Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II

As I thus dissent, not I think without good reason, from “the metaphysical view of Space and Time” as “elements in all phenomena,” it will naturally be expected that I dissent from the first criticism which Dr. Hodgson proceeds to deduce from it. Dealing first with the arguments I have used to show the incomprehensibility of Space and Time, if we consider them as objective, and stating in other words the conclusion I draw, that “as Space and Time cannot be either nonentities nor the attributes of entities, we have no choice but to consider them as entities.” Dr. Hodgson continues: —

“So far good. Secondly, he argues that they cannot be represented in thought as such real existences, because ‘to be conceived at all, a thing must be conceived as having attributes.’ Now here the metaphysical doctrine enables us to conceive them as real existences, and rebuts the argument for their inconceivability; for the other element, the material element, the feeling or quality occupying Space and Time stands in the place and performs the function of the required attributes, composing together with the space and time which is occupied the empirical phenomena of perception. So far as this argument of Mr. Spencer goes, then, we are entitled to say that his case for the inconceivability of Space and Time as real existences is not made out.”

Whether the fault is in me or not I cannot say, but I fail to see that my argument is thus rebutted. On the contrary, it appears to me substantially conceded. What kind of entity is that which can exist only when occupied by something else? Dr. Hodgson’s own argument is a tacit assertion that Space by itself cannot be conceived as an existence; and this is all that I have alleged.

Dr. Hodgson deals next with the further argument, familiar to all readers, which I have added as showing the insurmountable difficulty in the way of conceiving Space and Time as objective entities; namely, that “all entities which we actually know as such are limited… But of Space and Time we cannot assert either limitation, or the absence of limitation.” Without quoting at length the reasons Dr. Hodgson gives for distinguishing between Space as per ceived and Space as con ceived, it will suffice if I quote his own statement of the result to which they bring him: “So that Space and Time as perceived are not finite, but infinite, as conceived are not infinite, but finite.”

Most readers will, I think, be startled by the assertion that conception is less extensive in range than perception; but, without dwelling on this, I will content myself by asking in what case Space is perceived as infinite? Surely Dr. Hodgson does not mean to say that he can perceive the whole surrounding Space at once – that the Space behind is united in perception with the Space in front. Yet this is the necessary implication of his words. Taking his statement less literally, however, and not dwelling on the fact that in perception Space is habitually bounded by objects more or less distant, let us test his assertion under the most favourable conditions. Supposing the eye directed upwards towards a clear sky; is not the space then perceived, laterally limited? The visual area, restricted by the visual apertures, cannot include in perception even 180° from side to side, and is still more confined in a direction at right angles to this. Even in the third direction, to which alone Dr. Hodgson evidently refers, it cannot properly be said that it is infinite in perception. Look at a position in the sky a thousand miles off. Now look at a position a million miles off. What is the difference in perception? Nothing. How then can an infinite distance be perceived when these immensely-unlike finite distances cannot be perceived as differing from one another, or from an infinite distance? Dr. Hodgson has used the wrong word. Instead of saying that Space as perceived is infinite, he should have said that, in perception, Space is finite in two dimensions, and becomes indefinite in the third when this becomes great.

I now come to the paragraph beginning “Mr. Spencer then turns to the second or subjective hypothesis, that of Kant.” This paragraph is somewhat difficult to deal with, because in it my reasoning is criticized both from the Kantian point of view and from Dr. Hodgson’s own point of view. Dissenting from Kant’s view, Dr. Hodgson says, “I hold that both Space and Time and Feeling, or the material element, are equally and alike subjective, equally and alike objective.” As I cannot understand this, I am unable to deal with those arguments against me which Dr. Hodgson bases upon it, and must limit myself to that which he urges on behalf of Kant. He says: —

“But I think that Mr. Spencer’s representation of Kant’s view is very incorrect; he seems to be misled by the large term non-ego. Kant held that Space and Time were in their origin subjective, but when applied to the non-ego resulted in phenomena, and were the formal element in those phenomena, among which some were phenomena of the internal sense or ego, others of the external sense or non-ego. The non-ego to which the forms of Space and Time did not apply and did not belong, was the Ding-an-sich, not the phenomenal non-ego. Hence the objective existence of Space and Time in phenomena, but not in the Ding-an-sich, is a consistent and necessary consequence of Kant’s view of their subjective origin.”

If I have misunderstood Kant, as thus alleged, then my comment must be that I credited him with an hypothesis less objectionable than that which he held. I supposed his view to be that Space, as a form of intuition belonging to the ego , is imposed by it on the non-ego (by which I understood the thing in itself) in the act of intuition. But now the Kantian doctrine is said to be that Space, originating in the ego , when applied to the non-ego , results in phenomena (the non-ego meant being, in that case, necessarily the Ding-an-sich, or thing in itself); and that the phenomena so resulting become objective existences along with the Space given to them by the subject. The subject having imposed Space as a form on the primordial object, or thing in itself, and so created phenomena, this Space thereupon becomes an objective existence, independent of both the subject and the original thing in itself! To Dr. Hodgson this may seem a more tenable position than that which I ascribed to Kant; but to me it seems only a multiplication of inconceivabilities. I am content to leave it as it stands: not feeling my reasons for rejecting the Kantian hypothesis much weakened. [22 - Instead of describing me as misunderstanding Kant on this point, Dr. Hodgson should have described Kant as having, in successive sentences, so changed the meanings of the words he uses, as to make either interpretation possible. At the outset of his Critique of Pure Reason , he says: – “The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation, is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition, is called phænomenon. That which in the phænomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter ;” [here, remembering the definition just given of phenomenon, objective existence is manifestly referred to] “but that which effects that the content of the phænomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form ” [so that form , as here applied, refers to objective existence]. “But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation.” [In which sentence the word form obviously refers to subjective existence.] At the outset, the ‘phenomenon’ and the ‘sensation’ are distinguished as objective and subjective respectively; and then, in the closing sentences, the form is spoken of in connexion first with the one and then with the other, as though they were the same.]

The remaining reply which Dr. Hodgson makes runs thus: —

“But Mr. Spencer has a second argument to prove this inconceivability. It is this: – ‘If Space and Time are forms of thought, they can never be thought of; since it is impossible for anything to be at once the form of thought and the matter of thought.’.. An instance will show the fallacy best. Syllogism is usually held to be a form of thought. Would it be any argument for the inconceivability of syllogisms to say, they cannot be at once the form and the matter of thought? Can we not syllogize about syllogism? Or, more plainly still, – no dog can bite himself, for it is impossible to be at once the thing that bites and the thing that is bitten.”

Had Dr. Hodgson quoted the whole of the passage from which he takes the above sentence; or had he considered it in conjunction with the Kantian doctrine to which it refers (namely, that Space survives in consciousness when all contents are expelled, which implies that then Space is the thing with which consciousness is occupied, or the object of consciousness), he would have seen that his reply has none of the cogency he supposes. If, taking his first illustration, he will ask himself whether it is possible to “syllogize about syllogism,” when syllogism has no content whatever, symbolic or other – has nonentity to serve for major, nonentity for minor, and nonentity for conclusion; he will, I think, see that syllogism, considered as surviving terms of every kind, cannot be syllogized about: the “pure form” of reason (supposing it to be syllogism, which it is not) if absolutely discharged of all it contains, cannot be represented in thought, and therefore cannot be reasoned about. Following Dr. Hodgson to his second illustration, I must express my surprise that a metaphysician of his acuteness should have used it. For an illustration to have any value, the relation between the terms of the analogous case must have some parallelism to the relation between the terms of the case with which it is compared. Does Dr. Hodgson really think that the relation between a dog and the part of himself which he bites, is like the relation between matter and form? Suppose the dog bites his tail. Now the dog, as biting, stands, according to Dr. Hodgson, for the form as the containing mental faculty; and the tail, as bitten, stands for this mental faculty as contained. Now suppose the dog loses his tail. Can the faculty as containing and the faculty as contained be separated in the same way? Does the mental form when deprived of all content, even itself (granting that it can be its own content), continue to exist in the same way that a dog continues to exist when he has lost his tail? Even had this illustration been applicable, I should scarcely have expected Dr. Hodgson to remain satisfied with it. I should have thought he would prefer to meet my argument directly, rather than indirectly. Why has he not shown the invalidity of the reasoning used in the Principles of Psychology (§ 399, 2nd ed.)? Having there quoted the statement of Kant, that “Space and Time are not merely forms of sensuous intuition, but intuitions themselves;” I have written —

“If we inquire more closely, this irreconcilability becomes still clearer. Kant says: – ‘That which in the phænomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form .’ Carrying with us this definition of form, as ‘that which effects that the content.. can be arranged under certain relations,’ let us return to the case in which the intuition of Space is the intuition which occupies consciousness. Can the content of this intuition ‘be arranged under certain relations’ or not? It can be so arranged, or rather, it is so arranged. Space cannot be thought of save as having parts, near and remote, in this direction or the other. Hence, if that is the form of a thing ‘which effects that the content.. can be arranged under certain relations,’ it follows that when the content of consciousness is the intuition of Space, which has ‘parts that can be arranged under certain relations,’ there must be a form of that intuition. What is it? Kant does not tell us – does not appear to perceive that there must be such a form; and could not have perceived this without abandoning his hypothesis that the space-intuition is primordial.”

Now when Dr. Hodgson has shown me how that “which effects that the content.. can be arranged under certain relations,” may also be that which effects its own arrangement under the same relations, I shall be ready to surrender my position; but until then, no analogy drawn from the ability of a dog to bite himself will weigh much with me.

Having, as he considers, disposed of the reasons given by me for concluding that, considered in themselves, “Space and Time are wholly incomprehensible” (he continually uses on my behalf the word “inconceivable,” which, by its unfit connotations, gives a wrong aspect to my position), Dr. Hodgson goes on to say: —

“Yet Mr. Spencer proceeds to use these inconceivable ideas as the basis of his philosophy. For mark, it is Space and Time as we know them, the actual and phenomenal Space and Time, to which all these inconceivabilities attach. Mr. Spencer’s result, ought, therefore, logically to be – Scepticism. What is his actual result? Ontology. And how so? Why, instead of rejecting Space and Time as the inconceivable things he has tried to demonstrate them to be, he substitutes for them an Unknowable, a something which they really are, though we cannot know it, and rejects that, instead of them, from knowledge.”

This statement has caused me no little astonishment. That having before him the volume from which he quotes, so competent a reader should have so completely missed the meaning of the passages (§ 26) already referred to, in which I have contended against Hamilton and Mansel, makes me almost despair of being understood by any ordinary reader. In that section I have, in the first place, contended that the consciousness of an Ultimate Reality, though not capable of being made a thought, properly so called, because not capable of being brought within limits, nevertheless remains as a consciousness that is positive: is not rendered negative by the negations of limits. I have pointed out that —

“The error, (very naturally fallen into by philosophers intent on demonstrating the limits and conditions of consciousness), consists in assuming that consciousness contains nothing but limits and conditions; to the entire neglect of that which is limited and conditioned. It is forgotten that there is something which alike forms the raw material of definite thought and remains after the definiteness which thinking gave to it has been destroyed” – something which “ever persists in us as the body of a thought to which we can give no shape.”

This positive element of consciousness it is which, “at once necessarily indefinite and necessarily indestructible,” I regard as the consciousness of the Unknowable Reality. Yet Dr. Hodgson says “Mr. Spencer proceeds to use these inconceivable ideas as the basis of his philosophy:” implying that such basis consists of negations, instead of consisting of that which persists notwithstanding the negation of limits. And then, beyond this perversion, or almost inversion, of meaning, he conveys the notion that I take as the basis of philosophy, the “inconceivable ideas” “or self-contradictory notions” which result when we endeavour to comprehend Space and Time. He speaks of me as proposing to evolve substance out of form, or rather, out of the negations of forms – gives his readers no conception that the Power manifested to us is that which I regard as the Unknowable, while what we call Space and Time answer to the unknowable nexus of its manifestations. And yet the chapter from which I quote, and still more the chapter which follows it, makes this clear – as clear, at least, as I can make it by carefully-worded statements and re-statements.

Philosophical systems, like theological ones, following the law of evolution in general, severally become in course of time more rigid, while becoming more complex and more definite; and they similarly become less alterable – resist all compromise, and have to be replaced by the more plastic systems that descend from them.

It is thus with pure Empiricism and pure Transcendentalism. Down to the present time disciples of Locke have continued to hold that all mental phenomena are interpretable as results of accumulated individual experiences; and, by criticism, have been led simply to elaborate their interpretations – ignoring the proofs of inadequacy. On the other hand, disciples of Kant, asserting this inadequacy, and led by perception of it to adopt an antagonist theory, have persisted in defending that theory under a form presenting fatal inconsistencies. And then, when there is offered a mode of reconciliation, the spirit of no-compromise is displayed: each side continuing to claim the whole truth. After it has been pointed out that all the obstacles in the way of the experiential doctrine disappear if the effects of ancestral experiences are joined with the effects of individual experiences, the old form of the doctrine is still adhered to. And meanwhile Kantists persist in asserting that the ego is born with intuitional forms which are wholly independent of anything in the non-ego , after it has been shown that the innateness of these intuitional forms may be so understood as to escape the insurmountable difficulties of the hypothesis as originally expressed.

I am led to say this by reading the remarks concerning my own views, made with an urbanity I hope to imitate, by Professor Max Müller, in a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution in March, 1873. [23 - See Fraser’s Magazine for May, 1873.] Before dealing with the criticisms contained in this lecture, I must enter a demurrer against that interpretation of my views by which Professor Max Müller makes it appear that they are more allied to those of Kant than to those of Locke. He says: —

“Whether the pre-historic genesis of these congenital dispositions or inherited necessities of thought, as suggested by Mr. Herbert Spencer, be right or wrong, does not signify for the purpose which Kant had in view. In admitting that there is something in our mind, which is not the result of our own à posteriori experience, Mr. Herbert Spencer is a thorough Kantian, and we shall see that he is a Kantian in other respects too. If it could be proved that nervous modifications, accumulated from generation to generation, could result in nervous structures that are fixed in proportion as the outer relations to which they answer are fixed, we, as followers of Kant, should only have to put in the place of Kant’s intuitions of Space and Time ‘the constant space-relations expressed in definite nervous structures, congenitally framed to act in definite ways, and incapable of acting in any other way.’ If Mr. Herbert Spencer had not misunderstood the exact meaning of what Kant calls the intuitions of Space and Time, he would have perceived that, barring his theory of the pre-historic origin of these intuitions, he was quite at one with Kant.”

On this passage let me remark, first, that the word “pre-historic,” ordinarily employed only in respect to human history, is misleading when applied to the history of Life in general; and his use of it leaves me in some doubt whether Professor Max Müller has rightly conceived the hypothesis he refers to.

My second comment is, that the description of me as “quite at one with Kant,” “ barring ” the “theory of the prehistoric origin of these intuitions,” curiously implies that it is a matter of comparative indifference whether the forms of thought are held to be naturally generated by intercourse between the organism and its environing relations, during the evolution of the lowest into the highest types, or whether such forms are held to be supernaturally given to the human mind, and are independent both of environing relations and of ancestral minds. But now, addressing myself to the essential point, I must meet the statement that I have “misunderstood the exact meaning of what Kant calls the intuitions of Space and Time,” by saying that I think Professor Max Müller has overlooked certain passages which justify my interpretation, and render his interpretation untenable. For Kant says “Space is nothing else than the form of all phenomena of the external sense;” further, he says that “Time is nothing but the form of our internal intuition;” and, to repeat words I have used elsewhere, “He distinctly shuts out the supposition that there are forms of the non-ego to which these forms of the ego correspond, by saying that ‘Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward experiences.’” Now so far from being in harmony with, these statements are in direct contradiction to, the view which I hold; and seem to me absolutely irreconcilable with it. How can it be said that, “barring” a difference represented as trivial, I am “quite at one with Kant,” when I contend that these subjective forms of intuition are moulded into correspondence with, and therefore derived from, some objective form or nexus , and therefore dependent upon it; while the Kantian hypothesis is that these subjective forms are not derived from the object, but pre-exist in the subject – are imposed by the ego on the non-ego. It seems to me that not only do Kant’s words, as above given, exclude the view which I hold, but also that Kant could not consistently have held any such view. Rightly recognizing, as he did, these forms of intuition as innate, he was, from his stand-point, obliged to regard them as imposed on the matter of intuition in the act of intuition. In the absence of the hypothesis that intelligence has been evolved, it was not possible for him to regard these subjective forms as having been derived from objective forms.

A disciple of Locke might, I think, say that the Evolution-view of our consciousness of Space and Time is essentially Lockian, with more truth than Professor Max Müller can represent it as essentially Kantian. The Evolution-view is completely experiential. It differs from the original view of the experientialists by containing a great extension of that view. With the relatively-small effects of individual experiences, it joins the relatively-vast effects of the experiences of antecedent individuals. But the view of Kant is avowedly and absolutely unexperiential. Surely this makes the predominance of kinship manifest.

In Professor Max Müller’s replies to my criticisms on Kant, I cannot see greater validity than in this affiliation to which I have demurred. One of his arguments is that which Dr. Hodgson has used, and which I have already answered; and I think that the others, when compared with the passages of the Principles of Psychology which they concern, will not be found adequate. I refer to them here chiefly for the purpose of pointing out that when he speaks of me as bringing “three arguments against Kant’s view,” he understates the number. Let me close what I have to say on this disputed question, by quoting the summary of reasons I have given for rejecting the Kantian hypothesis: —

“Kant tells us that Space is the form of all external intuition; which is not true. He tells us that the consciousness of Space continues when the consciousness of all things contained in it is suppressed; which is also not true. From these alleged facts he infers that Space is an à priori form of intuition. I say infers , because this conclusion is not presented in necessary union with the premises, in the same way that the consciousness of duality is necessarily presented along with the consciousness of inequality; but it is a conclusion voluntarily drawn for the purpose of explaining the alleged facts. And then that we may accept this conclusion, which is not necessarily presented along with these alleged facts which are not true, we are obliged to affirm several propositions which cannot be rendered into thought. When Space is itself contemplated, we have to conceive it as at once the form of intuition and the matter of intuition; which is impossible. We have to unite that which we are conscious of as Space with that which we are conscious of as the ego , and contemplate the one as a property of the other; which is impossible. We have at the same time to disunite that which we are conscious of as Space, from that which we are conscious of as the non-ego, and contemplate the one as separate from the other; which is also impossible. Further, this hypothesis that Space is “nothing else” than a form of intuition belonging wholly to the ego , commits us to one of the two alternatives, that the non-ego is formless or that its form produces absolutely no effect upon the ego; both of which alternatives involve us in impossibilities of thought.” – Prin. of Psy., § 399.

Objections of another, though allied, class have been made in a review of the Principles of Psychology by Mr. H. Sidgwick – a critic whose remarks on questions of mental philosophy always deserve respectful consideration.

Mr. Sidgwick’s chief aim is to show what he calls “the mazy inconsistency of his [my] metaphysical results.” More specifically, he expresses thus the proposition he seeks to justify – “His view of the subject appears to have a fundamental incoherence, which shows itself in various ways on the surface of his exposition, but of which the root lies much deeper, in his inability to harmonise different lines of thought.”

Before dealing with the reasons given for this judgment, let me say that, in addition to the value which candid criticisms have as showing where more explanation is needed, they are almost indispensable as revealing to a writer incongruities he had not perceived. Especially where, as in this case, the subject-matter has many aspects, and where the words supplied by our language are so inadequate in number that, to avoid cumbrous circumlocution, they have to be used in senses that vary according to the context, it is extremely difficult to avoid imperfections of statement. But while I acknowledge sundry such imperfections and the resulting incongruities, I cannot see that these are, as Mr. Sidgwick says, fundamental. Contrariwise, their superficiality seems to me proved by the fact that they may be rectified without otherwise altering the expositions in which they occur. Here is an instance.

Mr. Sidgwick points out that, when treating of the “Data of Psychology,” I have said (in § 56) that, though we reach inferentially “the belief that mind and nervous action are the subjective and objective faces of the same thing, we remain utterly incapable of seeing, and even of imagining, how the two are related” (I quote the passage more fully than he does). He then goes on to show that in the “Special Synthesis,” where I have sketched the evolution of Intelligence under its objective aspect, as displayed in the processes by which beings of various grades adjust themselves to surrounding actions, I “speak as if” we could see how consciousness “naturally arises at a particular stage” of nervous action. The chapter he here refers to is one describing that “differentiation of the psychical from the physical life” which accompanies advancing organization, and more especially advancing development of the nervous system. In it I have shown that, while the changes constituting physical life continue to be characterized by the simultaneity with which all kinds of them go on throughout the organism, the changes constituting psychical life, arising as the nervous system develops, become gradually more distinguished by their seriality. And I have said that as nervous integration advances, “there must result an unbroken series of these changes – there must arise a consciousness.” Now I admit that here is an apparent inconsistency. I ought to have said that “there must result an unbroken series of these changes,” which, taking place in the nervous system of a highly-organized creature, gives coherence to its conduct; and along with which we assume a consciousness, because consciousness goes along with coherent conduct in ourselves. If Mr. Sidgwick will substitute this statement for the statement as it stands, he will see that the arguments and conclusions remain intact. A survey of the chapter as a whole, proves that its aim is not in the least to explain how nervous changes, considered as waves of molecular motion, become the feelings constituting consciousness; but that, contemplating the facts objectively in living creatures at large, it points out the cardinal distinction between vital actions in general, and those particular vital actions which, in a creature displaying them, lead us to speak of it as intelligent. It is shown that the rise of such actions becomes marked in proportion as the changes taking place in the part called the nervous system, are made more and more distinctly serial, by union in a supreme centre of co-ordination. The introduction of the word consciousness, arises in the effort to show what fundamental character there is in these particular physiological changes which is parallel to a fundamental character in the psychological changes.

Another instance of the way in which Mr. Sidgwick evolves an incongruity which he considers fundamental, out of what I should have thought he would see is a defective expression, I will give in his own words. Speaking of a certain view of mine, he says: —

“He tells us that ‘logic.. contemplates in its propositions certain connexions predicated, which are necessarily involved with certain other connexions given: regarding all these connexions as existing in the non-ego – not, it may be, under the form in which we know them, but in some form.’ But in § 473, where Mr. Spencer illustrates by a diagram his ‘Transfigured Realism,’ the view seems to be this: although we cannot say that the real non-ego resembles our notion of it in ‘its elements, relations, or laws,’ we can say that ‘a change in the objective reality causes in the subjective state a change exactly answering to it – so answering as to constitute a cognition of it .’ Here the ‘something beyond consciousness’ is no longer said to be unknown, as its effect in consciousness ‘constitutes a cognition of it.’”

This apparent inconsistency, marked by the italics, would not have existed if, instead of “a cognition of it,” I had said, as I ought to have said, “ what we call a cognition of it” – that is, a relative cognition as distinguished from an absolute cognition. In ordinary language we speak of as cognitions, those connexions in thought which so guide us in our dealings with things, that actual experience verifies ideal anticipation: marking off, by opposed words, those connexions in thought which mis – guide us. The difference between accepting a cognition as relatively true and accepting it as absolutely true, will be clearly shown by an illustration. There is no direct resemblance whatever between the sizes, forms, colours, and arrangements, of the figures in an account-book, and the moneys or goods, debts or credits, represented by them; and yet the forms and arrangements of the written symbols, are such as answer in a perfectly-exact way to stocks of various commodities and to various kinds of transactions. Hence we say, figuratively, that the account-book will “tell us” all about these stocks and transactions. Similarly, the diagram Mr. Sidgwick refers to, suggests a way in which symbols, registered in us by objects, may have forms and arrangements wholly unlike their objective causes and the nexus among those causes, while yet they are so related as to guide us correctly in our transactions with those objective causes, and, in that sense , constitute cognitions of them; though they no more constitute cognitions in the absolute sense, than do the guiding symbols in the account-book constitute cognitions of the things to which they refer. So repeatedly is this view implied throughout the Principles of Psychology , that I am surprised to find a laxity of expression raising the suspicion that I entertain any other.

To follow Mr. Sidgwick through sundry criticisms of like kind, which may be similarly met, would take more space than I can here afford. I must restrict myself now to the alleged “fundamental incoherence” of which he thinks these inconsistencies are signs. I refer to that reconciliation of Realism and Idealism considered by him as an impossible compromise. A difficulty is habitually felt in accepting a coalition after long conflict. Whoever has espoused one of two antagonist views, and, in defending it, has gained a certain comprehension of the opposite view, becomes accustomed to regard these as the only alternatives, and is puzzled by an hypothesis which is at once both and neither. Yet, since it turns out in nearly all cases that, of conflicting doctrines, each contains an element of truth, and that controversy ends by combination of their respective half-truths, there is a priori probability on the side of an hypothesis which qualifies Realism by Idealism.

Mr. Sidgwick expresses his astonishment, or rather bespeaks that of his readers, because, while I accept Idealistic criticisms, I nevertheless defend the fundamental intuition of Common Sense; and, as he puts it, “fires his [my] argument full in the face of Kant, Mill, and ‘metaphysicians’ generally.”

“He tells us that ‘metaphysicians’ illegitimately assume that ‘beliefs reached through complex intellectual processes,’ are more valid than ‘beliefs reached through simple intellectual processes;’ that the common language they use refuses to express their hypotheses, and thus their reasoning inevitably implies the common notions which they repudiate; that the belief of Realism has the advantage of ‘priority,’ ‘simplicity,’ ‘distinctness.’ But surely this prior, simple, distinctly affirmed belief is that of what Mr. Spencer terms ‘crude Realism’, the belief that the non-ego is per se extended, solid, even coloured (if not resonant and odorous). This is what common language implies; and the argument by which Mr. Spencer proves the relativity of feelings and relations, still more the subtle and complicated analysis by which he resolves our notion of extension into an aggregate of feelings and transitions of feeling, lead us away from our original simple belief – that ( e. g.) the green grass we see exists out of consciousness as we see it – just as much as the reasonings of Idealism, Scepticism, or Kantism.”

On the face of it the anomaly seems great; but I should have thought that after reading the chapter on “Transfigured Realism,” a critic of Mr. Sidgwick’s acuteness would have seen the solution of it. He has overlooked an essential distinction. All which my argument implies is that the direct intuition of Realism must be held of superior authority to the arguments of Anti-Realism, where their deliverances cannot be reconciled. The one point on which their deliverances cannot be reconciled, is the existence of an objective reality. But while, against this intuition of Realism, I hold the arguments of Anti-Realism to be powerless, because they cannot be carried on without postulating that which they end by denying; yet, having admitted objective existence as a necessary postulate, it is possible to make valid criticisms upon all those judgments which Crude Realism joins with this primordial judgment: it is possible to show that a transfigured interpretation of properties and relations, is more tenable than the original interpretation.

To elucidate the matter, let us take the most familiar case in which the indirect judgments of Reason correct the direct judgments of Common Sense. The direct judgment of Common Sense is that the Sun moves round the Earth. In course of time, Reason, finding some facts at variance with this, begins to doubt; and, eventually, hits upon an hypothesis which explains the anomalies, but which denies this apparently-certain dictum of Common Sense. What is the reconciliation? It consists in showing to Common Sense that the new interpretation equally well corresponds with direct intuition, while it avoids all the difficulties. Common Sense is reminded that the apparent motion of an object may be due either to its actual motion or to the motion of the observer; and that there are terrestrial experiences in which the observer thinks an object he looks at is moving, when the motion is in himself. Extending the conception thus given, Reason shows that if the Earth revolves on its axis, there will result that apparent motion of the Sun which Common Sense interpreted into an actual motion of the Sun; and the common-sense observer thereupon becomes able to think of sunrise and sunset as due to his position as spectator on a vast revolving globe. Now if the astronomer, setting out by recognizing these celestial appearances, and proceeding to evolve the various anomalies following from the common-sense interpretation of them, had drawn the conclusion that there externally exist no Sun and no motion at all, he would have done what Idealists do; and his arguments would have been equally powerless against the intuition of Common Sense. But he does nothing of the kind. He accepts the intuition of Common Sense respecting the reality of the Sun and of the motion; but replaces the old interpretation of the motion by a new interpretation reconcilable with all the facts.

Everyone must see that here, acceptance of the inexpugnable element in the common-sense judgment, by no means involves acceptance of the accompanying judgments; and I contend that the like discrimination must be made in the case we are considering. It does not follow that while, against the consciousness which Crude Realism has of an objective reality, the arguments of Anti-Realism are futile, they are therefore futile against the conceptions which Crude Realism forms of the objective reality. If Anti-Realism can show that, granting an objective reality, the interpretation of Crude Realism contains insuperable difficulties, the process is quite legitimate. And, its primordial intuition remaining unshaken, Realism may, on reconsideration, be enabled to frame a new conception which harmonizes all the facts.

To show that there is not here the “mazy inconsistency” alleged, let us take the case of sound as interpreted by Crude Realism, and as re-interpreted by Transfigured Realism. Crude Realism assumes the sound present in consciousness to exist as such beyond consciousness. Anti-Realism proves the inadmissibility of this assumption in sundry ways (all of which, however, set out by talking of sounding bodies beyond consciousness, just as Realism talks of them); and then Anti-Realism concludes that we know of no existence save the sound as a mode of consciousness: which conclusion, and all kindred conclusions, I contend are vicious – first, because all the words used connote an objective activity; second, because the arguments are impossible without postulating at the outset an objective activity; and third, because no one of the intuitions out of which the arguments are built, is of equal validity with the single intuition of Realism that an objective activity exists. But now the Transfigured Realism which Mr. Sidgwick thinks “has all the serious incongruity of an intense metaphysical dream,” neither affirms the untenable conception of Crude Realism, nor, like Anti-Realism, draws unthinkable conclusions by suicidal arguments; but, accepting that which is essential in Crude Realism, and admitting the difficulties which Anti-Realism insists upon, reconciles matters by a re-interpretation analogous to that which an astronomer makes of the solar motion. Continuing all along to recognize an objective activity which Crude Realism calls sound, it shows that the answering sensation is produced by a succession of separate impacts which, if made slowly, may be separately identified, and which will, if progressively increased in rapidity, produce tones higher and higher in pitch. It shows by other experiments that sounding bodies are in states of vibration, and that the vibrations may be made visible. And it concludes that the objective activity is not what it subjectively seems, but is proximately interpretable as a succession of aërial waves. Thus Crude Realism is shown that while there unquestionably exists an objective activity corresponding to the sensation known as sound, yet the facts are not explicable on the original supposition that this is like the sensation; while they are explicable by conceiving it as a rhythmical mechanical action. Eventually this re-interpretation, joined with kindred reinterpretations of other sensations, comes to be itself further transfigured by analysis of its terms, and re-expression of them in terms of molecular motion; but, however abstract the interpretation ultimately reached, the objective activity continues to be postulated: the primordial judgment of Crude Realism remains unchanged, though it has to change the rest of its judgments.

In another part of his argument, however, Mr. Sidgwick implies that I have no right to use those conceptions of objective existence by which this compromise is effected. Quoting sundry passages to show that while I hold the criticisms of the Idealist to be impossible without “tacitly or avowedly postulating an unknown something beyond consciousness,” I yet admit that “our states of consciousness are the only things we can know;” he goes on to argue that I am radically inconsistent, because, in interpreting the phenomena of consciousness, I continually postulate, not an unknown something, but a something of which I speak in ordinary terms, as though its ascribed physical characters really exist as such, instead of being, as I admit they are, synthetic states of my consciousness. His objection, if I understand it, is that for the purposes of Objective Psychology I apparently profess to know Matter and Motion in the ordinary realistic way; while, as a result of subjective analysis, I reach the conclusion that it is impossible to have that knowledge of objective existence which Realism supposes we have. Doubtless there seems here to be what he calls “a fundamental incoherence.” But I think it exists, not between my two expositions, but between the two consciousnesses of subjective and objective existence, which we cannot suppress and yet cannot put into definite forms. The alleged incoherence I take to be but another name for the inscrutability of the relation between subjective feeling and its objective correlate which is not feeling – an inscrutability which meets us at the bottom of all our analyses. An exposition of this inscrutability I have elsewhere summed up thus: —

“See, then, our predicament. We can think of Matter only in terms of Mind. We can think of Mind only in terms of Matter. When we have pushed our explorations of the first to the uttermost limit, we are referred to the second for a final answer; and when we have got the final answer of the second, we are referred back to the first for an interpretation of it. We find the value of x in terms of y; then we find the value of y in terms of x; and so on we may continue for ever without coming nearer to a solution.” – Prin. of Psy. § 272.

Carrying a little further this simile, will, I think, show where lies the insuperable difficulty felt by Mr. Sidgwick. Taking x and y as the subjective and objective activities, unknown in their natures and known only as phenomenally manifested; and recognizing the fact that every state of consciousness implies, immediately or remotely, the action of object on subject or subject on object, or both; we may say that every state of consciousness will be symbolized by some modification of xy – the phenomenally-known product of the two unknown factors. In other words, xy′ , x′y , x′y′ , x″y′ , x′y″ , &c., &c., will represent all perceptions and thoughts. Suppose, now, that these are thoughts about the object; composing some hypothesis respecting its characters as analyzed by physicists. Clearly, all such thoughts, be they about shapes, resistances, momenta, molecules, molecular motions, or what not, will contain forms of the subjective activity x. Now let the thoughts be concerning mental processes. It must similarly happen that some mode of the unknown objective activity y , will be in every case a component. Now suppose that the problem is the genesis of mental phenomena; and that, in the course of the inquiry, bodily organization and the functions of the nervous system are brought into the explanation. It will happen, as before, that these, considered as objective, have to be described and thought about in modes of xy. And when by the actions of such a nervous system, conceived objectively in modes of xy , and acted upon by physical forces which are conceived in other modes of xy , we endeavour to explain the genesis of sensations, perceptions, and ideas, which we can think of only in other modes of xy, we find that all our factors, and therefore all our interpretations, contain the two unknown terms, and that no interpretation is imaginable that will not contain the two unknown terms.

What is the defence for this apparently-circular process? Simply that it is a process of establishing congruity among our symbols. It is finding a mode of so symbolizing the unknown activities, subjective and objective, and so operating with our symbols, that all our acts may be rightly guided – guided, that is, in such ways that we can anticipate, when, where, and in what quantity some one of our symbols, or some combination of our symbols, will be found. Mr. Sidgwick’s difficulty arises, I think, from having insufficiently borne in mind the statements made at the outset, in “The Data of Philosophy,” that such conceptions as “are vital, or cannot be separated from the rest without mental dissolution, must be assumed as true provisionally ;” that “there is no mode of establishing the validity of any belief except that of showing its entire congruity with all other beliefs;” and that “Philosophy, compelled to make those fundamental assumptions without which thought is impossible, has to justify them by showing their congruity with all other dicta of consciousness.” In pursuance of this distinctly-avowed mode of procedure, I assume provisionally, an objective activity and a subjective activity, and certain general forms and modes (Space, Time, Matter, Motion, Force), which the subjective activity, operated on by the objective activity, ascribes to it, and which I suppose to correspond in some way to unknown forms and modes of the objective activity. These provisional assumptions, having been carried out to all their consequences, and these consequences proved to be congruous with one another and with the original assumptions, these original assumptions are justified. And if, finally, I assert, as I have repeatedly asserted, that the terms in which I express my assumptions and carry on my operations are but symbolic, and that all I have done is to show that by certain ways of symbolizing, perfect harmony results – invariable agreement between the symbols in which I frame my expectations, and the symbols which occur in experience – I cannot be blamed for incoherence. On the contrary, it seems to me that my method is the most coherent that can be devised. Lastly, should it be said that this regarding of everything constituting experience and thought as symbolic, has a very shadowy aspect; I reply that these which I speak of as symbols, are real relatively to our consciousness; and are symbolic only in their relation to the Ultimate Reality.

That these explanations will make clear the coherence of views which before seemed “fundamentally incoherent,” I feel by no means certain; since, as I did not perceive the difficulties presented by the exposition as at first made, I may similarly fail to perceive the difficulties in this explanation. Originally, I had intended to complete the Principles of Psychology by a division showing how the results reached in the preceding divisions, physiological and psychological, analytic and synthetic, subjective and objective, harmonize with one another, and are but different aspects of the same aggregate of phenomena. But the work was already bulky; and I concluded that this division might be dispensed with, because the congruities to be pointed out were sufficiently obvious. So little was I conscious of the alleged “inability to harmonize different lines of thought.” Mr. Sidgwick’s perplexities, however, show me that such an exposition of concords is needful.

I have reserved to the last, one of the first objections made to the metaphysico-theological doctrine set forth in First Principles , and implied in the several volumes that have succeeded it. It was urged by an able metaphysician, the Rev. James Martineau, in an essay entitled “Science, Nescience, and Faith;” and, effective against my argument as it stands, shows the need for some development of my argument. That Mr. Martineau’s criticism may be understood, I must quote the passages it concerns. Continuing the reasoning employed against Hamilton and Mansel, to show that our consciousness of that which transcends knowledge is positive , and not, as they allege, negative , I have said: —

“Still more manifest will this truth become when it is observed that our conception of the Relative itself disappears, if our conception of the Absolute is a pure negation. It is admitted, or rather it is contended, by the writers I have quoted above, that contradictories can be known only in relation to each other – that Equality, for instance, is unthinkable apart from its correlative Inequality; and that thus the Relative can itself be conceived only by opposition to the Non-relative. It is also admitted, or rather contended, that the consciousness of a relation implies a consciousness of both the related members. If we are required to conceive the relation between the Relative and Non-relative without being conscious of both, ‘we are in fact’ (to quote the words of Mr. Mansel differently applied) ‘required to compare that of which we are conscious with that of which we are not conscious; the comparison itself being an act of consciousness, and only possible through the consciousness of both its objects.’ What, then, becomes of the assertion that, ‘the Absolute is conceived merely by a negation of conceivability,’ or as ‘the mere absence of the conditions under which consciousness is possible?’ If the Non-relative or Absolute, is present in thought only as a mere negation, then the relation between it and the Relative becomes unthinkable, because one of the terms of the relation is absent from consciousness. And if this relation is unthinkable, then is the Relative itself unthinkable, for want of its antithesis: whence results the disappearance of all thought whatever.” – First Principles , § 26.

On this argument Mr. Martineau comments as follows; first re-stating it in other words: —

“Take away its antithetic term, and the relative, thrown into isolation, is set up as absolute, and disappears from thought. It is indispensable therefore to uphold the Absolute in existence, as condition of the relative sphere which constitutes our whole intellectual domain. Be it so: but when saved on this plea, – to preserve the balance and interdependence of two co – relatives, – the ‘Absolute’ is absolute no more; it is reduced to a term of relation: it loses therefore its exile from thought: its disqualification is cancelled: and the alleged nescience is discharged.