Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II

This representation, in so far as it concerns my own views, has somewhat puzzled me. Considering that I have avowed a general agreement with Mr. Mill in the doctrine that all knowledge is from experience, and have defended the test of inconceivableness on the very ground that it expresses “the net result of our experiences up to the present time” ( Principles of Psychology , § 430) – considering that, so far from asserting the distinction quoted from Sir William Hamilton, I have aimed to abolish such distinction – considering that I have endeavoured to show how all our conceptions, even down to those of Space and Time, are “acquired” – considering that I have sought to interpret forms of thought (and by implication all intuitions) as products of organized and inherited experiences ( Principles of Psychology , § 208); I am taken aback at finding myself classed as in the above paragraph. Leaving the personal question, however, let me pass to the assertion that the difference of opinion respecting the test of necessity itself disproves the validity of the test. Two issues are here involved. First, if a particular proposition is by some accepted as a necessary belief, but by one or more denied to be a necessary belief, is the validity of the test of necessity thereby disproved in respect of that particular proposition? Second, if the validity of the test is disproved in respect of that particular proposition, does it therefore follow that the test cannot be depended on in other cases? – does it follow that there are no beliefs universally accepted as necessary, and in respect of which the test of necessity is valid? Each of these questions may, I think, be rightly answered in the negative.

In alleging that if a belief is said by some to be necessary, but by others to be not necessary, the test of necessity is thereby shown to be no test, Mr. Mill tacitly assumes that all men have powers of introspection enabling them in all cases to say what consciousness testifies; whereas a great proportion of men are incapable of correctly interpreting consciousness in any but its simplest modes, and even the remainder are liable to mistake for dicta of consciousness what prove on closer examination not to be its dicta. Take the case of an arithmetical blunder. A boy adds up a column of figures, and brings out a wrong total. Again he does it and again errs. His master asks him to go through the process aloud, and then hears him say “35 and 9 are 46” – an error which he had repeated on each occasion. Now without discussing the mental act through which we know that 35 and 9 are 44, and through which we recognize the necessity of this relation, it is clear that the boy’s misinterpretation of consciousness, leading him tacitly to deny this necessity by asserting that “35 and 9 are 46,” cannot be held to prove that the relation is not necessary. This, and kindred misjudgments daily made by accountants, merely show that there is a liability to overlook what are necessary connexions in our thoughts, and to assume as necessary others which are not. In these and hosts of cases, men do not distinctly translate into their equivalent states of consciousness the words they use. This negligence is with many so habitual, that they are unaware that they have not clearly represented to themselves the propositions they assert; and are then apt, quite sincerely though erroneously, to assert that they can think things which it is really impossible to think.

But supposing it to be true that whenever a particular belief is alleged to be necessary, the existence of some who profess themselves able to believe otherwise, proves that this belief is not necessary; must it be therefore admitted that the test of necessity is invalid? I think not. Men may mistake for necessary, certain beliefs which are not necessary; and yet it may remain true that there are necessary beliefs, and that the necessity of such beliefs is our warrant for them. Were conclusions thus tested proved to be wrong in a hundred cases, it would not follow that the test is an invalid one; any more than it would follow from a hundred errors in the use of a logical formula, that the logical formula is invalid. If from the premise that all horned animals ruminate, it were inferred that the rhinoceros, being a horned animal, ruminates; the error would furnish no argument against the worth of syllogisms in general – whatever their worth may be. Daily there are thousands of erroneous deductions which, by those who draw them, are supposed to be warranted by the data from which they draw them; but no multiplication of such erroneous deductions is regarded as proving that there are no deductions truly drawn, and that the drawing of deductions is illegitimate. In these cases, as in the case to which they are here paralleled, the only thing shown is the need for verification of data and criticism of the acts of consciousness.

“This argument,” says Mr. Mill, referring to the argument of necessity, “applied to any of the disputed questions of philosophy, is doubly illegitimate;.. the very fact that the question is disputed, disproves the alleged impossibility.” Besides the foregoing replies to this, there is another. Granting that there have been appeals illegitimately made to this test – granting that there are many questions too complex to be settled by it, which men have nevertheless proposed to settle by it, and have consequently got into controversy; it may yet be truly asserted that in respect of all, or almost all, questions legitimately brought to judgment by this test, there is no dispute about the answer. From the earliest times on record down to our own, men have not changed their beliefs concerning the truths of number. The axiom that if equals be added to unequals the sums are unequal, was held by the Greeks no less than by ourselves, as a direct verdict of consciousness, from which there is no escape and no appeal. Each of the propositions of Euclid appears to us absolutely beyond doubt as it did to them. Each step in each demonstration we accept, as they accepted it, because we immediately see that the alleged relation is as alleged, and that it is impossible to conceive it otherwise.

But how are legitimate appeals to the test to be distinguished? The answer is not difficult to find. Mr. Mill cites the belief in the antipodes as having been rejected by the Greeks because inconceivable, but as being held by ourselves to be both conceivable and true. He has before given this instance, and I have before objected to it ( Principles of Psychology , § 428), for the reason that the states of consciousness involved in the judgment are too complex to admit of any trustworthy verdict being given. An illustration will show the difference between a legitimate appeal to the test and an illegitimate appeal to it. A and B are two lines. How is it decided that they are equal or not equal? No way is open but that of comparing the two impressions they make on consciousness. I know them to be unequal by an immediate act, if the difference is great, or if, though only moderately different, they are close together; and supposing the difference is but slight, I decide the question by putting the lines in apposition when they are movable, or by carrying a movable line from one to the other if they are fixed. But in any case, I obtain in consciousness the testimony that the impression produced by the one line differs from that produced by the other. Of this difference I can give no further evidence than that I am conscious of it, and find it impossible, while contemplating the lines, to get rid of the consciousness. The proposition that the lines are unequal is a proposition of which the negation is inconceivable. But now suppose it is asked whether B and C are equal; or whether C and D are equal. No positive answer is possible. Instead of its being inconceivable that B is longer than C, or equal to it, or shorter, it is conceivable that it is any one of the three. Here an appeal to the direct verdict of consciousness is illegitimate, because on transferring the attention from B to C, or C to D, the changes in the other elements of the impressions so entangle the elements to be compared, as to prevent them from being put in apposition. If the question of relative length is to be determined, it must be by rectification of the bent line; and this is done through a series of steps, each one of which involves an immediate judgment akin to that by which A and B are compared. Now as here, so in other cases, it is only simple percepts or concepts respecting the relations of which immediate consciousness can satisfactorily testify; and as here, so in other cases, it is by resolution into such simple percepts and concepts, that true judgments respecting complex percepts and concepts are reached. That things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, is a fact which can be known by direct comparison of actual or ideal relations, and can be known in no other way: the proposition is one of which the negation is inconceivable, and is rightly asserted on that warrant. But that the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides, cannot be known immediately by comparison of two states of consciousness. Here the truth can be reached only mediately, through a series of simple judgments respecting the likenesses or unlikenesses of certain relations: each of which judgments is essentially of the same kind as that by which the above axiom is known, and has the same warrant. Thus it becomes apparent that the fallacious result of the test of necessity which Mr. Mill instances, is due to a misapplication of the test.

These preliminary explanations have served to make clear the question at issue. Let us now pass to the essence of it.

Metaphysical reasoning is usually vitiated by some covert petitio principii. Either the thing to be proved or the thing to be disproved, is tacitly assumed to be true in the course of the proof or disproof. It is thus with the argument of Idealism. Though the conclusion reached is that Mind and Ideas are the only existences; yet the steps by which this conclusion is reached, take for granted that external objects have just the kind of independent existence which is eventually denied. If that extension which the Idealist contends is merely an affection of consciousness, has nothing out of consciousness answering to it; then, in each of his propositions concerning extension, the word should always mean an affection of consciousness and nothing more. But if wherever he speaks of distances and dimensions we write ideas of distances and dimensions, his propositions are reduced to nonsense. So, too, is it with Scepticism. The resolution of all knowledge into “impressions” and “ideas,” is effected by an analysis which assumes at every step an objective reality producing the impressions and the subjective reality receiving them. The reasoning becomes impossible if the existence of object and subject be not admitted at the outset. Agree with the Sceptic’s doubt, and then propose to revise his argument so that it may harmonize with his doubt. Of the two alternatives between which he halts, assume, first, the reality of object and subject. His argument is practicable; whether valid or not. Now assume that object and subject do not exist. He cannot stir a step toward his conclusion – nay, he cannot even state his conclusion; for the word “impression” cannot be translated into thought without assuming a thing impressing and a thing impressed.

Though Empiricism, as at present understood, is not thus suicidal, it is open to an analogous criticism on its method, similarly telling against the validity of its inference. It proposes to account for our so-called necessary beliefs, as well as all our other beliefs; and to do this without postulating any one belief as necessary. Bringing forward abundant evidence that the connexions among our states of consciousness are determined by our experiences – that two experiences frequently recurring together in consciousness, become so coherent that one strongly suggests the other, and that when their joint recurrence is perpetual and invariable, the connexion between them becomes indissoluble; it argues that the indissolubility, so produced, is all that we mean by necessity. And then it seeks to explain each of our so-called necessary beliefs as thus originated. Now could pure Empiricism reach this analysis and its subsequent synthesis without taking any thing for granted, its arguments would be unobjectionable. But it cannot do this. Examine its phraseology, and there arises the question, Experiences of what? Translate the word into thought, and it clearly involves something more than states of mind and the connexions among them. For if it does not, then the hypothesis is that states of mind are generated by the experiences of states of mind; and if the inquiry be pursued, this ends with initial states of mind which are not accounted for – the hypothesis fails. Evidently, there is tacitly assumed something beyond the mind by which the “experiences” are produced – something in which exist the objective relations to which the subjective relations correspond – an external world. Refuse thus to explain the word “experiences,” and the hypothesis becomes meaningless. But now, having thus postulated an external reality as the indispensable foundation of its reasonings, pure Empiricism can subsequently neither prove nor disprove its postulate. An attempt to disprove it, or to give it any other meaning than that originally involved, is suicidal; and an attempt to establish it by inference is reasoning in a circle. What then are we to say of this proposition on which Empiricism rests? Is it a necessary belief, or is it not? If necessary, the hypothesis in its pure form is abandoned. If not necessary – if not posited à priori as absolutely certain – then the hypothesis rests on an uncertainty; and the whole fabric of its argument is unstable. More than this is true. Besides the insecurity implied by building on a foundation that is confessedly not beyond question, there is the much greater insecurity implied by raising proposition upon proposition of which each is confessedly not beyond question. For to say that there are no necessary truths, is to say that each successive inference is not necessarily involved in its premises – is an empirical judgment – a judgment not certainly true. Hence, applying rigorously its own doctrine, we find that pure Empiricism, starting from an uncertainty and progressing through a series of uncertainties, cannot claim much certainty for its conclusions.

Doubtless, it may be replied that any theory of human knowledge must set out with assumptions – either permanent or provisional; and that the validity of these assumptions is to be determined by the results reached through them. But that such assumptions may be made legitimately, two things are required. In the first place they must not be multiplied step after step as occasion requires; otherwise the conclusion reached might as well be assumed at once. And in the second place, the fact that they are assumptions must not be lost sight of: the conclusions drawn must not be put forward as though they have a certainty which the premises have not. Now pure Empiricism, in common with other theories of knowledge, is open to the criticism, that it neglects thus avowedly to recognize the nature of those primary assumptions which it lays down as provisionally valid, if it denies that they can be necessarily valid. And it is open to the further criticism, that it goes on at every step in its argument making assumptions which it neglects to specify as provisional; since they, too, cannot be known as necessary. Until it has assigned some warrant for its original datum and for each of its subsequent inferences, or else has acknowledged them all to be but hypothetical, it may be stopped either at the outset or at any stage in its argument. Against every “because” and every “therefore,” an opponent may enter a caveat, until he is told why it is asserted: contending, as he may, that if this inference is not necessary he is not bound to accept it; and that if it is necessary it must be openly declared to be necessary, and some test must be assigned by which it is distinguished from propositions that are not necessary.

These considerations will, I think, make it obvious that the first step in a metaphysical argument, rightly carried on, must be an examination of propositions for the purpose of ascertaining what character is common to those which we call unquestionably true, and is implied by asserting their unquestionable truth. Further, to carry on this inquiry legitimately, we must restrict our analysis rigorously to states of consciousness considered in their relations to one another: wholly ignoring any thing beyond consciousness to which these states and their relations may be supposed to refer. For if, before we have ascertained by comparing propositions what is the trait that leads us to class some of them as certainly true, we avowedly or tacitly take for granted the existence of something beyond consciousness; then, a particular proposition is assumed to be certainly true before we have ascertained what is the distinctive character of the propositions which we call certainly true, and the analysis is vitiated. If we cannot transcend consciousness – if, therefore, what we know as truth must be some mental state, or some combination of mental states; it must be possible for us to say in what way we distinguish this state or these states. The definition of truth must be expressible in terms of consciousness; and, indeed, cannot otherwise be expressed if consciousness cannot be transcended. Clearly, then, the metaphysician’s first step must be to shut out from his investigation every thing but what is subjective; not taking for granted the existence of any thing objective corresponding to his ideas, until he has ascertained what property of his ideas it is which he predicates by calling them true. Let us note the result if he does this.

The words of a proposition are the signs of certain states of consciousness; and the thing alleged by a proposition is the connexion or disconnexion of the states of consciousness signified. When thinking is carried on with precision – when the mental states which we call words, are translated into the mental states they symbolize (which they very frequently are not) – thinking a proposition consists in the occurrence together in consciousness of the subject and predicate. “The bird was brown,” is a proposition which implies the union in thought of a particular attribute with a group of other attributes. When the inquirer compares various propositions thus rendered into states of consciousness, he finds that they differ very greatly in respect of the facility with which the states of consciousness are connected and disconnected. The mental state known as brown may be united with those mental states which make up the figure known as bird , without appreciable effort, or may be separated from them without appreciable effort: the bird may easily be thought of as black, or green, or yellow. Contrariwise, such an assertion as “The ice was hot,” is one to which he finds much difficulty in making his mind respond. The elements of the proposition cannot be put together in thought without great resistance. Between those other states of consciousness which the word ice connotes, and the state of consciousness named cold , there is an extremely strong cohesion – a cohesion measured by the resistance to be overcome in thinking of the ice as hot. Further, he finds that in many cases the states of consciousness grouped together cannot be separated at all. The idea of pressure cannot be disconnected from the idea of something occupying space. Motion cannot be thought of without an object that moves being at the same time thought of. And then, besides these connexions in consciousness which remain absolute under all circumstances, there are others which remain absolute under special circumstances. Between the elements of those more vivid states of consciousness which the inquirer distinguishes as perceptions, he finds that there is a temporarily-indissoluble cohesion. Though when there arises in him that comparatively faint state of consciousness which he calls the idea of a book, he can easily think of the book as red, or brown, or green; yet when he has that much stronger consciousness which he calls seeing a book, he finds that so long as there continue certain accompanying states of consciousness which he calls the conditions to perception, those several states of consciousness which make up the perception cannot be disunited – he cannot think of the book as red, or green, or brown; but finds that, along with a certain figure, there absolutely coheres a certain colour.

Still shutting himself up within these limits, let us suppose the inquirer to ask himself what he thinks about these various degrees of cohesion among his states of consciousness – how he names them, and how he behaves toward them. If there comes, no matter whence, the proposition – “The bird was brown,” subject and predicate answering to these words spring up together in consciousness; and if there is no opposing proposition, he unites the specified and implied attributes without effort, and believes the proposition. If, however, the proposition is – “The bird was necessarily brown,” he makes an experiment like those above described, and finding that he can separate the attribute of brownness, and can think of the bird as green or yellow, he does not admit that the bird was necessarily brown. When such a proposition as “The ice was cold” arises in him, the elements of the thought behave as before; and so long as no test is applied, the union of the consciousness of cold with the accompanying states of consciousness, seems to be of the same nature as the union between those answering to the words brown and bird. But should the proposition be changed into – “The ice was necessarily cold,” quite a different result happens from that which happened in the previous case. The ideas answering to subject and predicate are here so coherent, that in the absence of careful examination they might pass as inseparable, and the proposition be accepted. But suppose the proposition is deliberately tested by trying whether ice can be thought of as not cold. Great resistance is offered in consciousness to this. Still, by an effort, he can imagine water to have its temperature of congelation higher than blood heat; and can so think of congealed water as hot instead of cold. Now the extremely strong cohesion of states of consciousness, thus experimentally proved by the difficulty of separating them, he finds to be what he calls a strong belief. Once more, in response to the words – “Along with motion there is something that moves,” he represents to himself a moving body; and, until he tries an experiment upon it, he may suppose the elements of the representation to be united in the same way as those of the representations instanced above. But supposing the proposition is modified into – “Along with motion there is necessarily something that moves,” the response made in thought to these words, discloses the fact that the states of consciousness called up in this case are indissolubly connected in the way alleged. He discovers this by trying to conceive the negation of the proposition – by trying to think of motion as not having along with it something that moves; and his inability to conceive this negation is the obverse of his inability to tear asunder the states of consciousness which constitute the affirmation. Those propositions which survive this strain, are the propositions he distinguishes as necessary. Whether or not he means any thing else by this word, he evidently means that in his consciousness the connexions they predicate are, so far as he can ascertain, unalterable. The bare fact is that he submits to them because he has no choice. They rule his thoughts whether he will or not. Leaving out all questions concerning the origin of these connexions – all theories concerning their significations, there remains in the inquirer the consciousness that certain of his states of consciousness are so welded together that all other links in the chain of consciousness yield before these give way.

Continuing rigorously to exclude everything beyond consciousness, let him now ask himself what he means by reasoning? what is the essential nature of an argument? what is the peculiarity of a conclusion? Analysis soon shows him that reasoning is the formation of a coherent series of states of consciousness. He has found that the thoughts expressed by propositions, vary in the cohesions of their subjects and predicates; and he finds that at every step in an argument, carefully carried on, he tests the strengths of all the connexions asserted and implied. He considers whether the object named really does belong to the class in which it is included – tries whether he can think of it as not like the things it is said to be like. He considers whether the attribute alleged is really possessed by all members of the class – tries to think of some member of the class that has not the attribute – And he admits the proposition only on finding, by this criticism, that there is a greater degree of cohesion in thought between its elements, than between the elements of the counter-proposition. Thus testing the strength of each link in the argument, he at length reaches the conclusion, which he tests in the same way. If he accepts it, he does so because the argument has established in him an indirect cohesion between states of consciousness that were not directly coherent, or not so coherent directly as the argument makes them indirectly. But he accepts it only supposing that the connexion between the two states of consciousness composing it, is not resisted by some stronger counter-connexion. If there happens to be an opposing argument, of which the component thoughts are felt, when tested, to be more coherent; or if, in the absence of an opposing argument, there exists an apposing conclusion, of which the elements have some direct cohesion greater than that which the proffered argument indirectly gives; then the conclusion reached by this argument is not admitted. Thus, a discussion in consciousness proves to be simply a trial of strength between different connexions in consciousness – a systematized struggle serving to determine which are the least coherent states of consciousness. And the result of the struggle is, that the least coherent states of consciousness separate, while the most coherent remain together – form a proposition of which the predicate persists in rising up in the mind along with its subject – constitute one of the connexions in thought which is distinguished as something known, or as something believed, according to its strength.

What corollary may the inquirer draw, or rather what corollary must he draw, on pushing the analysis to its limit? If there are any indissoluble connexions, he is compelled to accept them. If certain states of consciousness absolutely cohere in certain ways, he is obliged to think them in those ways. The proposition is an identical one. To say that they are necessities of thought is merely another way of saying that their elements cannot be torn asunder. No reasoning can give to these absolute cohesions in thought any better warrant; since all reasoning, being a process of testing cohesions, is itself carried on by accepting the absolute cohesions; and can, in the last resort, do nothing more than present some absolute cohesions in justification of others – an act which unwarrantably assumes in the absolute cohesions it offers, a greater value than is allowed to the absolute cohesions it would justify. Here, then, the inquirer comes down to an ultimate mental uniformity – a universal law of his thinking. How completely his thought is subordinated to this law, is shown by the fact that he cannot even represent to himself the possibility of any other law. To suppose the connexions among his states of consciousness to be otherwise determined, is to suppose a smaller force overcoming a greater – a proposition which may be expressed in words but cannot be rendered into ideas. No matter what he calls these indestructible relations, no matter what he supposes to be their meanings, he is completely fettered by them. Their indestructibility is the proof to him that his consciousness is imprisoned within them; and supposing any of them to be in some way destroyed, he perceives that indestructibility would still be the distinctive character of the bounds that remained – the test of those which he must continue to think.

These results the inquirer arrives at without assuming any other existence than that of his own consciousness. They postulate nothing about mind or matter, subject or object. They leave wholly untouched the questions – what does consciousness imply? and how is thought generated? There is not involved in the analysis any hypothesis respecting the origin of these relations between thoughts – how there come to be feeble cohesions, strong cohesions, and absolute cohesions. Whatever some of the terms used may have seemed to connote, it will be found, on examining each step, that nothing is essentially involved beyond states of mind and the connexions among them, which are themselves other states of mind. Thus far, the argument is not vitiated by any petitio principii.

Should the inquirer enter upon the question, How are these facts to be explained? he must consider how any further investigation is to be conducted, and what is the possible degree of validity of its conclusions. Remembering that he cannot transcend consciousness, he sees that anything in the shape of an interpretation must be subordinate to the laws of consciousness. Every hypothesis he entertains in trying to explain himself to himself, being an hypothesis which can be dealt with by him only in terms of his mental states, it follows that any process of explanation must itself be carried on by testing the cohesions among mental states, and accepting the absolute cohesions. His conclusions, therefore, reached only by repeated recognitions of this test of absolute cohesion, can never have any higher validity than this test. It matters not what name he gives to a conclusion – whether he calls it a belief, a theory, a fact, or a truth. These words can be themselves only names for certain relations among his states of consciousness. Any secondary meanings which he ascribes to them must also be meanings expressed in terms of consciousness, and therefore subordinate to the laws of consciousness. Hence he has no appeal from this ultimate dictum; and seeing this, he sees that the only possible further achievement is the reconciliation of the dicta of consciousness with one another – the bringing all other dicta of consciousness into harmony with this ultimate dictum.

Here, then, the inquirer discovers a warrant higher than that which any argument can give, for asserting an objective existence. Mysterious as seems the consciousness of something which is yet out of consciousness, he finds that he alleges the reality of this something in virtue of the ultimate law – he is obliged to think it. There is an indissoluble cohesion between each of those vivid and definite states of consciousness which he calls a sensation, and an indefinable consciousness which stands for a mode of being beyond sensation, and separate from himself. When grasping his fork and putting food into his mouth, he is wholly unable to expel from his mind the notion of something which resists the force he is conscious of using; and he cannot suppress the nascent thought of an independent existence keeping apart his tongue and palate, and giving him that sensation of taste which he is unable to generate in consciousness by his own activity. Though self-criticism shows him that he cannot know what this is which lies outside of him; and though he may infer that not being able to say what it is, it is a fiction; he discovers that such self-criticism utterly fails to extinguish the consciousness of it as a reality. Any conclusion into which he argues himself, that there is no objective existence connected with these subjective states, proves to be a mere verbal conclusion to which his thoughts will not respond. The relation survives every effort to destroy it – is proved by experiment, repeated no matter how often, to be one of which the negation is inconceivable; and therefore one having supreme authority. In vain he endeavours to give it any greater authority by reasoning; for whichever of the two alternatives he sets out with, leaves him at the end just where he started. If, knowing nothing more than his own states of consciousness, he declines to acknowledge any thing beyond consciousness until it is proved, he may go on reasoning for ever without getting any further; since the perpetual elaboration of states of consciousness out of states of consciousness, can never produce anything more than states of consciousness. If, contrariwise, he postulates external existence, and considers it as merely postulated, then the whole fabric of his argument, standing upon this postulate, has no greater validity than the postulate gives it, minus the possible invalidity of the argument itself. The case must not be confounded with those cases in which an hypothesis, or provisional assumption, is eventually proved true by its agreement with facts; for in these cases the facts with which it is found to agree, are facts known in some other way than through the hypothesis: a calculated eclipse of the moon serves as a verification of the hypothesis of gravitation, because its occurrence is observable without taking for granted the hypothesis of gravitation. But when the external world is postulated, and it is supposed that the validity of the postulate may be shown by the explanation of mental phenomena which it furnishes, the vice is, that the process of verification is itself possible only by assuming the thing to be proved.

But now, recognizing the indissoluble cohesion between the consciousness of self and an unknown not-self , as constituting a dictum of consciousness which he is both compelled to accept and is justified by analysis in accepting, it is competent for the inquirer to consider whether, setting out with this dictum, he can base on it a satisfactory explanation of what he calls knowledge. He finds such an explanation possible. The hypothesis that the more or less coherent relations among his states of consciousness, are generated by experience of the more or less constant relations in something beyond his consciousness, furnishes him with solutions of numerous facts of consciousness: not, however, of all, if he assumes that this adjustment of inner to outer relations has resulted from his own experiences alone. Nevertheless, if he allows himself to suppose that this moulding of thoughts into correspondence with things, has been going on through countless preceding generations; and that the effects of experiences have been inherited in the shape of modified organic structures; then he is able to interpret all the phenomena. It becomes possible to understand how these persistent cohesions among states of consciousness, are themselves the products of often-repeated experiences; and that even what are known as “forms of thought,” are but the absolute internal uniformities generated by infinite repetitions of absolute external uniformities. It becomes possible also to understand how, in the course of organizing of these multiplying and widening experiences, there may arise partially-wrong connexions in thought, answering to limited converse with things; and that these connexions in thought, temporarily taken for indissoluble ones, may afterwards be made dissoluble by presentation of external relations at variance with them. But even when this occurs, it can afford no ground for questioning the test of indissolubility; since the process by which some connexion previously accepted as indissoluble, is broken, is simply the establishment of some antagonistic connexion, which proves, on a trial of strength, to be the stronger – which remains indissoluble when pitted against the other, while the other gives way. And this leaves the test just where it was; showing only that there is a liability to error as to what are indissoluble connexions. From the very beginning, therefore, to the very end of the explanation, even down to the criticism of its conclusions and the discovery of its errors, the validity of this test must be postulated. Whence it is manifest, as before said, that the whole business of explanation can be nothing more than that of bringing all other dicta of consciousness into harmony with this ultimate dictum.

To the positive justification of a proposition, may be added that negative justification which is derived from the untenability of the counter-proposition. When describing the attitude of pure Empiricism, some indications that its counter-proposition is untenable were given; but it will be well here to state, more specifically, the fundamental objections to which it is open.

If the ultimate test of truth is not that here alleged, then what is the ultimate test of truth? And if there is no ultimate test of truth, then what is the warrant for accepting certain propositions and rejecting others? An opponent who denies the validity of this test, may legitimately decline to furnish any test himself, so long as he does not affirm any thing to be true; but if he affirms some things to be true and others to be not true, his warrant for doing so may fairly be demanded. Let us glance at the possible response to the demand. If asked why he holds it to be unquestionably true that two quantities which differ in unequal degrees from a third quantity are themselves unequal, two replies seem open to him: he may say that this is an ultimate fact of consciousness, or that it is an induction from personal experiences. The reply that it is an ultimate fact of consciousness, raises the question, How is an ultimate fact of consciousness distinguished? All beliefs, all conclusions, all imaginations even, are facts of consciousness; and if some are to be accepted as beyond question because ultimate, while others are not to be accepted as beyond question because not ultimate, there comes the inevitable inquiry respecting the test of ultimacy. On the other hand, the reply that this truth is known only by induction from personal experiences, suggests the query – On what warrant are personal experiences asserted? The testimony of experience is given only through memory; and its worth depends wholly on the trustworthiness of memory. Is it, then, that the trustworthiness of memory is less open to doubt than the immediate consciousness that two quantities must be unequal if they differ from a third quantity in unequal degrees? This can scarcely be alleged. Memory is notoriously uncertain. We sometimes suppose ourselves to have said things which it turns out we did not say; and we often forget seeing things which it is proved we did see. We speak of many passages of our lives as seeming like dreams; and can vaguely imagine the whole past to be an illusion. We can go much further toward conceiving that our recollections do not answer to any actualities, than we can go toward conceiving the non-existence of Space. But even supposing the deliverances of memory to be above criticism, the most that can be said for the experiences to which memory testifies, is that we are obliged to think we have had them – cannot conceive the negation of the proposition that we have had them; and to say this is to assign the warrant which is repudiated.

A further counter-criticism may be made. Throughout the argument of pure Empiricism, it is tacitly assumed that there may be a Philosophy in which nothing is asserted but what is proved. It proposes to admit into the coherent fabric of its conclusions, no conclusion that is incapable of being established by evidence; and it thus takes for granted that not only may all derivative truths be proved, but also that proof may be given of the truths from which they are derived, down to the very deepest. The result of thus refusing to recognize some fundamental unproved truth, is simply to leave its fabric of conclusions without a base. The giving proof of any special proposition, is the assimilation of it to some class of propositions known to be true. If any doubt arises respecting the general proposition which is cited in justification of this special proposition, the course is to show that this general proposition is deducible from a proposition or propositions of still greater generality; and if pressed for proof of each such still more general proposition, the only resource is to repeat the process. Is this process endless? If so, nothing can be proved – the whole series of propositions depends on some unassignable proposition. Has the process an end? If so, there must eventually be reached a widest proposition – one which cannot be justified by showing that it is included by any wider – one which cannot be proved. Or to put the argument otherwise: Every inference depends on premises; every premise, if it admits of proof, depends on other premises; and if the proof of the proof be continually demanded, it must either end in an unproved premise, or in the acknowledgment that there cannot be reached any premise on which the entire series of proofs depends. Hence Philosophy, if it does not avowedly stand on some datum underlying reason, must acknowledge that it has nothing on which to stand.

The expression of divergence from Mr. Mill on this fundamental question, I have undertaken with reluctance, only on finding it needful, both on personal and on general grounds, that his statements and arguments should be met. For two reasons, especially, I regret having thus to contend against the doctrine of one whose agreement I should value more than that of any other thinker. In the first place, the difference is, I believe, superficial rather than substantial; for it is in the interests of the Experience-Hypothesis that Mr. Mill opposes the alleged criterion of truth; while it is as harmonizing with the Experience-Hypothesis, and reconciling it with all the facts, that I defend this criterion. In the second place, this lengthened exposition of a single point of difference, unaccompanied by an exposition of the numerous points of concurrence, unavoidably produces an appearance of dissent very far greater than that which exists. Mr. Mill, however, whose unswerving allegiance to truth is on all occasions so conspicuously displayed, will fully recognize the justification for this utterance of disagreement on a matter of such profound importance, philosophically considered; and will not require any apology for the entire freedom with which I have criticised his views while seeking to substantiate my own.

REPLIES TO CRITICISMS

[ First published in The Fortnightly Review for November and December 1873.]

When made by a competent reader, an objection usually implies one of two things. Either the statement to which he demurs is wholly or partially untrue; or, if true, it is presented in such a way as to permit misapprehension. A need for some change or addition is in any case shown.

Not recognizing the errors alleged, but thinking rather that misapprehensions cause the dissent of those who have attacked the metaphysico-theological doctrines held by me, I propose here to meet, by explanations and arguments, the chief objections urged: partly with the view of justifying these doctrines, and partly with the view of guarding against the wrong interpretations which it appears are apt to be made.

The pages of a periodical intended for general reading may be thought scarcely fitted for the treatment of these highly abstract questions. There is now, however, so considerable a class interested in them, and they are so deeply involved with the great changes of opinion in progress, that I have ventured to hope for readers outside the circle of those who occupy themselves with philosophy.

Of course the criticisms to be noticed I have selected, either because of their intrinsic force, or because they come from men whose positions or reputations give them weight. To meet more than a few of my opponents is out of the question.

Let me begin with a criticism contained in the sermon preached by the Rev. Principal Caird before the British Association, on the occasion of its meeting in Edinburgh, in August, 1871. Expressed with a courtesy which, happily, is now less rare than of yore in theological controversy, Dr. Caird’s objection might, I think, be admitted without involving essential change in the conclusion demurred to; while it might be shown to tell with greater force against the conclusions of thinkers classed as orthodox, Sir W. Hamilton and Dean Mansel, than against my own. Describing this as set forth by me, Dr. Caird says: —

“His thesis is that the provinces of science and religion are distinguished from each other as the known from the unknown and unknowable. This thesis is maintained mainly on a critical examination of the nature of human intelligence, in which the writer adopts and carries to its extreme logical results the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge which, propounded by Kant, has been reproduced with special application to theology by a famous school of philosophers in this country. From the very nature of human intelligence, it is attempted to be shown that it can only know what is finite and relative, and that therefore the absolute and infinite the human mind is, by an inherent and insuperable disability, debarred from knowing… May it not be asked, for one thing, whether in the assertion, as the result of an examination of the human intellect, that it is incapable of knowing what lies beyond the finite, there is not involved an obvious self-contradiction? The examination of the mind can be conducted only by the mind, and if the instrument be, as is alleged, limited and defective, the result of the inquiry must partake of that defectiveness. Again, does not the knowledge of a limit imply already the power to transcend it? In affirming that human science is incapable of crossing the bounds of the finite world, is it not a necessary presupposition that you who so affirm have crossed these bounds?”

That this objection is one I am not disinclined to recognize, will be inferred when I state that it is one I have myself raised. While preparing the second edition of the Principles of Psychology , I found, among my memoranda, a note which still bore the wafers by which it had been attached to the original manuscript (unless, indeed, it had been transferred from the MS. of First Principles , which its allusion seems to imply). It was this: —

“I may here remark in passing that the several reasonings, including the one above quoted, by which Sir William Hamilton would demonstrate the pure relativity of our knowledge – reasonings which clearly establish many important truths, and with which in the main I agree – are yet capable of being turned against himself, when he definitely concludes that it is impossible for us to know the absolute. For to positively assert that the absolute cannot be known, is in a certain sense to assert a knowledge of it – is to know it as unknowable. To affirm that human intelligence is confined to the conditioned, is to put an absolute limit to human intelligence, and implies absolute knowledge. It seems to me that the ‘learned ignorance’ with which philosophy ends, must be carried a step further; and instead of positively saying that the absolute is unknowable, we must say that we cannot tell whether it is knowable or not.”

Why I omitted this note I cannot now remember. Possibly it was because re-consideration disclosed a reply to the contained objection. For while it is true that the intellect cannot prove its own competence, since it must postulate its own competence in the course of the proof, and so beg the question; yet it does not follow that it cannot prove its own incompetence respecting questions of certain kinds. Its inability in respect of such questions has two conceivable causes. It may be that the deliverances of Reason in general are invalid, in which case the incompetence of Reason to solve questions of a certain class is implied by its general incompetence; or it may be that the deliverances of Reason, valid within a certain range, themselves end in the conclusion that Reason is incapable beyond that range. So that while there can be no proof of competence, because competence is postulated in each step of the demonstration, there may be proof of incompetence either (1) if the successive deliverances forming the steps of the demonstration, by severally evolving contradictions, show their untrustworthiness, or (2) if, being trustworthy, they lead to the result that on certain questions Reason cannot give any deliverance.

Reason leads both inductively and deductively to the conclusion that the sphere of Reason is limited. Inductively, this conclusion expresses the result of countless futile attempts to transcend this sphere – attempts to understand Matter, Motion, Space, Time, Force, in their ultimate natures – attempts which, bringing us always to alternative impossibilities of thought, warrant the inference that such attempts will continue to fail, as they have hitherto failed. Deductively, this conclusion expresses the result of mental analysis, which shows us that the product of thought is in all cases a relation, identified as such or such; that the process of thought is the identification and classing of relations; that therefore Being in itself, out of relation, is unthinkable, as not admitting of being brought within the form of thought. That is to say, deduction explains that failure of Reason established as an induction from many experiments. And to call in question the ability of Reason to give this verdict against itself in respect of these transcendent problems, is to call in question its ability to draw valid conclusions from premises; which is to assert a general incompetence necessarily inclusive of the special incompetence.

Closely connected with the foregoing, is a criticism from Dr. Mansel, on which I may here make some comments. In a note to his Philosophy of the Conditioned p. 39, he says: —

“Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his work on First Principles , endeavours to press Sir W. Hamilton into the service of Pantheism and Positivism together” [a somewhat strange assertion, by the way, considering that I reject them both], “by adopting the negative portion only of his philosophy – in which, in common with many other writers, he declares the absolute to be inconceivable by the mere intellect, – and rejecting the positive portions, in which he most emphatically maintains that the belief in a personal God is imperatively demanded by the facts of our moral and emotional consciousness… Sir W. Hamilton’s fundamental principle is, that consciousness must be accepted entire, and that the moral and religious feelings, which are the primary source of our belief in a personal God, are in no way invalidated by the merely negative inferences which have deluded men into the assumption of an impersonal absolute… Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, takes these negative inferences as the only basis of religion, and abandons Hamilton’s great principle of the distinction between knowledge and belief.”

Putting these statements in the order most convenient for discussion, I will deal first with the last of them. Instead of saying what he does, Dr. Mansel should have said that I decline to follow Sir W. Hamilton in confounding two distinct, and indeed radically-opposed, meanings of the word belief. This word “is habitually applied to dicta of consciousness for which no proof can be assigned: both those which are unprovable because they underlie all proof, and those which are unprovable because of the absence of evidence.” [20 - Principles of Psychology , Second Edition, § 425, note.] In the pages of the Fortnightly Review for July, 1865, I exhibited this distinction as follows: —

“We commonly say we ‘believe’ a thing for which we can assign some preponderating evidence, or concerning which we have received some indefinable impression. We believe that the next House of Commons will not abolish Church-rates; or we believe that a person on whose face we look is good-natured. That is, when we can give confessedly-inadequate proofs, or no proofs at all, for the things we think, we call them ‘beliefs.’ And it is the peculiarity of these beliefs, as contrasted with cognitions, that their connexions with antecedent states of consciousness may be easily severed, instead of being difficult to sever. But unhappily, the word ‘belief’ is also applied to each of those temporarily or permanently indissoluble connexions in consciousness, for the acceptance of which the only warrant is that it cannot be got rid of. Saying that I feel a pain, or hear a sound, or see one line to be longer than another, is saying that there has occurred in me a certain change of state; and it is impossible for me to give a stronger evidence of this fact than that it is present to my mind… ‘Belief’ having, as above pointed out, become the name of an impression for which we can give only a confessedly-inadequate reason, or no reason at all; it happens that when pushed hard respecting the warrant for any ultimate dictum of consciousness, we say, in the absence of all assignable reason, that we believe it. Thus the two opposite poles of knowledge go under the same name; and by the reverse connotations of this name, as used for the most coherent and least coherent relations of thought, profound misconceptions have been generated.”

Now that the belief which the moral and religious feelings are said to yield of a personal God, is not one of the beliefs which are unprovable because they underlie all proof, is obvious. It needs but to remember that in works on Natural Theology, the existence of a personal God is inferred from these moral and religious feelings, to show that it is not contained in these feelings themselves, or joined with them as an inseparable intuition. It is not a belief like the beliefs which I now have that this is daylight, and that there is open space before me – beliefs which cannot be proved because they are of equal simplicity with, and of no less certainty than, each step in a demonstration. Were it a belief of this most certain kind, argument would be superfluous: all races of men and every individual would have the belief in an inexpugnable form. Hence it is manifest that, confusing the two very different states of consciousness called beliefs, Sir W. Hamilton ascribes to the second a certainty that belongs only to the first.

Again, neither Sir W. Hamilton nor Dr. Mansel has enabled us to distinguish those “facts of our moral and emotional consciousness” which imperatively demand the belief in a personal God, from those facts of our (or of men’s) “moral and emotional consciousness” which, in those having them, imperatively demand beliefs that Sir W. Hamilton would regard as untrue. A New Zealand chief, discovering his wife in an infidelity, killed the man; the wife then killed herself that she might join her lover in the other world; and the chief thereupon killed himself that he might go after them to defeat this intention. These two acts of suicide furnish tolerably strong evidence that these New Zealanders believed in another world to which, they could go at will, and fulfil their desires as they did here. If they were asked the justification for this belief, and if the arguments by which they sought to establish it were not admitted, they might still fall back on emotional consciousness as yielding them an unshakeable foundation for it. I do not see why a Fiji Islander, adopting the Hamiltonian argument, should not justify by it his conviction that after being buried alive, his life in the other world, forthwith commencing at the age he has reached in this, will similarly supply him with the joys of conquest and the gratifications of cannibalism. That he has a conviction to this effect stronger than the religious convictions current among civilized people, is proved by the fact that he goes to be buried alive quite willingly. And as we may presume that his conviction is not the outcome of a demonstration, it must be the outcome of some state of feeling – some “emotional consciousness.” Why, then, should he not assign the “facts” of his “emotional consciousness” as “imperatively demanding” this belief? Manifestly, this principle that “consciousness must be accepted entire,” either obliges us to accept as true the superstitions of all mankind, or else obliges us to say that the consciousness of a certain limited class of cultivated people is alone meant. If things are to be believed simply because the facts of emotional consciousness imperatively demand the beliefs, I do not see why the actual existence of a ghost in a house, is not inevitably implied by the intense fear of it that is aroused in the child or the servant.

Lastly, and chiefly, I have to deal with Dr. Mansel’s statement that “Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, takes these negative inferences as the only basis of religion.” This statement is exactly the reverse of the truth; since I have contended, against Hamilton and against him, that the consciousness of that which is manifested to us through phenomena is positive , and not negative , as they allege, and that this positive consciousness supplies an indestructible basis for the religious sentiment ( First Principles , § 26). Instead of giving here passages to show this, I may fitly quote the statement and opinion of a foreign theologian. M. le pasteur Grotz, of the Reformed Church at Nismes, writes thus: —

“La science serait-elle done par nature ennemie de la religion? pour être religieux, faut-il proscrire la science? – C’est la science, la science expérimentale qui va maintenant parler en faveur de la religion; c’est elle qui, par la bouche de l’un des penseurs.. de notre époque, M. Herbert Spencer, va répondre à la fois à M. Vacherot et à M. Comte.”

“Ici, M. Spencer discute la théorie de l’ inconditionné; entendez par ce mot: Dieu. Le philosophie écossais, Hamilton, et son disciple, M. Mansel, disent comme nos positivistes français: ‘Nous ne pouvons affirmer l’existence positive de quoi que ce soit au delà des phénomènes.’ Seulement, Hamilton et son disciple se séparent de nos compatriotes en faisant intervenir une ‘révélation merveilleuse’ qui nous fait croire à l’existence de l’inconditionné, et grâce à cette révélation vraiment merveilleuse, toute l’orthodoxie revient. Est-il vrai que nous ne puissions rien affirmer au delà des phénomènes? M. Spencer déclare qu’il y a dans cette assertion une grave erreur. Le côté logique, dit-il fort justement, n’est pas le seul; il y a aussi le côté psychologique, et, selon nous, il prouve que l’existence positive de l’absolu est une donnée nécessaire de la conscience.”

“Là est la base de l’accord entre la religion et la science. Dans un chapitre.. intitulé Réconciliation , M. Spencer etablit et développe cet accord sur son véritable terrain.”

“M. Spencer, en restant sur le terrain de la logique et de la psychologie, et sans recourir à une intervention surnaturelle, a établi la legitimité, la nécessité et l’eternelle durée du sentiment religieux et de la religion.” [21 - Le Sentiment Religieux , par A. Grotz. Paris, J. Cherbuliez, 1870.]

I turn next to what has been said by Dr. Shadworth H. Hodgson, in his essay on “The Future of Metaphysic,” published in the Contemporary Review for November, 1872. Remarking only, with respect to the agreements he expresses in certain views of mine, that I value them as coming from a thinker of subtlety and independence, I will confine myself here to his disagreements. Dr. Hodgson, before giving his own view, briefly describes and criticizes the views of Hegel and Comte, with both of whom he partly agrees and partly disagrees, and then proceeds to criticize the view set forth by me. After a preliminary brief statement of my position, to the wording of which I demur, he goes on to say: —

“In his First Principles , Part I, second ed., there is a chapter headed ‘Ultimate Scientific Ideas,’ in which he enumerates six such ideas or groups of ideas, and attempts to show that they are entirely incomprehensible. The six are: – 1. Space and Time. 2. Matter. 3. Rest and Motion. 4. Force. 5. Consciousness. 6. The Soul, or the Ego. Now to enter at length into all of these would be an undertaking too large for the present occasion; but I will take the first of the six, and endeavour to show in its case the entire untenability of Mr. Spencer’s view; and since the same arguments may be employed against the rest, I shall be content that my case against them should be held to fail if my case should fail in respect to Space and Time.”

I willingly join issue with Dr. Hodgson on these terms; and proceed to examine, one by one, the several arguments he uses to show the invalidity of my conclusions. Following his criticisms in the order he has chosen, I begin with the sentence following that which I have just quoted. The first part of it runs thus: – “The metaphysical view of Space and Time is, that they are elements in all phenomena, whether the phenomena are presentations or representations.”

Whether, by “the metaphysical view,” is here meant the view of Kant, whether it means Dr. Hodgson’s own view, or whether the expression has a more general meaning, I have simply to reply that the metaphysical view is incorrect. Dealing with the Kantian version of this doctrine, that Space is a form of intuition, I have pointed out that only with certain classes of phenomena is Space united indissolubly; that Kant habitually considers phenomena belonging to the visual and tactual groups, with which the consciousness of space is inseparably joined, and overlooks groups with which it is not inseparably joined. Though in the adult, perception of sound has certain space-implications, mostly, if not wholly, acquired by individual experience; and though it would seem from the instructive experiments of Mr. Spalding, that in creatures born with nervous systems much more organized than our own are at birth, there is some innate perception of the side from which a sound comes; yet it is demonstrable that the space-implications of sound are not originally given with the sensation as its form of intuition. Bearing in mind the Kantian doctrine, that Space is the form of sensuous intuitions not only as presented but also as represented , let us examine critically our musical ideas. As I have elsewhere suggested to the reader —

“Let him observe what happens when some melody takes possession of his imagination. Its tones and cadences go on repeating themselves apart from any space-consciousness – they are not localized. He may or may not be reminded of the place where he heard them – this association is incidental only. Having observed this, he will see that such space-implications as sounds have, are learnt in the course of individual experience, and are not given with the sounds themselves. Indeed, if we refer to the Kantian definition of form, we get a simple and conclusive proof of this. Kant says form is ‘that which effects that the content of the phænomenon can be arranged under certain relations.’ How then can the content of the phenomenon we call sound be arranged? Its parts can be arranged in order of sequence – that is, in Time. But there is no possibility of arranging its parts in order of coexistence – that is, in Space. And it is just the same with odour. Whoever thinks that sound and odour have Space for their form of intuition, may convince himself to the contrary by trying to find the right and left sides of a sound, or to imagine an odour turned the other way upwards.” – Principles of Psychology , § 399. – Note.