philosophy likewise explain the whole order of nature solely through the attribute of extension." J 2. The Nature of God. So much for a general state- ment. But now in what way is this ultimate substance God to be conceived ? And certainly he is not the God of popular belief. Can he be thought of after the fashion of a man, with body, and mind, and the passions of men ? Surely not. Is he a being who acts according to ends beyond himself? " I confess the doctrine which subjects all things to a certain arbitrary fiat of God, and makes them depend upon his good pleasure, is less wide of the truth than that of those who maintain that God does all things with some end in view. The latter appear to affirm that there is something external to God, and independent of him, upon which, as upon a pattern, God looks when he acts, or at which he aims, as at a definite goal. This is simply subjecting God to fate, and nothing more absurd than this can be maintained concerning God, who is the first and only free cause, as well of the essence of all things as of their existence." 2 Again, this doctrine denies God's perfection ; for if God acts with an end in view, he neces- sarily seeks something which he lacks. " Nor must I here overlook the fact that the adherents of this doctrine, who have chosen to display their ingenuity in assigning final causes to things, have employed in support- of their doctrine a new form of argument, namely, a reduction, not ad im- fiossibile, but ad ignorantiam, which shows that there was no other way to set about proving this doctrine. If, for example, a stone has fallen from a roof upon some one's head, and has killed him, they will prove as follows that the stone fell for the purpose of killing the man. If it did not fall, in accordance with God's will, for this purpose, how could there have been a chance occurrence of so many cir- cumstances ? Perhaps you will answer, it happened because the wind blew, and the man had an errand there. But they will insist, why did the wind blow at that time ? and why did * Pt. II, 7. Schol. * Pt. I, 33, Schol. 2. Systems of Rationalism 287 that man have an errand that way at just that time ? . . . And so they will keep on asking the causes of causes, until you take refuge in the will of God, that asylum of ignorance. So, again, when they consider the structure of the human body, they are amazed, and because they are ignorant of the causes which have produced such a work of art, they infer that it has not been fashioned mechanically, but by divine or supernatural skill, and put together in such a way that one part does not injure another. Hence it happens that he who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and endeavors, like a scholar, to comprehend the things in nature, and not, like a fool, to wonder at them, is everywhere regarded and pro- claimed as a heretic and an impious man by those whom the multitude reverence as interpreters of nature and the gods." J There are, then, no final causes in nature. Our popular notions are due to a wholly unjustifiable transference of our own conditions to God. Men are constituted by nature with an impulse to seek their own advantage, and they do everything with some purpose in view that has reference to this. " Hence it happens that they always desire to know only the final causes of actions, and, when they have learned these, are satisfied. But if they cannot learn these from some one else, nothing remains for them to do but to turn to themselves, and have recourse to the ends by which they are wont to be determined to similar action ; and thus they necessarily judge another's char- acter by their own. Again, since they find in themselves and external to themselves many things which, as means, are of no small assistance in obtaining what is to their advantage, as, for example, the eyes for seeing, the teeth for chewing, plants and animals for food, the sun for giv- ing light, the sea for maintaining fish, and so on this has led them to regard all the things in nature as means to their advantage. And knowing that these means have 1 Pt. I, Appendix. 288 A Student's History of Philosophy been discovered, not provided, by themselves, they have made this a reason for believing that there is some one else who has provided these things for their use. . . . Moreover, as they had never had any information con- cerning the character of such beings, they had to judge of it from their own. Hence they maintained that the gods direct all things with a view to man's advantage, to lay men under obligation to themselves, and to be held by them in the highest honor ; whence it has come to pass that each one has thought out for himself, according to his disposition, a different way of worshipping God, that God might love him above others, and direct all nature to the service of his blind desire and insatiable avarice. Thus this prejudice has become a superstition, and has taken deep root in men's minds ; and this has been the reason why every one has applied himself with the great- est effort to comprehend and explain the final causes of all things. But while they sought to prove that nature does nothing uselessly (in other words, nothing that is not to man's advantage), they seemed to have proved only that nature and gods and men are all equally mad. Just see how far the thing has been carried. Among all the useful things in nature they could not help finding a few harm- ful things, as tempests, earthquakes, diseases, and so forth. They maintain that these occur because the gods were angry on account of injuries .done them by men, or on account of faults committed in their worship. And although experience daily contradicted this, and showed by an infinity of instances that good and evil fall to the lot of the pious and of the impious indifferently, that did not make them abandon their inveterate prejudice ; they found it easier to class these facts with other unknown things of whose use they were ignorant, and thus to retain their present and innate condition of ignorance, than to destroy the whole fabric of their reasoning, and think out a new one. Hence, they assumed that the judgments of the gods very far surpass man's power of comprehension. Systems of Rationalism 289 This in itself would have been sufficient to hide the truth forever from mankind, had not mathematics, which is concerned, not with final causes, but with the essences and properties of figures, shown men a different standard of truth." 1 It is from these prejudices that all our judgments of worth in nature have sprung. " After men have per- suaded themselves that everything that happens, happens for their sake, they had to regard that quality in each thing which was most useful to them as the most impor- tant, and to rate all those things which affected them the most agreeably, as the most excellent. Hence, to explain the natures of things, they had to frame the notions good, evil, order, confusion, beauty, and deformity ; and from their belief that they are free have arisen the notions of praise and blame, and sin and merit. . . . They have called good every- thing which conduces to health and to the worship of God, and bad everything that is unfavorable to these." In re- ality, good and evil indicate no positive element in things, considered, that is to say, in themselves. They are only modes of thinking, or subjective notions. One and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For example, music is good for the mel- ancholy man, and bad for him who mourns ; while for the deaf man it is neither good nor bad. " And as those who do not understand nature make no affirmations about things, but only imagine things, and take imagination for understanding, in their ignorance of things and of their nature they firmly believe that there is order in things. For when things are so arranged that, when they are rep- resented to us through the senses, we can easily imagine them, and hence can easily think them over, we call them orderly ; if the opposite be true, we say they are in dis- order, or are confused. And since those things we can easily imagine are more pleasing to us than to others, men place order above confusion, as though order had 1 Pt. I, Appendix. u 290 A Student's History of Philosophy any existence in nature except in relation to our imagina- tion, and they say that God created all things in order, thus unwittingly ascribing imagination to God. ... So if the motion communicated to the nerves by objects repre- sented through the eyes is conducive to health, the objects which cause it are called beautiful ; those objects, on the other hand, that excite a contrary motion, are called ugly. Again, those that move the sense through the nostrils are called odoriferous or stinking: those that move it through the tongue, sweet or bitter, savory or unsavory, and so on. Finally, those that move the ears are said to give forth noise, sound or harmony : which last has driven men so mad that they believed even God takes delight in harmony. Nor are there wanting philosophers who have persuaded themselves that the motions of the heavenly bodies com- pose a harmony. All this sufficiently proves that every one has judged of things according to the condition of his brain, or, rather, has taken the affections of his imagina- tion for things. Hence it is not surprising that so many controversies have arisen among men, as we find to be the case, and that from these scepticism has resulted. For although men's bodies are in many respects alike, yet they have very many points of difference, and, therefore, what seems good to one seems bad to another ; what seems or- derly to one seems confused to another ; what is pleasant to one is unpleasant to another. The sayings : ' Many men, many minds '; ' Every man is satisfied with his own opinion ' ; ' Brains differ as much as palates ' these are in everybody's mouth ; and they sufficiently prove that men judge of things according to the condition of their brains, and rather imagine things than comprehend them. For had they comprehended things, all these proofs would, as mathematics bears witness, if not attract, at least convince them." 1 All the attributes of worth, then, which we are accus- tomed to apply to the world, have no real existence. All 1 Pt. I, Appendix. Systems of Rationalism 291 that we can say is, that things are, and are necessarily. God did not create them for a purpose, nor could he have made them to be otherwise than we actually find them. To suppose that God is a free cause, and able to pre- vent the things which follow from his nature from coming to pass, is the same as saying that God can prevent it fol- lowing from the nature of a triangle, that its three angles are equal to two right angles. We cannot ascribe to God will or intellect at all in the human meaning of the words. " If intellect or will do belong to God's eternal essence, each of these attributes must be taken in a sense very dif- ferent from the common one. For there would have to be a world-wide difference between our intellect and will, and the intellect and will constituting God's essence, nor could they agree in anything except the name ; just as the Dog, a constellation, agrees with dog, an animal that barks." J If then, God has neither passions, nor purposes, nor intellect, nor will, nor moral worth, what content are we to give to him ? At times, Spinoza seems clearly to conceive reality, after the manner of the scientist, as a great system of natural law. It is, at least, the scientific view of the world which forms the positive basis for his criticism of religion and teleology. " Science touched with emotion," therefore, perhaps comes closest to characterizing the more positive features of his whole attitude. But is even this ultimate ? Is God after all in his truth anything more than bare abstract sub- stance, of which we can say nothing whatever that is definite ? 3. God and the Finite World. Such a question brings out the special difficulty in Spinoza's philosophy. There is no doubt that he wants to get a substance that shall find a place for, and give an explanation to, all the reality of the phenomenal world. Evidently nothing less than this will be sufficient. The phenomenal, finite world is that from 1 Pt. 1, 17, Schol. 292 A Student's History of Philosophy which we start. Undeniably it has some reality, even if its reality is imperfect and incomplete. And a unity which explains it must include in itself at least all the truth that the finite world possesses, even while it goes beyond and supplements this truth; it must not simply ignore finite things. Now Spinoza might have retained the reality of the finite by making God, the ultimate substance, simply the aggregate of finite facts; but he saw clearly that this would not serve his purpose. Such a unity would be only a fictitious one, and would leave reality after all a mere heap of particulars. But how to get any other unity, that should be at once concrete, doing justice to the facts of experience, and yet a real universal, a real bond of union, was a problem which Spinoza never completely met. Accordingly, while the true aim and presupposition of his philosophy is to find reality in the unchanging rational laws of which changing events in the natural world are the expression, and through which they are to be under- stood, the constant tendency in Spinoza's thinking a tendency increased by his Scholastic terminology was to get away from the concrete altogether, and to arrive at his more general and ultimate being by the process of ab- straction. That the process of abstraction does not lead us to concrete reality, he was well aware. He recognizes that the abstract man is not more, but less, real than particular men, and only represents the fact that these have certain elements in common ; the ideal of the universal which he has before him is rather that of a comprehensive law. But, for all that, the eternal facts which he identifies with real- ity tend to be, in so far as he can make them clear at all, just such abstractions. Substance, or God, is reached by precisely that same process of dropping all limitations in the way of determinate qualities, which gives us the ab- stract man. The consequence is, that the logical deriva- tion of less ultimate from more ultimate reality is beyond his reach. To use Hegel's figure, Spinoza's Absolute is Systems of Rationalism 293 the lion's den to which all tracks lead, and from which none return. And even if Spinoza had been always true to his ideal of reality as law, rather than mere substance, he still had an unsolved problem in the fact of imperfection and con- tingency, for which his rationalism left no place. By the geometrical method, we can at best only get truths which, though derived, are as absolute and as eternal as the God on the definition of whom they depend. The theorem of geometry is as true and adequate as the axioms on which it is based. But what, then, of the inadequate and false ideas which are represented in what Spinoza calls modes ? Whence comes our phenomenal knowledge of ourselves and of the world ? Clearly such false ideas can never be derived by a method which gives only truth. Or, to put it in another way, our inadequate notions of the world, and the modes of extension, or particular changing things, which these represent, either have an existence or they have not. If they have an existence, they are a part of God, since nothing exists outside of him ; and then how can they be otherwise than as they are for God eternal and adequate ? Or, if they have no existence at all, how do we come to talk about them as if they did exist ? The fact is, that by no possibility can Spinoza connect the world of appearance, of finite modes, of existence in time, with the true and eternal (timeless) reality of God, and of those derivative truths, equally eternal, that can be logically de- duced from Him. And, consequently, he leaves the finite world without explanation ; it is a mere impertinence in his system. Yet it is precisely to explain this that philos- ophy originates ; and, apart from it, reality is left a mere blank. It will not be necessary to dwell upon the statements by which Spinoza attempts, verbally at least, to bridge over the gap between this world of appearance, and the world of reality. From the nature of the case, the task is a hopeless one. Logically, Spinoza should have denied the 294 A Student's History of Philosophy former world altogether ; but the facts are too evident to permit of this. Indeed, the whole purpose of his philoso- phy is just to show how man, from being a mere part of the phenomenal world, can escape from its fmiteness and attain true felicity. It only remains, then, to consider how this practical redemption is to be brought about, and what, more precisely, is the bondage from which we are to be set free. 2. The Doctrine of Salvation I. Human Bondage. It has been seen that, according to Spinoza, the unsatisfactoriness of life is due to the fact that our affections are set, not upon an object that is eternal and unchanging, but upon transitory and imperfect things. If the object of our love were without variableness, it would lay to rest our passions, and impart to life something of its own calm and steadfastness. But because we love that which has no constancy and no true reality, we are in a continual turmoil of emotions; we hate, and envy, and fear, are exalted and depressed, take even our pleasures feverishly, and never know what peace is. Subjection to the emotions, then, and ignorance of our true end the former growing out of the latter are the elements which constitute human bondage. Now the further justification of this is found in Spinoza's psychology of the human life. The essence of life is self- preservation the tendency of each individual thing to persevere in its own existence, to welcome all that tends to increase this, and oppose and reject whatever tends to limit it. Here again Spinoza accepts a fact of experience for which logically his system has no place ; for if individual things have no reality in themselves, any such self-asser- tive activity would seem to be excluded. When this act of self-assertion depends wholly on ourselves, we have what Spinoza calls an action; when it depends in part upon what lies beyond ourselves, it is a passion. What, then, is the basis of this distinction between actions and Systems of Rationalism 295 passions ? What actions depend wholly on ourselves, and what on other beings ? The answer goes back to the two ways of regarding the human mind, implied in Spinoza's whole doctrine. If we take, that is, our phenomenal knowledge about the world, the particular states of our empirical consciousness, we have what Spinoza calls modes. Now these facts of the finite world are not complete in themselves, or capable of an absolute explanation. Each is causally dependent on another finite fact, and this, again, on another, and so on, in an infinite series. Thus, in the physical realm, any bodily change depends, not on the nature of the body alone, but on the body as affected by another mode, that is, upon the interaction between the body and the outside world ; and the antecedents of this interaction can never be completely traced out. The same thing is true of the modes of thought, or ideas, which correspond to the bodily modes. Accordingly, our supposed adequate knowledge of objects is nothing of the sort. When we think we per- ceive an external object, what we really have is a sensation representing a state of our own body a state which is caused by the interaction between the real object and our sense organs, and which, consequently, by reason of its being a product of two factors, is a true representative of neither of them. This is the old doctrine of the relativity of sense perception, which goes back to Protagoras. All our sense knowledge is, therefore, inadequate and confused. But now there is another way of regarding the human mind. Besides being a collection of finite modes, our minds are also a constituent part of God's nature, since everything whatever that exists, exists in God. In their essence, therefore, their inmost truth and reality, our ideas may be viewed ' under a certain form of eternity ' ; and when thus viewed, they of course are adequate. The distinction, then, between actions and passions, goes back to the dis- tinction between adequate thought, which has its full ex- planation in the mind itself, as identical in its essence with 296 A Students History of Philosophy God ; and inadequate thought, which depends on the mind as a collection of finite modes, each getting what explana- tion it can by reference to an infinite series of other finite facts. We are never fully active, except as we think truly, and see things as they are in God; for thought is the very essence of our nature. "The desires which follow from our nature in such a way that they can be compre- hended through it alone, are such as are referred to the mind in so far as it is conceived as consisting of adequate ideas. The other desires, however, are not referred to the mind, except in so far as it conceives things inadequately, and their strength and growth must be defined, not as human power, but as that of the things that are outside us. Hence, the former are properly called actions, the latter passions; for the former always indicate our power; the latter, on the contrary, our impotence and fragmentary knowledge." * But now the mind strives to persevere in its being, and is conscious of this its endeavor, not only in so far as it has clear and distinct ideas, but also in so far as it has confused ideas. And here comes in Spinoza's doctrine of the emotions. For an emotion is nothing but a confused idea, or a passion. The body can be affected in many ways by which its power of acting is increased or dimin- ished ; modifications of the body, and their corresponding ideas, through which either of these results are brought about, are what we call emotions. A passion in which the mind passes to a greater degree of perfection is pleasure ; one in which it passes to a lesser degree of perfection is pain. By reference to the three elements desire, pain, pleasure all the varied emotions are to be defined. Thus, love is pleas- ure accompanied by the idea of an external cause ; hate is pain accompanied by a similar idea. Derision is pleasure which has its source in the fact that we conceive something we despise to be in the thing we hate. Hope is inconstant pleasure arising from the idea of something future or past, 1 Pt. IV, Appendix II. Systems of Rationalism 297 of the event of which we have some doubt. Despair is pain arising from a thing present or past, regarding which cause for doubt has been removed; and so on. In general, " an emotion, which is called a passion of the soul, is a confused idea, through which the mind affirms the energy of existence possessed by its body, or any part of it, to be greater or less than it was before, and through the pres- ence of which the mind itself is determined to this thought rather than to that." * The attainment of freedom, then, has two sides. It is an escape from the emotions, and it is an escape from in- adequate and false ideas : and these two things are one. True blessedness is thus the blessedness of knowledge. "Hence it is of the utmost service in life to perfect the understanding or reason, as far as we can ; and in this one thing consists man's highest felicity. Indeed, blessedness is nothing but that very satisfaction of the soul which arises from an intuitive knowledge of God. But to perfect the understanding is only to comprehend God, his attri- butes, and the actions that follow from the necessity of his nature. Wherefore the ultimate aim of the man who is controlled by reason, that is, the highest desire, with which he strives to restrain all the others, is that which impels him to conceive adequately himself and everything that can fall within the scope of his understanding." 2 That only is good which is conducive to knowledge ; that which hinders and diminishes it is bad. We are virtuous in so far as we are strong, as the understanding is active ; to be weak, or passive, is to be vicious. Thus not only hatred and envy are vices, but also pity, shame, humility, and repentance. All of these are accompanied by a feeling of pain ; they concentrate attention on our weakness, and make us blind to our true strength. Compassion, by putting an undue emphasis on the mere external signs of suffering, diverts us from a study of causes, and often leads us to acts of blind impulse that afterward we regret. Repentance is 1 R. Ill (Fullerton, p. 152). 2 Pt. IV, Appendix IV. 298 A Student's History of Philosophy doubly bad ; for he who regrets is weak, and is conscious of his weakness. The man who lives according to reason will, therefore, strive to rise above pity and vain regrets. He will help his neighbor, but he will do it from reason, not from impulse. He will consider nothing worthy of hatred, mockery, or contempt. He will look at life dispas- sionately and fearlessly, obeying no one but himself, doing that only which he knows to be best, conquered neither by human miseries nor his own mistakes. 2. Human Freedom. This, in general terms, is the out- come of Spinoza's philosophy ; it may be well, however, to consider the process a little more closely. And at first sight it might seem that freedom is impossible in Spinoza's system, since necessity rules in this from first to last. It has been seen that all things follow necessarily from the nature of God ; an event is called contingent only in relation to the imperfection of our knowledge. And of course man's life does not fall outside this necessity. Is it said that we know by experience that it is within the power of the mind alone to do many things solely by its own decree ; to speak, for example, or to be silent, as it chooses ? " But surely the condition of human affairs would be much more satisfactory if it were as much within man's power to be silent as to speak. But experience gives sufficient, and more than sufficient proof of the fact that there is nothing less under a man's control than his tongue, nor is there anything of which a man is less capable than of restraining his impulse. This is the reason most persons believe that we are free only in doing those things to which we are impelled by slight de- sires, for the impulse to do such things can be easily checked by the memory of some other thing of which we often think ; but that we are by no means free in doing those things to which we are impelled by strong emotion, which cannot be checked by the memory of some other thing. But, had they not had experience of the fact that we do many things which we afterward regret, and that we often, when we are harassed by conflicting emotions, see the better and Systems of Rationalism 299 follow the worse, nothing would prevent them from believ- ing that we are always free in our actions. Thus the in- fant believes that it desires milk of its own free will ; the angry child that it is free in seeking revenge, and the timid that it is free in taking to flight. Again, a drunken man believes that he says of his own free will things he afterward, when sober, wishes he had left unsaid ; so also an insane man, a garrulous woman, a child, and very many others of the sort, believe they speak of their own free will, while, nevertheless, they are unable to control their im- pulse to talk. Thus experience itself shows, no less clearly than reason, that men think themselves free only because they are conscious of their actions, and ignorant of the causes which determine them. It shows, moreover, that the mind's decisions are nothing but its impulses, which vary with the varying condition of the body." x We cannot, therefore, escape from the necessary facts of existence. Reality is as it is, and we cannot make it different. But this is bondage only when we rebel against it, and set up in its stead purely individual ends. We shall find freedom the only true freedom in knowing the truth and accepting it. We are not under constraint because we are subject to law, but because we are subject to our own ignorance and passions. God is perfect free- dom, not because he can act arbitrarily, but because he acts solely from the laws of his own nature and under no compulsion ; there is nothing external to him that can determine him to act. Now emotions, since they are passions rather than actions, represent such an influence of external things. But the road to salvation has already appeared. We can overcome the emotions by understanding them, by ridding ourselves of our confused ideas, and seeing everything in its innermost truth, as a necessary fact. Everyday experi- ence will show us how potent an effect the recognition of the necessity of things has upon our attitude toward them. PL III, 2, SchoL 300 A Student's History of Philosophy " The more the knowledge that these things are necessary is brought to bear upon individual things, which we imag- ine more distinctly and vividly, the greater is the power of the mind over the emotions. To this fact experience itself bears witness. We see sorrow at the loss of some good thing mitigated, as soon as the man who has lost it per- ceives that he could not have preserved it in any possible way. Thus we see, also, that no one pities an infant be- cause it cannot speak, walk, or reason, and because, in a word, it lives so many years, as it were, without the con- sciousness of self. But if most persons were born as adults, and only one here and there as an infant, then every one would pity infants, for then we should regard infancy itself, not as a natural and necessary thing, but as a defect or fault of nature." Accordingly, Spinoza goes on to show the ways in which the emotions can be controlled by the superior force, per- manence, frequency, and harmony of true knowledge, which enable it to hold the mind against false and inade- quate ideas. These ways all go back ultimately to that which constitutes the chief power of adequate ideas their relation to the idea of God. Everything alike can be referred to the idea of God, since he is the truth of all things; and when it is thus referred, we have a means at hand for overcoming the emotions whose force is irre- sistible. For the philosopher, convinced that all events, including human actions, are the outcome of the necessity of the divine nature, nothing merits contempt, hatred, pity ; he has simply to understand them as a part of the whole of things, not judge them. He will lay aside all private and selfish aims, and merge himself in the great life of the whole, to whose will he will bow without repining, and find thereby joy and peace. Once know and accept things as they are in God, and the warring desires and passions which distract us will pass away ; the motives which look large to us now in our ignorance will lose their power. " Griefs and misfortunes have their chief source in an excessive love of Systems of Rationalism 301 that which is subject to many variations, and of which we can never have control. No one is solicitous or anxious about anything unless he love it; nor do injustices, suspicions, enmities, and so forth arise, except from the love of things of which no one can really have control. Thus we easily conceive what power clear and distinct knowledge, and especially that third kind of knowledge, the foundation of which is the knowledge of God and nothing else, has over the emotions ; if it does not, in so far as they are passions, absolutely remove them, at all events it brings it about that they constitute the least part of the mind. Furthermore, it begets love toward that which is immutable and eternal, and which we really have within our power a love which, consequently, is not stained by any of the defects inherent in common love, but can always become greater and greater, and take possession of the greatest part of the mind, and affect it everywhere." * This is very different from the love of God which religion ordinarily inculcates. The God of positive re- ligions is a God of the imagination, an individual like ourselves, who loves and hates, is angry and jealous, and acts by an arbitrary will. Accordingly, all the defects of human love enter into our relations to him, and love may easily pass into hate. But no one can hate the eternal and necessary order of nature. This love toward God cannot be stained either with the emotion of envy or of jealousy, but it is the more intensified the greater the number of men we conceive bound to God by this same bond of love. " We can show in the same way that there is no emotion directly opposed to this love capable of destroying it. Hence we may conclude that this love toward God is the most unchangeable of all the emotions, and cannot, in so far as it is referred to the body, be destroyed except with the body itself." In the final stage of this process of emancipation, we have already gone beyond mere practical rules of life, to 1 Pt. V, 20, SchoL 302 A Studenfs History of Philosophy the conception of a mystical union with God, which gives its peculiar tinge to Spinoza's whole thought. From the falsity of ordinary opinion, or imagination, we have passed by the power of discursive reason to adequate ideas ; but there is a higher kind of knowledge still. Reason is not merely our individual reason working under conditions of time ; it is also eternal, freed from all restrictions, a part of the infinite intellect of God. And the same truths which we have gained laboriously by processes of reasoning may also take on another form, the form of an immediate flash of intuition, in which they are seen to flow directly from the one Truth God. From this third kind of knowledge springs the highest possible satisfaction of the mind. " The more of this kind of knowledge any one possesses, the clearer is his consciousness of himself and of God, that is, the more perfect and blessed is he." " From this third kind of knowledge necessarily springs the intellectual love of God. For from this kind of knowledge springs pleasure, accompanied by the idea of God as cause, that is, a love of God, not in so far as we imagine him as present, but in so far as we comprehend God to be eternal." " And this intellectual love of the mind toward God is the very love of God with which God loves himself, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he can be expressed by the essence of the human mind, considered under the form of eternity ; that is, the intellectual love of the mind toward God is a part of the infinite love with which God loves himself. From this we clearly comprehend in what our salvation, or blessedness, or freedom, consists ; to wit, in an unchangeable and eternal love toward God, that is, in the love of God toward men. This love or blessedness is in the sacred Scriptures called glory." 1 To sum up, then, how does this doctrine of freedom contribute to the service of life ? "First, it is of value in that it teaches us that we act according to God's decree, and are participants in the divine nature; and this the 1 Pt. V, 31, Schol. ; 32, Cor. ; 36, and SchoL Systems of Rationalism 303 more, the more perfect the actions we perform, and the better we comprehend God. Hence this doctrine not only sets the soul completely at rest, but also teaches us in what our highest felicity or blessedness consists, to wit, only in the knowledge of God, which leads us to do only those things that love and piety recommend. Thus we see clearly how far from a true estimate of virtue are those who expect God to honor them with the highest rewards for their virtue and good actions, as though for the ex- tremest slavery as if virtue and the service of God were not felicity itself, and the completest freedom. Second, it is of value in that it teaches us how to behave with regard to those things which depend upon fortune, and which are not within our power, that is, with regard to those things that do not follow from our nature. It teaches us, namely, to look forward to and endure either aspect of fortune with equanimity, just because all things follow from the eternal decree of God, by the same neces- sity with which it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles. Third, this doctrine is of service to social life in that it teaches to hate no one, to despise, to ridicule, to be angry at no one, to envy no one. It is of service, further, in that it teaches each one to be content with what he has, and to aid his neighbor, not from womanish pity, partiality, or superstition, but solely under the guidance of reason, according to the demands of the time and the case. Fourth, this doctrine is of no little advantage to the state in that it shows how citizens ought to be governed and led ; namely, not so as to act like slaves, but so as to do freely what is best." J " And even if we did not know our mind to be eternal, we should nevertheless regard as of the highest importance piety and religion. The belief of the multitude appears to be otherwise. Most men seem to think that they are free just in so far as they are permitted to gratify desire, and that they give up their independence just in so far as they are 1 Pt. II, 49, SchoL 304 A Student's History of Philosophy obliged to live according to the precept of the divine law. Piety, then, and religion, and all things, without restriction, that are referred to greatness of soul, they regard as bur- dens ; and they hope after death to lay these down, and to receive the reward of their bondage, that is, of piety and religion. And not only by this hope alone, but also and chiefly by fear the fear of being punished after death with dire torments are they induced to live ac- cording to the precept of the divine law, so far as their poverty and feebleness of soul permit. If men had not this hope and fear, but if, on the contrary, they thought that minds perished with the body, and that for the wretched, worn out with the burden of piety, there was no continuance of existence, they would return to their inclination, and decide to regulate everything according to their lusts, and to be governed by chance rather than by themselves. This seems to me no less absurd than it would seem if some one, because he does not believe he can nourish his body with good food to eternity, should choose to stuff himself with what is poisonous and deadly ; or, because he sees that his mind is not eternal or im- mortal, should choose on that account to be mad, and to live without reason. Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself ; nor do we rejoice in it because we restrain the desires, but, on the contrary, because we rejoice in it we are able to restrain the desires." 1 " With this I have completed all that I intended to show regarding the power of the mind over the emotions, and the freedom of the mind. From what I have said it is evident how much stronger and better the wise man is than the ignorant man, who is led by mere desire. For the ignorant man, besides being agitated in many ways by external causes, and never attaining true satisfaction of soul, lives as it were without consciousness of himself, of God, and of things, and just as soon as he ceases to be acted upon, ceases to be. While, on the contrary, the 1 Pt. V, 41 and Schol. ; 42. Systems of Rationalism 305 wise man, in so far as he is considered as such, is little disturbed in mind, but, conscious by a certain eternal necessity of himself, of God, and of things, he never ceases to be, but is always possessed of true satisfaction of soul. If, indeed, the path that I have shown to lead to this appears very difficult, still it may be found. And surely it must be difficult, since it is so rarely found. For if salvation were easily attained, and could be found without great labor, how could it be neglected by nearly every one ? But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare." * LITERATURE Spinoza, Chief Works : Improvement of the Intellect, Ethics, Theo- logico- Political Treatise, Political Treatise. Translations : Elwes (Works, 2 vols.) ; White (Ethics) ; Fullerton (Selections from Ethics). Pollock, Spinoza. Martineau, Study of Spinoza. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory. Caird, Spinoza. Caird, Essays on Literature and Philosophy. Iverach, Descartes, Spinoza, and the New Philosophy. Joachim, Study of the Ethics of Spinoza. Duff, Spinoza's Political and Ethical Philosophy. 30. Leibniz The temperament and life history of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz are as far as possible removed from those of his great predecessor. Born in Leipsic in 1646, he early showed a remarkable genius which took the whole world as its field. In mathematics, where he is celebrated as being one of the discoverers of the differential calculus ; in law, civil and international ; in history (he was employed to write the memoirs of the family of his patron, the Duke of Hanover); in religious controversy, and in philosophy proper in all these different directions he stood among the leading men of his time. This universality of mind i Ft. V, 42, SchoL 306 A Student's History of Philosophy enabled him to do justice to the varied interests which philosophy has to serve, and made his system a gathering- point of the various threads which had entered into the entire past development. Almost alone of the men of his time the time of the Enlightenment he had some just appreciation of the past and of history ; and he was able to enter sympathetically into the thought alike of Plato and Descartes, of the Schoolmen and the scientists of his own day. The practical side of Leibniz' nature was another factor which influenced his theoretical views. He was no mere thinker, like Spinoza, but a man of the world, in the midst of, and taking a large part in, the political life of his time. His legal training early gave him an entrance into politics, and, either as writer or diplomatic agent, he was connected with most of the important events of the period. This practical training perhaps emphasized his tendency to mediate between opposing views. The same spirit which led him to attempt to get at the truth in all philosophies, reveals itself in his political aims ; for example, in his endeavor to heal the differences between Protestants and Catholics, by drawing up a compromise on which both could unite. In addition to all the labor which these political offices involved, we should mention also the effort, occupying a considerable part of Leibniz' life, to secure the establishment in Germany of learned societies, or Academies, by which the results of the new scientific spirit should be conserved and applied to human ends. This bore fruit during Leibniz' own lifetime in the Berlin Academy. i. The Nature of Substance. The more general aspects of Leibniz' philosophy can perhaps be brought out by comparing them with the solution which Spinoza had offered. The main emphasis in Spinoza had been upon the unity of the world, a unity which brings to- gether the factors which Descartes had left separate mind, matter, and God. To Leibniz, also, this was the Systems of Rationalism 307 ultimate goal of philosophy ; and yet it had been pur- chased at what seemed to him too great a sacrifice. For apparently it left no place for the reality of individ- uals men and things ; it was a mere abstract unity, in which all the particular facts of the world were swal- lowed up. This result to Leibniz was unsatisfactory. A man of practical affairs, individuals were to him indubi- tably real, and no theory which failed to account for their reality seemed tenable. A unity must, indeed, be attained, but it must be a unity of the real facts of the world, and not lying beyond them. So, also, Leibniz was not satis- fied with Spinoza's rejection of teleology, or purpose, in the world. Here again his experience of life stood him in stead ; the very essense of practical life consists in work- ing for ends, and nothing which rejects ends altogether can seem adequate to the practical man. At the same time, Leibniz felt the need, as Spinoza had done, of bridg- ing over the gaps which Descartes had left. He accepted, too, at least the relative validity of that purely mechanical view of the physical world which Descartes had started, and which Spinoza's parallelism had been designed to justify. How was he to retain these truths, and still do justice to the world of finite things, and to human intelli- gence and freedom ? The answer which Leibniz gave was made possible by means of a reconstruction of the idea of substance, both mental and material. Descartes had defined matter as ex- tended substance. This had involved the assumption that it is essentially passive and inert, and able to receive motion only from the outside. Leibniz was led by various motives to substitute, for extension, power of resistance, as the essen- tial quality of matter, to which even extension is subordi- nate. In this way the conception of passive matter is changed to what is essentially the modern scientific con- ception energy, or force. A substance is a being capa- ble of action. Since, therefore, we find individual things exerting force, the substantiality of which they had been 308 A Students History of Philosophy deprived by Spinoza, in favor of his single ultimate substance, must be restored to them. But, furthermore, these substantial units, to which extended matter reduces itself, cannot be themselves extended. We cannot find anything really ultimate and indivisible in the atoms of the physicists ; whatever is still material, however small it may be, is still divisible. In order to find a true indivisible unit, we need to go back of the extended and the material altogether. Matter is thus at bottom immaterial; it is made up of substantial units that are themselves un- extended. But from this new standpoint there is opened up the possibility of removing the absoluteness of that distinc- tion between matter and mind, upon which Descartes had insisted. If the essence of matter is extension, then it has no point of contact with the mental life. It is, indeed, exactly the opposite of thought. And so the attempt of Spinoza, also, to get rid of the dualism by referring both thought and extension to a single substance, is essentially self-contradictory ; it is asserting that the same substance is both extended and unextended. But when, instead of extension, we characterize matter as force, a means of con- nection is opened up. For force has its analogue in the conscious life ; corresponding to the activity of matter is conscious activity, or will. Indeed, are there any positive terms in which we can describe the nature of force, unless we conceive it as identical with that conscious activity which we know directly in ourselves ? The notion of mat- ter has thus been completely transformed. Instead of its being a passive lump of extended substance, extension is only the phenomenal way in which it appears to us. In reality, what we call matter is a host of unextended cen- tres of force, whose activity is at bottom, when we inter- pret it, a spiritual or perceptual activity. The reality of the world is not matter, but monads. In order, however, to complete the union, the concept of mind has also to suffer a partial transformation. Ac- Systems of Rationalism 309 cording to Descartes, again, the essence of mind is thought ; and Leibniz also retains a tendency to intellectualism. But whereas hitherto consciousness had been taken to mean that of which we are distinctly conscious, Leibniz vastly enlarges the conception. Below the threshold of our clear consciousness there is, he thinks, a dark background of obscurer consciousness, petites perceptions, unconscious mental states. The existence of these, Leibniz proves by various considerations. " For a better understanding of the petites perceptions I am wont to employ the illustration of the moaning or sound of the sea, which we notice when we are on the shore. In order to hear this sound as we do, we must hear the parts of which the whole sound is made up, that is to say, the sounds which come from each wave, although each of these little sounds makes itself known only in the confused combination of all the sounds taken together, that is to say, in the moaning of the sea, and no one of the sounds would be observed if the wave which makes it were alone. For we must be affected a little by the motion of this wave, and we must have some perception of each of these sounds, however little they may be ; otherwise we should not have a perception of a hundred thousand waves, for a hundred thousand nothings cannot make something. We never sleep so profoundly as not to have some feeble and confused feeling, and we should never be wakened by the greatest noise in the world if we had not some perception of its beginning, which is small, just as we should never break a cord by the greatest effort in the world, if it were not strained and stretched a little by less efforts, though the small exten- sion they produce is not apparent." 1 Now in this conception, we have a means of removing the gap which apparently still exists between what we know as mind, and the blind workings of force in material nature. This is done through the principle of continuity, 1 New Essays (p. 371). This and the succeeding quotations are taken from Latta's translation. (Clarendon Press.) 310 A Student's History of Philosophy which is another of the great watchwords of Leibniz' phi- losophy. According to this principle, there are no breaks in nature. Things shade into one another by infinitely small gradations. Consequently, there is a continuous series from the lowest monads up to the highest, which we call souls, or spirits. The life of each monad is a thought life, a life of perceptual activity ; but it is thought which may be infinitely confused. It is this confused thought which constitutes the life of the material monads, and which, compared with our own, is like a swoon or dreamless sleep. What we call souls, on the contrary, are monads in which this confused thought has come to at least a partial consciousness of itself. Even in man, a large part of the soul life is still obscure. Sense percep- tion and feeling are such confused thought. It is on account of this confusion that we see the world as mate- rial, and not for what it really is a collection of imma- terial beings. Accordingly, there is no difference in kind between souls and other monads, but only in degree ; both are spiritual in their nature. However, this difference in degree is infinitely varied, and sufficient to account for all the apparent oppositions in the world. So far, then, we find reality to be made up of an infinite host of individual beings, or monads, representing count- less different grades of development. Those lower in the scale are what we call matter; those more highly developed are souls ; while highest of all are self-con- scious minds, or spirits. The inner nature of these monads is force ; or, to interpret this in more ultimate terms, an active life consisting in more or less conscious perception, or thought. " In the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls. Each portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden full of plants, and like a pond full of fishes. But each branch of every plant, each member of every animal, each drop of its liquid parts, is also some such garden or pond. Thus there is nothing fallow, nothing sterile, Systems of Rationalism 311 nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusion save in appearance, somewhat as it might appear to be in a pond at a distance, in which one would see a con- fused movement, and, as it were, a swarming of fish in the pond, without separately distinguishing the fish them- selves." J 2. P reestablished Harmony. But now we seem to have been carried to the opposite pole from Spinoza, and, in establishing the reality of individuals, to have lost the unity which is to bind them together. And the way in which Leibniz goes on to describe the life of the monads seems to make the problem more desperate still. Each monad, as a centre of force, has the principle of its life and development contained wholly in its own nature. In- stead of being, like the matter of Descartes, passive, and so influenced only from without, it is never influenced from without at all. It has a perfect independence as regards the influence of all other created things. " Each spirit being like a world apart, sufficient to itself, independent of every other created thing, involving the infinite, expressing the universe, is as lasting, as continuous in its existence, and as absolute as the very universe of created things." z How, indeed, is a purely external influence thinkable ? How could a thing act in response to an outer influence, unless it were its own nature so to act; unless, that is, it had the active principle of its movement already in itself ? Each monad thus lives its own life independently of every other monad. It is shut up to the possibilities of its own nature, and develops solely in accordance with its own laws. It has no windows through which anything can come in or go out. And yet, as a matter of fact, the different monads must somehow be related, and take account of other monads in their actions, in order to account for the ordered Cosmos that results. What is the explanation of the apparent contradiction ? The answer lies in the two words Preestablished Har- 1 Monad., 66, 67, 69. 2 New System (p. 316). 312 A Studenfs History of Philosophy mony. It is true that each monad is a thing by itself, un- influenced by any other monad. Nevertheless, there is a real unity in the world ; it is the unity of a plan or pur- pose which the world reveals, and which has its source in the mind of God. With reference to each other, the monads are indeed windowless ; they develop in accord- ance with principles immanent in their own being. But still they are not absolutely isolated. There is a higher reality on which each depends, and a higher purpose which each serves. And it is this which explains why, in spite of being isolated, the monads yet show so close a correspond- ence. For it is with reference to this universal plan that the nature of each monad is constituted at the start. The course of development which is to make up the life of each is originally determined with the whole universe of other monads directly in view. So, by simply following its own course, without interference from anything outside, it yet runs parallel to, and reflects, the development which is going on independently in other monads. This thought is illustrated by Leibniz in a simile. "I will say that this concomitance which I maintain, is com- parable to several different bands of musicians or choirs, playing their parts separately, and so placed that they do not see or even hear one another ; which can nevertheless keep perfectly together, by each following their own notes, in such a way that he who hears them all finds in them a harmony that is wonderful, and much more surprising than if there had been any connection between them." 1 The nature of the correspondence Leibniz expresses in the statement that each monad, although windowless, never- theless, at each stage of its existence, mirrors, from its special point of view, the life of all the rest of the world ; just as in the physical realm each movement involves all other movements in the universe. This latter fact is, in- deed, only the other side, the phenomenal aspect, of the first. So one might come to know the beauty of the whole 1 Letter to Arnauld (Latta, p. 47). Systems of Rationalism 313 universe in each soul, if he could unfold all that is enfolded in it from the start. This conception of preestablished harmony has a par- ticular application, in Leibniz' mind, to one specific prob- lem the relationship of mind and body. Of course what we call a body is, for him, not an actual material thing, but a group of monads, of the less developed sort. Every " soul," or higher monad, has such a group of inferior associates with which it stands in a specially close connec- tion. These, by the law of their nature, tend to subordi- nate themselves to the central and ruling " soul," in virtue of its higher development ; and thus they constitute what appears to us phenomenally as an organic body. " These principles have given me a way of explaining naturally the union, or rather the mutual agreement, of the soul and the organic body. The soul follows its own laws, and the body likewise follows its own laws ; and they agree with each other in virtue of the preestablished harmony between all substances, since they are all representations of one and the same universe." 1 This is expressed in the famous figure of the clocks. Suppose two clocks or watches, which perfectly keep time together ; this may happen in three ways. The first way is by a direct mechanical influence of one upon the other, and this is the ordinary conception of the relation between body and soul. The second way of making two clocks, even though they be bad ones, keep together, would be to put them in charge of a skilled workman, who should regulate them from moment to moment this, again, is the theory of Occasionalism. Finally, the third way would be to make the two clocks at first with such skill that we could be sure of their correspond- ing accurately for all the future. This is the way of preestablished harmony "a contrivance of the divine foreknowledge, which has from the beginning formed each of these substances in so perfect, so regular and accu- 1 Monad., 78. 314 A Student's History of Philosophy rate a manner, that by merely following its own laws, which were given to it when it came into being, each sub- stance is yet in harmony with the other, just as if there were a mutual influence between them, or as if God were continually putting his hand upon them." 1 There is no need, therefore, of any intervention, which, indeed, implies an altogether unworthy notion of God. Surely, his skill is not so limited that he could not make a mechanism that would run forever, and so must wind up his watch from time to time, to prevent its running down. The more he has to mend it and set it right, the poorer a mechanic it shows him to be. " According to my system, bodies act as if (to suppose the impossible) there were no souls, and souls act as if there were no bodies, and both act as if each influenced the other." 2 The reality of the world is, then, once more, the life of a multitude of immaterial beings, each developing its own nature in accordance with laws which it is impossible that other monads should interfere with, and yet in relation to a general plan, which finds its complete summing up in the one ultimate being God. On him they severally depend, and this dependence enables them to act in harmony with the rest of the world, and to mirror its course ideally in their own lives. And this gives, too, the content of the purpose of the world in so far as it is possible for us to fathom it. Development consists in making actual for each monad the possibilities of its own nature. And since that nature is thought, it consists in getting rid of confused perceptions, and attaining to the true ideas which lie con- cealed in the muddy depths of our primitive experience. The goal of life is to see things truly as they exist for God. Such a condition is the only true freedom. Of course Leibniz cannot admit any freedom of a purely arbitrary will. The monad's nature is given at the start, and the course of a man's development thus is fixed. Every pres- ent state of a simple substance is naturally a consequence 1 Third Explanation (p. 33 1 ) . 2 Monad., 8l . Systems of Rationalism 315 of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future. But man is free in the sense that it is the law of his own nature that determines him, not some- thing from the outside. He is free to realize himself in his completeness : and in so far as confusedness gives place to clear thought, and the reasons for his activity cease to lie beyond his knowledge, this freedom becomes conscious and actual. Through knowledge, the soul is truly active, truly a law to itself. 3. Tlie World of Freedom. This fact of freedom, of self-conscious development, takes us out of the realm of phenomena, and relates us to the purposes of God and the moral universe. " Among other differences which exist between ordinary souls and spirits there is also this : that souls in general are living mirrors or images of the universe of created things, but that spirits are also images of the Deity or Author of nature Himself, capable of knowing the system of the universe, and to some extent of imitating it, each spirit being like a small divinity in its own sphere. It is this that enables spirits to enter into a kind of fellowship with God, and brings it about that in relation to them he is not only what an inventor is to his machine (which is the relation of God to other created things), but also what a prince is to his subjects, and, indeed, what a father is to his chil- dren. Whence it is easy to conclude that the totality of all spirits must compose the City of God, that is to say, the most perfect state that is possible, under the most perfect of monarchs. This City of God, this truly universal mon- archy, is a moral world in the natural world, and is the most exalted and most divine among the works of God ; and it is in it that the glory of God really consists, for he would have no glory were not his greatness and his good- ness known and admired by spirits. It is also in relation to the divine City that God specially has goodness, while his wisdom and his power are manifested everywhere." J 1 Monad., 83-86. 316 A Students History of Philosophy For Leibniz, then, the mechanical view of the world, and the teleological, are not inconsistent or competing, but rather two aspects of the same thing. The phenomenal aspect of the world, in terms of physical relations, is en- tirely legitimate in its own sphere. There can be no inter- ference with its laws, since the inner life of the monads, of which scientific laws are a phenomenal transcript, has been determined from the beginning. But now an- other question presents itself to the philosopher, as distinct from the scientist. Granted that any event can be re- lated with mathematical necessity to other events, still why should this whole constitution of things be as it is, and not something different ? To answer this ques- tion, we must go back of appearance to reality, to the inner life of the monads, and the moral purpose which is being realized in the lives of those monads who have attained to spiritual self-consciousness. Such pur- pose is entirely harmonious with mechanism. " Things lead to grace by the very ways of nature, and this globe, for instance, must be destroyed and renewed by natural means, at the very time when the government of spirits requires it, for the punishment of some and the reward of others." * This conception of purpose, also, is connected with another important doctrine of Leibniz. There are two different kinds of truths necessary truths, and contin- gent. Necessary truths follow with logical certainty ; they are eternal and unalterable, and even the will of God cannot make them otherwise than they are. They fall, therefore, under the logical law of contradiction ; their opposite is unthinkable. But it is only abstract truths that are thus necessary. When it comes to truths of fact, or existence, there is no apparent necessity in- volved. So far as we can see, the course of the world might have been wholly different from what it actually has been. The particular facts of the world, therefore, 1 Monad., 88. Systems of Rationalism 317 are contingent, and all that we can do is to find for them some sufficient reason. Now this sufficient reason depends ultimately upon purpose, or the relation to moral ends. Our particular world is only one among an infinite number that would have been possible had God so willed ; why, then, should it exist, rather than any other ? Simply be- cause God has chosen, not any world at random, but the best of all possible worlds ; and such a world is represented by our own. Among all the possibilities which pass before his vision, God sees that there is only one combination which will give the greatest possible good and the least possible evil ; and his supreme wisdom and perfection lead him to choose this and make it actual, rather than any other of the possibilities which, apart from the question of better or worse, would have an equal right to exist. "The whole matter may be likened to certain games in which all the spaces on a board are to be filled up accord- ing to definite rules, so that unless you make use of some ingenious contrivance, you find yourself in the end kept out of some refractory spaces, and compelled to leave empty more spaces than you intended, and some of which you might otherwise have filled." J So, for God, the problem is, how to get a world representing the greatest possible amount of reality, the highest physical and moral perfec- tion ; and this " best of all possible worlds " which we find existing, is the result. Such a conception involves a solution of the problem of evil, which Leibniz works out most elaborately in his Theodicy. What appears to us as evil is only a neces- sary incident in the life of the whole, which, if we could but see it from the standpoint of the whole, we should recognize as necessary to the highest perfection. " And, indeed, as the lawyers say, it is not proper to judge unless we have examined the whole law. We know a very small part of eternity, which is immeasurable in its extent ; for what a little thing is the record of a few thousand years, which 1 Ultimate Origination of Things (p. 341). 318 A Student's History of Philosophy history transmits to us ! Nevertheless, from so slight an experience we rashly judge regarding the immeasurable and eternal, like men who, having been born and brought up in prison, or perhaps in the subterranean salt mines of the Sarmatians, should think that there is no other light in the world than that of the feeble lamp which hardly suffices to direct their steps. If you look at a very beautiful pic- ture, having covered up the whole of it except a very small part, what will it present to your sight, however thoroughly you examine it (nay, so much the more, the more closely you inspect it), but a confused mass of colors, laid on with- out selection and without art ? Yet if you remove the cov- ering, and look at the whole picture from the right point of view, you will find that what appeared to have been carelessly daubed on the canvas was really done by the painter with very great art. The experience of the eyes in painting corresponds to that of the ears in music. Emi- nent composers very often mingle discords with harmonies, so as to stimulate, and, as it were, to prick the hearer, who becomes anxious as to what is going to happen, and is so much the more pleased when presently all is restored to order, just as we take pleasure in small dangers or risks of mishap, merely from the consciousness of our power or our luck, or from a desire to make a display of them ; or, again, as we delight in the show of danger that is connected with performances on the tight rope, or sword-dancing ; and we ourselves in jest half let go a little boy, as if about to throw him from us, like the ape which carried Christiern, king of Denmark, while still an infant in swaddling clothes, to the top of the roof, and then, as in jest, relieved the anxiety of every one by bringing him safely back to his cradle. On the same principle sweet things become insipid if we eat nothing else ; sharp, tart, and even bitter things must be combined with them, so as to stimulate the taste. He who has not tasted bitter things does not deserve sweet things, and, indeed, will not appreciate them. This is the very law of enjoyment, that pleasure does not have an Systems of Rationalism 319 even tenor, for this begets loathing, and makes us dull, not happy." 1 We cannot judge, then, a so-called evil by itself. It may either be necessary to avoid still greater evils, or it may be justified as a condition of attaining some positive good that far outweighs it, as the general of an army will prefer a great victory with a slight wound to a condition without wound and without victory. Even if in quantity the evil could be shown to surpass the good, yet the latter would still make up in quality ; the glory and perfection of the blessed are incomparably greater than the misery of the damned, since the excellence of the total good in the lesser number exceeds the total evil in the greater number. We cannot lay the blame for evil upon God. God is responsible for realities only in so far as they are positive and perfect ; evil is a negative fact, which results from the necessary imperfection and limitation of finite crea- tures. It is with them as with a loaded vessel, which the river causes to move more or less slowly according to the weight it carries ; its speed depends upon the river, but the retardation which limits this speed comes from the load. 4. Theory of Knowledge. It remains to mention, briefly, one other important phase of Leibniz' thought. Nearly fifty years after his death there was published, for the first time, a work of his entitled New Essays on the Human Under- standing. This contained an acute examination of Locke's theory of knowledge ; and so it brings Leibniz into direct connection with the problem which was presently to become the main problem of philosophy. As Locke's theory still remains to be considered, Leibniz' criticism can only be noticed here in a very general way. Locke's position, to anticipate, was briefly this : that all our knowledge comes from sense experience, and that there are no such things as innate ideas. The mind is a blank tablet. Images impress themselves upon it from external 1 Ultimate Origination of Things (p. 346). 320 A Students History of Philosophy objects, and these form the basis of all our knowledge. Leibniz opposes this whole conception. He does not, indeed, consider it necessary to hold that universal truths exist clearly and consciously in the mind at birth. He can agree with Locke that, in point of time, sensations come first. But such universal knowledge exists implicitly, involved in the sensations themselves, although it is only brought to consciousness by the gradual clearing up of this original confused sense experience. Leibniz' doctrine of petites perceptions enables him to understand how a thing may be in the mind, in an undeveloped way, even when we do not seem to be conscious of it. And universal ideas must be there implicitly, or we never should have them at all. No universal and necessary truth can pos- sibly come from mere sensations. " The senses never give anything but instances, that is to say, particular or indi- vidual truths. Now all the instances which confirm a general truth, however numerous they may be, are not sufficient to establish the universal necessity of this same truth; for it does not at all follow that what has happened, will happen in the same way." 1 In general, then, Leibniz goes back to an entirely differ- ent conception of the mind from that which Locke holds. Locke practically ignores the reaction of the mind itself in knowledge ; whereas, for Leibniz, this is the one essen- tial thing. The mind is not a mere passive recipient of ideas. There would be no reality to it if it were not already active, and disposed in certain specific directions. Instead of everything being due to the influence of outer objects, there is nothing due to this. According to the theory of monads, the entire life develops solely from within, by the laws of its own nature ; and so sensations themselves are innate. It is thus absolutely necessary to take into account, first of all, the mind itself, with its native character, natural inclinations, powers, dispositions. " Accordingly I have taken as illustration a block of veined 1 New Essays (p. 362). Systems of Rationalism 321 marble, rather than a block of perfectly uniform marble, or than empty tablets, that is to say, what is called by phi- losophers tabula rasa. For if the soul were like these empty tablets, truths would be in us as the figure of Her- cules is in a block of marble, when the block of marble is indifferently capable of receiving this figure or any other. But if there were in the stone veins, which should mark out the figure of Hercules rather than other figures, the stone would be more determined toward this figure, and Hercules would somehow be, as it were, innate in it, although labor would be needed to uncover the veins, and to clear them by polishing, and thus removing what pre- vents them from being fully seen." 1 LITERATURE Leibniz, Chief Works: Discourse on Metaphysics (1685); New System (1695) ; New Essays on the Human Understanding (1704) ; Theodicy (1710) ; Monadology (1714) ; Principles of Nature and Grace (1714). Translations : Latta (Monadology, etc.) ; Duncan (Selections') ; Langley (New Essays') ; Montgomery (Discourse on Metaphysics^ Correspondence with Arnauld, Monadology) . Merz, Leibniz. Dewey, Leibniz 1 New Essays. Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. 1 New Essays (p. 366). THE GROWTH OF EMPIRICISM AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT 31. Locke The name of John Locke, the founder of the new phi- losophy of Empiricism, which Leibniz had attacked in the New Essays, stands for all that is most characteristic in English philosophical thought, down almost to the present day. Locke was born in Somersetshire in 1632, a period marked by the beginning of the struggles of the parliamen- tary party against Charles the First. He was sent to Ox- ford, where, however, the academic spirit was still too much dominated by Scholasticism to arouse in him any strong interest Later he received an appointment at the University, and continued for a number of years in more or less close connection with it. In 1666 he met Lord Ashley, afterward Earl of Shaftesbury, and one of the greatest of the statesmen of Charles the Second's reign. With him Locke entered into a lasting friendship. This intimacy brought him into contact with public life, and finally compelled him, on the fall of his patron, to seek refuge in Holland. Here he stayed five years. On the accession of William of Orange, he returned to England. During the remainder of his life he stood for the most pro- nounced intellectual force in England, and he was in con- siderable degree responsible for shaping the policy of the new government. His closing years were spent in quiet, except for various controversies, mostly theological, in which his writings had involved him. He died in 1704. Locke's attention was first directed to the field of phi- losophy by a chance incident. " Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this essay, I should tell thee that five 322 The Growth of Empiricism 323 or six friends meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented ; and therefore it was agreed that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts on the subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this discourse ; which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty, written by incoherent parcels, and after long intervals of neglect resumed again, as my humor or occasion permitted ; and at last, in a retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it." l It is characteristic of the sober thoroughness which dis- tinguishes Locke, that it was twenty years before this design was finally completed, and the book given to the world. Indeed, until he was nearly sixty years old, he had published nothing. It was not till after his return from exile that his principal works appeared in quick succession. His writings include three Letters on Toleration, two Treatises on Government, Thoughts on Education, The Reasonableness of Christianity, and the Essay on the Human Understanding. In all these works the same general aim is to be found. That aim is to show the futility of empty verbiage and idle acquiescence in traditional opinions and assumptions, which take the place of honest intellectual effort and in- quiry. In opposition to this, it strives to make men use their own minds, not upon words but upon real facts, to 1 Essay, Epistle to the Reader, Vol. I, p. 118 (Bohn's Library). 324 A Students History of Philosophy the intent that they may be freed from the weight of the past, and attain to a rationally grounded liberty. And the method by which Locke thought to accomplish this result was by demolishing the undue pretensions which the human intellect is wont to make. However competent it may prove to be for dealing with homely matters of fact and experience, when it aspires to a dogmatic certainty about higher things, it is in reality making use of words to which no definite and verifiable ideas correspond, and so modesty is its proper attitude. The Letters on Toleration vindi- cate man's right to religious freedom just on this ground, that it is absurd to force all men dogmatically to adopt one particular belief, when the foundations of our knowledge of the things which theology pretends to teach are so unsub- stantial. The Treatises on Government, similarly, defend the freedom of the citizen in the state on the homely and intelligible basis of expediency or utility, in opposition to the unreasoning faith which rests on mere blind tradition, and expresses itself in the theory of a divine right of kings. As opposed to this, Locke made himself the spokesman of the Revolution of 1688, by arguing that government is simply a means for serving the best interests of the people governed. Government, as with Hobbes, is based upon a contract, but this contract has nothing of the rigidity for which Hobbes had argued. To retain old forms un- changed when circumstances have altered, is to defeat the very purpose of government. And if at any time the ruler is untrue to his trust, and the advantages for the sake of which he was given power are no longer forth- coming, authority reverts to the people, and revolution is justified. Now these practical aims, in behalf of freedom and rea- sonableness, and against mere tradition, irrationality, and restrictive forces, underlie the Essay also. In it Locke at- tempts a philosophical justification of the practical interests to which he is devoted. He comes to an examination of the powers of the human mind in order, primarily, to get a The Growth of Empiricism 325 weapon against political superstitions, traditional dogmas, empty words divorced from things, and a sentimental and un- reasoning 'enthusiasm.' "The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs in advancing the sciences will leave lasting monu- ments to the admiration of posterity ; but every one must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham ; and in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius, and the incomparable Mr. Newton, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-laborer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge; which certainly had been very much more advanced in the world, if the endeavors of ingenious and industrious men had not been much cumbered with the learned but frivolous use of uncouth, affected, or unin- telligible terms, introduced into the sciences, and there made an art of, to that degree that philosophy, which is nothing but the true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or incapable to be brought into a well-bred company and polite conversation. . . . To break in upon the sanc- tuary of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some ser- vice to human understanding." J i. The Source of Knowledge I. The Aim of the Essay. With this general end in view, what Locke will attempt will be to " consider the discerning faculties of a man, as they are employed about the objects which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this occasion, if, in this historical, plain method, I can give any account of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of the things we have, and can set down any measures of the certainty of our knowledge, or the grounds of those persuasions which are to be found amongst men, so various, different, and wholly contradic- Ibid., p. 121. 326 A Students History of Philosophy tory." 1 " If by this inquiry into the nature of the under- standing, I can discover the powers thereof, how far they reach, to what things they are in any degree proportionate, and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of use to pre- vail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon ex- amination, are found to be beyond the reach of our capaci- ties. We should not then perhaps be so forward, out of an affectation of a universal knowledge, to raise questions, and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about things to which our understandings are not suited, and of which we cannot frame in our minds any clear or distinct perceptions, or whereof (as it has perhaps too often hap- pened) we have not any notions at all." 2 Nor have we any right to complain of this limitation. " How short soever their knowledge may come of an uni- versal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet se- cures their great concernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, de- light, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled -with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything. We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us ; for of that they are very capable : and it will be an unpardonable, as well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue the advan- tages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends for which it was given us, because there are some things that are set out of the reach of it. It will be no ex- cuse to an idle and untoward servant, who would not attend his business by candlelight, to plead that he had not broad 1 Bk. I, Chap. I, 2. 2 Bk. I, Chap. I, 4. The Growth of Empiricism 327 sunshine. The candle that is set up in us shines bright enough for all our purposes. ... It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and cau- tion him against running upon shoals that may ruin him." 1 2. No Innate Ideas. This, accordingly, is the purpose of the essay to destroy false pretensions of knowledge, by showing, through a careful examination of the facts of con- sciousness, how our ideas originate, and what are the criteria for distinguishing real knowledge from that which is illusory. But before Locke can enter on this, there is a preliminary matter which he must discuss in order to clear the way. This is the supposed existence of innate ideas. " When men have found some general propositions that could not be doubted of as soon as understood, it was a short and easy way to conclude them innate. This being once received, it eased the lazy from the pains of search, and stopped the inquiry of the doubtful concerning all that was once styled innate. And it was of no small advantage to those who affected to be masters and teachers, to make this the principle of principles, 'that principles must not be questioned': for having once established this tenet, that there are innate principles, it put their followers upon a necessity of receiv- ing some doctrines as such ; which was to take them off from the use of their own reason and judgment, and put them on believing and taking them upon trust without further examination : in which posture of blind credulity they might be more easily governed by and made useful to some sort of men who had the skill and office to princi- ple and guide them. Nor is it a small power it gives one man over another, to have the authority to be the dictator of principles and teacher of unquestionable truths ; and to make a man swallow that for an innate principle which may serve to his purpose who teacheth them." 2 1 Bk. I, Chap. I, 5, 6. 2 Bk. I, Chap. IV, 24. 328 A Student's History of Philosophy It is a matter, therefore, not only of theoretical, but of very great practical interest, to determine whether we really have ideas of this kind. First, accordingly, Locke thinks it is necessary to prove that there are no such things as innate ideas. " It is an established principle amongst some men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, KOIVCU evvoicu, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should only show how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions, and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions. For I imagine any one will easily grant that it would be impertinent to suppose the ideas of colors innate in a creature to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from external objects ; and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves facul- ties fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them, as if they were originally imprinted on the mind. But because a man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road, I shall set down the rea- sons that made me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excuse for my mistake, if I be in one." 1 Now, what are the arguments for the existence of such ideas ? First, there is the great argument from the univer- sal assent of mankind. But it is necessary at the start to dispute the supposed facts. " I shall begin with the specu- lative, and instance in those magnified principles of demon- stration, 'whatever is, is,' and 'it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be ' ; which, of all others, I think have the most allowed title to innate. But yet I i Bk. I, Chap. II, i. The Growth of Empiricism 329 take liberty to say that these propositions are so far from having a universal assent, that there are a great part of mankind to whom they are not so much as known." " For, first, it is evident that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them; and the want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths ; it seeming to me near a contradiction to say that there are truths imprinted on the soul which it per- ceives or understands not; imprinting, if it signify any- thing, being nothing else but the making certain truths to be perceived. For to imprint anything on the mind without the mind's perceiving it, seems to me hardly in- telligible." "That a truth should be innate, and yet not assented to, is to me as unintelligible as for a man to know a truth and be ignorant of it at the same time. But then, by these men's own confession, they cannot be innate, since they are not assented to by those who understand not the terms, nor by a great part of those who do understand them, but have yet never heard nor thought of those prop- ositions ; which, I think, is at least one half of mankind." " But that I may not be accused to argue from the thoughts of infants, and to conclude from what passes in their understandings before they express it, I say next, that these two general propositions are not the truths that first possess the minds of children, nor are antecedent to all acquired and adventitious notions; which, if they were innate, they must needs be. . . . The child certainly knows that the nurse that feeds it is neither the cat it plays with, nor the blackmoor it is afraid of ; that the wormseed or mustard it refuses is not the apple or sugar it cries for, this it is certainly and undoubtedly assured of : but will any one say, it is by virtue of this principle, ' that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be,' that it so firmly assents to these and other parts of its knowledge ? He that will say, children join in these general abstract speculations with their sucking bottles 330 A Student's History of Philosophy and their rattles, may perhaps, with justice, be thought to have more passion and zeal for his opinion, but less sincerity and truth, than one of that age." 1 There is thus no universal assent to such ideas. More- over, these instances just given are just the ones where they ought to show most clearly. "These characters, if they were native and original impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those persons in whom yet we find no footsteps of them; and it is, in my opinion, a strong presumption that they are not innate, since they are least known to those in whom, if they were innate, they must needs exert themselves with most force and vigor. For children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people, being of all others the least corrupted by custom or borrowed opinions, learning and education having not cast their native thoughts into new moulds, nor by superinducing foreign and studied doctrines, confounded those fair characters nature had written there, one might reasonably imagine that in their minds these innate notions should lie open fairly to every one's view, as it is certain the thoughts of children do. . . . But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly illiterate, what general maxims are to be found? A child knows his nurse and his cradle, and by degrees the play- things of a little more advanced age ; and a young savage has, perhaps, his head filled with love and hunting, accord- ing to the fashion of his tribe. But he that from a child untaught, or a wild inhabitant of the woods, will expect these abstract maxims, will, I fear, find himself mistaken. Such kind of general propositions are seldom mentioned in the huts of the Indians, much less are they to be found in the thoughts of children, or any impressions of them on the minds of naturals." 2 To avoid the difficulty, it may be said that men know these truths when they come to the use of the reason. As a matter of fact, however, the time of coming to the use of the reason is not necessarily the time we come to know 1 Bk. I, Chap. II, 4, 5, 24, 25. 2 Bk. I, Chap. II, 27. The Growth of Empiricism 331 these maxims; and even if it were, it would not prove them innate. " For by what kind of logic will it appear that any notion is originally by nature imprinted in the mind in its first constitution, because it comes first to be observed and assented to when a faculty of the mind, which has quite a distinct province, begins to exert itself ? " 1 It is equally irrelevant to say that they are assented to as soon as they are proposed and understood. " By the same reason, all propositions that are true, and the mind is capable of ever assenting to, may be said to be in the mind, and to be imprinted : since, if any one can be said to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, it must be only because it is capable of knowing it, and so the mind is of all truths it ever shall know." If such an assent be a mark of innate, then " that one and two are equal to three, that sweetness is not bitterness, and a thousand the like, must be innate." " Nay, thus truths may be imprinted on the mind which it never did nor ever shall know ; for a man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty. So that if the capacity of knowing be the natural impression con- tended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will, by this account, be every one of them innate; and this great point will amount to no more, but only to a very im- proper way of speaking ; which, whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied that the mind was capable of knowing several truths." 2 In a similar way, Locke goes on to show that there are no innate practical or moral principles ; there are none which are universally received by all men. An examina- tion of moral customs will show that there is no rule of right and justice which is not openly violated by some nation, and the violation approved by the public con- science. The general resemblance in the conceptions of virtue in different countries, and the general approval of it, i Bk. I, Chap. II, 14. 2 Bk. I, Chap. II, 5. 332 A Student's History of Philosophy are due to the fact, not that virtue is innate, but that it is profitable. And, finally, to clinch the whole argument, Locke points out that no proposition can be innate, unless the ideas of which it is composed are innate. " Whatever we talk of innate principles, it may with as much proba- bility be said that a man hath ;ioo sterling in his pocket, and yet denied that he hath either penny, shilling, crown, or other coin out of which the sum is to be made up, as to think that certain propositions are innate, when the ideas about which they are can by no means be supposed to be so ; Ml and this can be shown to be true of the ideas in all the propositions for which any claim to innateness has been made. 3. All Knowledge from Experience. With innate ideas out of the way, Locke can go on to the positive part of his work. And there are two main divisions of this. The first has to do with the way in which we come by our ideas, since they are not born in us. When, however, an idea is once in the mind, its mere existence there still does not involve the question of truth or error. This arises only in connection with the relation of ideas to one another, and so forms a sepa- rate inquiry. And to the first of these problems, the answer is unambiguous. " Every man being conscious to himself that he thinks, and that which his mind is applied about whilst thinking, being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt that men have in their minds several ideas, such as are those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweet- ness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others. It is in the first place, then, to be inquired how he comes by them. . . . Let us then suppose the mind to be white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas ; how comes it to be furnished ? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety ? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge ? To this I answer in one word, from experience; in that 1 Bk. I, Chap. IV, 19. The Growth of Empiricism 333 all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation, employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the mate- rials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowl- edge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring." 1 The source of our knowledge of external objects is called Sensation. The other fountain, the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is em- ployed about the ideas it has got, is called Reflection. " These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, combinations, and relations, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of ideas." "These alone, so far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room ; for methinks the under- standing is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little opening left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without : would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them." 2 " Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it, either through the senses by outer objects, or by its own operations when it reflects on them. This is the first step a man makes toward the discovery of anything, and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take their rise and footing here : in all that good extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote specula- tions it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which sense or reflection has offered i Bk. II, Chap. I, i, 2. * Bk. II, Chap. XI, 17. 234 -d- Students History of Philosophy for its contemplation." 1 Ideas can, it is true, be com- bined in various new ways; but every element in these complex ideas still comes to us from one of the two sources. " It is not in the power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged understanding, by any quickness or variety of thought, to invent or frame one new simple idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways before mentioned : nor can any force of the understanding destroy those that are there." 2 If, then, we can analyze a supposed idea into these simple components, we have the means of testing it, and of ridding ourselves of the domination of mere words, to which no ideas correspond. 4. Simple Ideas, Accordingly, in order to make good his position, Locke is bound to give an account of the whole stock of our ideas, arrange and classify them, and make it evident that there is none whose origin in experience cannot be clearly shown. Evidently, the most general division will be into Simple and Complex Ideas, the elements of our thought which come to us passively through sensation and reflection, and the various combinations which these may assume. Upon simple ideas, Locke does not have to dwell very long. They are subdivided into ideas which come into our minds from one sense only ; those which come from more senses than one; those that are had from reflection only ; and those that are suggested to the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection. Sounds, colors, tastes, and smells, solidity, heat and cold, are examples of the first class. Belonging to the second division are ideas of space or extension, figure, rest, and motion, which are received both through sight and touch. By reflection we get the ideas of perception and of volition. The last division includes the notions of pleasure, pain, power, existence, unity, and succession. Thus, pleasure or pain join themselves to almost all our ideas, both of sensation and reflection ; the idea of unity is suggested by whatever we can consider as one thing, whether a real being or an idea ; power is involved i Bk. II, Chap. I, 24. 2 Bk . n , Chap. II, 2. The Growth of Empiricism 335 alike in the ability which we find in ourselves to move the various parts of our bodies, and in the effects which mate- rial objects have on one another. These classes include all the possible ingredients of our knowledge. " Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious mind of man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther than the stars, and cannot be confined by the limits of the world ; that extends its thoughts often even beyond the utmost expansion of matter, and makes excursions into the incomprehensible inane. It will not be so strange to think these few simple ideas sufficient to employ the quick- est thought or largest capacity, if we consider how many words may be made out of the various composition of twenty-four letters, or if we will but reflect on the variety of combinations that may be made with barely one of the above-mentioned ideas, viz., number, whose stock is inex- haustible and truly infinite." l Before going on to speak of complex ideas, however, one point needs a special mention. Besides their exist- ence in the mind, many of these simple ideas are also referred to the external world, where they are supposed somehow to belong to things. Color, for example, is com- monly regarded as at once a sensation, and an attribute of objects. In order to avoid confusion between the mental existence of ideas, and those physical facts which are sup- posed to give rise to them, it is well to call these latter, not ideas, but qualities. But among these there is an important distinction. Certain qualities are entirely in- separable from a body, whatever its state ; these are called original, or primary qualities, and include solidity, exten- sion, figure, motion, and number. " Secondly, such quali- ties which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e., by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colors, sounds, tastes, etc., these I call secondary qualities." i Bk. II, Chap. VII, 10. A Student's History of Philosophy Now, whereas " the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves, the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us ; and what is sweet, blue, or warm in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts in the bodies themselves. Flame is denominated hot and light; snow, white and cold; and manna, white and sweet, from the ideas they produce in us ; which qualities are commonly thought to be the same in those bodies that those ideas are in us, the one the perfect resemblance of the other, as they are in a mirror ; and it would by most men be judged very extravagant if one should say other- wise. And yet he that will consider that the same fire that at one distance produces in us the sensation of warmth, does at a nearer approach produce in us the far different sensation of pain, ought to bethink himself what reason he has to say that this idea of warmth, which was produced in him by the fire, is actually in the fire ; and his idea of pain, which the same fire produced in him the same way, is not in the fire. Why are whiteness and coldness in snow, and pain not, when it produces the one and the other idea in us ; and can do neither, but by the bulk, figure, number, and motion of its solid parts ? The par- ticular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them, whether any one's senses perceive them or not, and therefore they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies; but light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or pain in the manna. Take away the sensation of them ; let not the eye see light or colors, nor the ears hear sound ; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell ; and all colors, tastes, odors, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are The Growth of Empiricism 337 reduced to their causes, i.e., bulk, figure, and motion of parts." 1 5. Complex Ideas, To return, then, it is self-evident to Locke that, of the simple ideas, the mind cannot possibly frame one, until it has been presented by experience. " If a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his child- hood never tasted an oyster or a pineapple has of those particular relishes." 2 So far the mind has been passive. But now it also has power, after it has received these simple ideas, to act upon them in various ways. " The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over its simple ideas, are chiefly these three : I. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which way it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence : this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made." 3 All possible combinations of ideas can be brought under three heads : Modes, Substances, and Relations. Modes are "complex ideas which, however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependencies on, or affections of, substances ; such as are ideas signified by the words tri- angle, gratitude, murder, etc." Of these modes there are two kinds. Simple modes are those which are "only variations or different combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture of any other; as a dozen or score, which are nothing but the ideas of so many dis- tinct units added together." Mixed modes are com- pounded of simple ideas of several kinds; e.g., "beauty, 1 Bk. II, Chap. VIII, 10, 15. 2 Bk. II, Chap. I, 6. 8 Bk. II, Chap. XII, i. z 338 A Students History of Philosophy consisting of a certain composition of color and figure, causing delight in the beholder." " Secondly, the ideas of Substances are such combina- tions of simple ideas as are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves, in which the supposed or confused idea of substance, such as it is, is always the first and chief. Thus, if to substance be joined the simple idea of a certain dull whitish color, with certain degrees of weight, hardness, ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea of lead." " Thirdly, the last sort of complex ideas, is that we call Relation, which consists in the consid- eration and comparing one idea with another." 1 Such are the ideas of cause, of spatial and temporal relations, of identity and diversity, and the like. From this point of view, Locke goes on to show, in detail, that all the terms of which metaphysics has made so much, and which have been thought to be too exalted to have grown out of every- day experience even the idea of God itself can be brought back to perfectly definite simple ideas, in so far as they have any meaning at all. 6. Criticism. Before going on, it may be well to sug- gest, briefly, the limitations of Locke's discussion. Locke has an entirely definite and straightforward thesis to estab- lish. He intends to show that we have no knowledge which does not arise in connection with sense experience ; in other words, that we do not come into the world with ready-made truths in our minds. And if this is his con- tention, it may surely be granted that he has made out his case. But is this really the important point ? Might not a judicious opponent be content to admit that all truths come to our knowledge only in the course of experience, and still maintain that there are certain truths which may properly be called innate ? Take, for example, the supposed truth that every event must have a cause. There is a sense in which this is derived from experience. It could not very well be sup- 1 Bk. II, Chap. XII, 4-7. The Growth of Empiricism 339 posed to be in the mind of any one who had not witnessed instances of causation. But in spite of this, if it really is true that every event must have a cause, in the future as well as in the past, we are going entirely beyond the bare facts of experience in the statement. All that mere ex- perience could possibly tell us would be, that certain particular events in the past have had a cause. There is a distinction between a truth's coming to consciousness in connection with experience, and its being wholly summed up in the experience in connection with which it appears. If, therefore, there are truths that are neces- sarily and universally true, they must be due to some capacity of the mind that goes beyond the mere collection of its past experiences. Now, Locke himself admits the existence of such truths, as, e.g., causation. There are depths to the problem, accordingly, which Locke does not begin to sound. It will be necessary to define, much more closely than Locke does, what the vague word "experi- ence " really means ; and this was left to Locke's succes- sors, particularly to Hume and Kant. 2. Nature and Extent of Knowledge I. Nature and Degrees of Knowledge. Having thus examined the source of our ideas, it is still necessary to consider what these ideas tell us in the way of truth. Now, "since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them. Knowledge, then, seems to be nothing but the perception of the con- nection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists. Where this perception is, there is knowledge; and where it is not, there, though we may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge." l i Bk. IV, Chap. I, I, 2. 340 A Student's History of Philosophy The varying clearness of our knowledge lies in the different way of perception the mind has of the agree- ment or disagreement of its ideas. Sometimes " the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by themselves, without the intervention of any other; and this we may call intuitive knowledge. Thus the mind perceives that white is not black, that a circle is not a triangle, that three are more than two. . . . This part of knowledge is irresistible, and, like bright sun- shine, forces itself immediately to be perceived, as soon as ever the mind turns its view that way ; and leaves no room for hesitation, doubt, or examination, but the mind is pres- ently filled with the clear light of it. He that demands a greater certainty than this, demands he knows not what, and shows only that he has a mind to be a sceptic, without being able to be so." The next degree of knowledge is, where the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, but not immediately ; this is demon- strative knowledge. " Thus the mind being willing to know the agreement or disagreement in bigness between the three angles of a triangle and two right ones, cannot by an immediate view and comparing them do it. In this case the mind is fain to find out some other angles, to which the three angles of a triangle have an equality ; and, finding those equal to two right ones, comes to know their equality to two right ones." 1 A third degree of cer- tainty, which also passes, though with less justification, under the name of knowledge, will be considered presently in connection with sensitive knowledge. 2. Knowledge of Real Existence. But now, if knowl- edge is only of the connection between our own ideas, does it not become purely subjective, arbitrary, and unreal? "It is evident that the mind knows not things immedi- ately, but only by the intervention of the ideas it has of them. Our knowledge, therefore, is real only so far as there is a conformity between our ideas and the reality of i Bk. IV, Chap. II, i, 2. The Growth of Empiricism 341 things. But what shall be here the criterion ? How shall the mind, when it perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they agree with things themselves?" 1 Later on this question attains a preeminent importance, and leads to strange results. Locke, however, does not appreciate all its difficulty, and slips over it rather easily. It never occurs to him to doubt that there is a real world, and that we can, to an extent at least, know it And so, although apparently in defiance of his definition of knowledge, he adds now another conception the agreement of our ideas with the real things to which they refer. We may have an assurance or conviction that such a reality exists, to which our ideas correspond; and in this case we have not only certain, but real knowledge. Now there is a kind of knowledge that also may fairly be termed real, not because it agrees with an external archetype, but because it does not pretend to refer to any- thing beyond itself; and so there can be no question of a lack of correspondence. " All our complex ideas, except those of substances, being archetypes of the mind's own making, not intended to be the copies of anything, nor referred to the existence of anything, as to their originals, cannot want any conformity necessary to real knowledge." 2 All our abstract knowledge, as opposed to that which deals with facts and most of the statements of necessary truth are merely abstract is concerned with such ideas. Mathematics is one of the best instances of this. In mathematics we are dealing only with ideas which we have ourselves formed, and whose truth is entirely independent of whether or not there happen to be any real objects in the world. But such knowledge is after all not strictly real; there is no disagreement, only because there is no object with which to disagree. When, however, we turn to ideas of substances, a new factor comes in. This is the idea of real existence, which brings us back to real knowledge in the stricter sense. 1 Bk. IV, Chap. IV, 3. a gk. IV, Chap. IV, 5. 342 A Student's History of Philosophy There are three kinds of substances of which we may have a real knowledge. We have the knowledge of our own existence by intuition ; we perceive it so plainly and so certainly, that it neither needs, nor is capable of, any proof. Of the existence of God, we have a demonstrative knowledge. The proof of God is, briefly, this : We know that something exists, since we are sure of our own exist- ence ; and we know, also, that something must have existed from eternity, since we are intuitively certain that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. Again, it is evident, in the case of any derived being, that it must have received everything it possesses from the reality from which it is derived. Since, therefore, we possess powers, perception, knowledge, all these things must be present in still greater measure in the eternal reality from which we spring ; and we can know, therefore, that a supremely powerful, know- ing, and intelligent being exists. Otherwise there must have been a time when knowledge did not, exist ; and in that case, it never could have come into being. Finally, we can have a knowledge of material things through sensation ; which, if it fails of being as sure as our knowledge of ourselves and of God, is still practically certain. " For I think nobody can, in earnest, be so sceptical as to be uncertain of the existence of those things which he sees and feels." This assurance is confirmed by various arguments. First, it is plain that these perceptions are produced in us by exterior causes affecting our senses ; because those to whom any organ is lacking, never have the ideas belonging to that sense. The organs themselves, it is clear, do not produce them ; for then the eyes of a man in the dark would produce colors, and his nose smell roses in the winter. Again, there is a manifest difference between ideas from sensation, and ideas from memory. If I turn my eyes at noon toward the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas which the light or sun then produces in me ; whereas I can at pleasure recall or dismiss ideas of the The Growth of Empiricism 343 sun that are lodged in memory : and this points to an exterior cause for the former. So, also, our senses cor- roborate one another. " He that sees a fire may, if he doubt whether it be anything more than a bare fancy, feel it too, and be convinced by putting his hand in it ; which certainly could never be put into such exquisite pain by a bare idea or phantom." So that "this evidence is as great as we can desire, being as certain to us as our pleas- ure or pain, i.e., happiness or misery; beyond which we have no concernment, either of knowing or being." 1 3. Limitations of our Knowledge of the External World. But granting it is proved we have a knowledge of the existence of material things, we still need to inquire in re- gard to the adequacy and extent of this knowledge. Now, in the first place, our simple ideas are adequate ; they may not be actual copies of material qualities, but they are necessarily and truly connected with them in the order of nature. " Since the mind, as has been showed, can by no means make to itself these simple ideas, they must neces- sarily be the product of things operating on the mind in a natural way, and producing therein those perceptions which by the wisdom and will of our Maker they are ordained and adapted to. From whence it follows that simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural and regular productions of things without us, really operating upon us ; and so carry with them all the conformity which is intended, or which our state requires : for they represent to us things under those appearances they are fitted to produce in us. Thus the idea of whiteness or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power which is in any body to produce it there, has all the real conformity it can or ought to have, with things without us." 2 But when it comes to a knowledge of complex substances, the case is different. We may combine ideas, and refer them to a substance, when, as a matter of fact, they are not actually found together in that substance ; or, we may 1 Bk. IV, Chap. XI, 3-8. 2 Bk. IV, Chap. IV, 4. 344 A Student's History of Philosophy leave out qualities which ought really to be there ; or again, we may attribute to the connection, in the substance, of its simple qualities, a necessity which this does not possess. If we have actually found certain simple qualities going together, we have a real knowledge of their coexistence in nature in this particular case. But practically we have no insight into the reason for the connection, and so our knowl- edge hardly goes farther than our empirical acquaintance with the particular instances. Necessity, for the most part, belongs only to abstract ideas. " Some few of the primary qualities have a necessary dependence and visible connection one with another, as figure necessarily supposes extension. Yet there are so few of them, that we can by intuition or demonstration discover the coexistence of very few of the qualities that are to be found united in substances. Thus, though we see the yellow color, and, upon trial, find the weight, malleableness, fusibility, and fixedness that are united in a piece of gold ; yet because no one of these ideas has any evident dependence or necessary connection with the others, we cannot certainly know that where any four of these are, the fifth will be there also, how highly prob- able soever it may be." J " In fine, then, when our senses do actually convey into our understandings any idea, we cannot but be satisfied that there doth something at that time really exist without us, which doth affect our senses, and actually produce that idea which we then perceive ; and we cannot so far distrust their testimony, as to doubt that such collections of simple ideas as we have observed by our senses to be united together, do really exist together. But this knowledge extends as far as the present testimony of our senses, em- ployed about particular objects that do then affect them, and no farther. For if I saw such a collection of simple ideas as is wont to be called man, existing together one minute since, and am now alone ; I cannot be certain that the same man exists now, since there is no necessary con- ifik. IV, Chap. Ill, 14. The Growth of Empiricism 345 nection of his existence a minute since with his existence now : by a thousand ways he may cease to be, since I had the testimony of my senses for his existence." l 4. Probable Knowledge. So much, then, for our certain knowledge. Fortunately, however, we do not have to de- pend upon demonstration for a great part of the affairs of life. " The understanding faculties being given to man, not barely for speculation, but also for the conduct of his life, man would be at a great loss if he had nothing to direct him but what has the certainty of true knowledge ; for that being very short and scanty, as we have seen, he would be often utterly in the dark, and in most of the actions of his life, perfectly at a stand, had he nothing to guide him in the absence of clear and certain knowledge. He that will not eat till he has demonstration that it will nourish him, he that will not stir till he infallibly knows the business he goes about will succeed, will have little else to do but to sit still and perish." 2 Accordingly, Locke goes on to con- sider the grounds of probability, which in brief are these : " First, The conformity of anything with our own knowl- edge, observation, and experience. Secondly, The testi- mony of others, vouching their observation and experience. In this is to be considered, (i) The number. (2) The integrity. (3) The skill of the witnesses. (4) The design of the author, when it is a testimony out of a book cited. (5) The consistency of the parts, and circumstances of the relation. (6) Contrary testimonies." 3 Among the beliefs accepted on testimony, those based on revelation have a peculiarly high degree of assurance. Nevertheless, this is always less than intuitive and demonstrative certainty, and therefore it can never prevail, if it comes in conflict with truths of the latter kind. 5. Ethics. A word remains to be said about Locke's ethical theory. He never works this out in detail, but scattered references show what lines it would have fol- i Bk. IV, Chap. XI, 9. 2 Bk. IV, Chap. XIV, I. SBk. IV, Chap. XV, 4. 346 A Student's History of Philosophy lowed. Good and evil are nothing but pleasure and pain, or what occasions or produces pleasure or pain for us. Moral good or evil, then, is only the " conformity or dis- agreement of our voluntary actions to some law, whereby good or evil is drawn on us by the will and power of the lawmaker ; which good and evil, pleasure or pain, attend- ing our observance or breach of the law by the decree of the lawmaker, is that we call reward and punishment." The true ground of morality is thus the will and law of a God, " who sees men in the dark, has in his hands rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account the proudest offender." * Locke thinks that ethics can be made a demonstrative science. LITERATURE Locke, Chief Works : Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) ; Thoughts on Education (1692) ; Reasonableness of Christian- Russell, Selections. Fowler, Locke. Fraser, Locke. Curtis, Outline of Locke's Ethical Philosophy. Green, Introduction to Hume. Bourne, Life of John Locke. Dewey, Leibniz 1 New Essays. McCosh, Realistic Philosophy. Moore, Existence, Meaning and Reality in Lockers Essay. 32. Berkeley The philosophy of Locke was, for the most part, a clear- ing up and systematization of our common-sense beliefs. It proposed to itself no metaphysical subtilties, nor did it think it possible to attain to any great amount of absolute and ultimate knowledge. The present facts of sense, how- ever, it did not doubt ; and these, eked out by probability, seemed to it quite sufficient to answer all the practical needs of life. But Locke had set forces at work which did not stop with him. There were contradictions and diffi- i Bk. II, Chap. XXVIII, 5 ; Bk. I, Chap. Ill, 6. The Growth of Empiricism 347 culties present in his thought which he did not perceive, but which could not long be overlooked. One such dif- ficulty has been noticed in his theory of knowledge. Technically, he had limited the possibility of knowledge to a perception of the connections between ideas ; but he immediately had to add to this the agreement of ideas with a reality which is no idea of ours at all. It was from this point that a movement started which was, in the end, to render all knowledge whatever uncertain. George Berkeley, on whom the mantle of Locke fell, was an Irishman, born in 1685. He entered Dublin in 1700. Here his intellectual subtilty, his enthusiastic and imaginative temperament, and his peculiarly lovable per- sonality, won for him a high reputation among his inti- mates. His zeal for knowledge is illustrated in the story related of him that, after attending an execution with some companions, he induced his friends to suspend him from the ceiling, that he might experience the sensation of strangling. He was cut down only after he had become unconscious. It was in these early college days that the vision came to him of the new principle by which he hoped to revolu- tionize philosophy ; and his chief work A Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge was published in his twenty-fifth year. The novelty of his conception the denial of the independent existence of matter prevented an immediate recognition ; but his acute reasoning, and the beauty of his literary style, gradually overcame the preju- dice which the paradoxical nature of his position at first aroused. In 1713 Berkeley visited London. Here he became acquainted with the brilliant literary circle of Queen Anne's reign Steele, Addison, Swift, Pope, and others, and by the charm of his personality made a deep impression. After some time spent in travel, he returned to England, to carry out a great philanthropic purpose, which, for the next few years, filled his thoughts. This was the idea of converting America, and laying there 348 A Student's History of Philosophy the foundation of a higher and purer civilization than he found at home, through the establishment of a university in the Bermudas. The plan was at once too noble, and too visionary, to appeal much to English politicians; but his high-minded enthusiasm and eloquence won the day, and he secured a grant from Parliament of .20,000. In 1728 he sailed for America, landing in Rhode Island; and here he spent the next three years in quiet and study, wait- ing for the plans for the university to be carried out. But with Berkeley off the ground, the natural disinclination to the scheme asserted itself again ; and finally, convinced that the grant was never to be paid, Berkeley returned to England. Here he received an appointment as Bishop of Cloyne, in Ireland. His last appearance was in con- nection with a somewhat fantastic controversy about the merits of tar water, in which Berkeley, partly on experi- mental, partly on philosophic grounds, was convinced that he had found a universal panacea for physical ills, and which his deep interest in the welfare of humanity urged him to promote with his usual fire and enthusiasm. His last work Siris is a compound of the praises of tar water, with some of the most profound of his philosophical reflections. He died in 1753. i. Unthinking Matter does not Exist. There are two sides to Berkeley's doctrine, a negative and a positive ; and it was the negative side which made the deepest impression on his age, and on the future development of philosophy. His main thesis may be stated in his own words : " It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind ; or, lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination. . . . But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remem- The Growth of Empiricism 349 bering, about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call MIND, SPIRIT, SOUL, or MYSELF. . . . That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imag- ination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow. And it seems no less evident that the various sen- sations, or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they com- pose) cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term ' exist ' when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it ; and if I were out of my study, I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I was in my study, I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an .odor, that is, it was smelt ; there was a sound, that is, it was heard ; a color or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. That is all I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the abso- lute existence of unthinking things, without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligi- ble. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds of thinking things which perceive them. It is, indeed, an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natu- ral or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the fore-mentioned objects, but the things we perceive by sense ? And what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations ? And is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived ? " " Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind 350 A Student's History of Philosophy that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz., that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind that their being is to be perceived or known ; that, consequently, so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit it being perfectly unintelligible, and in- volving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit." 1 This, accordingly, is what Berkeley starts in to prove the immaterialism of the external world, the non-existence of an unspiritual, unthinking matter. Far from admitting, however, that this is a paradox, Berkeley insists that he is only going back to, and justifying, the beliefs of common sense, in opposition to the confusion in which philosophers have involved the question. "Upon the whole," he says, " I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philoso- phers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to themselves that we have first raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see." 2 The root of the evil lies in the supposition, universally made, but entirely false, that we can have such things as abstract ideas. In reality, every possible idea must be a particular concrete fact of consciousness, or image, with definite characteristics, which we can discover and describe. If we cannot discover such an image, we are wrong in supposing that any idea is there. We deceive ourselves by taking words for ideas. Once get free from the bondage of words, and represent to our- selves concretely the things we are talking about, and half the difficulties of philosophy will be solved. "In vain do we extend our view into the heavens, and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned 1 i Treatise, I, 2, 3, 4, 6. 2 Ibid., Introd., 3. The Growth of Empiricism 351 men, and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity we need only draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose fruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand." 1 With this preliminary warning, we may turn to our con- ception of matter matter, that is, as independent of mind or consciousness. The simple test is, Can we represent to ourselves what we mean by matter in this sense ? or is it just a word which we use, without any understanding be- hind it ? It is on this that Berkeley rests his whole case. If we can tell what we mean by the existence of objects, in abstraction from the fact of their being perceived, very well. But if we cannot, then we are merely fooled by words, and must, if we are consistent, go back to the posi- tion of common sense, and hold that matter is nothing but the very things we see, feel, and hear ; that is, the collections of ideas which make up the experience of perception. " But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an unthinking substance. I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea ; a color or figure can be like nothing but another color or figure. If we look but never so little into our own thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those sup- posed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no ? If they are, then they are ideas, and we have gained our point ; but if you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a color is like some- thing which is invisible ; hard or soft, like something which is intangible ; and so of the rest." 2 Every quality, then, which we can attribute to an object, may be reduced to a sensible quality, or a sensation ; and how can anything be like a sensation, and still be absolutely 1 Treatise, Introd., 24. s Treatise, 8. 352 A Student's History of Philosophy different from what a sensation is, namely, conscious and immaterial ? If any one objects to this conclusion, let him consider that, in the case of the majority of the qualities of matter, it is a conclusion already generally admitted. " They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or original qualities, do exist without the mind in unthinking substances, do at the same time acknowledge that colors, sounds, heat, cold, and such like secondary qualities, do not." But now, in the first place, the fact that primary and secondary qualities are inseparably joined, shows that, if the latter exist only in the mind, the same thing must be true of the former also. " For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an idea of a body extended and moving, but I must withal give it some color or other sensible quality which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceiv- able. Where therefore the other sensible qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind, and nowhere else." 1 But furthermore, the very same arguments that prove secondary qualities subjective, apply equally to the pri- mary. Thus, for instance, it is said that heat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of real beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them ; " for the same body which appears cold to one hand seems warm to another. Now, why may we not as well argue that figure and extension are not patterns or resem- blances of qualities existing in matter, because to the same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of anything settled and determinate without the mind ? Again, it is proved that sweetness is not really in the sapid thing, because the thing remaining unaltered, the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever, or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say KX The Growth of Empiricism 353 that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter, the motion, it is ac- knowledged, shall appear slower, without any alteration in any external object ? " 1 But, it may be said, the essence of matter is not the qualities, but a substratum, or substance, which lies behind these, and supports them. The qualities may be only sub- jective ideas, but you cannot get rid of the substantial existence back of them. Now, in the first place, if the qualities are ideas, they cannot subsist in an unperceiving substance. But what of this concept of substance itself ? Locke had already criticised the notion, and had come to the conclusion that it is a purely negative and unreal idea. It is a "something we know not what," quite on a par with the unknown support of the mythical tortoise, which for the Indian thinker holds up the world. Berkeley goes on to subject the idea to a still more vigorous criti- cism. " Let us examine a little the description that is given us of matter. It neither acts, nor perceives, nor is perceived ; for this is all that is meant by saying it is an inert, senseless, unknown substance ; which is a definition entirely made up of negatives, excepting only the relative notion of its standing under or supporting. But then it must be observed that it supports nothing at all, and how nearly this comes to a description of a nonentity, I desire may be considered. But, say you, it is the unknown occa- sion, at the presence of which ideas are excited in us by the will of God. Now, I would fain know how anything can be present to us, which is neither perceivable by sense nor reflection, nor capable of producing any idea in our minds, nor is at all extended, nor hath any form, nor exists in any place. The words ' to be present,' when thus applied, must needs be taken in some abstract and strange meaning, and which I am not able to comprehend." " You may, if so it shall seem good, use the word ' matter ' in the same sense as other men use ' nothing,' and so make those 2A 354 ^ Student's History of Philosophy terms convertible in your style. For, after all, that is what appears to me to be the result of that definition the parts whereof, when I consider with attention, either collectively or separate from each other, I do not find that there is any effect or impression made on my mind different from what is excited by the term ' nothing.' " "It is a very extraordinary instance of the force of prejudice, and much to be lamented, that the mind of man retains so great a fondness, against all the evidence of reason, for a stupid, thoughtless Somewhat, by the interposition of which it would, as it were, screen itself from the Providence of God, and remove it farther off from the affairs of the world." J A material substance, then, is unthinkable. Moreover, it would be of no possible use if we had it. " Though we give the materialists their external bodies, they, by their owh confession, are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced ; since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds can be no reason why we should suppose matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with or without this suppo- sition. ... In short, if there were external bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it ; and if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now. Suppose what no one can deny possible an intelligence, without the help of exter- nal bodies, to be affected with the same train of sensa- tions or ideas that you are, imprinted in the same order, and with like vividness in his mind. I ask whether that intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence of corporeal substances, represented by his ideas, and ex- citing them in his mind, that you can possibly have for be- lieving the same thing ? Of this there can be no question ; which one consideration were enough to make any reason- i68, 75 ,8o. The Growth of Empiricism 355 able person suspect the strength of whatever arguments he may think himself to have, for the existence of bodies without the mind." 1 To reiterate the main point, an unthinking matter does not exist, simply because it is inconceivable. " I am con- tent to put the whole upon this issue : If you can but conceive it possible for one extended movable substance, or, in general, for any one idea, or anything like an idea, to exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall readily give up the cause. And, as for all that compages of external bodies you contend for, I shall grant you its existence, though you cannot either give me any reason why you believe it exists, or assign any use to it when it is supposed to exist. I say, the bare possibility of your opinion's being true, shall pass for an argument that it is so. But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books ex- isting in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them. I an- swer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it ; but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind cer- tain ideas which you call books and trees, and at the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may per- ceive them ? But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the while ? This therefore is nothing to the pur- pose ; it only shows you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind ; but it does not show that you can conceive it possible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind. To make out this, it is necessary that_y0# conceive them existing unconceived, or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our ut- most to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the mind, taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can and does conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind, though at the same time they are apprehended by or exist in itself." 2 1 I9 20. a 22, 23. 356 A Student's History of Philosophy 2. God as the Cause of our Ideas. So much for the purely negative argument. But if we were to stop here, no one, probably, would be convinced. Is there, then, we ask, no reality outside our own fleeting ideas ? Can we say nothing beyond the fact that these ideas come and go ? Certainly we can ; and this brings us to the more constructive side of Berkeley's theory. In addition to the mere existence of ideas, there are two very important characteristics of our sense experience its necessity, and orderly coherence. "Whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actu- ally perceived by sense have not a like dependence on my will. When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to deter- mine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view." 1 So, also, sensations have a steadiness, order, and coherence; they are not excited at random, as those ideas which are the effect of human wills often are, but in a regular train or series. Let us, then, keep in mind these two conclusions : First, my ideas evidently require some cause beyond my own will ; and, second, this cause cannot be an unthinking matter a word to which no positive notion corresponds. Nor, clearly, can the ideas be the cause one of another. " All our ideas, sensations, notions, or the things which we perceive, are visibly inactive, there is nothing of power or agency included in them." 2 Is there, then, any other sort of reality known to us, apart from passive ideas, to which we may have recourse ? Yes ; in addition to ideas, we know ourselves, or spirits. As opposed to ideas, a spirit is a substance. " Besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remem- bering about them ; " 3 and that this substance which sup- ports or perceives ideas should itself be an idea, or like an idea, is evidently absurd. Instead of being passive, as 1 29. 2 25. 8 2. The Growth of Empiricism 357 ideas are, it is active. " All the unthinking objects of the mind agree in that they are entirely passive, and their exist- ence consists only in being perceived ; whereas a soul or spirit is an active being, whose existence consists, not in being perceived, but in perceiving ideas, and thinking." l We have no knowledge of any reality that is not one of these two sorts spirits, or ideas. "The former are ac- tive, indivisible substances ; the latter are inert, fleeting, dependent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in, minds or spiritual sub- stances." 2 We may say that we have a notion of spirit, although we have no idea or image of it. And now Berkeley's theory is ready for him. "We perceive a continual succession of ideas ; some are anew excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is, therefore, some cause of these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of ideas, is clear already. It must therefore be a substance ; but it has been shown that there is no corporeal or material sub- stance ; it remains, therefore, that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal, active substance, or spirit." 3 And since our own will is not equal to the task, there must be some other Will that produces ideas in us namely, God. Our ideas, that is, must have an objective cause. But instead of look- ing for this in an unthinkable matter, why not have re- course to a reality of the same type as that we know already in the knowledge of ourselves? In this hypothesis, we have everything that is needed to account for the objectivity, order, significance, and ne- cessity of our ideas. The objection that, if things are only ideas, we ought to be able to create a world to suit our- selves, is wholly without point ; there stands a power over against us, which, in sensation, determines the order our ideas shall follow. But such a controlling spirit will sat- isfy all the conditions. What we call the connection of 1 139- 2 89- 8 26. 358 A Student's History of Philosophy qualities in things, or the laws of nature, stands only for this : that by the divine power, one sensation is made to serve to us as a sign that we may, if we wish, get other concurrent sensations ; or that other sensations are about to follow. "The connection of ideas does not imply the relation of cause and effect, but only of a mark or sign, with the thing signified. The fire which I see is not the cause of the pain I suffer upon my approaching it, but the mark that forewarns me of it. In like manner the noise that I hear is not the effect of this or that motion or collision of the ambient bodies, but the sign thereof." This gives us a sort of foresight which enables us to regulate our actions for the benefit of life ; and we cannot reasonably demand anything more. " That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us ; that to sow in the seedtime is the way to reap in the harvest ; and, in general, that to obtain such or such ends, such or such means are conducive all this we know, not by discovering any necessary connection between our ideas, but only by the observation of the set- tled laws of nature, without which we should be all in un- certainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born. And yet this consistent uniform working, which so evidently displays the goodness and wisdom of that Governing Spirit whose Will constitutes the laws of nature, is so far from leading our thoughts to Him, that it rather sends them wandering after second causes." J 3. Answers to Objections. Having stated his theory, Berkeley goes on to anticipate the objections that will be brought against it. First, it will be objected " that by the foregoing principles all that is real and substantial in nature is banished out of the world, and instead thereof a chimerical scheme of ideas takes place. All things that exist, exist only in the mind, that is, they are purely notional. What, therefore, becomes of the sun, moon, and stars ? What must we think of houses, rivers, trees, 1 65, 31. 32. The Growth of Empiricism 359 stones ? Are all these but so many chimeras and illusions of fancy ? To all which I answer, that by the principles premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or under- stand, remains as secure as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force. . . . The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call matter, or corporeal sub- stance. And in doing this there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it." J The phrase " greater reality " has no meaning except as it indi- cates the superiority of certain ideas over others in vividness, coherency, and distinctness ; and in this sense the sun that I see by day is the real sun, and that which I imagine by night is the idea of the former. This also is an answer to the objection that there is a great difference between real fire, for instance, and the idea of fire, between dreaming or imagining oneself burnt, and actually being so. And it may be added, that " if real fire be very different from the idea of fire, so also is the real pain which it occasions very differ- ent from the idea of the same pain ; and yet nobody will pretend that real pain really is, or can possibly be, in an unperceiving thing, or without the mind, any more than its idea." 2 Again, "it will be objected that we see things actually without or at a distance from us, and which consequently do not exist in the mind ; it being absurd that those things which are seen at the distance of several miles, should be as near to us as our own thoughts." 3 In answer to this, Berkeley calls attention to the fact that in dreams, also, we seem to see things at a distance, which yet have no reality outside the mind; but he has a more adequate answer still. For in his famous New Theory of Vision, he had already attempted to prove that we do not see dis- tance at all ; all we get through the senses is sensations of color and touch. When one says that a thing is at a 1 34, 35- 2 41- 8 43. 360 A Student's History of Philosophy distance, what he unconsciously means is, that, in order to touch the thing, he foresees he would have to pass through certain locomotive or muscular sensations, more or less numerous according to the distance from him at which the thing is placed. Vision is simply a " language," in which, by an arbitrary connection, one sensation (of color) stands as sign for another (of movement). Or, do we object that, on this view, things are annihilated and created anew every time we shut and open our eyes ? Once more Berkeley asks : Why call this absurd, if we can get abso- lutely no notion of what a thing can be when it is not per- ceived ? And if it is " thought strangely absurd that upon closing my eyelids all the visible objects around me should be reduced to nothing, yet is not this what philosophers commonly acknowledge, when they agree on all hands that light and colors, which alone are the proper and immediate objects of sight, are mere sensations, that exist no longer than they are perceived ? " 2 And so Berkeley goes on with various other objections; and, although he does not meet them all with complete success, there is very little that has since been urged against him which he does not anticipate more or less clearly. Let us sum up once more. " Ideas imprinted on the senses are real things, or do really exist ; this we do not deny ; but we deny that they can subsist without the minds which perceive them, or that they are resem- blances of any archetypes existing without the mind ; since the very being of a sensation or idea consists in being perceived, and an idea can be like nothing but an idea. Again, the things perceived by sense may be termed external, with regard to their origin in that they are not generated from within by the mind itself, but imprinted by a Spirit distinct from that which per- ceives them. ... It were a mistake to think that what is here said derogates in the least from the reality of things. It is acknowledged, on the received principles, The Growth of Empiricism 361 that extension, motion, and in a word all sensible quali- ties, have need of a support, as not being able to subsist by themselves. But the objects perceived by sense are allowed to be nothing but combinations of those qualities, and consequently cannot subsist by themselves. Thus far it is agreed on all hands. So that in denying the things perceived by sense an existence independent of a sub- stance or support wherein they may exist, we detract nothing from the received opinion of their reality, and are guilty of no innovation in that respect. All the dif- ference is that, according to us, the unthinking beings perceived by sense have no existence distinct from being perceived, and cannot therefore exist in any other sub- stance than those unextended, indivisible substances, or spirits, which act and think and perceive them ; whereas philosophers vulgarly hold the sensible qualities do exist in an inert, extended, unperceiving substance which they call matter, to which they attribute a natural subsistence, exterior to all thinking beings, or distinct from being per- ceived by any mind whatsoever, even the eternal mind of the Creator." 1 4. The Consequences of the Theory for Religion. And now for some of the further advantages which Berkeley's system is to bring. In the first place, it will banish at once from philosophy a number of difficult ques- tions, about which men have puzzled their heads, and wasted their time to no purpose. Such questions as these, "whether corporeal substance can think," "whether mat- ter be infinitely divisible," and " how it operates on spirit," as well as all the problems which arise from assuming the real existence of space, are set aside at once as meaningless. But, also, there is a more far-reaching result, which for Berkeley is all-important the effect upon religion. For Berkeley's interest in philosophy is largely a religious in- terest ; and it seems to him that he has, in his Immaterial- ism, a potent weapon against the Agnosticism and Atheism 1 9, 91. 362 A Student's History of Philosophy of his day. It takes away the ground, in the first place, from Scepticism. " So long as we attribute a real exist- ence to unthinking things, distinct from their being per- ceived, it is not only impossible for us to know with evidence the nature of any real unthinking being, but even that it exists. Hence it is that we see philosophers distrust their senses, and doubt of the existence of heaven and earth, of everything they see or feel, even of their own bodies." 1 If, however, I mean by matter that which I actually perceive by the senses, it is as impossible for me to doubt this as it is to doubt my own being. And as the doctrine of matter " has been the main pillar of Scepticism, so likewise, on the same foundation, have been raised all the impious schemes of Atheism and Irre- ligion. . . . All these monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a dependence on it that, when this corner- stone is once removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground, insomuch that it is no longer worth while to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdi- ties of every wretched sect of Atheists." 2 Do we ask for proof of God ? It lies immediately before us, says Berke- ley, and is just as certain as the proof of our neighbor's existence. For as we do not see directly the very self of another man, but only certain bodily movements, which stand as signs to us of what is present in his mind, so is not nature a Divine Visual Language in which God speaks to us, a system of signs which, by their order and coherency, tell indubitably of a Mind behind them ? " It seems to be a general pretence of the unthinking herd that they cannot see God. Could we but see Him, say they, as we see a man, we should believe that He is, and believing obey His commands. But alas, we need only open our eyes to see the Sovereign Lord of all things, with a more full and clear view than we do any one of our fellow-creatures. A human spirit or person is not per- ceived by sense, as not being an idea ; when therefore we 1 88. 2 92. The Growth of Empiricism 363 see the color, size, figure, and motions of a man, we per- ceive only certain sensations or ideas excited in our own minds ; and these being exhibited to our view in sundry distinct collections, serve to mark out unto us the existence of finite and created spirits like ourselves. Hence it is plain we do not see a man if by man is meant that which lives, moves, perceives, and thinks as we do but only such a certain collection of ideas as directs us to think there is a distinct principle of thought and motion, like to ourselves, accompanying and represented by it. And after the same manner we see God ; all the difference is that, whereas some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas denotes a particular human mind, whithersoever we direct our view, we do at all times, and in all places, perceive manifest tokens of the Divinity : everything we see, hear, feel, or anywise perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of the power of God ; as is our perception of those very mo- tions which are produced by men." 1 By any true definition of language, therefore, God speaks to us as directly as one man to another. " Since you cannot deny that the great Mover and Author of na- ture constantly explaineth Himself to the eyes of men by the sensible intervention of arbitrary signs, which have no similitude or connection with the things signified ; so as, by compounding and disposing them, to suggest and ex- hibit an endless variety of objects, differing in nature, time, and place ; thereby informing and directing men how to act with respect to things distant and future, as well as near and present. In consequence, I say, of your own sentiments and concessions, you have as much reason to think the Universal Agent or God speaks to your eyes, as you can have for thinking any particular person speaks to your ears." 2 " It is therefore plain that nothing can be more evident to any one that is capable of the least reflection, than the existence of God, or a Spirit who is intimately present to 1 148. 2 Alciphron, Fourth Dialogue. (Eraser, Selections, p. 271.) 364 A Student's History of Philosophy our minds producing in them all that variety of ideas or sensations which continually affect us, on whom we have an absolute and entire dependence, in short, ' in whom we live, and move, and have our being.' That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifes- tations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them that they seem, as it were, blinded with excess of light." * 5. Sensation and Reason. If we follow the line of main emphasis in Berkeley's theory of knowledge, it would seem to lead to the position that we can know only our own ideas. As a matter of fact, this does not fully repre- sent his belief. There was for him, as has been seen, knowledge of other reality as well. We can know ourselves, to begin with, and our activities and relations to ideas, and these are nothing that can be represented by any definite image. " We may be said to have some knowledge or notion of our own minds, of spirits and active beings, whereof in a strict sense we have not ideas." 2 And as Berkeley's thought developed, he came to lay more and more stress on the intellectual framework of experience, by which we rise to truth and God, and less upon the side of sensations. " We know a thing when we understand it ; and we understand it when we can interpret or tell what it signifies. Strictly the sense knows nothing." 3 But his en- tire consistency here is perhaps a little dubious. Often, at least, he seems to speak as if the point from which we start, in knowledge, were a mass of unrelated " ideas " or sensations, and as if from these, by mere "experience," we finally arrive at their interpretation as the language of a divine Author. But if such a starting-point were granted, should we ever be in a position to reach, not merely this conclusion, but any conclusion at all? Could we be as- sured of the existence of any reality beyond the ideas 1 Treatise, 149. a 89. 8 Siris, 253. The Growth of Empiricism 365 themselves, of God, or even of other men? At any rate, the logic of this " new way of ideas " needed to be more rigidly examined than it hitherto had been, to deter- mine just where it was to lead. It was necessary that the consequences of Empiricism and Sensationalism the con- sequences, that is, of the attempt to found experience on a mere chance connection of isolated sensations should be carried out to their final issue. It was this work which Hume accomplished, and which constitutes his great sig- nificance in the history of thought. LITERATURE Berkeley, Chief Works : New Theory of Vision (1709) ; Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) ; Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713) ; Alciphron (1732) ; Siris (1744). Fraser, Selections. Fraser, Berkeley. Huxley, Critiques and Addresses. Mill, Essays. Morris, British Thought and Thinkers. McCosh, Realistic Philosophy. Tower, Relation of Berkeley's Later to his Earlier Idealism. 33. Hume David Hume was a Scotchman, born in Edinburgh in 171 1. His life was comparatively uneventful; the main interest in it centres in his literary and philosophical work and associations. His character was a mixture of the most kindly tolerance and good nature, with a shrewdness and penetrating critical insight in certain directions. He was, however, lacking on the idealistic and imaginative sides, and, consequently, in constructive ability. His own estimate of his character is essentially just. "To conclude historically with my own character, I am, or rather was (for that is the style I must now use in speaking of my- self, which emboldens me the more to speak my senti- 366 A Student's History of Philosophy ments) ; I was, I say, a man of mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the recep- tion I met with from them. In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of cal- umny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her bale- ful tooth ; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct; not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability." Hume died calmly and cheerfully, expect- ing his end, in 1776. I. The Analysis of Knowledge. It has already been said that the significance of Hume's philosophy lies in the way in which he carries the empirical and sensationalistic tendencies in the thought of Locke and Berkeley to their conclusion. The psychology, accordingly, on which he bases his results, follows that of his predecessors, except that it is more unambiguous. Every possible object of knowledge is reduced either to an impression or an idea. " The difference between these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with most force and vio- lence, we may name impressions ; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as The Growth of Empiricism 367 they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning ; such as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse, excepting only those which arise from the sight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or uneasiness it may occasion. I believe it will not be very necessary to employ many words in explaining this distinction. Every one of himself will readily perceive the difference betwixt feeling and thinking." l In general, ideas seem to correspond closely to impressions, differing only in the degree of force and vivacity. There is another division among ideas which also is self- evident that between simple and complex ideas. And this last division tends to modify somewhat the statement just made, about the resemblance between ideas and im- pressions. " I observe that many of our complex ideas never had impressions that corresponded to them, and that many of our complex impressions never are exactly copied in ideas. I can imagine to myself such a city as the New Jerusalem, whose pavement is gold, and walls are rubies, though I never saw any such. I perceive, therefore, that though there is in general a great resemblance betwixt our complex impressions and ideas, yet the rule is not univer- sally true, that they are exact copies of each other. We may next consider how the case stands with our simple perceptions. After the most accurate examinations of which I am capable, I venture to affirm that the rule here holds without any exception, and that every simple idea has a simple impression which resembles it; and every simple impression a correspondent idea. That idea of red which we form in the dark, and that impression which strikes our eyes in sunshine, differ only in degree, not in nature." 2 And as complex ideas go back ultimately to simple, we may affirm, in general, that the two species of perception are exactly correspondent. Accordingly we are led to the general conclusion that all our simple ideas 1 Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt I, I. 2 Ibid. 368 A Student's History of Philosophy in their first appearance are derived from simple impres- sions, which they exactly represent. These impressions and ideas, then, are the sole contents of the human mind, all of them going back originally to impressions. And if, accordingly, we are to be able to es- tablish the reality of any supposed fact, we must be in a position to point out the definite, concrete impression which it is, or reproduces. " Since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are derived from something antecedently present to the mind, it follows that it is impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of anything specifically different from ideas and im- pressions. Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imaginations to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe : we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence but those perceptions which have appeared in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produced." 1 2. Criticism of the Self. Now on these principles it of course follows that, as Berkeley clearly pointed out, there can be no such thing as a material substance ; reality is coex- tensive with ideas. " I would fain ask those philosophers who found so much of their reasonings on the distinction of substance and accident, and imagine we have clear ideas of each, whether the idea of substance be derived from the impressions of sensation or reflection. If it be conveyed to us by our senses, I ask, which of them ; and after what manner ? If it be perceived by the eyes, it must be a color ; if by the ears, a sound ; if by the palate, a taste ; and so of the other senses. But I believe none will assert that sub- stance is either a color, or sound, or a taste. The idea of substance must therefore be derived from an impression of reflection, if it really exist. But the impressions of reflec- tion resolve themselves into our passions and emotions ; 1 Bk. I, Pt. II, 6. The Growth of Empiricism 369 none of which can possibly represent a substance. We have, therefore, no idea of substance, distinct from that of a collection of particular qualities, nor have we any other meaning when we either talk or reason concerning it. The idea of a substance is nothing but a collection of simple ideas that are united by the imagination, and have a par- ticular name assigned them." 1 But is it possible to stop here ? Berkeley had insisted that we cannot know material substance; but, neverthe- less, he had supposed that spiritual substance the self, or soul we can know. And it was by using the self as an instrument, that he was enabled to build up his positive theory of reality. But, once again, we must ask, What is the positive impression on which the idea of a self, or spirit, is based ? Berkeley had himself admitted that there is no such impression. The self is not an idea. We only have a notion of it, which can be represented by no definite image. But in that case, the self, or spiritual substance, has no more foundation than material substance; both must go together. " I desire those philosophers, who pretend that we have an idea of the substance of our minds, to point out the impression that produces it, and tell distinctly after what manner that impression operates, and from what object it is derived. Is it an impression of sensation or of reflection ? Is it pleasant, or painful, or indifferent ? Does it attend us at all times, or does it only return at intervals ? If at inter- vals, at what times principally does it return, and by what causes is it produced ? " 2 " There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF ; that we feel its existence, and its continuance in existence ; and are certain, beyond the evi- dence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. . . . For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself t I always stumble on some particu- lar perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love 1 Bk. I, Pt. I, 6. 2 Bk. I, Pt. IV, 5 (Selby-Bigge's edition, p. 233). 2B 370 A Student's History of Philosophy or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I in- sensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, not feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect nonentity. If any one, upon serious and unpreju- diced reflection, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself, though I am certain there is no such principle in me. " But, setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance, pass, re-pass, glide away, and min- gle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind ; nor have we the most distant notion of the place where these scenes are represented, or of the materials of which it is composed." * 3. Criticism of the Idea of Cause. Now, no doubt the belief in an identical self needs to be accounted for. This, however, we may postpone for a little, and take up what constitutes Hume's most important contribution to philos- i Bk. I, Pt. IV, 6 (p. 251). The Growth of Empiricism 371 ophy. There are certain all-pervading relations, outside the relation to a self, which seem to bind together our ideas to form what we know as knowledge. These also need to be criticised in order to make sure they are legitimate, and go back to definite impressions. And since the most important of these relations is that of cause and effect, we may con- fine ourselves to this. The necessity of the causal rela- tion had throughout conditioned Berkeley's advance from the mere existence of ideas, to his conception of the world as a universal and rational system of signs, dependent upon God. And he had found, as he thought, a basis for the reality of causation, in that free activity of Spirit, which is not, indeed, picturable to the imagination, but which is rationally intelligible. Is this, now, to be justified ? Again there is the same inexorable demand: what is the impres- sion from which the idea of cause is derived ? Is there any such impression that we are able to point out ? " Let us cast our eye on any two objects, which we call cause and effect, and turn them on all sides, in order to find that impression which produces an idea of such pro- digious consequence. At the first sight, I perceive that I must not search for it in any of the particular qualities of the object; since, whichever of these qualities I pitch on, I find some object that is not possessed of it, and yet falls under the denomination of cause and effect." 1 The idea, then, must be derived from some relation among objects. Now when I examine the matter, I find two such relations present contiguity and succession. But these do not ex- haust what I mean by causation ; an idea may be contigu- ous and prior to another without being considered as its cause. There is still something more to be added of prime importance ; and that is, the idea of necessary connection. But what is the nature of this necessary connection, and where is the impression from which it is derived. The more we consider it, the more puzzling the question appears. Search as I will, the only relations between objects that I i Bk. I, Pt. in, 2 ( P . 75). 372 A Student's History of Philosophy discern are " those of contiguity and succession, which I have already regarded as imperfect and unsatisfactory. Shall the despair of success make me assert that I am here possessed of an idea which is not preceded by any similar impression ? This would be too strong a proof of levity and inconstancy, since the contrary principle has been already so firmly established." 1 Let us, then, turn from the question for the moment, and take up two related questions, in the hope that these may incidentally throw some light on the matter in hand. First, for what reason do we pronounce it necessary that everything whose exist- ence has a beginning should also have a cause? And, secondly, why do we conclude that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects, and what is the nature of that inference we draw from the one to the other, and of the belief we repose in it ? Hume disposes of the first question by denying that the necessity exists. " Here is an argument which proves at once that the foregoing proposition is neither intuitively nor demonstrably certain. . . . As all distinct ideas are separable from each other, and as the idea of cause and effect are evidently distinct, 'twill be easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent this moment, and existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or productive principle. The separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence, is plainly possible for the imagination ; and consequently the actual separation of these objects is so far possible, that it implies no contradiction nor absurdity ; and is, therefore, incapable of being refuted by any reasoning from mere ideas ; without which 'tis impossible to demonstrate the necessity of a cause." 2 Accordingly we shall find, upon examination, that every demonstration which has been produced for the necessity of a cause is fallacious and sophistical. If, then, the belief in the necessity of a cause does not 1 Bk. I, Pt. Ill, 2 (p. 77). 2 Bk. I, Pt. Ill, 3. The Growth of Empiricism 373 go back to any intuitive or demonstrative truth, it must come from observation and experience. How does experi- ence give rise to such a principle ? And Hume finds it convenient to consider this in the less general form : why do we believe that any particular cause will necessarily be followed by some particular effect ? And the only reason there can be, is that we have found this effect to follow in the past. " Thus we remember to have seen that species of object we c&\\ flame, and to have felt that species of sensa- tion we call heat. We likewise call to mind their constant conjunction in all past instances. Without any farther ceremony, we call the one cause and the other effect, and infer the existence of the one from that of the other." " Thus in advancing, we have insensibly discovered a new relation betwixt cause and effect, when we least ex- pected it. This relation is their constant conjunction. Contiguity and succession are not sufficient to make us pronounce any two objects to be cause and effect, unless we perceive that these two relations are preserved in sev- eral instances. We may now see the advantage of quitting the direct survey of this relation, in order to discover the nature of that necessary connection, which makes so essen- tial a part of it. ... Having found that after the discov- ery of the constant conjunction of any objects, we always draw an inference from one object to another, we shall now examine the nature of that inference, and of the transition from the impression to the idea. Perhaps 'twill appear in the end, that the necessary connection depends on the inference, instead of the inference's depending on the necessary connection." 1 First, then, is the transition, which inference involves, due to the reason, or to the mere association of ideas in the imagination ? If reason determined us, it could only be in the form of a conclusion from the premise that nature is uniform, or that instances of which we have had no ex- perience must resemble those of which we have had expe- i Bk. I, Ft. Ill, 6 (p. 87). 374 A Students History of Philosophy rience. But this is something it is entirely impossible to establish, even with probability. The inference must, therefore, be an affair of the imagination. At first this seems unlikely, in view of the strength of belief, when compared with that which attaches to the mere fancies of the imagination. Hume is thus led to a consideration of the nature of belief ; and he finds that the only difference between an idea we believe, and a mere fancy, is the supe- rior force and liveliness of the former. A belief is some- what more than a simple idea ; it is a particular manner of forming an idea ; and the same idea can only be varied by a variation of its degree of force and vivacity. What is it, then, that makes the idea of an effect so lively that I believe in it ? This goes back again to the general principle, that any present impression has the power, not only of transporting the mind to such ideas as are related to it, but also of communicating to them a share of its own force and vivacity. The cause stands for such a present impression ; and the peculiar strength of belief which attaches to the causal inference is due to the fact that, by constant conjunction, the relation has acquired the force of custom, or habit. Now as all objective knowledge, that goes beyond pres- ent impressions, is based upon causation, custom governs all our thinking, and custom only. "Thus all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. 'Tis not solely in poetry and music we must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy. When I am con- vinced of any principle, it is 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 concerning the superiority of their influence. Objects have no discoverable connection to- gether ; nor is it from any other principle but custom, that we can draw any inference from the appearance of one to the existence of another." J i Bk. I, Pt. Ill, 8 (p. 103). The Growth of Empiricism 375 We are now ready to go back to the idea of necessary connection, and see what light has been cast upon it. To sum up the argument briefly : So long as I regard one instance of causation only, I cannot discover anything beyond the relations of contiguity and succession. " I therefore enlarge my view to comprehend several instances, where I find like objects always existing in like relations of contiguity and succession. At first sight this seems to serve but little to my purpose. The reflection on several instances only repeats the same objects, and therefore can never give rise to a new idea. But upon farther inquiry, I find that the repetition is not in every particular the same, but produces a new impression, and by that means the idea which I at present examine. For, after a frequent repetition, I find that, upon the appear- ance of one of the objects, the mind is determined by cus- tom to consider its usual attendant, and to consider it in a stronger light upon account of its relation to the first ob- ject. It is this impression, then, or determination, which affords me the idea of necessity." 1 Now this conclusion amounts to neither more nor less than this : that what we call power, or force, or causal efficiency, exists not at all in objects, but only in the mind. In a discussion in which we need not follow him, Hume shows how all attempts to give a positive content to these terms, as objective realities, have failed. Once more, there must be some impression at the basis of the term, if it represents anything real ; and there is nothing in objects to supply this impression. " Since the idea of power is a new original idea, not to be found in any one instant, and which yet arises from the repetition of several instances, it follows that the repetition alone has not that effect, but must either discover or produce something new, which is the source of that idea." Now it is evident that the repe- tition of like objects in like relations of succession and contiguity, discovers nothing new in any of them ; and i Bk. I, Ft. Ill, 14 (P. 155)- 376 A Students History of Philosophy it is equally certain that this repetition produces nothing new, either in these objects or in any external body. " These ideas, therefore, represent not anything that does or can belong to the objects which are constantly con- joined. But though the several resembling instances, which give rise to the idea of power, have no influence on each other, and can never produce any new quality in the object, yet the observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in the mind, which is its real model. For after we have observed the resemblance in a sufficient number of instances, we immediately feel a determination of the mind to pass from one object to its usual attendant, and conceive it in a stronger light upon account of that relation. This determination is the only effect of the re- semblance; and therefore must be the same with power or efficacy, whose idea is derived from the resemblance. The several instances of resembling conjunctions lead us into the notion of power and necessity. These instances are in themselves totally distinct from each other, and have no union but in the mind which observes them, and collects their ideas. Necessity, then, is the effect of this observation, and is nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another. . . . Necessity is something that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, considered as a quality in bodies." " I am sensible that, of all the paradoxes which I have had, or shall hereafter have occasion to advance in the course of this treatise, the present one is the most violent, and that 'tis merely by dint of solid proof and reasoning I can ever hope it will have admission, and overcome the in- veterate prejudices of mankind. ... The contrary notion is so riveted in the mind, that I doubt not but my sentiments will be treated by many as extravagant and ridiculous. What! the efficacy of causes lie in the determination of the mind ! As if causes did not operate entirely inde- The Growth of Empiricism 377 pendent of the mind, and would not continue their oper- ation, even though there was no mind existent to con- template them, or reason concerning them. Thought may well depend upon causes for its operation, but not causes on thought. ... I can only reply that the case here is much the same as if a blind man should pretend to find a great many absurdities in the supposition that the color of scarlet is not the same with the sound of a trumpet, nor light the same with solidity. If we have really no idea of a power or efficacy in any object, or of any real connection betwixt causes and effects, 'twill be to little purpose to prove that an efficacy is necessary in all operations. We do not understand our own meaning in talking so, but igno- rantly confound ideas which are entirely distinct from each other. I am, indeed, ready to allow that there may be several qualities, both in material and immaterial objects, with which we are utterly unacquainted ; and if we please to call these power or efficacy, 'twill be of little consequence to the world. But when, instead of meaning these un- known qualities, we make the terms of power and efficacy signify something of which we have a clear idea, and which is incompatible with these objects to which we apply it, obscurity and error begin then to take place, and we are led astray by a false philosophy. This is the case when we transfer the determination of the thought to external objects, and suppose any real intelligible connection be- twixt them ; that being a quality which can only belong to the mind that considers them." 1 4. Origin of a Belief in the External World. In dis- cussing the nature of causation, we have frequently been led into falling in with the popular notion, and speak- ing of objects as if they existed outside the mind. It is time to recall the fact, however, that in reality it is only our own ideas that we can directly know. And since the principle of causation has now been resolved into mere ex- pectation, due to custom, there is no way of getting outside 1 Bk. i, R. ill, 14 (pp. 163-168). 378 A Student's History of Philosophy these purely subjective facts of consciousness. The world, as with Berkeley, is a complex of sensations ; but not an ordered and interpretable complex, which speaks to us the language of a divine Author. By no possibility can it logically lead us beyond itself and such empirically dis- covered, habitual sequences as experience reveals. But how, then, do we come to think that it is otherwise ? How out of a flux of unrelated feelings, never repeated, do we evolve an independent world of identical things, and iden- tical selves ? Briefly, Hume's answer is something as follows : " We may observe that 'tis neither upon account of the involun- tariness of certain impressions, as is commonly supposed, nor of their superior force and violence, that we attribute to them a reality and continued existence, which we refuse to others that are voluntary and feeble. For 'tis evident our pains and pleasures, our passions and affections, which we never suppose to have any existence beyond our per- ception, operate with greater violence, and are equally involuntary, as the impressions of figure and extension, color and sound, which we suppose to be permanent beings. The heat of a fire, when moderate, is supposed to exist in the fire ; but the pain which it causes on a near approach, is not taken to have any being except in the perception." * These vulgar opinions, then, being rejected, we must search for some other hypothesis. And Hume finds it convenient to divide the question into two : what is the cause of our belief, first in the contimied existence of ob- jects, and, second, in their distinct existence ? And after a little examination, we shall find that all those objects to which we attribute a continued existence, have a peculiar constancy ; or, if they change, they show a coherence in their changes. " These mountains, and houses, and trees which lie at present under my eye, have always appeared to me in the same order; and when I lose sight of them by shutting my eyes, or turning my head, I soon after find 1 Bk. I, Pt. IV, 2 (p. 194). The Growth of Empiricism 379 them return upon me without the least alteration. My bed and table, my books and papers, present themselves in the same manner, and change not upon account of any interruption in my perceiving them." So also, " when I return to my chamber after an hour's absence, though I find not my fire in the same situation in which I left it, still I am accustomed in other instances to see a like alteration produced in a like time, whether I am present or absent." But now how does this constancy and coherence of cer- tain impressions go about to produce so extraordinary an opinion as that of the continued existence of body ? The answer is found in a peculiar tendency of the imagination. " When we have been accustomed to observe a constancy in certain impressions, and have found that the perception of sun or ocean, for instance, returns upon us after an ab- sence or annihilation with like parts, and in a like order, as at its first appearance, we are not apt to regard these interrupted perceptions as different (which they really are), but on the contrary consider them as individually the same, upon account of their resemblance." "This resem- blance is observed in a thousand instances, and naturally connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to another. An easy transition or passage of the imagination, along the ideas of these different and interrupted perceptions, is almost the same disposition of mind with that in which we consider one constant and uninterrupted perception. The thought slides along the succession with equal facility as if it considered only one object ; and therefore confounds the succession with the identity." And so from this propensity arises the fiction of the continued existence of objects ; which is intended to disguise as much as possible the interruption of our ideas, and enable us to gratify our inclination to regard them as identical. The same thing comes about from the side of coherence. " The imagination, when set 380 A Student's History of Philosophy into any train of thinking, is apt to continue even when its object fails it, and, like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse. Ob- jects have a certain coherence even as they appear to our senses ; but this coherence is much greater and more uni- form, if we suppose the objects to have a continued exist- ence ; and as the mind is once in the train of observing an uniformity among objects, it naturally continues, till it renders the uniformity as complete as possible." But now, although the imagination has a strong tendency thus to regard objects as identical, and possessing a con- tinued existence, just as soon as we consider the matter, must not our reason tell us that it is not so ? Since our perceptions, and objects, are one and the same thing, the actual interruption of our ideas is always there, to contra- dict the propensity for imagining them continuous. In- stead of rejecting this last opinion, however, as logically they should have done, men have striven to retain both be- liefs ; and a conflict has necessarily been the result. " In order to set ourselves at ease in this particular, we contrive a new hypothesis, which seems to comprehend both these principles of reason and imagination. This hypothesis is the philosophical one of the double existence of perceptions and objects ; which pleases our reason, in allowing that our dependent perceptions are interrupted and different ; and at the same time is agreeable to the imagination, in attributing a continued existence to something else, which we call objects. This philosophical system, therefore, is the monstrous offspring of two principles which are con- trary to each other, which are both at once embraced by the mind, and which are unable mutually to destroy each other. Not being able to reconcile these two enemies, we endeavor to set ourselves at ease as much as possible, by successively granting to each whatever it demands, and by feigning a double existence, where each may find some- thing that has all the conditions it desires." 1 In a some- 1 Bk. I, Pt. iv, 2 (pp. 194-198, 215). The Growth of Empiricism 381 what similar way, Hume goes on to account for the fiction of a substantial soul beneath our ideas. 5. Scepticism. And so we have reasoned ourselves into a frame of mind where the solid fabric of the world dis- solves like a dream before our eyes, or passes into a kaleidoscopic unreality of change. But can we really accept this result? Is it possible honestly to believe it? No ; Hume admits that no one will be permanently con- vinced. As long as our attention is bent upon the subject, the philosophical and studied principle may prevail; but the moment we relax our thoughts, nature will display her- self, and draw us back to our former belief in the reality of permanent and identical things. And yet if our reason tells us that actually the contrary opinion is true, must we not of necessity follow its leading ? But what is belief ? Nothing, once more, but the liveliness and force with which an idea strikes us. Reason, then, furnishes no assured test ; indeed, reason has peculiar disadvantages of its own. The moment we have set to work to reason, then a doubt as to the validity of our reasoning is possible, nay, is forced upon us. This we must justify by a new argument ; and this, again, by another ; and all the time we are getting farther and farther away from those clear and immediate impres- sions, on which the possibility of belief depends, until at last there remains nothing of the original probability, how- ever great we may suppose it to have been, and however small the diminution by every new uncertainty. Our im- mediate and instinctive beliefs yield to our reason, which for the moment carries with it the greater vividness. But the more refined and intricate it becomes, the less this vividness of belief can belong to it ; and the moment the mind relaxes, we swing back to our natural opinions. The mind is in a strait 'twixt the two ; now one is uppermost, and now the other. Is, then, absolute scepticism the final word of philosophy ? Are we to refuse to believe at all, by reason of the dilemma in which we find ourselves ? " Should it here be asked me, 382 A Student's History of Philosophy whether I sincerely assent to the argument which I seem to take such pains to inculcate, and whether I be really one of those sceptics who hold that all is uncertain, and that our judgment is not in any thing possessed of any measure of truth and falsehood, I should reply, that this question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I nor any other person was ever sincerely and constantly of that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable neces- sity, has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and feel. Whoever has taken the pains to, refute the cavils of this total scepticism, has really disputed without an antago- nist, and endeavored by arguments to establish a faculty which nature has antecedently implanted in the mind, and rendered unavoidable. My intention, then, in displaying so carefully the arguments of that fantastic sect, 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 but custom ; and that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures." * The result of Hume's inquiry is, therefore, not to de- stroy belief, that is an impossibility, but to do away with the false assumption of its certain and demonstrable character. We believe, not because we can prove our opinions, but because we cannot help believing. If we are of the opinion that " fire warms or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise." Our belief is due to custom and instinct, not to reason. Accordingly, we can never guard ourselves against the assaults of scepticism. "This sceptical doubt, both with respect to reason and the senses, is a malady which can never be radically cured, but must return upon us any moment, however we may chase it away, and sometimes may seem entirely free from it. 'Tis impossible upon any system to defend either our understanding or our senses, and we but expose them farther when we endeavor to iBk-IjR. IV, i (p. 183). The Growth of Empiricism 383 justify them in that manner. As the sceptical doubt arises naturally from a profound and intense reflection on those subjects, it always increases the farther we carry our reflections, whether in opposition or in conformity to it. Carelessness and inattention alone can afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them ; and take it for granted, whatever may be the reader's opinion at this moment, that an hour hence he will be persuaded there is both an external and an internal world." 1 " I am first affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When I look abroad, I foresee on every side dispute, contra- diction, anger, calumny, and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me ; though such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesita- tion, and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning." " After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason why I should assent to it, and feel nothing but a strong propensity to consider objects strongly in that view, under which they appear to me. The mem- ory, senses, and understanding are all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas. Yet if we assent to every trivial suggestion of the fancy, beside that these suggestions are often contrary to each other, they lead us into such errors, absurdities, and obscurities, that we must at last become ashamed of our credulity." " But, on the other hand, if the consideration of these instances make us take a resolution to reject all the trivial suggestions of the fancy, and adhere to the understanding, that is, to the general and more established properties of the imagination ; even this resolution, if steadily executed, would be dangerous, and attended with the most fatal 1 Bk. I, Pt. iv, 2 (p. 218). 384 A Student's History of Philosophy consequences. For I have already shown that the under- standing, when it acts alone and according to its most general principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of evidence in any proposition either in philosophy or common life." " Most fortunately it happens that, since reason is in- capable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melan- choly and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation and lively impression of my senses which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends ; and when, after three or four hours' amusement, I return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther." 1 6. The Opponents of Hume. The thoroughgoing na- ture of Hume's conclusions was itself the promise of a new epoch. So long as the impulse to knowledge exists in man, he cannot rest content with such an outcome. Nor can society be satisfied with so insecure a basis. Religious, political, and moral faiths already seemed for educated men to be endangered by the hostile criticism of the Rational- ists ; nevertheless, there was still present, to steady men, a confidence in the power of reason to reach grounded truth a confidence which received its most powerful support from the notable success of science. But if that same em- pirical study of facts, on which men prided themselves, really carried with it the logical conclusions which Hume maintained, then reason itself was no longer to be depended on. And with reason, science too must fall, all its certainty and necessity vanish, and man's knowledge reduce itself to a mere expectation that things will happen as they have been wont to happen in the past, with no surer ground for it than the bare fact that we are accustomed so to believe. 1 Bk. I, Pt. IV, 7 (a condensed quotation, taken from Aikins' Philosophy of Hume). The Growth of Empiricism 385 The attempt to go back of Hume's premises, and to correct the presuppositions which led to his sceptical con- clusions, was made independently by two philosophers. The first was the Scotchman Reid, who found the root of the trouble in the " new way of ideas " the supposition, namely, that it is only with our own ideas that we come in contact. Instead of being, as Hume maintained, shut up to the knowledge of our own sensations, Reid took his stand on what he held to be the belief of common sense, that we have an immediate intuition of external reality as such. And we have a similar intuition of several universal truths, such as the principle of causation, which are not themselves mere ideas, but the original constitution of our minds, and by which our empirical experience can be regu- lated and judged. Reid was the founder of a consider- able school the so-called Scottish school which has had a strong influence on English thought, and which is repre- sented by such men as Dugald Stewart and Sir William Hamilton. But Reid's merits have almost been lost sight of, in the fame of one who attempted what was essentially the same problem, but with greater insight and depth. This was the German philosopher, Kant. It was Hume who helped set Kant on the track of a conception, which was to revolutionize philosophy. First, however, it will be necessary to speak briefly of certain other aspects of the period just considered, and to note the beginnings of a new influence, which also was to find philosophical ex- pression in Kant. LITERATURE Hume, Chief Works : Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740) ; Es- says (1741-1742) ; Inquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) ; Inquiry concerning Principles of Morals (1751) ; Natural History of Religion (1757); Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779). Aikins, Selections. Huxley, Hume. Knight, Hume. Green, Introduction to Hume. 2C 386 A Students History of Philosophy McCosh, Scottish Philosophy. Seth, Scottish Philosophy. Hyslop, Hume's Ethics. Fraser, Thomas Reid. Orr, David Hume and his Influence in Philosophy and Theology. Elkin, Hume. Calderwood, David Hume. Laurie, Scottish Philosophy in its National Development. 34. The Enlightenment. Deism. The Ethical Development i. The Spirit of the Enlightenment. In considering the course of philosophical development from Descartes to Hume, we have thus far been concerned chiefly with its more technical and theoretical side. But there is another aspect of it also, which it is of great importance to understand. This has to do with the manner in which, along with other influences, it affected the general life and culture of the times, so as to give to this a distinct and peculiar character. The result is what is known as the period of the Enlighten- ment ; and this may now be considered briefly. The Renaissance had been the product of a great wave of enthusiasm, which for the time had carried everything before it. To the fresh forces which had been suddenly revealed in man, nothing seemed impossible. Cold caution, a sober criticism of the mind and its powers, an under- standing of the historical conditions in which the new movements had their root, were felt to be unnecessary in the flush of victorious anticipation. But as the impetus slackened, a different attitude began to grow up. The force of inspiration spent itself, and the inevitable disillusionment followed. As the dreams of an Eldorado, and of unlimited gold, which had inspired the early voyages of discovery, gave place to the hardships of a new land to be conquered and settled, so the confident faith in the new spiritual powers that were to lay open the secrets of the universe, grew more dim as time advanced. Meta- physical interests began to lose their attraction. Men in general were not ready indeed to accept the Pyrrhonism of The Growth of Empiricism 387 such thinkers as Montaigne and Pascal ; but the sceptical spirit, nevertheless, was beginning to tell. Perhaps, after all, man was not made to know the ultimate truth of the universe. Certainly his attempts so far had not met with the success that had been hoped. Meanwhile there were things close at hand which he might know. Let him turn from transcendental inquiries, and busy himself with hu- man interests which alone are really vital; the proper study of mankind is man. And he will find plenty here that is urgently demanding his attention. Along with the spiritual revolution that had come about, there had been inevitable changes in the structure of society as well. But these changes had been rather unconscious than premeditated; and in many cases the institutions, ecclesiastical and feudal, of Mediaevalism, still persisted in one form or another under these changed con- ditions, and weighed heavily upon the new ideals and ambi- tions. Moreover, the old beliefs for which the Church stood beliefs which the thinkers of the Renaissance had almost contemptuously discarded were by no means dead ; and now as the force of the new movement was spent, they again came to the front and allied themselves with the reactionary tendencies in the social and political world, to oppose any further change. Even the Renais- sance itself added something to the problem. Just as chivalry degenerated into the caricature of itself which Cervantes ridiculed, so the enthusiasm of the Renaissance died away, only to leave behind its extravagances and ex- crescences ; and these bubbles required also to be pricked. The result was the period of the Enlightenment, which belongs especially to the eighteenth century. The most obvious features of the Enlightenment are its practical and unimaginative character, its hatred of vague enthusiasms, and misty ideals and ideas, its determination to apply the test of a severely accurate reason to everything, and reject outright whatever will not stand the test, and the constant reference in all this, as the court of final appeal, to the one 388 A Student's History of Philosophy undoubted fact the individual himself, with his rights, and his rational powers of understanding. The result is a type of thought which does not enlist our sympathies very strongly, but which, nevertheless, had a most valuable work to do. Let us consider once more the situation which it had to meet. After the long period of the Middle Ages, man had once more become conscious of himself; had recognized by the sudden bloom within him of unexpected powers, that he was not merely a member of society or of the Church, not merely one to take orders from some higher power, whether man or God, but a free spirit, who could sit in judgment upon whatever was offered to him for his acceptance, and could demand that the world satisfy his cravings for fulness of life. But the grip of vested interests was too strong to be broken all at once. A long period of conflict had to intervene before the individual could be completely liberated, set off by himself, and recog- nized with a distinctness which should secure for him his rights through all the future. And this process was necessarily critical and negative. First it must be shown what man is not. He must be stripped of restraints which hold him in. He must be set up over against society, and religion, and even moral law, as having a nature not to be coerced by these things. He must revolt against conventions which his inner life does not realize, and prove his freedom by testing all things, human and divine. This work was done by the Enlighten- ment, and done so thoroughly, that the conception of the individual which it worked out is the dominant conception even to the present day. The result was one-sided. It gave the individual his rights, indeed, but in trying to make him independent of all that concrete environment which institutions represent, it also emptied his life of real content. But nevertheless, it represented a work that had to be done before progress could be made. It was the task of the succeeding period a period not yet completed to remedy this one-sidedness and abstractness, with- The Growth of Empiricism 389 out losing the positive advantage that the Enlightenment had won. The method of the Enlightenment, therefore, was pri- marily the critical intellect severe, dispassionate, destruc- tive, with little of light and warmth in it Any sympathy with the views they were tearing to pieces, and appreci- ation of their relative truth anything of what we now call the historical sense was in the thinkers of the Enlightenment almost wholly lacking. It is not very strange, indeed, that this was so. They were fighting that which had all the weight of authority on its own side, and which was far from being disposed itself to be conciliatory. Nor, perhaps, could there have been a better weapon against the great mass of unreasoning traditional beliefs, than just the unsympathetic logical intellect, tinged with ridicule, and appealing to those hard facts which common sense can appreciate without difficulty, and which have an obvious bearing on the more solid and practical interests of human life. We may be inclined now to find fault with the contemptuous rejection of the enthusiasms and deeper intu- itions which cannot be compressed into a clear cut formula all the feeling side of life. But the Enlighteners had a justification in their attitude. If any one can be allowed to fall back upon feeling, that is the end of all argument. What we need is clear ideas, facts that can be grasped and defined. Feeling confuses thought ; and, furthermore, it tends first of all to gather around those things to which we have been used by custom, and so forms the mainstay of all that opposition to progress which it was the function of reason to demolish. The necessary consequence was, however, that the thought of the Enlightenment was superficial, lacking insight and atmosphere, blind to the deeper elements of the human spirit. Sundering himself as he did from the life of the race, and the historical background which had shaped his own opinions as truly as those he was criticis- ing, judging everything without reference to its setting, and 390 A Student's History of Philosophy by the sole test of an abstract logic, it is not strange that the man of the Enlightenment should often have shown a very unenlightened attitude toward beliefs which did not fit into his logical scheme, and so seemed to him vague and worthless, but which in reality were far truer, in the highest sense, than anything to which his own insight reached. The type has its classical expression in English literature in Pope, and the Essay on Man. The characteristic features of the Enlightenment took their rise in England, where the greater peace and security allowed an attention to disinterested inquiry earlier than on the continent. From England it influenced the France of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, where it attained a peculiarly distinct and brilliant development. In Germany, the influence of Leibniz continued to be dominant, but Leibniz as systematized by Wolff, in a highly rationalistic system, from which the most valuable elements were lost. It was from this school that Kant, the philosopher of the new era, was to spring. A brief account of a movement so widespread will necessarily have to be very sketchy and inadequate. 2. The Deistic Movement. In England, it will be enough, in addition to what has already been said in con- nection with Locke, to notice two movements the growth of Deism, and the development of ethical theory. Deism was an attempt to get rid of the supposed irrational ele- ments of Christianity. It begins with a desire to explain away the mysteries of Church dogma, and to show that between revelation and reason there is no contradiction. Thus, in Locke, it calls men back from theology to the simplicity and reasonableness of the New Testament, whose one essential article of faith is the Messiahship of Christ. Revelation is not for the purpose of adding any mysteries of faith, but serves only as a practical means of convincing men through its miracles. But soon the emphasis on the reasonableness of revela- tion passed into the feeling that, if reason alone is compe- The Growth of Empiricism 391 tent to reach God, revelation is superfluous. Accordingly, the attempt to rationalize the Bible narratives and doctrines, gave place to the much simpler attitude of open hostility, which admitted their irrationality, and made the most of it. Over against revealed religion, therefore, was placed the Deistic creed of so-called Natural Religion. This nat- ural religion showed all the limitations of the rationalistic temper, and practically resulted in removing God as far as possible from the world, and the immediate life of men. It had little content beyond the belief in a God who made the universe, and set it in motion, and who has laid down certain laws of conduct for men in the moral law. Positive religions are only corruptions of this natural and rational religious creed. Of course this precluded any sympathetic appreciation of their historical meaning, or of a possible truth underlying their imperfect statements of doctrine. They are due solely to the selfish cunning of priests and rulers, and are, accordingly, to be attacked with every weapon at command. Among the more important Deists are Toland, Collins, Tindal, Chubb, and Morgan. On the whole, Deism had but little success in maintaining itself against the cham- pions of revelation. It represented, indeed, a position of unstable equilibrium. As it opposed the Biblical account of God's dealings with the world, chiefly on the ground of its inconsistency with His goodness and justice, it was com- pelled to assume that the same criticism did not apply to the workings of nature, in which alone it could look for God. This found expression in the shallow optimism of the period, and the dictum that whatever is, is right. Accordingly, the opponents of Deism found little difficulty in showing that the objections it brought against the God of revelation could be turned with equal effect against its own God of nature a line of argument which was worked out most effectively in Bishop Butler's famous Analogy of Religion. 3. The Development of Ethical Theory. The effect of 39 2 A Student's History of Philosophy the Deistic movement was to reduce religion essentially to a life of moral conduct. Indeed, in the unimaginative temper of the age, which was in most cases quite incapable of entering into the deeper aspects of religious experience, this was where practically the emphasis was laid, even by those theologians who stood as opponents of Deism. But now from this emphasis an important consequence arose. The attempt to find for morality a foundation independent of theology, brought about the first development of ethical theory on a large scale in modern times. To the chief phases of this we may turn briefly. The starting-point of English ethics is Hobbes, and his selfish theory of human nature. This naturally called forth strong opposition, and nearly all the succeeding moralists have Hobbes more or less directly in view. Among the earlier theorists, the most important is Richard Cumberland. Cumberland denies that man is wholly selfish, and adds to the egoistic motives of Hobbes, social and benevolent af- fections also, which are equally original. Man is thus social in his nature, and finds a direct satisfaction in doing good to others, apart from the indirect benefits he may hope to gain. Moreover, there is a necessary connection between individual and social welfare, which makes it im- possible to secure individual happiness, except by subor- dinating oneself to the good of mankind. This connection is decreed by God, who thus supplies the ultimate ground for the obligation to perform those benevolent acts which the welfare of mankind demands, and in which morality consists. Other attempts to give to ethics a foundation which should not seem to destroy its rational justification, are represented by Cudworth, Clarke and Wollaston, and Shaftesbury. Ralph Cudworth a Platonist had re- course to innate ideas of reason. Samuel Clarke, again, attempted to find a criterion in the notion of conformity to the fitness or harmony of things a relation which, like mathematics, is capable of being known as self-evident, The Growth of Empiricism 393 and which is even independent of the will of God. With William Wollaston, who was influenced by Clarke, this takes the form that a wrong act is ultimately a false judg- ment, or a lie. A rational being should act in accordance with the true relations of things ; and it is because his act implicitly denies this truth, that it is wrong. Thus the murderer acts as though he were able to restore life to his victim ; the man who is cruel to animals declares by his act that the creature is a being devoid of feeling. More important than any of the preceding names, is that of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury's conception of the ethical end is the full expression of human life, the complete car- rying out of its potentialities into the flower of a beautiful personality. In opposition to Hobbes, these potentialities involve unselfish, social tendencies, as well as those that are purely self-seeking. But morality does not have to do simply with the former, as Cumberland had thought. It is found rather in the harmonious interaction of the two, by which each is given its rights ; and it is assumed that there can be no ultimate conflict. Another significant side of Shaftesbury's thought is his conception of the source of our ethical judgments. This he finds in an instinctive good taste in ethical matters, which the man of refinement possesses, and which is entirely analogous to aesthetic taste. The source of moral judgments thus goes back, not to reason, but to feeling. Shaftesbury has a disciple in Francis Hutckeson, who emphasizes this conception of a moral sense, which he conceives as an innate faculty of ethical judgment common to all men. The same general tendency appears in Bishop Butler's conception of con- science as the voice of God in human life. Meanwhile, another tendency connects itself more di- rectly with Hobbes. This went back to the common-sense view of pleasure as the end which man seeks. Morality, then, can only come in as this self-seeking is subjected to some law, either the law of the state, or, going beyond this, a law imposed by God. In either case, however, this 394 A Students History of Philosophy looks in the direction of making morality essentially a social matter, and so of setting up the happiness of society as the criterion of the moral act. This tendency at last succeeded in working itself out clearly in the Utilitarian- ism of Jeremy Bentham, who made the phrase " the greatest happiness of the greatest number " the watchword of later English ethics. A further question must arise, however, in regard to the motive which is to lead the individual to adopt this standard, and act for the common good. In Locke's case, as will be remembered, this is found ulti- mately in the individual's own self-interest. God has attached certain penalties, here and hereafter, to the vio- lation of his laws, which make the life of ^virtue the only way of procuring happiness in the long run. This receives a bald statement in Paley's famous definition of virtue : virtue consists in seeking " the happiness of mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlast- ing happiness." A more careful psychological analysis, in Hume and Adam Smith, attempted to show the impossibil- ity of reducing all motives to interested self-seeking, and brought the feeling of sympathy to the front as the real spring of altruistic action. LITERATURE Berkeley, Alciphron. Stephen, English Thottght in the Eighteenth Century. Cairns, Unbelief in the Eighteenth Centrtry. Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity. Butler, Analogy of Religion, Sermons on Human Nature. Collins, Butler. Selby-Bigge, British Moralists. Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. Mackintosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy during the Seven' teenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Patten, Development of English Thought. Albee, History of English Utilitarianism. The Growth of Empiricism 395 35. The French Enlightenment. Voltaire and the Ency- clopedists. The Materialists. Rousseau. Lessing and Herder I. The French Enlightenment. The results of the Eng- lish Enlightenment were introduced into France by Voltaire, who had been influenced by Locke during a sojourn in England. This influence took root in a brilliant circle of Frenchmen, who, from their connection with the new Encylopedia, which was to embody the knowledge that mankind had so far attained, were known as the Encylo- pedists. Connected more or less closely with this enter- prise, were such men as Diderot, d'Alembert, Voltaire, Holbach, Turgot, Montesquieu, Helvetius, and others. In addition to some positive scientific achievements, the French Enlightenment directed its weapons, as in England, against the popular religious beliefs which seemed to it to be irra- tional and harmful. But by reason of conditions in France, the strife took on here a far sharper and more virulent tone. The Deistic controversy which in free England was largely a matter of scholastic discussion, was in France a real battle against forces of obscurant- ism and oppression which were very much in evidence. Mediaeval institutions, both of Church and State, still main- tained themselves, and the result was in both cases prac- tical abuses of the worst sort. Against the intolerance and oppression of a corrupt clergy, who used the instrument of traditional belief as a weapon against all efforts at reform, Voltaire and the Encyclopedists stood out as the deadliest foes. They set themselves, with every resource of scien- tific knowledge, clear reasoning, and biting wit, to discredit the foundation on which the influence of their opponents rested. It is this unceasing and fearless hatred of injus- tice, which gives to the figure of Voltaire heroic pro- portions, in spite of all his intellectual limitations, and personal faults. This practical aim, also, determined to a considerable 396 A Student's History of Philosophy extent the course which the French Enlightenment was to take, in opposition to the scepticism which had been the outcome of English thought in Hume. As a weapon against a real and dangerous foe, Hume's results were too fine spun, too far from common sense, too impractical, to appeal to the French reformers. In distinction from the Idealism of England, the more significant side of the French Enlightenment tended, in the fight against tradition, to a thoroughgoing and consistent scientific view of the world that is, to Materialism without bothering itself very much about the theoretical difficulties of this view. In the beginning, indeed, the Enlightenment was Deistic. It still held to natural religion, and the somewhat vague and con- tentless God who stands as the original source of the world. But such remnants of a religious faith were not very deep- seated, and they quickly tended to disappear altogether as naturalism and sensationalism were carried out to their logical results. Lamettrie, in his L'Homme Machine, re- duces man, as Descartes had reduced the animal, to a mere automaton a body governed by purely physical and necessary laws. The innumerable facts which show the close dependence of the mind on bodily conditions were insisted on with much skill and impressiveness. The con- scious life is composed entirely of sensations, which are directly dependent on bodily processes. This sensational- ism was worked out theoretically by Condillac, who sup- poses a statue endowed simply with the sense of smell, and then tries to show how all the mental faculties can be evolved out of this. And while Condillac did not draw the ultimate consequences of this sensationalism, other men stood ready to perform the task. Helvetius, in par- ticular, carries the same principle into the practical and moral realm. The sole motive of our acts is egoism and self-interest, and the most exalted virtues reduce them- selves to self-love, and a desire for pleasure. These movements are summed up in Holbach, and the System of Nature, where they take a form which is The Growth of Empiricism 397 genuinely impressive. Materialism becomes a grim gos- pel a gospel of freedom from superstition and oppres- sion. To Holbach's almost fanatical earnestness, religion, and the tyranny of rulers, for whose authority religion is the great bulwark, seem the ground of all men's woes. The God of wrath and cruelty for which the Church too often had stood, and which had been used to justify the worst wrongs, can only be banished by doing away with God altogether, and substituting Nature, with its unbend- ing laws. Truth and religion are unalterably opposed. " Nature invites man to love himself, incessantly to aug- ment the sum of his happiness : Religion orders him to love only a formidable God who is worthy of hatred ; to detest and despise himself, and to sacrifice to his terrible idol the sweetest and most lawful pleasures. Nature bids man consult his reason, and take it for his guide : Religion teaches him that this reason is corrupted, that it is a faith- less, truthless guide, implanted by a treacherous God to mislead his creatures. Nature tells man to seek light, to search for the truth: Religion enjoins upon him to examine nothing, to remain in ignorance. Nature says to man : ' Cherish glory, labor to win esteem, be active, courageous, industrious ' : Religion says to him : ' Be humble, abject, pusillanimous, live in retreat, busy thyself in prayer, medi- tation, devout rites, be useless to thyself, and do nothing for others.' Nature tells children to honor, to love, to hearken to their parents, to be the stay and support of their old age : Religion bids them prefer the oracle of their God, and to trample father and mother under their foot, when divine interests are concerned. Nature com- mands the perverse man to blush for his vices, for his shameless desires, his crimes : Religion says to the most corrupt: 'Fear to kindle the wrath of a God whom thou knowest not ; but if against his laws thou hast committed crime, remember that he is easy to appease and of great mercy : go to his temple, humble thyself at the feet of his ministers, expiate thy misdeeds by sacrifices, offerings, 398 A Student's History of Philosophy prayers.' Nature says to man : ' Thou art free, and no power on earth can lawfully strip thee of thy rights ' : Religion cries to him that he is a slave condemned by God to groan under the rod of God's representatives. Let us recognize the plain truth, that it is these supernatural ideas that have obscured morality, corrupted politics, hin- dered the advance of the sciences, and extinguished hap- piness and peace even in the very heart of man." 1 Let us try, then, to banish the mists of prejudice, and inspire man with courage and respect for his reason. It is only thus that he can find a remedy against the evils into which fanaticism has plunged him, and throw off the fetters by which tyrants and priests everywhere succeed in enchaining the nations. There is but one truth, and it can never harm us. The * truth ' which is to do away with all these evils is the truth of science. " Let man cease to search outside the world in which he dwells for beings who may procure him a happiness that nature refuses to grant ; let him study that nature, let him learn her laws, let him apply his discoveries to his own felicity, let him undergo without a murmur the decrees of universal force." Matter and motion alone exist. Mind is nothing but an occult term that accounts for nothing. All things alike are necessary, and subject to mechanical law. Order, purpose, beauty, are merely subjective. Man, instead of being that for whom all things were created, is entirely unimportant, an insect of a day. Necessity rules in the moral, as in the physical world; the particles of dust and water in a tempest or a whirlwind move by the same necessity as an individual in the stormy movements of a revolution. There is no difference between the man who throws himself out of a window and the man whom I throw out, except that the impulse acting in the second comes from without, the other from within his own mechanism. And back of all this there lies also another motive, which already foreshadows the coming Revolution. Hith- 1 Quoted from Morley's Diderot, p. 370. The Growth of Empiricism 399 erto, the emphasis had been upon the tyranny of super- stition ; now the sense of social inequalities and injustice, and the tyranny of government, begins to come more to the front. Let the great multitude of the oppressed shake off the idle prejudices through which whole nations are forced to labor, to sweat, to water the earth with their tears, merely to keep up the luxuries and corruption of a handful of insensates, a few useless creatures ; let them demand the rights which Nature gives them. As govern- ment only derives its powers from society, for whose sake alone it exists, society may at any time revoke these, if it seems to its advantage to do so. It may change the form of government, extend or limit the power intrusted to its rulers, over whom it retains a supreme authority, by the immutable law of nature that subordinates the part to the whole. 2. Rousseau. Meanwhile there had appeared, within the circle of the Enlightenment, a remarkable person, who was destined to be the forerunner of a new and important movement. For a time he had cast in his lot with the Encyclopedists, and had contributed to that enterprise. But the incompatibility of their standpoint with his own soon became apparent, and he passed to a bitter hostility toward the whole principle of Rationalism. This man was Jean Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss of French descent, born in Geneva in 1712. In his Confessions we have a record of his life and character, given with a fidelity and frankness which is unsurpassed in literature. In this book the startling weaknesses and inconsistencies of his complicated nature stand out with remarkable dis- tinctness. To put it in a single word, Rousseau was a sentimentalist. He was a man with an extraordinary capacity for feeling, combined with a weakness of will that was abnormal ; a father who preached fervidly the duty of each mother to suckle her own children, and who, mean- time, left his own to the tender mercies of a public asylum, without even taking the trouble to keep track of them; 400 A Studenfs History of Philosophy a philanthropist filled with love for mankind, who yet could not live with any one by reason of his inordinate vanities and caprices, and his irritable sensitiveness. " He has only felt," says Hume, "during the whole course of his life. He is like a man who was stript not only of his clothes, but of his skin, and turned out in that situation to combat with the rude and boisterous elements." His vagaries frequently reached a point little short of madness. Nevertheless, by his very extravagances he was able to make an impression on the artificial age in which he lived, of which a more balanced nature might have been inca- pable. He died in 1778. Before considering the influence of Rousseau, it may be well to stop a moment and sum up the results which the Enlightenment had accomplished. And the central fact of the whole movement is its Individualism. We have seen that before man can be in a position to work out his own salvation, he must first see himself as a being inde- pendent of the ready-made institutions into which he finds himself born. Such institutions represent the past, not the future. If they are not to harden into fetters of the spirit, they must constantly be adjusting themselves to new conditions ; and such a change can come about, not from themselves, or from society as a whole, but only from the initiative of individual men. And before man can be in this way an intelligent shaper of his own destiny, he must first recognize himself, his rights and powers, in inde- pendence of the more or less arbitrary environment that surrounds him. The Enlightenment brought this recognition of the reality of the individual into sharp relief. But in doing this it ran the inevitable risk of going itself to an extreme. From the conception of man simply as a dependent part of the world, subject to authority, it passed to the concep- tion of man as a mere self-centred unit, complete without reference to other things. In its deification of the logical reason, and dislike of all mysticism and unclear thinking, The Growth of Empiricism 401 it was bent on setting off everything as sharply by itself as possible, defining it in terms of its own nature alone, and getting rid of all confusing complications. By human convention all sorts of relations might be superinduced upon a man ; but these were arbitrary, and for the most part unjustifiable. To get at the real man, we must strip them all away. So society, instead of being a necessary expression of needs of man's nature, is only an arbitrary contract, which men make for the sake of certain external advantages. It is necessary, indeed, if these are to be attained, but still is a lamentable curtailing of the privi- leges men enjoy by nature. Of course, with such a belief, there could be no recog- nition of the organic way in which man, and all his powers, are rooted in the past life of the race. It was thought that, by a pure effort of will, he could separate himself from this, and could judge things from the standpoint of a purely individual reason, unmediated by his intellectual and spiritual environment, and freed from all prejudices and traditions. If anything did not fall in with this, it was not to be interpreted sympathetically by reference to the conditions of its development, but rejected outright as sheer unreason, or the deliberate result of self-seeking fraud. So religion, e.g., was carried back to the invention of priests and rulers. Accordingly, it was thought that institutions could be thrown off at any moment that was what the French Revolution attempted and a start made entirely de novo. It was not understood that they are necessarily not a manufacture, but a growth, and that to grow they must have roots in that very past which was so much despised. Such a conception of man is evidently poor, and devoid of content. Strip him of his relations to society and that means to the forms which social life takes on and what is left of him ? His very life consists in these rela- tionships which Rationalism was for doing away with as mere restrictions. He is not first a man, and then a citi- 2D 402 A Student's History of Philosophy zen, a father, a neighbor ; he is a man only in so far as he is already these. The life of the free savage ceases to be the life of a man just to the extent that it is sufficient to itself. It was necessary, then, if progress was to have any material to work upon, that this belief in the isolatedness and self-sufficiency of man's nature should in turn be overcome, and the connection with the world restored. But it is to be restored in a different form. The outer relations are to be internalized, and made to grow out of man himself. They are to be recognized as having the weight of inner authority, not simply of external. They mean not bondage, but freedom the only true freedom, since through them alone the possibility of self-realization is secured. And so, too, they are not stiff and unalter- able, but plastic to the touch of the individual of whom they are an expression. They are capable of being changed by him, not arbitrarily, but in accordance with an inner law. The individual is still real, and still free, but not as a mere individual. In him there is a universal element which gives him a kinship with the universe, and makes the very act by which he realizes himself, the act by which also the social whole, and the whole of the uni- verse, gets its fulfilment. The relation of Rousseau to this new movement, was in- direct rather than fully conscious. In many ways he was still a child of the Enlightenment, so far at least as his for- mulated creed was concerned. Few, indeed, have given the principle of individualism a sharper expression. The whole burden of the cry with which he moved France to its foundations is summed up in the phrase " a return to nature." Away with all the artificial conventions and re- strictions of society, which are false and unnatural to their core ; let us go back to the simple life of primitive man, when each, a free creature, with tranquil spirit and healthy body, was at liberty to develop his own nature without let or hindrance. Civilization is nothing but slavery, a huge series of blunders, which carry us ever farther from the The Growth of Empiricism 403 right path. " So long as men were content with their rus- tic huts, so long as they confined themselves to stitching their garments of skin with spines or fish bones, to deck- ing themselves with feathers and shells, and painting their bodies in different colors, to perfecting and adorning their bows and their arrows in a word, so long as they only applied themselves to works that a single man could do, and to arts that had no need of more hands than one, they lived free, healthy, good, and happy, so far as their nature would allow, and continued to enjoy among themselves the sweetness of independent intercourse. But from the moment one man had need of the help of another, the moment they perceived it was useful for one person to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, labor became necessary, and the vast forests changed into smiling fields, which had to be watered by the sweat of men, and in which slavery and wretchedness were soon seen springing up and growing ripe with the harvests." The working of metals, and agriculture, the acquirement of property, the growth of civil society, are successive steps in the process of enslavement. "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, be- thought himself of saying, This is mine, and found peo- ple simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would have not been spared the human race by one who, tearing up the stakes, or filling the ditch, should have called out to his fellows : Beware of lisi-or; n g to this impostor ; you are lost if you forget that the earth belongs to no one, and that its fruits belong to all." 1 All subsequent history has consisted in deepening the artificial inequalities which here got a foothold. They can only be overcome by an entire reconstruction. The supposed proofs that civilization represents a development are merely specious. The science and culture in which the Enlighteners took such inordinate pride, instead of 1 Discourse on Inequality (quoted from Morley, fiousseau, I, p. 1 66). 404 A Student's History of Philosophy being self-evident proofs of our superiority to all the past, are just another example of unfounded prejudice. Exam- ined, they will be seen to have no meaning whatever in terms of human welfare, except as they heighten the cor- ruption of the age. Men were far better off before the sciences arose. This is the argument of Rousseau's two earliest treatises, the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, and the Discourse on the Origin and the Bases of the Inequality among Men. In his more sober moments, however, Rousseau did not really intend to deny the value of the social life altogether, but only to place it on a different basis. What he did pro- test against was the notion that there was anything of real worth in a civilization which consisted simply in a high in- tellectual culture, and in the development of the arts, and sciences, and inventions depending upon the" intellect that is, in the whole ideal of Rationalism. For the concep- tion of man as first of all intellect cold, unimpas- sioned, critical reason, before which all the sentiment and enthusiasm of life dies away he held the utmost detesta- tion. In opposition to the Lockian psychology, which makes man's life a mere play of ideas, Rousseau insisted on the unity of the self ; and this essential and very inmost man is not intellect, but feeling. It was in his revelation of the power and beauty of the feeling element in man's life, to a world incrusted with bias/ artificiality, that the essence of Rousseau's contribu- tion lay. For there was in feeling, on the one hand, a unify- ing force to set against the purely analytic understanding. That emotional outgoing toward nature, and sympathy toward man, which feeling implies, was in a blind way, indeed, but still effectively, the revelation of an essential kinship with other things, which only needed to find an adequate statement to revolutionize thought. Rous- seau was quite conscious of this constructive side of his message. I hate, he says, this rage to destroy without building up ; and again : To liberate a man, it is not The Growth of Empiricism 405 enough merely to break his chains. But more than this, feeling supplies also the motive power necessary for set- ting man at work to realize himself, and to remedy things instead of simply criticising them. This power might, indeed, when undisciplined, result in the horrors of a French Revolution ; but it has also been the source of numberless positive blessings. Accordingly, this new insight is at work in all Rous- seau's philosophy, influencing it even when it seems to approach closest to Rationalism. Thus, his conception of religion is still an abstract Deism ; but it is suffused with a glow of emotion which is a promise of better things, and which enables him to assert that he is the only man of his age who really believes in God. It was because the material- ism of his contemporaries offered him a world with which he could come into no emotional relation, that he felt so strongly against them. Religion is an affair of the heart, not of the head. It does not depend on a belief in tradi- tion, and what some other man has said. " Is it simple or natural that God should have gone in search of Moses to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau ? " Nor can it be rea- soned out beyond the reach of scepticism. But conscience and feeling are as real as reason. " I believe in God as fully as I believe in any other truth, because to believe or not to believe are the things in the world that are least under my control ; because, when my reason is wavering, my faith cannot rest long in suspense ; because, finally, a thousand motives of preference attract me to the side that is most consoling, and join the weight of hope to the equi- librium of reason." And so on the side of social theory, where Rousseau's greatest importance lies, the claims of feeling tend contin- ually to carry him on to a more adequate conception of man than the purely individualistic one. This makes him, first of all, the Apostle of the common man, in whom are represented those simple and fundamental traits of human- ity which appeal to Rousseau, and which go back of rank, 406 A Students History of Philosophy and all external and artificial advantages. " It is the common people who compose the human race ; what is not the people is so trivial that it is not worth taking into account. Before one who reflects, all civil distinctions disappear ; he sees the same passions, the same feelings in the clown as in the man of note and reputation ; he only distinguishes their language, and a varnish more or less elaborately laid on." And this democracy is continually on the point of passing into a conception of the unity of man and society, which is quite the opposite of Rousseau's starting-point; although such a unity fails to get any clear and unambiguous expression. Like Hobbes and Locke before him, Rousseau bases society on a contract, by which men agree, for certain advantages, to give up that unrestricted individual freedom which belongs to them by nature. But while this is some- times put in the form of an historical event, Rousseau does not insist upon this aspect of it. In reality, it stands rather for a statement of the conditions necessary to give social life a rational and just foundation, in opposition to theories which carry it back to force, or mere status. Society can only have its real justification in the advantages it brings. In spite of his earlier utterances, and the echo of these in the famous words with which the Social Contract opens Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains Rous- seau is far from thinking that savage life is the ideal. Rather, he recognizes that it is only in society that man truly lives at all. " What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty, and an unlimited right to anything that tempts him, which he can obtain ; what he gains is civil liberty, and the ownership of all that he possesses." A morality is given to his actions which they lacked before. " His faculties exercise and develop, his ideas expand, his sentiments become ennobled, his whole spirit is elevated to such a point that, if the abuse of this new condition did not often degrade him below that from which he came, he ought to bless without ceasing the happy moment which The Growth of Empiricism 407 took him from it forever, and which has made of a dull stupid animal, an intelligent being a man." 1 The problem is, then, to substitute for an abstract and savage freedom a substantial and moral one ; for a natural equality, a political equality. In general, the medium of this is a contract, according to which each one is to sink his private, individual will in the general will, the will of the whole. The special value of Rousseau's conception lies in his tendency to regard this at bottom, not merely as a giving up of rights for the sake of other external advan- tages life and security but rather as a discovery of one's true and permanent self. He is on the point, at least, of recognizing the truth that the individual, capricious will is not the real man after all ; that the true self is not antago- nistic to, but inclusive of one's fellows, and so can have a chance to develop only in society. Each individual may, as a man, have a particular will, contrary to or unlike the general will which he has as a citizen ; his particular inter- est may speak to him quite differently from the common interest. But this latter really represents him more ade- quately than the former. The general will is not the mere sum of the particular wills ; it is an organic unity. When the individual is constrained to obey the general will by society, he is not being enslaved, but is being " forced to be free," forced to resist the temptation to sacrifice his lesser to his larger self. With Rousseau, however, this is hardly more than a sug- gestion, and when he goes on to connect it with his govern- mental machinery, he tends to give it too abstract and external an interpretation to do justice to his deeper insight. Concretely, the general will is the resultant of a popular vote, in which every citizen participates. " Take from these same wills the plus and the minus which destroy each other, and there will remain for the sum of the differences the general will." 2 Such a vote, on a matter of general 1 Bk. I, 8. Harrington's translation. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.) 2 Bk. II, 3. 408 A Student's History of Philosophy principle and with reference to an individual application of a principle, the general will cannot pronounce does away with private interests by making the question entirely abstract. Each individual, inasmuch as he will consider that the law he is passing is going to apply to himself, will vote for that which seems to him abstractly the best, in order, if need be, to get the advantage of it in his own case. " Why is the general will always right, and why do all desire constantly the happiness of each, unless it is because there is no person who does not appropriate to himself the word ' each,' and who does not think of himself while voting for all ? " 1 Each submits necessarily to the condi- tions he imposes on others ; " it is for the sake of not being killed by an assassin that we consent to be killed if we become assassins." Of course, in attempting to legislate for a particular case, this common interest no longer exists, and private interests have a chance to assert themselves ; and so the general will can only act in the case of legisla- tion that is entirely general in character. It is natural to ask, however, how such a majority rule can represent the general will, if this latter is really to be defined as identical with the true will of the individual. Must not the result be contrary to the will of the one who votes against it, and so not an expression of himself, but an enslavement ? The question points again to the inade- quacy of Rousseau's theory to express his deeper thought. He has an answer to the difficulty, indeed, but it is not a very satisfactory one. The citizen consents to all the laws, even those which are passed in spite of him ; for when he votes, what is asked is "not whether he approves the proposition or whether he rejects it, but whether or not it conforms to the general will. Each one in giving his vote gives his opinion upon it, and from the counting of the votes is deduced the declaration of the general will. When, however, the opinion contrary to mine prevails, it shows only that I was mistaken, and that what I had sup- The Growth of Empiricism 409 posed to be the general will was not general. If my indi- vidual opinion had prevailed, I should have done some- thing other than I had intended, and then I should not have been free." l 3. Lessing and Herder. In France, Rousseau's ideas were destined to be carried out practically in their most extreme form, in the doctrinaireism of the French Revolu- tion. It was in Germany, however, that their real signifi- cance was first appreciated. Here they proved to be a main factor among the influences which were to bring about one of the great periods of intellectual develop- ment in the history of the world. In Germany, possessed hitherto of only a scanty literature, and, apart from Leibniz, of hardly any philosophy worthy the name, there suddenly appears both a literature and a philosophy of the first magnitude. In both of these, the same principle is at work. Both alike stand for the rediscovery of the value of the inner life, as opposed alike to the authority of the Middle Ages, and the cold intellectualism of the Enlighten- ment. They demand the actualizing of the abstract free- dom of man the outcome of the individualism of the Enlightenment in forms of concrete worth and beauty. A fresh sense of the possibilities of life and feeling arises in the undisciplined eagerness, of the Sturm und Drang period, for personal realization in every variety of experi- ence. This abounding energy, restrained and regulated by the sense of artistic proportion and law, which the new appreciation of Greek art, through the labors of Winckel- mann and Lessing, had made at home in Germany, created an ideal of its own. Living itself became an art, a thing of joyousness and beauty. A way of looking at things sprang up which had almost nothing in common with the typical outcome of the Enlightenment. "We could not understand," says Goethe, in speaking of the impression which Holbach's System of Nature made upon himself and his associates, " how such a book could be dangerous. It i Bk. IV, 2. 4io A Student's History of Philosophy appeared to us so dark, so Cimmerian, so deathlike, that we could scarcely find patience to endure its presence." So, also, through the medium of this same new sympathy, there came a deeper sense of the meaning of the historical. In Lessings case, this concerned itself chiefly with the development of religion. For the Rationalist, as has been said, there had been no middle ground between the truth of a religion on the basis of reason, and its falsity, and consequent origin in fraud and priestcraft. In Lessing the thought is brought forward clearly and unambiguously, that the dilemma is an unreal one. Absolute truth, indeed, we cannot know ; but also there is no absolutely false. Early religions are steps in the progressive revelation by which God educates mankind ; the true religion of reason can only come as the result of a long process leading up to it, and so positive religions have a relative justification. This is the keynote of Lessing's Education of the Human Race ; and while it still is clothed in an inadequate form, it makes a decisive break from the Enlightenment, and opens up the way for a new appreciation of religion, and of the whole historical life of man. In like manner there is implied a different view of God. God is no longer an abstraction apart from the life of the world, to be reached in a cold intellectual way, as the result of a process of reasoning. He is to be seen actually present and energizing, in nature, in the course of human events, in the heart of the spiritual experience, which all have their reality and unity in him. Now we have seen that it was Spinoza who, of all philosophers, insisted most strongly on the unity and immanence of God. And as Spinoza had failed of any great immediate influence, because he was so far removed from the temper of the Enlightenment, so now, in a soil prepared for him, he begins to attain a high de- gree of importance. It is Spinoza, with his ez/ KOI TTUV, who is preeminently the philosopher of the German liter- ary movement. A God distinct from the world is unen- durable to the new feeling for the beauty of the universe, The Growth of Empiricism 411 and the significance of the inner life. There is nothing to satisfy us in a God who " sat like a scrupulous artist beat- ing his brains, and making plans, comparisons, rejections, and selections, who played with worlds as children with soap bubbles, till he gave preference to the one which pleased him most "; who, " in the great Inane of primeval, inactive eternity, has his corner where he contemplates himself, and probably ponders on the project of another world." The conception of development which, by Lessing, is applied to the history of religion, is extended by Herder to the whole life of man. The insight that everything grows and develops, and that nothing is perfected at once, pervades the whole of his work. A beginning is made of a science of language, by regarding this, not as a thing of divine origin, or a manufactured product, but as an organic growth. The same sympathetic insight leads Herder to take a special interest in primitive poetry and folk-lore, which the artificial tastes of the preceding age had passed by with scorn. And in his Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, the attempt is made, with a consider- able degree of success, to bring the whole course of human development under the conception of a unitary process. LITERATURE Rousseau, Chief Works : mile (1762); Social Contract (1762); Confessions (1782). Morley, Voltaire. Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopedists. Morley, Rousseau. Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State. Caird, Essays on Literature and Philosophy. Davidson, Rousseau and Education according to N"ature. Lessing, Education of the Human Race, Nathan the Wise. Herder, Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind. GERMAN IDEALISM 36. Kant Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg in 1724, and spent his life without leaving his native province. The story of his life is thus the story of the development of his thought. He became Professor of Philosophy at the Uni- versity of Konigsberg in 1 770. His Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781, raised him to the foremost position among living philosophers, but his growing fame did not serve to alter his manner of life. His simple habits grew more and more regular and methodical as he grew older, and his interests limited themselves more exclusively to his abstract speculations. Heine's description of him is fre- quently quoted : " The life of Immanuel Kant is hard to describe ; he has indeed neither life nor history in the proper sense of the words. He lived an abstract, mechanical, old-bachelor ex- istence, in a quiet, remote street in Konigsberg, an old city at the northeastern boundary of Germany. I do not believe that the great cathedral clock of that city accom- plished its day's work in a less passionate and more regular way than its countryman, Immanuel Kant. Rising from bed, coffee-drinking, writing, lecturing, eating, walking, everything had its fixed time ; and the neighbors knew that it must be exactly half-past four when they saw Professor Kant, in his gray coat, with his cane in his hand, step out of his house door, and move toward the little lime-tree avenue, which is named, after him, the Philosopher's Walk. Eight times he walked up and down that walk at every season of the year: and when the weather was bad, his servant, old Lampe, was seen anxiously following him with 412 German Idealism 413 a large umbrella under his arm, like an image of Provi- dence. Strange contrast between the outward life of the man, and his world-destroying thought. Of a truth, if the citizens of Konigsberg had had any inkling of the mean- ing of that thought, they would have shuddered before him as before an executioner. But the good people saw nothing in him but a professor of philosophy ; and when he passed at the appointed hour, they gave him friendly greetings and set their watches." 1 I. The Nature of Kanfs Problem. It is difficult to make any brief statement which will give an approximate notion, even, of the importance of the revolution which Kant was the means of bringing about in philosophy. One needs to have studied both Kant and his successors, and to have some appreciation of the main currents of thought in recent times, before he can easily see into the significance of Kant's new attitude toward philosophical problems. Roughly, however, it may be said that this centres about two points in particular ; and of these, the one it will be convenient to consider first, is the new conception of ex- perience and of thought which is involved. We have seen that, according to Hume, the reality of the world is dissolved into a host of unrelated feelings, or sensations, which, summed together, compose the human mind. But is this a tenable conception ? Is it not rather suicidal ? Must there not be certain relating activities of the mind, which are not themselves feelings, to work upon the material of sense, before even feelings can be known, and form a true experience ? If mere sensations were the sole reality, would they not be shut up, each in its own skin, and be wholly impervious to other sensations ? As a matter of fact, however, sensations are not thus isolated. Somehow or other they get related, they enter into a uni- fied consciousness, which thus is more than the mere sum of them taken together, since they are experienced not as a collection of isolated units, but as an interconnected and 1 Quoted from Royce's Spirit of Modern Philosophy. 414 A Student's History of Philosophy orderly whole. There is a term of which Kant makes a great deal of use in the Critique the term synthetic. A synthetic judgment is one which goes beyond the meaning of the subject term, and binds to this some new idea not already contained there ; as when, for example, I see my dog running across the field, and, adding to the idea of dog a new qualification, I say, " My dog is chasing a rabbit." On the other hand, if I say, " A dog is an animal," I am only making explicit an idea already contained in the concept 'dog/ and my judgment is analytic. We may say, then, using this terminology, that there is to expe- rience a synthetic side for which Hume does not account. The relatedness of sensations, the unity which binds them together, is a new element, which cannot be extracted from the isolated sensations themselves. To know two sensa- tions together implies a state of consciousness which is not simply another sensation ; for if it were, how could it bind together the first two ? It would only add another term to the problem. Before sensations can be known, even in the simple relations of resemblance, or of contiguity in time or space, they must be brought into a unified con- sciousness, which thus is no mere additional sense fact, but an intellectual synthesis, presupposed by every possi- bility of experience. Kant, then, has pointed out that for the possibility of real knowledge, it is necessary to presuppose a certain frame- work of thought relationships over and above the sense content to which Hume had reduced knowledge. But now, furthermore, the part which thought plays with reference to the objects of knowledge is conceived by Kant in a special and relatively novel way. Commonly in the past the rela- tion of thought to its object had been understood in terms of the relation of a copy or reproduction to its prototype. For Kant, on the contrary, the relation is constitutive. The world, in so far as it is a known world, is a construct of thought. Any object, to be known, must enter into the world of knowledge, the thought world ; and therefore be- German Idealism 415 tween thought and its object there is no separateness, but an identity. To be real, to be objective, is to have a fixed place in this system of thought, not to exist beyond it. An object is, only as it is for knowledge ; and so it is actually built up out of these intellectual relationships which Kant had pointed out. It is this which makes ex- perience no mere string of subjective feelings, but an ordered and orderly world of things. For Kant, accordingly, the great principle of modern thought, which gives to consciousness, or the self, the fundamental place in the interpretation of the world, is reasserted in a new form. The world for us is not a datum given by some external power. It is not an objec- tive fact independent of us, to be defended or criticised as such. It is the product of the laws of our own under- standing, acting, of course, in no arbitrary way, but in accordance with fixed and definite principles, which are not peculiar to our separate individuality. Human experience gives the point of view for the interpretation of every- thing that we can know ; between the world, and ourselves, there is an inner identity. Such, briefly, is the first of the two main aspects of Kant's thought. We may turn now to a somewhat more specific statement. And Kant's chief problem centres about a fact to which already reference has several times been made. Kant's metaphysical point of view is most easily understood by reference to Hume. Kant had been originally an adherent of the school of Wolff, who had attempted to systematize the philosophy of Leibniz. But he very soon had become dissatisfied with this. Wolff was a Rationalist of the most extreme type. He had the completest confidence that, by the use of certain abstract principles of reason, we can attain a demonstrative knowl- edge of ultimate verities. Kant found himself constantly less able to share this confidence. The more he thought, the more difficulty he found in the way of applying the a priori method of geometry to the facts with which philosophy is 4i 6 A Student's History of Philosophy concerned. Is truth not attainable at all then ? this Kant was not willing to admit. For a time he tried to take refuge in Empiricism. But Hume had revealed to him clearly the outcome of Empiricism the overthrow of all knowledge whatsoever. Now the main problem which had engaged Hume the problem of causation will suggest the nature of Kant's central difficulty. Here is a supposed truth with- out which it had abundantly appeared that philosophers, to say nothing of scientists, could make no headway at all in knowledge. But whence does it come ? It cannot be derived from experience. Hume had shown this clearly. With the difficulties in the rationalistic explanation Kant had been long familiar. Here, then, is a point which neither of the rival schools had found themselves able satisfactorily to clear up. "There can be no doubt whatever that all our knowledge begins with experience. By what means should the faculty of knowledge be aroused to activity, but by objects which, acting upon our senses, partly of themselves produce ideas in us, and partly set our understanding at work to com- pare these ideas with one another, and, by combining or separating them, to convert the raw material of our sen- sible impressions into that knowledge of objects which is called experience? In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge prior to experience, and with expe- rience all our knowledge begins. " But, although all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that it all originates from expe- rience. For it may well be that experience is itself made up of two elements, one received through impressions of sense, and the other supplied from itself by our faculty of knowledge on occasion of those impressions. It is, there- fore, a question which cannot be lightly put aside, but can be answered only after careful investigation, whether there is any knowledge that is independent of experience, and even of all impressions of sense. Such knowledge is said German Idealism 417 to be a priori, to distinguish it from empirical knowledge, which has its sources a posteriori, or in experience. The term a priori must, however, be defined more precisely, in order that the full meaning of our question may be un- derstood. We say of a man who undermines the founda- tions of his house, that he might have known a priori that it would fall ; by which we mean, that he might have known it would fall, without waiting for the event to take place in his experience. But he could not know it com- pletely a priori; for it is only from experience that he could learn that bodies are heavy, and must fall by their own weight when there is nothing to support them. By a priori knowledge we shall, therefore, in what follows, understand, not such knowledge as is independent of this or that experience, but such as is absolutely independent of all experience. Opposed to it is empirical knowledge, or that which is possible only a posteriori, that is, by ex- perience. " Evidently what we need is a criterion by which to dis- tinguish with certainty between pure and empirical knowl- edge. Now, experience can tell us that a thing is so and so, but not that it cannot be otherwise. Firstly, then, if we find a proposition that, in being thought, is thought as necessary, it is an a priori judgment; and if, further, it is not derived from any proposition except which is itself necessary, it is absolutely a priori. Secondly, experience never bestows on its judgments true or strict universality, but only the assumed or comparative universality of induc- tion; so that, properly speaking, it merely says, that so far as our observation has gone, there is no exception to this or that rule. If, therefore, a judgment is thought with strict universality, so that there can be no possible excep- tion to it, it is not derived from experience, but is absolutely a priori. Necessity and strict universality are, therefore, sure criteria of a priori knowledge, and are also inseparably connected with each other." Necessary and universal judgments go beyond expe- 2 4i 8 A Student's History of Philosophy rience so far Hume and Kant are agreed. But whereas Hume had stopped here, and had said that therefore such judgments do not exist as valid knowledge, Kant adopts a different attitude. We cannot explain knowledge by denying its reality ; if there are universal truths which everybody admits, the only thing to do is to accept these as our data, and then go on to explain their possibility. " Now, it is easy to show that in human knowledge there actually are judgments, that in the strictest sense are universal, and therefore pure a priori. If an example from the sciences is desired, we h'ave but to think of any proposition in math- ematics ; if an instance from common sense is preferred, it is enough to cite the proposition that there can be no change without a cause. To take the latter case, the very idea of cause so manifestly implies the idea of necessary connection with an effect, that it would be completely lost, were we to derive it, with Hume, from the repeated associa- tion of one event with another that precedes it, and were we to reduce it to the subjective necessity arising from the habit of passing from one idea to another." 1 If, then, Hume's sensationalism were the end of the mat- ter, it would be utterly out of the question for us to say that anything must be so. But as a matter of fact we have two sciences, mathematics and physics, in which such neces- sary a priori judgments are constantly made. To give up the splendid results of science is impossible ; if, there- fore, we cannot be content to accept a theory that takes away their foundations, we must search further, and ask ourselves what conditions are required to serve as a secure basis for these results which every one admits. How, in other words, is it possible to pass a judgment which does not simply state the results of what we have learned in the past, but which adds to our knowledge, and which yet, in spite of the fact that it goes beyond what we have already 1 Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction. Watson's translation, pp. 7-10 (Henry Holt & Co.). German Idealism 419 experienced, can be said to be, not probably, but necessa- rily and universally true ? But now a more important consideration remains. " There is a sort of knowledge that even quits the field of all possible experience, and claims to extend the range of our judgments beyond its limits, by means of conceptions to which no corresponding object can be presented in ex- perience. Now, it is just in the province of this sort of knowledge, where experience can neither show us the true path, nor put us right when we go astray, that reason car- ries on those high investigations, the results of which we regard as more important than all that understanding can discover within the domain of phenomena. Nay, we are even willing to stake our all, and to run the risk of being completely deluded, rather than consent to forego inquiries of such moment, either from uncertainty, or from careless- ness and indifference. These unavoidable problems, set by pure reason itself, are God, freedom, and immortality, and the science which brings all its resources to bear on the one single task of solving them is metaphysic" " Now, one might think that men would hesitate to leave the solid ground of experience, and to build an edifice of truth upon knowledge that has come to them they know not how, and in blind dependence upon principles of which they cannot tell the origin, without taking the greatest pains to see that the foundation was secure. One might think it only natural that they would long ago have raised the question, how we have come into posses- sion of all this a priori knowledge, and what may be its extent, its import, and its value. But the fact is, that a part of this knowledge mathematical knowledge, for instance has so long been established as certain, that we are less ready to suspect the evidence for other parts, although these may be of a totally different nature. Besides, when we are once outside the circle of experi- ence, we are sure not to be contradicted by experience ; and so strong is the impulse to enlarge our knowledge, 420 A Student's History of Philosophy that nothing short of a clear contradiction will avail to arrest our footsteps. Now such contradiction may easily be avoided, even where we are dealing with objects that are merely imaginary, if we are only careful in putting our fictions together. Mathematics show us, by a splendid instance, how far a science may advance a priori without the aid of experience. It is true that by it objects and conceptions are considered only in so far as they can be presented in perception ; but it is easy to overlook the limitation, because the perception in this case can itself be given a priori, and is therefore hard to distinguish from a mere idea. Deceived by this proof of the power of rea- son, we can see no limits to the extension of knowledge. So Plato forsook the world of sense, chafing at the narrow limits it set to our knowledge, and, on the wings of pure ideas, launched out into the empty space of the pure un- derstanding. He did not see that with all his efforts he was making no real progress. But it is no unusual thing for human reason to complete its speculative edifice in such haste that it forgets to look to the stability of the founda- tion." 1 The new philosophy, then, as opposed to all previous thought, is fundamentally a critical philosophy ; it is a criticism of the faculty of knowledge. In the past, Meta- physics has been the battle-ground of endless conflicts. " There was a time when Metaphysic held a royal place among the sciences, and, if the will were taken for the deed, the exceeding importance of her subject might well have secured to her that place of honor. At present it is the fashion to despise Metaphysic, and the poor matron, forlorn and forsaken, complains like Hecuba, Modo max- ima rerum, tot generis natisque potens nunc trahor exul, inops. At first the rule of Metaphysic, under the dominion of the dogmatists, was despotic. But as the laws still bore the traces of an old barbarism, intestine wars and complete anarchy broke out, and the sceptics, a kind of nomads, 1 Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction (Watson's translation, p. ll). German Idealism 421 despising all settled culture of the land, broke up from time to time all civil society. Fortunately their number was small, and they could not prevent the old settlers from returning to cultivate the ground afresh, though without any fixed plan or agreement. At present, after every- thing has been tried, so they say, and tried in vain, there reign in philosophy weariness and complete indifferentism, the mother of chaos and night." * The trouble lies in the very nature of dogmatism. It is due to the attempt of reason to advance without any previ- ous criticism of its own powers. Such a dogmatic employ- ment of reason can lead only to groundless assertions, to which other assertions equally specious may always be opposed, the inevitable result being scepticism. The same defect, accordingly, taints dogmatism and scepticism alike ; the only remedy is, neither to dogmatize, nor to raise equally ungrounded doubts, but to subject the nature of reason to a sober investigation, in order to determine what it can, and what it cannot, hope to accomplish. This is entirely different from scepticism. Hume "ran his ship ashore for safety's sake on scepticism, whereas my object is rather to give it a pilot, who, by means of safe astro- nomical principles, drawn from a knowledge of the globe, and provided with a complete chart and compass, may steer the ship safely." 2 2. How are Necessary Judgments Possible ? With this general introduction, we may go on to consider in what the special nature of Kant's results consists. And once more, there are two main questions which he sets before himself. The first is to show the conditions which render possible those synthetic, a priori judgments, whose valid- ity, in opposition to Hume, he proposes to defend. The second is to show what light the answer to this problem will throw upon the validity of those further a priori judgments, which pretend to carry us into the supersen- sible world, and upon which Metaphysics has relied to 1 Preface. Max Mullet's translation. a Prolegomena, Introd. 422 A Student's History of Philosophy prove the existence of God, and other ultimate truths. We shall consider these, therefore, in order. A distinction has already been drawn between two ele- ments of our experience. In addition to the sense mate- rial, to which Hume had reduced all the conscious life, there must also be certain relating activities of the mind itself. Necessary and a priori truths must evidently de- pend upon this latter factor. " That element in the phenomenon which corresponds to sensation I call the matter, while that element which makes it possible that the various determinations of the phenomenon should be arranged in certain ways relatively to one another, is its form. Now, that without which sensations can have no order or form, cannot itself be sensation. The matter of a phenomenon is given to us entirely a posteriori, but its form must be a priori in the mind, and hence must be capable of being considered by itself apart from sensation." 1 Of these forms of experience, there are two sorts. In the first place, the sensuous basis of experience does not come to us as absolutely raw material ; it has already been actively shaped by the mind. It presents itself in sense perception as already related in two ways in space and in time. It is on these " forms of sensibility " that the possi- bility of geometrical truths rests. A long time before he reached the final standpoint represented in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant had come to the conclusion, by means of arguments which it is unnecessary to reproduce, that space and time are not objective realities, but only the subjective ways in which we cognize realities which in themselves are non-spatial and non-temporal. But now, for the orderly experience which we know, it is not enough that the sensuous data should appear simply in the forms of space and time. Within that framework they must be subjected to other intellectual relation- ships, in order to make a world of definite things. What, then, are the essential intellectual elements, which go to 1 Critique of Pure Reason, p. 20 (First Ed.). German Idealism 423 make up experience? Without following Kant into the details of this deduction, it is enough to say that, by a laborious process, he arrives at a certain number of these, which he groups under four heads quantity, quality, relation, and modality. We can say, that is, necessarily and universally, quite prior to experience, that any par- ticular experience will be quantitative ; that it will possess a certain degree of intensity; that every change involves a permanent substance as a background ; that all changes take place in accordance with the law of cause and effect ; and so forth. But how, once more, is it possible to pass such judg- ments that go beyond experience ? The answer is, in brief : because otherwise experience itself would be impossible. The necessity lies, not in things, but in ourselves. " In metaphysical speculations it has always been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects; but every attempt from this point of view to extend our knowledge of objects a priori by means of conceptions has ended in failure. The time has now come to ask, whether better progress may not be made by supposing that objects must conform to our knowledge. Plainly this would better agree with the avowed aim of metaphysic, to determine the nature of objects a priori, or before they are actually presented. Our suggestion is similar to that of Copernicus in astron- omy, who, finding it impossible to explain the movements of the heavenly bodies on the supposition that they turned round the spectator, tried whether he might not succeed better by supposing the spectator to revolve, and the stars to remain at rest. Let us make a similar experiment in metaphysic with perception. If it were really necessary for our perception to conform to the nature of objects, I do not see how we could know anything of it a priori ; but if the sensible object must conform to the constitution of our faculty of perception, I see no difficulty in the matter." J 1 Preface. Watson's translation. 424 A Student's History of Philosophy Such is Kant's own statement of the matter ; it may be well, however, to consider somewhat more carefully just what he means. Kant finds the necessity he is in search of, to repeat, not as something in nature, which is then reproduced and known in our experience, but as some- thing in experience which itself constitutes what we know as nature. He reached this conclusion in the following way : Suppose we take a geometrical truth ; how can we say, absolutely and without exception, that the sum of the angles of any triangle will equal two right angles ? So long as it is a matter simply of our mental content, or meaning, a perception of certain abstract spatial relation- ships, we might get certainty by the mere fact of holding steadfastly to one fixed meaning, and not allowing it to change or become confused. But how do we know that the world of actual things will conform to these geometrical ideals of ours ? Not from experience ; that might tell us that the proposition was true of all the objects we had ex- amined in the past, but not that it would prove to be true of the next one we might happen to meet. Things can only come into our experience one by one; and by this process, we can only tell the facts about the particular cases we have run across up to date, not about the rest, which as yet have not come into contact with us. The necessity, that is, in so far as we can talk of necessity, can- not lie in reality as it exists in itself, apart from our ex- perience ; for since we cannot grasp the whole of infinite reality at once, and since it is the conviction of a necessary connection in our experience that is to be justified, the coming of reality piecemeal into experience gives us no ground for asserting anything whatever of that which still is left outside. What follows, then ? Simply this, once more : that if we grant the validity of necessary judgments at all, it must be founded on the nature of our experience, not on the nature of an external reality. Things, that is, must follow the laws of mathematics, because they can only become things, for us, by taking on that same spatial form German Idealism 425 on which the truths of geometry are based. They must conform to the structure of the mind whose nature it is to cast everything into spatial relationships, before they can become actual objects of our knowledge. If, then, our experience is of such a nature that nothing can enter into it without taking on a particular form, then we can say, with certainty, that everything, in the future as well as in the past, must have just this form and no other. We can pass, in other words, a necessary, synthetic judgment a priori ; and on no other condition can we do so. No mat- ter what may be true of reality beyond experience, we can be perfectly sure that, for us, everything in experience will correspond to geometrical truths, because, unless it suc- ceeds in taking on the spatial form on which geometry rests, it will not become part of our experience at all, but will remain for us non-existent. In just the same way, we are to account for those other necessary judgments the intellectual ones. How can we be sure, for example, that every effect must have a cause, or that there must always be a permanent substance underlying change ? Simply because our intellectual machinery is so constituted that it will take no grist which does not adapt itself to these particular forms of substance and causality. A necessary judgment is pos- sible, for the reason that we are not judging about things in themselves, but about the necessary connection of ele- ments in our own experience ; and we could have nothing that it would be possible to call experience, if it were not for certain necessary forms of relationship between the elements of which it is constituted. In other words, if I am to be an intelligent being, and have an experience which also is intelligible, this experience must be to a cer- tain degree coherent. If it is to be my experience, it must be a unity ; I must somehow be present through it all, bind- ing its parts together into a whole. It cannot be a simple string of feelings succeeding one another in time, for such a series would have no knowledge of itself as a unity. 426 A Student's History of Philosophy It is the " I " which binds these feelings together by threads of intellectual relationships, which are not them- selves a part of the series at all. This coherency in my life does not merely imply the existence of groups of fleet- ing sensations ; it necessitates, also, that I should be able to recognize these, and so that they should stand for objects that are identical and permanent ; and a permanent object already involves the category of substantiality. Then, too, the different objects, if they are to form part of a single experience, must be reciprocally connected with one another, as members of a common world ; and, again, the past and future must have some intelligible and neces- sary relation, since they also are parts of a single experi- ence, in every point of which I find myself equally present : and so we need the categories of reciprocity and causality, as tools which the self necessarily requires, to help it unify its life. Beyond our experience these categories may not apply ; but since it is only such elements of reality as will fit the mould in which our intellectual nature is cast, that in any wise concern us, we can take the laws as absolute. It is not, then, nature which imposes its necessity on us, but it is we who give laws to nature. The truths of the rationalist are not revelations of existence beyond ; they show, instead, our own intellectual make-up. They are the forms of experience, as over against its content. It will be evident that, against this view, Locke's criticism of innate ideas has no force. We have, says Locke, no in- nate idea of causality, e.g., because many people have never in their lives thought of the proposition that every effect must have a cause. Now Kant also would admit this. If we mean the conscious recognition of the principle, that is a particular psychological fact in our minds, which may arise only late in life, or conceivably never at all. But in another sense as a form of thought the principle has been at work from the very start. Every time I look to find the explanation of something that has happened, every time I connect two things together, I am implicitly making use German Idealism 427 of the causal relation. And it is this existence which it has as a form of synthesis, not the conscious recognition which may or may not be attained by any particular indi- vidual, whose a priori character Kant is vindicating. 3. No Knowledge beyond Experience. The Critical Philosophy, then, is an attempt to get at the necessary elements in experience necessary because apart from them experience itself would be an impossibility. Only in this way, Kant holds, can the validity of a priori judg- ments be vindicated. To put the problem in a different form, Kant has been trying to discover how it is that our ideas can come to apply to the real world. And the an- swer is, that these real things are themselves constituted by the relationships which make up knowledge. It is needful to keep constantly in mind this new conception of the nature of objectivity and reality. The world of which Kant is talking is nothing but the world of human ex- perience, the world as it forms a part of the content of our system of knowledge. When Kant says that our thought constitutes nature, he does not mean, therefore, that the great fabric of reality which, in our ordinary way of viewing the world, we think of as existing eternally, and as forming the ground out of which we, as transient beings, have sprung, first gains the right to be by coming under subjection to certain rules which our mind imposes ; that we create all that is, as the subjective idealist might maintain. To the "objective world " in this sense the eternal and fundamental background, which we are ready to believe exists alongside and beyond our transient, human experience he has so far no reference at all. When Kant- speaks of experience, and of the objective world as an element in experience, it is definitely human experience that he means. But now Kant also does not doubt that beyond this lies a more ultimate reality, on which human experience is based. Of this ultimate world, accordingly, the world of things in themselves, what have we to say ? And here we have reached the sphere of metaphysics, 428 A Student's History of Philosophy whose validity we set out to examine. Philosophy is not content with the series of endless conditions presented by phenomena in space and time. It tries to get back of this infinite regress, to the ultimate unconditioned reality, on which finite things depend; and thus to furnish a basis for those ideas which are the final goal of human thought God, freedom, immortality. So, back of the changing content of human experience, it postulates a unitary sub- stantial soul. The infinite world process it tries to grasp as a whole. And, finally, the totality of existence, self and world, it attempts to make conceivable by the concept of God. Is now this attempt to understand in final and absolute terms the nature of real existence feasible and fruitful ? Kant answers that it is not. The phenomenal world we know. But the real, the noumenal, world is closed to our theoretical understanding. And the reason is found in the nature of knowledge. The Rationalists had supposed that thought is an independent faculty, able to reach truth by its own unaided exercise. For Kant, on the contrary, it is only one element or aspect of knowledge. For any con- crete act of knowledge, thought and sense are both alike required ; and it is this indissoluble connection of thought with the material of sense, that defeats the claims of Rationalism to grasp reality. Sense material alone is blind and unordered ; it is not experience at all in an objective sense. But thought also by itself is empty, a mere form, which requires a content before it is objectively valid. When, accordingly, we attempt to apply the categories of the understanding beyond the data of things in time and space beyond the merely phenomenal world we are involved in inevitable illusion. To endeavor, by means of ideas which thus apply only to the conditioned objects within experience, to pass to an unconditioned whole, is clearly to leave experience behind, and the concrete sense filling which makes experience possible ; and, in conse- German Idealism 429 quence, the validity of our categories at once lapses. An idea, for example, like that of causation, whose whole function it is to bind together the elements of the else chaotic and unordered world of particulars, can never take us beyond the flux of finite and changing events to a self- complete and uncaused absolute. " The light dove, pierc- ing in her easy flight the air, and perceiving its resistance, imagines that flight would be easier still in empty space." The effort is hopeless. Of the nature of things in them- selves we must always remain, therefore, intellectually at least, in complete ignorance. Kant, accordingly, goes on to examine these ideas in connection with which philosophers had supposed they could get a knowledge of ultimate reality, and to point out the flaws and inconsistencies which they reveal. The mere abstract unity of consciousness, which alone the fact of experience necessitates, has no point of contact with the substantial soul of metaphysics, all of whose qualities, nevertheless, are derived from it, of course quite illegiti- mately. So when we attempt, in reasoning about the external world, to escape from the conditioned series of causes and effects, the illegitimacy of our endeavor ap- pears in the antinomies into which we fall. With equal force we may argue that the world is limited in time and space, and that it is unlimited ; that every compound sub- stance in the world consists of simple parts, and that no compound thing consists of simple parts ; that there does, and that there does not, exist an absolute First Cause at the end of the finite series. > The arguments on both sides, so Kant thinks, are logically sound ; and the fact that they yet refute each other, shows that we have entered a realm where we do not belong, and where, in the nature of the case, truth is not td be attained by logic. " Both parties beat the air and fight with their own shadows, because they go beyond the limits of nature, where there is nothing they can lay hold of with their dogmatical grasp. They may fight to their heart's content ; the shadows which they are 43 A Students History of Philosophy cleaving grow together again in one moment, like the he- roes in Valhalla, in order to disport themselves once more in these bloodless contests." 1 So, finally, of the idea of God. The ordinary arguments for God's existence the ontological argument, the argument from causation, and the argument from design are critically examined, and found to be inadequate. Starting from a set of particular finite facts, which enter into an infinite series of relation- ships with other facts, it is quite impossible to rise to the knowledge of their absolute and unconditioned ground. The ideas by which we attempt to go beyond the particu- lar facts, are intended to apply only to relations between these facts. So much for these " Ideas of Reason" God, the uni- verse, the soul on the negative side. They tell us nothing of ultimate truth, because they have abandoned the facts of sense experience, with reference to which alone the thought forms have validity, and knowledge is possible. All our wrangling about such questions arises " simply from our filling the gap, due to our ignorance, with paralogisms of reason, and by changing thoughts into things and hyposta- sizing them. On this an imaginary science is built up, both by those who assert and those who deny, some pre- tending to know about objects of which no human being has any conception, while others make their own represen- tations to be objects, all turning round in a constant circle of ambiguities and contradictions. Nothing but a sober, strict, and just criticism can free us from this dogmatical illusion, which, through theories and systems, deceives so many by an imaginary happiness. It alone can limit our speculative pretensions to the sphere of possible experi- ence, and this not by a shallow scoffing at repeated failures, or by pious sighs over the limits of our reason, but by a demarcation made according to well-established principles, writing the nihil tilterius with perfect assurance on those Herculean columns which Nature herself has erected, in 1 Critique of Pure Reason, p. 756. Mullet's translation. German Idealism 431 order that the voyage of our reason should be continued so far only as the continuous shores of experience extend shores which we can never forsake without being driven on a boundless ocean, which, after deceiving us again and again, makes us in the end cease all our laborious and tedious endeavors as perfectly hopeless." 1 But are these ideas, then, pure illusions ? If they are, how does it happen that the human mind ever swings back to them, and finds in them a perennial charm ? Kant goes on to show, in conclusion, that there is a relative value and validity which the ideas possess. They are not merely arbitrary ; they stand for an impulse which is ineradicable. The desire to grasp things as a whole is one which the reason can never forego ; but since this aim is incapable of being attained, the value of the ideas can only be a reg- ulative value within experience, not one that is consti- tutive, and that results in objective knowledge. They stand as an ideal toward which knowledge is directed, and, by keeping constantly before the mind the fact that any particular synthesis of knowledge is still imperfect, they remind us that we must not stop content, as if we had already reached the goal. But this ideal of a perfect unity is one which, as a matter of fact, lies forever beyond our reach. 4. Freedom and God as Postulates of the Moral Life, So far, then, this is the result of the Critical Philosophy ; is it possible to rest satisfied with it ? Certainly it seems to do away with all that knowledge which has been consid- ered most desirable in philosophy. The very conception of a noumenal world, beyond the confines of our human experience, is no more than problematical a mere x, to which no object corresponds. But still, so Kant thinks, there is a real gain. If we cannot prove the existence of a God, we have at least shut off all possibility of disproving him. If our knowledge is only phenomenal, reason can have no more right to deny that such a reality exists, than 1 Ibid., p. 395. 432 A Student's History of Philosophy to affirm it ; and the attempt to base a positive denial of supersensuous realities as materialism, e.g., does on the supposed validity of our sense experience, is put out of the question. " I cannot share the opinion, so frequently expressed by excellent and thoughtful men, who, being fully conscious of the weakness of the proofs hitherto ad- vanced, indulge in a hope that the future would supply us with evident demonstrations of the two cardinal proposi- tions of pure reason, namely, that there is a God, and that there is a future life. I am certain, on the contrary, that this will never be the case. But there is the same apodic- tic certainty that no man will ever arise to assert the con- trary with the smallest plausibility, much less dogmatically. For, as he could prove it by means of pure reason only, he would have to prove that a Supreme Being, and that a thinking subject within us, as pure intelligence, is impos- sible. But whence will he take the knowledge that would justify him in thus judging synthetically on things far be- yond all possible experience? We may, therefore, rest so completely assured that no one will ever really prove the opposite, that there is no need to invent any scholastic arguments." 1 We cannot, then, by the use of the abstract logical rea- son, attain any insight into the world of supersensible realities. But now, since the possibility still remains that a noumenal reality may exist, it is conceivable that, even though we never can attain to it through knowledge, there yet may be some other avenue of approach, which will enable us, if not to know, at least to postulate it. Accord- ing to Kant, there is such an avenue the moral will; and in the Critique of Practical Reason, the second of the trilogy of works on which Kant's chief fame rests, he goes on to modify to a certain extent the agnosticism of his first Critique. The advantages of our determination of the. possibilities of knowledge show themselves not least in connection 1 Ibid., p. 741. German Idealism 433 with the problem of freedom. If the categories of our thought life really applied to the noumenal world, there would be no escape from determinism. The law of cau- sality demands that everything to which it applies shall be regarded as strictly necessitated. In so far as our acts enter into the course of the world, they become a part of that causal series where necessity rules ; and if this world were the real and the only world, freedom would be ex- cluded. But now if above the phenomenal world, the world of natural causation, there exists the possibility, at least, of another and a noumenal realm, we have a means of extricating ourselves from the deterministic conclusion. From one side the empirical an event might be strictly determined. But this very causal relationship might itself have its source in a higher causality a causality in the intelligible world outside the temporal series, and therefore itself determining phenomena, instead of being determined by them. " Among the causes in the phenomenal world, there certainly can be nothing that absolutely and from itself could cause a series to begin to be. Every act that pro- duces an event is, as a phenomenon, itself an event or result, which presupposes another state to serve as cause. Everything that comes to be is, therefore, merely a con- tinuation of the series, and nothing that begins of itself can enter into the series. Hence all the modes in which natural causes act in the succession of time are them- selves effects, for which there must again be causes in the series of time. It is vain to seek in the causal connection of phenomena for an original act, by which something may come to be that before was not." " But, granting that the cause of a phenomenal effect is itself a phenomenon, is it necessary that the causality of its cause should be entirely empirical ? May it not be that, while every phenomenal effect must be connected with its cause in accordance with laws of empirical cau- sality, this empirical causality, without the least rupture of 2F 434 A Student 's History of Philosophy its connection with natural causes, is itself an effect of a causality that is not empirical, but intelligible ? May the empirical causality not be due to the activity of a cause, which in its relation to phenomena is original, and which, therefore, in so far as this faculty is concerned, is not phe- nomenal, but intelligible ; although, as a link in the chain of nature, it must be regarded as also belonging entirely to the world of sense ? " 1 It is conceivable, then, that as a phenomenon an act may be strictly necessary, whereas, in its reality, as it enters into the noumenal world, it is self-determined and free. The possibility of freedom is thus not excluded ; but have we any reason for believing in its actuality ? Briefly the answer is : Yes ; it is necessary to postulate freedom and an intelligible world, in order to satisfy the demands of the moral law. For the essence of the moral life con- sists in obedience to a law the categorical imperative which pretends to be absolute and universal. It is an obe- dience freed from all intermixture of personal interest and self-gratification, which goes back simply to reverence for the law as such. In an ethical system remarkable for its lofty dignity and its stern rigor, Kant endeavors to estab- lish, in all its strictness, this separation between moral action, and action based on empirical motives and desires. The latter forfeits all claim to moral value ; " nothing in the whole world, or even outside of the world, can possi- bly be regarded as good without limitation, except a good will." " Even if it should happen that, owing to special disfavor of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a step- motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, then like a jewel it would still shine by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value in itself. Its usefulness, or f ruitlessness, can neither add nor take away anything from its value." 2 But now, in its very nature, the moral law demands the 1 Critique of Pure Reason, p. 543. Watson's translation. 2 Metaphysic of Ethics (Abbott's translation, pp. 9, 10). German Idealism 435 actuality of freedom. It calls upon me to will and to act unconditionally, without regard to any considerations save the moral " ought " ; and it has no meaning unless what I ought to do, I can do. Freedom is thus the absolute pre- condition of the validity of the moral life. But since, as a part of the phenomenal world, my act is not free, there must be another and noumenal realm, within which it has that freedom which the moral life demands. The escape from determinism does not lie in denying to my particular empirical acts a causal explanation, but in denying the ultimate validity of that whole world in which causality rules, in favor of an intelligible world, which we cannot, indeed, know, but whose existence we are compelled to postulate. " The explanation of the possibility of categorical impera- tives, then, is, that the idea of freedom makes me a mem- ber of the intelligible world. Were I a member of no other world, all my actions would as a matter of fact always conform to the autonomy of the will. But as I perceive myself to be also a member of the world of sense, I can say only, that my actions ought to conform to the autonomy of the will." * So the guarantee of that intelligible world, the realm of freedom, is, not knowledge, but the immediate realiza- tion of the claims of the moral law ; it is practical, rather than theoretical. The abstract reason, which the Enlight- enment had deified, is definitely subordinated to a moral faith. " Morality requires us only to be able to think free- dom without self-contradiction, not to understand it; it is enough that our conception of the act as free puts no ob- stacle in the way of the conception of it as mechanically necessary, for the act stands in quite a different relation to freedom from that in which it stands to the mechanism of nature. From the critical point of view, therefore, the doctrine of morality, and the doctrine of nature, may each be true in its own sphere ; which could never have been shown had not criticism previously established our una- 1 Mctaphysic of Morality (Watson's translation, p. 255). 436 A Student's History of Philosophy voidable ignorance of things in themselves, and limited all that we can know to mere phenomena. I have, therefore, found it necessary to deny knowledge of God, freedom, and immortality, in order to find a place for faith." J And with the intelligible world postulated to justify free- dom and morality, we may note, briefly, the way in which Kant uses these results, somewhat inconsequentially, it might seem, to get back those very realities which the reason has been proved incompetent to know. Although the desire for happiness is entirely distinct from the content of the moral will, yet, as man belongs to the phenomenal, as well as to the intelligible world, happiness must have a place, for him, in the idea of the highest good, which thus may be defined as the union of happiness and virtue. And since this is not, and cannot be, attained in the present world, an endless life must be postulated for its achievement, or reality will no longer appeal to us as fully and completely rational. And, finally, in order to safeguard this moral order of the world, and see to it that the end is secured, it is necessary to conclude to the existence of a God. Such a God is, however, purely intelligible, and free from all intermixture of sense content. And as, consequently, he comes in no sort of competition with natural phenomenal laws, he is forever beyond the reach of attacks from scientific materialism or scepticism. At the start, mention was made of two points of special significance in Kant's philosophy ; and it is the second of these points at which we have now arrived. For Kant, namely, the truths of the intellect are subordinate to the truths of the practical will, or of the moral insight ; the spiritual demands of life have, equally with scientific thought, the right to induce belief, and in the end their claim is even the more fundamental one. The special out- come which this assumes in Kant is one which, since his day, has come to be adopted very widely indeed. It is the attitude which attempts to find a secure place for religious 1 Critique of Pure Reason, Preface (Watson's translation, p. 6). German Idealism 437 ideals, by emphasizing the separation between these and scientific knowledge. And the separation can be effected by insisting, with Kant, upon the entirely phenomenal character of the world which knowledge gives us. So far as our human understandings are able to penetrate, we can reach no more than conditioned objects in space and time ; science and its laws represent here the final word. But we are more than thinking beings. And if we once recog- nize that the processes of thought do not sum up in any final way the inner nature of the universe, then there is left the possibility of a realm in which these other sides of our nature may find a refuge, undisturbed by the fear of contradiction from reason. It is true that we must people this realm, not with objects of knowledge in the strict sense, but rather with ideals, symbols, constructs of the creative imagination. God is a term of poetry, not of science. But though we cannot suppose that these ideals of ours are in any sense literal copies of what really exists, still we may have faith that the real world is not hostile to our aspirations, but rather is in some true way symbolized in them a faith which the scientific reason cannot throw doubt upon, since we now are moving in a sphere to which reason cannot hope to attain. We are left, then, with a gap between the results of reason "and the postulates of the spiritual life. Kant him- self recognized to some extent the unsatisf actoriness of this complete separation, and in a third work, the Critique of Judgment, he tried to make it a little less absolute. There are two facts in particular which seem to suggest that the world in space and time, and the ideal world, the world of purpose and meaning, are after all not so divorced from one another as the previous results might go to show. In the aesthetic experience, where the natural world shows itself, alike in the beautiful object, and in the workings of artistic genius, in unconscious harmony with the ideal requirements of the mind ; and in the biological organism, where we find ourselves constrained to use the concept of 438 A Students History of Philosophy end, or teleology, in any adequate definition, we have sug- gestions of an inner unity and identity. But with Kant these facts, though they are suggestive, do not lead to any real reconstruction of his position. Such judgments still represent no objective reality; they cannot be imported into the absolutely real world in their human form. A criticism of Kant cannot be attempted here. But there is one distinction to which attention may be called a dis- tinction implied in his contrast between God as an object of reason, and God as a postulate. What Kant has most convincingly shown is, that God cannot be demonstrated conclusively, in the rationalistic fashion, by merely ex- tending the use of the abstract categories which intro- duce order into our experience. But even though we cannot demonstrate God, it is possible that we might attain to a reasonable belief in him by another path. We might avail ourselves of the process of analogical reasoning ; we might, that is, reach a probable knowl- edge about the nature of the real world, by using the analogy of the human self, the human experience, which we know, without pretending that our proof possesses theoretical necessity. And yet, unless we subscribe to the rationalistic prejudice, which Kant shares, that nothing is knowledge unless it bears the stamp of certainty, we should still be moving in the sphere of mind and of the intellectual processes. The use of the analogy will no doubt be backed by other than theoretical needs; but still it will not thereby be cut off absolutely from the life of reason. If, then, we admit that reason is not confined to the field of demonstration, the question that may still be asked is this : is the nature of the human self, and human experi- ence, such that it can be applied intelligibly and without self-contradiction to the idea of God ? Granted that our belief in God is probable rather than demonstrative knowledge, and granted, also, that it cannot be used to explain the particular facts of the world, but only to in- terpret its general nature, is it still not possible that the German Idealism 439 idea has an intelligible content, is capable of being thought by the human mind ? This is a question to which Kant's answer is much less clear and convincing than it might be. That science and its laws cannot be regarded as a final statement about the world, that there is possible an inner and more intimate interpretation, and that here the needs of the spiritual life have a right to play their part in deter- mining our attitude to have shown this, may be regarded as Kant's most solid achievement. In what terms we have a right to talk about this inner reality, and in what relation it stands to the laws of the phenomenal world, are, on the contrary, questions left by Kant in a shape which can hardly be regarded as final LITERATURE Kant, Chief Works : Critique of Pure Reason (1781); Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic (1783) ; Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics (1785) ; Critique of Practical Reason (1788) ; Critique of Judgment (1790) ; Religion within the Bounds of Pure Reason (1794). Translations : Meiklejohn (Critique of Pure Reason) ; Max Miiller (Critique of Pure Reason) ; Watson (Selections') ; Abbott (Critique of Practical Reason); Bernard (Critique of Judgment); Mahaffy and Bernard (Prolegomena) ; Goerrvitz (Dreams of a Spirit Seer) ; Hastie (Kanfs Cosmogony) ; Carus (Prolegomena) ; Semple (Meta- physic of Ethics). Mahaffy and Bernard, Paraphrase and Commentary. Stirling, Text Book to Kant. Wenley, An Outline Introductory to Kanfs Critique of Pure Reason. Abbott, Kanfs Theory of Ethics. Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant. Adam son, Philosophy of Kant. Wallace, Kant. Fischer, Kant. Schurman, Philosophical Review, 1898, 1900. Schurman, Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution. Watson, Kant and his English Critics. Seth, From Kant to Hegel. Seth, Scottish Philosophy. Jackson, Seneca and Kant. 440 A Student's History of Philosophy Stuckenberg, Life of Kant. Sidgwick, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant. Paulsen, Immanuel Kant. Everett, Fichte's Science of Knowledge. Watson, Schelling's Transcendental Idealism. Porter, Kanfs Ethics. Morris, Kanfs Critique of Pure Reason. Green, Lectures. 37. The Idealistic Development. Fichte and Schelling I. The Idealistic Development. In order to understand the point of view of the development of Idealism in Germany, it will be well to try to distinguish two differ- ent attitudes that may be adopted with reference to the term ' thought,' or ' reason.' We may, on the one hand, regard thought as the work of some individual thinker. Thinking thus becomes a fact of psychology, something distinct from other realities which exist alongside of it. And this conception of thought as ' thinking ' is a natural, and indeed an inevitable one. We commonly should in- cline to say that there can be no thought which some one does not think. Now when Kant speaks of thought, he certainly has at times this in his mind thought as a way in which human beings conceive the world. It is only from this standpoint that his distinction between phenomena and noumena, and his consequent agnosticism with refer- ence to things in themselves, have any basis. It is only thought as human thought, that can differ from reality. But meanwhile, the more immediate result of Kant's work was in a different direction. There is a broader way in which we may take the term ' thought.' We may think of it, namely, on the side of its content, as the system of rational knowledge, which includes all that is capable of being known. From this standpoint, the individual thinker is only one among a vast number of objects of knowledge; he is part of a rational universe which extends far beyond German Idealism 441 him. This attitude also is to be found in Kant. His criticism of knowledge is not, or does not intend to be, a matter primarily of psychology. It is rather a logical in- quiry into knowledge as a systematic structure, abstracted from its connection with particular individuals. It attempts, that is, to criticise each factor in knowledge by reference to its place in a connected rational whole, as a necessary element in a wider unity, rather than by reference to the relation of any particular man's thought to an external prototype. Now it is this second attitude which is adopted by the German Idealists. The connection of thought with the psychological human self is almost entirely ignored. The Self, or Ego, means for the Idealists not the individual ' me,' but the unitary system of thought. One result is that things in themselves immediately drop away. The dif- ficulties in connection with the thing-in-itself are evident. If it is unknowable, what right have we to say anything about it ? Kant had tended to look upon it as the cause of our sense experience; but causation applies only within experience, not to the noumenal world. Why not, then, simply let it drop away as a contradiction in terms, which serves absolutely no useful end ? Do we consider it neces- sary in order to furnish the content of knowledge ? But the attempt to explain knowledge from what is not knowl- edge is pure dogmatism, and no explanation at all ; whereas, from the other side, as Kant has shown, things may readily be explained as the construction of thought, through the use of the categories. Reality, then, is the reality of experience, or thought, and not something that lies beyond. And the problem of philosophy is to point out the systematic and logically interdependent character of thought. The starting-point for this development was the gaps left in Kant's theory of knowledge. Kant's endeavor, as we have seen, had been to trace back all experience to the synthetic unity of the self ; but he had failed to bring about a complete unifi- 44 2 A Student's History of Philosophy cation of this experience. In the first place, there were the two factors of sensation and thought, which Kant had assigned to different sources, and so made partly incom- patible with one another. Similarly, in the moral world, there was almost a complete break between the moral law, and concrete experience ; the ethical life, and the life of sensuous impulse and desire. On a larger scale was the distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal, the theoretical and the practical, the realm of freedom and the realm of necessity. The work of Kant's imme- diate successors had to do with healing these divisions, and making experience one. There are three names in par- ticular Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel which are most closely connected with this later development. And since the ideas of chief value are summed up in Hegel's work, the first two of these may be dismissed very briefly. 2. Fichte. Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born in Lusatia in 1762. His acquaintance with Kant's philosophy turned the current of his life, and he became an enthusiastic dis- ciple of the great thinker. An early writing which, on its first appearance, had mistakenly been hailed as the work of Kant, and praised as such, gave him an imme- diate reputation ; and he was soon recognized as the only man worthy to take up and carry on Kant's task. As professor at Jena, his lectures aroused great interest ; but a naturally self-confident and aggressive disposition kept him continually in trouble, and occasioned at last the loss of his position. His great work in awakening the German people to the need of patriotic and united action in the wars with Napoleon has caused his name to be remem- bered, in his own country, even more as a patriot than as a philosopher. The basis of Fichte's philosophy is the attempt to take seriously Kant's conception of the unity of experience. If reason is in very truth one in all its operations, it ought to be possible to deduce the various categories from a single source, instead of leaving them, as Kant did, in compara- German Idealism 443 tive isolation. Fichte finds this source in the pure activity of the Ego, an activity which reflection discovers to be involved in any fact of knowledge whatsoever, even the simplest and most formal. The unity of the self in all knowledge, and the recognition of this as primarily an act, furnish the foundation of all of Fichte's system. In this act, as Fichte says, the Ego posits itself, asserts its own existence. But so far we have only the pure unity of the Ego. In order to get the actual world of experience, into which differences enter as well as unity, Fichte has to take two further steps. The Ego also affirms or sets up a not-self, or object, and by so doing it establishes a check or limit to the self. For concrete knowledge, then, the self and the world now stand mutually limiting each other; and yet, once more, they both go back to the same source the creative activity of the Ego. Fichte's thesis is, then, that the deepest fact in the uni- verse is free Spirit, and that the world is the creation of Spirit, instead of being, as the materialist would hold, its source. But now there is an obvious question that arises. Why should the Ego thus set up an external world to limit itself ? Why not be content with its original infinity and indeterminateness ? The answer that Fichte gives will bring up another and a specially characteristic side of his philosophy. Here also he goes back to Kant, this time to Kant's doctrine of the supremacy of the moral will. It is because man is fundamentally an active moral being, that he finds it necessary to set up an outer world. For the moral life implies striving, action ; and this would be im- possible, if the will were simply infinite and unlimited. It must, to become conscious of itself, set for itself a limit, in order that then it may overcome this limit. The world is the stuff of moral action, the material which the will creates, to give itself a field for its endeavor. " Not merely to know, but according to thy knowledge to do, is thy vocation." The answer to the question : Do things exist? 444 A Students History of Philosophy resolves itself simply into this : I have certain duties to be fulfilled by means of certain materials. My world is the ob- ject and sphere of my duties, and absolutely nothing more. But it is, then, I myself, the particular individual, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who created the world I seem to find about me? It is the weakness of Fichte's system that his start- ing-point, and many of his aguments, seem to lead to this ; but undoubtedly it is not what he intends. The Absolute Ego is very different from the individual self, though the relation of the two is far from being clear. Apparently, the Absolute is not a personal God. Rather it is the moral order of the world, which works in and through the appar- ently separate striving selves. Such a " moral idealism " has a counterpart, without the metaphysical groundwork, in Matthew Arnold's "power that makes for righteous- ness," and his conception of conduct as the greater part of life ; while in Carlyle the essential spirit of Fichte is even more completely reproduced. 3. Schelling. Apart from the question as to the satis- factoriness of a moral ideal, which involves the setting up of a world simply for the sake of knocking it down again, Fichte's philosophy is evidently too easy-going in its treat- ment of the world of nature. In Schelling (1775-1854) this side of the philosophical problem again assumes an independent importance, though with no very solid results. Schelling started in as a disciple of Fichte, but the same thing happens as in the case of Fichte and Kant the disciple goes beyond his master, until the latter finds it necessary to repudiate him. The feeling that the world of nature needed a more elaborate treatment than was given by merely postulating it as the material of the moral life a feeling fostered by Schelling's connection with the Romantic School of German poetry led him to attempt such a treatment, by trying to point out, in a semi-poetical way, the traces of intelligence, of the Idea, in natural pro- cesses and forms. But this gives rise to a dualism which threatened to pass into a contradiction. On the one side, German Idealism 445 nature is taken as a product of intelligence, the creation of the Ego ; while on the other, intelligence, in man, itself appears as the highest product of the process already working in nature. Evidently it was impossible to stop long at this point. It was necessary to find some unitary principle to account for the origin of both nature and in- telligence alike, since the two are now put on an equality. And as a consequence, Schelling soon found himself led to postulate a common root, in which the differences of the two lose themselves in an abstract identity a posi- tion to a certain extent suggesting that of Spinoza. From this abstraction the night, as Hegel says, in which all cows are black it was of course impossible to get the concrete facts of experience again. Accordingly, in his later philosophy, which took successively a number of forms, Schelling is compelled to have recourse to an in- creasing mysticism. This later philosophy had, however, but little influence ; it is Hegel who takes up the work which Schelling had been unable to carry on. LITERATURE Fichte, Chief Works : Science of Knowledge (1794) ; Science of Rights (1796); Science of Ethics (1798). Translations: Kroeger (Science of Knowledge, Science of Ethics, Science of Rights) ; Smith (Popular Works). Schelling, Chief Work: Transcendental Idealism (1800). Everett, Fichte 1 s Science of Knowledge. Adamson, Fichte. Thompson, The Unity of Fichte's Theory of Knowledge. Watson, Schelling's Transcendental Idealism. Seth, Hegelianism and Personality. Seth, From Kant to Hegel. Leighton, Typical Modern Conceptions of God. 38. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stuttgart in 1770. More, perhaps, than any other of the great phi- 446 A Student's History of Philosophy losophers, his personality is sunk in his work, so that out- side of this there is but little of interest in his life. At Tubingen, where he entered in 1788, he came in contact with the group of young men of which Schelling was the leader ; and to him he attached himself as a disciple, though Schelling was five years his junior. Among his associates he was regarded as a hard worker, but not as particularly brilliant. With Schelling, he founded a philosophical journal, to which he contributed various articles in defence of the Schellingian philosophy. But meanwhile he was coming to realize Schelling's deficiencies, and was pa- tiently working out the thought which was to render him an independent thinker. He broke with Schelling by the publication, in 1807, of his first important work, the Phe- nomenology of Spirit, in which the weakness of Schell- ing's position is somewhat sarcastically criticised. From this time on, his life is filled with the laborious working out of his great principle, a labor which left him no time for participation in the stirring political events that were going on about him. His success was soon assured, and he passed from Nuremburg to Heidelberg, and from Hei- delberg to Berlin, where he became the dictator of the German philosophical world. He died in 1831. It is a matter of great difficulty to convey a clear notion of Hegel's philosophy, by reason not only of the inherent obscurities which have given rise to various interpretations of its meaning, but also because of its extreme subtilty, and of the concrete nature of its content, which covers the whole field of experience and history. The following ac- count, therefore, will have to be very general in its nature. i. The General Nature of Hegel's Philosophy I. Perhaps we may get a starting-point for understand- ing Hegel's main thought most readily, by saying that it is the philosophical expression of the new historical sense. The word of experience is a progressive embodiment German Idealism 447 of reason. Now for the man of the Enlightenment, reason had been an abstract faculty, existing in the individual, by means of which he was able to decide, affirmatively or negatively, such questions as might be presented to him, the existence, e.g., of God or of matter, the obligatoriness of moral law, the foundation of justice and society, or what- ever it might be. For reason, accordingly, a thing was either true or false, and that was all there was to say ; and since the criterion existed within the individual man, he was thus capable of pronouncing upon the Tightness or wrongness of all human opinions and institutions immedi- ately, on abstract theoretical grounds. The historical method has changed all this. Instead of leading us to judge everything by the particular standard which happens to appeal to us as rational, it says : A thing is to be judged by its surroundings, its environment, and the part within this which it has to play; we must put ourselves actually in the place of the reality which we wish to estimate. In other words, instead of reason being an external criterion, it exists only as embodied in the phe- nomena of experience itself. We are not to set up a stand- ard of our own by which to judge things ; we have only to watch experience unfold, and detect, if we can, the laws involved in this unfolding. Reason is objective in things, not subjective in ourselves. Reality exists, and that reality reveals itself in history. It is our part to accept it and try to discover its meaning, not to condemn or praise. A thing is condemned only by the logic of events ; and even this means only that it no longer is able to perform its func- tion, not that it did not once have a function which was its sufficient justification. We can understand reality, there- fore, only by taking it in all its concreteness, not by mak- ing abstract statements about it. Philosophers have argued, perhaps, that there is a God ; but of what value is such an abstract assertion ? It has no meaning until we give it a content, and that content is nothing less than the concrete reality of life and history. Unless it lies wholly apart from 448 A Student's History of Philosophy God, this is a manifestation of Him. The more we know of it, the more we know what He is; and the less we know, the less we know Him. Now Hegel's contention is that experience is such a system of reason with its own laws ; and his whole phi- losophy is an endeavor to unfold and explicate these. This is what he means by his assertion that Thought and Reality are identical. This statement has sometimes been taken to mean, either that our individual thoughts are the sole reality, or that reality is a set of abstractions, opposed to all sense and feeling elements. The first of these inter- pretations is evidently absurd, and Hegel has not the least intention of affirming it, although the relation of human thought to the ultimate Thought involves difficulties which perhaps he does not sufficiently consider. Nor, again, does he mean that reality is a system of abstract thought con- cepts ; for him, concrete experience is the starting-point and the end. But this experience is rational throughout. Every element of experience is connected by relations with a rational whole, in which it has a definite place, and which enables it to be thought understandingly. Each step exists only as it is intelligibly set in this larger frame- work ; and its existence and its intelligibility are one. The reality of a thing is just its possession of significance, of meaning, for the great process of experience into which it enters. And so, too, reality is absolutely coextensive with this system of significant experience. There is no opaque thing-in-itself lying beyond experience, no transcendent truth to be reached by an abstract reasoning process, dis- tinct from the reason that is in things themselves. That which does not enter into experience is for us nothing at all. The system of experience itself is reality, is God ; and God thus is the most certain thing in the world, im- plicated in the existence of any reality whatsoever. The course of history is the process, not simply by which man comes to a consciousness of God and of the world, but German Idealism 449 that by which God comes to a consciousness of Himself. Spirit, then, and the laws of Spirit, are the real essence of the universe, in terms of which everything whatsoever is to be understood. We have no need to go out of our experi- ence to find the truth of reality. Reality is present in this very partial experience of mine ; it is the process as such, of which my present life, and the life of each individual, is but a moment or stage. The problem of philosophy is, then, to show the mean- ing of each factor of experience that has ever revealed itself to man, through its relation to the rational whole to which it belongs. The question which Kant left unsolved, the question how the various parts of experience fit to- gether must be renewed ; and instead of leaving these parts in opposition, their organic relationship must be shown. And the instrument by which this is brought about is the concept of development a development in which the oppositions and contradictions of the world are not denied and annulled, but combined in a richer whole, which gives them each a relative validity. This gives the schema of Hegel's dialectic method a schema of three stages, in which thesis is followed by antithesis, and that again by the synthesis which includes them both. That which at first we take as immediate and complete in itself, presently, by reason of the fact that it is not such a com- plete whole, but only a part of the entire reality, shows its incompleteness by passing into its opposite; and then fol- lows the process of reconciliation, through which both sides get their rights. Every partial truth is thus preserved, and enters into the final truth of reality ; but it enters only as a part, an aspect, and not as self-sufficient and complete. What Hegel has in mind is abundantly in evidence in the history of the intellectual experience. Most of us have had occasion to recognize the fact that any ordinary truth, if pushed too far, taken too absolutely, is apt to lead to contradictions ; and that these contrary considerations have to be kept in mind as limits or qualifications before we can 2G 450 A Student's History of Philosophy reach any settled conclusion. Thus, for example, in the practical realm, if I press too much what I call my abstract rights, it is almost certain to lead me into wrong, or injus- tice ; concrete justice commonly means a balancing, a com- promise. Or we may think of examples such as have al- ready presented themselves on a large scale in the history of thought. Thus the principle of authority and obedience in the Middle Ages passed, by a natural reaction, into the contradictory and equally one-sided principle of lawless and arbitrary freedom of the individual in the Enlighten- ment. The solution does not lie in denying either princi- ple, but in combining them both in the conception of concrete freedom, a freedom which is not the mere abstract possibility of doing anything, but which realizes itself by limiting itself, by turning its undefined possibili- ties into definite channels, and so by submitting itself to the conditions and laws which are needed to accomplish anything actual. The mental temper which insists upon taking things in their isolation, which cannot see more than one side of a truth at a time, which prides itself on being clear cut and downright in its thinking, and will always have it either that a thing is so, or that it is not so, without compromise or limitation, represents what Hegel calls the understanding, whereas that more comprehensive and ade- quate way of looking at things in their relationships, their many-sidedness, he distinguishes as reason. The central thought of Hegel is, accordingly, that only the whole is real. He is entering a protest against one- sidedness and incompleteness. The partial fact is only an abstraction, which needs to be brought into connection with the whole in order to gain validity. Reality is not any par- ticular stage of development, nor even the end of develop- ment as a finished result ; it is the process of development itself in its entirety the concrete universal. "The bud disappears in the bursting forth of the blossom, and it may be said that the one is contradicted by the other ; by the fruit, again, the blossom is declared to be a false existence German Idealism 451 in the plant, and the fruit is judged to be its truth in the place of the flower. These forms not only distinguish themselves from one another, but likewise displace one another as mutually incompatible. But their transient and changing condition also converts them into moments in an organic unity, in which not alone do they not conflict, but in which one is as necessary as the other ; and this very necessity first constitutes the life of the whole." 1 2. Accordingly, in his philosophical system, Hegel at- tempts to explicate the reason that is in the world, by applying his method to the content of experience. He starts with a Logic. Here, beginning with the abstractest concept possible the concept of Being Hegel tries to show that the categories, or thought terms, which we use in thinking the world terms such as quantity and qual- ity, substance and causality, essence, existence, and the like belong to a connected system of thought. They pass one into another by a dialectical process, until they cul- minate at last in the complete notion which includes them all. This is essentially the notion of self-consciousness, which thus remains the supreme category for interpret- ing the world. Next we have the Philosophy of Nature, in which this same Reason is examined in the form in which it becomes externalized in the objective world. The Reason which is present in nature advances, by one step after another, from the purely mechanical realm, until it attains its highest form in the human body; and this serves as a transition to the Philosophy of Mind, or Spirit. Here again there are three stages: the merely Subjective Mind, as it is dealt with by Anthropology and Psychol- ogy ; Objective Mind, as it actualizes itself in objective social institutions ; and Absolute Spirit, where Spirit finally attains to complete self-consciousness, and to the unity of the subjective and the objective, in Art, Religion, 1 Quoted from Wisdom and Religion of a German Philosopher. (Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.) 452 A Student's History of Philosophy and Philosophy. Such, briefly, is the course which devek opment pursues. But now the question arises as to the sense in which Hegel intends this development to be taken. Is it a true development, a process which goes on in reality itself ? There are difficult questions involved in an interpretation of Hegel here. Perhaps the simplest and clearest way would be to suppose that we have to do merely with a logical process in our own minds. If we take a certain concept as complete, then by reference to the completer reality of our knowledge, it shows its partial nature, and leads us on to its connection with this larger fact of which it is a part. This, however, hardly does justice to all of Hegel's claims; and it seems not to cover fully a large portion of his work, which is concerned with the actual experience of mankind, and in which he is dealing with what most certainly is a true development. In the philosophy of history, e.g., or of religion, or in the history of philosophy, the reference to the concrete growth of human knowledge and experience is not a matter of option, but essential and fundamental. It is doubtful whether Hegel can be made wholly consist- ent and intelligible ; whether in his eagerness for system he has not brought together conflicting motives without a real reconciliation. In the end, he undoubtedly means to deny that actual development in time is the final truth of things. The end must somehow be present in the earlier stages, must somehow be eternally complete and non-tem- poral. But how our concrete experience, which assuredly is in some real sense a growth, connects with this absolute reality, or how it stands related to the conceptual devel- opment of the Logic, Hegel does not very satisfactorily clear up. 2. The Stages in the Development of Spirit I. Logic. The Logic represents probably Hegel's greatest work. But its nature is such that no brief sum- German Idealism 453 mary can give any real understanding of it. Its value lies in the acute analysis, in detail, to which it subjects the chief concepts we are accustomed to use in thinking the world, and the bringing to light of their essentially relative character, the limitations which attend their application, and their final interpretation in the light of mind as a self- conscious and unitary organism. It begins with the sim- plest possible category that of Being. That it is, represents the very least we can say of anything. But now just because 'it is so very abstract, we cannot stop with it. To say a thing is, and no more, is practically to say nothing at all ; Being passes into its opposite Not- Being, or Nothing. And then the one-sidedness of both terms leads to the third member of the triad Becoming, which includes within itself the truth of each. This represents the general process by which Hegel seeks to unfold the entire content of the thought life. The Logic as a whole falls into three sections. The first, which is called the doctrine of Being, represents roughly the realm of immediate, unanalyzed knowledge, and includes, beside Being, such categories as Quality and Quantity, which come to us apparently as immediate fact. The second section bears the name of Essence, and is perhaps the most important and enlightening of the three. It deals with the concepts used in ordinary scientific analysis and explana- tion, in which the fact is no longer taken immediately, but is referred to something else as its ground ; and it includes the categories of identity and difference, ground and con- sequence, essence and phenomenon, substance and attri- butes, cause and effect, and the like. Hegel is very successful in pointing out here the difficulties into which we get when we try to take these terms as standing for separate things, when, for example, we attempt to under- stand reality, or substance, as behind and distinct from its appearances, or its qualities, instead of having its nature actually expressed in these. The third section that of the Notion reveals the higher truth of the other two, by 454 A Student's History of Philosophy bringing them into relation to the teleological unity of self- conscious thought, or Spirit. 2. Philosophy of Nature and Subjective Mind. We may turn next, then, to the more concrete application of this logical framework to reality. And the Philosophy of Nature I shall not attempt to consider. Nature is, indeed, a necessary factor in the growth of Spirit, for which the natural environment furnishes the plastic material of its own self-expression. But the relation of Nature to the rest of Hegel's system is extremely obscure, while the treatment which it gets is confessedly the weakest part of his whole philosophy. We can pass at once, therefore, to the Philosophy of Spirit. In Subjective Spirit, Hegel treats man purely as a part of nature, a thing in the world which, though possessed of consciousness, is essentially one thing among others. This is the field which is occupied by what are called the sciences of Anthropology and Psychology. It will not be necessary to dwell upon this, the least important of the divisions of Spirit. In Objec- tive Spirit, this inner life is given content in the form of institutions, which at first appear foreign to the individual, imposed upon him from without, but which nevertheless have their real justification in their spiritual character, as an expression of man's true self, apart from which his life would have no real content. 3. Objective Mind, (a) Philosophy of Law, Ethics, So- ciety. Now we must remember and this Hegel sets himself to show in detail that the reality and true ground of all philosophy of the social and ethical life is not in purely objective laws, to be gathered from institu- tions as such, nor yet in purely individual motives, consti- tuting the morality of the private conscience, but rather in the concrete life of man in society, as a progressive revelation and realization of man's nature. Accordingly, when we begin with abstract right, we are not to think, as, e.g., the French Revolutionists did, that the whole social problem can be solved by reference to certain inherent German Idealism 455 rights, assumed dogmatically, which belong to the essence of man as a being distinct from the social whole. We may, indeed, take the standpoint from which the human will is looked upon as existing in itself, over against a world of relations into which it has not yet entered, but we are not to suppose that this is the real man ; the conception is merely abstract and formal. However, for theoretical purposes, we may suppose such a formal power of enter- ing into relations, which are as yet undetermined ; and the possessor of such a formal freedom is in legal terms a per- son. Personality is thus the abstract basis of abstract right, or law. Such law, by reason of its abstract character, is necessarily only negative, made up of " Thou shalt nots " ; it has no content, no concrete existence. To become real, it must enter concretely into a relation to the objective world which confronts it. That by which the will gives itself a real standing, an objective existence, is possession or prop- erty. And it is, accordingly, with what this act involves, that abstract law is concerned. Property, then, is an object, in so far as it has come, through seizure, use, and alienation, into relation to a human will, and been made an attribute of a "me" ; it is objectified will. It is thus a necessity of concrete freedom, and is proportionately sacred. It is to be noticed, how- ever, that abstract law says nothing as to what or how much property any individual should possess in any or- ganic state, where differences are implied ; its abstract equality does not mean a natural right to equality. This is the fault in the reasoning of the Revolutionists. But now this property relation is not really established, except as my right is recognized and allowed by my neighbor. It involves not simply my will, but the consenting will of an- other, and thus is the objectification' of this common will. The relation between things becomes the relation between wills. Persons are related to each other through their properties ; they can hold property only as they also respect each other's property. 45 6 A Students History of Philosophy This objectification of the common will forms the basis of contract a fact which, it is to be noticed, lies at the bottom, not of all social relationships whatever, as earlier philosophers had thought, but only of our relationships to particular external things, which are not intrinsically con- nected with the will. It is entirely different in the case of institutions which, like marriage, are an expression of the essential nature of man. As, therefore, contracts are arbi- trary and accidental, there is no guarantee against their passing into injustice or wrong. This may take the form of unconscious wrong, or of fraud, or of crime, by which, through my property, violence is used upon my will. But since freedom is the basis of all right, by attacking the freedom of another, the criminal is attacking himself and his own right ; his act is self-contradictory and self-destruc- tive, and force may legitimately be used to defeat it. This is the foundation of the right of compulsion. And as the crime exists, not in the external world, but in the will of the criminal, compulsion thus appears as punish- ment the reaction, upon the will of the perpetrator, of his criminal act, so that its essential self-contradictoriness comes home to him. The punishment is the completion of his own act, and is called for by justice to the criminal himself. The offender, in receiving punishment, is really being treated simply with the honor due to a presumptively rational being. But such a reaction should not be in turn arbitrary and individual that is but adding one wrong to another ; it should proceed from a reflective interpretation of the principle that is involved. Here, therefore, is a de- mand for a particular will that can, at the same time, will the universal; and thus we rise to the stage of subjective, reflective will, or morality. In Morality man becomes aware of the universal char- acter of those acts which hitherto he has performed unreflec- tively, and so with the possibility of discord ; his acts are brought home to the conscience. But Conscience, so long as it remains at the stage of mere self-determination, is still German Idealism 457 incomplete. I may will the Good, but who shall tell me what the Good really is ? " Duty for duty's sake," " Do right though the heavens fall," sound very well ; but what is right, and what is duty, in any particular case ? Thus in the popular sense, Conscience often comes to mean sim- ply what my particular desires or unintelligent prejudices impel me to do. The action is the result of mere blind feeling, and may as well be bad as right. There is need not only of a self-determination, but of a self-determination by reference to an objective standard. I transform the realm of subjective morality into true ethical life, only as I give up a purely individual private judgment, whose logi- cal issue is anarchy, and become a member of an objec- tively constituted society, whose authority I acknowledge as guide, and whose institutions and customs I accept as giving enlightenment, control, and definiteness to my moral life. Here, in the ethical relations of the family, civil society, the state, and, finally, humanity, the true life and freedom of the will is concretely realized. Abstract rights, and ab- stract duties, become concrete and specific, and thereby the individual liberates and elevates himself to real or sub- stantial freedom. Only in society does man really exist, really win the actual attainment of selfhood and individual- ity, which are his birthright. It is in the family that the individual first comes to himself an institution no longer by contract, but by the grace of God. The principle of the family is love, which includes all the members, and unites them by a living bond. The Family involves (i) marriage, in which the physical union is transformed into a spiritual one. The two persons submit to limitations, in order to gain fuller self-realization ; only in marriage does man find his completion. (2) The family property, which gains now an ethical value by becoming common property. (3) The education of the children to maturity. And this forms the transition to the second stage of the ethical world civil society ; for the Family is inadequate 458 A Student's History of Philosophy to the full nature of man. As the children leave the home, and families separate, the need arises for another and higher unity, to bring together this newly emerging inde- pendence. In its first phase, this takes the aspect of an external power, by which the conflicting interests of indi- viduals are restrained, and a field for their activity secured. It is society on the side of government, and represents that ideal of society which the Enlightenment brought to the front. Men are really separate existences, possessing pri- vate interests, and bound to aggrandize themselves to the top of their power. But since, if unrestrained liberty were allowed, these conflicting interests would clash, it is desir- able to give up a certain amount of liberty, in so far as it conflicts with the liberty of others, in order to gain the ad- vantage of the resulting security. Government is thus a police arrangement, which brings men into outer harmony, but adopts the policy of laissez faire in all other directions. Under this head, Hegel takes up various organs and func- tions of civil society, and shows how, underneath them all, the real motive force revealing itself is not such an abstract conception of government, but rather the ideal which finds its expression in the truer reality of the State or Nation. It is this latter reality, as the organic unity of the feel- ings, customs, and genius of a people, immanent in their whole activity, a moral personality, a temple whose build- ing is of living stones, the work of God in history realizing the moral order of the world, which represents the frui- tion and consummation of the moral life of humanity, and makes man for the first time truly human. The State is the true end of man, not merely a means. It is the recon- ciliation of the private interests of the individual with the universal aims, the interest of the public. As such, it does not repress personality, as did the ancient state ; rather it builds upon it. But personality is not mere in- dividualism. The true person is a social person, who has his rights and his duties only as a member of society. As such, his rights and his duty are identical. Duty is not German Idealism 459 imposed upon him by authority, but only by accomplishing it does he find self-satisfaction. And duty exists only with reference to those expressions of the universal will which have been objectified in law and custom. The striving for a morality of one's own is futile, and by its very nature impossible of attainment. In regard to morality the say- ing of the wisest man of antiquity is the only true one : to be moral is to live in accordance with the moral tradi- tions of one's country. These traditions are but the pro- gressive revelation of the universal will, or spirit of the national genius ; to alter them, one must not set himself outside them as a judge, on the basis of his own private conscience, but must rather act from within, as the organ of the immanent Spirit advancing to a more complete realization. This idea of the state, Hegel considers (i) in its im- mediate existence in the individual state ; (2) in the relation of the single state to other states external polity ; and (3) as the universal Spirit of Humanity, superior to the individual state, and realizing itself in the process of history. As regards the internal constitution of the State, the essen- tial principle is the organic relation of powers in a unity, not the mechanical aggregate of mutual " checks," which is the theory that the purely negative conception of gov- ernment leads to. These essential factors are (i) the power to define and determine the universal in the form of law the Legislative power; (2) the power to apply this universal in particular spheres and to single cases the governing or Executive power; and (3) the power of ultimate decision the power of the Prince in which the different powers are brought together into an individual unity. The highest form of the State, accordingly, Hegel finds in the Constitutional Monarchy. (V) Philosophy of History. As the human being is not a person except in relation to other persons, so the State is not an individual save in relation to other states ; and the highest phase of this, when it becomes internal- 460 A Student's History of Philosophy ized, is found in that organic relation which constitutes the History of Humanity. In his PhilosopJiy of History, which is one of Hegel's most characteristic and most interesting works, he tries to unfold the "grand argument of human existence," to trace the law of development which runs through the whole past life of the race, to discover the particular genius which each great world power has displayed, and to relate this to the all-compre- hending Idea, which is immanent in the entire process. What, then, is the plot of this great drama ? Briefly, History is progress in the consciousness of rational freedom. It is the discipline of the uncontrolled natural will, bringing it into obedience to a universal principle. In its first form, in Asia, Spirit is still immersed in Nature. Law and morality are regarded as something fixed and external ; they need not concur with the desire of the individual, and the subjects are consequently like children, who obey their parents without will and insight of their own. In the law men recognize not their own will, but one entirely foreign. Justice is administered only on the basis of external morality, and Government exists only as the prerogative of compulsion. So, also, Religion and the State are not distinguished, and the constitution generally is a Theocracy. This is the childhood of History. The Greek world may be compared with the period of adolescence, for here we have individualities forming themselves. This is the second main principle in human history. In China the subject obeys an absolute fixed law, with reference to which his own will is external and wholly dependent, a mere accident. In Greece, the principle of universality is impressed upon the individual himself, and he finds himself in immediate harmony with the outer expres- sion of this in Nature and the State ; he himself wills that which is laid on the Oriental as an external constraint. In opposition, then, to the absorption in Nature of the Oriental world, the Greeks transform the natural into an expression of spiritual truth. But since the freedom of German Idealism 461 Spirit is conditioned by some stimulus which Nature sup- plies, spirituality is not yet absolutely free, not yet abso- lutely self -produced is not self -stimulation. The idea is not yet regarded abstractly, but is immediately bound up with the real, as in a beautiful work of art. The Greek Spirit is the plastic artist, forming the stone into a work of art. The artist needs for his spiritual conceptions, stone, colors, sensuous forms, to express his idea. Without such an element, he can no more be conscious of his idea him- self, than give it an objective form for the contemplation of others, since it cannot in thought alone become an object to him. The Greek Spirit was not enduring, because the Idea was too closely bound up with a particular material form ; it was not yet recognized as purely spiritual. In the next phase of history the Idea becomes separated as an abstract universality (in which the social aim absorbs all individ- ual aims). This is the Roman State, which represents the severe labors of the manhood of history. The State begins to have an abstract existence, and to develop itself for a definite object ; and in doing this there is involved a rec- ognition of its members as abstract individuals as persons with definite rights before the law. But while individuals have a share in the end of the State, it is not a complete and concrete one, calling their whole being into play. Free individuals are sacrificed to the demands of the national objects. The geniality and joy of soul that existed in the Athenian Polis have given place to harsh and vigorous toil. Free, complete, substantial free- dom is attained only in the fourth phase of world history the German. This would answer, in the com- parison with the periods of human life, to its old age. But while the old age of Nature is weakness, that of Spirit is its perfect maturity and strength. Freedom has found the means of realizing its ideal its true existence. 4. Absolute Mind, (a) Art. But the State still does not represent the full experience of man, and political life is not 462 A Student's History of Philosophy his highest and truest activity ; complete freedom he can find only in the life of Spirit as such. Above, then, the life of the State, there exist the free realms of Art, Religion, and Philosophy, in which the opposition of the outer and the inner is overcome still more completely, and man sees him- self at last as he truly is pure Spirit. In Art we see the triumph of the idea over matter anticipated. The material of the artist bodies forth the idea which he means to express immediately, without the intervention of the discursive reason. But still the material which the idea employs is not perfectly plastic ; and this greater or less rebelliousness of character furnishes the basis for the dis- tinction between the various arts. In architecture, the ele- mentary stage, idea and form are still distinct, and the latter only symbolizes the former. So the cathedral may symbolize religious aspiration, but it is still far removed from the idea for which it stands. By its vast proportions it may express solemnity and grandeur, but it cannot sug- gest the finer shades of feeling. This dualism partly disappears in sculpture. Sculpture has this in common with architecture, that it employs as its material gross matter ; but it is more capable of trans- forming and spiritualizing this. It is able to utilize every- thing, instead of leaving many details which are unessential to the idea, as in architecture. But it cannot represent the soul itself as revealed in the eye ; this belongs to paint- ing. In painting, also, the material is somewhat less gross; it is the plane surface, in which depth is repre- sented only by appearance. It is still, however, objective art, still bound to matter, and so, like architecture and sculpture, incapable of expressing anything beyond a moment of life. This limitation is overcome in music, the subjective, immaterial art, which can reproduce all the infinite variety of the inner life. But its subjectivity is likewise a limitation. Music also symbolizes, and so is capable of various interpretations. The union of the sub- jective and the objective is brought about in the art of arts German Idealism 463 poetry. Poetry converts the vague and indefinite sound which is the material of music, into articulate and definite sound language in which the material is wholly sub- ordinated to the idea, and so becomes adequate. Poetry sums up in itself all the other arts : epic poetry corresponds to the material arts ; lyric poetry to music ; while the crown of all, reconciling the two, and constituting the supreme artistic expression of the highest civilization, is dramatic poetry. On the historical side, Oriental art is symbolical, de- lighting in allegories and parables, and shows its inability to cope with its material by its lack of form, and fondness for exaggeration. In Greek art, symbolism is superseded by direct expression, in which matter and idea perfectly coincide ; but Greek art is defective through its very per- fection. The idea is so completely identified with its matter, that it becomes purely naturalistic ; the spiritual character of the idea is sacrificed to mere physical beauty. This fault is corrected in Christian art. Here art is re- called from the physical world, and the ideal of physical beauty is subordinated to that of spiritual beauty the worship of the Virgin follows the cultus of Venus. But just because the moral ideal is so far beyond the power of matter to embody, Christian art, despairing of ade- quately expressing it, lapses into the contempt of form which characterizes Romanticism. (b) Religion and Philosophy. That identification of thought and the object, of the finite and the infinite, which receives a partial expression in art, is raised to a higher power in religion. Here, again, there is no ques- tion, for Hegel, of proving the reality of God, and the truth of religion, in the ordinary sense. He is interested rather in the explication of that religious experience, which for him is identical with God. The religious experience exists as a fact given to philosophy to understand, not to create ; and since God has His existence within experience, not outside of it, the more supreme and comprehensive experi- 464 A Student's History of Philosophy ence is, the more adequately God is revealed in it. Accord- ingly, Hegel has no patience with the temper of the Enlightenment, which would reject positive religions as false and man-made, and confine its religious beliefs to a few abstract dogmas of Deism. Religion exists just in the process of religious development ; and the stages of this development are to be interpreted, not judged, except as they are judged by the further historical develop- ment which passes beyond them. The failure of art to embody the Idea fully, gives rise to a new dualism the religious dualism of the finite and the infinite ; and the progress of religion is the healing of this separation. The three elements of the religious idea God, man, and the relation between them underlie the successive stages of religious development. In Ori- ental religions, the idea of the infinite prevails. God is everything (Pantheism), and man is nothing. God is what the despot is in the political sphere an all-potent being, upon whose will men are wholly dependent, so that noth- ing is left for man but submission. The religion of the Greek, on the contrary, is a religion of naturalism, and the finite. Man is the final object of his worship. His gods are essentially human attributes concretely em- bodied, and raised by art to the position of types. These two extremes are reconciled in Christianity, the absolute religion, for which the important thing is neither God by Himself, nor man by himself, but the concrete unity of the divine and human in Christ the God-man. Christianity finds God, the infinite, implicated in the finite in human consciousness, and the process of the world. Its dogmas, however, are to be taken in this way as shadowing forth in terms of the imagination the eternal progress of the Idea not as metaphysical truth, nor as the statement of historical facts that happened eighteen hundred years ago. And for this reason that religion is still in the realm of imaginative representation there is a higher stage still. The truths which are but shadowed German Idealism 465 forth in religion, get their clear, rational statement the Idea comes to a full consciousness of itself in that de- velopment of pure thought which constitutes the History of Philosophy, and which has its outcome in the philosophy of Hegel. 5. Defects of Hegel's Philosophy. Hegel's claim, that at last the absolute had attained to full self-consciousness, was hardly borne out by subsequent events. His influ- ence, supreme at his death, was not destined to continue long unchecked. Within his own school there was pres- ently a split over the interpretation of his attitude toward religious problems; while without, opponents sprang up on every side, among whom Herbart may be specially mentioned. The opposing forces were for a time success- ful, and in the reaction, an exaggerated admiration gave place to an equally extreme disparagement. We may note, briefly, the chief weaknesses in Hegel's system, which brought about this result. And first, while his attempt to show the rationality of all reality constitutes one of the main excellences of Hegel, there can be no doubt that he exaggerated the extent to which this rationality is a transparent one for human thought, and its logically necessary character. If we were to judge by many of the utterances of Hegel and his disciples, all mystery is at last dispelled in the clear light of reason, and the whole course of creation may be watched, as it moves with logical necessity from one step to the next. In opposition to this extreme and presumptuous gnosti- cism, Kant, and his limitation of the human faculties to mere phenomena, proved a welcome relief. The sense of the ultimate mystery of things, the recognition of man's dependence on a reality beyond him, and of the insuffi- ciency of anything that he can call knowledge to measure the immensity of existence, the pressure of the facts of evil, sin, and suffering, of which Hegel never showed any ade- quate appreciation these things all tended again to come to the front. Accordingly, on every side, in opposition 2H 466 A Student's History of Philosophy to the gnosticism and logical idealism of Hegel, there have arisen the claims of faith, or intuition, as opposed to rea- son ; the assertion of ultimate agnosticism ; or even, as in Schopenhauer, the insistence on the positive /^rationality of things, as a final metaphysical creed; while for the purely phenomenal knowledge which it is possible to at- tain, we are directed to the sober methods of science. And it is in particular by this insistence on the claims of science, that the more recent thought is marked. It was this which served as a chief cause for the discredit into which Hegel's philosophy fell. For the spiritual side of life, Hegel had done much ; but what of that great independent world of things, on which the experience of man depends, and which seems at times so indifferent, so antagonistic even, to human interests ? Hegel's treatment of this had been weak and fanciful, and he had even set himself actively against what have proved to be fruitful scientific ideas. Before a final philosophical rendering could be made, it was necessary to turn once more to the objective aspect of the world, and carry out, in all their rigor, the principles on which science proceeds ; and this was the great task of the scientific development which dominates the thought of the nineteenth century. And, finally, there was a new social spirit coming to birth, which Hegel failed also to satisfy. For him, the task of philosophy was simply to interpret the movement of the Universal Spirit as it had already embodied itself in social institutions ; it was not in any sense to prophesy, or to construct ideals. The whole effort of Hegel had been to show that truth is to be found in the actual, that be- tween thought and reality, the ideal and the real, there is no separation. Substantial freedom consists in accepting the duties of our position in Society as we find it, not in setting our finite wills in rebellion against the world spirit. To the new temper which was beginning to demand so- cial justice, and a reconstitution of society that should give something for the mass of men to hope for, and re- German Idealism 467 lieve the sufferings of those with whom the Idea had not seen fit to concern itself, Hegel seemed to have nothing to say. Indeed, to men of such a temper, he appeared even a reactionary one who had found the highest expression of human freedom in that latest development of History, the corrupt Prussian State of his day, beyond which it was idle to attempt to look. Without trying, then, to disentangle all the complexity of recent philosophical thought, we may consider, briefly, three or four of the more representative names and move- ments : the return, in Schopenhauer, to the thin g-in -itself as a reality deeper than experience and thought ; the com- bination of scientific method and social amelioration, with an ultimate agnosticism, in the Positivism of Comte ; and the rise of the theory and philosophy of Evolution in Darwin and Spencer. LITERATURE Hegel, Chief Works : Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) ; Logic (1816) ; Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (1817) ; Philosophy of Right (1821); Philosophy of Religion; ^Esthetics; Philosophy of History; History of Philosophy . Translations: Wallace (Logic, Philosophy of Mind) ; Sibree (Philosophy of History) ; Dyde (Philosophy of Right} ; Bosanquet, (Philosophy of Art) ; Hastie (^Esthetics) ; Haldane (History of Philosophy) . Sterrett, The Ethics of Hegel. Stirling, The Secret of Hegel, Caird, Hegel. Kedney, Hegel's ^Esthetics. Morris, Hegel's Philosophy of the State and of History. Harris, Hegel's Logic. Seth, From Kant to Hegel. Seth, Hegelianism and Personality. Wallace, Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel, McTaggart, Studies in Hegelian Dialectic. McTaggart, Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel. Baillie, Origin and Significance of Hegel's Logic. Hibben, Hegel's Logic. Mackintosh, Hegel and Hegelianism. PHILOSOPHY SINCE HEGEL 39. Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer was born in 1 788. His father died when he was a youth, and between himself and his mother, who was a popular novelist of the day, so little sympathy existed, that they found it desirable to live apart. Scho- penhauer's system was conceived early in life, and his chief work The World as Will and as Idea was published in 1819. The cold reception which it received was a severe blow to Schopenhauer's vanity, which was considerable ; and it increased his disgust with the reigning philosophy. He was thoroughly convinced that there was a conspiracy among the school philosophers against him, and he could find nothing too disparaging to say of them in turn, par- ticularly of Hegel. He had come in contact with Hegel at Berlin, where he was appointed Privatdocent in 1820. He apparently had cherished hopes that he could easily triumph over the great philosopher, whose popularity was then at its height ; and he deliberately set himself in ri- valry, by choosing the same hour for his lectures. When, consequently, he found his own lectures unattended, and Hegel's classroom thronged, he was greatly disappointed and embittered, and finally was led to give up all thought of an academic career. The rest of his life was spent in quiet at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Toward the close of his life, the recognition he had failed of in his youth seemed on the point of coming to him. His book began to be talked about, and, especially in its pessimism, to find con- verts, if not among the technical philosophers, at least among the laity. This growing fame soothed his last days. He died in 1860. 468 Philosophy since Hegel 469 i . The World as Will. The two notable things about Schopenhauer's philosophy are (i) his doctrine of the Will as the thing-in-itself, and (2) the way in which he founds on this basis the first systematic philosophy of Pes- simism. Schopenhauer's whole doctrine relates itself to Kant, to whom he professes to go back in opposition to the idealistic tendency which culminated in Hegel. Ac- cording to Kant, the world as we know it is a phenomenal construction of the self. " ' The world is my idea ' this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth ; that the world that surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relation to something else the consciousness which is himself." 1 But if the world is illusion, appearance, there also exists back of it the reality w;hich appears, the thing-in-itself of Kant, which Schopenhauer defends vigorously against the attacks of the Idealists. Is, however, this thing-in-itself unknowable ? Here Schopenhauer ceases to follow Kant's leading. It is true we cannot reach it by the pathway of the logical reason ; we cannot demonstrate it in the strict sense of the word. It is rather the result of an intuition of genius. But still we may attain to a highly probable conception of its nature. For we ourselves are a part of the real universe, and in ourselves we come upon reality at first hand, through immediate experience. If, accordingly, we can get at our own true nature, we may by analogy extend this to other things as well, since it is natural to assume that reality is all of a piece. Now the inner essence of man's nature is will this is the first insight of Scho- penhauer. Man, that is, is not primarily a thinking, an in- 1 The World as Will and Idea. Translation by Haldane and Kemp, Vol. I, p. i . (Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.) 470 A Students History of Philosophy tellectual being, as philosophy has tended to assume ; he is primarily active, willing. The reality of his own body is given to him immediately as will. Will, and the movement of the body, are one thing; my body is the objectivity of my will. The various parts of the body are the visible expression of desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels are objec- tified hunger. The brain is the will to know, the foot the will to go, the stomach the will to digest. It is only on the basis of this active self-expansion that the thought life arises. We think in order to do; the active impulse pre- cedes, and is the necessary basis for any conscious motive. Now this thought, once attained, throws a flood of light on the outer world. The eternally striving, energizing power which is working everywhere in the universe in the instinct of the animal, in the life process of the plant, in the blind force of inorganic matter is not this just the will which underlies all existence ? " If we observe the strong and unceasing impulse with which the waters hurry to the ocean, the persistency with which the magnet turns ever to the north pole, the readiness with which iron flies to the magnet, the eagerness with which the electric poles seek to be reunited, and which, just like human desire, is increased by obstacles ; if we see the crystal quickly take form with such wonderful regularity of construction, which is clearly only a perfectly definite and accurately deter- mined impulse in different directions, seized and retained by crystallization ; if we observe the choice with which bodies repel and attract each other ; lastly, if we feel di- rectly how a burden which hampers our body by its gravi- tation toward the earth, increasingly presses and strains upon it in pursuit of its one tendency, if we observe all this, I say, it will require no great effort of the imagination to recognize, even at so great a distance, our own nature. That which in us pursues its ends by the light of knowl- edge, but here, in the weakest of its manifestations, only strives blindly and dumbly in a one-sided and unchangeable manner, must yet in both cases come under the name of Philosophy since Hegel 471 Will, as it is everywhere one and the same ; just as the first dim light of dawn must share the name of sunlight with the rays of the full mid-day." 1 Reality, then, is Will, which is one and indivisible. All apparent multiplicity is due to those subjective forms of merely human thought, which come between us and the truth namely, space and time. " As the magic lantern shows many different pictures, which are all made visible by one and the same light, so in all the multifarious phe- nomena which fill the world together, or throng after each other as events, only one will manifests itself, of which everything is the visibility, the objectivity, and which remains unmoved in the midst of this change." 2 But now from will we must cut away all that action for intelligent ends which characterizes the human will. Intelligence is only a surface phenomenon a form which existence assumes for the attainment of its hungry striving, but a form quite foreign to its real nature. In itself, will is blind and irrational. In all its lower aspects it is without knowl- edge ; the nests of birds and the webs of spiders are not the product of intelligence, but of unforeseeing instinct. It is only as its manifestations become more complex, that it kindles for itself, in intellect, a light as a means of get- ting rid of the disadvantages arising from this complexity. The will is thus more original than the intellect ; it is the blind man carrying on his shoulders the lame man who can see. 2. The Philosophy of Pessimism. And this gives the basis for Schopenhauer's pessimism ; it follows from the very nature of will. All willing arises from want, and so from deficiency, and so from suffering. " The satisfaction of a wish ends it, yet for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten that are denied. Further, the desire lasts long, and demands are infinite ; the satisfaction is short and scantily measured out. It is like the alms thrown to a beggar, that keeps him alive to-day, that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. So long as we *!, p. 153. 2 I, p. 199. 47 2 -^ Students History of Philosophy are given up to the throng of desires, with their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subjects of willing, we can never have lasting happiness or peace. It is essentially all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear in- jury or seek enjoyment ; the care for the constant demands of the will continually occupies and sways the conscious- ness." 1 The subject of willing thus is constantly stretched on the revolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the Danaides, is the ever-longing Tantalus. No pos- sible satisfaction in the world could suffice to still the longings of the will, set a goal to its infinite craving, and fill the bottomless abyss of its heart. Life itself, therefore, is fundamentally an evil ; as Calderon says : The greatest crime of man is that he was born. " There is no proportion between the cares and troubles of life, and the results or gain of it. In the simple and easily surveyed life of the brutes, the empti- ness and vanity of the struggle is more easily grasped. The variety of the organizations, the ingenuity of the means, whereby each is adapted to its element and its prey, contrasts here distinctly with the want of any lasting final aim ; instead of which there presents itself only momentary comfort, fleeting pleasure conditioned by wants, much and long suffering, constant strife, bellum omnium, each one both a hunter and hunted, pressure, want, need, and anxiety, shrieking and howling. And this goes on in secula seculorum, or till once' again the crust of the planet breaks." " Let us now add the consideration of the human race. Here also life presents itself by no means as a gift for enjoyment, but as a task, a drudgery to be performed; and in accordance with this we see, in great and small, universal need, ceaseless wars, cares, constant pressure, endless strife, compulsory activity, with extreme exertion of all the powers of mind and body. Many millions, united into nations, strive for the common good, each individual Philosophy since Hegel 473 on account of his own ; but many thousands fall as a sacrifice for it. Now senseless delusions, now intriguing politics, excite them to wars with each other; then the sweat and the blood of the great multitude must flow, to carry out the ideas of individuals, or to expiate their faults. In peace, industry and trade are active, inventions work miracles, seas are navigated, delicacies are collected from all ends of the world, the waves engulf thousands. All strive, some planning, some acting; the tumult is in- describable. But the ultimate aim of it all what is it ? To sustain ephemeral and tormented individuals through a short span of life, in the most fortunate case with endur- able want and comparative freedom from pain, which, however, is at once attended with ennui ; then the repro- duction of this race and its striving. In this evident dis- proportion between the trouble and the reward, the will to live appears to us from this point of view, if taken ob- jectively, as a fool, or subjectively, as a delusion, seized by which everything living works with the utmost exertion of its strength, for something that is of no value." * " The enchantment of distance shows us paradises which vanish like optical illusions when we have allowed our- selves to be mocked by them. Happiness, accordingly, always lies in the future, or else in the past, and the pres- ent may be compared to a small dark cloud which the wind drives over the sunny plain ; before and behind it all is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow." 2 Pleasure is merely negative, and only evil is real. We feel pain, but not painlessness ; care, but not the absence of care ; fear, but not security. Hence all poets are obliged to bring their heroes into anxious and painful situations, so that they may be able to free them from these. The happiest moment of the happy man is the moment of his falling asleep. " The earthquake of Lisbon, the earth- quake of Haiti, the destruction of Pompeii, are only small playful hints of what is possible. A small alteration of l, pp. ii2ff. 2 III, p. 383. 474 A Student's History of Philosophy the atmosphere causes cholera, yellow fever, black death, which carry off millions of men ; a somewhat greater altera- tion would extinguish all life. A very moderate increase of heat would dry up all the rivers and springs. The brutes have received just barely so much in the way of organs and powers as enables them to procure, with the greatest exertion, sustenance for their own lives, and food for their offspring; therefore if a brute loses a limb, or even the full use of one, it must generally perish. Even of the human race, powerful as are the weapons it pos- sesses in understanding and reason, nine-tenths live in constant conflict with want, balancing themselves with difficulty and effort upon the brink of destruction." 1 " Whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it. And when on the other hand he came to the task of describing Heaven and its delights, he had an insurmountable difficulty before him, for our world affords no material at all for this." 2 It is wholly impossible, then, to find a purpose or meaning in life. Why the whole tragi-comedy exists cannot in the least be seen, since it has no spectators, and the actors themselves undergo infinite trouble, with little and merely negative pleasure. " What, then, is a short postponement of death, a slight easing of misery or defer- ment of pain, a momentary stilling of desire, compared with such an abundant and certain victory over them all as death ? What could such advantages accomplish taken as active moving causes of a human race, innumerable because constantly renewed, which unceasingly moves, strives, struggles, grieves, writhes, and performs the whole tragi-comedy of the history of the world, nay, what says more than all, perseveres in such a mock existence, as long as each one possibly can. Clearly this is all inexplicable if we seek the moving causes outside the figures, and con- ceive the human will as striving in consequence of rational i III, P . 396. 2 1, p. 416. Philosophy since Hegel 475 reflection after those good things held out to it, the attain- ment of which would be a sufficient reward for its ceaseless cares and troubles. The matter being taken thus, every one would rather have long ago said : ' Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandellej and have gone out. But, on the contrary, every one guards and defends his life, like a precious pledge intrusted to him under heavy responsibility. The wherefore and the why, the reward for this, certainly he does not see ; but he has accepted the worth of that pledge without seeing it, upon trust and faith. The puppets are not pulled from without, but each bears in itself the clock- work from which its movements result. This is the will to live, manifesting itself as an untiring machine, an irra- tional tendency, which has not its sufficient reason in the external world." 1 It is this blind pressure, without goal or motive, which drives us on, and not anything that we can rationally justify. "We pursue our life with great interest and much solicitude as long as possible ; so we blow out a soap bubble as long and as large as possible, although we know perfectly well that it will burst." 2 Accordingly we often see a miserable figure, deformed and shrunk with age, want, and disease, implore our help from the bottom of his heart for the prolongation of an existence, the end of which would necessarily appear altogether desirable if it were an objective judgment that determined here. Surely, if one knocked on the graves, and asked the dead whether they wished to rise again, they would shake their heads. 3. The Way of Salvation. Such are the facts of life ; is there no deliverance ? Can we never for a moment be set free from the miserable striving of the will, keep the sab- bath of the penal servitude of willing, while the wheel of Ixion stands still ? Yes, in a more or less complete way, man may free himself from this all-devouring will to live. The first and partial road to deliverance is through art. Art has to do, not with the particular things of the phe- 1 III, p. 115. 2 1, p. 402. 476 A Student* s History of Philosophy nomenal world, which can serve as a satisfaction to our desires, but rather with the eternal types which are repre- sented in the objectification of the World Will the stages which it has assumed. Art is concerned with ideas. It repeats or reproduces the eternal ideas grasped through pure contemplation, the essential and abiding in all the phenomena of the world. In relation to these, the details of the natural world, and the multitudinous events of his- tory, are just as foreign and unessential and indifferent as the figures which they assume are to the clouds, the form of its eddies and foam flakes to the brook, or its trees and flowers to the ice. Astonishment at the complete same- ness of all its million phenomena, and the infallibility of their occurrence, is really like that of a child or a savage, who looks for the first time through a glass with many facets at a flower, and marvels at the complete simi- larity of the innumerable flowers which he sees. The one source of art is the knowledge of the ideas; its one aim the communication of this knowledge. " While science, following the unresting and inconstant stream of the fourfold forms of reason and consequent, with each end attained sees farther, and can never reach a final goal, any more than by running we can reach the place where the clouds touch the horizon, art, on the con- trary, is everywhere at its goal. For it plucks the object of its contemplation out of the stream of the world's course, and has it isolated before it. And this particular thing which, in that stream, was a small perishing part, becomes to art the representative of the whole, an equivalent of the endless multitude in space and time. It therefore pauses at this particular thing; the course of time stops; the relations vanish for it ; only the essential, the idea, is its object." 1 In the pure contemplation of these Platonic ideas, the soul finds thus a momentary release from striving, and by its disinterestedness it denies for a time the remorseless 1 1, p- 239- Philosophy since Hegel 477 will to live. Knowledge breaks free from the service of the will, and loses itself in the object; man forgets his individuality, his will, and only continues to exist as the pure subject, the clear mirror of the object the pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge. The fac- ulty of continuing in this state of pure perception, and of enlisting in this service the knowledge which originally existed only for the service of the will, is what we call genius. Genius is the power of entirely renouncing one's own personality for a time, so as to remain pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world. The common mortal, the manufacture of nature which she produces by the thousand every day, is not capable thus of observation that in every sense is wholly disinterested ; he can turn his attention to things only so far as they have some rela- tion to his will. But such moments as art can give, are too fleeting for complete deliverance that can come about only by the complete suppression of the will to live. This cannot be attained by suicide. The destruction of its phenomenal manifestation, the body, leaves quite unchanged that un- derlying will which is the true cause of our misery. The real source of the conditions we are trying to escape remains untouched by death. " If a man fears death as his annihilation, it is just as if he were to think that the sun cries out at evening : Woe is me ! for I go down into eternal night." x The suicide, therefore, goes to work the wrong way. Instead of denying the will, he gives up living just because he cannot give up willing. True deliverance comes, not by rejecting life, but the desire for life ; not by shunning sorrows, but by shunning joys. To the attain- ment of this happy consummation, morality forms a step. Morality is in essence the crushing out of the egoistic self- assertion, which is ready to annihilate the world in order to maintain its own self, that drop in the ocean, a little longer ; it does this through the recognition of the fact that, after 1 1, P. 361. 478 A Student's History of Philosophy all, it is only phenomenally that I differ from my neighbor. In reality, each man must say to himself with reference to other things : This art Thou. Down beneath the ap- pearance of difference which the space and time forms give, it is the same unitary will which constitutes your life and mine ; and so our interests are not different, but identical. The true root of all morality, therefore, is sym- pathy; for sympathy is nothing but the obscure percep- tion of this identity between myself and my neighbor. But while morality is a partial abandonment of the striving will, in so far as it sinks the law of mere self- preservation in a sense of human brotherhood, it is only the starting-point. He who through morality, however, by renouncing every accidental advantage, desires for him- self no other lot than that of humanity in general, cannot desire even this long. And thus only do we reach the final goal. True salvation only comes when all striving ceases, when we mortify the deeds of the body by volun- tarily crushing out all desire and all activity. " Every gratification of our wishes won from the world is like the alms which the beggar receives from life to-day, that he may hunger again to-morrow ; resignation, on the con- trary, is like an inherited estate, it frees the owner forever from all care." 1 The highest ideal of life, then, is that ascetic starvation of all the impulses, which results in the attainment of Nirvana, the heaven of the extinction of consciousness. " Then nothing can trouble a man more, nothing can move him, for he has cut all the thousand cords of will which hold us bound to the world, and, as desire, fear, envy, anger, drag us hither and thither in constant pain. He now looks back smiling and at rest on the delusions of this world, which once were able to move and agonize his spirit also, but which now stand before him as utterly indifferent to him as the chessmen when the game is ended, or as in the morning the cast-off masquerading dress, which worried 1 1, p- 54- Philosophy since Hegel 479 and disquieted us in the night in carnival. Life and its forms now pass before him as a fleeting illusion, as a light morning dream before half waking eyes, the real world already shining through it so that it can no longer deceive ; and like this morning dream, they finally vanish altogether, without any violent transition." Is it said that this is an ideal of nothingness ? It is not denied. " Rather do we freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abo- lition of the will, is, for all those who are still full of will, certainly nothing ; but conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, this our world which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is nothing." * LITERATURE Schopenhauer, Chief Works : Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1813) ; World as Will and as Idea (1819). Trans- lations: Haldane and Kemp (World as Will and as Idea); Hille- brand {Fourfold Root) ; Bax (Essays) ; Saunders (Essays). Wallace, Schopenhauer. Sully, Pessimism. Caldwell, Schopenhauer 's System in its Philosophical Significance. Wenley, Aspects of Pessimism. 40. Comte and Positivism, I. In the Positivism of the French philosopher Comte, the claims of science receive a full recognition. Auguste Comte, born in 1798, was influenced in early life by the Socialist St. Simon, and it was from him that he got the germ, at least, of the idea which was to make him more than a philosopher of science, and lead him to subordinate his scientific interests to the conception of man and society. His Cours de Philosophic Positive, published in 1839- 1842, gave him a position among the most important think- ers of his day. A school of Positivism soon appeared in France, and in England men like J. S. Mill and Herbert 1 1, pp. 54, 532. 480 A Student's History of Philosophy Spencer, though never disciples in the strict sense, were influenced by him. His death occurred in 1857. Positivism means the definite abandonment of all search for ultimate causes, and the inner essence of things, and the turning of human attention rather toward the laws of phenomena as the only facts alike knowable and useful. Knowledge is of value because it helps us modify condi- tions in the physical and the social world ; to do this we need to know how things act, and that is all we need to know. This limitation of all knowledge to phenomena Comte hardly attempts to prove in detail. He assumes it to be self-evident to all minds that are abreast of their age ; it is the one great lesson which the history of human thought has to teach. This is the outcome of Comte's famous " Law of the Three Stages." Man starts in by explaining the phenomena of nature theologically. He attributes the activities of things to an arbitrary will, such as he finds in himself. In its earliest and most thorough- going form this is fetichism, which obviously leaves but little room for the recognition of positive law. Later on, the conception of a separate will in each material thing becomes generalized, and we have the polytheistic stage. Polytheism is more general and abstract in character than fetichism ; the gods act through things, without things themselves being alive ; and by reason of this greater abstractness, the secondary details of phenomena are set free for scientific observation. The final stage of theological thought is monotheism. Here we have everything brought back to a single abstract will, and consequently a still wider extension of scientific observation is made possible in connection with the details of nature. Just because it is so abstract, however, mono- theism cannot yield any permanent satisfaction, and must give place to a strictly scientific explanation. But it can- not do this immediately a transition stage must intervene ; and this is the stage of metaphysics. Metaphysics drops, indeed, the idea of a personal will, but it substitutes there- Philosophy since Hegel 481 for, not positive law, but metaphysical essences and pow- ers, mere abstract repetitions of the gods of the previous stage, the dry bones of the living creatures of poetry. These furnish no real explanation, accordingly, but are only the phenomena over again, with an abstract name substi- tuted for the concrete facts. To the metaphysical stage succeeds the final goal of human thought, the positive stage, which occupies itself solely with the facts of experience, and the laws which they reveal, without making the impossible attempt to penetrate behind phenomena to the unknown real. The first part of Comte's task, then, is to sum up in organized form the laws of the various sciences. This organization he tries to carry out by a definite hierarchy of the sciences, beginning with the most abstract mathe- matics and passing up, in the order of greater and greater complexity, through astronomy, physics, chemistry, to biol- ogy, each science basing itself on, and making use of, the results of the science beneath it. But now there is one great class of facts which has not been touched the facts of social life ; and here we come to the centre of Comte's whole position, and that which gives him his greatest his- torical importance. He will furnish a crown and climax to his whole system, by founding a positive science of so- ciety, a sociology. Not only will he thus bring within the scope of the positive scientific method the whole round of experienced facts, but he will also give to what has preceded its unity and rational justification. For as each group of sciences enters into the next higher group, so the whole science of material nature gets its reason and end in the service of humanity. Here we have not, indeed, an objec- tive and absolute principle of unity for our philosophy, a unity based on the inner essence of reality, which we have seen to be unknowable ; but at least we have a sub- jective and practical basis. That basis is humanity, whose life we can modify because we know its laws ; and it is for the service of humanity that science exists. Humanity 21 482 A Student's History of Philosophy is our highest concept. Whatever the foundation of things may be in itself, however indifferent or hostile to human progress, at least things may up to a certain point be com- pelled to enter the service of man. And only in so far as knowledge can turn their laws into an instrument of ser- vice, need we regard them. 2. The object of Comte in his Sociology is essentially the same as that of Hegel to discover definite laws in the development of social experience. With Comte there is the added purpose, however, of showing how these laws point to a more adequate social state in the future. He is trying, that is, to get a satisfactory social ideal, not as an arbitrary construction, but as a carrying-out of those ten- dencies and forces which are already at work in society. The general form of the result which he reaches has already been given in the principle of the three stages ; it is in the elaboration of this, in its connection with the social as well as the purely theoretic life, that the substance of his social theory consists, and the basis is found for his pro- posed reconstruction of society. Very briefly, this connection is as follows : The theologi- cal stage represents the socialization of the human race. For any real social union, a certain community of belief is required, and this common doctrine is furnished by the- ology, least adequately in its earlier and fetichistic stage, more completely in its latest, or monotheistic. In this grade of social attainment, however, there are certain defects involved. In the first place, the union of the temporal with the spiritual power which exists in the earlier stages of society, is detrimental to the best interests of the latter. The great function of the priesthood is to supply those moral and social sanctions which keep society together; but this necessitates certain intellectual gifts which are not identical with the gifts called for by the immediate work of social administration. Unless the two offices, therefore, are kept distinct, the more insistent and practical needs will prevail, and this will involve the su- Philosophy since Hegel 483 premacy of a lower order of intelligence, that will not be adequate to the spiritual functions. It was the great merit of the Middle Ages, the one period of history to which Comte looks back continually with admiration, that they brought about the separation of these two functions, giv- ing to the priesthood a supremacy of guidance and advice, while secular affairs, matters of action, were handed over to a secular power. In this way the conflict between men of action and men of thought was reconciled. Moral and intellectual eminence could now win position, as it could not in the practical field. At the same time, morals were made independent of politics. They were released from service to the particular state, which had kept them dominated by the military spirit necessary for self-pres- ervation, and were given a general and universal charac- ter. This, in turn, reacted upon and moralized politics. But now, in the second place, although this separation of the spiritual and secular powers in the Middle Ages represents on the formal side the ideal, monotheism was unable to supply the adequate material by means of which the spiritual power could construct those common beliefs on which social unity must rest. This can only be accom- plished on the basis of facts so compelling, as to insure their general acceptance ; and so on the basis of Positiv- ism. But before such a result can come about, there must be a preliminary work of clearing the ground. This is the work of the metaphysical stage, or of the period of the Enlightenment. The function of the Enlightenment is thus simply negative and revolutionary. By reference to this negative task, all its characteristic dogmas have their explanation ; they represent simply a denial of different parts of the old social order based on theology. Such are the doctrines of the right of private judgment, and of the equality of all men, and the theory of government which reduces it to mere police functions. Thus, because the Enlightenment is in antagonism with the ancient order, its tendency is to represent all government as being the enemy 484 A Student's History of Philosophy of society. Liberty of conscience, again, is the mere abstract expression of that temporary state in which the human mind was left by the decay of the theological phi- losophy, and which must last until the social philosophy appears, to supply a new positive content of belief. The result is that a division arises between the heart and the intellect. This must continue until the intellect shows itself capable of producing a new system that can more securely sustain the social order, and more com- pletely satisfy the affections and spiritual aspirations of man, than the fictions of theology had done. This recon- ciliation is found in Positivism. In opposition to the indi- vidualistic dogmas of the Enlightenment, Positivism goes back for its ideal to the Middle Ages. Like the Middle Ages, it insists upon the necessity of an independent spir- itual power, which shall formulate the doctrines on which society is to be founded, and morality based. But these doctrines are no longer theological ; they are the outcome of science. This regeneration of social doctrine must raise up from the midst of anarchy a new spiritual authority, which, after having disciplined the human intellect, and reconstructed morals, will peaceably become the basis of a final system of human society. But now with knowledge placed thus upon a positive basis, "freedom of conscience" can no longer have any justification. This is merely provisional to the final deci- sion, and if insisted upon as absolute, becomes an obstacle to reorganization. When social and religious questions are given scientific treatment, liberty of conscience is as much out of the question as it is, e.g., in astronomy or physics. There are few people who consider themselves fitted to sit in judgment on an astronomical problem ; can it be supposed that the most important and the most delicate conceptions, and those which by their complexity are accessible to only a small number of highly prepared understandings, are to be abandoned to the arbitrary and variable decisions of the least competent minds ? A disso- Philosophy since Hegel 485 lution of the social state would necessarily ensue if this were allowed. Social order must ever be incompatible with a perpetual discussion of the foundations of society. The convergence of minds requires a renunciation by the greater number of their rights of individual inquiry, on subjects above their qualifications, and requiring more than any others a real and permanent agreement. The spiritual power in the new society is thus a priestly guild, made up of the highest order of intellects, working in the intellectual realm, not for science on its own account specialism in science is forbidden but for the inter- ests of humanity. Such a priesthood is preserved from all temptation to prostitute its position, by being entirely removed from civil power, and confined simply to the moral influence of advice and theoretical formulation. What, now, is to be the constitution on the civil side ? Here another principle comes into play, which likewise has been brought out by the survey of social development. This development has been a progress from a military to an industrial basis. The military organization necessarily comes first. The industrial spirit supposes the existence of a considerable social attainment, such as could not have taken place till isolated families had been connected by the pursuits of war. So, too, war has laid the foundation of habits of regularity and discipline; while slavery, the consequence of war, gives rise directly to habits of indus- try. But with its work accomplished, military civilization must give way to an industrial civilization. At the present, many of the features of the old regime still hold over ; but the new society will be placed con- sciously and completely on an industrial basis. Here, again, the "equality" of the Revolution finds no place. Since society is an organism, different members have dif- ferent parts to play, and thus necessarily have different values and rewards. And as in the sciences, the princi- ple of subordination can only be that of the degree of gen- erality. The more particular the industrial function, the 486 A Student's History of Philosophy greater the subordination ; the more general it is, and the more it involves a coordination of activities, the higher the rank which the wielder assumes. Accordingly, we have a capitalistic regime, headed by the " captains of in- dustry," and culminating in the banker, who, as exercising the most general function, is the leader of society on the side of its active work. In this general organization, all workers will find their p^ace, and so all distinction between public and private functions will be dropped. The dangers of this capitalism are to be avoided by the growing moralization of society, by the moral influence which the disinterested priesthood will exert, and by the power on the part of labor to refuse cooperation peace- ful strikes. The positive foundation given to the laws of conduct will exercise a compulsion unknown before. Moral rules will have acquired a new energy and tenacity when they rest on a clear understanding of the influence which the actions and the tendencies of each individual must exercise on human life. The mere fact that each man is consciously working for the general welfare of so- ciety will arouse a new enthusiasm. Other men would feel, if their labor were but systematized, what the private soldier feels in the discharge of his humblest duty the dignity of public service, and the honor of a share in the action of the general economy. The priests and the workers will be natural allies, and their union will be enough to counteract the selfish tendencies of the civil power, and keep it true to the service of humanity. 3. So much for the earlier form of Comte's philosophy. In later years he lost much of the sanity of his earlier views, and attempted to convert his philosophy into a religion of humanity. Unable to satisfy the longings of the heart by truth, Comte was led to substitute for this poetry. The Grand Eire Humanity is worshiped as the mediator between the outer world and man, and as the real author of the benefits for which thanks were formerly given to God a worship to which was added Philosophy since Hegel 487 that of the earth as the Great Fetich, and of space as the Great Medium. An elaborate and fanciful ritual was introduced to give impressiveness to this worship. Nor was this a matter of choice merely. The paternalism which was implicit in Comte's earlier thought comes more and more to the front, in a rigid subordination of the un- fortunate member of the new society to every whim and vagary of the High Priest of Humanity. But as on this side Comte's thought has had but little influence, we may pass it by with this brief notice. LITERATURE Comte, Chief Work: Positive Philosophy (1830-42). TraniMion : Harriet Martineau (Positive Philosophy). Mill, Comte and Positivism. Caird, The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte. Watson, Outline of Philosophy. Fiske, Darwinism and other Essays. Mackintosh, From Comte to Benjamin Kidd. Martineau, Essays. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory. Morley, Auguste Comte (in Critical Miscellanies'). Levy-Bruhl, Philosophy of Auguste Comte. 41. Utilitarianism and Evolution. Spencer i. Utilitarianism. Outside his own country, it was in England that Comte's writings met with most sympathy and favor. The prevailing English type of thought has from the start been empirical and practical, rather than speculative. It cares more for facts and results than for the speculative grounds on which these are to be justified. Accordingly, the more widely influential tendencies in English philosophy have exhibited just that interest in social reform, and that sense for scientific fact as opposed to metaphysical theory, which are found in Comte. On the practical side, this is most clearly represented in the Utilitarianism of the school of Bentham and the Mills. 488 A Student' s History of Philosophy Based on an individualistic and hedonistic philosophy, the spirit of Utilitarianism has yet always been thoroughly social in its nature. Its hedonism has always been at bot- tom, not private pleasure, but public use ; it has stood for the need of establishing the alleged Tightness or wrong- ness of any act, by its relation to human welfare. Its em- piricism has set it in opposition to all a priori and innate truths. And the source of this opposition has been at bot- tom the practical one of hostility to the forces of conserva- tism and tradition, which stand in the way of progress, and justify existing wrongs. If all our beliefs rest ulti- mately, not on intuitions of absolute truth, which there- fore cannot be changed, but on the mere association of ideas gathered from experience, there is nothing to hin- der these associations from being broken up again, when this is required by the demands of human progress ; and we can always bring them anew to the test of experi- ence. Accordingly, Utilitarianism has gone hand in hand with public reforms and political liberty. The movement has its most attractive representative in John Stuart Mill. His greatest philosophical achievement is perhaps his Logic, which is the starting-point for the modern treat- ment of inductive reasoning. 2. Psycho-Physical Parallelism. Fechner. The two great scientific doctrines of the nineteenth century are also closely connected with England. For the honor of the first formulation of the doctrine of the Conserva- tion of Energy, by which a new unity has been given to the mechanical interpretation of the universe, there are rival claimants, one of them an Englishman ; and at least the working out of the doctrine has been in considerable measure due to English scientists. This Law of the Con- servation of Energy has had one philosophical result so important as to deserve a special mention. It has given a new emphasis to the feeling, on the part of scientists, that it is impossible to call in consciousness to serve in any sense as an explanation of bodily acts. If the Law of Philosophy since Hegel 489 Conservation is not to be violated, then the physical universe forms a closed system in which there is no place for a new influence, as such a consciousness would be, com- ing in from the outside to modify the result. Accordingly, there has been a wide-spread disposition to accept the doctrine of the automatism of the physical body, and to regard the psychical processes as simply running along- side the physical movements, without exerting any influence upon them. This is called the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism a doctrine which has been further strength- ened by the tendency of psychology, as an empirical science, to find a physiological correlate to every aspect of the conscious life. This parallelism must, however, have some further ex- planation in the nature of things ; and so there has been a tendency to return to Spinoza's conception of an ultimate identity of mind and body. The physical and the psychi- cal are only two ways of looking at a single ultimate reality, which is either unlike both of them, and so unknown, or else is identical with the conscious series. This last hypoth- esis was popularized by the German philosopher Fechner. The reality of what we call our body is the conscious life which we immediately experience ; it is only the outside observer looking at this, who sees it as a material fact. But then we must interpret every physical object in the same way, and find the true being, not only of animals, but of plants and inanimate things, in a conscious life like our own, only less complex. All these minor conscious- nesses have their unity in the one great life of God, as the things which are their phenomenal appearances are brought together in the all-embracing unity of scientific law. One of the most persuasive recent advocates of this doctrine is Friedrich Patilsen. 3. The Theory of Evolution. But the doctrine whose philosophical results have been most far-reaching, and which, indeed, has tinged all the thought of the last half century, has undeniably sprung from English soil. It is 4QO A Student's History of Philosophy not the purpose here to describe in detail the theory of evolution ; in its general outlines it is now familiar to every one. The old conception of God, which places Him outside the world, which He influences only arbi- trarily and miraculously, and which, therefore, He has a direct relation to only in so far as we get beyond the sphere of natural law, had made a stand on the existence of organisms. It had claimed that here, at least, an out- side interference has evidently taken place. For the dif- ferent organs the eye, e.g., or the hand are evidently designed to perform their various functions ; and design implies an outside designer, an intelligent cause. Each separate species, then, must be regarded as created out- right by an act of God. Darwin's merit lay in the fact that he brought the world of organic life, as previous science had brought the inor- ganic world, under the reign of natural law, by pointing out a vera causa, which at least would help account for the origin of species without reference to such a miraculous agency. It is a fact that no organism is an exact reproduction of a preceding organism ; there are constant minute variations in one direction or another from the parent forms. It is also a fact that some of these variations are likely to be more helpful to the animal than others. Some will be in a direction to prove of advantage to it in dealing with its environment, while others, again, will be useless, or posi- tively detrimental. Now if the world were an easy place to live in, if there were food in plenty for all, and no rivalry, this would not be a matter of much consequence; but such is not the case. Vastly greater numbers of all kinds of animal life come into the world than can be supported in it. There is as a result a continual struggle for existence, and in the natural course of events, it is the weaker individuals the ones, that is, less adapted to their environment that go to the wall. But here we have all the data for an explanation of the existing adaptation of organisms, without the need of Philosophy since Hegel 491 having recourse to an external designer. Grant that variations are constantly taking place, some of which are fitted to give the possessor a slight advantage in the struggle for existence ; then this more favored individual is likely to survive at the expense of his brothers and sisters. And if, as our knowledge of heredity would suggest, these inborn variations are transmitted to the ani- mal's descendants, the basis is laid for a progressive devel- opment which, given time enough, might result in all the highly specialized forms of the present day. It is no longer necessary to say, e.g., that animals in the north have fur in order to protect them from the cold ; they are protected from the cold, because they have fur. Thus the whole aspect of the organic world has changed. In- stead of having a number of distinct and permanent species, which, if they are looked at simply in themselves, seem too complex and teleological to be accounted for as a purely natural product, we have a continuous stream of process, in which nothing is fixed, but each step is connected with the rest by a series of slight changes ; and in which, therefore, each organ is to be explained, not sim- ply by reference to its present stage, but by reference to the whole development which here reaches a temporary climax. And to this universal law of development, man is of course no exception. The theory of evolution was left by Darwin still incom- plete. The importance of natural selection as an agency is now, indeed, very generally admitted, but also it is widely believed that it does not furnish a complete ac- count. Indeed, it is plain that selection does not cause advance in the first place. Selection can only take place on the basis of an advance already made; and so the question is brought back to the cause and nature of the original variations which are afterward selected out, as well as of the factor of heredity, which Darwin also took for granted. The philosophy of evolution is, therefore, not necessarily identical with Darwinism ; and, moreover, the 49 2 A Student's History of Philosophy inconsistency of evolution with an ultimate teleology a conception of immanent purpose, as opposed to the external design of the older argument is not by any means shown. The fact of a gradual development of organic forms may, however, be regarded as practically established, and its recognition has changed the whole aspect of human thought. Not only in the biological sciences, but also in the realm of human experience, the principle has been applied, and is being applied, with results that are putting a new face on all our knowledge. Here the evolutionism of Darwin comes in contact with that of Hegel ; and in this contact, a recon- struction of the conception is likely to be brought about. The attempt to make the law of natural selection as promi- nent in the social world as it has been supposed to be in the physical, has hitherto not been successful. We may expect to find the future devoting itself to the task of coming to a better understanding of the way in which the laws of these two diverse realms are related. 4. Herbert Spencer. The most comprehensive attempt, on the basis of the new science, to bring within a single for- mula the complexity of the world, is that of Herbert Spen- cer. Spencer was born in 1820. His academic training was slight ; his education did not proceed along the conventional lines, but followed the direction of his natural preferences, which were scientific and sociological, rather than literary or historical. In his earlier years he engaged actively in the profession of engineering. Intellectual interests became, however, more and more predominant with him, and finally, as the underlying principle which had been present in his thinking from the start gradually became clear to his mind, he determined deliberately to devote his life to expounding it. The outline of a Synthetic Philosophy was drawn up, to whose working out Spencer was to devote over forty years of his life. The work was carried on under many discouragements. At times he was at the point of being compelled to abandon it through lack of money; and throughout he was handicapped by a chronic semi-invalid- Philosophy since Hegel 493 ism, brought on originally by overwork. But the work was finally completed, substantially on the lines laid down at the beginning. Spencer died in 1903. There are two characteristics of Spencer's intellectual temperament, on which the special character of his philos- ophy is grounded. One is the tendency, alike natural to him, and developed by his father's early training, to look for causes natural causes of everything that he came across. The second characteristic was his remarkable powers of generalization. He had an unusual gift for feel- ing the points of similarity between things widely different on the surface, for penetrating to the common features of apparently disconnected facts. With these powers, Spencer was fortunate in becoming possessed early in life by a single fruitful idea the idea of development. Of course the idea as such was far from being a new one. Even in biology, the starting-point and centre of modern evolutionary doctrine, it had been formu- lated in a well-known hypothesis that of Lamarck. But by scientists as a whole it was not yet taken very seriously. Spencer came in contact with this biological theory in a book intended to controvert it ; but his sympathy remained rather with the view he found criticised. Not that Spencer had any special competency to solve the biological prob- lem. It was simply a natural leaning due to his tempera- mental bias. Organisms must have developed, he argued, because the only other alternative is a supernatural crea- tion, which is the denial of scientific intelligibility. Before therefore Darwin's theory had convinced scientists that, as a scientific explanation, evolution furnishes the most sat- isfactory account of the origin of species, Spencer had accepted this idea in its broader form as, in an almost self-evident way, true of things generally, and had used it to throw light upon a variety of problems. Meanwhile there was gradually growing up in his mind the recognition that if development rules the world, there must be certain laws which hold concerning it that are of 494 ^ Student's History of Philosophy universal application. This evolution of the Law of Evo- lution was a gradual and somewhat laborious affair, which finally took shape in the famous Spencerian formula : Evo- lution is a continuous change from indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to definite, coherent heterogeneity of struc- ture and function, through successive differentiations and integrations. The meaning of this is not so formidable as might appear on the surface. Eliminating secondary matters, the main point is simply this : that, on the one hand, development involves a growing specialization and division of labor, while, on the other, these specialized organs and functions are bound more and more intimately together to form an organic unity or system. This is the sum and substance of the evolutionary philosophy. Spencer tries to show, also, not only that this is true as an empirical generalization, but that it is necessarily true. After reaching it induc- tively, he turns around, following his favorite method, and attempts to prove that as a deduction from a certain to him self-evident truth the law of the persistence of force this is the course that events had to take. With- out stopping to consider the cogency of this deduction, we may simply ask wherein the value of the formula con- sists. And it seems evident that it cannot lay pretence to being a complete philosophy. To suppose that the universe has been accounted for, and its problems settled, when you have said that things are all the time becoming more com- plex and more unified, is to have a very limited notion of the philosopher's task. It is a large and a very useful generalization ; but a mere generalization never explains anything. It is not even a true cause of certain particular phenomena, as Darwin's law is. To this we may return presently. Meanwhile, if we do not try to claim too much for it, of its real and positive significance there can be no ques- tion. This consists, in the first place, in a matter of the right placing of emphasis. It brings to the front, and in- Philosophy since Hegel 495 sists upon, an immensely important idea, that had been neglected. While development does not settle the prob- lems of philosophy, on the contrary, it creates new ones, it does largely change their face ; and no question can be settled finally without reference to it. Spencer was very largely influential in making the idea a power in modern thought, and thereby giving a new impulse to every sphere of intellectual activity. He was fortunate in becoming possessed of a fruitful conception just at the moment when forces were preparing for its favorable re- ception ; and by conceiving the new principle in a univer- sal way, he came, even more than Darwin, to be regarded as its high priest. But the impression which he was able to make on his generation would have been impossible, had it not been for the remarkable fertility with which he was able to apply it to the facts of experience in detail. Probably no man in the last generation started a greater number of fruitful scientific theories, in the most varied fields, than did Spencer. Many, indeed most, of these theories are now recognized as at best only partial. But they had the merit of starting inquiry along lines which have led to permanent results. Spencer's work was along four main lines Biology, Psychology, Sociology, and Ethics. Omitting the first, we may turn briefly to his Psychology. The thing of main importance is, again, the new point of view for regarding the psychological life. This is primarily a growth ; and so it can be best understood genetically, in the light of its history. Taken thus, the apparently so diverse aspects of the developed consciousness can be traced back to simple undifferentiated forms of functioning. This genetic point of view, and the corresponding emphasis upon the relation- ship of mind to the developing biological organism, has had far-reaching effects upon modern psychology. Of Spencer's psychological doctrines in particular, perhaps the most widely known relates to the much discussed 496 A Students History of Philosophy philosophical problem of innate ideas. Hitherto the Empiricists, in denying the existence of metaphysically valid innate ideas, had tended to ignore the fact that actually human beings do not enter the world without any bias whatever, a mere sheet of blank paper on which ex- perience writes its lessons. We have ways of reacting, even in the mental life, which Are too general and neces- sary to be easily explained through the accidents and un- certainties of each man's personal experience. The theory of evolution enabled Spencer, as he thought, to effect a compromise between the warring schools. He agreed with the Intuitionalists that each individual man does find himself possessed of ways of apprehending the world which go back of any experience in his own lifetime. But, on the other hand, this does not mean that such ideas are to be accepted as a divine and indubitable revelation inde- pendent of all experience. To experience they go back, and in terms of experience they can be explained, as the Empiricists maintained ; but it is the experience of our ancestors, not ourselves. Innate in us, acquired in the race, this Spencer thought would combine the relative truth of both sides. The biological conception Spencer applies likewise to Sociology. Social institutions also are not made ; they grow. The organic conception of society is now a com- monplace, and Spencer did much to bring about its adop- tion. Here also one aspect only of his social doctrine can be briefly mentioned. There are two 'opposing tendencies in modern social movements. One is the tendency to look to the State for interference in behalf of desirable social ends. The other is inclined to restrict such activity on the part of the State, assigning to it nothing more than police functions, while all further initiation is to be left to private citizens. Of this Individualism, Spencer is the chief modern representative. Primarily it is with him a matter of temperament. His natural independence and assertiveness of character make the thought of State inter- Philosophy since Hegel 495 ference intensely disagreeable, as an interference with his rights. The most fundamental moral right of a man is the right to do as he pleases, unrestricted by anything save the equal rights of others to the same freedom. If man were a perfectly moral being, he would voluntarily restrict himself to such limits. But a part of his inheri- tance from a primitive state, where egoistic self-assertion was necessary, is that tendency to disregard others' rights which constitutes an imperfection in his adjustment to present conditions; and so long as the existing mal- adjustment continues, there is need of an organ to bring about the mutual forbearance that society demands. This organ is found in what we call government. But here Spencer is able to get into connection with his formula, and lend to his natural individualistic bias the weight of a concordance with his philosophy. In two ways he justifies his individualism. First, and chiefly, according to the law of Evolution, functions become more and more spe- cialized in definite organs. Now government is such a special organ. Its one distinct and fundamental work is to prevent mutual aggression. For that it is necessary ; other social needs can be met by private initiative and association. By the general law of things, it ought to confine itself, therefore, to its special work. If it gets beyond these bounds, and tries to do the work for which there is other . machinery, it will not only do this poorly, but it will lose so much energy for the proper perform- ance of its own special task. There is another way in which the thing appeals to Spencer a way which brings to light one of the presup- positions which, without his trying adequately to prove them, form the background of Spencer's whole system. This is the assumption that things work out in the evolving uni- verse by purely natural laws, which it is quite impossible for man to interfere with or modify. Natural laws repre- sent for Spencer not merely facts to be recognized, but to some extent, also, ideals that have a claim upon us. As 2K 498 A Student's History of Philosophy one of his friends once said, " The laws of nature are to him what revealed religion is to us." To attempt to inter- fere with them is not only foolish and meddling, it is almost impious as well. By reason of this attitude, which, it may be noticed, is by no means a necessary consequence of evo- lution, he was led still further to discount the value of hu- man efforts for remedying social conditions. Things will improve only when, in their own good time, the impersonal laws of nature work themselves out ; our interference only helps to keep alive those who are socially unfit, and whose elimination in favor of a higher type is nature's method of advance. Evils can only rectify themselves by a self- adjusting process, which we cannot hasten, though appar- ently we may hinder it. In the Ethics, the idea of development is still further applied, this time to the facts of the moral experience. Here may be mentioned three points in particular : the use, once more, of the distinction between the individual and the race experience, to settle the quarrel over the so-called moral sense, or moral intuitions ; the explanation of con- science, or the feeling of obligation, as taking its origin in social commands and restrictions ; and the attempt to arbitrate between egoism and altruism, by making the moral life a composite of the two. A more general point is the application of evolution in the criticism of Utilitari- anism. Spencer agreed with the Utilitarians that pleasure and avoidance of pain represent in a way the end of life. But he held Utilitarianism faulty for its inability to lay down any rules for the attainment of this end save those of pure empiricism finding out by trial. To be a science, ethics must be able to deduce its results; and for this there is needed a more objective statement of the end than the mere feeling of pleasure. Spencer found this in the evolutionary conception of adjustment to environment. Such an adjustment involves natural laws, and by dis- covering such laws we can determine beforehand what course of conduct will secure happiness, since this is to be Philosophy since Hegel 499 found only in a perfectly adjusted functioning. Since such a perfection of adjustment does not now exist, it fol- lows that the principles of scientific ethics apply, strictly and without modification, not to our present conduct, but to a future society, where the process of evolution shall have reached an equilibrium. When such a state shall have been attained, all our troubles will be over, the idea of duty will disappear as no longer needed, and we shall all do the right by instinctive preference. In conclusion, we may turn back to a point to which reference already has been made. Our final estimate of Spencer' s philosophy as a reasoned system must be consid- erably affected by the fact that its main outcome is an em- pirical generalization, which ignores most of the fundamental problems that a philosophy needs to consider. The recogni- tion of development is compatible, that is, with a variety of opposing philosophies. Spencer has, it is true, an an- swer to give to these further problems, or to many of them. But his great deficiency lies in the fact that his answer, for the most part, is in the form of a merely temperamental attitude, implied or assumed as a background for his think- ing, but seldom fairly brought to the light and scrutinized on its merits. This attitude is that to which the name of Naturalism has in recent times been given. Naturalism means that the natural laws of science are taken as the final word of explanation; that man, and human ideals, are to be regarded as nothing but products of nature, to be fully accounted for in terms which involve no more than can be detected in those prior processes of the developing world out of which they spring ; that the complex, therefore, can always be reduced, without remainder, to the simple, the higher to the lower. This may all be true ; but it needs at least a far more adequate proof than it ever occurred to Spencer to give. For him, it is almost wholly a matter of assumption; and the one point at which he does fairly face ultimate questions, is perhaps the weakest in his whole system. This is his Agnosticism. It is possible, so he 5OO A Student's History of Philosophy thinks, to show that by the nature of our minds we are necessarily shut out from a knowledge of ultimate reality. We are as incompetent to think it as a deaf man to under- stand sounds. The proof of our incapacity is briefly this : that we can only think in terms of relating one thing to an- other, of comparison, whereas Absolute reality, by definition, is not relative, but absolute, and is in consequence beyond our grasp. On the other hand, it is implied in all our relative knowledge even, since there would be no sense in calling this relative, were there not something absolute to which it is contrasted. Although, then, we cannot think the Absolute, we have a sort of vague, indefinite meaning, which assures us that it really exists in some unknown form. That which comes closest to a description of this unknown reality, Spencer finds in the term Force. The Unknowable supplies what for Spencer is the only possible religion for the modern man of science. Histori- cal religions are, of course, subject to a naturalistic explana- tion, and are discredited by their origin. But hidden in all positive religions, there is an irreducible minimum which science does not touch. This is the feeling of awe in the presence of the mysteries of the universe. If anything, science tends to emphasize the ultimate mystery of existence. A feeling of awe, then, in the face of the unknowable force from which all things spring, is the final form which reli- gion is destined to take. LITERATURE Mill, Works. Spencer, Synthetic Philosophy. Darwin, Origin of 'Species , Descent of Matt* Huxley, Works. Wallace, Darwin. Romanes, Darwin and after Darwin. Schurman, Ethical Import of Darwinism. Fiske, Darwinism and other Essays, Cosmic Philosophy. Watson, Outline of Philosophy. Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel. Philosophy since Hegel 501 Stephen, The English Utilitarians. Bowne, Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. Collins, Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy. Hudson, The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. Royce, Herbert Spencer. 42. Conclusion Man's attempt progressively to come to a knowledge of the nature of the real world in which he finds himself, and of which he is a part, is at the same time a revelation of man to himself. It is the gradual freeing of himself from a power which is strange and foreign to him, through the recognition that his own life is bound up with this sup- posed external reality, and that only by accepting it, and putting himself in line with the forces that it represents, can he attain a freedom and self-realization that is sub- stantial and real. This we have tried to show is the meaning of the history of philosophy. In so far as man is truly free, he knows the truth ; and in so far as he has a real insight into truth, he is free. There is thus no con- tradiction between that practical philosophy which brings a man's life into harmony with itself, and the theoretical impulse, which is gratified by the widest possible knowl- edge ; both have ultimately the same end in view. In closing, it may be well to point out, in a few words, some of the more general questions which our own time has received as a legacy from the past. And the central problem of all is still the problem which has come before us all along as the conflict between science and religion, mechanism and teleology, fact and ideal. How, in other words, are we to reconcile what we know of the laws of the outer world laws of rigid mechanical necessity with the needs of Spirit, the demand for freedom, the existence of ideals ? That the laws of nature have a validity in their own realm, is the net result of the Age of Science a result which it is now time to take as established and im- pregnable. But it is impossible, on the other hand, to adopt 502 A Student's History of Philosophy this as a final creed, in the sense of a dogmatic materialism. The claims of Spirit also may be taken as established. It no longer is a question of suppressing either side, but rather of finding some way in which both may have their claims satisfied. And, speaking briefly, we may say that modern philoso- phy divides into two great camps, according as it holds, or denies, that the way of reconciliation is something we can comprehend by rational insight. On the latter side stand the Positivist, the Kantian, the scientific, and the theological Agnostic. For all these, we are brought back as a final result, so long as we depend upon the reason, merely to phenomena, and so to the scientific view of the universe as the last word. If the other side is to get its rights, we must have recourse to some other path, to a blind awe before the inscrutable mystery of existence ; or to the attempt to find satisfaction in the play of poetic fancy ; or to faith in a supernatural revelation ; or, again, to the giv- ing up of all metaphysical ambitions, and the resolution to content ourselves with life, especially social life, and what we can make out of it. On the former side stand, with endless shades of difference, the Spiritualist, the Theist, the Idealist of the Hegelian or of the Berkeleyan type. And since the whole possibilitity of the solution of the question is dependent on the decision as to what knowledge is, questions of Epistemology assume a special prominence in recent thought. But now, supposing some general knowledge, at least, of reality to be possible and few agnostics are so con- sistent as to resist the temptation to characterize reality in some more or less vague and general way it will still remain to ask what the nature of this reality is. And here two questions in particular may be mentioned, which enter largely into the philosophical discussions of the present day. The first problem is frequently put in this way : Is the essence of reality intellect, or will ? Or, as this might be interpreted, is reality a fact complete once for all, like a Philosophy since Hegel 503 thought content, or is it an active, changing, developing, creative process ? What, in other words, do we mean by that watchword of modern thought evolution ? What is the relation of change and progress to the ultimate state- ment of things ? are they essential to it, or only an unreal phenomenon ? It is the same question, of course, which engaged Parmenides and Heracleitus at the very beginning of philosophy ; but evolution has given the question a new content, and a new importance. Another fundamental question, which also has occupied recent philosophy, is the one that may be called the problem of monism, or of the individual, according to the side from which it is taken up. What is the relation of apparent in- dividuals to that whole, whose unity a unity of one sort or another philosophy is bound to maintain ? If we put it in its religious form, what is the nature of that which we call an individual man, and what is his relation to God, or the All ? That we cannot set aside the individual as purely illusory is, again, the assured verdict of philosophy ; but what sort of reality can we give him ? If God is the whole, does not that leave the human self a mere name ? If He is not the whole, does not the universe fall apart into un- thinkable bits of existence, which no power on earth or in heaven can bring into connection, since there is no one power which includes them all ? Metaphysically, it is the dispute between Monism, the sole reality of a single being, or Absolute, and Pluralism ; on the practical side, essen- tially the same problem comes to light in the social realm. What, in society, is the individual? How is he related to society and the state ? An account of recent philosophy which would fall within the compass of the present volume, could hardly be much more than a list of names ; and such a treatment would not serve the purpose which has here been proposed. But for the sake of greater completness, a brief reference may be made to a few of the more recent writers who have made some special impression, particularly in English and 504 A Student's History of Philosophy American thought. Probably of the philosophers of other countries, to whom reference has not already been made, the one who has had the most extensive influence on English- speaking philosophers is Hermann Lotze. Lotze was among the first to reemphasize, as against Idealism of the Hegelian type, the rights of naturalistic and mechanical explanation in the field of science. This he subordinated, however, to a metaphysical Idealism, though the outlines of this are not always entirely clear cut. Perhaps his most significant doctrine is in connection with causality. The conceiv- ability of causal interaction, which is involved in scientific explanation, he tried to show would be excluded were the elements really separate, as mere mechanism seems to leave them. The possibility that one thing should influence another is only intelligible, in case they are in reality parts of a single whole, states of a unitary being. Thus science itself points to an ultimate monism, which Lotze interprets after the analogy of selfhood. Several influential Amer- ican thinkers have been followers of Lotze. In England, there have in the past century been three large movements contesting the ground. In the earlier part of the century, the main controversy was between the common-sense philosophers, or Intuitionalists, of the Scot- tish school, and the empirical and naturalistic tendencies represented by the Utilitarians and the Evolutionists. Here may be mentioned, in addition, the names of W. K. Clifford, John Tyndall, Thomas Huxley, and G. H. Lewes. On the whole, it may be said that in this controversy the Empiricists had distinctly the best of it. In the latter half of the century, however, a new antag- onist to Naturalism arose, in the introduction of German Idealism into England. Coleridge and Carlyle had already made familiar, in an unsystematic way, something of the underlying spirit of the German movement ; but in the so-called Neo-Kantian or Neo-Hegelian tendency, this be- comes an independent philosophical development of con- siderable importance. Among the earlier Hegelians may Philosophy since Hegel 505 be mentioned, in particular, J. H. Stirling, Thomas Hill Green, John and Edward Caird. The tendency was toward an intellectualistic Monism or Absolutism, a conception of reality as an absolute system of Reason, in which the side of thought, or knowledge, was at least predominantly emphasized. With this general type of thought, the majority of the more significant names in recent English and American philosophy have been in some measure connected. In very recent years, however, there has appeared a strong inclination to modify considerably the earlier form which the movement took. On all sides, this has shown itself in the tendency to make more of the concrete aspects of expe- rience, as opposed to abstract rational relationships a tendency which has commonly led to the substitution of the word " experience " for " thought." Among those who have started out in general sympathy with the Hegelian movement, but who have modified its teaching to such an extent that they can hardly now be classed with it, it will be enough to mention four names. Andrew Seth Pringle Pattison has subjected Hegelianism to an effective criti- cism, and especially with reference to its unsatisfactory treatment of the idea of personality. F. H. Bradley, by a new analysis of the nature of knowledge, has been led to deny the main tenet of the school the adequacy of what we know as reason to the structure of reality. While reality is still regarded as a unitary experience, it is held that all our ways of thinking this are infected with insolu- ble contradictions, and so are only more or less imperfect approximations to what in its concrete nature we are incom- petent to grasp. Josiah Royce, an American philosopher, departs less widely from the Hegelian position. But by a new emphasis upon the teleological nature of the world whole, and a consequent getting away from pure intellect- ualism, he represents what is essentially a new type of theory. In particular, he has tried to solve more ade- quately the problem of the nature of the individual, and to 506 A Student's History of Philosophy harmonize its reality, and especially its ethical reality, with a fundamental monism. A fourth tendency, repre- sented by John Dewey, goes still further in insisting upon the essentially practical character of all knowledge, to the extent even of confining knowledge altogether to this in- strumental value, and so of eliminating the concept of an Absolute, and reducing reality to the flow of experience as such. With this tendency, to which the name of Pragma- tism has recently been given, certain aspects of the newer psychology coincide. From this starting-point William James has been led to adopt a very similar position to that of Dewey. INDEX The asterisk indicates the important place in which the subject is treated. Abelard, 2ii*ff., 220. Academy, 68, too*, 101, l6of., 184. ./Enesidemus, 161. Esthetics, 117, 181, 290, 437, 461 ff., 475 ff- Agnosticism, 428 ff., 437, 438, 465, 469, 480, 499 f., 502. Ambrose, 193. Ammonius Saccus, 174. Anaxagoras, 28 ff. Anaximander, 13. Anaximenes, 13. Animism, 4. Anselm, 209 f. Antisthenes, 63*6% 146. Apollonius, 173. Apuleius, 173. Aquinas, 2i6ff. Arabian philosophy, 213. Arcesilaus, 161. Aristippus, 60* ff., 87, 1231"., 138. Aristophanes, 42 f., 49. Aristotle, 33, 49, 67, 100, 101 *ff., 119, 139, 140, 141, 166, 203, 213, 215 ff., 221, 225. Arnold, 444. Asceticism, 97, 157, 1756% 182, 189, 191, 478 f. Association of ideas, 488. Atomism, 29 f., 3 iff., 37 f., 100, 123, I29., 308, Augustine, 1926*. Automatism, 2741"., 284, 489. Averroes, 213. Bacon, Lord, 205, 220, 231 *ff., 249, 255- Bacon, Roger, 221. Belief, 374. Bentham, 394, 487. Berkeley, 346 * ff., 366, 368 f., 371, 378, 502. Bernard of Clairvaux, 211. Boccaccio, 224. Body, see Mind and Body. Bradley, 505. Brahe, Tycho, 226. Bruno, 227 * ff., 232. Butler, 391, 393. Caird, E., 505. Caird, J., 505. Carlyle, 83, 444, 504. Carneades, 161. Causation, 165, 270, 339, 37off., 385, 416, 423, 426, 433 ff - 44i, 453. 54- Change, I4ff, 22 f., 26, 29, 88, 94, 105. Christianity, 157 ff., 184 ff., 199 f., 251, 464. Chubb, 391. Church, I94ff., 202 ff., 223, 251. Church Fathers, 122, 185*8. Cicero, 136, i67*f. Clarke, 392. Clifford, 504. Coleridge, 504. Collins, 391. Comte, 467, 479* ff. Conceptualism, 21 1 f. Condillac, 396. Consciousness, 1 1, 32, 244, 269, 309 f. See Soul and Self. Contract, 246 ff, 324, 406 f., 456. Copernicus, 226, 228, 232. 507 508 Index Criterion of truth, 165, 262 f., 273. Crusades, 213 f. Cudworth, 392. Cumberland, 392, 393. Cynics, 60, 63* ff., 138. Cyrenaics, 60* ff., 123. D'Alembert, 395. Darwin, 467, 490* f., 494. Deduction, 107, 242, 243 f., 249, 262. Deism, 254, 390*^,396, 405, 464. Democritus, 3l*ff., 39, 123, 127, 133, 134. Descartes, I93f., 232,250, 254, 257* ff., 280, 284, 306, 307, 308. Determinism, see Freedom. Development, 102 ff., 108, 256, 449 ff., 467, 493 ff., 502. Dewey, 506. Diderot, 395. Diogenes, 65, 66, I2O. Dualism, 257, 277 f. Duns Scotus, 219 f. Eckhart, 225. Eclecticism, 122, 167!!. Eleatic School, 19, 20 ft Emanation, 180 f., 189. Emotions, 141, 296 ff. Empedocles, 24* ff., 30, 31. Empiricism, 238 ff., 255, 319 ff., 323 ff., 365, 366 ff., 416 ff., 488. Encyclopedists, 390, 395 * f., 399. Energy, 307, 488 f. Enlightenment, 254, 280, 306, 386 * ff., 400 ff., 409 f., 435, 447 f., 450, 458, 464. Epictetus, 148, 171. Epicureanism, 66, 121, I22*ff., 138, 39. 155. 5 6 > l6 7, 225. Epicurus, I22*ff., 145, 160. Epistemology, 18 f., 28, 33, 86 ff., 102 ff., 249. 255. 293, 316 f., 319 f., 323 ff., 348 ff., 364 f., 366 ff., 413 ff., 440 ff., 446 ff., 502. Erasmus, 225. Erigena, 205 * f., 208. Ethics, 1 8, 38, 46 f., 60 ff., 63 ff., 69 ff., 109 ff., 123 ff., 138, 140 ff., 212, 245, 280 ff., 331 f., 345 f., 391 ff., 434 f., 443 f., 456 f., 477 f., 488, 498 f. Euclid, 1 66. Euclides, 60. Euhemerus, 61. Euripides, 29, 41. Evil, 18, 130, 152 ff., 174 f., 179, 188, 317 ff., 471 ff. Evolution, see Development. Fechner, 489. Fichte, 442 f. Freedom, 134, 155 f., 189, 195, 297 ff., 314 ff., 398, 402, 419, 433 ff., 443 f. French Revolution, 252, 256, 398, 401, 405, 409, 454 f. Galileo, 226. Gaunilo, 210. Geometry, see Mathematics. Geulincx, 277. Gilbert, 232. Gnosticism, 179, 185,456. God, existence of, 210, 270 f., 286 ff., 342, 356 ff., 362 ff., 405, 418, 429 ff.. 437 f., 447 f., 463 f. Goethe, 409. Gorgias, 24, 42. Green, 505. Hamilton, 385. Hedonism, 61 ff., 123 ff., 396, 488. Hegel, 256, 292, 442, 445 * ff., 468 f., 492, 502. Hegesias, 63. Helvetius, 395, 396. Heracleitus, I4*ff., 28, 86, 88, 105, 502. Herbart, 465. Herder, 256, 41 1 *. Herodotus, 39. Hippias, 42. History, philosophy of, 196, 410 f. f 446 ff., 459 ff. Hobbes, 232, 242 * ff., 263, 324, 392, 393. 4o6. Index Holbach, 396 * ff., 409. Hugo of St. Victor, 21 1. Hume, 165, 255, 339, 365 *ff., 394, 396, 400, 413 ff. Hutcheson, 393. Huxley, 504. Hylozoism, II, 227, 272. Ideas, abstract, 86 ff., 103 ff., 206 ff., 211 f., 249, 292, 350, 449 . 481. Ideas, innate, 90, 262 f., 276 f., 319 ff., 327 ff., 338 f., 426, 488. Immortality, 77, 97, 1308., 158, 183, 419, 436. Individualism, 40, 44 ff., 82 ff., 253 f. 307, 388 ff., 400 ff., 454 ff., 496 ff., 502, 505. Individuality, see Self. Induction, 237 ff. Intuitionalism, see Innate ideas. Jamblicus, 183. James, 506. Justice, 45 f., 74 ff., 454 ff. Justin Martyr, 185. Kant, 256, 339, 385, 390, 412 * ff., 440 ff., 449, 465, 469, 502. Kepler, 226. Knowledge, see Epistemology. Lamarck, 493. Lamettrie, 396. Law, 17, 19, 45, 92, 134, 249, 292, 497 f. Law, Roman, 198 f. Leibniz, 254, 305* ff., 322, 390, 409, 4* 5- Lessing, 256, 409 * f. Leucippus, 31 f. Lewes, 504. Locke, 255, 319 f., 322 *ff., 353, 366, 390, 394, 395. 404, 4 6 426. Logic, 24, 107 ff., 451, 452 ff. Logos, 139, 169, 179. Lotze, 504. Lucretius, 123, 127, 128. Luther, 225. Lyceum, 102. Malebranche, 277. Manichaeans, 175, 179, 193. Marcus Aurelius, 146, 171. Materialism, 32, 139, 244, 249 f., 272, 348 ff., 396 ff. Mathematics, 9, 35, 243 f., 259, 262 ff., 279, 289, 305, 418, 420, 424 f. Matter,i04, 271 ff., 307 f., 348 ff., 377 ff. Megarians, 60, 68. Melanchthon, 225. Melissus, 23. Metrodorus, 124, 126, 127. Milesian School, n, 12 f. Mill, 479, 487 f. Mind and Body, 274 ff., 284 ff., 308, 313 f., 488 f. Modes, 293, 295, 337. Monads, 308 ff. Monism, 505. See Pantheism. Montaigne, 226, 255, 387. Montanists, 188. Montesquieu, 395. Morality, primitive, 5, 39. Motion, 22 ff., 26, 27, 30, 32, 105, 243 f- 273. Mysticism, 175 ff., 187, 211, 225, 302, 445- Naturalism, 499, 504. Neo-Hegelianism, 504. Neo-Platonism, 122, 173, 174 * ff., 185, 187 ff., 206, 225. Neo-Pythagoreanism, 173, 185. Nominalism, 206 *ff., 220 f, 223, 249. Novalis, 280. Occam, see William of Occam. Occasionalism, 277 * f., 284, 313. Ontological argument, 210, 430. Origen, 186. Paley, 394. Pantheism, 139, I56f., 175 ff., iSgff, 208, 230, 280 ff., 410 f., 464. Paracelsus, 25, 230 f. Parallelism, 284 ff., 307 f., 489. Parmenides, 14, 22 *f., 26, 27, 30, 32, 502. Index Pascal, 255, 387. Paulsen, 489. Peripatetics, 118, 167. Personality, see Self. Pessimism, 63, 471 ff. Petrarch, 224. Phsedo, 60. Phenomenalism, see Agnosticism. Philo, i68*f., 173, 179. Philosophy, nature of, 2f., 6, 8f. Plato, 12, 1 6, 27, 33, 46, 47, 49, 56, 59, 67*6., 102 ff., 107, 1 1 6, 126, 140 ff., 1 68, 173, I75ff., 203, 206 f., 224, 420, 476. Pleasure, 60 ff., 69 ff., Ill, 1230"., 135. Plotinus, I74ff. Plutarch, 173, 179. Pope, 232, 390. Positivism, 467, 478 ff., 502. Pragmatism, 506. Pringle Pattison, 505. Proclus, 184. Prodicus, 42, 44. Protagoras, 29, 42, 45, 86 f. Psychology, 76 ff., 109, I4of., 244, 294 ff., 332 ff., 366 ff., 404, 454, 495. Ptolemy, 166. Punishment, 45 6 f. Pyrrho, 160, 161. Pythagoras, 33*ff., 173. Pythagoreans, 33*ff., 68, 173, 225. Qualities, primary and secondary, 272 f., 335 f -343, Rationalism, 2ioff., 253 ff., 257 ff., 280, 3'9f-, 399. 4iff- 41, 4i5 ff - 438- Realism, 206 ff. Reason, 3of., 109 f., I4of., 2i7ff., 364^, 381, 447 ff. See Thought. Reformation, 223, 225. Reid, 385. Relativity, doctrine of, I7f., 161 ff., 295, 42 iff., 500. Religion and science, 2 if., 39, I27ff., 133, J5 6f -, 39 ff- Religion, philosophy of, 61,410, 463 f., 500. Renaissance, 206, 213, 214, 223*ff. b 233, 386 f. Revelation, i87f., 236 f., 248, 345. Richard of St. Victor, 211. Roscellinus, 206 f. Rousseau, 125, 126, 25 5 f., 399 *ff. Royce, 505. Scepticism, 24, 378., 87 f., I2if., i6off., i66f., 225, 255 f., 2646"., 362, 38 iff., 386 f., 420. Schelling, 442, 444 ff. Scholasticism, 203 * ff., 231, 233, 238 ff., 271. Schopenhauer, 466, 467, 468 * ff. Science, 9, 13, 16, 25, 32, 36, 37 f., io8f., 127 ff., 165, 220 f., 237 ff., 243 f., 273 f., 285, 398, 479 ff., 488 ff., 501. Scottish School, 385, 509. Self, 4f., 48, 56, 190 ff., 194, 199, 253, 257, 266 ff., 342, 349, 368 ff., 406 f., 415 f., 425 f., 443 ff. See Soul. Seneca, 120, 126, 142, 147, 157, 158, 171. Sensationalism, 87, 244, 365, 366 ff., 396, 413 ff. Sense perception, i8f., 33, 161 ff., 244, 310, 333 ff., 413 ff-, 422 ff. Sextus Empiricus, 161, 165. Shaftesbury, 393. Smith, Adam, 394. Social philosophy, 78, 82 ff., iisf., 244 ff., 324, 399, 402ff.,457ff.,466f., 482 ff., 496. Socrates, 10, 15, 31, 43, 46, 49 * ff., 60, 61,63,64,67^,69,98, 119. Sophists, 38, 41 * ff., 55, 93, 107, 252. Soul, 4, 32, 36, 77 f., 94 ff., 109 f., 132, 139, 308 ff., 356 f., 429. See Self. Space, 23, 31, 359 f., 422, 424 f. Spencer, 467, 480, 492 * ff. Spinoza, 22, 230, 232, 278 * ff., 306 ff., 4io, 445, 489- State, see Social Philosophy. Stewart, 385. Stirling, 505. Index Stoicism, 66, 121, 124, I37*ff., 161, 165, 167, 170 ff., 190 f., 198 f., 225. Substance, 278, 283, 292, 306 ff., 338, 341 ff., 353, 423, 425. Sufficient reason, law of, 316 f. Syllogism, io8f., 164, 238. Synthetic judgments, 414. Tauler, 225. Teleology, 30 f., 32, 93 f., 103 f., 108, 130 f., 139, 152 ff., 286 ff., 307, 312 ff* 316, 438, 491 f., 501, 505. Tertullian, 185. Thales, 12 *f., 16. Theodorus, 61, 62. Thought, i8f., 33, 55 f., 88 ff., 104 ff., 164 f., 276 f., 413 ff., 440 ff., 448, 502 f. See Reason. Thucydides, 29, 39. Time, 422. Tindal, 391. Toland, 391. Transmigration, 35. Turgot, 395. Twofold truth, 218, 236, 436 f. Tyndall, 504. Universals, 206 ff., 249, 292. Utilitarianism, 394, 487 f., 498 f., 504. Virtue, 52, 60, 63 ff., 69 ff., mff., 140 ff ., 394. Voltaire, 390, 395 *. Walter of St. Victor, 211. Will, 194, 219, 436, 443, 469 ff., 502. William of Champeaux, 211. William of Occam, 218 ff., 223. Winckelmann, 409. Wolff, 390, 415. Wollaston, 393. Xenophanes, 20 ff. Zeno of Elea, 23 f. Zeno, the Stoic, 137 *, 160. DATE DUE 19544 MM b 68 HECD Ar R 2 C 1969 JUN 26 '68 J J* . I ' ' f ' A r ~ ^. ILCx JANly 197 IT" UCI REC' ) DEC 23 li 69 DEC 1870 Wfl C 4 1970 N0\ 1 7 '?! .