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Title: The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891
Author: Various
Language: English
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THE MONIST
A
QUARTERLY MAGAZINE
VOL. I.
CHICAGO:
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO
1890-1891
COPYRIGHT BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.
1890-1891
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
ARTICLES.
PAGE.
Anarchists, The Physiognomy of the. By Cesare Lombroso 336
Anarchist's Reply to Professor Lombroso, A Convicted. By Michael
Schwab 520
Architecture of Theories, The. By Charles S. Peirce 161
Criminal Anthropology, Illustrative Studies in. (1) "La Bête
Humaine" and Criminal Anthropology. (2) Criminal Anthropology
and Psychiatry. By Cesare Lombroso 177
Ethics, The Criterion of——an Objective Reality. Editor 552
Evolution, The Factors of. By Joseph Le Conte 321
Evolution, The Right of. By Moncure D. Conway 506
Feelings and the Elements of Feelings. Editor 401
Five Souls with but a Single Thought. By Carus Sterne 245
Höffding on the Relation of the Mind to the Body. By W. M. Salter 118
Immortality. By George M. Gould 372
Infusoria, The Immortality of. By Alfred Binet 21
Innovation and Inertia in the World of Psychology. By Cesare
Lombroso 344
Magic Mirror, The. By Max Dessoir 87
Mind, The Origin of. By Paul Carus 69
Mind, The Question of Duality of. By R. Meade Bache 362
Philosophy in American Colleges and Universities 148-156
Psycho-Physics, Some Questions of. A Discussion. (1) Sensations
and the Elements of Reality. By Ernst Mach 393
(2) Feelings and the Elements of Feelings. Editor 401
Psychology of Conception. By J. Sully 481
Sensations, The Analysis of the. By Ernst Mach 48
Sensations and the Elements of Reality. By Ernst Mach 393
Sex, On the Material Relations of—in Human Society. By E. D. Cope 38
Squaring of the Circle, The. By Hermann Schubert 197
Thought and Language, On. F. Max Müller 572
Truth, The Criterion of. Editor 229
Wallace on Physiological Selection, A. R. George J. Romanes 1
Welfare, The Principle of. By Harald Höffding 525
LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
France. By Lucien Arréat 124, 278, 421, 590
German Philosophy in the XIX Century. By F. Jodl 263
The Modern Literature of Italy since 1870. By C. Lombroso 428
The Science of Pedagogy in Germany. Chr. Ufer 597
BOOK REVIEWS.
Abbott, Francis Ellingwood. _The Way Out of Agnosticism_ 129
Bois-Reymond, Paul Du. _Ueber die Grundlagen der Erkenntnis in
den exacten Wissenschaften_ 608
Booth, General. _In Darkest England and the Way Out_ 451
Bray, Charles. _The Philosophy of Necessity_ 136
Brinton, Daniel G. _Races and Peoples_ 131
Büchner, Ludwig. _Fremdes und Eigenes aus dem geistigen Leben
der Gegenwart_ 303
Carneri, B. _Der Moderne Mensch_ 607
Carus, Paul. _The Soul of Man_ 620
Clarke, James Freeman. _Deacon Herbert's Bible Class_ 305
Coit, Stanton. _Die ethische Bewegung in der Religion_ 301
Cox, Charles F. _Protoplasm and Life_ 297
Dewey, John. _Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics_ 600
Dillmann, C. _Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit_ 617
Edinger, Ludwig. _Twelve Lectures on the Structure of the Central
Nervous System_ 604
Everett, Charles Carroll. _The Science of Thought_ 287
Forel, August. _Der Hypnotismus_ 605
Fullerton, George Stuart. _On Sameness and Identity_ 291
Geddes, Patrick, and J. Arthur Thomson. _The Evolution of Sex_ 439
Haeckel, Ernst. _Plankton-Studien_ 455
Harris, William T. _Introduction to the Study of Philosophy_ 438
Höffding, Harald. _Ethik_ 139
James, William. _The Principles of Psychology_ 284
Jastrow, Joseph. _The Time-Relations of Mental Phenomena_ 290
Jodl, Friedrich. _Geschichte der Ethik in der neueren Philosophie_ 137
Krause, Ernst. _Tuisko-Land der arischen Stämme und
Götter-Urheimat_ 612
Kroman, K. _Kurzgefasste Logik und Psychologie_ 142
Lehmann, Alfred. _Die Hypnose und die damit verwandten normalen
Zustände_ 298
Loeb, Jacques. _Der Heliotropismus der Thiere_ 300
Loeb, Jacques. _Untersuchungen zur physiologischen Morphologie
der Thiere_ 300
Lombroso, Cesare. _Der geniale Mensch_ 146
Mackenzie, John S. _An Introduction to Social Philosophy_ 601
Mantegazza, Paolo. _Physiognomy and Expression_ 447
Moll, Albert. _Hypnotism_ 604
Morgan, C. Lloyd. _Animal Life and Intelligence_ 443
Naden, Constance C. W. _Induction and Deduction_ 292
Natorp, Paul. _Einleitung in die Psychologie nach kritischer
Methode_ 143
Peet, Stephen D. _Emblematic Mounds and Animal Effigies_ 295
Post, Albert Hermann. _Ueber die Aufgaben einer allgemeinen
Rechtswissenschaft_ 457
Royer, Madame Clémence. _Nouveaux aperçus sur la Phylogenie
de l'Homme_ 297
Savage, M. J. _Life_ 296
Schopenhauer, Arthur. _Le Monde comme Volonté et comme
Representation_ 298
Sterrett, J. Macbride. _Studies in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion_ 133
Sterne, Carus. _Die allgemeine Weltanschauung_ 456
Taylor, Isaac. _The Origin of the Aryans_ 435
Ufer, Christian. _Geistesstörungen in der Schule_ 619
Wolff, Joh. _Das Bewusstsein und sein Object_ 147
PERIODICALS 157-160; 307-320; 459-480; 621-640
VOL. I. OCTOBER, 1890. NO. 1.
THE MONIST.
MR. A. R. WALLACE ON PHYSIOLOGICAL SELECTION.[1]
[1] In a private letter to the editor of this magazine
Professor Geo. J. Romanes writes: "The article refers to a
completely new departure in the theory of evolution, striking
in the principle of homogamy, the root-principle of the whole,
and in physiological selection, one of the main branches.
Yet neither principle has so far been perceived except by
Mr. Gulick.... The theory of physiological selection has
been better understood in America than in this country; and
I should like the naturalists there, who have taken such a
warm and appreciative interest in it, to see my reply to Mr.
Wallace published in an American periodical."
In 1886 I published a paper entitled "Physiological Selection: an
additional suggestion on the origin of species," (Zoölogical Journal of
the Linnean Society, Vol. XIX, p. 337). The view there expressed is,
briefly, as follows.
Given the facts of heredity and variability, the whole theory of
organic evolution becomes neither more nor less than a theory of
the causes which determine the breeding of like with like, to the
exclusion of unlike. For the more firmly that we believe in heredity
with variability as the fundamental principle of organic evolution,
the stronger must become our persuasion that segregate breeding (or
exclusive mating of like with like) must lead to divergence, while
indiscriminate breeding (or free intercrossing of all varieties) must
lead to uniformity. So long as there is free intercrossing, heredity
makes in favor of fixity of type—or, at most, can permit change only
in a single line, where successive generations undergo a continuous
improvement, which may give rise to a ladder-like series of species in
time. But in order that there should be a tree-like multiplication of
species in space, or a simultaneous divergence of type, it is essential
that free intercrossing be prevented at the origin, and throughout the
development, of each branch. In other words, it is only when assisted
by some form of segregation—which determines exclusive breeding of
like with like—that heredity can effect arborescent or polytypic, as
distinguished from catenated or monotypic, evolution. For the sake of
greater clearness, I will call segregation in this sense _homogamy_, or
the exclusive mating of individuals which belong to the same variety.
Now homogamy may be secured in a very great number of different
ways. Of these the most important, from every point of view, is
natural selection. Here the exclusive breeding of like with like is
determined by general fitness, and is effected by extermination of the
unlike—i. e., the comparatively unfit. Moreover, this process leads
to a continuous improvement in the way of adaptation, and in this
important respect it stands alone among all the forms of homogamy.
Nevertheless, we must note that, unless assisted by some other form of
homogamy, natural selection can only produce monotypic evolution; never
polytypic. Successive generations may thus continuously mount to higher
stages of adaptation on the steps supplied by their own dead selves;
but although they may thus give rise to a linear series of species in
time, they can never thus give rise to a multiplication of species
in space. In order to effect such multiplication, or _divergence_ of
types, natural selection must be supplemented by some other form of
homogamy, which can prevent intercrossing between the equally fit at
the origin, and throughout the development, of every separate branch.
Well, as I have said, these other forms of homogamy are very numerous.
First we may notice geographical isolation. When a comparatively small
portion of a species is thus separated from the rest of its kind,
intercrossing is effectually prevented between the two sections; and
inasmuch as the general average of specific characters in the isolated
section will be somewhat different from that of the other section,
heredity will determine that the two sections shall not run parallel
in their subsequent lines of evolutionary history: there will arise
an increasing divergence between them, as was first pointed out by the
mathematician Delbœuf, subsequently by the naturalist Weismann, and
more recently, with greater emphasis, by Mr. Gulick as well as myself.
Again, there is homogamy that arises as a result of sexual preference,
or, as I have called it, "psychological selection." It is a matter of
observation that the breeding of like with like is often determined
among the higher vertebrata by individuals of each variety preferring
to mate with other individuals of their own variety; and this is
homogamy.
Not to occupy space with any attempt at enumerating all the many forms
of homogamy[2] I will at once pass on to the form which constitutes the
subject-matter of the present paper—and the form which, in my opinion,
is probably of more importance than any other in the multiplication of
species. This is the form of homogamy which I have termed Physiological
Selection, or Segregation of the Fit, and Mr. Gulick—who independently
perceived the principle—has called Segregate Fecundity.
[2] This has been done in a most careful and exhaustive manner
by Mr. Gulick in his papers which have succeeded mine in the
publications of the Linnean Society.
As my object on the present occasion is to answer criticisms which
have been passed on my enunciation of this principle, I do not propose
to go into further detail by way of explanation than is necessary in
order to render intelligible both the criticisms and my reply thereto.
Moreover, this reply is only an abstract of a fuller one which has been
prepared for publication in a forthcoming book. Therefore it deals only
with the main points. Lastly, I may remark that the criticisms which
have hitherto appeared have all been derived from the same source,
viz., from Mr. A. R. Wallace; for, although many other naturalists have
expressed themselves as more or less opposed to the new theory, or
"additional suggestion on the origin of species," they have all done so
on the grounds, or for the reasons supplied by Mr. Wallace. Therefore,
in dealing with Mr. Wallace's objections, I shall be dealing with the
only objections which have thus far been advanced.
In order at once to restate the theory of physiological selection,
and to do so in a form which cannot be suspected of being in any way
influenced by Mr. Wallace's more recent criticisms, I will begin by
reproducing the main features of the theory in the words which were
employed for this purpose more than three years ago, when I supplied
an article to the _Nineteenth Century_ in answer to one by him in the
_Fortnightly Review_. Moreover, for the most part this restatement of
the theory is quoted _verbatim_ from my original paper—the differences
being due only to the conditions imposed by limits of an article.
The following, then, is quoted from the _Nineteenth Century_ for
January, 1887:
"According to the Darwinian theory [which, as elsewhere
fully explained, the present theory is in no way capable
of supplanting, but only of supplementing, and this among
other ways, by explaining why it is that some degree of
mutual infertility is so general a phenomenon as between
allied species—a phenomenon which Darwin expressly regarded
as not explicable by the theory of natural selection], it
is for the most part only those variations which happen to
have been useful that have been preserved: yet, even as thus
limited, the principle of variability is held able to furnish
sufficient material out of which to construct the whole
adaptive morphology of nature. How immense, therefore, must
be the number of unuseful variations. Yet these are all, for
the most part, still-born, or allowed to die out immediately
by intercrossing. Should such intercrossing be prevented,
however, there is no reason why unuseful variations should
not be perpetuated by heredity quite as well as useful ones
when under the nursing influence of natural selection—as,
indeed, we see to be the case in our domesticated productions.
Consequently, if from any reason a section of a species is
prevented from intercrossing with the rest of its species,
new varieties of a trivial or unuseful kind might be expected
to arise within that section. And this is just what we
find. Oceanic islands, for example, are well known to be
extraordinarily rich in peculiar species; and this can best
be explained by considering that a complete separation of the
fauna and flora on such an island permits them to develop
varietal histories of their own, without interference by
intercrossing with their originally parent forms. We see the
same principle exemplified by the influence of geographical
barriers of any kind, and also by the consequences of
migration. Therefore, given an absence of overwhelming
intercrossing, and the principle of what I term independent
variability may be trusted to evoke new species, without the
aid of natural selection. [Homogamy.]
"Were it not for the very general occurrence of some degree
of sterility between even closely allied species and were
it not also for the fact, that closely allied species are
not always—or even generally—separated from one another
by geographical barriers, we might reasonably attribute all
cases of species-formation by independent variability to the
prevention of intercrossing by geographical barriers or by
migration. But it is evident that these two facts can no more
be explained by the influence of geographical barriers, or
by migration, than they can be by the influence of natural
selection.
"Now, of all parts of those variable objects which we call
organisms, the most variable is the reproductive system; and
the variations may be either in the direction of increased
or diminished fertility. Consequently, variations in the
way of greater or less sterility frequently take place both
in plants and animals; and probably, if we had adequate
means of observing this point, we should find that there is
no one variation more common. But, of course, whenever it
arises—whether as a result of changed conditions of life, or,
as we say, spontaneously—it immediately becomes extinguished,
seeing that the individuals which it affects are less able
(if able at all) to propagate the variation. If, however, the
variation should be such that, while showing some degree of
sterility with the parent form, it continues to be as fertile
as before within the limits of the varietal form, it would
neither be swamped by intercrossing nor die out on account of
sterility.
"For example, suppose the variation in the reproductive
system is such that the season of flowering, or of pairing,
becomes either advanced or retarded. Whether this variation
be "spontaneous," or due to change of food, climate, habitat,
etc., does not signify. The only point we need attend to
is that some individuals, living on the same geographical
area as the rest of their species, have demonstrably varied
in their reproductive systems, so that they are perfectly
fertile _inter se_, while absolutely sterile with the rest
of their species. By inheritance there would thus arise a
variety living on the same geographical area as its parent
form, and yet prevented from intercrossing with that form by
a barrier quite as effectual as a thousand miles of ocean;
the only difference would be that the barrier, instead of
being geographical, is physiological. And now, of course, the
two sections of the physiologically divided species would be
able to develop independent histories of their own without
intercrossing; even though they are living together on the
same geographical area, their physiological isolation would
lead to their taking on distinct specific characters by
independent variations, [or homogamy,] just as is the case
with sections of a species when separated from each other by
geographical isolation.
"To state this suggestion in another form, it enables us to
regard many, if not most, species as the records of variations
in the reproductive systems of ancestors. When variations of
a non-useful kind occur in any of the other systems or parts
of organisms, they are, as a rule, immediately extinguished
by intercrossing. But whenever they happen to arise in the
reproductive system in the way here suggested, they must
tend to be preserved as new natural varieties, or incipient
species. At first the difference would only be in respect
of the reproductive systems; but eventually, on account of
independent variation, other differences would supervene, and
the new variety would take rank as a true species.
"The principle thus briefly sketched in some respects
resembles, and in other respects differs from, the principle
of natural selection, or survival of the fittest. For the sake
of convenience, therefore, and in order to preserve analogies
with already existing terms, I have called this principle
Physiological Selection, or Segregation of the Fit.
"Let it be noted that we are not concerned either with the
causes or the degrees of the particular kind of variation on
which this principle depends. Not with the causes, because
in this respect the theory of physiological selection is in
just the same position as that of natural selection: it is
enough for both that the needful variations are provided,
without its being incumbent on either to explain the causes
which in all cases underlie them. Neither are we concerned
with the degrees of sterility which the variation in question
may in any particular case supply. For whether the degree of
sterility with the parent form be originally great or small,
the result of it will be in the long run the same: the only
difference will be that in the latter case a greater number
of generations would be required in order to separate the
varietal from the parent form. [In other words, homogamy due
to such physiological isolation is cumulative.]
"The object of this paper being that of furnishing a general
answer to criticisms on the hypothesis of physiological
selection, I will not occupy space by detailing evidence
of that hypothesis, further than is needful for the object
just mentioned.[3] This evidence abundantly proves that the
particular kind of variation which the theory of physiological
selection requires does take place, (_a_) in individuals,
(_b_) in races, and (_c_) in species. Next, the evidence goes
on to show that the facts of organic nature are such as they
ought to be, supposing it true that this variation has played
any considerable part in the differentiation of specific
types. In particular, it is shown that the general association
between the one primary, or relatively constant, specific
distinction (mutual sterility), and the innumerable secondary,
or relatively variable, distinctions (slight morphological
changes which may effect _any_ parts of _any_ organisms),
of itself indicates that the former has been the original
condition to the occurrence of the latter, in all cases where
free intercrossing has not been otherwise prevented. For even
in cases where the secondary distinctions may be supposed to
have induced the primary,—or where morphological changes
taking place in other parts of an organic type have exercised
a reflex influence on the reproductive system, such that the
changed organism is no longer fertile with its unchanged
parent form,—even in such cases the theory of physiological
selection is available to explain the association in question.
For even in these cases, notwithstanding that the secondary
changes are historically the prior changes, they still depend
for their preservation on the principles of physiological
selection. These principles have, in all such cases,
_selected_ the particular kinds of secondary distinction
which have proved themselves capable of so reacting on the
reproductive system as to bring about the primary distinction,
and thus to protect themselves against the destructive power
of free intercrossing."
[3] The evidence, so far as yet published, may be read by
any one who cares to purchase the original paper, which can
be obtained from the Linnean Society in a separate form.
Now for Mr. Wallace's criticism of this theory, as presented in his
recently published work on "Darwinism."
Briefly put, he furnishes a numerical calculation, showing that when
"the physiological peculiarity is not correlated with any external
differences of form or color, or with inherent peculiarities of likes
or dislikes leading to any choice as to pairing," even when so large
a proportion as ten per cent. of the exceptional variety arises every
year in the midst of the species, "it is unable to increase its numbers
much above its starting-point, and remains wholly dependent on the
continued renewal of the variety for its existence beyond a few years."
This, it must be observed, is a reproduction of the criticism which I
answered in 1888; but, as Mr. Wallace ignores that answer, I must now
repeat it.
The criticism does not dispute the fact that the required variation in
the way of "selective sterility" occurs. Indeed, Mr. Wallace allows
that it certainly must be of very general occurrence as between
incipient species (or pronounced varieties in a state of nature),
seeing that it is of such general occurrence as between allied species
when fully differentiated as such. In other words, this variation in
the way of selective sterility must be recognised as a very general
_fact_, even if it be not regarded as a _condition_, or a _cause_, of
specific differentiation. Which is merely another way of saying that
the particular variation which is required by the theory in question
is admittedly a variation which does occur; and occurs, moreover, in
very frequent association with the origin of a new species. But Mr.
Wallace's objection to regarding this variation as itself a cause of
(or condition to) the origin of a new species is, as we have seen, that
the changes must always be greatly against the similar variations of
the opposite sexes meeting—i. e., of the "physiological complements"
happening to pair. Now, I have already shown, in the _Nineteenth
Century_ of three years ago, that this criticism can only apply to
species the sexes of which unite for every birth; but as Mr. Wallace
continues to ignore this important consideration, I will now present it
in somewhat more detail.
In considering any "supplementary theory" of the origin of species,
it is obviously absurd to disregard the realm of organic nature as a
whole, and to fasten attention exclusively upon the part of it where
a particular difficulty against the theory may be supposed to lie. As
will presently be shown, Mr. Wallace is entirely mistaken in supposing
that his particular difficulty does lie against the theory in any
part of organic nature; but, even if this could not have been shown,
it would not have followed that the theory of physiological selection
is inapplicable to _all_ the classes of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, because it is taken to be inapplicable to _some_. One might
just as well argue against Mr. Darwin's theory of sexual selection
on the ground that it cannot be held to apply to the coloration and
the sculpture of shells. If either sexual selection or physiological
selection were put forward as an _exclusive_ theory of the origin of
_all_ species, this kind of argument would, of course, have been valid;
but as the matter actually stands, it is largely irrelevant.
I say _largely_ irrelevant, because I do not dispute that there is
this much force in it. If the theory of physiological selection can be
proved inapplicable to Birds and Mammals (which are the only classes
that Mr. Wallace considers in connection with it), its applicability to
all other divisions, both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, would
be rendered doubtful; seeing that the process of species-formation
appears to have been _everywhere_ more or less associated with the
occurrence of "selective sterility"; and hence, if in any division
of organic nature it could be shown that selective sterility cannot
possibly have been a cause of specific differentiation, we might well
doubt whether it has been such a cause elsewhere—just as we may doubt
whether sexual selection has been a cause of the brilliant colors of
birds and butterflies, because we know, that it cannot have been a
cause of the equally brilliant colors of corals and flowers. But,
as far as physiological selection is concerned, no such question can
arise, as I will presently proceed to show.
First of all, however, it is desirable briefly to indicate the strength
of this theory in the parts of organic nature where Mr. Wallace's
sole criticism cannot possibly be held to apply—viz., the larger
part of the vegetable kingdom, where ovules are fertilised either by
insects or by the wind. Here the phenomena of "prepotency" are highly
suggestive—not to say, in my opinion, virtually demonstrative—of
physiological selection; seeing that, as Mr. Darwin remarks in another
connexion:
"There can be no doubt that if the pollen of all these species
(of Compositae) could be simultaneously or successively placed
on the stigma of any one species, this one would elect with
unerring certainty its own pollen. This elective capacity is
all the more wonderful; as it must have been acquired since
the many species of this great group of plants branched off
from a common progenitor."[4]
[4] _Variation_, etc., Vol. ii.
Darwin is here speaking of elective affinity in its more
fully developed form, as this so often obtains between fully
differentiated species. But we meet with all lower degrees of its
development—sometimes between "incipient species," or varieties, and
at other times between closely allied species. It is then known as
"prepotency" of the pollen belonging to the same variety, or species,
over the pollen of the other variety or species, when both sets of
pollen are applied to the same stigma. This is one form of what I have
called physiological selection, and in my view it serves to explain
why it is that hybrids between closely allied forms growing on common
areas (whether they be called "species" or "constant varieties")
are so comparatively rare in nature, even in cases where there is
no difficulty in producing hybrids artificially by an intentional
exclusion of the pollen belonging to the same form. And I allude to
these facts in the present connexion for two reasons. In the first
place, they serve to show how entirely irrelevant Mr. Wallace's
whole criticism is to the vegetable kingdom, as well as to the
majority of aquatic animals. In the next place, they serve to show
how entirely unwarranted is his statement, that "we have at present
no evidence whatever" in support of my belief that a physiological
incompatibility may affect a whole race or strain. Not only have we
the multitudinous cases of prepotency, where the incompatibility is
_partial_ (or in course of becoming, as Mr. Darwin says in the above
quotation, "acquired"); but we have also multitudinous cases where the
incompatibility has become _absolute_, both as between closely allied
species, and even as between varieties of the same species growing on
common areas—as M. Jordan has experimentally proved. Therefore in the
above remark we have but an additional example of Mr. Wallace's entire
forgetfulness, in the present connexion, of any organisms other than
those which belong to the class of Birds or of Mammals.[5]
[5] It seems scarcely worth while to add that Mr. Wallace
is doubly mistaken where he says, "Mr. Romanes's theory
of Physiological Selection—which assumes sterility or
infertility between first crosses as the fundamental fact
in the origin of species—does not accord with the general
phenomena of hybridism in nature." In the first place, as
shown above, "infertility between the first crosses" is by no
means out of accord with "the general phenomena of hybridism
in nature"—seeing that all degrees of such infertility, from
the slightest perceptible amount of prepotency up to absolute
sterility, are of the most general occurrence in nature. In
the second place, why Mr. Wallace should suppose that in my
view physiological selection can only act as regards first
crosses, and not also as regards hybrid progeny, I have no
means of surmising.
Turning, then, to the only parts of organic nature where his criticism
can even appear to apply, I have here the sufficiently easy task of
proving, that this appearance of application arises wholly and entirely
out of Mr. Wallace's misapprehension of the theory against which the
criticism is directed. In other words, he is not criticising the theory
of physiological selection at all, but merely his own travesty of it.
For, as repeatedly stated in my original paper, and again reiterated
three years ago in the _Nineteenth Century_, it constitutes no part of
my theory to deny the co-operation of other forms of segregate breeding
or homogamy. On the contrary, I have always insisted—and Mr. Gulick
has proved by calculation—that the more efficient the co-operation of
other forms of homogamy, the _greater_ must become the importance of
the physiological form. Yet, as I trust has already been made fully
apparent, the whole of Mr. Wallace's criticism (even as regards Birds
and Mammals) goes upon the supposition that Mr. Gulick and I believe
that, if physiological selection ever acts in any case _at all_, it
must necessarily act _alone_. For reasons afterwards to be given, I do
indeed believe that in some cases it may act alone (in this differing
from Mr. Gulick); but, clearly, whether or not there are any such
cases, is a question quite distinct from that touching the validity
of a criticism which attributes to our theory the absurd dogma, that
segregate breeding which arises from physiological isolation, can
never be associated with segregate breeding that may arise from any
other form of isolation. And that the whole of Mr. Wallace's criticism
collapses when once this correction has been supplied, is proved most
effectually by the curious fact that, _after having himself supplied
the correction, he reproduces our theory as an original one of his
own_. How he can have supposed that I did not entertain the possibility
of physiological selection being associated with natural selection,
"psychological selection," or any other known form of isolation
(excepting only the geographical), I am quite at a loss to understand;
seeing that from end to end of my paper I continually refer to such
association—especially as regards natural selection. And, if possible,
I am still less able to understand Mr. Wallace's carelessness in this
connection with reference to Mr. Gulick's paper; because there the
belief is repeatedly and most clearly expressed, that without such
association, "segregate fecundity" _can never act at all_—which is
precisely the theory which Mr. Wallace proceeds to elaborate on his own
account.
It is now time to show, by means of quotations, how unequivocal and
complete is Mr. Wallace's adoption of our theory:
"The simplest case to consider will be that in which two forms
or varieties of a species, occupying an extensive area, are
in process of adaptation to somewhat different modes of life
within the same area. If these two forms freely intercross
with each other, and produce mongrel offspring which are quite
fertile _inter se_, then the further differentiation of the
forms into two distinct species will be retarded, or perhaps
entirely prevented; for the offspring of the crossed unions
will be, perhaps, more vigorous on account of the cross,
although less perfectly adapted to the conditions of existence
than either of the pure breeds; and this would certainly
establish a powerful antagonistic influence to the further
differentiation of the two forms.
"Now, let us suppose that a partial sterility of the hybrids
between the two forms arises, in correlation with the
different modes of life and the slight external or internal
peculiarities that exist between them, both of which we have
seen to be real causes of infertility. The result will be
that, even if the hybrids between the two forms are still
freely produced, these hybrids will not themselves increase
so rapidly as the two pure forms; and as these latter are, by
the terms of the problem, better suited to their conditions
of life than are the hybrids between them, they will not only
increase more rapidly, but will also tend to supplant the
hybrids altogether whenever the struggle for existence becomes
exceptionally severe. Thus, the more complete the sterility of
the hybrids the more rapidly will they die out and leave the
two parent forms pure. Hence it will follow that, _if there
is greater infertility between the two forms in one part of
the area than the other, these forms will be kept more pure
wherever this greater infertility prevails_, will therefore
have an advantage at each recurring period of severe struggle
for existence, and will thus ultimately supplant the less
infertile or completely fertile forms that may exist in other
portions of the area. It thus appears that, in such a case as
here supposed, natural selection would preserve those portions
of the two breeds which were most infertile with each other,
or whose hybrid offspring were most infertile; and would,
therefore, if variations in fertility continued to arise, tend
to increase that infertility. It must particularly be noted
that this effect would result, not by the preservation of the
infertile variations on account of their infertility, but by
the inferiority of the hybrid offspring, both as being fewer
in numbers, less able to continue their race, and less adapted
to the conditions of existence than either of the pure forms.
It is this inferiority of the hybrid offspring that is the
essential point; and as the number of these hybrids will be
permanently less where the infertility is greatest, therefore
those portions of the two forms in which infertility is
greatest will have the advantage, and will ultimately survive
in the struggle for existence."
We have here a full acceptance of the theory of physiological
selection. For it is represented, as Mr. Gulick and I have represented,
that, if "two forms or varieties" occupying a common area are to
undergo further differentiation at the hands of natural selection, it
becomes a highly favoring condition to the process that some degree
of segregate fecundity should arise (if it has not already arisen)
between these two forms or varieties; seeing that "if these two forms
freely intercross with each other, and produce mongrel offspring
which are quite fertile _inter se_, then the further differentiation
of the forms into two distinct species will be retarded, or perhaps
entirely prevented." Here the importance of segregate fecundity, or
physiological selection, as a factor in the differentiation of specific
types on common areas is _fully recognised_; and the _only_ respect
in which Mr. Wallace alleges that his view of the matter differs from
the view of Mr. Gulick and myself, is in drawing special attention to
the part which is played by the infertility, or other "inferiority,"
of the mongrels. But clearly, this infertility, or other inferiority,
of the mongrels, in all cases where it occurs, _is part and parcel of
the segregate fecundity of the parent forms_. Whether the segregate
fecundity has reference to first crosses alone, or likewise to
second crosses, it is segregate fecundity all the same; and the only
difference is that for the same degree of segregate fecundity in first
crosses, the process of physiological selection will become the more
effective in proportion to the degree in which the infertility extends
also to second crosses. But I think it is very doubtful whether such
infertility (or inferiority) on the part of mongrels can react upon
the sexual system of their parent forms, so as directly to increase
whatever degree of segregate fecundity may have already arisen between
these forms. Does the high sterility of mules and mutes, for instance,
tend to diminish the degree of fertility that obtains between horses
and asses? The only way in which even an absolute degree of sterility
(or other inferiority) on the part of mongrels or hybrids may clearly
be seen to operate in this direction, is as a negative condition; not
as an active cause. In the proportion that mongrels are impotent with
one another, they will not so much compete with their parent forms
for food, etc.; and in the proportion that they are impotent with
their parent forms, they will not counteract any tendency which the
latter may continue to develop in the direction of a still further
segregation. If the mongrels are fully vigorous and fully fertile, both
_inter se_ and with their parent forms, the effect will be to retard,
if not altogether to prevent, any further progress of physiological
separation between the parent forms; because the free intercrossing of
the mongrels with one another, and also with their parent forms, will
be continually supplying progeny in which the physiological peculiarity
is either attenuated or altogether abolished. But this is quite a
different thing from supposing that infertility (or inferiority) of
the mongrels can react upon the generative system of the parent forms,
so as to increase in them the physiological peculiarity on which
their segregate breeding depends: infertility (or inferiority) of the
mongrels is but a negative condition which favors the preservation of
further degrees of this segregate breeding, if such further degrees
should be induced by any other causes.
Now, it does not appear that Mr. Wallace has clearly perceived
this important distinction, because he throughout speaks of "this
inferiority of the hybrid offspring as the essential point." Obviously,
however, the essential point is the physiological variation in the
parent forms, i. e., the original occurrence and subsequent development
of infertility between the first crosses. Granting to Mr. Wallace, for
the sake of argument, that this development could not proceed at all,
were it not for the inferiority of the mongrels; still the inferiority
of the mongrels need not be the cause of this development. Therefore
it is most incorrect to say, "it must be particularly noted that this
effect (i. e., increase of infertility between the parent forms)
would result, not by the preservation of the infertile variations on
account of their infertility, but by the inferiority of the hybrid
offspring." "This effect" must be due to causes which act upon the
generative systems of the parent forms, even though such causes might
be _counteracted_ by the _withdrawal_ of the negative condition in
question.
I trust, then, it has now been rendered sufficiently clear that, no
matter how infertile the hybrid progeny may become, and no matter at
how great a disadvantage they may thus (or otherwise) be placed in
their struggle for existence with the parent varieties, it is not
apparent that their infertility (or their extinction) can ever become
the cause of a further increase of infertility arising between their
parent forms. Consequently, although this is the cause assigned by Mr.
Wallace, when he comes to "the essential point" of showing how it is
to act so as to increase cross-sterility between the parent forms, he
naïvely substitutes the sentence which I have printed in italics—which
assumes a "greater infertility between the two forms" as arising
through any other causes that we may choose to suppose. The very thing
that his entire argument professes to explain (i. e., the rise and
development of cross-sterility between the parent varieties) is slipped
in as granted, or given by other causes than those which are said to
explain it.[6]
[6] The only conceivable way in which infertility (or other
inferiority) of hybrids could react on the sexual system of
their parent forms, is one which Mr. Wallace appears to have
missed: at all events he has nowhere stated it. This way is
as follows. Suppose A and B to be two varieties which produce
comparatively infertile hybrids. In the proportion that the
hybrids are infertile, or otherwise inferior, it must be a
disadvantage to both varieties for individuals belonging
to one to cross with individuals belonging to the other,
because by so doing they are wasting their time and their
energy in propagating comparatively poor offspring—thereby
failing to impress their characters on the next generation as
effectually as they might have done by pairing homogamously.
Hence, those individuals which do pair homogamously will
leave a larger number—or better quality—of offspring
to the next generation, than is left by those which fail
to pair homogamously. Hence, also, in the course of many
generations a selective premium will be set on the homogamous
pairing, A plus A, B plus B, whether such pairing be due
to a sexual instinct or to a sexual incompatibility. For
example, if horses and asses were to occupy the same area
for a sufficient length of time, it is conceivable that the
instinct which many horses now present of preferring asses
to their own kind would become obsolete; because the horses
or mares which have such an instinct would always fail to
leave progeny that could transmit it, while such would not be
the case with the horses and mares which preferred to pair
homogamously, and so it might be if a physiological instead
of a psychological character were concerned. But now observe,
if this consideration were adduced, I should not be concerned
to dispute it. For, even if such a principle of segregation
does obtain, to what category does the principle belong?
Clearly it does not belong to natural selection, inasmuch
as a mere failure to impress individual characters on the
next generation is not a matter of life and death in the
struggle for existence. But, no less clearly, it does belong
to physiological selection; and therefore, if it be an active
principle in nature, it is an additional cause of segregate
fecundity in first crosses. Moreover, such a principle, if
it ever acts, presupposes some considerable degree of sexual
differentiation as already given by some other cause.
Having thus endeavored to make it as clear as I can, that the causes of
segregate fecundity, both in its origin and subsequent "increase," must
be causes acting on the physiology of the segregating forms themselves,
and not the effects of these causes in the character of their mongrel
offspring; I must next comment upon the extraordinary idea which
underlies the whole of Mr. Wallace's exposition, and which in one place
he expressly states. This extraordinary idea is that the theory of
physiological selection, as held both by Mr. Gulick and myself, takes
no cognizance of the possible effects of cross-sterility in leading
to infertility or inferiority on the part of mongrel progeny. I call
this an extraordinary idea, because it appears to me most extraordinary
that Mr. Wallace can have read our papers, and then have supposed that
he was adding anything to our theory by arguing the points which he
does argue in the above quotation. When once this argument is correctly
stated, it amounts, as we have just seen, to nothing more than pointing
out how a segregate fecundity of first crosses will have a better
chance of increasing, if the mongrel progeny are infertile or inferior.
But surely this goes without saying; or, if it be said, let it be added
that physiological selection, when it thus extends to second crosses,
is really or ultimately due to physiological selection as regards the
first crosses. If the segregate fecundity of the first crosses is of
such a kind, that, besides tending to a physiological isolation of the
parent forms, it leads to inferiority of the mongrel progeny; this is
merely a further expression of the segregate fecundity in question.
Its effect is that of so far extinguishing the influence of progeny in
the subsequent history of parental segregation: therefore, its effect
is just the same as if, owing to a somewhat higher degree of segregate
fertility in the first instance (i. e., in the first crosses), a
proportionately smaller number of mongrel offspring had been produced
at all. In either case the result (physiological differentiation) is
equally due to causes acting on the sexual system of the parent forms;
and whether this effect is brought about by a suppression of progeny
as to their numbers alone, or likewise as to their efficiency, is
quite immaterial to the theory of physiological selection. Which shows
once more how wide of the mark is Mr. Wallace's statement, that "the
inferiority of the hybrid offspring is the essential point" in any
process of sexual segregation. The "essential point" must always be
the original occurrence and subsequent "preservation of the infertile
variations" arising between the parent forms, whether these variations
are only in the direction of producing a smaller number of mongrels, or
also in that of suppressing their efficiency when produced.
Upon the whole, then, it is surely the oddest of misconceptions on Mr.
Wallace's part that has led him to present the above-quoted "argument"
as a substitute for the theory of physiological selection. As far as
it goes, and as far as it is sound, it is the theory of physiological
selection pure and simple—neither adding to, nor detracting from it
one iota. Nevertheless, the "argument" has not yet gone far enough to
embody some of the other elements of the theory. Therefore I will now
continue the quotation:
"The differentiation of the two forms into distinct
species, with the increase of infertility between them,
would be greatly assisted by two other important factors
in the problem. It has already been shown that, with each
modification of form and habits, and especially with
modifications of color, there arises a disinclination of the
two forms to pair together; and this would produce an amount
of isolation which would greatly assist the specialisation of
the forms in adaptation to their different conditions of life.
Again, evidence has been adduced that change of conditions
or of mode of life is a potent cause of disturbance of the
reproductive system, and, consequently, of infertility. We may
therefore assume that, as the two forms adopted more and more
different modes of life, and perhaps acquired also decided
peculiarities of form and coloration, the infertility between
them would increase or become more general; and as we have
seen that every such increase of infertility would give that
portion of the species in which it arose an advantage over
the remaining portions in which the two varieties were more
fertile together, all this induced infertility would maintain
itself, and still further increase the general infertility
between the two forms of the species."
Here we perceive that Mr. Wallace, after having adopted the theory
of physiological selection in its main elements, next proceeds to
supplement that theory (as Mr. Gulick and myself had previously done),
by showing how greatly the principle of physiological selection
must be assisted by any association with other forms of isolation,
or segregate breeding. The only difference between Mr. Wallace and
ourselves here is, that while he instances but three or four forms of
segregate breeding (or homogamy) with which physiological selection
may be associated, I had previously considered several others in
addition to these, while Mr. Gulick had gone into the matter still
more exhaustively. Therefore, here as elsewhere, I can only account
for the character of Mr. Wallace's criticism by supposing that he read
our papers inattentively in the first instance, and was afterwards
influenced by "unconscious memory" in his subsequent cogitations upon
the problem of cross-sterility.
And now, finally, in order to show this still more completely, I may
quote the whole paragraph which concludes his long discussion of that
problem:
"The preceding argument, it will be seen, depends entirely
upon the assumption that some amount of infertility
characterises the distinct varieties which are in process of
differentiation into species; and it may be objected that of
such infertility there is no proof. This is admitted: but
it is urged that facts have been adduced which render such
infertility probable, at least in some cases, and this is
all that is required. It is by no means necessary that all
varieties should exhibit incipient infertility, but only some
varieties; for we know that, of the innumerable varieties
that occur, but few become developed into distinct species;
and it may be that the absence of infertility, to obviate the
effects of intercrossing, is one of the usual causes of their
failure. All I have attempted to show is, that when incipient
infertility does occur in correlation with other varietal
differences, that infertility can be, and in fact must be,
increased by natural selection; and this, it appears to me, is
a decided step in advance in the solution of the problem."
This serves to convey a very accurate summary of the whole "preceding
argument"; and it is likewise an admirably concise restatement of the
theory of physiological selection. The only points in it to which I
object—considered as an epitome of my own paper—are as follows.
First, Mr. Wallace has not proved quite so good an advocate as he might
have proved, had he looked more closely into the evidence "that some
amount of infertility characterises the distinct varieties which are
in process of differentiation into species." For although he says,
properly enough, that his "preceding argument"—i. e., the theory of
physiological selection—"depends entirely upon the assumption" that
such infertility does "characterise distinct varieties which are in
process of differentiation into species"; still he is wrong in saying
it is "admitted" that in favor of this assumption there is "no proof"
beyond what he has himself "urged" in the way of "facts which render
such infertility probable": there are many other facts which not only
render such infertility probable, but prove it to be actual. Secondly,
although I quite agree with Mr. Wallace in holding that natural
selection must often, as I said in my original paper, "co-operate" with
physiological selection, still I must point out that the particular
form of segregate breeding to which he here alludes is not natural
selection at all; but (as explained in the foot-note to page 15)
physiological selection pure and simple. My objections, however, with
regard to these two points have no reference to the validity of Mr.
Wallace's restatement of my views; and the fact that this restatement
has been given with the most incomprehensible unconsciousness that
it is a restatement, does not appear to me to detract from the
significance of the argumentative suicide in which his entire criticism
is thus found to terminate.[7]
[7] I am the more surprised that Mr. Wallace did not perceive
his almost complete adoption of my views in this latest
publication of his own, because I had previously had occasion
to point out a partial adoption of them in an earlier
publication of his on the same subject. The following is what
I said upon that occasion—viz., in the _Nineteenth Century_,
January, 1888:
"One very obvious and probably frequent instance of what may
be termed collective variation in the reproductive system—or
a variation due to a common cause acting on many individuals
simultaneously—is actually quoted from my paper by Mr.
Wallace himself, namely, changes in the season of flowering
or of pairing, which insure that any section of a species
so affected shall be fertile only within itself. Collective
variation of this kind may be directly due to the incidence
of some common cause, such as changed conditions of life with
respect to food, climate, station, etc.; or, as in the case
of bud-variation, it may be due to a single "sport" affecting
all the blossoms growing upon the same branch. But besides
such direct action of a common cause, it is easy to see
that natural selection, use and disuse, etc., by operating
in the production of organic changes elsewhere, may not
unfrequently react on the sexual system indirectly, and so
induce the sexual change required in a number of individuals
simultaneously."
Now, in his _Darwinism_, Mr. Wallace again reproduces this
instance of "physiological selection," without even yet
appearing to perceive that both in my original paper upon the
subject and in my answer to his criticism as above quoted, I
adduce this particular instance of physiological selection
as a typical one. Therefore, when he now says:—"Another mode
of isolation is brought about by the variety—either owing
to habits, climate, or constitutional change—breeding at a
slightly different time from the parent species: this is known
to produce complete isolation in the case of many varieties of
plants": he is merely restating what I have repeatedly given
as an unquestionable case of physiological selection.
With the self-destruction of this criticism I am left without any other
to answer; and I should not have occupied so much space in dealing
with this one, were it not that the high estimation in which Mr.
Wallace is so deservedly held by all other naturalists is calculated
to render almost incredible the peculiar position to which he has
eventually gravitated with reference to my views—professing hostility
on the one hand, while reproducing them as original on the other. The
misunderstanding of my ideas which this state of matters represents,
might have led me to wonder whether I could possibly have rendered
my meaning more clear in the first instance, were it not that this
misunderstanding extends in an even greater measure to Mr. Gulick's
paper than it does to mine. For seeing that the whole criticism is
founded on the erroneous idea that our theory supposes physiological
selection always to act alone, the misconception becomes positively
ludicrous in its relation to Mr. Gulick's views; seeing that, as
previously stated, Mr. Gulick not only agrees with me in holding that
physiological selection must be greatly fortified by being associated
with any other form of homogamy, but even goes so far as to agree with
Mr. Wallace that, unless it is so fortified, it can never act at all.
So that, as far as physiological selection is concerned, Mr. Gulick's
theory is precisely identical with that of Mr. Wallace, and differs
from his statement of it only in recognising a number of forms of
homogamy, in addition to natural selection, sexual selection, etc.,
with which the principle of physiological selection may be associated.
GEORGE J. ROMANES.
THE IMMORTALITY OF INFUSORIA.
The ingenious hypothesis that Weismann, the eminent Freiburg professor,
promulgated several years ago regarding the vitality of all unicellular
beings, but more especially of the Protozoans, is undoubtedly widely
known. Weismann maintained that the Protozoans were distinguished from
the Metazoans, or organisms composed of a number of cells, by the
curious property they possessed of exemption from decay and death.
The Protozoans exhibited, in the very words of the German savant,
an instance of potential immortality;[8] that is to say, a natural
physiological death did not exist for them; if they perished, it was
by accident or chance, extraneous to the laws of their organisation.
A great many authors have written upon this subject since Weismann,
either in support of his opinion, or in refutation of it, and of them
we may mention principally Goette,[9] Minot,[10] and M. Delboeuf.[11]
[8] _Ueber die Dauer des Lebens._ Jena, 1882.
[9] _Ueber den Ursprung des Todes_, 1883.
[10] _La Mort et l'Individualité._ (_Bulletin Scientifique du
Nord_, 1884-85.)
[11] _La Matière Brute et la Matière Vivante._ Paris 1887.
It is to be observed that this idea of potential immortality is not
the exclusive property of Weismann. We find it clearly indicated by
Ehrenberg. And, moreover, as Bütschli remarks, it is so natural that
it ought to occur of itself to the mind of every tolerably thoughtful
observer that has devoted his time to the study of the biology of these
minute creatures.[12]
[12] _Gedanken über Leben und Tod_ (_Zoologische Anzeige_,
Vol. v, 1882), cited by M. Maupas in _Multiplication des
Infusoires Ciliés—Arch. de Zool. Experimen._, No. 2, 1888.
Weismann founded his theory in part upon metaphysical, or at least
theoretical, considerations, which we deem it useless to discuss at
this point. But it is also supported by observed facts, and these facts
it will be profitable to recapitulate from the very onset. The idea
of the immortality of Infusoria occurs naturally to the mind when one
examines with care what happens when an Infusorian reproduces. We know
that the reproduction consists in a bipartition of the body of the
animal, and that consequently the parent does not die but lives in the
two products of its bipartition. In subsequent multiplications the same
phenomenon is always observed to occur, so that the entire substance
of the parent is found preserved and living in the individuals to
which it gives birth. This process Weismann expressed by the emphatic
statement: In multiplication by division there are no corpses. It is
wholly otherwise with the metazoans, and the reason of this fundamental
difference is easily explained by the comparison of the organisation
of the body of a metazoan with that of a protozoan. Whereas the
protozoan is represented by a single cell that comprehends all the
vital functions, the functions of reproduction as well as those of
nutrition and relation, the metazoan, on the other hand, is composed of
an aggregation, of a colony of distinct cells, among which a division
of labor has been effected varying in complexity with the height that
the animal has attained in the classificatory scale. It results from
this division of labor that in the metazoan certain cells only—those
namely which are called the sexual cells—are entrusted with the office
of the conservation of the species, while the various other cells are
more especially adapted to the conservation of the individual. When
a metazoan reproduces, the sexual cells alone enter into activity,
and after having suffered various modifications, the principal one of
which is fecundation, the sexual cells become the seat of numerous
segmentations that go to constitute a new animal distinct from the
one that gave it birth. The moment the parent individual ceases to
be blended with the individual it produces, it can perish without
imperilling the conservation of the species, and thus it is that death
appears in the animal kingdom as a logical consequence of division of
labor.
We also know that Weismann, in developing these interesting facts,
was led with many other naturalists to establish the doctrine that
every metazoan may be considered as made up of two entirely distinct
groups of cells: 1) of somatic cells, which represent the individual,
and which are invested with the care of its nourishment, its
sense-mechanism, its movements, and all the functions that have to do
with individual life; and 2) of sexual cells, charged with the office
of the maintenance of the species in time. Whereas the somatic cells
are destined to perish, the sexual cells on the contrary, multiplying
by division after the mode of the reproduction of micro-organisms,
represent the protozoan type, which is immortal; and, by the
intermediary agency of the fecundated ovum, the sexual cells pass
from generation to generation, thus forming a material bond between
successive generations. Though we have to succumb to death, there is
at least a portion of us that ought not to die, from the fact that it
is transmittible to our descendants. Naegeli expressed this idea in a
felicitous form, when he compared the species to a creeping branch that
sent out at successive points annual buds. The buds, which die, are the
individuals—that is the somatic group; while the branch that survives
after the death of the buds, and which represents the species, is the
system of sexual cells. Weismann, finally, has described the same
phenomenon by the expression 'continuity of the germinative plasm.'
A great many discussions have arisen with regard to this germinative
plasm; for everything touches upon this domain, and Weismann has
conceived a theory that endeavors to explain not only the phenomenon
of fecundation, but also that of heredity. I cannot mention here the
numerous works upon this subject, and refer the inquisitive reader for
a knowledge of the same to a series of lectures by Professor Balbiani
that I have epitomized in the _Revue Philosophique_ for December 1889.
The theory of the potential immortality of the Infusoria has recently
been attacked by M. Maupas, whose observations tend to show that
natural death, caused by senescence, does obtain among the Infusoria,
and that it is comparable in many points of view to the natural death
of the metazoans. The researches of M. Maupas upon the multiplication
of ciliate Infusoria are of a relatively recent date, having appeared
in 1888 in Vol. VI. of the "Archives de Zoologie Expérimentale."
It is scarcely necessary to say that the ciliate Infusoria can
propagate without previous coition. The agamic mode of reproduction
appears to be almost the same, save in a few details, as that which
follows coition. It consists in a bipartition or division of the body
of the animal along a plane usually perpendicular to the grand axis of
the nucleus, and it is a matter of course that that element takes part
in the division at the same time with the protoplasm. These phenomena
of reproduction it is possible to study upon a grand scale by supplying
Infusoria kept in captivity with abundance of nourishment. The easiest
way is to produce a putrid fermentation by means of vegetable fragments
crushed and macerated in water. The Infusoria contained in this water
find abundant food furnished by the bacteria developed in it, and they
therefore multiply in great numbers. By means of appropriate methods of
treatment and isolation we are able to follow the phenomenon step by
step and to examine what the animal actually becomes after each agamic
bipartition.
Weismann, when he laid the foundation of his theory of the immortality
of Infusoria, supposed that the development of the Infusoria by
bipartition had no limits and could be prolonged indefinitely without
injury to the vitality of the protoplasm. Various authors had already
made observations which were directly in contradiction with this view.
M. Balbiani, in 1860, in a communication entitled, "Observations and
Experiments upon the Phenomena of Fissiparous Reproduction among
Ciliate Infusoria,"[13] concludes thus: "one of the most important
questions ... has been to determine whether this mode of propagation
is really unlimited, or whether, after being continued throughout
a greater or lesser number of generations, it becomes by degrees
enfeebled, finally to disappear completely.... We have established
that this mode of propagation has its limits, and ends invariably
in one of the three following ways: either by the _natural_ and
almost simultaneous _death_ of all the individuals belonging to the
same cycle, or by the recurrence of sexual generation leading to the
termination of one of the cycles and the commencement of a new cycle,
or finally by the phenomenon of encystment, which in fact brings
about only a momentary interruption of the process of reproduction by
fissiparity" M. Balbiani, apropos of this subject, has called attention
to a curious observation made by the celebrated Danish micrographer O.
F. Müller, who lived in the last century. Müller had observed that the
individuals of any one species most ordinarily found in coition were
almost all of small stature. But he took them for the young individuals
of the species. Now these individuals of small size are in reality
the oldest, that is to say, they are the ones that are the result of
a great number of successive bipartitions; and it is to be observed,
that, in a great many species, in proportion as the bipartitions
increase the size of the Infusoria decreases.
[13] _C. R. Acad. des Sciences._ Vol. iv. p. 1191.
In fine, without further concerning ourselves with the history of this
question, we see that according to M. Balbiani the agamic reproduction
of Infusoria has its limits, and that, when coition, that is to say
fecundation, does not intervene, it may terminate by the natural death
of the individuals or in certain species by encystment.
The chief new element contained in the recent researches of M.
Maupas, which were made twenty years after the date of the preceding
investigations, consists in his study of the various phenomena of
senescence that the Infusoria after a long series of bipartitions
present. M. Maupas has established that there exists in the Infusoria
no part, no element, that by itself and by its own faculties, can live
and be maintained indefinitely. The first outward sign of degeneration
is manifested in a reduction of size. The individuals, according as
the number of generations increases, become smaller and smaller.
With _Stylonichia pustulata_, which in the normal state measures one
hundred and sixty μ, the size of the body is seen gradually to fall
to one hundred and thirty-five, one hundred and ten, seventy, and
even to forty μ. When the effects of senescence become marked, the
animal in its external organs undergoes atrophies and new and more
profound degenerations. In _Stylonichia pustulata_ the vibratile buccal
apparatus becomes gradually atrophied and partly disappears, and in
all species the body is reduced and becomes more and more shrunken,
assuming forms and contours very far removed from the specific type.
The degeneration of the nuclear apparatus at once begins. The first
modifications affect the accessory or attendant nucleus, a cut of
which will be found at page 118 of my work on Micro-organisms,[14]
and of which the principal function seems to be the maintenance
and conservation of the species, and which, therefore, ought to be
considered as the real substratum of the immortal plasma. Far from
enjoying the attribute of eternal youth, the accessory nucleus seems on
the contrary to be affected with a weakness greater and more premature
than that of the other parts of the organism. In fact it is this organ
that is first atrophied and that disappears under the influence of
senile degenerescence. Then, in its turn, the principal nucleus is
affected. It takes, according to the species, a different form. Now it
diminishes in volume, now it divides into two minute bodies that assume
irregular contours, and at other times it assumes a ribbon-like shape.
[14] English translation by The Open Court Pub. Co., Chicago.
Longmans & Co., London.
It is interesting to note that even after the disappearance of the
accessory nucleus, whenever the principal nucleus still subsists, the
Infusoria continue to live and divide by fission. This life, says M.
Maupas, has some features of abnormality about it, since it has become
wholly purposeless. The animals still live an individual life, but they
are dead to the life of the species.[15]
[15] Page 262.
In concluding upon this point, I must mention the reservations that
may be entertained with regard to the exactitude of the preceding
observations and the value of the method employed in their attainment.
A competent critic has remarked that it is difficult to assume that
nine hundred and thirty-five specimens of the genus _Stylonichia_
could find the gases necessary for the support of life, seeing that
M. Maupas kept them under the same stage where they only had at their
disposal a mass of water equal to one hundred cubic millimetres; and it
may thus be asked whether the phenomena of senescence produced under
these special conditions were not pathological. This criticism seems to
be especially strengthened by the fact, that according to M. Maupas,
the animalcula placed beneath the shield, all finally congregate at the
edge of the preparation, evidently to seek there the air of which they
are in need.
If we took our stand, however, upon the facts before cited we could
conclude without hesitation that the celebrated thesis of Weismann
regarding the immortality of the ciliate Infusoria had been overthrown.
But the phenomena are not presented with this simplicity. When the
vitality of the Infusoria has become weakened by a considerable
number of agamic reproductions, and the animalcule is upon the point
of dying a natural death, a new biological phenomenon can intervene,
rejuvenating the animal and rendering it capable of reproducing itself
anew for a long series of generations. That phenomenon is fecundation.
* * * * *
In our work upon Micro-Organisms we have spoken at length of the
material process of fecundation in ciliate Infusoria, and of the
phenomena preliminary to it, following as our guide the observations
of Balbiani, Gruber, Bütschli, and Engelmann. It will be necessary to
recur here to that subject and to supplement our preceding exposition
with some important details. Moreover, recent researches, added to
other older ones, afford us interesting information with regard to
the conditions and determining causes of conjugation and also of the
significance of fecundation itself.
We have seen above that according to M. Balbiani an active period
of agamic bipartition in Infusoria can terminate in a period of
conjugation; a circumstance which produces in effect a cyclical
alternation between agamic generations and a sex-generation. The very
word cycle is used in the observations of M. Balbiani. M. Maupas
elevated this observation of M. Balbiani to the rank of a method;
using, in order to procure the great number of coitions necessary for
his investigations, the following process. He placed the Infusoria in
water in which he had produced a putrid fermentation. The Infusoria,
thanks to the abundance of the nutriment developed in great numbers.
While thus swarming they were lifted out with a drop of water, which
was kept upon the stage in a moist chamber. The Infusoria there
continued to grow larger and multiply; but by reason of their great
numbers it was not long before they exhausted the food brought with
them in the drop of water. When the last remains of their nutriment had
disappeared they were seen in the majority of cases to seek each other
and to copulate.
According to M. Maupas, it is not solely the weakness produced by a
series of bipartitions, but, in addition to that and more particularly,
the scarcity of food, that excites in the ciliate Infusoria the
conjugal appetite. The epidemics of conjugation of which the authors
speak, are not otherwise explainable. M. Maupas even says, that when
a number of pairs are about to copulate, it is only necessary to give
them food to put an end to their conjugation. Scarcity, that author
further remarks, ought evidently not to modify in any essential the
internal organic state of the Infusoria in question; no more indeed
than the opposed condition, that is, an abundance of rich food (page
403 of his memoir). But in the first case they copulate without any
ado; in the second, they refuse to do so entirely. Rich alimentation
deadens the conjugal appetite; fasting, on the contrary awakens and
excites it. There exists moreover, according to the author last
mentioned, in ciliate Infusoria, a particular period beyond which
fecund coitions cannot take place. It is what he calls the period
of karyogamic maturity. Thus, in _Leucophrys_, for example, fecund
coitions are observed to take place only after the three-hundredth
generation. Before that time the Infusoria may be placed in all
the other conditions favorable to copulation, without being seen
to contract a single union. On the other hand, beyond that time, a
period extends in which numerous coitions are obtained. Although,
indeed, the cyclical alternation of agamic generations and copulations
is indisputable, further researches are still necessary to obtain
a thorough knowledge of the extent of these cycles. It is certain
that their duration varies in the different species, and perhaps,
in conditions as yet imperfectly known, may in any one species be
considerably abridged.
We are now come to the preliminaries of copulation. We have described
them in our work, making use of the observations of Balbiani, Gruber,
and of Engelmann, some of which we found confirmed by Bütschli. M.
Maupas, who has recently again taken up this question, believes he
has discovered in his predecessors, or rather in the observations
of M. Balbiani, grave errors. I shall transcribe the passage in
question: "When a numerous group of Infusoria of the same species are
found in the conditions that determine copulation, these animalcula
abandon themselves to certain movements, and exhibit an agitation
the significance of which has been much exaggerated. Balbiani, who
in fact always seeks analogies with the higher animals, has given
us an animated description of these movements, to which a poetical
imagination has contributed at least as much as exact and scientific
observation. This description has met with a most favorable reception
among certain philosophers and psychologists who have taken up with
it in the belief that they could thereby reveal in microzoans the
rudiments of the instincts and psychic faculties of higher-organized
beings. As there is very much inexactitude and exaggeration in all
that, it is time to calm this enthusiasm and to refer the facts and
their explanation to some more exact criterion." (Page 413.)
I believe it useless to occupy my time in dealing with the aggressive
tone that this author has seen fit to assume towards me, and which
seems to be habitual with him when he criticises the works of people
with whom he does not agree. I shall carefully examine his observations
and seek to derive from them some profit, to the improvement and
correction of my work upon the Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms, if it
is true that I have committed the grave errors of which he speaks.
Besides, the question of the preliminaries of copulation is so
interesting in itself that I have no fear of turning to it a second
time.
It is necessary, here, clearly to distinguish two things: the facts
and their explanations. In that which concerns observed facts, the
errors that M. Maupas endeavors to point out in the descriptions of M.
Balbiani appear to me to be capable of a reduction to a matter of so
little significance—admitting that it comes at all from error—that if
I had not been apprised of it, I should have regarded the researches
of the first author as a confirmation in most details of those of the
second. It is to be observed, in fact, that M. Maupas gives almost the
same description that Balbiani does of the movements of _Paramæcium
aurelia_. "I have followed animals of that species a number of times,"
he says, "during the preparations for copulation. They exhibit at that
moment a very great agitation. They are seen to go and come, rapidly
changing their direction. They approach and throw themselves against
their congeners, halt in front of them, feel them an instant with
their cilia, then leave them, assume the most varied positions, and,
finally, when two individuals equally ready for union chance to meet
each other, they face about by their anterior extremities so that the
two bodies come together and join, with the exception of the posterior
extremities, along their whole extent; the union is thus definitively
effected."
Up to this point, let it be observed, our author's description is but
a paraphrase of that of M. Balbiani, which we have given on page 69 of
our work; and a simple comparison of the two suffices to prove this.
The divergences of fact extend, as it seems to me, to the two following
points only: The duration of the preliminaries, and the existence
of an epidemic of copulation. M. Maupas thinks that the movements
in question never last very long, at the most a quarter of or half
an hour among individuals that have arrived at karyogamic maturity.
Whereas M. Balbiani has observed these same movements last for several
days. I do not know which of these two observations is the more exact;
in fact, I do not think it necessary to choose between them, since
both may be exact, the duration of the phenomenon generally being
dependent upon conditions subject to great change, while M. Maupas
himself remarks that the ciliate Infusoria in the variability of all
their biological phenomena are veritable thermometers of a very great
sensibility. However that may be, whether the movements that precede
copulation in _Paramæcium_ last a quarter of an hour, half an hour,
or several days, that fact does not change their real character. The
second divergence relates to the epidemics of copulation in the case of
_Paramæcium aurelia_; observed by M. Balbiani and denied by M. Maupas.
"All the individuals of a group," says M. Maupas, "are never found
simultaneously in this condition. Hence the tentative preliminaries of
copulation, that fail in their object and end in the individuals going
to seek elsewhere another partner." I confess, I do not understand this
statement, involving, as it does, M. Maupas in a contradiction; for two
pages before this he speaks of the mode of the appearance of copulation
as in the epidemic form. All observers, he says, that have occupied
themselves with this phenomenon, state that it is suddenly developed
in the little aquariums in which the animals are contained, and very
rapidly becomes general (page 41).
To this then the divergences of fact are reduced—a matter entirely
insignificant; and I believe it useless to dwell upon it longer. The
question of interpretation remains. I shall also say a few words with
reference to this, although the disagreement is at bottom not much more
serious.
We have seen, that, according to M. Maupas, the Infusoria do not
seek each other and copulate until after a fast of considerable
duration caused by exhaustion of the store of food in the medium
in which they live. The author concludes from this that scarcity
of food is the sole and real cause of the great agitation in which
they are then seen. "When an infusion thickly populated begins to
get exhausted, the animalcula congregate together, always forming
those whitish cloud-spots that we have described as the prelude
to copulation.... Not until afterwards do the actual movements of
copulation occur, which never last very long." Accordingly, there is
first an agitation produced by hunger, and only in consequence of
that are the preliminaries of copulation brought about. Admitting
this interpretation as exact, which is indeed a question that I
reserve, I conclude that M. Maupas completely accepts the facts of the
preliminaries of copulation, distinguishing them from other phenomena
that precede them. He says, moreover, and these are his own words,
that the sexual impulse does indeed exist in these little creatures.
Unquestionably he is right in adding that this sexual impulse presents
in the ciliate Infusoria manifestations much simpler than in the higher
animals, and that it is otherwise in accord with their simplicity of
organisation. That is evident, and no one I believe has ever maintained
the contrary.
Finally, the author refuses to admit that the sexual manifestations
of the Infusoria can be compared with the phenomena of _rut_.
"Rut," he says, "the external and psychic manifestations of which
we know with any degree of exactitude only in mammals, is a reflex
phenomenon concomitant with and consecutive to the maturation of the
Graafian vesicles. It is therefore an especial phenomenon peculiar
to the females of the highest group of the animal series. Males are
not subject to rut, but are always ready to experience the sexual
excitation whenever they find themselves in contact with females that
are fallen into that condition" (page 414).
Naturalists will certainly read with great astonishment this definition
of rut, which is wholly new and personal to the author. Hitherto the
word rut has not been reserved for mammals; it has been applied to all
classes of animals, even to the lowest, and Duvernoy, for example, has
devoted an article to the rut of zoöphytes.
We now come, following the chronological order of the phenomena, to the
material processes of conjugation, otherwise called fecundation, in the
ciliate Infusoria. It is needless to take up in its entirety a question
that we have already examined, and which will be found treated of at
page 65 of our work. But it is certainly interesting to dwell upon the
general significance of the question of fecundation. It is known that
all ciliate Infusoria, excepting some species such as _Opalina_, a
parasitic infusory of the frog, exhibit in their protoplasm two kinds
of nuclear corpuscles. First a nucleus, a principal nucleus, which the
authors designate by the names endoplast and macronucleus; this element
is in some ways comparable to the nucleus of the cells of tissues.
Besides this the ciliate Infusoria possess a smaller nuclear element
than the former, called by the authors nucleolus, or endoplastule, or
attendant nucleus, or finally micronucleus. This micronucleus comprises
in its evolution the internal phenomena of the process of conjugation.
The principal nucleus plays in the process but an accessory rôle, for
it is a wasted element destined to be replaced by a nucleus of new
formation; when it undergoes more or less complete elimination. The
attendant nucleus passes through a series of complicated modifications
which vary much in detail for each species. First, there are stages of
division destined to prepare the way for the elimination of the used
up corpuscles. But the most important fact is that at a given moment
there exists in the protoplasm of each ciliate Infusory in conjugation,
two corpuscles derived from the nucleus; then an exchange is effected
between the two individuals in copulation; each transmits to the other
one of the corpuscles, which copulates with the remaining corpuscle
left in the interior of the body. These two little nuclei that play
parts so different are, according to M. Maupas, completely identical
with one another and do not show the least difference either in form,
volume, or structure. "In the twelve species in which I have succeeded
in closely studying these organs," says that author, "I have always
seen them act with the most perfect similitude under the influence of
coloring and fixitive re-agents." Nevertheless, in view of the future
condition of these two elements, M. Maupas is led to give them the very
significant names of male pronucleus and female pronucleus. The female
pronucleus is the one that remains immobile in the body of the parent
gamete; while the other, the male, is exchanged and passes into the
body of the other gamete.
In what does the real nature of the copulation of these two pronuclei
consist? Does it consist in a fusion of the elements mentioned, or,
indeed, do the latter preserve their original independence and autonomy
in the midst of the new mixed nucleus, standing in juxtaposition
with and moving in and about one another? This is the question that
M. Maupas immediately proceeded to examine. The recent researches
of M. Ed. Van Beneden upon the internal mechanism of fecundation in
_Ascaris megalocephala_ are well known. We have published in the _Revue
Philosophique_, following M. Balbiani, a résumé of these important
investigations, and we may be permitted to reproduce here a few
passages therefrom; for nothing is more interesting than the evolution
followed by our ideas in that which concerns fecundation.
The notions that were formed of this phenomenon only took definite and
precise shape from the time when the existence of the two elements
of fecundation, the spermatozoön and the ovum, could be established.
It was at first believed that the spermatozoön impregnated the ovum
by the exercise of a purely physical action—an action of contact
and influence. But observation demonstrated that something more took
place, namely, an actual conjugation, a union, a blending of the
spermatozoön and the ovule. A further step was made in 1875, when
it was discovered, in studying the ova of Echinoderms, that but one
single part of the ovule, the germinative vesicle, conjugated with but
one part of the spermatozoön, namely the head, and that since these
two elements have each the value of a nucleus, fecundation consisted
in the conjugation of two nuclei. But there was still an element of
obscurity in this idea, simple as it was. If the nuclei were vesicles
like soap-bubbles they might burst, the one within the other; but
the nucleus contains a great number of differentiated elements, the
chromatic reticulated substance, the nuclear substance, the nucleoli,
etc.: what becomes of all these elements during the conjugation of
the two nuclei? In 1881, Flemming made a new advance in the question.
He determined more precisely the nature of the fusion of the two
pronuclei, establishing that it consisted in the blending of their
chromatic substances. This he observed in the ova of the Echinoderms.
According to the very recent works of M. Van Beneden upon _Ascaris
megalocephala_, the great nematoid of the horse, there is no fusion
whatever between the two pronuclei. They always remain distinct. Each
passes through, separately, all the phases of karyokinesis, when the
fecundated ovum divides. In this connection the recent observations of
M. Balbiani confirm the opinion of Van Beneden, who had been sharply
attacked by Carnoy and Zacharias. First, in each of the two pronuclei
each reticulate substance is observed to present the initial phases
of karyokinesis; the net-works form into a skein that contracts and
thickens; the ribbon-like body thus formed divides into two segments,
which bend so as to form acute-angled crooks or loops. There are thus
produced two loops in the male pronucleus, and two in the female
pronucleus. Then the two male loops approach the two female loops in
a manner such that a sort of star is formed with eight branches turned
towards the periphery of the ovum (nuclear or equatorial disk). Then
the fecundated ovum begins to divide into segments. Now at every new
equatorial stage of the subsequent divisions of the ovum these four
loops are seen to reappear in such a manner that fusion never takes
place between the male element and the female element. Each of the four
primitive chromatic loops divides by longitudinal division into two
secondary loops, whence result two equatorial semi-disks, each formed
of four secondary loops, of which two come from the male pronucleus and
two from the female pronucleus. Each of the two new nuclei contains
therefore a certain number of male and female chromatic loops, and
consequently presents an hermaphroditic constitution.
For Van Beneden, therefore, fecundation consists essentially in the
presence in the ovum of two nuclei, one male and one female. The
conjugation of the two nuclei is a phenomenon of no importance; it
may take place, or it may not. The physiological signification of
fecundation is a process of rejuvenation, in which the ovum replaces
its old male element with a new male element, the spermatozoön.[16]
[16] _Recherches sur la Maturation de l'Œuf, etc. Arch. de
Biol. Vol. iv. 1883. Nouvelles Recherches sur la Fécondation.
Bul. de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences de Belgique, 3 Série, Vol.
xiv. 1887._
M. Maupas remarks that the pronuclei of the Infusoria by reason
of their complicated structures do not admit of these difficult
investigations. Nevertheless he mentions the fact that these pronuclei
are, in the elements mentioned, composed of two distinct substances,
hyaloplasm and chromatin. He puts forth the opinion that the hyaloplasm
constitutes an accessory portion, and that the chromatin is endowed
with the fecundative properties. Which means that in certain ciliate
Infusoria the male pronucleus at the moment of its migration is
composed solely of chromatin. Finally, M. Maupas arrives at the
conclusion that the supreme end of fecundationis the renovation, the
reconstitution, of a rejuvenated nucleus formed by the copulation
of two fecundative nuclei having distinct origins and of which the
chromatin elements represent the essential part (page 434).
* * * * *
It is now time to return a moment to the theory of Weismann and to see
if it has not been shaken by the new data that we have just placed
before the reader. Accepting the results of the experiments of M.
Maupas, who, as a matter of fact, has arrived at the same conclusions
as M. Balbiani, we are led to the admission that when a ciliate
Infusorian multiplies by agamic division a great number of times, the
offspring that appear after from 50 to 100 bipartitions has not the
same physiological value as its original progenitor; and that agamic
multiplication ends in exhaustion and in natural death. But it must, on
the other hand, be taken into account that this process of senescence
is counteracted by that of conjugation, which consists in a nuclear
renovation; and since the substance, the protoplasm, of the rejuvenated
individual escapes death, a new argument might be found in these last
mentioned facts for the theory of the immortality of Infusoria.
The question is, at bottom, whether the individual after conjugation is
identically the same as before conjugation, or whether it constitutes a
new animal. In that the solution rests. Now, the new element that the
individual acquires by the act of conjugation is the male pronucleus of
its partner. In addition it loses the greater part of its old accessory
nucleus and the whole of its old principal nucleus. In return, by way
of compensation, it preserves the integrity of its protoplasm and of
its other organs. M. Gruber believes that physical identity persists in
spite of these modifications. M. Maupas maintains the contrary.
It seems to us that a question of this character does not admit of
a satisfactory solution, and this opinion will be shared by all
who have considered the idea of physical identity. It is a notion
obscure, uncertain, and full of contradictions. We have formed it
because it answers our practical needs. But it is certainly evident
that it corresponds to no well defined external phenomenon. In fact,
we understand by physical identity the constant reunion of certain
elements in a certain order. If the order of these elements is very
slightly modified, or if a very small number of these elements is
replaced by others, we do not hesitate to say that the physical
identity in question has not been altered by these insignificant
modifications. If, on the other hand, the order has been almost totally
destroyed, if the greater portion of the elements has been renewed, we
should, on the contrary, say that the identity of the thing in question
had been lost in these alterations and that a new object had replaced
the old. Replace a stone in a house and the latter remains the same
house; rebuild the house upon a new plan and with different materials
retaining very little of the first construction, and it is a different
house. But between these two extreme cases there is a whole series of
possible intermediate changes, and we are not able to establish clearly
by any exterior mark the point where physical identity ends. This is a
matter of personal estimation; I might even say of caprice; and all the
discussions raised upon these questions appear to me wholly idle.
I believe, accordingly, that the thesis of Weismann regarding the
immortality of Infusoria eludes a direct refutation. It is neither
confirmed nor overturned by observed facts.
ALFRED BINET.
ON THE MATERIAL RELATIONS OF SEX IN HUMAN SOCIETY.
Much interest is displayed at present in the development of woman,
both as to her personal characteristics, and in her relations to her
surroundings in human society. It is justly said that the civilisation
of a nation may be measured by the degree of humanity displayed by its
men towards its women. This is for the reason that, since women are
the weaker sex, man has only ethical reasons for self-restraint in his
treatment of her. Nowhere is the sex-interest under better ethical
control than in the United States; and it is in this country also that
we hear the most of reforms which are necessary in order that woman
may attain a further development, and assume a higher position in
relation to the state. This being the case, it is extremely important
that the foundation facts, or in other words the necessary natural
conditions, under which the sexes co-operate in society, should be
fully understood. That they are not understood, or that they are
intentionally ignored in some quarters, is evident to any one who reads
the current literature of the subject.
The relation of the male man to his environment involves the usual
struggle for existence more or less active. His _pièce de resistance_
is the mineral and vegetable world and its atmosphere, and his
antagonist is his fellow man. The former generally yields more or less
abundantly to his solicitations. What he gets from his fellow man is
acquired through the necessities of the latter, and the benefit may be
mutual, or it may be all on one side. His best friend may unconsciously
and unintentionally, in the regular order of trade, reduce him to
beggary, or compel him, as an alternative, to emigrate to a distant
land. Such results are more frequent as population increases. To
maintain himself against the destructive forces of nature, such as
cold, heat, rains, tempests, fires, blights, etc., is his necessary
occupation. If he pursue a profession, or if he be in trade, he must
supply the actual needs of his fellow man, and beware that competition
and monopoly do not deprive him of all return for his labor.
Woman, considered by herself, is subject to identical conditions.
Her needs are the same and her environment is the same. But she is
not so well endowed as man to supply the one or to meet the other.
Her disabilities are of two kinds, physical and mental. The physical
are: first, inferior muscular strength, and secondly, childbearing.
The latter means more or less incompetence for active work at monthly
periods, or several months of gestation and lactation, and some years
of care of children. The mental disabilities are: first, inferior power
of mental co-ordination; and secondly, greater emotional sensibility,
which interferes more or less with rational action.[17]
[17] This is, of course, only true where the sexes of the same
subspecies or race are compared.
From these facts it is evident that, were woman of the same sex as
man, that is, were she simply another kind of man, she would soon be
eliminated from the earth under the operation of the ordinary law of
the survival of the fittest. This need not be through any agencies
different from those now actually in operation among men under the
circumstances of peaceful trade. And such is often the actual history
of male men who possess marked feminine characteristics. It does
not follow from this, that some women might not sustain themselves
apart from men, in agriculture, trade, and the professions. This is
especially possible where the struggle is not very severe; but in the
cases which exist, few are really independent of male assistance, which
has furnished the capital, either of cleared land, money, or as an
appointing power. The general result, as above stated, is self-evident
from the facts.
Remedies for this disability are frequently proposed. A higher
education, while an unquestioned advantage, does not remove it. The
ballot would only result in removing any disability of an artificial
character which might exist, but could not effect those imposed by
nature. There is no method of human contrivance by which the natural
difficulty may be overcome.
But Nature has supplied a most effective remedy. Woman not being of
the same sex as man, supplies a necessity which is almost universal,
so that she is placed, if she exercise reasonable care, in a position
better than that of man in relation to the struggle for existence.
The antagonist of man, his fellow man, is eliminated from the list of
the antagonists of woman, and that is an advantage which cannot be
overestimated. Not only is man removed from the field as a competitor,
but he becomes an active helper in resisting the forces of nature. More
than this, he is willing under the circumstances, to divide with her
what he extracts from both man and nature. Were these the only benefits
that woman derives from man they would constitute a sufficient reason
for the usual preference which she displays for his protection, rather
than for a life of independence. But she is herself possessed of a
sex-interest which is satisfied by such a relation. Not only this, but
her love of children constitutes a further inducement, which is highly
effective in bringing about her customary relation with man.
It is self-evident then that any system which looks to a career for
women independent of man, such as man pursues, is abnormal, and
injurious to her interests.
The support and protection given by man to woman is then clearly
rendered as an equivalent for the services she renders him in the
capacity of a wife. It is universally implied, if not distinctly stated
in the contract between them, that she shall not be the wife of some
other man, and that the children she bears shall be also those of the
male party to the contract, or the husband. It is not necessary that
any such obligation should be entered into by the man, for the obvious
reason that he does not bear children. If the woman violates this
contract, the man is under no moral or legal obligation to support her.
If the man has other wives he does not thereby forfeit protection and
support of the wife, since she has none to offer him. This general fact
would not prevent a woman possessed of wealth who supported a husband,
from withdrawing such support in case he should become polygamous. But
such a situation is so exceptional as to deserve but a passing notice
in a consideration of the whole question.
It is frequently insisted that responsibility of man to woman in the
matter of monogamic relations, is ethically the same as that of woman
to man. This has not been the view of mankind generally, and it is
distinctly negatived by the facts in the case. The marriage relation is
clearly a contract in which the consideration on one side is support
and protection, and the consideration on the other is monogamic
wifehood, or the definite paternity of children and their care and
education. The immediate reason why particular men and women marry
particular women and men, is, or ought to be, love and affection; but
these admirable sentiments, are the offspring of natural conditions of
sex, without which woman, and especially man, would not marry at all.
And these natural conditions are clearly satisfied by the maintenance
of the contract as above described. In order to further enforce this
position I merely refer to the well-known fact that man cannot commit
marital infidelity in the same sense that woman can, on account of his
physical diversity. His unfaithfulness introduces no new blood into
a family, and makes no defect in the inheritance, as does the same
act on the part of the woman. The woman is in a position of trust,
precisely like the responsible officers of a bank. It is in the power
of both to defraud those who trust them. Hence it is that woman has
been always held to stricter account in this matter than man, and
always must be. For this reason the jealousy displayed by husbands
is more justifiable than that displayed by wives; and the result of
marital infidelity on the part of wives is usually more disastrous to
the offending parties. It is in consequence of these facts that there
exists some difference in the ethical feelings of the sexes on this
question. It is undoubtedly true that there are more women willing
to live in polygamy than men willing to live in polyandry, in spite
of the verbal objections that women make to such a system in modern
times. I do not now refer to promiscuity, in which the affections
are in no wise concerned. In this everyway inferior relation, men
are the most numerous offenders. It is for the reasons above stated
that women are more monogamous in their tendencies than men. Not only
does the question of support and protection during child-bearing and
at other times make it more to their interest to be so, but they are
more inclined to attach themselves to particular persons than men, on
account of their superior affectional endowments. This is an inevitable
result of their occupation in the family and with the family for
countless ages, and is as much a product of their evolution, as is the
superior rationality and self-control of the male sex.
The above picture may seem to some persons of progressive views on
"the woman question" somewhat onesided. But the relation of man to
the contract is not yet completely described. Meanwhile I refer to a
sentiment attributed to a single woman, a teacher in a girls' school,
I believe near Pittsburg, quoted by a lady writer in the _Popular
Science Monthly_, several months ago. This lady, believing that the
strength of the emotional elements of character in women constitutes a
disability, and stands in the way of her so-called equality with man,
had resolved to suppress that part of her nature, and to live a life
free from its consequences. She hoped thus to attain a condition not
only equal, but superior to that of men, and was prepared to teach the
girls committed to her care that this was their duty to themselves
and to the world. For this reason she would not marry. The fallacy in
this reasoning consists in the omission of certain important premises.
The principal one of these is, that neither she nor any other woman
can exterminate in a life-time, the heritage which woman has derived
from the entire history of the human species, to say nothing of the
inheritance from the ancestors of mankind, where the same traits exist
in the diminished ratio of a smaller mentality. In order to accomplish
this change in female character, it would be necessary that the same
course should be pursued by many successive generations of women; how
many, it is impossible to calculate. This would require that such women
should marry, which is what the lady whose views are referred to above,
desired to avoid. In fact it is typical women who will marry, and
typical women will be therefore produced to the end of time, unless
some new system of sex relations shall be introduced.
It is sometimes suggested that a change in intersex relations is
desirable in order to effect a fuller emancipation of women from
present conditions. With the remark in passing, that the natural
restraints imposed by the present marriage system on woman are not
greater than those imposed on man, although different, we may refer
to the alternative arrangement which has been sometimes adopted. This
is that woman should be free from all obligation to fidelity to any
particular man, and that man should be free from the obligation to
support any particular woman. In other words it is sometimes proposed
that we return to the primitive state of human society. Such a system
has descended to us from ancient times, and it only needs to be
mentioned to satisfy us that woman is the loser by it to a degree that
is disastrous to the interests of society in every respect. It is only
a being devoid of the developed traits of womanhood who could succeed
in a polyandrous career, since she must renounce the pleasures of
family life, even if she is exceptionally able to accumulate the means
of support for her self and children in later years.
A second alternative, that woman may secure the support of one man,
while her marital relations are polyandrous, is an impossible dream of
the imagination. This could be only possible under the condition that
the child-bearing sex should be the stronger sex, and fully capable of
self-support and self-protection; a condition which is not found in
mankind.
A third alternative is the communistic relation where the state
supports women and children, without inquiry as to parentage, and
without reference to the monogamic or promiscuous relation of the
sexes. Such a system, could it continue long enough, would result
in the breaking up of the sentiment of conjugal affection which now
characterises our race, and the destruction of marital fidelity. The
question is whether or not this system would be preferable to that of
monogamic marriage above described. As it is a proposition for the
amelioration of the present condition of women, the decision should
rest with them. The women of the white race would probably declare
against it by a very large majority, were a vote to be taken. This
vote would be, however, largely influenced by custom, and not by a
deliberate conclusion derived from experience. Since experience of
such system cannot be had at present, we are compelled to rely on such
knowledge as we possess in the premises.
It may be safely assumed that the monogamic tendency is constitutional
with the majority of women. In spite of curiosity and other
inducements, the idea of love for a single person is deeply ingrained
in her nature. It is an ideal to be realised somehow and at some time,
and anything short of it is a disaster only to be endured through
some irresistible necessity. No normal woman would hazard the risks
to person and property involved in indefinite matrimonial relations.
The idea of the family becomes the more fixed in proportion as it is
realised in actual experience. In spite of pessimists and unfortunates,
the mutual love of man and woman is a sentiment deeply seated in the
nature of both. Its strength is attested by the enormous popularity
of the literature of which it forms the theme, and of the drama where
its history and vicissitudes are depicted. Men and women who underrate
its power, or who attempt to resist its effects, are like dead leaves
before the winds. Would men and women be satisfied with a system
which should place these affections in constant suspense, and which
should afford no safeguard for the protection of inexperience, or
defense against the temporary effects of superficial attractions and
repulsions? I suspect not, for more would be lost than gained by such
possibilities. Relief from unfortunate connections is certainly proper,
but this can be had in such a way as to render it certain that the best
interests of both parties are subserved, by a system of time contracts
of marriage, such as I crudely suggested in _The Open Court_ for
November 1888. But the emotions of sex cannot be safely left without
safeguards derived from the experience of mankind. This is not only on
account of the force of these passions themselves, but because of the
material necessities which are so intimately involved with them. The
element of paternal interest will have to be eliminated from the man,
and of conjugal fidelity from the woman before a communal system can
be possible. And the absence of these traits is only characteristic of
some of the lower races of men at the present time. Evolution has not
weakened, but has greatly strengthened them, and it is not likely that
our race will go backward in this respect.
Of course it may be asserted that this evolution has taken the wrong
direction, and is not an improvement. I think the contrary may be shown
to be true. The paternal instinct is as important to the adolescent
stages of man as the maternal is for the period of infancy. Paternity
stimulates the man to labor for the support and education of his
children, and for their general well-being. Without such support many
would die, reach an imperfect development, or become feeble members
of society. The fidelity of the woman develops the same trait in
man, and it stimulates him to the greatest exertions to secure her
well-being also. Such forces as these cannot be withdrawn from society
without infinite loss. It is the knowledge that this is _my_ wife
and that these are _my_ children, that sustains more than half of
human industry. With a communistic system these inducements would be
withdrawn, and mankind would sink into comparative apathy, were it
possible for the system to endure long enough.
It is evident that monogamic and polygamic systems are the only ones
possible to modern society. The polygamic requires little notice
because the general equality in numbers of the sexes deprives it of
foundation. It is only possible where women are in excess, and where
they are willing to sustain it. No man who is successfully married is
likely to incur the additional obligations which it imposes. It may
be therefore dismissed from notice with the further remark that it is
not on the other hand deserving of the obloquy cast upon it by certain
persons who are evidently "compounding for sins they have a mind to by
damning those they're not inclined to."
The monogamic relation having been defined in the preceding paragraphs
I recur to some of its obligations. I have spoken of the infidelity of
woman as of a higher degree of criminality than that of man, and have
shown the basis of justice on which this general sentiment rests. But
it must not be forgotten that while he who hires a murderer, and he who
receives stolen goods does not commit the actual crime, he is highly
culpable, and shares in the condemnation which should follow it. In
the case of the marital infidelity of the woman, he may be the greater
criminal of the two, as the instigator to a deed which would not have
been otherwise even suggested. In any case his folly is extraordinary,
as he takes his life in his hands, and risks that of his partner; for
men are wont to preserve their family rights by summary process. It
would be incredible that such risks should be taken were it not that
history and contemporary literature offer many examples. The few cases
where palliating circumstances could be claimed would chiefly occur in
countries where divorce laws do not exist.
The advantages to woman, arising from the monogamic relation, are then,
support and protection, and undivided affection if she deserve it,
together with the satisfaction of the conjugal and maternal instincts.
In order to secure these advantages she must pursue a course towards
her husband in some degree comparable to that by which her husband
secures the confidence and esteem of his fellow man. Faithfulness in
adhering to contracts, and personal complaisance cover much of the
ground. As regards the man, he must see to it, that he does nothing
that tends to the disintegration of the family relations of other men.
The ill disguised laudation of the infidelity of wives which is so
prominent in French literature, is a mark of a low civilisation, and
it rightly excites the disgust of all men who have any respect for
their own rights. It looks as though certain French literature had
been written by boys. Men who are responsible for such invasion of the
rights of others, cannot expect better treatment themselves, and they
must not be surprised if they are repaid in their own coin. While the
preservation of the rights of the marriage contract lies primarily with
woman, for natural reasons; man is held by his fellow man to a strict
accountability, and he attempts any invasion of them at his personal
peril.
The principles above laid down are those out of which have grown
our laws on the subject. Some women and men appear to think them
unjust to women. It is true that in some respects, woman is at a
disadvantage. This disadvantage is, however, of natural origin and
cannot be overcome. On the other hand, she has a full equivalent in the
advantages which she also derives from the natural order of things. The
result is that there is no real cause of complaint, unless it be that
sometimes the gallantry of men towards women whom they do not know,
leads them to do injustice to man in cases of dispute. And here is
an advantage to women which is an offset to the injustice which they
sometimes experience from the same source. The correction of these
faults is a part of the process of ethical development which is going
on in human society. And perhaps the most effective agency in this
development is the relation of the members of the family to each other,
where affection takes the place of force, since it is the source of our
deepest pleasures and our severest pains.
E. D. COPE.
THE ANALYSIS OF THE SENSATIONS.
ANTIMETAPHYSICAL.
I.
The great results that physical research in the last centuries has
achieved, not only in its own domain, but also, by the assistance it
has afforded, in the domain of other sciences, have brought it about
that physical ways of thinking and physical methods of procedure have
everywhere attained to especial prominence, and that the greatest
expectations are associated with their employment. In conformity with
this drift of modern research the physiology of the senses, gradually
leaving the paths that had been entered upon by men like Goethe,
Schopenhauer, and others, but especially with the greatest success
by Johannes Müller, has also almost exclusively assumed a physical
character. This tendency must appear to us as not exactly the proper
and the desirable one, when we reflect that physics despite its
considerable development nevertheless constitutes but a _portion_ of a
greater collective body of knowledge, and that it is incompetent with
its limited intellectual methods, created for especial and limited
purposes, to exhaust the entire material of the province now under
consideration. However, without renouncing the support of the science
of physics, it is possible for the physiology of the senses not only
to continue its own special development, but also to afford physical
science itself valuable assistance. The following simple considerations
will serve to illustrate this relation.
II.
Colors, sounds, temperatures, pressures, spaces, times, and the like,
are united with one another in the most manifold ways; and to these are
joined moods of mind, feelings, and wills. Out of this complication,
that which is relatively the more fixed and the more permanent stands
prominently forth, engraves itself in the memory, and expresses itself
in language. As relatively more permanent appear, first, _complexes_
of colors, sounds, pressures, and so forth, that are connected in time
and space, that therefore receive special names, and are designated as
_bodies_. Such complexes are by no means absolutely permanent.
My table is now brightly and now darkly lighted. It may be warmer or
colder. It may receive an ink stain. One of its legs may get broken. It
can be repaired, polished, and replaced part for part. But for me, amid
all, it remains the table at which I daily write.
My friend can put on a different coat. His countenance can assume a
serious or joyful expression. The complexion of his face, under the
effects of light or of emotion, can change. His shape can be altered by
a movement, or can be permanently transformed. But the sum total of the
permanent, as compared with gradual alterations of this kind, always
remains so great, that the latter vanish. It is the same friend with
whom I take my daily walk.
My coat can receive a stain, a tear. The very manner of my expression
indicates that the gist of the thing is a quantity of permanency, to
which the new element is added and from which that which is lacking is
subsequently deducted.
Our greater intimacy with this quantity of permanency, and its
preponderance as contrasted with the changeable, impel us to the
partly instinctive, partly voluntary and conscious economy of mental
representation and designation which is expressed in ordinary thought
and speech. That which has been _once_ perceptually represented
receives _a single_ designation, _a single_ name.
As relatively permanent, is exhibited, further, that complex of
memories, moods, and feelings, joined to a particular body (the human
body), which is denominated the "I" or "Ego." I can be engaged with
this subject or with that subject, I can be quiet or animated, excited
or ill-humoured. Yet—pathological cases not considered—enough that is
permanent remains to recognise the ego as the same. Moreover, the ego
also is only of relative permanency.
* * * * *
The apparent permanency of the ego consists pre-eminently in the
fact of its _continuity_, and in its slow change. The many thoughts
and plans of yesterday that are continued to-day, and of which our
environment in waking hours continually reminds us (and therefore in
dreams the ego can be very indistinct, doubled, or entirely wanting),
and the little habits that are unconsciously and involuntarily kept up
for longer periods of time, constitute the fundamental root of the ego.
There can hardly be greater differences in the ego of different people,
than occur in the course of years in _one_ person. When I recall
to-day my early youth, I should take the boy that I then was, with the
exception of a few single features, for a different person, did not the
chain of memories that make up my personality now lie before me. Many
a treatise that I myself wrote twenty years ago, now makes upon me a
very strange impression. The very gradual character of the changes of
the body also contributes to the permanency of the ego, but in a much
less degree than people imagine. Such things are much less analysed
and noticed than the intellectual and the moral ego. Individually,
personally, people have a very poor knowledge of themselves.
Once, when a young man, I espied in the street a face in profile that
was very displeasing and repulsive to me. I was not a little taken
aback when a moment afterwards I found that it was my own, which, in
passing by a place where mirrors were sold, I had perceived reflected
from two mirrors that stood at the proper inclination to each other.
Not long ago, after a trying railway journey by night, being much
fatigued, I got into an omnibus just as another gentleman appeared
at the other end. "What degenerated pedagogue is that, who has just
entered," thought I. It was myself: opposite me hung a large mirror.
My ordinary dress, accordingly, was more familiar to me than my
travelling attire.
The ego is as little absolutely permanent as bodies. That which we so
greatly fear in death, the annihilation of our permanency, actually
occurs in life in abundant measure. That which is most valued by us,
remains preserved in countless copies, or, in cases of exceptional
excellence, as a rule preserves itself. In the best human being,
however, there are individual traits the loss of which neither he
himself nor others need regret. Indeed, at times, death, viewed as
liberation from individuality, can even become a pleasant thought.
* * * * *
After the first survey has been obtained, by the formation of the
concepts of substance, "body" "ego" (matter, soul), the will is
impelled to a more exact examination of the _changes_ that take place
in this relatively permanent existence. The changeable element in
bodies and in the ego, indeed, is the very thing that moves the will.
Now, for the first time, do the constituent elements of the complex
stand forth as properties of the same. A fruit is sweet; but it can
also be bitter. So, too, other fruits can be sweet. The red color that
is sought is found in many bodies. The neighborhood of some bodies is
pleasant, that of others unpleasant. Thus, gradually, do different
complexes appear to be composed of common constituent elements. The
visible, the audible, the tangible, are separated from bodies. The
visible is broken up into color and into form. Out of the manifold
constitution of colors issue, again, in lesser numbers, certain other
constituent elements—the primary colors, and so forth. The complexes
are disintegrated into _elements_.
III.
The proper and useful habit of designating that which is permanent by
a _single_ name, and of comprehending the same in a _single_ thought,
without analysing at each operation its constituent parts, is liable
to come into singular conflict with the tendency to separate these
constituent parts. The obscure image formed of the permanent, which
does not perceptibly change when one or another constituent part is
taken away, appears to be something existent _by itself_. Inasmuch as
it is possible to take away _singly_ every constituent part without
effecting the capacity of the image formed to _represent_ the totality
involved, or effecting its subsequent recognition, it is imagined that
it is possible to take away _all_ these parts and yet have something
remaining. Thus arises the monstrous idea of a _thing of itself_,
different from, and incognisable with relation to, its "phenomenal"
existence.
Thing, body, matter, are nothing apart from this complex of
colors, sounds, and so forth—apart from their so-called marks, or
characteristics. That Protean, illusory philosophical problem of
a _single_ independent thing with _many_ properties, arises from
the misunderstanding of the fact, that extensive comprehension and
accurate separation, although both are temporarily justifiable and
profitable for a number of purposes, can not and must not be employed
_simultaneously_. A body is _single_ and unchangeable so long as it
is not required to take details into consideration. Thus both the
earth and a billiard ball are _spheres_ so long as we disregard all
minor deviations from the spherical form, and greater exactitude is
not necessary. But if we are compelled to carry on investigations in
orography or microscopy both bodies cease to be spheres.
IV.
Man possesses in pre-eminence the power to determine arbitrarily
and consciously his point of view. He can at one time disregard the
most salient features, and immediately afterwards take into account
the smallest trifles; now regard a current of electricity as fixed,
without consideration of its contents, and now determine the width of
a Frauenhofer line in the solar spectrum; he can rise, at will, to the
most general abstractions, or bury himself in the minutest particulars.
The animal possesses this capacity in a much less degree. It does not
assume a point of view, but usually is brought to it by impressions.
The baby that does not recognise its father with his hat on, the dog
that is perplexed at the new coat of its master, have succumbed in the
conflict of points of view. Who has not been thus worsted in similar
cases? Even the man of philosophy at times succumbs, as the fantastic
problem above referred to, shows.
Indeed, do not certain circumstances actually appear to furnish a
justification of that problem? Colors, sounds, the odors of bodies
are evanescent. But the tangible part, as a sort of constant, durable
nucleus, not easily liable to annihilation, remains behind; appearing
as the vehicle of the more fugitive properties annexed to it. Habit
firmly affixes our thought to this central nucleus, even where the
knowledge has found its way, that seeing, hearing, smelling, and
_touching_ are intimately akin in character. Added to this, also, comes
the fact, that in consequence of the singularly extensive development
of mechanical physics a kind of _higher reality_ is ascribed to Space
and Time than to colors, sounds, and odors. Agreeably to which, the
junction in space and time of colors, sounds, and odors appears _more
real_ than colors, sounds, and odors themselves. The physiology of the
senses, however, demonstrates, that spaces and times can with as much
justice be termed sensations, as colors and sounds.
V.
Also the ego, as well as the relation of bodies to the ego, occasions
the rise of analogous seeming-problems, the character of which may be
briefly presented in the following manner.
The complexes of colors, sounds, and so forth, that are commonly called
bodies, we shall designate for the sake of simplicity by _A B C_ ...;
the complex that is known as our own body, and which constitutes a
part of the former, we shall call _K L M_ ...; the complex composed
of volitions, memory-images, and the like, we shall represent by α β
γ. Usually, now, the complex α β γ ... _K L M_ ... is opposed as ego,
to the complex _A B C_ ... regarded as world of substance; sometimes,
too, α β γ ... is comprehended as ego, and _K L M_ ... _A B C_ ...
comprehended as world of substance. Now _A B C_ ... first appears as
independent of the ego. But this independence is only relative, and
gives way before closer inspection. Much, it is true, may change in
the complex α β γ ... without much becoming noticeable in _A B C_ ...;
and so _vice versa_. But many changes in α β γ ... pass, by way of
changes in _K L M_ ..., over to _A B C_ ...; and _vice versa_. (As,
for example, when vivid ideas break forth into acts, or our environment
brings about perceptible changes in our body.) At the same time _K L M_
... appears to be more closely connected with α β γ ... and _A B C_ ...
respectively, than the latter do with one another; relations that find
their commonest expression in thought and speech.
Closely examined, however, it appears that _A B C_ ... is _always_
determined with and by _K L M_. A die, when seen close at hand,
looks large; when seen at a distance, small; it looks different with
the right eye from what it does with the left; sometimes it appears
double; with closed eyes it is invisible. The properties of the same
body, therefore, appear as modified by our own body; they appear
as conditioned by it. But where, pray, is this _same_ body that
phenomenally appears so _different_? All that can be said is, that
different _A B C_ ... are annexed to different _K L M_.[18]
[18] I expressed this thought many years ago (in the
_Vierteljahrsschrift für Psychiatrie_, Leipsic and Neuwied,
1868: _Ueber die Abhängigkeit der Netzhautstellen von
einander_) as follows: The expressions "sense-deception"
and "illusion of the senses" prove, that we are not yet
fully conscious, or at least that we have not yet found it
necessary to incorporate this consciousness into our ordinary
terminology, _that the senses represent things neither
wrongly nor correctly_. All that can be truly said of the
sensory organs is, that, _under different circumstances they
produce different sensations and perceptions_. Since these
"circumstances" are of so extremely manifold a character,
being partly external (inherent in the objects), partly
internal (inherent in the sensory organs), and partly interior
(having the seat of their activity in the central organs), it
would naturally seem, especially when attention is paid only
to external circumstances, that an organ acts differently
under like conditions. And it is customary to call the unusual
effects, deceptions or illusions.
We see an object with a point _S_. If we touch _S_, that is bring
it into relation with our body, we receive a prick. We can see _S_,
without feeling the prick. But as soon as we feel the prick we find
_S_. The visible point therefore is a _permanent fact_ or _nucleus_, to
which the prick is annexed, according to circumstances, as something
accidental. From the frequency of occurrences analogous to this we
ultimately accustom ourselves to regard _all_ properties of bodies as
"effects" proceeding from permanent persistent nuclei and conveyed
to the ego through the mediation of the body; which effects we call
_sensations_. By this very operation, however, these imagined nuclei
lose their entire sensory content, and become mere mental symbols.
The assertion is correct then that the world consists only of our
sensations. In which case we have knowledge _only_ of sensations, and
the assumption of the nuclei mentioned, as well as of a reciprocal
action between the same, from which sensations might be supposed
originally to proceed, turns out to be wholly idle and superfluous.
Such a view can only suit a halting realism or a half-matured
philosophic criticism.
VI.
Ordinarily the complex α β γ ... _K L M_ ... is opposed as ego to the
complex _A B C_. Those elements only of _A B C_ ... that more actively
alter α β γ ..., as a prick, a pain, are we accustomed to comprehend in
the ego. Afterwards, however, through observations of the kind above
mentioned, it appears that the right to annex _A B C_ ... to the ego at
no point ceases. In conformity to which the ego can be so extended as
ultimately to comprehend the entire world.
* * * * *
When I say that the table, the tree, and so forth, are sensations of
mine, there is contained in this, as contrasted with the method of
representation of the ordinary man, an actual extension of my ego. And
so, too, upon the emotional side, such extensions actually occur; as
for the virtuoso, who possesses as perfect a mastery of his instrument
as he does of his own body; for the skilful orator in whom the eyes of
an audience converge, and who controls the thoughts of his hearers; for
the energetic politician who directs with ease his party; and so on.
In conditions of depression, on the other hand, such as nervous people
often have to endure, the ego contracts and shrinks. A wall seems to
separate it from the world.
* * * * *
The ego is not sharply defined, its limits are very indefinite, and
arbitrarily displaceable. Only by mistaking this, and by unconsciously
narrowing these limits, as well also as by enlarging them, do
metaphysical difficulties, in the conflict of points of view, arise.
As soon as we have recognised that the supposed unities "body" and
"ego" are only make-shifts for a _provisional_ survey and for certain
practical ends (that we may apprehend bodies, protect _ourselves_ from
pain, and so forth), we are obliged, in many thorough-going scientific
investigations, to abandon them as insufficient and inappropriate. The
opposition between ego and world, sensation (or phenomenon) and thing,
then vanishes, and we are brought to deal simply with the _connection
and relation of the elements_ α β γ ... _A B C_ ... _K L M_ ..., for
which indeed this very opposition was only a partially appropriate,
imperfect expression. This connection is nothing more than the
combination of those elements with other homologous elements (time and
space). This connection science has simply to _accept_, and set itself
aright with regard to it, without attempting to explain its existence.
Upon superficial examination the complex α β γ ... appears to consist
of much more _evanescent_ elements than _A B C_ ... and _K L M_ ..., in
which two last the elements appear to be joined with _more stability_
and _in a more permanent manner_ (being joined to solid nuclei as it
were). Although upon closer inspection the elements of all complexes
appear as _homologous_, yet even in spite of the recognition of
this fact, the ancient notion of an opposition of body and spirit
easily creeps in. The spiritualist feels, at times, the difficulty of
imparting the necessary solidity to his world of substance created
by mind: the materialist is at a loss what to do when called upon to
animate and endow with sensation the world of matter. The _monistic_
point of view that reflection and reason have evolved, is easily
overcast by the older and more powerful instinctive notions.
VII.
The difficulty described is especially felt in the following
considerations. In the complex _A B C_ ... which we have designated
as the material world, we find as part, not only our own body _K L M_
..., but also the bodies of other persons (or animals) _K' L' M'_ ...,
_K" L" M"_ ..., annexed to which, after the analogy of the complex α
β γ ..., we conceive similar α' β' γ' ..., α" β" γ". As long as we
deal with _K' L' M'_ ..., we find ourselves in a thoroughly familiar
province, at every point sensorially accessible to us. But when we
inquire after the sensations or feelings that belong to the body _K'
L' M'_ ..., we no longer find in the province of sense the elements we
seek: but we add them in thought. Not only is the domain into which we
now enter much less familiar to us, but also the transition to it is
relatively unsafe. We are possessed of a feeling as if we were about to
plunge into an abyss. They that always pursue this direction of thought
and this direction _only_, will never get completely rid of the feeling
of insecurity that is very productive as a source of apparent problems.
But we are not limited to this way of reasoning. Let us consider first
the reciprocal relation of the elements of the complex _A B C_ ...,
without regarding _K L M_ ... (our body). Every physical investigation
is of this kind. A white bullet falls upon a bell; a sound is heard.
The bullet turns yellow before a sodium lamp, red before a lithium
lamp. Here the elements (_A B C_ ...) appear to be connected only
_among each other_ and to be independent of our body (_K L M_ ...).
But if we take santonine the bullet turns yellow again. If we turn one
eye sidewise we see two bullets. If we close our eyes entirely we see
no bullet at all. If we sever our auditory nerve no sound is heard.
The elements _A B C_ ..., therefore, are not only connected among
each other, but also with _K L M_. To this extent and to this extent
_only_ do we call _A B C_ ... _sensations_, and regard _A B C_ ... as
belonging to the ego. In this way, accordingly, we do not meet with
the gap between bodies and sensations before described, between that
which is without and that which is within, between the material and the
spiritual world.[19] All elements _A B C_ ... _K L M_ ... constitute
but _one single_ coherent mass, which when any one element in it is
disturbed _all_ is put in motion; except that a disturbance has a more
extensive and profound action in _K L M_ ..., than in _A B C_. A magnet
in our neighborhood disturbs the particles of iron near it; a falling
boulder shakes the earth; but the severing of a nerve sets in motion
the _entire_ system of elements. Quite involuntarily does this relation
of things suggest the picture of a viscous mass, at certain places (as
in the ego) more firmly coherent than at others.
[19] Compare my _Grundlinien der Lehre von den
Bewegungsempfindungen_. Leipsic, Engelmann, 1875, p. 54.
* * * * *
When I first came to Vienna from the country, as a boy four or five
years of age, and was taken by my father upon the walls of the city's
fortifications, I was very much surprised to see people below in the
moat and could not understand how, regarded from my point of view, they
could have gotten down there; for the thought of another possible way
never occurred to me. I remarked the same amazement, once afterwards
in life, in the case of a three-year old boy of mine, while taking a
walk with him upon the walls about Prague. I recall this feeling to
mind every time I engage myself with the reflection above referred to,
and I frankly confess that this accidental experience of mine greatly
helped to strengthen the opinion upon this point that I adopted a long
time ago. The habit of pursuing the same ways in material and psychical
things operates to confuse greatly our field of survey. A child forcing
its way through a wall in a house in which it has long dwelt, can
experience an actual enlargement of its view of the world, and a slight
scientific hint can bring much enlightenment.
VIII.
Accordingly, the great chasm between physical and psychological
research exists only for the common stereotyped method of observation.
A color is a physical object when, for example, we regard its
dependence upon its luminous source (upon other colors, upon heat,
upon space, and so forth). Regarding however its dependence upon
the retina (the elements _K L M_ ...), it becomes a psychological
object, a sensation. Not the subject-matter, but the direction of our
investigation is different in the two domains.
When, from the observation of the bodies of other men or animals,
we infer their sensations, as well also as when we investigate the
influence of our own body upon our own sensations, we are forced to
complete observed facts by analogy. This work of completion by analogy
is done with much more accuracy and facility, when it relates, let
us say, to nervous processes, which cannot be fully observed in our
own bodies—that is when it occurs in the more familiar physical
domain—than when the completion relates to psychical processes.
Otherwise there is no material difference.
IX.
The thoughts presented gain greatly in fixity and vividness if in
addition to simply expressing them in abstract form we bring ourselves
face to face with the facts from which they arise. For example, I lie
upon my sofa. If I close my right eye the picture represented in the
accompanying cut is presented to my left eye. In a frame formed by the
ridge of my eyebrow, by my nose, and by my moustache, appears a part
of my body, so far as it is visible, and also the things and space
about it. _My_ body differs from other human bodies—leaving out of
account the fact that every vivid motory idea immediately passes into
movement and that contact with it determines more perceptible changes
than contact with other bodies—by the circumstance, that it is only
partly seen, and, especially, is seen without a head. If I observe an
element _A_ within my field of vision, and investigate its connection
with another element _B_ within the same field, I go out of the domain
of physics into that of physiology or psychology, if _B_, to use the
apposite expression that a friend[20] of mine employed upon seeing this
drawing, passes through my skin. Reflections like that for the field
of vision may be made with regard to the province of touch and the
perceptual domains of the other senses.
[20] J. Popper of Vienna.
[Illustration]
X.
Reference has already been made to the different character of the
groups of elements that we have designated by _A B C_ ... and α β
γ. As a matter of reality, when we _see_ a green tree before us, or
_remember_ a green tree, that is _conceive_ a green tree to ourselves,
we know right well how to distinguish these two cases. The imaged tree
has a much less determinate, a much more changeable form; its green
is much paler and more evanescent; and, what is of especial note,
it distinctly appears in a _different_ sphere. A movement that we
_propose_ to execute is always only a _conceived_ movement, and appears
in a different field or sphere from that of the executed movement,
which moreover always takes place where the image becomes vivid enough.
The statement that the elements _A_ or α appear in a different sphere,
means, if we go to the bottom of it, nothing more than that they are
united with divers other elements. To this extent, accordingly, the
_basal component parts_ in _A B C_ ..., α β γ ... would be _the same_
(colors, sounds, spaces, times, motory sensations, innervations ...),
and only the character of their union different.
Pain and pleasure are ordinarily regarded as different from sensory
sensations. Yet not only tactile sensations, but also all other kinds
of sensations, can gradually pass into pleasure and pain. Pleasure and
pain can also justly be called sensations. Only they are not so well
analysed and so familiar as sensory sensations. Sensations of pleasure
and pain, however faint the mode of their appearance, make up indeed
the real content of all so-called feelings. Thus perceptions, as well
as ideas, volition, and feelings, in short the entire inner and outer
world, are composed of a small number of homologous elements united in
relations now more evanescent and now more lasting. These elements are
commonly called sensations. But since vestiges of a one-sided theory
now inhere in this term, we prefer to speak simply of _elements_, as we
have already done. All research aims at the resolution of the union of
these elements.[21]
[21] Compare the remarks appended to my treatise: _Die
Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes der Erhaltung der
Arbeit_. Prague. Calve. 1872.
XI.
That out of this complex of elements which at bottom is simply _one_,
the limits of bodies and the ego do not admit of being fixed in a
manner certain and sufficient for all cases, has already been said.
The composition of the elements, intimately connected with pleasure
and pain, into an ideal mental-economical unity, the ego, is a work of
the highest significance for the intellectual functions that act in
the service of the pain-avoiding, pleasure-seeking will. The formation
of the ego by this process of circumscription and delimitation is
therefore instinctively effected, it grows familiar and natural, and
fixes itself perhaps through heredity. By their high _practical_
value, not only for the individual, but also for the entire race, the
composites "ego" and "body" instinctively assert their existence,
and operate with the power of original elements. In _special_
circumstances, however, in which practical ends are not concerned, but
knowledge becomes an object in itself, this delimitation often turns
out to be insufficient, obstructive, and untenable.
Professional _esprit de corps_, and even professional bias, the
sentiment of nationality, the most narrow-minded local patriotism may
also have a high value, for certain _purposes_. But such conceptions
will not characterise the far-sighted investigator, at least not in the
moment of research. All these egoistic conceptions are adequate for
practical purposes only. Of course, even the investigator can succumb
to custom. Trifling scholastic fiddle-faddle, the cunning appropriation
of others' labor and perfidious silence with regard to it, the
numerous objections and complaints when unavoidably compelled to give
recognition, and the scanty illumination of others' performances on
such occasions, abundantly show that the scientist and scholar have
also to fight the battle of existence, that the ways of science yet
lead to the mouth, and that the _pure_ quest of knowledge amid our
present social relations is still an ideal.
* * * * *
The primary fact is not the _I_, the ego, but the elements
(sensations). The elements _constitute_ the _I_. _I_ perceive the
sensation green, means, that the element green occurs in a given
complex of other elements (sensations, memories). When _I_ cease to
perceive the sensation green, when _I_ die, then the elements no longer
occur in their customary, common way of association. That is all. Only
an ideal mental-economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased to exist.
* * * * *
The ego is not an unchangeable, definite, sharply-defined unity.
The important factor is not _unchangeability_, not determinate
_distinguishability_ from other things, and not accurate _limitation_,
for all these factors even vary within the sphere of individual life
itself, and their alteration is even _sought_ by the individual.
_Continuity_ alone is important. This view admirably accords with
that to which Weismann recently attained by biological investigations
("Regarding the Immortality of Unicellular Beings," _Biolog.
Centralbl._, Vol. IV, Nos. 21, 22; compare especially pp. 654 and
655, where the division of the individual into two _equal_ halves is
spoken of). But this continuity is only a _means_ to dispose and to
assure the content of the ego. This _content_ and not the _ego_ is the
principal thing. But this content is not confined to the individual.
With the exception of insignificant, valueless, personal memories or
reminiscences, it remains preserved in _others_ even after the death of
the individual. The _ego_ is unsavable. It is partly the discernment
of this fact, partly the fear of the same, that leads to the most
extravagant pessimistic and optimistic, religious and philosophical
absurdities. We shall not be able in the long run to close our eyes
to this simple truth, the immediate result of psychological analysis.
We shall then no longer place so high a value upon the ego which even
during individual life greatly changes, and which, indeed, in sleep
or during absorption in some conception or in some thought, just in
our happiest moments, may be partially or wholly absent. We shall then
gladly renounce individual immortality, and shall not place more value
upon the accessory elements than upon the principal. We shall in this
way arrive at a freer and a _more enlightened_ conception of life,
which will exclude the neglect of other egos and the over-estimation of
our own.
* * * * *
If, now, the knowledge of the connection of the elements (sensations)
does not suffice us, and we must ask _Who_, _What_, possesses this
connection of sensations, _Who_, _What_, perceives sensations? we have
succumbed, we may be sure, to our old habit of arranging every element
(every sensation) within some _unanalysed_ complex, and we are falling
back imperceptibly to an older, lower, and more limited point of view.
* * * * *
The habit of treating the unanalysed ego-complex as an indivisible
unity is often scientifically presented in peculiar ways. First, the
nervous system is separated from the body as the seat of sensations.
In the nervous system again the brain is selected as fitted for the
performance of this function, and finally, to save the pretended
psychical _unity_, a further _point_ is sought in the brain as the
seat of the soul. But rough conceptions like these are hardly adapted
to trace out even in the crudest lines the ways that future research
will follow in investigating the connection of the physical and
the psychical. The fact that the different organs of sensation and
memory are physically _connected_ with one another, and can be easily
_excited_ by one another is probably the foundation of the "psychical
unity."
I once heard the question seriously discussed of "How the percept
of a very large tree found room in the little head of a man?" Now
though this "problem" does not exist, yet we perceive by the question
the absurdity that is so easily committed in conceiving sensations
to exist spacially in the brain. When I speak of the sensations of
_another_ person, these sensations of course present no activity in my
optical space or my physical space generally; they are mentally added,
and I conceive them to be _causally_ annexed, not spacially, to the
brain observed or represented. When I speak of _my_ sensations, these
sensations do not exist spacially in my head, but rather my "head"
_shares_ with them the same spacial field, as was explained above
(compare what was said regarding the cut).
* * * * *
Let there be no mention of the so-called unity of consciousness. Since
the apparent opposition of the _real_ and the _perceived_ world exists
only in the mode according to which it is viewed, and no real chasm
exists, a multiplex interconnected content of consciousness is in no
respect more difficult to understand than the multiplex interconnection
of the world.
If we are determined to regard the ego as an actual unity, we cannot
extricate ourselves from the following dilemma: either to set over
against it—viz., the ego—the world of incognisable substances (which
would be wholly idle and purposeless), or to regard the whole world,
the egos of other people included, as only contained in our own ego (to
which, seriously, we could hardly make up our minds).
But if we take the ego merely as a _practical_ unity, composed for
purposes of provisional survey; in fact, take it as a more strongly
coherent group of elements, which is less strongly connected with other
groups of this kind; questions like these will not arise and research
will have a free outlook.
In his philosophical notes Lichtenberg says: "We become conscious of
certain ideas that are not dependent upon us; and there are other
ideas that, at least as we think, are dependent upon us. Where
is the border-line? We know only the existence of our sensations,
percepts, and thoughts. We should say, _It thinks_, just as we say,
_It lightens_. It is going too far to say _cogito_, when we translate
it by _I think_. Assuming the _I_, postulating it, is merely practical
necessity." Though the method by which Lichtenberg arrives at this
result is somewhat different from our own, we must nevertheless give
our assent to the conclusion itself.
XII.
Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of sensations
(complexes of elements) form bodies. If bodies appear to the physicist
as that which is permanent, that which is real, and sensations as
their evanescent transitory semblance, the physicist forgets that all
bodies are but thought-symbols for complexes of sensation (complexes
of elements). The _elements_ designated also form here the real,
immediate, and ultimate foundation which physiological research has now
further to investigate. Through the discernment of this, many things in
psychology and physics assume more distinct and economical forms, and
many imagined problems are disposed of.
The world therefore does not consist for us of mysterious substances,
which through their interaction with another equally mysterious
substance, the ego, produce sensations as solely accessible. Colors,
sounds, spaces, times, ... are for us the ultimate elements, whose
given connection it is our task to investigate. In this investigation
we dare not allow ourselves to be hindered by the composites and
circumscriptions (body, ego, matter, mind ...) that have been formed
for especial, practical, provisional, and limited purposes. On the
contrary, the appropriate and best adapted forms of thought must arise
within research itself, as happens in every special science. In the
place of the traditional instinctive conception must come a freer,
fresher view, conforming with developed experience.
* * * * *
I have always felt it as a special good fortune, that early in my
life, at about the age of 15, I came across in the library of my
father Kant's "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic." The book made at
that time a powerful, ineffaceable impression upon me, that I never
afterwards experienced to the same degree in any of my philosophical
reading. Some two or three years later I suddenly discovered the
superfluous rôle that "the thing in itself" plays. On a bright summer
day under the open heavens the world together with my ego all at once
appeared to me as _one_ coherent mass of sensations, but in the ego
more strongly coherent. Although the actual working out of this thought
did not occur until a later time, yet this moment became decisive for
my whole view.
Moreover I had still to struggle long and hard before I was able to
retain, in my own special department, the conception I had acquired.
With what is valuable in physical doctrines we necessarily absorb
a good dose of false metaphysics, which it is very difficult to
separate from that which must be preserved, especially where these
doctrines have become current and familiar. So, too, the traditional,
instinctive conceptions often arose with great power and placed
impediments in my way. Only by alternate studies in physics and the
physiology of the senses and by historico-physical investigations,
since about 1863, after having endeavored in vain to settle the
conflict by a physico-psychological monadology, did I acquire in my
views any considerable firmness. I make no pretensions to the title
of philosopher. I only wish to adopt in physics a point of view that
need not be instantly changed the moment our glance is carried into
the domain of another science; since indeed, ultimately, all must form
one whole. The molecular physics of to-day does certainly _not_ meet
this demand. What I say I have probably not been the _first_ to say.
I also do not wish to hold forth this exposition of mine as a special
performance. It is rather my belief that every one will collaterally
adopt the same view, who in a reflective manner holds survey in any
province of science that is not too limited.[22]
[22] I have recently (1886) propounded these views in a
pamphlet _Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen_. Avenarius,
with whom I recently became acquainted, approaches my point of
view (_Philosophie als Denken der Welt nach dem Princip des
kleinsten Kraftmasses_, 1876). Hering, too, in his treatise
upon Memory (_Almanach der Wiener Akademie_, 1870, p. 258;
also published in Nos. 6 and 7 of _The Open Court_), and J.
Popper in his beautiful book, "The Right to Live and the
Duty to Die" (Leipsic 1878, p. 62), have advanced similar
thoughts. Compare also my paper _Ueber die ökonomische Natur
der physikalischen Forschung_ (_Almanach der Wiener Akademie_,
1882, p. 179, note). Finally let me also refer here to the
introduction to W. Preyer's _Reine Empfindungslehre_, and to
Riehl's _Freiburger Antrittsrede_, p. 14. I should probably
have to cite much additional matter that is in some way
related to my line of thought if I possessed a more extensive
bibliographical knowledge.
XIII.
Science always arises through a process of adaptation of thoughts to
a certain department of experience. The results of this process are
thought-elements, which represent the entire department. The result,
of course, is different according to the character and extent of
the province surveyed. If the province of experience in question is
extended, or if several provinces hitherto separated become united,
the traditional, familiar thought-elements no longer suffice for the
province thus extended. In the struggle of acquired habit with the
effort after adaptation, _problems_ arise, which disappear when the
adaptation is completed, to give way to others that have sprung up in
the mean time.
To the physicist, pure and simple, the idea of a body facilitates
the acquisition of a comprehensive survey in his department, and
does not operate as a disturbance. So, also, the person that pursues
purely practical ends, is materially assisted by the concept of the
_I_ or Ego. For, unquestionably, every form of thought that has
been voluntarily or involuntarily constructed for some especial
purpose, possesses for that particular purpose a _permanent_ value.
As soon, however, as physics and physiology touch, the ideas held
in the one domain are discovered to be untenable in the other. From
the striving after an adaptation of the one to the other arise the
various atomic and monad theories—which are unsuccessful, however, in
the attainment of their object. If we regard _sensations_, taken in
the sense above defined, as _world-elements_ or elements of the All,
the problems referred to are practically removed, and the _first_
and most important adaptation therefore effected. This basal notion
(without any pretension to being a philosophy for all eternity) can at
present be adhered to with respect to all provinces of experience;
it is consequently the one that accommodates itself with the least
expenditure, that is, more economically than any other, to the present
_temporary state of collective science_. Moreover, in the consciousness
of its purely economical office, this basal notion acts with most
perfect tolerance. It does not obtrude itself into provinces in which
the current conceptions are still adequate. It will ever be ready, upon
subsequent extensions of the domain of experience, to give way to a
better one.
The philosophical point of view of the average man—if that term may
be applied to the naïve realism of the ordinary individual—has a
claim to the highest consideration. It has arisen in the progress of
immeasurable time without the purposed assistance of man. It is a
product of nature, and is preserved and sustained by nature. Everything
that philosophy has accomplished—the _biological_ title of every
advance, nay of every error, admitted—is, compared with _it_, but an
insignificant and ephemeral product of art. And in reality, we see
every thinker, every philosopher, the moment he is forced away from
his one-sided intellectual occupation by some practical necessity,
immediately fall back upon the universal point of view that all men
hold in common.
We seek by no means to discredit this point of view. The task that
we have set ourselves is simply to show _why_ and to what _purpose_
for the greatest part of our life we occupy this point of view, and
_why_ and for what _purpose_ we are provisorily obliged to abandon it.
No point of view has an absolute _permanent_ validity. Each has an
importance but for some one given end.
ERNST MACH.
THE ORIGIN OF MIND.
#Given facts and deduced facts.#
We must distinguish between two kinds of facts; viz., given facts or
data, and deduced facts or inferences. With regard to the facts of
soul-life we recognise that the former class, that of given facts,
necessarily consists of states of consciousness only; they are feelings
of any description, varying greatly in their nature. They are different
in the rhythmical forms of their vibrations, in their intensity, and in
their distinctness. The latter class, that of inferences, is deduced
from the former, and serves no other purpose than that of explanation.
This class is mostly representative of external facts, and knowledge of
external facts exists only in so far as external facts are represented
in deduced facts. What a thinking being would call external facts is
nothing but the contents of certain deduced facts.
Deduced facts, and among them the conception of external facts
(wherever they exist), have been produced by the effort of accounting
for given facts—viz., the elementary data of consciousness and their
relations. Deduced facts are the interpretation of given facts. They
are, so to say, conjectures concerning their causes as well as their
interconnections.
#Definition of mind.#
The organised totality of deduced facts, as it is developed in feeling
substance, is called mind. Feelings are the condition of mind. From
feelings alone mind can grow. But there is a difference between
feelings and mind. Feelings develop into mind, they grow to be mind by
being interpreted, by becoming representative. Representative feelings
are mind. Accordingly, we characterise mind as the representativeness
of feelings.
#The growth of mind.#
Although deduced facts are an interpretation of given facts, this
"interpretation" is not expressly designed. These inferences from
given facts are not invented with a premeditated purpose; they are
not constructed with foresight or intention. Deduced facts grow
naturally and spontaneously from given facts, which are the elements of
sense-activity. There is not an agent that oversees their fabrication;
there is not a devising "subject" that surmises the existence of
external facts and thus matures their conception into deduced facts.
Deduced facts are rather the natural product of a certain group of
given facts. Deduced facts issue from a co-operation of a number of
feelings. They are the result of an organisation of certain repeated
sense-impressions which produce a disposition not only to receive
sense-impressions of the same kind, but also to react upon them in a
certain way. Mind is not the factor that organised the given facts of
mere sense-impressions so that they became representations. There was
no mind as long as feelings remained unorganised. Feelings acquire
meaning; and as soon as they have acquired meaning they are what we
call "deduced facts," representations—especially representations of
external facts. Deduced facts are the elements of mind; and mind is not
their root, but their fruit.
#Subjective and objective existence.#
The whole domain of mind-activity (i. e., of the representativeness of
feelings) is called subjective; while the totality of all facts that
are represented in the mind is called objective. Subjective existence
consists of feelings and of states of consciousness; objective
existence is represented as things that are in motion. Motion and
feeling are quite different things, yet in spite of their radical
difference experience teaches us that both spheres are intimately
interwoven. Subjective existence constantly draws upon objective
existence. Not only do states of consciousness exist as they are by
virtue merely of the objects represented, but also that group of facts
called our body, the action of which appears in a constant connection
with and as a condition of our consciousness, is kept in running order
only through a constant renewal of its waste products out of the
resources of objective existence.
We distinguish between our body and external facts; but the boundary
between both provinces is not distinct. There is constantly an exchange
of substance taking place, proving that our body is in kind not
different from the substance of which external facts consist. It must
be regarded as a group of the same kind as external facts, existing
in a constant interaction with and among the external facts. In other
words, the body of the thinking subject is an object in the objective
world.
#The origin of feeling from the elements of subjective existence.#
Concerning the subjective sphere of existence we recognise that
consciousness does not act uninterruptedly; there are moments when
consciousness is lost. If they are normal, we call them sleep; if
they are abnormal, swoons or trances. Former conscious states can
be revived; they form a chain of memories which is very limited in
comparison with the extension of the objective world. There is a
time in the past beyond which our memory does not reach. Moreover we
have reason to believe, that there will be a time when the chain of
conscious states will be broken forever. This consummation is called
death. In short the subjective world is transient; it grows by degrees;
its existence is very precarious; it flickers like a candle in the
wind and will disappear again. The objective world however is eternal,
it is indestructible. Experience teaches that it constantly undergoes
changes, but that in its totality it is imperishable.
#Feeling with the help of memory acquires meaning.#
The objective world is in a certain sense a part of the subject. In
another sense, we must say that the subject is a part of the objective
world. Indeed these two sentences represent the same truth, only viewed
from two standpoints. The subjective world being transient and the
objective world being eternal, the question presents itself, "How does
the subject originate in or among the objects of the objective world?"
The problem is complicated and we must approach it step by step.
First, we are inevitably driven to the conclusion, that the subjective
world of feelings forms an inseparable whole together with a special
combination of certain facts of the objective world, namely our body.
It originates with this combination, and disappears as soon as that
combination breaks to pieces. And, secondly, we must assume that the
conditions for building up such material dispositions as have the
power of developing the subjectivity of consciousness are an intrinsic
quality of the objective world. Subjectivity cannot originate out of
nothing; it must be conceived as the product of a co-operation of
certain elements which are present in the objective world. In other
words, the elements of the subjective world are features that we must
suppose to be inseparably united with the elements of the objective
world, which are represented in our mind as motions. This leads to
the conclusion that feeling has to be considered not as a simple but
as a complex phenomenon. Feelings originate through a combination of
elements of feeling; and the presence of the elements of feeling must
be supposed to be an intrinsic property of the objective world.[23]
The objective elements, the action of which is accompanied with
the elements of feeling, arrange themselves, we suppose, into such
combinations as display actual feelings, in exact agreement with the
laws of molar and molecular mechanics. This, we must assume, takes
place with the same spontaneity as, for instance, an acid and a base
combine into a salt. To use another example, it takes place with the
same necessity as, under special conditions, a certain amount of molar
motion is transformed into the molecular motion of ether-waves, called
electricity. Motions are not transformed into feelings, but certain
motions (all being separately accompanied with elements of feeling),
when co-operating in a special form, are accompanied in that form with
actual feelings.
[23] For further details see the author's article _Feeling and
Motion_; published first in _The Open Court_, Nos. 153 and 154.
#Neither feeling nor mind can be considered as incidental phenomena.#
There is a certain class of philosophers who look upon feeling as an
incidental effect, as a fortuitous by-play of the interacting elements
of matter. This conception has little if anything in its favor. On
the contrary, if the elements of feeling are throughout inseparably
connected with the elements of objective existence, it must appear
natural that wherever the conditions fitted for organised life appear,
irritable substance will originate. We may fairly assume that feeling
will arise on the cooled surface of a planet with the same necessity
as, for instance, a collision between non-luminous celestial bodies
will cause them to blaze forth in the brilliant light of a nebula
containing all the elements for the production in the course of ages of
a planetary system.
Wherever a combination of substances originates that displays the
quality of feeling, it will form a basis for given facts of soul-life.
Feeling substance having been exposed to a special stimulus, or having
performed a certain function, has thereby undergone a rearrangement
in its molecular parts. The structure has suffered a change in its
configuration, the form of which is preserved in the general flux
of matter, and there is thus produced in the feeling substance a
disposition to respond more quickly to impressions of the same kind.
The feeling accompanying a subsequent impression of the same nature is
coincidently felt to be a revival of a former feeling, similar or the
same in kind. In other words, feeling substance, preserving the forms
of its functions, is possessed with memory.[24] The preservation of
form in a function which is accompanied with feeling makes it possible
that the feeling accompanying a special form of function will become
a mark of signification. By being felt to be the same in kind as a
former feeling it will come to denote a certain condition of feeling
tissues. A feeling that is felt to be the same as or similar in kind
to a former feeling, the revival or memory of which it causes, is in
this way endowed with meaning; by which we understand the awareness of
the congruence or similarity of two or several feelings. Thus in the
lapse of time, by constantly renewed experience, one special feeling,
whenever repeated, will naturally become the indicator showing the
presence of certain external facts that cause it. An isolated feeling
is naturally meaningless; yet through a preservation of form, viz.,
through memory, it is by repetition necessarily changed into a symbol
of representative value.
[24] Memory is no mysterious power; it is the preservation
of form in feeling organisms. See Ewald Hering's treatise
on Memory, English translation in Nos. 6 and 7 of _The Open
Court_. Compare also the author's article _Soul-life and the
Preservation of Form_, in No. 143 of _The Open Court_.
Feelings, accordingly, in the course of time, necessarily acquire
meaning; they naturally and spontaneously develop mind. They can as
little avoid co-ordinating into a mental organism, as water at a low
temperature can escape congealing into ice; or as a seed can keep
from sprouting when it is exposed, with sufficient moisture, to the
light. Mind, accordingly, is the necessary outcome of a combination
of feelings. It is as necessary an effect of special causes, as, for
example, a triangle is the product of a combination of three lines.
The first step in the organisation of feeling, which will throughout
remain the determining feature of its development, is the fact that
with the help of memory the different sets of feeling acquire meaning,
and in this way the mere feelings are transformed from given facts into
deduced facts.
* * * * *
#Subjectivity and objectivity.#
The nature of given facts is subjectivity, while the character of
inferred facts is objectivity. The latter having grown out of the
former will nevertheless, so far as they are states of consciousness,
always remain subjective; yet they contain representations of that
which is delineated by certain given facts. Thus they contain an
element which stamps upon them the nature of objectivity. They
represent objects, the existence of which the feeling subject cannot
help assuming, because this is the simplest way of indicating certain
changes that are not caused within the realm of its own subjectivity.
Objectivity, accordingly, does not mean absolute objectivity.
Objectivity means subjective states, i. e., given facts or feelings
representative of outside facts, i. e., of facts that are not
subjective, but objective.
#The projection of objective facts.#
The sense-impression of a white rectangle covered with little black
characters is a given fact; yet the aspect of a sheet of paper is an
inferred fact. The former is a subjective state within; the latter
is the representation of an objective thing without. The process of
representing is a function of the subject, but the fact represented
is projected as it were into the objective world, where experience
has taught us to expect it. And the practice of projection grows so
naturally by inherited adaptation and repeated experience that the
thing represented appears to us to be external. We no longer feel a
sensation as a state of consciousness but conceive it as an independent
reality.
#Projection, an economy of labor.#
The practice of projecting subjective sensations into the outside world
is not an act of careless inference, but the inevitable result of a
natural law. This natural law is that of the "economy of labor." When
a blind man has undergone a successful operation, he will first have
the consciousness of vague color-sensations taking place in his eye.
Experience will teach him the meaning of these color-sensations and his
motions will inform him where to find the corresponding outside facts.
His consciousness will more and more be concentrated upon the meaning
of the sensations. The less difficulty he has in arriving at their
proper interpretation, the more unconscious his sense-activity will
become and at length consciousness will be habitually attached to the
result of the sensation alone, i. e., to its interpretation.
In the same way, every one who learns to play an instrument will first
feel that part only which his hand touches. By and by, however, he
will acquire a consciousness of the effects produced by the slightest
touch. Constant practice forms in the brain of an expert certain living
structures which are correspondent to the action of the instrument
and represent it with great accuracy. Whenever these structures are
stimulated, the action of the instrument is felt to take place. In
this way consciousness is projected into the work performed by the
instrument. The touch of the hand has become purely automatic, and
the operator now feels the full effects of his manipulation although
he is not in direct contact with all the parts of his instrument.
The instrument becomes as if alive under his treatment, he feels it
as a part of himself; for its action stands _en rapport_ with his
brain-activity.
* * * * *
#The subject-superstition and agnosticism.#
States of consciousness, collectively considered, have been termed
"subject," and we have also employed the phrase "subjective world." But
we must not forget the fact, that the adoption of the name "subject"
is based upon a misconception. Subject means "that which underlies,"
and the subject was supposed to be that something which formed the
basis of all the states of consciousness present in any one special
case—in you or in me, or in any person like you and me. The subject
was considered as a being that was in possession of sense-impressions,
of feelings, of thoughts, of intentions, etc.; and the existence of
this subject was proved by Descartes's famous syllogism _Cogito ergo
sum_. The subject was supposed to produce the states of consciousness,
while in fact (as we have explained above) it is exactly the opposite.
Feelings change into mind, they produce the subject which thinks. The
subject is nothing underlying but rather overlying. It is the growth
out of and upon feelings. It is the sum of many feelings in a state of
organisation.
The fallacy of Descartes's dictum has been pointed out by Kant. The
existence of states of consciousness, or the fact _cogito_, does
not prove the existence of something that underlies the states of
consciousness. It simply proves the existence of feelings and thoughts.
There are certain sense-impressions, there are perceptions, there
are ideas. Ideas develop from perceptions, and perceptions develop
from sense-impressions. States of consciousness are nothing but the
awareness or the feeling that is connected with certain perceptions and
ideas.
Descartes's subjectivism is a transitory phase leading from the
authoritative objectivism of the middle ages to the critical
objectivism of modern times. The authoritative philosophy of the
Schoolmen yielded to the arbitrary philosophy of metaphysical
subjectivity, commencing as a matter of principle with doubt, instead
of commencing with positive data, and establishing anarchy through lack
of any objective method of arriving at truth. The reaction against
the arbitrary authority of scholasticism was indispensable to further
progress. But we must not rest satisfied with its negative result. We
cannot commence a business without capital and without making a start.
So we cannot begin philosophy with nothing. Knowledge is not possible
without positive facts to serve as a basis to stand upon.
The negative features of Descartes's philosophy naturally found their
ultimate completion in agnosticism. The assumption of the existence
of a subject led to the doctrine, that this subject is unknowable.
Moreover, the assumption of something that underlies the acts of
thought leads to the assumption of something that underlies objective
existence, and thus it begets the theory of things in themselves. This
theory involves us in innumerable contradictions and thus it ends
ultimately in the proposition that things in themselves are unknowable.
There are few who know the historical meaning of agnosticism; but those
who can survey philosophical thought in its evolution, its growth, and
decay, know that agnosticism means failure in philosophy. The word is a
foreign-sounding name for "knownothingism," denoting a half-concealed
confession of bankruptcy. The philosophy of the future, in order to
escape from the fatal consequences of agnosticism, has to discard the
subject-superstition inherited from Descartes. Descartes was a great
thinker, a star of first magnitude in the realm of thought, but it is
time that, without returning to the authoritative philosophy of the
Schoolmen, we should free ourselves from the errors of his one-sided
subjectivism.
Let us not forget, that all subjective states contain an objective
element. Objectivity is no chimera, and we are very well enabled to
establish the truth or untruth of objective facts. The philosophy of
the future, accordingly, will be a philosophy of facts, it will be
_positivism_; and in so far as a unitary systematisation of facts is
the aim and ideal of all science, it will be MONISM.
From the standpoint of positivism, the subject, in the old sense,
does not exist, and things in themselves do not exist either.
Their existence is an unwarranted assumption, a superstition of
philosophy, and we can retain the word subject only on the condition
of a complete change of its meaning. The word subject, accordingly,
(which has acquired a place in philosophical language and is for
several purposes quite an appropriate expression,) must be corrected
so as to mean, not an underlying substratum, nor an agent which does
the thinking, but simply a collective term designating a certain
group of sense-impressions, perceptions, ideas, and volitions. These
sense-impressions, perceptions, ideas, and volitions, which form,
simultaneously as well as successively, the elements of soul-life,
carrying consciousness upon the waves of many subconscious states, make
up the reality of the subject; they are the facts of its existence, and
it is the states of consciousness only, not an underlying something,
the existence of which is beyond all doubt. They form the basis of all
knowledge.
* * * * *
#The objective element in subjective states.#
We must bear in mind that states of feeling are not empty feelings,
but always feelings of a certain kind. There is no consciousness pure
and simple, but only consciousness of a certain state. Let us suppose,
for instance, the consciousness of a certain pressure. What is it but
a feeling of being pressed in a certain direction and with a certain
intensity? If a certain pressure is resisted, the feeling indicates a
state of active reaction against pressure, and experience teaches by
comparison with other pressures how much counterpressure is necessary
to resist or overcome it.
Among the states of consciousness there are accordingly some that
represent an awareness of _receiving_ impressions, and there are others
of _making_ impressions. There are some feelings of a passive nature,
which are felt to be produced by impacts from a something that is not
the subject, and there are other feelings of an active nature, which
are felt to produce effects on something that is not the subject. This
something that is not the subject is called "object." It is represented
as lying outside the subject, although the latter stands in a close
and inseparable relation to the object, which, so far as this relation
is considered, forms a part of the subject. A given subjective state
possesses a definite form; it exists as it is on account of the object
only; for its form has been produced by its relation to the object, and
it represents this relation. The object, therefore, is no unimportant
part of, and indeed is an essential element in, the constitution of the
subjective state.
#All data are states of subject-object-ness.#
Idealist philosophers are apt to say that the subject alone is known
to us, while the existence of the object must forever remain a vague
hypothesis. This, however, is incorrect. It involves an unjustifiable
deprecation of the objective element in the given facts of conscious
states, and is based on a misconception of the entire state of
things. The data of knowledge are not mere subjective states, they are
relations between subject and object. Neither the subject is given,
nor the object; but an interaction between subject and object. From
this interaction we derive by a very complicated process of abstraction
both concepts, the subject as well as the object. It is true that the
subjective world of feelings and of representative feeling is very
different from the objective world of things. Nevertheless they are
one. The subject together with all objects forms one inseparable whole
of subject-object-ness.
Every special object, accordingly, must be conceived as a part of
this inseparable whole—of the All; it is a certain set of facts,
represented in a certain group of experiences, and is to be described
as that something which in a special way affects the subject and can
again in a special way be reacted upon by the subject.
#Idealism and realism.#
Here we have the clue for the proper meaning of objectivity. What is a
piece of lead but something that at a definite distance from the centre
of the earth exerts a certain pressure proportionate to its mass; that
is seen to become liquid at a certain temperature; etc., etc.? If it
is treated in a particular way, it will be observed to suffer certain
changes. What lead is has been established by experience; i. e., by
systematic observation through sense-impressions.
From this standpoint the differences between the schools of idealism
and realism appear as antiquated. The questions whether matter is real,
whether objects exist, and whether there is any reality at all, have
lost their meaning. That which produces effects upon the subject and
against which the subject does or can react, is called object. The
sense-effects produced by the object upon the subject, and also the
reactions of the subject upon the object, are realities; and every name
of a special object signifies a certain group of such effects and their
respective reactions. Thus, for instance, the word lead comprises a
certain set of experiences that have always been found combined with
certain whitish objects.
#Space and Reality.#
Some philosophers have denied not only the existence of objects, but
also the reality of space. What is space but a certain group of
experiences? The conception of space originates by moving and by being
moved about. The conception of space is the consciousness that by
moving, or by being moved, a change is effected; that is, a certain
object serving as a point of reference is either approached or left
at a greater distance. The acts of approach or withdrawal are as much
realities as are any other acts of the subject. Discussions concerning
the reality of space accordingly become mere verbal quibbles as soon as
we understand by space the condition common to all motion-experiences.
* * * * *
#Perception and concepts.#
The mental state in which through contact with external facts one or
several of the senses are affected so as to produce a direct awareness
of their presence, is called perception. The effects of external facts
upon the sense of touch appear as different forms of resistance. To
the other senses they appear as odors, tastes, sounds, and images. All
these sensations are so many subjective methods of representing certain
objective processes. Perceptions represent immediate reality because
the objects perceived, i. e., the objects represented by an image in
the eye, a taste on the tongue, etc., are in an immediate contact
with our senses. The feeling subject is directly conscious of their
existence by their present effects. They are our _Anschauung_, i. e.,
the living presence of objective reality.
Besides this living presence of objective reality, of which our
immediate surroundings consist,—besides our _Anschauung_—, man is
in possession of more general representations, which comprise all the
memories of a certain class of percepts. We call them concepts. Man
alone through the mechanism of word-symbols has been able to form
concepts. Abstract reasoning as well as scientific thought will grow
with the assistance of concepts in the course of a higher development.
#Hallucinations and errors.#
The higher we rise in the evolution of representative feelings, i. e.,
in the development of mind, the more numerous are the opportunities
for going astray. A scientific hypothesis, if erroneous, is more
sweeping in its fallacies than a single hallucination, which is a
misinterpretation merely of certain feelings. The subjective part of an
hallucination, namely the feeling itself, is real; but the objective
part, the representative element of the feeling, is not real; that
which it is supposed to mean, does not exist. The interpretation of the
feeling is erroneous in a hallucination.
Hallucinations are possible, and in the more abstract domains of mental
activity errors are possible also; and will be ever more frequent.
Nevertheless the reality of outside facts in the sense stated above can
as little be doubted as the reality of immediate perception; and all
the facts established by science, if they are but true, are as much
realities as is the resistance of the table to the pressure of my hand
or the perception of the sheet of paper by my eye.
#Inferential facts, if true, are real.#
Facts established by science are those observations which are made
with all the necessary exactness as well as completeness from certain
groups of experiences, and formulated with precision. The theory of
atoms, for instance, is true in so far as all elements combine in
certain proportions, which shows that the ultimate particles of which
the elements consist are of a definite mass. Atoms, if the word is
understood in this sense, are realities. The theory of atoms, however,
is not proved in the sense that atoms are ἄτομοι; or single, isolated,
minute bodies of a peculiar individuality—separate, indivisible, and
eternal entities. Whether they are concrete things or certain forms of
motion in a continuous substance, whether they are vortices or whirls
of a certain density and velocity in an ether ocean, or whatever else
be their character, is not yet known. If we exclude from the concept
"atoms" all hypothetical views and confine their meaning strictly to
the formulation of certain experiences, we have to deal with facts that
are real. Theories are true in so far as they comprehend in a formula a
certain group of facts, and a hypothesis becomes reliable to the extent
that it agrees with facts. The slightest actual disagreement with facts
is sufficient to overthrow the most ingenious hypothesis.
* * * * *
This leads us to the question, What is meant by _true_? What is truth?
#Facts and reality. Truth and mind.#
The epitheton "true" has reference to representative states only. A
representation is true, if it conforms to, or agrees with, experience;
in other words, if it is an interpretation of given facts, is free from
contradiction, and nowhere collides with any one of the given facts
and their consistent interpretation. There is no sense in speaking of
mere feelings as being true. We can never meet, in our own experience,
with given facts that are nothing but meaningless feelings; for we
(as thinking beings) are incapable of bringing meaningless feelings
into the scope of consciousness, since in the very act of thinking we
comment upon the given facts of our feelings. But supposing there are
mere given facts, mere meaningless feelings void of any representative
element, the application of the word true to such non-representative
feelings would be improper. States of consciousness become true or
untrue only by being representative of objective conditions or things.
There is no trace of truth in mere feelings, but only in representative
feelings. Truth and error are the privilege of mind. A representation
is true, if all the various experiences concerning a certain thing or
state of things agree with the representation; it is untrue if they do
not agree.
We observe that certain classes of facts, in spite of all variety,
exhibit in one or another respect a sameness, and science attempts to
express the sameness in exact formulas. These formulas we call natural
laws. If a natural law covers all cases of a class that have come or
even that possibly can come within the range of our experience, if it
agrees with every one of them, we call it a truth.
"Truth" accordingly is not at all identical with "fact." These two
words are often used as synonyms, but properly employed they are quite
distinct. Truth is the agreement of a representation with the facts
represented. The fall of a stone is a fact; it is an inferred fact
deduced from certain sense-impressions. In so far as the inference is
made with necessity as the only proper and simplest explanation of a
certain given fact or sense-impression, it must be considered as a
fact or as real. The law of gravitation, however, is not a fact, but a
truth.
Facts are real. There is no sense in speaking of facts as being
true. Representations of facts are true or untrue. Reality is the
characteristic feature of all facts, but truth is a quality that can
reside in mind alone.
#Facts and truth.#
Facts are always single, concrete, and individual. Every fact is a
_hic_ and _nunc_. It is in a special place, and it is as it is, at a
certain time. It is definite and of a particular kind. Yet a truth,
although representing certain objects or their relations, is never
a concrete object, nor is it a _hic_ and a _nunc_. It possesses a
generality applicable to all instances wherever and whenever the
objects in their particular relation appear represented in that truth.
Truth accordingly possesses as it were an ubiquity; it is omnipresent
and eternal.
Truth in one sense is objective; it represents objects or their
relations conceived in their objectivity, in their independence of
the subject. This means that the representation of certain objective
states will under like conditions agree with the experiences of all
subjects—i. e., of all feeling beings having the same channels of
information.
Truth in another sense is subjective. Truth exists in thinking subjects
only. Truth affirms that certain subjective representations of the
objective world can be relied upon, that they are deduced from facts
and agree with facts. Based upon past experience, they can be used as
guides for future experience. If there were no subjective beings, no
feeling and comprehending minds, there would be no truth. Facts in
themselves, whether they are or are not represented in the mind of a
feeling and thinking subject, are real, yet representations alone,
supposing they agree with facts, are true.
* * * * *
#The problem of the origin of mind.#
Mind, or the representation of facts in feeling substance, is the
creation of a new and a spiritual realm above the facts of material
existence. By spiritual we understand feelings that are representative;
and we say that it is a new creation because it does not exist in the
isolated facts of the world. It is formed under special conditions.
It rises from certain combinations of facts; being built upon those
facts which produce in their co-operation the subjective state of
feeling. The activity of mind if methodically disciplined is called
science. Science attempts to make the mental representations correct:
it is the search for truth. The object of all the sciences and of
philosophy is to systematise knowledge, i. e., all the innumerable
data of experience, so that we can understand and survey the facts of
reality in their harmonious interconnection. The most important problem
of philosophy has always been the problem of the origin of mind; for we
are anxious to comprehend how it is possible that feeling can spring
up in a universe of not-feeling objects, and that thinking beings can
originate in a world of not-thinking elements.
Dualism assumes that the gulf between the two empires, the thinking and
feeling on one side and the not-thinking and not-feeling on the other
side, is insurmountable; Monism however maintains that there is no
gulf, for there is no reason for such an assumption. Both realms, the
feeling and thinking on the one hand, and the unfeeling and unthinking
on the other hand, are not at all distinct and separate provinces. The
transition from the one to the other takes place by degrees, and there
is no boundary line between them. The atoms of oxygen which we inhale
at present are not engaged in any action that is accompanied with
feeling, but some of them will be very soon active in the generation
of our best thought accompanied with most intense consciousness. After
that they are thrown aside in the organism and pass out as waste
products in the shape of carbonic acid.
#Telepathy.#
The spiritual originates from and disappears into the non-spiritual
not otherwise than light originates out of, and dissolves again into,
darkness. Light is usually considered as the emblem of mind, for
light also discloses to our eye those objects which are so far away
that we can never expect to touch them with our hands. So mind, the
representation of the objective world in feeling substance, unveils
the riddles of the universe and shows the secret connections of most
distant things and events.
Spiritualists discuss with great enthusiasm the problem of telepathy.
Telepathy means "far-feeling." Mental activity exhibits in all its
elements instances of telepathy in the literal sense of the word. We do
not feel our sense-organs; but in and through our sense-organs objects
outside of us are felt. In and through our eyes most distant stars are
seen. If telepathy has no other but its natural and proper meaning we
must confess that the whole activity of the mind rests upon telepathy.
However, we cannot recognise telepathy in the sense in which the word
is often employed by spiritualists. With many it denotes a process of
such far-feeling as is not caused in the natural way and as stands in
contradiction to the mechanical interconnection of causes and effects
in the universe. It is supposed to supersede the order of nature. We
recognise telepathy fully in the sense that feelings represent distant
events and that mind can thus penetrate into the remotest regions of
time and space, but not in any other sense that stands in contradiction
with the universal order of mechanical causation.
What is the soul but a telepathic machine! It is an organised totality
of representations in feeling substance employed for the purpose of
reacting appropriately upon the stimuli of external things. Man is a
part of the cosmos, he consists of a certain group of facts, belonging
to and being in intimate connection with the whole universe. Man's mind
is the cosmos represented in this special group of facts. A correct
representation of the cosmos includes a proper adaptation. Accordingly
the human soul is a microcosm and its function is the endeavoring to
conform to the macrocosm.
#Mind and light.#
Light is a most wonderful phenomenon; and yet we know that the
objective process taking place in luminous bodies and thence
transmitted through ether vibrations to our eye where it causes
the sensation of light, is a mode of motion that can be produced
mechanically by changing simple or mechanical motion (i. e., change
of place) through friction into molecular motion. As light originates
out of darkness, being a special mode of motion, so feeling originates
out of the not-feeling. The not-feeling accordingly contains the
conditions of feeling in a similar way as potential energy contains
the potentiality of kinetic energy, or as molar motion contains
potentially the molecular motion of heat, light, and electricity.
Mind sheds light upon the interconnection of all things and gives
meaning to the world. If the world consisted of purely objective facts
only, it would remain a meaningless play of forces. Mind and the whole
realm of spiritual existence rises from most insignificant beginnings;
yet is it so grand and divine because it represents the world in its
wonderful harmony and cosmic order.
#Continuity in the transient.#
The function of spiritual activity appears to us as transient; but
mind is not as transient as it seems. The continuous light of a
flame depends in every instance upon the conditions of the moment.
But the continuity of mind shows a preservation of mind-forms, the
corresponding spiritual activity of which is called memory. Memory or
the mind-form of former states is the most important factor in the
determination of the representative value of present states of mind.
The continuity thus effected makes it possible for mind to represent
not only things and processes distant in space, but also those distant
in time.
The continuation of form in feeling substance, not merely in the life
of single individuals, but also in the life of the race, produces the
growth, the development, and evolution of mind. Thus facts can be
represented in their connections, and the necessity of their connection
can be understood. To use Spinoza's phrase: The world can be viewed
_sub specie æternitatis_.
#Mind and Eternity.#
The fulfilment of mind is truth, or a correct representation of facts,
not as they are now and here, but as, according to conditions which
constitute a given state of things, they must be here and everywhere.
Mind expands in the measure that it contains and reflects the eternity
of truth.
The activity of mind is in one respect as transient a process as is
the phenomenon of light. Yet in other respects mind is able to grasp
eternity within the narrow span of the moment.
PAUL CARUS.
THE MAGIC MIRROR.
The famous time-honored saying of Rabbi Ben Akiba, "There is nothing
new under the sun," has often been verified to our astonishment in the
history of the sciences. No observation is proclaimed that has not been
made before, no position upheld that has not been before maintained.
The more extensive the survey that one acquires over any given province
of science, and the more deeply one penetrates into the past history of
that science, the more surely will one arrive at the conviction, that
even that which is apparently very new is at bottom old.
But the unceasing progress of the natural and mental sciences, on the
other hand, is an indisputable fact; and the true characteristic of
this progress must consequently be sought in some other element than in
the accession of new material. The subject-matter with which science
deals, remains almost unchanged throughout prolonged periods of time;
the treatment of that material alone changes. Accordingly, the factor
that determines the extension of our knowledge is pre-eminently the
growing comprehension that proceeds from the illumination of that which
was before in our possession. Apples fell from trees in all ages, but
Newton was the first who placed the event in its proper light, thereby
creating a tangible principle by means of which a great number of other
phenomena were successfully apprehended. Our system of scientific
ideas was increased by the addition of one conception that illuminated
phenomena hitherto but half or not at all explained.
Even the most enthusiastic advocate of the present state of knowledge
cannot maintain that it is perfect. On the contrary, he will recognise
that an advance of the barriers that separate that which is now
understood from what is not understood, is not only possible, but even
on his part devoutly to be wished. Indeed, a very large province of
knowledge—that of superstition—still remains almost wholly unworked.
It is absurd to imagine that all the tales of magic and demonology are
founded entirely in deception. For how could it happen that in all
historical epochs, and among all the peoples of the earth, the same
phenomena should be uniformly reported, if something true and real
were not concealed behind it all! The illuminate, of course, looking
upon our present code of ideas as ultimate, shrugs his shoulders with
a superior air and banishes what to him is "supernatural" into the
realm of fables; the cautious observer, on the other hand, refrains
from passing judgment thus prematurely, for he knows that departments
formerly very extensive have passed out of the realm of superstition
into the kingdom of science, and that in the future the same will
also occur. Thus the divine summons in the mediæval trial by ordeal
have turned out to be effects of suggestion, and the majority of the
performances of witches have proved to be the effects of hysterical
temperament. So that we are now in a position to comprehend the tales
of the Magic Mirror[25] in their true light and to bring them, without
constraint, into accord with the doctrines of a developed science of
psychology.
[25] The Japanese "Magic Mirrors" consist of ingenious
physical contrivances and are in no way concerned with our
present subject.
A brief recountal of the most important of the stories of this
kind, must be prefaced by the paradoxical statement that the Magic
Mirror need not by any means be a mirror. People are also reported
to have seen future and distant things in shining metal surfaces, in
rock-crystals, and in glasses filled with water. The Old Testament
mentions a divination made by the radiance of _gems_—where it speaks
of Urim and Thummim, the breast-ornament of six bright and six dark
stones which the high priest donned to receive revelations from
Jehovah. In a like manner, too, in _dactylomancy_ (divination by
rings) the abnormal condition is said to have been induced by fixedly
gazing at the stones of finger-rings. Likewise in the Bible we find an
instance of divination by means of polished metal cups; for according
to the Septuagint, the cup that Joseph caused to be placed in the sack
of Benjamin, was the cup from which he was wont to divine. Instead of
cups, use was also made of metal balls, arrows, swords, knives, and
metal mirrors. Even Jacob Böhme practised the art of clairvoyance by
the help of the "lovely jovial lustre" of a tin cup, "with the result
that he was now introduced into the innermost depths or centre of
recondite nature, and was enabled to look into the hearts and innermost
character of all creatures."
When gold and silver leaves marked with mysterious characters were
thrown into a basin filled with water, and it was sought by gazing at
the surface thus furnished, to arouse the "higher powers," the art was
called _lecanomancy_. If the surface of the water alone was gazed at,
it was called _hydromancy_; a method which communicated oracles by
means of the images that appeared in the water.
The only distinction between hydromancy and _gastromancy_ was, that in
the latter case the water was poured into distended vessels. Cardanus
has minutely described some gastromantic experiments that came under
his observation. A bottle filled with holy water was placed in the sun
upon a white-covered table; over the mouth of the bottle two olive
leaves were laid crosswise; three lighted wax candles were then placed
about the leaves and fumigated with incense, during which performance
a prayer to Saint Helena was uttered. Very soon the mantic adepts
standing in the background saw forms in the water; once a man with a
bald head, slightly inclined forward; a second time a man dressed in
scarlet. Cardanus himself could see nothing more than a disturbance in
the water, as if produced by the motes of a sunbeam, and a peculiar
generation of bubbles.
The same principle lies at the foundation of _onychomancy_, where
the thumb-nail of some suitable person, or the palm of the hand was
anointed with oil and soot, and the images appeared in the shining
surface illuminated either by the rays of the sun or by a candle.[26]
Ink was often poured into the palm of the bent hand and divination made
from the reflecting surface of the ink.
[26] The facts cited are taken from Karl Kiesewetter's
essay _Hypnotisches Hellsehen_, in _Sphinx_, I, 130, 1886.
Perty's work on the Magical Phenomena of Human Nature, and
Adolf Bastian's treatise _Psychische Beobachtungen bei
Naturvolkern_ in No. 2 of the _Schriften der Gesellschaft für
Experimental-Psychologie_ (Leipsic, Ernst Günther, 1890), may
also be consulted.
It will appear from the very enumeration of these multifarious methods
of procedure that the effect does not depend upon the especial
character or constitution of the "magic mirror." It is a remarkable
trait of human thought, however, that it first endeavors to trace all
phenomena back to external facts before it seeks the cause of the
same within itself: the child of nature sees in all his thoughts the
inspirations of good or evil spirits, and even the modern believer
finds the source of all extraordinary enlightenment not in himself
but in another—the Highest Being. A very high degree of culture is
requisite for man approximately to comprehend what marvellous forces
slumber within him, and to what a great extent, in the truest sense
of the word, he is the creator of his own perceptions and emotions.
And thus it was that throughout the long space of three thousand
years people did not clearly discover that in the case of magic
mirrors the most important factor was the _person that saw_, and not
the instruments of seeing. If we will use the word "superstition,"
therefore, we can justly do so with reference to the improper
disposition of the two factors involved.
This incorrect interpretation of the phenomenon, as being necessarily
dependent in its origin upon the material object employed, then called
forth the fables regarding some particularly rare and miraculous
mirror which was kept in a certain family as a holy relic, and whose
possession admitted people to a knowledge of the secrets of nature and
of the future. Countless sacrifices of money and human life have been
made to these extravagant fancies. Indeed, even to-day, certain English
business-houses deal in magic mirrors "manufactured after the best
prescripts," and certainly derive much profit from their traffic. In
all the treatises upon occult science, in those of ancient Egypt as
well as in those of the present time,—and the literature of divination
by mirrors (catoptromancy) fills whole libraries,—in all I say are
found directions for the manufacture of especially effective glass
or metal mirrors. True, in addition to this, there is now and then a
presentiment to be detected of the importance of personality. Tradition
prefers in such experiments chaste maidens, pure boys, or pregnant
women—a choice that despite its material faultiness at any rate
pursues the correct principle of emphasising individual character.
Mirror-gazing was formerly, and is to-day, most extensively practised
in the Orient. We possess an account written by Lane in 1834 of an
adventure he had in Egypt in company with the English Consul Salt.
The magician in charge of the ceremonies first wrote upon a slip of
paper invocations summoning his two Genii; and then a few verses from
the Koran, "to open the boy's eyes in a supernatural manner, ... to
make his sight pierce into what is to us the invisible world." The
slip of paper was thrown into a chafing-dish containing live charcoal,
frankincense, coriander seed, and benzoin. A boy eight or nine years
of age had been chosen at random from a number who happened to be
passing in the street, and the magician, taking hold of his right hand,
drew in the palm of it a magic square, that is to say, one square
inscribed within another, and in the space between certain Arabic
numerals; then, pouring ink in the centre, bade the boy look into it
attentively. At first the boy could only see the face of the magician,
but proceeding with his inspection, while the other continued to drop
written invocations into the chafing-dish, he at length described a
man sweeping with a broom, then a scene in which flags and soldiers
appeared, and finally when Lane asked that Lord Nelson should be called
for, the boy described a man in European clothes of dark blue, who
had lost his _left_ arm, but added, on looking more intently, "No, it
is placed to his breast." Lord Nelson generally had an empty sleeve
attached to the breast of his coat, but as it was the _right_ arm he
had lost, Lane, without saying that he suspected the boy had made a
mistake, asked the magician whether the object appeared in the ink
as if actually before the eyes, or as if in a glass, which makes the
right appear left. He answered they appeared as in a mirror; and this
rendered the divination faultless.
A counterpart to this in more recent times may be cited. When
Seringapatam was stormed by General Harris and Sir David Baird, the
unfortunate Tippoo Saib retired to discover by means of divination
by a cup what the future prospects were for the continuance of his
rule. After he had remained seated for a long time deeply absorbed
in meditation, he suddenly sprang up and in despair rushed into the
foremost ranks of the combatants and fell covered with wounds; so
deeply had the fatal aspect of the image in the cup moved him.
In Europe, during the period of classic antiquity, hydromancy was
especially practised. The Byzantine Andronicus Comnenus also put his
faith concerning the knowledge of future things, in water. Christianity
denounced the practice of these magic arts as the work of the devil.
St. Thomas Aquinas says that the gift of seeing visions possessed by
children, is not to be ascribed to any power of innocence but to evil
influences. Despite this however the art did not perish. Indeed, in the
sixteenth century, under the protection of physicians and University
professors, it attained the acme of its development.
The celebrated humanist Pico de Mirandola was firmly convinced of the
power of magic mirrors, and declared that it was sufficient in order to
read in a magic mirror the past, the present, and the future, simply
to construct one under a favorable constellation and at the proper
temperature.
But the most successful of all in the practice of crystallomancy was
Dr. Dee, who flourished from 1527 to 1608. His seer or scryer was a man
named Kelly, who could hardly be described as "unpolluted" or as "one
that had not known sin," for he had been the perpetrator of so many
villainies that as a testimony of his character both his ears had been
cut off. A crystal served as the vehicle of the ecstatic revelations,
to which according to the conception of the times numerous spirits
were attached, who made themselves intelligible to Kelly by dramatic
scenes and often by sounds. The Shew-Stone, or Holy Stone, was round
and rather large; it is said to have come into Dee's hands in a very
wonderful manner. The large folio volume of the English mathematician
upon crystallomancy was very probably used later by Cagliostro,
although the latter practised a somewhat different method and used a
carafe of water instead of the stone. The prophecy of the magician who
predicted the regency of the Duke of Orleans through the death of the
Prince, is to be noticed as the last historical case of the use of the
magic mirror.
In our century Courts and Universities no longer form the stage upon
which the drama of crystal-gazing is enacted, but almost exclusively
the circles of the Spiritists, or, as they are commonly called,
Spiritualists. Spiritualism has artfully confiscated a great quantity
of psychological data, and has made an impartial examination of
phenomena very difficult by always presenting the data to the novice
in connection with spirit-theories. Having learned much from evil
experience, the public has assumed a sceptical position with regard
to everything that comes from spiritualistic quarters, and easily
overlooks what is actual and real beneath the cover of uncritical
drivel. I shall also introduce here one or two instances which plainly
show that after the stupendous advances which made chemistry an exact
science the cause of these phenomena was no longer sought in the
properties of stones and mirrors, but was attributed to ghosts and
spirits, by which still greater confusion was produced.
In Justinus Kerner's "Magikon" we read: "Questions are put to the
unsubstantial beings that appear in shining objects and the seer hears
the answer in dull tones. These beings also make signs and often appear
in great numbers, but again only three at a time,—and within five or
ten minutes in the case of practised scryers, but in the case of the
unpractised not until a longer space has elapsed. The objects described
appear in a few seconds and vanish when they are no longer needed.
In Athens a female seer of this description is said to have seen a
sick person in Vienna and everything described in minutest detail was
confirmed by the next post. A boy who beheld absent persons and their
acts in a medicine glass filled with water is said to have discovered
by this means unknown thieves."
Barth gives the following directions for crystal-gazing: "When the
crystal has been ground and polished it is dedicated to some spirit
or other; this is called its consecration. Before being used it is
'charged'; that is, an invocation is made to the spirit, wherein a
vision is requested of the things that one wishes to experience.
Ordinarily a young person is chosen to look into the glass and behold
the prayed for vision. After a little time the crystal becomes
enveloped in a cloud, and a tiny vision appears which represents in
miniature the persons, scenes, and things that are necessary to supply
the required information. When the information has been obtained the
crystal is 'discharged,' and after receiving thanks for the services he
has performed the spirit is dismissed."
Perty from whom I take this citation aptly adds, "One's own spirit,
accordingly, is here invoked as a stranger."
The recent reports of Anglo-American Spiritualists are less crude, yet
are similarly permeated by ghost-hypotheses. For example, a Mr. Rogers
relates that he had put a crystal into the hands of a lady who knew
nothing at all of its magical powers, yet who a short time afterwards
very minutely described a scene in which a lecturer, evidently of
English nationality, was addressing a foreign audience, while behind
his chair the shade of a North-American Indian stood—the source of his
inspiration. A few months later the lady was by chance introduced to
the United States Consul at Trebizond whom she immediately recognised
as the principal character of her vision, and who upon being questioned
declared that at the time mentioned he had given an address at that
place, and moreover, that according to the declaration of Spiritualist
mediums he was controlled by the spirit of a North-American Indian.
In Germany the best known work is probably the "Visionen im
Wasserglass," by Frau Adelma Von Vay, née Countess Wurmbrand. She
reports in her little book some ninety experiments that were made in
the years from 1869 to 1875. Frau Von Vay sees her pictures without
difficulty, at times in their natural colors, at times in shades
between white and black; often they are of only momentary duration,
then again they persist for some time or gradually melt into confused
and nebulous spots. The lady dictates to her husband the description of
what is presented to her gaze; the "Spirit" furnishes commentaries and
supplementary interpretations, and the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of
the prophecies and divinations is carefully noted down.
* * * * *
Before passing on from the history of this subject to the presentation
of a number of systematic experiments, and to the development of the
theory underlying them, I shall briefly consider the part that the
magic mirror has played in poetry and fiction. For we often find
here, especially in popular poetry, fairy tales, and traditions,
an artistic anticipation of ideas that only the advanced knowledge
of later centuries is able scientifically to verify. The illumined
eye of genius prematurely seizes upon what in the distant future
becomes the conscious property of all humanity. And this is true of
the half-unconscious art of the individual poet. The imagination
of the poet, borne aloft by the immediate sense of truth and the
self-consciousness of typical humanity, casts flashes of illumination
very frequently into the dark regions of our inner world. In the facts
inherent in popular instinct it discovers intuitively a multitude of
combinations, long before they possess for the average perception
creditable possibility, or even possible reality. The minute analysis,
however, of symbolic art belongs to the most difficult problems of
comparative psychology.
To present at once from the multitude of examples a singularly striking
one, "The History of the Youthful King Zein Alasnam and the Prince
of Spirits" may be chosen. Zein Alasnam, who possesses eight statues
of great value, is in quest of a ninth of marvellous beauty, which
the Prince of Spirits promises him as soon as "thou shalt bring me a
young maiden who shall be at least fifteen years of age and of perfect
beauty; the maiden shall not be vain of her beauty and shall have never
spoken an untruth." With the help of his magic mirror, Zein, after many
vain attempts,—for the mirror was always murky when he looked into it
in the presence of a girl,—finally found a maiden in whose presence a
brilliant image shone forth from the mirror. By strategy Zein brought
the noble girl, with whom in the mean time he had fallen passionately
in love, to the Prince of Spirits—but it must be confessed that it was
only at the earnest entreaty of his faithful servant, for he would have
very much liked to possess the maiden himself. The Prince of Spirits
thanked him and told him to return to his home where he would find
the ninth statue that was promised him upon a golden pedestal in the
centre of the others. Zein hastened to his palace and flew into his
treasure-chamber. Upon the ninth pedestal there stood attired in silk
of roseate hue, with modest blushing countenance, an immovable statue.
Zein Alasnam, dazzled by the brilliancy of the other forms, stepped
into the glittering circle to behold his treasure close at hand, when
behold! the statue suddenly descended from its pedestal and fell into
his arms. It was the same beautiful and virtuous maiden that he had
conducted into the presence of the Prince of Spirits. She wept tears of
joy and Zein Alasnam wept with her.
The factor here emphasised—namely, a mirror that only exhibits a clear
surface to its possessor when a chaste maiden is in its presence—is
not at all as fabulous as at first sight appears. It depends of course
upon the person gazing whether the reflecting surface will appear murky
or not; for it is a question here merely of subjective perception,
and not of an objective blurring of the glass. In the case in which
the girl made no impression upon the youth,—that is where the soul
unconsciously passed an unfavorable judgment,—the picture will have
been dimly perceived and will thus have expressed in a strangely
roundabout way, that which lay slumbering in the depths of his heart.
The mirror furnishes no other information than that which we put into
it; but it communicates it to our every-day consciousness which knows
little or nothing of the recondite processes of our inner life. The
fabulous performances of other magic mirrors may be similarly explained
if we discard the unnecessary adornment in which they are generally
set forth. The "buch aller verbotenen kunst" (published in 1455), a
mediæval collection of stories of this character, is supplied with
marginal annotations of moral purport that possess some historical
value. We shall therefore transcribe a passage illustrative of its
character.
"Die maister und iregleichen die treiben die kunst pyromancia
auch in ainem schlechten spiegel und lassen kinder darein
sehen die sie dan auch vast beswern und in auch verporgne
wort einraunen und mainent vast vil darin zu erfragen. das
ist alles ein ungelaub und des boesen tewfels gespenst und
verfuerung. huet dich du christen, ich warn dich gar treulich.
auch treibt man die sach in ainem schönen glanzen pulierten
swert ... In der kunst pyromancia sind auch gar vil ander
ungelauben, und nemlich ainer der sol des gewiss sein, der ist
der allerschnoedest und boesest, wann so man ie vester gelaubt
an soelich zauberey so si ie mer is sünd. das stueck gat zu,
das die knaben kuenftige und alle ding suellen sehen in ainem
cristallen. das stueck treiben die valschen verzweifelten und
verzagten cristen, den dann lieber ist des tiuefels gespenst
und trugnuss, dan die warheit gottes in maniger hand weis.
ettlich haben gar ain lautern schoenen gepulierten cristallen
oder parillen, den lassen sie waihen und halten in gar rain
und lesen dazu weirrauch, mirren und desgleichen, und wann sie
die kunst treiben woellen, so warten si uf gar ainen schoen
tag oder haben ain rain gemach und darin gar vil geweichter
kerzen; die maister gan den gen bad und nemen dann das rain
chind mit in und beclaiden sich dan in raines weiss gewand,
und sitzen nider und sprechen in zauber bact, und prennen den
ir zauberopfer und lassen dan den knaben in den stain sehen
und raunen im in seine oren verporgen wort die suellen vast
hailig sein, warlich, die wort sind tewflisch."[27]
[27] "The Masters and their like also practice the art
Pyromancia in a wretched mirror, and make children look into
it, whom they then do conjure and also whisper secret words
in their ears, and fancy they get much information thereby.
But it is all a heresy, the work and allurement of the wicked
devil. Christian, have a care! I give thee honest warning.
They practise the thing, too, in a beautiful, shining,
polished sword.... In the art Pyromancia there is also much
other heresy, and especially there is one that is so, the
worst and wickedest of all: and the firmer one's belief in
it is, the greater is his sinfulness. Here, young boys are
said to behold future things and all things in a crystal.
Base, desperate, and faint-hearted Christians practise it, to
whom the shadow and the phantom of the devil are dearer than
the truth of God. Some take a clear and beautifully polished
crystal or beryl, which they consecrate and keep clean, and
treat with incense, myrrh, and the like. And when they propose
to practise their art, they wait for a clear day, or select
some clean chamber in which are many candles burning; the
masters then bathe, and take the pure child into the room with
them, and clothe themselves in pure white garments, and sit
down and speak in magic sentences, and then burn their magic
offering, and make the boy look into the stone, and whisper
in his ears secret words, which have, as they ween, some holy
import: verily, those words are of the Devil."
Exactly one hundred years after this, a similar _pot-pourri_ appeared,
intermingled with references to modern affairs and Christian
Ethics, entitled the "Neupolierte Geschicht-Kunst- und Sittenspiegel
ausländischer Völker." Wherein we may read this:
"Es ist bekannt | dass | in manchen Staedten | bey uns |
unterweilen alte Weiber | auch wol zu zeiten Männer | den
Leuten | welchen Gott eine Straffe schuldig ist | in Spiegeln
und Krystallen weisen | was sie zu wissen begehren. Also hat
| fuer einigen Jahren | zu Elbingen in Preussen | einer sich
aufgehalten | welcher | aus einem solchen Wahrsager-Spiegel
| die Verborgenheiten verkuendiget | und den Fuerwitzigen
angedeutet hat. Mit dem Krystall-Gucken | wird zwar mancher
| von den alten Sagen-Sprecherinnen | getaeuscht und falsche
Mutmassungen | oder behende Augenblendungen | ihm fuer eine
Gewissheit verkauft: weil solche Vetteln vielmals | unter dem
Schein der Wahrsager-Kunst | ihren Betrug spielen | und weder
Gutes noch Boeses wissen. Nichts destoweniger stehen dennoch
auch viel solcher alten Sibyllen mit dem schwarzen Kaspar in
guter Vertraulichkeit und koennen | in den Spiegeln | oder
Krystallen | durch Huelfe und Vermittelung dieses boesen
Geistes | den Erfolg kuenfftiger Begebenheiten fuerbilden. Wie
dessen Herr Johannes Rist ein merkliches Exempel erzaehlet
welches er | in seiner Jugend | mit seinen leiblichen Augen
| gesehen | in einer grossen Stadt: darin er sich damals
| bei fuernehmen Leuten | aufgehalten | die einen feinen
wohlgearteten Sohn gehabt | welcher nachgehends zu hohen
Ehren-Aemtern gestiegen."[28]
[28] "It is known that in many of our towns old women,
possibly at times men, sojourn, who show to people to whom
God owes punishment that which they want to know, by means
of mirrors and crystals. Some years ago one such person was
staying in Elbingen, in Prussia, who predicted hidden truths
by the help of a divining mirror of this kind, and announced
them to his curious customers. Many indeed are deceived in
crystal-seeing by the old fortune-tellers that practice it,
and baseless guesses and cunning deceptions of the eye are
often sold them for certainties: for these hags frequently
practise their impostures only under the cover and semblance
of the art of divination, knowing neither good nor bad.
Nevertheless, many of these old Sibyls stand upon terms of
intimacy with Black Kaspar, and are able with the assistance
and intermediation of this evil spirit to foreshow in their
mirrors and crystals the issue and outcome of future events.
Such was the remarkable case that Herr Johannes Rist tells of,
which he saw in his youth with his own corporeal eyes; it was
in a great city wherein at the time he was staying with very
distinguished people who had a handsome and well-mannered son
who afterwards rose to high offices of honor."
Again, we have a "Denckwuerdige Geschichte von der Krystall-Guckery,"
which makes skilful use of all the fabulous elements of the magic
mirror legends. It tells of a mirror that always reveals to its
possessor the truth, and by means of which the future may be divined.
A prominent feature of the nursery tales of to-day is discoverable in
it—that if children look at night into a mirror an ugly, forbidding
face will gaze out upon them. The book, however, presents few
interesting details, and we may therefore pass it and others of the
same period by in order to hasten on to the present.
And to whom would not the name of Hoffmann at once occur! He who
delighted to employ, and weave in the magic web of his fiction, all
that was marvellous and mysterious, will undoubtedly have dealt with
the subject we now have in hand. In fact the magic mirror has three
times figured in his works: once in "Der Goldene Topf," again in the
"Lebensansichten des Kater Murr," and finally in the novel "Das öde
Haus." A few passages may be taken from the last-mentioned novel as
illustrations of the point we are considering.
A small forsaken cottage bears an evil name; it hides a secret from the
world.
"This was what people said in the town, and I who tell this
story could get no rest with thinking of it; daily I walked by
the house with the curtained windows. Once, as I was passing,
I saw the curtain move and a beautifully-shaped hand adorned
with a brilliant diamond ring place a crystal carafe upon the
window-sill. The memory of this picture aroused in my mind a
visionary dream, and on the following day when I looked up to
the window at which the hand had appeared, the countenance
of the vision I had seen was regarding me with a look of
sorrowful entreaty. I seated myself upon a bench opposite,
the back of which was turned to the house, so that by leaning
over the arm I could gaze without disturbance at the fatal
window and the lovely maiden. Absorbed in contemplation, I
failed to observe an Italian pedlar who was offering me his
wares. But being seized by the arm I at last gave attention
to the importunities of the pedlar, who, with the words 'I
have other beautiful things here,' pulled out the lower drawer
of his box, and held at a short distance before me, at an
angle, a little round pocket-mirror that lay in the drawer
among a number of other trinkets. I beheld the desolate
house behind me, the window, and, marked in the distinctest
outlines, the lovely angelic form of my vision. I quickly
purchased the little glass, which now made it possible for
me, in easy posture and without attracting the attention of
the neighbors, to look towards the window of my hopes.... The
little mirror that so deceptively reflected the lovely form,
I had now devoted to domestic purposes. I was in the habit
of tying my cravat before it. And so it happened once, while
I was in the act of performing this important duty, that it
appeared tarnished to me. With a view to brightly polishing
it, I breathed upon it in the usual manner. My pulse ceased
its beating, my heart trembled with delight and dismay.
Delight and dismay! Yes, thus I must describe the emotion
that overpowered me, as, when my breath fell upon the mirror,
I beheld in a bluish mist the lovely face that had looked
upon me with that sorrowful, heart-penetrating glance!—You
laugh?—Denounce me, believe me an incurable dreamer! But say
and think what you will—it is enough—the fair one gazed upon
me from the mirror, and as soon as the breath disappeared her
face vanished in the darkness of the glass.
"But I will not weary you, I will not tell all that came
of this. Only this much will I say, that I again and again
renewed my experiments with the mirror, that I was often
successful in calling forth by my breath the picture I so
loved, but that oftentimes my most strenuous efforts were in
vain.... I lived only in the thought of her; all else was
dead to me; I neglected my friends and my studies.... Often
when that picture grew pale and wan, a physical indisposition
seized me, the figure came forth as never before with such
life-like reality and brilliancy that I almost fancied I
could seize it. And then it seemed to my horror that I myself
was the figure, veiled and encompassed by the mists of the
glass. A sharp pain in my breast and then total apathy
terminated this torturing condition, which invariably left
me exhausted, and shaken to my inmost core. In these moments
every attempt with the mirror miscarried; but when I had
become strengthened, and the picture appeared again from the
mirror in life-like form, I cannot indeed deny that a peculiar
physical charm otherwise foreign to me was united with it...."
We see what brilliantly colored creations tradition and fiction have
woven about the magic mirror. It is now the duty of science to cull
from these shining husks, by sober investigation, the kernels of
truth; and that, it will be seen, can be done only by experiment.
Unfortunately I myself am unable to report any successful experiments;
for, despite repeated attempts, I have been unsuccessful in obtaining
any images whatever from mirrors, or crystals, or reflecting surfaces
of any kind. Similarly several members of the Berlin Society of
Experimental Psychology have only had exclusively negative results
to recount. But on the other hand, a member of the English Society
for Psychical Research has been enabled to report a great number of
pertinent observations. And although to my regret I am not permitted to
publish the name of the lady[29] in question, yet every doubt as to the
truth of her utterances is excluded, and the material she has furnished
forms a valuable enrichment of psychological literature. I shall,
accordingly, collect from the communications of this lady, who is a
friend of Professor and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, several cases which appear
to me especially adapted to throw light upon the nature of the strange
phenomena we are examining.
[29] I afterwards received permission to publish her name: it
is Miss A. Goodrich of London.
The lady made more than seventy experiments of her own, of which—a
fact of the greatest value for passing upon their exactness—she always
made notes at once, or at the most never more than an hour afterwards.
She employed various means for the production of the hallucinations. At
first she used the colored balls that are hung upon Christmas trees,
or the back of a gold watch; but it turned out that both these objects
tried the eyes by their strong brilliancy and grotesquely distorted
the visions that were evoked. A glass filled with water proved to be
inconvenient to handle, especially in the dark; while mirrors also
possessed many disturbing peculiarities. A magnifying glass set on a
dark background proved to be very effective, especially by daylight;
as did also a black-framed photograph placed upon the wall of the
room opposite the light. The gaze and the attention, however, were
best concentrated upon a well-polished rock-crystal. The method of
procedure—since happily all the appurtenances of mysticism were
discarded—was very simple. The lady draped the crystal in black,
placed it where none of the surrounding objects could be reflected in
it, and waited for whatever might happen.
What occurred? The simplest instance is perhaps No. 7, which we here
introduce:
"I find in the Crystal a bit of dark wall, covered with white
jessamine, and I ask myself, 'Where have I walked to-day?'
I have no recollection of such a sight, not a common one
in the London streets, but to-morrow I will repeat my walk
of this morning, with a careful regard for creeper-covered
walls. To-morrow solves the mystery. I find the very spot,
and the sight brings with it the further recollection that
at the moment we passed this spot I was engaged in absorbing
conversation with my companion, and my voluntary attention was
preoccupied."
This is a very simple case. A visual image, recently yet unconsciously
received, springs up from the subterranean strata of the soul into
which it had sunk. No. 68 affords a similar instance:
"I had carelessly destroyed a letter without preserving the
address of my correspondent. I knew the county, and searching
in a map, recognised the name of the town, one unfamiliar
to me, but which I was sure I should know when I saw it. But
I had no clue to the name of the house or street, till at
last it struck me to test the value of the crystal as a means
of recalling forgotten knowledge. A very short inspection
supplied me with 'Hibbs House' in grey letters on a white
ground, and having nothing better to suggest from any other
source, I risked posting my letter to the address so strangely
supplied.
"A day or two brought me an answer, headed 'Hibbs House' in
grey letters on a white ground."
Tricks of the memory like these appear still more strange when they
are due merely to an indirect excitation. It may happen that one is
suddenly reminded of a friend who is long since dead, by the accidental
sight of his favorite dish. No direct excitation is here presented,
but the image of the friend remembered is indirectly revived through a
certain concatenation of ideas. This we find in the eleventh experiment:
"One of my earliest experiences was of a picture, perplexing
and wholly unexpected—a quaint oak chair, an old hand, a worn
black coat-sleeve resting on the arm of the chair,—slowly
recognised as a recollection of a room in a country vicarage,
which I had not entered and but seldom recalled since I was a
child of ten. But whence came this vision, what association
has conjured up this picture? What have I done to-day?... At
length the clue is found. I have to-day been reading Dante,
first enjoyed with the help of our dear old vicar many a year
ago."
The process here carried on, which takes place for the most part
outside of the sphere of consciousness, is therefore the following: The
reading of Dante revives the image 'Vicar'; the image 'Vicar' produces
the image of the room; the latter image is externalised.
But we can penetrate _consciously_ into these processes. There
are any number of people who, with their eyes closed, can produce
phantasy-pictures surprisingly realistic; and geniuses especially have
command of rich powers in this direction. George Sand's biographer
tells us, that sitting at the feet of her mother before the chimney
fire, she would often watch the old green-colored fire-guard in order
to form from the reflections of the flames figures and scenes. And this
is the case of our English lady. Just as an imaginative child tells
itself stories, so she, to while away the time, builds in the twilight
hours groups of figures, and projects them into her crystals; and so
strange is the unconscious "I" to the conscious "I," that oftentimes
the miniature drama that is unfolded is the source of the greatest
surprises to its own creator. This independence of our consciousness in
two spheres, is exhibited with surprising distinctness where especial
aids and expedients must be employed to decipher the visions. Thus:
"On March 20th, I happened to want the date of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, which I could not recall, though feeling sure
that I knew it, and that I associated it with some event of
importance. When looking in the Crystal some hours later, I
found a picture of an old man with long white hair and beard,
dressed like a Lyceum Shylock, and busy writing in a large
book with tarnished massive clasps. I wondered much who he
was, and what he could possibly be doing, and thought it
a good opportunity of carrying out a suggestion which had
been made to me, of examining objects in the Crystal with
a magnifying glass. The glass revealed to me that my old
gentleman was writing in Greek, though the lines faded away
as I looked, all but the characters he had last traced, the
Latin numerals LXX. Then it flashed into my mind, that he was
one of the Jewish Elders at work on the Septuagint, and that
its date, 277 B. C., would serve equally well for Ptolemy
Philadelphus! It may be worth while to add, though the fact
was not in my conscious memory at the moment, that I had once
learnt a chronology on a mnemonic system which substituted
letters for figures, and that the memoria technica for this
date was 'Now Jewish Elders indite a Greek copy.'" (No. 74.)
The employment of a magnifying glass, which by reason of external
difficulties is seldom possible, is a convincing proof of the degree
of independence of the two personalities within us. Anything more
marvellous than the fact before us can hardly be imagined. We create
something which is immediately wrested from our control and which leads
a totally independent life; we produce something which becomes for our
own selves a mute enigma, and which can only be aroused by artificial
means out of its ghost-like silence.
"The rent that gapes throughout creation,
Goes also through the human heart."
And thus it may happen that our second "I" actually mystifies at times
our first and principal "I."
Once a number of letters appeared to her in the crystal, each letter
seen separately, of a bright red color. At first they seemed to be
absolutely meaningless, but it was at length discovered that they
composed words, spelt backwards, in the following fashion:—
d e t n a w a e n o e m o s o t n i o j a e t a v i r p e l c
r i c t s u m e b g n i l l i w o t e v i g s e v l e s m e h
t p u o t e h t t c e j b u s
and the message at length became intelligible as follows:—
"Wanted a someone to join a private circle, must be willing to give
themselves up to the subject."
We now come to a third group of experiments in which an entirely
new element enters into play. Whereas hitherto we have seen things
revealed in the magic mirror which were demonstrably or presumably
already present in the brain of the operator, or, where this was not
the case, in any event possessed no external significance, we now
hear of experiments in which unknown events are said to have been
presented. I should take no notice whatever of this class of reports
regarding clairvoyance in space and time, if our informant did not
give the impression of being thoroughly conscientious and scientific.
The English lady possesses, as I believe I have discerned from our
correspondence, a highly critical mind, and is well acquainted with
the common sources of error in this department of investigation, and
her testimony is in my opinion more valuable than that of all the
early authors together. It were indeed more acceptable if the results
of recent investigations had been to show that all the phenomena of
crystallomancy were referable to the hitherto misunderstood dominance
of the soul of the individual gazing; but since a number of cases
remain that will not fit into this explanation, we must as honest
people openly acknowledge the fact. Accordingly, without attempting
any detailed explanation, I shall select a few cases as illustrations,
leaving it to the reader to discard them as "accidental" or to retain
them as worthy of consideration:
"On Saturday, March 9th, I had written a somewhat impatient
note to a friend, accusing her of having, on her return
from a two months' absence on the Continent, spent ten days
in London without paying me a visit. I was not, therefore,
surprised, when on Sunday evening she appeared before me
in the Crystal, but could not understand why she should
hold up, with an air of deprecation, what appeared to be a
music portfolio. On Monday I received an answer, written the
previous day, pleading guilty to my charge, but urging, in
excuse, that she was attending the Royal Academy of Music,
and was engaged there during the greater part of every day.
This intelligence was to the last degree unexpected, for my
friend is a married woman, who has never studied music in any
but amateur style, and who, according to the standard of most
ladies of fashion, had "finished her education" some years
ago. I have since ascertained that she, in fact, carries a
portfolio corresponding with the sketch I made of that seen in
the vision." (No. 64.)
The simplest explanation of this case would be the assumption that
our informant had at some time or other cursorily heard of her friend
having again taken up music. The whole thing would then be a revived
memory; and the agreement in appearance of the portfolio seen with the
real portfolio, an accidental coincidence. But this presumption being
excluded, psychologists who believe in the possibility of telepathic
communication might propose a different explanation. In this way. The
lady's friend, in writing her note of excuse, is vividly thinking
of her work, which is to her to a certain extent represented by her
portfolio, and conveys this picture to the receptive sub-consciousness
of the other lady. There the image lies latent until it is translated
into sensory life through the agency of the magic mirror—the very
process with which we have at a previous place become acquainted,
and will more exactly explain further on. The question, therefore,
is reduced simply to the truth of the premise first assumed—namely,
telepathic communication; and all that we can at present say, is,
that it is considered as an actual fact, upon the basis of personal
experience, by many prominent investigators, but is rejected by the
majority as undemonstrated. For our part, we admit that an hypothesis
of this kind would prove to be very useful, since reports similar to
the last mentioned one, have recently been published in great numbers.
We select as an illustration the following note by Mrs. L. M., from the
Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research:
"I was anxious to see a Mr. H., but was uncertain on what day
he would call. On the 19th [July, 1887] I was called out of
the office, and, before going out, I put on the door a card
having these words on it, 'Will return soon.' I was absent
about an hour. On my return I came upstairs, but did not ask
the elevator boy if any one had called; nor did he tell me
any one had done so. As I came within a short distance of the
door, I saw some characters written upon the card I had left,
and just below the printed words 'Will return soon,' I stooped
down and read, 'Mr. H. has been here, and will return.' As
I looked the words faded away. I entered the office, and in
a very short time Mr. H. came in. He had left no name or
message. He had impressed my face upon his mind very strongly,
with the intention of seeing if I would be in any way affected
by it, or conscious of his approach."
If the fact of accident, intensified by the strained expectation of
Mrs. M., cannot be accepted as a satisfactory explanation, it is to
be considered that the white surface of the card in this case acted
in the same externalising manner as the crystal in the instance
given just above. The remotely-operative excitation penetrated the
soul unobserved, and was first translated into a conscious image
at the moment when the glance at the card favored the formation of
hallucinations.
Finally a number of other cases are to be mentioned, in which even
these suppositions seem insufficient; and for the reason that the
events seen were not to happen until some future time. But that which
has not yet happened, and which is not to be foreseen in detail,
can neither originate in the repositories of memory, nor from the
telepathic influence exercised by another person. We should in
that case be obliged to accept some hypothesis of clairvoyance in
time—_granting of course that all sources of error are excluded_. The
reader may judge for himself:
"In January last I saw in the Crystal the figure of a man
crouching at a small window, and looking into the room from
the outside. I could not see his features, which appeared
to be muffled, but the Crystal was particularly dark that
evening, and the picture being an unpleasant one, I did
not persevere. I concluded the vision to be a result of a
discussion in my presence of the many stories of burglary with
which the newspapers had lately abounded, and reflected with
a passing satisfaction, that the only windows in the house
divided into four panes as were those of the Crystal-picture,
were in the front attic and almost inaccessible. Three days
later a fire broke out in that very room, which had to be
entered from outside through the window, the face of the
fireman being covered with a wet cloth, as a protection from
the smoke which rendered access through the door impossible."
(No. 36.)
Is this a case of prevision? Granting that the agreement of the facts
with the vision is not due to mere accident, the possibility yet
remains of a falsification of memory; that is, the possibility that
a vision originally _similar_ to the event afterwards observed, was
subsequently taken to be the _same_ as that event. Such obscurations
and falsifications of memory are very frequent. Indeed they get to
be epidemic, the moment a second factor, that of _expectation_, is
added. We need only have a foreboding that something will eventually
happen, and we shall inevitably form certain indefinite notions of its
particular character. If now the event actually happens, our obliging
memory is at once at hand with the lie, '_Exactly_ as I knew before.'
'I told you so,' is the assertion. And it is therefore no accident
that in the literature of clairvoyance, the arrival of letters of
this or that tenor plays so great a part; for expectation has a broad
and acceptable arena in this very connection. The extent to which
the falsification of memory and intense expectation take part in the
observation which we shall now cite, it would be hardly possible to
determine accurately:
"On the evening of March 11th, being tired, I was about to go
early to my room, when it occurred to me to wait for the last
post, already late, that I might not be again disturbed by
having the letters brought to my room. I took up the Crystal
rather to pass the time than with much expectation of seeing
anything; for as a rule, when one is tired, the concentration
of attention necessary to Crystal-vision is somewhat difficult
to attain. However, I perceived a white object on a dark
ground, soon becoming more clearly defined as a letter in a
very large envelope torn at the edges, as if not sufficiently
strong to hold its contents. Another envelope, of ordinary
size, lying at the top, concealed the address, and the writing
on the smaller one was too much blurred to decipher. The
vision was momentary only, or I might have applied the test of
the magnifying glass, which is sometimes, though not always,
of use in such cases. I thought it possible that the vision
might be merely the result of expectation, but it seemed
at least worth while, after making a note of the fact,—my
invariable rule whenever possible,—to test its significance.
As a matter of fact, the letters were lying on a seat in the
hall, showing white against the dark polished wood—placed
there possibly by some one leaving the house who had met the
postman before he had time to ring. The letters were two,—the
lower one, which had burst the envelope, was the size of a
sheet of letter-paper not folded, and was for myself, the
upper one, the usual size of a note, and not for me, which may
have accounted for my inability to read the address." (No. 66.)
I repeat it—with accounts of this character, though in the highest
degree acceptable, science cannot at present deal; and in proceeding
now to attempt an explanation of the phenomena illustrated by the
experiments of the English communication mentioned, I shall entirely
leave out of consideration the cases that point to telepathic causes or
clairvoyance in time and space.
We have already made the acquaintance of some few theories which have
arisen historically. Formerly, and even at the present day in fact,
certain objects and qualities of objects were made accountable for the
occurrence of striking hallucinations. The great cycle of legends that
adhere to the magic mirror, has thus arisen. Often a pentahedronal
quartz-crystal, often the fusion of the seven ancient metals into
polished surfaces was supposed to possess especial virtue. Gregory, of
Edinburgh, asserted that the phenomena were most easily produced by
looking into a double-convex plate of zinc into the centre of which
a small polished copper disk had been set. We now know that in the
importance attached to these and similar directions the salient point
was missed and an incidental factor pushed into the foreground. But
in any event it is worthy of remark, that through belief in notions
of this kind the seer gained a greater confidence in the success of
his experiments. Even incorrect theories prove to be useful. When any
one finally came into the possession of a famous magic stone, his firm
belief in its powers induced a disposition to visions that perhaps
never before existed in his organism to the same degree.
A second hypothesis regards the phenomena as manifestations of the
Devil or the work of spirits. Dr. Dee gives a very minute description
of his regular spirit visitors. He tells of an old woman in a red
petticoat, and of a pretty little girl with her hair rolled up in
front and hanging down very long behind. This constant personification
is very significant, since it indicates the approach of recognised
forms of mental alienation; however, the "Daimon" of Socrates proves
that it does not in every case necessarily lead to this. We are come,
here, into a border-land, from which some roads lead into the dark
regions of insanity and others up to the luminous heights of inspired
genius: but in every case we are concerned with a region in _our own_
mind, and no natural propensity to externalisation must be allowed to
deceive us with regard to it. The intrusion of foreign "spirits" into
our psycho-physical organism, the assumption that incorporeal beings
influence our nervous system so as to produce external effects,
violently contradicts all human experience. If the spiritist doctrine
could be mathematically proved it would be the most interesting
solution imaginable of all these problems; and I must confess, the
establishment of the existence of intelligent incorporeal beings would
in my opinion eclipse all other events of our time. But the probability
of this is at present _very_ small.
A third theory, of modern origin, seeks the explanation of the question
in a species of magic power inherent in man, as yet unfathomed, which
is manifested especially in ecstatic conditions. The vehicles of the
_magic gaze_ are shining mirrors or reflecting surfaces, which forming
a means of attraction for individuals of the proper constitution induce
that peculiar state of alienation from every other subject, that
concentration in the innermost self, which often rises to insensibility
and unconsciousness, or even to cataleptic torpidity, wherein the
consciousness of All-existence is liberated. Future events and distant
occurrences are seen in pictures which appear to be reflected in the
mirror or the fluid employed, but which in reality exist in the person
gazing and are represented by projection outwards. Thus Perty.
Other philosophers speak of the "transcendental" capacities and powers
of the human soul, or of the liberation of a metaphysical essentiality
within us.
But these theories and suppositions are plainly the outcome of a
premature simplification of our difficult problem. People are always
too ready to thrust forward a new "power" or "force" to unify with
dispatch and celerity uncomfortable phenomena of the present sort,
and overlook the fact that every single phenomenon demands an exact
investigation and explanation. Nothing is accomplished by calling
phenomena "magical" or "transcendental." The work demanded is, to
ascertain the connection and relation of the phenomena in question
with the province of soul-life as a whole. To put an _x_ in the place
of a _y_ contributes nothing to the solution of a problem. We cannot
be too closely upon our guard against comprehensive syntheses of this
character; for their splendid appearance dazzles woefully the eye of
research.
Much nearer the truth is the position that hypnosis merely is concerned
here. A well-known author, Louis Maury, who wrote in the middle part of
this century, says:
"Among the principal methods of divination a great number aim
at producing a sort of vertigo by acting upon the eyes and
consequently upon the brain, in a manner something like that
in which shining bodies act in hypnotism."
Mrs. De Morgan speaks in a similar strain:
"Crystal-vision is a well attested fact, having its laws and
conditions like other phenomena in this world of known and
hidden causes, and a little careful observation may clear away
some of that obscurity which has kept it as the property of
witches and sorcerers. The Crystal ... seems to produce on the
eye of the seer an effect exactly like what would ensue under
the fingers of a powerful mesmeriser. The person who looks at
it often becomes sleepy. Sometimes the eyes close. At other
times tears flow."
Mrs. De Morgan's very description renders it doubtful whether we have
to deal here with true, developed hypnotism. Other accounts are also
calculated to shake this assumption. Cahagnet, for example, required
only a moment of mental concentration for his eyes to become fixed; he
lost all sight of the objects he had a moment before gazed upon, and
those which he wished to call up appeared between him and the former.
All spontaneous visions were fulfilled. When voluntarily evoked, but
seven out of ten were true. When he wanted to produce the visions he
fixed his eyes upon the first fit object, and he often saw hundreds
and thousands of persons running hither and thither in one little
shining point. Or he beheld a great city distinctly drawn in a mirror
but one inch in diameter. This is not very easily reconciled with
our conceptions of the character of hypnotism. Nor less so—to close
our list of examples—the observations of an experimenter mentioned
by Mrs. De Morgan, that the perceptions of crystal-vision are not
interfered with by those of normal vision, but that the percipient
could discontinue her observation at will, and returning would find the
scene as she left it.
There is evidently involved here the condition of mind called
"temporary" or "momentary" hypnosis, or what Eduard Von Hartmann more
aptly calls "masked somnambulism." It is not fully developed hypnosis,
but simply its incipient forms—hypnoid states of manifold variations.
Now the question arises, Of what do these states consist? What are
their essential characteristics? And how are they to be psychologically
explained? For even our appeal to hypnotism simply puts a new empty
name into the place of an old one. If we do not understand hypnosis,
its production for the explanation of the magic mirror profits us
very little. The task, accordingly, presents itself of referring,
in connection with some psychological theory of hypnotism, the
well-established facts at our disposal to one and the same cause.
The theory from which I shall proceed in attempting an explanation, has
already been frequently touched upon in the course of this article;
for certain observations indicated it so clearly that mention of it
was not to be avoided. It is the doctrine of the double consciousness
of the human soul.[30] Acts are done in the course even of our
every-day life, which presuppose for their origin and execution all the
faculties of the soul, yet nevertheless occur without the knowledge of
the individual; they require a sort of consciousness and a separate
memory beyond the _cognisance_ of the normal person. One of the most
frequent cases in practical experience is where the thoughts of a
person reading aloud wander and become occupied with an entirely
different subject; and where despite this aberration the person in
question reads correctly with the proper emphasis and expression,
turns the leaves, and in short performs acts which without intelligent
control are hardly conceivable. An English psychologist, Mr. Barkworth,
has acquired such expertness in the practice of this, that during
an animated debate he can rapidly and correctly add long columns of
figures without having his attention diverted in the least. This points
not only to an unconscious intelligence, but—which is of still greater
consequence—to an unconscious memory. Mr. Barkworth must keep two
series of figures in his mind in order to obtain from them a third;
this latter sum he is again obliged to retain in order to add to it
a newly acquired fourth; and so on. The latter chain of memories,
let it be remarked, performs its office entirely independently of
that upon which the recollection of the debate is constructed; and it
may therefore be reasonably maintained that there exists beyond the
cognisance of the individual, both consciousness and memory; and if the
essential components of the ego are found in these two last-mentioned
factors, then every person conceals within himself the germs of a
second personality. I designate the two halves of consciousness that
thus operate in greater or less independence of each other,—in a
figurative sense of course,—as super-and sub-consciousness, and
comprehend the whole as the doctrine of double consciousness or the
double ego.
[30] Compare my treatise _Das Doppel-Ich_, the first number of
the "Publications of the Society of Experimental Psychology
of Berlin," Leipsic 1890, Ernst Günther. I must refer
here, moreover, to an acute criticism of my views by Adolf
Bentivegni, published as No. 4 of the above-named series, and
entitled _Die Hypnose und ihre civilrechtliche Bedeutung_,
Leipsic, 1890. The views set forth in the present article will
be found in the German magazine _Vom Fels zum Meer_.
The division very clearly appears in the opposition between waking and
dreaming. Even when we very accurately remember a dream which we have
just had,—which happens very seldom,—we feel the difference of the
two states of consciousness with unmistakable distinctness. We have no
power over the tricks that phantasy plays with us in our sleep, and in
spite of the often present belief that it is all but a dream, yet every
power fails us of penetrating into its independent activity. Moreover
the images are generally of a very definite signification, since they
are merely reproduced from the store-house of impressions that have
sunk into the unfathomable depths of our soul. In this way many a dream
reveals to us the true character of our Self; in this manner sub-basal
dream-images exhibit the thoughts and emotions that principally occupy
us in our innermost heart. Closer investigation teaches further, that
in dreams, states of intoxication, in somnambulistic and epileptic
attacks, not only does a consciousness different from the normal
consciousness rule, but that also between separate successive periods
memory-links of greater or lesser stability are wont to form. But this
is most strikingly exhibited in the case of hypnosis. The hypnotic
state is nothing more than an artificially produced ascendancy
of the secondary or subordinate ego. All its peculiarities are
explainable from this; for psychology endows the dream-consciousness
prevailing in this state, with sensibility and suggestibility, the
waking consciousness on the other hand with the inhibitory ideas
that represent reality. It has established, moreover, that our fully
conscious soul-life rests upon an automatically operating substratum
of hallucinatory character, in which images, long since forgotten,
have their abode. By virtue of these properties the subconsciousness
becomes the source of bold and fantastic creations, while the
superconsciousness is made the vehicle of our psychic life-work,
laboriously sustaining and regulating itself in its relations with the
outside world.
To this conception, which explains crystal-visions as a _form of the
activity of the subconsciousness_, it will be variously objected, that
such a simultaneous coexistence of two divisions of consciousness does
not possess the same degree of probability as an alternation of states
of consciousness. But how, upon this latter supposition, could the
"Hibbs House" case be explained? In this instance, two psychical groups
do not alternate, but one operates during the existence of the other.
Further, the propriety in general is questioned of speaking of
half-conscious or unconscious ideas and mental processes. It is the
opinion of the Göttingen philosopher G. E. Müller, that just as every
excitation of the brain immediately occasioned by a sensory stimulus
is not competent to produce a sensation, so also all reproduced
nervous excitations are not necessarily accompanied by perceptual
images. In the cases mentioned, and in many others, there is no reason
why groups of true _psychical_ states should be admitted, which, in
contradistinction to other psychical states, only lack consciousness;
on the contrary, we have to deal with simply a series of nervous
excitations, which, as distinguished from other excitations, are not
accompanied by corresponding states of our consciousness.
This conception of soul-life, which has been of late very favorably
received, Hugo Münsterberg has formulated thus—that the psychical
phenomenon is to a certain extent the subjective internal aspect of
a thus and thus constituted objective physical phenomenon. We are
to bear in mind that the succession of the physical processes is
nowhere interrupted, and that in addition certain of these physical
processes, those namely which are carried on with a certain intensity
in particular apparatuses of the brain, possess a psychical internal
aspect; so that this excitation of the nervous cells is, without losing
thereby anything in physical effect, the condition of the appearance of
certain sensations in consciousness.
But by the side of the physiological theory legitimately exist as
possibilities a psychological one and a psycho-physical one. It is the
doctrine of the latter theories that not only are physical vestiges
left behind in the cortex of the brain after every perception, but also
psychical dispositions to the formation of ideas and images; and that
it is possible for images of all kinds to continue to exist without
distinctly attaining to consciousness. These theories distinguish
between degrees of luminosity in our percepts and images, the three
most important degrees of which I have designated as consciousness,
subconsciousness, and unconsciousness. There exists a gradation of
degrees of consciousness, and the fully-conscious course of mental
representation is everywhere conditioned by its connection with the
obscured spheres beyond. Our attention surveys but a small area, on
the boundary lines of which the altitudes of consciousness decrease,
and finally approach the zero point. I say _approach_, for they never
reach it. Our experiments with the magic mirror in fact show us how
the oldest impressions, and impressions of ridiculous insignificance,
after long long years awake as it were from the slumber of the fabled
Sleeping Beauty. If our millions of perceptions were to live on
in _consciousness_ we should no longer have a past, but live in a
continuous celestial present; but were the operation of consciousness
so limited that it destroyed great numbers of images, the very facts
upon which the belief in supernatural powers rests, would lose their
only rational explanation. One result of our study of crystal-visions
is assuredly this, that we shall have to erase the word "forgotten"
with all its derivatives from the dictionary, and at the most employ
the phrase "not remembered." With more ardent yearning than ever before
will we long for a river of Lethe, and join with our whole hearts in
the cry of Themistocles, "O that some one might teach me the art of
forgetting!"
Along with the inner process the outward form of the hallucination
still requires a brief explanation. The circumstance, namely,
which lends magic-mirror phenomena their salient feature, is the
sensory reproduction of the images that have sprung up from the
subconsciousness. The subterranean ideas produced do not reach the
surface as thoughts, but as pseudo-perceptions. To refer the latter
to the place to which they belong, I shall first remind the reader of
the well-known after-images which arise when an excitation produced
in the sensory organ and in the sensory nerves does not immediately
disappear with the cessation of the excitatory action. By gazing at
the sun we can at once obtain this effect. But despite the fact that
the last-mentioned class of images possesses the full distinctness
of real sensations as distinguished from mere memory and imagination
images, they still bear no relation to our subject on account of their
union with _recently_ occurring sensory impressions. Still less do the
repetition-sensations in the dark field of vision—as of revolving
wheels—belong here; or illusions. There remain accordingly only
_hallucinations_, which are withdrawn from all conscious control, and
which possess the exact character of sensory perceptions externally
awakened, without any object or objective stimulation actually being
present in the outer world to correspond to them.
Hallucinations, the production of which are facilitated by the fixation
of shining surfaces, do not occur with all persons; and there may be a
kernel of truth in the tradition which designates women and children as
endowed with especial capacities in this respect. The investigations
of Fechner upon the varying vividness of after-images; the statistics
of Galton upon hallucinatory phantasms in artists; and the extensive
statistical work of the Society for Psychical Research, appear to
point to a connection of this character. Miss Goodrich told me that
her dreams were few in number and colorless. I must confess that I was
surprised at this; but she added that all her recollections of places
were accompanied with the vividness of actual sensory impressions.
If, for example, she desires to describe a room in a friend's house,
she returns in recollection to the occasion of her last visit; she
again occupies the same chair; the carpet at her feet becomes visible,
then the furniture nearest her, then the walls and ceiling, until a
true picture of the whole room is extended before her mind's eye.
Crystal-visions are distinguished from internal visions of this
character only by the single circumstance that they are projected
outwards to or upon a reflecting point. These visions often consist
of a room that Miss Goodrich has lately seen, or a street sign, or
of some movement that has startled her, as of a servant letting a
plate fall, or of a dog running under a wagon. No consideration that
the objects are not before her is of avail; the force of out-rushing
memory-formations and the acquired established connection of the
elements of soul-life are reduced to the primitive state that obtains
in the soul of a child, to whom life is in reality a dream without
definite limits. I well remember from the period of my early boyhood,
the peculiar sensation of a state flickering between reality and fancy,
and I understand the condition of those primitive tribes with whom
dreamland and life intermingle in the strangest way; but capacities in
this direction have disappeared down to the striking want of a normally
developed faculty for colors.
* * * * *
Summing up then, we may say, that with regard to their _contents_
the phenomena produced by the agency of the magic mirror proceed
from the realm of subconsciousness; and that with regard to their
_form_ they belong to the category of hallucinations. Their contents,
not regarded as a performance of memory, appear to possess no great
value—so grotesque and ordinary are the few ideas brought up from this
invisible storehouse. But they often supply us with a deep view into
the secrets of character, and inculcate with terrible emphasis the
truth that nothing is lost in the realms of the soul, any more than
in the external world which is ruled by the law of the conservation
of energy. Every thought that ever traversed our brain, every emotion
that has ever thrilled our heart, every wish that has ever animated
for a fleeting moment our breast—has all been entered in ineffaceable
characters in the day-book of our earthly existence. Would that this
knowledge could strengthen our feeling of moral responsibility!
Thus does the expansion of our psychological conceptions not
infrequently lead to an enrichment of our notions of morality. But
whether we place a higher value upon this aspect last mentioned, or
upon the purely scientific object to which we referred at the beginning
of our article, or finally upon a factor connected therewith, namely
the enlightenment of society—at any rate we must confess that in the
much abused "magic mirror" a rich and attractive source of treasures
has been opened.
MAX DESSOIR.
HÖFFDING ON THE RELATION OF THE MIND TO THE BODY.
Few topics are of greater speculative or indeed practical interest
than that of the relation of the body to the mind. Rarely has the
subject been treated with such perspicuity and at the same time with
such candor and avoidance of hasty dogmatism as by Professor Harald
Höffding, of Copenhagen, in his "Psychology" (translated into German
from the Danish and published in Leipsic, Reisland). A leading American
professor of philosophy remarked to me recently that this for its
size (the volume contains 452 pages) was the best all-around work on
Psychology; and an examination of the section entitled _Seele und
Körper_ (Mind and Body) certainly gives countenance to the statement.
Professor Höffding does not indeed oppose himself to metaphysical
speculation; he believes that the human mind will never consent to
being shut out from the task of searching after the ultimate principles
of the universe, of which it is a part. But his standpoint in this
work is the purely empirical one, as one's standpoint must be in every
positive science. Positive science deals with the facts of experience;
metaphysics with their ultimate explanation. He regards it as a
misfortune to confuse the two, as popular thinking in psychology does;
and scientific thinking in this realm is characterised by the effort
to avoid the confusion and keep solely to the facts of observation and
experience. Accordingly both materialism and spiritualism are excluded
from the field—each theory involving a transcending of the realm of
experience, i. e., being metaphysical.
There are two subdivisions of the realm of experience according to
Professor Höffding,—one coextensive with psychical phenomena, such as
feelings, thoughts, and volitions, the other with physical phenomena,
i. e., with what moves in space. They may be called respectively inner
experience and outer experience. Each must be grasped in its distinct
features; and only after doing so can we feel the _problem_ involved in
the question of their relation to or connection with one another. For
it happens that one set of outer experiences stands in an indisputably
peculiar relation to the phenomena of consciousness, namely, the set
which we describe by the term "body" and, more particularly, by that of
"nervous system" or "brain." Much of what we call the physical world
stands in relation to consciousness as the thing known to the knower;
but a part of the physical world (i. e., the body or brain) seems a
part of the knower as well—a body or nervous system of some kind seems
an indispensable requirement or at least concomitant of anything like
feeling, or thought, or act of volition.
Now, different as the movements of the nervous system, the processes
of the brain are from the phenomena of consciousness, there are a
number of resemblances between them. Professor Höffding specifies
six: (1) As the nervous system is the central, unifying organ of the
body, so does consciousness bring together into a unity all the varied
phenomena of experience, scattered though they be in time and space.
(2) Just as a change is necessary that consciousness may be awakened,
(an absence of contrasts tending in the direction of unconsciousness,)
so a stimulus is necessary that the nerves may act. (3) A stimulus
may produce a commotion in the nervous system out of all proportion
to its immediate efficacy, just as a spark may act on a magazine of
powder; so a simple sensation may set in motion a whole train of ideas
and emotions, owing to the complicated structure and multitudinous
inner relations of consciousness. (4) The movements of the body are
slow in proportion as they are conscious; now the nerves which appear
to be closely related to consciousness act more slowly than those
which direct purely physiological (i. e., unconscious) processes. (5)
The lower nerve-centres form a system comparatively independent of
the higher ones; corresponding to this is the fact that many bodily
processes go on unconsciously and only make us aware of them when the
circumstances attending them are particularly favorable or unfavorable.
The _consciousness_ of the physical state corresponds to the excitation
of the higher nerve-centres. Similarly the action of the will has its
physiological counterpart; in the struggle between "the flesh and the
spirit," the lower nerve-centres with their reflex and involuntary
actions correspond to the flesh, the higher centres to the spirit. (6)
The construction of the nervous system is similar to the constitution
of consciousness; just as consciousness is at once receptive and
active, with more or less of intervening reflection or thought, so the
nervous system has both sensory and motor organs, with an intervening
sphere.
Not only are there these formal resemblances, there is a real
connection, according to Professor Höffding, as is shown by the fact
that with the evolution of the nervous system go higher and higher
forms of consciousness, that irritation on the surface of an organism
must be communicated to the brain that conscious sensations may arise,
and that when arterial blood fails to reach the brain unconsciousness
supervenes. What hypothesis do these facts conduct to us? All of them
must be born in mind that any special hypothesis may be legitimated.
There are only four possibilities: (1) Either consciousness and the
brain, mind and body, act upon one another as two separate things or
substances; (2) or the mind is only a form or product of the body; (3)
or the body is only a form or product of one or more mental substances;
(4) or mind and body, consciousness and the brain, grow and develop
as different manifestations of one and the same substance. It must be
admitted that the author at this point somewhat deserts the empirical
standpoint to which he declared at the outset that he should keep. The
_facts_ of correspondence or parallelism are all that come within the
realm of experience; their _explanation_ must be more or less a matter
of inference and theoretical construction and involves a departure in
the direction of metaphysics. Professor Höffding is aware of this and
says that these hypotheses belong to the border-land between positive
science and metaphysics. Moreover, he confesses that any conclusion
he may reach will have only a provisional value and may need revision,
before it can serve as a final part of a philosophical system. He will,
however, follow as closely as possible the leadings of experience, as
indeed he says we should do in all metaphysical speculation.
In considering the first hypothesis, (namely, that mind and body act
on one another as two things,) Professor Höffding shows that it is
inconsistent with the law of the conservation of energy. For, at the
point where the nervous process is converted into mental activity,
one sum of physical energy would disappear without being replaced by
another sum of the same kind. As matter of fact no disappearance of
energy takes place on account of the arising of a conscious state. The
chain of psychical causation is not broken; its completeness no more
suffers than if states of consciousness did not arise at all. Nor on
the other hand does consciousness affect the sum of physical energy;
it is hardly conceivable that it should even change the _direction_ of
such energy (the sum supposably remaining constant, as is sometimes
held), since to do this it must itself become a physical force.
Moreover, if there is a relation of cause and effect between the brain
and consciousness it would seem as if an interval of time must elapse
between the process in the brain and the rising of the conscious state,
a view to which the teachings of physiology lend no likelihood.
The second hypothesis regards matter as the real or actual thing and
mind as an effect or form of it. Such materialism is certainly older
than the now prevalent doctrine of the interaction of two distinct
things. Homer and the earliest Greek philosophers held to it. Similar
views prevailed among the early Christian fathers before Augustine.
Modern materialists, however, regard the mind, not in the earlier
fashion as semi-corporeal, but as a function or form of the corporeal.
Yet when we closely consider the matter, we find that to conceive of
the function of a bodily organ is simply to conceive of that organ as
in activity. As Goethe said, "Function is das Dasein in Thätigkeit
gedacht." But a bodily organ in activity is just as much corporeal as
one at rest, and anything without corporeal attributes can no more be
the function of such an organ than it can be the organ itself. The
conception of function (in the physiological sense) as truly as that of
matter implies something that exists in spacial form; while thoughts
and feelings are without spacial form.
In dealing with the third hypothesis, (namely, that body is a form or
product of mind,) Professor Höffding does not so much criticise it as
explain a modified and interesting form in which Lotze held it. It is
not, however, the view which he adopts.
To the fourth hypothesis he gives his adhesion. The parallel and
proportional relations between consciousness and brain-activity point,
according to him, to an underlying identity between the two. One and
the same principle, he says, has found its expression in a two-fold
form. The physical interaction between the elements of which the
nervous system is composed, is an outward form of the inner ideal unity
of consciousness. What we immediately experience as thoughts, feelings,
volitions, has its physical representation in certain brain-processes,
which as such are under the law of the conservation of energy, though
this law has no application to the relation between brain-processes
_and_ consciousness. It is as if one and the same content were
expressed in two languages.
This conclusion, however, he repeats, is but an empirical formula
and has provisional value only. One substance, he says, acts in both
consciousness and the bodily organism, but what kind of a substance
is this, and why does it have this twofold form of manifestation?
These are questions, he replies, beyond the reach of our knowledge. We
can simply make a statement which seems to be required by the facts,
namely, that the same thing which lives, grows, and takes on form in
the outward world, apprehends itself inwardly as thinking, feeling, and
willing. No opinion is thereby ventured as to whether mind or matter
is the more original form of existence. By no means is metaphysical
speculation upon this question excluded. The hypothesis of identity
(for so Professor Höffding terms it) is consistent with philosophical
idealism and also with the view that the innermost nature of being
is not identical with consciousness. He simply claims for it that it
is the most natural conclusion with regard to the relation between
two empirical sciences, physiology and psychology. These sciences,
according to the hypothesis, treat of the same material viewed from
two different sides, and there can be no more conflict between them
than between one person who looks on the convex side of a circle and
another who looks on the concave side (to borrow an illustration used
by Fechner).
On another occasion I may give my own views, and content myself now
with saying that I have followed with the greatest interest and with
much (if not unlimited) satisfaction the treatment of the subject at
the hands of the genial, large-minded Danish professor.
W. M. SALTER.
LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
FRANCE.
The work of M. FOUILLÉE which I announced in my last communication
(to your other magazine), bears the title of _L'Evolutionnisme des
Idées-Forces_. It is a voluminous work; and it contains a great many
things—perhaps too many. We have from M. Fouillée, the promise of a
constructive work—_La Psychologie des Idées-Forces_, in two volumes;
but his present book is chiefly devoted to the labor of demolition. As
contemporaneous psychology has its weak sides, and as M. Fouillée is a
skilful critic, you may imagine that his attacks upon Wundt, Herbert
Spencer, Taine, Ribot, W. James, and numbers of others, both living
and dead, are conducted with spirit. The successful fulfilment of the
task he has set himself would necessitate the ruin of the hypothesis,
avowed or concealed, that has supported psychological research as well
as furnished occasional excellent conclusions; for it is the aim of
M. Fouillée to overthrow what he has ingeniously termed the theory of
"idea-reflexes," and the place once cleared, to substitute for it the
theory of "idea-forces."
The chief feature of the book is therefore M. Fouillée's criticisms of
the theories "that make consciousness the intermittent illumination
of a mechanism"; of the theories "that reduce the sentiments and the
emotions to simple reverberations of organic movements and even of
expressive movements"; of those finally "that make of desire and the
feeling of effort, simple passive muscular sensations, the reflexions
of movements already executed." Solid objections are not wanting in
these pages. M. Fouillée does not refrain from playing when he has a
good hand.
So far so good. But—we ask—would psychology have ever made any
advances if it lacked the hypothesis that M. Fouillée condemns? And,
as a matter of fact, are the majority of psychologists really thus
irretrievably bent upon establishing a mechanical explanation of life,
a theory of "man as automaton"? The truth of the matter is that the
opposed point of view has rendered no results, and that in taking
consciousness for our central position we too easily go astray in
fanciful speculations. On the other hand, by the endeavor to grasp
the bonds of mind through the medium of the body, it _has_ been found
possible to throw some light upon unobserved facts. It would not do to
let this be too quickly forgotten; and if some have seen fit to pass
beyond and to attempt to reduce the Universe to a mechanism, imprudent
saltations of this character into open materialistic metaphysics
concern them alone.
Will M. Fouillée be more fortunate in his reduction of the world to
idealism? It yet appears doubtful. The definition of 'idea-forces'
presents at the outset elements of embarrassment. That every idea,
every mental image, however absolutely an image it may be, of emotions
or of passions, always contains some motor elements, and consequently
acts like a force, is easily comprehended, and every body allows it.
When physiologists speak of the power of ideas, they mean nothing else.
But beyond that we cannot go. The idea, in M. Fouillée's sense, is
every state of consciousness. Now, all the facts of consciousness are
reducible to the following elementary connected process: sensation,
perceptual excitation, reaction; and the three factors of this process
cannot be separated or reduced to one. Every idea, or state of
consciousness, is accordingly the source of motion since it contains
desire. Desire is basal to the nervous act; the nervous act does not
precede and does not explain the higher states that psychologists,
viewing things from a different point of view, have regarded as
epiphenomena. The essence, not only of man, but also of the world,
is desire. The idea-force, "the abridged formula of the appetitive
process," becomes the shaper of universal evolution, and, in a word,
the physical is a reflection of the psychical.
Such are, if I am not deceived, the chief propositions of the work, put
into a logical form, from which no doubt you will judge that the facts
do not correspond without evident hiatus.
You do not believe in absolute truth, and I no more hope for it.
The mind does not escape certain illusions, which come from what it
necessarily places in the reality that it wishes to know, or which it
acquires from itself. Meanwhile both the opposing doctrines triumph,
seeing that there is always something in each that cannot be explained;
but let them not be too severe on each other, and not forget that if
they succeed in explaining something, it is perhaps as well that they
resign themselves to not explaining everything.
I had intended to give in this letter a detail of the theory of Mme.
CLÉMENCE ROYER, in order to compare it with that of M. Fouillée; I had
prepared it from certain published memoirs, as her great manuscript
work has unfortunately not found a publisher. But _The Open Court_ has
given a résumé of it sufficiently complete to excuse me from returning
to the subject. Whatever service can be rendered by the hypothesis of
Mme. Clémence Royer, or, more strictly whatever use can be made of the
mathematical formulæ which explain them, or which are deducible from
them, it will belong to special scientists to inform us. She begins the
explanation of the world by physics, and M. Fouillée by psychology. It
is a difference in the point of departure. Let us add that M. Fouillée
appears to imagine an activity without substance, a mind without
muscles, if it can be thus expressed; on the contrary, in that which
she calls world-stuff Mme. Clémence Royer distinguishes a hyperethereal
or vital state, and she assigns for the substratum of life this simple
state of the cosmical substance.
Opposed as may be the character of the minds of these two authors, the
two theories seem to coincide in the notion of a living and conscious
monad. We meet it when they are farthest apart! Thus, for Mme. Clémence
Royer, life and consciousness are everywhere, they are in the atom, and
from the beginning. There, in the great "romance of being," is a scene
which reappears almost always the same. As to the ultimate explanation
we have no great choice, and each of the hypotheses that we form almost
produces the other. All the value of a system of philosophy is really
in the help it lends to scientific curiosity or to the conduct of life.
* * * * *
M. ERNEST NAVILLE is one of those who cannot comprehend moral conduct
in life apart from spiritualism. He endeavors, accordingly, in a work
called _La Physique Moderne_, to prove that the study of the phenomena
of matter does not imply materialism and does not necessarily lead to
atheism. The argument of M. Naville is well worn. We shall grant to
him only that "it is necessary to avoid implicitly solving questions
by saying that we do not deal with them at all." On the whole, this
pledges to nothing. Practically, and in good faith, abstention is
nevertheless a solution.
* * * * *
I have now to point out _L'Esthétique d'Aristote et de ses
Successeurs_, by M. CH. BÉNARD, an _Etude sur Francois Bacon_ by M.
J. BARTHÉLEMY ST. HILAIRE, and _L'Anthropologie Criminelle et ses
Récents Progrès_, by M. CESARE LOMBROSO. M. Bénard is one of the good
old masters, who, what they do know, know well, and his book is one
of those that it is profitable to possess. The study of M. Barthélemy
St. Hilaire is followed by the Report on the Memoirs presented to
the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, which had proposed as a
subject "The Philosophy of Bacon." As to M. Lombroso, the celebrated
Italian criminologist, he has wished to reply to the objections that
have been made to his views, especially by the French medical alienists
at the Congress of 1889, and this is why he has written on this
occasion in our language: he supports by new facts the notion, hitherto
contested, of a "criminal type."
* * * * *
The last work of which I have to speak, is the _Souvenirs de M. Charles
Mismer_,[31] of which the third volume which recently appeared, has
for its title _Souvenirs de la Martinique et du Mexique pendant
l'Intervention Francaise_. There is in these volumes no express
philosophy, as this term is understood, but they are the work of an
observing, reflecting mind, and in these pages one sees a man living
and growing. In the course of his adventurous existence, M. Mismer,
already instructed by experience, by chance acquired knowledge of the
_Cours_ of August Comte; he became attached to it, and found there an
opening into sociology, a tie by which to link together his personal
ideas. He afterwards published several articles[32] in the Review
conducted by M. Littré, and he records to-day in his _Souvenirs_
the valuable observations which he has had occasion to make on very
different races of men and strongly opposed social states. He is one
of those whom the philosophic spirit has led to a philosophic life,
and the persons who read his work will thank me for having made them
acquainted with a unique and worthy character.
[31] In course of publication by Hachette. The other works
mentioned are published by Alcan.
[32] A part of these articles formed a volume entitled
_Principes Sociologiques_.
LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
BOOK REVIEWS.
THE WAY OUT OF AGNOSTICISM, or, THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREE RELIGION. By
_Francis Ellingwood Abbott_, Ph. D., Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
"This book aims to show that, in order to refute agnosticism and
establish enlightened theism, nothing is now necessary but to
philosophise that very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously
misunderstands and misuses ... It aims to develop the philosophy
which must (consciously or unconsciously) underlie any and every free
religious movement or institution: namely the philosophy which results
from the faithful application of the scientific method to the universe
as a whole."
The author further observes that "nothing is more common or more
confusing than a loose vague and indeterminate use of this phrase"
[scientific method] and that his object is "to give definiteness and
scientific precision to a much abused expression by showing that the
Scientific Method ... is neither more nor less than the SCIENTIFIC
THEORY OF UNIVERSALS APPLIED IN PRACTICE TO THE ACQUISITION OF
KNOWLEDGE."
Now whether or not the identification of the scientific method with
the practical application of the theory mentioned, will give the
much needed definiteness and precision, depends very much upon the
definiteness and precision of that theory itself.
The Scientific Theory of Universals, the author tells us, receives "no
adequate exposition" in this book. We are in possession, however, of
several other publications of the author, one of which—"Scientific
Theism"—is largely devoted to that purpose.
We will endeavor in a spirit of studious candor and fidelity, to state
as well as we can the essentials of that theory. We must protest,
however, that we cannot undertake to clear up the obscurity that must
necessarily involve any theory that is stated by the aid of such shifty
and inconstant terms, as objective, subjective, knowledge, relation,
existence, reality, etc., when the same are used without rigorous
definitions of the respective senses thereof that are intended.
The Scientific Theory of Universals affirms, that objectively real
individuals do exist, that objectively real genera do exist, that
objectively real relations do exist, that the objectively real genera
are in every instance constituted as such by that set of objectively
real relations uniquely appropriate to it; that in every instance of a
genus the objectively real relations "reproduce" themselves _in specie_
in the mind separate from aught of the objective realities that are
brought into relation by them, that these "reproduced" relations in the
mind constitute the subjective concept that is designated by the word
appropriate thereto, and that the single objective Universal is _at
once_ and integrally the objective genus, the subjective concept, and
the term or word. The Universe is the _summum genus_, concept and word,
which is, means, and expresses the correlated totality of all genera
together.
Dr. Abbott neglects reference to genera of purely mental existences,
and relies for proof of his theory upon the single argument that no
postulate is used that Science has not taken for granted, and proved by
the finding that the facts are in agreement with the postulates.
Now "the only possible justification of any theory is that it
makes things clear and reasonable." In this theory the central and
controlling position is that the objectively real relations invade
the mind in person and there obtain as the concept.—This doctrine
is so far as we can see the original idea of Dr. Abbott and must be
considered as his contribution to philosophy. It is by this that his
work is to be tested. Does the addition of this new postulate clear up
any obscurity?—Is this new postulate one of the assumptions of Science?
The truth about this whole matter of universals seems to be that it
belongs to the theory of notation primarily, and then to psychology and
ontology.
The mind proceeds to obtain correspondence with its alternative by
analysis and synthesis. The recognition of difference or otherness
is an indispensable condition of consciousness itself. One phase of
the recognition of difference is that activity called abstraction.
But along with difference comes the recognition of what is different
from difference, or likeness in all its grades and involutions. The
sense of relation, and the impulse of generalisation also arise,
and altogether these mentalities become effectual in virtue of some
system or some plexus of systems of notation. Long before man ever
began to reflect upon his mental operations and the means or tools
employed on that behalf, his mental manners and customs had become a
second mental nature. What warrant have we for taking these mental
manners and customs as the same are reflected in ordinary language as
adequate criteria for the world-problems, or even as representative
of the very constitutional laws of thought itself? Just as philosophy
found it profitable to postpone ontology to psychology, so it is
submitted may it again find it profitable to postpone psychology to a
study not merely of language but of notation generally, of which the
notation of mathematics will undoubtedly be found the most significant.
Here we have distinction, abstraction, assimilation, relation, and
generalisation carried on and carried out with unchecked thoroughness,
and systems of universals ascertained that not only correspond exactly
with every acquired and incoming item of our experience, but are also
in respect to one another continuous throughout the whole of their
range. It will be impossible for any one who once appreciates the
nature and competence of mathematical notation to regard any theory of
universals relating to ordinary language as a solution of its problem
that does not conform to the perfect models set in mathematics.
Dr. Abbott claims that _scientific method_ is neither more nor less
than the application of his theory. Granting that science makes the
same presumptions, can scientific method be said to be neither more
nor less than the application of his theory in any other sense than it
could be said to be neither more nor less than the application of the
theory of the existence of matter, energy, ether, and mind?
The scientific method consists not in its data but in the ways in which
it deals with its data, in other words it consists in its logic. It
observes and infers. It never stops to inquire if what it observes
are the "things in themselves" or only phenomena. That is an utterly
inconsequential question to it. It tests the validity of inductive and
hypothetical inferences by comparison with experience, and phenomenal
experience is every whit as good a criterion for it as any other.
It has a metaphysics of its own which is mathematics and which it
acknowledges as the supreme and unquestionable arbiter over whatever of
its presumptions and theories that arbiter may undertake to govern.
No philosophy that neglects to comprehend and apply the now supremely
important methods and results of mathematics can be anything but an
ineffectual attempt. No doubt this will seem to most of those who
affect philosophy a statement worthy only of scorn. Prof. Crystal,
at the close of his article on "Parallels," in the ninth edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica "calls the attention of those who busy
themselves with mental philosophy" to that geometrical subject and its
affiliations "as one of the results of modern mathematical research
which they cannot afford to overlook." We can imagine with what an air
of conscious eminence one or more of our dilettanti philosophers may
have perused this suggestion, wondering what in the world parallels and
measurement have to do with philosophy.
But, nevertheless, so it is that a new departure in philosophy has been
made inevitable by the stupendous researches of modern mathematics and
this the philosophical world is just beginning to find out. It seems
to us, that the incomplete view taken by Dr. Abbott will prevent that
success for his theory which his most distinguished ability might
otherwise achieve, and which his devoted efforts well merit.
F. C. R.
RACES AND PEOPLES: LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF ETHNOGRAPHY. By _Daniel
G. Brinton_, A.M., M.D., etc., etc. New York: N. D. C. Hodges.
These lectures, which are dedicated to Mr. Horatio Hale, the veteran
philologist and ethnographer to the United States exploring expedition
in 1832-42, go over a very wide ground. The ground traversed is,
indeed, so extensive that Dr. Brinton feels bound to apologise for
being often superficial, as otherwise he could not have compressed into
so small a space the subjects of which he treats. This apology must
necessarily to some extent disarm the critic, although it should do
so only where a conclusion is not supported by sufficient evidence.
Where a statement made is not merely unsupported by, but is contrary
to, the best evidence available, the author must expect to be called
to account. We were prepared to act on this principle, thinking that
possibly confession like charity would be found to cover a multitude
of sins, but we must admit that with certain exceptions, the chief of
which are to be found in the lecture on "the psychical elements of
Ethnography," we were mistaken.
We do not propose to follow the author in his classification of the
varieties of mankind, or in his views of the origin of the various
races into which they are divided, both of which will meet with keen
opposition from most of the anthropologists of Western Europe, although
those of Germany may receive them with more favor. We are concerned
chiefly with the opening and the closing chapters of the work before
us, from which we may draw some conclusions bearing on the race
question, that disturbs the minds of so many people in this country.
Dr. Brinton remarks that the physical traits of man are correlated to
the physiological functions in such a manner as profoundly to influence
the destiny of nations. He adds that from the physical point of view,
the pure white is weaker than the dark races, worse prepared for the
combat of life, with inferior viability; but in the white this is
more than compensated by the development of the nervous system and
intellectual power. The white "can bear greater mental strain than any
other race, and the activity of his mind supplies him with means to
overcome the inferiority of his body, and thus places him at the head
of the whole species." It might be supposed that a mixture of races
having these different qualities, would result in the formation of a
hybrid race, superior to either of the parent stocks.
Dr. Brinton, who is strongly opposed to the practice of miscegenation,
endorses the opinion that the offspring of a cross between the white
and the black races are deficient in physical vigor, and that such
hybrids gradually die out. He admits, however, that it was not so
within the African area in early times, and he suggests that special
causes are now at work to affect the results of race-mixture. One of
these is the fact that the white blood is derived exclusively from the
father, and the dark blood exclusively from the mother. Now, if it be
true, as is supposed, that physical qualities are derived chiefly from
the father and the psychical qualities chiefly from the mother, we
may reasonably expect, as is indeed recognised, that the children of
such unions will be physically superior to members of the black stock,
although inferior to those of the white race. It is admitted, moreover,
that mulattoes are, as a rule, intellectually superior to pure negroes;
so that miscegenation is undoubtedly of relative advantage to the
immediate offspring, whatever may be its result on their descendants.
What Dr. Brinton and other writers of the same opinion object to,
however, is the deterioration of the white stock. If there was any
reason to believe this possible, the objection would have weight. But
it supposes miscegenation to become general, which, in the first place,
is an event which could never happen, unless the women of this country
descended to the level of a Messalina. And in the second place, Dr.
Brinton admits that "in the earlier conditions of social life, no
such debility attended the crossing of the Eurafrican [white race]
and African race as seems at present to be the case." It is possible,
therefore, that if the mixture of the two races became general, and
were regarded as perfectly legitimate, the present physical and
intellectual debility attending such unions might disappear. We do not
advocate miscegenation, but we wish to point out, that those who oppose
it under the present limitations of our knowledge, do so either on
insufficient grounds, or because they are influenced, consciously or
unconsciously, by sentimental considerations.
We are glad to see that Dr. Brinton does not endorse the views so
prevalent among English Ethnologists as to the existence of "communal
marriage" among the lower races of mankind. In his recent work on "The
Origin and Development of Marriage and Kinship," Mr. C. Staniland Wake
has dealt exhaustively with that subject, and shown that the "marriage
law" is fully recognised among the most savage peoples. We cannot
accept Dr. Brinton's statements where he says that the Australian
aborigines are led to associate "by much the same motives as prompt
buffaloes to gather in a herd," or when he speaks of the "rare" custom
of polyandry, or declares that mutual affection has no existence among
the Australians and many other tribes, and that romantic love is
practically absent among the African and Mongolian races. Our author
is equally at fault when he says that no Asiatic nation respects truth
telling, and that "the idea of independent personal ownership does
not exist among them." These errors, and such misstatements as that
"the excellent results of the extension of the Slavonian supremacy in
Central Asia have been studiously ignored by British writers," which
are due to Dr. Brinton's preference for Continental authorities, are
serious blemishes. Nevertheless, his book is an excellent one, and we
can heartily recommend it as an introductory Manual of Ethnology.
Ω.
STUDIES IN HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. With a Chapter On Christian
Unity in America. By _J. Macbride Sterrett_, D. D., Professor of
Ethics and Apologetics in Seabury Divinity School. New York: D.
Appleton & Co.
These studies in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, except Chapters III
and VIII, claim to be something more than a mere expository paraphrase
of Hegel, although following Hegel's argument in Chapter IV. The
author's purpose is strictly theological and _apologetic_. His work
is written with faith, and in the interest of "the faith." In fact,
in England and America the theological rather than philosophical
interest taken in the study of Hegel has mainly been called forth
by the supposed intimate relation of his thought to religion and to
Christianity regarded as the absolute, full, and final religion. To
this pseudo-Hegelian school of England and America, Hegel, above all,
is radically a _theologian_; all his thoughts beginning and ending in
that of divinity. It regards Hegel's Philosophy of Religion as the
very heart of his thinking, as "the highest bloom of his philosophy."
It is supposed to reconcile Christian theology with the modern science
of religion (or comparative religion), with anthropology, and with the
classification of positive, pre-Christian religions. American students
of Hegelian philosophy, as a rule, do not desire to be regarded as
Hegelians. "Bound to swear in the name of no master in philosophy,
and only in the name of Christ in religion, would better characterise
them all. They are simply using his _method_ ... they are getting
great help, and looking for still greater from the method, which was
greater than even Hegel's own employment of it." Hegel's method is thus
declared to be greater than himself, and is received like an article
of faith. In these studies, while freely discussing and criticising
all that Hegel has thought or said upon the subject of the philosophy
of religion, the author entirely omits to enter into a critical
discussion of precisely the most important point; namely, the absolute
value of Hegel's philosophical _method_. He overlooks the interesting
fact, that all that is permanently true and great in Hegel was really
reached by Hegel himself, and understood, from a point of view that
was _diametrically opposed to his own accepted method_; in glaring
contrast to his evolution of the logical idea, and to his theory of
"pure thought" or "reines Denken." "To reconcile reason with religion,
by finding reason in religion and religion in reason," is doubtless a
correct Hegelian statement, yet, at the same time, it only expresses an
exclusive, one-sided aspect of the system.
There was a time when the Hegelian system ranked as a foremost
intellectual phenomenon. It was, perhaps, the highest that philosophy
ever had achieved; but its manifest fault consisted in its being
a purely philosophical and _a priori_ system. A philosophy that
existed in external opposition to the sciences remained only an empty
abstraction, just as force when severed from the phenomenon, or Deity
when opposed to the outside world. Hegel's philosophy ultimately
recognised, that force only is or exists in the phenomenon; that the
internal itself constitutes the external, the Deity is only present in
the universe, the infinite in the finite. Any philosophy proclaiming
all this must be said to have succumbed with a vengeance to its own
dialectic process.
A philosophy of this kind would seem to have signed its own
death-warrant—or according to the popular German saying, "hat
selbst den Stab über sich gebrochen!" And thus it really happened to
Hegelianism—we mean to _genuine German_ Hegelianism. From that moment
it forfeited its claim to be regarded as the highest truth. It was
compelled to step forth out of its one-sided exclusiveness, out of
its opposition to empirical science. Hegelianism was not expected to
effect any kind of compromise or reconciliation with empirical science,
because any yielding on its own part would have been illogical, and
could only have brought about a momentary truce, but no lasting peace.
On the contrary, Hegelianism had to suffer the infinitely bitter pang
of self-immolation. It had deliberately to commit suicide, in order
thereupon to be welded with empirical science into a much higher and
more comprehensive _unity_. In other words,—in fact in _Hegel's own
words_—"when the old principle thus reappears, it is no longer what
it was before, for it is changed and purified by the higher element
into which it is now taken up."
The Hegelian system was thus compelled to acknowledge, that not only
must philosophy agree with experience, but moreover, the creation of
a philosophical science premises as an indispensable condition the
hypothesis of an empirical science, which itself implies that the ideas
of space, of time, of movement, and of matter cannot be obtained _a
priori_,—that is before the experience of the things themselves,—or
be purely evolved, according to the Hegelian method, from the logical
idea. To attempt to reconcile reason with religion by finding reason
in religion and religion in reason, is simply to evolve _a priori_
a philosophy of religion from the logical idea. This is believed to
be possible by means of the mystic factors—"the Hegelian method"
and the "Logos." The original contents of eternal reason itself—of
the _logos_—are supposed to exist within our mind in a form that
constitutes our inmost truth; our spontaneous logical thinking
coincides with the innate eternal reason in form and contents, and thus
attains to the full revelation of itself.
But all this is purely an hypothesis, or a kind of belief in reason,
"der Glaube an die Vernunft!" Hegel himself in conclusion was forced to
admit that philosophy must closely observe the method of nature. (See
Encycl. III, 22.) The editor of Hegel's Philosophy of History (Gans,
page XV) says, "Hegel did not wish to personate the deity that creates
or evolves history, but to be a man who contemplates created rational
history"; and Hegel himself says (page 13), "we must take history as it
is; we have to proceed according to an historical, empirical method.
... Only from the study of history itself are we allowed to infer
that historical events are really rational events." And in Hegel's
"Naturphilosophie," (page 24,) and elsewhere there are to be found
perfectly analogous passages.
It cannot be denied, that the author of this work on Hegel's philosophy
of religion has made a deep study of all the vast details of the
Hegelian system; but his one-sided theological criticism exclusively
aims at representing Hegel himself as a theologian. This American
pseudo-Hegelianism may probably have had the effect of stimulating
American thinkers, but in other respects it has only retained the
phantom and empty shadow of Hegelianism, playing fast and loose with
the old system under the captious name of the "Hegelian method," and
making a free use of its obscure, obsolete phraseology. The cry "back
to Kant" by English Neo-Kantianism, is declared to mean a speedy
return to Hegel's method, and to be only the first step of the protest
"against temporary, materialistic, and psychological thought."
The last chapter, in the form of an appendix, is devoted to the
discussion of "Christian Unity." The author deplores the current
abstract conceptions of the church, and regards them as the main
obstacle to its visible organic unity. The Hegelian ideas on religion
and the state are believed to suggest a more concrete, historical view,
and to destroy the abstract conception.
γνλν.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY; OR, LAW IN MIND AS IN MATTER. By _Charles
Bray_. Third edition, revised and abridged. London and New York:
Longmans, Green, & Co.
This work was originally published in 1841, and comprised an Exposition
of the Doctrine of the Philosophy of Necessity, or the Law of
Consequences, first, in its relation to Mental Science, secondly, in
its relation to Ethics, and thirdly, an application of its principles
to the social questions of the day. The third part has been omitted
from the present edition, as being out of date, but many of its
statistics and observations are given as an Appendix. In a prefatory
note it is stated as a reason for preserving in an accessible form the
conclusions arrived at by Mr. Bray, that he "worked out for himself a
theory as to the purpose of existence that satisfied his own mind, and
became to him a cheerful philosophy which intensified his enjoyment
of all things good and pleasant, helped him to bear the troubles of
life, and to meet the end in a spirit as bright as it was resigned"—a
statement which those who knew him personally will heartily endorse.
Mr. Bray's theory is embodied in the title of the work under review,
and its key-note is "order in nature." His object is to show "that the
mind of man is not an exception to nature's other works; that like
everything else it has received a determinate character; that all our
knowledge of it is precisely of the same kind as that of material
things, and consists in the observation of _its order_ of action, or
of the relation of cause and effect." According to this view we can
know the real nature of neither matter nor mind, Nature herself having
fixed the boundaries beyond which human knowledge cannot extend. It
would be a mistake, however, to suppose that Mr. Bray regarded Nature
as something apart, giving to man laws from the operation of which it
is itself free. A little consideration shows that such is not his idea.
Nature is with Mr. Bray only another name for God. Moreover, man is
nothing, God is all; "individuality, or anything separate from Him,
is a mode of thought, and has no real existence." Electricity, heat,
light, and other forces of nature are modes of the Unknowable, and
are transformable into each other and into the other modes which we
distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought. The qualities or properties
of matter are mere force or power, and as they are qualities of God,
the assumption of the existence of matter is not necessary. God "is
the Universal Being, of which all things are the manifestations. Every
thing is a mode of God's attribute of extension; every thought, wish,
or feeling, is a mode of His attribute of thought."
To Mr. Bray the only _reality_ is God, the great Unknown, and as He is
also the Unknowable, we have in the Philosophy of Necessity a system of
Agnosticism. And yet Mr. Bray is hardly consistent with himself. For,
unlike Mr. Herbert Spencer, he speaks of God in terms of Spirit, which
becomes in his system identical with force. When, moreover, he declares
that "the whole sensitive existence is but the innumerable individual
eyes with which the Infinite World Spirit beholds Himself," we have a
kind of Monism. This view however recognises God as "the only real and
efficient power in the universe," and, as the Great First Cause and
the Great Last Cause of all things, a Divine Being. Mr. Bray does not
enter into the question of the personality of God, but that he supposes
the Deity to possess consciousness is evident from his reference to
the Great Soul of Nature, and his statement that the operation of its
forces is governed by thought. His ideas are summed up in the words,
"we feel ourselves a part
"Of that stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the Soul."
Holding this opinion, Mr. Bray could not be otherwise than a
Necessitarian and an Utilitarian in his practical views. These are well
shown in his treatment of the question of the freedom of will, as to
which he accepts the opinion of Locke that a man is free within the
range of the preferences or directions of his own mind. Mr. Bray's own
conclusion is: "Since, then, the only freedom we have is limited to
action in accordance with our natural powers and capacities, our aim
must be to develop fully these powers and capacities, and to remove all
impediments, external and internal, to their free and complete action.
There must be no external compulsion from physical impediment, or
internal compulsion from defect in the mind itself; no obstacle to the
full exercise of our natural powers both of body and mind. Education in
its full meaning is the developing and perfecting of all these powers."
Ω
GESCHICHTE DER ETHIK IN DER NEUEREN PHILOSOPHIE. By _Friedrich
Jodl_. Volume II. Kant and the Ethics of the Nineteenth Century.
Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta.
In this volume Professor Jodl continues his history of theoretical
ethics; starting with Kant and coming down to contemporary
philosophers. His work is thus mainly concerned with the classical
philosophy of Germany till Feuerbach's time, and the spiritualistic
and positivist philosophy of France and England down to the time
of Cousin, Jouffroy, and Mill. Professor Jodl has been obliged to
forego his original intention of appending to his work an epitome
of the logical constructive results of his investigations, and has
exclusively applied himself to the investigation and historical
presentment of the fundamental and central principles of the ethical
thought of the past century. He has therefore ever held in view the
economical and historical purpose of his work, and avoided on the one
hand an exposition of all systems in which originality of principles
is lacking, and on the other abstained from the critical examination
of the systems of his contemporaries. Thus he has aspired, by the
constant emphasis of central basal principles and of the points whereon
all have agreed, to refute the belief that the history of his science
is a chaotic mass of contradictory views, and that ethical opinion
presents in its historical expression only diversity, and never
community of mental possession. Professor Jodl has only collaterally
dealt with the non-ethical literature and tendencies of the times of
which he treats, and he has disclaimed all intention of portraying the
effects and influence that ethical systems have produced and exerted
in practical spheres; France and England being the only instances in
which, for manifest reasons, the discussion of literature and politics
has preceded the criticism and analysis of philosophies. Nevertheless,
his work throughout is interspersed with many well-judged and apposite
thoughts upon the effective, though not always apparent, influence of a
nation's intellectual activity upon its practical conduct of affairs;
as well as, also, regarding the lamentable fact that, often, a people
are violently and dangerously engaged in the solution of questions that
their thinkers have solved decades before.
Let us look at Professor Jodl's examination of the historical position
of Kantian Ethics. The element of non-interest in ethical judgment we
find not to have been first emphasised by Kant. Whatever the success
and worth of their speculations, a great many of Kant's predecessors
sought to realise this very factor in their systems; thus it was with
Plato as opposed to Protagoras, with Shaftesbury and Butler as opposed
to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume; while Cudworth, Clarke, Wollaston, and
Price were similarly actuated by the purely speculative consideration.
Kant's real and original advance upon previous systems of ethics, was
his emphasis of the element of conscious volition in ethical judgment
and the statement of its imperative character. It was just in this last
respect that his ethical philosophy formed so marked a contrast to the
eudæmonism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The imperative
and absolute nature of duty, eudæmonism neglected to inculcate; Kant
aroused the conscience of his time, and presented in contrast to the
moral weakness then prevalent the strength and earnest grandeur of an
absolute conception of duty.
So too in the conflict between the metaphysics of ethics and the
practical postulates, wherein the great philosopher displayed so much
ingenuity, Professor Jodl is unable to distinguish Kant's position very
sharply from that of the English intellectualists when in a similar
plight. Not that the idea of the practical postulates is valueless;
this Professor Jodl afterwards explains. Our historian merely shows
that Kant had not yet gotten clear of the ancient conflict that had
agitated the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages as well as the utilitarian
and rationalistic theologians of more modern times. Yet despite the
mysticism that inheres in Kant's argument for the practical existence
of God, the kernel of the truth he emphasises in the alliance of
ethics with religion still remains; namely that religious ideas are
essentially ethical, that in this relation only have they meaning,
and that religious ideas which are ethically valueless are to be
uncompromisingly discarded.
Especial attention should be called to Professor Jodl's estimate of
Feuerbach, whose merits have been strangely neglected. Feuerbach's
ethical system, in perfect form, has not been independently set forth
in his works, but is intermingled with the subjects dealt with in his
religious treatises. Yet he left few of the fundamental questions of
ethics untouched and his works contain a great store of most excellent
and pertinent thoughts which must be characterised, says our author,
in the widest sense of the term, as the real foundation in ethics of
modern scientific empiricism.
With regard to the presentment of English and French ethical
philosophy, Professor Jodl's work, it is claimed, is the first
historical exposition in the German language of this special department
of thought in its connection with the universal intellectual progress
of these two countries. His analysis of Bentham and Mill is very
accurate and full.
Professor Jodl exhibits an extensive acquaintance with English
philosophical literature; indeed, he has even discovered the little
book known as "Kant's Ethics," by Dr. Noah Porter, whom he calls the
"Nestor" of American philosophy.
Unity of execution, and the skilful employment of historical
perspective in dealing with the various phases of ethical thought, may
be characterised as prominent merits of Professor Jodl's performance.
In the books of its class it stands unique.
μκρκ.
ETHIK. Eine Darstellung der ethischen Principien und deren Anwendung
auf besondere Lebensverhältnisse. By Dr. _Harald Höffding_,
Professor an der Universität zu Kopenhagen. Unter Mitwirkung des
Verfassers aus dem Dänischen übersetzt von F. Benedixen. Leipsic:
1888.
Harald Höffding, Professor at the University of Copenhagen, is a
representative thinker among ethical scholars. Unhesitatingly he takes
his stand upon the real facts of life and attempts to construct a
system of ethics which shall be a science among the other sciences.
Professor Höffding says in his preface:
"If we see the snow-covered peaks of a mountain range from a far
distance, they seem to hover in the air. Not until we approach do we
discover plainly that they rest upon solid ground. It is the same with
ethical principles. In the first enthusiasm one imagines that a place
should be assigned to them above the reality of nature and life. On
further reflection and after a longer experience, which must perhaps
be dearly bought, we discover that the ethical principles can regulate
life only if they have really proceeded from life."
Professor Höffding is in a certain sense a utilitarian. The influence
of utilitarian systems upon his mode of thought can be traced
throughout the whole work, and it is this influence perhaps to which
the Danish Professor owes his positive standpoint as well as the
scientific method of his procedure. Nevertheless he differs from the
ordinary utilitarian school and prefers to characterise his system as
an ethics of general welfare. He says:
"The so-called utilitarianism,—that ethical conception which has been
founded mainly by Bentham,—has the merit of having for the first
time energetically propounded the principle of welfare. Yet Bentham
has detracted from his cause by proceeding from a psychological
theory which considers consciousness as a sum of ideas and feelings,
and dissolves society into a number of individuals. The import of
pleasurable and painful feelings for the continuous and general welfare
cannot be established by a mere process of calculation." (P. 37.)
Professor Höffding opens the first chapter of his work with the
following sentence:
"Ethical judgments contain a valuation of human actions.... The
criterion of the ethical valuation is the contents of ethics."
If life consisted of isolated sovereign moments, every one of them
would have an equal right, and no one would be obliged to resign in
favor of any other moment. No valuation, no discrimination would be
required. But the life of each individual, as well as the life of
society, makes up a "life-totality," and we possess a conception of
this life-totality. "If the state of feeling in a single moment agrees
with the conception of the life-totality, a new feeling arises which
is determined by this mutual relation.... The ethical valuation is
conditioned by this feeling." (p. 27.) Taking this ground, Professor
Höffding defines good and bad in the following way:
"'Good' accordingly becomes that which preserves the life-totality
and gives fulness and life to its contents; 'bad,' on the contrary,
that which has more or less the tendency to dissolve or to limit the
life-totality and its contents. Bad accordingly is the single moment,
the separate impulse in its revolutionary isolation from the rest of
life...." (P. 29.)
"The Bad, therefore, is egotism in its various degrees and various
forms. And the verdict about it will be the severer the more conscious
this egotism is."
Utilitarianism as a rule has been hedonistic. Utilitarians have
proposed as the criterion of an ethical valuation the consequences of
an act; if the consequences give more pleasure than pain, it is said
to be good; if they are attended with more pain than pleasure, it is
said to be bad. In the above quoted definitions by Prof. Höffding there
is no trace of hedonism, and I should consider an ethical system based
upon these definitions as being in strong opposition to hedonism.
But Prof. Höffding appears to have been so strongly biased by the
influence of hedonistic utilitarianism, that he introduces again its
fundamental idea, which identifies the good with the pleasurable.
Although he objects to employing the terms "utility" and "happiness,"
"because they are liable to lead to misunderstandings and have indeed
done so"; although he declares that "momentary feelings of pleasure
and pain are no sure criterion for the total state" (p. 37); although
for such reasons he proposes the word welfare, saying, "by the word
'welfare' I think of everything which serves to satisfy the wants of
human nature in its whole entirety": still Prof. Höffding again returns
to hedonism by limiting the idea "welfare" to the hedonistic conception
of goodness. He defines welfare as "a continuous state of pleasurable
feelings." (P. 98.)
Thus we are presented with two definitions of what constitutes the
criterion of an ethical valuation: (1) that which promotes the
life-totality, and (2) that which produces a continuous state of
pleasurable feeling.
These two definitions are in many respects harmonious, but on the other
hand they may come into conflict; and if they come into conflict, which
of the two is to be sacrificed? Supposing that a contemplation of the
evolution of organised life should teach us that the development of
a "life-totality" is not at all a pleasurable process; that on the
contrary it is attended with excessive and innumerable pains. Inorganic
nature so far as we can judge is free from pain. The isolated atom, we
may assume, exists in a state of indifference. Supposing now that pain
could be proved to increase, the higher we rise in the development of a
life-totality; supposing that the growth of a life-totality had to be
bought with pain, what would be the consequence? I will not here enter
into the subject, but I may mention that this supposition is not at
all without foundation. Assuming that it were so, would not, in such a
case, the good be as Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Mainlaender propose,
that which destroys the life-totality of consciousness and with it
the whole world of civilised humanity, built up of the innumerable
consciousnesses of individuals?
Professor Höffding has seen this difficulty, which arises from a
conflict of the two criteria of ethical valuation (1) the hedonistic
principle and (2) the principle of progress, i. e., the constant
evolution of a higher life-totality. He says:
"John Stuart Mill has declared that it is better to be a dissatisfied
man than a satisfied pig, a dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied
fool. He bases this assertion upon the fact that even if the pig and
the fool were of a contrary mind, their opinion would have to be
rejected, since they possess no knowledge of the higher point of view
from which man and Socrates consider life, whereas man knows the needs
of the pig and Socrates fathoms the fool. We most be regulated by the
judgment of those that know the two kinds of needs in question and that
are consequently able to institute an estimation of the value of the
same.
"But I feel obliged to put in a word for the pig and the fool. The
difficulty is greater than Mill imagines. Man, it is true, knows all
the wants of the pig, and it would not be difficult for a Socrates to
comprehend those of the fool. But man does not have the wants of the
pig, nor Socrates those of the fool, as his _sole and only dominant_
wants. And yet this is the very circumstance that determines the
matter. Man cannot transform himself into a pig without ceasing to
be a man, and a Socrates will hardly be able so to identify himself
with a fool as to lose completely his Socratic wants. If, now, the pig
can attain the _complete_ satisfaction of all _his_ wants, is not his
happiness greater than that of man whose desires and whose longings
are never wholly satisfied? And the fool, who does not nourish many
thoughts and makes no great demands upon life, is he not happier than
Socrates who spends his whole life in striving to know himself and
to stimulate others, only finally to declare that death is really
preferable to life?"
Professor Höffding's solution of the difficulty is summed up in the
following paragraph:
"Welfare is an illusion if we understand by it a passive condition
of things, created once for all. It must consist in _action_, work,
development. Rest can only mean a termination for the time being, the
attainment of a new level, upon which it is possible for a new course
of development to proceed."
Thus it appears that Professor Höffding decides in favor of the second
principle. The evolution of the life-totality is considered higher
than a continuous state of pleasurable feeling. Nevertheless Professor
Höffding adds:
"On that account, however, we are not obliged to retract our first
definition of welfare as that of a continuous state of pleasurable
feeling. That which must be rejected is only the notion of a passive
state."
Truly, as Professor Höffding says, "the difficulty is greater than
Mr. Mill imagined." The difficulty is great enough to undermine the
whole basis upon which welfare is defined as "a state of continuous
pleasurable feeling." If, as Professor Höffding declares, welfare is to
be interpreted as activity, work, development; if this kind of active
welfare is the greatest good, whatever admixture of pain and whatever
absence of pleasurable feeling it may have; if the greatest amount
of a state of continuous pleasurable feeling is not welfare in an
ethical sense, what becomes of the utilitarian definition of welfare as
pleasurable feeling? If, however, welfare is "the state of a continuous
pleasurable feeling," how can we declare that the life of a pessimistic
philosopher is preferable to that of a joyful fool?
Must not the ultimate reason of this conflict be sought in Professor
Höffding's statement that—
"The proposition of a purpose presupposes in the subject which makes
the proposition feelings of pleasure and displeasure." (P. 30.)
Should we not rather say that the proposition of a purpose presupposes
an expression of _will_ in the subject which makes the proposition?
Wherever there is will, there is also approval and disapproval, but
approval is not always pleasurable and disapproval is not always
attended with displeasure. Does it not often happen that we cannot help
disapproving of things which please us?
We have mainly limited our review to some topics of the first division
entitled "The Conditions of Ethics," because we have regarded them
as most important in a representation of the ethical principles. The
doubts we have raised as to the consistency of the author are less
noticeable in the remaining chapters, which contain an unusual store
of ideas presented with great lucidity. The doctrine of the freedom of
will is excellently treated (chap. v.). Social ethics, family life,
marriage, the position of woman, and the education of children are
separately and exhaustively discussed, and there is no chapter which
even if we cannot always give assent to the author's views, does not
richly repay a careful perusal.
P. C.
KURZGEFASSTE LOGIK UND PSYCHOLOGIE. By _Dr. K. Kroman_. Translated from
the second edition of the Original by F. Bendixen. Leipsic: O. R.
Reisland.
Dr. Kroman is professor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen.
He has sought to present in this book of three hundred and eighty nine
pages the elements of Logic and Psychology. The work was principally
intended for the use of the general reader and the beginner, although
its author hopes it will not be altogether without interest to the
specialist, and that it will find its way into the schools of pedagogy
(the subject of the art of education being also incidentally dealt with
in its pages).
Dr. Kroman's method of presentation is concise and lucid; the elements
of logic occupy but some one hundred and four pages, and form a good
introduction to the common phases of that science.
But his psychology is, from our standpoint, more open to objection; or
rather his philosophy. He says: "Unless we assume the law of causation,
research is impossible; but assuming this, it is impossible to stop
with states of consciousness, we must assume a subject and _real_
objects." What Dr. Kroman means by _real_ is seen from the following.
"Our senses give us knowledge only of _properties_ of things, not of
_things_. We do not perceive the apple, but only its form, color, etc.
But all these sensations thus derived form an interconnected whole;
and the law of causality forces us to the assumption of a _thing_
behind these sensory manifestations. Yet, our belief that we know this
_thing in itself_ has only a practical value; in reality it is an
unknown quantity. It is a single point, a nucleus, of which _direct
and positive_ knowledge is unobtainable; yet exist it must if our
assumption of the law of causation is to be upheld." Thus Dr. Kroman
shows in an admirable manner how our everyday conceptual life _is_
formed; but it is the office of philosophy, in our view, to point out
how this same conceptual life _should be_ formed. However, Dr. Kroman
supplements this explanation—which we have much abbreviated—by
considerations that lead one to believe that he seeks only to
demonstrate the reality of existence and has collaterally accepted the
doctrine of the independent, 'outside' thing in itself. We may refer
our readers, regarding this question, to Prof. Mach's article in this
number of _The Monist_.
μκρκ
EINLEITUNG IN DIE PSYCHOLOGIE NACH KRITISCHER METHODE. By _Paul
Natorp_. Freiburg: J. C. Mohr.
In this exhaustive monograph Dr. Paul Natorp does not deal with
psychology itself, but proceeding from a number of novel points of
view he opens up the road by which the principles of psychology may be
reached. The author frankly assumes that psychology even as yet has
not absolutely and clearly defined its own _fundamental problem_, and
that this is chiefly the reason why we still disagree concerning the
significance and value of many of the results of psychology. Before
we approach the solution of the special problems, psychology _itself_
must be laid down as a problem. The author, therefore, in the first
part of his introductory task has sought to indicate the _objects_ of
psychology,—namely, what it will and rationally can pursue; and in
the second part, he points out, the only correct _method_ according to
which psychology can accomplish its aims.
Since Descartes, says our author, real and possible consciousness
constitutes the true limits of the province of psychic research, the
fundamental problem of psychology, and the characteristic distinction
between the old and new philosophy. But, in order to find out, whether
this tendency of the new philosophy has been entirely successful, it
will be necessary to examine more closely the nature of the fundamental
psychic phenomenon, and the problem that it involves.
In the fact of consciousness we can distinguish several elements which
really are inseparable, but which in the study of the problem ought
to be separated. There is the content of which one is conscious,
and secondly, the consciousness thereof, or its relation to the
ego; and, by a further abstraction, this relation itself might be
distinguished from the total fact of consciousness. The relation to
the ego, in ever varied contents, is one and the same; it makes up
both the common and specific element of consciousness, and as the
third abstract element of consciousness (Bewusstsein) it might aptly
be called self-consciousness (Bewusstheit). The ego, being a common
point of relation to all contents of consciousness, cannot itself
become the content of consciousness, because it represents a contrast
to any idea of content. We do not correctly conceive consciousness as
a thing, a cause, a force, an explanatory principle, but simply as a
phenomenon—the fundamental phenomenon of psychology. We thereupon ask,
what contains this phenomenon, and by what is it characterised? It is,
above all, characterised by _subjective_ experience. This denotes, that
it is _I_ who am conscious of a content. The reflective expression
"I am conscious" implies a "subject" that is conscious. Without this
reflective relation to the ego, consciousness no longer conveys any
meaning. Consciousness denotes _self_-consciousness. This reflective
relation is therefore the only distinctive mark of all conscious
phenomena.
Content we call anything that can be related to the ego. In the
language adopted by psychologists, a feeling or a desire can also
be regarded as content of consciousness. But our investigation
cannot proceed beyond this reflective relation. If we attempt a
_representation_ of the ego, we should turn it into _object_, and
we should have ceased to regard it as _ego_. The ego is never an
object—not even to itself.
It is not denied, that in every consciousness there can be
distinguished two elements—the existence of a content, and its
relation to the ego; but it is denied, that this relation can be made
objective, even to itself. This correctly describes the character
of consciousness, as content and activity, and moreover, precisely
delimits the domain of the psychical and determines the _positive_ task
of psychology. Those, who assume a consciousness of consciousness,
ought logically to admit the consciousness of a consciousness of
consciousness, etc.; as indeed some metaphysicians have done.
It may be maintained, however, that the distinction of the activities
of consciousness, of sensation, representation, and thinking, is
indispensable in psychology; but, at any rate, there are no different
_kinds_, or even degrees or stages of consciousness. The consciousness
of any simple sensation in kind is not different from the consciousness
of a world; the factor of consciousness in both is the same; the
difference lies exclusively in the content. This also applies to clear
and obscure consciousness.
In order to determine the positive task of psychology, we ought to
discover in every content and in every repeated act of consciousness, a
certain common characteristic. Perception, as such, does not constitute
consciousness, but merely denotes the presence of a multiple content;
apperception, on the other hand, indicates only consciousness in the
definite sense of a "unity" of that multiple content. This unity
of consciousness properly does not appear, or only appears in the
connection of the contents. That peculiarity of consciousness which we
call apperception, is psychologically only apparent in the contents
of consciousness; it does not constitute an object of psychology, but
forms only its extreme limits. The common characteristic of every
content of consciousness is therefore really to be found in the
_connection_ (Verbindung) in which the simple contents are represented
in the repeated acts of consciousness. This connection exists only
subjectively, irrespective of all objective meaning or value.
The existence of phenomena purely as phenomena, their subjective
existence irrespective of object, constitutes their psychic existence
or that side of the phenomenon from which it becomes an object of
psychological research. Under this head come all those phenomena to
which science denies an objective value: illusions of the senses,
mental hallucinations, and the normal non-scientific representations
of things, the creations of the imagination in music and in art, the
entire subjective life of feeling and of aspiration, regarded only as a
particularly characteristic association of representation, irrespective
of all objective truth, which lies beyond the limits of psychology as
such.
The characteristic, accordingly, is found in the _unity_ in which
the content represents itself in the single or reiterated acts of
consciousness. In each act of consciousness the content is simply
present, and no time is distinguished. When we distinguish time, a
plurality of consciousness also must be distinguished. It may seem
difficult to understand how two or more original acts of consciousness
are again united into one act; but in reality this takes place.
The idea of unity is thus enlarged, and becomes the consciousness
of a multiplicity, the necessary unity of a multiple, a successive
connection in time, and a simultaneous connection. All consciousness
(representation) depends on connection, as is indirectly shown by
trying to discover whether the elementary contents of consciousness can
be represented in absolute isolation.
Abstract consciousness is thus found to be the relation of given
contents to an ego, and connection constitutes the manner in which a
multiple content appears or is represented in the reiterated relation
to one and the same ego. Connection is the _concrete expression_ of
that relation itself, through which consciousness attains its definite
and positive value. Abstract consciousness seems poor, but the
multiplicity of a definite connection of contents affords a vast field
of psychological research, for on that connection depends the concrete
significance of the ego, which to us is not subject in general, but
above all, is our own particular subject.
And finally at this point there spontaneously arises the question of a
theory of the psychic phenomena. Every theory essentially presupposes
an _objective_ tendency, while consciousness, as the expression of the
purest _subjectivity_ of phenomena, cannot be rendered objective. It
clearly follows, therefore, that the _method_ of psychology must be
radically different from all methods of the objective sciences.
γνλν
DER GENIALE MENSCH. By _Cesare Lombroso_. German Translation
by Dr. M. O. Fraenkel. Hamburg: Verlagsanstalt und
Druckerei-Actien-Gesellschaft (vormals J. F. Richter).
The French edition of Lombroso's "Man of Genius" has already appeared.
The work is introduced by a preface written by M. Charles Richet,
which reviews the subject with great clearness. All in all, this is
an admirable book, well stocked with interesting facts and incidents,
and well adapted to obtain a large number of readers outside of
scientific circles. There is necessarily a dearth of abundant and
well-authenticated facts in this subject,—historians until lately not
having occupied themselves with the psychological phases of life; and
accordingly there is great danger in universal generalisation from
those that we have. This, however, Prof. Lombroso has recognised.
Genius, the author claims, is a variety of psychosis, an instance of
degeneration. Degeneration of certain parts is the condition of the
acquisition of others; thus the loss of a number of ribs and muscles,
of a tail, etc., has in man been compensated by the acquisition and
development of the brain; and so in the genius the possession of very
great intellectual or emotional faculties has been counterbalanced by
the loss of equilibrium in the other parts. Moreover, there are no
exceptions in nature; the occurrence of insanity, abnormalities, and
eccentricities in a few cases leads us inevitably to the conclusion
that there are correspondent defects in all others. And this we find to
be true in all historical instances. Popular speech and tradition have
identified genius and demency: in Hebrew and Sanskrit the words prophet
and insane are synonymous; and so we have the proverbs—'Children and
fools speak the truth,' 'Un fol avise bien un sage,' 'Saepe etiam
est morio valde opportune locutus.' The line of demarcation between
the two is hardly traceable. Genius is the exception, a deviation
from the common type of humanity, and nature avenges the aberration
by denying it permanency and inflicting upon it abnormality. Whether
degeneration or progression, genius is unusual and unstable. But
one thing distinguishes genius from mental alienation, and it is
this—that genius possesses the power of inhibition, of concentration,
of _critique_, and far-sightedness, while demency has no control of
the ideas it has formed; both possess the swift and unerring power of
origination; the one can command what it has originated, the other
cannot.
It must be admitted that the method employed for the verification of
this thesis, is not absolutely safe. Wherever an eccentricity in a
man of genius is found, it is accredited to psychosis, even though
the genius in question be upon the whole more normal than the average
"normal" man; as, for instance, Goethe. If the same method were applied
to all men, would not normality be the exception and abnormality the
rule?
μκρκ
DAS BEWUSSTSEIN UND SEIN OBJECT. By _Dr. Joh. Wolff_, Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Freiburg (Switzerland). Berlin:
Mayer & Müller.
This is a huge closely printed volume of six hundred and twenty pages.
It is the enlargement and development of a treatise offered several
years ago to the faculty of the University of Bonn, upon application by
Dr. Wolff for a University instructorship, and contains the results of
the author's thoughts and researches since that time upon the subject
there dealt with.
Among many valuable isolated speculations and suggestions, we find
fundamental theses with which it is impossible for us to agree. Thus,
Dr. Wolff says that when he speaks of soul he means 'a substance,
a substratum, a vehicle, a cause of psychical phenomena, and not
a phenomenon or sum of phenomena'; and he says it is no more a
pre-judgment or prejudice on _his_ part to begin with this thesis than
it is on the part of those who hold a different view to begin with the
opposed one,—in fact less so, since he starts from the notion which
all men hold in common, while the others do not.
Does the mathematician, in propounding a new method, or a physicist
in explaining an unsolved problem, proceed from the mathematical and
physical notions all men hold in common? And if the soul is made an
object of scientific research, why should an exception be made of
_it_? It is not so much what we begin with as what we end with, and
it is perhaps superfluous to say that Dr. Wolff has ended where he
began—with the simplicity, the substantiality, the unity, and the
permanency of the ego.
μκρκ
PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
We had originally intended, in this first number of _The Monist_,
to present to our readers a comprehensive statement of the courses
announced by American Universities in the departments of Philosophy,
Ethics, and Psychology; first, in order to supply students proposing
to pursue these studies and others interested, with information at
first-hand, and secondly to give the non-academic world, which is
considerable, an insight into what our higher professional schools are
doing in these branches.
Since then _The American Journal of Psychology_ has published a very
full and gratifying account of the state of psychological research
in our Universities, made up of the reports of the professors at the
head of these departments; and we therefore refer our readers for
information regarding this branch to the article entitled "Psychology
in American Universities," published in Vol. III, No. 2, of that
ably-conducted magazine.
It was also difficult to obtain the required information: most of
our professors, in the last few months, having been absent from the
university towns.
But reports from the most representative universities in different
parts of the country have been obtained. They are intended merely to
exhibit the general nature and extent of philosophical instruction in
America and do not profess to be complete.
* * * * *
A review of the Registers, Catalogues, and Programmes of a large
number of our colleges has led us to the conviction that the acquiring
in America of a broad philosophical training is not the fault of the
_professions_ of our academical authorities. The courses offered are
set forth in our college catalogues at very great length; they are very
exhaustive; and their specification is accompanied with analyses of the
work of the various departments and with bibliographical schedules that
in point of thoroughness leave nothing to be desired. This fulness of
exposition is noticeable in all the departments.
But under the obligatory system of study, the separate departments,
or rather the professions of the separate departments, must certainly
conflict: and the question arises in the mind of the observing
outsider, To which is justice done?
And, except where a specialty is exclusively followed, wherein under
the professed conditions, does the elective system differ from the
obligatory? Only that in the one case, the student is made the author
of his embarrassment, and in the other the victim of it. However, in
the absence of a decided educational sentiment in our nation, and in
the lack of a uniformity of opinion as to what must be _demanded_ of
our schools instead of a submissive acquiescence in what they give us,
the question whether a college has fulfilled what it has professed,
must be left to the faithful individual student who is forced to devote
the best years of his life to the solution of it. It seems impossible
to determine it otherwise. And yet, except in the case of our foremost
institutions, to which all of us cannot go, this is true.
We have observed, too, that the extension of the departments of
philosophy proper is not keeping pace with that of many other
departments—as, for instance, the departments of history and economics.
Perhaps this is inevitable; the last-mentioned sciences having been
until of late very much neglected.
But the tendency threatens to overbalance the curriculum; and where
pretensions to universality are made, it is not justified.
On the other hand, the firm hold that experimental psychology has
obtained in some of our foremost schools, is gratifying; though
enthusiasm may also lead too far in this direction.
Lack of co-operation in cognate branches is, with very few notable
exceptions, universal. Preparatory training is not emphasised.
At least, where so much is said of the character and method of
instruction, and where the elective system prevails, we should expect
some mention of it. But it is not found.
Philosophy would seem to be something that is to be obtained only in
the lecture-rooms of the "philosophical department," and in most cases
it is sought nowhere else. The study of Mathematics, Physics, Natural
Science, and Philology, is greatly neglected. Philosophy becomes an
aim and a means in itself, and the student at the close of his course
often discovers himself in the quest of philosophy, but with no means
of finding it.
This necessity of co-operation has been fully recognised, for instance,
at Harvard. "When a student applies for Honors," says Professor
Palmer, "we require from him not merely an acquaintance with technical
philosophy but _also with the subjects most nearly adjacent to the
special philosophical field he has chosen_."
And so it is in other of our advanced and enlightened schools. Yet
in the majority of cases, the _foundations_ of philosophical culture
are not insisted upon, but left to chance and the uncertainties of a
universal elective curriculum.
Lastly, philosophy at some institutions exhibits a sectarian and
theological complexion.
This, one thinks, might be left to the theological seminaries. But it
is not.
We have Baptist Philosophy, and Presbyterian Philosophy, and
denominational philosophies of divers other descriptions.
A president of a prominent Eastern University, (a gentleman to whom the
philosophic spirit of this country is greatly indebted for inspiration
and expansion,) has taken,—let it be remarked in this connection,—a
much more liberal step, and urged the necessity of establishing a
school of _American_ Philosophy.
This is laudable; and in harmony with the present resuscitation of
American patriotism in——matters of learning.
It was this spirit that dictated the witty proposition of a Chicago
gentleman to found a "school" of American _Geometry_.
* * * * *
We hope that the appended syllabuses of courses in philosophy will
afford a general idea of the scope of philosophical teaching in
America. The professors who have supplied us with the information we
requested, we thank for their courtesy and obligingness.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
The Philosophical Courses of the University of Michigan may be
conveniently classified under three heads:—
I. BEGINNING.
1. ELEMENTARY LOGIC, in which there are two courses, one general
covering the rudiments of syllogistic and deductive logic in which
Jevons is used as the basis, the other in inductive logic, intended
especially for scientific students, in which Fowler is used.
2. ELEMENTARY PSYCHOLOGY. The main facts regarding modern scientific
researches and methods, and the various attempts at their philosophic
interpretation. Dewey's Psychology is the book used in connection with
this course.
3. INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. A course of lectures on the main
problems and principles of the theory of knowledge and reality. Each of
the foregoing courses is for one semester.
II. INTERMEDIATE COURSES.
1. HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. Ancient and Modern. Lectures and readings
designed to give information regarding both the historical development
of thought, and the main problems developed in its course. The
department of philosophy owns a large number of copies of the chief
thinkers in modern philosophy, Locke, Descartes, etc., etc., and these
are assigned to members of the class for readings and reports. Each
student thus becomes acquainted with at least half-a-dozen of the
leading writers at first-hand.
The course runs through the year.
2. ETHICS, THEORETICAL (one-half year) AND SOCIAL (Political
Philosophy, one-half year also). The theoretical course attempts to
arrive at an account of the ethical ideal by means of a critical
consideration of the principal modern ethical theories, especial
attention being paid to Utilitarianism, Evolutionary Ethics, and
Kantianism. The second division of the course discusses the ethical
basis and value of society and the state, law and rights, in connection
with an account of the political theories of Plato, Aristotle, Grotius,
Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Rousseau, Hegel, etc.
3. ÆSTHETICS. This course, like the previous one, unites the historical
and theoretical treatment of æsthetic doctrines and results. It is
designed largely to aid students in the interpretation and criticism of
literature. It is a half-year course, and is followed by a half-year
course (given in the English Department) on the Principles and Methods
of Literary Criticism.
4. PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. Lectures, assigned readings and elementary
experiments, and demonstrations. There is established, as yet, no
separate psycho-physical laboratory, but the new-equipped physiological
laboratory of the University is, through the courtesy of the Professor
of Physiology, at the disposal of students in this line. Half-year
course.
5. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. Lectures, readings, etc.,
designed to give an account of the chief methods employed and results
achieved in the modern historical and comparative study of religions.
And also an account of the principal theoretical interpretations of
religion. Half-year course.
III. ADVANCED COURSES.
1. KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. A study of Kant's masterpiece
at first-hand. This is accompanied by a shorter subsidiary course,
treating of the development of the Kantian system, and criticisms upon
it. Caird's Critical Philosophy of Kant, is read and discussed in
connection with the latter course. Half-year course.
2. HEGEL'S LOGIC. A study of Wallace's translation of the lesser Logic
of Hegel. Half-year course.
3. THE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC METHODS. A lecture course taking up the
study of the Logic of Science, and intended to make the hearers
acquainted with the standpoint and spirit of such authors as Lotze,
Sigwart, Wundt, Mill, Jevons, Bradley, Bosanquet, and the modern
movement in logic generally. Half-year course.
4. PROBLEMS IN HIGHER ÆSTHETICS. A brief course for graduate students
in Æsthetics.
5. SEMINARY IN ETHICS. Discussion of the treatment of some main ethical
problems by the chief modern ethical writers.
The Elementary courses are conducted mainly by text-books and
recitations; the Intermediate courses by lectures and assigned
readings, reports and essay-writings. The Advanced courses are pursued
by class discussions, conversations, etc. on basis of work done
independently by the student.
The teaching is carried on by John Dewey, J. H. Tufts, and F. N. Scott.
JOHN DEWEY.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
The courses at Harvard are, we believe, the most complete offered in
any American University. They consist (for 1890-91) of four groups:
I. INTRODUCTORY COURSES.
IN LOGIC, METAPHYSICS, AND PSYCHOLOGY.
II. SYSTEMATIC COURSES
PSYCHOLOGY, COSMOLOGY, ETHICS, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH, AND THE CONTENT OF CHRISTIAN
FAITH.
III. HISTORICAL COURSES.
Including lectures on COMPARATIVE RELIGION, GREEK PHILOSOPHY,
DESCARTES-SPINOZA-LEIBNITZ, ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY FROM HOBBES TO HUME, THE
MOVEMENT OF GERMAN THOUGHT FROM 1770-1830, CONTEMPORARY SYSTEMS AND
APPLIED ETHICS.
IV. COURSES OF ORIGINAL RESEARCH.
Including the Psychological, Metaphysical, and Ethical Seminaries.
These do not include the additional and auxilliary courses in other
subjects, which are required for Honors.
"Holding that there is one best way for the young student to begin
his philosophical study," says Prof. G. H. Palmer, "we have planned
a single introductory course and have given it variety by setting
three instructors to teach it. When these elementary matters have been
mastered, we offer the student a choice among half-a-dozen dogmatic
courses, or among as many more historical. These last two sets of
courses are open alike to graduates and to undergraduates. For graduate
specialists three or four lines of Seminary work are provided, with a
view to giving the most advanced students ample opportunity to develop
their individual powers.... But the chief aim of our Honors is to test
powers rather than acquirement."
In Harvard there are six instructors engaged in the department of
philosophy alone: Prof. G. H. Palmer, Prof. C. C. Everett, Prof. W.
James, Prof. F. G. Peabody, Prof. J. Royce, and Dr. G. Santayana.
A dozen or more courses of philosophical content are offered, and
acquaintance with auxilliary branches is necessary to take Honors.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
The instruction given in the various branches of philosophy at this
institution is conducted according to the following scheme:
1. PROPÆDEUTIC TO PHILOSOPHY. Empirical psychology, including formal
logic, deductive and inductive. Four times a week.
2. INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. History of European philosophy, in
outline. Four times a week.
3. ELEMENTARY ETHICS, INCLUDING CIVIL POLITY. Sketch of the history
of ethical and political theories; critique of the conflict between
perfectionism and hedonism, freedom and necessity, optimism and
pessimism; investigation of the nature of a state, and of its bearing
on the limits of liberty and allegiance. Four times a week.
4. FIRST ALTERNATING COURSE. Exposition of some principal movement
or conflict in the history of philosophy, by a critical study of its
leading participants; or the like, the subject being changed from year
to year. Twice a week.
5. SECOND ALTERNATING COURSE. Some additional topic, similar to that
of Course IV., and similarly changed, but drawn, preferably, from the
field of practical philosophy. Four times a week.
6. GRADUATE COURSE. First-hand study of certain philosophic
masterpieces, such as Plato's _Parmenides_, _Theætetus_ and _Sophist_,
Aristotle's _De Anima_, Kant's _Kritiken_, or Hegel's _Phænomenologie
des Geistes_; etc. Four times a week throughout the year.
Courses 1, 2, and 3, in this scheme are permanent, and are repeated
from year to year in substantially the same form; Course 4 is continued
throughout a whole year; the rest throughout a single term. Courses
4 and 5 are projected with the intention of furnishing a variety of
topics, a new one being usually presented each year; though a subject
is sometimes continued, if it proves to excite the special interest
or meet the particular wants of the incoming Senior class. Course 6,
provided for graduate students only, is sufficiently described in its
sub-title.
The specific subjects for the ensuing year 1890-91, under these courses
with varying topics, will be as follows:
Course 4. PHILOSOPHY FROM KANT TO HEGEL. The Development of
Rationalistic Idealism, from its negative and partial to its complete
and positive form. Twice a week.
Text-Books: (1) Watson's Philosophy of Kant; (2) Everett's Fichte's
Science of Knowledge; (3) Watson's Schelling's Transcendental Idealism;
(4) Caird's Hegel; (5) Hegel's Logic, translated by Wallace. With the
standard works of reference.
Course 5. HIGHER ETHICS. Based on a criticism of Sidgwick and
Martineau. Four times a week during the second term.
Text-Books: (1) Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics; (2) Martineau's Types of
Ethical Theory.
Course 6. GRADUATE COURSE. The Dialektik and Methodenlehre in Kant's
Kritik, followed by Hegel's Lesser Logic in Wallace's translation. Four
times a week throughout the year.
From this statement it will be seen that some important text covering
each topic is in the hands of each student. The object of this is to
furnish an actual historical basis for the discussion of the subject,
which is conducted by the professor's lectures. These proceed from
a criticism, partly appreciative, partly destructive, of the texts
chosen, to a constructive and positive presentation of the subject,
according to the reasoned views of the lecturer.
The interest in philosophical studies is steadily increasing in this
institution. The instruction in them was opened in the academic year
1884-85, and the growth of interest is well indicated by the fact that
the number of students now annually electing these courses is more than
double the number during the first and second year.
G. H. HOWISON.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
The Courses offered in Logic, Psychology, Ethics, and Philosophy, at
this institution for the year 1890-91, are as follows:
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES.
1. A ELEMENTARY COURSE IN LOGIC. Two hours a week.
2. THE ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY. One hour a week.
3. SCIENTIFIC METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY. Lectures with Laboratory Work. Two
hours.
4. EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. Lectures with Laboratory Work. Two hours.
5. A COURSE IN ETHICS. Two hours.
6. A COURSE ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF ETHICS. One hour.
7. A COURSE ON THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. Two hours.
8. A COURSE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEALISM. Two hours.
GRADUATE COURSES.
1. COMPARATIVE, SOCIAL, AND ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY. Two hours.
2. SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. Lectures with Laboratory Work. Two
hours.
3. ADVANCED PSYCHOLOGY. Two hours.
4. ETHICAL THEORIES. One hour.
5. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. Two hours.
Each course of undergraduate lectures will extend through half the
year. Courses 1, 2, 3, and 7, will be delivered during the first term;
Courses 4, 5, 6, and 8 during the second. Of the graduate lectures,
Courses 1 and 2 will be given during the first and second terms
respectively. Courses 3, 4, and 5 will extend throughout the year. The
psychological laboratory is open at all hours to students engaged in
special researches.
In addition to these courses, mention may be made of those delivered on
Physiological, Abnormal, and Comparative Psychology in the Biological
and Medical Schools of the University; and of the numerous courses,
more or less directly ethical, which are delivered in the field of
Sociology. In several of these there is a purposed effort to bring out
the significance for ethics of the subject treated.
GEO. S. FULLERTON.
CLARK UNIVERSITY.
From the well-classified and thorough courses offered at Clark
University, (conducted by Dr. Hall, Prof. Donaldson, Dr. Sanford, Dr.
Boas, Dr. Cook, Dr. Strong, and others,) we select, for its uniqueness,
an account of the instruction at that institution in—
APPLIED ETHICS.
Under this head, come among others, the different forms of abnormal and
pathological humanity. The most extreme form is treated of in Criminal
Anthropology, which takes up the study of man as criminal. As an
introduction, the acts that would be considered criminal in man's case,
are investigated, as they appear in the whole realm of nature. This
division we call Criminal Embryology.
The other divisions to be considered in the lectures are: the
Anthropometry, Craniology, Physiognomy, Cerebrology, Psychology,
Sociology, Teratology, and Prophylaxis of criminals; also criminality
in relation to Psychiatry and Psychiatrical Anthropology. The general
relation of Ethics to Criminal Anthropology, is one of degree; crime
being an exaggerated form of wrong. We can illustrate the method of
application in this way: If a nerve of a normal organism is cut, the
organs in which irregularities are produced, are those which the nerve
controls. In this way the office of a nerve in the normal state may be
discovered. The criminal is, so to speak, the severed-nerve of society;
and the study of him is a very practical way (though indirect) of
studying normal men. And since the criminal is seven-eights like other
men, such a study is also a direct inquiry into normal humanity.
The lesser degrees of abnormal and pathological cases will be discussed
under the head of Charitology. These are represented by the different
kinds of benevolent institutions, such as almshouses, asylums for
the insane, imbecile, and epileptic; for the deaf, dumb, and blind;
hospitals, dispensaries, and infirmaries; homes for truants, orphans,
and for the friendless and aged.
The characteristics of inmates of such institutions and the methods
of treatment and prevention, will be the main considerations. The
facts gathered, and the principles underlying such institutions, will
be utilised in an attempt to give a scientific basis to ethics. The
problems of right, duty and freedom, will be carefully considered.
Accepting the sociological truism, that the community is more important
than any individual in it, the ethical standpoint of the lecturer is:
_that the idea of wrong depends upon the moral, intellectual, physical
or financial danger or injury, which a thought, feeling, willing or
acting, brings to humanity_.
The decision, as to what thoughts, feelings, actions, etc., are
dangerous or injurious, will depend upon the results from the
application of the scientific method to the different departments of
knowledge.
The direct practical object of the course, will be the study of
preventatives, based on a thorough diagnosis.
Visitations and practical investigations of charitable and penal
institutions will be made as occasion shall offer.
The lectures will be delivered in the latter part of the year.
ARTHUR MACDONALD.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
Besides the comprehensive courses in psychology, the following are
offered:
1. HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. A brief survey of the development of
philosophical thought in Greece. Zeller's Hand-book of Greek Philosophy
is the reference book. Twice a week. Elective. (Prof. Jastrow.)
2. THE HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Three times a week.
Elective. (Prof. Stearns.)
3. ETHICS. Four times a week. Elective. (Prof. Stearns.)
4. ÆSTHETICS. In addition to the study of the physiological and
psychological basis of æsthetics an elementary knowledge of the history
of art and the principles of art criticism is given by lectures and
discussions. Five times a week. Elective. (Prof. Stearns.)
5. ELEMENTARY LOGIC, DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE. The analysis of
arguments, the construction and elaboration of syllogisms; the symbolic
and diagrammatic methods of representing logical operations, and modern
and ancient systems of logic will form the main topics of the deductive
logic; while in inductive logic special emphasis will be laid upon the
methods of scientific reasoning, the logic of chance, the detection of
fallacies, and the estimation of evidence. Daily in winter term. (Prof.
Jastrow.)
6. ADVANCED LOGIC. Special attention paid to the logic of the sciences;
to mathematical logic as introduced by Boole and developed by Venn,
Peirce, Schroeder and others; to the theory of probabilities, and the
history of logical doctrines. Twice weekly. Elective. (Prof. Jastrow.)
7. MILL'S LOGIC. A general course upon the philosophy of reasoning and
the principles of inductive science. Killick's Handbook to Mill's Logic
used. Three times weekly. (Prof. Jastrow.) Each course extends over a
single term only.
In Ethics an effort is made to introduce the students to three phases
of the subject, the historical, theoretical, and practical. The first
is at present limited to a brief review, by lectures, of the chief
English ethical theories. In the second Prof. Fowler's Progressive
Morality is made the basis of the instruction. The third is pursued
chiefly in the form of topics, relating generally to current ethical
questions, which are assigned for special study to members of the
class, and their presentation is, when desirable, made the basis of
general discussion.
J. W. STEARNS.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY.
The following are the courses for the present year, at Boston
University, under the direction of Prof. B. P. Bowne and Dean
Huntington.
PSYCHOLOGY. Thought studied as a fact; its forms and laws investigated;
Current Theories expounded and criticised. Five hours.
LOGIC. Thought studied not as a fact, but as an instrument of
knowledge. Investigation of the laws, forms, aims, and methods of
mental activity. Five hours.
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. The study of thought as a process supplemented
by the study of knowledge as its product. Knowledge defined, and the
conditions, subjective and objective, of its validity investigated. The
claims of scepticism, agnosticism, etc., considered at length. Three
hours.
METAPHYSICS. Modifications of ontological and cosmological ideas in the
light of rational criticism. Four hours.
PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. The logical value and foundation of Theism
considered. Four hours.
HISTORY OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. Christian Ethics. Text-book and lectures.
Five hours.
PHILOSOPHY OF ETHICS. Critical and constructive review of ethical
theories. Psychological questions as to the nature and origin of moral
faculty ruled out as irrelevant. Two hours.
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. From Descartes to the present time. Five hours.
The Philosophical Club, organised in 1886, has since that time
maintained stated meetings for the furtherance of its members in
philosophical studies.
Last year, under the auspices of the University, a special course
of five lectures on Educational Psychology was given before large
audiences by William T. Harris, LL. D. The topics treated were as
follows:
1. Introspection contrasted with external Sense Perception.
2. Mental Pictures _versus_ General Ideas.
3. The Logical Constitution of Sense Perception.
4. Physiological Psychology.
5. The Psychology of Mathematics, Æsthetics, and Ethics.
The courses are for single terms only.
B. P. BOWNE.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
The Undergraduate instruction in philosophy provides five hours a week
of required work for one year:
1) IN DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE LOGIC; 2) IN PSYCHOLOGY; 3) IN ETHICS.
The courses are unified and thorough. A voluntary course in the History
of Philosophy is given; and advanced courses will be offered this year
in Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Kant, and in English Ethics from
Hobbes to Stephen. The instructors are Professors Griffin and Emmot.
PERIODICALS.
MIND. July 1890. No. LIX.
CONTENTS:
OUR SPACE-CONSCIOUSNESS. A Reply. By _Herbert Spencer_.
VOLKMANN'S PSYCHOLOGY (I). By _Thomas Whittaker_.
THE LOGIC OF THE ETHIC OF EVOLUTION. By _William Mitchell_.
THE ANTINOMY OF THOUGHT. By _Alexander F. Shand_.
MENTAL TESTS AND MEASUREMENTS. By Prof. _J. McK. Cattell_.
DISCUSSION: 1) The Evolution of Inductive Thought. By _Hiram M.
Stanley_.
2) The Genesis of the Cognition of Physical Reality. By _Julius
Pikler_.
CRITICAL NOTICES: "Fouillée's L'Avenir de la Métaphysique fondée
sur l'Expérience"; Tarde's "Lois de l'Imitation"; Bæumker's
"Das Problem der Materie in der Griechischen Philosophie."
SOME NEWLY-DISCOVERED LETTERS OF HOBBES. By the _Editor_.
_Our Space-Consciousness._ In this article Mr. Herbert Spencer replies
to criticisms, by adherents of Kantian doctrine, of objections
contained in §§ 326-335 of _The Principles of Psychology_. He objects
that the disciples of Kant "cannot imagine how it is possible that
our space-consciousness can have arisen out of that which was not
originally a space-consciousness."
_Volkmann's Psychology._ Shows that the really important point in
Volkmann's doctrine of "psychological mechanism" is its theory of the
interaction of contemporaneous presentations, and of the existence
among them of unconscious presentations. Herbartian psychology is
strictly scientific system, but when its superfluous mechanism is
cleared away, its explanations become those of associationism.
In _The Logic of the Ethic of Evolution_, Mr. William Mitchell points
out that the two conditions of an ethical end are that it be the
motive of individual action, and that it furnish a critical system of
universal laws; and further that those conditions are fulfilled by
the end variously propounded in the ethic of evolution only if it be
represented, not as an external limit forcing itself on men, but as
presenting a more desirable character and medium to the individual than
any other. The end and means of moral progress given by the Ethic of
Evolution are perfectly true, but they do not express the essence of
the matter.
_The Antinomy of Thought._ This paper investigates an antinomy which
infects all our thought of reality that is not intuitive. The source
of error is the confusion of the judgment with the consciousness or
intuition of reality.
In the article on _Mental Tests and Measurements_, Prof. J. McK.
Cattell describes certain tests which are used in the Psychological
Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania, with the object of
providing data for the discovery of the rules which govern the
constancy of mental processes, their interdependence, and their
variations under different circumstances.
_The Evolution of Inductive Thought._ A primary element in all
experience is its inductive quality. The struggle of existence awakens
experience to the thought-stage where it knows and directs itself,
but this very slowly. Development precedes self-development, and this
precedes a self-development which is self-conscious. This conclusion is
confirmed by some analyses of thought in the divisions of conception,
judgment, and reasoning.
_The Genesis of the Cognition of Physical Reality._ This is a criticism
by Mr. Julius Pikler of Mr. Stout's criticism on Mill, which appeared
in the January number of _Mind_. His opinion is that Mr. Strong's
statements are simply negations of Mill's theory, and as such prove
nothing.
_Some newly-discovered Letters of Hobbes._ These letters, seventeen
in number, were written to the French physician Sorbière, and have
been discovered by Dr. F. Tönnies in the National Library at Paris.
All of them, with related letters of Sorbière and others, are given at
length in the _Archiv f. Gesch. d. Phil._ iii. 58-71, 192-232, and the
first nine, which are the only ones of real importance, are set out in
this number of _Mind_. They have reference to the important period of
Hobbes's life and work that led up to _Leviathan_ in 1651. (London:
Williams & Norgate.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. No. 175. July 1890.
CONTENTS:
L'HOMOGENEITE MORALE. By _G. Fonsegrive_.
CONTRIBUTIONS PSYCHO-PHYSIQUES A L'ETUDE ESTHETIQUE (fin). By _G.
Sorel_.
LA FOLIE DE J. J. ROUSSEAU. By _H. Joly_.
LA PERCEPTION DES LONGUEURS ET DES NOMBRES CHEZ QUELQUES PETITS
ENFANTS. By _Alfred Binet_.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
M. Fonsegrive in _L'Homogénéité morale_ points out the necessity of a
proper system of education for developing in the mind of the young a
moral homogeneity to replace the heterogeneity which psychologists find
in the nature of man.
In _Contributions psycho-physiques a l'Etude esthétique_, M. G. Sorel
continues his studies on the psychology of æsthetics, and concludes
that experimental psychology and especially psycho-physics form the
base of practical æsthetics.
M. H. Joly in _La Folie de J. J. Rousseau_ points out that the problem
of the agreement of genius with insanity, so far as concerns Rousseau,
is reduced to small dimensions.
_La Perception des Longueurs et des Nombres ches quelques petits
Enfants_ by M. Alfred Binet, describes certain original experiments
which indicate that young children have an accurate perception of
differences in length, but that their perception of number is very
limited. (Paris: F. Alcan.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. No. 176. August 1890.
CONTENTS:
LES ORIGINES DE LA TECHNOLOGIE. By _A. Espinas_.
L'INHIBITION DANS LES PHÉNOMENES DE CONSCIENCE. By _A. Binet_.
LA GÉOMÉTRIE GÉNÉRALE ET LES JUGEMENTS SYNTHÉTIQUES A PRIORI. By
_G. Lechalas_.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
REVUE DES PERIODIQUES RUSSES.
CORRESPONDANCE: "Les Manuscrits de M. de Biran."
In _Les Origines de la Technologie_ M. Espinas aims at giving a
history of philosophy in action. The present paper is devoted to
physico-theological technology, and concludes with the observation
that it was undoubtedly a progress to conceive the technical arts as
a whole, as a divine gift in like manner as the fruits of the earth
and the beneficent phenomena of _nature_, since this conception by
opposition gave rise to the idea of _art_, that is of human initiative
acting differently according to diversity of circumstances.
In _L'Inhibition dans les Phénomènes de Conscience_ M. Alfred Binet
explains certain phenomena by showing that under various circumstances
certain images and sensations cannot coexist with others in the same
field of consciousness; the presence of one excludes that of another.
Antagonism and exclusion are the two simple facts which explain the
phenomena in question.
_La Géométrie Générale et les Jugements Synthétiques a priori_ is a
reply by M. G. Lechalas to an article by M. Renouvier in the _Critique
Philosophique_ criticising M. Calinon's theory of geometrical spaces
embodied in the system of "general geometry." While showing that spaces
with three dimensions are rationally included in a space with four
dimensions, M. Lechalas recognises the impossibility of establishing
such a geometry, seeing that we have no figure that answers to what a
four-dimensional space would be, as well as the purely formal character
of the presentations of non-Euclidian figures. (Paris: F. Alcan.)
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. I,
No. 2.
CONTENTS:
UEBER DIE WAHRNEHMUNG UND LOKALISATION VON SCHWEBUNGEN UND
DIFFERENZTÖNEN. By _Carl L. Schaefer_.
DIE ASSOCIATION SUCCESSIVER VORSTELLUNGEN. By _H. Münsterberg_.
BRIEFE VON G. TH. FECHNER: UEBER NEGATIVE EMPFINDUNGSWERTE.
(Concluded.) Edited by _W. Preyer_.
LITERATUR-BERICHT.
The results of Mr. Schaefer's researches are that for the localisation
of the vibrations of two tones, in the case of their unequal relative
intensity, the direction and distance of the relatively louder tone are
determinate. If the relative intensity of the primary tones is equal,
the vibrations are heard to proceed from the region between the two
sounding points. Differential tones are heard between the ears, when
the sounding sources are in the median plane; but when both primary
tones come from the same side, in or immediately before the ear on that
side; and in case of unequal intensity, when both come from different
sides, on the side of the softer sound.
Prof. Münsterberg concludes that there is no _successive_ association
of ideas; when successively appearing, they are received singly into
the memory.
The letters of Fechner are continued from No. 1.
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. I,
No. 3.
CONTENTS:
UEBER DIE KLEINSTEN WAHRNEHMBAREN GESICHTSWINKEL IN DEN
VERSCHIEDENEN TEILEN DES SPEKTRUMS. By _W. Uhthoff_.
DIE ÆSTHETISCHEN GEFUEHLE. By _A. Döring_.
BESPRECHUNGEN: (1) A. Mosso's und A. Maggiora's "Ueber die
Gesetze der Ermüdung." (2) Münsterberg's "Beitraege zur
Experimentellen Psychologie."
LITERATUR-BERICHT.
Dr. Uhthoff, in order to determine the least visual angle of
perception, has employed a grating in a pure-monochromatic spectral
field. His results were that the angles in the different parts of the
spectrum are essentially equal.
Æsthetic emotions, Mr. Döring contends, proceed from the unhindered
play of the functions of psychical faculties; their contrary, from the
inhibition of the same.
This periodical is edited by H. Ebbinghaus and A. König, with H.
Aubert, S. Exner, H. v. Helmholtz, E. Hering, J. v. Kries, Th.
Lipps, G. E. Müller, W. Preyer, and C. Stumpf as collaborators. It
appears every two months. The review of the literature of its special
department of research is very comprehensive. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L.
Voss.)
LA NUOVA FILOSOFIA.
RAGIONI E IDEALI. By _La Direzione_.
LA SENSAZIONE E LA SUA CONOSCIBILITA. By _R. Ardigo_.
J. E. ALAUX'S LE PROBLEME RELIGIEUX AU XIX^e SIÈCLE. By _A.
Torre_.
ECONOMIA SCIENTIFICA ED ECONOMIA UTOPISTA. By _A. Loria_.
P. LEROY-BEAULIEU'S L'ETAT MODERNE ET SES FONCTIONS. By _F. S.
Nitti_.
C. JANNET'S LE SOCIALISME D'ETAT ET LA REFORME SOCIALE. By _F. S.
Nitti_.
LOMBROSO'S AND LASCHI'S IL DELITTO POLITICO E LE RIVOLUZIONI. By
_G. Fioretti_.
CRITICA LETTERARIA.
A. Angiulli—A. Saffi—F. Petruccelli della Gattina. (MEMORIE.)
By _A. Torre_.
LA POLITICA.
QUESTIONI E PROBLEMI. La responsabilità filosofica, secondo
_Paolo Janet_.
This is the first number of _La Nuova Filosofia_ which is established,
under the editorship of Dr. Andrea Torre, to diffuse in Europe
and America the best results of contemporary culture, in relation
especially to the life and development of society. (Naples: Dr. Andrea
Torre, Vico Lungo Avvocata, 66.)
APPENDIX.
Cut exhibiting modifications that affect the accessory nucleus.
Referred to on page 26 of this number of _The Monist_, in M. Binet's
article "The Immortality of Infusoria."
[Illustration: CONJUGATION OF CHILODON CUCULLULUS.]
_A_, beginning of conjugation; _b_, mouth; _n_, nucleus; _nu_,
nucleolus; _v. c._, multiple contracticle vesicles.
_B_, division of the nucleolus into two segments, _nu'_, _nu'_; the
nucleus _n_ begins to show signs of regression.
_C_, each of the two individuals in conjugation contains two nucleolar
segments, brought near together, of which one probably comes from the
individual opposite by course of exchange, and will fuse with the
segment not exchanged, to form a compound segment (Maupas).
_D_, division of the segment into two portions which grow to unequal
sizes; the larger, _nn_, will become the new nucleus, the smaller, the
nucleolus of the new formation, _nun_.
_E_, the old nucleus, _n_, reduced to a small pale and rumpled mass,
is replaced by the new nucleus _nn_, near by which is seen the new
nucleolus _nun_.
VOL. I. JANUARY, 1891. NO. 2.
THE MONIST.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF THEORIES.
Of the fifty or hundred systems of philosophy that have been advanced
at different times of the world's history, perhaps the larger number
have been, not so much results of historical evolution, as happy
thoughts which have accidently occurred to their authors. An idea which
has been found interesting and fruitful has been adopted, developed,
and forced to yield explanations of all sorts of phenomena. The English
have been particularly given to this way of philosophising; witness,
Hobbes, Hartley, Berkeley, James Mill. Nor has it been by any means
useless labor; it shows us what the true nature and value of the
ideas developed are, and in that way affords serviceable materials
for philosophy. Just as if a man, being seized with the conviction
that paper was a good material to make things of, were to go to
work to build a _papier mâché_ house, with roof of roofing-paper,
foundations of paste-board, windows of paraffined paper, chimneys, bath
tubs, locks, etc., all of different forms of paper, his experiment
would probably afford valuable lessons to builders, while it would
certainly make a detestable house, so those one-idea'd philosophies are
exceedingly interesting and instructive, and yet are quite unsound.
The remaining systems of philosophy have been of the nature of reforms,
sometimes amounting to radical revolutions, suggested by certain
difficulties which have been found to beset systems previously in
vogue; and such ought certainly to be in large part the motive of any
new theory. This is like partially rebuilding a house. The faults that
have been committed are, first, that the dilapidations have generally
not been sufficiently thoroughgoing, and second, that not sufficient
pains has been taken to bring the additions into deep harmony with the
really sound parts of the old structure.
When a man is about to build a house, what a power of thinking he has
to do, before he can safely break ground! With what pains he has to
excogitate the precise wants that are to be supplied! What a study to
ascertain the most available and suitable materials, to determine the
mode of construction to which those materials are best adapted, and
to answer a hundred such questions! Now without riding the metaphor
too far, I think we may safely say that the studies preliminary to
the construction of a great theory should be at least as deliberate
and thorough as those that are preliminary to the building of a
dwelling-house.
That systems ought to be constructed architectonically has been
preached since Kant, but I do not think the full import of the maxim
has by any means been apprehended. What I would recommend is that every
person who wishes to form an opinion concerning fundamental problems,
should first of all make a complete survey of human knowledge, should
take note of all the valuable ideas in each branch of science, should
observe in just what respect each has been successful and where it has
failed, in order that in the light of the thorough acquaintance so
attained of the available materials for a philosophical theory and of
the nature and strength of each, he may proceed to the study of what
the problem of philosophy consists in, and of the proper way of solving
it. I must not be understood as endeavoring to state fully all that
these preparatory studies should embrace; on the contrary, I purposely
slur over many points, in order to give emphasis to one special
recommendation, namely, to make a systematic study of the conceptions
out of which a philosophical theory may be built, in order to ascertain
what place each conception may fitly occupy in such a theory, and to
what uses it is adapted.
The adequate treatment of this single point would fill a volume, but I
shall endeavor to illustrate my meaning by glancing at several sciences
and indicating conceptions in them serviceable for philosophy. As to
the results to which long studies thus commenced have led me, I shall
just give a hint at their nature.
We may begin with dynamics,—field in our day of perhaps the
grandest conquest human science has ever made,—I mean the law of
the conservation of energy. But let us revert to the first step
taken by modern scientific thought,—and a great stride it was,—the
inauguration of dynamics by Galileo. A modern physicist on examining
Galileo's works is surprised to find how little experiment had to do
with the establishment of the foundations of mechanics. His principal
appeal is to common sense and _il lume naturale_. He always assumes
that the true theory will be found to be a simple and natural one. And
we can see why it should indeed be so in dynamics. For instance, a body
left to its own inertia, moves in a straight line, and a straight line
appears to us the simplest of curves. In _itself_, no curve is simpler
than another. A system of straight lines has intersections precisely
corresponding to those of a system of like parabolas similarly placed,
or to those of any one of an infinity of systems of curves. But the
straight line appears to us simple, because, as Euclid says, it lies
evenly between its extremities; that is, because viewed endwise it
appears as a point. That is, again, because light moves in straight
lines. Now, light moves in straight lines because of the part which the
straight line plays in the laws of dynamics. Thus it is that our minds
having been formed under the influence of phenomena governed by the
laws of mechanics, certain conceptions entering into those laws become
implanted in our minds, so that we readily guess at what the laws are.
Without such a natural prompting, having to search blindfold for a law
which would suit the phenomena, our chance of finding it would be as
one to infinity. The further physical studies depart from phenomena
which have directly influenced the growth of the mind, the less we can
expect to find the laws which govern them "simple," that is, composed
of a few conceptions natural to our minds.
The researches of Galileo, followed up by Huygens and others,
led to those modern conceptions of _Force_ and _Law_, which have
revolutionised the intellectual world. The great attention given
to mechanics in the seventeenth century soon so emphasised these
conceptions as to give rise to the Mechanical Philosophy, or doctrine
that all the phenomena of the physical universe are to be explained
upon mechanical principles. Newton's great discovery imparted a new
impetus to this tendency. The old notion that heat consists in an
agitation of corpuscles was now applied to the explanation of the
chief properties of gases. The first suggestion in this direction
was that the pressure of gases is explained by the battering of the
particles against the walls of the containing vessel, which explained
Boyle's law of the compressibility of air. Later, the expansion of
gases, Avogadro's chemical law, the diffusion and viscosity of gases,
and the action of Crookes's radiometer were shown to be consequences
of the same kinetical theory; but other phenomena, such as the ratio
of the specific heat at constant volume to that at constant pressure
require additional hypotheses, which we have little reason to suppose
are simple, so that we find ourselves quite afloat. In like manner
with regard to light, that it consists of vibrations was almost proved
by the phenomena of diffraction, while those of polarisation showed
the excursions of the particles to be perpendicular to the line of
propagation; but the phenomena of dispersion, etc., require additional
hypotheses which may be very complicated. Thus, the further progress of
molecular speculation appears quite uncertain. If hypotheses are to be
tried haphazard, or simply because they will suit certain phenomena, it
will occupy the mathematical physicists of the world say half a century
on the average to bring each theory to the test, and since the number
of possible theories may go up into the trillions, only one of which
can be true, we have little prospect of making further solid additions
to the subject in our time. When we come to atoms, the presumption in
favor of a simple law seems very slender. There is room for serious
doubt whether the fundamental laws of mechanics hold good for single
atoms, and it seems quite likely that they are capable of motion in
more than three dimensions.
To find out much more about molecules and atoms, we must search out a
natural history of laws of nature, which may fulfil that function which
the presumption in favor of simple laws fulfilled in the early days
of dynamics, by showing us what kind of laws we have to expect and by
answering such questions as this: Can we with reasonable prospect of
not wasting time, try the supposition that atoms attract one another
inversely as the seventh power of their distances, or can we not? To
suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the
mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing
inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position.
Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted
for. That a pitched coin should sometimes turn up heads and sometimes
tails calls for no particular explanation; but if it shows heads every
time, we wish to know how this result has been brought about. Law is
_par excellence_ the thing that wants a reason.
Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature and for
uniformity in general is to suppose them results of evolution. This
supposes them not to be absolute, not to be obeyed precisely. It makes
an element of indeterminacy, spontaneity, or absolute chance in nature.
Just as, when we attempt to verify any physical law, we find our
observations cannot be precisely satisfied by it, and rightly attribute
the discrepancy to errors of observation, so we must suppose far more
minute discrepancies to exist owing to the imperfect cogency of the law
itself, to a certain swerving of the facts from any definite formula.
Mr. Herbert Spencer wishes to explain evolution upon mechanical
principles. This is illogical, for four reasons. First, because
the principle of evolution requires no extraneous cause; since the
tendency to growth can be supposed itself to have grown from an
infinitesimal germ accidentally started. Second, because law ought
more than anything else to be supposed a result of evolution. Third,
because exact law obviously never can produce heterogeneity out
of homogeneity; and arbitrary heterogeneity is the feature of the
universe the most manifest and characteristic. Fourth, because the law
of the conservation of energy is equivalent to the proposition that
all operations governed by mechanical laws are reversible; so that
an immediate corollary from it is that growth is not explicable by
those laws, even if they be not violated in the process of growth.
In short, Spencer is not a philosophical evolutionist, but only a
half-evolutionist,—or, if you will, only a semi-Spencerian. Now
philosophy requires thoroughgoing evolutionism or none.
The theory of Darwin was that evolution had been brought about by the
action of two factors: first, heredity, as a principle making offspring
nearly resemble their parents, while yet giving room for "sporting,"
or accidental variations,—for very slight variations often, for wider
ones rarely; and, second, the destruction of breeds or races that are
unable to keep the birth rate up to the death rate. This Darwinian
principle is plainly capable of great generalisation. Wherever there
are large numbers of objects, having a tendency to retain certain
characters unaltered, this tendency, however, not being absolute but
giving room for chance variations, then, if the amount of variation
is absolutely limited in certain directions by the destruction of
everything which reaches those limits, there will be a gradual tendency
to change in directions of departure from them. Thus, if a million
players sit down to bet at an even game, since one after another will
get ruined, the average wealth of those who remain will perpetually
increase. Here is indubitably a genuine formula of possible evolution,
whether its operation accounts for much or little in the development of
animal and vegetable species.
The Lamarckian theory also supposes that the development of species
has taken place by a long series of insensible changes, but it
supposes that those changes have taken place during the lives of
the individuals, in consequence of effort and exercise, and that
reproduction plays no part in the process except in preserving
these modifications. Thus, the Lamarckian theory only explains the
development of characters for which individuals strive, while the
Darwinian theory only explains the production of characters really
beneficial to the race, though these may be fatal to individuals.[33]
But more broadly and philosophically conceived, Darwinian evolution
is evolution by the operation of chance, and the destruction of bad
results, while Lamarckian evolution is evolution by the effect of habit
and effort.
[33] The neo-Darwinian, Weismann, has shown that mortality
would almost necessarily result from the action of the
Darwinian principle.
A third theory of evolution is that of Mr. Clarence King. The testimony
of monuments and of rocks is that species are unmodified or scarcely
modified, under ordinary circumstances, but are rapidly altered after
cataclysms or rapid geological changes. Under novel circumstances, we
often see animals and plants sporting excessively in reproduction,
and sometimes even undergoing transformations during individual life,
phenomena no doubt due partly to the enfeeblement of vitality from the
breaking up of habitual modes of life, partly to changed food, partly
to direct specific influence of the element in which the organism is
immersed. If evolution has been brought about in this way, not only
have its single steps not been insensible, as both Darwinians and
Lamarckians suppose, but they are furthermore neither haphazard on the
one hand, nor yet determined by an inward striving on the other, but
on the contrary are effects of the changed environment, and have a
positive general tendency to adapt the organism to that environment,
since variation will particularly affect organs at once enfeebled and
stimulated. This mode of evolution, by external forces and the breaking
up of habits, seems to be called for by some of the broadest and most
important facts of biology and paleontology; while it certainly has
been the chief factor in the historical evolution of institutions as in
that of ideas; and cannot possibly be refused a very prominent place in
the process of evolution of the universe in general.
Passing to psychology, we find the elementary phenomena of mind fall
into three categories. First, we have Feelings, comprising all that
is immediately present, such as pain, blue, cheerfulness, the feeling
that arises when we contemplate a consistent theory, etc. A feeling
is a state of mind having its own living quality, independent of any
other state of mind. Or, a feeling is an element of consciousness which
might conceivably override every other state until it monopolised the
mind, although such a rudimentary state cannot actually be realised,
and would not properly be consciousness. Still, it is conceivable,
or supposable, that the quality of blue should usurp the whole
mind, to the exclusion of the ideas of shape, extension, contrast,
commencement and cessation, and all other ideas, whatsoever. A feeling
is necessarily perfectly simple, _in itself_, for if it had parts these
would also be in the mind, whenever the whole was present, and thus the
whole could not monopolise the mind.[34]
[34] A feeling may certainly be compound, but only in virtue
of a perception which is not that feeling nor any feeling at
all.
Besides Feelings, we have Sensations of reaction; as when a person
blindfold suddenly runs against a post, when we make a muscular
effort, or when any feeling gives way to a new feeling. Suppose I had
nothing in my mind but a feeling of blue, which were suddenly to give
place to a feeling of red; then, at the instant of transition there
would be a shock, a sense of reaction, my blue life being transmuted
into red life. If I were further endowed with a memory, that sense
would continue for some time, and there would also be a peculiar
feeling or sentiment connected with it. This last feeling might
endure (conceivably I mean) after the memory of the occurrence and
the feelings of blue and red had passed away. But the _sensation_ of
reaction cannot exist except in the actual presence of the two feelings
blue and red to which it relates. Wherever we have two feelings and pay
attention to a relation between them of whatever kind, there is the
sensation of which I am speaking. But the sense of action and reaction
has two types: it may either be a perception of relation between two
ideas, or it may be a sense of action and reaction between feeling and
something out of feeling. And this sense of external reaction again
has two forms; for it is either a sense of something happening to us,
by no act of ours, we being passive in the matter, or it is a sense of
resistance, that is, of our expending feeling upon something without.
The sense of reaction is thus a sense of connection or comparison
between feelings, either, _A_, between one feeling and another, or _B_,
between feeling and its absence or lower degree; and under _B_ we have,
First, the sense of the access of feeling, and Second, the sense of
remission of feeling.
Very different both from feelings and from reaction-sensations or
disturbances of feeling are general conceptions. When we think, we are
conscious that a connection between feelings is determined by a general
rule, we are aware of being governed by a habit. Intellectual power is
nothing but facility in taking habits and in following them in cases
essentially analogous to, but in non-essentials widely remote from, the
normal cases of connections of feelings under which those habits were
formed.
The one primary and fundamental law of mental action consists in a
tendency to generalisation. Feeling tends to spread; connections
between feelings awaken feelings; neighboring feelings become
assimilated; ideas are apt to reproduce themselves. These are so many
formulations of the one law of the growth of mind. When a disturbance
of feeling takes place, we have a consciousness of gain, the gain of
experience; and a new disturbance will be apt to assimilate itself
to the one that preceded it. Feelings, by being excited, become more
easily excited, especially in the ways in which they have previously
been excited. The consciousness of such a habit constitutes a general
conception.
The cloudiness of psychological notions may be corrected by connecting
them with physiological conceptions. Feeling may be supposed to exist,
wherever a nerve-cell is in an excited condition. The disturbance
of feeling, or sense of reaction, accompanies the transmission of
disturbance between nerve-cells or from a nerve-cell to a muscle-cell
or the external stimulation of a nerve-cell. General conceptions arise
upon the formation of habits in the nerve-matter, which are molecular
changes consequent upon its activity and probably connected with its
nutrition.
The law of habit exhibits a striking contrast to all physical laws
in the character of its commands. A physical law is absolute. What
it requires is an exact relation. Thus, a physical force introduces
into a motion a component motion to be combined with the rest by the
parallelogram of forces; but the component motion must actually take
place exactly as required by the law of force. On the other hand, no
exact conformity is required by the mental law. Nay, exact conformity
would be in downright conflict with the law; since it would instantly
crystallise thought and prevent all further formation of habit. The
law of mind only makes a given feeling _more likely_ to arise. It thus
resembles the "non-conservative" forces of physics, such as viscosity
and the like, which are due to statistical uniformities in the chance
encounters of trillions of molecules.
The old dualistic notion of mind and matter, so prominent in
Cartesianism, as two radically different kinds of substance, will
hardly find defenders to-day. Rejecting this, we are driven to some
form of hylopathy, otherwise called monism. Then the question arises
whether physical laws on the one hand, and the psychical law on the
other are to be taken—
(_A_) as independent, a doctrine often called _monism_, but which I
would name _neutralism_; or,
(_B_) the psychical law as derived and special, the physical law alone
as primordial, which is _materialism_; or,
(_C_) the physical law as derived and special, the psychical law alone
as primordial, which is _idealism_.
The materialistic doctrine seems to me quite as repugnant to scientific
logic as to common sense; since it requires us to suppose that a
certain kind of mechanism will feel, which would be a hypothesis
absolutely irreducible to reason,—an ultimate, inexplicable
regularity; while the only possible justification of any theory is that
it should make things clear and reasonable.
Neutralism is sufficiently condemned by the logical maxim known as
Ockham's razor, i. e., that not more independent elements are to be
supposed than necessary. By placing the inward and outward aspects of
substance on a par, it seems to render both primordial.
The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective
idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming
physical laws. But before this can be accepted it must show itself
capable of explaining the tridimensionality of space, the laws
of motion, and the general characteristics of the universe, with
mathematical clearness and precision; for no less should be demanded of
every Philosophy.
Modern mathematics is replete with ideas which may be applied
to philosophy. I can only notice one or two. The manner in which
mathematicians generalise is very instructive. Thus, painters are
accustomed to think of a picture as consisting geometrically of the
intersections of its plane by rays of light from the natural objects
to the eye. But geometers use a generalised perspective. For instance,
in the figure let _O_ be the eye, let _A B C D E_ be the edgewise view
of any plane, and let _a f e D c_ be the edgewise view of another
plane. The geometers draw rays through _O_ cutting both these planes,
and treat the points of intersection of each ray with one plane as
representing the point of intersection of the same ray with the other
plane. Thus, _e_ represents _E_, in the painter's way. _D_ represents
itself. _C_ is represented by _c_, which is further from the eye; and
_A_ is represented by _a_ which is on the other side of the eye. Such
generalisation is not bound down to sensuous images. Further, according
to this mode of representation every point on one plane represents
a point on the other, and every point on the latter is represented
by a point on the former. But how about the point _f_ which is in a
direction from _O_ parallel to the represented plane, and how about the
point _B_ which is in a direction parallel to the representing plane?
Some will say that these are exceptions; but modern mathematics does
not allow exceptions which can be annulled by generalisation. As a
point moves from _C_ to _D_ and thence to _E_ and off toward infinity,
the corresponding point on the other plane moves from _c_ to _D_ and
thence to _e_ and toward _f_. But this second point can pass through
_f_ to _a_; and when it is there the first point has arrived at _A_. We
therefore say that the first point has passed _through infinity_, and
that every line joins in to itself somewhat like an oval. Geometers
talk of the parts of lines at an infinite distance as points. This is a
kind of generalisation very efficient in mathematics.
[Illustration]
Modern views of measurement have a philosophical aspect. There is
an indefinite number of systems of measuring along a line; thus, a
perspective representation of a scale on one line may be taken to
measure another, although of course such measurements will not agree
with what we call the distances of points on the latter line. To
establish a system of measurement on a line we must assign a distinct
number to each point of it, and for this purpose we shall plainly have
to suppose the numbers carried out into an infinite number of places
of decimals. These numbers must be ranged along the line in unbroken
sequence. Further, in order that such a scale of numbers should be
of any use, it must be capable of being shifted into new positions,
each number continuing to be attached to a single distinct point.
Now it is found that if this is true for "imaginary" as well as for
real points (an expression which I cannot stop to elucidate), any
such shifting will necessarily leave two numbers attached to the same
points as before. So that when the scale is moved over the line by
any continuous series of shiftings of one kind, there are two points
which no numbers on the scale can ever reach, except the numbers fixed
there. This pair of points, thus unattainable in measurement, is called
the Absolute. These two points may be distinct and real, or they may
coincide, or they may be both imaginary. As an example of a linear
quantity with a double absolute we may take probability, which ranges
from an unattainable absolute certainty _against_ a proposition to an
equally unattainable absolute certainty _for_ it. A line, according
to ordinary notions, we have seen is a linear quantity where the two
points at infinity coincide. A velocity is another example. A train
going with infinite velocity from Chicago to New York would be at all
the points on the line at the very same instant, and if the time of
transit were reduced to less than nothing it would be moving in the
other direction. An angle is a familiar example of a mode of magnitude
with no real immeasurable values. One of the questions philosophy has
to consider is whether the development of the universe is like the
increase of an angle, so that it proceeds forever without tending
toward anything unattained, which I take to be the Epicurean view, or
whether the universe sprang from a chaos in the infinitely distant
past to tend toward something different in the infinitely distant
future, or whether the universe sprang from nothing in the past to go
on indefinitely toward a point in the infinitely distant future, which,
were it attained, would be the mere nothing from which it set out.
The doctrine of the absolute applied to space comes to this, at either—
First, space is, as Euclid teaches, both _unlimited_ and
_immeasurable_, so that the infinitely distant parts of any plane seen
in perspective appear as a straight line, in which case the sum of the
three angles of a triangle amounts to 180°; or,
Second, space is _immeasurable_ but _limited_, so that the infinitely
distant parts of any plane seen in perspective appear as a circle,
beyond which all is blackness, and in this case the sum of the three
angles of a triangle is less than 180° by an amount proportional to the
area of the triangle; or,
Third, space is _unlimited_ but _finite_, (like the surface of a
sphere,) so that it has no infinitely distant parts; but a finite
journey along any straight line would bring one back to his original
position, and looking off with an unobstructed view one would see the
back of his own head enormously magnified, in which case the sum of the
three angles of a triangle exceeds 180° by an amount proportional to
the area.
Which of these three hypotheses is true we know not. The largest
triangles we can measure are such as have the earth's orbit for base,
and the distance of a fixed star for altitude. The angular magnitude
resulting from subtracting the sum of the two angles at the base
of such a triangle from 180° is called the star's _parallax_. The
parallaxes of only about forty stars have been measured as yet. Two of
them come out negative, that of Arided (α Cygni), a star of magnitude
1-1/2, which is -0."082, according to C. A. F. Peters, and that of a
star of magnitude 7-3/4, known as Piazzi III 422, which is -0."045
according to R. S. Ball. But these negative parallaxes are undoubtedly
to be attributed to errors of observation; for the probable error
of such a determination is about ±0."075, and it would be strange
indeed if we were to be able to see, as it were, more than half way
round space, without being able to see stars with larger negative
parallaxes. Indeed, the very fact that of all the parallaxes measured
only two come out negative would be a strong argument that the smallest
parallaxes really amount to +0."1, were it not for the reflexion that
the publication of other negative parallaxes may have been suppressed.
I think we may feel confident that the parallax of the furthest star
lies somewhere between -0."05 and +0."15, and within another century
our grandchildren will surely know whether the three angles of a
triangle are greater or less than 180°,—that they are _exactly_ that
amount is what nobody ever can be justified in concluding. It is true
that according to the axioms of geometry the sum of the three sides
of a triangle are precisely 180°; but these axioms are now exploded,
and geometers confess that they, as geometers, know not the slightest
reason for supposing them to be precisely true. They are expressions of
our inborn conception of space, and as such are entitled to credit, so
far as their truth could have influenced the formation of the mind. But
that affords not the slightest reason for supposing them exact.
Now, metaphysics has always been the ape of mathematics. Geometry
suggested the idea of a demonstrative system of absolutely certain
philosophical principles; and the ideas of the metaphysicians have at
all times been in large part drawn from mathematics. The metaphysical
axioms are imitations of the geometrical axioms; and now that the
latter have been thrown overboard, without doubt the former will be
sent after them. It is evident, for instance, that we can have no
reason to think that every phenomenon in all its minutest details is
precisely determined by law. That there is an arbitrary element in the
universe we see,—namely, its variety. This variety must be attributed
to spontaneity in some form.
Had I more space, I now ought to show how important for philosophy is
the mathematical conception of continuity. Most of what is true in
Hegel is a darkling glimmer of a conception which the mathematicians
had long before made pretty clear, and which recent researches have
still further illustrated.
Among the many principles of Logic which find their application
in Philosophy, I can here only mention one. Three conceptions are
perpetually turning up at every point in every theory of logic, and in
the most rounded systems they occur in connection with one another.
They are conceptions so very broad and consequently indefinite that
they are hard to seize and may be easily overlooked. I call them the
conceptions of First, Second, Third. First is the conception of being
or existing independent of anything else. Second is the conception of
being relative to, the conception of reaction with, something else.
Third is the conception of mediation, whereby a first and second are
brought into relation. To illustrate these ideas, I will show how
they enter into those we have been considering. The origin of things,
considered not as leading to anything, but in itself, contains the
idea of First, the end of things that of Second, the process mediating
between them that of Third. A philosophy which emphasises the idea of
the One, is generally a dualistic philosophy in which the conception of
Second receives exaggerated attention; for this One (though of course
involving the idea of First) is always the other of a manifold which
is not one. The idea of the Many, because variety is arbitrariness and
arbitrariness is repudiation of any Secondness, has for its principal
component the conception of First. In psychology Feeling is First,
Sense of reaction Second, General conception Third, or mediation. In
biology, the idea of arbitrary sporting is First, heredity is Second,
the process whereby the accidental characters become fixed is Third.
Chance is First, Law is Second, the tendency to take habits is Third.
Mind is First, Matter is Second, Evolution is Third.
Such are the materials out of which chiefly a philosophical theory
ought to be built, in order to represent the state of knowledge to
which the nineteenth century has brought us. Without going into other
important questions of philosophical architectonic, we can readily
foresee what sort of a metaphysics would appropriately be constructed
from those conceptions. Like some of the most ancient and some of the
most recent speculations it would be a Cosmogonic Philosophy. It
would suppose that in the beginning,—infinitely remote,—there was
a chaos of unpersonalised feeling, which being without connection or
regularity would properly be without existence. This feeling, sporting
here and there in pure arbitrariness, would have started the germ of
a generalising tendency. Its other sportings would be evanescent, but
this would have a growing virtue. Thus, the tendency to habit would be
started; and from this with the other principles of evolution all the
regularities of the universe would be evolved. At any time, however, an
element of pure chance survives and will remain until the world becomes
an absolutely perfect, rational, and symmetrical system, in which mind
is at last crystallised in the infinitely distant future.
That idea has been worked out by me with elaboration. It accounts for
the main features of the universe as we know it,—the characters of
time, space, matter, force, gravitation, electricity, etc. It predicts
many more things which new observations can alone bring to the test.
May some future student go over this ground again, and have the leisure
to give his results to the world.
CHARLES S. PEIRCE.
ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES IN CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY.
I.
"LA BÊTE HUMAINE" AND CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY.
If I had to be the judge of M. Zola I could be only a very partial
judge. To me the books of Zola are, with those of Dostoyewski and
Tolstoï, the only ones which have struck a fresh tone in the literary
monotony of this quarter of a century, in which it is said the
political levelling and the general abasement of character extend
even to the republic of letters. Thus I am partial to Zola, for, as
the chief of a school which pushes the science of psychiatry far into
the field of psychology and of sociology, I find in Zola an ally
the more valuable that he has not been sought and that he reigns in
a very different empire. To the scientific charlatans who deny, as
does M. Colajanni, the importance and the gravity of alcoholism, its
associations with crime and degeneracy, "L'Assommoir" is perhaps the
best of refutations. "Germinal" and "La Fortune des Rougon" give us the
demonstration of that cruelty which is born for the crowd and in the
crowd, and both prove the influence that criminals and lunatics have
in rebellions. Zola is the only one of the Latin race who endeavors to
introduce the scientific method into literary work.
His romances are modern histories which are founded upon living data,
as histories in general are on dead data. And in history he knows also
how to employ soberness, by contenting himself with a very simple
sketch, disdaining the vulgar tricks which are as easy to invent as
they are far from the truth.
I ought to be still more partial to "La Bête Humaine"; for, with a
generosity not very frequent in men of letters, M. Zola avows that he
had recourse to my "Homme Criminel" and my "Homme de Génie" for the
material for his romance. Nevertheless, I cannot forbear mixing some
criticism with the praises merited by this work, for I do not find
satisfied by it that which I regard more than my personal vanity: my
love of truth. In "La Bête Humaine" all those artifices which the
romanticists had accustomed us to, and from which Zola was freed,
reappear, and that alas too often!
In the first place, it is a sufficiently strange fatality that the same
knife that was given as a mark of conjugal love should be by turns the
instrument of every murder committed, and that all the assassinations,
derailments, and suicides invariably occur at the Croix-de-Maufras,
where the first lewd practices of the President Grandmorin took place.
That a great number of criminals should be congregated in the small
enclosure of a second-rate railway station and of its approaches, is in
itself a strange fact, but it is still more strange that every crime
always derives its character from that accursed place which already
bears a fateful and dismal name. This is contrary to the laws of
probability; for we know by statistics that the number of criminals, as
well as of crimes, is always the same for a certain number of people,
or a certain number of square miles, or years, and cannot be massed
and restricted to a small space of ground, to so few individuals,
and so short a time. This is an atavistic reversion, or, we might
say, a return to the old ways of romance, in which fatal events
always followed each other in certain fatal localities, or through
particular men and by certain fated weapons, etc. In "La Fortune des
Rougon," also, there is a certain musket which serves for the murder
of gendarmes by a grandfather and his nephew, and of the nephew by
gendarmes; as if the cause of the fatality was not the hereditary
instinct, but this silent and unconscious instrument.
However, the greatest fault is not here; but rather in the delineation
of character. Zola, who, in my opinion, has admirably depicted people
poisoned by alcohol, and the common middle classes of the towns and
of the country, has not studied criminals according to nature:
undoubtedly because the latter are not so easily met with; nor allow
themselves to be studied even in prisons. Zola's figures of criminals
give me the false pictorial effect produced by certain photographs
taken from portraits, and not from the living subjects. For this
reason it is then that I, who have studied thousands and thousands
of criminals, should not know how to class his Roubaud, a good clerk
and a good husband, who on accidentally discovering the secret of
the old amours of his wife with Grandmorin, which were not yet done
with, throws himself upon her, wishes to kill her, finally changes
his mind, and ends by deciding on the murder of the pseudo-adulterer,
with the complicity of his wife. Can he be called a criminal through
passion? But then it is _she_ that he should have killed, or at least
the adulterer being killed he should have repented of it. And again,
criminals through passion are, like Roubaud, very good and respectable
people, but in their crimes they rush blindly and headlong forward,
without accomplices, without premeditation, and without artifices.
And they repent, they confess: they are the only criminals who feel
remorse. He has no remorse; for some time he leads a life of revenge,
and, afterwards, suddenly, he gives himself up to vice, to wine, to
gambling, and forgets his wife, and he is jealous of her no more; on
the contrary, indifferent, he assists in her infidelities. Can he be
called a born criminal, a _bête_? But then how explain that he had
lived so long without vices, free from debauchery, and that he had been
so good a clerk? He could still be a criminal incidentally; but for a
correct, steady, quiet man, as a railway official ought to be, would
the discovery of the old amour of his wife be a proportionate reason
for him to commit a premeditated murder, the greatest of crimes? And
then, as we shall see, criminaloids are born criminals in part; they
have many of the latters' psychological and physical characteristics.
Now Roubaud has a full beard, red hair, and quick eyes: the only
anomalies are meeting eyebrows, a low forehead, and a flat head:
nothing is said of hysterical or epileptical ancestors.
According to Henry Héricourt (_Revue Bleue_, p. 14), M. Zola was
inspired by a recent trial, that of the apothecary Fenayron, who
is said to have had much resemblance to Roubaud. Marin Fenayron,
the apothecary, was a man of forty-one, intelligent, steady, and
industrious. He had married, twelve years before, the youngest daughter
of his old employer, whom he had succeeded. His wife, who was eighteen
years old at the time of her marriage, and who had consented to the
union only with repugnance, was not slow to deceive him, and soon
formed an intimacy with his assistant. This triangular relation lasted
a time, not precisely stated by the proceedings, but sufficiently
long for Gabrielle Fenayron, tired of her first lover, to take the
opportunity to replace him by several others. The husband, who during
this time has become a gambler and idle fellow, is informed of the
misconduct of his wife. Although he did not put much credit in this at
first, yet in the quarrels which followed and were continually renewed
he ended by abusing her, striking her, and menacing her with death: and
at last he obtained from her the confession of her relations with his
old assistant Aubert, then himself established as a chemist. According
to her recital, the woman could obtain the pardon of her husband only
by the promise that she would assist him in his plans of revenge,
and she had consented through shame without protesting. Then, by the
order of her husband, she writes several letters to her old lover,
renews relations with him, and finally, under the pretext of a country
excursion, draws him into an ambush where she aided her husband in
killing him with a hammer. It will be remembered that Aubert, after
the first blow, turned round, recognised his murderer, and prepared to
defend himself: but his mistress threw herself on him, twined her arms
about him, and the husband could thus finish his work in safety.
After the crime there was no remorse on the part of either the one
or the other. Far to the contrary. The criminal pair delivered
themselves anew to their accustomed distractions with the most perfect
tranquillity, and the performance appeared without doubt very natural
to Fenayron, for one day, meeting his mother-in-law, he accosted her,
saying, "Well, Mother, it is done. I have killed Aubert."
But let it be remarked how this Marin Fenayron, who figures as an
occasional criminal, this time reveals himself a criminal by habit,
meditating and premeditating his vengeance, waiting two long months
before putting it into execution, surrounding himself with every
precaution to secure immunity for the crime. Such a one certainly is
not the violent man whom passion blinds and who is instantaneously
inflamed with anger. It is rather the degenerated man with whom
predisposition has found the opportunity to reveal and to develop
itself. It is necessary to add that Marin had a brother feeble in mind:
an hereditary defect.
The true _bête humaine_, Jacques Lantier, possesses the anatomical
characters of the born criminal; "his thick black locks were curled,
like his moustaches, so heavy and dark that they increased greatly
the natural paleness of his complexion." Moreover, the inclination to
crime in him was justified by inheritance. And this passion for murder
which supplants the sensual passion is truly intoxicating. Where the
author has gone astray is where he makes Jacques find pleasure for a
considerable time with Séverine without any thought of murder; while
these unfortunates, at least all that I have studied, do not experience
sexual pleasure except in murder. On the other hand, the vertigo of
epileptic amnesia which Zola often causes Jacques to suffer, is based
on fact and actually accords with the most recent observations:
"He had finally found himself on the brink of the Seine
without being able to explain to himself how. That of which he
retained a very clear impression, was of having thrown from
the top of the bank the knife that his hand held clutched in
his pocket. Then he knew no more, stupefied and absent of
mind, out of which the other, and the knife too, had entirely
vanished.... He was in his narrow chamber in the Rue Cardinet,
fallen across his bed, fully dressed. Instinct had brought him
back there, as a worn out dog crawls to his kennel. Besides
he remembered neither having ascended the stairs, nor of
having slept. He awoke from a heavy sleep, scared to re-enter
abruptly into possession of himself, as after a profound
fainting fit. Perhaps he had slept three hours, perhaps three
days."
Never have I found a more perfect description of that which I have
termed criminal, epileptoid vertigo. But here again is a mistake of
fact arising from a velleity not content with knowledge. It is that the
novelist several times explains these bloodthirsty sexual instincts by
a peculiar kind of atavism: the tendency, namely, to avenge the evil
that women had done to his race; the spite accumulated from male to
male since the first deceit in the depths of caverns. This is an error
of fact. Primitive women have never done wrong to men. More feeble than
men, they have always been their victims. These bloodthirsty sexual
instincts are explained by a quite different atavism, which goes back
to inferior animals, to the conflict between the males for the conquest
of the female, who remained for the strongest; and by the blows
that were inflicted on the woman in order to reduce her to conjugal
slavery, conflicts of which traces still remain in Roman history (the
Rape of the Sabines), and in the nuptial rites of almost all European
countries, and in those of New Zealand, where the husband knocks down
his wife before carrying her off to the matrimonial bed.
Another technical defect is, that a man who has arrived at the degree
of degeneracy that Jacques has, ought to have still other vices: as
great violence of character, impulsiveness without cause, profound
immorality; while, as a matter of fact, except in moments of sexual
fury, he appears as a good and honorable man. However, even recognising
the force of his bloody sexual monomania, I find that instinctive
aversion, characteristic of the good man, to be proper which Jacques
feels at the thought of killing some one who is not a young and
beautiful woman; for instance, to killing his rival, notwithstanding
the favorable circumstances and the suggestions of Séverine.
"To kill that man, my God! Had he the right to do it? When a
fly troubled him he would crush it with a blow. One day when
a cat had got between his legs, he had broken its back with
a kick. But to kill this man, his fellow-creature! He must
reason with himself, he must prove his right to murder; the
right of the strong whom the weak are troublesome to.... But
afterwards that appeared to him monstrous, impracticable,
impossible. The civilised man revolted in him, the acquired
force of education, the slow and indestructible concretion of
inherited ideas. His cultivated brain, filled with scruples,
repelled murder with horror, as soon as he began to reason
about it. Yes, to kill in a case of necessity, in a transport
of rage! But to kill voluntarily by design, and from interest,
no never, never could he do it!"
All that is very true. Where the author has certainly copied after
nature is in the personality of Séverine. She is not a true criminal;
sensual, depraved though still young, experiencing love only in
adultery. Though deceitful, she is nevertheless a good wife and a good
housekeeper up to the day where chance had thrown her into evil doing.
She is united to her husband, and for that reason she becomes his
accomplice in crime, without horror or dread; but afterwards, seized
with love for Jacques, she experiences dislike for her husband and
wishes to turn the lover into his murderer.
"The need increased in her of having Jacques for herself,
all for herself, to live together, days and nights, without
ever more parting. Her hatred of her husband grew greater,
the mere presence of this man threw her into a morbid and
intolerable condition of excitement. Tractable, and with all
the amiability of a delicate woman, she became enraged at
everything in which he was concerned; she flew into a passion
at the least obstacle he put to her wishes.... The stupid
tranquillity in which she saw him, the indifferent glance
and manner with which he received her anger, his round back,
his enlarged stomach, all that greasy dullness which has the
appearance of happiness, made her exasperation complete. Oh!
to go far away from him.... One day when he returned, pale and
livid, to say that in passing before a locomotive he had felt
the buffer graze his elbow, she thought to herself that if
he were dead she would be free.... She would go with Jacques
to America.... She who at other times so rarely went out now
conceived a passion for going to see the steamships sail. She
would go to the pier, and would lean on her elbow watching
the smoke of the departing vessels.... [And at the decisive
moment] she threw herself passionately on Jacques's neck.
She fastened her burning lips to his. How she loved him and
how she hated the other! Oh! if she had dared, twenty times
already would she have done the deed ... but she felt herself
too gentle, it required the hand of a man. And this kiss which
would never come to an end, was all that she could communicate
to him of her courage, the full possession that she promised
him, the communion of her body. When she finally withdrew her
lips nothing more was left to her; she believed that she had
passed completely into him."
And is this, then, the woman criminal, the criminaloid, as I have
called her (Vol. II of my "Uomo Delinquente")? A criminal who, when
she is not urged onward by opportunities, (and these opportunities
always have love for their origin,) is not capable of any true crime,
and who when she commits it always makes use of the arm of another;
and this latter is always her lover, for she finds herself too feeble
to accomplish it herself. Her anatomical characters, as well as her
physiognomy, if not those of the born criminal, have at least some
features which those of other females have not, and which unite her
with the animal. "She had very black and very thick hair, which stood
like a helmet on her forehead, a long face, a strong mouth, and large
blue-green eyes."
M. Héricourt justly finds that many features of this woman are to
be met with in Gabrielle Fenayron, the accomplice of her husband.
Gabrielle Fenayron is about thirty years of age: she is a tall dark
woman with a very pale complexion; her hair is very black, the oval
of her face elongated, and her eyes have a certain hardness that
accentuate the projecting and unsightly cheek-bones. Gabrielle
Fenayron, as we know, pretended to have been terrorised by the threats
which her husband had uttered against her, and to have been infatuated,
on the other hand, by the love that she felt for him; she had thus
submitted her will in order to repair her fault. In the appreciation
of this system of defence, the bill of indictment stated that the
energy and the coolness exhibited by this woman in the preparation of
assassination, the facilities that she had during the course of the
long premeditation which had preceded the murder to warn Aubert without
danger to herself, induced the belief that she had in the commission
of the crime yielded to a profound hatred against her old lover. But
this interpretation appears to me, psychologically, to be a clumsy and
a forced one. It is not necessary to have recourse to motives left
mysterious in order to explain the absolutely strange conduct of some
women.
Perhaps Zola would have completed his picture if he had known Gabrielle
Gompard; who allies and unites the passion of murder with prostitution
when she attaches herself to a wicked man, but who grows animated
for virtue and denounces herself an accomplice when she becomes the
mistress of a virtuous man. These women change their personality in
changing a lover, and then make a point of playing a role in the
miserable world where their fickle passions destroy them.
Less happy, perhaps, has Zola been in the case of Flora, "fair, strong,
with thick lips, and great greenish eyes, with low forehead set
beneath heavy hair." According to the plot of the novel, she should
be a criminal of passion. A good woman throughout her whole life, she
commits a crime through jealousy. But the method of the crime (the
derailment of a train with a view to striking her rival and her lover)
is not that which is chosen by criminals of passion, who are unable
to meditate long on their crimes, and who kill in day-light without
premeditation. It is true that it is natural to the mind of female
criminals to deal indirect and very complicated blows, and without
proportion to the end to be attained: but all this is only the effect
of their weakness. In a virago as strong as Flora is depicted, (a
bellicose maid with the strong and hard arms of a boy,) this reason
fails to satisfy us; and when she meditates her crime she is urged much
less by thoughts of revenge, than by a necessity to commit the wrong
in order to become cured of her own; she is then a born criminal, an
epileptic rather than a creature of passion; and in this sense the
attribute that he gives to Flora of a monstrous muscular force, that is
observed very frequently in born criminals, would be reasonable. Thus
the girl who always wore masculine clothes had a remarkable muscular
power. Her weapon was a hammer, and with it she struck down many men.
I knew at Turin a murderess, a courtesan, who when a model in Paris,
killed for money and love an artist, whose portrait she carried
tattooed on her arm. This unfortunate woman fought two or three times
with the five wardens of her prison. When liberated she was the head of
all the scoundrels of Turin, challenging them to contest. One day even
I found her in a red shirt, with epaulettes on. "It is my ensign," said
she to me, "I am the captain of the scoundrels of Turin." But all these
women are very different from Flora. Of course, a single and only love
is wanting in their case.
It will finally be said, that the propensity which casts the two
criminaloid women into the arms of the born criminal, the _bête
humaine_, is copied from nature. As a matter of fact, there does
exist a true elective affinity which unites the two sexes of these
unfortunates; a cause that gives rise to criminal families, which form
the nucleus of gangs. Nevertheless, the demonstration of it in this
instance is not evident, for in crowding a large number of criminals
into so narrow a space, great liberty of choice is excluded.
II.
CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY.
Secretions.—Dr. Ottolenghi[35] has made in my laboratory a number of
observations with 15 born criminals and 3 occasional criminals, for the
purpose of ascertaining the proportional quantities of urea, chlorides,
and phosphates eliminated under the same alimentary conditions. Here
are the average results:
GRAMMES.
Urea per 100 grammes of the weight {Born criminals 0·39
of the body {Occasional criminals 8·53
Phosphates do {Born criminals 0·024
{Occasional criminals 0·0195
Chlorides do {Born criminals 0·28
{Occasional criminals 0·29
[35] _Journal of the Medical Academy of Turin_, 1888, _Archiv.
di Psichiatria, Scienze penali ed Antropologia Criminale_,
Turin, 1888, x, Lombroso.
There is therefore amongst the born criminals a diminution in the
elimination of urea; and an augmentation in that of phosphates, while
the elimination of chlorides does not vary. He has obtained the same
results in the case of psychical epilepsy; while the occasional
criminal offers no anomaly.
In connection with this it may be stated, that, on the other hand, Mr.
Rivano[36] found amongst epileptics on the days of paroxysm a greater
quantity of urea and less phosphates.
[36] _Archiv. di Freniatria_, Turin, 1889.
Power of Smell.—Dr. Ottolenghi has also studied the power of
smell amongst criminals. He has contrived with this object in view
an osmometer, containing 12 aqueous solutions of the essence of
cloves varying from 1 part in 50,000 to 1 part in 100. He made his
observations in several series, one each day only; the conditions of
ventilation being about the same, and the solutions being renewed for
each observation, to avoid errors caused by evaporation. He looked
first for the lowest degree at which olfactory perception began.
In former experiments he proceeded differently. He disarranged the
different bottles, and requested the subject to replace the same in
the order of the intensity of their odor. He has divided the errors
of disposition which resulted into serious and less serious errors,
according as, in the order of the solutions, there occurred a distance
of several or only one degree. He examined 80 criminals (50 men, 30
women) and 50 normal persons (30 men, mostly chosen amongst the prison
warders, and 20 respectable women). Here are the results:
While amongst the normal males the average power of smell varied
between the third and fourth degree of the osmometer, amongst the
criminals it varied from the fifth to the sixth degree; 44 individuals
had no power of smell at all. While the honest men made an average of
three errors in the disposition of the bottles, the criminals made
five, of which three were so-called serious ones.
The normal women touched the fourth degree of the osmometer, the
criminal women the sixth degree; with two the power of smell was
wanting entirely. While the normal women made an average of four faults
in the disposition, the criminal women made five.
In eight cases of anosmia (loss of the sense of smell), presented in a
certain set of criminals, two cases were due to nasal deformities; the
others were a kind of smell-blindness; the subjects were susceptible to
odoriferous excitations, but were unable to specify them and still less
to classify them.
To verify what was really true in the assertion,[37] that criminal
offenders against morality and customs have a highly developed power of
smell, he examined this power in 30 ravishers and 40 prostitutes. In
the former he found olfactory blindness in the ratio of 33 to 100; the
remainder possessed an average power corresponding to the fifth degree
of the osmometer. Arranging, then, the different solutions according to
their intensity, he observed three so-called serious errors. In 19 per
cent. of the girls submitted, he found olfactory blindness; and for the
others an average acuteness corresponding to the fifth degree of the
osmometer. Comparing these results with those obtained for the normal
subjects and for regular criminals, the power of smell appears much
less developed in the class just considered.
[37] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopatia sexualis_, 4th ed., Stuttgart,
1889.—_Archiv. di Psichiatria_, 1889.
Taste.—Dr. Ottolenghi has also examined the sense of taste of 100
criminals (60 born criminals, 20 occasional criminals, and 20 criminal
women). He compared them with 20 men taken from the lower classes, 20
professors and students, 20 respectable women, and 40 prostitutes.
These series of experiments were made with 11 solutions of strychnine
(graduated 1/80000 to 1/50000) and of saccharine (from 1/100000 to
1/10000), and 10 of chloride of sodium (1/500 to 3/100). The criminals
showed remarkable obtuseness. The lowest degree of acuteness was
found in the proportion of 38 to 100 in born criminals, 30 to 100 in
occasional criminals, 20 to 100 in criminal women; while we found it
in 14 per cent. of the professors and the students, in 25 per cent. of
the men from the lower classes, in 30 per cent. of the prostitutes, and
finally in 10 per cent. of the respectable women.
Walk.—A study which I have made with Perachia,[38] shows us that,
contrary to the case of normal men, the step of the left foot of
criminals is generally longer than that of the right; besides they turn
off from the line of the axis more to the right than to the left; their
left foot, on being placed on the ground, forms with this line an angle
of deviation more pronounced than the angle formed by their right foot;
all these characteristics are very often found among epileptics.
[38] _Sur la Marche suivant la Méthode de Gilles de la Tourette._
Gestures.—It is an ancient habit among criminals to communicate
their thoughts by gestures. Avé-Lallemant describes a set of gestures
used among German thieves,—a real language executed solely with the
fingers, like the language of the deaf. Vidocq says that pickpockets,
when they are watching a victim, give each other the signal of Saint
John, which consists in putting their hand to their cravat or even
in taking off their hat. But Pitré especially has published the most
important information on this point. In his "Usi e Costumi della
Sicilia" (Usages and Customs of Sicily,) he describes 48 special kinds
of gestures employed by delinquents. This phenomenon is explained by
the exaggerated mobility with which born criminals are endowed, as is
the case with children.
MORPHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES.
The Skeleton.—Mr. Tenchini, having made studies upon 63 skeletons
of criminals, has found in the proportion of 6 out of 100 cases, the
perforation of the olecranon (the bony prominence at the back of the
elbow) which one observes in 36 out of 100 Europeans, and in 34 out of
100 Polynesians; he likewise observed additional ribs and vertebræ in
10 cases out of 100 of them, and also too few, in the same proportion;
which reminds us of the great variableness of these bones in the lower
vertebrates. Lately he has even found in a criminal 4 sacral vertebræ
too few, made up by 4 supplementary cervical vertebræ.
Madame Tarnorosky in her study of prostitutes, female thieves, and
peasant women has demonstrated,[39] that the cranial capacity of
prostitutes is inferior to that of female thieves and peasant women
and particularly to that of women of good society;[40] _vice versa_,
the zygomas (bones of the upper jaw) and the mandibles (lower jaw)
were more developed among the prostitutes, who also exhibited a
greater number of anomalies, in the proportion of 87 to 100, while the
proportion of the female thieves showing anomalies was 79 to 100, and
the proportion of peasant women was 12 to 100. The prostitutes had 33
in 100 of their parents addicted to drink, while the female thieves had
41 in 100 and the peasant women 16 in 100. Mr. De Albertis has found
tattooing among 300 prostitutes of Genoa in the enormous proportion of
70 in 100.[41] He has also found the tactile sensibility of the women
very much diminished: 3·6 millimetres to the right and 4 millimetres to
the left.
[39]
50 100 100 50 50 50
PROSTITUTES. PROSTITUTES. FEMALE PEASANT PEASANT LADIES OF
MEASUREMENTS. THIEVES. WOMEN. WOMEN. GOOD
(NORTH.) (SOUTH.) SOCIETY.
Anteropost. diam. 17·7 17·8 17·9 18·3 18 18·3
Max. trans. diam. 13·9 14·4 14·9 14·5 14·5 14·5
Max. circumference 52·9 53·3 53·5 52·7 53·6 58·8
Zygomatic dist. 11·4 11·3 11·2 10·9 11·4 11·3
Mandib. biang.
distance 10·1 10·18 9·1 9·1 9·9 9·8
[40] _Archiv. di Psichiatria_, Mierjeivki, 1887.—Ibid., 1888,
p. 196.
[41] _Arch. di Psichiatria_, x, 1889.
Among criminal women, Saloalto has made studies altogether new; he
has recognised among 130 female thieves the degenerative character,
anomalies of the skull and of the physiognomy, in a less degree than
among the men; he has found brachycephaly in 7, oxycephaly in 29,
platycephaly in 7, the retreating forehead in 7, strabismus in 11,
protruding ears in 6; the sense of touch was normal in 2 out of 100,
the reflexions of the tendons decreasing in 4 out of 100, exaggerated
in 12 out of 100.
Marro and Marselli have explained by sexual selection this enormous
difference, which one also finds among epileptics and particularly
in insane people; the men in fact do not choose ugly women with
degenerative characters, while the women have no choice, and very often
an ugly man, criminal, but vigorous, for this reason triumphs over all
obstacles; sometimes he is even preferred. (Flaubert, "Correspondance,"
1889.) Let us add that the cares of maternity soften the character of
women, and augment in them the sentiment of pity.
Dr. Ottolenghi[42] has studied in my laboratory the wrinkles of 200
criminals and 200 normal persons (workingmen and peasants), and he
has found that they occur earlier and much more frequently among
the criminals; in fact, two to five times more so than among normal
persons, with predominance of the zygomatic wrinkle (situated in the
middle of each cheek), which wrinkle may well be called the wrinkle of
vice, and is the characteristic wrinkle of criminals.
[42]
UNDER 25 YEARS. BETWEEN 25 AND 50 YEARS.
NORMAL. CRIMINAL. NORMAL. CRIMINAL.
LOCATION. p. 100. p. 100. p. 100. p. 100.
Wrinkles of the forehead 7·1 34 62 86
Nasolabial wrinkles 22 69 62 78
Zygomatic wrinkles 0 16 18 33
In criminal women (80) also, wrinkles have been found more frequent
than in normal women, although here the difference is not so marked.
One calls to mind at once the wrinkle of the sorcerers. It is enough
to look at the bust of the celebrated Sicilian woman poisoner,
preserved in the National Museum of Palermo, and whose face is one heap
of wrinkles.
Dr. Ottolenghi, studying with me the frequency of canities (turning
grey) and baldness in people, has demonstrated either absence or
lateness of the same among criminals,[43] as also among epileptics
and among cretins. Among the first, swindlers only tend to approach
more the normal type.[44] On the other hand, among 280 criminal women
canities was found more frequently, and baldness less frequently, than
in the case of 200 honest workingmen.
[43] _La Calvizie, la Canizie e le Rughe nei normali,
nei criminali negli epiletis e nei cretini_. _Archiv. di
Psichiatria_, 1889, x.
[44]
CLASSES. WITH CANITIES. WITH BALDNESS.
p. 100. p. 100.
400 Normal people 62·5 19
80 Epileptics 31·5 12·7
40 Cretins 11·7 13·5
490 Criminals 25·9 48
Thieves 24·4 2·6
Swindlers 47 13·1
Maimers 23·7 5·3
80 Criminal women 45 9·7
200 Honest women 60 13
We shall not terminate this part of our discussion without making
mention of the beautiful discovery that we owe—it pleases us to
state—to a lawyer, Mr. Anfosso. The tachyanthropometer which he has
constructed is a real automatic measurer. (Archiv. di Psych., Art.
IX. p. 173.) We might name it,—if the word did not possess a little
too much local color,—an anthropometric guillotine; so quickly and
with the precision of a machine, does it give the most important
measurements of the body, which makes the practice of anthropometry
very easy, even to people who are entire strangers to the science;
and it facilitates, moreover, the examination of the description of
individual criminals, the perfection of which will always remain one of
the most glorious distinctions of M. Bertillon. And at the same time
that this instrument renders services to the administration of justice,
it permits on a grand scale observations which hitherto were only
obtainable by the learned.
Experiments were made a short time ago by Mr. Rossi, who studied the
result of these measurements in 100 criminals (nearly all thieves). He
found the breadth of the span of the arms to be greater than the height
of body in 88; and in 11 to be less. In 30 he found the right foot
larger; in 58 he found the left foot larger; in 12 both feet equal.
The right arms of 43 per cent. were longer than the left, and the left
in 54 per cent. longer than the right. Which confirms to a marvellous
degree the _gaucherie_, mancinism, or structural misproportion, that
had before been indicated by dynamometry and the study of the walk of
criminals.[45]
[45] _Archiv. di Psichiatria_, 1889, Vol. x. p. 191.
The very frequent recurrence of anatomical misproportion and
_gaucherie_ could not be better confirmed; and there are in this
atavistic symptoms, for Rollet has observed in 42 anthropoids the
left humerus to be longer than the right, in the proportion of 60 to
100, while among men the proportion is only 7 out of 100. (_Revue
Scientifique_, 1889.)
This anatomical misproportion I have very recently verified with Mr.
Ottolenghi by measurements of the two hands, the middle fingers,
and the feet, right and left, in 90 normal persons and in 100 born
criminals.[46] (Archiv. di Psichiatria, X. 8.)
[46]
HAND LONGER. MIDDLE FINGER. FOOT.
TYPES. RIGHT. LEFT. RIGHT. LEFT. RIGHT. LEFT.
PER CENTUM. PER CENTUM. PER CENTUM.
Normal persons 14·4 11 16·6 15·5 38·5 15·6
Criminals 5 25 10 27 27 35
Swindlers 4·3 13 13 21·7 21·7 26
Ravishers 7 14·2 14·2 28·4 35·7 35·7
Maimers 15 25 5 25 20 55
Thieves 0 34·8 13 30·4 26 26·6
Pickpockets 0 35 5 30 35 25
Tattooing.—I was under the belief that in this respect nothing more
was to be said after the beautiful studies of Messrs. Lacassagne and
Marro, and after my own.[47]
[47] See _Nouvelle Revue_; also my _Uomo Delinquente_, 4th ed., 1889.
However, the researches made by Messrs. Severi, Lucchini, and Boselli
on 4,000 new criminals have given results of a high importance and
first of all a proportion eight fold greater than that of the
alienists of the same district (Florence and Lucca). The prevalency
of this practice is enormous; it amounts to 40 in 100 among military
criminals and to 33 in 100 among criminals under age; the women give a
proportion of only 1·6 in 100, but this would be increased to 2 in 100
if we included certain kinds of fly-tattooing (_tatouages mouches_)
resembling beauty spots, which are found even in high life prostitution.
What chiefly astonishes us in these researches, next to the frequency
of the phenomena, is the specific character of the tattooings: their
obscenity, the vaunting of crime, and the strange contrast of evil
passions and the highest sentiments.
M. C..., aged 27 years, convicted at least fifty times for affrays, and
the assaulting and wounding of men and horses, has the history of his
crimes literally written on his skin; and in this respect, let us note
that the infamous De Rosny, who only lately committed suicide in Lyons,
had her body covered with tattooings in the form of erotic figures; one
could read there the list of her lovers and the dates at which she left
them.
F. L..., a carrier, aged 26 years, several times convicted, bears on
his breast a heart pierced by a poniard (the sign of vengeance), and
on his right hand a female singer of a _café chantant_, of whom he was
enamoured. By the side of these tattooings, and others which propriety
forbids us to cite,[48] one sees with surprise the picture of a tomb
with the epitaph: "To my beloved father." Strange contradictions of the
human mind!
[48] See _Atlas de L'Homme Criminel_. 1888. Alcan.
A certain B..., a deserter, has on his chest a St. George and the cross
of the Legion of Honor, and on the right arm a woman, very little
dressed, who drinks with the inscription: "Let us wet the interior a
little."
Q. A..., a laborer, convicted many times for theft, expelled from
France and Switzerland, has on his chest two Swiss gendarmes with the
words "Long live the Republic!" On his right arm he has a heart pierced
through, and at the side the head of a fish—a mackerel, to signify
that he will poniard a bully, his rival.
We have seen on the left arm of another thief, a pot with a lemon tree,
and the initials V. G. (_vengeance_); which in the strange language
of the criminals means: treason, and, afterwards, revenge. He did not
conceal from us the fact that his constant thought was to revenge
himself on the woman who loved him and then abandoned him. His desire
was to cut off her nose. His brother offered to perform the operation
for him, but this he refused, reserving for himself the pleasure of
executing his purpose when he should ultimately be liberated.
One sees, therefore, from these few examples, that there is among
criminals a kind of hieroglyphical writing, but which is not regulated
or fixed. The system is founded on daily happenings and slang, as
would be the case among primitive mankind. Very often, in fact, a key
signifies among thieves the silence of secrecy; and a death's-head (the
bare skull), revenge. Sometimes points are used instead of figures. In
this way one criminal marked himself with 17 points, which means, to
his mind, that he proposes to inflict injury on his enemy seventeen
times, whenever he meets with him.
The criminal tattooers of Naples have the habit of making long
inscriptions on their bodies; but initials are used instead of words.
Many Camorrists of Naples carry a tattooing which represents iron bars,
behind which there is a prisoner and underneath the initials Q. F. Q.
P. M.; which means: "Quando finiranno queste pene? Mai!" (When will
these pains end? Never!) Others bear the epigraph C. G. P. V., etc.,
which means: "Courage, galeriens, pour voler et piler; nous devons tout
mettre à sang et à feu!" (Courage, convicts, to steal and to rob; we
must put all to the sword and fire!) We see here at once that certain
forms of tattooing are employed by criminal federations, and serve as
a sort of rallying-call. In Bavaria and in the South of Germany, the
pickpockets, who are united together in real alliances, recognise each
other by the epigraphic tattooing "T and L," which means _Thal und
Land_ (valley and country); words which they must exchange in a low
voice when they meet each other, in order not to be denounced to the
police. A thief R..., who has on his right arm a design representing
two hands crossed, and the word _union_ (unity) surrounded by a
garland of flowers, told us that this tattooing is extensively adopted
by malefactors in the South of France (Draguignan). According to the
revelations made to us by emerited Camorrists, a lizard or a serpent
denotes the first grade of this dangerous association.
I pass over in silence, and for good reasons, the tattooings spread
over all the remaining parts of the body.
In the _Revista de Antropologia Criminal_, a new publication which
has just appeared in Madrid, Mr. Sallilas has published an excellent
study relative to the tattooing of Spanish criminals. According to
him, this is a frequent custom among murderers. The predominance of
the religious character is there noticeable, but always with the seal
of lewd obscenity, universally observed. I have lately had occasion to
verify up to what point the impulsion which leads criminals to inflict
on themselves this strange operation, is atavistic. One of the most
incorrigible thieves I have met, who has six brothers tattooed like
himself, begged of me, notwithstanding he was half covered with the
most obscene tattooings, to find him a professional tattooer who should
complete what might well be called the carpeting of his skin. "When
the tattooing is very odd and grotesque, and spreads over the whole
body," he said, "it is for us thieves what the black dress coat and
the decorated vest is to society. The more we are tattooed the greater
is our esteem for one another; the more an individual is tattooed, the
more authority has he over his companions. On the other hand, he who
is not much tattooed enjoys no influence whatsoever with us; is not
considered a thorough scoundrel, and has not the estimation of his
fellows." "Very often," another told me, "when we visited prostitutes,
and they saw us covered all over with tattooings, they overwhelmed us
with presents, and gave us money instead of demanding it." If all that
is not atavism, atavism does not exist in science.
Of this characteristic, of course, as of all the other characteristics
of criminals, one may say that it is to be met with among normal
people. But the chief thing here is its proportion, its commonness,
and the exaggerated extent to which it is practised. Among honest,
respectable people its peculiar complexion, its local and obscene
coloring, and the useless, vain, and imprudent display of crime are
wanting.
Again, it will probably be objected that this is not psychology, and
that only through the latter science can we trace out the picture of
the criminal. I could well answer here, that these tattooings are
really psychological phenomena. And I may add that Mr. Ferri, in the
introductory part of his work on Homicides, has given us in addition to
a real statistical psychology, an analysis of all criminal propensities
and of their extent before and after the crime.
Among born criminals, for example, 42 in 100 always deny the crime
with which they are charged, while among occasional criminals, and in
particular among maimers, only 21 in 100 deny all; of the first 1 in
100, and of the second 2 in 100 confess their crime with tears; etc.[49]
[49] _L'Omicidio_, Turin, 1890.
CESARE LOMBROSO.
[Prof. Lombroso has in preparation for this series of
criminological studies, an essay on the physiognomy of the
Anarchists.—ED.]
THE SQUARING OF THE CIRCLE.
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROBLEM FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
PRESENT DAY.[50]
[50] From Holtzendorff and Virchow's _Sammlung
gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher Vorträge_, Heft 67.
Hamburg: Verlagsanstalt, etc.
I.
#Universal interest in the problem.#
For two and a half thousand years, both trained and untrained minds
have striven in vain to solve the problem known as the squaring of the
circle. Now that geometers have at last succeeded in giving a rigid
demonstration of the impossibility of solving the problem with ruler
and compasses, it seems fitting and opportune to cast a glance into the
nature and history of this very ancient problem. And this will be found
all the more justifiable in view of the fact that the squaring of the
circle, at least in name, is very widely known outside of the narrow
limits of professional mathematicians.
#The resolution of the French Academy.#
The Proceedings of the French Academy for the year 1775 contain at
page 61 the resolution of the Academy not to examine from that time
on, any so-called solutions of the quadrature of the circle that
might be handed in. The Academy was driven to this determination
by the overwhelming multitude of professed solutions of the famous
problem, which were sent to it every month in the year,—solutions
which of course were an invariable attestation of the ignorance and
self-consciousness of their authors, but which suffered collectively
from a very important error in mathematics: they were _wrong_. Since
that time all professed solutions of the problem received by the
Academy find a sure haven in the waste-basket, and remain unanswered
for all time. The circle-squarer, however, sees in this high-handed
manner of rejection only the envy of the great towards his grand
intellectual discovery. He is determined to meet with recognition, and
appeals therefore to the public. The newspapers must obtain for him
the appreciation that scientific societies have denied. And every year
the old mathematical sea-serpent more than once disports itself in the
columns of our papers, that a Mr. N. N., of P. P., has at last solved
the problem of the quadrature of the circle.
#General ignorance of quadrators.#
But what kind of people are these circle-squarers, when examined by
the light? Almost always they will be found to be imperfectly educated
persons, whose mathematical knowledge does not exceed that of a modern
college freshman. It is seldom that they know accurately what the
requirements of the problem are and what its nature; they never know
the two and a half thousand years' history of the problem; and they
have no idea whatever of the important investigations and results
which have been made with reference to the problem by great and real
mathematicians in every century down to our time.
#A cyclometric type.#
Yet great as is the quantum of ignorance that circle-squarers intermix
with their intellectual products, the lavish supply of conceit and
self-consciousness with which they season their performances is still
greater. I have not far to go to furnish a verification of this. A book
printed in Hamburg in the year 1840 lies before me, in which the author
thanks Almighty God at every second page that He has selected him and
no one else to solve the 'problem phenomenal' of mathematics, "so long
sought for, so fervently desired, and attempted by millions." After
the modest author has proclaimed himself the unmasker of Archimedes's
deceit, he says: "It thus has pleased our mother nature to withhold
this mathematical jewel from the eye of human investigation, until she
thought it fitting to reveal truth to simplicity."
This will suffice to show the great self-consciousness of the author.
But it does not suffice to prove his ignorance. He has no conception
of mathematical demonstration; he takes it for granted that things are
so because they seem so to him. Errors of logic, also, are abundantly
found in his book. But apart from this general incorrectness let us see
wherein the real gist of his fallacy consists. It requires considerable
labor to find out what this is from the turgid language and bombastic
style in which the author has buried his conclusions. But it is this.
The author inscribes a square in a circle, circumscribes another about
it, then points out that the inside square is made up of four congruent
triangles, whereas the circumscribed square is made up of eight such
triangles; from which fact, seeing that the circle is larger than the
one square and smaller than the other, he draws the bold conclusion
that the circle is equal in area to six such triangles. It is hardly
conceivable that a rational being could infer that something which is
greater than 4 and less than 8 must necessarily be 6. But with a man
that attempts the squaring of the circle this kind of ratiocination
_is_ possible.
Similarly in the case of all other attempted solutions of the problem,
either logical fallacies or violations of elementary arithmetical or
geometrical truths may be pointed out. Only they are not always of such
a trivial nature as in the book just mentioned.
Let us now inquire whence the inclination arises which leads people to
take up the quadrature of the circle and to attempt to solve it.
#The allurements of the problem.#
Attention must first be called to the antiquity of the problem. A
quadrature was attempted in Egypt 500 years before the exodus of the
Israelites. Among the Greeks the problem never ceased to play a part
that greatly influenced the progress of mathematics. And in the middle
ages also the squaring of the circle sporadically appears as the
philosopher's stone of mathematics. The problem has thus never ceased
to be dealt with and considered. But it is not by the antiquity of the
problem that circle-squarers are enticed, but by the allurement which
everything exerts that is calculated to raise the individual out of the
mass of ordinary humanity, and to bind about his temples the laurel
crown of celebrity. It is ambition that spurred men on in ancient
Greece and still spurs them on in modern times to crack this primeval
mathematical nut. Whether they are competent thereto is a secondary
consideration. They look upon the squaring of the circle as the grand
prize of a lottery that can just as well fall to their lot as to that
of any other. They do not remember that—
"Toil before honor is placed by sagacious decrees of Immortals,"
and that it requires years of continued studies to gain possession of
the mathematical weapons that are indispensably necessary to attack
the problem, but which even in the hands of the most distinguished
mathematical strategists have not sufficed to take the stronghold.
#About the only problem known to the lay world.#
But how is it, we must further ask, that it happens to be the squaring
of the circle and not some other unsolved mathematical problem upon
which the efforts of people are bestowed who have no knowledge of
mathematics yet busy themselves with mathematical questions? The
question is answered by the fact that the squaring of the circle is
about the only mathematical problem that is known to the unprofessional
world,—at least by name. Even among the Greeks the problem was very
widely known outside of mathematical circles. In the eyes of the
Grecian layman, as at present among many of his modern brethren,
occupation with this problem was regarded as the most important and
essential business of mathematicians. In fact they had a special word
to designate this species of activity; namely, τετραγωνίζειν, which
means to busy one's self with the quadrature. In modern times, also,
every educated person, though he be not a mathematician, knows the
problem by name, and knows that it is insolvable, or at least, that
despite the efforts of the most famous mathematicians it has not yet
been solved. For this reason the phrase "to square the circle," is now
used in the sense of attempting the impossible.
#Belief that rewards have been offered.#
But in addition to the antiquity of the problem, and the fact also
that it is known to the lay world, we have yet a third factor to point
out that induces people to take up with it. This is the report that
has been spread abroad for a hundred years now, that the Academies,
the Queen of England, or some other influential person, has offered a
great prize to be given to the one that first solves the problem. As a
matter of fact we find the hope of obtaining this large prize of money
the principal incitement to action with many circle-squarers. And the
author of the book above referred to begs his readers to lend him their
assistance in obtaining the prizes offered.
#The problem among mathematicians.#
Although the opinion is widely current in the unprofessional world,
that professional mathematicians are still busied with the solution of
the problem, this is by no means the case. On the contrary, for some
two hundred years, the endeavors of many considerable mathematicians
have been solely directed towards demonstrating with exactness that
the problem is insolvable. It is, as a rule,—and naturally,—more
difficult to prove that something is impossible than to prove that
it is possible. And thus it has happened, that up to within a few
years ago, despite the employment of the most varied and the most
comprehensive methods of modern mathematics, no one succeeded in
supplying the wished-for demonstration of the problem's impossibility.
At last, Professor Lindemann, of Königsberg, in June, 1882, succeeded
in furnishing a demonstration,—and the first demonstration,—that it
is impossible by the exclusive employment of ruler and compasses to
construct a square that is mathematically exactly equal in area to a
given circle. The demonstration, naturally, was not effected with the
help of the old elementary methods; for if it were, it would surely
have been accomplished centuries ago; but methods were requisite
that were first furnished by the theory of definite integrals and
departments of higher algebra developed in the last decades; in other
words it required the direct and indirect preparatory labor of many
centuries to make finally possible a demonstration of the insolvability
of this historic problem.
Of course, this demonstration will have no more effect than the
resolution of the Paris Academy of 1775, in causing the fecund race of
circle-squarers to vanish from the face of the earth. In the future
as in the past, there will be people who know nothing, and will not
want to know anything of this demonstration, and who believe that they
cannot help but succeed in a matter in which others have failed, and
that just they have been appointed by Providence to solve the famous
puzzle. But unfortunately the ineradicable passion of wanting to solve
the quadrature of the circle has also its serious side. Circle-squarers
are not always so self-contented as the author of the book we
have mentioned. They often see or at least divine the insuperable
difficulties that tower up before them, and the conflict between their
aspirations and their performances, the consciousness that they want to
solve the problem but are unable to solve it, darkens their soul and,
lost to the world, they become interesting subjects for the science of
psychiatry.
II.
#Nature of the problem. Numerical rectification.#
If we have a circle before us, it is easy for us to determine the
length of its radius or of its diameter, which must be double that
of the radius; and the question next arises to find the number that
represents how many times larger its circumference, that is the length
of the circular line, is than its radius or its diameter. From the fact
that all circles have the same shape it follows that this proportion
will always be the same for both large and small circles. Now, since
the time of Archimedes, all civilised nations that have cultivated
mathematics, have called the number that denotes how many times larger
than the diameter the circumference of a circle is, π,—the Greek
initial letter of the word periphery. To compute π, therefore, means to
calculate how many times larger the circumference of a circle is than
its diameter. This calculation is called "the numerical rectification
of the circle."
#The numerical quadrature.#
Next to the calculation of the circumference, the calculation of the
superficial contents of a circle by means of its radius or diameter is
perhaps most important; that is, the computation of how much area that
part of a plane which lies within a circle measures. This calculation
is called the "numerical quadrature." It depends, however, upon the
problem of numerical rectification; that is, upon the calculation of
the magnitude of π. For it is demonstrated in elementary geometry,
that the area of a circle is equal to the area of a triangle produced
by drawing in the circle a radius, erecting at the extremity of the
same a tangent,—that is, in this case, a perpendicular,—cutting off
upon the latter the length of the circumference, measuring from the
extremity, and joining the point thus obtained with the centre of the
circle. But it follows from this that the area of a circle is as many
times larger than the square upon its radius as the number π amounts to.
#Constructive rectification and quadrature.#
The numerical rectification and numerical quadrature of the circle
based upon the computation of the number π, are to be clearly
distinguished from problems that require a straight line equal in
length to the circumference of a circle, or a square equal in area
to a circle, to be _constructively_ produced out of its radius or
its diameter; problems which might properly be called "constructive
rectification" or "constructive quadrature." Approximately, of
course, by employing an approximate value for π these problems are
easily solvable. But to solve a problem of construction, in geometry,
means to solve it with mathematical exactitude. If the value π were
exactly equal to the ratio of two whole numbers to one another, the
constructive rectification would present no difficulties. For example,
suppose the circumference of a circle were exactly 3-1/7 times greater
than its diameter; then the diameter could be divided into seven equal
parts, which could be easily done by the principles of planimetry with
ruler and compasses; then we would produce to the amount of such a
part a straight line exactly three times larger than the diameter, and
should thus obtain a straight line exactly equal to the circumference
of the circle. But as a matter of fact, and as has actually been
demonstrated, there do not exist two whole numbers, be they ever so
great, that exactly represent by their proportion to one another the
number π. Consequently, a rectification of the kind just described does
not attain the object desired.
It might be asked here, whether from the demonstrated fact that the
number π is not equal to the ratio of two whole numbers however great,
it does not immediately follow that it is impossible to construct
a straight line exactly equal in length to the circumference of a
circle; thus demonstrating at once the impossibility of solving the
problem. This question is to be answered in the negative. For there
are in geometry many sets of two lines of which the one can be easily
constructed from the other, notwithstanding the fact that no two whole
numbers can be found to represent the ratio of the two lines. The side
and the diagonal of a square, for instance, are so constituted. It is
true the ratio of the latter two magnitudes is nearly that of 5 to 7.
But this proportion is not exact, and there are in fact no two numbers
that represent the ratio exactly. Nevertheless, either of these two
lines can be easily constructed from the other by the sole employment
of ruler and compasses. This might be the case, too, with the
rectification of the circle; and consequently from the impossibility of
representing π by the ratio between two whole numbers the impossibility
of the problem of rectification is not inferable.
The quadrature of the circle stands and falls with the problem of
rectification. This is based upon the truth above mentioned, that
a circle is equal in area to a right-angled triangle, in which one
side is equal to the radius of the circle and the other to the
circumference. Supposing, accordingly, that the circumference of the
circle were rectified, then we could construct this triangle. But every
triangle, as is taught in the elements of planimetry, can, with the
help of ruler and compasses be converted into a square exactly equal
to it in area. So that, therefore, supposing the rectification of the
circumference of a circle were successfully performed, a square could
be constructed that would be exactly equal in area to the circle.
The dependence upon one another of the three problems of the
computation of the number π, of the quadrature of the circle, and its
rectification, thus obliges us, in dealing with the history of the
quadrature, to regard investigations with respect to the value of π and
attempts to rectify the circle as of equal importance, and to consider
them accordingly.
#Conditions of the geometrical solution.#
We have used repeatedly in the course of this discussion the expression
"to construct with ruler and compasses." It will be necessary to
explain what is meant by the specification of these two instruments.
When such a number of conditions is annexed to a requirement in
geometry to construct a certain figure that the construction only of
_one_ figure or a limited number of figures is possible in accordance
with the conditions given; such a complete requirement is called a
problem of construction, or briefly a problem. When a problem of this
kind is presented for solution it is necessary to reduce it to simpler
problems, already recognised as solvable; and since these latter depend
in their turn upon other, still simpler problems, we are finally
brought back to certain fundamental problems upon which the rest are
based but which are not themselves reducible to problems less simple.
These fundamental problems are, so to speak, the undermost stones of
the edifice of geometrical construction. The question next arises as to
what problems may be properly regarded as fundamental; and it has been
found, that the solution of a great part of the problems that arise in
elementary planimetry rests upon the solution of only five original
problems. They are:
1. The construction of a straight line which shall pass through two
given points.
2. The construction of a circle the centre of which is a given point
and the radius of which has a given length.
3. The determination of the point that lies coincidently on two given
straight lines extended as far as is necessary,—in case such a point
(point of intersection) exists.
4. The determination of the two points that lie coincidently on a given
straight line and a given circle,—in case such common points (points
of intersection) exist.
5. The determination of the two points that lie coincidently on two
given circles,—in case such common points (points of intersection)
exist.
For the solution of the three last of these five problems the eye
alone is needed, while for the solution of the two first problems,
besides pencil, ink, chalk, and the like, additional special
instruments are required: for the solution of the first problem a
ruler is most generally used, and for the solution of the second a
pair of compasses. But it must be remembered that it is no concern
of geometry what mechanical instruments are employed in the solution
of the five problems mentioned. Geometry simply limits itself to
the presupposition that these problems are solvable, and regards
a complicated problem as solved if, upon a specification of the
constructions of which the solution consists, no other requirements are
demanded than the five above mentioned. Since, accordingly, geometry
does not itself furnish the solution of these five problems, but
rather exacts them, they are termed _postulates_.[51] All problems of
planimetry are not reducible to these five problems alone. There are
problems that can be solved only by assuming other problems as solvable
which are not included in the five given; for example, the construction
of an ellipse, having given its centre and its major and minor axes.
Many problems, however, possess the property of being solvable with the
assistance solely of the five postulates above formulated, and where
this is the case they are said to be "constructible with ruler and
compasses," or "elementarily" constructible.
[51] Usually geometers mention only two postulates (Nos. 1 and
2). But since to geometry proper it is indifferent whether
only the eye, or additional special mechanical instruments are
necessary, the author has regarded it more correct in point of
method to assume five postulates.
After these general remarks upon the solvability of problems of
geometrical construction, which an understanding of the history of the
squaring of the circle makes indispensably necessary, the significance
of the question whether the quadrature of the circle is or is not
solvable, that is elementarily solvable, will become intelligible.
But the conception just discussed of elementary solvability only
gradually took clear form, and we therefore find among the Greeks as
well as among the Arabs, endeavors, successful in some respects, that
aimed at solving the quadrature of the circle with other expedients
than the five postulates. We have also to take these endeavors into
consideration, and especially so as they, no less than the unsuccessful
efforts at elementary solution, have upon the whole advanced the
science of geometry, and contributed much to the clarification of
geometrical ideas.
III.
#The Egyptian quadrature.#
In the oldest mathematical work that we possess we find a rule that
tells us how to make a square which is equal in area to a given
circle. This celebrated book, the Papyrus Rhind of the British Museum,
translated and explained by Eisenlohr (Leipsic, 1887), was written,
as it is stated in the work, in the thirty-third year of the reign of
King Ra-a-us, by a scribe of that monarch, named Ahmes. The composition
of the work falls accordingly into the period of the two Hiksos
dynasties, that is, in the period between 2000 and 1700 B.C. But there
is another important circumstance attached to this. Ahmes mentions
in his introduction that he composed his work after the model of old
treatises, written in the time of King Raenmat; whence it appears that
the originals of the mathematical expositions of Ahmes, are half a
thousand years older yet than the Papyrus Rhind.
The rule given in this papyrus for obtaining a square equal to a
circle, specifies that the diameter of the circle shall be shortened
one ninth of its length and upon the shortened line thus obtained a
square erected. Of course, the area of a square of this construction
is only approximately equal to the area of the circle. An idea may
be obtained of the degree of exactness of this original, primitive
quadrature by our remarking, that if the diameter of the circle in
question is one metre in length, the square that is supposed to be
equal to the circle is a little less than half a square decimetre
larger; an approximation not so accurate as that computed by
Archimedes, yet much more correct than many a one later employed. It
is not known how Ahmes or his predecessors arrived at this approximate
quadrature; but it is certain that it was handed down in Egypt from
century to century, and in late Egyptian times it repeatedly appears.
#The Biblical and Babylonian quadratures.#
Besides among the Egyptians, we also find in pre-Grecian antiquity an
attempt at circle-computation among the Babylonians. This is not a
quadrature; but aims at the rectification of the circumference. The
Babylonian mathematicians had discovered, that if the radius of a
circle be successively inscribed as chord within its circumference,
after the sixth inscription we arrive at the point of departure, and
they concluded from this that the circumference of a circle must be a
little larger than a line which is six times as long as the radius,
that is three times as long as the diameter. A trace of this Babylonian
method of computation may even be found in the bible; for in 1 Kings
vii. 23, and 2 Chron. iv. 2, the great laver is described, which under
the name of the "molten sea" constituted an ornament of the temple of
Solomon; and it is said of this vessel that it measured ten cubits from
brim to brim, and thirty cubits round about. The number 3 as the ratio
between the circumference and the diameter is still more plainly given
in the Talmud, where we read that "that which measures three lengths in
circumference is one length across."
#Among the Greeks.#
With regard to the earlier Greek mathematicians,—as Thales and
Pythagoras,—we know that they acquired the foundations of their
mathematical knowledge in Egypt. But nothing has been handed down
to us which shows that they knew of the old Egyptian quadrature, or
that they dealt with the problem at all. But tradition says, that,
subsequently, the teacher of Euripides and Pericles, the great
philosopher and mathematician Anaxagoras, whom Plato so highly praised,
"drew the quadrature of the circle" in prison, in the year 434. This
is the account of Plutarch in the seventeenth chapter of his work "De
Exilio." #Anaxagoras.# The method is not told us in which Anaxagoras
had supposably solved the problem, and it is not said whether knowingly
or unknowingly he accomplished an approximate solution after the manner
of Ahmes. But at any rate, to Anaxagoras belongs the merit of having
called attention to a problem that bore great fruit, in having incited
Grecian scholars to busy themselves with geometry, and thus more and
more to advance that science.
#The quadratrix of Hippias of Elis.#
Again, it is reported that the mathematician Hippias of Elis invented
a curved line that could be made to serve a double purpose: first,
to trisect an angle, and second, to square the circle. This curved
line is the τετραγωνίστουσα so often mentioned by the later Greek
mathematicians, and by the Romans called "quadratrix." Regarding the
nature of this curve we have exact knowledge from Pappus. But it will
be sufficient, here, to state that the quadratrix is not a circle
nor a portion of a circle, so that its construction is not possible
by means of the postulates enumerated in the preceding section. And
therefore the solution of the quadrature of the circle founded on the
construction of the quadratrix is not an elementary solution in the
sense discussed in the last section. We can, it is true, conceive a
mechanism that will draw this curve as well as compasses draw a circle;
and with the assistance of a mechanism of this description the squaring
of the circle is solvable with exactitude. But if it be allowed to
employ in a solution an apparatus especially adapted thereto, every
problem may be said to be solvable. Strictly taken, the invention
of the curve of Hippias substitutes for one insuperable difficulty
another equally insuperable. Some time afterwards, about the year 350,
the mathematician Dinostratus showed that the quadratrix could also
be used to solve the problem of rectification, and from that time on
this problem plays almost the same rôle in Grecian mathematics as the
related problem of quadrature.
#The Sophists' solution.#
As these problems gradually became known to the non-mathematicians of
Greece, attempts at solution at once sprang up that are worthy of a
place by the side of the solutions of modern amateur circle-squarers.
The Sophists, especially, believed themselves competent by seductive
dialectic to take a stronghold that had defied the intellectual
onslaughts of the greatest mathematicians. With verbal nicety,
amounting to puerility, it was said that the squaring of the circle
depended upon the finding of a number which represented in itself
both a square and a circle; a square by being a square number, a
circle in that it ended with the same number as the root number from
which, by multiplication with itself, it was produced. The number 36,
accordingly, was, as they thought, the one that embodied the solution
of the famous problem.
#Antiphon's attempt.#
Contrasted with this twisting of words the speculations of Bryson and
Antiphon, both contemporaries of Socrates, though inexact, appear in
high degree intelligent. Antiphon divided the circle into four equal
arcs, and by joining the points of division obtained a square; he
then divided each arc again into two equal parts and thus obtained an
inscribed octagon; thence he constructed an inscribed dodecagon, and
perceived that the figure so inscribed more and more approached the
shape of a circle. In this way, he said, one should proceed, until
there was inscribed in the circle a polygon whose sides by reason of
their smallness should coincide with the circle. Now this polygon
could, by methods already taught by the Pythagoreans, be converted
into a square of equal area; and upon the basis of this fact Antiphon
regarded the squaring of the circle as solved.
Nothing can be said against this method except that, however far the
bisection of the arcs is carried, the result must still remain an
approximate one.
#Bryson of Heraclea.#
The attempt of Bryson of Heraclea was better still; for this scholar
did not rest content with finding a square that was very little smaller
than the circle, but obtained by means of circumscribed polygons
another square that was very little larger than the circle. Only Bryson
committed the error of believing that the area of the circle was the
arithmetical mean between an inscribed and a circumscribed polygon
of an equal number of sides. Notwithstanding this error, however, to
Bryson belongs the merit, first, of having introduced into mathematics
by his emphasis of the necessity of a square which was too large and
one which was too small, the conception of maximum and minimum "limits"
in approximations; and secondly, by his comparison with a circle of
the inscribed and circumscribed regular polygons, the merit of having
indicated to Archimedes the way by which an approximate value for π was
to be reached.
#Hippocrates of Chios.#
Not long after Antiphon and Bryson, Hippocrates of Chios treated the
problem, which had now become more and more famous, from a new point
of view. Hippocrates was not satisfied with approximate equalities,
and searched for curvilinearly bounded plane figures which should be
mathematically equal to a rectilinearly bounded figure, and therefore
could be converted by ruler and compasses into a square equal in area.
First, Hippocrates found that the crescent-shaped plane figure produced
by drawing two perpendicular radii in a circle and describing upon the
line joining their extremities a semicircle, is exactly equal in area
to the triangle that is formed by this line of junction and the two
radii; and upon the basis of this fact the endeavors of the untiring
scholar were directed towards converting a circle into a crescent.
Naturally he was unable to attain this object, but by his efforts to
this end he discovered many a new geometrical truth; among others the
generalised form of the theorem mentioned, which bears to the present
day the name of "Lunulae Hippocratis," the lunes of Hippocrates. Thus
it appears, in the case of Hippocrates, in the plainest light, how the
very insolvable problems of science are qualified to advance science;
in that they incite investigators to devote themselves with persistence
to its study and thus to fathom its depths.
#Euclid's avoidance of the problem.#
Following Hippocrates in the historical line of the great Grecian
geometricians comes the systematist Euclid, whose rigid formulation of
geometrical principles has remained the standard presentation down to
the present century. The Elements of Euclid, however, contain nothing
relating to the quadrature of the circle or to circle-computation.
Comparisons of surfaces which relate to the circle are indeed found in
the book, but nowhere a computation of the circumference of a circle
or of the area of a circle. This palpable gap in Euclid's system was
filled by Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of antiquity.
#Archimedes's calculations.#
Archimedes was born in Syracuse in the year 287 B. C., and devoted his
life, there spent, to the mathematical and the physical sciences, which
he enriched with invaluable contributions. He lived in Syracuse till
the taking of the town by Marcellus, in the year 212 B. C., when he
fell by the hand of a Roman soldier whom he had forbidden to destroy
the figures he had drawn in the sand. To the greatest performances of
Archimedes the successful computation of the number π unquestionably
belongs. Like Bryson he started with regular inscribed and
circumscribed polygons. He showed how it was possible, beginning with
the perimeter of an inscribed hexagon, which is equal to six radii,
to obtain by way of calculation the perimeter of a regular dodecagon,
and then the perimeter of a figure having double the number of sides
of the preceding one. Treating, then, the circumscribed polygons in a
similar manner, and proceeding with both series of polygons up to a
regular 96-sided polygon, he perceived on the one hand that the ratio
of the perimeter of the inscribed 96-sided polygon to the diameter
was greater than 6336 : 2017-1/4, and on the other hand, that the
corresponding ratio with respect to the circumscribed 96-sided polygon
was smaller than 14688 : 4673-1/2. He inferred from this, that the number
π, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter, was greater than
the fraction 6336/2017-1/4 and smaller than 14688/4673-1/2. Reducing
the two limits thus found for the value of π, Archimedes then showed
that the first fraction was greater than and that 3-10/71 and that
the second fraction was smaller than 3-1/7, whence it followed with
certainty that the value sought for π lay between 3-1/7 and 3-10/71.
The larger of these two approximate values is the only one usually
learned and employed. That which fills us most with astonishment in the
Archimedean computation of π, is, first, the great acumen and accuracy
displayed in all the details of the computation, and then the unwearied
perseverance that he must have exercised in calculating the limits of
π without the advantages of the Arabian system of numerals and of the
decimal notation. For it must be considered that at many stages of the
computation what we call the extraction of roots was necessary, and
that Archimedes could only by extremely tedious calculations obtain
ratios that expressed approximately the roots of given numbers and
fractions.
#The later mathematicians of Greece.#
With regard to the mathematicians of Greece that follow Archimedes,
all refer to and employ the approximate value of 3-1/7 for π, without
however, contributing anything essentially new or additional to the
problems of quadrature and of cyclometry. Thus Heron of Alexandria,
the father of surveying, who flourished about the year 100 B. C.,
employs for purposes of practical measurement sometimes the value
3-1/7 for π and sometimes even the rougher approximation π = 3. The
astronomer Ptolemy, who lived in Alexandria about the year 150 A.
D., and who was famous as being the author of the planetary system
universally recognised as correct down to the time of Copernicus, was
the only one who furnished a more exact value; this he designated, in
the sexigesimal system of fractional notation which he employed, by 3,
8, 30,—that is 3 and 8/60 and 30/3600, or as we now say 3 degrees,
8 minutes (partes minutae primae), and 30 seconds (partes minutae
secundae). As a matter of fact, the expression 3 + 8/60 + 30/3600 =
3-17/120 represents the number π more exactly than 3-1/7; but on the
other hand, is, by reason of the magnitude of the numbers 17 and 120 as
compared with the numbers 1 and 7, more cumbersome.
IV.
#Among the Romans.#
In the mathematical sciences, more than in any other, the Romans stood
upon the shoulders of the Greeks. Indeed, with respect to cyclometry,
they not only did not add anything to the Grecian discoveries, but
often evinced even that they either did not know of the beautiful
result obtained by Archimedes, or at least did not know how to
appreciate it. For instance, Vitruvius, who lived during the time
of Augustus, computed that a wheel 4 feet in diameter must measure
12-1/2 feet in circumference; in other words, he made π equal to
3-1/8. And, similarly, a treatise on surveying, preserved to us in
the Gudian manuscript of the library at Wolfenbüttel, contains the
following instructions to square the circle: Divide the circumference
of a circle into four parts and make one part the side of a square;
this square will be equal in area to the circle. Aside from the fact
that the rectification of the arc of a circle is requisite to the
construction of a square of this kind, the Roman quadrature, viewed as
a calculation, is more inexact even than any other computation; for its
result is that π = 4.
#Among the Hindus.#
The mathematical performances of the Hindus were not only greater than
those of the Romans, but in certain directions even surpassed those of
the Greeks. In the most ancient source for the mathematics of India
that we know of, the Culvasûtras, which date back to a little before
our chronological era, we do not find, it is true, the squaring of
the circle treated of, but the opposite problem is dealt with, which
might fittingly be termed the circling of the square. The half of the
side of a given square is prolonged one third of the excess in length
of half the diagonal over half the side, and the line thus obtained
is taken as the radius of the circle equal in area to the square. The
simplest way to obtain an idea of the exactness of this construction
is to compute how great π would have to be if the construction were
exactly correct. We find out in this way that the value of π upon
which the Indian circling of the square is based, is about from five
to six hundredths smaller than the true value, whereas the approximate
π of Archimedes, 3-1/7, is only from one to two thousandths too large,
and the old Egyptian value exceeds the true value by from one to two
hundredths. Cyclometry very probably made great advances among the
Hindus in the first four or five centuries of our era; for Aryabhatta,
who lived about the year 500 after Christ, states, that the ratio of
the circumference to the diameter is 62832 : 20000, an approximation that
in exactness surpasses even that of Ptolemy. The Hindu result gives
3.1416 for π, while π really lies between 3.141592 and 3.141593. How
the Hindus obtained this excellent approximate value is told by Ganeça,
the commentator of Bhâskara, an author of the twelfth century. Ganeça
says that the method of Archimedes was carried still farther by the
Hindu mathematicians; that by continually doubling the number of sides
they proceeded from the hexagon to a polygon of 384 sides, and that by
the comparison of the circumferences of the inscribed and circumscribed
384-sided polygons they found that π was equal to 3927: 1250. It will
be seen that the value given by Bhâskara is identical with the value of
Aryabhatta. It is further worthy of remark that the earlier of these
two Hindu mathematicians does not mention either the value 3-1/7 of
Archimedes or the value 3-17/120 of Ptolemy, but that the later knows
of both values and especially recommends that of Archimedes as the
most useful one for practical application. Strange to say, the good
approximate value of Aryabhatta does not occur in Bramagupta, the great
Hindu mathematician who flourished in the beginning of the seventh
century; but we find the curious information in this author that the
area of a circle is exactly equal to the square root of 10 when the
radius is unity. The value of π as derivable from this formula,—a
value from two to three hundredths too large,—has unquestionably
arisen upon Hindu soil. For it occurs in no Grecian mathematician; and
Arabian authors, who were in a better position than we to know Greek
and Hindu mathematical literature, declare that the approximation
which makes π equal to the square root of 10, is of Hindu origin. It
is possible that the Hindu people, who were addicted more than any
other to numeral mysticism, sought to find in this approximation some
connection with the fact that man has ten fingers; and ten accordingly
is the basis of their numeral system.
Reviewing the achievements of the Hindus generally with respect to
the problem of the quadrature, we are brought to recognise that this
people, whose talents lay more in the line of arithmetical computation
than in the perception of spatial relations, accomplished as good as
nothing on the pure geometrical side of the problem, but that the merit
belongs to them of having carried the Archimedean method of computing π
several stages farther, and of having obtained in this way a much more
exact value for it—a circumstance that is explainable when we consider
that the Hindus are the inventors of our present system of numeral
notation, possessing which they easily outdid Archimedes, who employed
the awkward Greek system.
#Among the Chinese.#
With regard to the Chinese, this people operated in ancient times
with the Babylonian value for π, or 3; but possessed knowledge of
the approximate value of Archimedes at least since the end of the
sixth century. Besides this, there appears in a number of Chinese
mathematical treatises an approximate value peculiarly their own, in
which π = 3-7/50; a value, however, which notwithstanding it is written
in larger figures, is no better than that of Archimedes. Attempts at
the _constructive_ quadrature of the circle are not found among the
Chinese.
#Among the Arabs.#
Greater were the merits of the Arabians in the advancement and
development of mathematics; and especially in virtue of the fact that
they preserved from oblivion both Greek and Hindu mathematics, and
handed them down to the Christian countries of the West. The Arabians
expressly distinguished between the Archimedean approximate value and
the two Hindu values the square root of 10 and the ratio 62832 : 20000.
This distinction occurs also in Muhammed Ibn Musa Alchwarizmî, the
same scholar who in the beginning of the ninth century brought the
principles of our present system of numerical notation from India and
introduced the same into the Mohammedan world. The Arabians, however,
did not study the numerical quadrature of the circle only, but also
the constructive; as, for instance, Ibn Alhaitam, who lived in Egypt
about the year 1000 and whose treatise upon the squaring of the circle
is preserved in a Vatican codex, which has unfortunately not yet been
edited.
#In Christian times.#
Christian civilisation, to which we are now about to pass, produced up
to the second half of the fifteenth century extremely insignificant
results in mathematics. Even with regard to our present problem we have
but a single important work to mention; the work, namely, of Frankos
Von Lüttich, upon the squaring of the circle, published in six books,
but only preserved in fragments. The author, who lived in the first
half of the eleventh century, was probably a pupil of Pope Sylvester
II, himself a not inconsiderable mathematician for his time, and who
also wrote the most celebrated book on geometry of the period.
#Cardinal Nicolaus De Cusa.#
Greater interest came to be bestowed upon mathematics in general, but
especially on the problem of the quadrature of the circle, in the
second half of the fifteenth century, when the sciences again began
to revive. This interest was especially aroused by Cardinal Nicolaus
De Cusa, a man highly esteemed on account of his astronomical and
calendarial studies. He claimed to have discovered the quadrature
of the circle by the employment solely of compasses and ruler, and
thus attracted the attention of scholars to the now historic problem.
People believed the famous Cardinal, and marvelled at his wisdom,
until Regiomontanus, in letters which he wrote in 1464 and 1465 and
which were published in 1533, rigidly demonstrated that the Cardinal's
quadrature was incorrect. The construction of Cusa was as follows. The
radius of a circle is prolonged a distance equal to the side of the
inscribed square; the line thus obtained is taken as the diameter of a
second circle and in the latter an equilateral triangle is described;
then the perimeter of the latter is equal to the circumference of the
original circle. If this construction, which its inventor regarded as
exact, be considered as a construction of approximation, it will be
found to be more inexact even than the construction resulting from
the value π = 3-1/7. For by Cusa's method π would be from five to six
thousandths smaller than it really is.
#Bovillius and Orontius Finaeus.#
In the beginning of the sixteenth century a certain Bovillius appears,
who announced anew the construction of Cusa; meeting however with
no notice. But about the middle of the sixteenth century a book was
published which the scholars of the time at first received with
interest. It bore the proud title "De Rebus Mathematicis Hactenus
Desideratis." Its author, Orontius Finaeus, represented that he had
overcome all the difficulties that had ever stood in the way of
geometrical investigators; and incidentally he also communicated to the
world the "true quadrature" of the circle. His fame was short-lived.
For soon afterwards, in a book entitled "De Erratis Orontii," the
Portuguese Petrus Nonius demonstrated that Orontius's quadrature, like
most of his other professed discoveries, was incorrect.
#Simon Van Eyck.#
In the period following this the number of circle-squarers so increased
that we shall have to limit ourselves to those whom mathematicians
recognise. And particularly is Simon Van Eyck to be mentioned, who
towards the close of the sixteenth century published a quadrature which
was so approximate that the value of π derived from it was more exact
than that of Archimedes; and to disprove it the mathematician Peter
Metius was obliged to seek a still more accurate value than 3-1/7. The
erroneous quadrature of Van Eyck was thus the occasion of Metius's
discovery that the ratio 355 : 113, or 3-16/113, varied from the true
value of π by less than one one-millionth, eclipsing accordingly all
values hitherto obtained. Moreover, it is demonstrable by the theory of
continued fractions, that, admitting figures to four places only, no
two numbers more exactly represent the value of π than 355 and 113.
#Joseph Scaliger.#
In the same way the quadrature of the great philologist Joseph
Scaliger led to refutations. Like most circle-squarers who believe
in their discovery, Scaliger also was little versed in the elements
of geometry. He solved, however,—at least in his own opinion he
did,—the famous problem; and published in 1592 a book upon it, which
bore the pretentious title "Nova Cyclometria" and in which the name of
Archimedes was derided. The worthlessness of his supposed discovery was
demonstrated to him by the greatest mathematicians of his time; namely,
Vieta, Adrianus Romanus, and Clavius.
#Longomontanus, John Porta, and Gregory St. Vincent.#
Of the erring circle-squarers that flourished before the middle
of the seventeenth century three others deserve particular
mention—Longomontanus of Copenhagen, who rendered such great services
to astronomy, the Neapolitan John Porta, and Gregory of St. Vincent.
Longomontanus made π = 3-14185/100000, and was so convinced of the
correctness of his result that he thanked God fervently, in the preface
to his work "Inventio Quadraturae Circuli," that He had granted him in
his high old age the strength to conquer the celebrated difficulty.
John Porta followed the initiative of Hippocrates, and believed he had
solved the problem by the comparison of lunes. Gregory of St. Vincent
published a quadrature, the error of which was very hard to detect but
was finally discovered by Descartes.
#Peter Metius and Vieta.#
Of the famous mathematicians who dealt with our problem in the period
between the close of the fifteenth century and the time of Newton,
we first meet with Peter Metius, before mentioned, who succeeded
in finding in the fraction 355 : 113 the best approximate value for
π involving only small numbers. The problem received a different
advancement at the hands of the famous mathematician Vieta. Vieta
was the first to whom the idea occurred of representing π with
mathematical exactness by an infinite series of continuable operations.
By comparison of inscribed and circumscribed polygons, Vieta found
that we approach nearer and nearer to π if we allow the operations
of the extraction of the square root of 1/2, and of addition and of
multiplication to succeed each other in a certain manner, and that
π must come out exactly, if this series of operations could be
indefinitely continued. Vieta thus found that to a diameter of 10000
million units a circumference belongs of 31415 million and from 926535
to 926536 units of the same length.
#Adrianus Romanus, Ludolf Van Ceulen.#
But Vieta was outdone by the Netherlander Adrianus Romanus, who added
five additional decimal places to the ten of Vieta. To accomplish this
he computed with unspeakable labor the circumference of a regular
circumscribed polygon of 1073741824 sides. This number is the thirtieth
power of 2. Yet great as the labor of Adrianus Romanus was, that
of Ludolf Van Ceulen was still greater; for the latter calculator
succeeded in carrying the Archimedean process of approximation for the
value of π to 35 decimal places, that is, the deviation from the true
value was smaller than one one-thousand quintillionth, a degree of
exactness that we can hardly have any conception of. Ludolf published
the figures of the tremendous computation that led to this result. His
calculation was carefully examined by the mathematician Griemberger
and declared to be correct. Ludolf was justly proud of his work, and
following the example of Archimedes, requested in his will that the
result of his most important mathematical performance, the computation
of π to 35 decimal places, be engraved upon his tombstone; a request
which is said to have been carried out. In honor of Ludolf, π is called
to-day in Germany the Ludolfian number.
#The new method of Snell. Huygens's verification of it.#
Although through the labor of Ludolf a degree of exactness for
cyclometrical operations was now obtained that was more than sufficient
for any practical purpose that could ever arise, neither the problem
of constructive rectification nor that of constructive quadrature was
thereby in any respect theoretically advanced. The investigations
conducted by the famous mathematicians and physicists Huygens and
Snell about the middle of the seventeenth century, were more important
from a mathematical point of view than the work of Ludolf. In his book
"Cyclometricus" Snell took the position that the method of comparison
of polygons, which originated with Archimedes and was employed by
Ludolf, need by no means be the best method of attaining the end
sought; and he succeeded by the employment of propositions which state
that certain arcs of a circle are greater or smaller than certain
straight lines connected with the circle, in obtaining methods that
make it possible to reach results like the Ludolfian with much less
labor of calculation. The beautiful theorems of Snell were proved a
second time, and better proved, by the celebrated Dutch promoter of the
science of optics, Huygens (Opera Varia, p. 365 et seq.; "Theoremata De
Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura," 1651), as well as perfected in many
ways. Snell and Huygens were fully aware that they had advanced only
the problem of numerical quadrature, and not that of the constructive
quadrature. This, in Huygens's case, plainly appeared from the vehement
dispute he conducted with the English mathematician James Gregory.
This controversy has some significance for the history of our problem,
from the fact that Gregory made the first attempt to prove that the
squaring of the circle with ruler and compasses must be impossible.
#The controversy between Huygens and Gregory.# The result of the
controversy, to which we owe many valuable treatises, was, that Huygens
finally demonstrated in an incontrovertible manner the incorrectness
of Gregory's proof of impossibility, adding that he also was of
opinion that the solution of the problem with ruler and compasses was
impossible, but nevertheless was not himself able to demonstrate this
fact. And Newton, later, expressed himself to a similar effect. As a
matter of fact it took till the most recent period, that is over 200
years, until higher mathematics was far enough advanced to furnish a
rigid demonstration of impossibility.
V.
Before we proceed to consider the promotive influence which the
invention of the differential and the integral calculus had upon our
problem, we shall enumerate a few at least of that never-ending line
of mistaken quadrators who delighted the world by the fruits of their
ingenuity from the time of Newton to the present period; and out of a
pious and sincere consideration for the contemporary world, we shall
entirely omit in this to speak of the circle-squarers of our own time.
#Hobbes's quadrature.#
First to be mentioned is the celebrated English philosopher Hobbes.
In his book "De Problematis Physicis," in which he chiefly proposes
to explain the phenomena of gravity and of ocean tides, he also takes
up the quadrature of the circle and gives a very trivial construction
that in his opinion definitively solved the problem, making π = 3-1/5.
In view of Hobbes's importance as a philosopher, two mathematicians,
Huygens and Wallis, thought it proper to refute Hobbes at length.
But Hobbes defended his position in a special treatise, in which
to sustain at least the appearance of being right, he disputed the
fundamental principles of geometry and the theorem of Pythagoras; so
that mathematicians could pass on from him to the order of the day.
#French quadrators of the Eighteenth Century.#
In the last century France especially was rich in circle-squarers.
We will mention: Oliver de Serres, who by means of a pair of scales
determined that a circle weighed as much as the square upon the side
of the equilateral triangle inscribed in it, that therefore they
must have the same area, an experiment in which π = 3; Mathulon, who
offered in legal form a reward of a thousand dollars to the person
who would point out an error in his solution of the problem, and who
was actually compelled by the courts to pay the money; Basselin, who
believed that his quadrature must be right because it agreed with the
approximate value of Archimedes, and who anathematised his ungrateful
contemporaries, in the confidence that he would be recognised by
posterity; Liger, who proved that a part is greater than the whole
and to whom therefore the quadrature of the circle was child's play;
Clerget, who based his solution upon the principle that a circle is a
polygon of a definite number of sides, and who calculated, also, among
other things, how large the point is at which two circles touch.
#Germany and Poland.#
Germany and Poland also furnish their contingent to the army of
circle-squarers. Lieutenant-Colonel Corsonich produced a quadrature
in which π equalled 3-1/8, and promised fifty ducats to the person
who could prove that it was incorrect. Hesse of Berlin wrote an
arithmetic in 1776, in which a true quadrature was also "made known,"
π being exactly equal to 3-14/99. About the same time Professor
Bischoff of Stettin defended a quadrature previously published by
Captain Leistner, Preacher Merkel, and Schoolmaster Böhm, which made
π _implicite_ equal to the square of 62/35, not even attaining the
approximation of Archimedes.
#Constructive approximations. Euler. Kochansky.#
From attempts of this character are to be clearly distinguished
constructions of approximation in which the inventor is aware that
he has not found a mathematically exact construction, but only
an approximate one. The value of such a construction will depend
upon two things—first, upon the degree of exactness with which
it is numerically expressed, and secondly on the fact whether the
construction can be more or less easily made with ruler and compasses.
Constructions of this kind, simple in form and yet sufficiently exact
for practical purposes, have for centuries been furnished us in great
numbers. The great mathematician Euler, who died in 1783, did not think
it out of place to attempt an approximate construction of this kind. A
very simple construction for the rectification of the circle and one
which has passed into many geometrical text books, is that published
by Kochansky in 1685 in the _Leipziger Berichte_. It is as follows:
"Erect upon the diameter of a circle at its extremities perpendiculars;
with the centre as vertex, mark off upon the diameter an angle of 30°;
find the point of intersection with the perpendicular of the line
last drawn, and join this point of intersection with that point upon
the other perpendicular which is at a distance of three radii from
the base of the perpendicular. The line of junction thus obtained is
then very approximately equal to one-half of the circumference of the
given circle." Calculation shows that the difference between the true
length of the circumference and the line thus constructed is less than
3/100000 of the diameter.
#Inutility of constructive approximations.#
Although such constructions of approximation are very interesting
in themselves, they nevertheless play but a subordinate rôle in the
history of the squaring of the circle; for on the one hand they can
never furnish greater exactness for circle-computation than the
thirty-five decimal places which Ludolf found, and on the other hand
they are not adapted to advance in any way the question whether the
exact quadrature of the circle with ruler and compasses is possible.
#The researches of Newton, Leibnitz, Wallis, and Brouncker.#
The numerical side of the problem, however, was considerably advanced
by the new mathematical methods perfected by Newton and Leibnitz,
commonly called the differential and the integral calculus. And about
the middle of the seventeenth century, some time before Newton and
Leibnitz represented π by series of powers, the English mathematicians
Wallis and Lord Brouncker, Newton's predecessors in a certain sense,
succeeded in representing π by an infinite series of figures combined
by the first four rules of arithmetic. A new method of computation was
thus opened. Wallis found that the fourth part of π is represented more
exactly by the regularly formed product
2/3 × 4/3 × 4/5 × 6/5 × 6/7 × 8/7 × 8/9 × etc.
the farther the multiplication is continued, and that the result always
comes out too small if we stop at a proper fraction but too large if
we stop at an improper fraction. Lord Brouncker, on the other hand,
represents the value in question by a continued fraction in which all
the denominators are equal to 2 and the numerators are odd square
numbers. Wallis, to whom Brouncker had communicated his elegant result
without proof, demonstrated the same in his "Arithmetic of Infinites."
The computation of π could hardly be farther advanced by these results
than Ludolf and others had carried it, though of course in a more
laborious way. However, the series of powers derived by the assistance
of the differential calculus of Newton and Leibnitz furnished a means
of computing it to hundreds of decimal places.
#Other calculations.#
Gregory, Newton, and Leibnitz next found that the fourth part of π was
equal exactly to
1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 - 1/11 + 1/13 - ...
if we conceive this series, which is called the Leibnitzian,
indefinitely continued. This series is indeed wonderfully simple, but
is not adapted to the computation of π, for the reason that entirely
too many members have to be taken into account to obtain π accurately
to a few decimal places only. The original formula, however, from which
this series is derived, gives other formulas which are excellently
adapted to the actual computation. This formula is the general series:
α = _a_ - 1/3_a_^3 + 1/5_a_^5 - 1/7_a_^7 + ...,
where α is the length of the arc that belongs to any central angle in
a circle of radius 1, and where _a_ is the tangent to this angle. From
this we derive the following:
π/4 = (_a_ + _b_ + _c_ + ...) - 1/3(_a_^3 + _b_^3 + _c_^3 + ...)
+ 1/5(_a_^5 + _b_^5 + _c_^5 + ...) - ...,
where _a_, _b_, _c_ ... are the tangents of angles whose sum is
45°. Determining, therefore, the values of _a_, _b_, _c_ ..., which
are equal to small and easy fractions and fulfil the condition just
mentioned, we obtain series of powers which are adapted to the
computation of π. The first to add by the aid of series of this
description additional decimal places to the old 35 in the number π
was the English arithmetician Abraham Sharp, who following Halley's
instructions, in 1700, worked out π to 72 decimal places. A little
later Machin, professor of astronomy in London, computed π to 100
decimal places; putting, in the series given above, _a_ = _b_ = _c_ =
_d_ = 1/5 and _e_ =-1/239, that is employing the following series:
π/4 = 4. [1/5 - 1/3.5^3 + 1/5.5^5 - 1/7.5^7 + ...]
- [1/239 - 1/3.239^3 + 1/5.239^5 - ...]
#The computation of π to many decimal places.#
In the year 1819, Lagny of Paris outdid the computation of Machin,
determining in two different ways the first 127 decimal places of π.
Vega then obtained as many as 140 places, and the Hamburg arithmetician
Zacharias Dase went as far as 200 places. The latter did not use
Machin's series in his calculation, but the series produced by putting
in the general series above given _a_ = 1/2, _b_ = 1/5, _c_ = 1/8.
Finally, at a recent date, π has been computed to 500 places.
#Idea of exactness obtainable with the approximate values of π.#
The computation to so many decimal places may serve as an illustration
of the excellence of the modern method as contrasted with those
anciently employed, but otherwise it has neither a theoretical nor a
practical value. That the computation of π to say 15 decimal places
more than sufficiently satisfies the subtlest requirements of practice
may be gathered from a concrete example of the degree of exactness thus
obtainable. Imagine a circle to be described with Berlin as centre, and
the circumference to pass through Hamburg; then let the circumference
of the circle be computed by multiplying its diameter with the value of
π to 15 decimal places, and then conceive it to be actually measured.
The deviation from the true length in so large a circle as this even
could not be as great as the 18 millionth part of a millimetre.
An idea can hardly be obtained of the degree of exactness produced by
100 decimal places. But the following example may possibly give us
some conception of it. Conceive a sphere constructed with the earth
as centre, and imagine its surface to pass through Sirius, which is
134-1/2 million million kilometres distant from us. Then imagine
this enormous sphere to be so packed with microbes that in every
cubic millimetre millions of millions of these diminutive animalcula
are present. Now conceive these microbes to be all unpacked and so
distributed singly along a straight line, that every two microbes are
as far distant from each other as Sirius from us, that is 134-1/2
million million kilometres. Conceive the long line thus fixed by
all the microbes, as the diameter of a circle, and imagine the
circumference of it to be calculated by multiplying its diameter with π
to 100 decimal places. Then, in the case of a circle of this enormous
magnitude even, the circumference thus calculated would not vary from
the real circumference by a millionth of a millimetre.
This example will suffice to show that the calculation of π to 100 or
500 decimal places is wholly useless.
#Professor Wolff's curious method.#
Before we close this chapter upon the evaluation of π, we must mention
the method, less fruitful than curious, which Professor Wolff of Zurich
employed some decades ago to compute the value of π to 3 places. The
floor of a room is divided up into equal squares, so as to resemble
a huge chess-board, and a needle exactly equal in length to the side
of each of these squares, is cast haphazard upon the floor. If we
calculate, now, the probabilities of the needle so falling as to lie
wholly within one of the squares, that is so that it does not cross
any of the parallel lines forming the squares, the result of the
calculation for this probability will be found to be exactly equal to π
- 3. Consequently, a sufficient number of casts of the needle according
to the law of large numbers must give the value of π approximately. As
a matter of fact, Professor Wolff, after 10000 trials, obtained the
value of π correctly to 3 decimal places.
#Mathematicians now seek to prove the insolvability of the problem.#
Fruitful as the calculus of Newton and Leibnitz was for the evaluation
of π, the problem of converting a circle into a square having exactly
the same area was in no wise advanced thereby. Wallis, Newton,
Leibnitz, and their immediate followers distinctly recognised this.
The quadrature of the circle could not be solved; but it also
could not be proved that the problem was insolvable with ruler and
compasses, although everybody was convinced of its insolvability. In
mathematics, however, a conviction is only justified when supported
by incontrovertible proof; and in the place of endeavors to solve
the quadrature there accordingly now come endeavors to prove the
impossibility of solving the celebrated problem.
#Lambert's contribution.#
The first step in this direction, small as it was, was made by the
French mathematician Lambert, who proved in the year 1761 that π was
neither a rational number nor even the square root of a rational
number; that is, that neither π nor the square of π can be exactly
represented by a fraction the denominator and numerator of which are
whole numbers, however great the numbers be taken. Lambert's proof
showed, indeed, that the rectification and the quadrature of the
circle could not be possibly accomplished in the particular way in
which its impossibility was demonstrated, but it still did not exclude
the possibility of the problem being solvable in some other more
complicated way, and without requiring further aids than ruler and
compasses.
#The conditions of the demonstration.#
Proceeding slowly but surely it was next sought to discover the
essential distinguishing properties that separate problems solvable
with ruler and compasses, from problems the construction of which is
elementarily impossible, that is by solely employing the postulates.
Slight reflection showed, that a problem elementarily solvable, must
always possess the property of having the unknown lines in the figure
relating to it connected with the known lines of the figure by an
equation for the solution of which equations of the first and second
degree alone are requisite, and which may be so disposed that the
common measures of the known lines will appear only as integers. The
conclusion was to be drawn from this, that if the quadrature of the
circle and consequently its rectification were elementarily solvable,
the number π, which represents the ratio of the unknown circumference
to the known diameter, must be the root of a certain equation, of a
very high degree perhaps, but in which all the numbers that appear are
whole numbers; that is, there would have to exist an equation, made
up entirely of whole numbers, which would be correct if its unknown
quantity were made equal to π.
#Final success of Prof. Lindemann.#
Since the beginning of this century, consequently, the efforts of a
number of mathematicians have been bent upon proving that π generally
is not algebraical, that is, that it cannot be the root of any equation
having whole numbers for coefficients. But mathematics had to make
tremendous strides forward before the means were at hand to accomplish
this demonstration. After the French Academician, Professor Hermite,
had furnished important preparatory assistance in his treatise "Sur la
Fonction Exponentielle," published in the seventy-seventh volume of
the "Comptes Rendus," Professor Lindemann, at that time of Freiburg,
now of Königsberg, finally succeeded, in June 1882, in rigorously
demonstrating that the number π is not algebraical,[52] thus supplying
the first proof that the problems of the rectification and the squaring
of the circle, with the help only of algebraical instruments like ruler
and compasses are insolvable. Lindemann's proof appeared successively
in the Reports of the Berlin Academy (June, 1882), in the "Comptes
Rendus" of the French Academy (Vol. 115. pp. 72 to 74), and in the
"Mathematischen Annalen" (Vol. 20. pp. 213 to 225).
[52] For the benefit of my mathematical readers I shall
present here the most important steps of Lindemann's
demonstration, M. Hermite in order to prove the transcendental
character of
_e_ = 1 + 1/1 + 1/1.2 + 1/1.2.3 + 1/1.2.3.4 + ....
developed relations between certain definite integrals
(_Comptes Rendus_ of the Paris Academy, Vol. 77, 1873).
Proceeding from the relations thus established, Professor
Lindemann first demonstrates the following proposition: If
the coefficients of an equation of _n_th degree are all real
or complex whole numbers and the n roots of this equation
_z_{1}, _z_{2}, ..., _z_{_n_} are different from zero and
from each other it is impossible for
_e_^_z_{1} + _e_^_z_{2} + _e_^_z_{3} ... + _e_^_z_{_n_}
to be equal to _a_/_b_, where _a_ and _b_ are real or complex
whole numbers. It is then shown that also between the functions
_e_^{_rz_{1}} + _e_^{_rz_{2}} + _e_^{_rz_{3}}
+ ... _e_^{_rz_{_n_}},
where _r_ denotes an integer, no linear equation can exist
with rational coefficients variant from zero. Finally
the beautiful theorem results: If _z_ is the root of an
irreducible algebraic equation the coefficients of which are
real or complex whole numbers, then _e_^_z_ cannot be equal
to a rational number. Now in reality _e_^{t√-1} is equal to a
rational number, namely,-1. Consequently, π√-1, and therefore
π itself, cannot be the root of an equation of _n_th degree
having whole numbers for coefficients, and therefore also not
of such an equation having rational coefficients. The property
last mentioned, however, π would have if the squaring of the
circle with ruler and compasses were possible.
#The verdict of mathematics.#
"It is impossible with ruler and compasses to construct a square
equal in area to a given circle." These are the words of the final
determination of a controversy which is as old as the history of the
human mind. But the race of circle-squarers, unmindful of the verdict
of mathematics, that most infallible of arbiters, will never die out so
long as ignorance and the thirst for glory shall be united.
HERMANN SCHUBERT.
THE CRITERION OF TRUTH.
A DISSERTATION ON THE METHOD OF VERIFICATION.
Modern science rests upon the recognition of the truth that all
knowledge is a statement of facts. The formulation of natural laws is
nothing but a comprehensive description of certain kinds of natural
processes. Natural laws are generalisations of facts. Similarly,
any philosophical theory is, or from the modern standpoint ought to
be, simply a systematised representation of facts. Facts are the
bottom-rock to which, everywhere, we have to go down.
The recognition of this maxim is called, most appropriately,
positivism; and I take it that as a matter of principle all modern
thinkers can and perhaps do agree to it. A Roman Catholic philosopher
may consider some things as facts which a scientist of heretic England,
for instance, does not; yet it is from facts, or what is thought to be
facts, that every one derives his conception of the world.
It is natural that the range of individual experience should be
very limited in comparison with the knowledge indispensably needed
for acquiring an adequate conception of the world in which we live.
We have, to a great extent, to rely on statements of facts which
we ourselves have not observed. To enrich and to enlarge our own
experience we have to imbibe the experience of others. Sometimes we
can, but sometimes we cannot, verify what we have been told. For
instance, that stones fall through empty space with a velocity of
32·18 English feet at the end of the first second can be verified
by experiment, i. e., the experiment can be repeated under the same
circumstances. But historical data such as whether Buddha died under
a fig-tree, or whether Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
cannot be verified by experiment. Historical data are statements, not
of general truths, but of single facts, which, if they are accepted
at all, have to be taken on authority. The authority may be weak or
strong; it may be strong enough to be equivalent practically to a
certainty, which latter case occurs, for instance, when the fact in
question in its direct consequences perceptibly affects our life, and
its causal connection can thus be directly and indubitably traced.
It is not intended here to emphasise the difference between facts
verifiable by experiment, and historical facts; yet it is desirable
with reference to all kinds of facts stated on authority, to understand
the importance of a criterion of truth. We do accept and we have to
accept, every one of us, without any exception, the most discriminate
scientist even and most of all the philosopher, innumerable statements
of facts as they have been observed by others. We all have to rely on
the authority of others. The time of the longest human life would be
too short to repeat all the experiments made by others, with a view
to verifying them in detail. On the other hand, it is obvious that no
statement of facts should be accepted on pure authority. We must have
a means, a sieve as it were, by which the wheat can easily be winnowed
from the chaff; a sieve that will enable us to discard at once those
statements that are positively erroneous. In this way our attention
can be confined to statements of things that are possible, those that
need not, but _may_ be true. "Possible" in German is very appropriately
called _möglich_, i. e. _mayable_.
The criterion of that which 'may be' true is the first step towards
ascertaining truth; and although it does not exhaust the methods of
arriving at truth it is of greatest consequence, for if properly
understood and applied, it would save from the start many useless
efforts in the investigation of truth.
* * * * *
The question arises then, What is the criterion of the possible? We
reject statements, sometimes, as _prima facie_ untrue. Have we a right
to do so? And if we have, by what standard do we determine this?
Let us first take into consideration how people really behave when a
statement of new facts is made. Take, for instance, the following case.
Two strangers meet; A. and B. Mr. A. relates to Mr. B. some incident
of his life. He is apparently a very trustworthy person and during
the conversation remains perfectly serious. He tells a ghost story in
detail, how a departed friend of his appeared to him in distinctly
visible form; he says that the spirit spoke to him and told him many
strange things, and that he pointed out to him an imminent danger.
We suppose that on the one hand A. makes his statement in good faith
and that on the other hand B. is a spiritualist. Will B. consider
A.'s story as possible? B., being a spiritualist, most probably will
consider A.'s story as possible, and, if he is convinced of A.'s
honesty, he will believe the story the same as if he had experienced
it himself; no less than a scientist will rely on the statement of an
experiment made by one of his colleagues whose scientific veracity he
has no reason to doubt.
Suppose A. tells the same story to C. Mr. C. is an infidel and a
materialist. As characteristic features of his personality we might
mention that he considers religion as pure superstition originated by
the fraud of cunning priests. This man will, we may fairly suppose,
laugh at A.'s story, because it appears to him an out and out lie. Mr.
A. as well as Mr. B., he who tells and he who believes the story, C.
will declare, are either insane or they are both impostors.
The difference of opinion in B. and C. indicates that the criterion
of truth is different with different persons and that it depends upon
their conception of the world. Men who have the same world-conception
will also have the same criterion of truth.
The problem consequently is, whether this criterion of truth (i. e. the
criterion of what is possible) is necessarily wholly subjective, or
whether we can arrive at an objective criterion. It is apparent that
this question is intimately connected with another problem, namely,
Is every world-conception necessarily subjective, or, Is it possible
to arrive at an objective world-conception? It appears to me that we
can; and the ideal of philosophy to-day is just such an objective
representation of facts.
The difficulty that presents itself lies mainly in the confusion
between facts and our interpretation of facts. If A. declares that he
saw a ghost, he does not relate a fact, but his interpretation of a
fact. Let us suppose that he tells his story again to a third person
D., who is a psychologist. D. most likely will not think him a liar.
D. will accept the statement _bona fide_ as a mere interpretation of a
fact and will inquire after the causes that produced the hallucination.
He may be able, possibly, to lay bare the facts disfigured by the wrong
interpretation of A. And having clearly stated the objective state
of things he may with the assistance of his experience explain the
origin of the whole process, partly from the mental condition and the
physiological constitution of A., partly from individual circumstances
that gave rise to the hallucination. He will not doubt that something
extraordinary has happened to Mr. A. The latter's mind has been, and
perhaps still is in an abnormal state. And as to B.'s believing the
ghost story, Mr. D. will not think that he is insane; though we may
presume that he will regard B.'s views of the world as resting upon
unfirm grounds; and he will not believe him to be a man of critical
ability.
The notion is very common among idealists that we can never go beyond
our subjective states of consciousness. This would be tantamount to
saying that there is no difference between dreams and real life, except
that a dream is cut off by awaking while life lasts comparatively much
longer and ceases with death, which may also be an awakening from
a dream. In that case hallucinations would be of the same value as
sensations. Both would be interpretations of facts for which we do not
have an objective criterion of truth. Interpretations of facts would
be the sole facts, and it would be quite indifferent whether they were
misinterpretations or correct interpretations.
Take a simple instance. We see a tree. The perception of a tree is an
interpretation of a set of facts. Interpretations of facts, whether
correct or not, are of course also facts. Thus the perception of a tree
is a fact which, if all matter were transparent, would, physiologically
considered, appear to the eye of an observer as special vibrations in
the brain. But the peculiarity of this fact is that it represents
other facts. The question is no longer whether there is a perception of
a tree taking place in a brain, but whether this perception is true,
i. e., whether it agrees with the facts represented. Every perception
has a meaning beyond itself; every perception is a fact representing
other facts, and the question of truth or untruth has reference to the
agreement between representations and facts represented.
Professor Mach says in his essay "The Analysis of Sensations" (_The
Monist_, Vol. I. No. I, p. 65):
"Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of sensations
(complexes of elements) form bodies."[53]
[53] Professor Mach in thus speaking of bodies uses the
word in the sense of representations and not in the sense
of objects represented. He calls them in the sentence next
following "thought-symbols for complexes of sensations
(complexes of elements)."
And, certainly, we do not deny that upon a closer analysis the
perception of a tree appears as a bundle, or a complex of sensations;
there is the green of the leaves, the color of the bark, the different
shades of the color indicating its bodily form, the shape of the
branches, and their slight motions in the breeze that gently shakes the
tree. Yet the perception of a tree does not consist of these sensations
alone. All these sensations might be so many isolated sensations; and
if they remained isolated, they would not produce the percept of a
tree. These sensations are interpreted; they have acquired a meaning
and are combined into a unity. It is this unity which constitutes the
perception of a tree. This unity has grown from sensations; and that
process which develops and, as we have learned, naturally must develop
sensations from sense-impressions, and from sensations perceptions
that are representative of a group of facts outside of the perceptions
themselves,—that process we define as mind-activity.
What does the 'perception of a tree' mean? It means that if the person
perceiving it moves in a certain direction and over a certain distance,
he will have certain sensations which upon the whole can be correctly
anticipated. Every perception and also every sensation contains a
number of anticipations. The perception of a tree is in so far to be
considered correct, as the anticipations which it contains, and of
which it actually consists, can be realised. If and in so far as these
anticipations when realised tally with the perception, if and in so far
as they justify it, or can justify it, if and in so far as they fulfil
the expectations produced by the perception, if and in so far as they
make no alteration of the perception necessary, but being in agreement
with it confirm the representation it conveys: the perception is said
to be true. Moreover, we can predict similar results with regard to
beings of a similar constitution.
* * * * *
Now let us suppose that an apple falls from a considerable height to
the ground. Knowing, from former experiences, the hardness of the soil
as well as the density of the apple, we can anticipate the effect of
the fall. The soil will not show any considerable impression, yet
one side of the apple will be crushed. In predicting this result
we anticipate sensations that we shall have under a certain set of
circumstances. In so far as we shall necessarily have these sensations
we have to deal with facts. Not as if our sensations constitute the
entire existence of facts; our sensations, being the effects of
so-called objective processes upon our senses, are only one end of a
relation, which as a matter of course never exists without the other
end. Sensations are the one end; they depend upon and vary with the
other end. Showing within certain limits as many varieties here as
occur there, they represent the other end.
We can, and for certain purposes we must, entirely eliminate the
subjective and sensory part of our sensations, in order to represent
in our minds not how two objects affect our senses of sight or touch
but how two or more objects affect each other. Thus we arrive at an
objective statement of facts, how the falling apple affects the soil,
and the soil the apple; while the relation of both to our senses is
to be eliminated. This objective statement of facts is the ideal of
all natural sciences. The physicist states the interaction between the
falling apple and the soil. He does not care how many sentient beings
witness the fall; he does not care about the psychological element in
their observations. He abstracts from the subjective elements in their
observations as well as in his own, and confines his attention to the
objective facts represented in their minds.
The objection to this conception of things is made by a consistent
idealist, that these observations must always exist in some mind, they
do not exist outside of a mind, and mind can as little go beyond itself
as a person can walk outside of his skin. Certainly, observations
always exist in some mind; they have always a subjective element. But
they have also an objective element. No sensation, no perception, no
observation is without an objective feature. This objective feature
in a sensation or a perception, and also in an abstract idea, is the
element that if true has to agree with other facts outside of the
sentient being of whose mind the perception is a part. An idealist who
is pleased to deny this would either have to identify hallucinations
with sensations, or he would be obliged to consider the objective
elements of his mind merely and solely as subjective states, having
no representative value. In that case he would necessarily be obliged
to consider the facts represented, i. e. the things outside the body,
as parts of his mind. This being granted, every mind would appear
as congruent and coextensive with the universe. We should have as
many universes as there are minds, and yet all universes would be
only one and the same universe, their sole difference being that of
a difference of centres. With the death of every living creature a
universe would die; but notwithstanding the chain of consciousness were
broken forever in death, the existence of his mind, being that which
is commonly considered as the objective universe, would not cease;
merely a view-centre would be lost. That which we have characterised
as representations in feeling-substance (which according to our
terminology constitutes mind) would be a transient and unessential
feature of mind only; and if it should cease to be, mind would
still exist in what we have defined as the outside facts, the facts
represented in mental symbols. In short, mind would be the All, it
would be a synonym of God. And not only all mental beings actually
existing or having existed would each, one and all, constitute the
universe, but also all potential minds, every atom and all possible
combinations of atoms that possibly might play a part in the mental
activity of a sentient being, would constitute it.
The views of an idealist who accepts these consequences are undeniably
correct, although we may quarrel about the propriety of his
terminology. Yet an idealist of this type, we may fairly assume, will
have little difficulty in adapting himself to our terminology, and in
that case we might easily agree about the possibility of arriving at a
criterion of truth; for his world-conception (aside from a difference
in terms) might, or rather would be practically the same as ours.
If truth is the agreement of certain mental facts with other
facts outside of the mind—if it is the agreement of subjective
representations with objective things or states of things represented,
the problem is whether we have any means of revising or examining this
agreement.
* * * * *
If the world were a chaos, i. e. if the facts of nature were not ruled
by law; if every fact were not only individually but also generically
different from every other fact, so that no single fact had anything in
common with other facts; if they thus had no features in common, there
would exist no general properties, and we could form no concepts of
_genera_; facts would vary radically and totally, without exhibiting
regularities or uniformities other than such as might occasionally and
without any reason incidentally originate by haphazard,—in short, if
our world were a world of chance and not of law, there would be no
criterion of truth. Our world, however, is a world of law and not of
chance. Thus all facts, although individually different, are found
generically to agree among themselves. No two atoms are, with regard to
their position, the same at a given moment; all of them are different
somehow in their operation and effectiveness. Nevertheless every one of
them moves in strict accordance with exactly the same law of causation.
There is not the least change taking place in the universe which is not
the precise effect of a special cause. There is rigidity in mutability,
unity in variety, determinateness in irregularity, law in freedom,
order in anarchy. The unity of law, which in its oneness is comprised
in the universality of causation, is so perfect that the different
facts cannot be thought of as being generically different. However much
they differ specifically, they represent the action of the same law,
and this same oneness of nature is the basis of all monism.
Monism of this kind, it has been remarked by a critic of ours,[54] is
identical with philosophy. Certainly it is. Every philosophy is or
at least attempts to be monism, and in so far only as a philosophy
recognises monism does it possess a criterion of truth. This monism may
be based upon a correct or a mistaken conception of unity. Upon the
correctness of this monism will depend the correctness of the criterion
of truth. But it must be understood that without a monism there can be
no criterion of truth, and philosophy must become either scepticism,
mysticism, or agnosticism.
[54] _The Nation_ quotes the following passage from a former
essay of mine: "The philosophy of the future will be a
philosophy of facts, it will be _positivism_; and in so far
as a unitary systematisation of facts is the aim and ideal
of all science, it will be _monism_." _The Nation_ rejects
this definition of monism and adds: "The search for a unitary
conception of the world or for a unitary systematisation of
science would be a good definition of _philosophy_; and with
this good old word at hand we want no other."
Very well. Call that which we call monism or a unitary
systematisation of knowledge, "philosophy"; we will not
quarrel about names—_dummodo conveniamus in re_. We agree
perfectly with our critic; for we also maintain that monism
(at least, what we consider monism) is philosophy; it is _the_
philosophy.
What then is the criterion of truth for a single fact, be it a
sensation, a perception, or an observation? It is this, that if the
observation be repeated under the same circumstances it will, to the
extent that the circumstances are the same, be again the same; the
observer will always make the same observation.
This maxim will do for a statement of facts. If according to this maxim
we are in the position to ascertain that the same observation can be
made again and again under certain conditions, we gain the assurance
that we have to deal with a fact of some kind. But how shall we inquire
into the correctness of the interpretation of the fact?
* * * * *
Every living creature and furthermore among human beings every
individual man has an idiosyncracy of his own. How can we avoid the
errors arising therefrom? We substitute other observers so that we can
detect to what extent the individual way of observation influences the
result of the experiment. Thus we shall find that some persons are
color-blind with reference to red or to green, and we can in this way
explain certain mistakes caused by such conditions.
Supposing that all human beings were color-blind we should consider
this state as normal; and the discovery of science that certain colors
which appear alike to us, are after all, considering their wave-lengths
and other qualities, more different than certain other tints which are
easily discerned by the eye, would be an unexpected surprise. It would
to some extent be analogous to the well-known fact that there are rays
of light which are not perceptible to the eye, namely, the so-called
chemical rays; their existence has been discovered by their chemical
effects.
It might be, although it is not probable, that what appears green to me
and what I call green, may appear different to other people, perhaps
gray, red, or brown, or some other color that I know not of: yet
other people will—just as much as I do—call that peculiar sensation
green which they experience under the same conditions, for instance,
when seeing the fresh leaves of a tree. It is quite indifferent how
variegated in single minds the feelings may be that accompany each kind
of sensation. So long as they have for every special objective state a
special analogue, they can map out in their minds their surroundings,
they can have a correct representation of the world, and so long as
they employ the same symbols (words or other signs) for indicating
the same objective states, it is quite indifferent whether or not the
feelings that are produced in the process of observation vary. It would
make no more difference for the general purpose of mental operations,
than it would if we were to employ Roman letters, or Italics, or Greek
or Hebrew characters to designate the lines and points in explaining a
mathematical figure. The main thing is that certain points are marked
and represented by some sign which stands for this or that point and
for that alone.
To cite another example in illustration of the subjective element of
feeling in cognition, we may compare our knowledge of the world to
the map of a city. The map may be printed in black, green, red, blue,
or any other color. The color in which the map is printed represents
the subjective element of feeling, while the form of the lines, their
geometrical configuration, contains the objective element of the things
represented. The map is good, i. e. its representations are true, if
the squares and the streets of the city stand in the same relation
among each other, as the little blocks and divisions on the map do.
Whether the map is printed in green or blue will make no difference so
long as we find everything we want to know about the city represented
in a way such that we should be able to set ourselves aright and to
find our bearings if we went astray.
The subjective element in mind is not of one half the importance
generally attributed to it. The objective element, being that which is
represented, is paramount, and it is the aspiration of all the sciences
to concentrate their entire attention upon the objective features of
observation. Objective truth is what we want, and objective truth is
identical with a scientific description of facts.
* * * * *
What then is the criterion of objective truth for the interpretation
of facts? Is it not wanting? May it not be that a person, Mr. A., will
under given circumstances regularly see a ghost. Indeed we do not doubt
that he will, and we can even prove it by experiment. This being so, is
not the interpretation of facts as to whether the phenomenon is a real
ghost or a mere vision, beyond any criterion of truth?
If the methods of science are reliable, (and they have been justified
by their brilliant success,) we have indeed a criterion for the
interpretation of facts; and this criterion for the interpretation of
facts, no less than the criterion of single observations is based upon
monism. If the world is really a universe, if there is oneness in the
All, if there is a unity of law throughout nature, our interpretations
of the different facts must agree among themselves. They cannot
and should not contradict one another; and whenever they do, it
is a certain sign that somewhere there is something wrong in our
interpretation of facts.
Philosophy has ceased to be a metaphysical world-theory. The
interpretation of facts no longer means a hypothetical assumption which
will square all the irregularities among facts that we are unable to
account for, but simply a methodical systematisation of facts, enabling
us to recognise the sameness of law in the irregularities apparent in
innumerable individual instances. Interpretation in this sense means
harmonisation; it means an orderly arrangement; classification with due
discrimination. An explanation of natural phenomena is not the carrying
of an hypothesis in to facts out of the realms of our imagination, out
of depths unknown, by what might be styled revelation or inspiration,
but it is a comparison of facts with facts. The hypothesis we apply to
facts must come from facts and must cover facts. That element in an
hypothesis which does not cover facts is redundant as an explanation;
it is useless as such, or even dangerous; and unless it serves as an
aid to thought where ignorance of facts requires some assistance, some
allegorical symbol, some auxiliary construction,—unless it is to the
scientist what crutches are to the lame,—it must be dropped.
Accordingly, the criterion of truth is the perfect agreement of
all facts, of all interpretations and explanations of facts among
themselves. If two facts (such as we conceive them) do not agree with
each other, we must revise them; and it may be stated as a matter
of experience, that our mind will find no peace until a monistic
conception is reached. A monistic conception is the perfect agreement
of all facts in a methodical system, so that the same law is recognised
to prevail in all instances, and the most different events are
conceived as acting under different conditions yet in accord with the
same law.
* * * * *
It does not lie within the scope of this essay to enter upon the
practical application of the principle which we have set forth as the
criterion of truth. One hint only may be supplied, to point out the
most obvious maxim derivable from it—a maxim that is instinctively
obeyed by all scientists and has often been popularly expressed in the
sentence: An ounce of fact is worth a hundred pounds of hypothesis,
or of any interpretation of facts. All the theories in the world,
scientific and economical, our dearest ideals not excepted, and all the
most ingenious hypotheses have no value unless they have been derived
from, and agree with, the laws that live in the facts of our experience.
The trouble of applying this rule lies mainly in the difficulty
of distinguishing between facts and our interpretation of facts.
Considering that mind is representativeness in feelings we have to
analyse the mind in order to come down to objective facts. The percept
of a tree is not the tree; it is an interpretation of a group of
facts; it is a mental picture produced by a synthesis of sensations,
the latter being caused by sense-impressions. Considering that all
the images, ideas, abstract concepts, and theories of which our mind
consists are not the facts represented by them but their several
interpretations, we at once see how careful we have to be for purposes
of philosophical and scientific exactness in the statement of facts.
* * * * *
On this occasion, a few critical remarks concerning the leading essay
of this number, "The Architecture of Theories," by Mr. Charles S.
Peirce, may be added. Mr. Peirce is one of our subtlest thinkers
and logicians, and it is incumbent upon one to reflect twice before
criticising any sentence of a man who writes upon the most recondite
topics,—upon what I should call the higher mathematics, the
differential and integral calculus of logic,—with ease and masterly
accuracy. Mr. Peirce's essay "The Architecture of Theories,"[55]
presented in this number of _The Monist_, is the first publication of
his in which he propounds not mere criticism or the discussion of
abstruse logical subjects, but his own positive opinion, presenting in
great and clear outlines the foundations of his philosophy.
[55] The term "architecture of theories" seems inappropriate
from the standpoint of a positive conception of the world.
Many monisms have been constructed in the way Mr. Peirce
so well describes in his comparison of these philosophical
systems to the building a house of one and the same material,
for instance _papier mâché_, with roof of roofing paper,
foundations of paste-board, windows of paraffined paper, etc.,
etc. Philosophy, however, is not a construction of a theory
comparable to the building of an edifice; it is rather the
mapping out of the house in which we live for the purpose of
orientation.
The world-conception of Mr. Peirce agrees in one fundamental maxim
with our own, but it disagrees with the latter in the main and most
important application of this maxim. Mr. Peirce says, "Law is _par
excellence_ the thing that wants a reason." This maxim was the guiding
star of our inquiry into the fundamental problems of philosophy.[56]
The world considered as a universe displaying in all its innumerable
actions one and the same law is called a cosmos; if considered as a
heap of processes with no common law pervading them it is called a
chaos. We found in our inquiry into the forms of existence that the
laws of form possess intrinsic necessity. The laws of the form of
existence are represented in the laws of formal thought (arithmetic,
mathematics, logic, mechanics, and pure natural science). So long as
the formal laws hold good, (and we have found in the chapter "Form and
Formal Thought" that they will hold good under all circumstances,)
any kind of world, whatever materially or dynamically it be, must be
a cosmos, and cannot be a chaos. We can imagine that we had a world
consisting of some other substance and being different either in the
amount or in the action of its energy to this world of ours, but we
cannot imagine that a world should exist which does not exhibit the
harmony of form, and is not regulated as it were by the formal laws
of existence. One plus one would be two in any kind of a world, and
obviously all the other more complex statements of formal laws would
remain true with the same intrinsic necessity. The truth 'one plus one
makes two' contains the universal applicability of causation and of
the conservation of matter and energy. Taking this ground we arrived
at the conclusion that the world is a cosmos: there is no chaos and
there never has been a chaos. A chaos, in the sense of an absolute
non-existence of law, is an impossibility.
[56] See the author's _Fundamental Problems_.
Accordingly, we cannot agree with Mr. Peirce that the occurrence of
chance "calls for no particular explanation." There is no chance,
if chance means absence of law. Chance, if the word be admissible,
is a mere subjective conception produced by limited knowledge and
signifying a state of things not determinable with the means of
knowledge at our disposal. Law once recognised is the death of chance
(in the objective sense of the word); and chance, or sport, or chaos,
or indeterminacy, or whatever one may call the absence or at least
the imperfect cogency of law, far from "calling for no particular
explanation," must be classed _prima facie_ among those theories that
are _per se_ impossible: These conceptions whether applied to the
world at large or to special processes of nature are in contradiction
to those interpretations and systematised statements of facts which
are most fundamental, most reliable, most indispensable and universal.
Whatever generalisation the theory of evolution may be capable of, it
is certainly not capable of being applied to law. The formal order of
Nature and especially the mechanical laws of physics cannot be thought
of as having been developed out of a state of sportive chance; they
must be considered as having always been the same as they are now: they
are eternal.[57]
[57] Mr. Peirce seems to define Mind as sportive chance; for
according to his theory, as soon as sportiveness assumes fixed
habits, it settles into the mechanical motions which physical
science observes in gravitating masses; and matter is thus
defined as "effete mind."
In stating this difference of opinion, I apprehend a possibility that
although Mr. Peirce has stated his case with most admirable and I
should say unequivocal clearness, I have misunderstood his views. In a
former article of his, Mr. Peirce makes a statement concerning Nature
considered as a possible chaos, which seems to concur rather with my
views on the subject than with his own. Mr. Peirce says in his fourth
Paper on the "Illustrations of the Logic of Science":
"If there be any way of enumerating the possibilities of
Nature so as to make them equally probable, it is clearly
one which should make one arrangement or combination of the
elements of Nature as probable as another.... It would be to
assume that Nature is a pure chaos, or chance combination of
independent elements, in which reasoning from one fact to
another would be impossible; and since, as we shall hereafter
see, there is no judgment of pure observation without
reasoning, it would be to suppose all human cognition illusory
and no real knowledge possible. It would be to suppose that
if we have found the order of Nature more or less regular in
the past, this has been by a pure run of luck which we may
expect is now at an end. Now, it may be we have no scintilla
of proof to the contrary, but reason is unnecessary in
reference to that belief which is of all the most settled,
which nobody doubts or can doubt, and which he who should deny
would stultify himself in so doing.
"The relative probability of this or that arrangement of
Nature is something which we should have a right to talk about
if universes were as plenty as blackberries, if we could put
a quantity of them in a bag, shake them well up, draw out a
sample, and examine them to see what proportion of them had
one arrangement and what proportion another. But, even in
that case, a higher universe would contain us, in regard to
whose arrangements the conception of probability could have no
applicability."
I rest the case here in the hope that the statement of both sides of
the problem will contribute to elucidate truth.
EDITOR.
FIVE SOULS WITH BUT A SINGLE THOUGHT.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LIFE OF THE STAR-FISH.
The investigation of the psychical faculties of animals is comparable
to a journey into fairy-land. We do not know, and according to Du
Bois-Reymond, we shall never know, how our own mental activity has
originated, yet in spite of this we deliberately form theories and
opinions concerning the psychical powers and faculties of other beings
that in point of nervous organisation are perhaps altogether different
from us! The ancients wisely limited themselves to expressing the
intelligence of animals in the form of instructive fables, and in the
famous park of Versailles the charming idea was actually carried out of
representing the fables of Æsop in a so-called labyrinth, every turn
of the intricate lanes of which led to a different group of animals
whose speech was symbolised by streams of water spouting from their
mouths, and the purport of their imagined utterances was to be read in
golden letters upon marble tablets placed at the side. How often have
I wandered over the scene of those long since ruined mazes and have
thought of the deep meaning that frequently lies in childish pastime of
this kind.
But labyrinth aside—when we see an animal perform before our eyes
purposive acts; and we recognise that our own thought operates in
accordance with definite, rigorous laws; we shall still have to say
to ourselves that a comparative animal psychology is after all not
necessarily so hopeless a thing as one might be led to believe from the
bold, and yet faint-hearted, "Ignorabimus" of the distinguished Berlin
physiologist. And as a matter of fact the range of insight obtained
in very recent times into this very field is highly encouraging. On
this occasion I should like to select for discussion one of the most
remarkable of questions, that, namely, which concerns the psychical
activity of _many-souled_ animals.
Quite a stir was made some years ago in the scientific world when
Haeckel began to philosophise about the souls of cells, or so-called
plastidule-souls; for it was patent that the course of life in the
individual single cell of an animal or vegetable body flowed on in
such strict conformity with reason that it was logically necessary to
posit the presence of psychical guidance in the instance in question as
much as in the case of composite cellular colonies in higher organic
beings,—especially since every single one of these composite organisms
begins its life as a simple cell, from which the others afterward
spring. The wide-spread opposition that Haeckel's view met with, must
be regarded as the result of current and common ignorance of the
history of philosophy; since otherwise it must have been known that
the idea of a cell-soul or a germ-soul which controls the development
of the young, has been propounded by innumerable philosophers, and
that it was proclaimed by Daniel Sennert, of Wittenberg, who died in
1637, with perfect consistency as the foundation of all psychological
knowledge. Many beings, such as Algæ, Fungi, and Infusoria, never in
their lives get beyond the state of a single cell, and yet under the
microscope we may observe them seeking light, capturing prey, and in
the majority of cases founding families. And when the Genevan Trembley
discovered, in 1740, the fact of the divisibility of fresh-water Polyps
and showed that after cutting them up every piece grew and developed
into a new individual endowed with sensation, will, and other psychical
capacities, philosophers began to debate whether there were initially
present in every divisible polyp a number of souls in the germinal
state, or, if such were not the case, whether the simple soul of a
polyp possessed the property of divisibility. The Leipsic theologian
Crusius, who died in 1775, declared in favor of the presence in every
polyp of a plurality of germinal souls; the Dutch insect anatomist,
Peter Lyonnet (died 1796) declared in favor of the divisibility of the
single polyp soul.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.—STAR-FISH. (After Haeckel.)]
But let us pass by these subtle speculations to turn to a class of
animals in the case of which we may speak with more propriety than
in the case of polyps and other zoöphytes of a plural soul, since
physically and psychically they act in every respect as if they had
grown together out of five or more individuals,—I mean the Echinoderms
in general and the Star-fish (_Asteroidea_) in particular. In the
following paragraphs, for the sake of brevity, I shall speak of only
five-rayed star-fishes, because the sacred number five is the one that
lies at the basis of the physical structure of the great majority of
star-fishes developed from the egg, and of all other echinoderms,
although there really do occur star-fishes which are supplied, some
with more and some with less than five rays,—single rays often being
cast off and a larger number growing out in their places,—and although
many species are regularly and normally supplied with more than five
rays. From visits to the sea-shore or to aquariums, at any rate from
pictures, my readers all know how a star-fish in general looks. In the
first cut which accompanies this article a number of echinoderms are
presented. The star-fish is in the centre to the left. It resembles the
decorative star of an Order, and has short or long, broad or slender
rays, as the case may be, and a disc-shaped central body.
The observation which is most important for our present discussion,
and which strikes us on first seeing a star-fish, or its relatives the
sea-urchin and the sea-anemone, consists of the fact that these animals
possess no head, which even the most insignificant worm or insect does
not lack, and that consequently its organs are in want of a guiding,
regulative member, possessing externally organs of sense and having
within a brain with the power to communicate the requisite commands for
the movement and the conduct of the same. On the contrary, each single
branch or ray possesses its own individual nervous system; and in the
case of the voluntary separation of the rays, which frequently occurs,
is able to continue life of its own independent accord, developing
itself by the growth of new rays into a new and complete star-fish.
(See Fig. 2.) But these five or more nervous systems do not radiate
from a common central nerve-ganglion which might be termed a central
brain, but are merely joined to a nerve-ring which lies in a common
central portion, encircling the esophagus; this nerve-ring in the
majority of cases forms a regular polygonic figure, and into each angle
of the polygon the nerve-cord of a ray enters. It will be seen from
this structural arrangement of things, that the psychical and mental
guidance of these animals is entrusted to a board of five members who
possess, it is true, sentient communication with each other, but act
without the intermediation of a presiding officer.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.—COMET-FORM OF ARM OF A STAR-FISH.
A cast-off arm re-forming by the sprouting of four new rays.]
We may well look forward with intense interest to the outcome of a
psychical administration of this kind, and to tell the truth, until
recently its importance has been greatly underestimated. Every
inference made with respect to the psychical excitability of an
animal must be derived from its movements and actions in various
natural and artificially produced positions, by observing what its
conduct under these conditions is. To start with, star-fishes, like
sea-urchins (which psychically are similarly governed), admit with
respect to the position of their bodies a distinction of top and
bottom; that is to say, the side on which the mouth lies situated in
the centre of the five rays belongs properly face downwards, while
the opposite surface is to be regarded as the dorsal side. But the
conceptions of a forepart and a hindpart, of a right and a left are
not applicable. The rays of the star-fish, like the central disc, also
plainly exhibit a distinction of lower and upper parts. Among the real
star-fishes (_Asteroidea_) the inferior or ventral surface of the
arms is supplied either with two or with four rows of sucker-feet or
pedicels, consisting of long, extensile, hollow sacs, which when filled
and extended by the water let into their widely ramified ambulacral
systems, protrude into the grooves of the arm through openings in the
hardened calcareous integument. To level surfaces they easily cling
fast by simply drawing back the terminal discs of their tubular feet
and thus creating a rarefied atmosphere in the space between the object
to which they adhere and the puffed out walls of the extremities of
the pedicels. Star-fishes may be seen climbing in this way, with their
hundreds and hundreds of tube-feet, up slippery cliffs and even the
perpendicular glass walls of aquariums, and they are even able to hang
suspended from a horizontal glass ceiling for a considerable length of
time after they have been taken out of the water. When they wish to
change their position they do it by alternately loosening and fastening
their extensile feet in such a way that those loosened reach forward
in one and the same direction uniform in all the arms, and fasten
themselves to the surface anew, whereupon the others also let loose and
go through the same movement in the same direction. The sucker-feet
also help to convey to the mouth the food seized at the end of the arms.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.—MODE OF LOCOMOTION OF SAND-STARS. (After
Preyer.)
In the cut to the left _1_ first advances, then (_5_) and (_2_); _3_
and _4_ remaining at rest. Whereupon (_5_) and (_2_) simultaneously
come back to the positions _5_ and _2_, _c_ is lifted and pushed
forwards with _1_, while the two rays _3_ and _4_ are pulled along
behind. In the figure to the right the same animal first shoves forward
the pairs (_1_) (_2_) and (_5_) (_3_), _4_ remaining at rest, and then
bends both pairs backwards, dragging only _4_ behind; _c_ is lifted and
thrown forward in the direction of the arrow.]
While in this instance, accordingly, the arms, although they are
not immovable and bend and approach each other, officiate rather as
the bearers of organs than as prehensile and locomotory apparatuses
themselves,—the sucker-feet performing the principal tasks and
requiring for their work a very finely ramified nervous system; in the
case of a certain other division of the star-fishes, the so-called
sand-stars (_Ophiuridae_), the arms are thinner and more supple, and
act as organs of prehension and locomotion, dispensing more or less
entirely with their suctorial pedicels. By alternately thrusting three
feet forward (Fig. 3) and then drawing back the two side feet of these
three, the five-footed sea-stars move more swiftly than the others,
sometimes proceeding by jumps even; but they cannot climb up smooth
surfaces, or cliffs, unless irregularities are present which may be
grasped by their pliant arms, whereas on the other hand the common
star-fishes, which are furnished with sucker-feet, climb best of all
on smooth and slippery surfaces, each one of their countless pedicels
being able to suspend a considerable weight, in some species as much as
twenty-five grammes. In other respects, especially with regard to the
ring-shaped connection of the five nerve-cords, their organisation is
essentially the same; only in the sand-stars the central portion forms
a disc more distinctly separate from the arms, in which former the
common organs of feeling and digestion have more fully retracted.
Recognising thus, that the star-fishes and all their relatives act
physically like a federal animal-union, composed of five independent
animal-states, I called attention in the first edition of my work
"Werden und Vergehen" (1876) to the psychological enigma that we
were here confronted with a five-fold Siamese monster, as it were,
in which five separate persons were brought mentally under the same
guidance, or where five minds had to pull, simultaneously, one rope.
On account of the absence of a head and a brain in these animals,
certain well-known modern animal psychologists have taken the position
that their powers of psychical performance are very scanty, and that,
in a much fuller sense than was predicated of all animals by the
Cartesians, these especially were irrational automatons, or, to use a
technical expression, were mere "reflex-organisms," animals in which
only direct external excitations evoke with unalterable regularity
responsive movements, so that, for example, if any unpleasant
excitation were brought to bear on them from any direction they would
move in the opposite direction, but world approach if anything became
perceptible that excited their desire for food. On this ground the
distinguished English animal psychologists Romanes and Ewart claim to
have established that these animals actually do respond like machines
to external excitations; if they were excited at any part of their body
by a wound, by the application of acids, an electric current, or any
other irritant, they would run without exception in a straight line in
the opposite direction, but if the excitation were applied to any two
parts of their body at some distance from each other they would move
in the line of the diagonal of the two directions, in accordance with
the principle of the parallelogram of forces. Similarly their movements
after prey and food (the presence of which at a distance was made
known by the emission of odors), their movements toward more brightly
illuminated parts of the containing vessel, their flight from the air
into the water, their recovery of their normal position when placed on
their backs, and finally their so-called autotomy or self-amputation,
that is the casting off of their members under the irritation of
powerful stimuli—were all held to represent mere automatic responses
to prearranged conditions without a trace of intelligence being
exhibited.
In view of this condition of things it was a very welcome announcement,
that one of the most brilliant representatives of modern experimental
physiology and psychology, Professor W. Preyer, at present of Berlin,
had determined to undertake a comprehensive series of experiments with
these very animals, and was able to carry out his intention at the
zoölogical station in Naples, so admirably adapted to the purpose. To
obtain clear ideas generally with regard to animal reflex-mechanisms,
fitter specimens for experiment could scarcely be presented than the
star-fishes, which unite a rare degree of decentralisation, power of
independent action, and absence of a cerebral centre, with a nervous
system of the minutest ramifications. Here, if anywhere, were simple,
clear and transparent results to be expected, and finally information
relating to the co-operative activity of different nervous systems.
Preyer published the results of his observations in the "Mittheilungen
der Zoologischen Station in Neapel" for the years 1886 and 1887, and
although he does not regard his labors as completed, the scientific
reading public may nevertheless take sufficient interest in the present
state of his researches to justify a presentment of the principal and
most general results obtained.
In confirmation of the view that previously obtained it was found that
these animals actually did respond in a rare degree to given stimuli in
a manner determined once for all; it could be foretold with a degree
of sureness verging on astronomical certainty, how, for example, the
sucker-feet of a star-fish would act if the animal in its normal and
sound condition was irritated at this or that place, powerfully or
weakly, one time or many times successively, by mechanical or chemical
applications, by electric currents, or heated instruments. With all
the means of irritation employed the result was always identical, and
consisted in the fact that the distensible feet were drawn in at the
point of application when the irritation did not extend beyond its
region, no matter whether it was applied at the inferior or superior
surface of the animal, but that protrusion of the feet never resulted
from local irritations of this character so long as they did not
exceed a certain intensity. A more powerful irritation, on the other
hand, radiating over a greater portion, or over the whole animal,
produces a general protrusion of the distensible pedicels, so far as
the irritation extends, with the single exception of the point of
application itself when the same lies on the inferior surface.
Inasmuch as this swarming protrusion of pedicels may spread over the
entire inferior surface when only a single arm is irritated in the
neighborhood of its extremity, it follows from this that the nervous
excitation must first be conveyed to the ring at the centre in order to
radiate thence to the pedicels of the other arms; and from the manner
in which the irritation is propagated, the course of the radiation can
be accurately followed. Thus, if the irritation of an arm proceeded
from the dorsal region, the distensible pedicels of this arm were the
first to protrude, then those of the two adjacent arms, and finally
those of the two remaining arms, but in the latter not quite out to
the extremities unless the irritation exceeded a certain intensity.
That is to say, the effect of the irritation was propagated through
the inner nerve-ring according to the same laws by which a fluid under
pressure or an electric current in a similar conductory system would
proceed. But if the connection of the ring was severed at both sides of
the irritated arm, the effect would remain confined to that arm. If the
connection was broken only on one side the irritation advanced round
the other side and reached the severed neighbor last. On the other
hand, a powerful irritation of the central disc immediately provoked
the extension of all the pedicels. The phenomena recorded occurred
moreover in accordance with simple mechanical laws as was expected from
the outset, and when the irritations were unusually powerful the effect
was manifested by a continuous alternate extension and contraction of
the pedicels.
Amputated arms of the common sucker-footed star-fish act like arms
isolated at both sides by severance of the nerve-ring, as just
explained. Upon local irritation they draw in their pedicels, and
protrude them upon being powerfully irritated; they creep forward in
a definite direction, and when placed upon their backs are able even
to turn themselves over like the uninjured animal. The severed arms
of sand-stars are less independent. They twist about aimlessly hither
and thither, but if any considerable portion of the central disc and
nerve-ring adheres to them they are able to perform adaptive movements.
Similarly the disc, with one or two arms attached, is not helpless; and
is able to get along quite alone without any arms. We could explain all
these movements by so-called reflex actions and might grant also that
the mechanism that effects these results operates in this case upon
a greater scale and with more independence than in other classes of
animals, for the reason that here a real guiding organ is not present.
But whatever might be inferred from the experiments just described in
favor of a senseless and unintelligent life of star-fishes, Professor
Preyer was nevertheless able by extending his experiments to win the
conviction that the old conception of star-fishes being real reflex
animals was wholly untenable, since a great number of capacities and
capabilities could be verified and provoked, which are intelligible
only on the basis of adaptive co-operation and mutual concerted action
in the five rays. We shall not discuss here whether this is also proved
by the wonderful fact that a star-fish, which fastens its arms to
everything possible, never seizes its own arm and thus, like Molière's
miser, in its visits to its oyster beds never catches itself for a
thief. We might say, indeed, that the arm seeking a hold does not seize
its companion because it feels it and has learned by experience that
it takes a Münchausen to pull one's self out of a swamp by the tops of
one's boots. But we find exactly the same phenomenon among creeping
plants, which clasp every kind of support in their way, but never,
as Darwin observed, take hold of their own stalks; whence we might
assume that there probably exists in these beings some sort of power of
reflex inhibition dependent upon a property of the body and developed
in consequence of the fact that clasping and grasping parts of itself
would involve a useless waste of energy. We shall see, however, that
under certain circumstances this instinctive "dread" of contact with
self is inoperative.
But to our main task. In the simplest changes of place and position,
intelligent co-operation of the arms is manifest. For if in moving from
one place to another, or in turning around each arm tended to perform
on its own account the necessary movements of extension or rotation,
without giving any heed to the others, the animal would endure the
torments of Tantalus before it could reach, if ever at all, the
choice bit of food that it had scented from afar, or the ray of light
towards which an obscure impulsion drove it. On the contrary, when a
star-fish is spying after food, we observe it lift the ends of its
pedicel-covered arms so that the downward deflected eye there situated
may obtain a good view of things in the neighborhood, and if in any
direction an object worth going after is discovered we see the many
hundreds of sucker-feet on the five arms push out in one and the same
direction,—a phenomenon that requires the presence of a very widely
ramified nervous system, since every tactile pedicel needs its separate
telegraph wire in order to be properly moved and not always in the same
direction, as for example when the animal wishes to perform a rotation
about its own axis. For these comical animals sometimes do rotate about
their axis, although our simple mind wonders why a Janus-head should
want to turn around, these animals being able to look simultaneously
in the four directions of the compass, and having still another eye
for looking downward. Similarly in the sand-stars, to which the
Medusa-heads with branched arms belong, an adaptive co-operation of the
arms in creeping and swimming occurs; which can be explained only as
the result of a common understanding issuing from the central ring.
It would seem to follow from Preyer's extensive observations, that as
a rule no one individual arm of a star-fish enjoys to the exclusion of
its fellows the prerogative of universal or even general precedence;
the lead of any one arm is rather solely determined by the object
sought, so that the one next to the object generally starts first
and assumes the lead of the little army of arms. Of course in the
case of new-growing star-fishes which have sprung from a single arm
by sprouting, this is different; for in this instance the old arm
will undoubtedly retain control of the others for some length of time
until the young ones have reached a certain size. Preyer does not seem
to have instituted observations to ascertain this, but it would be
interesting to determine whether an arm of this kind always takes the
lead, or in the proper cases acts as driver from behind and pushes the
baby-carriage with the children before it.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.—RECOVERY OF NORMAL POSITION BY ASTROPECTEN
AURANTIACUS. (After Preyer.)
Through the end of each ray of the animal a thread is drawn and
affixed to a cork; the animal lying back downwards. At first the
creature swung the corks alternately inwards and outwards, taking the
positions represented in the above figure. After the lapse of an hour
the ray with the smallest cork attached, upon which thus the least
upward pressure was exerted, was pulled downwards and sidewise and
brought beneath an adjacent ray; the two opposite rays were retracted
centrally, the disc lifted, the centre of gravity of the animal thus
displaced, and the turning effected.]
Examples of surprisingly dexterous co-operation and concerted adaptive
action are observed in these animals in their climbing on difficult
surfaces, and in their attempts, also, to regain their normal position
when placed on their backs or made to swim in reversed positions by
discs of cork fastened to the extremities of their arms. Scientists
have observed members of the orders _Asteroidea_ and _Ophiuroidea_,
in difficult positions of this kind, display an astounding sense of
equilibrium and a skilfulness in gaining firm holds, suggestive of the
athletic feats of monkeys, and that even when placed in very unusual
positions such as never occur in nature. Thus many star-fishes let
themselves drop from steep rocks and cliffs, if that happens to be the
best way of getting down; but in such cases before they let their whole
weight go hold fast to the last moment with one or two arms, as if it
were previously necessary to calculate the leap into the depths below.
To furnish the counter-test of this, and to prove that the central
nerve-ring is, as assumed, the indispensable and necessary condition
of this united co-operation, Preyer severed the ring in individual
specimens of the class between every two arms, sparing the other parts
as much as possible. In this way the nervous systems of the five
rays were disconnected. As was expected, it was found that the more
connections there were severed, the more difficult the animal found it
when placed on its back to regain its normal position. For since the
recovery of the normal position must be introduced by the groping about
and the fastening of the pedicels of one or of several adjacent and
half-turned arms, two arms or pairs of arms might for want of a mutual
understanding act directly in opposition to one another and thus make
the turning impossible. On the other hand, the central disc was able,
though deprived of all arms, to accomplish the turning, if only the
nerve-ring were preserved intact; and the more there remained of the
nerve-ring on a single arm the better the single arm was able to do it.
But in circumstances which were wholly new, the adaptive co-operation
of the arms demonstrated itself in so striking a manner that we may
say they are not to be easily put out of countenance or confounded.
When Professor Preyer, for example, slipped narrow rubber bands or
cylinders over their rough spiny arms, they rid themselves as a rule of
these unwonted fetters in a very short time, and in the most various
but always well calculated ways. Generally the two nearest ones seized
their poor imprisoned fellow "under the arms," bracing themselves with
their rough spiny surface against the rubber sleeve, and thus finally
stripping it off. (See Fig. 5; next page.) Sometimes, when the band was
loosely adjusted, twisting movements of the arm in the water sufficed
gradually to loosen it, until it could be finally cast off. Often the
peeling off was effected by pressing against a rough surface, whereby
sometimes an adjacent arm held the sleeve fast; and when no other
expedient was of avail the animal cast the arm, sleeve and all, away
from itself; and the latter may possibly have not gotten rid of it at
all. At times the casting off of the arm occurred subsequently, after
the obstacle had been entirely removed, and often even a day later, as
if the impeded arm was still sensible of some obstruction which caused
it to afterwards separate from its companions.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.—REMOVAL BY OPHIOMYXA OF A RUBBER SLEEVE. (After
Preyer.)
The figure represents the moment at which the band is about to be
removed. An adjacent arm is braced against the lower edge of the band,
forcing it off in the direction of the extremity of the ray.]
Attempts at flight and liberation from unwonted compulsory positions
or narrow confinement, also deserve special attention. Many a person
who has put a star-fish into a cage and fancied that he was assured
of its possession, has been disappointed on finding that the animal
had effected its escape through the meshes. But star-fishes have, in
consequence of their abhorrence of the air, been made to creep into
the narrow necks of bottles filled with water. Professor Preyer,
for example, thrust two of the arms of a common star-fish species
(_Asterias glacialis_) into a tube filled with salt water leaving
the three other arms exposed to the atmosphere outside; and although
it would have been impossible to force the animal into the tube
without crushing it, the three arms exposed to the air were also
pulled in within the space of three minutes. If the tube was placed
perpendicularly in water the animal quickly crept out again. The
performance seemed utterly impossible, for each single arm of the
star-fish was almost as thick at its base as the greatest width of
the tube, and yet three of these arms had to pass in side by side.
This was made possible by the animal emptying during the passage all
the numerous water-vesicles in the interior of the arms which serve
to fill and to empty the distensible pedicels therein; the star-fish,
after the expulsion of the water, becomes very soft in all its parts
and does not harden again until it has forced itself completely through
and refilled itself with water. In order to accomplish these emptyings,
bendings, turnings, and rollings, thousands of muscular fibres must
work in harmony within the body of the animal. This experiment was also
successfully carried out with other star-fishes, but I cannot agree
with the observer when he says that in so doing he brought the animals
into a completely new and hitherto unexperienced position. In their
haunts on rocky coasts they must assuredly often have to force their
way through narrow fissures and holes; and they must find occasion to
make use of the advantages of being able to evacuate water in the case
also of single arms, as when they search with them in narrow apertures
and snail-houses.
But undoubtedly new for these animals was the position in which they
were fastened to a board by five long pins with broad heads, which
Preyer drove in close to the central disc between the rays, so that
the star-fish, as it seemed, was fastened to its resting-place in a
way that admitted of no escape. Nevertheless, the star-fish found a
means of freeing itself with ease and elegance from this constrained
imprisonment in a great variety of ways, even when the exterior parts
of their bodies were girded in by a much greater number of pins.
Ordinarily they began by shoving one of their rays, accompanied by a
backward bending movement of its two companions, far out between the
two encompassing pins, and then drew with the greatest care first the
one and then the other adjacent ray through the same narrow avenue
of escape, whereupon then the two remaining rays, the one slightly
overlapping the other, were enabled to follow with perfect ease. (See
Fig. 6.) A practised knot-untier who had studied the position could not
have given them better advice. But if no agreement of plan and purpose
existed in this case between the separate rays, if each ray sought
to free itself of its own accord, a successful extrication from the
difficulty could hardly have been foreseen; and we must infer from this
great unanimity of action in times of danger.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.—EXTRICATION OF STAR-FISH IMPRISONED
INTERRADIALLY BY TACKS. (After Preyer.)
_1._ Original encompassment. _2._ First stage of extrication. _3._
Second stage. _4._ Third and last stage. The smaller figures indicate
the successive positions of the same rays.]
Preyer thinks that at times the concurrence of all the rays in matters
of concerted action might have to be effected by first obtaining the
concurrence and assent of any individual ray that might be hostilely
disposed; he holds it as not improbable that profound dissensions may
arise between the united brothers, and refers to the fact that perhaps
the voluntary section of a star-fish into a three-rayed and a two-rayed
portion,—which frequently takes place,—may have to be regarded as the
violent dissolution of a community of fellow animals formerly living
in harmony, but now lapsed into a state of conflict. We shall pass
this view by, however, to point out in a few words Preyer's general
inferences with regard to the mutual relation of the five communal
souls. Progression and flight in a direction once taken and unimpeded
by obstacles,—an observation often made and easily verified,—the
acrobatic performances, and lastly the intelligent behavior, so to
say, of imprisoned and fettered star-fishes, prove that generally, and
especially in moments of peril, strength-giving unanimity prevails.
But Preyer is nevertheless of opinion that it is not therefore
necessary to assume the existence of a permanent central government,
a central soul, holding simultaneous sway over the five radial souls,
and in which is lodged, especially in times of battle, full executive
power. He employs the simile of five hunting-dogs yoked together in
the form of a ring, of like age, like power, and the same training,
who hunt a hare in concert, or stand simultaneously and mechanically
before a partridge; when thrown into the water make for the shore all
in the same direction, and when equally tired fall simultaneously
asleep. "Like the Siamese twins," he says, "these yolked-together
dogs will have upon the whole apparently but one will, although
they often obey only necessity in this and not their own impulses."
Preyer arrives in this at the same conclusion that I pronounced in
1876 in the work I have mentioned, where I compared the concerted
actions and movements of star-fishes and sea-urchins to the walking
and dancing of human twin-monsters, who in spite of a difference of
mental individuality, often very far reaching, nevertheless bring
about perfect harmony in their external movements. In this I had
especially in mind the so-called "two-headed nightingale," two girls
closely united in growth, who often violently quarreled but sang and
danced so harmoniously with one another that for the time being the
sorrowful fate of the indissoluble union of two so different natures
was completely forgotten. In the majority of their relations the five
or more associates united in the star-fish are much better off than
unfortunate human beings like those just described, and especially in
this one particular that they do not have to die with one another,
but are able to break loose with impunity from a companion whom death
threatens, when they observe that he has suffered a wound or loss,
simply expelling him from the community.
CARUS STERNE.
LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
I.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
You have requested me to write you for your new quarterly magazine
a review of the philosophy of contemporary Germany as manifested in
its most important tendencies and endeavors. In setting out to comply
with your wish, I feel that this is no simple task. With mere titles
of books neither you nor your public will be satisfied. The readers
of _The Monist_ will demand a deeper insight into the workshops of
German philosophy; they will want to know if the old mother soil of
speculative thought has retained its pristine fertility. Fertile it
has remained. But in quite another sense from formerly. In a few
years a century will have elapsed since Schelling published in the
_Philosophische Journal_ of Niethammer and Fichte, his "General Survey
of Modern Philosophical Literature," and it is well to recall to mind
that treatise and that period in attempting to characterise the present
state of philosophy in Germany; contrasts, we all know, are quite
as important for the acquisition of knowledge as resemblances. One
central problem stood at that time predominantly in the foreground; the
problem, namely, of the unification of knowledge. Neither the idea nor
the tendency it involves, is unknown to the philosophy of to-day, but
its meaning has become a different one. At that epoch it was sought
to solve the problem from within, to solve it from the centre; it was
sought to find a supreme species of knowledge possessing a certainty
founded unconditionally in itself, and to expand this dialectically
into a system of ideas.
I do not need to set forth here the great and peculiar acquisitions
that this method has won for us, nor to point out what wealth of noble
power was dissipated by it in the treatment of impossible problems.
These things belong to history. The speculative period of German
philosophy is dead. Ludwig Feuerbach in the middle of this century
sung its funeral dirge. But it took some time before people accustomed
themselves to regard it as really dead,—a time in which countless
attempts were made to resuscitate it; it took some time before
philosophers began generally to bestow upon the corpse the kicks of
abuse that Schopenhauer in its own lifetime administered to it, and for
which he was rebuked by a universal silence of indignation.
Earlier history, still under the influence of the speculative masters,
had characterised the progress of German philosophy from Kant to Hegel
as the necessary and logical evolution of the idea of philosophy in
its highest sense. But the present prevailing method of presentation
is accustomed to draw a sharp, deep line at the termination of Kant's
activity, and to regard the entire subsequent speculative development
of the Kantian philosophy as a fallacious digression and an abandonment
of the fundamental critical idea. "Back to Kant" is the watchword that
has resounded since the beginning of the sixties, at first in solitary
utterances, and then with greater, ever-increasing emphasis—the
incipient condemnation of a period in which German philosophy had
celebrated its grandest and most brilliant triumphs, and at a time when
German speculative thought had just begun to grow better known and more
influential abroad.
* * * * *
Back to Kant. Yes. But to which Kant? To the Kant of the first or the
second edition of the Critique of the Pure Reason? To the Critique
of the Pure or the Critique of the Practical Reason? Very perplexing
questions these. The philosophy of Kant is not so easily reducible
to a simple and comprehensive formula. It is a veritable Proteus,
that changes at will form and appearance. Every one interprets it,
in the end, as he wishes Kant should have thought. The cry "Back to
Kant" has become in the ranks of German philosophers a veritable
apple of discord. An enormous Kantian literature has sprung up;
critical, exegetical, constructive. No one can dispute its acumen,
learning, erudition, and profundity. But the traits of Alexandrianism
unmistakably cling to it. A more pernicious waste of intellectual
power, perhaps, than that of the much deplored speculative period. One
has the feeling often as if one would like to cast into the tumultuous,
struggling crowd of combatants a different battle cry—"Back to Nature!
Back to to the examination of the true contents of things!"
I shall select on this occasion from the superabundant store of Kantian
literature the works of two writers only to whom the characterisation
just advanced does not apply, and to whom independent and fundamental
importance belongs. They are, first, ERNST LAAS,[58] professor at
the University of Strassburg, who died in 1885, and second, ALOIS
RIEHL,[59] formerly of Gratz, now of Freiburg. Both began with Kantian
research. Neither remained identified with it. Both sought to supply
a new foundation for that branch of philosophy that deals with the
theory of cognition; both brought to the service of their task, in
addition to eminent critical and analytical acumen, comprehensive
historical knowledge. Widely different in method, both pursued the same
end—the eradication of that transcendent bias which had so pernicious
an influence with Kant himself and his immediate followers, and the
replacing of all dualistic opposition of a higher and a lower, or a
real and a phantom world, by a philosophy of reality based upon the
rigid analysis of pure experience. Both, therefore, are, in this sense,
indispensable preconditions of every monistic philosophy that is not
founded on immediate intellectual perception, or mere postulates, but
aims at a critical foundation.
[58] Laas, _Idealismus und Positivismus_, 3 Vols. 1876-87.
[59] Riehl, _Der philosophische Kriticismus und seine
Bedeutung für die positive Wissenschaft_, 3 Vols. 1876-87.
* * * * *
Simultaneously with this battle for the "real" Kant and the measure
of that in his philosophy which could be utilised as the groundwork
of a new structure conforming to the conditions of the times, German
philosophy in the second half of this century waged another war. No
fratricidal struggle this, no mere scholastic feud, but a battle
for existence with a foreign foe—the physical sciences. After the
speculative philosophy had retired from the throne that it had so
long occupied, and the vacancy seemed yet unfilled, the attempt was
made to place in the unoccupied seat another intellectual power whose
credit and authority with the contemporary world had begun to keep
pace with the success that attended its endeavors. We shall designate
these attempts briefly as "materialism," and understand by the term
any and every endeavor that aims at constructing a conception of the
world with the means and methods of the mathematical and mechanical
sciences alone. That which was here sought after was the exact opposite
of the state of things that obtained in the speculative period; and
the treatment that the speculative philosophy had to submit to at the
hands of many of the spokesmen of the new movement was not entirely
undeserved. The battle that German philosophy here had to fight was
no easy one. Its foe occupied every position of vantage. The real or
apparent exactness of its principles, the detailed character of the
structure of the world that it bade fair to offer were a power. What we
want is facts, not ideas; intelligibility, not profundity—these were
the demands with which philosophy was confronted. It was impossible
to outflank, in this direction, the representatives of a scientific
discipline that admitted of skilful popularisation. There was nothing
similar to oppose to it. Philosophers were accordingly compelled
to confine themselves to criticism, to show forth the unmistakable
defectiveness of the pure-mechanical philosophy, the weaknesses
and flaws in its demonstrations and the arbitrary character of its
construction; and to point out by a display of much acute reasoning
what fifty years before was self-evident, that mind and mental life are
not merely an accidental phase of things, not a product incidentally
resulting, but an indestructible feature of the inward nature of the
world itself.
Much of this extensive antimaterialistic literature, in which may also
be included by far the greater part of anti-Darwinian literature, can
put forth no claim to lasting worth, and is to-day wholly antiquated.
For the simple reason that people no longer understand, or at least
will soon no longer be able to understand, the circumstances and
conditions out of which this polemical activity sprung: namely the
transcendent metaphysical philosophy; mistaken idealism which imagined
that existence and reality had to be transfigured in and by cognition
instead of through will and action; the secret fear of an endangerment
or indeed of a dislodgment of the religio-theological world-conception,
the supernatural God-idea, the pure spiritual and immortal soul, the
freedom of the will, and other phantoms whatsoever the designations
they may bear.
But this warfare against materialism, which was waged by minds of
widely varying rank and power, resulted at least in the substantial
advantage of having brought the hostile parties closer together, of
having forced them to the reciprocal study of their respective means of
investigation, and of having put an end to the complete estrangement
that formerly existed between them. Not only did it enrich philosophy,
but it also led physical science to a correction of many of its
conceptions and to a re-examination of its methodological hypotheses.
This is best to be studied, perhaps, by taking to hand the writings
of a man who may be characterised pre-eminently as a spokesman of
the materialistic movement in Germany,—I mean JAKOB MOLESCHOTT. His
well known work _Der Kreislauf des Lebens_ has become in its last,
the eighth edition, something quite different from what it was in
its first; and the rich collection of his lesser writings (_Kleinere
Schriften_, 2 Vols., 1879-87) also offers the philosopher, especially
from a methodological point of view, much that is worthy of especial
attention. Moreover, this reciprocal influence of mind upon mind is
manifested in the case of many of the most distinguished investigators
of the last thirty years, in the most remarkable and gratifying manner.
It is impossible to study the discourses and treatises of physiologists
like DU BOIS-REYMOND and WILHELM PREYER, of physicists like HELMHOLTZ
and ERNST MACH, and the discussions occasioned by their works, without
being surprised at the extent to which the points of view of psychology
and of the theory of cognition have penetrated into the problems and
inquiries of the physical sciences. And _vice versa_ philosophical
works, like FR. A. LANGE'S History of Materialism (_Geschichte
des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart_),
UEBERWEG'S Collected Essays (_Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, just recently
edited in a commendable manner by Moritz Brasch), the numerous works of
LUDWIG NOIRÉ, and, last but not least, the entire scientific activity
of WILHELM WUNDT,—all show an intimate familiarity with the methods
of the physical sciences and an assimilation of materials from these
branches of knowledge such as the speculative period can furnish no
example of.
* * * * *
Nevertheless, this intellectual revolution, far-reaching as it was,
has led neither to solid systematic construction nor even to the
successful development of positive methods of thought. Since the
decline of speculative philosophy,—in which in this connection the
Herbartian may also be included,—two systems only have dominantly
influenced the German mind: the system of ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER and
that of HERMANN LOTZE. In both a resonance still lingers of the older
time. In Schopenhauer we detect the spirit of Schelling's nature- and
art-philosophy; in Lotze, traces of the finely studied subtlety of
Herbartian metaphysics. But though both are indebted for a portion
of their real intrinsic worth to this organic though involuntary
connection with a great epoch, their influence upon the present time
rests upon very different grounds; and primarily upon the symmetrical,
finished, and compact totality of their intellectual creations. They
arose at a time in which philosophers had begun to lay aside the older
systems as useless, and in which that multitudinous dismemberment of
knowledge already began to make itself felt which to-day seems to be
still growing greater. Although it may be difficult in many phases of
the development of science to satisfy the impulse latent in us to unify
knowledge, and although this endeavor is characterised ever anew by the
representatives of special research as a delusion, nay as a ruinous
delusion,—yet this impulse is not to be eradicated from the human mind
and in some way or other it will ever procure itself recognition. Works
like _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ (World as Will and Idea),
or _Der Mikrokosmus_ (Microcosm) embrace in fact the entire sphere of
knowledge, not in an extensive, but in an intensive sense: they furnish
a definite view of the complete inter-relation and meaning of life.
It will perhaps appear strange to the reader that works are here
mentioned in the same breath and their effects upon the present time
discussed, which are separated in origin from each other by a space
of about forty years. Yet this very anomaly is characteristic of the
development of the German mind. When Schopenhauer published, in 1819,
his principal work, the time for it had not yet come. The philosophy
of Hegel, a rationalistic panlogism, was then in the very midst of its
career of triumph. The irrationalistic and pessimistic elements of
Schopenhauerian thought were repulsive. We now know that the two first
editions of the _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ mouldered in the shops
of the booksellers. Not until shortly before Schopenhauer's death in
1860 did the literary public and the scholastic circles of Germany
begin to occupy themselves more seriously with this philosopher.
Not until then did he really enter as an active factor into our
intellectual life.
This influence, in the case both of Schopenhauer and Lotze,
rests, aside from the fact of the universal character of their
thought-creations, already referred to, pre-eminently in the
circumstance that both made thoroughly their own the scientific theory
of things and recognised that conception as one whose justification
was contained in itself, and which, regarded from the standpoint of
its own hypotheses, was irrefutable, though they were nevertheless
far removed from perceiving in it the final and irreversible verdict
of human knowledge. In this endeavor to fix the limits of scientific
cognition Schopenhauer and Lotze form important pillars of the
antimaterialistic movement in Germany, and are just in this respect
also intimately related with the task of the modern Critical Philosophy
or Neo-Kantianism. But while the latter movements came to a stop with
predominantly negative or preparatory criticism, Schopenhauer and Lotze
owe a great portion of their wide-spread influence on German culture
to the circumstance that they undertook, from the point of view of the
critical theory of knowledge already acquired, to sketch the plans
of structures of the world which would furnish a general background
and scheme of synthetic connection for the collective special
results of the physical and mental sciences. That these sketches of
world-construction have an individual coloring can only lessen their
value in the eyes of those who believe they are privileged to apply
to such a synthetic, constructive formulation of the highest ideas of
all existence and thought, the standard of the exact determination
of a single law. And so I shall only hastily point to the fact, that
the contrariety and oppositeness that permeates the world and all our
thought about the world also comes sharply to light in the case of
these two philosophers, not to their mutual destruction, but to the
heightenment of the effect by the contrast.
The fortunes of the two systems, which began about the same time to
acquire influence, were dissimilar. The pessimistic element alone
evinced itself fruitful, in the sense that it came immediately into
contact with general culture through manifold forms of presentation
and extensive discussion. The royal structure of the Schopenhauerian
philosophy has given a host of dispensing draymen for thirty years an
abundance to do. The leader of this army, EDUARD VON HARTMANN, has
long since taken a place by the side of the sage of Frankfort, as
independent master-builder, and presented a system planned and executed
with the most diffuse architectural details. The nuclear idea of the
Philosophy of the Unconscious (_Die Philosophie des Unbewussten_) has
been amplified by the author himself in every direction, extended,
exhibited in its historical relationships, and applied to the special
departments of philosophical science. The theory of cognition, ethics,
æsthetics, the philosophy of religion have all been treated of by
Hartmann in the last two decades in voluminous works, and often
repeatedly elaborated. In addition thereto, come several volumes of
essays in which the philosopher has had something to say upon every
conceivable topic, political, literary, æsthetical, pedagogical,
and politico-economical. Hartmann's fecundity is only surpassed by
his volubility. In him appears anew that union of philosophy and
journalism that had remained disunited since the close of the period
of illumination. The utility, nay the necessity, of this combination,
with which, unfortunately, the academical philosophy of the passing
century would have naught to do, Hartmann knew the value of, and
skilfully exhibited his appreciation; though one often wishes that its
popular character had, in places, been made to do service in behalf of
different ideas.
The writings of no other philosopher have obtained so wide a
circulation as those of Hartmann. His chief work, "The Philosophy of
the Unconscious," first published in 1870, has long since been put
in stereotype form, and from time to time passes through repeated
new editions. Also his numerous other writings have for the greater
part been repeatedly republished. We possess a collection entitled
"Select Works," and have just received a "Popular Edition." And it is
moreover generally known that it has only been since the appearance of
the Philosophy of the Unconscious, that the sale of the writings of
Schopenhauer has assumed great proportions. Through the mediation of
Hartmann Schopenhauer's fundamental ideas first reached the general
public.
* * * * *
The philosophy of Lotze lacked an interpreter of like versatility
and fecundity, although it had need of such a one in a much higher
degree. Both thinkers were masters of the philosophical style. But
Lotze's symmetrically rounded and intricate periods, with their
inexhaustible influx of incident relations, makes very different
demands upon the patient resignation of the reader than the lightly
moving, epigrammatically pointed style of Schopenhauer. Lotze for this
reason never really became popular. His influence has remained rather
a scholastic and academic one. It has been fruitful in high degree
in its effect on the special departments of philosophical science,
particularly on psychology, whose present representatives in Germany
almost without exception received from him incitation and a solid
scientific view-point. Not unimportant, too, is his influence upon
academic instruction in philosophy, through the "Dictations" to his
lectures, published after his death, which are in every student's hands
and serve in many ways as a substitute for the study of his principal
work. Lotze's authority, finally, stands like a rock with all whose
great concern it is to find ways of reconciling the claims of theology
and of religious belief with the present state of science.
And their number is by no means inconsiderable. Official Germany has
become pious, or, at least, would like to appear so; and although this
is not to be understood exactly in the sense of especial dogmatic zeal,
yet people adhere nevertheless with a certain tenacity to the religious
background of the prevailing world-conception. Abroad it is the custom
to regard the Germans upon the whole as a nation of atheists, because
they have produced several curious fellows like Strauss and Feuerbach,
enjoy having a good time on Sunday, and drink plentifully. Nothing
can be more erroneous than this opinion. The average German has long
since learned to place implicit confidence in the declaration of
his teachers, that the great critical liberal movement of the later
Hegelian school is not to be seriously taken but to be looked upon
merely as the outcome of a "pathologically over-excited" epoch. Nowhere
in the great civilised countries has freethought practically found
so little footing; nowhere is its dependence upon the central powers
of government greater; nowhere is it more impossible to wrest even
a tittle from the authority of the old system of education with its
foundation laid in the theological world-theory.
This condition of things, the obstinacy, the timidity with which state
and public opinion hold fast to religion,—and now in times of imminent
social danger more so than ever,—must be borne in mind if we wish
to understand the comparatively great success that the philosophy of
Schopenhauer and Hartmann has had in Germany. In the support of these
two systems the philosophical opposition of freethought has simply
found expression—the opposition that has arisen against the official
philosophy, of which it cannot exactly be said that it theologises, but
which carefully avoids coming into conflict with theology, and does
not, in its aristocratic academic exclusion, endeavor to influence more
extended circles. The factor that made this philosophy of opposition
accord with the spirit of the times—its proximity, namely, to the
scientific world-theory—has already been emphasised; and the fact
that its pessimistic coloring has not been changed by its connection
therewith will be found intelligible when we consider the turn that
pessimism took in the hands of Hartmann. Only the quietistic Buddhism
that Schopenhauer taught, could, in an age of the highest expansion and
display of power both at home and abroad, appear as an incomprehensible
riddle of the national mind. The evolutionistic pessimism of Hartmann,
however, which demands of the individual complete and resigned
submission to the struggle for existence, although it is able to
offer him in the remotest background of time no better outlook than
the ultimate annihilation of existence itself—is in its immediate
practical commands too closely akin to an optimistic conception not
to satisfy fully the needs of life, and is again too analogous to
certain cosmological prophecies of natural science not to pass as the
metaphysical expression of a truth otherwise accredited.
As opposed to this state of things Neo-Kantianism or the Critical
Philosophy in its various forms has taken no firm position; no more
than its master Kant himself did. To a great extent it makes use of the
limitations of knowledge that have been critically determined, in order
to leave open behind the same a realm of transcendent possibilities
in which religion may lead a passably secured existence. Behind the
greatest critical acumen theological prejudice is only too often
concealed.
Few only of the intellectually eminent representatives of this movement
like Alois Riehl and Ernst Laas exhibit in this respect perfect
determination and the consciousness that the consequences of modern
science unavoidably demand the laying aside of current religious
conceptions and the substitution for them of more correct ones. Laas
especially, in many passages of his principal work (Idealism and
Positivism), as also in his readable little treatise _Kant's Stellung
im Conflicte zwischen Glauben und Wissen_,[60] has emphasised strongly
the view that there can be ideals only for the man who acts, and that
so-called ideals where mingled with the function of pure cognition only
falsify reality and lead to irresolvable conflicts. And Laas likewise
belongs to the few who have laid prominent stress upon the educational
task of modern philosophy as a substitute for systems of religious
ideas.
[60] _Kant's Position in the Struggle between Faith and Knowledge._
* * * * *
From the point of view of different systematic hypotheses, but
substantially with exactly the same tendencies, analogous ideas find
representation in EUGEN DÜHRING, who in versatility of talent and
literary activity is perhaps to be placed directly by the side of
Lotze and Hartmann, though the favor in which his works stand and the
circulation they have obtained fall far below the position of the
latter. He presents a different form of positivistic philosophy in
Germany, a philosophy not preponderantly critical but constructive,
and begins with what Ludwig Feuerbach about the middle of this century
in his Principles of a Philosophy of the Future (_Grundsätze einer
Philosophie der Zukunft_) once propounded as programme. His chief work,
_Cursus der Philosophie als strengwissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung
und Lebensgestaltung_ (Course of Philosophy as Exact-Scientific
World-Conception and Conduct of Life), and the treatise against
pessimism entitled _Der Werth des Lebens_ (The Value of Life) sketch
a world-picture that is intended theoretically to be but the simple
conceptual interpretation of the present contents of experience, and
therefore rejects the metaphysical constructions of Lotze, as well
as the new conceptual mythology of Hartmann, and criticistic doubts
concerning the objective reality of the world given in consciousness.
In the practical direction, as an offset to the world-throe of
humanity, the gladdening power of a life and action based on universal
sympathy is emphasised. Dühring is a unique, but isolated phenomenon;
standing, like Schopenhauer once did, in sullen antagonism towards
the official academic philosophy, and totally ignored by it; unable
by virtue of the conditions already delineated to influence wider
circles, which the unanimated rigidity of his manner of presentation
does not contribute to make easy. Eminent mental endowment and
extensive knowledge are perhaps displayed in a higher degree in his
historical works (_Kritische Geschichte der Allgemeinen Principien der
Mechanik_[61]; _Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie_[62]; _Kritische
Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus_[63]) than in his
systematic treatises.
[61] _Critical History of the General Principles of Mechanics._
[62] _Critical History of Philosophy._
[63] _Critical History of Political Economy and Socialism._
Nevertheless, Dühring can at the farthest be regarded only as one of
the forerunners of that Messiah that is destined for German philosophy
and German intellectual culture perhaps in the coming century; of
that man who shall be able to cast up the accounts of the work of the
present period, with its infinite analyses, its historical comparative
character, and its pyramidal yield of material, and to condense that
which now everywhere surges about us like a spiritual ether, but
nowhere palpable or tangible, into the unity of a system that shall
point out the paths to be followed and shall dominate all minds.
* * * * *
There are many,—and among them eminent investigators and estimable
scholars,—who smile at this prophecy as an Utopian dream; nay, almost
stand in dread of such hopes, as perilous to science. The day of
systems, say they, is past. Philosophy, too,—perhaps it were more
proper to say "mental science,"—is breaking up into a number of
special sciences, over which it is sought to place a general science
of knowledge or theory of science, as the last representative of that
which was once called philosophy and was recognised as the queen of the
sciences.
As intimated, I do not know whether the impulse toward unity that
inheres in the human mind is to be so easily driven from the field;
whether we shall be satisfied in the long run to behold that light
that irradiates the universe, broken a hundred-fold by the prisms of
the single sciences. But one thing is certain. The more irresolute
they are in whom the science of the future places its confidence,
the more actively will they press forward who hold that the precious
treasure of truth has long since been granted unto man, and who would
fain forge with this heritage of the past the fetters of the future.
After the Catholic church under Pius IX. had hurled in the face of
modern culture and science its frantic _Anathema sit_, it began under
his successor a much quieter, yet far more determined warfare. Like
one of the famed lianas of the primeval tropical forests, it entwines
the giant Science, to sap his best powers and slowly but surely to
stifle his life. Whatever the modern mind with the help of freedom
won by bitter struggles has gained in the knowledge of nature and
of history, is twisted and turned, falsified and misinterpreted by
hundreds and hundreds of busy hands until it has been fashioned to fit
that ready-made scheme of things composed on the one hand of Catholic
dogmatical teachings, and on the other of the Aristotelian-Thomistic
philosophy. As many representatives as secular freethought can show,
there will be found beside them to-day an ecclesiastical _advocatus
diaboli_ who will neither rest nor cease until of the hero has been
made a wretch and mangy heresiarch.
Under protection of the principle of free inquiry, and with all the
helps of science, a warfare of extermination is here carried on against
all freedom of mind and all science, which is the more dangerous in
proportion as the opponent loves to decorate himself with the borrowed
plumes of science, and as he is able skilfully to mask his real
designs. Catholicism is striving with untiring efforts to gain by the
help of this reformed and modernised scholasticism, the mastery of the
schools, of education, of the universities, and of the entire activity
of science. And compared with the position of the representatives of
modern thought it has decidedly the advantage. Not only is it in the
possession of a unitary world-theory, but it defends that theory with
most determined vigor and heedlessness against all differing views.
The representatives of modern science, on the contrary, are not so
fortunate as to possess inherited truth and infallible authority, and
they not only have to contend with the formidable internal difficulties
that stand in the way of a unitary formulation of their conception
of the world, but frequently even avoid entering on this task with
determination in order to make less prominent the contrast with the
religio-theological system to which every exact scientific conception
of the world must of necessity lead.
Against these aggressive endeavors of the theological mind, neither
lofty indifference, nor calm historical contemplation, nor mere
literary warring will avail. The power of freethought must be
displayed, and the positive work that it can do must be shown.
Otherwise the time may come when the fame of rigid scientific thought
and successful research in special fields will not exonerate German
philosophy from the reproach of having left the nation in the lurch
at a period of momentous spiritual crisis. To make useful the rich
acquisitions of these labors toward the construction of a general
theory of the world, remains, therefore, the serious task of the German
philosophy of the future.
I shall be permitted, perhaps, in a future article to present an
account of the literature of these special departments.
FRIEDRICH JODL.
II.
RECENT FRENCH PUBLICATIONS.
The works that have appeared during the last three months belong to
authors of different nationalities—Italian, Roumanian, Belgian, and
I ought to add Russian; but I shall not speak on this occasion of the
important work of Sergneyeff, _Physiologie de la Veille et du Sommeil_.
It is, as you see, a gathering of good company, on French soil.[64]
[64] All these works are published by Alcan.
* * * * *
The only French work to be mentioned is that of M. CH. ADAM,
_Philosophie de François Bacon_, a memoir presented in the prize
competition of which M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire was the reporter and
preferred by the Academy of Moral and Political sciences.
M. Ch. Adam is already known by several works relating to the
history of philosophy. The study which he now gives to the public
is conscientious; we must commend his erudition and the moderation
he has displayed both in his praise and in his criticism. I am not
sure, however, if he is right in asserting that the fame of Bacon
will increase and diminish alternately, according to whether patient
analyses or daring hypotheses find the more favor in the scientific
world. I have known many a savant, profoundly metaphysical and
imaginative, who, in admiring Bacon, delusively believed himself in
the possession of a solid safeguard against metaphysics. There is more
chance, to my mind, of finding the admirers of the Chancellor among
pure philosophers than among men of science. This is why I subscribe
completely to the judgment of M. Ch. Adam, when he subordinates Bacon
to Descartes and to Galileo. Especially should he be put below Galileo,
who was the great initiator of modern science, at least the first to
add a link to the chain of human science then being forged; one, I
might say, who by his solid contributions really founded physical
science, as chemistry was founded by Lavoisier and his contemporaries a
century and a half later.
* * * * *
The Roumanian writer is M. BASILE CONTA, whose unfinished work, _Les
Fondements de la Métaphysique_, has been translated by M. Tescanu.
M. Conta died in the heyday of his powers. Born in 1845, he was
successively, from 1875 to 1881, professor of jurisprudence at the
University of Jassy, deputy, and minister of public instruction. The
author and his works have, therefore, serious claims to our attention.
Nevertheless, I can hardly believe that M. Conta always kept in the
path in which he started, for if he had, it would have led him to
considerable results.
M. Conta held that every combination of ideas, that is to say every
ultimate generalisation, is essentially mobile, alterable in character,
and that there will never be any final, definitive philosophical
system. Subject to the benefit of this wise reserve, he undertook,
nevertheless, to frame a "materialist" metaphysic, founded like the
positive sciences on induction, and he attempted to rise to a general
system, from which it appeared to him that the ancient notions of the
soul, of freedom, and of God could not be legitimately excluded.
According to my mind, the defect of his method was the allowing too
much to reasoning, the too great desire to create reality by simple
logic. Unfortunately, the intellectual necessity that he proclaimed,
of reducing all to unity, does not carry with it the means of properly
making this reduction by a subtle operation of the mind. In order to
advance towards his end, M. Conta found himself led to formulate a
compendious sketch of a theory of cognition, a psychology, and a logic,
at the risk of sinking at times in the quicksands of a treacherous
discussion. As a matter of fact, metaphysics, spiritualism, and
materialism, are conceptions of great vagueness, and the problem to
reconcile them by any fashion of union, is rather like inquiring how
many ways there are of placing three persons at table, or even a
greater number.
This is not said by way of disputing the merits of a writer whose loss
is justly regretted, or to discourage the reading of a book in which
many will find much to accept.
* * * * *
The Belgian author is M. ALBERT BONJEAN, a barrister of Verviers. His
book, _L' Hypnotisme, ses Rapports avec le Droit et la Therapeutique,
la Suggestion Mentale_, affects too much the style of an address
before a court in which the orator wishes to exhibit wit and acumen.
Nevertheless, it is written with clearness, is agreeable to read, and
the verbal nicety sought does not impair its good sense.
M. Bonjean has developed the three following theses: First, that the
action of magnetism is not explained by the hypothesis of a fluid,
that we cannot speak with M. Ochorowicz, of "a certain tonic vibratory
movement which propagates itself outward from the periphery of the
body," but that it is explainable by simple suggestion; second, that
the power of suggestion is almost unlimited; and third, that though
verbal suggestion is incontestable, mental suggestion remains doubtful
until proof to the contrary.
M. Bonjean thus sides with MM. Ochorowicz and Delbœuf, and the whole
school of Nancy, against that of the Salpêtrière. He endeavors
especially to show the serious consequences, in criminal and civil
affairs, of immoral suggestions, the dangers of which he reproaches M.
Gilles de la Tourette with having concealed far too much. His personal
conviction does not rest itself solely on the expositions of others,
but on experiments which seem to have been conducted with prudence.
Extraordinary as this almost passive obedience of a subject to the
suggestion of an act which is repugnant to his moral tendencies
appears, we come in a position, it seems to me, to comprehend it by
the observation of the degenerate patients of our asylums in their
various manias. The dipsomaniac resists with all his power the impulse
to drink, and the kleptomaniac the impulse to steal; they fight against
it even to agony, but they end always by yielding to it. "It was
stronger than I"; such is the formula that we have noted most often in
the answers of these unfortunates. And remark, that the dipsomaniac
does not drink for pleasure, but by compulsion, be the beverage what
it may, water, urine, or petroleum; just as the kleptomaniac does
not steal with a view to enjoying the product of his theft, which he
ordinarily abandons or restores, but steals to deliver himself from
agonising torture. In this manner also the onomatomaniac acts, who
is seeking a word, and who rises at night to consult the dictionary,
etc. The hypnotised subject is in the same predicament, whatever
pathological difference there may be between the two; his personality
has momentarily sunk in hypnosis, as does that of an insane person
during the attack of insanity; his moral resistance must finally yield,
and it is not at all remarkable that it does.
The volume of M. Bonjean ends with an interesting discussion of the
celebrated case of Lully. The deceit that gave rise to belief in
suggestion without words or gestures appears to be established; the
subject reads from the lips of his magnetiser.
* * * * *
Let us turn to the fine work of M. R. GAROFALO, _La Criminologie, Etude
sur la Nature du Crime et la Théorie de la Pénalité_. M. Garofalo has
himself translated his work from the Italian; this second edition is
entirely recast.
The Italians have always had a taste for juridical studies. Their
school of criminologists has placed itself at the head of the movement
which ought to result in the reform of all criminal codes. Two
principal tendencies are predominant in the works of this school:
the physicians and anthropologists, for example M. Lombroso, have
conformably to their mental tendencies, particularly studied the
_criminal_, of whom they have endeavored to fix the type; the jurists,
like M. Garofalo, vice-president of the civil tribunal of Naples,
consider by preference the _crime_, which they determine by reference
to our social organisation. M. Garofalo shows himself at once an
innovator, in that he endeavors to give a positive definition of crime,
to take the place of the vague and incomplete definition which was
accepted by the old jurists, and conforming to which anthropologists
have thought themselves able to mark the characteristics of the
criminal man. That definition has relation to the average morality of
the societies of to-day; crime or criminal offence is to be sought,
according to him, only in the violation of altruistic sentiments
acquired and consolidated in the average social individual—compassion
and probity. New categories ought then to be established; that of
"revolutionists," for example, with whom the offence does not proclaim
moral monstrosity.
The violation of altruistic sentiments certainly reveals in the
offender a grave anomaly; it marks him as not adapted to the
conditions of society, and even incapable of adapting himself to
them, in consequence of psychical and physiological irregularities.
The principle, then, is correct, although M. Garofalo has based it
on an analysis of sentiments which appears to me insufficient. The
sympathetic emotions which compassion embraces, are not the only source
of our moral activity; probity arises in part from intelligence,
and the logical sense intervenes to give the form of justice or
injustice to an act of passion. Now, feebleness of judgment becomes,
incidentally, an important element of the diagnosis of the criminal.
Let us agree, nevertheless, that the absence of compassion and of
probity upon the whole makes up the "natural crime." This suffices
surely in practice.
On the other hand, it is not convenient, and it is unquestionably not
indispensable, to make a difference between an anomaly "in relation to
a superior civilised type," and an anomaly "in relation to the human
type itself." Here is the criterion that M. Garofalo—prepossessed
as he is to take away from born criminals the benefit, too easily
obtained, of disease—proposes to us, in order to distinguish from the
anomaly truly morbid, an anomaly not pathological, but which depends
in some way on the cerebral organisation. Subtle is this distinction
which he opposes to the opinion of French alienists, according to whom
the immoral are always more or less physically degenerated. I will
confine myself to recalling on this point a remark of Dr. Magnan. Very
often, said this eminent clinician one day to me, a father of poor
moral stability but otherwise healthy of body, has a son well balanced
in his moral and intellectual tendencies but already on the way to
degeneracy. The anatomical anomaly invoked by M. Garofalo would be
then not far from the physiological anomaly; functional disturbance of
the higher faculties is not alone concerned. Fundamentally, this is
of little moment to the practical conclusions of his system, which we
must rapidly indicate. With regard to the repression of crime, and as
to a large category of criminals, the social point of view necessarily
dominates the medical point of view.
M. Garofalo inquires what the power of education and of the increase
of well-being is in diminishing crime. He has found them extremely
weak. Severity of repression alone appears of some efficacy; indulgence
augments crime. For the sake of social selection, the criminal ought
to be eliminated, by capital punishment, perpetual banishment, etc.,
according as the case demands. Temporary imprisonment has no place
in this system. Finally, the only criterion of penality is lack of
adaptability to social life; this criterion will replace the false
principles of "moral responsibility" and "proportionment of the
punishment to the crime." It is too apparent that the prevailing penal
theory and the jurisprudence in agreement with it, seem to tend to
protect the criminal against society, rather than society against the
criminal. And what absurdities besides! The attempt is less severely
treated than the consummated offence; preparatory acts are _never_
punished, the attempt at a crime is _always_ punished.
The criterion of penality once accepted, it is necessary to find the
indices of this lack of fitness, of the impossibility of adaptation
to social life, which justifies repression. M. Garofalo seeks them
no longer in "premeditation," but he finds them in the motive of the
crime and in the way in which it has been prepared or perpetrated. We
cannot follow him into the details of this discussion, which presents
the highest interest. Our exceptions would turn on the interpretation
of certain features; they do not bear on the general principles of this
great and solid work.
LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
BOOK REVIEWS.
THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. By _William James_, Professor of
Psychology in Harvard University. In two volumes. New York: Henry
Holt & Co., American Science Series. Advanced Course.
In the present status of psychological science every attempt to gather
the diversified facts and views and present them in a single, though
extensive work, cannot but be scrutinised with great care and interest;
and when this work comes from the pen of one who has gained so wide and
appreciative a circle of readers, the interest becomes deeper and more
personal.
It was, perhaps, the professor of mental science, struggling for years
with text-books, inadequate, or antiquated, or narrow, or unscientific,
or dry, or unpedagogic, who most anxiously awaited the appearance of
Professor James's volumes; and his expectation was the more warranted,
as the work was announced in a series of text-books deservedly
successful and popular. To such a one, the work itself does not come
to fill the place of a text-book; not alone the great length (1,400
pages), but the general supposition of knowledge on the part of the
reader which it is the object of college courses to supply, together
with the selection of topics and the peculiar division of space amongst
them, limit the work to students of a much more advanced type than
(unfortunately, perhaps) American education as yet supplies. But while
our professor must still patiently hope for some work that will present
in brief and convenient form the main facts of Psychology, he will find
his task made easier and more interesting by these welcome volumes.
He will find in them an original and frequently brilliant treatment
of many of the deepest problems of modern Psychology: and it is as a
contribution to science and as an aid to the professional student that
a discussion of their contents and tenets will be pertinent in these
pages.
To begin with, the attitude of the author to his subject is that of a
professional scientist to his specialty. "I have kept close," he says,
"to the point of view of natural science throughout the book. Every
natural science assumes certain data uncritically, and declines to
challenge the elements between which its own 'laws' obtain, and from
which its own deductions are carried on.... This book, assuming that
thoughts and feelings exist, and are vehicles of knowledge, thereupon
contends that Psychology, when she has ascertained the empirical
correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite
conditions of the brain, can go no farther—can go no farther that is
as a natural science. If she goes farther she becomes metaphysical."
This position does not carry with it the condemnation of all matters
metaphysical, but simply excludes them from Psychology; nor does
this independence place Psychology in a position unrelated to other
sciences. Such relation is a cardinal fact in the mental world, and
nowhere is it more necessary to bear in mind that the division of the
sciences is largely an expression of the lines of men's interests and
the inevitable specialisation of knowledge. Those forms of adaptations
of means to ends which we study as forms of psychic action, while
theoretically distinguishable from other modes of action, in fact,
often resemble them; in other words, "the boundary line of the mental
faculty is certainly vague. It is better not to be pedantic, but to let
the science be as vague as the subject," and include all facts, whether
they are usually called physiological, or biological, or not, that shed
light on the main problems dealt with.
This conception accordingly views mind as distinctly related to and
an essential part of its environment; it views mental phenomena as
infinitely varied, as most intricately conditioned by and in turn
conditioning other natural phenomena. For the complete survey of
its domain, it calls upon experiment, observation, introspection,
comparison, analysis, hypothesis, deduction, each properly controlled
by the others, and limited by community of purpose to a firm foundation
of fact.
It is true that in the more intricate problems, those with the smallest
connection with sensation and the largest with inference and analysis,
the author will be regarded as more metaphysical than psychological and
plainly admits his fault; it is true that the personal leanings of the
author lead him to lengthy discussions of these more intricate points,
but none the less the positive, broad, and evolutionary spirit that
dominates the general view of the subject leaves a clear impress of
vitality, progress, and interest on every page.
Passing from point of view and purpose to content we do not look
for and do not find any 'closed system,' but "a mass of descriptive
details" in the selection of which personal interest has been the
controlling factor. The articles which Professor James has written from
time to time in the periodicals appear, sometimes a little remodelled,
in the larger work; each chapter is thus largely an independent essay
upon the topic printed at the head of it. On the physiological side we
have an admirable chapter on the functions of the brain, but elsewhere
the student is referred to other works for the physiological points
involved.
Following this is an excellent essay on Habit and Automatism,
whereupon without further ceremony the reader is invited to a somewhat
speculative series of chapters upon 'Mind Stuff,' 'Knowledge and
Reality,' and the like, and may resume the more concrete chapters on
Attention, Conception, Discrimination and Comparison, Association, only
after struggling with the complex picture of 'the Stream of Thought,'
'the Consciousness of Self,' and 'the Snares of Psychology.' Each
of these chapters presents a distinct problem, presents it well and
positively, and contributes much that is original to the discussion.
In all this there is strongly emphasised the subjective contribution
to Psychology,—the value of a discerning and critical introspection
and the importance of the subject in all processes of sense, judgment,
attention, association, and the like. The mind is not a passive
receptacle of experiences, but is continually active, making and
shaping, seizing and transforming, absorbing and assimilating the
stimuli of its environment.
A second series of topics take up the perception of those general
concepts, Time, 'Things,' Space, Reality, and Form, the largest and
heaviest chapters in the work, amongst which, as if to whet the
appetite, are distributed more concrete pages dealing with Memory,
Sensation, and Imagination. The former devote much space to criticism,
and would, perhaps, border upon the metaphysics that was to have been
avoided, were it not that they spring from considerations much more
concrete and provable; the latter group of chapters are amongst the
most interesting of the volume, and though treating but a small and
somewhat arbitrarily selected portion of each of the topics, treat them
in a suggestive and inspiring way. Discerning and ingenious sketches
of single mental traits and processes, happy illustrations, suggestive
side issues make these pages a striking contrast to the usual text-book
tone, and will attract students of all shades and grades of agreement
or disagreement with the author's views.
The remaining chapters deal with Reasoning, Movement, Instinct,
Emotions, Will, Hypnotism, Necessary Truths; in addition to the
characteristics already indicated, we find here a wise use of the
facts of Morbid Psychology, of the inferences from the abnormal to
the normal. This naturally stands out prominently in the discussion
of Hypnotism—so recent and yet so essential a department of mental
science.
When we close the cover of the second volume we do so with the feeling
that our mental horizon has been enlarged, our interests have been
quickened, our attention has been held, our time agreeably spent,—and
yet the result of all this reading seems intangible, diffuse,
scattered, unsatisfactory. The scholar and the professor always retain
the student feeling and the student habit of thought; and what is
unpedagogic for the one is uneconomical for the other. A logical order
of exposition, a unifying grouping of topics, a just perspective of
details, a painstaking selection of facts, constitute much to convert
useless knowledge into useful science; such works contain a large
element of drudgery, must be impersonal in one sense of the term, and
yet are not inconsistent with a high degree of originality, but it is
such works that are enormously helpful, that form landmarks by which
progress is measured and retained. These useful qualities we miss in
Professor James's work. True, it does not pretend to possess them,
but psychological text-books are not written every day, and when so
influential a one appears, the wish that its utility shall reach a
maximum demands expression. Finally, it is a work destined to be much
quoted, to arouse considerable discussion, to excite quite different
opinions from different critics, and so, every one interested in modern
Psychology will find it necessary and profitable to learn at first hand
this important American contribution to the science of Psychology.
J. J.
THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. By _Charles Carroll Everett, D. D._ Boston: De
Wolfe Fiske & Co. Revised edition.
An excellent manual of that which is accepted as logic. The author
is a disciple of Hegel, and throughout conforms his treatment of
the topic to the lines laid down by his master, although in various
connections where these lines permit, the author contributes from his
own resources, and from other masters, much needed supplementary matter.
The appearance of late of so many essays, manuals, and treatises
professing to deal with logic and its affiliated topics is quite
noteworthy, and is the manifestation of a need that has become, not
merely a crying, but an absolutely groaning one. It is scarcely a
metaphor to say that to-day the intellectual world is in great travail
over its need of an organon. We are crying unto our logical desire
from the depths of our souls and waiting for it as they that wait for
the morning. This intensity of our want makes us intolerant of the
old incompetences and sets us to fault-finding in the hope of better
insight when the current obscurities shall have been dissipated. We
scan each effort as it appears, and as it discovers no even single
clear organic general principle around which the wealth of knowledge
now ascertained can set in order we lay it aside with a feeling of
being merely tantalised. We cannot but assimilate our condition to that
of the Haunted Man in Bret Harte's clever travesty of Dickens: "'Here
again?' said the Haunted Man. 'Here again,' assented the phantom, in a
low tone. 'Another novel?' 'Another novel.' 'The old story?' 'The old
story.' 'It won't do, Charles! It won't do!' and the Haunted Man buried
his head in his hands and groaned."
When the singular difficulties of the search are considered, all
this is, no doubt, void of that sweet reasonableness that should
obtain. Still the interests of progress are too supreme to permit any
compromise with error or incompetence.
So, although the excellent manual under notice makes no pretensions
that are unwarrantable, according to the customs usually observed
in such cases, it yet affords salient features, apt as texts for
a course of comment that applies, not merely to the doctrine and
treatment adopted in it but to the doctrine and methods of the accepted
logic-books in general.
The book is entitled, "The Science of Thought." This exposes an
incompetent comprehension of the topic. The Science of Thought should
be a mere branch of psychology. In logic, we of course, have an almost
prime need of information concerning the anatomy and physiology of
thought. But this is not the peculiar motive of logic. The _raison
d'être_ of logic is not the _general_ economy of thought, but the
phenomena of _untrue_, _incompetent_, or _fallacious_ thought, or,
in other words, _erroneous thought_. Did but the mind of man always
supply him with true and competent thoughts he would find no need of
seeking logical criteria, however much he might be interested in the
phenomenology of thought in general.
Man being, however, what he is, informed by a mind, prone to error,
and he, in consequence, frequently subjected to evils and misses that
better information would have enabled him to avoid or mitigate, he
naturally seeks to solve the causes of his errors, and to discover
means of testing the worth of his thoughts and of deriving thoughts
that are true and competent. This search is the study of logic; the
true information relevant thereto is logic, and no other device of
man ought to trespass upon the name. Using for this turn the word
truth in a broader sense than usual, so as to include the sense of
competence, we may say that Logic is the Science of Truth and Untruth
in Thought,—take notice, _in thought_—for we are supposing that there
neither is, nor can be, any other or further _means_ of becoming aware
of aught of the nature or features, of aught that is pure alternate to
mind, than thought merely, and that, therefore, truth and untruth in
thought exhausts all the proper possibilities of truth and untruth.
Following Hegel, and concurring with so many others, our author
starts with Being as the proper primordial universal notion. Is this
not taking note merely of the comprehensive meaning of thought, in
ignorance of its denominate meaning? Prior, at least logically, to
Being, Form, Mode, Limit, Relation, and the like, must there not
be posited or supposed somewhat to _be_, to _be formed_, to _be
modulated_, to _be limited_, to _be related_, etc? Must not Quality
be quality _of_ somewhat, and Quantity, quantity _of_ somewhat? So it
seems to us and we therefore posit Ground as primordial in thought.
Ground as intended here is not the same as the Absolute Being of Hegel.
It is in general independent of the notions either of existence or
reality, being in general that of which aught is predicative either
in discourse or thought. It is pure logical denomination free of all
logical comprehension. The imaginary number and the ideal number of
mathematics are each just as truly grounds according to this intent as
is a house or a tree.
Ground is the seat or basis of Being, Mind, Form, Mode, Limitation,
Relation, etc. Behind any momented thought, say Sun shines, Mind
thinks, or It is, lies, it may be latent, but all potential, the
mere thought stripped of all comprehension: Sun, Mind, or It. It is
wholly irrelevant that a ground is manifest only by means of its
comprehension if it be true that it _must_ be supposed as the seat of
that comprehension. Undistributed and therefore unrelated or absolute
ground from its very nature admits of no other predicate than mere
being. It is in general at once the All and Existence. Its negative
or Naught has no ground, being, or comprehension whatever, and no
proper denomination, its name being only quasi-denominative and for
convenience of notation merely. Form or Thought breaks this barren
universe of mere Ground and Being by the formation of modes of Ground
and by the more or less arbitrary fiats and finds of Limitation.
By the formation of Mode emerge Form, Time, and Extent, and perhaps
Cause and Aim. By Limitation emerge Part and Whole, Number, and
Relation in all their manifold involutions. Attribute being only
_degraded_ Relation, and Quantity being only one _power_ of Relation.
It is a most notable peculiarity of thought that it has the ability and
that it is its custom to take any form or phase of Being, and regard
and deal with it as a ground.
Hence every momented thought (which in effect embraces every thought
properly speaking) makes two distinct references, its ground reference
and its being or predicate reference. This seems to be the bottom truth
in respect to the much vexed topic of extension and comprehension.
There would seem to be, therefore, in reality only two ultimate
categories, Ground and Being.
As to how the categories, usually taken as such, and their complements,
should be distributed between Ground and Being, would seem to be a
matter requiring much pondering to arrange. Owing to the double quality
of so many of the mental alternates, as in one regard Being and in
another regard Ground, much difficulty might well be anticipated.
Neglecting this distribution we may say that very universal terms of
thought are Ground, Being, Form, Mode, Limit, Number, Part, Relation.
Epoch, Place, Alteration, Event, Cause, Effect, Aim, and the like.
The cardinal mental activities which _produce_ thought seem to be, in
order, Attention, Conception, Recognition, Induction, and Deduction.
In all these operations there is opportunity for not only true, but
erroneous thought, and logic in its office as the inspector and judge
of thought in respect of its truth or error, should study all these
operations and those which are subsidiary to them, and ascertain the
causes of error and the means of truth, and perfect methods of deriving
truth with certainty and ease.
It is very presumptuous and hazardous to essay a definition of truth,
yet since such a definition is a great desideratum, and since it will
not be effected except by earnest trial, and since also, in such a
matter, even failures that are consequent on devoted attempts are
instructive to subsequent attempts, we venture our submission:
A thought is true which while representing its applicate (that is
whatever to which it is directly applied) also, in so far as its
purport implies, represents in mind a thorough and respective parity
and ratio, through which each thought-analyton and thought-syntheton
(whether ground, mode, limit, number, part, relation, etc.) corresponds
to its proper applicate-analyton or applicate-syntheton. Truth is this
representative and correspondent parity and ratio in general. A thought
may be true and yet incompetent, that is unfit to serve some assigned
purpose or turn in view, by reason, it may be, of its irrelevancy, or
it may be of its restricted application or purport. It is a question
that has been much mooted whether or not our sensations are true to
their mind-alternate excitants. The argument towards showing that they
are would be prolix and must be passed. If however they are not true it
would be interesting to hear by what quality or nature they are to be
characterised in respect to their verity.
Attention is a mental activity of considerable importance in logic in
connection with that very fruitful source of error, mal-observation.
But by far the most important mental activity to be studied and
thoroughly known for the behests of logic is Conception, with its
all important adjunct of denomination. The verity or error of all
other mental operations that generate thought depends largely on the
truth or untruth, the competence or incompetence of Conception. On
our conceptions as a basis is erected and must ever be erected every
scheme of our notation, and in so far as our conceptions are untrue
or incompetent, so probably is, and so will be, in perhaps a multiple
measure, all our knowledge. Very much more ought to be said in this
connection, but space will not permit.
The mental operation which is here called Recognition, but which has
been called hypothesis and otherwise, and which the author reviewed
calls Identification, has not received the attention from logicians
in general which its importance requires. It is a true variety of
inference, as Mr. C. S. Peirce has fully shown. Our conceptions which
are the central facts of logic would be of little value to us were
we not able truly to subsume our perceptions under them. A variety
of facts are available to show how very often we do this wrongly,
imperfectly, or not at all.
Induction, and its rationale, depends also very largely upon conception
and its intimate consequences, denomination, attribution, and
relationising. Deduction and the Syllogism are trite themes, although
the part that attribution plays in the process has been insufficiently
noticed, and although the rules of deduction from relation-terms,
the most important and fruitful of all, are as yet very partially
ascertained. What is needed as an indispensable prerequisite to
this last, seems to be a census and classification of the manifold
relations that are known, after the model of say Roget's Thesaurus,
and then a determination of the consequences of such combinations and
constructions as are admissible and fruitful, and a tabulation of the
same as our multiplication table is a tabulation of the consequences of
the multiplication of numbers. The Logic of Relatives as it is called
suffers from its having been formed thus far on so very abstract and
formal a plan that its formation lacks the check and correction of
frequent comparison with concrete knowledge, while its results are
almost if not quite useless owing to their extreme generality, which in
defect of the mediate formula leaves them inapplicable to aught that
can manifest their utility or power.
F. C. R.
THE TIME-RELATIONS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA. By _Joseph Jastrow_. New York:
N. D. C. Hodges.
The accomplished Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin
gives in this publication, which forms one of the series of "Facts
and Theory Papers" issued by Mr. Hodges, the results of numerous
observations by Cattell, Münsterberg and other observers. His object
is to present a general view of what has been done already in this
department of research. The study of the time-relations of mental
phenomena is of importance in various connections. As Professor Jastrow
remarks:
"It serves as an index of mental complexity, giving the sanction of
objective demonstration to the results of subjective observation; it
indicates a mode of analysis of the simpler mental acts, as well as
the relation of these laboratory products to the processes of daily
life; it demonstrates the close interrelation of psychological with
physiological facts, an analysis of the former being indispensable to
the right comprehension of the latter; it suggests means of lightening
and shortening mental operations, and thus offers a mode of improving
educational methods; and it promises in various directions to deepen
and widen our knowledge of those processes by the complication and
elaboration of which our mental life is so wonderfully built up."
The results of the observations referred to by Professor Jastrow are
given in Tables of Simple Reaction Times and of Complex Reaction Times.
One of the most important points considered is "the overlapping of
mental processes," as to which Cattell made a special study. From the
fact that the time needed for the performance of complete operations,
as multiplying numbers and reciting a verse or two at the same time, is
shorter than the sum of the times required to do each separately, it
is inferred that the mind should be likened not "to a point at which
but a single object can impinge at one time, but rather to a surface
of variable extension." Moreover, "the performance of a complex and
extended mental task is not the same thing as the separate performance
of the several elements into which that task may be analysed." The
addition of a classified Bibliography adds much to the value of
Professor Jastrow's interesting little work.
Ω.
ON SAMENESS AND IDENTITY. By _George Stuart Fullerton_. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Mr. Fullerton's psychological study is the first of a series of
contributions to Philosophy to be issued by the University of
Pennsylvania. It is truly entitled a "contribution to the foundations
of a Theory of Knowledge," and is an attempt to arrive at an accurate
conclusion as to the several senses in which the word _same_ is
used; with an historical and critical statement of the use of the
word in a wrong sense. Mr. Fullerton finds that _same_ has seven
different meanings according to the mode in which it is applied. In
the first case it has the sense of _identity_, and in the second that
of _similarity_. Thirdly, the "external" bundle of qualities may be
regarded as being the same at two different times, while in a fourth
sense, two "external" things, or "external" qualities, existing at one
time, may be called the same to mark similarity. Again, an "external"
thing or an "external" quality may be called the _same_ with its
external representative, as the identification of a thing with its
reflection in a mirror. This is the fifth sense; the sixth is where
the _same_ "external" object is said to be perceived by different
persons. Finally, an "external" thing may be said to be the same "with
its representative in consciousness or with the substance or noumenon
assumed to underlie it."
On searching for the reason why such various experiences are expressed
by the use of one word, Mr. Fullerton discovers that the common notion
which unites them is the idea of similarity. But how can we speak of
similarity when strictly only one thing is in question? The answer
given is that we have "a series of experiences, beginning with one in
which two objects are recognised as similar and yet are very clearly
distinguished as two objects, continued in others in which the sense
of duality falls more and more into the background, and ending in one
in which there is no consciousness of duality at all." The last of
these experiences is not wholly different from the others. It differs
from them "not in the element which has led us to declare two objects
similar—the element which they have in common—but in that which has
led us to declare them two and different. It is by adding to this last
experience, so to speak, that we get the others. They contain it and
more." The experience in which two things are not distinguished, is
at the bottom of all our experiences of similarity. The use of the
expression "X is X," then, emphasises the fact that one is not to
pass from X to any Y or Z, and it, moreover, puts a period to one's
thinking, and fixes the thought upon X alone. When the words "identity"
and "sameness" are intended to be used with some degree of precision,
the former word indicates "sameness in which there is no consciousness
of duality, or in which the consciousness of duality has fallen into
the background and may easily be overlooked."
More than half of Mr. Fullerton's work is occupied by an historical and
critical consideration of the use of the word _same_ in a wrong sense,
beginning with Heraclitus and coming down to Prof. W. K. Clifford.
The examples he has given of that confusion of thought justifies the
assertion of "the need of much greater care and exactitude than one
commonly finds in metaphysical reasonings," and at the same time the
hair-splitting for which Mr. Fullerton needlessly considers himself
called on to plead guilty.
Ω.
INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. WITH OTHER ESSAYS. By _Constance C. W. Naden_.
Edited by R. Lewins, M. D. London: Bickers & Son.
The chief of the essays comprised in this volume is an "historical and
critical sketch of successive philosophical conceptions respecting the
relations between inductive and deductive thought." It was awarded
the Heslop Gold Medal as the best dissertation by a student of Mason
College, Birmingham (England), in 1887, and Miss Naden was also
rewarded for it by being made an Associate of the College, an honor she
well deserved. The dissertation displays a wide knowledge of scientific
facts with a rare capacity for dealing with them in a philosophical
spirit, and a power of acute reasoning such as few other women have
ever possessed. Whether her opinions are always correct is another
question. It is a profound remark that we are obliged to regard nature
as a system, "because we can consider its multiplicity only in relation
to one thinking subject." But we must challenge her statement that we
have no certainty for assuming that the laws of nature will always
remain unchanged. A change in the laws of nature would be the replacing
of it by a different nature of which man could not take cognisance, and
which therefore we cannot reasonably conceive to be possible. There
might be a change of conditions which would introduce other laws, but
these must be in conformity with, and not in opposition to, the present
laws of nature, as otherwise they could not exist for us, seeing that
"experience is possible in virtue of the original constitution of the
mind," and therefore, according to the views of which Miss Naden is an
exponent, they could not exist at all.
The most interesting of her essays are those which explain the system
to which her editor Dr. Robert Lewins gives the name of Hylo-Idealism.
This is described as the "brain theory of mind and matter," and it is
so described because it asserts that every man is the maker of his
own cosmos, all his perceptions having merely a subjective existence
and being generated by the brain, "which focuses converging rays of
sense from all parts of the body, and unites them into the white light
of consciousness." It would be a mistake, however, to think that,
according to this theory there is nothing outside of the percipient
subject, that is, beyond man himself. The real existence of matter is
not denied and, indeed, "so far from being a nonentity, matter is the
_fons et origo_ of all entities." Hylo-Idealism deals only with the
relative, "ignoring the absolute as utterly beyond human _gnosis_."
While asserting that "the only cosmos known to man, or in any way
concerning him, is manufactured in his own brain-cells," it affirms the
existence of another cosmos, the external universe of other systems.
The mind does not however passively apprehend external objects, but
actively constructs them. "We make the mountains, and the sea, and the
sun himself; for sunshine is nothing if not visible, and if there were
no eye and no brain, there could be no sunshine." The defect of this
reasoning is that it makes man the only measure of all things. Because
our senses are necessary to us to distinguish certain phenomena, it
does not follow that the same phenomena cannot be distinguished under
other conditions. The protozoa which have no organs of special sense
are affected by the vibrations of light, sound, and probably smell,
which would not be possible if those phenomena are "constructed" by the
human mind.
The utmost that can be said with any show of reason is that the
imaging in our consciousness of external objects does not give an
actual representation of them. This is required by the theory of
Hylo-Idealism, which goes still further, however, and declares that
the universe does not exist as we know it. It seems to us that this
view is not consistent with even the principles of Hylo-Idealism. Dr.
Lewins specially points out that this system "in no sense denies the
objective, but only contends for _identity_ of object and subject,
proved as it is by natural Realism itself, from the doctrine of
_molecular metamorphosis_, which shows the Ego continually undergoing
transubstantiation with the 'Non-Ego,' and _vice versâ_, so far as
to form _one_ indivisible organism." He compares the Ego and the
Non-Ego, that is, subject and object, or our bodies and the "external
universe," to a porous vessel of ice, filled with water, immersed in
an infinite ocean. "What is within and without, and the septum that
seems to divide the two, are all three consubstantial or identical."
If they are identical, however, they must perfectly respond to each
other, which would not be the case if the object in the mind did not
give a true representation of the objects in external nature. Otherwise
the identity of subject and object can be predicated, on the condition
only of abolishing the "external universe," and affirming of it, as
Dr. Lewins affirms of the stars, "What you see is a vision, or organic
function, of your own _sensifacient_ organism."
We have not space to critically consider Miss Naden's essay on
"Evolutionary Ethics," which is a valuable study in Sociology. She
gives logical form to Mr. Herbert Spencer's quasi-utilitarian system
in the words, "the _inclination_ is always in the direction most
pleasurable or least painful; the _results_ of the action, if it
be a moral one, are such as in the long run and on a large scale,
must increase happiness; but the _object_ of the action need not be
connected in the mind of the actor with any thought of happiness,
personal or general." The practical objection to this view of moral
conduct is the reference to _personal_ happiness. This should be
excluded altogether as an actual motive of such conduct where self is
the chief object concerned. Here duty or virtue should be the guiding
principle, as it should be ultimately in all moral conduct. This
indeed is really admitted when it is said that rational utilitarianism
"aims, not straight at happiness, but at the essential conditions
of happiness." The weak point in Mr. Spencer's system of ethics is
the origin it assigns for the altruistic sentiment. This is based in
sympathy, the germ of which, says our author, is to be found in the
fact that the ideal or "representative" world possesses an emotional
aspect and therefore "the thought of a fellow creature carries with it
the thought of his feelings." This thought is not necessarily, however,
accompanied with an active feeling of sympathy. It requires some other
influence to give it external expression, and this must be sought in
the activity of the sexual instinct. Traced to this source we can
understand how the altruistic sentiment may become instinctive, giving
rise through parental and fraternal affection, to the higher love of
country and of race, which in time will also become instinctive.
In taking leave of Miss Naden's work, we must say that, much as we
disagree with its Hylo-Idealistic views, it deserves to be read by all
who are interested in the search for the key to the great problem of
nature. Its examination of the logical system of Kant is slight, and
it is not surprising, therefore, that the name of the great German
philosopher is omitted from among the precursors of Darwin. Miss Naden
is in error, too, in describing Haeckel as a pronounced Materialist. He
is no more so than was Darwin himself. Such mistakes were probably due
to the bent of the mind of our authoress, whose too early death is a
loss to the cause of truth and to humanity itself.
Ω.
EMBLEMATIC MOUNDS AND ANIMAL EFFIGIES. By _Stephen D. Peet_. Chicago:
American Antiquarian office.
The author of this work is well known, not only as the editor of
the _American Antiquarian_, but as a careful explorer of aboriginal
monuments in the Northwest. His attention has not been limited,
however, to the results of personal observation; he has utilised the
researches of other explorers, and is thus able to present to his
readers an amazing amount of information, which is rendered doubly
valuable by the profuse use of maps and illustrations. The points which
Mr. Peet has sought to bring out in his book are, that (1) the works
described as effigies were imitations of the wild animals which were
once common in the region where they are found, which is chiefly in
Wisconsin and Ohio, and were also totemic in their character; (2) the
effigies were used for practical purposes, such as screens for hunters,
guards for villages, foundations for houses, heaps on which sentinels
were stationed; (3) they embodied "certain superstitions and customs
which are rarely found, but which are suggestive of the religious
system prevalent in prehistoric times."
The consideration of the first and second of these points does not
come within our province, but it will be interesting to see what
light the curious monuments described throw on the religious ideas
of the aborigines. Mr. Peet states that the location of the effigies
gives the idea of the prevalence among their builders of a kind of
nature-worship. They are closely associated with the natural features
of the earth, "the streams and lakes, hills and valleys, woods and
prairies," being overshadowed by them. The animals represented were
divinities to the people, and the effigies were intended to be symbols
of such divinities, associated for particular reasons with special
localities. In support of this view, Mr. Peet refers to the fact that
the "myths which fix upon scenes in nature are those which remind one
of the animal divinities which were worshipped. The figure of the
moose and the turtle and other animals have been recognised in certain
strange and contorted figures in the rocks and mountains, and myths
have been connected with them, the myth having evidently been made to
account for the resemblances." The most remarkable example of this kind
is the great serpent mound of Adams County, Ohio. Serpent mounds are
found in various other localities, and usually they correspond with the
natural features of the ground on which they are placed.
But if the effigies are to be regarded as symbols of a totemic
animal-worship, it may be thought that they cannot be taken as evidence
of the existence of nature-worship. Mr. Peet remarks, however, that
the symbolism of Ohio was that of sun-worship, and the existence of
this phase of nature-worship among the American aborigines is an
important fact. It connects their religious ideas with those which
were at one time almost universally prevalent in the Old World. The
Sun as the source of life and energy was from an early date the object
round which centered the religious ideas of the ancient world, and the
serpent occupied a chief place as symbolical of the most important of
those ideas. The veneration for deceased ancestors represented similar
ideas with those embodied in sun-worship, and the animal totemism of
which the effigy mounds are symbolic was connected with the latter
superstition through ancestral worship, the mythical ancestor being
identified with the totem. If this is so, the study of the mythology
of the aboriginal inhabitants of this country may be expected to throw
light on the origin of Old World superstitions, and Mr. Peet may be
congratulated on having done so much to make known the symbolical
and other works which will soon be the only relics of an ancient and
wide-spread race.
Ω.
LIFE. By _M. J. Savage_. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.
In this volume of sermons we have a most interesting series of studies
on a subject which is probably attracting at the present time more
intelligent interest than at any past epoch. The views entertained
by Mr. Savage are so well known that it is not necessary to give any
elaborate review of the present work. Among other themes he treats of
the Nature and Origin of Life, Goodness and Moral Evil, Life's Meaning,
Nationalism and other social dreams, Morality and Religion. Everywhere
we find much material for thought, and, although from the very nature
of the case many of Mr. Savage's conclusions will not be generally
accepted, his words will be read with more than a passing interest.
His statement that right and wrong "are to be understood by studying
the progress, the development, of the race, just as we find out
any other truth," cannot well be contested by the advocate of any
ethical theory. When he affirms this life "to be only manifestations
as the years go by, out-blossomings everywhere of that life which is
God,—the mystery and yet the explanation of all things," he expresses
an opinion that most men who have given the subject serious thought
will accept—subject only to the reservation that they are allowed to
understand "God" in their own way.
The answer given by Mr. Savage, in his concluding discourse, to the
question "What is it all for?" will meet with less acceptance. He
remarks that all the theories which can be found as to the outcome
of things are only variations of three chief theories: (1) that of
a future life of rewards and punishments, the theory of Milton's
"Paradise Lost"; (2) that of M. Comte, which is well named the religion
of humanity; (3) that which regards _spirit_ as having the pre-eminence
over matter. As to the first theory, Mr. Savage declares it to be
condemned by the intellect, the heart, and the conscience of men. He
affirms that the second theory ends in _nothing_, and he endorses the
statement of Mr. John Fiske, that "considered intellectually, such a
theory puts the world to permanent intellectual confusion." Mr. Savage,
therefore, accepts the third theory which "makes immortality a wholly
rational thought." He sees the proof of it in the existence of the
brain, the conscience, the heart of man, which "are prophecies, since
they are the expression of the nature of things, and since they demand
the perfect thought, and love, and right."
Ω.
PROTOPLASM AND LIFE. By _Charles F. Cox_, M. A. New York: N. D. C.
Hodges.
The first part of Mr. Cox's contribution to the study of what may be
termed the literature of the interesting subject he discusses, treats
of the Cell doctrine. He traces clearly the changes that have taken
place in the protoplasm theory, to which that doctrine belongs, with
particular reference to Doctor Beale's _germinal matter_ and Prof.
Huxley's _physical basis of life_. In his summary of conclusions,
Mr. Cox shows that the original idea of the cell, as propounded by
Schleiden and Schwann, has gradually faded away. As he states, the
attention of the defenders of the cell doctrine has been forced from
one position to another until it is fixed on a germinal point. The same
fate has befallen Dr. Beale's ideal living matter, which if an actually
visible thing is reduced to "a mere skeleton of his original bioplasm,"
an attenuated reticulum; while Huxley's physical basis of life, like
his _Bathybius_, is relegated to the realm of the imagination. Thus
there is "no one visible and tangible substance to which the name
protoplasm is rigidly and exclusively applied." Mr. Cox's conclusion as
to the nature of the _basal life-stuff_ is that "the only admissible
alternative is matter plus vitality or matter minus vitality." This
brings us to "the impassable gulf between the not-living and the
living"; which we would observe, however, might cease to be impassable
if we could properly define the terms "matter" and "vitality."
The second part of Mr. Cox's _brochure_ is devoted to a consideration
of the spontaneous generation theory, and its relation to the general
theory of evolution. Mr. Cox's personal conclusion is, that, to the
better part of the scientific authorities, "the spontaneous generation
theory is a necessary part of the general theory of evolution, but
that no experimental evidence has as yet been produced in support of
the belief in the occurrence of abiogenesis, and that therefore the
evolution theory hangs upon a link of pure faith." Mr. Cox finds in the
gap between lifeless substances and living forms the veritable "Missing
Link."
Ω.
NOUVEAUX APERÇUS SUR LA PHYLOGENIE DE L'HOMME. By _Madame Clémence
Royer_. Extracted from the Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie
for 1890.
Madame Royer, in this admirable memoir, taking for a text the fact
that an Australian lizard was seen by M. de Vis walking on its hind
feet, criticises severely Haeckel's genealogy of man, whose line of
descent she declares to be distinct from that of the apes. The first
terrestrial ancestors of man and of other anthropomorphous animals
issued from pelagic forms of distinct origins, whose evolution had
been parallel, but the human ancestors acquired the upright position
in a phase of amphibious ichthyophagy, while the ape ancestors adapted
themselves directly to an oblique position. This original difference of
attitude adapted men from the first to an entirely pedestrian motion,
and the apes to a life more or less arboreal, but neither men nor apes
have had any terrestrial ancestor adapted to the horizontal position.
Ω.
LE MONDE COMME VOLONTÉ ET COMME REPRESENTATION. Par _Arthur
Schopenhauer_. Traduit en Français par _A. Burdeau_. Tome
troisième. Paris: Félix Alcan.
M. Burdeau's translation of the chief work of the renowned philosopher
of pessimism is the only perfect translation into the French language.
It is made with a scrupulous exactness, and its style is said to be as
clear as that of Schopenhauer himself, "by which he is distinguished
from all other German philosophers and is recognised as a disciple
of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Chamfort." The present volume contains
important appendices in which Schopenhauer recapitulated and developed
various points treated of in the first edition of his work. We may
refer particularly to the chapters on Instinct, Genius, Insanity, the
Metaphysic of Music, and the Metaphysic of Love.
DIE HYPNOSE UND DIE DAMIT VERWANDTEN NORMALEN ZUSTAENDE. Vorlesungen
gehalten an der Universität Kopenhagen im Herbste 1889. By _Alfred
Lehmann_, Ph. D. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.
This little book will in one respect be of special interest to
psychologists. The author confesses in the preface that when he
commenced his hypnotic investigations, he attempted to explain the
facts under consideration by the Cartesian theory which hitherto, he
says, had proved perfectly sufficient to explain the data of normal
soul-life. What the author understands by the Cartesian theory appears
from the following passage:
"The popular conception of the relation between soul and body is, that
the soul is a being distinct from the body and endowed with certain
faculties. This conception is still defended by a certain, not very
numerous school of philosophers whom we may briefly call Cartesians
from the fact that their theory can be traced back to Descartes,
although in the lapse of time it has been considerably modified."
In a word the Cartesian theory is the theory that still accepts the
existence of a mythical or metaphysical soul-unity called the ego. Dr.
Lehmann says:
"It was argued since 'I' in spite of a constant change of my
consciousness, am in possession of the certainty that it is the same
identical 'I' that has all these states, sensations, feelings, this
'I' or the soul must be a unity. And this unity must stand in a causal
connection with the outside world, with the domain of nature in the
widest sense of the word," etc.
It is perhaps exceptional that a teacher at a University of Protestant
Northern Europe has been under the influence of Cartesianism, but it
is highly commendable that he openly confesses his change of opinion
because the facts under observation demonstrate its erroneousness.
Dr. Lehmann no doubt will find that the normal phenomena of psychic
life are by no means in accord with the Cartesian doctrine. Indeed
by showing how the abnormal and normal states agree, he implicitly
confesses that the theory that proves untenable for the former ought
to be regarded as untenable for the latter. We have instances of
men who believe in the Cartesian doctrine, or at least by a natural
predisposition have a tendency to believe in it, wavering in their
belief, because the data of the normal states of psychic life so little
favor the dualism of the great French philosopher. Now it almost
seems as if the discoveries and the strangeness of hypnotic phenomena
had contributed a great deal towards turning the tendency toward a
monistic solution of the psychological problems back to the almost
abandoned dualistic solution. We are fully confident that this reaction
will not last, because in spite of all the strange mysteries that
surround modern hypnotism, it will after all only find a satisfactory
interpretation in some monistic conception.
Dr. Lehmann in abandoning the Cartesian theory, says: "The bodily and
psychical states are as a matter of experience given as two series
intimately connected the one with the other. Their connection can be
explained in two different ways: Either the phenomena of the one are
effects of the other, or both series are effects of one and the same
unknown cause."
Dr. Lehmann considers either solution as a priori equally acceptable,
yet he favors the latter, which might briefly be called (although
the author does not use the expression) "the agnostic solution." Dr.
Lehmann characterises it as "_die Spinozistische Annahme_" and calls it
Psycho-physical Materialism.
One of his colleagues, Professor Kroman has proposed in his "Logik and
Psychologie" a theory that is called by the same name. Yet Kroman's
psycho-physical materialism, Dr. Lehmann declares, is widely different
from his own; the former being "a mutual causal relation between the
Physical and Psychical within the limits of the Atom," which, says Dr.
Lehmann, "would make the explanation of complex psychical phenomena
impossible."
The psycho-physical materialism of Dr. Lehmann, our author maintains,
agrees in all essential points with the views of Professor Münsterberg
(Freiburg in Baden).[65]
[65] The observations of Professor Münsterberg were reviewed
in _The Open Court_ No. 134.
The laboratory work done by Professor Münsterberg was published after
Dr. Lehmann had finished his lectures. A certain similarity between Dr.
Lehmann's views and those of the Freiburg Professor cannot be denied,
yet it is more than doubtful whether Professor Münsterberg would
recognise this similarity in the same measure as Dr. Lehmann does. The
fact is that Dr. Lehmann has progressed in the direction which the
German school of Wundt has taken; yet he has not as yet reached the
same clearness; he is still entangled in Cartesian ideas, as is shown
by his way of proposing problems: for instance in his treatment of the
problem of will, which he justly calls "_der eigentliche Probirstein
der Hypothese_," and of Attention, "the most enigmatic of all states
of the soul" (_der räthselhafteste aller Seelenzustände_). In these
and in other considerations Dr. Lehmann shows that he is still far
from the positive standpoint by which Münsterberg's investigations
are distinguished. It is very strange that in speaking of Attention
M. Ribot's name has not even been alluded to. If the author had
shown a familiarity with some of the monographs of this great French
psychologist, he might have saved himself much work.
κρς.
DER HELIOTROPISMUS DER THIERE UND SEINE UEBEREINSTIMMUNG MIT DEM
HELIOTROPISMUS DER PFLANZEN. By _Dr. J. Loeb_. Würzburg: Verlag von
George Hertz.
The object of this work is to fill a gap in the treatment of the
subject of animal movement depending on light, and to explain it by
a consideration of the actual facts. After stating that the effect
of light upon animal movement is purely mechanical, and that it is
governed partly by the action of the light as the exciting cause,
and partly by the structure of the sensitive organisation, Dr. Loeb
proceeds, "I will now prove that the direction of the light rays
determines quite generally the movements induced in animals by the
light, no less than the direction of plant movement, and that the
orientation not only of plants but of animals, depends upon the bodily
form of the latter, in so far as the dorsiventral animals themselves
move with the median plane in the direction of the light rays," etc.
The more refrangible are the rays of light the more efficacious is its
mechanical action upon animal and plant movement, which is affected
also by the constant intensity of the light and its temperature. Thus
it appears that the moth's flight into a flame must be considered
as the same mechanical process as, for instance, the motions of
sunflowers, the growth of the sprouting axis in buds, etc. Dr. Loeb's
conclusion that the circumstances which govern the movements of animals
towards the light are conformable to those which have been already
recognised in relation to plant-movement, is supported by numerous
facts, which appear to fully establish the accuracy of his observations
and deductions.
The diligent author who is at present engaged in scientific
investigations at the _stazione zoologica_ in Naples, has in the mean
time published a series of further observations on the same question,
all of which, as was to be expected, corroborate the propositions
set forth in the above mentioned little book. We have before us two
reprints, one from the _Biologische Centralblatt_, Vol. X, Nos. 5 and
6, 1890, the other the _Archiv f. d. ges. Phys._, Vol. XLVII, with one
plate and two wood-cuts, the former treating of the heliotropism of
the nauplii of _Balanus perforatus_, whose periodical migrations are
shown to depend upon the action of the light, the latter discussing the
common features of heliotropism in animals and plants.
UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR PHYSIOLOGISCHEN MORPHOLOGIE DER THIERE. 1. UEBER
HETEROMORPHOSE. By _Dr. Jacques Loeb_. With 1 plate and 3 figures.
Würzburg: George Hertz.
Julius von Sachs, Vöchting, Noll, and other botanists have successfully
opened the way to a knowledge of the growth of plants in their causal
conditions. This method has been applied to the physiology of animals
by Pflüger. The present pamphlet is a contribution to this endeavor by
Dr. Loeb, whose special object has been to determine the laws of the
restoration of lost organs in animal organisms. Botanists have found
that if a plant that has undergone the loss of an organ has to build it
up again, the new organ will be different from the original organ, and
this difference can be determined by law. Dr. Loeb inquires whether the
same can be said of the reconstruction of the lost organs of animals.
There are, as a rule, in animal organisms two poles, viz. the oral
pole, forming the head, and the aboral forming the tail. It has
been generally supposed that living animal substance possesses the
tendency to develop in one special direction oral organs, and in the
other aboral organs. This was called Polarity and is based upon the
experiments of Allman, Trembley, Dalyell, and others. The experiments
of Dr. Loeb, made with the view of testing the polarity theory, show
that it is possible to develop in animals possessing physiologically
distinct heads and tails, heads instead of tails in the aboral pole,
and to do so without any serious interference with the vitality of
the creature. The experiments have been made chiefly on _Tubularia
mesembryanthemum_, _Aglaophenia pluma_, _Plumularia pinnata_, and other
species.
Dr. Loeb proves by his experiments that external conditions control the
reproduction of organs, so that artificially oral organs can be made
to grow where aboral organs have been, and _vice versa_. It is this
faculty of animal organisms which Dr. Loeb calls _heteromorphosis_.
κρς.
DIE ETHISCHE BEWEGUNG IN DER RELIGION. By _Stanton Coit_, Ph. D.
Uebersetzung von Georg von Gizycki. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.
This series of Sunday lectures by Dr. Stanton Coit, the speaker of the
South Place Ethical Society of London, England, has been translated
into German, in the shape it is now before us, by Dr. Coit's friend
and teacher Prof. George von Gizycki; they have not yet appeared in
English. The South Place Ethical Society is not directly affiliated
to the Ethical Societies of North America, but it stands with them in
friendly relations. Dr. Coit, a native American, is strongly biased
in his views by his American co-workers; he is the youngest among
them, and is, I believe, to be considered as a disciple of Professor
Adler. He has inherited from Professor Adler the idea that we can have
ethics without a world-conception or a religion; yet this idea has been
considerably modified, and an approach to more positive and practical
views is perceptible in many passages of his sermons.
In the lecture "Which Ethics?" Dr. Coit says: "We need (_bedürfen_) a
theory concerning the universe and our position in it instead of the
old faith." Yet in contradiction to this, he declares that theories
are of little use. He adds: "If two men come down from their abstract
theories into real life and to the forces which create action, it is as
if they descend from two opposite mountain peaks into a warm and rich
valley where rivulets run down from both sides to unite their waters
inseparably into one continuous stream."
Is not this beautiful allegory, true as it certainly is in one sense,
after all misleading? Is not theory and theory different? If theory
means mere speculation, we heartily agree with the proposition to keep
clear of and far away from theorising. It is at best a harmless play,
and certainly a loss of valuable time. Yet if theory means methodical
systematisation of facts, it is not mere waste of time; in that case it
is the indispensable condition of all truly practical work. And it is
this latter kind of theory which also in the practical work of ethical
culture must be sought to be established. We must at least be clear as
to basic principles so that the efforts of ethical teachers may not be
at random, but directed by the progressive spirit of the age in harmony
with our best scientific and philosophic thought.
Concerning religion Dr. Coit says (p. 19) in his article "Why Ethics
Instead of Religion": "My own opinion is that there is one feature
which distinguishes Religion from all other doctrines, ceremonies,
and rules. This feature characterised Matthew Arnold's view. For he
insisted not only upon morals and their importance, and thought of
means for their propagation, but he proclaimed also that there was a
power above the will of man to which he must bow. In the very moment
he proposed that power which we have to obey, his ethics became
religious.... But the recognition of this higher power, if I am allowed
to propose my own views, appears to me of very little importance."
If there is such a power, and we have sufficient reasons not to
doubt its existence, I should say that for ethical purposes it is of
paramount importance to recognise it and to obey it. In another and a
more recent lecture, Dr. Coit pronounces a very different view, he says:
"Anybody who has ever reflected a moment, must have discovered how
dependent he is upon a power outside of his own will. He has no
strength either for good or for evil, which he has made himself. The
more he thinks about it, the deeper must become the feeling of his
dependence. And being aware that God, or whatever we call that power
in all things, does not mind his whims, he will find it easier not to
mind, himself, his own whims. The constant thought that we are not
the powers of life and death, will take away conceit and vanity and
foolishness. And in this way, it brings us in times of tribulation to a
quick resignation. It makes us loving brothers and sons."
Dr. Coit indeed aspires to make of ethical culture a religion for the
people. He speaks on this subject in his last lecture. He opposes
the Churches for mixing their ethics with theology, and he speaks
with great enthusiasm about the poetry of ethics, which is much more
powerful than the prose of ethics. He does not seem to see that the
influence of the churches is mainly due to their poetry of ethics.
Would it not be advisable to point out the prosaic truth in this poetry
for the purpose of freeing the human mind of the obnoxious elements of
a misunderstood poetry? Would it not be advisable to investigate the
poetry of the basic idea in ethics, viz., of the God-idea, so as to let
the ethical movement develop itself historically from the past. Dr.
Coit's method of dealing with the God-idea is far from satisfactory. He
is neither a theist nor an atheist. Sometimes he appears to appreciate
the moral importance of the God-idea in its purified shape, and then
again he seems to consider it as an ethically indifferent idea. Should
not this problem be settled by every one who undertakes to preach
ethics. It appears almost as if all the leaders of the ethical culture
societies underrated the ethical importance and indispensableness of
thought in general and of science and philosophy in particular.
The contradictions which appear in Dr. Coit's lectures show that he is
still developing. The book is full of promise and we have every reason
to hope that its author will overcome the unclearness that is still
lurking in his mind, and that he will grow with the work he is doing.
κρς.
FREMDES UND EIGENES AUS DEM GEISTIGEN LEBEN DER GEGENWART. By Prof. Dr.
_Ludwig Büchner_. Leipsic: Max Spohr.
Opinions admittedly are still divided with respect to the laudable
efforts of a large class of scientists and writers whose main object
is that of presenting the results of scientific research in an
intelligible, popular form. Every department of the natural sciences,
geology, astronomy, even psychology and comparative philology, each
and all, are now represented by able and ardent popular interpreters,
who at the same time by their aggressive style and by their polemical
methods not unfrequently seem to impart a kind of militant and
apostolic attitude to the cause of science. It must further be
admitted, that many of these writers, by the unanimous verdict of the
present age, are among the most instructive, readable, and actually
the most widely read authors of contemporaneous German, French,
and Anglo-American literature. At first glance, it accordingly may
seem rather strange, that these same popular authors should also be
subjected, not unfrequently, to their commensurate share of unfair, and
even offensive, popular criticism; and yet it could hardly be otherwise.
The well-known writer of these scientific and critical essays, Prof.
Ludwig Büchner, affords an exceptionally striking instance of the
unenviable lot of some of our most popular writers of science. In
one of these essays inscribed "Meine Philosophie," Professor Büchner
has been compelled to defend the arduous work of his laborious life
against a decidedly unfriendly and unappreciative criticism of his
philosophy and whole scientific activity, that some time ago appeared
in the American _Freidenker_ of Milwaukee. Prof. Büchner, with a touch
of legitimate bitterness, repudiates the imputation of having been,
or still being, as he himself calls it, only the "popularisator,"
expounder and commentator, of the theories and systems of other
thinkers; that, on the contrary, in Germany and elsewhere, among
the highest representatives of science, for more than thirty years
Professor Büchner himself has been recognised and honored as an
original worker and thinker. His book on "Force and Matter" (_Kraft
und Stoff_) was published five years before Darwin's great work on the
"Origin of Species." Subsequently his well-known popular Lectures
in connection with Darwin's work claim the distinguished merit, of
having more widely generalised and extended the Darwinian theory by
embracing the origin and evolution of man, which had until then been
overlooked by Darwin himself. By the contemporary press of Germany
Professor Büchner was then charged with premature rashness, and with
being only a shallow, imitative scientific dilettante; but all this
vituperative criticism was for ever silenced, when in the year 1871
Darwin's own work appeared on the "Descent of Man," in which Darwin
himself accepted all the consequences of the theory of evolution,
as set forth in Professor Büchner's Lectures, and, somewhat later,
in Professor Haeckel's "Natural History of Creation" (_Natürliche
Schöpfungsgeschichte_). Professor Büchner, moreover, is the author
of the widely popular work "The Future Life and Modern Science"
(_Das künftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_). To deny him,
accordingly, the rank and merit of a solid and original scientist
and thinker, as he himself says, is to do him a signal injustice, a
positive injury.
Let all this be willingly granted; but this concession, at all
events, does not settle his final, mediating attitude to the entire
satisfaction of philosophy, regarded as an independent science.
Professor Büchner openly declares himself in favor of popular science.
He maintains, that "Philosophy ought to step down from her lofty
state of independent science, and henceforth content herself with the
humble rôle of simply mediating the results of individual scientific
research; that science, in such case, would no longer run the risk
of being exposed to the scorn and contempt of the masses(!) ... In
popular scientific writings, at all times, there can and must occur
contradictions, superficial estimates, even trivialities, but all this
is perfectly understood by any fair-minded reader." ... These remarks
might almost tempt the reader to believe, that Professor Büchner,
in his eagerness to popularise science, really ignores the value of
philosophy as an independent science, and of philosophical research,
irrespective of all popular results, and that the Professor wishes to
inculcate a narrow and purely utilitarian estimate of philosophy. But,
the impulsive Professor, of course, knows better; his mental vision
embraces the entire field of the sciences, and he has written admirably
and entertainingly upon almost every scientific topic, and moreover he
admits, that possibly he sometimes contradicts himself.
One might further be inclined to ask, whether, in view of his
self-imposed, familiar contact with the popular mind, Professor Büchner
upon the whole displays the expected equanimity and broad-minded
consistency when resenting the harsh criticism of antagonists, which
he does with a singularly thin-skinned sensitiveness scarcely worthy
of a true philosopher. In all his other works and throughout these
critical essays, Professor Büchner himself shows no tender regard
for the feelings of his philosophical antagonists. In the critical
essay "Against Materialism," (_Wider den Materialismus_), for
example,—mainly directed against Prof. Harald Höffding,—he bluntly
affirms that Professor Höffding's works have produced upon him the
impression that the author is a man without the philosophical and
scientific knowledge requisite for the solution of the problems he has
ventured to approach.
From what has been said, the reader may expect to find much important,
instructive, and readable matter even in Professor Büchner's critical
essays, bearing upon the intellectual life of the period; but he also
must be prepared to find them leavened in no small degree with the
characteristic mental idiosyncrasies of their ever polemical author.
γνλν.
DEACON HERBERT'S BIBLE CLASS. By _James Freeman Clarke_. Boston: Geo.
H. Ellis.
This booklet is an unassuming little publication, but it is important
as a symptom of the times. It was written by the late Mr. James
Freeman Clarke many years ago as a series of papers for the _Christian
Inquirer_. Yet it is well that they should not be forgotten and the
lessons contained therein should be heeded by the clergy as well as the
laity of this country. It is an attempt to make religion practical and
to point out the true direction in which church-life has to develop.
There is a great truth in the general complaint made throughout the
world that the religion of civilised mankind, especially Christianity
in the shape it exists at present, has lost its life, its influence,
and its usefulness. Our religious views must be transformed, they must
be reconciled with the principles of science and must be adapted to the
real needs of the people. The problem is, how to do it.
If a solution of the problem shall be found, it is certain that it will
be first put into practice in the United States of America; for here
the church is free. The many different churches of our country, with
few exceptions (the Roman Catholic Church is perhaps the only one) are
in principle churches of the people. A change of opinion, of belief, of
religious conviction among the people will result in the appointment of
such pastors and leaders as are in agreement with their congregations.
Clergy and laity form here one organic body. The clergy are not imposed
upon their congregations by the state; they are the exponents of their
congregations, the representatives of the religious ideas (perhaps upon
the whole of the conservative religious ideas) of their churches.
How different things are in Europe, where the state-churches of England
and Germany, for instance, prevent all progress in religion, theology,
and church-life.
Mr. Clarke's book, if read with these considerations in mind, shows
the agencies that are at work in this country and that will (as we
confidently hope) result in a new phase of religious life. Among the
chapters of the book we note the following titles: "The way we helped
our minister to write good sermons"; "Aim of Life"; "Temptation of
Jesus"; "The Miracles"; "The Sermon on the Mount"; and others. The
spirit in which the book is written is not exactly rationalistic,
yet it shows in every line a strong monistic bias. For instance, the
usual definition of miracles as a suspension of the laws of nature is
discarded; and yet it would be erroneous to suppose that the style
of the book is marked by a radical tendency. Not at all. Every
faithful Christian can read it line for line without feeling the least
offence. But it is plain that herein lies the author's force. The
book is popular, but behind its popularity, unusual depth of thought
is noticeable. In a similar way St. Paul gave milk to his followers
because they were babes in Christ, and could not bear heavier food.
Mr. Clarke's book is written especially for babes in Christ, yet
every one who has given any serious thought to the religious problem
will appreciate at once the difficulty and the importance of such an
undertaking.
κρς.
PERIODICALS.
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. September, 1890. Vol. III. No. 3.
CONTENTS:
ON THE BRAIN OF LAURA BRIDGMAN. By _H. H. Donaldson_.
A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF REFLEX ACTION (II). By _C. F. Hodge_.
ON A CURIOUS VISUAL PHENOMENON. By _Joseph Le Conte_.
A COUNTING ATTACHMENT FOR THE PENDULUM CHRONOSCOPE. By _William
Noyes_.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. The Nervous System—by _H. H.
Donaldson_; Experimental Psychology; Criminology—by _Arthur
MacDonald_; Psychiatry—by _William Noyes_; Miscellaneous.
The full title of Dr. Donaldson's elaborate article is _Anatomical
Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the blind
Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewey Bridgman_. The object had in view in the
examination of the brain was "to determine, if possible, whether the
peculiar mental existence of Laura Bridgman, which was the result of
her defective sense-organs, has left any trace on her brain, or whether
such anomalies as may be observed are sufficiently explained when
considered as the direct consequences of the initial defect alone."
The article is therefore "a special study in the general field of the
inter-relation of brain-structure and intelligence." The final results
are reserved for a second article, but it appears from the present
one that the total area of Laura's brain is somewhat small for its
weight, and that it is slightly inferior to two other female brains
with which comparison was made, the inferiority depending mainly on the
smaller average depth of the sulci, that of the left side being the
most manifest. The difference can be explained in part at best, by the
failure of certain portions of the brain to develop completely. Dr.
Donaldson's article is illustrated by very carefully prepared plates.
In the present part of his sketch of the history of reflex action, Dr.
Hodge treats of the law demonstrated by Bell, that the _posterior roots
of the spinal nerves are sensory, the anterior motor_, which forms the
beginning of the modern history of the nervous system, and of "the
physical versus the psychic theory of reflex action." The mechanical
theory of reflex action was first elaborated by Marshall Hall. It was
opposed by Volkmann and others, among them Pflügel and Auerbach. On the
other hand, Lotze supported the former view, but he advanced "a step
beyond the comparatively crude, simple mechanism of Marshall Hall to a
mechanism of the utmost delicacy, a mechanism susceptible of the nicest
adjustments, capable of education, and of prolonged, independent, and
complex activity." Habit is only another name for mechanism.
Under the head of Psychiatry, Dr. William Noyes gives an elaborate
sketch of the life of Jean Jacques Rousseau bearing on the question of
his insanity, which is exciting considerable interest at the present
time. (E. C. Sanford, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)
MIND. October, 1890. No. LX.
CONTENTS:
THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. By _Herbert Spencer_.
MENTAL ELABORATION. By _James Sully_.
VOLKMANN'S PSYCHOLOGY (II). By _Thomas Whittaker_.
BERKELEY AS A MORAL PHILOSOPHER. By _Hugh W. Orange_.
MUENSTERBERG ON 'MUSCULAR SENSE' AND 'TIME-SENSE.' By the
_Editor_.
DISCUSSION: 1) Mr. Spencer's Derivation of Space. By _Prof. John
Watson_.
2) Dr. Pikler on the Cognition of Physical Reality. By _G. F.
Stout_.
CRITICAL NOTICES: Lewis's "A Text-Book of Mental Diseases."
Mercier's "Sanity and Insanity"; Jones's "Elements of Logic as
a Science of Propositions"; Coupland's "The Gain of Life and
other Essays."
ON THE UTILITARIAN FORMULA. By _James Sutherland_.
_The Origin of Music._ This article is intended as a postscript to Mr.
Spencer's essay on "The Origin and Function of Music," included in
his _Essays, Scientific, Political, and Speculative_, of which he is
preparing a final edition. It is a reply to Mr. Darwin, who supposes
music to have originated from a particular class of vocal noises, the
amatory class, instead of, as Mr. Spencer asserts, its being derived
from the sounds which the voice emits under excitement, eventually
gaining this or that character according to the kind of excitement.
After considering various objections by Mr. Edmund Gurney and others,
Mr. Spencer concludes: "The origin of music as the developed language
of motion seems to be no longer an inference but simply a description
of the fact."
Mr. James Sully deals with Differentiation, Assimilation, and
Association as the intellectual constituents in the process of Mental
Elaboration. Differentiation is considered first as a process of
marking off, by means of special adjustments of attention, particular
sensations; followed by Discrimination, which involves change of
psychical state, the dependence of mental life on which has been
formulated as the Law of Relativity. Assimilation, described as a
mode of unification or integration, is treated of under the headings,
_Psychological Nature of Likeness_; _Automatic Assimilation_;
_Recognition_; and _Transition to Comparative Assimilation_.
Association is the "process of psychical combination or integration
which binds together presentative elements occurring together or in
immediate succession." This supposes _Retention_ or the tendency of
a sensation to persist, and _Reproduction_, or the reappearance "in
consciousness" of the impression under a new representative form. The
three processes of Differentiation, Assimilation, and Association do
not follow each other, but are closely interconnected.
Part II. of _Volkmann's Psychology_ deals with the problem of Time and
Space, and with the subjects of Space of Time (_Zeitraum_), Motion,
Number, and Intuition. "Out of sensations intuitions are evolved in
consequence of the properties immanent in the sensations." While
their localisation progresses in the region of the more strongly
toned sensations, projection, or the "assignment of sensations to the
external world," goes on simultaneously in the region of toneless
sensations. By the addition of "consciousness of dependence in having
the sensation," there is the completion of the presentation of the
External Thing as _thing_. Illusions are divided into two classes;
namely, 'illusions of internal perception' and 'illusions of sense.'
The Ego is purely a psychical result of the soul "becoming conscious of
an interaction between one of its presentations and the most ramified
of its presentation-masses." Self-consciousness is defined as "internal
perception within the Ego." The mind is then dealt with as thinking,
feeling, desiring, and willing. Ethical feeling is a kind of æsthetic
feeling, distinguished from others by the peculiarity of its objective
basis, which is the actual will of the subject. Moral freedom is to
have the will determined by reason. Psychological freedom permanently
extended over the whole of volition is Character; its opposite is
Passion.
Mr. Orange furnishes a different explanation of Berkeley's ethical
system from that given by Professor Fraser, in a note to the third
dialogue of _Alciphron_ (ii. 107), and points out its agreement with
Berkeley's _Principles of Human Knowledge_. "Moral laws are laws of
nature; but there is no value or force in them as laws, save in so far
as they are the orderly expression of God's ideas." Man's ideas are
true or good, when the human spirit is at one with the divine. Both in
natural and moral philosophy the laws of nature are to be attained by
the use of reason.
Prof. Robertson draws attention to the concessions involved in
Münsterberg's idea of 'Muscular Sense.' To the term 'muscle-sensation'
no exception can be taken, "provided it is meant for no more than
mere external designation, as when we speak of 'eye-sensation,'
'skin-sensation,' or the like," and is not called 'sensation of
movement.' Münsterberg finds that a whole class of factors have
been overlooked, or hardly regarded, by previous inquirers into
'Time-Sense.' These are sensations (or representations) of muscular
tension, by synthesis of which with sense-elements (sounds by
preference) time-apprehension is explicable. He is struck particularly
with the part played in his experiments by the breath-rhythm, and
"it seems impossible to doubt that breathing has a prerogative
position among the sense-factors concerned in the estimation of short
time-intervals." The name 'Time-Sense' has through Münsterberg's
investigations "more justification than it ever got from its
inventors, for whom it has marked only the apparent immediacy of
time-apprehension."
In his criticism of Mr. Spencer's theory of the derivation of
space Prof. John Watson lays down as the fundamental position of
Transcendentalism, or Idealism, as he prefers to call it, "that the
universe is intelligible, and that man in virtue of his intelligence is
capable of grasping it in its essential nature. It therefore rejects
as unmeaning the doctrine of Mr. Spencer, that we know reality to be
unknowable." While recognising that Mr. Spencer and others have done
good service in drawing attention to certain outward aspects of the
evolution of mind, Professor Watson "concludes that no psychology
can be adequate which does not recognise that perception is not the
mere occurrence of transient feelings, but the first step in that
recognition of the true nature of reality which culminates in the
comprehension of the world as a single organic unity of which the
source and explanation is intelligence."
Mr. Stout points out, in reply to Dr. Pikler (_Mind_, No. 59), that the
sole aim of his article on "The Genesis of the Cognition of Physical
Reality" (_Mind_, No. 57) was to trace "the genesis of the presentation
of physical reality as it appears to the ordinary consciousness: not as
it may be modified, and perhaps rectified, by the reflective criticism
of this or that philosopher," and that what he urged against Mill was
simply that "he has confounded his own philosophical view of physical
reality with the view which men ordinarily take when they are not in a
philosophical mood."
It is shown by Mr. Sutherland that in the utilitarian ultimate
conception there is, in addition to "the greatest happiness, _plus_ an
arithmetical truth," the element of absolute justice, the existence of
which requires that "all subsidiary rights as means to greatest general
happiness should at utmost be classed under relative justice." (London:
Williams & Norgate.)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. October, 1890. Vol. I. No. I.
CONTENTS:
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. By _Professor Henry Sidgwick_.
THE FREEDOM OF ETHICAL FELLOWSHIP. By _Felix Adler_, Ph. D.
THE LAW OF RELATIVITY IN ETHICS. By _Professor Harald Höffding_.
THE ETHICS OF LAND TENURE. By _Professor J. B. Clark_.
THE COMMUNICATION OF MORAL IDEAS AS A FUNCTION OF AN ETHICAL
SOCIETY By _Bernard Bosanquet_, M. A.
DR. ABBOT'S "WAY OUT OF AGNOSTICISM." By _Professor Josiah Royce_.
A SERVICE OF ETHICS TO PHILOSOPHY. By _Wm. H. Salter_.
This is the first number of the _International Journal of Ethics_,
which is intended to take the place of the _Ethical Record_. In
the opening article, Professor Sidgwick affirms that the idea of a
universal and complete harmony of the earthly interests of all human
beings is "an optimistic illusion as to human relations, which in the
present age of the world has nearly faded away." Nevertheless, "a very
substantial gain would result if we could remove from men's minds
all errors of judgment as to right and wrong, good and evil, even if
we left other causes of bad conduct unchanged." What is practically
wanted is improvement in moral insight, and the aim of the paper is to
aid in the solution of certain intellectual difficulties which arise
when we try to get a clear idea of duty. Warfare among modern nations
"is normally not a mere conflict of interests, but also a conflict
of opposing views of right and justice." Disputants may therefore be
brought into harmony if they can be really and completely enlightened
as to their true rights, as distinguished from their interests. The
international law administered by arbitrators may be most useful "in
removing minor occasions of controversy and in minimising the mischief
resulting from graver conflicts," but it will not provide a settlement
of all occasions of strife. Where the sphere of arbitration ends
that of the moral method of attaining international peace begins;
"if we must be judges in our own cause, we must endeavor to be just
judges." The impartiality required is difficult, but "the judicial
function—which, in a modern state under popular government, has
become, in some degree, the business of every man"—might be performed
with success, "if national consciences could be roused to feel the
nobility and grapple practically and persistently with the difficulties
of the task."
Professor Adler's article is devoted to an account of the Ethical
Societies, which are described as being "consecrated to the knowledge
of the Good, but not to any special theory of the Good." To adopt
a philosophical formula as the basis of union would be to become a
philosophical sect, which he declares is "the most contemptible of
all sects, because the sectarian bias is most repugnant to the spirit
of genuine philosophy." The accepted norms of moral behavior form the
starting points of Ethical Societies and their basis of union. They
build on the common stock of moral judgment, which may be called the
common conscience. Ethics is both a science and an art. As a science
it has to explain the facts of the moral life, and it is necessary to
begin with the facts and to test theories by their fitness to account
for them. It is "the prime duty of every one in his individual capacity
to rise to the ever clearer apprehension of first principles," but for
this very reason Ethical Societies in their collective capacity abstain
from laying down any set of first principles as binding.
It is not quite clear how Professor Adler can declare that the Ethical
Societies are consecrated to the knowledge of the good, and yet make
so strong an opposition to their stating such knowledge in the exact
terms of a philosophical formula. Philosophy is nothing but knowledge
of the world systematised into a world-conception. It will hardly be
sufficient to make the "common conscience" the corner stone of any
society devoted to the elevation of morality. Not only would it be
difficult to ascertain what that "common conscience" at present is,
but, in addition, we can be assured that the "common conscience" is
constantly changing.
Ethics as a science means philosophical ethics; and Professor Adler's
ethics is, in fact, the expression of a philosophy. Yet in spite of the
advanced position of the Ethical Societies, which have discarded all
religious views and ceremonial practices, we find that their leader
still stands upon the ground of a dualistic extra-naturalism. Professor
Adler says:
"There is a reality other than that of the senses, and the ultimate
reality in things is, in a sense, transcending our comprehension, akin
to the moral nature of men. But how shall we acquaint ourselves with
this Supersensible. The ladder of science does not reach so far."
It is true that there are realities other than that of the senses;
take as a most simple instance mathematical points and lines. But
there is no reality which theoretically considered can not become
an object of science. The statement that there are facts to which
the ladder of science does not reach, is tantamount to a declaration
of supernaturalism and dualism. Professor Adler has discarded the
terminology of the old dogmatism, but he has not discarded its basic
error. Instead of developing the old faith into a monistic religion, he
throws away religion as a basis of ethics, but preserves carefully that
element in it which is hostile to science and philosophy.
The _Law of Relativity_ is a very important contribution by Professor
Höffding to the Science of Ethics. After stating that the moral law, if
it is to be truly universal, must "only judge the general direction of
the _tendency_ of the will," he affirms that the individual relativity
of ethics, or its personal equation, is a factor which enters into
the ethical question, "when different individuals with like ethical
principles and in like circumstances, but with different dispositions
and capacities have to be considered." The individual is always a part
of society, and the life of society is no other than that contained
in its members, the ideal being "reached only when the individual's
efforts in the cause of society also serve the free and harmonious
development of his own faculties and impulses." In an ideal State only
that would be demanded of each individual which lay within his range
and power. Self-control, as a negative virtue, is a psychological
impossibility. It is necessary to take note whether there is room for
other inclinations that could absorb the store of energy. The struggle
of self-control lasts until the new application of energy gains
complete ascendancy. The happiest man is where morality has become
organic and "there is an agreement between the task arising from the
general principles and the particular circumstances, and the capacities
and desires of the individual." Professor Höffding objects to the views
of the Italian _criminal-psychological_ school that atavism is a sign
of social imperfection, that it "does not justify placing society and
the criminal over against each other as absolute right and absolute
wrong." He concludes that it is at least an open question whether there
are any human beings "in whom no sympathy for the moral law can be
awakened, however much the law may be individualised."
The arguments of Professor Clark on _The Ethics of Land Tenure_ are
summed up in the following passage: "If a state originally owned its
land, in the fullest sense of the term, it had the right of voluntary
alienation which is inherent in such ownership. Increments of value,
present and future, are its property; in alienating them it gives
away its own. If the attainment of its ends requires that they be
transferred to others, the title of the grantees is valid. To deny to
the state the privilege of alienation is to essentially abridge its
natural rights; it is to make its ownership of the land incomplete."
In relation to what is incorrectly termed "unearned increments," it is
remarked, "if the essence of property is regarded, and not its form,
the increments of value attaching to land are not unearned by their
proprietors. In an active market land has its fair price, and this is
based partly on the future increments themselves." The loss arising
from a confiscation of land-value would fall "not merely on millions
who have titles in fee simple, but on all who have made loans on land
as security.... To every one it would come in the shape of a seizure
by the state of property invested in accordance with its own positive
invitation."
_The communication of moral ideas_, and not ideas about morality, which
are the abstract or scientific renderings of moral ideas, is considered
by Mr. Bosanquet as the proper function of an Ethical Society. The
fault of the present time is distraction, and "one great cause of this
distraction is the notion of a general duty to do good, or something
other than and apart from doing one's work well and intelligently."
The only certain way of communicating moral ideas is contagion, and
the most useful teacher of morality is "not so much a man of abstract
theory as a man of reasonable experience."
Ethics may be of service to philosophy, says Mr. Salter, in opening
up the realm of "what ought to be," beyond the realm of "what is and
happens." Moral ideas belong to the realm of unverifiable ideas, which
are believed in because of "their own intrinsic attractiveness and
authority." Ethics tells us of the law according to which men should
act, the law of justice and brotherhood; we may conclude "that whatever
may be the actual forces in the world at any time, justice and love
are rightfully supreme over them all, and that these are so interwoven
with the order of things that nothing out of harmony with them can
long stand." It is "the imperishable glory of transcendentalism in our
country that in the decay and disintegration of the ancient creed," it
sounded the high-note "that the soul can in some sense know the object
of its worship; that it need not feed on hearsay, and tradition, and
arguments, but can have vision." (Philadelphia: _International Journal
of Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut St.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. September, 1890. No. 177.
CONTENTS:
REMARQUES SUR LE PRINCIPE DE CAUSALITE. By _A. Lalande_.
PHILOSOPHES ESPAGNOLS.—J. HUARTE. By _J. M. Guardia_.
LES ORIGINES DE LA TECHNOLOGIE (_fin_). By _A. Espinas_.
UN DOCUMENT INEDIT SUR LES MANUSCRITS DE DESCARTES. By _V. Egger_.
NOTICES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES.
REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.
The principle of causality belongs only to the world of sense, that
of children and of the commonality of mankind who neither reflect nor
analyse their knowledge. It represents confusedly the continuity and
inertia which are proper to the scientific stage, as colors represent
imperfectly the undulations of the ether, and sound the vibrations
of ponderable matter. To make of causality a scientific property of
things, a law of the phenomenal and mechanical world, is to affirm that
bodies preserve their color in the absence of an eye to perceive it, or
their sonorousness when no one hears them. Moreover, from a scientific
standpoint, the words sound and color lose all proper meaning; while
the principle of causality retains a sense, but then expresses a false
proposition, and one which leads us incessantly into error. Several
consequences flow from M. Lalande's conception of causality. The first
is that this law is not a rational principle, but is an _empirical_
formula, in the mathematical sense of that word. The second is that
we are thereby led to see in the idea of _efficiency_ an artificial
concept, and, as would be said by philologists, a disease of language,
instead of a mysterious "power" that emanates from one phenomenon
in order to create its effect. A third consequence is the great
simplification it leads to in the problem of induction, which requires
us merely to believe in the stability of the laws of nature, which are
only mathematical laws proved by experience. The true foundation of
induction is the universal value of mathematics, which rests finally
on the principle of identity. The degree of perfection of a science
can be measured by the quantity of mathematics it employs; and it is
this preconceived idea which has given birth to all the psycho-physical
measures that have been recently introduced into psychology.
M. Guardia's paper gives a sketch of the philosophical system laid
down in the work of the Spanish writer J. Huarte, _The Trial of the
Spirits_, with an introductory account of the author and his book,
which first appeared in 1575. Huarte is described as unique among
Spanish thinkers, and as a leading figure among natural philosophers on
account of the daring novelty of his original views and the excellence
of his method, which is that of the inductive philosophy. His doctrine
is founded on that of Galen, and he proclaims the principle that the
physical determines the moral. All his metaphysics reduce themselves
to the recognition of the action of exterior causes, which are of
inorganic nature, and of the organism which reacts to them. He thus
explains all the manifestations of life, heredity intervening as a
factor in its evolution. Huarte was less concerned, however, with
physiology and psychology, than with the amelioration of the social
state. He worked for the future by creating of psychology an organic
science of observation and experience, founded on the knowledge of
human nature, and by basing on it the art of education.
In concluding his valuable study of the _Origin of Technology_, M.
Espinas, after giving numerous examples drawn from ancient Greek
life, says: "All the technical arts of this epoch have the same
characters. They are religious, traditional, local. The myths referred
to are at first the faithful as well as the symbolic expression of
them." This mythological symbolism is "the product of a psychological
and sociological projection, that is to say, the things of art are
conceived as benevolent or angered feelings, as intelligent inventions
or combinations that are attributed to fictitious idealised men, as
exchanges that are made with them, as gifts or precepts that are
received from them, or as orders imposed by their will. They are thus
psychical operations or social products drawn from human consciousness
unknown to it which, personified, find themselves invoked by it in
order to explain to itself its own creations."
The unpublished matter referring to the manuscripts of Descartes is
contained in a copy of the 1659 edition of the _Principes_ of the
French philosopher, and consists of numerous notes in the handwriting
of its former owner Joseph de Beaumont. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. No. 178. October, 1890.
CONTENTS:
LE DELIT POLITIQUE. By _G. Tarde_.
UNE NOUVELLE THÉORIE DE LA LIBERTÉ. By _A. Belot_.
NOTE SUR LA PHYSIOLOGIE DE L'ATTENTION. By _Ch. Féré_.
LES BASES EXPÉRIMENTALES DE LA GEOMETRIE. By _Jules Andrade_.
NOTE SUR LE PRINCIPE DE LA CAUSALITE. By _J.-J. Gourd_.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.
M. Tarde finds M. Lombroso too severe and at the same time too
kind towards the spirit of conservatism. Too severe in terming it
misoneism and too kind in regarding it as the only normal condition of
societies. The hospitable reception given to novelties is an equally
normal function, although intermittent. If instead of making all his
sociological ideas circle round the idea of the _new_, and creating
an unfruitful antithesis between the love and the hatred of novelty,
he had taken as his central notion the idea of imitation, and proved
the universal distinction between the imitation of the new and the
imitation of the old, M. Lombroso would have escaped many errors. In
all of us, caprice exists by the side of habit, due to physiological
misoneism; and the conflict between them goes on in each individual
throughout our life. Caprice triumphs at the commencement, but the
contest is terminated in old age by the definite victory of habit. It
is the same in the social life. The inclination to adopt new ideas is
due to the law of imitation, which is a more important factor in great
social movements than misoneism.
M. Belot remarks that he would not dare to write the title _Une théorie
nouvelle de la liberté_ if it referred to a theory of his own. Under
it he criticises the theory advanced by M. Bergson in his _Essai sur
les données immédiates de la conscience_; according to which freedom
belongs, not to the empirical personality of the superficial ego, but
to the deeper ego, the subjectivity itself, the alteration of which
through the laws of thought and exigencies of science gives rise to the
former. According to M. Belot, on the contrary, the will and freedom
are shown in the forcing back of the lower ego, which comes to the
surface, and its impulses by enlightened ideas. To act in harmony with
these is freedom, which is not inconsistent with determinism in the
proper sense. Determinism becomes freedom in becoming intelligent.
Until then we obey concealed impulses, which may belong to our parents,
our ancestors, or our social surroundings, and therefore we are not
free.
By an excellent series of experiments, M. Féré has demonstrated that in
attention all the qualities of movement are modified; its rapidity, its
energy, and its precision, the physiological condition of the process
being a general tension of the muscles. It is an error to suppose the
intervention of arrestive action, of inhibition, in the physiology of
attention. Voluntary immobility results from very intense muscular
activities, and has for its physiological condition the general
tension of the muscular system, which places the subject in such a
condition that he can react in the quickest and most energetic manner
possible to an excitation from whatever point it may come. This is
the physiological condition of attention. The exercise of immobility
is the most favorable to the development of intelligence, while the
relaxation of the muscles which results from the removal of the tension
tends to the suppression of attention, and of the psychical activity.
Excitations of the skin determine exaggerated reflex activities, more
rapid and more energetic movements. As intelligence is developed, the
reflex movements become less imperious, the multiplicity of motives
of action gives the illusion of freedom of choice. When the excitable
centres are incompletely developed, as with women and children, and
especially with degenerates, the impulsions and the reflex activities
generally, of which the centres are better developed, are more violent
and more uncontrollable. (Paris: Félix Alcan).
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. I.
Nos. 4 and 5.
CONTENTS:
UEBER DAS ERKENNEN DER SCHALLRICHTUNG. By _J. v. Kries_.
ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER KAUSALITAET. By _Th. Lipps_.
ZUR INTERAUREALEN LOKALISATION DIOTISCHER WAHRNEHMUNGEN. By _Karl
L. Schaefer_.
ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER FRAGE. By _Rich. Wahle_.
UEBER NEGATIVE EMPFINDUNGSWERTE (I). By _H. Ebbinghaus_.
VERSAMMLUNGEN: Internationaler medizinischer Kongress zu Berlin
1890. I. Sektion für Augenheilkunde. Referiert von _Claude du
Bois-Reymond_.—II. Sektion für Ohrenheilkunde. Referiert von
_Krakauer_.
LITERATURBERICHT.
Professor J. von Kries examines the hypotheses propounded of late
concerning the recognition of the direction in which sound-waves
reach the ear. Professor Preyer maintains that different irritations,
according to the source of sound, take place in the semi-circular
canals, and Münsterberg, on the basis of his own experiments, has
with some essential modifications accepted Preyer's views. The
author devotes his chief attention to the localisation of sounds
originating either to the right or to the left of the median plane.
The experiments were made with two movable whistles, the intensity of
which could easily be regulated. The result was that concerning right
and left direction, and also with regard to simultaneous sounds from
both directions at a different pitch, each note could be correctly
localised. He adds that, so far as he can judge, even he who adopts
Münsterberg's view has to fall back upon a comparison of the intensity
in both ears. A localisation of whistle-sounds in the median line, be
it in front or at the back, was not so certain. A single tone was, upon
the whole, correctly localised; yet it was difficult to discriminate
two sounds in the median plane.
In another article on the same subject, entitled _On Interaureal
Localisation of Diotic Sensations_ Karl L. Schaefer of Jena
recapitulates in brief the monotic and diotic experiments made by
Silvanus B. Thompson, Purkynés, Urbantschitsch, and Preyer; completing
the inquiries of Fechner on the subject he states the following result:
"Let two tuning forks be placed at an equal distance from the median
plane in front of the ears, so that their sound is medianly localised:
1) Synchronal vibrations of any pitch, at the same distance, and in
exactly opposite directions, produce median oscillations; 2) If the
forks are moved a tempo to the right or to the left, i. e. in the same
direction, the sound rolls from ear to ear, so long as the motions
are not too rapid; 3) If they are executed as quickly as possible the
vibrations have their seats in both ears."
_The Psychology of Causality_ is the subject of a longer article (47
pages) by Prof. Th. Lipps. Lipps declares that his "investigation
intends to reduce causality to association, and the law of causality
to the law of association." The author does not identify his
undertaking with the psychology of association, and protests against
considering mind-activity as passive processes. He devotes almost too
much space to stating what is, or can easily become, an anthropomorphic
conception of causation. Where he propounds his positive views,
we miss discriminative exactness. _Ursache_ and _Grund_ are not
sufficiently distinguished, and the definitions of formal and material
cognitions, are not lucidly stated. Dr. Lipps says: "All cognition
is objectively conditioned representation; respectively associations
of representations. In purely formal cognition the objective
_raison d'être_ (_Grund_) consists in the presence of a contents of
consciousness. In material cognition, or cognition by experience in
the narrower sense, it consists in the consciousness of the objective
reality of a contents of consciousness."[66] The author's conclusion is
summarised as follows:
[66] The passage being so difficult to translate, we quote
the original in full: "Alle Erkenntniss ist objectiv
begründetes Vorstellen, bezw. Verbinden von Vorstellungen.
Bei der lediglich formalen Erkenntniss besteht der
objective Grund im Dasein eines Bewusstseinsinhaltes, bei
der materialen oder Erfahrungserkenntniss im engeren Sinne
besteht er im Bewusstsein der objectiven Wirklichkeit eines
Bewusstseinsinhaltes."
"Hume's work and his mistake can thus plainly be recognised. That
causal connection is a connection among our ideas, not a connection
among the objects represented, that the necessity which distinguishes
this connection consists in the psychological compulsion to combine one
fact with another, that this compulsion has its reason in association,
is the discovery of Hume; and this discovery of Hume is one of the
most important in the history of philosophy. That the world becomes a
world regulated by law, by being subjected to the law of our mind, this
anthropocentric standpoint was therewith determined. Hume's mistake
consisted only in this: He did not recognise the full importance of the
law of association. Therefore he did not see what associative relations
are directly identical with the causal relation. An attempt was made
to cover the defect rising therefrom by the principle of habit. Not
the principle of association, but the principle of habit depriving the
principle of association of its strength, hindered Hume from proposing
the correct answer to the question, 'How in experience are general and
necessary judgments possible?'" Professor Lipps does not answer this
question satisfactorily either; he gives no explanation of the fact
that in experience general and necessary judgments are possible. He
simply states the fact. Every natural scientist, he says, expects that
a certain result that has been observed once, will always take place
again if the experiment be repeated under exactly the same conditions.
Professor Lipps states, in concluding, that he is fully conscious of
having discussed only a small part of that which might be said on this
subject, and adds: "Perhaps objections or criticisms will give me an
occasion for additional remarks." We here call his attention to the
treatment of the subject in Dr. Paul Carus's pamphlet _Ursache, Grund
und Zweck_ (Dresden: Grumbkow, 1881) and also to his articles on Form
and Formal Thought and on Causality in _Fundamental Problems_.
Dr. Richard Wahle, Privat-docent in Vienna, defines in a short sketch
on _The Psychology of the Question_ the meaning of Question in the
following way: a question is "the preparation during a state of
indecision for a perception of the decision." In explaining the meaning
of this decision Richard Wahle makes an occasional fling at that kind
of psychology which divorced from physiology confines itself to the
method of introspection.
The last article, by Prof. H. Ebbinghaus, is the first part of a
criticism of Fechner's posthumous letters on _Negative Empfindungs
verthe_, published in the first numbers of this periodical. These
letters, Ebbinghaus declares, afford an interesting insight into
the scientific personality of Fechner; yet the doctrine contained
therein, he adds, has its drawbacks. Ebbinghaus does not accept
Fechner's presentation of the case, but refers us to Delbœuf from
whose experiments alone, he says, the correct interpretation of
negative values of sensations can be derived. Delbœuf's views are not
so clearly presented in his first statement as in a later article
written in answer to the objections of Tannery, published in the
_Revue Philosophique_ V. 1878, and republished under the title _Examen
critique de la loi psychophysique_ (Paris, 1883). Ebbinghaus adopts
Langer's definition of negative values of sensations. They are "such
as under all circumstances if additively connected with equally great
positive ones produce as a result zero."
The reports of the proceedings of the International Congress of
Physicians, Berlin, 1890, will be of special value to physicians. The
present number contains those of the sections of oculists and aurists.
The number contains a valuable bibliographical catalogue of the chief
works on physiological psychology for the year 1889. (Hamburg and
Leipsic: L. Voss.)
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 1 and 2.
CONTENTS:
QUANTITAET UND QUALITAET IN BEGRIFF, URTHEIL UND
GEGENSTAENDLICHER ERKENNTNISS. By _Paul Natorp_.
ZUM BEGRIFF DES NAIVEN REALISMUS. By _E. von Hartmann_.
BEMERKUNGEN ZU VORSTEHENDEM AUFSATZ. By _A. Döring_.
RECENSIONEN.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
Professor Paul Natorp, the editor, discusses Quantity and Quality in
Concept, Judgment, and Objective Cognition. His object is the attempt
not to proceed subjectively, or psychologically, or genetically, or
causally, or teleologically, but purely objectively in the same sense
as mathematics proceeds objectively. The result which he reaches is
summarily expressed in the statement "that there is no formal logic
... and that it cannot exist at all—except it be based upon the logic
of objective cognition (transcendental logic), or represents a part
thereof, the severance of which from the whole to which it belongs
can have merely technical not scientific reasons." (Heidelberg: Georg
Weiss.)
RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. September and October, 1890.
CONTENTS:
DELLA PERCEZIONE DEL CORPO UMANO. By _L. Pietrobono_.
LE IDEE PEDAGOGICHE DI PIETRO CERETTI.
DELL' ATTENZIONE. By _V. Benini_.
LA SCUOLA E LA FILOSOFIA PITAGORICHE. By _S. Ferrari_.
BIBLIOGRAFIA.
BOLLETTINO PEDAGOGICO E FILOSOFICO.
NOTIZIE.
RECENTI PUBBLICAZIONI.
RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. November and December, 1890.
CONTENTS:
IL PRESENTE DELLA STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA. By _L. Credaro_.
LA PEDAGOGIA DI JACOPO SADOLETO. By _A. Piazzi_.
DELLA PERCEZIONE DEL CORPO UMANO. By _L. Pietrobono_.
BIBLIOGRAFIA, etc.
There are two problems which at present command a general and a keen
interest in all countries; viz. the psychological problem and the
ethical problem, the latter comprising all the questions of education
and instruction, religious as well as secular. If this is true of
Germany, France, England, and the United States, it is no less true of
Italy. The _Rivista Italiana di Filosofia_, so ably edited by Luigi
Ferri, Professor at the University of Rome, shows this tendency in its
latest numbers in a marked degree. They contain among other valuable
materials an article by Luigi Pietrobono on the perception of the
human body, a psycho-physiological investigation of sentient substance
with special reference to sensation and perception. The author arrives
at a result, which, if it could be sustained, would lead to an
outspoken dualism. Pietrobono believes in two principles, a psychical
and an organical, forming an original synthesis and antithesis,
interdependent upon and inseparable from each other. Vittorio Benini
discusses in the same number the captivating subject of Attention,
starting from a discussion of Ribot's monograph on the subject, and
devoting his main interest to what he calls "l' attenzione perceptiva
è accompagnata dall' intelligenza." The latter kind of attention is
of especial importance in education, a subject which is discussed in
the conclusion of the article. This leads us to another essay which
treats of an exclusively educational subject, proposing the pedagogical
ideas of Pietro Ceretti. This article does not contain new truths,
but emphasises truths which have perhaps been too little recognised
in Italy. Starting from the maxim that all education must develop the
faculties of body, soul, and mind (le facoltà del corpo, dell' anima e
della mente), and that all education must be conducted so as to let the
social body derive the benefits therefrom, he urges besides demanding
the moral and intellectual culture of man a technical instruction, and
among the sciences, literature, and history, he would give mathematics
a prominent place.
It may be added that the department of Bibliography contains among
other reviews discussions of the following works: 1) Reich's book on
Gian Vincenzo Gravina as an author of æsthetics; 2) Antonio Rosmini's
Fragments of a Philosophy of Law and Politics; 3) Robert Benzoni's The
Philosophy of Our Day; 4) Pietro Ellero's The Social Question; 5),
in the December number, Ferdinando Puglia's Evolution in the History
of Italian Philosophical Systems; 6) The national edition of Galileo
Galilei's works; and 7) La Somiglianza nella Scuola Positivista e
l'Identità nella Metafisica Nuova, by Donato Jaia.
VOPROSY FILOSOFI I PSICHOLOGUII.[67] Vol. I. No. 4.
[67] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._ In the Russian
language.
CONTENTS:
(PART I.)
REMARKS. By the Editor, _Prof N. Grote_.
THE POLITICAL IDEALS OF PLATO AND OF ARISTOTLE IN THEIR UNIVERSAL
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE. By _Prince E. N. Trubetzkoi_.
THE RELATIONS OF VOLTAIRE TO ROUSSEAU. (Conclusion.) By _E.
Radlow_.
THE ETHICAL DOCTRINE OF KANT. By _L. Lopatine_.
HYPNOTISM IN PEDAGOGY. By _A. Tokarsky_.
CONCERNING THE QUESTION OF FREEWILL FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF
HISTORICAL PROCESS. By _N. Karyew_.
THE VITAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY. By _N. Grote_.
NECROLOGY. M. I. Vladislavlew, Rector of the University of St.
Petersburg. By _K._
(PART II.)
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: The Elements of Will. By _N. Lange_.
CRITIQUE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.
COMMON CHARACTERISTICS. Concerning the conflict with the Occident
in connection with the literary activity of a Slavophil. By _V.
Rotzanow_. The ethical doctrine of Count Tolstoi and its most
recent criticism. By _P. E. Astafiew_.
BOOK REVIEWS. Reviews of Russian philosophical works on
Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology, Ethics, and Æsthetics. Reviews
of foreign philosophical periodicals. Philosophical articles in
Russian ecclesiastical periodicals.
MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN RUSSIA. (1855-1888).
TRANSACTIONS OF THE MOSCOW PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
The distinguished Editor, Prof. N. Grote, in his introductory
remarks calls attention to the fact that the present issue of this
philosophical and literary review in the Russian language, completes
the series that had been promised during the first year of its
existence. The review does not claim, during this brief lapse of time,
to have been able to solve all the many problems incident to the task
that it had assumed at the outset of its career; but it may at least
modestly claim to have won the hearty sympathy of an intelligent
fraction of the Russian people, expressed by the acquisition of a
comparatively large number of subscribers. This material success,
moreover, attests the fact that the editor did not deceive himself
when at the original publication of the review he seemed to notice an
awakening in his country of more serious intellectual interests, and
the rise of a desire for a philosophical analysis of the principles of
knowledge and of life.
On the other hand, with regard to whether the problems treated of
in the pages of the review are identical with those that occupy by
preference the minds of intelligent Russian readers; or whether the
exposition and the methods of investigation have been properly adjusted
to the degree of development and to the mental calibre of the mass of
its readers, it will suffice to remark, says the editor, that the full
development of all the potential forces of nature and of mind can be
attained only through slow and persistent action. We have to bear in
mind that the attempt is by no means easy to organise for the first
time in a project of this kind the many active workers of a country in
which people had never before been associated in a similar undertaking.
Yet in confidently entering upon the publication of this review, the
editor well knew that there existed in Russia abundant intellectual
powers, perfectly adequate to the demands of a high-class philosophical
magazine—scientists, learned specialists, talented thinkers, and men
of letters; and the review without doubt will not fail to enlist the
valuable assistance of all these men in the arduous task, which it will
continue steadily to pursue. The main task above all, is to advance
the development of _self-consciousness_ in modern Russian society, but
the success of this aspiration depends of necessity on the continued
sympathy and good will of the public.
As regards the external form of the review, for the greater convenience
of the public, instead of four volumes of 20 sheets, as hitherto, there
will be issued during the present year five volumes in all—one volume
of 15-16 sheets bimonthly, except during the midsummer months.
The editor in conclusion expresses his acknowledgment to several
of his western colleagues, to the editors of _Mind_, the _Revue
Philosophique_, the _Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie_, and _The
Open Court_—all of whom have promised to note with genuine interest
the contents of the Russian review "Questions of Philosophy and of
Psychology." (Moscow, 1890.)
VOL. I. APRIL, 1891. NO. 3.
THE MONIST.
THE FACTORS OF EVOLUTION.
THEIR GRADES AND THE ORDER OF THEIR INTRODUCTION.
The usually recognised factors of evolution are at least five; viz.:
(1) Pressure of a changing _environment_ affecting function and
function affecting structure, and the changed structure and function
inherited and integrated through successive generations indefinitely.
(2) _Use and disuse_ of organs reacting on growth-force and producing
change in form, structure, and relative size of parts, and such change
inherited and integrated through successive generations. (3) _Natural
selection_ among individuals of a varying progeny, of those most in
accord with an ever-changing environment—or as it has been otherwise
called "_survival of the fittest_" in each successive generation. (4)
_Sexual selection_: the selection by the female, among varying male
individuals all competing for her possession, of the strongest or the
most attractive. Among mammals the selection is mainly of the strongest
as decided by _battle_; among birds, of the most attractive as
determined by splendor of color or beauty of song. (5) _Physiological
selection_, or selection of those varieties, the individuals of
which are fertile among themselves, but sterile or less fertile with
other varieties and with the parent stock. This has also been called
"_segregate fecundity_" by Gulick, and homogamy by Romanes.
These five factors are all usually but not universally recognised. The
first two are Lamarckian, the second two Darwinian factors. In the
Lamarckian factors the changes occur _during individual life_, and
the offspring is supposed to inherit them unchanged. In the Darwinian
factors on the contrary the _changes are in the offspring_, and the
individuals during life are supposed to remain substantially unchanged.
The fifth factor has, only very recently, been brought forward by
Romanes and Gulick and is not yet universally recognised; but we
believe that with perhaps some modifications it is certain to triumph.
(6) To these recognised factors of organic evolution must now be added,
in _human evolution_, another and far higher factor, viz. conscious,
voluntary _co-operation in the work of evolution_, conscious striving
for the betterment of the individual and of the race. This factor
consists essentially in the _formation and pursuit of ideals_. We call
this a factor, but it is also much more than a factor. It stands in
place of nature herself—it is a higher-rational nature using all the
factors of physical nature for its own higher purposes. To distinguish
the evolution determined by this factor from organic evolution, we
often call it _progress_.
Underlying all these factors as their necessary condition, and
therefore themselves not called factors, are two opposite operative
principles, viz. _heredity and variability_. Like the conservative and
progressive elements in society, one tends to fixedness, the other to
change. The one initiates change, the other accumulates its effects in
successive generations. The one tries all things, the other holds fast
to whatever is good. They are both equally necessary to the successful
operation of any or all of the factors.
Let us now compare these six factors, as to their grade or position in
the scale of energy and as to the order of their introduction.
The first two—Pressure of the environment and Use and disuse, i. e.
the Lamarckian factors—are the lowest in position, most fundamental
in importance, and therefore most universal in their operation. They
are therefore also first in the order of time. They precede all other
factors and were _for a long time the only ones in operation_. For
observe: all the selective factors, viz. those of Darwin and Romanes,
are wholly conditioned on Reproduction; for the changes in the case of
these are not in the individual life but only in the offspring. And
not only so but they are also strictly _conditioned on sexual modes
of reproduction_. For all non-sexual modes of reproduction such as
fission and budding are but slight modifications of the process of
growth, and the resulting multitude of organisms may be regarded as in
some sense _only an extension of the first individual_. There is thus a
kind of immortality in these lowest protozoa. Of course therefore the
identical characters of the first individual are continued indefinitely
_except in so far as they are modified_ in successive generations by
the effect of the environment or by use and disuse of organs—i. e.
by _Lamarckian factors_. In sexual generation, on the contrary, the
characters of two diverse individuals are funded in a common offspring;
and the same continuing through successive generations, it is evident
that the inheritance in each individual offspring is infinitely
multiple. Now the tendency to variation in offspring is in proportion
to the multiplicity of the inheritance: for among the infinite number
of slightly different characters, as it were offered for inheritance in
every generation, some individuals will inherit more of one and some
more of another character. In a word, sexual generation, by multiple
inheritance, tends to variation of offspring and thus _furnishes
material for natural selection_.
Thus then I repeat, all the selective factors are absolutely dependent
for their operation upon sexual reproduction. _But there was a time
when this mode of reproduction did not exist._ It is certain the
non-sexual preceded the sexual modes of reproduction. I cannot stop
now to give the reasons for believing this. I have already given them
in some detail in a previous article[68] to which I would refer the
reader. Suffice it to say now that the order of introduction of the
various modes of reproduction culminating in the highest sexual modes
is briefly as follows: (1) _Fission._ An organism of the lowest kind
grows and divides into two. Each half grows to mature size and again
divides; and so on indefinitely. In this case there is no distinction
between parents and offspring. Each seems either or neither. (2)
_Budding._ Growth-force concentrating in one part produces a _bud_,
which continues to grow and individuate itself more and more until
it separates as a distinct individual. This is a higher form than
the last because in this case the individual is not sacrificed. Only
a small part separates and the separated part is in some sense an
_offspring_. We have therefore for the first time the distinction
of parent and offspring. (3) By the _law of differentiation and
localisation of functions_, the bud-forming function is next relegated
to a special place and we now have a bud-forming organ. (4) By another
general law, the law of _interior transfer_, the bud-forming organ is
next transferred for greater safety to an interior surface and thus
_simulates_ an ovary, although not yet a true ovary or _egg-forming_
organ. Examples of all these steps are found among existing animals.
[68] _Genesis of Sex, Pop. Sci. Monthly_, 1879, Vol. xvi. p.
167. _Revue Scientifique_, Feb. 14, 1880.
Thus far reproduction is non-sexual. But now comes the great step,
i. e. the introduction of sexual reproduction, in its lowest forms.
(5) This simulated ovary or bud-forming organ becomes a true ovary or
egg-forming organ; or rather, at first, a combination of ovary and
spermary. The same organ prepares two kinds of cells, male and female,
germ-cell and sperm-cell, which by their union produce an egg which
develops into an offspring; and not only an offspring in the sense of
a separated part of a previous individual, but in some sense a new
creature, the creation of a _new individual_. There is an enormous
difference and even contrast between this and all preceding modes. In
non-sexual modes one individual becomes two; in this, two individual
cells unite to form one. It is an expensive, even wasteful mode unless
attended with some great advantage. The nature of this advantage we
will presently see.
Thus far we have given only the lowest form of sexual generation. The
two sexual _elements_ only, germ-cell and sperm-cell are separated
from each other, but not yet even the sexual organs, ovary and
spermary, much less the sexual individuals, male and female. (6) The
sex-element-forming function is next differentiated and localised in
two different organs, ovary and spermary, but not yet in two different
individuals. This is hermaphroditism so common in plants and in lower
animals. (7) The already separated sexual organs are next localised in
different individuals, and we now have male and female individuals.
This is the case in many plants and in all the higher animals. (8) And
finally these male and female individuals become more and more diverse
in character.
The object of this whole process of separation, first of the elements,
then of the organs, then of the individuals, and last the increasing
divergence of the individuals, is undoubtedly the funding of more and
more diverse characters in a common offspring; and thus by increasing
multiplicity of inheritance to insure larger variation in offspring and
thereby furnish more abundant material for natural selection. This is
far more than a compensation for the apparent wastefulness of this mode
of reproduction.
If then the non-sexual preceded the sexual modes of reproduction,
evidently, _at first, only Lamarckian factors could operate_. Evolution
was then carried forward wholly by changes in the individual produced
by _the environment_ and by _use and disuse of organs_, continued and
increased through successive generations indefinitely. It is probable
therefore that for want of the selective factors, the rate of evolution
was at first comparatively slow; unless indeed, as seems probable, the
earliest forms were, as the lowest forms are now, more plastic under
pressure of physical conditions than are the present higher forms.
The great contrast between the Lamarckian and Darwinian factors in
this regard, and the slowness of change _now_ in higher forms under
_Lamarckian factors alone_, is best shown in plants where either kind
of factors may be used at pleasure. In these, if we wish to _make_
varieties, we propagate by seeds—sexual reproduction—but if we wish
to _preserve_ varieties, we propagate by buds and cuttings—non-sexual
reproduction.
We have taken the two Lamarckian factors together, in contrast with
the Darwinian. But even in the two Lamarckian factors there is a great
difference in grade. Undoubtedly the lowest and first introduced was
pressure of the _physical environment_. For even _use and disuse_
of organs implies some degree of volition and voluntary motion, and
therefore already some advance in the scale of evolution.
With the introduction of sex another entirely different and higher
factor was introduced, viz. _natural selection_, among a varying
progeny, of the fittest individuals. We have already seen how sexual
generation produces variation of offspring and how this furnishes
material for natural selection. As soon, therefore, as this form
of generation was evolved, this higher factor came into operation,
and immediately, as it were, _assumed control_ of evolution, and
the previous factors _became subordinate_ though still underlying,
conditioning, modifying the higher. The result was an immediate
increase in the speed and in the diversity of evolution. It is very
worthy of note too, that it is in the higher animals, such as birds
and mammals, where we find the highest form of sexual generation,
where the diversity of funded characters and therefore the variation
in the offspring is the greatest, and natural selection most active:
it is precisely among these that the Lamarckian factors are most
feeble, because during the most plastic portion of life the offspring
is removed from the influence of the physical environment and from the
effects of use and disuse, by their enclosure within the womb or within
a large egg well supplied with nourishment. In these, development is
already far advanced before Lamarckian factors can operate at all.
Next I suppose _Physiological selection_ or Romanes's factor came into
operation. After the introduction of sex, it became necessary, that the
individuals of some varieties should be in some way _isolated_, so as
to prevent the swamping of varietal characters as fast as formed, in a
common stock by cross breeding. In very low forms with slow locomotion,
such isolation might easily take place accidentally. Even in higher
forms, changes in physical geography or accidental dispersion by winds
and currents, would often produce _geographical isolation_; and thus
by preventing crossing with the parent stock, secure the formation of
new species from such isolated varieties. But in order to insure in
all cases the preservation of commencing species, _sexual isolation_
was introduced or evolved as I suppose later, and according to Romanes
somewhat as follows:
All organs are subject to variation in offspring, but none are so
sensitive in this regard as the reproductive organs; and these in no
respect more than in relative fertility under different conditions.
Suppose then the offspring of any parent to vary in many directions.
By cross-breeding among themselves and with the parent stock, these
are usually merged in a common type, their differences pooled, and the
species remains fixed or else advances slowly by natural selection,
along _one line_, as physical conditions change in geological time. But
from time to time there arises a variation in the reproductive organs
of some individuals, of such kind that these individuals are fertile
among themselves, but sterile or less fertile with other varieties
and with the parent stock. Such individuals are _sexually isolated_
from others, or _sexually segregated_ among themselves. Their varietal
differences of all kinds are no longer swamped by cross-breeding, but
go on to increase until they form a new species. It is evident then,
as Romanes claims, that natural selection alone tends to _monotypal_
evolution. Isolation of some sort seems necessary to _polytypal_
evolution. The tree of evolution under the influence of natural
selection alone grows palm-like from its terminal bud. Isolation was
necessary to the starting of lateral buds, and thus for the _profuse
ramification_ which is its most conspicuous character.
Next, I suppose, was introduced, _sexual selection_, or contest
among the males by battle or by display, for the possession of the
female, the success of the strongest or the most attractive, and the
perpetuation and increase of these superior qualities of strength
or beauty in the next generation. This I suppose was later, because
connected with a higher development of the psychical nature. This is
especially true when beauty of color or song determines the selection.
As might be supposed therefore, this factor is operative only among the
highest animals, especially birds and mammals, and perhaps some insects.
Next and last, and only with the appearance of man, another entirely
different and far higher factor was introduced, viz. _conscious,
voluntary co-operation in the work of evolution_—a conscious voluntary
_effort to attain an Ideal_. As already said, we call this a factor,
but it is much more than a factor. It is another nature working in
another world—the spiritual—and like physical nature using all
factors, but in a new way and on a higher plane. In early stages man
developed much as other animals, unconscious and careless whither he
tended and therefore with little or no voluntary effort to attain a
higher stage. But this voluntary factor, this striving toward a goal
or ideal, in the individual and in the race, increased more and more
until in civilised communities of modern times it has become by far the
dominant factor. Reason, instead of physical nature, takes control,
though still using the same factors.
Now, in this whole process, we observe two striking stages. The one is
the introduction of Sex, the other the introduction of Reason.[69] They
might be compared to two equally striking stages in the evolution of
the individual, viz. the moment of _fertilisation_ and the moment of
_birth_. As the ontogenic evolution receives fresh impulse at the two
moments of fertilisation and of birth; so the evolution of the organic
kingdom at the two periods mentioned. With the appearance of _sex_,
three new and higher factors are introduced, and these immediately
assumed control and quickened the rate of evolution. With the
appearance of reason in man another and far higher factor is introduced
which in its turn assumes control, and not only again quickens the
rate, but elevates the whole plane of evolution. This voluntary,
rational factor not only assumes control itself, but transforms all
other factors and uses them in a new way and for its own higher
purposes.
[69] By Reason I mean the faculty of dealing with the
phenomena of the inner world of consciousness and ideas, or
_reflection_ on the facts of consciousness. Animals live in
_one_ world, the outer _world of sense_; man in _two_ worlds,
in the outer world like animals, but also in the inner and
higher _world of ideas_. All that is characteristic of man
comes of this capacity of dealing with this inner world. In
default of a better word I call it Reason. If any one can
suggest a better word I will gladly adopt it.
This last is by far the greatest change which has ever occurred in
the history of evolution. In organic evolution nature operates by
necessary law without the voluntary co-operation of the thing evolving.
In human progress man voluntarily co-operates with nature in the work
of evolution and even assumes to take the process mainly into his
own hands. Organic evolution is by _necessary_ law, human progress
by _free_, or at least by _freer_, law. Organic evolution is by a
_pushing_ upward and onward from below and behind, human progress by
an aspiration, an attraction toward an ideal—a _pulling_ upward and
onward from above and in front.
This great change may well be likened to a _birth_.[70] Spirit or
Reason or the Psyche—call it what you like—was in embryo in animals
in increasing degrees of development through all geological times
and came to birth and capacity of free activity, became free spirit
investigating its own phenomena in man. In animals the evolution of
Psyche was the unconscious result of organic evolution. In man the
Psyche is _born_ into a new world of freer activity and undertakes to
develop itself.
[70] See _Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought_,
Part iii. Chap. iv, where the writer's views are more fully
brought out.
It may be well to stop a moment and show briefly some of the striking
differences between organic and human evolution, differences resulting
wholly from the introduction of this new factor, or rather this
evolution on a new and higher plane.
(1) In organic evolution the fittest are those most in _harmony with
the environment_ and therefore they _survive_. In human evolution
the fittest are those most _in harmony with the ideal_, and often,
especially in the early stages of evolution, during the dominance of
natural selection, they _do not survive_ because not in harmony with
the social environment.
(2) In organic evolution the weak, the helpless, the unfit in any way,
_perish_, and ought to perish, because this is the most efficient way
of _strengthening the blood_, or _physical_ nature. In human evolution
the weak, the helpless, the physically unfit, are _sustained_, and
ought to be sustained, because sympathy, love, pity _strengthens
the spirit or moral nature_. But the spirit or moral nature is also
sustained by, and conditioned on, the physical nature. In all our
attempts therefore to help the weak we must be careful that we avoid
poisoning the blood and weakening the physical health of the race. This
we believe can and will be done by _rational education_, physical,
mental, and moral. We only allude to this. It is too wide a subject to
follow up here.
(3) In organic evolution the _form must_ continually _change_ in order
to keep in harmony with the changing environment. In other words
evolution is by constant _change of species_, genera, etc.; there must
be a continual evolution of _new forms_. In human evolution, and more
and more as civilisation goes on, man modifies the environment so as to
bring it in harmony with himself and his wants, and therefore there is
_no necessity for_ change of form or _making of new species of man_.
Human evolution is not by modification of _form_—new species, but by
modification of spirit—new planes of activity.
(4) In organic evolution as a higher factor arises it assumes control,
and previous factors sink into subordinate position. But in human
evolution the rational factor not only assumes control but transforms
all other factors, using them in a new way and for its own higher
purposes. Thus the Lamarckian factor—_environment_—is modified and
even changed so as to affect suitably the human organism. This is
_Hygiene_ or _Sanitation_. Again, the various organs of the body and
faculties of the mind are deliberately _used_ (another Lamarckian
factor) in such wise as to produce their highest efficiency. This
is _education_, or _training_, physical, mental, moral. So also the
selective factors are similarly transformed, and natural selection
becomes rational selection. This is freely applied to domestic animals
and with limitations imposed by reason itself will be applied to man.
(5) The way of evolution toward the highest, i. e. from Protozoa to
man and from lowest man to the ideal man, is a _very narrow way_, and
few there be that find it. In the case of organic evolution it is _so_
narrow, that once get off the track and it is impossible to get on
again. No living form of animal is now on the way to form man, can by
any possibility develop manward. They are all gone out of the way. They
are all off the trunk line. The golden opportunity is past. The tree of
evolution is an _excurrent_ stem continuous to the terminal shoot—man.
Once leave the main stem as a branch, it is easy to continue growing in
the direction chosen, but impossible to get back again on the straight
upward way to the highest. In human evolution whether individual or
racial, the same law holds, but with a difference. If an individual or
a race gets off from the straight and narrow way toward the highest,
the Divine ideal, it is _hard_ to get back on the track; hard but
not _impossible_. Man's own effort is the chief factor in his own
evolution. By virtue of his self-activity, and through the use of
reason, man alone is able to rectify an error of direction and return
again to the deserted way.
REFLECTIONS ON THE ABOVE PRINCIPLES AND THEIR APPLICATION TO SOME
QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.
I.
Just now there is much controversy in regard to the factors of
evolution. Both Darwin and Spencer, the two greatest expounders of the
modern theory of evolution, acknowledge and insist upon at least four
factors; viz. the two Lamarckian and the two distinctively Darwinian.
The only difference between them is in the relative importance of
the two sets; Spencer regarding the former and Darwin the latter
as the more potent. But some late Darwinians have gone far beyond
Darwin himself in their estimate of the power of the most distinctive
Darwinian factor, viz. natural selection. Weismann and Wallace have
each written a book, and Lankester many excellent articles to show that
natural selection is the one sole and sufficient cause of evolution,
that changes during the individual life whether by effect of the
environment or by the use and disuse of organs _are not inherited at
all_, that Lamarck was wholly wrong and that Darwin (in connection
with Wallace) is the sole founder of the true theory of evolution, and
finally that Darwin himself was wrong only in making any terms whatever
with Lamarck.
The argument for this view has, perhaps, been most strongly put
by Weismann and is based partly on experiments, but mainly on his
ingenious and now celebrated theory of the _immortality of germ-plasm_.
The animal body consists of two kinds of cells wholly different in
function, somatic cells and germ-cells, including in this last the
sexual elements both male and female. Somatic cells are modified and
specialised for the various functions of the body; germ-cells are
wholly unmodified. The somatic cells are for the conservation of the
_individual_ life, germ-cells for the conservation of the _species_.
Now according to Weismann, _inheritance is only through germ-cells_.
Environment affects only the somatic cells and therefore changes
produced by environment cannot be inherited. Sexual generation was
introduced for the purpose of producing variability in progeny and
thus furnishing material for natural selection, as this was the only
means of evolutionary advance. Weismann made many experiments on
animals, especially by mutilation, to show that somatic changes are not
inherited.
We shall not argue this question but content ourselves with making
three brief remarks.
1. If the views presented in this article be true, then the Lamarckian
factors must be true factors, because _there was a time when there
were no others_. They were necessary therefore to start the process of
evolution, even if no longer necessary at present.
2. But if the Lamarckian factors were ever operative, _they must be so
still_, though possibly in a subordinate degree. A lower factor is not
abolished, but only becomes subordinate to a higher factor when the
latter is introduced. Thus it may well be that Lamarckian factors are
comparatively feeble at the present time and among present species,
especially of the higher animals, and yet not absent altogether. In
the earliest stages of evolution there was a complete _identification
of germ-cells and somatic cells_—of the individual with the species.
In such cases, of course, the effect of environment must be inherited
and increased from generation to generation. But the differentiation of
germ and somatic cells was not all at once; it was a _gradual process_,
and therefore the effect of the environment _on the germ-cells through
the somatic cells_ must have continued, though in decreasing degree,
and still continues. The differentiation is now, in the higher animals,
so complete that germ-cells are probably not at all affected by changes
in somatic cells, unless these changes are _long continued in the same
direction and are not antagonised by natural selection_.
3. It is a general principle of evolution that _the law of the whole
is repeated with modifications, in the part_. This is a necessary
consequence of the Unity of Nature. We ought to expect therefore and
do find, that the order of the use of the factors of evolution is
the same in the evolution of the _organic kingdom_, in the evolution
of _each species_, and in the evolution of _each individual_. In all
these the physical factors are first powerfully operative, then become
subordinate to organic factors, and these in their turn to psychical
and rational factors. Therefore, as the individual in its early stages,
i. e. in embryo and infancy, is peculiarly plastic under the influence
of the physical environment and afterwards becomes more and more
independent of these: so a species when first formed is more plastic
under the influence of the Lamarckian factors and afterwards becomes
more rigid to the same. And so also the organic kingdom was doubtless
at first more plastic under Lamarckian factors, and has become less
so in the present species, especially of the higher animals. The
principal reason for this, as we have already seen, is the increasing
differentiation of germ and somatic cells, and the removal of the
former to the interior where they are more and more protected from
external influence.
II.
Some evolutionists—the materialistic—insist on making human evolution
identical in all respects with organic evolution. This we have shown is
not strictly true. The very least that can be said is that a new and
far more potent factor is introduced with man, which modifies greatly
the process. But we may claim much more, viz. that evolution is here on
a wholly different and higher plane. The factors of organic evolution
are indeed still present and condition the whole process; but they are
not left to be used by nature alone. On the contrary, they are used in
a new way and for higher purposes by Reason.
But by a revulsion from the materialistic extreme, some have gone to
the opposite extreme. They would place human progress and organic
evolution in violent antagonism, as if subject to entirely different
and even opposite laws. But we have also shown, that although the
distinctive human factor is indeed dominant, yet it is underlaid and
conditioned by all the lower factors—that these lower factors are
still necessary as the agents used by Reason.
III.
We have already alluded to Weismann's and Wallace's views, but there is
one important aspect not yet touched.
If Weismann and Wallace are right, if natural selection be indeed the
only factor used by nature in organic evolution and therefore available
for use by Reason in human evolution, then alas for all our hopes of
race-improvement, whether physical, mental, or moral! All enlightened
schemes of _physical culture_ and of _hygiene_, although directed
indeed primarily for the strength, health, and happiness of the
_present generation_, yet are sustained and ennobled by the conviction
that the physical improvement of the individual, by inheritance enters
into a similar improvement of the race. All our schemes of _education_,
intellectual and moral, although certainly intended mainly for the
improvement of the individual, are glorified by the hope that the
race is also thereby gradually elevated. It is true that these hopes
are usually extravagant; it is true that the whole improvement of the
individuals of one generation is not carried over by inheritance into
the next; it is true therefore that we cannot by education raise a
lower race up to the plane of a higher race _in a few generations_; but
there must be a small residuum, be it ever so small, carried forward
by inheritance and accumulated from age to age, which enters into the
slow growth of the race. If it be true that reason must direct the
course of human evolution, and if it be also true that selection of the
fittest is the only method available for that purpose; then, if we are
to have any race-improvement at all, the dreadful law of _destruction
of the weak and helpless_ must with Spartan firmness be carried out
voluntarily and deliberately. Against such a course all that is best
in us revolts. The use of the Lamarckian factors, on the contrary,
is not attended with any such revolting consequences. All that we
call education, culture, training, is by the use of these. Our hopes
of race-improvement therefore are strictly conditioned on the fact
that the Lamarckian factors are still operative, that changes in the
individual, if in useful direction, are to some extent inherited and
accumulated in the race.
IV.
We have said that the new factor introduced with man is a voluntary
co-operation in the process of evolution, a conscious upward striving
toward a higher condition, a pressing forward toward an ideal. Man
contrary to all else in nature is transformed, not in _shape_ by
external environment, but in _character by his own ideals_. Now this
capacity of forming ideals and the voluntary pursuit of such ideals,
whence comes it? When analysed and reduced to its simplest terms, it
is naught else than the consciousness in man of his relation to the
infinite and the attempt to realise the divine ideal in human character.
JOSEPH LE CONTE.
ILLUSTRATIVE STUDIES IN CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY.
III.
THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE ANARCHISTS.
One of the most curious applications, and perhaps the most practical,
of Criminal Anthropology, (of that new science which has associated
itself with sociology, psychiatry, and history,) is that which flows
from the study of the physiognomy of the political criminal. For not
only does it appear to succeed in furnishing us with the juridical
basis of political crime, which hitherto seemed to escape all our
researches, so completely that until now all jurists had ended by
saying that there was no political crime; but it seems also to supply
us with a method for distinguishing true revolution, always fruitful
and useful, from utopia, from rebellion, which is always sterile. It
is for me a thoroughly established fact, and one of which I have given
the proofs in my "Delitto Politico,"[71] that true revolutionists,
that is to say, the initiators of great scientific and political
revolutions, who excite and bring about a true progress in humanity,
are almost always geniuses or saints, and have all a marvellously
harmonious physiognomy; and to verify this it is sufficient simply to
look at the plates in my "Delitto Politico." What noble physiognomies
have Paoli, Fabrizi, Dandolo, Moro, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Bandiera,
Pisacane, la Petrowskaia, la Cidowina, la Sassulich! Generally we see
in them a very large forehead, a very bushy beard, and very large and
soft eyes; sometimes we meet with the jaw much developed, but never
hypertrophic; sometimes, finally, with paleness of the face (Mazzini,
Brutus, Cassius); but these characteristics seldom accumulate in the
same individual to the extent of constituting what I call the criminal
type.
[71] 1890.
In a study that I have made with three hundred and twenty-one of our
Italian revolutionists, (against Austria etc.,) nearly all males,
(there were twenty-seven women to one hundred men,) the proportion of
the criminal type was 0·57 per cent.; i. e. 2 per cent. less than in
normal men. Out of thirty celebrated Nihilists, eighteen have a very
fine physiognomy, twelve present some isolated anomalies, two only
present the criminal type (Rogagiew and Oklasdky), that is to say 6·8
per cent. And if from these unfortunate men who represent to us, even
psychologically, the Christian martyrs, we pass to the regicides, to
the presidenticides, such as Fieschi, Guiteau, Nobiling, and to the
monsters of the French Revolution of 1789, such as Carrier, Jourdan,
and Marat, we there at once find in all, or in nearly all, the criminal
type. And the type again frequently appears among the Communards and
the Anarchists. Taking fifty photographs of Communards I have found the
criminal type in 12 per cent.; and the insane type in 10 per cent. Out
of forty-one Parisian Anarchists that I have studied with Bertillon at
the office of the police of Paris, the proportion of the criminal type
was 31 per cent.
In the rebellion of the 1st of May last I was able to study one
hundred Turin Anarchists. I found the criminal type among these in the
proportion of 34 per cent., while in two hundred and eighty ordinary
criminals of the prison at Turin the type was 43 per cent.
TABLE OF PERCENTAGE OF CHARACTERISTICS.
================================+==========+=========
| TURIN | ORDINARY
CHARACTERISTICS. |ANARCHISTS|CRIMINALS
--------------------------------+----------+---------
Exaggerated plagiocephaly | 11 | 21
Facial asymmetry | 36 | 60
Other cranial anomalies | |
(ultra-brachycephaly etc.) | 15 | 44
Very large jaw | 19 | 29
Exaggerated zygomas | 16 | 23
Enormous frontal sinus | 17 | 19
Dental anomalies | 30 | 20
Anomalies of the ears | 64 | 75
Anomalies of the nose | 40 | 57
Anomalous coloration of skin | 30 | 8
Old wounds | 10 | 26
Tattooing | 4 | 10
Neuro-pathological anomalies | 8 | 26
Among the 100 individuals arrested on the 1st of May, 30 per cent. were
recidivists for common crimes; among the others, 50 per cent. Of true
prison _habitués_ there were 8 among the former and 20 among the latter.
Thanks to the assistance of Dr. Carus of _The Open Court Publishing
Company_, who has sent me many curious data and also the work of
Schaack, "Anarchy and Anarchists" (Chicago, 1889), which is very
partial, although rich in facts, I have been able to study the
photographs of 43 Chicago anarchists, and I have found among them
almost the same proportion of the criminal type, that is 40 per cent.
The ones that presented this type are the two Djeneks, Potoswki, Cloba,
Seveski, Stimak, Sugar, Micolanda, Bodendick, Lieske, Lingg, Oppenheim,
Engel and his wife, Fielden, G. Lehm, Thiele, and Most. Especially
in Potowski, Sugar, and Micolanda I mark facial asymmetry, enormous
jaws, developed frontal sinus, protruding ears; and the same (except
the asymmetry) in Seveski and Novak. Fielden has a turned up nose
and enormous jaws; Most has acrocephaly and facial asymmetry. On the
contrary a very fine physiognomy has Marx, with his very full forehead,
bushy hair and beard, and soft eyes; and likewise Lassalle, Hermann,
Schwab, the two Spies, Neebe, Schnaubelt, Waller, and Seeger.
In studying the chief anarchists separately,—the martyrs of the
Chicago anarchists, it might well be said,—there is found in them
all an anomaly, very frequent in normal men as well; that is to say
the ears are without lobes; the ears are also developed a little more
than normally in all (except in Spies), they are protruding in Lingg,
Fischer, and Engel; the jaw is much developed in Lingg, Spies, Fischer,
and Engel; all have, however, except Spies,[72] the forehead fine
and full, with great intelligence. In the plates of the journal _Der
Vorbote_ we find a Mongolic cast of feature in Engel and Lingg, both
of whom should have much of the degenerative characters, enormous jaw
and zygoma, and Lingg oblique eyes. But these characters are much less
apparent in the photographs that I received from _The Monist_ and in
which the jaw of Fischer even decreases. Perhaps these photographs
were taken some years before the crime, when they were very young.
Certainly in both instances (in the _Vorbote_ and the photographs from
_The Monist_) I find a very noble and truly genial physiognomy in
Parsons and Neebe. The physiognomy of August Spies is morbid. He has a
senile auricle, voluminous jaw bones and a strongly developed frontal
sinus. And, it is necessary to remark, the physiognomy corresponds with
his autobiography, written with a fierce fanaticism; whilst in the
posthumous writings of Parsons and in the writings of Neebe we remark a
calm and reflective enthusiasm.
[72] Thus according to the portrait in Schaack's book; but
according to information which I later received from General
Trumbull of Chicago, this portrait is not true to life. It
would seem, then, that the features upon which my opinion is
based do not exist.
Schwab has the physiognomy of a _savant_, of a student; he much
resembles the nihilist Antonoff, beheaded in Russia. (See Plate IV in
my "Delitto Politico.") Neebe is quite like an Italian economist well
known in America, Luigi Luzzatti.
Fielden has a wild physiognomy, not without sensuality. Parsons
resembles Bodio, the great Italian statistician, and in the upper part
of the face, Stanley.
When I say that the anarchists of Turin and of Chicago are frequently
of the criminal type, I do not mean that political criminals, even the
most violent anarchists, are true criminals; but that they possess the
degenerative characters common to criminals and to the insane, being
anomalies and possessing these traits by heredity; as a fact, the
father of Booth was called Junius Brutus, and gave to his son the name
of a revolutionist, Wilkes. The fathers of Guiteau and of Nobiling,
and the mother of Staps were religious lunatics; and Staps also, like
Ravaillac, Clement, Brutus, had hallucinations. In the autobiographies
of the _Vorbote_ I find that Parsons had a very religious Methodist
mother and a father who had much to do with the movement of the
Temperance League. Indeed, the Parsons since 1600 had as a family taken
part in all revolutionary movements. A Tompkin, a relation of his
mother, had taken part in the battles of Brandywine and of Monmouth; a
General Parsons was an officer in the Revolution of 1776, and a captain
Parsons engaged in the battle of Bunker Hill.
Spies was born in a chateau celebrated for feudal robberies—called on
that account the "Raubschloss."
The father of Louis Lingg suffered through his labor as a workman a
concussion of the brain—according to the _Vorbote_.
The father of Fielden, an orator of power notwithstanding his
occupation as a workman, was one of the agitators of the question
of agricultural lands for workingmen in England; he was one of the
founders of the "Consumers' Co-operative Society" and a prime mover in
the society of "Odd Fellows." For those who will object that in many
of these relations they see only geniuses, I have only to cite my work
"L'Homme de Génie," where I have proved how often genius is nervous
epilepsy, and how almost all the sons of men of genius are lunatics,
idiots, or criminals.
This hereditary influence is seen also in the great number of brothers
charged together, the two Spies, the two Djeneks, the two Fieldens, and
the two Lehms. According to their autobiographies also their fathers or
their mothers died early; from which we may presume that they were old
or diseased.
The morbid impressibility of Engel has been admitted by himself. "I
cannot," he said to his wife, "hold within me what I feel. I must
explode. The enthusiasm takes possession of me; it is a disease."
Lingg could not remain quiet an instant; in his room he always
had some dynamite in store. Bodendick was a thief and a mattoid;
full of cunning, mischief and mad tricks, even according to the
_Arbeiter-Zeitung_. He was always dreaming of new explosives. Though
insane he was a genius as appears from his poetry, which is published
by Schick and is in the style of the celebrated "Song of the Shirt."
The suicide of Lingg with dynamite shows his moral insensibility, as do
the words of Parsons addressed to the society of anarchists: "Strangle
the spies and throw them out of the window." In Lingg we see a truly
ungovernable epileptoid idea driving him to political action. "I cannot
control myself;" he said, "it is stronger than I."
I repeat that among the anarchists there are no true criminals;
even Schaack, the police historian, can name but two criminals, and
certainly he would not have spared them if he could have stigmatised
them.
Their heroic-like deaths, with their ideal on their lips, proves that
they were not common criminals. Nevertheless the psychology of the
leaders of the Commune shows in them a true moral insensibility, an
innate cruelty, which found a pretext and a scope in politics; and
which accords too well with their criminal physiognomies. Marat demands
two hundred and ten thousand heads; Vallés speaks of his family with a
true hatred; Carrier wrote, "We will make a cemetery of France"; Ferré
smiled while by his orders they killed Veisset; and Rigault said in
slang to his pistol, "Il faut peter sur le chipau." The last words of
Spies before the court express a ferocious hatred towards the rich; and
the project of the anarchists of Chicago (if it is true) to blow up a
part of the city with bombs attests an absence of the moral sense. We
know that many anarchists regard brigands and thieves, such as Pini,
Kammerer, and Gasparoni, as their brothers in arms. Booth had for
accomplice Payne, a true murderer by profession. See also the journal
published at Geneva _L'Explosion_, and the Como journal _Le Poignard_.
But it is necessary to note that hereditary anomaly, if it provokes an
anomaly in the moral sense, also suppresses misoneism, the horror of
novelty which is almost the general rule of humanity; it thus makes
of them innovators, apostles of progress, though the education is too
rude: and the fight with relative misery of which all the anarchists
of Chicago except Neebe have been the victims, not affording material
for useful novelties made of them only failures and rebels, hindering
them from comprehending that humanity as a part of nature, which it is,
cannot progress at a gallop, _non facit saltus_. Spies on his last day
discovered that humanity is misoneic, the slave of custom, and said,
quoting the lines in German, "I now understand the poet's words,
'_Denn aus Gemeinem ist der Mensch gemacht,
Und die Gewohnheit nennt er seine Amme._'"
[Man has been shaped of what is common,
And habit is the nurse by whom he's reared.]
Evidently if he had understood it before he would not have been an
anarchist. Whoever has observed in asylums the conduct of lunatics,
will understand that one of their characteristics is originality, just
as in men of genius; only the originality of the insane and of moral
lunatics, or of born criminals, is very often absurd or unavailable.
This is why I, although I am an extremist in my partisanship for the
death-penalty, cannot approve the shooting of the Communards and the
hanging of the anarchist martyrs of Chicago. I deem it highly necessary
to suppress born criminals, when they reach the persuasion that being
born for evil they can do nothing but evil; and I believe that their
death thus saves the lives of many honest men. But we have to do with a
very different thing here, where the criminal type is, as shown above,
less frequent than among born criminals.
It is also necessary to consider here the youthful condition of almost
all these persons—Lingg 23 years, Schwab 33 years, Neebe 32 years.
For at this age men are at the maximum point of their audacity and
misoneism; and I remember a leading Russian Nihilist saying to me
that there was not an honest man in Russia who was not a nihilist at
20 years of age and ultra-moderate at 40 years. If the inclination to
evil here exists in greater proportion than in law-abiding men, it
nevertheless takes an altruistic turn, which is quite the contrary
to that which is observed among born criminals, and which commands
our admiration and arouses our just pity. This inclination, in
associating itself with the want of the new, which is also abnormal in
humanity, could, if it were properly directed and were not crossed by
misery, prove itself of great value to humanity; it could trace for
it new routes, and in every case be practically useful to it. A born
criminal imprisoned for life will kill some gaoler, in a colony will
ally himself with the savages, and will never work; while political
criminals in a colony will become more useful pioneers even than
law-abiding men. An example is seen in Louise Michel, who in New
Caledonia was the most charitable of the sick nurses.
And then there is no political crime against which the punishment of
death can be directed. An idea is never stifled with the death of its
abettors: it gains with the death of the martyrs if it is good, as
is the case in revolutions; and it falls at once into vacuity if it
is sterile, as is the case, perhaps, with the anarchists. And then,
as judgment cannot be formed of a great man during his life, so a
generation cannot in its ephemeral life judge with certainty of the
justice of an idea, and for that reason it is not proper to inflict so
radical a punishment on its abettors.
CESARE LOMBROSO.
INNOVATION AND INERTIA IN THE WORLD OF PSYCHOLOGY.
I. MISONEISM.
In the moral world the law which is seen to dominate all the others
is the law of inertia. This law of inertia is so powerful that even
after having been overcome by the friction of ages it always leaves,
even among beings that have most progressed, traces of its original
oscillation, in survivals, in rudimentary organs, when it is not
renewed in all its completeness in certain atavistic forms.
_Inertia in the moral world._—Granting that it were possible and
desirable to contest this law in the organic world, it could certainly
not be done in the moral world. In fact, although we are thought to
be making great progress, yet if we form a graphic chart showing the
progress made on the globe, we shall see to what miserable proportions
it is reduced. It may be said that all Africa, except certain points
encroached on by the Aryans, Australia, and a good half part of
America, are almost in the prehistoric state, or at best in the state
of the great Asiatic empires of the earliest historic epochs. Or
perhaps (as in South America, Hayti, and Siberia) civilisation has
only changed the appearances of primitive life, by substituting for
immobility an unstable equilibrium, which is almost worse still.
The most certain proof of the extension and of the predominance in the
moral world of the law of inertia, is the hatred of novelty, so little
noticed, which we call Misoneism, and which arises from the effort
and the repugnance we experience when we have to substitute a new
sensation for an old one. And this is so common among animals that it
can be regarded as a physiological character.
Minds feeble, enfeebled, or primitive in character, show themselves the
most susceptible of repugnance to what is novel; it being understood,
however, that it is not a question here of small innovations, such
as fashion for women, the change from the elliptic to the circular,
tattooing for savages, and sports for children; for not only have the
latter no dread of such changes, but on the contrary they wish heartily
for them, as they excite the nervous centres, which require change,
without irritating them, and without causing pain.
But when the innovation is too radical, it is not merely the savage and
the child who repel it with dread; the great majority of men, for whom
misoneism is a law of nature, are sensible of a feeling of repugnance,
as the result of the pain produced by the necessity in which they
are placed of causing their brains to be traversed by too rapid
transitions, a task not within their power, inertia and the repetition
of movements (individual or atavistic) before performed, being natural
to ordinary men, as to all animals.
_Misoneism in manners._—This may be seen, for example, in the manners
and customs of the modern Greeks; notwithstanding the vicissitudes of
time, we find in them the ancient Greek.
The French of the nineteenth century are still in many respects such as
they are depicted by Strabo (IV, 4), and by Cæsar (De Bello Gallico,
IV, 5), lovers of arms and of ostentation, incurably vain, facile of
speech, easily carried away by words, and imprudent in their resolves.
_Misoneism in religion._—As much can be said of this in relation
to religion, literature, and art, where we see misoneism triumph.
With respect to religion it can even be affirmed that this is the
institution most completely based on misoneism; to the extent that we
see the Christian religion preserve of ancient religions, not only
musical harmony (the chant), sacred vestments (the mitre and fibula
of the Egyptian priests), the scapular and the sandals of the Roman
plebeian, etc., but also the Mithraic legends in certain dogmas which
have relation to the sun, and even to ancient fetichism.
_Misoneism in morality._—The misoneistic instinct, fed by religion,
may leave traces profound enough to form a morality _sui generis_, and
provoke among savages remorse at having failed in a brutal custom, be
it ever so repugnant, such as among us is provoked in good men by crime.
_Misoneism in science._—In the domain of science the history of the
various persecutions of men of genius, inventors or reformers, will
suffice to prove the terrible influence of misoneism, which is the more
intolerant and the more fanatical the more ignorant it is; and we need
only cite the names of Columbus, of Galileo, and of Salomon de Caus,
the first inventor of steam apparatus, who was sent to the Bicêtre by
Richelieu.
_Misoneism in literature._—Likewise to misoneism we owe, in great
part, our admiration for old works and ancient ruins, however hideous
they may be. Because admired by our fathers and by our forefathers they
obtain, so to say, a way of entrance into us, to impose themselves on
our veneration. Thus the Sanscrit language for the Hindoo, the Hebrew
language for the Jews, and to some extent Latin for many Christian
Europeans have become a kind of sacred tongue and linguistic fetich
even outside the precincts of religious usage.
The enormous influence of grammarians in imperial Rome, and afterwards
during the epoch of decadence, as well as in the middle ages, explains
also the persistence of the modern fetichism for grammar, which seems
absurd in an age of naturalists and mathematicians.
And from thence comes the not less absurd and yet unshakable faith in
classicism, rooted deeply even in men worthy of respect, who cause
us to lose the best years of life in stammering in an almost useless
tongue.
_Misoneism in politics._—The same may be said with much more fitness
of many social and political institutions which are thought to be
modern and which are only relics of other times; it is for this reason
only that they attract the admiration and the respect of the majority
of people, constituting true conventional lies, as Nordau calls them,
but which have their _bourgeois_ believers and apostles.
In fact, the past is so incorporated in our inward being that even
the most refractory of us feel a powerful attraction towards it. Thus
we may be as unbelieving as can be wished, and yet at every hour of
the day we feel ourselves struck and attracted by the cajoleries of
priests. We may be lovers of equality, but, as we have already said,
we feel a secret veneration for the heirs of our barons. It is in
vain that the uselessness of certain laws is accepted; he who upholds
and defends them will meet with the approbation of multitudes, called
forth by the sole circumstance that the laws have existed. And if
civilisation progresses often, it is because it finds in the changes
of climate, of race, or in the appearance of men of genius or madmen,
circumstances which end in combining a great many small movements in
such a manner as to make of them in time a great one. Max Nordau thinks
(with some exaggeration) that progress is due more to a few enlightened
despots than to all revolutionists. But this progress was very slow;
he who wished to precipitate it, contravened the physiological nature
of man; consequently a revolution which is not an evolution, is
pathological and criminal.
_Misoneism in the punishment of crimes against custom._—This is why
in primitive legislation we see offences against custom constitute the
_maximum_ of delict, of immorality.
II. PHILONEISM.
This theory of misoneism, previously expounded in my "Delitto
Politico," has aroused opposition from all sides; especially in France,
on the part of Brunetière, Proal, Tarde, Joly, and Merlino. "Children,"
say they, "women, savages are curious, lovers of novelties, and
misoneists are so far from being ignorant that you yourself refer to
them as being among the academicians, (these last are still it appears
in the Latin world admirers of good faith); artists have success
only in attempting new paths; all peoples have the love of change;
they prove it by their emigrations and by their invasions; the great
invasions of the barbarians were an example of it."
"Besides, if there are _misoneists_, there are also _neophiles_, and
the one makes up for the other."
"In each of us," writes Tarde, "by the side of habit, a sort of
physiological misoneism, exists caprice; by the side of the inclination
to repeat, the inclination to innovate. The first of these two
necessities is fundamental, but the second is the essential, the
_raison d'être_ of the others."[73]
[73] _Revue Philosophique_, October, 1890.
In order to reply to all these objections it is necessary above
all to be well understood. As to minor innovations, and caprices
that satisfy the need of movement of our organs, from the very fact
that they are animate, it is certain that we are all very eager for
these; in proportion of course to our sex, our age, and our degree of
intellectual culture. The little child will be happy with a toy, he
will experience fear or dread at the sight of a mask, of a large animal
or even of a small one; I have seen children frightened by a sparrow,
by a fly. Woman takes pleasure in disguising herself in a striking
manner, in wearing new garments in which to attend great plays in the
theatres, but she has a horror of new religious rites, and of new
discoveries, to such a degree that a great number still refuse to use
linen and knitted work made by machinery; sewing machines themselves
find their way among them only very slowly. (Merlino.)
When it is claimed (Merlino) that savages love novelties, from the
fact, related by Ellis, that some of them endeavored to procure Bibles,
(taking them, perhaps, for playthings,) or arms of which they had seen
the useful effects, their nature is misjudged; since even after many
years passed in contact with European civilisation, after having worn
its clothing and ornaments, they return naked to their forests, where
a warm garment would certainly not be an object of embarrassment. To
believe with Cardinal Massaia that they offer themselves voluntarily
for vaccination, that they even ask it, is to ignore that even among
ourselves, vaccination encounters a great number of adversaries. Does
not Stanley relate that in his last journey, an epidemic of smallpox
having broken out in the camp, many of the porters, although they
saw that the vaccinated Zanzibaris did not die, refused to submit to
vaccination?
According to Tarde, the superstitious admiration, the enthusiastic
veneration by barbarous peoples of various forms of insanity, often
baptised as prophetism and saintliness, scarcely accords with the
aversion for novelties, that is to say for singularities, which I
attribute to them too liberally. But the cause of that admiration is
nothing else than the fear, the ignorance which leads them to take
a disease for the inspiration of a God. Nevertheless, I am far from
denying the influence of madmen in philoneism and in revolutions (as we
shall see in the sequel of this article); yet if we observe the Santons
of Africa and their obscenities, we see that it is not for their useful
and innovating ideas that barbarians venerate madmen.
The Academician will admire a new species of snail, he will thrill with
joy at the discovery of a Phœnician inscription that will enable him
to learn the name of a tribal chief, he will go into ecstasies before
a greater curvity given to a screw, but he will excommunicate the
telephone, the telegraph, the railway, the new laws of Darwin.
The artist, also, will love to trace a new arabesque, to change to
blue the prevailing color of the rose, but he will never attempt,
directly, with success, new methods. The hatred by all the elevated
and academical classes which still besets Zola, Balzac, and Flaubert,
the action brought against the last named, and the universal scandals
raised by De Goncourt, Boito, Rossini, and Verdi, are there to prove
it. The first, at least, who attempts a new method in painting, in
literature, etc., will encounter only hatred and contempt. And when we
smile at models unchangeably fixed by Egyptian art, we do not think
that the Madonna and the Jesus of our painters have not changed for
eighteen centuries.
Horace wrote:
"Adeo sanctum est vetus omne poema.
* * * * *
Indignor quicquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
Compositum, illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper."
It is then not true, as is objected against me in France (_Journal des
Economistes_, 1890), that in extending misoneism to the academies, its
greatest intensity is excluded from among the ignorant. Each class,
each caste has a proportionate ignorance, and a repugnance equally
proportional for that of which it is ignorant. We have demonstrated it
for genius itself, which is sublime on certain sides only to be the
lowest on some others, and we could have a proof of it even in the
opposition that the most ardent neophiles, the anarchists, make to this
theory of misoneism, of which they are thus themselves a confirmation.
Bismarck despises parliamentarianism, peace, arbitration, and even the
Latin, or rather European, alphabet. Flaubert and Rossini had a dread
of railways. The statesmen who govern Europe are not all geniuses,
but they are men not destitute of intellectual culture; and yet how
can it be explained that they so strive with ever increasing tenacity
and zeal to increase armaments and armies, to the extent of causing
ruin to their peoples,—a greater and more complete ruin perhaps, than
that which even a disastrous war might occasion? And this for the
purpose, they declare, (and it seems to be sincere,) of more surely
escaping war, when as a fact one fourth of the money spent for that end
would be sufficient to assure the happiness of the peoples governed
by affording the social questions which they all pretend to have at
heart, a solution which, as things now are, it is ever becoming more
difficult to reach. The true cause is in the repugnance they experience
to the idea of starting on a fresh path, in the tendency to adhere to
old habits which go back even to the epochs of the warrior castes.
Indeed in the minds of a very great number, at least among the Germans,
a good corporal of the guard is more worthy of consideration than a
great scholar; debate in parliament on the erection of a fortress is
not permitted, however costly it may be, whilst every one may speak on
the establishment of a school; in France, in Italy, and in Germany,
to touch the war budget, unproductive and ruinous as it may be, is to
raise the hand to the ark of the covenant,—a veritable state crime.
But science is a new thing, while the art of war goes back to remotest
antiquity; it descends from Achilles and from Cain.
I was not guilty of a self-contradiction when I said that the modern
French love novelty as much as their ancestors did. I am too much the
friend and too fond of the French to flatter them, and not to tell
them exactly what I think. France is undeniably at the head of the
Latin races, but to the same extent, and perhaps more than they, it
prefers novelties to the new. It has always had the stormy agitations,
rather than the useful results, of revolutions. The great religious
reform, Protestantism, touched it without affecting it; the great
constitutional reform has taken but slight root, and that two centuries
and a half after it was accomplished in England.
Balzac wrote: "In France the provisional is eternal although the French
are suspected of loving change."
Novelties to be accepted by the French must be such as do not interfere
with their habits. And it is they who have invented the words
_routine_, _blague_, and _chauvinism_. It is because they are still in
the military period of Spencer. So far as that goes, they have cried
out beware! to the English, then, beware to the Russians, now beware
to the Germans and the Italians. They change voluntarily their dress,
their ministers, their external form of government, but always there
remains in them at bottom a slight attachment to the ancient druidical
and Cæsarian tendencies. It is not many years since the priest still
commanded in Vendée. We have seen the French, while extreme republican,
make war for the Pope.
After having a Fourier and Proudhon and, what is more, universal
suffrage, they have not yet a social law which gives satisfaction to
the just demands of the indigent, or of workingmen, beyond that of the
"probi viri."
It is true that they have had their peasant wars—their Jacquerie—and
'89; but these were explosions that aroused them but for a moment
only to allow them afterwards to fall much lower. Indeed, but a few
centuries after the Jacquerie, they saw the same peasants who had
raised the insurrection, kiss the horses of the couriers who brought
good news of the health of the king. And what a king! Louis XV, who
might rather be called the executioner, than the administrator of his
people. And after having driven away so many Cæsars, little was wanting
to make them fall again under such a trumpery Cæsar as Boulanger if the
highest classes of the capital had not been opposed to it.
Moreover certain particular facts, which portray much better their
physiognomy, show how fundamentally conservative they are.
Let us cite for example the veneration exhibited by the high classes
for the Academies and the passion for heraldic titles and decorations.
"France is academic," wrote De Goncourt in _Manette Salomon_.
Sarcey relates that during the siege of Paris, the flesh of the animals
of the Jardin des Plantes, having been put up for sale, the common
people preferred to suffer hunger rather than eat of it, so that the
educated classes alone fed on it.
We know what resistance the French made, under a thousand pretexts, to
the reform of their orthography, which is in part merely the relics of
the old pronunciation.
Recently, an engineer at Bordeaux wrote to me, that, on his inventing
machinery for the easy transference of merchandise from ships to the
quays, sturdy opposition was met with on the part of the stevedores of
the port, who would have been the first to derive great advantage from
it.
The medical faculty at Paris has not only anathematised tartar emetic,
vaccine, ether, and the antiseptic method, but also the physicians who
substituted the use of horses for the ancient employment of mules to
expedite their visits to their patients.[74]
[74] _Revue Scientifique_, 1889.
Is it not in learned Germany that we find Anti-semitism in fashion? And
has not Russia made it a law of the state?
In certain districts of Sicily is not the ancient method still
preserved of embalming and of painting the bodies of the dead which was
practised among the ancient Egyptians?
A recent law-suit tried at Turin has proved that not only the lower
classes, but also numbers of persons belonging to the higher classes
protect themselves by practices that distinctly recall those of the
sorcerers of antiquity. All this would prove that philoneism is rather
the exception than the rule.
It is objected to my position, that nations and peoples are such
lovers of change that they have always emigrated. But before making
this affirmation, we ought to study the causes which impel them to
emigration.
Day by day the peasants see their wages decrease; yet even then they do
not remove from the land that they love more than themselves, and to
which they are more closely bound than they ever were by feudal laws.
When epidemics produced by the bad quality of cereals, as pellagra
and acrodynia, when mortal diseases and the most cruel famine destroy
them by thousands, then only, and even then not always, do they come
to a determination; while for many years they keep before them the
remembrance of their native soil, of that country, which, like a true
stepmother, gave them only diseases and sufferings.
I have listened to poor emigrants say to me: "We have only to die! The
life that we lead is certain death; and it is for this reason alone
that we have determined to emigrate."
As to the invasions of the barbarians, only ill-informed minds can
believe that it was the effect of a sudden movement, of a caprice
hurrying away masses almost without a reason. On the contrary, all now
admit (as was really mentioned in Tacitus, Bk. II., Chap. 2, of the
Annals) that it was a very slow movement, already begun three centuries
before Christ, and of which that of the Cimbri, who came from Jutland,
was an episode. The crossing of the Baltic was an easy enterprise. The
inhabitants of the coast had a sufficient number of vessels, and from
Carlsroon to the nearest ports of Russia and of Pomerania was only a
distance of thirty-four leagues.
If the tribes of Germans, Suevians, and Goths were repulsed from
Italian soil, they had already taken a firm position on the soil of
Gaul. Cæsar (De Bello Gallico) speaks of Ariovistus and the Suevians
whom he met there as his most formidable enemies. They did not appear
to him as forming an isolated body, detached from Germany; on the
contrary, he relates that the Germans time and again forced their way
into Gaul. Movements within continued, for even after Augustus we find
that the Romans did not always encounter the same peoples in the same
countries. This is affirmed by Procopius, Paulus Diaconus, and many
others.
Let us recall here that already after the death of Nero, Civilis, who
was in the service of Rome, led eight cohorts from his country into
Gaul where he was defeated, but he was able to make an arrangement,
thanks to which he could settle as an ally at a small distance from the
borders which he had betrayed (Gibbon).
The Germans (a people composed of voluntary associations of soldiers,
almost savages) being hunters rather than cultivators, were naturally
obliged to change their residence; we know indeed with what rapidity
the game was exhausted, which obliged those who live by it to overrun
an immense extent of territory and continually to transfer their
residence to other places; this is why emigration is in this case the
result of the law of inertia, the people not knowing how to replace
a precarious form of existence by one that is more stable. They had
no towns, but real movable villages that could be compared to those
of the Arabs of Africa. Like all nomad peoples and hunters, when the
hope of a conquest shone before them, they abandoned their forests
and, desiring to reach warmer regions, went from them with their wives
and children to war. During long years their efforts were impotent,
because until the time of Marcus Aurelius they were divided, precisely
like the savages of America, into a great number (40) of small tribes,
dispersed over an immense territory and enemies of one another; it was,
consequently, the more easy to subdue them, the rather that not knowing
the use of the breast-plate and but little that of iron and of cavalry,
they found themselves powerless against the Roman legions, of whose
tactics besides they were ignorant.
But when Rome, at the decadence, commenced to recruit its army with
Germans, and when less vigilant in guarding the frontiers, she allowed
German families, if not even tribes, to pass the same, she found
herself in great part disarmed against an enemy who had already set
foot against her, bearing her own weapons, and what is worse, who knew
her treasures, her tactics, and her weaknesses. Under Tiberius even, it
was known that the auxiliary soldiers constituted the principal force
of the Roman armies (nihil validum in exercitibus nisi quod externum);
at first equal in number to the legionary soldiers, they much exceeded
them afterwards, when the citizens evaded military services, and when
under Gallienus the Senators were forbidden to command the army. To all
these causes can still be added secondary ones.
Before the historic invasion, emigration had taken place. "When," says
Gibbon, "a cruel famine befell the Germans, they had no other resource
than to send a third or a fourth part of their young men to seek their
fortune elsewhere."
According to the national historians, emigration was due to the
disproportion between the size of the population and the means of
subsistence in the region where they dwelt (Paulus Diaconus): the
Germans were very prolific. As they were not agriculturists, nothing
bound them to the soil; pestilence or famine, a victory or a defeat,
an oracle of the Gods, or the eloquence of a chief sufficed to attract
them to the warmer countries of the south. Germany was then much colder
than it is at present. (Gibbon.)
The necessity of fleeing from the domination of a victorious enemy
forced the Huns towards the west; religious fanaticism drove the nomad
Arabs towards the great Byzantine and Persian empires; religious terror
urged the Cimbri and the Teutons to throw themselves on the Gauls and
on Italy.[75] Often also the taste for wine and liquors led them to
invade rich countries for these gifts of God.
[75] _Revue des deux mondes._ June 11, 1889. Berthollet.
According to a legend, doubted by some historians, but accepted by
others, among them Cipolla, the descent of the Lombards into Italy
appears to have been caused by the fact that some of their companions,
after having served Narses, conveyed into their country some Italian
fruits which excited their curiosity.
All this will suffice to explain the movement we are considering, which
commenced slowly among the Northern peoples and afterwards became
unrestrainable, and to show how the law of inertia was counteracted
among them.
And it is necessary to remark that this need of movement thus begun,
did not end with the conquest; but, obeying perfectly the law of
inertia, according to which a movement being started it continues
indefinitely if friction does not occur to arrest it, it was continued
by the crusades, by the Norman invasion of Sicily, and by the epidemics
of pilgrimage that may be regarded as the continuation of the movement
towards the South, begun three centuries before Christ, and become a
habit when even the necessity was no longer so great as at other times,
and when it was even no longer urgent.
Here is still another cause of philoneism; the successive movements
which grow out of those first started.
As the historians very well observe, Mahomet was a continuation
of the Judaic Christian revolutionary initiative. "Mahomet was a
Nazarene, a Judæo-Christian. Semitic monotheism regained its rights
through him, and avenged itself for the mythological and polytheistic
complications that Greek genius had introduced into the theology
of the first disciples of Jesus." (Renan.) There is more of this
in revolutions and still more in rebellions; progress, philoneism,
following the law of accelerated movement and of the same law of
inertia, once begun, blindly precipitates itself to opposite excesses,
the very thing that causes its ruin. Thus Cromwell in a country almost
feudal and ultra-monarchical reached, or rather was driven by his
party, to regicide, and to the foundation of a democratic republic in
which the peers were consigned to oblivion and his partisans (of the
Barebones parliament) went so far as to wish to do away with lawyers
and universities, to forbid dances, theatrical representations, and
even Christmas festivities, to mutilate statues on behalf of decency,
and to burn sacred pictures. (Macaulay.) This led to a reaction which
under Charles II. reached absolute power by consent of parliament.
In Christianity castration, and even the abolition of property was
reached. We know the excesses of '89.
Passion explains many of these facts, which proceed even to insanity.
St. Paul, from an enemy became an apostle of Christ. Clarendon after
abandoning himself to despair at seeing his son go over from the
service of James to that of William, became a rebel at the end of
fifteen days. The parliament of James, ultra-monarchical as it was,
rebelled. The conventional Baudot said: "There are men who have fever
for twenty-four hours. I have had it for ten years." "In the days of
terrible crises," wrote Valbert, "the law of cause and effect seems
suspended, the work is accomplished in an hour. To ask revolution to
be wise, is to ask the tempest to break nothing."[76]
[76] _Valbert._ _Le centennaire de 1789._ Paris, 1889.
"In every revolution," writes Renan, "the authors of it are absorbed
and suppressed by those who succeed them. The first century of the
Hegira saw the extermination of the relations and friends of Mahomet by
those who pretended to confiscate for their own profit the revolution
he had created. In the Franciscan movement the true friends of Saint
François d'Assisi, were, after a generation, regarded as heretics and
as dangerous men, and were led to the stake by hundreds."
An idea in the first days of creative activity proceeds with giant
steps, and we can say, the movement once begun continues by virtue of
the law of inertia always to increase; its originator falls behind, and
becomes an obstacle to his own idea which persists in moving forward
in spite of him. The Ebionites who gave to Christianity its first
start became after a century a scandal to the church; their doctrine a
blasphemy.[77]
[77] Renan. _L'Eglise chrétienne._
It is this very tendency, caused by the arousing of passion, that makes
all revolutions abortive, that causes them through their own excesses
to be the authors of their own destruction, and which neutralises or
much decreases the progress made by revolutions.
The gravest objection against misoneism constitutes, accordingly, the
strongest proof of it. Like the plant, the animal, and the stone, man
remains motionless, unless a disturbance of his state occurs through
other forces, and through the law of inertia itself, which after having
at first rendered him immovable afterwards drives him to opposite
excess, but to replunge him anew into immobility.
The most potent cause is that of physical environment, change of
climate. Next comes the crossing of one race with another, and it is to
this we owe in great part the marvellous productions of Greek art that
arose in Magna Grecia. Then, often, the influence of climate is active,
to which is owing the transformation of the Jew; so persecutions, and
the great calamities which races experience and which determine the
selection of the strongest. And to this result contribute above all the
impulses impressed by geniuses and by mattoids, who, as I have already
pointed out in my work on "Genius" alone possess an intense love for
the new, for the very reason that their organisation is different from
that of other people. The intensity of individual violence and power
here unbalances the tendency to immobility; but almost always—and I
show it in the work referred to—when that intensity is not favored
by circumstances, when it does not arise as the final synthesis of
a general desire, a latent and universal necessity, but simply as a
pathological phenomenon, it becomes again valueless, for the very
reason that it is individual. It is owing to this that the efforts
of a madman like Cola de Rienzi, and of such geniuses as Alexander,
Napoleon, Pombal, and Peter the Great, result in nothing. To beneficent
geniuses, as Bolivar, the Gracchi, etc., are attributed all the merit
of revolutions which triumph because they were prepared long before
by history and by circumstances, and which were only precipitated by
them and summed up in them. It suffices to note that the genius of
Garibaldi, of Cavour, and of Mazzini, has been able to give us nothing
more than Italy as it now is, in order to comprehend that in spite of
geniuses and, up to a certain point, in spite of circumstances the
work of revolution is durable only when the circumstances that have
commenced it persist, and men are profoundly modified by it.
However, the law of inertia always prevailing, (since primitive
tendencies always concern it,) these changes are but very slow and, as
we have seen, give place to easy relapses; they become fixed and swell
to new movements only when the causes which provoke them continue and
become more intense.
In fine, philoneism, progress, also sometimes triumphs—at least with
the white race and frequently with the yellow races; but it is not the
result of a sudden movement or of a natural human tendency, but the
effect of external physical forces, whether social, historical or the
like, which have caused the law of inertia to change its direction. It
is therefore the slow result, we might say, of the small and sensible
variations peculiar to men according to their condition, added to
grander movements, as well as momentarily barren ones, of geniuses and
forces, and to those more powerful ones of the physical and historical
environment. Of the resulting product we see only the effects, because
without the telescope of history and of sociology we do not perceive
the slowness with which they have reached us, and the smallness of the
efforts which contribute to it. It is thus that we do not imagine that
the great Coral Islands can be the work of billions of small zo-ophytes
accumulated the one on the other during thousands of years. The organic
kingdom, like the social, is made up of the sum total of slow and small
efforts.
The idea of the Christ and that of Buddha, the way for which had been
prepared for several centuries by other geniuses less fortunate than
they, miscarries among the people in which it was conceived, and
becomes fruitful elsewhere. But dating from the epoch in which its
votaries, nihilists of the reverse type, began to multiply and spread,
in the lowest and least intelligent strata of society, employing as
arms not violence but gentleness, more than three centuries elapsed
before it was tolerated and officially recognised. For two hundred and
fifty years the plebeians fought at Rome for their liberty. Yet they
always heard the Senators say, "Your propositions are too novel." And
liberty was granted by the one, and acquired by the others, only soon
to be lost, first, in anarchy, then under the dictatorship, and then
under the empire.
It is in this sense, that revolutions at the start can be the work
of a small number, but they represent, they are the sign of a latent
universal sentiment; this is why they grow in direct proportion to time
(and time is very long) and gain partisans among their own adversaries.
The apostles of Christ numbered only twelve, but a hundred and fifty
years later, at Rome alone, there were in the catacombs 737 tombs of
Christians; and Renan calculates that at the time of Commodus 35,000
Christians existed. We know that Saint Paul himself was one of the
bitterest adversaries of the Christians.
The English revolution, up to the time Charles I. sought to cause the
arrest of the four parliamentarians, was anti-republican, and strictly
royalist even; but ultimately revolutionary ideas spread throughout
all England, and the zealous but not blind partisans of the king were
the first to turn against him after his excesses and his treasons.
In the revolution of Flanders, the chief citizens and a great part
of the nobility, held aloof from the movement for a long period; but
all possessed in embryo the feeling uttered by the first apostles and
pioneers of the movement. Time, in its slow development, gives rise to
the complete expansion of the latent sentiments expressed by misoneism.
For example let us now transfer ourselves to another field; I wish to
speak of the abolition of classical studies. There are perhaps actually
five or six of us in Italy who proclaim without fear its absolute
necessity; as we were only three when we proclaimed the necessity of
changing the penal laws and of bringing them to examine the criminal
rather than the crime.
The first statesman who should attempt to carry out our ideas would
fall amid universal scandal; and yet these very ideas are entertained
by all who are not blinded by archæological and academic misoneism. But
they have not the courage to avow them and still less to realise them.
In a few years these ideas will no longer admit even of discussion.
That is revolution. Let us look, on the other hand, at the ideas of
the anarchists; they are in the heads, and unfortunately in the hands
of certain diseased persons, but they are not in the thought of the
majority; consequently all their agitation will be in vain, and result
only in isolated commotions and frays.
That is revolt, insurrection. And let no one say that philoneism and
progress are found as proportional reaction to misoneic action, an
oscillation of the pendulum excluding the law of inertia. The pendulum
itself does not oscillate, but remains perpetually motionless until
moved; and its oscillations, even the smallest, are produced the most
often by external causes entirely accidental. And the law of inertia is
here also so constant, that if it did not find in the friction of the
atmosphere a cause of impediment the movement once begun would continue
_ad infinitum_. So a ball flies and rebounds, when a force propels
it; and here also if friction did not retard it, it would continue
forever the motion once commenced. Inertia is the rule, and mutations
are produced by special external incidents, which being usually less
persistent, less tenacious, change more the appearance than the
reality. And these modifications which are very slow and proceed from
external causes, are produced not only among men and among animals, but
are met with even in the inorganic world; it is thus that the salts
of copper and of lime, in certain conditions of a warm medium, change
their color but not their nature nor their molecular arrangement, and
always give the same chemical reactions.
CESARE LOMBROSO.
THE QUESTION OF DUALITY OF MIND.
It is certainly conceded by all who come in general estimation within
the category of thinkers, that psychology, as formerly studied, without
basis in physiology, was most unfruitful, as compared with the modern
study of it upon that basis. It is therefore quite remarkable to find
in quarters of repute, where psychological problems are discussed, some
into which enter, even inferentially, either momentary obliviousness,
or temporary disregard of truths that are held indisputable by
modern thinkers within the lines of the subjects indicated. Yet such
contradiction and conflict are found in the constantly recurring
attempted demonstration of the dual nature of the mind or the soul,
call the entity what one will. That man has within his organisation
tendencies which are relatively higher or lower than others within
himself, is not to be disputed; but that such mixture of nature is to
be regarded as constituting him of dual mental nature, is a proposition
untenable coincidently with the maintenance of the proposition that he
is in nature physiologically single. It has been maintained lately,
that he is physiologically double, but this view has not met with
any acceptance worthy of the name. In short, it would seem, from all
that we know, that in every individual, psychical being must bear
the same relation to physiological that the latter does to physical,
and that they are all interdependent. And if this be true, the same
relations must hold good when the physical and physiological nature
degenerate into the pathological, and we find by observation that
they do hold good. So far, therefore, as the lesson inculcated by
Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde presents to the popular mind
the idea of dual mental nature in man, it is false. Viewed from the
scientific standpoint, the case exhibits nothing more or less than a
phase of physical, physiological, and psychical action, terminating in
pathological manifestations. Gradually, the physical, physiological,
and psychical natures suffer, _pari passu_, and the whole being
exhibits profound retrograde metamorphosis, through the continuous
degenerations that have been so often and so ably described by Dr.
Henry Maudsley, in which all will-power passes away, the whole being
becomes involved, and direful death of all higher attributes finally
ensues. That, during the struggle in this decadence between the will
and the instincts it is natural that it should seem to the outside
uninstructed view, and even to the individual sufferer himself, that
the phenomenon witnessed is evidence of a dual nature of mind, is not
surprising; but it is surprising to find any one of the present day who
deems himself scientific, implying that the observed changing mental,
moral, and bodily manifestations are not witnesses to co-ordinated
change; it is surprising that any scientific inquirer should lend the
slightest countenance to the belief that changed psychical phenomena
are possible without changed physical and physiological conditions, and
yet that is what we often see proclaimed through maintenance of the
proposition of the duality of mental nature.
The point mentioned belongs to the most flagrantly unscientific view of
the relations and effects of the forces in play under the conditions
discussed. But there may be in the inclusive subject-matter of the
question minor points as to which erroneous views are sometimes
presented to the public as emanating from sources otherwise scientific.
Such a one it is my intention to make the principal subject of this
paper. In the October number of _The Monist_, in the article "The Magic
Mirror," Max Dessoir, the author, says, pages 111 and 112:
"The theory from which I shall proceed in attempting an
explanation, has already been frequently touched upon in the
course of this article; for certain observations indicated it
so clearly that mention of it was not to be avoided. It is
the doctrine of the double consciousness of the human soul.
Acts are done in the course even of our every-day life, which
presuppose for their origin and execution all the faculties
of the soul, yet nevertheless occur without the knowledge of
the individual; they require a sort of consciousness and a
separate memory beyond the _cognisance_ of the normal person.
One of the most frequent cases in practical experience is
where the thoughts of a person reading aloud wander and become
occupied with an entirely different subject; and where despite
this aberration the person in question reads correctly with
the proper emphasis and expression, turns the leaves, and in
short performs acts which without intelligent control are
hardly conceivable. An English psychologist, Mr. Barkworth,
has acquired such expertness in the practice of this, that
during an animated debate he can rapidly and correctly
add long columns of figures without having his attention
diverted in the least. This points not only to an unconscious
intelligence, but—which is of still greater consequence—to
an unconscious memory. Mr. Barkworth must keep two series of
figures in his mind in order to obtain from them a third;
this latter sum he is again obliged to retain in order to
add to it a newly acquired fourth; and so on. The latter
chain of memories, let it be remarked, performs its office
entirely independently of that upon which the recollection
of the debate is constructed; and it may therefore be
reasonably maintained that there exists beyond the cognisance
of the individual, both consciousness and memory; and if
the essential components of the ego are found in these two
last-mentioned factors, then every person conceals within
himself the germs of a second personality. I designate the
two halves of consciousness that thus operate in greater or
less independence of each other,—in a figurative sense of
course,—as super-and sub-consciousness, and comprehend the
whole as the doctrine of double consciousness or the double
ego."
No one will at this late day, it is to be presumed, dispute
the existence in the same individual of subconsciousness, as
contra-distinguished from superconsciousness; superconsciousness
being that which is more familiarly known as self-consciousness, and
subconsciousness as that latent consciousness of which we are not at
all conscious, and which yet receives impressions which may or may not
rise soon, late, or at all into the sphere of self-consciousness; an
impress which cannot be summed into self-consciousness by an effort
of will, for the obvious reason that the memory has yet taken no
cognisance of them. That this subconscious function of the brain is
simply a phenomenon dependent upon cell-storage of the brain, the
product of which may or may not ever reach self-consciousness, is
proved by many circumstances attested by our memory of collated facts
concerned in our waking and dream life. Sir Walter Scott, in his
story of the "Tapestried Chamber," gives an admirable account of its
working under the lead of a sleeper's unconscious cerebration risen
to self-consciousness, for let it be here parenthetically noted that
it is absurd, as is sometimes attempted, to rule dream-thoughts out of
the realm of self-consciousness, the individuality of the dreamer never
being lost, however modified the mental and moral ideation of that
individuality may be.
But Max Dessoir evidently confounds subconsciousness with unconscious
cerebration. He makes subconsciousness, in the intellection described,
a primary factor in execution. Now subconsciousness is the mere
tablet, as it were, upon which impressions are made, and unconscious
cerebration that faculty of the brain which, without immediate, and
perchance future, cognisance of self-consciousness, may evolve from all
brain-impressions, whether subconsciously or self-consciously received,
thought of which not even the individual himself becomes aware that
he is the possessor until it is presented to him as a free gift. This
proceeds during sleep as well as during waking, sometimes anticipating,
coincidently with waking, the routine subject of thought for the
day. It sometimes in sleep, as well as in waking moments, presents
itself with the startling effect of a revelation. Subconsciousness,
therefore, is a condition of passivity, and unconscious cerebration one
of activity, although, of course, of even unknown existence unless a
product of it reaches self-consciousness. They are not to be crudely
conceived of as different manifestations of the same thing, any more
than an emotion is to be thought of as another aspect of the sensation
which produced it, the emotion being qualitatively an entirely new
departure from the sensation. Both sensation and emotion represent
conditions of activity, whereas, so far as self-consciousness is equal
to differentiating them, subconsciousness and unconscious cerebration
respectively represent passivity and activity.
But the admission of the coexistence in the same individual of
unconscious cerebration with self-consciousness does not involve the
concession of the existence of dual mentality, any more than recognised
possession of striped and unstriped, voluntary and involuntary
muscle, involves the concession that man is physically dual in
mechanical motive power. Yet it is upon the basis of the recognised
coexistence of double consciousness in man that Max Dessoir reaches
the conclusion that, figuratively speaking, as he says, there is a
double ego, by means of whose duplex action different mental processes
are simultaneously carried forward. Now, neither figuratively nor
otherwise, as should be clearly apparent from what has been said,
is there in man a double ego. For although while there is life
subconsciousness must exist, and unconscious cerebration proceed,
nothing is more open to observation than that subconsciousness and
unconscious cerebration, although always present, do not always rise
into the sphere of self-consciousness. That, during self-conscious
activity of thought on a particular subject, if continued for a long
time, subconsciousness may, through unconscious cerebration, in a
measure yield tribute to self-conscious thought is undeniable, for
we see their effect sometimes visible in the sudden inspiration of
the orator and the writer, but that they are factors in ordinary
thought-evolution, for immediate use, within very limited spaces of
time, is impossible, for we by definition limit subconsciousness
and unconscious cerebration to pure unguided automatism, while to
self-consciousness we concede the direction of all automatic processes
that represent conceptions of the mind. Obviously, to imagine that we
direct that which may or may not appear at all in the sensorium, to
be directed, and which from its nature, as known from observation,
is not likely to appear within moderate time-limits of special
thought-evolution, is inadmissible, involving the assertion of two
contradictory propositions, for, as matter of experience, we know that
the product of unconscious cerebration, even when it appears clearly
recognisable as such, seldom manifests itself before the lapse of a few
hours.
The simple and complete explanation of the phenomenon observed, in
what are deemed simultaneous mental processes, is that they are not
absolutely simultaneous. The best illustration that can be given of
the manner in which they take place is afforded by the system known as
synchronous multiple telegraphy, in which, by means of an admirable
apparatus, points on discs, representing makes and breaks of electric
current, are, at stations distant from each other, adjusted to
synchronous relations with each other, by means of electro-magnetic
agency, tuning-forks, and self-adjusting varying resistances to
the currents, so that receiving and transmitting proceeds with a
continuousness just short of perfect continuity. I am not attempting
to liken the rapidity of thought to that of electricity, even
when electricity is embarrassed and slowed by mechanism of man's
construction; but otherwise the analogy between so-called simultaneous
mental processes and the results obtained from so-called synchronous
multiple telegraphy, is as perfect as any analogy can be. Thus the
make and break impulses of the will direct the self-conscious flow
of nerve-force in receiving and transmitting impulses of almost
synchronous time upon various subject-matter successively taken up
and dropped. The thought for each is not simultaneous, nor of equal
duration, but so nearly simultaneous as to appear so, and of duration
sufficient for its task. The individual thought-times are not,
therefore, represented, as in the telegraphic instrument described,
by equal spaces of time, but bear due relations to the respective
difficulties of the subject-matter almost synchronously attacked. It is
self-conscious thought that is here involved, whether in sleeping or
waking, that is, will-directed thought, for even in sleep we observe
the will as imperfectly directing; striving, however, always to direct.
As has been admitted, if the process of self-conscious cerebration
last over a long space of time, it is possible that some fragment
derived from unconscious cerebration may contribute to the grand
total of primary flow. This, however, is not of normal occurrence,
seeing that unconscious cerebration often deals with matter entirely
alien to present self-conscious mental occupation. The fruits of
such cerebration are therefore impossible to be counted upon, and
therefore cannot be insisted upon as proving from the experience cited
by Max Dessoir the existence, even figuratively speaking, of double
consciousness construed as forming with self-consciousness a double
self; while the well-known action of subconsciousness, unconscious
cerebration, and conscious cerebration, as related to one another,
amply explain all the phenomena in waking, sleep, and even in hypnotism
if we include in that hysteric diathesis.
When, in abstraction, in wrapt attention to a single idea, we are
carried past the door at which we had intended to stop, or continue to
read aloud, unobservantly of the sense of words, or otherwise betray
that we are buried deep in one absorbing thought; it is not, in the
first case, that our automaton has unwontedly borne us along, or in the
second, that we are not permitting it to take a partial holiday, for
it is our automaton that serves our commonest daily needs; but only
that we have, in the first case, forgotten to arrest its movements in
due time, and in the second, have not thought it worth while to do so;
for when decrepitude overtakes us, and our automaton, sharing in the
misfortune, toils wearily along, or requires intense purposiveness for
special brain-accomplishment, ideation can no longer afford to give to
it its former liberty, but dwells in concentration on a single action;
unless, indeed, when that still lower grade is reached, when the
automatic man is almost all that remains, and ideation but the fitful
glow that may start to futile movement the once efficient mechanism
of the human frame. By easy stages, receptivity and communicability,
ever lowering in degree, in quantity, and in quality, may dwindle
to a single point, and movement be but faint automatic habit; the
former high being now occupying the opposite extreme from rapid
thought-transmission and receipt, and bodily response to ideation, upon
the basis of life's whole energised experience.
Max Dessoir remarks, in a passage shortly following the one already
quoted at length:
"Closer investigation teaches further, that in dreams, states
of intoxication, in somnambulistic and epileptic attacks,
not only does a consciousness different from the normal
consciousness rule, but that also between successive periods
memory-links of greater or less stability are wont to form."
As to the greater or less closeness, as well as greater or less
stability, of the memory-links to which Max Dessoir refers, there
can be no dispute; but it is demonstrable that sleeping and waking
consciousness of both kinds exactly correspond. The difference
observable in waking and dream thought-evolution does not chiefly
relate to modified consciousness, but to modified conscientiousness;
the defect in both being the necessary consequence of temporary
abeyance of normal co-ordination between the nerve-centres.
Determinately directed thought, which is necessarily waking thought,
proceeds upon the basis of memorabilia that are the cash in hand
of the kind of currency that is temporarily available for logical
transactions; while in sleep, conscious cerebration only partially
controls its treasures, and often regretfully sees them squandered
before its face. Determinately directed thought is necessarily derived
from the will, unless one believes with Lord Kames, that thought
preserves unbroken heredity; in which case the ego becomes only the
witness through life of pure automatism—a position which is easily
refuted. The will directs the thought upon the basis of cognate
memorabilia, be the channels many or few, by means of semi-synchronous,
rotative attention.
The great lapse of time during which the action of subconsciousness may
remain unrevealed until, through unconscious cerebration, it reaches
self-consciousness, through the medium of recognition of a particular
event as of actual occurrence, and how, finally, this recognition,
as true, of a particular event, may be restricted for a while to the
condition of sleep, and after a long period of incubation at last rise
to waking knowledge, is so admirably exemplified by an experience of my
own that I here put it on record.
About five years ago I had a dream of a landscape, where there were
rocky escarpments partially covered with trees, with a plain as
foreground, upon which a carriage drew up to take me home after a
day's topographical surveying. Both in dreaming and upon awaking I was
vividly impressed with the idea that the place was one in which the
topography remained to be finished by me. But when awake, I fruitlessly
went over in memory all parts of the coast where I had ever executed
topographical surveys, and where by any chance, at any time, I could
have left unfinished anything that I was in duty bound to finish. Some
time elapsed, and I had the same dream again. Coming at once to the
conclusion that, if I should dream it a third time, I should be told
(as I should be, if I mentioned it at the second to any indifferent
person) that I had dreamed that I dreamed it, I at once described in
detail to a member of my family the landscape, the rocks, the trees,
the plain, and the coming of the carriage, and requested that all
these be memorised. Some months again passed, and the dream in all its
vividness recurred, and was repeated to the same person, agreeing as
to its details with those introduced in the recital of the preceding
ones.
I never had from the first a doubt that the dream had a foundation in
some one concrete fact, but from the lapse of time without a solution
of it being afforded, I was all but hopeless that its subject-matter
would ever rise into the sphere of full waking knowledge. However, at
moderate intervals I dreamt it again and again, each time simply saying
to my confidant, "I have had that dream again," and at length, without
any special effort directed to its solution, that which had heretofore
eluded all efforts to explain, was presented solved.
The uncomfortableness of the dream, it is to be borne in mind, lay in
the impression, although contradicted by memory, that I had neglected
to finish some piece of topography which it was my duty to finish.
Hence the direction of self-conscious thought towards its solution had
always been wrong. There was no piece of work of any kind that I had
ever neglected to finish. There was, however, a piece of topographical
work, which, when I was about to finish it, I was prevented from
completing by orders taking me away from the locality to another
far distant. The whole tract originally intended to be executed in
topography was of about one hundred square miles, a tract of much
geological as well as topographical interest, over a portion of which
I had been accompanied two or three times by Prof. James D. Dana, who
was deeply interested in the execution of the topography, on account
of his development from it of the minute geological characteristics of
the region. At one boundary of the area mentioned there was a ridge
and summit of some nine hundred feet in height, densely covered with
a stunted growth of trees. How to get the contours of this ridge by
some original plan I had been obliged in advance to settle in my mind,
for on the ridge itself nothing could, on account of the dense growth,
be seen for any great distance, and over it no roads passed. I had
concluded to have simultaneous horizontal and vertical angles taken to
staffs, from a line of foot-hills lying parallel with the ridge, when
I was ordered to Florida to make there a survey. This was succeeded by
surveys in other far-distant localities during successive years. Not,
however, as it appears, until seven years after leaving the locality
intimately described, did the first dream related to it take place, and
not until rather more than two years thereafter did its repetitions
cease with its solution. I said to my confidant when, about three years
ago, that solution was reached, "I shall never have that dream again,"
and it has never since appeared; as why should it, the mystery with
which the uncoördinated ego struggled being solved?
We can readily comprehend, from such an experience as this, how it has
been possible, as we have learned from well authenticated cases, for a
person to lead two somewhat independent thought-lives. What, however,
is clearly shown by it is the possibility, for it has been proved,
of subconscious record remaining for years dormant, proceeding at
last through unconscious cerebration to reach conscious cerebration,
but even then conscious cerebration only during sleep, until finally
conscious cerebration of waking moments being reached, the judgment
seat of co-ordinated faculties, the dream departs, no longer abusing
the curtained sleeper, nor ghost-like rising to disturb his waking
self-consciousness.
R. MEADE BACHE.
IMMORTALITY.
If you sit down in the quiet of your own room and calmly ask yourself
what it is in reference to a life after death that you really desire
and what you may reasonably expect, you will probably be surprised to
find what a blank your mind is upon the subject. I doubt if you will
find that you inwardly desire it, in the same manner, for example, that
you desire wealth, or fame, or beauty. You have grown up in the belief
that it is right to desire and believe, but that, you know, is quite a
different affair from actual yearning.
Nearly every one puts the thought aside as beyond solution. One
says, "My thinking will not change the fact nor my longing bring it
about. The duty of the passing day is all I can fulfil." Under this
cover of postponed examination the world has grown as indifferent to
the question as it was formerly engrossed by it. Fear of offending
delicate sensibilities and established beliefs keeps the doubter and
modifier silent; whilst the extreme of the omnivorous believer is set
over against the out-and-out denier. But the great majority of people
are neither believers nor disbelievers, but indifferentists—slowly
settling toward an agnostic non-committalism that is destructive of all
intellectual and moral earnestness.
It is my conviction that this abrogation of curiosity and examination
is a most culpable and dangerous fact. If we live after death it is
of tremendous importance; if we do not it is of no less vital import,
and the belief, the disbelief, or the evasion is of the most constant
influence, unconsciously, subtly, upon every thought and act of every
day's living.
Suppose now we divest ourselves of the creeps and shudders usually
accompanying a discussion of death and immortality, and fearlessly test
the common dogma with a little analysis in the light of scientific
research and reason. Let us suppose you are a believer: what is it you
believe? You desire: what is it you desire, and how far is your desire
feasible? You are convinced: but what is the truth? If possible, in
what way and to what extent is a future life possible? If attainable,
by whom and by what means? Moreover, the _kind_ of belief makes all the
difference in the world. I have read somewhere about an African chief
who killed his wife's lover, and was defeated at last by his wife's
unswerving belief in immortality, she committing suicide in order to
join her lover. But the chief was equal to the emergency and he in
turn killed himself in order to follow the pair and break up their
tête-à-têtes in the other world! It all depends upon what you propose
doing with a future life after you get it. You might just as well be
digging clams on this earth as "singing Hosannas around the throne" in
heaven.
Do you believe in or fervently desire what, with splendid bravery and
_abandon_ the old creed called "the resurrection of the body"? Terrible
counter-queries arise: At what age in your life would you choose as
best representing the ideal body for your resurrection? Would you
prefer your body as it was when you were a child, when youthful, when
mature, or when old? Moreover, it is changing every minute, this body.
It is estimated that something like five million blood-corpuscles
die every second of your life. Even the two or three pounds of
minerals in one's bones are only a little more permanently fixed. All
component parts are undergoing change every instant: they soon become
grass, grain, or tree, passing again into others' bodies, and so on
forever. Is it the form and feature you desire to preserve and not the
constituent particles? But form and feature change every day or year,
and are as impossible to fix as the atoms themselves. Indeed, is not
the whole matter put beyond choice by the evident fact that unless by
the fiat of an extramundane deity the only moment possible to fix the
bodily form in the mould of eternity would be the death-moment? And
yet this were the most undesirable of all seasons, since at that hour
the body is in the weakest, most useless, and most wretched condition
of all the hours it has served us. Supposing therefore, that you are
so in love with your own body that you would wish to call it into
life again and for forever, we see at once that no moment or phase of
development could be chosen, except perhaps the dying moment, the least
desirable of all, and that the particles of one's body have served
their turn in myriad other bodies each having an equally valid claim to
his "property." Besides this the absurdity of the whole is emphasised
by the crushing fact that all the organic matter of the world has been
used over and over for bodies and the earth has not enough hydrocarbons
to fit out again with bodies a small fraction of the souls that have
lived upon it. Doubtless the combined weight of all the organic bodies
that have lived on the earth would be many times the total weight
of the globe including its minerals, elements, and gases. It may be
frankly admitted that no bodily resurrection is possible.
And it is as certainly undesirable. The old dogma was the crudest
materialism, wholly unworthy of the credence of those who pretended to
believe that God was a spirit, and that they were his children. The
belief in bodily resurrection was a natural concomitant of the age
of sensualism before the mind and spirit had risen to their modern
heritage. The desire for such a resurrection stamps the person with
a self-confessed imperfection of mental and moral development. The
impossibility of such a resurrection is one of many proofs that life
is no sensualist at heart and that ideality is the final outcome, the
trend of actuality. Nature compels us to take wings though the sluggish
Psyche lingers lovingly in the pretty little cocoon of materiality she
has built about herself.
Is it perhaps your understanding, reason, or intellect that you
desire to perpetuate forever? Frankly, now, are you so in love with
your mental outfit? In your more modest and sane hours are you not
sadly conscious how very imperfect it is? While we are young and very
conceited we may be filled with self-satisfaction and trust in our own
judgment, but as the years drag by, we, looking back over the past,
grow more and more conscious that our intellect is not to be trusted.
Think of the interminable series of blunders of which your life is the
record! How poorly you have misjudged people and circumstances! How
your reason has fooled you many times and again! How many illusions and
delusions you have lived through! With what sad clearness you now see
your former stupidities, and with what blindness you fail to see your
present ones! Looking about you, you find others equally as gifted as
yourself holding your opinions as loathsome. Looking above you, you
see the most intellectual and the most educated diametrically opposed
in their opinions of God, man, and nature. Two great men, two brothers
learned and trained in dialectic and logic, soon grow apart. One
becomes a cardinal of the Romish church, accepting papal infallibility
and a thousand such absurdities, the other as firmly convinced that
the fallacies of the English church are God's gospel. Looking below
you, you see the great mass of men wrecking their minds and lives
upon a thousand outrageous beliefs and prejudices. There is no sadder
spectacle in the world than this that the people love error. But each
one with imperturbable conceit is convinced that he sees better and
plainer than another. Every partisan democrat or republican has no
sort of doubt that he is right about every financial or governmental
measure, though he has never studied finance, history, or political
economy five minutes. He does not dream that he is a dupe of the lousy
politicians and of his own _lack_ of intellect. All history is a tangle
of such poverty-stricken intellection. One can but be amazed at the
proneness of everybody to see things and do things every way but the
right way. And this is the kind of a mental equipment you would stamp
with the seal of eternity!
Possibly you may protest that it is a more perfect and purified
intellect that you wish. Ah, yes, but that would not be your intellect.
You want to be made over, made into another person. That would not be
your immortality but that of another. That would imply that it is pure
intellect and perfect, in the abstract, that you are interested in.
Have you shown much interest in that sort of intellect in the past?
If you wish such an immortality of a perfected intellect you must
certainly possess it before it can be made everlasting.
Perhaps, again, you will say that it is the ever-progressive
ever-growing intellect you desire. This is subterfuge. That is not
what you wish but what you would take in default of your first choice.
Lessing said that if God held out to him absolute truth in one hand
and in the other the everlasting search for truth he would choose the
latter. But the condition of everlasting search would be the condition
of everlasting imperfection of intellect. Lessing's choice seems to me
impious.
I therefore conclude, that at heart you do not wish to eternalise your
crude imperfect intellect, and that the sole method of getting an
exalted and perfected intellect is to cultivate it here and now. Have
you in the past obeyed reason and not passion or self-interest? Have
you studied logic, history, and science with a sincere desire to do
your political and social duty, and to free yourself from prejudice,
error, superstition, and conceit? If not why should God suddenly endow
you with a perfect intellect ready-made? Is it God's way in this world,
to give excellencies unasked and unearned? Rest assured he will not do
it at your dying hour. It is no particular merit in you to die; why
should you be rewarded with a new intellect then?
Or, again, you may say that it is not so much your intellect that
you wish to make immortal as it is your emotional nature, affection,
etc. Love and friendship, you complain, are cut off by death and
the tendrils of the heart die because they find nothing to cling to
or rest upon. You would like to renew beyond the grave the love and
sympathy that has made the earth-life endurable, and even beautiful.
Now is this, in very truth, just so? Are you really satisfied with
your devotion and love? Have not your outgoings of the heart been
quite fickle, illogical, selfish, and calculating? Has not your love
and gratitude been often a lively sense of benefits to come? Has your
love to woman not been of the "Kreutzer-Sonata" type, a little better
and more subtly-concealed perhaps, but at heart the same? If you are
a woman have you been seeking to get or to give love, and has your
little affection been but payment for protection and a home? Have you
chosen true and noble friends and been true and noble to them? Has your
charity been but alms-giving without kind sympathy and helpfulness?
Have you as married folk, perhaps, been, as the cant phrase has it,
"devoted to each other," but oblivious of the duty of affection toward
the rest of the world,—grinning examples of _égoisme à deux_? Is your
family a fetich, an enlarged sort of selfishness? Do you at heart care
much for anybody except your own precious self? And a too exclusive
love, even of the purest type may be sin in God's eyes. If you bind all
your affection upon one weak life you risk a precious value upon too
single and narrow an object, and deprive others of the sympathy that
need it more. "Just wrapt up in one," as the sentimental jargon has
it, is often if not always a pleasant way of great sin. Affection may
become morbid—a disease, quite as well as any abuse or exaggeration of
any other characteristic.
I take it that they who are the most satisfied with the strength,
purity, and constancy of their love and emotional nature are precisely
they that have neither actual strength, purity, and constancy
of sentiment, and are thus accurately they that should not have
immortality.
Lastly, if neither body, intellect, nor the affectional nature are
such as you wish made eternal, are you any better contented with your
moral nature? The question at once raises a smile. The feeling of our
own ethical unworthiness has crystallised into the great Christian
dogma of Christ's vicarious sacrifice. In the words of the old hymn,
"Jesus died and paid it all, all the debt I owe." No man hoped to get
to heaven on his own merits. Much of the zeal of religion has consisted
in the joy of the belief that by a sleight-of-hand trick, a big sponge
of forgiveness was wiped over the ethical debit and credit account by
the lachrymose deity, whose occupation, as Heine said, was to forgive.
History is one long monotonous list of man's sins and inhumanities. I
think it probable that you will not urge the ethical aspect; I would
leave that plea aside. We all know that we are very much like a lot
of pigs, each after the most and best corn and the warmest bed. The
amazing immorality of trying to get to heaven on another's merits was
the most brazen example of how little heavenliness there was in the
heaven-hunters and heaven-scalers. Of course the desire for heaven
itself, the desire for one's happiness was immoral when conditioned
upon the misery of others. Nature in this respect is better than man,
denying him his childish materialistic desires and forcing him to wait
for immortality until he can learn to live in the spirit and seek no
selfish heaven.
Just as the body is ever changing, and it is impossible to seize
upon any hour when we could eternalise it, except at the undesirable
death-hour, so it is the same in reference to intellect, love, and
morality. There are no two days in life when we are the same. As
to intellect we have little before adult life is reached, and most
people have little after fifty or sixty years. It is proverbial
that no one changes his opinion after that age, but lives on old
prejudices and ideas. The mental powers get into ruts and habits, true
reason being abrogated. As to love we laugh at our fickleness, and
our habits and ideals of friendship get sordid as each year strips
off the freedom and expansiveness of youth and the dear cold ghost
of self is more exclusively worshipped. And our ethical standards
change with each day's passing. We have at every hour to clutch
ourselves by the throat and cry, "Stay! Who art thou?" And lo! while
we ask our protean self the question, we have become another. We seek
perpetuity of existence for something ever becoming other. We seek
personal identity after death, but we have no personal identity before
death: how then can we have it afterward? Do you not see that what
makes you recognisable, different from other individuals, and what
would make personal immortality possible depends upon the accidents
of organisation,—depends firstly upon the bodily peculiarity, and
secondly upon imperfections of mind that you do not wish to perpetuate?
Twins sometimes wear a knot of ribbon as a signal whereby their friends
may recognise them. Our faces and bodies are but such little symbols
or signals that our souls have hung out for the day. Divest your best
friend of his body and would you recognise him? Have you ever thought
how the photograph of your friend's soul would look? If bodily form
and imperfections make up the most of what we call individuality it
becomes evident that in casting off imperfection we become less narrow,
less individual. As you become freed from the cramping littleness of
self-love and the bonds of self-gratification, as you rise into the
life of the spirit, you find yourself less individual. One fitted for
a true heaven would not care for the old immortality. What is good
to carry over into the future life is not so much personal identity
as personal non-identity, not so much the imperfections that make
us individuals as the perfections that free us from individualism.
We must lose our life to find it. We have overestimated the value
of individuality. Self-consciousness has become hypertrophied, and
the summum bonum of life is held to be the preservation of a little
puckered-up individuality. This over-development of individualism is
doubtless due to the fierce struggle man has had to elevate himself out
of savagery. It has been possible only through excessive carefulness
and love of the ego. The struggle for existence is now taking on
class and corporate characteristics so that the common weal is an
ideal quite as much as individual satisfaction and safety. Hence
the exaggeration of personality may now return to something like a
healthy normalism. As a natural outgrowth and consequence of this
over-development of the individual consciousness, there came the absurd
attempt to carry over into the after-life the same sort of existence
that had been developed here,—consisting in a neglect of the actual
world of one's descendants, an ignoring of death that ends the body
and products of organisation, and a failure to see that a future life
after death must be a life of the spirit, of perfections, and of the
common life, not of peculiarities and imperfections. If this seems an
aery height and a too rare air it argues against your preparation for
the only desirable as well as the only possible kind of immortality.
It argues against you just in the same way that your horror of death
does. It is only participation in the divine life of the spirit that
can see death as right and good. Death comes to shatter our baseless
trust in the evanescent physical and teach us dependence upon the
everlasting spiritual. They dread death whose life is of the physical
type. God never gave to man a greater blessing, after life itself,
than death, and nothing more strikingly proves the divine government
of the world than the certainty of its coming to us all. If death is
your enemy, life is not your friend. The brutal attempt to ignore the
fact, the belief that the body with its pack of heathenish appetites
and needs could push through death and come out fresh and renewed
on the other side is the very insanity of individualism and the
intoxication of materialism. The mourning, shudder, gloom, and horror
of death,—God-sent if anything is—is practical pessimism and reckless
atheism. Death's one lesson is that we must love and cultivate what he
cannot touch. One who has lived a life of kindness and spirituality
has no horror of death, and to him it has little mystery. But to him
whose divinity has been self and whose religion the worship of his
physiological senses, death must be the ugliest of enemies who is to
rob him of his all. Did you ever notice how life is plastic and free
when first fashioning for itself a body? "All heaven lies about us in
our infancy." In youth we are unselfish, aspiring, and noble. As the
years go by the power of the organisation, the material grows, and
limits more and more the freedom of the spirit. Frankenstein turns upon
its maker. With age men get narrow, cold, calculating; women snakey,
scheming, cruel. The soul finds itself more and more the slave instead
of the master, and by and by when the slavery becomes unendurable, it
takes flight, and this you call death. It is the body's reward for
insubordination. I think we deserve little sympathy for dying. Most of
us have well-merited death before it comes—I speak, of course only
of the death of those in life's afternoon. Few keep the young life
pliant and free beyond the age of fifty. If people could see that
life is the maker and moulder of organisation, and if they would seek
immortality upon earth, I believe men might come to live a hundred
years. Trees learn to live thousands of years, but they keep youth,
and spring, and trust, and love, forever nestling with the birds among
the rejuvenescent leaves of spring. We die not because the body is
weak, but because it has become too strong. We die because there is no
real continuance and strength in anything but the non-physical, and
we have trusted in the physical. Matter without free life is inert,
moved only from without: the dead body is simply matter without life.
It is not the blacksmith's arm that is strong: without nerve-force it
cannot raise an ounce, cannot raise itself. Whence the nerve-force?
From the ganglionic gray cells of the spinal cord and brain. And whence
these little gray cells? The dear stupid physiologist has now reached
his limit, and you can confidently answer for him that it was Life
created these things, Life that existed before muscles, nerves, and
cells, and that slowly fashioned them; Life, an order of existence
in no imaginable way analogous to, or to be confounded with matter
or mechanics. There is in the history of thought no more ludicrous
and dismal failure than the attempt to explain life in terms of
mechanics. The hope of the materialist that science would prove his
prejudice is torn to tatters. The children of the spirit are amazed
at the bat-blind inability to see the fact,—to see that life is more
certain and enduring than matter, soul than sense. The organs of the
body are changed, diseased, die; the body itself dies; generations
of bodies die, but like a containing cord of silk, on which all the
glittering beads of flesh are strung, there is the soul, the life,
ever the same, persisting unchanged through all change, giving unity
to diversity, moulding, making, discarding, choosing, healing, working
to far-away ends with blind, and dead, and obstinate materials. You
love the flesh over-much and jealous life says to you, "Take it then,
this so loved and wondrous flesh; me you have not loved,"—and lo! the
dead body, useless, decaying, lies before you. Let no materialistic
misreading of science hoodwink you into any blurring of the outlines
between matter and life.[78] The two are as far apart as heaven and
earth, are as dissimilar as thought can conceive,—perhaps in a final
analysis, are the only two things of the universe. There is no fact
of science showing the faintest warrant for confounding the two. Even
Huxley calls materialism the most baseless of all dogmas. It will
probably be found that there is but one element, of which all others
are duplications and combinations, atoms being but centres of force.
But life is irresolvable into any form of matter or mechanical energy.
It is not only unthinkable that matter could originate life, but it
is demonstrably absurd. No scientist to-day believes in spontaneous
generation. _Omne vivum ex vivo_ is an axiom. The plant has no nervous
system and yet has every physiological function possessed by the human
body. It has contractility, irritability, respiration, anabolism,
catabolism, and reproductivity,—that is, it has spontaneous movement,
it responds to stimulation, it breathes, it assimilates, it excretes,
it begets its like,—and physiologically this is all you can do. Nay,
more than this, even a drop of the jelly-like protoplasm that makes
up the basis of all cell-structures, animal or vegetable, has also
all of these qualities or powers.[79] There are bundles of wholly
structureless, unorganised jelly that exhibit these capacities in a
wonderful degree. There is, for instance, _Hydra viridis_, that has
no eyes and yet sees, no brain or nerves and yet lies in wait for
prey, pursues and fights, or flees from danger. Turned inside out it
lives and digests its food as well as before. It holds live worms
down with an improvised arm when they try to get out of its stomach.
Any part reproduces all. Cut off the bottom of its stomach and it
goes on eating, quite untroubled by the little accident,—and so
on. A great, wise, blind man has defined evolution, or life, as the
integration of matter and the dissipation of motion during which the
matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite
coherent heterogeneity, and during which the motion undergoes a
parallel transformation. Some one else improved upon this by saying
that it was "a change from a no-howish, untalkaboutable all-alikeness,
to a some-howish and in general talkaboutable not-all-alikeness, by
continuous something-elsifications and all-togetherations." Schelling
said that life was the tendency to individuation. But the crystal or
the planet shows that, and they are not living. As the hand cannot
grasp itself, neither can life define itself. All definitions I have
seen miss the essential and primal characteristics of spontaneous
movement. But all definitions begin by begging the question,—assuming
the thing explained. The truth is that there is no definition or
explanation possible. The dualism of matter and life must be accepted.
There is no monism can bridge the gulf between mechanics and life.
Inorganic matter with its inherent forces and laws cannot be conceived
as ever coming into or as passing out of existence. From all eternity
it was as it is, and so it will remain. The physical universe shows
no hint of design, no glimpse of freedom, no trace of intelligence,
no suggestion of a maker or God. It has no power of choice, no
spontaneous motion. But the merest speck of living matter is utterly
and absolutely different. It may have eyes or no eyes, and yet it
sees, ears or not and yet it hears, nerves or not and yet it feels
and reacts, brain or not and yet it thinks and plans, and acts in
accordance with intellectual resolves. The dead body of your child is
most inconceivably different from the living body of an hour ago. The
one fundamental mystery of the explainable world is why life seeks
objectification in material forms, and why it seeks it with such
vehemence and ardor. Life seems to bite at matter as if with famishing
hunger. One wonders if from some other planet life is being suddenly
starved out or banished by some catastrophe, and as a consequence
there is thence an over-emigration of the hungry Huns upon our earth.
Certain confused and confusion-breeding philosophers in the interests
of a theoretical monism or pantheism pretend to find, or to believe
that the organic is born out of the inorganic, that the physical world
shows evidence of design, that life and mentality were implicate and
latent in pre-existent matter. Yet they will accept the evidence
against spontaneous generation derived from the fact that if you kill
all organic life by intense heat and then exclude life from without you
will never find life to arise. But it is plain that in the condensation
of the dust of space into suns and planets all organic life was killed
in the hottest of all conceivable heat. But as the planets cool, life
appears. It must have come from without, and must therefore be an
universal self-existent power. Why, or how, or whence life comes to us
we do not know now, but the transcendent miracle is ever before our
eyes: infinitely rich and free, life is filling, thrilling, surcharging
every molecule of matter to which with wondrous power and ingenuity it
can gain access. It covers every thousandth of an inch of the earth's
surface, dives into the deepest ocean depths, fills the air as high as
the mountain tops, ever unsatisfied, ever grasping up a million million
renaissant forms, never resting, never baffled. Before this omnipresent
god one stands in rapt amazement and worship. To matter, then, life
first brought, and still ever brings the power of organisation, of
adaptation, of spontaneous energy, and of movement. But when the death
of the organisation takes place, the life that preceded and formed it
is not lessened or affected. When the watch wears out does it prove
that the watchmaker is dead? It is more rational to suppose that the
watchmaker has kept on with his work, that he has made and will make
many more watches, and I therefore judge that the life of each of us,
that existed before our bodies, that formed our bodies, will still form
other bodies after ours. The Oriental doctrine of the transmigration of
souls is not to be accepted in its crude details, but it is doubtless
a great truth. It is more rational and more consonant with what we
know of life, than the theory of wasted life implicate in the barbaric
notion of sending numberless millions of souls to hell to do nothing
but suffer useless pain, and other millions to heaven to suffer (I use
the word advisedly) useless pleasure. Any theory of immortality that
rests upon the assumption of uselessness and waste may be quickly set
aside. Just as matter and force are indestructible, various forms of
force being interchangeable, so it must be with life. There must be a
conservation of life-energy just as rigid, and this truth must remake
and remould the whole conception of immortality. When a mechanical
force disappears in one phase, it at once reappears in another aspect.
So vegetable, animal, and mental life are but different aspects of
life-force, and suffer no loss when transformed one into the other, or
when the body disappears altogether. And as it is the inherent nature
of force never to rest so there is no rest for life. Banishment of life
to a heaven of inaction is as impossible as it is absurd.
[78] Those who think this view is the voice of faith and not
of true science may profitably read a little book that has
come to my notice since writing these pages: _Life Theories
and Religious Thought_, by Lionel S. Beale.
[79] According to the latest scientific researches the
dependence of all organisation upon life is more clearly shown
than ever. My friend Dr. Edmund Montgomery twenty-five years
ago, as a result of extended experiment and research, showed
that the body of animals is not an aggregation of cells,
the force of the whole being derived from the enslaving and
utilising these subordinate organisms, but that the whole
body is a single protoplasmic living connected mass or unit
with functionally specialised parts. That this view is the
scientific view of to-day and that the cell-aggregate theory
is dead may be seen by consulting the article "Zelle," by
Prof. Frommen in _Eulenburg's Real-Encyclopädie der gesammten
Heilkunde_, 1890.
This extension of the law of the conservation of force to things
biologic and psychic is a two-edged sword: it offers conclusive
evidence of the fallacy of the materialist and unbeliever. There is
no annihilation; your life at death not only may not stop but cannot
stop. Life is as inextinguishable as physical force. On the other
hand this sword deals the death blow to two equally shallow fallacies
of believers. Just so sure as it insures the preservation of your
life, of all that is worth preservation, just so sure it denies the
possibility of preserving what was bound up with and produced by
organisation,—that is individuality and personal identity. These
things, if not entirely, are certainly largely the products of your
peculiar physical and physiological organisation. Whatever is born of
the flesh must perish with the flesh; what is born of the spirit shall
inherit eternal life. But the profoundest and most distinguishing
rebuke is given the unscientific, puerile, selfish assumption of
the waste, loss, and uselessness of life involved in the old theory
of heaven and hell. When from a chemical compound you take away and
liberate one element or compound radicle, does it then shoot off into
space, to "flock all by itself" for eternity? By no means! It at once
rushes into a new combination with its nearest neighbor, quickly
picking up again the round of its duty and function. The curious notion
that after having done work in one body, life or souls should at once
rush off to some far-away star, there to sing or howl for eternity was
a childish absurdity. One wonders where even an omnipotent God could
get material for such an amazing manufacture and loss of souls. The
theory also forgot that logic demands that what should live forever in
the future must perforce have lived forever in the past. A rope if it
have one end, must have two ends. What, therefore have our souls been
doing during this past eternity? The truth is that absolutely speaking
there cannot be souls, but only soul. Life is a unit, and indivisible.
The tiniest bit of bioplasm holds and represents all of life. Neither
you nor it are separable from the whole. There may be education and
progressive evolution of life as a whole but there can be no individual
and selfish salvation apart from the salvation of all other souls. The
idea that release from the body at once releases a soul from action,
duty, and the work of life, is an illogicality that could have arisen
in no mind conversant with the demonstrated law of the non-wastage of
force in any work of energy elsewhere. Life is never tired; it is the
body that requires rest not the spirit. The old doctrine of heaven,
an eternity of laziness, was the sigh of the sluggish flesh whipped
to ceaseless work by the unresting life. The desire of heaven was the
desire of eternal death.
This extension of the idea of the non-wastage, the rigid conservation
and interconvertibility of force to things of life, gains a new
significance and grandeur when we consider that whatever proves the
immortality of man proves the immortality of every other animal or
vegetable form. The tree and horse have a soul quite as well as you,
and must live after death quite as surely as you will. It is the
flimsiest of conceits that makes men think they are endowed with a
special sort of soul or divine life, different from that of animals or
plants. Don't flatter yourself. God takes quite the same loving pains
and care in the elimination of a leaf that he does of a brain-cell. Man
is but a small part of the animal world, and the whole animal world
is but a small part of the total life of the globe. Don't despise the
vegetable kingdom: it can do something you cannot do—make living
matter out of mineral substances. You could not live a day without the
food furnished you by "your brothers, the plants." Hence if human life
or souls cannot be sent off into space to do nothing, neither can the
souls of animals and plants. If we are to have our heaven they must
have theirs also. Does not this tangential theory begin to be clumsy
and work with huge creakings and difficulties? It looks like _reductio
ad absurdum_.
Not only is the tangential theory contradictory of all physical
analogies and all known laws, but it is positively immoral. It is but
a refined selfishness. Worldliness is none the less sinful because
it is other-worldliness. If billions of souls could thus be wasted
in an eternity of useless pain or pleasure, could thus, drunken with
individuation, hug their own sweet ghosts for never-ending time—then
were life a farce, the universe a huge meaningless machine for grinding
out waste and useless souls. But if all life, past or future, is one
and indivisible, purposive, educational, then the world becomes full of
meaning and the face of the Father, Life, smiles out at us from every
living thing. The faith of all good men that goodness is at the heart
of things is justified. The Earth becomes our home, that we can love;
our Father ever dwelleth here; we cannot be banished. When we have
finished our task, when our body has worn out, tireless life, of which
we are the children and heirs, gives us here and now other work to do.
To matter, this tremendous cosmical game of incarnation can mean
nothing. We see the dead flesh break up into simpler chemical forms and
the atoms finally spin off unaltered by their flesh-dance, again to be
caught up by the mystic and unseen Master, again to be pressed into
organic forms,—forms that like empty sea-shells only show where life
has been. And so on forever. But to life some educative purpose must be
operative through it all. Life that made eyes must see more than eyes;
life that made brains must know more than brains. There is doubtless
pain and strain; but is there to be no ultimate justification? We may
catch glimpses of reasons. Do we not see an increase both of quantity
and quality of life in geologic times? Is life trying to do away with
death and heredity? Are they but makeshifts, death but a discarding of
too obstinate material? Birth but a retempering and reworking of the
same material? Heredity but the temporary means of passing life and its
experiences onward until death and birth shall be found unnecessary in
a growing command of chemical and physical forces that shall banish old
age out of the world? There is no inherent reason why a body should
grow decrepit. If it can be made to preserve its suppleness for fifty
years why not for a thousand? It may transpire that the dream of an
elixir of life may come true through scientific progress despite the
savage death-blow given it by Brown-Séquard. The more sin, selfishness,
and wrong there is the shorter is the average length of human lives. If
you will look into the rich and awful science of statistics you will
find proof of this in every class of society. When we apply ourselves
to enrich and lengthen our life-time with the same zeal we now use
in killing each other—when the endowments of the world's scientific
schools equal the cost of the world's armies then there will be a very
different life-table found in the insurance-offices.
Finally with mournful echoing recurrence comes the old question: How
much of individuality persists and passes untouched through death's
fingers? How far does the graduate life carry with it the results of
experience? I would answer: all that you ought to desire, all that
is best, all that you will want when you fully understand how little
and poor is individuality and that there is something including it
and far better. I have a strange inability, personally, to understand
the to me absurd hunger after personal identity. It appears to me a
childish obtuseness of character. The great and glorious freeness and
largeness of life, the decentralised, impersonal quality of it seems
to be unappreciated. I do not see how people can fail to understand
that personal identity is not only impossible, does not exist now
and here, but that the desire of it is the renunciation of progress.
We grow and advance only by change, only by breaking up identity and
becoming other. Think also of the lack of identity or individuality
in nature. There is no personality and individualism there, and yet
there is something that includes personality and is much more. There
is will, consciousness, intelligence, life,—but not identity or
individuality. So the life that is the heart of us invites us to leave
our little self and find a larger self. Religion is our _yes_ to that
invitation. Materialism and pessimism is the saying _no_ to it. The
immortality that is alone possible or desirable is the losing our
life, the individual identity-loving life, again to find it as the
impersonal but richer, deeper life of nature and God. God denies you
an immortality of individualism and identity because he loves you so
well that he refuses you your crude childish desire in order to offer
you something infinitely better. People do not seem to see how narrow,
small, and partial is the dissociate speck of the individual, and
that as an individual progresses in all the virtues of character he
evermore becomes proportionally less individual and less centralised,
always more like the divine prototype of his impersonal father, Life.
The love of individualism is the love of imperfection. This may to
some seem a hard doctrine. It is not perhaps an easy task for the
butterfly to break its way out through the million-fold bonds of its
cocoon, but when risen into the large air and sunshine does it regret
the birth-struggle? They who think they are being cheated of reality
for a metaphysic illusion will find in breaking through the bonds of
flesh that they also have brought with them splendid wings for rising
in the no less real but rarer air of spiritual trust in life. It is
not that we love less the thousand ties of flesh, home and kindred,
but that in recognising the paternity and fraternity of all life, we
find love commensurate with that life. I do not think there was any
cold stony harshness in the face of Jesus when he uttered those most
profoundly significant of all words, "Who is my mother, and who are
my brethren? Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, the same is my
brother, and sister, and mother." What a recall to the common life of
the spirit! What unity with the common life based upon loving obedience
to the will of the Father. What a wonderful rebuke of the love of
individualism. He did not love his mother less but humanity more. The
more we rise into that impersonal atmosphere the more are we careless
of the fate of personal identity. The composite photograph shows the
fundamental and enduring quality, the average feature. In a certain
sense life and history are taking humanity's composite photograph;
but, inordinately-loving individualism, each sitter conceitedly
demands that his own picture be left untouched and unblurred by that
of the others, and that his poor little portrait shall stand alone
and forever—precisely what the divine photographer does not wish and
will not permit. Obstinacy persists and God smashes the negative to
the ground with the unanswerable argument called death. Because it
is more than metaphor that in any ways your body may be likened unto
a photographer's negative: created, for example, by the in-flashing
of a heavenly ray of light among the highly unstable chemicals of
matter; useless, except as an intermediate step to a clearer showing
of the character; black and invisible unless shone through by the pure
light of life and love; fragile as glass,—and lastly the poor, weak,
shadowy, dead counterfeit of a throbbing, marvellous, living reality.
The hunger for an immortality of the body, of the senses, the lust of
immortality, is, in empty fatuousness, only comparable to the mania of
a crazy photographer interested only in his negatives, and who never
"develops" one, or to the foolishness that values photographs more than
the friends themselves. If we once get our spiritual eye fixed upon the
deep reality and unity hidden by the Maia-veilings of individuality
and flesh, the cravings of our weak hearts for eternal continuance of
our little bundle of littlenesses, would fall away from us as softly
as the wayward longings of childhood. We could then see that it is the
quality of all life, the progressive purity, power, and increase of
life in the abstract, that become all-important. Religion would become
the love and veneration of Life the Father of us; morality the cheerful
obedience of the individual to that Father; Heaven the re-entrance of
the individual life into the great unity. Much of the old religion
was irreligious; its God a far-away dead abstraction, not a living,
ever-present love; its immortality was at heart a desire for death,
its spiritualism at heart a barbaric materialism. To this death of
faith and irreligious religion, comes the sympathetic study and love
of nature—that is, science—and reveals to us the opulence of life,
the infinity of intellect in nature, the inexhaustibleness of her
resources and of her diversity, her beauty, and her splendor. The old
materialistic degradation of religion forefelt its doom would come from
this spiritualistic revivification, and the devotees cried out against
science as atheistic. And science found some foolish enemies in her own
camp who, misreading their divine book, joined in the cry—"Nothing
but mechanics." It was a dismal short-lived croak. We now see that not
only are science and her workers religious, but without scientific
knowledge there can be no adequate idea or practice of religion. You
can't love God unless you love and know what he is doing in this
universe. The man who in a walk goes neglectfully and obliviously by a
million mysteries and wonders that God has been toiling to eliminate
for ages,—such a man cannot lay much claim to God's friendship. If
we love our friend, we have some interest in the deepest concern of
his life. The foolishest of all fears is the fear that science is
somehow going to destroy all good things of faith and life. In truth
it reveals all good things. It demonstrates and manifests both God and
immortality,—God as the Father of all life, immortality as the surety
of the conservation and non-wastage of that life. Much of the fear of
science, is as I have said the fear of the old materialistic religion
in presence of the larger faith that burns up its beloved errors. They
who had been promised and had argued themselves into a groundless
belief in the value and immortality of a bundle of sensual appetites,
selfish desires, and imperfections saw far in advance that any large
study of life and nature would dash their wretched faith to atoms. And
science has overridden this unfaithful faith. "He that soweth to his
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the
Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." This is as true
scientifically as it is true morally and religiously.
It requires but a little study of neurology and psychology to give
demonstration to this truth. The products of organisation die with
disorganisation. Most, if not all, of what people mean by individuality
and personal identity is a product of organisation, is an accident
of incarnation. Children are similar to each other; they are lovable
partly because idiosyncrasy and individualism haven't yet developed.
As we grow older we cultivate individuality, until the very old are
usually angular, cranky, individual with a vengeance! Death, thank
heaven, is the end of that, the certainty of a non-eternalising of the
imperfect. Birth is a new trial. Incarnation and reincarnation are
the ever-renewed work of Life. Through the laws of heredity, through
physiology, sociology, and biology, science is tirelessly illustrating
to us how all life holds together, how individualism is valueless,
and sacrificed to the common weal. There is no escape, sensual or
supersensual from the world's great common life. The old selfish dream
of a heaven apart from incarnation, from doing and becoming was a
pitiful mistake. You cannot clutch your cake of happiness and like a
spoiled child run into the attic of heaven to eat it alone. Life will
see to it that you do not slip off. And if you have been born again of
the spirit you will have no such desire, but will beg for kindred work
upon the old earth-home.
In the meantime the conclusion is clear: to love and aid the work of
our master Life we need not wait for death. We may not seek our own
salvation; it is no matter whether you and I are saved or not. The
reincarnation of life is our work here and now. It took you twenty
years to fashion out of a microscopically-small speck of unorganised
protoplasm your body and brain. Within us we are to keep that
organisation from cramping and binding the life,—keep life as large
and free and pliant as possible. Outside of us the incarnation goes on
as well, and every person you influence either for good or for ill,
thus by the fact, becomes a product of your incarnating work. Every
day you have a hundred opportunities to give, without lessening your
own supply, some of your own life, to increase the quantity and to
elevate the quality of the general stock of the world's life. Help the
young, they inherit the world and will use it well or ill according
to your teaching and example. Stop cruelty to animals, they are your
brothers, filled with the same life as your own; fight the political
ruin we are preparing for ourselves by partisanship, bribery, and
class-legislation; discourage war and intemperance and lessen the
tyranny of the strong and wealthy. Wage a ceaseless war to the death
against luxury, the poison that is eating and rotting the hearts of all
of us; love trees, meadows, clear brooks, the mountains and silences
of Nature. Love, not so much your own or another's individual life, as
Life itself. There is otherwise no immortality.
The divine story tells us that after measureless suffering and
self-purification, Buddha had gained the right to enter Nirvana. With
compassion filling his heart he put his merited reward aside and
resolved to remain without to teach and to help until every child of
earth should have become his disciple, and until every disciple should
have entered Nirvana before him. Such must be the resolve of every true
lover of life and of every right seeker after immortality.
GEORGE M. GOULD.
SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHO-PHYSICS.[80]
SENSATIONS AND THE ELEMENTS OF REALITY.
[80] This article is the substance of a private communication
from Prof. Ernst Mach to the Editor of _The Monist_—published
in the present form with Prof. Mach's consent. Translated from
Professor Mach's MS. by Thomas J. McCormack.
I have read Dr. Carus's article "Feeling and Motion"[81] with care,
and have also perused Clifford's essay on "The Nature of Things
in Themselves." Let me attempt to present the points in which our
agreements and differences consist.
[81] _The Open Court_, Nos. 153 and 154.
To begin with, I state with pleasure that the monistic tendency of both
endeavors is in the direction that appears to me to be the true one and
that is most likely to afford elucidation. Consequently, agreement in
matters of detail is of subordinate importance and is only a question
of time.
Let me cite, first, a few passages from "Feeling and Motion" to which I
give my full assent. They are the following:
"The interconvertibility of motion and feeling is an error."
"Feeling is real as much as are matter and motion."
"Its reality accordingly is most immediate and direct, so that it would
be ridiculous to doubt it."
"Man's method of understanding the process of nature is that of
abstraction."
"Every concept is formed for some purpose, and every concept by serving
one purpose necessarily becomes one-sided.... We must bear in mind....
(1) the purpose it has to serve, and (2) that the totality of things
from which abstractions can be made is one indivisible whole.... We
must not imagine that the one side only is true reality."
Some years ago I should also have agreed _in toto_ with the passages
in which Dr. Carus speaks of the animation of all nature, and of the
feeling that accompanies _every_ motion. To-day this form of expression
would not, it seems to me, correctly characterise the matter. If I were
now prematurely to advance a definitive formulation, I should fear
lest, so far as myself and perhaps others are concerned, important
aspects might remain concealed.
I shall next cite the passages with respect to which I do not agree
with Dr. Carus, and then I shall endeavor to state wherein our
differences of opinion consist:
"All series _A B C_ ... are _accompanied_ by α β γ." [The _A B C_ ...
series of Dr. Carus has a different meaning from mine.]
"We may represent _motion_ or we may represent _mind_ as the basis of
the world, or we may conceive them as being on equal terms." [I cannot
agree with a co-ordination of "motion" and "mind."]
"They [viz. feeling and motion] are as inseparable as are the two sides
of a sheet of paper." [Fechner says, "As inseparable as the concave
and convex sides of the same circle." This appears to me an inapposite
simile in so far as a _duality_ is predicated where in my view a
_unity_ alone exists.]
My view of the problem is as follows: We have colors, sounds,
pressures, and so forth (_A B C_ ...), which, as simplest component
parts, make up the world. In addition thereto, percepts (resolvable
into α β γ ...), feelings, and so forth, more or less composite. How α
β γ ... differ from _A B C_ ... I will not define here, for I do not
know exactly. It is enough for the time being that they do differ from
_A B C_ ..., as the latter do from one another. And let us now leave α
β γ ... entirely out of account and put ourselves in a time and state
in which there are only _A B C_. Now I say, that if I see a tree with
green leaves (_A_), with a hard (_B_), gray (_C_) trunk, that _A B C_
are _elements_ of the world. I say _elements_—and not sensations,
also not motions—because it is not my purpose at this place to arrive
at either a psychological or a physiological or a physical _theory_,
but to proceed _descriptively_. The every-day man, indeed, takes
greenness, grayness, hardness, or complexes thereof it may be, for
constituent parts of the world—for he does not trouble himself about a
psychologico-physiological theory—and does not learn moreover anything
more about the world; from his point of view he is right. Similarly,
for the descriptive physicist the question is also one merely of the
dependencies of _A B C_ ... on one another; for him too _A B C_ ..., or
complexes thereof, are and remain constituent parts of the world.
If, however, I close my eye (_K_), withdraw my feeling hand (_L_), _A
B C_ ... disappear. If I contemplate _A B C_ ... in _this_ dependence
they are my _sensations_. This is but a special point of view within
the first.
According to my conception, therefore, _the same A B C_ ... is both
element of the _world_ (the "outer" world, namely) and element of
_feeling_.
The question how feeling arises out of the physical element has for me
no significance, since both are _one and the same_. The parallelism
stands to reason, since each is parallel to itself. It is not _two_
sides of the same paper (which latter is invested with a metaphysical
rôle in the simile), but simply the _same_ thing.
A perfect physics could strive to accomplish nothing more than to
make us familiar beforehand with whatever it were possible for us
to come across _sensorily_; that is, we should have knowledge of
the interrelation of _A B C_. A perfect psychology would supply
the interrelation of α β γ. Leaving out of account the theoretical
intermediaries of physics—physiology and psychology—questions like
"How does feeling arise from motion" would never come up. However, the
artificial inventions of a physical or psychological theory, must not
be introduced into a general discussion of this character—for they are
necessarily "one-sided."
I may now set forth my differing point of view with regard to the idea
of "motion." A motion is either perceptible by the senses, as the
displacing of a chair in a room or the vibration of a string, or it
is only supplied, added (hypothetical), like the oscillation of the
ether, the motion of molecules and atoms, and so forth. In the first
instance the motion is _composed_ of _A B C_ ..., it is itself merely
a certain relation between _A B C_ ..., and plays therefore in the
discussion now in hand no especial part. In the second instance the
hypothetical motion, under especially favorable circumstances, can
become perceptible by the senses. In which case the first instance
recurs. As long as this is not the case, or in circumstances in
which this _can never happen_ (the case of the motions of atoms and
molecules), we have to do with a _noumenon_, that is, a mere mental
auxiliary, an artificial expedient, the purpose of which is solely to
indicate, to represent, after the fashion of a model, the connection
between _A B C_ ..., to make it more familiar to us. It is a thing
of thought, an entity of the mind (α β γ ...). I cannot believe that
this is to be co-ordinated with _A B C_ ... in the same way as _A B C_
... among each other are. Putting together motion and feeling goes as
much against me as would say the co-ordination of numbers and colors.
Perhaps I stand quite alone in this, for physicists have accustomed us
to regard the motions of atoms as "more real" than the green of trees.
In the latter I see a (sensory) fact, in the former a _Gedankending_, a
thing of thought. The billions of ether-vibrations which the physicist
for his special purposes _mentally annexes_ to the green, are not to be
co-ordinated with the green, which is given immediately.
When a piece of zinc and a piece of copper, united by a wire, are
dipped in sulphuric acid and deflect a magnetic needle in the vicinity
of the wire, the unprepossessed _discoverer_ of the fact discerns
naught of motion beyond the deflection of the needle and the diffusion
in the fluid. Everything reverts to certain combinations of _A B
C_. Electricity is a thing of thought, a mental adjunct; its motion
another; its magnetic field still another. All these noumena are
implements of physical science, contrived for very special purposes.
They are discarded, cast aside, when the interconnection of _A B C_ ...
has become familiar; for _this last_ is the very gist of the affair.
The implement is not of the same _dignity_, or reality, as _A B C_ ...,
and must not be placed in the same category, must not be co-ordinated
with it where general considerations are involved to which physics with
its special objects does not extend.
The green (_A_) of the tree is not only adjoined to the presence of
the sun (_B_), but also to the deflection of the needle (_X_), by my
optic nerve. Familiarising intermediary connections to-day by motions,
to-morrow by some other means, is the business of the special sciences,
and can only disturb and obscure a general discussion. What should we
say of a cosmology from a pharmaceutical point of view? In principle,
this very thing is done, it seems to me, when physical augers and saws
are employed in all fields of work, as is universally the case.
So much for the juxtaposition of motion and feeling. Perhaps I alone am
right, perhaps I alone am wrong.
* * * * *
According to my conception accordingly "material" processes are not
"_accompanied_" by "feelings," but are _the same_ (_A B C_ ...); only
the relation in which we consider them makes them at one time physical
elements and at another time feelings.
The relation in which "percepts" and "feelings" as distinguished
from "sensations" stand to sensations, is not clear to me. I am
much inclined to regard these feelings as a species of sensation
(co-ordinate with sensations). How the representative percepts of
imagination and memory are connected with sensations, what relation
they bear to them, I dare venture no opinion. The relation of α β γ ...
to _A B C_ ... is the point regarding which I do not feel sufficiently
sure. Regarding _A B C_ ... (world of sense in its objective and
subjective significance) I believe I am clear.
Dr. Carus in a private letter to me says: "It almost seems as if you
transform all _A B C_ ... series into the corresponding α β γ ...
series."
This is not the case. I designate by α β γ ... representative percepts
(not sensations), and say simply that _A B C_ ..., _the same A B
C_ ..., play, according to circumstances, now the rôle of physical
elements, now the role of sensations. I call _A B C_ ..., therefore,
_elements_, pure and simple.
Mine is not the Berkeleian point of view. The latter has been
mistakenly attributed to me time and again, the separation that I make
of _A B C_ ... from α β γ ... not having been sharply discriminated
and it not having been borne in mind that I call _A B C_ ... alone
_sensations_, not however α β γ. Clifford, with his "mind-stuff,"
approaches very near to Berkeley.
Monism, as yet, I cannot thoroughly _follow out_; because I am lacking
in clearness with regard to the relation of α β γ ... to _A B C_ ...,
which can only be supplied by further physiologico-psychological
investigations; but I believe that the first step towards a
competent monism lies in the assertion that the same _A B C_ ...
are both physical and psychical elements. As regards the psychical
"accompanying" the physical, the question How? continually recurs.
Either they are two incompatible things (Dubois) or their relation is
bound up in a third thing ("thing-of-itself"). By viewing the matter
as _two sides_ of the same thing, not much more is gained, to my mind,
than a momentary satisfaction.
All non-monistic points of view are, in my opinion, artificial
constructions, which arise by investing with very far-reaching
extensions of meaning psychological or physical special-conceptions,
which have a limited value, applicable only within the department in
question for the elucidation of the facts of that department. The
overvaluing of psychological conceptions leads to spiritualistic
systems, the overrating of physical conceptions to materialistic
systems. Naturally in the latter systems _motion_ plays a great rôle;
for through a mistaken conception of the _principle of energy_, people
have come to believe that everything in physics can be explained by
motion. But explanations by motions have, as a matter of fact, nothing
to do with the principle of energy. The majority of physicists, it is
true, believe and disseminate this opinion. If, when a physicist speaks
of motion and nothing but motion, the question is asked _What_ moves?
in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred nothing palpable or demonstrable
is brought forward in answer, but hypothetical atoms or hypothetical
fluids are adduced which execute motions still more hypothetical.
Even in the domain of physics itself, the business of which is to
proceed from the sensory and to return to the sensory, I can regard
these "motions" at best only as provisorily tolerated intermediaries
of _thoughts_, that have no right to be ranked on equal terms with
reality, let alone placed above it.
Still less can I allow "motion" the right to create a world-problem
where none exists, and thereby to conceal the real point of attack in
the investigation of reality.
I may add that some years ago I took exactly Dr. Carus's point of view,
which I presented in a lecture on Psycho-physics published in 1863 in
the _Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für praktische Heilkunde_.
With regard to Clifford I may make the following remarks. The notion
"eject" pleases me very much. I have long had the idea in mind, but
have not defined it because its limitation is not clear to me; nor
has Clifford given me any light on the subject. Is the representation
in us of the material nature of things we _cannot lay hold of_ (the
sun, the moon) to be called an eject? Are the abstract concepts of
physical hypotheses, which in their very nature can never become
sense-affective, ejects? Such things are abstract in widely differing
degrees, and are bound up with the sensory in very unequal proportions;
the impossibility of becoming sense-affective is partly absolute,
partly only relative, that is, it exists for the time being.
I do not at all agree with Clifford's notion "mind-stuff"; in this I
wholly concur with Dr. Carus. It is not unbiased philosophising to come
down in the end to a _psychological_ notion as _comprehensive of the
world_,—a notion on the face of it pre-eminently one-sided.
* * * * *
In connection with the subject under discussion, I might incidentally
make mention of Mr. Charles S. Peirce's article "The Architecture
of Theories" in the last number of _The Monist_. One Mr. Peirce, a
mathematician,[82] has made some very valuable investigations, similar
to Grassmann's. This author's view of the evolution of natural laws
does not strike me as so singular. If predominance be given in our
conception of the world to the spiritualistic or psychical aspect, the
laws of nature may be regarded as tremendous phenomena of memory; as I
attempted some years ago to set forth in a lecture of mine. The idea
of their evolution is then very near at hand. Of course I do not think
that for the time being we can gain much light from this view. For
the present the "scientific method" in the grooves of which we have
moved for three hundred years, continues to be the most fruitful. It is
advisable to be very cautious in advancing beyond this. It is for this
reason also that I do not think very much of the fruitfulness of the
idea that the entire world is animated and feeling. We have as yet too
little insight into the psychical, and still less into the connection
between brain-organisation and brain-function and psychical process.
Of what advantage to us is the assumption of feeling in cells in which
every clue is missing by which to proceed from the psychical assumed
to the physical connected with it. It seems to me that the physical
and psychical investigation of sensations is for the time being the
only thing that can be entered upon with any prospect of accomplishing
anything. In this we shall first learn the proper formulation of
questions that are to form the subject of further investigations.
[82] Mr. Benjamin Peirce, father of Mr. Charles S. Peirce.—ED.
ERNST MACH.
SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHO-PHYSICS.
FEELINGS AND THE ELEMENTS OF FEELINGS.
EXPOSITION.
When a man who has done so much valuable work for the progress of
science as Professor Ernst Mach finds it necessary to change the
position he has taken,—a position which has appeared to many thinkers
as a satisfactory solution of the most intricate problem in the
philosophical and psycho-physical field,—there must exist in the
solution some difficulty which has either been overlooked or at least
too little appreciated. If there is a flaw in it, I wish it to be
exposed. And convinced that its discovery must be of general interest,
I take pleasure in publishing Professor Mach's criticism of the view
which I have defended in a former article of mine.
The main source of most differences, it seems to me, springs from
misapprehensions. I shall therefore attempt to elucidate the subject
with reference to the objections presented by Professor Mach.
#Recapitulation.#
The main idea set forth in my article "Feeling and Motion" may be
briefly recapitulated as follows. Our feelings are phenomena which to
an observer who could see all the processes taking place in our brain,
would appear as motions of a special kind. Motions and feelings are two
aspects of one and the same reality. But feeling cannot be explained
as transformed motion. Accordingly, the elements of the conscious
feeling which now exists and now disappears, must have existed before.
The presence of elements of feeling must be an additional feature of
the processes of nature not included in the term motion, and not
observable in motions, yet inseparably bound up in motions. Or, in
other words, feelings and the elements of feeling are the subjective
aspect of what objectively appears as and is called motions.
The term "elements of feeling" employed in this sense has been adopted
from Clifford. The idea that feelings and motions are two aspects of
one and the same reality has been held by several psychologists; among
whom are the founders of the science of psycho-physics, especially
Fechner.
I. MOTION AND FEELING.
Professor Mach says: "Putting together motion and feeling goes as much
against me as would, say, the co-ordination of numbers and colors."
#Justification of juxtaposition.#
The putting together of two concepts depends upon the purpose of our
investigation. Motion and feeling, in spite of their disparity, have
one quality in common which justifies their juxtaposition. Both in
their spheres are terms of the most general circumscription.
#Feeling described.#
By feelings I understand those features of our experience which
constitute what may be called the awareness of the present state.
Feeling comprehends all the many degrees of awareness in pleasures and
pains, sensations and thoughts, emotions and ideals. It constitutes the
subjectivity of our existence and furnishes the basis of all psychic
life. Feeling is the most general term of its kind.
#Motion described.#
By motion I understand all kinds of changes in the objective world
that can either be directly observed or are supposed to be observable.
Indeed all changes taking place must, objectively represented, be
thought of as motions.
Feeling and motion being each the broadest concept of its kind, the
question, In what relation do motions stand to feelings? appears to be
quite legitimate.
* * * * *
Concerning the relation that obtains between feeling and motion,
Professor Mach objects to the use of the expression "feeling
accompanies motion." "Material processes," he says, "are not
accompanied by feeling, but both are the same." And in another passage,
"The parallelism stands to reason, since everything is parallel to
itself."
#The term "accompany" inadequate.#
I grant most willingly that the term "accompany" is inadequate, and I
admit that a certain feeling and a certain motion form one inseparable
process. There is no duality of feeling and motion, both are different
abstractions made from one and the same reality. I do not say that
feeling and motion are identical, not that they are one and the same;
but I do say that they are one. There is no such thing as pure feeling;
real feeling is at the same time motion. Feeling by itself does not
exist in reality. Pure feeling is a mere abstraction. And wherever the
expression parallelism between feeling and motion has been used, it can
mean only a parallelism between the two spheres of abstraction.
Professor Mach continues: "They [motion and feeling] are not two sides
of the same paper (which latter is invested with a metaphysical rôle in
the simile), but simply the _same_ thing."
#Fechner's simile.#
For the same reason Professor Mach objects to Fechner's comparison.
Yet it seems to me that Fechner hit the mark when he compared feeling
and motion to the inside and the outside curves of a circle; they are
entirely different and yet the same. The inside curve is concave,
the outside curve is convex. If we construct rules relating first to
the concave inside and then to the convex outside, we shall notice a
parallelism in the formulas; yet this parallelism will appear only in
the abstractions which have been made of one and the same thing from
different standpoints and serving different purposes. The abstract
conceptions form two parallel systems, but the real thing can be
represented as parallel only in the sense that it is parallel to
itself. If we consider the real thing, it represents a parallelism of
identity. There is but one line, and this one line is concave if viewed
from the inside, it is convex if viewed from the outside.
#The simile of a sheet of paper.#
The simile which I introduced of the two sides of one and the same
sheet of paper was devised to convey no other meaning than this
construction of Fechner's comparison. The paper is invested with
a metaphysical rôle only in the case where the simile is otherwise
construed. There is no page which exists of itself as a mere
mathematical plane independent of the paper of which it forms a side.
Thus there can never be in reality a page without its counterpage.
The paper, its size and color, belong to the page and constitute its
properties.
Thus the abstraction 'feeling' represents my looking at the one side
of reality. I leave, and from the subjective standpoint I have to
leave, the other side out of account. Yet the other side of the sheet
is inseparable from the one at which I am now looking, just as much as
feeling is inseparable from motion. And I am constrained to admit the
truth of the reverse also: motion is inseparable from feeling, but with
the limitation that motions need not be on their subjective side actual
feelings; they may be only elements of feeling which under certain
conditions become actual.
#The metaphysical misinterpretation.#
I am aware that my comparison of feeling and motion to the two sides
of one sheet of paper may be easily misinterpreted. But is not that a
danger to which all comparisons are subject? A comparison is always
imperfect, or as the Romans used to say, it limps: "Omne simile
claudicat." And is not reality liable to be misinterpreted in the
same way? Have not some philosophers thus introduced the metaphysical
explanation of the unknowableness of things in themselves? Such
philosophers conceive the two sides of a sheet of paper (the abstract
mathematical planes of the pages) as phenomenal and the paper as their
metaphysical essence. The size of the sheet, the color of the paper,
and all its other qualities are in a metaphysical world-conception
represented as properties of which the thing is possessed—not as
constituting the thing, but as essentially different from it.
It appears to me that Professor Mach in spite of his opposition to
Fechner's simile and to the expression that feeling and motion are two
aspects of one and the same reality, entertains the same view. At least
his words: "Only the relation in which we consider them makes them at
one time physical elements, at another time feelings," are to that
effect.
II. SENSATIONS AND THOUGHTS.
#Professor Mach's problem.#
The difference between Professor Mach's view and mine may appear
greater than it is, because the problem which Professor Mach treats in
his article "The Analysis of the Sensations," lies in quite a different
field from that of the problem of the relation of feeling to motion.
The problem being different, the same and similar terms are not only
used for different purposes, but demand also different comparisons.
Professor Mach's symbols _A B C_ ... and α β γ ... represent a contrast
different from that of feeling and motion. They represent the contrast
of sensations and thoughts. Sensations, such as green and hard, are
colors, pressures, tastes, etc; thoughts are memory-images, concepts,
volitions, etc.
Professor Mach says: "How the representative percepts of imagination
and memory are connected with sensations, what relations they bear to
them, as to this I dare venture no opinion.... Monism, as yet, I cannot
thoroughly follow out; because I am lacking in clearness with regard to
the relation of α β γ ... to _A B C_ ...; but I believe that the first
step towards a competent monism lies in the assertion that the same _A
B C_ ... are both physical and psychical elements."
My symbols _A B C_ ... and α β γ ... represent the contrast of physical
and psychical elements, not of sensations and thoughts. Concerning
thoughts, Professor Mach says he is much inclined to co-ordinate them
with sensations so that his Greek symbols might differ from his Italic
symbols not otherwise than the latter, viz. _A B C_ ...; differ among
themselves. Taking this ground, I believe, it would be preferable to
symbolise them accordingly among the Italic letters, perhaps as _X Y
Z_. In the diagrams on page 407 they are called Μμ, Νν, Σς.
#Feeling, sense-impression and sensation defined.#
According to my terminology, feeling, as explained above, is the most
general term expressing any kind and degree of subjective awareness.
A sense-impression is a single irritation of one of the senses,
the irritation being a special kind of motion plus a special and
correspondent kind of feeling. A sensation is a sense-impression that
has by repetition acquired meaning. A later sense-impression, when
felt to be the same in kind as a former sense-impression, constitutes,
be it ever so dimly, an awareness of having to deal with the same
kind of cause of a sense-impression; thus giving meaning to it. By
sensation, accordingly, I understand a sense-impression which has
acquired meaning. And feelings that have acquired meaning, I should
call mental states. Representative feelings (feelings that have a
meaning) are the elements of mind.
#Thought and thinking defined.#
By thinking I understand the interaction that takes place between
representative feelings. Such are the comparisons of sensations
with memory-pictures, or of memory-pictures among themselves, the
experimenting with memory-pictures so as to plan new combinations, etc.
The products of thinking are called thoughts; and by thought in the
narrower sense is commonly understood abstract thought which on earth
is the exclusive privilege of man.
If I am not mistaken Professor Mach understands by sensations
(represented by him as _A B C_ ...) what I should call
sense-impressions; while thoughts, memories, and volitions (represented
by him as α β γ ...) form what I should call mind, or all kinds of
mental states, that is, the domain of representations.
The higher spheres of thought, or representative feelings, grow out
of and upon the lower spheres. Sense-impressions, as I have attempted
to explain in the article "The Origin of Mind" (_The Monist_, No. 1),
are the data which are worked out into concepts and ideas; they are
the basis upon which the whole structure of mind rests. The reflex
motions of simple irritations, being modified in higher spheres by the
rich material of experience consisting of memory-images, and by the
possibility of forethought created through experience, become volitions.
#Monism and the origin of mind.#
A monistic explanation of the rise of mind from elements that are not
mind is possible only on the supposition that the objective processes
of motion are not mere motions but that they are at the same time
elements of feeling.
Is this not the same position as Professor Mach's, where he says that
"the first step towards a competent monism lies in the assertion that
the same _A B C_ ... are both physical and psychical elements"? and
again: "The same _A B C_ ... are both elements of the _world_ (the
'outer'[83] world namely) and elements of feeling."
[83] Professor Mach here says "outer world." I should prefer
to replace it by the expression "objective world," because
the motions of a man's brain belong to the outer world of
all other men. To make sure of including the actions of
my own body in this outer world, I should prefer the term
"objective world," making feelings alone (to the exclusion of
the subject's own motions) the constituents of the subjective
world.
#Agreement with Professor Mach.#
Considering the two last-quoted sentences of Professor Mach, it appears
to me that all differences vanish into verbal misunderstandings. Yet
since I am not at all sure about it, I may be pardoned for becoming
rather too explicit. The adjoined diagram may assist me in making my
ideas clear.
[Illustration: Fig. I. Fig. II.]
#Explanation of the diagrams.#
Let the large circle of both figures represent a sentient being, a man.
The periphery is his skin. The small circle enclosing _K_ and _L_ is a
sensory organ; the other small circle enclosing _M_ and _N_ represents
the hemispheres of his brain. _A_ and _B_ are processes taking place
outside of the skin of this man. _A_ produces an effect in _K_; _B_ in
_L_. The line _R_ represents a reflex motion. _M_ and _N_ are concepts
and abstract ideas derived from such impressions as _K_ and _L_. The
line _S_ represents an act of volition.
All these symbols represent motions in the objective world. We know
through physiological investigations that _K_, _L_, _M_, and _N_ are
motions; in our individual experience they appear as feelings.
The second figure represents in agreement with my system of symbols
the states of awareness, in Greek letters. Certain physiological
processes (_K L R_, _M N S_ of Figure I) appear subjectively as states
of awareness (i. e. κ λ ρ, μ ν ς of Figure II). Yet _A_ and _B_ remain
to the thinking subject mere motions. If they possess also a subjective
side, although only in the shape of potential feeling, it does not and
it cannot appear.
#Sensations not elementary.#
Professor Mach calls green, hard, etc., which in a certain relation
are our sensations, "the elements of the world." These processes
characterised as "green," "hard," etc., are in my opinion too special
and at the same time too complicated to be considered elementary. I
grant that they are elements of mind, because if further analysed, they
cease to be mental phenomena. But they are not elements _per se_, not
elements of the world. It remains doubtful to me whether Professor Mach
understands by his term "sensation" only _K_ κ and _L_ λ or the whole
relations _A K_ κ, and _B L_ λ. Taking it that he represents _A B C_
... as both elements of the world and sensations, it almost appears
certain to me that his term "sensation" stands for the whole process
_A K_ κ, and that he considers the scientific analysis of this process
into _A_ the outside thing, into _K_ the nerve-vibration corresponding
in form to the outside thing, and κ the feeling that takes place in
experiencing the sense-impression _A K_, as an artificial procedure
that serves no other purpose than that of familiarising us with certain
groups of elements and their connections. The processes _A K_ κ, _B L_
λ, in that case would be considered by Professor Mach as the actual
facts, while the _A_ and _B_, the _K_ and _L_, the κ and λ represent
mere abstract representations without real existence, invented by
scientists in order to describe the realities _A K_ κ, _B L_ λ, etc.,
with the greatest exactness as well as economy of thought. In their
separate abstractness they are the tools of science only and we must
not take them for more than they are worth.
#Thoughts as mental implements.#
If this be so, I understand Professor Mach very well and I agree with
him when he looks upon all _M_ and _N_ with their respective μ and ν as
being "noumena, _Gedankendinge_, things of thought." They are mental
tools. Sense-impressions are realities, but mental representations are
implements; they are auxiliaries for dealing with realities; they are
"the augers and saws" employed in the different fields of cognition.
#Persistence of the elements of mind.#
Professor Mach says in his article "The Analysis of the Sensations":
"When _I_ (the ego) cease to perceive the sensation green, when I die,
then the elements no longer occur in their customary, common way of
association. That is all. Only an ideal mental economical unity, not
a real unity, has ceased to exist." The term sensations, it appears
to me, can in this passage be interpreted neither as _K_ κ only, nor
as the whole relations _A K_ κ, but as any _A B C_ ... relations; and
since Professor Mach has not excluded from them the element of feeling,
I should have to represent them by _A_ α, _B_ β, _C_ γ.... Sensations
as I understand the term (viz. _A K_ κ, _B L_ λ), are elements of
mind; if they are further analysed they cease to be mental states.
Says Professor Mach: "If I close my eye (_K_) withdraw my feeling hand
(_L_), _A B C_ ... disappear. In this dependence _A B C_ ... are called
sensations." Should we not rather say, they cease to be sensations, if
this dependence ceases? Accordingly, sensations and sense-impressions
are for this and for other reasons not indecomposable, not ultimate
atoms. The elements of mind can be further analysed into the elements
of the elements of mind. The elements of mind do not persist; but the
ultimate elements of the elements of mind, whatever they are, do (or at
least may) persist.
When speaking of the elements of the elements of mind we cease to deal
with objects of actual experience as much as a physicist or chemist
does who speaks about atoms. Nevertheless the analysis is as legitimate
in our case as it is in the chemist's. If in the above quoted passage
I am allowed to replace Professor Mach's term "sensations" by elements
of sense-impressions, I should not hesitate unreservedly to accept
his idea. These elements of sensations would be all kinds of natural
processes, all kinds of motion. They would be physical actions which
are not mere motions but also and at the same time elements of feeling.
#Ideas as contrivances for comprehension.#
It is true that abstract concepts, and especially scientific terms and
theories, are mere contrivances to understand the connections among,
and the qualities of, real things. Ideas are not the real things, but
their representations, and some ideas are not even representations;
they are solely of an auxiliary nature and comparable to tools. They
are used as working hypotheses wherever the real state of things is in
part hidden from us, until we have found the actual connections. As
soon as the actual connections are found we can and must lay down our
tools.
In a certain sense all words and concepts are tools for dealing with
the realities they represent. But some words are tools in a special
sense. They have been invented for acquiring a proper representation.
#The dignity of mental tools.#
Professor Mach says: "The implement is not of the same dignity or
reality as _A B C_...." It appears to me that these implements (if
they are of the right kind) have almost a higher dignity (although not
reality) than the material to which they are applied. My respect for
tools is very great, for tools are the most important factors, perhaps
the decisive factors, in the evolution of man. The usage of tools
has matured, nay created the human mind, and words,—scientific and
abstract terms and theories not excluded,—are the most important and
most sacred tools of all.
Some ideas, it is true, have to be laid aside like tools that are
no longer wanted; but there are other ideas which we cannot lay
aside, because they have more value than the ideas of a mere working
hypothesis. Some ideas are indispensable and will remain indispensable;
we shall always have to employ them in order to represent in our mind
the connection between certain facts. If we see a train pass into a
tunnel and emerge from it at the other end, we will connect in our mind
these two sensations by the thought of the train's passage from one end
to the other. This idea is not a sensation; it is a noumenon. Shall it
therefore be called a _mere_ noumenon, a tool that has to be discarded
as soon as we are accustomed to expect a train to emerge from the one
end of a tunnel soon after it has disappeared into it at the other end?
#Noumena legitimate, if representing realities.#
There are scientific concepts which, for some reason or other, can
never become objects of direct observation; they can never become
sensations. Nevertheless we must think them together with certain
sensations as indispensable connecting events taking place behind the
stage and hidden from our eyes. Our conception of a train hidden from
sight in a tunnel, it is true, is a noumenon, but it is a legitimate
noumenon, it represents a reality. So also many scientific ideas,
although undoubtedly things of thought, are legitimate noumena. If
they contain and in so far as they do contain nothing but formulated
features of reality or inevitable conclusions from verified and
verifiable experiences, these things of thought represent something
real, which means that if we were in possession of microscopes of
sufficient power, or if we could look behind the veil that hides them
from our sight, we should see them, just as we should see the train if
the rock through which the tunnel leads were transparent.
III. THE ORIGIN OF FEELING.
Concerning the origin of feeling Professor Mach says: "The question how
feeling arises out of the physical element has for me no significance."
I agree that we cannot ask how feeling arises out of the physical
element. But feeling being a fleeting phenomenon, to propose the
problem of the origin of feeling _has_ a significance.
#Physical elements with and without feeling.#
Some physical elements—namely, those of our own body—are indubitably
possessed of the subjective phenomena of feeling. And as to certain
other physical elements, observable in our fellow creatures, that is in
men and animals, no one would think of denying their presence either.
But there are physical elements which we regard as bare of all feeling.
The wind that blows, and the avalanche that plunges into the valley are
not supposed to be feelings. Yet the energy of the wind and the energy
of the avalanche may be utilised and ultimately stored up in food. The
food may be changed into human energy and then the element of feeling
appears as if called forth out of the void. We agree that feeling has
not been changed from motion. But if feeling was not motion before,
what was it? Feeling cannot be a creation from nothing. Consequently
it must in its elements have existed before. Feeling, namely actual
feeling, must be regarded as a special mode of action of the elements
of feeling. If all that which we can observe in motion, all that
which the term motion comprises, constituting the objective changes
taking place in nature, contains nothing of feeling or of the elements
of feeling, we must yet attach to every motion the presence of this
element of feeling.
#Elements of feeling not observable.#
That the potential subjectivity of the physical elements, namely
the elements of feeling, cannot be seen; as motions can be seen and
objectively observed, is not a reason that militates against this view;
for it is the nature of all subjective states to be felt only by the
feeling subject. If all feelings are objectively unobservable except
by their correspondent motions, the elements of feeling can form no
exception to the general rule.
* * * * *
#The animation of all nature.#
Professor Mach says: "Some years ago I should have agreed _in toto_
with the passages in which Dr. Carus speaks of the animation of all
nature and of the feeling that accompanies every motion."
#Nature not all feeling.#
Let me here emphasise that I have termed nature "alive" not in the
sense that every motion is supposed to be accompanied with sensation,
nor with any kind of feeling, but with an element of feeling only. I
am aware that the term element of feeling may be easily misunderstood,
and it seems advisable to guard against such misconceptions. Actual
feeling I suppose originates from the elements of feeling similarly
as an electric current originates under certain special conditions.
Sulphuric acid dissolves zinc and sets energy free which appears in the
copper wire as electricity. It is an instance of the transformation of
potential energy into kinetic energy.
#The term "elements of feeling" inappropriate.#
To use the expression "elements of feeling" is no more or less
allowable than to speak of the stored up energy from which electricity
is produced, as elements of electricity. The latter expression is
inappropriate, because we are in possession of better terms, because
our range of experience in the subject is wider. But suppose that
among all molar and molecular motions we were only acquainted with
electricity and knew nothing of potential energy, could we not for want
of a better word form the term "elements of electricity"?
#What the elements of feeling are not.#
The elements of feeling should not be supposed to be feelings on a
very small scale. The elements of feeling may be and for aught we know
are as much unlike actual feelings as mechanical motion, or chemical
dissolution is unlike electricity. The essential features of feeling
may be, and I believe they are, produced through the form in which
their elements co-operate. Similarly the different pieces of a clock
and the atoms of which it consists contain nothing of the clock; and
if we should call the heaviness of a weight, the swinging property
of the pendulum, the tension of the spring, etc., etc., elements of
chronometry, it might appear ridiculous, because we know so many other
processes, viz. all different ways of performing work, for which these
qualities can be used. The action of a spring, of a suspended weight,
of a mere pendulum are not by themselves elements of chronometry; they
become a chronometrical arrangement only by their proper combination
with a dial and hands attached, and by being correctly regulated in
adaptation to temperature and many other conditions.
* * * * *
It is not plausible that the earth, when in its gaseous state, was the
habitation of any feeling beings, and it is actually impossible that
it harbored feeling beings as they exist now. Feeling accordingly must
have originated, and the question how feeling originates is a problem
that suggests itself naturally to the psychologist as well as the
philosopher.
#Vital energy a unique form of energy.#
The kinetic energy liberated in our actions, in brain-activity as well
as muscular motions, is produced from the potential energy stored up
in our tissues. This energy, _qua_ energy, is the same energy which we
meet everywhere in nature. All kinds of energy are interconvertible.
Yet we must bear in mind that the vital energy displayed in animal
organisms is a special and indeed a unique form of energy. It is as
different from other forms of energy as is, for instance, electricity
from molar motion.
#Physiology and psychology not applied mechanics.#
In former times physics and chemistry were considered as applied
mechanics, and physiology as applied chemistry. This position,
however, is wrong and had to be abandoned. Mechanical, chemical,
physiological, and psychical processes exhibit radically different
conditions. The student of mechanics, the chemist, the physiologist,
the psychologist, each one of them attempts to solve a different
problem. They accordingly deal with different sets of abstractions. The
processes which constitute the subject-matter of the physiologist's
and psychologist's work are different from those of the mechanical
philosopher and of the chemist. The abstraction of the so-called
purely mechanical excludes such processes as chemical combinations;
it is limited to molar mechanics only. The term molecular mechanics
is an attempt at widening the domain of mechanics. But the terms
of neither molecular nor molar mechanics contain anything of the
properly physiological nature observed in vegetal and animal life. The
latter is a very complicated process which may briefly be described
as assimilation of living forms. The laws of molar and molecular
motions are not annulled, yet they are superseded; they remain, yet
some additional important traits appear. Different conditions and
complications show different features and the characteristics of
organised life are not the molar or molecular mechanics of their
motions but their properly physiological features.
Mechanical laws accordingly cannot explain physiological action, and
still less have they anything in common with ideas, or thoughts, or
feelings. Accordingly, the attempt to apply mechanics to any other than
mechanical considerations is _prima facie_ to be rejected. We must
never forget that all our scientific inquiries deal with certain sides
of reality only.
#The higher view of the whole.#
The abstractions of the mechanical philosopher as well as those of the
physiologist and psychologist are one-sided aspects only of reality.
Yet it is quite legitimate to take a higher standpoint in order to
classify our notions so that the general views comprise the special
views and to determine the relations among the several in their kind
most general views. In this way we can shape our entire knowledge into
an harmonious world-conception representing the whole as a whole. This
I tried to do when, following the precedent of Fechner and Clifford,
I proposed the problem of the origin of actual feelings from the
non-feeling elements-of-feeling, the former depending upon a special
combination or form of action of the latter, and the latter being a
universal feature of reality.
#The additional feature in a stone's fall.#
When we observe some very simple process in nature, e. g. the fall of
a stone, we represent it as a motion. We formulate the operation of
the stone's fall into a law, describing its mode of action as it holds
good in all cases of the same kind. But the motion observable and
representable in our mind is not all that takes place. There must be
some additional feature which in a further development will appear as
man's consciousness.
To regard the fall of a stone as only a very simple instance of
essentially the same process that takes place when a man does an act,
i. e. performs a motion accompanied with consciousness, appears at
first sight strange or even absurd. But we cannot escape the assumption
that in a certain respect it is the same thing. We are inevitably
driven to adopt this monistic conception of things by inexorable
logical arguments; and we are supported in it by the observation of
natural processes.
#Human activity and energy.#
Human action develops by degrees out of other natural processes,
and we have sufficient evidence to believe that humanity with its
civilisation, science, art, and all its ideals—so far as the energy
alone, spent in human activity, is considered—is but a differentiation
of natural forces that has come to pass on the cooled off surface
of the earth under the influence of solar heat. Man is transformed
solar heat. All the forces animating the planetary system are
differentiations from the heat of which our solar system was possessed
when in a nebular state. And what is the heat of which nebular masses
are possessed? It is the motion of celestial bodies, of comets, or of
so called world-dust, changed by collision into molecular motion.
But in human activity there is some additional element, that of purely
subjective awareness, which is neither energy in itself nor can have
been transformed from energy; it must have existed potentially.
Accordingly we assume that also in the more primitive processes of
nature there is some additional element which in its full development
appears as feeling and reaches its highest stage known to us, in the
consciousness of man.
IV. THE ORIGIN OF ORGANISED LIFE.
#Organised life and feeling.#
There is a very original view concerning the origin of life advocated
in this number of _The Monist_ by Dr. George M. Gould in his article
on "Immortality."[84] The problem of the origin of life (namely, of
organised life) is so closely connected with the problem of the origin
of feeling, that the one cannot be solved without solving the other.
Feeling such as we are familiar with is an exclusive property of
organised life and a few incidental remarks on Dr. Gould's proposition
will therefore not be out of place.
[84] It cannot be denied that many ideas set forth by Dr.
Gould in his presentation of the problem of immortality
contain a deep truth. The brilliant and forcible language in
which the author treats his subject is admirable. But the
passages on the externality of life present a conception
which stands in direct opposition to the views that have been
editorially upheld in _The Open Court_ as well as the _Monist_.
#Dr. Gould's dualism.#
In introducing here the views of Dr. Gould in a discussion with
Professor Mach, I am fully aware of the great difference that obtains
between the two. While Professor Mach's thought moves in an outspoken
monistic direction, Dr. Gould presents a bold dualism, attributing to
all life, to the lichen on the withered rock no less than to the human
soul, an extramundane origin. Why should we not then rather adopt
the more consistent theological supernaturalism which attributes to
inorganic nature also an extramundane origin, thus to realise by a
short cut a complete unitary world-conception?
Dr. Gould's proposition is contained in the following:
"Certain confused and confusion-breeding philosophers, in
the interests of a theoretical monism or pantheism pretend
to find, or to believe, that the organic is born out of
the inorganic, that the physical world shows evidence of
design, that life and mentality were implicate and latent in
pre-existent matter. Yet they will accept the evidence against
spontaneous generation derived from the fact that if you kill
all organic life by intense heat and then exclude life from
without you will never find life to arise. But it is plain
that in the condensation of the dust of space into suns and
planets, all organic life was killed in the hottest of all
conceivable heat. But as the planets cool, life appears. It
must have come from without, and must therefore be a universal
self-existent power."
#What can externality of life mean?#
The idea that "life must have come from without" is not quite clear.
Does Dr. Gould mean "from without our planetary system, out of
other planetary systems"? If so, the same objection holds good: In
other planetary systems also when they were in a nebular state "all
organic[85] life was killed in the hottest of all conceivable heat."
Shall we perhaps consider the cold interstellar regions as the place
whence life does come? And if "from without" means "from without the
whole universe," we should be driven back to the old supernaturalistic
dualism which regards nature as dead and life as a foreign element that
has been blown into the nostrils of material forms so as to animate
them.
[85] Dr. Gould does not seem to make a distinction between
"organic" and "organised." We should here prefer the
expression "organised life." Carbon is an "organic substance"
but not an "organised substance." A cell and its protoplasm,
however, are "organised substance."
#A modern thinker on the externality of life.#
Dr. Gould proposes his theory of the external origin of life, with
great confidence, in the name of modern science. Must we add that
modern science is very far from sustaining his view? Professor Clifford
touches the subject of spontaneous generation in his article "Virchow
on the Teaching of Science." He says:
"Why do the experiments all 'go against' spontaneous
generation? What the experiments really prove is that the
coincidence which would form a _Bacterium_—already a definite
structure reproducing its like—does not occur in a test-tube
during the periods yet observed.... The experiments have
nothing whatever to say to the production of enormously
simpler forms, in the vast range of the ocean, during the ages
of the earth's existence.... We know from physical reasons
that the earth was once in a liquid state from excessive heat.
Then there could have been no living matter upon it. Now
there is. Consequently non-living matter has been turned into
living matter _somehow_. We can only get out of spontaneous
generation by the supposition made by Sir W. Thompson, in jest
or earnest, that some piece of living matter came to the earth
from outside, perhaps with a meteorite. I wish to treat all
hypotheses with respect, and to have no preferences which are
not entirely founded on reason; and yet whenever I contemplate
this
simpler protoplasmic shape
Which came down in a fire-escape,
an internal monitor, of which I can give no rational account,
invariably whispers 'Fiddlesticks!'"
#Difficulties of Dr. Gould's position.#
Suppose, however, Dr. Gould's assumption were accepted, suppose that
life had come from without, matter were of itself lifeless, and life,
the "self-existent power," had ensouled some dead organic substances
so as to cause their organisation, would we be any wiser through this
hypothesis? The assumption instead of diminishing the difficulties in
the problem of life, would increase them. New questions arise: What
must this "self-existent power" be conceived to be? Does it exist
without a physical basis (to use Professor Huxley's phrase)? How does
it differ from energy? Is not all power energy of some kind? And are
not all kinds of energy interconvertible? Has this self-existent power
the faculty of changing other energy into itself, into life, or is it
only supposed to utilise it? In the latter case it would be a _Ding an
sich_, not in but behind the functions of organisms; and in both cases
it would form an exception to the law of the conservation of energy,
for "the self-existent power of life" would be an ever-increasing
power. One life-germ only may have come from spheres unknown into the
universe, and by utilising the mechanical energy of the material world
has animated at least our earth, and may animate in a similar way
all the globes in the milky way. That life-germ, however,—if it was
anything like a real life-germ, such as our naturalists know of,—must
have consisted of organic substance. What a strange coincidence, that
outside of the world also organic substances are found! Life-germs
are not simple substance, but highly complex organisms. Accordingly,
the question presents itself, How has this life-germ been formed?
What conditions in another world radically different from ours have
moulded it and combined its parts into this special life-germ so
extraordinarily adaptable to our material universe? Or must we suppose
that the first life-germ was formed out of the cosmic substance of our
universe by a non-material spark of life, (whatever life may mean,)
that had dropped in somehow into the material world from without?
If life is a self-existent power, why does it always appear dependent
upon and vary with the organisation, which it is supposed to have
formed? Why has life never been observed in its self-existence? So far
as we have ever been able to observe life, it is matter organised and
organising more matter. All the difficulties disappear if we say, Life
does not produce organisation, it is organisation.
* * * * *
#Organisms nor aggregates of cells.#
Dr. Gould, in appealing to the latest scientific researches as proving
"the dependence of all organisation upon life," especially mentions
his friend Dr. Edmund Montgomery and also Professor Frommen's article
"Zelle" (Eulenburg's "Realencyclopädie der gesammten Heilkunde," 1890).
Now it is true, as Dr. Gould says, that "the body of animals is not an
aggregate of cells." It is as little a mere aggregate of cells as a
watch is a mere aggregate of metal, or as a hexagon a mere aggregate
of lines. The body of animals is an organism; which means, it is an
interacting whole of a special form built of irritable substance. A
highly complex organism is not and cannot be considered as a compound
of its diverse organs, but as a differentiation. Its unity is preserved
in the differentiation, yet this unity does not exist outside of or
apart from the differentiated parts.
#Disparity of life and matter.#
I fully assent to Professor Huxley's proposition, approvingly quoted
by Dr. Gould, that "materialism is the most baseless of all dogmas."
I also believe in the _omne vivum ex vivo_; but I do not consider it
with Dr. Gould as an axiom, nor can I accept the consequence which Dr.
Gould derives from it, "that life [viz. organised life] is more certain
and enduring than matter, soul than sense." It is true that "matter
and life" are "as far apart as heaven and earth." Farther indeed,
for they are two abstractions of an entirely disparate character. No
passage through spatial distance, be it ever so large, could bring
both concepts together. They are and remain as different, as is for
instance the idea expressed in a sentence from the ink with which it is
written. Ideas contain no ink and ink contains no ideas. Yet this does
not prove that ideas exist by themselves in a ghostlike abstractness
apart not only from ink, but also from feeling brain-substance. Nor
does the disparity of the terms life and matter prove the abstract or
independent existence of life outside of matter.
If life for some such reasons as hold good only in so far as they
refute the old-style materialism, could or should be considered as
being some self-existent power having come into the world "to bite"
at matter, we might also consider the hexagon as a something that
came into the mathematical world from without. The hexagon cannot be
explained as a mere aggregate of lines, accordingly hexagoneity must be
a self-existent power; it must have come from without, utilising lines
for its hexagonic existence.
Organised life must have originated from non-organised elements by
organisation, and thus a new sphere is created which introduces new
conditions. The laws of organised life are not purely mechanical laws,
nor physical laws, nor chemical laws, but they are a peculiar kind of
laws; just as different as chemical laws are from purely mechanical
laws (the latter not including such phenomena as are generally called
chemical affinity).
#Natural laws and monism.#
Natural laws are formulas describing facts as they take place under
certain conditions. Accordingly if special conditions arise we shall
have a special set of laws. Monism assumes that all the laws of nature
agree among themselves; there is no contradiction among them possible.
Yet there may be an infinite variety of applications. The processes
of organised life are not mere mechanical processes. The abstractions
which we comprise under our mechanical terms do not cover certain
features of vital activity and cannot explain them. Physiology is not
merely applied physics; it is a province of natural processes that has
conditions of its own and the physiological conditions are different
from physical conditions. This however does not overthrow monism. We
believe none the less in the unity of all natural laws and trust that
if the constitution of the cosmos were transparent in its minutest
details to our inquiring mind, we should see the same law operating
in all the different provinces; we should see in all instances a
difference of conditions and consequent thereupon a difference of
results that can be formulated in different natural laws, among which
there is none contradictory to any other.
EDITOR.
LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
I.
FRENCH PUBLICATIONS.
Why do we sleep? Some have said, through cerebral congestion; others,
through cerebral anæmia. In reality the question remains undecided. M.
S. SERGUEYEFF has attempted to resolve it in his scholarly lectures
published under the title of _Le Sommeil et le Système nerveux,
Physiologie de la Veille et du Sommeil_.[86] He considers it under a
new and very general point of view.
[86] In two thick octavo volumes. Alcan, publisher.
According to him, wake and sleep would be the two alternating phases
of one and the same function, necessarily vegetative, and absolutely
indispensable to life. Sleep would respond to an assimilation; wake to
a dis-assimilation.
To this vegetative function, nevertheless, it is necessary to assign an
aliment, an organ, a mechanism. Now as yet we know of only two material
forms of assimilative activity, the one semi-liquid for digestion,
the other gaseous for respiration. The aliment of sleep would be, as
opposed to this, an ethereal matter, or, if we wish, a dynamic form,
susceptible of being accumulated and of being transformed in various
ways. At first sight, no doubt, it seems difficult to accept a sthenic
aliment, without a ponderable substratum, and it sounds a little
strange to seek in the phenomena of wake and sleep "an assimilative
group the object of which belongs to the ambient dynamism," in other
terms, "a functional activity," which should be influenced by the
condition of the alimentary source—that which would give at the same
time the explication of the fact, that, in a general way, the two
phases of wake and sleep are related to the planetary periodicity of
day and night, summer and winter. Let us, however, follow M. Sergueyeff
in his interesting researches, where the scientific spirit does not
cease, at any rate, to sustain him.
In his theory the cerebro-spinal system is no longer the organ, as
it is in the theories of congestion and anæmia; but it is rather the
so-called sympathetic elements, the ganglio-epidermic system, of which
the imperfectly known functions rightly require to be explained.
Struck with the insufficient reasons given of the phenomenon of
caloricity resulting from the section of a sympathetic nerve, or from
the obstruction of a ganglion, M. Sergueyeff has been led to assume an
action of the great sympathetic, different from the vaso-motor action.
He does not hesitate, in order to explain the caloricity, to admit
into physiology the principle of the mechanical equivalence of heat.
He endeavors to prove, by an ingenious argument, that the heat which
is produced after the section of the sympathetic nerves, finds its
immediate origin in the arrest of a nervous centripetal movement; that
this arrested movement owes its existence to dynamic condensations,
to which certain organs of the ganglionic system are adapted, being
endowed with a condensatory capacity; and finally that in the normal
state the movement represents, not an expenditure of energy, but a
contribution, that is to say, it is a movement of a trophical character.
The sanguineous condition of the brain remains to be considered; but
the difference in this respect between wake and sleep, would be purely
distributive instead of being quantitative. Schiff has remarked that
white rats deprived of their cerebral lobes and corpora striata sleep
and wake; which leads us to think that the phenomena of cerebral
irrigation are consequentials, and not essentials, of wake and sleep.
In short, these two alternating phases serve in turns as chief moving
causes for the vaso-motor excitation which differences, in one or
the other period, the sanguineous condition of this or that medullar
locality.
We cannot follow the author in the special study he makes, first
of the sensitive nerves and the motor nerves, then of the "cerebral
activities" in the conditions of wake and sleep. It would be laborious
to disengage his psychological doctrine from the long discussions
which envelop it, and which, well carried out as they may be, do
not always allow it to appear with as much distinctness as could
be wished. We will note only the care that he takes to restore the
_psychic initiative_, contrary to the theories most in favor to-day.
He supposes a prefunctional movement of the sensitive nerves, in
order to determine the sensorial impression; "attentive volitions" in
order to explain attention, voluntary or involuntary. According to
him, the physiological phenomenon which necessarily corresponds to
sufficient attention, that is to say to the laying hold of an object by
consciousness, can only be a volitional nervous movement. He remains
convinced that "the cells of the brain must project incessantly in
certain of their afferent fibres centrifugal influxes which tend to
meet with perceptive images"; and feeble and involuntary as these
influxes may be, he ranks them nevertheless in the somewhat mysterious
category of so-called attentive volitions. These are not reflexes, but
automatic movements. And definitively, every act of attention belongs
to the category of volitional movement, be it involuntary or voluntary;
or in short, "attentive volition exists prior to its voluntary
strengthening."
As to the revival of images, it is necessary to admit the intervention
of a previous tendency to association. The difficulty remains then
to know how we are to be able to keep these images before the
consciousness, in order to apply our attention to them, and what secret
cause has power to arouse the signals, the nervous movements, which
present them to it. The author resolves the difficulty by accepting,
for cases of intentional reviviscence, _ideo-motor_ volitions, to which
he attributes a considerable rôle; their intervention distinguishes
precisely, says he, the active memory from the passive memory.
In reality, for M. Sergueyeff the consciousness is not, as we have
said, a simple result of the image, an epiphenomenon; it is permanent
(thus he affirms that we always think, that we always dream); the
_Ego_, the _We_ is for him an irreducible factor. This way of looking
at things has evidently influenced the choice of his terminology, more
than it has vitiated his analysis, and its conclusions, moreover, he
has not put down to the credit of any system of metaphysics whatever.
Far from having exhausted the matter of his book, which is replete with
criticisms and facts, I have hardly sketched its outlines, and I should
be his false interpreter if I did not recall, in conclusion, the hope
strongly expressed by himself, that the great assimilative work of an
imponderable aliment reserves for us many other solutions beyond that
of the phenomena of wake and sleep. "Though it may be," says he to his
hearers, "that in all the recent words I have uttered, the truth shines
only by a spark, do not disdain this spark, gentlemen. May one of you
receive it within him, for it can, I have the confidence, by a more
powerful breath than mine suddenly increase, like a polar aurora, and
illuminate unbounded horizons."
* * * * *
We now come to a book of less scope, rudely constructed perhaps,
but very instructive. As indicated by the title chosen by him, _La
Psychologie de l'Idiot et de l'Imbècile_,[87] Dr. PAUL SOLLIER has
attempted to draw the portrait of the idiot and the imbecile _in
general_; which I sincerely approve of persuaded as I am that we shall
find profit in sketching generic types and in tracing the composite
photographs of social individuals grouped in various ways, in order
to establish on solid basis a "natural history" of societies. The
novelists have approached this difficult enterprise at random; it is
for the psychologists to direct it with a method more sure and a tact
not less delicate.
[87] Alcan, publisher.
Idiocy is not always congenital; the lesions which produce it are
extremely varied and do not consist by any means in a simple arrest of
development. In short, idiots form a very diversified clinical group;
and here was the first difficulty necessary to overcome in order to
write their psychology. Profiting by the insufficient definitions
that authors have given of idiocy, M. Sollier thinks he is able in
his turn to define it as "a chronic cerebral affection with varied
lesions, characterised by troubles of the intellectual, sensitive,
and motory functions, going possibly as far as their almost complete
abolition, and which assumes its special character, particularly in
what concerns intellectual troubles, only in the youthful age of the
subjects it strikes." Then, discussing the proposed classification, he
stops to form three categories, which he connects with the intellectual
development, for which attention serves him as the touch-stone. They
are: (1) absolute idiocy—complete absence and impossibility of
attention; (2) simple idiocy—feebleness and difficulty of attention;
(3) imbecility—instability of attention. These differences in the
state of attention (we recognise the fruit of the excellent teaching
of M. Ribot) separate with sufficient clearness the imbecile from the
idiot: the latter remains extra-social, the former becomes anti-social.
M. Sollier, for whom the imbecile, let us say in passing, is an
exceedingly disagreeable personage, follows out throughout the whole of
his book this distinction, which seems to us one of the most curious
and the most piquant aspects of it. How many people in the world
border on imbecility, without belonging clinically to this type, and
maintain the mischievous rôle of destroyers and marplots!
Readers familiar with the study of mental maladies will not be
astonished to find among idiots the following signs of degeneracy:
dulled senses, obtuse perceptions, a poor condition of sensibility
and consequently of mobility, and anomalies or perversions of the
instincts, sentiments, etc. But that which makes of them a group apart,
is the constitution of the perfect type from infancy, while among the
degenerates properly so-called, the perversions, the manias, etc.
present, are the episodical concurrences of a morbid evolution which
unrolls itself capriciously in the course of a whole life.
M. Sollier has interesting remarks nearly everywhere in his book. We
may refer, for example, to what he says concerning pity, courage; of
writing; of hereditary organic memory; of ideas, etc. It is curious,
certainly, to see idiots suddenly show themselves skilful in playing
an instrument which was that of their father and of their grandfather.
A passing observation on impressionability, greater for color in girls
and for form in boys, deserves to be developed: I regret that the
author should have been sparing of details on this point as on some
others. M. Sollier appears, we may say, to have aimed not so much at
giving new explanations in psychology, as at verifying those which
have been proposed by good authors. He is precise, positive; from the
medico-legal point of view, he presents practical conclusions, and does
not embarrass himself in sentimentalism, from which the _Philosophie
pénale_[88] of M. TARDE, let it be said parenthetically, is not always
sufficiently free.
[88] First volume of the _Bibliothèque de Criminologie_.
Masson, publisher.
A word more with reference to the "great suggestibility" of imbeciles,
on which M. Sollier reasonably insists. Since I spoke in this place,
three months ago, of the work of M. Bonjean, the awkward intervention
of M. Liégeois in the Eyraud-Gabrielle Bompard case has contributed to
compromise the Nancy school, much more than to serve it. M. Brouardel
is able to object with ingenuity that certain persons, supposed to be
victims of hypnotism, unfortunately obey suggestions "which are the
most agreeable to them." It is good advice to be cautious. Still it is
necessary to take into account (it is what I had omitted to say) the
character of the subjects, in order to be able to judge of the possible
accomplishment of acts suggested in sleep. For, it is not doubtful
that among the abnormal, the imbecile, the mentally feeble, one could
not count much on the revolt of a moral personality which is not
constituted, on the efficiency of a power of inhibition which is almost
null, and that generally criminal suggestion can become formidable when
it is attended by bad instincts.
It remains to speak of a work by M. A. RICARDOU, _De l'Idéal, Etude
philosophique_.[89] I avow without any disguise that I have not taken
any interest in it. M. Ricardou declares himself a deist, spiritualist;
the misfortune is that he follows so much the vague and wavering manner
of his school. A fine rhetoric, elevated aspirations; but few facts,
not sufficient realities freely seen. What end is served by rebelling
against physiological psychology, and by laying claim to the rights of
the method of introspection? In truth, no one denies its right; it is
suspected only when it affects supremacy, and rejects all control.
[89] Alcan, publisher.
I simply mention, in conclusion, the interesting work, which appeared
last year, of M. L. LEVY-BRUHL: _L'Allemagne depuis Leibniz, Essai
sur le developpement de la conscience nationale en Allemagne_.[90] It
belongs, in great part, to the history of philosophy, and furnishes to
it a valuable contribution.
[90] Hachette, publisher.
Paris, March, 1891. LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
II.
THE MODERN LITERATURE OF ITALY SINCE THE YEAR 1870.
Not being a man of letters, but an alienist, I will give you a
psychological rather than a literary description of the condition of
literature in Italy. My presentation will undoubtedly have many defects
and deficiencies in details, but it will perhaps thereby gain in
originality of treatment.
It is one of the characteristics of European writers, and especially of
Italians, to isolate themselves completely from scientific research.
Beauty for itself, the imitation of the ancients—this is the defect,
or the strength, of our poets. ALEARDI, it is true, put some years ago
a little botany and geology into his poetry, as did, nearly a century
ago, Mascheroni, in his celebrated epistle _Invito a Lesbia Sidonia_.
ZANELLA, a true priest, has sung in a celebrated ode the _Coquille
Fossile_, which portrays in colors truly poetical the last discoveries
of paleontology. But this naturalism was only a light varnish, like the
golden powder that coquettes sprinkle on their hair, and which falls
at the first movement. It is nevertheless true that some poets, not
appreciated yet as they deserve, draw their inspiration from nature or
from history.
Such is ARTUR GRAF, who in my opinion owes his genius to an
intermixture of race, Italian, Greek, and German, and also to a
climatic graft, as he comes from Roumania; which shows the favorable
influence of the double race-infusion. (See my work on "Genius.") In
his poem _Medusa_, Graf has mingled naturalism and Schopenhauerianism
with a poetical spirit which is highly original. He has also written
_Il Diabolo_ and the _Legend of Rome among the Nations of the Middle
Ages_; a work which has philological and historical merit, especially
in connection with the Folk-lore of past centuries. These books are in
prose; but their form is wholly poetical.
RAPISARDI is truly the Juvenal, and we may also say the Lucretius,
of contemporaneous Italy. He began by giving us the best translation
of the great Roman poet, and he has absorbed much of his spirit, and
perhaps also of the asperity of his verses, and of his contempt for
form. His great original poem is the _Giobbe_ (Catania), in which
he has given a bitter satire of modern society and of contemporary
literary men; however, he would seem to be sometimes too personal;
so much so that many persons have not forgiven him. Lately he has
published a collection of _Religious Poems_ (Catania, 1888), in which,
despite its title, there is much less religion than naturalism. It is a
hymn, worthy of its master, to the religion of nature and to the beauty
of truth, without forgetting the grand social ideas of justice which
our poets so often forget.
PRAGA may be described as the Baudelaire of Italy. He too, like the
latter, lived and died an alcoholist and paralytic. He was the first to
break with the Græco-Latin traditions; and has drawn his inspiration
from the caprices of his disease, which has given him a powerful and
original stamp. His best works are _Penombre_ and _Tavolozza_. The
same lot, induced by the same disease, has befallen ROVANI, who in his
historical novels (_Giulio Cesare_ and _la Storia di centi anni_) has
performed good work in history and psychology.
Among writers truly original, MANTEGAZZA excels in prose. His is one
of those many-sided, versatile minds that are met with in the Latin
races; such as Cardano, Leonardo da Vinci, L. B. Alberti, Voltaire,
Taine, Richet. He is by turns pathologist, physiologist, chemist,
anthropologist, geographer, traveller, and novelist. His novel _Dio
Ignoto_ is semi-naturalistic. In his _Fisiologia del piacere_ he has
attempted a new kind of personal observations, although it is met
with in the novels of Balzac, of Flaubert, and of Gonoret. In his
_Physiology of pain_ he has again become pathological, serious; this
book has, accordingly, not obtained the success that it merited. In
the _Feste ed Ebbrezze_ he describes the pleasures of the people.
But Mantegazza, who has the originality of genius, has also its evil
and treacherous volubility; and we cannot say what is his patriotic
and philosophic faith. He has written pages that seem dictated by a
catholic priest, by the side of others worthy of Aretino (_Amore degli
uomini_), and still other pages which could be signed by Victor Hugo.
Less original perhaps, but much more consistent with himself, is M.
TREZZA, another versatile writer, a theologist, poet, historian,
critic, philosopher, philologist, but who has not changed the facets
of his genius, or the conscience of his faith. At one time a priest,
he was one of the most ardent preachers; but the study of natural
science and of philosophy drew him away from his faith and plunged him
in naturalism. He has preserved all the apostolic warmth of the ardent
and honest priest of his youth. Thus he has emerged from it a new being
immovable in his faith:
"_Come torre che non crolla
Giammai la cima per soffiar dei venti._"[91]
[91]
Like a tower that shakes not
In the blasts of the storm.
His works in religious criticism _La Religione e le Religioni_, and
also in history and philosophy (_Lucrezio_, _Epicuro e l'Epicurismo_,
_La Critica Moderna_) have received from it a peculiar impress,
in which the enthusiasm of the apostle is mingled with the calm
observation of science, and history confounds metaphysics. He is the
first and the only one perhaps, who has attempted criticism in Italy
while preserving a literary brilliancy which reminds us of Carlyle.
But according to universal opinion, among all these stars, the star
of first magnitude is GIOSUE CARDUCCI. He is the true representative
of the Italians, a graft of antiquity on the moderns, but in which
antiquity predominates. His poems (_Le Nuove Poesie_, _Le Odi barbare_,
_Le Nuove Odi barbare_, _Le Terze Odi barbare_, _Le Nuove Rime_)
have attracted the greatest attention. He has introduced and revived
a new metre, many times tried, but never with success, by Trissino,
Campanella, Chiabrera, and others; a new metre which reproduces the
ancient rhythm of Greek and Roman poetry, especially the elegy
and the Alcaic ode. His is a new pagan Renaissance with a certain
gloss of modernness but with outbursts sometimes patriotic and even
revolutionary which the Renaissance lacked. His prose works also
consist of archaic reconstructions of Italian literary history and of
vigorous polemics, sometimes too personal, but always with a refinement
of critique.
By the side of these productions which are known everywhere, and which
can be truly called national, there is a substratum, of considerable
extent, of literary works that have a local character. Such is the
poetry of dialect which has however a great weight with us; for
the best satirical poems and the best comedies are almost always
written in dialect (_Pascarella_ in the Roman dialect, _Fucini_
in the Tuscan dialect, _Di Giacomo_ in Neapolitan, _Bersezio_ in
Piedmontese, _Rizzotto_ in Sicilian). It must be remarked also that
this local division is still maintained in the rolls of the great
army of literature, although this does not prevent such works passing
beyond the geographical limits of their territory and becoming known
throughout the whole of Italy.
We have a Ligurian-Piedmontese school with DE AMICIS at the head,—De
Amicis, who now however often attempts social studies with much
intrepidity,—and BARILI, FARINA, BERSEZIO, GIACOSA, and FALDELLA, who
possess the common characteristic of a sentimentality almost feminine,
altogether opposed to the rugged country of which they constitute the
glory.
There is the Tuscan-Bolognese school of which CARDUUI is the chief
pontiff and which hovers about the old school. M. PANZACCHI, RICCI,
MARRADI, and STECCHETTI belong to it; there was an epoch in the
life of the last named in which he launched into a style which
seemed naturalistic, but which was at bottom only pornographic; but
he immediately compensated for his escapade by a great number of
philological memoirs of an erudition truly oppressive, ultra-academical.
There is the Abruzzian school, of which D'ANNUNZIO is the head. Its
characteristics are variegated tropical coloring, and a certain studied
ornamentation sometimes burdened with similes and metaphors, and an
exaggerated objectivity; it lays hold of the outside of things, but
does not reach to and grasp the soul of the inner life of nature.
The Neapolitan school is made up of compilers and ingenious critics,
who will make you an elegant embroidery with gossamer threads on
the point of a needle. The most celebrated names of this school are
SETTEMBRINI, DESANCTIS, BONGHI, and VITTORIO IMBRIANI.
The Sicilian is the rudest, but it is the most powerful and most
original. We could name the great historians CEMARI, LA LUMIA,
LAFARINA; and PITTRE, who created Italian Folklore, and who has
maintained it with a special journal. Sicily has also given us two
great novelists, VERGA and CAPUANA, who are improved Zolas. The
_Malavoglia_ and _Don Gesualdo_ of M. Verga give us the home life of
the Sicilian people. In the _Giacinta_ of Capuana we have the life of
the citizens and of the Italian nobility photographed.
Women always preserve the local type; but with special features.
Hardly any write in verse; they compose novels and light productions
rather than romances, sketches rather than true portraits. They choose
the young girl and the unfortunate married woman; very often they
write autobiographies, or the biography of their friends or their
husbands. The land-question has nevertheless been dealt with very well
by the Marchioness COLOMBI, (pseudonym of Madame Torelli Viollet)
and the woman's question has been treated of with great vigor and
statistically by KULISCHIOFF; I have not spoken of ANNIE VIVANTI,
another proof of the advantages of crossing, for she is Anglo-American
and Anglo-Italian, and a Jewess to boot; she writes in verses which
have nothing of the classical element in them—an extraordinary thing
in Italy. Her works possess originality, which goes as far as the most
extreme naturalism. (_Lirica di Annie Vivanti_, 1890.)
In fine, modern Italy has not many literary masterpieces to show. And
this is due to a number of causes. In romances and comedies, dash and
spirit demand a certain stock of observations that can be found only
in great cities (capitals), and in Italy, Rome and Milan are only
beginning to be such.
Originality, multiplicity, and energy of types are very scarce in
Italy, for everywhere the conventional lie dominates; it is much more
difficult to choose models here than it is in certain other countries,
for example in Russia; for genius alone can draw inspiration from
inferior and ordinary material.
The classical system of education has prevented us from going to the
source of social anomalies, mattoids, madmen, etc.
Besides, classicism, which has dominated us for so many centuries,
and which has inspired us with its marvellous beauties, has, like
the old, (and it is very old,) lost all its vital force. People have
made believe to warm themselves by it; but they have not succeeded;
they remain cold; and they admire its adepts only in deference to the
conventional lie. Yet the entire education of our youth consists of
that. It is the same as in religion. People have made Madonnas and
Jesuses of it to such an extent that now there is no longer any means
of contriving anything new. Naturalism without being the natural
foundation of the people is nevertheless sufficiently advanced not to
allow of serious inspiration in religion.
Many authors who have sought new paths have been led out of their way
by journalism and politics, which always end in exhausting people, even
geniuses. SCARFOGLIO, BONGHI, TORELLI, DEZERBI, and FERRI are among the
number.
The difficulty of securing a place in the literary world also very
quickly exhausts many. Thus many men, especially of Southern Italy,
produce a very good work; but they have become fathers too late in
life, and have only a single son; such are BERSEZIO, with his _Travet_,
BOITO with his _Ballate_, VALCARENGHI with his _Confessioni d'Andrea_.
Political liberty, if it has given an impulse to social and political
studies, has prejudiced great literary production, perhaps because
under the incitement of foreign domination and of rebellion, the heart
draws from a grand source of inspiration, and the pen finds powerful
excitation, more powerful perhaps, than liberty gives it.
Art finds more numerous elements of success in minds highly excited.
It is the property of great revolutions to elevate the souls of all
contemporaries, to impart to them a peculiar disposition unknown
before, and which is not slow to disappear. The most humble, the
most obscure, those even who have not taken any part in the events
and who have hardly studied them, express, a long time afterwards
even, sentiments much superior to those which their ordinary condition
allows. It is sufficient to have lived during some passionate epoch to
issue from it better, purer, and stronger. The new ideas, the generous
impulses which then carry away nations, penetrate into all classes and
ennoble a whole generation. We had in our revolutionary epoch, Manzoni,
Massimo d'Azeglio, Guerazzi, Giusti, Porta, Miceli, Brofferio, Berchet,
Mameli, Boerio, Laquacci, Aleardi, Grassi, Prati. Who have we now to
compare with them?
Turin, March, 1891. CESARE LOMBROSO.
BOOK REVIEWS.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. An Account of the Prehistoric Ethnology and
Civilisation of Europe. By _Isaac Taylor_, M. A., L. L. D. New
York: Scribner & Welford.
The author of this extremely interesting work states in the preface
that it does not aim at setting forth new views or speculations. His
opinions on its main thesis, that is, as to the place of origin of the
primitive Aryans, are those of Spiegel and Schrader, except where he
prefers the conclusions of Cuno. These writers, with the majority of
the latest investigators of the subject, accept the view originated[92]
by the English philologist Dr. R. G. Latham in 1851, that the original
home of the primitive Aryans was on the great plain of Central Europe.
Cuno insisted also on what Dr. Taylor affirms is now an axiom in
ethnology, that race is not coextensive with language. This is a most
important principle, as it completely changes the aspects of the
problem by making it more complex. It introduces, in fact, a fresh
element; as it requires the Aryan to be identified before his primitive
habitat can be sought for.
[92] Dr. Daniel G. Brinton in his _Races and Peoples_ points
out that the view referred to in the text was first stated by
the Belgian naturalist M. D'Halloy; but it has always been
accredited to Dr. Latham by German writers and, as mentioned
by Dr. Taylor, was regarded by them as an English "fad."
The difficulties attending this identification are clearly pointed out
in the present work. During the neolithic period, Europe was inhabited
by four distinct races, all of which are represented among the present
Aryan-speaking peoples of the continent. If the primitive Aryans are to
be identified with one of those races it must have imposed its speech
on the other three. Moreover, of those four races, two are decidedly
dolichocephalic, or long-headed, the other two being as decidedly
brachycephalic, or broad-headed. The latter are now represented by the
Slavo-Celtic, and the Ligurian, or Swiss and Savoyard, peoples; while
the present representatives of one primitive long-headed race are the
Swedes, the North Germans and the Friesians, and of the other, the
Corsicans, the Spanish Basques, and some of the Welsh and Irish. There
are grounds for believing, however, that the two dolichocephalic races
were derived from a single root, and that the two brachycephalic races
will ultimately be identified as one. There would thus be left only
two primitive stocks, one long-headed and the other short-headed, and
Dr. Taylor concludes, not only that the primitive Aryans belonged to
the latter, but that they were racially connected with the Finno-Ugric
tribes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He shows that the culture
of the Slavo-Celtic race, as exhibited in the round barrows of Britain
and the pile-dwellings of Central Europe, comes nearest to that of the
primitive Aryans, as disclosed by linguistic palæontology. Further,
that anthropologically this belongs to the same type as that of the
tall, fair, broad-headed Finno-Ugrian tribes; agreeably to which, the
grammatical resemblances between the Aryan languages and those of the
Ural-Altaic stock point to a primitive unity of speech.
There would seem to be no doubt that the greater part of Europe was
originally occupied by peoples of the long-headed type, and Dr. Taylor
conjectures "that at the close of the reindeer age a Finnic people
appeared in Western Europe, whose speech remaining stationary, is
represented by the agglutinative Basque, and that much later, at the
beginning of the pastoral age, when the ox had been tamed, a taller
and more powerful Finno-Ugrian people developed in Central Europe the
inflective Aryan speech." This theory requires that the non-Aryan
long-headed race should have acquired in some way the Aryan speech,
and it is not surprising that the North Germans reject the "Turanian"
theory accepted by the French and espoused by our author, and maintain
that the physical type of the primitive Aryans was that of their own
tall, fair, dolichocephalous race. On this view, the ancestors of
the brachycephalic Lithuanians, whose language best represents among
those of Europe the primitive Aryan speech, must have been Aryanised
by the ancestors of the Teutons, whose language approaches nearest to
the Lithuanian. Dr. Taylor points out, however, that this would leave
unexplained "how the speech of the brachycephalic Celts and Umbrians,
to say nothing of the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Indo-Iranians,
was obtained from that of the dolichocephalic Teutons; how a people
which in neolithic times was few in numbers, and in a low state of
culture, succeeded in Aryanising so many tribes more numerous and more
civilised."
The question arises as to how far this "Aryanising" process extended.
Was it limited to language or did it include certain physical
characters as well? As a fact the superficial characters of the tall
dolichocephalic type which, according to Nilsson and Von Düben, has
prevailed in Sweden continuously from the earliest times to the present
day, make an approach to the florid complexion, light eyes, and reddish
hair of the tall brachycephalic race. The former have lighter hair, a
whiter skin, and eyes of blue instead of gray, but these are just the
differences that might be expected, as the result of the admixture
of the Slavo-Celtic stock with that to which the famous Neanderthal
skull belongs, and which is now known as the Canstadt type. At the
same time it is possible that the difference in color as well as in
stature which distinguishes the tall from the short races belonging
to both the long-headed and the broad-headed stocks may be the result
of external influences, such as climate, food, and clothing, and the
general conditions of life in a mountainous or northern region. This
would apply at all events to the Teutonic or Scandinavian type, and
also to the Celto-Slavic which represents the primitive Aryan type, or
rather their Ugro-Finnic predecessors, if it is true, as Dr. Schrader
concludes, that the undivided Aryans had only two seasons, winter and
spring, or at most three. This fact does not necessarily imply that
they lived in a northern region; for the same climatic conditions could
be met with in a mountainous district. Dr. Schrader thinks, however,
that the precise region can be approximately indicated by reference
to the beech tree. We are told that this tree does not now grow east
of a line drawn from Königsberg to the Crimea, and its northern limit
must formerly have been still more restricted. Hence the cradle of
the Latin, Hellenic, and Teutonic races, which have the same name
for this tree, must have been to the west of the ancient beech-line.
But since the Slavo-Lithuanian name is a Teutonic loan-word, we must
place the cradle of the Lithuanians and the Slaves to the east of this
line. But since there are philological reasons for believing in the
unbroken geographical continuity of the European Aryans previous to the
linguistic separation, they must be placed in northern Europe astride
of the beech line; the Slavo-Lithuanian in European Russia; and the
Celts, Latins, Hellenes, and Teutons farther to the West. It may be
doubted, however, whether this necessarily indicates northern Europe
as the primitive Aryan home. Dr. Latham in his "Native Races of the
Russian Empire" insisted on Podolia being the region where Sanskrit
and Zend developed themselves, the Slavo-Lithuanic region lying to the
north and west of it. Curiously enough the beech-line passes directly
through Podolia, which might therefore claim to be the classic Aryan
abode. Too much stress should not be laid, however, on such an incident
as the occurrence of a particular name for a tree. It is quite possible
that the beech may not have been known to the brachycephalic Aryans
until after they came in contact with the dolichocephalic Teutons.
This would seem, indeed, to be required if the Ugro-Finnic origin of
the Aryans is well founded. At the same time it should be pointed out
that while, according to Keith Johnston's "Physical Atlas," the region
of deciduous trees extends as far east as the Aral Sea, Latham refers
the beech to the Caucasus as its special habitat; and the mountain
slopes of the Caucasus are shown by Peschel to be the best fitted
geographically for the original home of the Indo-European race.
After all the question of the _place_ of origin of the primitive
Aryans is not so important as that of their race affinities, on which,
indeed, the former question ultimately depends, and Dr. Taylor has
done well to follow up what he terms the "pregnant suggestion" of Dr.
Thurnam, the joint author with Dr. J. Barnard Davis of their great
work "Crania Britannica," as to the identification of the primitive
Aryans with the "Turanian" race of the British round barrows. That he
has conclusively established this point it would be rash to affirm,
but he has presented a very strong argument in its favor, which is not
weakened by Prof. Huxley's attempt to locate the fair dolichocephali
in Latham's Sarmatia, as the primitive Aryan race. It should not be
lost sight of, however, that the Ugro-Finnic relationship of the Aryans
would restore to them the Asiatic origin of which recent discussion
has tended to deprive them, for the Ugrians undoubtedly belong to the
Asiatic area. On the other hand, if Dr. Topinard, the distinguished
French anthropologist, is correct in his assertion that the Aryan blood
has disappeared, the question resolves itself into "a discussion of the
ethnical affinities of those numerous races which have acquired Aryan
speech." This is not our author's own opinion, although it is perhaps
countenanced by Cuno's maxim. We must leave here Dr. Taylor's work
which will be universally recognised as one of great merit, whatever
view may be taken as to the Aryans and their origin.
Ω.
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. By _William T. Harris_. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1890.
The merits of Dr. William T. Harris in the awakening and the fostering
of philosophical interests in this country are extraordinary. As the
editor of the _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_ he has published
translations of the most effective and important chapters of the
European, mainly German, philosophers, and also original articles
by American thinkers. Among the latter we find contributions from
names of highest rank, as well as essays by the editor himself. Dr.
Harris was also one of the most brilliant lights of the Concord
School of Philosophy; indeed, he may be considered as its centre and
representative, for whatever divergence of thought may have appeared
in the Concord lectures, the general character of what goes by the
name of Concord Philosophy was determined by him. The present work
accordingly will command no common attention among those interested
in the historical growth of American thought and especially American
philosophy, it being a systematic arrangement of extracts made by
Marietta Kies from Professor Harris's essays, compiled for the purpose
of serving as a class-book at Mt. Holyoke Seminary and College.
However great may be the historical importance of Dr. Harris as the
Nestor of American philosophy, we cannot suppress our doubt as to
whether his philosophy can be recommended as a study for beginners.
Dr. Harris is too original a thinker, and his originality is not in
accord with the present time. His cast of mind may be characterised
as Hegelian; not that he should be called a follower of Hegel, but
his way of thinking follows in many respects the method of abstract
ratiocination pursued by that great German philosopher. Still, the
results of Dr. Harris are even in closer contact with the religious
ideas of Christianity than those of Hegel. We shall delineate here
a few characteristic traits of Dr. Harris's speculative thought:
"Philosophy attempts to find the necessary _a priori_ elements or
factors in experience, and arrange them into a system by deducing them
from a first principle." We should prefer according to the method of
positivism to derive the so-called _a priori_ or the "formal", and
with it the conditions of cognition, not from a first principle but
from the facts of experience. Dr. Harris calls Space, Time, Causality
"presuppositions of experience": they make experience possible. We
consider them as parts of experience as characteristic properties, and
our concepts of time, space, and causality have been abstracted from
experience. Dr. Harris says: "Space in limiting itself is infinite
... time is infinite, and yet it is the condition necessary to the
existence of events and changes.... The principle of causality implies
both time and space.... If we examine it, we shall see that it again
presupposes a ground deeper than itself. In order that a cause shall
send a stream of influence over to an effect, it must first separate
that portion of influence from itself. Self-separation is, then, the
fundamental presupposition of the action of causality.... Causa sui,
spontaneous origination of activity, is the ultimate presupposition
underlying all objects and each object of experience.... Causa
sui, or self-cause, is properly the principle _par excellence_ of
philosophy.... Here is the necessary ground of the idea of God."
In the last chapter Dr. Harris discusses "the immortality of man,"
denoting thereby the immortality of the individual and the continuance
of consciousness after death. He expresses his argument in admirable
terseness in the following sentence: "How is it possible that in
this world of perishable beings there can exist an immortal and
ever progressive being? Without the personality of God it would be
impossible, because an unconscious first principle would be incapable
of producing conscious being, or if they were produced, it would
overcome them as incongruous and inharmonious elements in the world.
It would finally draw all back into its image and reduce conscious
individuality to unconsciousness." This is a different solution of the
problem from that presented in the article "The Origin of Mind" in the
first number of this magazine.
Κ.
THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof. _Patrick Geddes_ and _J. Arthur
Thomson_. New York: Scribner & Welford.
The present work is in some sense a reproduction of the articles
"Reproduction," "Sex," and "Variation and Selection," contributed
by Professor Geddes to the most recent edition of the "Encyclopædia
Britannica." It goes further, however, and not only contains much
additional information, but the views of the authors on the factors
of organic evolution and on biology in general are more precisely
formulated and developed. The central thesis of the work, as stated
in the preface, is "in the first place, to present an outline of the
main processes for the continuance of organic life with such unity as
our present knowledge renders possible; and in the second, to point
the way toward the interpretation of these processes in those ultimate
biological terms which physiologists are already reaching as regards
the functions of individual life,—those of the constructive and
destructive changes (anabolism and katabolism) of living matter or
protoplasm." The authors seek to prepare the way for the restatement
of the theory of organic evolution, that of "definite variation,
with progress and survival essentially through the subordination of
individual struggle and development of species-maintaining ends."
Among the subjects treated of are Sexual characters and the
determination of Sex, the analysis of Sex-organs, tissues, and
cells—the nature and origin of Sex, and the processes and theory of
reproduction. This is a sufficiently broad field, and it embraces
various biological questions recently discussed, especially that of
sexual selection and the theories of Professor Weismann. The authors
claim that their view of the processes concerned with the maintenance
of the species leads necessarily to a profound alteration of the
conclusions usually held as to its origin. What is meant by this
statement appears from the last chapter, in which the reproductive
function as a factor in evolution is considered. Here it is stated that
the usual perspective which places the theory of natural selection in
the foreground, sexual selection being a mere harmonious corollary,
has to be reversed. Recent investigations on heredity "forbid that
attention should any longer be concentrated on the individual type,
or reproduction regarded as a mere repetition process; the living
continuity of the species is seen to be of more importance than the
individualities of the separate links.... The species is a continuous
undying chain of unicellular reproductive units, which indeed build
out of and around themselves transient multicellular bodies, but
the processes of nutritive differentiation and other individual
developments are secondary, not primary" (p. 308).
The study of the reproductive process is thus of supreme importance
for the understanding of organic evolution. What then is the authors'
theory of reproduction? It may be stated in the terms of their own
summary. The essential fact in reproduction is the separation of part
of the parent organism to start a fresh life. Hence, it begins with
rupture, a katabolic crisis, at which occurs cell-division, this
being always associated with the act of reproduction. This is favored
by katabolic conditions of the environment. The opposition between
nutrition and reproduction is the most obvious antithesis in nature
after that of life and death—with the latter of which, indeed, as has
been shown by Goette, reproduction is intimately associated—and it
may be stated in the terms that "as a continued surplus of anabolism
involves growth, so a relative preponderance of katabolism necessitates
reproduction" (p. 237).
The organic relation between nutrition and reproduction is thus
shown to be one of great importance, but its significance becomes
more apparent when it is seen, as pointed out by the authors, that
"throughout organic life there is a contrast or rhythm between growth
and multiplication, between nutrition and reproduction, corresponding
to the fundamental organic seesaw between anabolism and katabolism.
This contrast may be read in the distribution of organs, in the periods
of life, and in the different grades of reproduction; and the contrasts
between continuous growth and discontinuous multiplication, between
asexual and sexual reproduction, between parthenogenesis and sexuality,
between alternating generations, are all different expressions of the
fundamental antithesis" (p. 231). Elsewhere, the essential importance
is referred to of "the continual correlation, yet antithesis—the
action and reaction—of vegetative and reproductive processes in
alternate preponderance," to which the general rhythm of individual
and social life runs parallel. And yet this life is essentially
a unity, of which the specific characters are but the symptoms,
whatever may be "their subsequent measure of importance and utility in
adaptation, their modification by environment, their enhancement or
diminution by natural selection" (p. 314).
This conclusion as to the unity of the life of the individual
and that of the species, is based on the fact that nutrition and
reproduction are nearly akin. Hatschek goes so far, indeed, as to
affirm that nutrition is reproduction, an apparent paradox which is
justified by the statement that "not only do hunger and love become
indistinguishable in that equal-sided conjugation which has been
curiously called 'isophagy,' but nutrition in turn is nothing more than
continual reproduction of the protoplasm." The real unity is found
in the fact that anabolism and katabolism, which are the determining
factors of growth and reproduction, are the two sides of protoplasmic
life. This conclusion has an important bearing on the question of the
origin of sex. In his theory of _genoblasts_, or sexual elements, Minot
treats male and female as derivatives of primitive hermaphroditism
in two opposite directions, the differentiation taking place "by
the extrusion or separation of the contradictory elements, the ovum
getting rid of male polar globules, the sperm leaving behind a female
mother-cell remnant." The authors of the present work accept this
view, which however has become extremely improbable since Weismann
has called attention to the fact that the same process takes place
in the parthenogenetic summer-eggs of Daphnidae—a fact which has
been overlooked by our authors. They also adopt Rolph's view that
the less nutritive, and therefore smaller, hungrier, and more mobile
cells are what we call male; the more nutritive and usually more
quiescent cell being the female, as consistent with the conclusion
already inferred from other facts that "the female is the outcome and
expression of preponderant anabolism, and in contrast the male of
predominant katabolism" (p. 132). This conclusion is elsewhere stated
as that "the males live at a loss, are more _katabolic_,—disruptive
changes tending to preponderate in the sum of changes in their living
matter or protoplasm. The females, on the other hand, live at a
profit, are more _anabolic_,—constructive processes predominating in
their life, whence indeed the capacity of bearing offspring" (p. 26).
Here is the same contrast as that seen in the alternating phases of
cell-life, of activity and repose, and in the great antithesis between
growth and reproduction. The argument is put into diagrammatic form,
where the sum-total of the functions are divided into nutritive and
reproductive, the former into anabolic and katabolic processes, and
the latter into male and female activities. This theory of Rolph, if
it contains a grain of truth, needs a thorough revision; and the same
may be said about the authors' special theory, which is, that there is
a parallelism in the two sets of processes, "the male reproduction is
associated with preponderating katabolism, and the female with relative
anabolism, according to which view both primary and secondary sexual
characters express the fundamental physiological bias characteristic
of either sex" (p. 27). This has a special bearing on the question
of sexual selection, the true relation of which to natural selection,
according to the authors of the present work, must be expressed in
their own words. It is embodied in the conclusion that sexual selection
is a minor accelerant, natural selection a retarding 'brake,' "on
the differentiation of sexual characters, which essentially find a
constitutional or organismal origin in the katabolic or anabolic
diathesis which preponderates in males and females respectively" (p.
31).
Before concluding this notice, it may be pointed out what are the
particular conditions on which the determination of sex depends, in
regard to any given organism. The various suggestions proposed as to
the influence of parents, according to age or otherwise, the time
of fertilisation, Starkweather's law that sex is determined by the
superior parent, and that the superior parent produces the opposite
sex, and Düsing's theory as to the regulation of the proportions of the
sexes, are referred to by the authors and either rejected or considered
as insufficient. The conclusion they arrive at after considering
the influence of nutrition, temperature, and other conditions, is,
that adverse circumstances affecting the parents, especially of
nutrition, but also age and the like, tend to the production of males,
the reverse conditions favoring females; a highly nourished ovum
and fertilisation when the ovum is fresh and vigorous, tend to the
development of a female rather than of a male. Further, the longer the
period of sexual indifference continues, the more important become the
outside factors, and here again "favorable conditions of nutrition,
temperature, and the like, tend toward the production of females; the
reverse increase the probability of male preponderance." This agrees
with the conclusion independently arrived at that the male germs are
"of smaller size, more active habit, higher temperature, shorter life,
and the females the larger, more passive, vegetative, and conservative
forms" (pp. 50, 51). Thus the authors' proposition that the male is
the outcome of predominant katabolism, and the female of equally
emphatic anabolism, might seem to be justified, and it is confirmed
by the curious phenomenon of alternation of generations, and by
various facts connected with growth and reproduction. However, it does
not definitively exclude the theory (see Dr. Heinrich Janke's work.
Stuttgart, 1889) that the male is the outcome of katabolism of the male
element coincident with _anabolism_ of the female element, and the
female of the opposite state.
In considering the psychological and ethical aspects of sex from
the physiological standpoint the authors remark truly that in order
to obliterate the distinctions between male and female, it would be
necessary to have evolution over again on a new basis. Although so
different, however, the two sexes are complementary and mutually
dependent, "not merely because they are males and females, but also
in functions not directly associated with those of sex." Males, as
the more katabolic organisms, are more active and variable than the
anabolic females, who are more passive and stable. The former have
larger brains and more intelligence, but the latter have more of the
altruistic sentiment and greater constancy in affection and sympathy.
"Man thinks more, woman feels more. He discovers more, but remembers
less; she is more receptive, and less forgetful." All this is true
within certain limits, but whether or not it may be explained by other
theories remains an open question.
Ω.
ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE. By _C. Lloyd Morgan_, F. G. S. London:
Edward Arnold.
The chief aim which the author of this important work had originally
in view was the consideration of Animal Intelligence. But the subject
of Intelligence being so closely associated with that of Life, and
the questions of Heredity and Natural Selection with those of Habit
and Instinct, he has devoted the first part of the work to Organic
Evolution, as introductory to Mental Evolution. This was rendered
necessary, however, by the direct bearing of Professor Weismann's
recent contributions to biological science on questions of Instinct.
It would be impossible to treat of the mental constitution of the
lower animals without reference to that of man, and in his preface
Professor Morgan forestals certain results arrived at by a comparison
of them. He states that in man alone, and in no dumb animal, is the
rational faculty, as defined by him, developed; and he adds, "it is
contended that among human folk that process of natural selection,
which is so potent in the lower reaches of organic life, sinks into
comparative insignificance. Man is a creature of ideas and ideals. For
him the moral factor becomes one of the very highest importance. He
conceives an ideal self which he strives to realise; he conceives an
ideal humanity towards which he would raise his fellow-man. He becomes
a conscious participator in the evolution of man, in the progress of
humanity."
So great a variety of topics are dealt with by the present work that
we shall be able to do little more than refer critically to the
author's special views, particularly those which concern the mental
characters of the lower animals. There are, however, various points
in the earlier part of the work well deserving of consideration. Such
is the suggestion that, instead of likening an organism as a whole
to a steam-engine, it would be better to liken each cell, with its
fluid explosive material, to a gas-engine, and the mixed air and gas
to whose explosion its motion is due. The importance of _segregation_
as a factor in the formation of improved varieties is insisted on,
but Professor Morgan doubts whether differential fertility, on which
Mr. Romanes lays great stress[93], would, without the co-operation of
other segregation-factors, give rise to separate varieties capable of
maintaining themselves as distinct species (p. 105).
[93] _The Monist_, No. 1. p. 5.
Dealing with the knotty question whether, if the egg produces the
hen, the hen produces the egg, the author criticises Professor
Weismann's idea of the continuity of germ-plasm, which he regards as
"an unknowable, invisible, hypothetical entity, "that may be made
to account for anything and everything, and prefers the hypothesis
of cellular continuity (138 et seq.). The cells which become ova or
sperms never become differentiated into anything else, and "hereditary
similarity is due to the fact that parents and offspring are derived
eventually from the same germinal cells" (p. 175). Finally, Professor
Morgan criticises Mr. Wallace's views on the subject of sexual
selection, which he is inclined to think is a factor with natural
selection in the guidance of evolution (p. 200 et seq.).
More than half of the book, which contains more than 500 pages, is
taken up with these preliminary disquisitions, the remainder being
concerned with the nature and development of the mental activities.
The first branch of this inquiry is that of the senses of animals.
We cannot follow the author in his very interesting remarks on this
subject, beyond referring to his suggestion that the lower animals may
have senses not known to man. After mentioning the muciparous canals
met with in fishes, he says, "apart from the possibility of unknown
receptive organs as completely hidden from anatomical and microscopic
scrutiny as the end-organs of our temperature-sense, there are in the
lower animals organs which may be fitted to receive modes of influence
to which we human folk are not attuned" (p. 298). For example, insects
may be sensitive to tones of heat; while on the other hand, their
color phenomena may vary greatly from ours consequent on structural
differences in the sense-organs. In dealing with mental processes in
man the author states as a well-known fact that "a person whose leg
has been amputated experiences at times tickling and uneasiness in the
absent member" (p. 307). This is not, however, an accurate description
of the phenomenon. There can be no feeling in a lost limb. The idea
that the sensations are "referred outward to the normal source of
origin of impressions," has arisen from the remark sometimes made by
persons thus affected that they feel as though they still had toes.
This is true to some extent, but as a fact the sensation is as though
the toes were bent and tightly bound at the end of the _stump_, and not
at the end of the missing limb.
It is advisable before proceeding further to see what view Professor
Morgan entertains as to the mental process in animals. This is apparent
from the statement that, although there is no difference in kind
between the mind of man and the mind of a dog, yet that "we have, in
the introduction of the analytic faculty, so definite and marked a new
departure, that we should emphasise it by saying that the faculty of
perception, in its various specific grades, differs generically from
the faculty of conception." The author adds, "believing, as I do, that
conception is beyond the power of my favorite and clever dog, I am
forced to believe that his mind differs generically from my own" (p.
350). Elsewhere he says, "if I deny them self-consciousness and reason,
I grant to the higher animals perceptions of marvellous acuteness and
intelligent inferences of wonderful accuracy and precision—intelligent
inferences in some cases, no doubt, more perfect even than those of
man, who is often distracted by many thoughts" (p. 377). If we would
understand these conclusions aright we must know the sense in which
Professor Morgan uses the terms employed, and to do this we must refer
to the explanation he gives of mental processes in man. He tells us
that in the first place we obtain knowledge of the existence of the
objects around us through perception, which is attended with a process
of construction. An object is in fact a _construct_, at the bidding of
certain sensations, which suggest to the mind the associated qualities.
In what sense such an object is regarded as real we shall see later
on. As to the constructs, their formation is followed by examination,
"by which they are rendered more definite, particular and special,
and supplemented by intelligent inferences." Out of this intelligent
examination arises a new mental process, the _analysis of constructs_.
Attention is paid to certain qualities of objects to the exclusion
of others, a process termed by the author _isolation_, the products
being _isolates_. This process is constantly going on, and all the
qualities, relationships, and feelings thus isolated have applied to
them arbitrary symbols. They are in fact _named_, and "hence arises all
our science, all our higher thought." At this stage we enter the field
of conception, as the isolates are _concepts_, whereas throughout the
process of the formation of constructs and their definition we have
to do with perception and percepts. Here Professor Morgan agrees with
Noiré in holding that "the image, in so far as it is an image, whether
simple or composite, is a percept," while so far as there enter into
the idea of objects elements which have been isolated by analysis, the
words for those objects stand for concepts. There is another important
feature of the mental processes in man. The primary aim of the
reception of the influences of the external world, or environment, is
"to enable the organism to answer to them in activity." Moreover, out
of perceptions through association there arise certain expectations,
and "the activities of organisms are moulded in accordance with
these expectations." Phenomena are perceived as linked or woven, and
expectations are the outcome of that perception, the mental process by
which we pass from one link to another being called _inference_. Again,
we have perceptual inference, or inference from direct experience, and
conceptual inference, or "inference based on experience, but reached
through the exercise of the reasoning faculties" (p. 328 et seq.).
Applying these principles to the mental processes in animals, the
author affirms that, granting the theory of evolution, "the early
stages of the process of construction—discrimination, localisation,
and outward projection—are the same in kind throughout the whole
range of animal life, wherever we are justified in surmising that
psychical processes occur, and the power of registration and revival
in memory has been established" (p. 338). But, though the higher
mammalia form _constructs_ analogous to, if not closely resembling
ours, the resemblance cannot be in any sense close, "seeing to how
large an extent our constructs are literally our _handiwork_." To the
question whether the higher animals have "the power of analysing their
constructs and forming isolates, or abstract ideas of qualities apart
from the constructs of which these qualities are elements," Professor
Morgan answers negatively. He supposes, for example, that a dog may
have a vague representation in memory of things good to eat, "in which
the element of eatability is predominant and comparatively distinct,
while the rest is vague and indistinct"; and to mark the difference
he calls the prominent quality a _predominant_, "as opposed to the
isolate when the quality is floated off from the object." Hence he
agrees with Locke that abstraction, in the sense of isolation, is not
possessed by the lower animals, and he thinks that the line should
be drawn there between brute intelligence and human intelligence and
reason (p. 349). As soon as predominant qualities are named they
become isolates, and thus "body and mind became separable in thought;
the self was differentiated from the not-self; the mind was turned
inwards upon itself through the isolation of its varying phases; and
the consciousness of the brute became the self-consciousness of man."
The agent in this upward progress is language, and hence, granting
the possibility of a transitional stage where word-signs stood for
predominants, and not yet for isolates, the author accepts Prof. Max
Müller's view that language and thought are practically inseparable (p.
371). If any serious objection can be made to this reasoning, it must
be we think to the opinion that language made, not merely conceptual
thought, but analysis and isolation possible. This is preceded, as
we have seen by "intelligent examination," and we are expressly told
that out of this arises the mental process of _analysis of constructs_
which animals do not possess. To this faculty then must be traced the
ultimate distinction between them and man. It may be doubted, moreover,
whether animals have any idea of even a predominant quality apart from
some object. The formation of "constructs," that is the recognition
of objects, as the result of external stimuli, is instinctive, except
so far as it depends upon association through experience in past
generations. If animals can even vaguely represent a single quality
apart from an object, it is the first step in analysis, and there is
no reason why they should not go on to abstraction or isolation, and
thence to reason. That animals do not possess reason, in the sense of
conceptual inference, is we think unquestionable, and Professor Morgan
does well in restricting them to intelligence, by which he intends the
process by which perceptual inferences are reached (p. 330).
We have not space to refer to the views expressed in the chapter
on "Appetence and Emotion," beyond stating that the author, while
admitting that in animals are to be found the perceptual germs of even
the higher emotional states, concludes that "ethics, like conceptual
thought and æsthetics, are beyond the reach of the brute. Morality is
essentially a matter of ideals, and these belong to the conceptual
sphere" (p. 414). In the chapter on "Habit and Interest," after
speaking of Mr. Romanes's treatment of instinct as most admirable and
masterly, he compares Mr. Romanes's views as to the origin of secondary
instincts with those of Professor Weismann as to the non-inheritance of
acquired characters, coming to the conclusion that lapsed intelligence
is not a necessary factor in the formation of instincts, and that
there is a probability of some inheritance of experience (p. 436 et
seq.). We must refer our readers to the work itself for the author's
explanation of the "monistic" theory, according to which the two sets
of phenomena, the physical and the mental, are identical, differing
only in being viewed from without or felt from within (p. 417). This
view is developed in the chapter on Mental Evolution, where we read,
"according to the monistic hypothesis, kinesis and metakinesis are
co-ordinate. The physiologist may explain all the activities of men
and animals in terms of kinesis. The psychologist may explain all
the thoughts and emotions of man in thoughts of metakinesis. They
are studying the different phenomenal aspects of the same noumenal
sequences" (p. 472). For Professor Morgan the idea of the object is
the object, but he is not a pure idealist. Phenomena are something
more than states of consciousness. There is a noumenal reality which
underlies the reality of the phenomena, and the enduring ego, of which
certain states of consciousness are occasional manifestations, is
the metakinetic equivalent of the organic kinesis. Here he sees the
solution of the problem which baffles alike materialists and idealists
(p. 475).
We must now take leave of this work which, notwithstanding its
occasional abstruse and technical character, is not "beyond the ready
comprehension of the general reader of average intelligence." It
deserves to be widely read, not only for its subject-matter, but for
its clearness of explanation and wide grasp of thought. The value of
the book is much added to by its diagrams and illustrations, and by an
excellent index and table of contents.
Ω.
PHYSIOGNOMY AND EXPRESSION. By _Paolo Mantegazza_. New York: Scribner &
Welford, 1890.
This work of the versatile Italian Anthropologist is probably one of
those which best represent his many-sided mind, and which will be the
most extensively read. Although strictly scientific, both in its end
and method, it is popular in style and contains matter which must
recommend it to the ordinary as well as the scientific reader. As the
author informs us, he has taken up the study of expression at the
point where Darwin left it. But he has made a further step. He has set
himself the task "of separating, once for all, positive observations
from the number of bad guesses, ingenious conjectures," which have
hitherto encumbered the path of the study of the human countenance
and human expression. His book is a "page of psychology," and he has
endeavored to supply the psychologist, and also the artist, with new
facts, as well as old facts interpreted by new theories, and to bring
into view "some of the laws to which human expression is subject."
A glance at the table of contents shows that the author has fully
carried out the promise thus made. The first chapter of the work after
giving an historical sketch of the science of Physiognomy and of Human
Expression—which in its infancy was "seasoned with the magic which
is one of the original sins of the human family"—and tracing it from
Dalla Porta to Darwin, through Niquetius, Ghiradelli, and Lavater,
proceeds to treat of the human countenance in general, and of each of
its features in particular. The possible judgments on the human face
are reduced in number to five: the physiological, the ethnological,
the æsthetic, the moral, and the intellectual. Of these verdicts, the
ethnological and æsthetic are based almost exclusively on anatomical
characters, while the physiological, moral, and intellectual verdicts
depend chiefly on expression. The coloration of the human skin is an
important ethnological feature, and M. Mantegazza thinks that it
may be reduced to three tints, white, black, and "dried bean" (_fave
seche_), which last he explains by saying that it results from the
superposition of two colors, "most frequently from a sort of black
or very dark brown dust deposited on a ground of dried bean" (p.
31). Among other interesting ethnological generalisations, is the
remark that the Aryans, Semites, and many negroes have large eyes,
while Mongols and many Malays have small eyes. In determining the
color of the eyes, hair, and skin, the author found the table of
tints prepared by M. Broca for the Anthropological Society of Paris
insufficient, as the colors there used are opaque, while transmitted
as well as reflected rays are combined to give the natural coloration.
In the iris of the Lapps fourteen different and graduated shades are
distinguishable, from dark chestnut brown to green. M. Mantegazza
confirms the observation that a certain hue of the eyes is nearly
always associated with a particular hair-color, and he states that
this union is one of the most unvarying ethnical characters by which
to judge of the purity of race. The nose is nearly as important as
the eye as an ethnical and æsthetic feature. The author reproduces M.
Topinard's curious table of its morphological characteristics observing
that it omits only one, which nevertheless is somewhat important,
that is, the angle made by the root of the nose with the forehead.
In relation to the mouth we have the suggestive remark, "the eye is
the centre of the expression of thought; the mouth is the expressive
centre of feeling and of sensuality." As to the color of the hair, M.
Mantegazza has brought together many important facts. Among the higher
races, the hair may be of almost any of the ordinary tints. The Jews
do not differ from the Europeans in this respect, as they exhibit fair
hair as well as dark hair, and light and dark eyes. Although in Germany
the Jewish population generally is much darker than the rest of the
people, many of them have blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion.
For some reason not yet ascertained, there is a tendency in Europe
and especially in England for the blonde type to disappear. We would
suggest that it is a case of reversion to the type of the primitive
inhabitants. M. Mantegazza remarks that the beard does not correspond
to any intellectual type, as it is strongly developed as well among the
Australian aborigines as among the Aryans and Semites. Nevertheless,
the beard is worthy of further study as an ethnological feature. It may
be noted that the Australian aborigines have been connected with the
primitive inhabitants of Western Europe by other characters.
In treating of the expression of the emotions, we are told that
physical expression has two different functions—to replace a complete
language, and "to defend the nerve-centres and other parts of the body
against dangers of different kinds." Much more might have been said on
the first subject, as gesture language has within the last few years
become an important ethnological study, and, indeed, a supplementary
chapter has been written for the English edition of this work on the
physiognomy of gesture. There is great truth in the remarks, that
"every religion and many philosophical schools have been founded by
word and by expression more than by books"; and that "the more feeling
a nation has, the more rich and eloquent are its methods of physical
expression." M. Mantegazza does full justice to the great wealth of
details and the discoveries on which the Darwinian laws of expression
are based, while supplementing them with original observations and
results. It is in the classification of expressions we have probably
the most important feature of the present work. Full synoptical tables
are given of the expressions of Sense, Passion, and Intellect, and of
the various expressions of Pleasure and Pain, Love and Hatred. These
are illustrated by ingenious remarks, as an example of which we may
quote the somewhat cynical statement that "many ladies laugh little
lest they should have precocious wrinkles, while others laugh too
much and on every pretext that they may show their beautiful teeth."
The author well says that in love and pleasure, hatred and pain,
"we have two binary compounds, two such energetic psycho-expressive
combinations that the formidable and the destructive voltaic pile of
our analytic methods is needed to separate the elements." He has some
curious remarks on the fact that laughter and smiling are very frequent
phenomena in the expression of hatred, for which we refer our readers
to the work itself.
To pleasure and pain, love and hatred, M. Mantegazza adds pride and
humiliation, as "the fundamental psychical movements of human nature,
as ancient as man, and common to all the inhabitants of the globe."
Thus, he is of opinion that aristocracy is one of the most natural
features of humanity, and that democrats "make history recede instead
of advancing when they deny the most elementary laws of heredity and of
human nature." We must pass over the expressions of personal feelings,
and those of thought, to reach the chapter on racial and professional
expression. Here races are classified, according to their expression,
into ferocious, gentle, apathetic, grotesque or simian, stupid, and
intelligent, but the classification, like all others from single
characters, is imperfect. Probably as good a classification could be
made on the basis of modes of salutation, beginning with nose-kissing,
or the still more primitive smelling. Raden-Saleh, an artist of Java
preferred nose-_breathing_, as by it we put our soul into contact with
that of the beloved one! It is undoubtedly true, as M. Mantegazza
remarks, that the expression of different peoples is replete with
their most prominent psychical characters. The beautiful impassioned
expression of the Italians is yet defiant and not always frank, owing
to their having been so long subjected to tyrants. Speaking generally,
the European peoples have an expansive or a concentric expression, of
which "the first is found in the Italians, the French, the Slaves, the
Russian: the second in the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Spanish."
The author adds that there is also "a beautiful expression full of
grace, that of the people of Græco-Latin origin; and another hard,
quite angular, without roundness, that of the Germans, the English, and
the Scandinavians."
M. Mantegazza gives a very skilful analysis of the "moderators
and disturbers of expression," referring to his earlier work the
"Physiology of Pain" for further details. In the next chapter he
treats of the criteria for the determination of the strength of an
emotion with reference to the accompanying expression. In addition to
the _force_ and the _persistency_ of the contraction of the expressing
muscles, there is a diffusion of expression in gradually increasing
circles from the face downwards to the legs, and lastly, alternate
contractions and relaxations of the muscles according to the intensity
of the central movement which accompanies the emotion. The expression
of pleasure is always centrifugal, that of pain being centripetal,
tending to bring the arms and lower limbs towards the median line of
the body. In dealing with the criteria for judging the moral work of
a physiognomy, we are told that the two most certain signs of a good
face, are the permanent expression of benevolence, and the absolute
absence of all hypocrisy. Let us add the remark, accredited to Charles
Dickens, that it is advisable to see how a person looks when silent
and apparently unobserved. There are two sources of error in forming
that judgment, one arising from the fact that beautiful things give
pleasure, the chances of error increasing when a man has to judge a
woman, or _vice versa_; the other is due to a false induction, from
the observed association in one individual of a particular physical
feature with a special moral character. The anatomical characters of
the intelligent face and of the stupid face are given in a tabulated
form, but M. Mantegazza states that the most important characters are
those drawn from the expression, the two great centres of which are
the eye and the mouth. Probably the non-observation of the expression
accounts for the mistake made by Goethe, who, when dining at the house
of an Englishman, was struck with the intellectual appearance of one of
the guests and thought he must be a man of genius. Goethe anticipated
pleasure in hearing him speak, but great was his horror, when apple
dumplings were placed on the table, to hear the guest shout out "them's
the jockies for me"!
In an appendix the author treats of the eyes, hair, and beard among
the Italian races, which gives numerous statistics collected by the
Italian Anthropological Society. It appears that the men of Tuscany as
well as of Piedmont are noted for scantiness of beard. Probably this
fact is due to the existence of a special race element, rather than a
difference of climate as would seem to be suggested. The presence of
red hair in all parts of Italy, although only in small quantities, is
also difficult of explanation. Strange to say it is the most common in
regions which are poorest in fair hair. From this we must suppose it
to have some relation to dark hair, an opinion which agrees with the
observation that in England dark hair in young children is sometimes
interspersed with red hairs, which either change or disappear with age.
The hair is known to darken considerably after puberty is reached,
and possibly red hair may be due to the persistence, through special
conditions of which we are not aware, of an infantile character.
We must not leave M. Mantegazza's excellent and entertaining work
without referring to the plates given in the Appendix, among which are
morphological, æsthetic, and intellectual trees of the human race, and
figures of ethnic types illustrative of remarks made in the text. It
also has a good index.
Ω.
IN DARKEST ENGLAND AND THE WAY OUT. By _Gen. Booth_, of the Salvation
Army. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
In this book,—which is considered by many to be the most profound,
serious, and comprehensive study of the social problem that has
yet appeared, as much so because it seems to strike at the root of
the grievance as because it offers a practical remedy,—the author
proposes to so ameliorate the conditions of the abandoned classes
in England as not only to make the members of them self-supporting
and respectable, but after a twenty years' trial of his scheme to so
change the industrial condition of the kingdom that there will not
be found an able-bodied man or woman in all England unable to find
work or food. What politico-economical reformers have had most to
contend with is the poverty or lack of opportunity for labor which
seems to be inherent in the present social structure,—a condition
where, to express it clearly, there seems to be not enough work for
all the people. Hence the standing army of tramps to the number of
30,000 in America and more than 20,000 in the city of London alone.
The submerged class that the author of this book seeks to elevate or
save from sin and utter uselessness has been variously estimated. Mr.
Chamberlain says that there is in England a population equal to that of
the metropolis—between four and five millions—who are in a state of
abject destitution and misery. Mr. Griffin estimates the number to be
1,800,000, while the author of "In Darkest England" thinks 3,000,000 to
be a moderate statement. Many causes may be ascribed to this deplorable
state of humanity, such as natural incapacity for work, predisposition
to idleness, enforced beggary, crime, misfortune, poverty, drunkenness,
and waste,—all of which operate to drag these unfortunate ones to
the lowest level of life. He thinks that the inability of a large
proportion of the people to obtain work drives them either into
despair, sin, crime, and suicide, or to merely exist, carrying with
them, year by year, the bitter ashes of a life from which the furnace
of misfortune has burned away all joy and hope and strength. They are a
helpless and pathetic class,—men and women who "are being sucked down
into the quicksands of modern life." And when it is known that England
is rich enough to drink rum in quantities which appal the chancellor
of the exchequer and yet not rich enough to provide any other shelter
for her homeless ones and outcasts than the midnight sky, modern
civilisation with all its boasted Christianity and humanitarianism
presents indeed a deplorable aspect, appearing to be but a mockery and
a farce.
The method which this book seeks to popularise and use as the means
of elevating to usefulness the outcasts, the indigent, and unemployed
classes of England and of the civilised world, is none other than the
scheme originally applied in Bavaria by Count Rumford—an American
better known as Benjamin Thompson, a graduate of Harvard, who, having
entered the Bavarian service at the close of the war for independence,
became the governor of Munich. The scheme is threefold. It is proposed
to organise the submerged classes, with their consent of course, into
a gigantic co-operative society, subdivided into (1) The City Colony,
(2) The Farm Colony, (3) The Over-Sea Colony. "The scheme in its
entirety," we are informed, "may aptly be compared to a great machine
foundationed in the lowest slums and purlieus of our great towns and
cities, drawing up into its embrace the depraved and destitute of all
classes; receiving thieves, harlots, paupers, drunkards, prodigals,
all alike, on the simple conditions of their being willing to work and
conform to discipline. Drawing up these poor outcasts, reforming them,
and creating in them habits of industry, honesty, and truth; teaching
them methods by which alike the bread that perishes and that which
endures to everlasting life can be won; forwarding them from the city
to the country and there continuing the process of regeneration and
then pouring them forth on the virgin soils that await their coming
in other lands." The scheme is so comprehensive that it includes
slum crusades, wagon hospitals, a brigade of Christian apostles near
prison-gates to meet and help discharged prisoners, rescue homes for
unfallen girls when on the danger line between sin and starvation,
bureaus of intelligence, refuges for street children, industrial
schools, asylums for moral lunatics, a matrimonial bureau, and banks
for the poor. The project is not to be summarily rejected as utopian.
It is a gigantic effort to utilise the human refuse that sieves itself
through all the means available for enlightenment to the very bottom of
the social structure. Into this vast machine the whole mass of soiled
humanity would be taken and by the refining process which is clearly
elaborated in the book we could touch this material with a new spirit
and thus reclaim the men, women, and children to self-support, honor,
honesty, and usefulness. For the success of the project "General" Booth
has asked for one million pounds.
Three serious objections may be made to the scheme. The first is the
placing into the hands of one man or one organisation the power of
disposing, and the custody, of five millions of dollars—an objection
which Professor Huxley makes with good reason. The second is, the
theological environment which is a seeming part and parcel of the whole
machine. And the third is, the superficial and unradical character of
the remedy. Concerning the first objection it may be simply said, that
history proves that the experiment which the "General" is about to make
is a dangerous one. Professor Huxley maintains with more than usual
gravity, that the unquestionable obedience which every soldier in the
Salvation Army is expected, and by verbal contract is duly bound, to
maintain for all orders from headquarters, gives the most suspicious
aspect to the probable tyrannical development of his army in the
future, as was illustrated for example in the Franciscan order founded
in the thirteenth century by St. Francis. After his death, although the
order was pledged by him to mendicancy and absolute separation from all
worldly entanglements, it became "one of the most powerful, wealthy,
and worldly corporations in all Christendom, with their fingers in
every sink of political and social corruption." What guarantee is there
that the Salvation Army may not become likewise involved and exercise
an imperialism and fanaticism not to be exceeded even by the Jesuits
or Mormons? "It is" writes Professor Huxley in the _London Times_, "a
greater evil to have the intellect of a nation put down by organised
fanaticism, to see its political and industrial affairs at the mercy
of a despot whose chief thought is to make that fanaticism prevail, to
watch the degradation of men who should feel themselves individually
responsible for their own and their country's fate, to mere brute
instruments ready to the hand of a master for any use to which he may
put them."
Another objection and one equally as fatal is the religious aspect
which is given to the movement. As such it bears a relation to the
problem of civilisation which is all important. To insist that every
wicked man or woman in order to be righteous and happy must, ought,
or will, believe in historical Christianity, is absurd enough, and to
project or infuse into the whole character of a social reform movement
a theological idea as a necessary element in its efficacy is certainly
ridiculous, but to make the work of the elevation of the degenerate
masses of mankind a mere accessory to a belief in an irrational and
already obsolete religious doctrine or contingent upon it,—at least
to emphasize it as a means to the adoption of the unfortunates into
one organisation where all believe alike, or where by virtue of the
gratitude they bear to those who have materially helped them, they
conform or try to conform to their mode of thinking,—is indeed one
of the sad mistakes upon which the "General's" social project is
built. For in the submerged class, there are doubtless many who are
not Christians in belief, who indeed, however fortunate they may
become, yet could not subscribe to the creed of the Evangelical Church
or honestly engage in a work organised in the interest of so-called
historical Christianity. It is not necessary in order to make man good
to make him a Christian, or a Jew, or a Buddhist, in belief. The point
to emphasise is goodness of character and not merely an intellectual
profession of faith. Once get a man to be good, or to hate sin and love
righteousness, and he will, if he never makes a Christian profession,
be as useful a man as society might wish. Righteousness will take any
man or woman safely and happily through the world. The truth is just as
the poet stated it:
"A man may cry 'Church! Church!' at every word,
And have no more grace than other people;
The daw's not reckoned a religious bird
Because he keeps a-cawing in the steeple."
It is not, therefore, necessary, to the success of "General" Booth's
scheme that it should be hitched to some popular, although unscientific
and unreasonable religious conception of life; or that he should
consider a reform in the life of any man a miracle, and therefore
attribute all such to the direct interposition of God. The scheme, if a
success at all, will depend, as the organisation of the Salvation Army
has depended, upon the enthusiasm and enterprise of the "General" and
his constituency. And all reliance upon God without any intelligent
human effort in behalf of the outcasts of society would only gorge a
greater multitude of humanity into the bogs and sinks of iniquity. As
well might we expect a locomotive to move by tacking scripture all over
it, as to expect any great social reform movement to be a success by
associating it or making it depend upon some sort of religious creed.
Still whatever may be said against religious interference with social
problems, the work of "General" Booth puts to shame the church whose
trifling doctrinal and polemical controversies have so blinded its
judgment as to neglect its duties toward the submerged classes and
leave them to so enormously increase that in order to save the world
from almost hopeless ruin a new organisation such as the Salvation Army
had to come forth. The church has a far more important duty to perform
than that of merely existing, and it will never emblason the record
which its founder gave it by his self-sacrificing life and his noble
death upon the cross until it takes its wealth of brain, heart, and
money, and becomes indeed the modern Saviour of the world.
The third objection and doubtless the most important one of all is
the superficial and unradical character of the remedy. It is not here
implied that the project is useless although inclusive. The point made
is this, that whatever the "General" may do to dredge the bogs of sin
and clean the streets of beggars, the idlers, the unemployed, the
waifs, the prostitutes, the drunkards, and the criminal class, and put
all such in the way of usefulness, manliness, and respectability, what
does he do or what is to be done to keep the new or fresh material from
sinking into mire? While the "General" is working among the lowest,
thousands are being prepared among the highest for the inevitable
fate from which he is plucking the helpless ones as brands from the
burning. While he is gathering up the submerged and placing them in
his machine, the mill without still grinds on and on, crushing as
large a number year by year as he may help and save. His method might
consistently be compared to one where a man would transform rotten
apples into good ones without affecting the tree that produces them.
Although the criminal and sinful classes influence the innocent and
unsophisticated, yet it cannot be proven that the bulk of the people
will remain pure, true, honest, upright, if there were no sinful or
criminal class! And hence even if all such who are avowedly sinful were
made better and their pernicious influence removed from the world by
the method here proposed, sin itself would still inhere in the nature
of man's life and would drag thousands down to ruin and misery. Like
the mosaic paintings which can only be destroyed by destroying the
stones upon which they are impressed, so sin seems to be bound up
in human nature. To get at it and destroy it utterly by one _coup_
one must annihilate the constitution of the universe. The problem of
civilisation is such that it cannot be solved by one specific reform.
For to develop man it seems to be necessary that he should pass through
the treatment which the long and inevitable process of experience and
education can give. Although sin like poverty is but relative, yet it
is the name for the conduct into which man is led either by a neglect
or abuse of opportunity, or by some inevitable fatality. It is not here
contended that man cannot rid himself or society of any disposition to
sin. What is maintained is that it cannot be abolished from the world
by any spasmodic effort such as that which characterises the present
project, but that it will pass away only where and when humanity
becomes perfectly educated. And this state of civilisation, by the way,
does not seem to be so surprisingly near at hand. Nor can material
help, such as food, shelter, clothing, and what not, altogether effect
or even change the moral status of a man's life. Thousands whose
material wants are amply provided for revel in sin and corruption,
and the dreadful orgy where vice holds carnival reels and swaggers in
the palaces where amid gilded refinements and dazzling splendor the
so-called better classes disport themselves. It is true that when a
man is starving or naked, bread and clothing are the things which will
satisfy his most immediate wants, and not prayers or sermons. To supply
such wants is easy enough, but to so arouse or kindle into a flame of
fortitude and manliness, the diseased conscience and the perverted
judgment, to so operate upon the will as to make the man able to not
only choose but do the right, is the great and radical difficulty which
is not so easily overcome. Psychology and medicine seem to have no
remedy to offer, while religion for these many years has simply touched
the hem of the garment—while the abandoned classes have seemingly
multiplied on our hands.
In concluding these remarks we cannot forbear to express our regret
that the real author of the book has given it over to "General" Booth
and allowed him not only the credit of authorship, but most likely also
the privilege of mixing up a scheme of social reform with the politics
of the Salvation Army. The book was "boomed" in this way, but we fear
that it will at the same time be doomed in this way. The Salvation Army
and its founder have reaped much undeserved praise. "General" Booth
has received incredible sums from enthusiasts to support the scheme,
and these sums have to a great extent been used to advertise it. It
appears to us that "General" Booth has contracted a debt which he will
be unable to pay. The better situated classes of society do not lack in
sympathy for their wretched fellow-men, and it sets us thinking, how
strong human sentimentality must be that the propagation of the mere
idea of curing the evils of mankind proposed in this book as feasible
with the aid of one million pounds furnishes ample means to a religious
enthusiast whose method of salvation is rather noisy than thorough,
representing a kind of barbarous relapse and only adapted to the lowest
and most uneducated classes. We should know that sentimentality cannot
save. Sentiment and sympathy are good things, but unless they are
backed by a cold consideration of fact and rational foresight, they are
worse than useless.
It will be wise to consider the propositions made in "In Darkest
England" without taking into consideration the rôle to be played in the
scheme by the Salvation Army. But while the reader may be just enough
to consider the plan of social reform on its own merits, "General"
Booth is in possession of the funds and will be the general manager of
the experiment.
Γκ.
PLANKTON-STUDIEN. Vergleichende Untersuchungen ueber die Bedeutung
und Zusammensetzung der pelagischen Fauna und Flora. By _Ernst
Haeckel_. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
The first systematic studies of the innumerable organisms which almost
everywhere drift about in the ocean, were made by Professor Johannes
Müller who some forty years ago made excursions in the North Sea.
Haeckel, then a student twenty years old, accompanied him on one of
these excursions to Heligoland. Since then these investigations have
been conducted on a larger scale. The English vessel "Challenger"
cruised in different oceans for no less than forty months, and the
results of this great undertaking were published by John Murray in
the "Voyage of H. M. S. Challenger"—a voluminous work consisting
of eighty-two zo-ological reports, to which Professor Haeckel also
has contributed his "Report on the Deep-Sea Keratosa." The German
government sent out the German cruiser "National" on the same errand.
The scientists of the expedition were Hensen, Brandt, Dahl, Schütt,
Fischer, Krümmel. They were at sea altogether ninety-three days making
a circuitous trip on the Atlantic ocean, touching at the Bermudas,
Brazil, and the Azores. The results of the expedition, published
in reports by Hensen, Brandt, Du Bois-Reymond, and Krümmel, were
considered as very satisfactory and received the unreserved applause
of the German press. Professor Haeckel is of a different opinion. He
considers the reports as standing in flat contradiction to former
valuable observations, especially to those of the English "Challenger"
and the Italian "Vettor Pisani" expeditions. Hensen's results rest upon
a weak supposition and contain wrong generalisations; even his method
is, according to Haeckel, entirely useless, giving a wrong presentation
of the problems of pelagic biology.
The word "plancton" was introduced by Hensen. Haeckel adopts it because
he considers the Greek term preferable to Johannes Müller's _Auftrieb_
or pelagic _Mulder_ (the latter has been adopted also by English,
French, and Italian planctologists). By plancton (πλαγκτόν), derived
from πλάζω, to roam about, is understood the drifting micro-organisms
of the sea.
Professor Haeckel in the present volume not only corrects Professor
Hensen's errors, but also gives a report of his own observations. Not
the least valuable part of the brochure is the exact terminology which
Professor Haeckel proposes in order to escape the confusion necessarily
resulting from a looseness of terms.
Κ.
DIE ALLGEMEINE WELTANSCHAUUNG IN IHRER HISTORISCHEN ENTWICKELUNG.
Charakterbilder aus der Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften. By
_Carus Sterne_. Mit zahlreichen Porträts und Textabbildungen.
Stuttgart: Otto Weisert.
Dr. Ernst Krause, better known by the _nom de plume_ of "Carus
Sterne," has here undertaken to present the modern world-conception
as contrasted with the olden one. We have scarcely ever met with a
book that contains in so popular a form all the noteworthy facts of
the great progress that has been achieved in science since the time
of Copernicus. The results of the evolution-theory are generally
known, but the road and the stations of the road on which science has
reached its present position, now almost universally recognised among
men, are almost forgotten. No one perhaps is better able to tell us
of this great struggle for truth than the enthusiastic disciple of
Darwin, Carus Sterne. Carus Sterne and his friend Prof. Ernst Haeckel,
have done no small work in obtaining recognition for the theory of
evolution in Germany. While Haeckel's work has been confined to the
field of exact science, Carus Sterne has complemented the labors of
his co-worker by pointing out the moral truths contained in Darwinism.
We are aware of the fact that Carus Sterne has also written purely
scientific works, "Werden und Vergehen," for instance; but what we
wish to emphasise as his especial merit is that he was, so far as we
know, the first to call attention to the moral workings of nature in
her great cosmic empire. As an article characteristic of this trait in
Carus Sterne's writings we refer the reader not familiar with German
literature to his article "The Education of Parents by their Children,"
a translation of which appeared in Nos. 22 and 23 of _The Open Court_.
The present book (over 400 pages) discusses the following subjects:
Pagan and Christian Cosmology; Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler;
The Controversy Concerning the Geo-centric View; The Infinitude of
Habitable Worlds; From Bacon to Newton; The Beginnings of an Animal-
and Plant-Geography; The Doctrine of Spontaneous Generation; The
Discussion Concerning the Origin of Birds; The Terrestrial Globe
and Its Fossils; Diluvianism; The Mongrel Theory; The Doctrines
of Preformation and Metamorphosis; The Doctrine of Catastrophes;
Persistence or Mutability; The Controversy on the Anthropocentric View;
The Origin of Language; On the History of Evolution.
Κ.
UEBER DIE AUFGABEN EINER ALLGEMEINEN RECHTSWISSENSCHAFT. By Dr. _Alb.
Herm. Post_. Oldenburg and Leipsic: A. Schwartz.
The author of this little book, Dr. Albert Hermann Post, a Judge of
the courts of the free city of Bremen, Germany, has made the study of
ethnological jurisprudence the scientific work of his life. His idea
and purpose are to establish a positive science of jurisprudence in
the widest and most comprehensive sense of the word, on the basis of
an investigation of all the forms of law, available to research, that
have ever appeared. A universal science of jurisprudence, according to
this conception, would have for its subject-matter the contents of the
jural sense or consciousness of the entire human race,—the jural facts
of the totality of human society. In other words, this science must
be, not only historical, but _ethnological_. It must include the jural
life not only of the civilised, but also of the uncivilised races of
mankind: it must comprehend _all_. It thus constitutes a step beyond
that great movement of the beginning of this century which gave us
the science of the history of law. It extends the latter, supplements
it, and aims to find in the juro-social existence of undeveloped and
uncivilised races the germs of legal practices and institutions that
the literary history and traditions of civilised peoples would never
supply.
The matter of the present work of Dr. Post takes up some 215 pages. It
treats of the available sources of such a universal science of law, of
the elaboration of these sources; it gives a concise and illustrative
epitome of the most important parallel phenomena met with in the
jural life of the human race,—e. g. in the departments of the Law of
Inheritance, of Property, of Marriage, etc., etc.,—and a survey of the
separate ethnic divisions of law over the whole earth.
It is a grand task—the realisation of this conception. And its
execution in its enormous magnitude is only possible through the
speedy and intelligent co-operation of scientists and travellers as
well as jurists. It will make of jurisprudence a _natural science_,
as distinguished from the _a priori_ character this study has up till
now assumed; and its prosecution will impart into the science a light
and freshness which it sadly needs. Next to theology, the science of
law is least pervaded with the spirit of modern research. And this is
eminently so in our country, where hardly the history, let alone the
ethnology of law, is studied.
We are tempted to give a much more thorough and detailed exposition of
Dr. Post's ideas. But an original article will appear from his pen in a
future number of _The Monist_, and therefore we are brief.
μκρκ.
PERIODICALS.
MIND. January, 1891. No. LXI.
CONTENTS:
ON PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPRESSION IN PSYCHOLOGY. By Prof. _A. Bain_.
APPERCEPTION AND THE MOVEMENT OF ATTENTION. By _G. F. Stout_.
HELMHOLTZ'S THEORY OF SPACE-PERCEPTION. By _J. H. Hyslop_.
THE PRINCIPLE OF INDUCTION. By _L. T. Hobhouse_.
THE UNDYING GERM-PLASM AND THE IMMORTAL SOUL. By _R. von
Lendenfeld_.
CRITICAL NOTICES: Pikler's "The Psychology of the Belief in
Objective Existence"; Ferrier's "The Croonian Lectures on
Cerebral Localisation"; Jevons's "Pure Logic and other
Minor Works"; Marshall's "Principles of Economics, I";
Mackenzie's "An Introduction to Social Philosophy"; Fouillée's
"L'Evolutionnisme des Idées-Forces"; Koenig's "Die Entwicklung
des Causalproblems."
_On Physiological Expression in Psychology._ In opposition to the
"subjective purism" in psychology advocated by Mr. Stout and Mr.
Bradley. The mixture of the psychical with the physical is such as to
prove that mental processes, however distinct from bodily processes,
have never owned even a vocabulary of their own. Pleasure and pain
are psychical states, but we cannot theorise fully upon them without
adverting to their physical causes or conditions. The action of
drugs proves that the physical constitution of the nerve-substance
is a paramount condition of our sensibility, pleasurable or painful.
By taking the organs of special sense in separation we can exhaust
the modes of sensibility under each, and when we look minutely into
the anatomy of the several organs, we obtain further helps to the
subdivision and distinction of the individual sensations. Connected
with the physics of the brain, apart from the nervous substance and
its conditions, is the important state known as excitement, with
its opposites quiescence, languor, repose, drowsiness, sleep, and
insensibility. The theory of the Will must rely, in the first instance,
upon subjective sequences, but the physical consequences of pleasure
and pain are a two-fold activity—Expression and Volition, and for
verification of any hypothesis as to priority between these two forms
of the physical outcome of feeling, the sequence must be taken on the
physical side alone. As regards the emotions, taken in themselves, the
tracing of physical concomitance is unavoidable. In Psycho-physics
the experiments are made upon the physical side, though not to the
exclusion of subjective reference. A law relating to the seat of
ideas obtained in the first instance through the senses, declares the
nervous tracts to be the same in both, thus connecting Sense with
Intellect. It has always been impossible to avoid describing ideas as
modified repetitions of sensation, and employing for that purpose the
materialism of the sense-organs. While eminently applicable to all the
phenomena of mind at their elementary stage—Sensation, Intellect,
Emotion, Will—physiological conditions cease to have the like bearing
in the higher complications. In all that part of Association that
states the order of recurrence of our ideas in Memory, subjective
investigation is paramount and exclusive. But the state described as
conscious intensity, excitement, mental concentration, attention,
interest, is expressible both subjectively and physiologically. The
constant application of spiritual remedies to bodily ailments is an
important aspect of the union of mind and body, and their interaction
in those instances is of great significance.
_Apperception and the Movement of Attention._ Thinking is action
directed towards intellectual ends. Intellectual ends are attained
by an appropriate combination of movements of attention. Attention
and apperception, as this word is applied by Steinthal, reciprocally
determine each other. The nature of attention is explained in
accordance with the monoideism of M. Ribot, but contrary to his view it
is declared to be a constant character of our mental life, although the
monoideism is not always complete. Apperception is the process by which
a mental system incorporates or tends to incorporate a new element.
The effect of attention is largely dependent on the apperception which
accompanies it, and of which it is an auxiliary process. The movement
of attention fastening upon the presentation to be apperceived, fixes
it in the focus of consciousness, until the appercipient system has
finally succeeded or failed in assimilating it. The reason why one
ideal group becomes appercipient in preference to the others lies
mainly in its greater affinity with the presentation to be apperceived.
The conditions determining the strength of apperceptive systems may
be either extrinsic or intrinsic. The extrinsic consist in passing
circumstances which from time to time favor its activity. The intrinsic
conditions are inherent in the constitution of the system itself.
Among the former are the co-operation of another system; the recovery
or the intensity of its own previous action; the influence of organic
sensation; its own freshness arising from previous repose. Of these
the organic sensation is of fundamental importance. The influence of
the cœnæsthesis pervades the whole mental life. Every specific kind of
emotion is accompanied by a characteristic mode of organic reaction.
The intrinsic conditions are the comprehensiveness of the system; its
internal organisation, of which the philosophy of Hegel is cited as an
example; the strength of the cohesion between its parts; the nature of
the sensory material which enters predominantly into its composition,
that is, the comparative excitability of ideas derived from different
senses. The normal working of competition, co-operation, and conflict,
may be illustrated by contrasting it with the pathological state
called _suggestibility_, in which those processes are more or less
completely in abeyance. The conditions which determine the train of
ideas arise from the fact that attention, being a motor process,
depends on feeling, which dependence cannot be separated from that on
apperception. Feeling gives unity to mental process, and is a simple
mode of consciousness resulting from the excitement of a multiplicity
of elements, and it causes attention to be concentrated on the central
presentation from which the wave of excitement is radiated. The
essential characteristic of a train of _thought_, as distinguished
from a mere train of ideas, is that the relation linking each idea to
its predecessor forms also a source of the interest through which it
attracts attention. The ground of the distinction is that thinking
involves the activity of a proportional system as such, that is "a
system adapted to apperceive objects in other respects most diverse
from each other, merely because they agree in being capable of entering
into certain relations." The modified working of the principle of
association through the apperceptive activity of a proportional system,
is _proportional_ or _analogical production_, which may possibly
operate in every instance of the suggestion of one idea by another.
A reversion of attention to a previous link in a chain of ideas,
giving rise to a modified repetition of it, is a distinctive feature
of _thinking_. In a separate article will be dealt with the special
part played by language, which from a psychological point of view
is "a peculiar movement of attention having a peculiar influence on
apperceptive process."
_Helmholtz's Theory of Space-Perception._ The doctrine of "unconscious
inference" is explicitly founded upon the general theory of knowledge
formed by Helmholtz, which is identical with that of Kant, and
Helmholtz's investigation into the genesis of space-perception applied
to the problem which Kant did not consider, namely, the perception
of particular or concrete spaces. The distinction made by the former
between the inference from the data of sense and that in which the
data are consciously known to be signs, by calling the inductive
inferences of the sciences _conscious_, and those involved in external
perception of world _unconscious_, is open to the charge of involving a
contradiction. On the one hand, the theory of "unconscious inference"
supports the empirical doctrine of perception only in consequence
of calling the process an inference. On the other hand, to call the
process "unconscious" is to restore the conception of immediacy which
the idea of inference is supposed to exclude. This contradiction may
not be insisted on, but, as the phenomena of binocular adjustment
discussed in a previous article showed in the visual consciousness a
_quale_ which, with or without its relation to tactual and muscular
extension, was other than plane dimension, Helmholtz must, unless
this _quale_ can be proved to be result of inference, limit the
application of his theory to the synthetic connection between touch
and sight. _Parallax of motion_, which consists of the different
afferent movements or velocities of bodies in horizontal meridians,
and situated at different distances from the observer, seems to do
the same for monocular vision that adjustment and fusion do for
binocular vision. The phenomena attending certain experiments in
which the parallax of motion was observed "correspond exactly to
the conception of those who hold that the representative of plane
dimension in the retinal image decides the nature of all perceptions
whose character is not presented in the image except as a visual
sign, and hence that aught beyond magnitude must be the result of
influence." An examination of Helmholtz's fundamental principle,
"the denial of all pre-established harmony between the nature of
impressions and the nature of the external world," confirms the view
that the conception of space may be properly a visual one, requiring
the superior constancy of touch to correct illusions growing out of the
complexities of vision. If we limit visual phenomena as data to mere
variations of kind and distinctness in color, we cannot account for
such cases as the appearance and inversion of mathematical perspective,
binocular localisation and translocation, and the distinct effect of
the monocular parallax of motion, qualities which are dimensional in
their nature. "While the complexities of space-perception make the
co-operation of inferential agencies very probable, yet the spacial
quality must be originally given somewhere in consciousness either
as an object of perception or as a mental construction, in order to
furnish a basis for inferences to its existence or its relations where
they are not immediately cognised. This makes the developed conceptions
of abstract and synthetic space a complex of inferences and intuitions."
_The Principle of Induction._ The ultimate major premiss of Induction
according to Mill is the Law of Causation which, as he treats it, is
a wide generalisation true of sequences just as other generalisations
are true of the facts of space. Hence it is itself an induction like
other inductions. What is wanted is "an axiom expressing in general
terms what we do when we make a particular statement universal, which
makes explicit the truth implied by the making of any generalisation
whatever." The Law of Causation will be found to be a particular
application of this wider axiom, and the axiom itself must be sought
from the analysis of ordinary simple generalisations. When we connect
truths together, or reason, we _support_ an inferred judgment by some
other assertion. That we should be able to reason at all involves that
any fact, as _B_, should have some other fact, as _C_, to which it
is always related; that is, "any fact precisely resembling this _B_,
whatever its other attributes and concomitants may be, will be found in
a precisely similar relation to a precisely similar _C_." A relation
exists between two facts whenever the mind can at once distinguish the
facts as two, and at the same time attend to them together and assert
something of them considered together. We may speak of a relation
between different aspects of the same existing thing. The three
alternatives afforded by the axiom as ultimately stated correspond to
the three cases in which _A_ is the "sum of the conditions of _B_," or
in any way a universal correlate of _B_; in which it is the cause of
_B_ in the popular sense of the term; and in which its connection with
_B_ is merely 'causal,' that is, "the Law of Causation is the Axiom
of Reasoning as applied to the sequences of phenomena." Every fact
observed stands in universal relation to some other fact. The judgment
of that relation "is implied in the rudimentary inference which states
only the particular fact observed and the particular fact now expected.
It is explicit in the reason that is conscious of its own grounds and
methods, and takes there the form of the universal judgment, or major
premiss."
_The Undying Germ-Plasm and the Immortal Soul._ All unicellular beings
such as the Protozoa and the simpler Algæ, Fungi, etc., reproduce
themselves by means of simple fission, and consequently they are
immortal. All the single individuals of a family of unicellular beings
belong to each other, although they be isolated. Amongst certain
infusoria they do, in fact, remain together and build up branching
colonies. Later on, division of labor made its appearance and increased
the dependence of the individuals upon one another, so that their
individuality was to a great extent lost. By the development of this
process, multicellular Metazoa arose from colonies of similar Protozoa,
and at length culminated in the higher animals and man. All the
cell-series are immortal, but they all must die because the structure
which is built up by them collectively is mortal. The reproductive
cells are the only kind adapted for existence outside the body, and
from time to time some of the human reproductive cells succeed in
conjugating, and from them a new individual arises. The whole structure
of man is acquired with the one object in view of maintaining the
series of reproductive cells, of which he is, so to speak, the slave.
They are the most important and essential and also the undying parts
of the organism. The series of reproductive cells thus possess the
essential attributes of the human soul. If we compare the conception
of the soul as held by various related religions, and take the
characteristics invariably ascribed to the soul, we find that they hold
also for the series of reproductive cells continually developing within
the body. The ordinary conception of the fate of the soul after death
agrees fundamentally with the result of observation on the prosperity
of the series of germ-cells. That fate depends on conduct in the body,
and the only possible definition of a good deed, that is approved by
conscience, is one which will benefit the series of germ-cells arising
from one individual, that is ourselves and our family, and further
which will be of use to others with their own series of germ-cells, and
that in proportion to the degree of connection or relationship. Thus,
"the apparently enigmatical conception of the eternal soul is founded
on the actual immortality and continuity of the germ-plasma." (London:
Williams & Norgate.)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. January, 1891. Vol. I. No. 2.
CONTENTS:
THE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES. By _D. G. Ritchie_.
A NEW STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGY. By _Prof. Josiah Royce_.
THE INNER LIFE IN RELATION TO MORALITY. By _J. H. Muirhead_.
MORAL THEORY AND PRACTICE. By _Prof. John Dewey_.
MORALS IN HISTORY. By _Prof. Fr. Jodl_.
THE ETHICS OF DOUBT—CARDINAL NEWMAN. By _W. L. Sheldon_.
THE ETHICS OF SOCIALISM. Steinthal—The Social Utopia;
Paulsen—Socialism and Social Reform. By _Prof. Franklin H.
Giddings_.
ETHICAL AND KINDRED SOCIETIES IN GREAT BRITAIN. By _Mrs. M.
McCallum_.
_A New Study of Psychology._ There are three fairly distinct types
of treatment in text-books of psychology. The first type, is the
science of the "mind" considered as an entity, of whose nature we
might otherwise know much or little, but of which we at all events
knew that it had a certain substantial unity. This was supplemented,
or succeeded, by the theory of the 'ideas,' and their 'associations.'
A third method confines its investigations to the facts and laws of
the nervous system, with only such use of introspection as was found
absolutely indispensable. Professor James, in his "Principles of
Psychology," does not accept primarily any one of these views. The
unit he adopts in mental analysis might be defined as "so much of the
mental process as may be supposed to run parallel to a relatively
simple nervous function in the cortex of the living brain, in so
far as this cortex functions with a certain unity." Professor James
rejects the unconscious in every form, and above all the unconscious
mind-atom. He says, "the special natural science of psychology must
stop with the mere functional formula. If the passing be the directly
verifiable existent, which no school has hitherto doubted it to be,
then that thought is itself the thinker, and psychology need not look
beyond." This life of passing thoughts needs only the fundamental
hypothesis that the moments as they pass really know one another, that
the present is actually acquainted with the past, in order to give as
a resultant of the whole life such unity as we need for purposes of
psychological science. In relation to volition and freedom, Professor
James holds that the idea of the end tends more and more to make itself
all-sufficient, and that "motives," so-called, are "ideas of ends"
which owing to their conflict, are unable to pass over into acts so
long as they remain mere motives. The experience of deciding a conflict
of motives is "the experience of the triumph of one idea of the end
over other ideas." The act of voluntary decision is experienced as an
act of "conscious attention to an idea," and nothing else. Volition is
primarily a relation, "not between ourself and extra-mental matter,
but between ourself and our own states of mind." Professor James's
own belief is that the question of freewill is insolvable on strictly
psychological grounds, although on ethical grounds he ascribes to the
alternative of freedom. In relation to the question of pleasure and
pain as motives, he points out that the 'idea-motor' acts, even on
a very high plane, express the presence of the 'idea of an end,' and
this end may itself be very painful, yet it tends to carry itself out.
It wins because we attend to it, and whether or no attention is free,
certain it is that attention often rather determines pleasure and
pain themselves, than is determined by them. In conclusion Professor
Royce says in relation to Professor James's book: "His 'passing
moments,' which can 'know' and which can freely 'attend,' which
are 'self-related,' and which have 'unity,' and which are still so
intimately bound to the 'neural process,' have just the paradoxical and
hypothetical character which requires one, in one's philosophy, to go
beyond them, and to declare them but illusory expressions in phenomenal
form of an infinitely deeper truth."
_The Inner Life in Relation to Morality._ The emotions that are called
up by the thought of the world as an organic whole constitute the inner
life, that which Clifford calls 'cosmic emotion.' These emotions,
although they do not end in the human soul, impart a spirit and diffuse
an air over the rest of life: they have no separate external expression
of their own. The pivot of man's inner life is the thought of himself
as a part or member of a universal order. The object of the paper is
to answer the questions: what this thought is, or ought to be; what
are some of the forms which the feeling it rouses takes; what are
some of its special relations to social morality; and what practical
means may be suggested under modern conditions for the cultivation of
it. The view of the world most characteristic of the time in which we
live, has laid the foundation for an entirely new attitude of mind
towards the cosmos at large. The world is now known to be an organic
whole. This organism is the invisible background which is presupposed
in the partial glimpses of it which we call common perception and the
special sciences. If we look _inwards_ we have the _human conscience_
as the symbol of a microcosm of moral relations between the different
parts of our nature on the one hand and the different members of human
society on the other. The cosmic principle clothing itself in the
twofold garb of which we know it, is the ultimate object of the emotion
described as the inner life. This brings with it that which lies at
the root of all religion—the sense of dependence, by which is meant,
the feeling that we are born into and supported by a world which our
individual wills did not make. This at first produces a vague sense of
fear in the presence of forces other and mightier than ourselves. But
generally it has passed in us into a higher form, a sense of fearless
faith in truth and right, which are the laws of nature. The faculty
of relating ourselves to the world in its widest, which is also its
deepest, aspects, with its appropriate feeling invests our everyday
duties with a new meaning, and gives them a wider range by connecting
them with the general life of the world. Morality is thus raised to a
higher power; it passes from "mere morality" into "morality touched
with emotion," and thus becomes a species of religion. Among other
means of cultivating the inner life are the attending the _services_
of the churches, although faith has been lost in their dogmas; the
reading of the books, whether belonging to Christian literature or not,
which are in the best sense religious; the study of philosophy. We
are on the right lines if we cling to the great watchwords of our own
time,—Evolution, Progress, Organic Order.
_Moral Theory and Practice._ Moral theory is the analytic perception
of the conditions and relations in hand in a given act,—it is the
action in idea. It is the construction of the act in thought against
its outward construction. It is, therefore, the doing,—the act itself,
in its emerging. So far are we from any divorce of moral theory and
practice, that theory is the ideal act, and conduct is the executed
insight. Moral conduct is absolutely individualised, and it is
precisely that which realises an idea, a conception. The breadth of
action is measured by the insight of the agent. Just so far as the
question, What are the conditions which require action and what the
action they demand, is raised and answered, is action moral and not
merely instinctive or sentimental. This is a work of analysis, which
requires the possession of certain working tools. What we call moral
rules are precisely such tools of analysis. The Golden Rule is a
marvellous tool of analysis but it gives no knowledge, of itself, of
what we should do. As a tool of analysis the moral rule is an idea.
A philosophic theory of ethics is a similar idea to the Golden Rule,
but one of deeper grasp, and therefore wider hold. It bears much the
same relation to the particular rule as this to the special case. It
is a tool for the analysis of its meaning, and thereby a tool for
giving it greater effect. At the back of the Golden Rule are other
larger ideas which have realised themselves, and been so buried in the
common consciousness of men, that they have become integrated with the
content of the Golden Rule which itself has become a vast idea, or
working tool, of practice. Every philosophic theory of ethics performs
in its degree this same service. A man's duty is, not to obey rules,
but to respond to the nature of the actual demands which he finds made
upon him. The rule is merely an aid toward discriminating what the
nature of these relations and demands is. A man has not to do Justice,
and Love, and Truth; he has to do justly and truly and lovingly. The
relative distinction between the "is" and the "ought," is that the
"ought" is the "is" of _action_. The difference between a practical
and a theoretical consciousness is that the former is consciousness
of _something to be done_. And this consciousness of something to be
done is the consciousness of duty. Theory is the cross-section made by
intelligence of the given state of action in order to know the conduct
that should be; practice is the realisation of the idea thus gained: it
is theory in action.
_Morals in History._ A glance at the history of morals reveals
independence and changeableness always and everywhere side by side. So
far as we are acquainted with man in social community, the will of the
community speaks to the individual concerning his practical conduct
with authority; and as an inner appropriation of that will, "the
authority of conscience, of practical reason, which naturally exists
only in the individual, but through friction with the community becomes
filled with a universally valid content." The origin of the common will
is lost in the mysterious darkness of primitive times, or of divine
revelation. It is science which first extends the individual's circle
of experience. Morality is a product of evolution, and is in a state of
continual transformation. The sum of the ethical principles or ideals
which at any time are current in any nation, presents nothing else than
the conception of all that is reciprocally required in a practical
direction of its members, for the advantage and profit of the community
and the individual persons in it. The requirements of social adaptation
are raised into the consciousness of the community. Thus full harmony
between the practical needs of a time and its ethics can only be a
transitory one. The conditions which evoke the individual will to carry
out its own ideals over against the current ones, are none other than
those upon which the formation of new organs in general is dependent.
The new principles must be of assistance to felt needs; they must be
founded in the vital relations of the social body. In answer to the
question whether there is progress in morality, it must be said that
the circle is becoming continually greater of those over whom the
strict import of the conception of humanity is extended. And this is
accompanied by an increasing tenderness towards individuals within the
limits unchangeably set by the needs of the community. The means by
which we strive to actualise our ideals are becoming more rational,
and "the consciousness is continually becoming clearer, with which all
moral principles and judgments are referred to what they signify for
the welfare of the race and for its capacity to develop." But do men
become better? Probably, on the whole, the inner relations of morality
remain unchanged, although quite important shifting may take place at
special times and in special stages. It may be that "considered from
the highest historical point of view, subjective morality—that is,
the conformity of individuals to the standard—relatively declines as
the higher elaboration of the moral ideals advances." But this need
by no means be the last word of historical development. Intelligence
carries illumination into unknown paths which no one as yet has
traversed, making the surrounding darkness blacker. But the will finds
the means of achieving what is clearly conceived. We have no occasion
to be distrustful of the energies of our race. We must not overlook
the increasing influence which our scientific knowledge must exercise,
not only upon the industrial but also upon the social instinct. The
conviction is making rapid strides that even the widest lordship of man
over nature must ultimately be a curse to the ruler himself, unless he
succeeds in establishing the more beautiful and important supremacy
over man; that is, over the natural forces in his own breast—the
brutality of passion, the hardness of egoism, and the crudity of moral
ignorance. But this can be the work only of scientific knowledge and of
its increasing application to social ethical problems.
_The Ethics of Doubt—Cardinal Newman._ There was an ethical trend in
the character and spirit of Cardinal Newman, which lifted him above
any one sect or creed and made him a power to all classes of serious
minds. The especial influence now excited upon us by his thought,
comes from his very antagonism to what is the conspicuous feature in
the intellectual life of our century,—the prevalence of doubt, and
the growth of rationalism. Goethe sounded the note of warning as to
the chief menace that would come to our age through rationalism; that
there are few who have a great mind and at the same time are disposed
to action; intellect broadens the thought, but tends to weaken the
will. Newman has brought it home to us that there is a certain kind of
rationalism which is dangerous to character, and we may be forced to
consider whether we shall not soon be required in the sphere of ethics
to discourage somewhat the universal tendency of doubt and distrust
with reference to elemental convictions. There is no question that
for many minds the first doubt as to whether a certain class of acts
is wrong was the first step in moral decline. A principle of external
authority in ethics is required, although not such an authority as that
of the state or an absolute church. What we are in need of is that
strength of conviction which would make us willing to die for a belief
with reference to the _human_ world. If we were more and more given to
recognising the value of this other external authority,—that is, the
consensus of all the past voices of history when they speak to us on
the moral life,—we might find, more and more, that enthusiasm coming
back and firing once more the hearts of the great men of the age, just
as the other kind of authority gave hope, fire, and enthusiasm to
the purpose of Newman. Notwithstanding the contrast between Newman,
the apostle of faith, and Emerson who has been called the apostle
of scepticism or of individualism, they had the same intensity of
feeling and appalling sincerity, and both had a like expression of
spiritual repose. A mediocre follower of either of them can never be a
satisfactory character. An ultra-individualism in everything enfeebles
the will, just as the complete abnegation of the freedom of thought
dwarfs the intellect. In order to have a perfect solution of the
difficulty, we need to draw both from Emerson and Newman.
_The Ethics of Socialism._ The question may be raised whether the
philosophical ground of ethical truth does not afford philosophical
standing to some sort of socialism. This view of the problem has
evidently pervaded the thinking of Professor Paulsen in his "System
der Ethik mit einem Umriss der Staats- und Gesellschaftslehre," and
it is prominent in the "Allgemeine Ethik" of D. H. Steinthal. The
first question that ought to be raised in regard to socialism is the
sociological question, whether society is a product of that universal
evolution which brought man himself into existence and conditions all
his thought and doings. If so, we may be sure that there are certain
general principles, or laws, to which social evolution has conformed
in the past, and to which it will go on conforming in the future.
The ethical problems involved in the socialistic propositions now
before the public may be reduced to two. _First_, if not all men are
converted in thought and feeling to socialism, can a majority have any
ethical right to compel a minority to surrender individual initiative
and submit to dictation of occupation? _Secondly_ what is an ethical
distribution of product among the workers that create it? Plato and
Aristotle alone laid the foundation for a rationalistic argument from
purely ethical premises, showing that majorities may rightfully do more
than enforce contracts and keep the peace, but the modern restatement
and completion of that argument remains to be made. As to the second
problem, a strong argument could be made in support of the proposition
that an ethical distribution of wealth would be one that should afford
equality of satisfaction throughout society, of the desires that are
ethically commendable. When the clever literary people hypnotised
by Mr. Bellamy's dazzling vision begin to resume their intellectual
self-direction, they will discover that equality of income and equality
of satisfaction, of legitimate desires, are two different things.
_Ethical and Kindred Societies in Great Britain._ Speaking broadly
the attitude of the societies towards theology and its exponents may
be described as one of non-interference or neutrality. They desire
to be rather constructive than destructive in their action, for they
believe that desirable changes can only be effected by the slow
processes of organic growth. With one exception they have none of the
characteristics of a church, and they may be described as lecturing and
debating societies with or without the addition of what is commonly
known as "practical work." They do not retain the services of a single
lecturer, but prefer to have speakers who are independent of each
other. (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut
St.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. February, 1891. No. 182.
CONTENTS:
REALISME ET IDEALISME. By _Paul Janet_.
L'ART ET LA LOGIQUE. (1st Art.) By _G. Tarde_.
MORALE ET MÉTAPHYSIQUE. By _J. J. Gourd_.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.
SOCIÉTÉ DE PSYCHOLOGIE PHYSIOLOGIQUE.
M. Janet remarks, in his article on _Realism and Idealism_, that since
Kant philosophy has concentrated all its efforts on the problem of the
objectivity of knowledge. The agreement of reality and thought is a
truth of which no one doubts, although many centuries were necessary
for its observation. Not only is there agreement between nature and
mind, but there is analogy, resemblance, affinity, between these two
terms. Not only does nature obey the laws of our mind, implying that
there is in it a logical and rational element, but it seems to act
with the art which intelligence would employ, if it wished to create
the products of nature. How is this union of nature and the mind to
be explained? Two solutions present themselves: in which thought can
be explained by nature, or nature by thought. The first of these
solutions is that called _realism_; the second is _idealism_. Each
of these systems has strong reasons in its favor. As to the first,
thought and nature are not commensurate and opposed. Thought makes
itself part of nature, and the only thought we know directly is our
own. For human intelligence is bound to the organisation, and appears
to follow all its vicissitudes. The basis of idealism is not less
firm. External things exist for us only on the condition of passing
through our consciousness. Further, the psychological and physiological
analysis of sensations reclaims them all as being only states of the
ego. But there are serious objections to both hypotheses. Realism is
susceptible of two forms. If thought, considered in relation to the
origin of ideas, is explained by sensation, it becomes empiricism; if
considered in relation to the substratum of thought, this is explained
by organisation, it becomes materialism. As against empiricism, may
be objected with Kant that sensation does not explain the necessity
and universality of scientific judgments. Against materialism,
Fichte showed that a thing which is only a thing could never attain
to thought. Thus empiricism is overthrown by the impossibility of
explaining science; materialism by the impossibility of explaining
thought. In order to meet the objection of Kant, and to explain the
appearance of _a priori_, the new empiricists have invoked: (1) the
principle of inseparable associations; (2) the principle of hereditary
associations. On the other side, the new defenders of materialism
in order to explain the transformation of motion into thought, have
invoked the great principle of the correlation and transformation of
forces in nature. But as to inseparable associations, it may be said,
that they give us rather a necessity of fact, than a necessity of law.
What science requires is absolute and not relative necessity. The
same may be said of the principle of hereditary associations, which
merely prolong the chain of experiences. But, further, association
itself requires explanation, which shows that it cannot account
for the principle of causality. As to the use of the principle of
transformation of forces to explain the passage of motion into thought,
if the objective and physical cause of our sensations is meant, there
is merely transformation of motion into motion. If it is said that
sensations are only transformed motions, this affirms what is in
question, how motion can transform itself into thought. There are no
less serious objections against idealism. The principal one is: all
our reasonings about nature are established only on condition that we
take nature as our basis. We thus reach the double conclusion: neither
nature has produced thought, nor thought has produced nature. The ego
is, however, in nature, and nature is a representation of the ego, but,
while admitting the reciprocal penetration of the two principles, we
are obliged to recognise their mutual independence. There is harmony,
not identity. But is there not some being in which the real of nature
and the real of thought coexist, and who, according to the formula of
Schelling, is the absolute subject-object? Idealism, to be consequent,
ought to go as far as the absolute consciousness, to the union of
the subjective and objective thought. If the two inferior terms are
identified in the absolute mind, this will find in nature and in the
mind a double expression of itself. Nothing prevents us then, says our
author, from understanding nature, with Schelling, as the drowsy mind
seeking to arouse itself, and the ego on the contrary as a nature which
awakens itself.
M. Tarde in _Art and Logic_ remarks that the word art has two
senses. In its wide conception, it includes all the exercises of the
imagination and of human ingenuity, invention in a thousand forms.
But in another sense of the word, it answers to the æsthetic needs of
society. If we had regard only to the art of the most advanced epochs,
we should perhaps say that it serves to satisfy the need of inventive
expression or of expressive invention. It seems then, in effect, to
be before all expressive or inventive, and the second of these traits
appears the most essential. The property of art and also of morality
is to seek and to believe to find a divine end in life, a great end
worthy of individual sacrifice. When art presents itself separated from
morality, when it is an agent not of harmony but of social dissolution,
it is a sign that it is imported from abroad. Art is then immoral and
dissolvent. In all ages truly logical art has been only the translator
and the illuminator of morality.
The work of art is not like a product of industry, an artificial organ
added to the individual, it is an artificial, imaginary mistress. The
privilege of art is to arouse in us sentiments which play in the social
life and logic, precisely the rôle of love in the individual life and
logic. The sentiment of art is a _collective love_ and rejoices to be
such. Art is social joy, as love is individual joy.
_Morality and Metaphysics._ Between practical philosophy and
theoretical philosophy there is a real difference of nature. The
former concerns the action and the latter the perception, and as we
cannot do what yet is not, nor see what is already done, the one has
relation to the future, the other to the present or the past. With this
difference, they resemble each other, in that both consist in a putting
in order, a co-ordination of their objects. Experience is sufficient
to furnish all that is necessary for the explanation of practical
co-ordination. This requires a fundamental notion of practical order,
which metaphysicians see in the notion of the good, but, as the reality
of the good cannot be established, it is a chimerical and arbitrary
conception. We must seek in the co-ordinated objects themselves the
fundamental element around which they will be disposed according to
their proper nature. This cannot be the good, since this is the result
of practical co-ordination. It is pleasure, not a particular kind of
pleasure, but that which is possessed in common by all that pleases,
all that satisfies. Volition can never go beyond pleasure. If we desire
before having really been sensible of pleasure, it is because we have
been ideally sensible of it. Pleasure is inherent in every practical
function, it is practically constant, it is practically categorical.
We cannot go beyond pleasure of some kind. It cannot be said that
pleasure is preceded by function, life. These are only results,
groups which have components, and therefore they cannot be the last
principle of action. Thus one problem is resolved without recourse to
metaphysics.—After the principle of simple co-ordination, must be
sought that of the co-ordination which subordinates, which marks a
sort of hierarchy. For this the idea of pleasure is not sufficient.
It is necessary to limit the point of view, and in the difference of
quantity of pleasure will be found the rule of co-ordination. The
distinction of more or less offers itself at once, and gives place
naturally to degrees, then to a subordination. The rule of the good is:
the amplitude of the co-ordination, the degree of intelligibility, the
number of facts which compose the object of volition. It is necessary
to distinguish between urgency and superiority in proper value.
Things which are the most urgent have not necessarily the most value
in themselves. Thus the practical subordination ought to dispose its
objects inversely, according to whether it is occupied with their
urgency or their proper value. Here also practical philosophy is not
obliged to have recourse to metaphysics. Practical philosophy not only
ought to regulate its objects on the basis that it has previously
fixed, but still ought to assure this regulation for the future. This
requires that its coördinations should be made objects of commandment,
obligation. The conception of the future pleasure enters into the
present; and to each volition is bound by anticipation, ideally,
but positively, the future benefit of the practical co-ordination.
Thus obligation has its source in a volition imposing practical
co-ordination on future volitions. Obligation is in reality causal
determination, and as there is a volition more or less marked in
each act, and the causal chain is never interrupted, we can be said
to be always under the influence of obligation, the power of which
increases with life. Determination is uniformisation; and nothing else
is asked for the moral imperative. Causal determination is opposed
directly to the unconditionment of liberty; but obligation, as well as
causal determination in general, remains, moreover, in every partial
state, limited by its opposite, liberty, which ever recoils before
the continual encroachments of obligation, but without ceasing to be.
There is no difficulty in admitting a sanction for the good, although
it does not constitute a distinct and new element. The sanction is the
consequences of actions from the point of view of pleasures. By the
side of moral happiness or unhappiness, should be reserved a place
for a happiness or unhappiness in some sort "amoral." The moral good
does not exhaust all the good. It is necessary to distinguish between
the moral good and the unrestrained good (bien libre). There is an
immoralisable element which represents the veritable autonomy of the
will. As in all coördinations, by reason of all bending under the
rule, the moral hierarchy will sometimes injure the reality. Here the
notion of the unrestrained good happily intervenes. The reality always
reserves its rights in the face of co-ordinations, whatever be their
nature. When it asserts itself it is sublime, it is, so to say, raised
above every rule, majestic in its sovereign liberty. (Paris: Félix
Alcan.)
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II.
Nos. 1 and 2.
CONTENTS:
VERSUCH EINER ERWEITERTEN ANWENDUNG DES FECHNERSCHEN GESETZES IM
FARBENSYSTEM. By _H. v. Helmholtz_.
WAS IST UNSER NERVENSYSTEM UND WAS GEHT DARIN VOR? By _Justus
Gaule_.
PHYSIOLOGISCH-PSYCHOLOGISCHE STUDIEN UEBER DIE ENTWICKELUNG
DER GESICHTSWAHRNEHMUNGEN BEI KINDERN UND BEI OPERIERTEN
BLINDGEBORENEN. By _E. Raehlrnann_.
ZWANGSVORSTELLUNGEN OHNE WAHNIDEEN. By _D. Hack-Tuke_.
EIN VERSUCH UEBER DIE INTRAKRANIELLE LEITUNG LEISESTER TOENE VON
OHR ZU OHR. By _Karl L. Schaefer_.
BESPRECHUNGEN. Wundt, Ueber die Methoden der Messung des
Bewusstseinsumfanges. By _Schumann_.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
Professor E. Hering introduced the method of defining colors by data
of measurement derived from sensations. He thus became the founder of
a new conception in Optics which in many respects promises to give
more correct and better explanations not only of the physiology of
sight but also of the theory of colors; his views collide however in
some important points with the views of the old school, the leader
of which is Professor Helmholtz of Berlin. The first article of the
present number of this magazine treats of one of these problems,
and the author, Professor Helmholtz, believes that the results of
his experiments do not show a gradation of the perceptibility of
differences which would justify Professor Hering's theory of colors.
Professor Helmholtz applies Fechner's law concerning the measurement
of perceptible differences to color-sensations. For the experiments
he has made, a wheel was employed (after the method of Maxwell) into
which slips of colored paper of various breadth could be inserted. He
found by this "photometrical" method that "the effect of an additional
color upon the luminosity is effectually weakened by the amount of
the same color present in the whole mixture.... Equal small amounts
of the quantity of light produce the smaller effects the larger the
quantities of the same light are in the whole field." We pass by other
results of Professor Helmholtz's experiments, for it takes a specialist
to go over his calculations and tables; and the investigation has by
no means been brought to a final conclusion. "If the strong deviation
is not based upon an error," Professor Helmholtz says, "quite another
and a different hypothesis would come into question, viz, whether it
may not always be the clearest sensation which has effect and that
which remains below the threshold does not come into consideration."
The revision of his "Handbuch der physiologischen Optik" has been the
occasion for these experiments of Professor Helmholtz.
Professor Gaule of Zurich propounds a most interesting theory about
the development of the trophic functions and the chemical actions of
the nervous system. He starts with the idea that the processes of
the nervous system are in accord with the law of the conservation of
energy. Du Bois Reymond's remark that love and hatred, pleasure and
pain would remain unexplained even if all the changes that take place
in the arrangement of atoms in our nerves were known and mathematically
computable, has made a deep impression because it expresses the
disparity of our definitions of atoms on the one side and feelings
on the other. Yet our atomistic theory is not final; it is only an
auxiliary conception which will simplify thought so long as the
present method of considering phenomena from a chemical or physical
and geometrical standpoint is retained. As soon as we create a common
auxiliary conception to comprise all these sciences, we shall have to
broaden our definitions. Taking this position as his philosophical
basis, Professor Gaule attempts to consider nervous processes as
reflex actions, the latter being clearly conceivable as subject to the
law of the conservation of energy. Living beings appear as complexes
of forces developed from the chemical actions taking place in their
organisms. Through a saturation of the affinities of their carbon and
hydrogen atoms with oxygen their potential energy is changed into
kinetic energy. The latter is used in many various ways, partly for
building up more complex molecules, partly for again storing potential
energy, and partly,—and this is a predominant process in animal
organisms,—for setting forces free which will serve as a source of
their activity. It is such a source of activity which the impressions
of the outside world affect. The impression is called _Reiz_ or
irritation, and the irritation has often been compared to the fuse or
the spark igniting a powder-mine. We must however bear in mind that
the organism is unlike the powder-mine, not at rest but in constant
action and the irritation does not properly speaking evoke a reflex
but it only modifies the action taking place. All this is generally
conceded by the physiologist. Professor Gaule then proceeds to explain
his idea of the nervous development. The cells of the epithelium in the
skin perform a peculiar process, called in German _Verhornung_; they
turn into horn (keratine) by the protoplasm's losing its albuminoids.
The process does not take place in one cell but in several layers of
cells and represents like all actions a play of forces, raising the
more keratinised strata from the basal membrane to the surface. The
keratinising however is, according to Gaule, only the less important
surface-phenomenon of another peculiar process which is directed
toward the interior of the organism. An excretion takes place forming
extremely fine threads around the cells which pass through the pores
of the basal membrane (a fact proved by Caninis and Fraenkel) where
they form a plexus. Out of the net-like meshes of these plexuses grow
increasingly strong filaments which form the trunks of the nerves.
These views agree very well with the observations of Professor His on
the fœtal development of the nerves. Professor His has indubitably
proved that the olfactory nerve for instance does not grow out of
but into the hemispheres. The direction of the nervous growth is the
same as the direction of their function. Many of the sensory nerves
have been proven to, and it is probable that all of them do grow
from the periphery into the central organ. Hensen in opposition to
this has proposed the theory of an original connection between the
peripheral root of the nerve and the central organ; yet whatever side
of the controversy may be found in the end to be correct, the result
does not much affect Professor Gaule's theory, that the ends of the
nerves represent the roots from which they grow and every special
irritation must specially affect the secretion which forms the nerve.
Having been rather explicit in the basal ideas of Professor Gaule's
proposition we can now be brief. The axis-cylinder of the nervous fibre
corresponds to the secretion of the nervous root; around it is found
the marrow-sheath, a tube of absorbing cells containing, also as proved
by Ruehne, a net of neuro-keratine; this neuro-keratine again absorbs
the axis-cylinder. To the question Why does not the axis-cylinder
disappear? Professor Gaule answers, Because it is constantly renewed.
Thus we have a constant flow in the nervous substance, an exchange of
materials, an absorption, a secretion, and re-absorption; and in this
way it can be, a progress of chemical action conditioning the vertical
direction of the nerves upon their plexuses and also the form of the
marrow-sheath which appears like craters, one inserted within the other
and filed upon the axis-cylinder. Professor Gaule proposes no definite
opinion as to the development of the motor nerves; he makes some
suggestions which need however further explanation and demonstration.
He has apparently not yet finished his investigations and we may expect
to hear again from him.
E. Raehlmann, Professor Of Ophthalmology at Dorpat, presents a résumé
of his experiences as to the visual development of persons blind from
birth to whom by a successful operation sight had been restored. We
confine ourselves to a few quotations. "Four weeks after the operation
of the right eye and a fortnight after that of the left, on April 28th,
the first experiments were made on Johann Rubens. April 30th, patient
moved his head more than his eyes. He declared he saw perfectly; yet he
was unable to recognise any object except his drinking mug, which on
the previous day he had felt with his fingers. Also his shoe was not
recognised until he had touched it. May 4th, patient could see that a
wooden ball differed from a wooden cube, both being of the same color,
but was unable to tell that one was round, the other square. Nor could
he distinguish the ball from a disc. After much handling the objects
he learned to recognise by sight the roundness of the ball and the
squareness of the cube, but he remained unable to distinguish the ball
from the disc. He learned quickly to grasp objects in the median line
of his eyes but had great difficulty in finding them with his hand
when placed at an angle before him.
"May 23d, a glass is again presented to the patient; he sees his
picture; noticing the frame, he declares the glass to be a picture.
(A picture had been presented to him repeatedly.) Now a second face
is shown to him in the glass by the side of his own. Patient becomes
greatly bewildered, declaring the picture to be familiar to him. Being
asked whether it is that of the Professor, he denies the fact, because
the Professor stood beside him. Looking over his shoulder he notices
the Professor, and seeing him twice he is confounded.... Patient is
left alone and remains almost half an hour before the glass. He moves
his arm constantly up and down, observing with a smile how the picture
in the glass makes the same movements. Requested to touch his nose,
he first grasps into the glass, then behind the glass, repeating this
several times. His hand then is put on his nose. Now he laughs and
touches the several parts of his face, constantly observing the motions
of his hand in the glass."
Most instructive cases of diseases of mind are those in which patients
cannot help having and obeying certain ideas which are not, however,
hallucinations. Dr. Hack Tuke in the fourth article of this number
says: "I was consulted once in the case of a lady, the most important
symptom of whose disease was that she had to count up to a certain
number before doing the most trivial thing; when she turned at night
in bed from one side to the other, or when she took out her watch, or
in the morning before she rose; when she went downstairs to breakfast,
she would suddenly stop on one of the steps and count; at the breakfast
table when about to take the tea-pot before touching its handle";
etc. (Arithmomania). Another case. "A young law-student who had
distinguished himself at school, one day read the English sentence 'it
was not compatible' and shortly after that he found the sentence, 'I
like it not' in German. It struck him that the negative in the one case
was placed before and in the other after the word negatived, and he
commenced to ponder on negations in general. It became an all-important
and all-absorbing problem to him. It kept him from work. For some time
he proposed questions to himself like: Why do we not have cold blood
like some other animals? etc. He is at present in great danger of
becoming undecisive and wavering in his actions, for his passion of
ruminating on his problem of negatives weakens his will and threatens
to destroy his energy." (Folie du doute.) Esquirol calls cases of
_Zwangsvorstellungen_, in which a patient otherwise healthy is forced
to pursue a certain trivial thought, "monomanie raisonnante"; Professor
Ball, "intellectual impulses." Although hereditary influences most
likely play an important part in this disease they seem to originate
in emotions, and Régis for this reason calls them "délire émotif,"
stating that their ultimate cause must be sought in a diseased state
of the ganglionic system of the intestines. Dr. Tuke favors Charcot's
term "onomatomanie." The disease is a _Wortbesessenheit_, a word-mania.
Certain expressions or phrases are pressing heavily upon the patient's
consciousness so as to force him irresistibly to think them or to
pronounce them again and again. Not all cases can be classified
under word-mania, but such cases as doubt-mania (_Zweifelsucht_) or
arithmomania are akin to it. Dr. Tuke's advice is not to fight the
disease but to teach the patient to ignore it, to treat it as trivial,
for the diseased ideas derive new strength from the opposition made to
them.
Professor E. Mach explains Weber's discovery that "if a tuning fork
is placed upon the head of a person, one ear being shut, the sound is
heard and located in the shut ear," in the following way: The sound
passes through the bones of the cranium to the labyrinth of the
ear and thence out of the ear into the air, thus taking the inverse
direction of other sounds we hear. If the flow in one ear be stopped,
the sound-waves are reflected and the drum vibrates stronger. Hence the
tone will be heard more plainly in the shut ear and will be located
there. Professor Schaefer in the last article of this number describes
an experiment in the same line, which in another way—the transmission
of sound through air waves being excluded—proves the intercranial
conductibility of very weak sounds from ear to ear. (Hamburg and
Leipsic: L. Voss.)
SCHRIFTEN DER GESELLSCHAFT FUER PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG. No. 1.
CONTENTS:
DIE BEDEUTUNG NARCOTISCHER MITTEL FUER DEN HYPNOTISMUS. By _Dr.
Freiherrn von Schrenck-Notzing_.
EIN GUTACHTEN UEBER EINEN FALL VON SPONTANEM SOMNAMBULISMUS. By
_Prof. Dr. August Forel_.
The psychological societies of Munich and Berlin have started under
the above title a periodical the first number of which is very
promising. Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing makes some critical remarks
on Prof. Bernheim's view to consider hypnosis as an increase of
suggestibility produced by suggestion. There are observations which
do not justify this definition. He then investigates the substitution
of narcotics as a means for producing hypnosis and their "suggestive"
effects. In the second part of his essay Dr. Schrenck-Notzing speaks
about the "suggestive" effects of Indian hemp which in a special
preparation under the name of hashish is used in the Orient as a means
of intoxication. Reference is made to the Ismaelite secret society
"Megalis et Hiemit" (the house of wisdom) consisting of missionaries
(_Daïs_), adepts (_Fedaïs_) and laymen (_Refiks_), all of which are
bound blindly to obey their grand master (_Dai-al-Doal_). Hassan, an
adept of this society, was obliged to flee, 1090, on account of some
quarrels. He founded a similar sect at the head of which stood the old
man of the mountains (_Shaik-al-Djabal_). Their members, especially
the lower classes, the _hashishin_, made themselves formidable in the
times of the crusades by their reckless obedience in executing murder
and other crimes. The order consisted of 60,000 members and their blind
obedience was effected through suggestibility in the state of hashish
intoxication. The word assassin is derived from their name. In the year
1255 a Mongolian governor ordered 12,000 hashishin to be executed on
account of the dangerous character of their sect. The secret of their
formidable obedience appears to have been the method of intoxicating
the neophyte before his admission to the order with hashish in some
grand mountain scenery and suggesting to him all the pleasures of
paradise which he would find in blind faith and unreserved obedience to
the old man of the mountain. Contempt of death, insensibility under the
severest tortures, and an unspeakable joy in the fulfilment of their
leader's command were the result. It can readily be perceived what a
dangerous drug hashish is; nevertheless it is said that the cultivation
of Indian hemp, especially among some negro tribes of Africa according
to the reports of Wissmann, exercises in several respects a good
influence. Some of the barbarians of darkest Africa have given up
cannibalism and accustom themselves to more civilised habits. The
psychical effects of hashish are described as: (1) a feeling of
comfort; (2) dissociation of ideas and a lack of their control;
(3) illusion concerning space and time; (4) an increased sense of
hearing; (5) fixed ideas and delirium; (6) a disturbance of affective
states, e. g. suspicion; (7) irresistible impulses; (8) illusions and
hallucinations. Dr. v. Schrenck-Notzing freely quotes from Moreau,
_Du Hashish et de l'aliénation mentale, Etude psychologique_ (Paris:
Masson, 1845), and adds several experiments of his own.
Mrs. Fay, a somnambule accused of imposition and fraud, was delivered
by the County Court of Zurich to Professor Forel for observation who
kept her for several days in his institute. The professor's report
to the County Court is very interesting in so far as Mrs. Fay, a
woman without education, must be considered as a genuine somnambule
exhibiting all the symptoms observed in other cases. She had been
a servant girl in Basel and since her fifteenth year fell twice a
day in an hypnotic sleep. She married and had several children, her
youngest child was born while she was in her hypnotic sleep. She made
a living by curing patients who consulted her when asleep, and was
punished before on that account for imposition. During one of her
hypnotic states patients were introduced to her in the presence of
Professor Forel and she made her statements in vague terms as almost
all somnambules do. The experiment showed that her diagnosis consisted
of random guesses which in exceptional cases happened to be correct;
sometimes they were not wholly incorrect, but mostly erroneous.
She believes herself to be possessed by a spirit whom she calls
"Ernst." Professor Forel without considering the woman as a model of
truthfulness, believes in her sincerity. He cured her of her hypnotic
sleep on her own request. She stated that the money she earned by
curing patients did not make up for the loss she endured by not being
able to earn a living by work. Professor Forel succeeded with his cure,
but he states in a postscript that the woman having returned to her
former surroundings, has since suffered from relapses. (Leipsic: Ambr.
Abel.)
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 3 and 4.
CONTENTS:
QUANTITAET UND QUALITAET IN BEGRIFF, URTHEIL UND
GEGENSTAENDLICHER ERKENNTNISS. Ein Kapitel der transcendentalen
Logik. (Concluded.) By _P. Natorp_.
RECENSIONEN.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE. By Prof. Dr. _F. Ascherson_.
The conclusion of Prof. P. Natorp's article on _Quantity and Quality
in Concept, Judgment, and Objective Cognition_ appears to be the most
important part of the essay. Professor Natorp is a transcendentalist.
He understands Kant in a dualistic sense where the latter says
that "the unity of apperception (Einheit der Apperception) is the
radical faculty of all our cognition" (Radical-Vermögen aller unserer
Erkentniss). Cognition is defined as "limitation of that which is _per
se_ infinite." It is natural that for a transcendentalist the greatest
difficulty arises when he attempts to let his _a priori_ face the
facts of reality. Professor Natorp shows great skill and ingenuity in
this respect. It is but consistent with his premisses to arrive at an
"invincible dualism," yet he adapts his transcendentalism sufficiently
to fulfil the demands of experience. Thus he does not come to a real
solution but to a _modus vivendi_, which is after all the purpose of
philosophy.
Professor Natorp considers the synthetic unity not as given, but as
to be realised; a concept is created through definition. The data of
experience on the other hand are not the defined, but the definable.
They are to be defined by the forms of the concepts, and their
fundamental forms are quantity and quality. He says: "The definition
as this and as that (as something identical) is a function of the
concept, but the concept presupposes sensation as the material to be
defined. To consider sensation as given in this its absolute identity
which is demanded by the concept, is after all an illusion. Therefore
positivism and not idealism confounds the demands of cognition with
the given reality, thus adjusting facts to our wants of knowledge.
Sensation conceived as a datum and not as a postulate is and remains
the infinitely definable and never absolutely defined.... It appears
easy thus to reduce the dualism of form and matter, concept and
sensation, the defined and the definable to one ultimate unity. In one
respect positivism succeeds, attributing full definedness, and not mere
definableness, to the data; and then, it finds no difficulty in letting
the defining function of the concept in its peculiarity disappear by
reducing it to a quality of the data."
We do not know to what kind of positivism Professor Natorp refers; yet
it seems that it cannot be applied either to Comte's or to Littré's
views. Nor does it dispose of the positivism editorially set forth in
_The Monist_. Positivism, according to Professor Natorp, is at fault
in dropping the definite function of the concept. But he endeavors to
avoid the opposite mistake also, viz. "to entirely drop the definable,
which might be supposed to be a mere _X_, scarcely representable in
clear concepts, or to deduce it from the defining function. This other
exaggeration is that of idealism which has found its purest expression
in Fichte's philosophy." Professor Natorp by keeping aloof from both
errors declares dualism to be insuperable; "dualism," he says, "'is a
hard fact'—_eine starre Thatsache_."
The trouble with transcendentalists, it seems to us, originates in
their method of starting with cognition, with the synthetic unity of
apperception, with the forms of concepts. Experience means to them the
sense-element of sensation, the contents of concepts without their
form. They start with a dualism. When they have completed their system
of transcendental forms, they find it hard to explain how to change
their rigid laws into the constant flux of reality as presented to
us by experience. Should the philosopher not rather start from the
function of cognising, which in itself is a unity? He will find that
cognition, concept, the synthetic unity of apperception, and all the
complex laws of transcendental thought are products of the cognising
function. If these laws are rigid, we have made them so. We have made
them stable, we have fixed them for a certain purpose. Their rigidity
is a legitimate fiction for that purpose, but beyond it it finds no
application. Pure logic draws distinctions which do not exist in
reality; pure mathematics operates with lines which considered as real
things are mere nonentities. The dualism between concept and sensation,
between the _a priori_ and the _a posteriori_, between thought and
thing, between form and matter, is not given in experience, for in
experience the formal and the material are one inseparable whole; it
is the product of cognition. The cognising function differentiates
the data of experience into formal and material aspects; the formal
being always of a general character serves as a help for systematising
and classifying the material. This appears to us the only way of
realising a monistic positivism, and no philosophy can be considered
as satisfactory until it represents the data of experience or positive
facts in a unitary view, i. e. a harmonious conception free of
contradictions.
Professor Natorp has still to battle with the Eleatic question. He
begins the conclusion of his article with the following words: "Let
us consider only the most important results of our deduction. An
explanation of 'becoming,' of 'change' has in this way become possible;
the solution of the Eleatic problem how 'change' can _be_ at all,
since _being_ means unchangeable definedness; or, how becoming can
be, since it includes not-being, for being means the transition from
not-being into being, or from being into not-being. How can we think
this combination of position and negation without contradiction, a
combination of position and negation being a contradiction"? This is
rather a late flower of Hegelian thought: but, being presented so
vigorously and unequivocally, it illustrates clearly the mistake of
transcendentalism in starting from abstract concepts or pure thought,
thence coming down to the facts of reality. There transcendentalists
have to fit their ideas about being and not-being to experience, and
finding insuperable difficulties must consistently become dualists.
Professor Natorp's solution of the Eleatic question is "to find a
method of thought which overcomes the absolute contradiction of
position and negation.... This is done by the comprehensive unity,
which means identity and at the same time difference, viz. that one
is the same as the other and yet not the same."
We should say that the Eleatic question will best be understood by a
clear comprehension of the function, the purpose, and the products of
cognition.
Says Professor Natorp: "Since Kant has restored in its purity the
distinction made by the ancients between αἰσθητά and νοητά, φαινόμενον
and νοούμενον, the authors of this distinction, the philosophers of
Elea are almost nearer to us than Aristotle." The distinction between
thought and sensation is indeed of extraordinary importance. Ideas
(thoughts) and sensations are different, but the recognition of this
difference is no reason to declare dualism as permanently established.
Is not the reason of their difference the difference of abstraction
made in each case.
By noumena, i. e. thoughts or ideas, we understand all mental symbols
representing things. The ideas "man," "manhood," "virtue," etc., are
not sensations, but symbols representing some qualities abstracted from
sensations. In making the abstraction "idea" we confine the term, i.
e. the symbol "idea," to its representative element alone. We leave
out of sight that real ideas vibrating through our brain are at the
same time nervous structures in actions; we leave also out of sight
that they possess the state of awareness in common with sensations. We
do it because their representative nature is of paramount importance.
However, in making the abstraction "sensation" we do not exclude the
state of awareness, we think first of all of the feeling of a sensation
and then also of its form, viz. the special sense-impression. "I have
a sensation" is almost equivalent to the phrase "I have a feeling";
a sensation of light means a feeling of the effect of ether-waves
upon the retina; a sensation of sound is a feeling of the effect of
air-waves upon the drum of the ear; etc. Just as much as ether-waves
are not light, and air-waves not sound, (the latter being the effect
of the former upon specially adapted feeling substance), so also the
sensations light and sound are not the ideas we have of light and
sound. The ideas of light and sound are symbols representing in feeling
substance the sensations light and sound. These symbols, we suppose,
have developed from the memory-images of sensations. They must in
their turn also be considered as effects. They are the effects of
sense-impressions upon specially adapted feeling substance, viz. upon
a higher system of nervous structures, not in direct contact with the
periphery, but growing upon and from the peripheral sensory reflex
centres. The physiological activity of thoughts is accompanied also
with the feeling element; or in other words, thoughts are, as much as
sensations, states of awareness. Yet they differ from sensations in
that they do not contain anything of sense-impressions; the latter
being an exclusive characteristic of the action of sensory organs.
The memory-picture of blackness is not a sensation and the idea of
blackness still less.
The distinction between noumena or things of thought and æstheta
or sensations is by no means so distinct as is often assumed; for,
as we have seen, the most prominent feature of the noumenon is its
representative character. Isolated sense-impressions possess no
representative character, but sensations do possess it. Sensations are
the connecting link between sense-impressions and thoughts, between
meaningless feeling and mental states or mind, i. e. representative
states of awareness. Ideas are, as it were, an extract of the
representative value contained in sensations. This is my conception
of the distinction to be made between αἰσθητά and νοητά, between
sense-activity and thought-activity, between the phenomenon and
noumenon. It is set forth at length in the discussion with Professor E.
Mach in this number. It has been here again set forth at such length,
because I am convinced that a final solution of the problem is of great
importance. (Heidelberg: George Weiss.)
κ.
MINERVA. Rassegna Internazionale. January, 1891.
_Minerva_ will represent the first Italian venture in the direction
of a comprehensive magazine of international reference and literary
record. The editors, in stating the aims of their new publication,
acknowledge that Italy keenly feels the lack of an international
intellectual magazine. In Italy the reading public, and persons of
an average culture, still seem to be cut off from all stimulating
intellectual contact with the outside civilised world; while beyond
the Alps, on the contrary, and across the seas, any book, or a simple
magazine-article even, be it written in German, English, or French,
and legitimately claim from any point of view a certain importance, is
at once read by innumerable persons from San Francisco all the way to
St. Petersburg. Through the intellectual medium of their international
reviews, these nations seem actually to have realised one of Goethe's
most ardent aspirations,—the dream of a noble and humanising
"world-literature." Nearly all of the articles contained in the present
issue of _Minerva_ are ably condensed translations and epitomes of
articles that have recently appeared in leading English, American, and
German reviews and magazines. _La Minerva_ is under the direction of
Prof. Federico Garlanda of the University of Rome. (Rome: La Società
Laziale. Tip Editrice.)
VOPROSY FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[94]
[94] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._ In the Russian
language.
CONTENTS:
FURTHER REMARKS CONCERNING THE TASK OF THIS REVIEW. By the Editor
_Prof. N. Grote_.
ETHICS AND EVOLUTION. By _B. N. Beketov_.
LETTERS ON COUNT TOLSTOI'S BOOK "FROM LIFE." By _A. A. Kozlow_.
CONCERNING THE LAW OF THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. By _N. N.
Strachov_.
ON THE NATURE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. By _Prince C. N.
Trubetzkoi_.
CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.
THE DOCTRINE OF WILL IN THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY. By _K. Ventzel_.
BOOK REVIEWS.
REVIEW OF PERIODICALS: 1) Of foreign philosophical Reviews; 2) Of
philosophical articles in Russian ecclesiastical papers.
POLEMICAL.
APPENDIX: 1) Materials for the History of Philosophy in Russia;
2) Transactions of the Moscow Psychological Society.
Russia is perhaps that country of all civilised nations of which we
know least, and even such authors as Tolstoï who are read all over the
world, are perhaps, severed from their surroundings, not correctly
understood by us as the Russian understands them. The present magazine,
_Problems of Philosophy and Psychology_, being a strictly scientific
periodical, is less peculiarly Russian without entirely losing the
national characteristics of its home. The intention of the editor has
been to develop and to give a chance for a further development of an
independent Russian philosophy. The philosophy of the West, we are
informed, does not satisfy the Russian mind; the English philosophy
is one-sided empirical, the French mathematical, the German too
abstract and logical. The Russian philosophy aspires to bring about
a well-balanced and harmonious method of thinking in which reason,
sentiment, and action—science, art and religion—are reconciled.
Professor Grote, the editor of _Problems of Philosophy and Psychology_,
by placing the ethical interest in the foreground, hopes that Russian
philosophy will become "the salvation of the world from evil."
Among the book reviews we find six pages devoted to _The Ethical
Problem_, by Dr. Paul Carus, a translation of which was made for us
by Prof. A. Gunlogsen of Chicago. We find however that the reviewer,
Mr. P. Astafiew, mixes the position of the author up with that of the
societies for ethical culture. If he represents the Magazine's view
of reconciling Science, Art, and Religion, it is sure that Religion
in the shape Of his peculiar creed would get the lion's share. The
interest of the little book consists to him in the fact that it clearly
characterises a singular anarchical condition; by having lost the old
faith, it is utterly unable to replace it. It is an assumption to
base ethics and religion on positive and scientific foundations; yet
the attempt is curious as a symptom of the times and especially of
"enlightened" America.
In answer to one of the most important errors in Mr. Astafiew's
review, we have to state that basing ethics upon the facts of life,
verified and verifiable by science, does not mean that we have to study
psychology in order to be moral. A man can lead a moral life without
understanding anything of ethics, the science of morality. Ethics is
not an indispensable condition of morality. But it is of paramount
importance that ethics—as a science—is not an impossibility.
The data of moral life, the impulses of duty, of conscience, of
the ought, are not mystical or supernatural, i. e. extra-natural,
standing in contradiction to other natural facts; they are not, as the
intuitionists maintain, "unanalysable," they are not, as Professor
Adler, the founder of the Ethical Societies declares, beyond the pale
of science; "the ladder of science," he says, "does not reach so
far." The data of moral life are facts of the natural development of
man and of human society; they can be investigated by science, they
can be compared with other natural facts, they can be classified and
understood.
A man can throw a stone without understanding anything of Newton's
laws, he can build a hut without understanding architecture. Yet for
that reason the study of ballistics and of architecture are not
useless. The man who has studied architecture may bridge the Niagara,
which the mound-builders were unable to do. And if a bridge breaks down
while the mounds of the mound-builders are still standing, it proves
nothing against architecture. An ethical student may have proposed
untenable theories in ethics, he may have preached a wrong morality,
and may have gone astray himself: all that would prove nothing against
the science of ethics. It is to be expected that ethical knowledge,
if it leaveneth the whole lump of human society, will raise man's
moral life higher, as surely as our knowledge of architecture made it
possible that we now build palaces upon the places where in former
times stood the wigwams of the Indians. (Moscow, 1891.)
κ.
VOL. I. JULY, 1891. NO. 4.
THE MONIST.
PSYCHOLOGY OF CONCEPTION.
_General Nature of Thought._—The processes marked off by the
psychologist as thinking or thought constitute the highest stage
of intellectual elaboration (intellection). By taking our concrete
percepts and resolving them into so many abstractions, (qualities
or attributes of things, relations between things,) we are enabled
to carry out the process of cognition to the furthest point of
unification. As long as we view a particular object, or an event, alone
apart from other things, we merely _apprehend_ it. But when we bring it
into relation to kindred things we _comprehend_ it. Thus, we comprehend
the tiger by classing it with other members of the feline group.
So we comprehend or understand the movement of the steam-engine by
assimilating it to the more familiar action of the steam in the kettle
in forcing up the lid.
Like imaginative production thinking is nothing but the sum of
processes of separation and combination, carried out on sense-material.
But in this case the elaborative processes assume a new and peculiar
form. It is one thing to build up a pictorial image as the poet does,
another thing to elaborate an abstract idea, such as the scientific
notion of force, fulcrum, and so forth. We must now try to investigate
more thoroughly the nature of this thought-elaboration.
_Thought as Activity._—It is evident that the processes here roughly
described are active processes, that is to say they involve a special
exertion of the forces of attention. In perception, reproduction, and
constructive imagination, this active factor is at work. But it is
only in thought proper that this activity becomes fully developed. To
think of a particular attribute in an object, say the color of a rose,
is as we all know a conscious effort or strain. A child first called
upon to think about abstract qualities, and the general relations of
objects finds the operation difficult and fatiguing. All thinking is
in truth an exercise of the higher form of attention, viz. volitional
concentration of consciousness. We only think when we have some purpose
as the discovery of the likeness or difference among objects, and
such a purpose only develops itself as the individual and the race
attain a certain measure of development or culture. The child and the
savage, like the animal, get on very well without thinking. And even a
large proportion of civilised adults think only in an occasional and
rudimentary way. Thought is thus in all cases a kind of artificial
activity sustained only for short periods and under the stress of
impulses or motives which belong to a high stage of intellectual and
moral development.
The high degree of activity in thought presumably involves
a special amount of that muscular strain which forms the
sensuous base of the attitude of attention. To think is
thus to concentrate consciousness by aid of energetic motor
adjustments. These include the innervation of certain muscles,
more particularly those by which movements of the eyes and
head are carried out. To think is to keep certain ideational
elements in persistent consciousness, and this is probably
effected in part at least by an energetic and sustained
innervation of particular groups of muscles. To this it may
be added that since as we shall see presently all thinking is
bringing together in their relations a number of ideational
elements, the muscular activity in the case is of a specially
difficult kind. Such special muscular efforts would probably
effect a cutting off of other elements and so subserve that
severe narrowing of consciousness which is so marked a feature
in thought.
_Directions of Thought-Activity._—This thought-activity may be viewed
as having two aspects or as following two directions, which it may
be well to view apart, even though, as we shall presently see, they
are inseparable aspects of one process. Just as all intellectual
elaboration is at once differentiation or separation and integration
or combination of what is differentiated, so thought itself is but a
higher development of each phase.
_a_) _Analysis, Abstraction._—First of all, then, thought may be
viewed as a carrying further and into higher forms the process of
differentiation or separation of presentative elements by means of
isolating acts of attention. Thus on selectively considering the
color of a rose, or the form of a crystal, we are it is evident
differentiating what is given in perception as a complex into a number
of parts, and rendering one of these specially prominent and distinct.
Such thought-separation is commonly spoken of as Analysis, i. e. the
taking apart of what is conjoined in a whole, and also as Abstraction
or the withdrawal of attention from what is for the moment irrelevant
and confining it to one particular point, feature, or quality (Latin ab
or abs, and traho).
Here it is evident a special attitude and effort of attention is
required. It is one thing to note carefully a presentative complex just
as it is, another thing to single out some element of this and fix the
attention on it. The peculiar difficulty of this analytic attention
is due to the firm coherence of the complex. The child cannot see the
color of the orange just because the orange as a whole stands in the
way. Hence this analytic attention is abstraction in the fullest sense,
that is a deliberate turning aside from what stimulates or attracts
this attention at the moment.
Such abstract singling out of an element may be supposed to involve
a special modification of the muscular adjustment in attention.
Hence perhaps the comparative ease with which we can single out for
observation locally distinct features of an object, to which correspond
different movements of the sense-organ. On the other hand the great
difficulty of mentally separating the color from the form of an object
may arise from the common element in the muscular adjustments concerned.
The nature of this process of analysis or abstract attention is best
seen in those comparatively simple operations in which an actual
presentation-complex as a group of tones or colors is being analysed.
The carrying out of such a process of analysis is aided by certain
conditions objective or external, and subjective or internal. Thus
it is found that the closer the degree of the complication the more
difficult the isolating fixation. Thus while it is comparatively
easy to attend to one detail of color in an object locally separated
from other color-details it is exceedingly difficult to attend to
the brightness or the degree of saturation of a color apart from the
quality of the tone itself. In the case of tone-masses, again, it is
found that certain combinations, more especially that of the octave,
are difficult to distinguish because of the tendency in this case to
fusion.[95]
[95] This is Stumpf's explanation. See his account of the
different degrees of fusion. _Tonpsychologie_ ii. p. 65, and
p. 127 et seqq.
Coming now to subjective conditions we find that the detection of an
element in a complex is aided by a previous familiarity with this apart
from its present concomitants. Thus the singling out of the partial
tones of a clang is greatly aided by the circumstance that these occur
and so are known apart from the ground-tone and thus are more readily
picked out and recognised.[96] Again, the separate detection of a
presentative element is aided by special interest in the particular
material. A fine ear for clang-effect or timbre can more readily fix
its attention on this.
[96] According to Helmholtz this previous familiarity with
the elements of a composite whole when it gives rise to a
vivid expectation may produce an illusory analysis, as when
certain opticians affirmed that they could detect the supposed
constituents of green, blue, and yellow, in that color. See
_Physiol. Optik_, p. 273.
Such special interest works mainly through what is known as practice.
What we are accustomed to note, and exercised in picking out from its
surroundings, we are able to detect readily. This effect of practice
in facilitating analysis or abstract attention to this and that
constituent of a presentation-complex is abundantly shown throughout
the whole domain of recent experimental inquiry into the nature and
relations of sensation.
Of course all such analytical separation of presentative constituents
is limited by certain conditions in our sensibility. Thus the limits
of local discrimination obviously confine the range of isolating
attention to local detail in our tactual and visual presentations.
Since too such isolation is differentiation, i. e. the singling out
of some trait or feature different in quality or intensity from
surrounding features, it follows that our abstraction is in all cases
limited by our discrimination. We cannot separately fixate a local
detail of color if this is not qualitatively distinguishable from its
surroundings, nor a local detail of form if this is not distinguishable
in luminous intensity from its entourage. Similarly with respect to
the difficult analysis of complex tone-presentations or clangs and
taste-presentations, as the mixed flavors of a dish.
_b_) _Synthesis: Conscious Relating._—In the second place all thought
is integrating or combining, or, as it is commonly expressed, a
process of Synthesis. In thinking we never merely isolate or abstract.
We analytically resolve the presentative complexes of our concrete
experience only in order to establish certain relations among them. The
most appropriate term for all such conscious relating or discernment of
relation is Comparison.
All our sensational or presentative material is given in certain
relations or connections, including the relation of coexistence, or
coinherence in a substance, of the several qualities of a thing.
Thus the several parts of an extended body stand in certain spatial
relations one to another, one part being situated to the right of the
other, and the object as a whole being above and behind another object,
and so forth. To these space-relations must be added the time-relations
of all events, such as the movements of objects, their changes of form,
and so forth. Lastly with these 'external' relations are given the
so-called 'internal' relations of difference and likeness. The colors,
forms, and so forth that present themselves from time to time exhibit a
large variety of such relations.
As long as we perceive or imagine the concrete object as such we have
only a vague 'implicit' knowledge of these relations. Thus a child
in looking at a house sees _implicitly_ the chimney in a definite
spatial relation to the mass of the building, but the clear explicit
grasp of the relation is a subsequent process going beyond perception
and involving a rudiment of what we mark off as thought. In like
manner when in recollection we recall a sequence of experiences, we
may implicitly recognise one as following another; yet it is only by
a process of thought that we explicitly single out this relation for
special consideration.
The same holds good with regard to the all-comprehensive relations
of dissimilarity and similarity. A child in perceiving a particular
object, say a tree, differentiates it from surrounding objects, other
trees, the background of the sky, etc., and in recognising a familiar
object as his toy, or as an orange, he assimilates it to previous like
presentations. But in these cases the consciousness of difference
and likeness is implicit only. It is some way from this implicit or
unconscious discrimination and assimilation to comparison proper,
issuing in a clear or explicit consciousness of a relation of likeness
or of unlikeness.
It follows from this that thought grows by insensible gradations out
of the lower intellective operations. The perception of objects in
space, and still more, the recollection of events in time, is itself
an incipient subconscious stage of the thought process, i. e. grasp of
relations. Hence our demarcations of the spheres of sense and thought,
of concrete or pictorial and abstract representations, are not to be
taken absolutely. The germ of thought is present throughout, yet as we
shall see presently it is a considerable step from the implicit to the
explicit seizing of these relations.[97]
[97] Cf. Lotze, _Mikrokosmus_, English translation, i. p. 655;
Ward, article "Psychology," _Encycl. Britannica_, p. 75.
All such explicit grasp of relation involves a new direction of
adjustive effort, or of (volitional) attention. Just as the analytic
resolution of a complex demands a special effort in the way of limited
concentration and resistance to irrelevant concomitants, so the
comparison of two presentations in order to discern their relation
imposes a further special task in the shape of a comprehensive grasp.
The special difficulties of the process are manifest. Comparative
attention to two presentations, say two colors in local, or two tones
in temporal juxtaposition is not merely the carrying out of a simple
adjustive process in one direction only, but the carrying out of a
double and yet co-ordinated adjustive process.
The fact that there is a general tendency to simple modes of
adjustment subserving a comparatively simple structure or pattern of
consciousness, and the fact that complex simultaneous adjustments, as
in the case of doing different things at the same time, and in that
of the synthetic relating process of thought, are rare and acquired
with difficulty, suggest that a special nervous process is involved,
consisting of a double and divergent stream of innervation, each branch
of which has to be kept going in certain relations of time, as also of
proportionate strength, with the other branch.
The process of synthetic or relating activity just described may
take the direction of consciously grasping the relations immediately
presented along with presentation, and more particularly the
co-existence of attributes in the same object, and the space and
time relations of presentations. To note the juxtaposition of yellow
and white in a daisy or the co-existence of its form and color, or
the spatial inclusion of its yellow centre in an extended whole,
is evidently to discern relations and so to carry out a process of
conscious synthesis.
It is however in discerning the most comprehensive relations of
likeness and unlikeness that thought shows itself most clearly to be
a synthetic process. Thinking has in a special manner to do with the
detection of similarity and dissimilarity or difference. Such relating
by way of difference or agreement is what we ordinarily understand by
comparison.
The relations of similarity and dissimilarity as comprehensive
relations connecting presentations remote as well as proximate in
time are spoken of as internal and thus marked off from the external
relations of time and place. It is true as we have just seen that
they are involved along with the latter. Thus in discerning the
relations of the parts of an object, we must differentiate them. Yet
the two modes of relating are distinct. I discriminate two colors in
local juxtaposition not _quâ_ juxtaposed but _quâ_ different in their
quality. The juxtaposition may greatly assist the discriminative
process, but this circumstance does not make the juxtaposition and the
qualitative difference one whit less distinct as relations.
It may be added that the greater comprehensiveness of the so-called
internal relations is seen in the circumstance that the relations of
time and place, just like the separate qualities or attributes of
objects, are themselves modes of similarity and dissimilarity. Thus the
relation of local contiguity between two elements is something _common_
to these and other contiguous pairs. Moreover, it is evident that in
such a case each element is recognised as having a different position
from the other. Similarity with the temporal relations of events.
_Comparison._—We may now glance at the operations here brought under
the head of comparison, the bringing of different presentative or
representative materials before the mind simultaneously and keeping
them in consciousness in order to note their relations of similarity or
dissimilarity. Here as in the case of Analysis or Abstraction we shall
illustrate the process by selecting relatively simple modes of the
operation carried out on immediately presented sense-material.
_Likeness and Difference._—We may here assume that likeness and
unlikeness are two perfectly distinct relations. To apprehend a
similarity between two sensations, say tones, is an intellectual
process which we all recognise as radically unlike that of apprehending
a difference.
Yet while the consciousness of likeness and that of difference are thus
radically distinct, as psychical processes, it is evident that the
relations of likeness and difference are presented together in close
connection. As we all know similarity discloses itself in the midst of
difference. This is obvious in the case of all complex presentations,
as when we assimilate two objects on the ground of a color resemblance.
Not only so, since even in the case of sensation-elements (e. g.
color-sensations) likeness is a thing of degree shading off from
perfect likeness or indistinguishableness to just recognisable
affinity, it follows that here, too, likeness and difference are given
together in mutual implication.
Since resemblance and difference are thus uniformly presented together,
it is to be expected that comparison will commonly include the two
processes, assimilation and discrimination. And this is so. We see
likeness amid difference, e. g. a common trait in two faces along with
striking dissimilarities. On the other hand we contrast two objects in
respect of some _common_ quality as color, form, beauty and so forth,
which common element constitutes the ground or _fundamentum_ of the
comparison.
At the same time it is evident that the one process usually, if not
in all cases, preponderates over the other. We are now specially
interested in the likeness of two objects, say two faces, or two
literary styles, the moment after, perhaps, in their differences.
Accordingly we may say that comparison is the noting of likeness
against a dimly apprehended background of difference, or a difference
against a dimly apprehended background of similarity.
_Conditions of Comparison._—Comparison whether specially directed to
likeness or unlikeness has certain common conditions. As in the case of
Abstraction these conditions may be divided into objective, or those
involved in the nature or concomitants of the presentations considered
as external objects, or objects of common perception; and subjective or
those connected with the nature of the individual mind. As I have given
a full account[98] of these elsewhere, I must content myself here with
a general remark or two on the subject.
[98] In _Mind_, x. p. 489 et seqq.
Of the objective conditions the most important are the following:
(_a_) There must be a moderate and favorable degree of strength or
intensity in the presentations to be compared. We compare fairly bright
colors better than very dull ones. (_b_) The common factor or _ground_
of comparison must be sufficiently distinct. We cannot compare two
tones in respect of pitch if this is unsteady. (_c_) Comparison is
greatly aided by juxtaposition in space or time. Thus local proximity
is a condition of a nice comparison of colors. With respect to
temporal conditions it was found by Fechner and has been confirmed by
others that immediate succession is more helpful to comparison than
simultaneity. We compare sensations of weight, tone, etc., best of all
when they are made to succeed one another.
With respect to subjective conditions, comparison will, it is obvious,
be assisted by a good power of concentration. It will also be aided by
a special sensibility for, and interest in, the particular sensuous
material: witness the musician's comparison of tones as to pitch,
purity, etc. Lastly reference may be made to special preparation or
mental preadjustment. It is manifest that if we are expecting to see
two things like one another we shall in general be more disposed to do
so; similarly if we are on the lookout for difference.
It may be added that there is a special interest in likeness _as such_,
and also in difference. Such interest predisposes a person to detect
the one relation rather than the other. Hence the familiar observation
that some people are particularly acute in seeing likenesses, e. g. in
faces, whereas others are habitually more observant of differences.
_Connection between Analysis and Comparison._—There is a close
connection between the two directions of thought-activity just dealt
with. To begin with, it has become evident that in the processes of
comparison, analysis is always involved. Sometimes the analysis seems
to precede the comparison, as when we are asked to compare two flowers
in respect of their color. In other cases it appears rather as the
result of comparison. Thus it is by successive comparisons of different
members of a class of things, as flowers, that we gradually come to
analyse out the common features of the group.
While comparison thus involves abstraction, abstraction even in
the case of a single object may be said to involve the rudiments
of comparison. Thus in analytically singling out for consideration
the spherical form of a rain drop, we implicitly and subconsciously
assimilate it to other previously known spherical objects. But for this
vague imperfect accompaniment of assimilation, the analytic separation
of the constituent would be difficult if not impossible. Such a
subconscious reference to one or more similar things helps to direct
the operation of analysis by intensifying and rendering prominent for
the moment the particular constituent assimilated through the addition
of an ideational element to the sensation.[99]
[99] This is well brought out by W. James, _Principles of
Psychology_, i. p. 434 et seqq.
It follows that the thought-process is one process having two aspects
or distinguishable factors. Either of these may become predominant
according to special circumstances. In this way we obtain two varieties
of operation, viz. Analysis or Abstraction, in which the recognition of
likeness is subconscious, and Assimilative Comparison where the process
of analysis is preliminary and subordinate to a conscious apprehension
of likeness.
A somewhat like relation holds between analysis as a subconscious
process of differentiation and a conscious act of discrimination. Thus
in analysing a clang we must, agreeably to what was said above, have
a vague impression of the difference between one tone and another. And
such subconscious differentiation readily becomes the starting-point in
a full conscious apprehension by an act of comparing attention of the
differences between the several ingredients.[100]
[100] Stumpf uses the term Analysis for the mere vague
detection of plurality of elements in a sensation-complex
which he considers to be distinct from, and preliminary to
a discrimination of them as different one from the other.
_Tonpsychologie_ ii. p. 104 et seqq.
Thus far we have been occupied with the two fundamental processes
in thought and we have illustrated these in their simplest form
as employed about presentations or their equivalents, concrete
representations. But as already pointed out what we mean by thought
is the representation of things as classes or generalities. All the
more interesting and momentous problems relating to thought, such
as the question whether the lower animals think or reason as we do,
have reference to such _general_ thinking. We have now to examine the
processes involved in this thinking.
These fully developed thought-processes are marked off by the use of
what is known as the general idea or notion such as _man_ or _virtue_.
Such general ideas when reduced to a precise form as by the logician
are spoken of as concepts. And since the science of logic assumes
thinking to take place by help of such conceptual products we may
also speak of these full or explicit thought-processes as Conceptual
Thought.[101]
[101] The use of such expressions must not, however, blind
us to the fact that a concept strictly speaking is something
logical, an _ideal_ form of the general idea rarely if ever
realised in our actual thinking processes. Of this more
presently.
_General Ideas and their Formation._—In seeking to trace the
development of this general thinking we have first of all to consider
the nature and origin of general ideas. It is evident that we only
think about things generally in a distinct manner when we are able to
form such ideas. Thus I cannot think out the proposition 'The mushroom
is a fungus' until I am able to form the general ideas mushroom and
fungus. The difficult problems respecting the nature of thought, its
relation to language, and its extension beyond man to the lower
animals, have been discussed in close connection with the nature and
origin of general ideas.
A general idea may for our present purpose be defined as an idea having
a general import or reference. Thus a child's idea of dog, home, or
father, becomes general when he consciously employs the term as the
sign of this, that, and any other particular object which may answer
to a certain description or be found to present certain characteristic
attributes or traits; or, as the logicians express it, a general idea
is a representation of a general class of things.[102]
[102] The reader must be careful to distinguish the meaning of
the term class as here used from its meaning when applied to a
definite number of objects viewed as a collection, as a class
of children in a school. In thinking of man as a (logical)
class I do not represent a definite number at all; nor do I
represent men as a collection. It would be more correct to say
that I am representing in a more or less distinct way the fact
that this, that, and an indefinite list of other things are
related as like or answering to one description. How this mode
of representation is effected will appear presently.
Now it is evident that general ideas as thus defined are reached slowly
and by degrees. It is exceedingly doubtful whether any of the lower
animals possess them. The baby does not possess them and even after
attaining to speech remains for a long time with only the rudiments
of them. In their perfected articulate form as required for exact
scientific thought they are confined to a few highly trained minds.
_Generic Images._—The first stage in the formation of such general
ideas is the welding together of a number of concrete images into what
has been called a generic image. The idea tree or house may be taken
as an example. Such generic images appear to be formed by a process of
assimilative cumulation. Let us suppose that a child after observing
one dog, sees a second. In this case the strong resemblance in the
second to the first effects a process of assimilation analogous to
automatic or "unconscious" assimilation. That is to say, the percept
corresponding to the second animal is instantly fused with the
surviving image of the first by reason of easily apprehended points
of likeness. By such successive assimilations a cumulative effect is
produced which has been likened to that of the superposition of a
number of photographic impressions received from different members of a
class, (e. g. criminal,) whereby common features get accentuated and so
a typical form is produced.[103]
[103] For an account of such composite photographic pictures,
and their analogy to generic (mental) images, see Mr. F.
Galton's _Inquiries into Human Faculty_. Appendix, "Generic
Images."
Such a process of deepening and accentuating common traits and effacing
individual or variable ones can only be looked on as a tendency never
perfectly fulfilled. Interesting differences would in all cases tend to
reinstate themselves. Thus my own generic image of a church happens to
be a building with a tall spire, because the finest church in my native
town was of this form. Recent examples would also tend to contribute
variable peculiarities. Thus the baby's generic image of a dog might
have the distinguishing characters of the dog last seen.
This process of cumulative assimilation would be largely passive and
independent of those active processes of comparison, just described.
It would further be capable of being carried forward (to some extent
at least) independently of language. Hence we may, with some degree of
confidence, attribute generic images to the child before he comes to
the use of words and to many of the lower animals. Thus it is highly
probable that a baby of six months forms a generic image of the human
face out of the percepts answering to its mother's face, nurse's face,
etc., and that when suffering from loneliness it has this image in
its mind. Similarly a predatory animal may be supposed to compound a
generic image out of the percepts gained from this, that, and the other
specimen of his prey, so that when seized with hunger, this typical
image is recalled.
In order to illustrate what is meant by a generic image, it is
important to take the case of a pure representation detached from
a presentation. Thus we cannot say that because a diving bird
recognises a new sheet of water, it must have at the moment, a
generic image answering to water. The recognition of a thing does not
imply a distinct representation of the thing as previously seen. The
presentative and representative ingredients are fused in this case, or
to express it otherwise, the image is latent and undeveloped. Similarly
with respect to such rudimentary processes of conception or general
ideation as those here considered. We can only attribute a developed
and detached generic image to baby or animal when we have reason to
think that these occur in the absence of percepts, e. g. in states of
desire, in dreams, and so forth.[104]
[104] The argument in support of the proposition that generic
images, or (as the writer calls them) "recepts" are actually
reached by the lower animals is ably set forth by Dr. Romanes,
_Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 51 et seqq.
_Relation of Generic Image to General Idea._—The question still
remains how far such generic images are, properly speaking, _general_
ideas in the sense defined above. Is, for example, the typical face
that is pictured by the lonely infant thought of as something common to
this, that, and the other concrete object? Does it carry with it any
clear consciousness of a general class of things? There is no certain
proof that this is so. It must be remembered here that the mental
image corresponding to one and the same individual object, as the
infant's mother, is composite also and in the same way as the generic
image. Thus the baby forms the image of its mother out of a number of
practically unlike percepts, corresponding to varying appearances of
the object in different positions, different light, different dress,
and so forth.[105] Generic images accordingly differ not in kind, but
only in degree (viz. proportion of common to variable feature taken
up and accentuated) from particular or concrete images. And so long
as they remain merely pictorial _images_, there seems no reason to
attribute to them any general function or import.
[105] Cf. Taine, _On Intelligence_, Part i, Book ii, Ch. 2.
The true process of conception, as generalisation or general ideation,
that is a conscious representation of something as common to many as
distinguished from one, involves the active processes of thought,
analysis and synthesis, abstraction and comparison. It is only when
the child begins consciously to break up its images to mark off this
element or feature from that, and by help of such analysis discerns
and demarcates common features that general thought properly so
called, appears. In this way it reaches a distinct idea at once of an
individual thing and of general or common aspects among individuals. We
have now to examine into this true thought-process.
_Transition to Conception Proper._—The transition from merely
imagining to thinking proper is effected by processes of reflective
attention in which abstraction and comparison play a chief part. In
order to understand how this occurs we may suppose the process of
automatic assimilation checked by the introduction of some impressive
difference. Thus a child proceeds to play with a visitor's dog and
finds it wanting in the friendly sentiments of his own pet. Here
difference which, in the earlier stage of automatic assimilation,
remained indistinct in the background of consciousness, is brought
forward. The unlikeness of _morale_ in spite of the likeness of
_physique_ is forced on his attention, the present percept is separated
from and opposed to the image, and a step is taken in marking off
likeness from surrounding difference.
As differences thus come into distinct view and impress themselves
on the mind as the constant accompaniment of likenesses, a new and
explicit grasp of likeness-in-difference ensues. This starts from a
mental separation of the several perceptual constituents of the generic
image, and a reflective comparison of these one with another, so as
to demarcate common features or likenesses from peculiar features or
unlikeness. Such comparison, or series of comparisons, begins with
incomplete analysis and vague apprehension of likeness and ends in a
more complete analysis and more definite apprehension of likeness. In
this way, for example, the child waking up to differences among apples,
goes back on his various experiences, and by noticing and setting aside
variability of taste, size, etc., gets a clear grasp of the common
essential features. Such a conscious active separation of definite
points of resemblance from among a confusing mass of difference is what
psychologists and logicians more especially mean by Abstraction.
_Differentiation of Notions of Individual and Class._—As was pointed
out just now the coexistence of likeness with unlikeness in the child's
experience, may mean one of two things, viz. persistence or identity
of one individual object, in spite of certain changes, or a general
similarity among a number of different individuals. The process of
conception is sometimes described as if the child started with a
definite knowledge of individuals and then proceeded to generalise or
form a class-idea. There is, however, every reason for saying that
the two modes of interpreting likeness-in-difference are reached
concurrently and by processes largely similar. Thus it seems most
reasonable to suppose that the baby which 'da-das' every bearded person
it sees is as yet clearly conscious neither of individuality nor of
generality. In other words we must not assume that it is stupidly
confounding its sire with a stranger, or, on the other hand, forming
an idea of a general class. At this stage the child merely recognises
certain interesting similarities and proceeds to express the fact. We
have to suppose that the clear apprehension of individual sameness
is reached but slowly and in close connection with the first clear
consciousness of different things attached by a bond of likeness.
To say that the child's knowledge begins with the concrete individual
is not to say that it attains a clear consciousness of what we mean by
an individual thing persisting and the same (in spite of change) before
it begins to generalise. We must remember that the cognition of a thing
as persistent and continuous is the result of lengthy and complex
processes of comparative reflection. To individualise is thus to think
just as to generalise is to think.[106] In truth, the psychological
development of the idea of individuality proceeds along with that of
generality, each being grasped as a different way of interpreting
partial similarity among our percepts.[107]
[106] Hence the logician can speak of the idea answering to a
proper name as a singular _concept_. See Lotze, _Logic_, p. 34.
[107] The question of the priority in the individual of
the knowledge of the individual or of the general class,
the question known as the _primum cognitum_ has been much
discussed in connection with the linguistic problem whether
names are first used as proper names or as general names.
_The Process of Generalisation._—When once this differentiation of
the individual idea from the class idea has advanced far enough the
process of generalisation proper, or the grasp of common or general
qualities, is able to be carried out in the way usually described
by psychologists. That is to say, a number of individual things,
represented as such, are now compared, the attention withdrawn by a
volitional effort, from points of difference and concentrated on points
of likeness (abstraction) and so a true process of generalisation
carried out.
The common account of the process of conception here followed, as a
sequence of three stages, Comparison, Abstraction, and Generalisation,
rather describes the ideal form of the process as required by logic
than the mental process actually carried out. As we saw above a vague
analysis or abstraction precedes that methodical comparison of things
by which the abstraction becomes precise and perfect, that is to say,
definite points of likeness (or unlikeness) are detected. With regard
to generalisation it has been pointed out that a rudimentary form of
this process is involved in abstraction. To see the roundness of the
ball is vaguely and implicitly to assimilate the ball to other round
objects. It is to be added that an imperfect grasp of general features
as such (commonly) precedes the methodical process here described.
The child realises in a measure, the general function of the name
'horse' before he carries out a careful comparative analysis of the
horse-characters. At the same time the use of the word generalisation
is important, as marking off the clear mental grasp of the class-idea
as such, that is the idea of an indeterminate number, of objects, known
and unknown, answering to a certain description.[108]
[108] On the relation of Abstraction to Generalisation see
Hamilton's _Lectures_, Vol. ii, Lec. xxxv.
_Conception and Naming._—We have so far supposed that the processes
of conception are carried out without any help from language. But it
is exceedingly doubtful whether any such orderly process as that just
described, the comparison of a number of percepts and the marking off
of common attributes could be carried out without the aid of words or
some equivalent. It is probable that even the clear grasp of individual
things as unities and as permanent identical things, depends on the use
of a name (proper name) which as one and the same sound seems to mark
in an emphatic way the continued oneness of the object.[109] And the
same applies still more manifestly to the apprehension of a general
class of things. It is certain that in later life at least all clear
general thinking takes place by help of language. The general idea is
held together, and retained by means of a name; and, as already pointed
out, it is very uncertain whether in the absence of such general signs,
the infant or the lower animal ever attains to a clear consciousness
of the 'one in the many,' the common aspect of a number of different
objects.
[109] It seems to follow that animals cannot attain the clear
consciousness of individual things as permanent unities, as we
attain it.
_Is Generalisation Possible Without Language?_—The question how far we
can generalise or form a general idea apart from the use of names or
other signs is one of the standing _cruces_ in psychology. If we judge
by introspective examination of our own minds we do no doubt now and
again carry on processes of thought of a quasi-general character with
little if any help from words. Yet it is doubtful whether we attain
a clear consciousness of the _generality_ of our thinking in this
case. It must be remembered too that even if we can, as is alleged,
employ a particular image or succession of images as representative
of generalities without any aid from language (as when we intuitively
follow the proof of a particular case in geometry and at the same time
recognise its general validity) we are employing powers of thought that
have been developed by help of language.[110]
[110] On the nature of such speechless thought see Venn,
_Empirical Logic_, p. 147.
If now we turn from the developed to the undeveloped mind, and ask
whether children think apart from the use of language, we find the
question exceedingly difficult. It has been alleged that a born mute
reached prior to his mastery of a deaf-mute language the highly
abstract idea of maker or creator and applied this to the world or sum
of objects about him.[111] It must be borne in mind however, that born
mutes make a certain spontaneous use of articulate sounds or signs, and
such articulations, though unintelligible to others, and not even heard
by themselves, may be of great assistance in carrying out the process
of Abstraction. It must be further remembered that a child understands
others' words and may probably make some internal use of them as signs
before he proceeds to imitatively articulate them.
[111] See a very interesting account of the experience of
a born mute by Prof. S. Porter, in an article "Is Thought
Possible without Language?" in the _Princeton Review_,
January, 1881.
Lastly with respect to the lower animals, while it must be admitted
that they display something closely resembling the germ of general
thinking, it is manifest that we cannot in their case, be certain of
the degree of clear consciousness of generality attained. The actions
of a fox caught in a difficulty and inventing a way of escape seem
indistinguishable from those of a man thinking by help of general ideas
and general rules: yet the mental process may after all be non-ceptual,
and pictorial. It seems safe therefore to conclude that apart from
verbal or other general signs the full consciousness of generality does
not arise.[112]
[112] It must be remembered that some of the most intelligent
of the lower animals, e. g. ants, have a system of tactual
signs analogous to our language. On the whole subject of the
germ of linguistic and conceptional power in animals, see
Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, Chap. v and following.
_Psychological Function of General Names._—A name is commonly
defined as a mark or sign by the help of which the idea of a thing
may be called up in our own mind or in the mind of another. Signs are
either self-explaining, as in the case of a drawing, or an imitative
gesture, or conventionally attached to objects as the larger number
of linguistic signs or names, the symbols used in music, etc.[113]
Language signs consist either of articulated sounds or other
percept-producing movements, as the finger movements[114] used by the
deaf and dumb.
[113] Articulate sounds so far as imitative (onomatopoetic)
words, are of course to be classed with self-explaining signs.
[114] On the general function and the possible varieties of
language-signs, tone-language, gesture-language, etc., see
Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, Chap. v and following. Cf.
Venn, _Empirical Logic_, Chap. vi.
A name may be given to one thing (proper name) or to a general class
(common or general name). In either case, as explained above, the
name psychologically considered is the expression or indication of a
similarity among our percepts. To name a thing is thus the outward
manifestation of a process of assimilation.
The name (articulation-sound complex) becomes attached to the idea
it stands for by a process of contiguous integration. Looking at it
as accompanying and perfecting the process of assimilation, we may
say that a name, whether as employed by ourselves or as heard used by
others, becomes specially associated with, and so expressive of, some
similar feature or features of our perceptual experience. Thus the
name 'home' specially emphasises the recurring or constant features
of the child's surroundings, the name 'horse' the common features of
structure in the objects so named. The name thus becomes specially
attached to, and so a mark of the effects of superposition of common
presentative elements in our experience.
This is well brought out in Herbart's view that the general idea is the
result of "apperception," or the coalescence of a new presentation with
previous like representations (apperceptive masses). Such apperceptive
fusion or assimilation would according to Herbart help to explain
the prominence or distinct emergence of the common element in a new
presentation, and the falling back of the particular or variable
features into indistinct consciousness.[115]
[115] See Mr. Stout's account of Herbart's view. _Mind_, Vol.
xiv. p. 15.
_Use of Names in Early Life._—In the beginning of life linguistic
signs are used in close connection with the process of automatic
assimilation. Thus the recurrence of the presentative complex answering
to a particular animal as the dog, calls forth, by a process analogous
to a reflex movement, the articulation, let us say, of the sound
'bow-wow.' This use of words by the child to mark likeness is partly
spontaneous, partly imitative. As is well known, children often invent
names of their own, as their pet names for nurse, doll, and so forth,
and their names for classes of objects, as when one child used the
sound 'mum' as a name of eatables, generally, and another, the sound
'appa' as a name for this, that, and the other animal (kitten, chick,
etc.). They also spontaneously extend the use of names supplied by
others as when the sound "ba" (ball) was extended to a bubble and other
round objects. This spontaneous use of names gives place in time to an
imitative use of names as heard by others.[116]
[116] For interesting illustrations of children's spontaneous
invention, as also of their extension of names, see Preyer,
_Die Seele des Kindes_, 3er Theil; Pérez, _The First Three
Years of Childhood_, Chap. xii; Taine, _On Intelligence_, Book
iv, Chap. i, § 1; and Darwin's _Notes_ on his child, _Mind_,
Vol. ii. p. 285, et seqq.
From what we said above we have to suppose that names are used at the
beginning neither as proper or Singular, nor as General names. They
merely serve to mark off and register common features of the child's
experience. As the processes of comparison gain in strength and the
difference between the individual and the general class becomes
distinct, the two uses of names as singular and general grow clearly
differentiated. Thus the names Charles, Papa, Rose, and so forth, come
to be marks of particular things, those organised experience-unities
which are thought of as having continued existence independently of
our intermittent percepts. Similarly, the general name, dog, man,
and so forth, come to be consciously applied to a number of such
object-unities on the ground of common attributes.
_How Names Further Conception._—At first we find this use of
general names confined to classes of objects having numerous points
of similarity and so easily representable in the pictorial form of
Generic Image, as "dog," "house," etc. Here, as pointed out above, the
name is not used with a clear consciousness of its general character
or function. Yet the very application of one and the same name to a
number of percepts is an important aid to those processes of reflective
comparison and selection of common features by which the apprehension
of generality arises. To begin with, any use of a name to mark the
result of an assimilative process, serves to call attention to and
to emphasise the existence of like features. Not only so, the name
being applied to each of a number of percepts is a valuable means of
recalling these together, and so furthering that extended process of
comparing a number of things which underlies generalisation. More
than this, since the name from the beginning serves to emphasise and
register the fact of likeness, it greatly facilitates the subsequent
careful analysis and definition of the points of likeness. Of special
service here is the hearing of names applied by others to a variety of
things, as when a multitude of unlike things are called 'plants' and
so on. Such announcement of likeness as yet undiscovered by the child
serves as we know as a powerful stimulus to a comparative examination
of the things and this urges the child on along the conceptual path.
The greatest use of general names, however, in connection with
general ideation or conception is in definitely marking off and
rendering permanent each new result of analysis and comparison. Thus
on reflecting upon dogs with a view to see in what exactly they do
agree in spite of their differences, and on gradually gaining clear
consciousness of this, that, and the other characteristic features
of form, action, etc., a child demarcates and definitely registers
these results of abstraction by help of the name. That is to say, the
name is used as a defining mark as one might mark off an ill-defined
local feature in a piece of board by drawing a chalk circle about the
spot. When the name is thus definitely and exclusively applied to such
products of comparison and abstraction it henceforth serves as a means
of recalling these and keeping them distinctly before the mind.
When thus definitely attached by association to the points of
similarity singled out by abstraction from a number of particular
objects, the name is used as a true general sign. The image now takes
on a much more definite function as a typical or representative image,
through the circumstance that by help of the demarcating sign certain
of its features stand out distinctly, and are at the same time realised
as belonging not merely to one particular thing, but to what we call
a general class. Thus the name dog, though probably still calling up
an image of a more or less concrete character, that is, including
traits of some individual dog or variety of dogs, becomes a general
sign inasmuch as it throws prominently forward, and so secures special
attention to certain definitely apprehended common class-features (the
common canine form, action of barking, etc.).[117]
[117] Since the result of abstraction though representing
concrete things does not represent them fully and explicitly
we may, with Mr. Spencer, call the general or abstract idea a
re-representation. See his _Principles of Psychology_, ii, p.
513.
Used now in this way as a general sign of certain definitely
apprehended points of likeness or common qualities, the name acquires
the double function attributed to it by logicians. That is to say, it
_denotes_ any one of a certain order or class of things: the class or
group being determined in respect not of the number of things included,
but only of the common qualification or description of its number, that
is to say of the qualities which the name is said to _connote_.[118]
[118] According to logicians a general name denotes certain
things (members of a class) and connotes certain qualities in
these things. For the terms denotation and connotation those
of extension and intension are often substituted. See Jevons,
_Elementary Lessons on Logic_, Lesson v.
_Formation of more Abstract Notions._—A similar process of comparison
and abstraction clinched by a linguistic sign takes place in the
formation of those general ideas which answer to few common qualities,
and are altogether removed from the plane of the generic image,
as for example 'animal.' It is obvious that we cannot compound a
quasi-concrete image of animal as we can, roughly at least, compound
an image of dog. There is no common form running through the vast
variety of animals that renders this possible.[119] There is indeed an
image-element here, for in thinking of animals most people probably
image imperfectly one of the more familiar quadrupeds. Here the
_general_ representative function of the image is still more evident. A
child cannot form the idea animal till he has attained a considerable
skill in the use of verbal signs as general. For to represent animal
(in general) is to repress the tendency to image particular concrete
examples, and to give peculiar and exclusive prominence to a few
properties, such as spontaneous movement, sensation, which can only be
grasped by a special effort of abstraction; and can only be brought
before the mind by the medium of a verbal sign.
[119] Cf. Lotze, _Logic_, p. 38.
These higher steps in the thought-process become possible by means of
the verbally embodied results of the lower steps. It is after the child
has formed the general ideas, dog, horse, and so forth, that he climbs
to the more difficult, more comprehensive, and more abstract idea,
animal. In this way, we may say with Hamilton, that language is to the
mind what the arch is to the tunnel, the necessary precondition of all
advanced thought-work.
It is not meant by this that the child progresses regularly from
notions of a comparatively small range to more comprehensive ones. It
must be remembered that it is often easier for a child to form an idea
of a larger class or genus than of one of its constituent sub-classes
or species, viz. when the form presents prominent easily discernible
points of likeness, and when the distinctive features of the latter are
obscure. Thus the child uses the name tree before he uses the name
oak-tree, and so forth. This is what is meant by saying that the child
sees likenesses before he sees differences.
In this brief account of the name-embodied concept reference has been
made only to those names which grammarians call nouns, and of these
only to such as are names of things. By the same mental process by
which the child reaches the idea orange, it reaches the idea yellow,
round, and so forth. The clear use of adjectives as qualifying epithets
marks a higher stage of analysis than the first use of names, viz.
the separating out for special consideration of _single_ qualities in
things. Hence in the imitative speech of the child, the first use of
adjectives follows by an appreciable interval that of names.[120] This
separate apprehension of single qualities becomes still more distinct
when abstract nouns such as whiteness, height, come to be used. As the
etymology of such names shows they come after concrete names in the
development of the thought of the race and community, and are invented
by help of such concrete names. The individual only acquires the use
of these abstract names when intelligence has developed under the
stimulating and controlling influence of education.
[120] One or two adjectives as ni-ni (nice) are used along
with nouns from the first, but these probably so far as names
are on the level of nouns, i. e. names of things as concrete
wholes. It must not be supposed however, that the child or
the race begins with a clear apprehension of any one class
of words. The several classes of words distinguished by the
grammarian are confused at first and are only differentiated
as intelligence advances. All that is meant here is, that the
child knows and names things as concrete wholes before it
begins to qualify them, or discern particular qualities in
them. On the differentiation of nouns etc., in the early use
of language, see Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 219 et
seqq. and p. 295 et seqq.
It is only when analysis is thus carried up to the point of a
separate consideration of single qualities that the class-notion, the
representative of a _group_ of qualities, becomes definite and concise.
A perfectly clear general idea of a class means one of the constituent
elements of which we can separately attend to and name.
_Conception as Dependent on Social Environment._—It is evident from
this brief sketch of the development of the general idea that it
is a process that is largely dependent on the action of the social
environment. Language is pre-eminently the invention and instrument of
social life. It is the medium by which we communicate one to another
our ideas, wishes, and so forth. In the early years of life the
undeveloped intelligence of the child is continually roused to activity
through his desire to enter into the system of language which he finds
others using. In this way the results of ages of thought-processes
embodied in the language of educated men and women are brought to
bear on the growing mind, and these constitute a main ingredient
in the educational influence of the community upon the individual.
The profound and far reaching influence of this medium of common
word-embodied ideas is clearly seen in the arrest of intellectual
development when contact with the general mind through language is
excluded, as in the case of neglected deaf-mutes. As Professor Huxley
says, "A race of dumb men deprived of all communication with those who
could speak would be little indeed removed from the brutes."[121]
[121] Quoted by Professor Horatio Hale, in _The Origin of
Language_, p. 42.
J. SULLY.
THE RIGHT OF EVOLUTION.
In the Royal Academy's Exhibition which opened May 2, 1890, I remarked
a fine picture of the Lord Mayor's Show. That Show is the monument of
a mercantile evolution by which poor men,—one, 'tis said, with only a
cat for capital,—clubbed together in guilds, largely socialistic, and,
so increasing means, accumulated the wealth which controlled kings, and
inaugurated the epoch of peace, so necessary for commerce.
But the Academy picture was not so striking as one I had seen the day
before (May-day) in Hyde Park. There, amid a motley crowd with red
and black flags inscribed 'Anarchy,' stood William Morris,—artist,
scholar, and poet,—announcing to the workmen that they are slaves,
rich men their owners, their natural enemies, and existing society a
war.
The Guild-Socialism of London is past. Its gorgeous ghost may presently
masquerade for the last time through November fog and London squalor.
But the Hyde Park scene has its career yet to run. What its orators
demanded was a new privilege. It was not the equal rights of labor, but
privilege. This new lordship is to dictate my limits of education, my
mode of production, my hours of work, my wages. The poet leader told
the toilers that they alone did what was useful, all others were doing
what was useless; the man who wrote "The Earthly Paradise" declared
himself one of the mere "parasitic class," climbing and flourishing
on the manual laborers. I did not see how his remorseless logic could
have spared Shakespeare himself, and it appears certain that under this
levelling scheme no dreamer, no poet, could ever have the culture,
or the leisure, necessary to bear his literary fruit. When the
distribution of work and wages is left to a majority of the millions,
will they agree that writing "The Earthly Paradise" is as productive
as the mining of coal? Among these millions, how many fools, how many
sots! Shakespeare drew, in Christopher Sly, a character familiar to
us as to him. Christopher is taken, while in a drunken sleep, into
a nobleman's mansion, and, on waking, is treated as a lord who has
been wandering in his mind, fancying himself a boor. He is surrounded
by liveried servants; his lady comes to welcome his recovery; he is
feasted; a beautiful drama is performed before him. In the height of
his glory Christopher calls for a tankard of beer; he drinks deep; and
just as his players are entering on the poetic drama, Christopher rolls
from his cushioned throne and lies snoring on the floor. Had it been
left to Christopher Sly's vote to determine whether higher wages should
be paid Shakespeare or the brewer, the bard might have come off badly.
And were the wages of actors and actresses dependent on a government
chosen by the masses, not only the Slys throughout England, but the
millions remote from theatres, and the Methodists, Salvationists,
Presbyterians, would certainly unite to close all theatres. Even Edward
Bellamy "looking backward" finds no provision for a theatre. Little by
little we should find ourselves in a prosaic world. Men and women would
be born; they might eat, and sleep; they would die. But our little life
might bid farewell to the beautiful dreams that clothe its dry bones
with beauty.
Such is my impression of every constructive scheme of Socialism. I
recognise the evils that give rise to such schemes; I feel their
urgency. Their strong appeal to our humanity might silence criticism
of their crudity, were their method evolutionary. We could then feel
certain that every practical step would be traceable if not confirmed
by experience. But when a theory adopts the revolutionary method,
when it proposes a complete, irreversible overthrow of existing
institutions; it is necessary to ask whether its own system would be
any improvement on the old.
It may be said that English Socialism does not advocate violence.
But violence is only an incident of revolution. There never was a
revolution in which the fighting did not come as a surprise. Those who
inflame the masses with aims that cannot be gained but by bloodshed,
are really advocating violence. Reforms of a political or a social
system are secured peacefully, but a revolutionary subversion of the
foundations in a whole nation can only come by war. It is a declaration
of war to deal with the whole existing order with hostility, with
acrimony and hatred, as wholly bad. Such order is thereby sentenced to
death; its execution is merely a question of power.
Even supposing a revolution not attended by bloodshed, assuming it
extorted from authority by fear of violence, what can be gained?
What new materials, with which to make the earthly paradise? None.
We see what men are, what motives now rule; such and such parties,
politicians, official people, "400" people; a vast population of
working people who have no definite principle of social equality,
much less of fraternity. The mass, in the distance, may appear in
solidarity, like the distant ocean; but, seen closely, it is made
up of distinct waves. The bootblack looks down on the sweep, as the
millionaire looks down on the tradesman. There is as much social
inequality in Washington as in London. Revolutions pass and leave
you the same old human nature. Whence is socialism to get a cabinet
of angels who will administer the new order,—run the farms, public
works, railways, and so on,—without selfishness, jobbery, personal
ends, or corruption? And shall our schools train intelligence downward,
so that it shall not rise above mediocrity? "The snow may fall level
one day, the next it is piled into drifts." Property might be equally
distributed this year; the next it would be in the hands of the
cleverest. You seize a man by the throat and say "You've got to be
fraternal." He may gasp out "I will"; but when his throat is free he
will love you no better.
But we are told that the selfish forces of human nature, its tendency
to social inequality, can themselves be revolutionised. It was so
with the early Christians. Jesus was not a socialist, he advised
tribute to Cæsar, and respect for those who sat in Moses's seat;
but, some two centuries after his death, the Christians did give up
their private possessions, and had all things in common. The avowed
cause of this, however, was that the world was just coming to an end.
Why labor and accumulate in a world about to be consumed? No sooner
did that superstitious expectation fade away than socialism ceased.
The forces of human nature resumed their sway. Those forces,—the
love of property, of luxury, competition, enterprise,—have since
been dissolved, here and there, but only by similar superstitions. A
hundred communities were formed for secular interests, about Robert
Owen's time. They all failed. The only ones existing are those founded
in the belief that this world is a wilderness of woe, destined to
destruction, and heaven the only true investment. Such are the Oneida,
Shaker, and Mormon communities. The modern socialists can appeal to
no such superstition. And yet, though many of them believe themselves
"infidels," their movement is the afterglow of Christianity. Their
method is millennial. They look for the destruction of the old
political world in much the same way as the early Christians looked
for the destruction of the physical world. There is to be a grand
transformation scene. Some Bellamy is to sound a trumpet, a lucifer
match is to be scratched, and, puff! away go the pomp and glories of
this world. The high are to be laid low, the low raised high, and a new
social kingdom to be established.
All this, though uttered by some atheists, is supernaturalism.
It is a survival from the millennial superstition. It is secular
second-adventism. It will pass away like its forerunners, though it may
like them cause revolutions. The socialistic fathers and their children
will fall asleep, and the old world roll on much the same as before,
diurnally, but on its moral orbit somewhat slower. For revolutionary
changes invariably retard human progress. Because, while they cannot
alter the inherited habitudes of a people,—their motives, prejudices,
superstitions,—they give these unreformed feelings a new habitation,
swept and garnished, so that the last state of that nation is worse
than the first. So long as outgrown notions remain only in antiquated
institutions, their error is demonstrated by their folly; their
tumbling walls instruct them in new needs; and when at last the old
institution falls, as it must, the experience induces adaptation of the
new one to the forces that laid low the old. When the outer embodies
an inner reform, there is no reaction. The progress is permanent. Such
is not the case when decrepit sentiments are suddenly given the sinews
of youth.
This view is not speculative. It is derived from the study of
revolutions. Near 250 years ago the English people began a revolution
which presently beheaded the king, and disestablished the church.
But monarchal superstition was not beheaded; religious superstition
was not disestablished. In place of Charles I. was set up a monarch
of unlimited power, whose little finger was heavier than Charles's
whole body,—that same Cromwell whose massacres of people in Ireland
is represented to-day in the one-sided feud that makes the curse of
England. The disestablishment of a church, at least scholarly and
picturesque, was followed by the inauguration of a primitive God of
wrath, whose prophet was Calvin, and Cromwell his destroying angel.
Bonfires were made of the most beautiful works of art in England. The
finest statues and monuments were destroyed because a barbarian said,
"Thou shalt not make a graven image." The revolution provided a fresh
stronghold for the grossest prejudices and superstitions; and, despite
the weakness of Charles I. and the faults of the clergy, the last state
of England was so much worse than the first, that the revolution was
reversed, the old monarchy restored, the church re-established, and the
future of that country given to the forces of evolution.
The French revolution beheaded a weak king, and raised a monster in his
place. Robespierre concentrated in his year or two all crimes spread
through the history of tyranny. The masses threw down the Virgin Mary,
and raised on her chief altar a goddess of Reason. Much pious horror
has been expressed about that worship of a beautiful Woman instead of
an image; but the real evil was the superstition, which, as it had
beheaded a helpless king now shattered a helpless image, but without
beheading itself—that is, superstition itself. The worship of the
goddess Reason was entirely too reasonable; so she was set aside,
and the revolution established a ceremonial worship of Nature, which
consecrated all that was natural,—the passions, the revolutionary
wrath, the natural desire to guillotine a Count, take possession of
his house, drink his wine, and imitate his revelries. Robespierre
presently turned to butchering revolutionists too, if not submissive to
him, so he was put out of the way. But the whole revolution naturally
led to the destructive imperialism of the first Napoleon,—the enemy
of mankind. He so paralysed the forces of progress that, even in 1848,
the French had not learned the lesson of their first revolution. They
tried another, and history repeated itself. They formed a revolutionary
democracy,—that is, a disguised imperialism,—as they were soon shown.
Their president proved to be an emperor, who destroyed liberty in
France and Italy for twenty years, and nearly destroyed his country.
But what of America? It was from the romantic success of the American
revolution,—a handful of colonists throwing off the yoke of
England,—that France caught fire; and the revolutionary spirit in
Europe has been kept alive by the magnificent material development
of America. All these fruits of the century of independence are
ascribed to our revolution; although the more astonishing growth of
Australia, which had no white settler fifty years ago, might as justly
be ascribed to the English throne. It is due to a false patriotism
that Americans competent to do so have not exposed the superstitions
about their country. To love one's native land more than humanity, is
no better than to love a king more than our country. There appears to
me nothing more important than that the world should be undeceived
about America, whose political history is, really, the great warning
against revolution,—a handwriting on the walls of the world, the
misunderstanding of which is a peril to mankind.
The independence of America was a necessary thing, but it came in
the worst way possible. The colonies resisted taxation, imposed by a
parliament 3000 miles away,—in those days fifteen times that distance
in time,—in which parliament they had no voice. The quarrel came to
blows; but the colonists had no idea of separation from England, until
Thomas Paine persuaded them that independence alone could end such
quarrels. That was true, but it was a heavy misfortune, from which we
still suffer, that independence was secured by war. The colonies had
exhausted their resources in their success; but they had not exhausted
England. The British government, sore and humiliated, still held
the north and northwest of America, commanded the force of the great
aboriginal tribes, controlled the whole American coast with its ships.
The Colonies, still confronted by the powerful enemy they had made,
were compelled to unite for common defence. These colonies had radical
differences, political, religious, commercial; some were free, some
held slaves. But in presence of the common foe they had to unite at
once, and sink their differences. When they met to frame a constitution
for their union the majority had no notion of any constitution save
that of England, and little accurate knowledge of that. What they
framed was a crude imitation of the undeveloped English constitution of
a hundred years ago. They made two legislatures because England seemed
to have two; but made them equal, not knowing that in England the two
were not equal. They supposed England was really governed by the king;
so, having knocked down George III. they set up a monarch much more
powerful, who to-day under the name of president possesses more power
than any throne on earth. They formed a Senate, able to defeat the
popular House.
The Senate is a peerage of states, in which New York has no more power
than states hardly larger than some of its counties. This anomaly was
advocated on the ground that in England boroughs of a few hundred
voters had equal representation with others of many thousands. The
old monstrosity, now the extinct "rotten borough" system, was here
actually raised into a constitutional principle. Command of the Army
and Navy, there nominally lodged in the crown, was really lodged
with the American monarch, so that he may slip from his civil to his
military throne, and rule by martial law. This powerful monarch is
not elected by the people of the United States, but of the states
separately, through electors proportioned to their members of Congress.
Consequently, as New York has the greatest number of electors, the
monarch in nine cases out of ten, is chosen by one state. The present
President got a trifling majority in New York, and was elected. Mr.
Cleveland received some 100,000 majority of votes in the nation, and
was defeated. A popular superstition calls that the Great Republic.
Since the electors ceased to be real electors, as the constitution
intended, and became mere messenger-boys carrying votes they never
cast, this government is not so republican as is now that its
revolution overthrew a hundred years ago. Even at its best our hasty
constitution gave new lease to an England discredited at home, and a
new lease to slavery, which had been decaying. Slavery entered its
new stronghold, and ruled America for generations; had it not lost
its head and assailed its own stronghold, it might be ruling still.
Our much eulogised constitution, by its compromise with slavery, cost
America a million lives, and a billion of money. And all of those
evils, involving a steady degradation of our politics, are due to
the fact that America got its independence not by evolution,—which
would have surely secured it, leaving England its friend,—but by
revolution, which made England its enemy; necessitating a premature,
crude, military union; preventing the mature discussion and development
which could have made the constitution an advance in political
civilisation instead of a retrogression. When our fathers had swept
English authority out of the country, they had not swept political
superstitions, monarchal notions, out of it; so they re-enthroned
in their garnished habitation the defects of the system they had
fought. When Washington was presently both reigning and governing in
America, when he was the idol of monarchs, with a petted courtier
representing him in every European Court, poor Thomas Paine, who made
the revolution, was a prisoner in Paris for trying to moderate the gory
giant he had evoked; and pleading for something like the ministerial
government of England, which was steadily adopting his principles of
toleration, and the rights of man, by sure forces of evolution. By such
forces,—by argument, petition, parliamentary influence,—England has
secured something like republican government under its mask of monarchy.
When people are suffering, it is natural for them to attribute their
sufferings to this or that institution which has an appearance of
anachronism and injustice. But it is precisely when institutions are
thus antiquated and anomalous that evolution is able to utilise them
for an advance. The United States monarch is able to transfer office
from his opponents to his supporters. He is powerful because he is
removed every four years. He can claim that the nation has freshly
given him all that power. The English sovereign has no political
power at all. The nation is governed by responsible ministers. The
president may snap his fingers at a parliamentary majority; the English
executive may be dismissed in a night. Why has the English monarch
been thus deprived of power? The cause is traceable to its hereditary
character,—that same hereditary character which seems so anomalous. It
was found of old that the throne, because it was hereditary, sometimes
fell to a baby, who could not rule. Grown up people had to act for the
child. To escape interruptions of government, when the monarch might be
incapable, ministers became essential; and thus ministerial government
and responsibility were developed out of the antiquated hereditary
anomaly. Popular government, in its development, was able to act
through this elected ministry, and the monarch, though an adult, could
not claim that he had the national authority behind him, except by
accordance with an elected ministry. Moreover in a monarchy all classes
are interested to reduce a power which only one family can enjoy; but
under a presidency all are anxious to enhance the power of an office to
which all may aspire,—especially where it is renewed every four years
by an electoral revolution.
In England other antiquated things have subserved progress. For the
very reason that hereditary legislation is anomalous, antiquated,
the peers became weak; the "upper" house became "under," by an
evolution that had been impossible had it been elective. But in this
very irresponsibility to the popular vote lay that independence of
popularity which gives their House weight as a debating and revising
body. A further step in evolution, which should determine the exact
number of times that the Lords might reject a measure, after which its
passage through the Commons would make it law, might make the peers a
useful body in checking popular passion and haste. Their independence
causes the Lords to pass bills for opening Museums and Art Galleries on
Sunday, which are killed by the Commoners for fear of the Sabbatarians
among their constituents. This independence of the popular breath makes
the House of Lords the source of a Supreme Court whose justice was
lately shown by the redress it gave Bradlaugh at the very moment when
the Commons were inflicting wrongs on him, in fear of their sectarian
constituents. The like may be said of another antiquated institution
in England—the Church. By reason of its anomalous establishment in a
nation of various creeds and a hundred and fifty sects, that Church is
theologically disestablished. Subjected to the forces of political and
ethical evolution, it is now preserving the vast property bequeathed by
England's superstitious Past to its free-thinking Future, keeping it
from being divided up among the sects, before the religious thought of
the country has come of age to claim its endowment. The Church cannot
spend this wealth for sectarian ends, precisely because that Church is
antiquated, and without authority to represent spiritually the nation
of to-day.
We might thus go through one after another anachronistic institution
and show each subservient to agencies of evolution, whereas, if
destroyed by revolution, they could only be succeeded by new
institutions embodying, in stronger forms, the snobbery, the
superstition, the sectarianism, still remaining in the country. It
being certain, at the same time, that no revolution can possibly reach
the troubles which alone could cause one. In England the troubles of
labor are due to the fact that the birth rate is double the death rate.
So long as paupers are multiplied twice as fast as they are removed,
pauperism must increase. The more charity and medical care lower
the death rate, the more they intensify the struggle for existence.
In other swarming countries of Europe overpopulation once led to
brigandage, but they are now largely relieved by emigration. This
involves a steady flood of paupers to America, in addition to those
spawned by native animalism. That evil may be checked when in welcoming
the sound world, we shall quarantine the unsound world,—the diseased,
the criminal, the ignorant. An immigrant without a dollar may be more
safely admitted than one who cannot write his name.
We have a right to evolutionary legislation. We should prevent the
congestion of our cities with paupers while millions of our fields are
waiting to be tilled. New York will not be comforted, weeping for her
children because they are not counted in the census. Rather should she
weep for a multitude of those that are counted,—immigrants from its
own slums as well as from the slums of Europe. Evolutionary legislation
would prevent early marriage, and forbid marriage where there is
no means of supporting offspring. Such unions are just as illicit
as if there were no ceremony at all, and the children more cruelly
illegitimate.
Until there is a high moral standard which shall restrain such cruelty
to the unborn, Pauperism, prolific parent of both vices and crimes, can
only be mitigated by a development of communal life. A hundred people,
dining at a common table, can get the same dinner for ten cents each,
that, separately would cost each twenty-five cents. That is, so far as
food is concerned, communal life more than doubles every man's wages.
There is no more reason why a poor family should support a kitchen of
its own than that it should support a carriage of its own, instead of
going in the omnibus. Gentlemen in their clubs get the advantage of
wholesale prices, while the poor do not. The principle of combination
is more largely applicable to lodgings also than is now the case. It
costs far less to procure and keep clean one large tenement than a
number of separate houses, to say nothing of the humanising influence,
on manners and morals, of communal interests, and the social spirit
so engendered. The home brute would be checked, the drunkard sobered,
by amenability to the larger social censorship, and to a standard of
communal conduct. When the working people have learned to utilise in
normal life such combination as they occasionally use for strikes,
they will find their means increasing enough even to strike, when
necessary, with less recoil on themselves. They will also find that
where institutions of that kind once take root, endowments and bequests
seek them out, and make them centres of happiness and culture.
Political and social evolution must not be confused with natural
selection: it is human selection. Some years ago a cotton-planter in
Georgia observed that the leaves on one of his plants was unlike the
usual leaf; it was divided as if into fingers. So far nature had gone.
The planter added his intelligence. He concluded that such a divided
leaf would let in more sunshine on the cotton. Also such a leaf would
not be comfortable for caterpillars. So he searched out one or two
of these peculiar plants, transplanted them to a field by themselves;
as they propagated, he plucked up those with the old leaf, cultivated
those with the new,—and now these new cotton plants, finer than the
old, free from caterpillars, are spread through many regions. That
is human selection, based on natural selection, securing the fruits
of evolution. It is just as applicable to man as to vegetation. A
better man may be bred as well as a better kind of cotton. Already
many old forms of crime have been largely bred out of society, by
the substitution of imprisonment for thefts instead of the capital
punishments which juries refused to inflict. Crime being largely
hereditary, the offenders used to get free, and multiplied their bad
species. But when punishments were assigned which juries were ready
to inflict, the criminals were isolated for years, or transported,
and their race diminished. The crime that now flourishes most is
murder; because its death penalty survives. It was recently shown in
Parliament that about three fourths of English murderers escape, mainly
through aversion of juries, and merciful people, to inflict a savage
and irrevocable penalty. Were capital punishment abolished the three
fourths would be isolated for life. They would be kindly treated, but
must have no offspring. No such survival of autocracy as a pardoning
power could exist; no individual would be able to alter decrees of
courts and juries. Instead of aiming at the murderer evolution aims
at the murder. It will secure a survival of the peaceful, and breed
ferocity out of man as it has bred the wolf out of dogs.
But that implies breeding the wolf out of our law. The eye for eye,
blood for blood, spirit is wolfish. So is the whole revolutionary
spirit, whether shown in armed violence, or in arbitrary laws. It can
be acted upon, controlled, shamed out of society, only by pure moral
and intellectual forces. There is no greater power than instructed
thought, animated by love to man, enforced by honor and character.
There is as yet no civilised nation; civilisation exists in oases,
which gradually encroach on the deserts. They have largely encroached
on some of these already, but civilisation can only extend as it is
real. The European nations are slicing up Africa among them. This we
are told is Christian civilisation: they are taking their neighbor's
property only because they love him like themselves. What is the
civilisation going out there? You can see it in the dens of European
cities. The Africans have got to be dragged through all that. What
kind of religion will go there? A Bible recording divinely ordered
massacres will be put in every savage hand. Stanley says that when in
sore trouble, in the African forest, he made a vow that if God would
only help him, he would acknowledge his aid among men. His troubles
began to clear next day. God was indifferent, it seems, so long as
man and beast were suffering, but when this great temptation was held
out to Jehovah—this promise of distinguished patronage—he at once
interfered. There is nothing new about that God. In the Bible, his
providence is always purchasable by glory. There are thousands of such
gods in Africa. But Europeans are going there as representatives of
civilisation, and will say to them in the name of German and English
Science, in the name of Berlin, Oxford, and Cambridge,—"These be thy
gods, O Africa! Only agree to call their name Jehovah, who helped
Jephtha, when he vowed a sacrifice which proved to be his daughter, and
who helped Stanley on condition that the service would be reported in
the press."
The intellect of Europe knows better than that; but it has very few
organs of its protest against surviving barbarisms that devour the
world under pretence of civilising it. And it forms few such organs
because itself needs humanising. Just there America may lend a hand.
Our science, our literature, and art, still lack moral earnestness,
and human sympathy. The value of our every liberal moral movement and
organ is therefore incalculable. It was a hopeful sign to see lately
on the platform of the Ethical Congress in New York leaders in various
denominations,—Heber Newton, President Andrews, Lyman Abbott, Rabbi
Isaacs, Felix Adler,—uniting to establish a College for Moral Culture;
all admitting that the theological seminaries, public schools, and
universities, had left them uninstructed in the great social, economic,
ethical, and political problems which have now come urgently to the
front. The prophets of Jehovah once said of Baal, "Peradventure he
sleepeth." The prophets of Jehovah now admit the same concerning
their ancient Syrian deity. But the divine humanity is awaking. It
will rise above prejudice and party. It will inspire no man to lay
an axe at the root of his neighbor's holy tree because it is not his
own, but to plant beside it one which they both agree is good, and
agree to nourish, and which shall prove so fruitful, so sweet, that
strength shall be drawn away from the roots of evil institutions, and
they shall wither away. That which, assailed by revolution, is sure to
be defended, and, if felled, to be reared again, evolution may gently
wither by production of the more fit. The sacred groves of the Past
may still cherish their traditional names, but, if not shattered by
revolutionary lightnings, they will turn themselves to fences around
the garden where fruits of knowledge and the happier life are growing.
MONCURE D. CONWAY.
A CONVICTED ANARCHIST'S REPLY TO PROFESSOR LOMBROSO.
I have read with much interest Professor Lombroso's article about the
anarchists, and I found many things in it that are true, but also many
errors. Even should we admit Professor Lombroso's theory to be correct,
it would in the present case avail but little, because the portraits
from which he made his deductions are not sufficiently truthful for
his purpose. 'Schaak's' book is said to be a fictitious 'robber
story,' and I am informed that it contains many untruths absolutely
invented for ornament and decoration. It is in the highest degree
improbable that such a book should not have caricatured the portraits
of the anarchists. In books designed for sale to the masses, the
illustrations are not, as a rule, of any value as works of art, even if
the persons pictured in them enjoy the author's favor. The only true
to life pictures are the photographs which Dr. Carus sent to Professor
Lombroso, and these were taken in the county jail; but it appears that
the Professor thought little of them, for he says, 'Perhaps these
photographs were taken some years before the crime, when they were
very young,' and the pictures in the _Vorbote_ were drawn after the
photographs, and are therefore of no account so long as the photographs
themselves are accessible.
Certain as it is that vice, crime, and brutality very often find a
characteristic expression of face, so equally certain is it also that
prominent physiognomists very often judge inaccurately and falsely.
There are many instances of this. In Mantegazza's work are found
examples. Now, if it is difficult to arrive at a correct opinion under
favorable circumstances, it is almost impossible to do so if such
pictures as those of Schaak's, with Schaak's explanations, form the
basis and starting point of the inquiry.
Johann Most has an unsymmetric face; this however, is not the fault of
nature, but of an unskilful surgeon. Of Engel I know nothing, except
that he joined the socialists at an advanced age. In his earlier years
he advocated anti-Socialistic ideas. After his first arrest he was set
free upon the good word of Coroner Herz, who declared that he knew
Engel for years as a quiet and well-behaved citizen.
With Lingg I was not on friendly terms, and therefore propriety demands
that I keep silent about him.
Spies was born in the house of a forester, which had formerly been a
_Raubschloss_. The connection between this fact and the other one that
Spies twenty years later was converted to socialism by an American,
is not very clear to me. He was undoubtedly the most gifted of all
the indicted anarchists, and he had a most intelligent appearance;
his forehead was well developed. Temperance in eating and drinking
was one of his qualities, but as regards his intellectual activity,
I regret to say that this was not the case. Many of his articles
betrayed nervous over-excitement. In the beginning of the year 1886,
all intellectual work was forbidden him by his physician, and for a
few weeks he followed his advice. He was full of compassion for the
poor and wretched, and he helped them wherever he could. Concerning
his charities he observed strict silence. Any reference to them was
disagreeable to him, and made him angry. A man who had once rudely
offended him without cause, being in distress Spies obtained work for
him. I came to the knowledge of this by accident. One of the employees
of the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_ who received but a small salary told me that
Spies out of his own pocket gave him for some months $2.00 a week to
pay a doctor and procure medicine. The salary of Spies was only $19.00
a week, and from this he supported his mother. Spies was of a very
tender nature, and what his comrades thought of his blood-thirstiness
may be gathered from the following anecdote. A certain man by the
name of Matzinger had translated an article from the French, "The Day
After the Revolution," and Spies asked an acquaintance of mine, "What
would you do the day after the revolution?" The answer was, "I should
imprison you till all was over, for your sentimentality would prevent
us from any energetic methods." The bystanders laughed; Spies flushed
and said nothing.
Fielden has been treated worst by Professor Lombroso. His father has
been characterised as a sort of genius, and in closest connection with
it, the Professor says, "Almost all the sons of men of genius are
lunatics, idiots, or criminals." I hope the Professor, mindful of this,
is not married.
If the term genius has so wide a meaning, the above statement is
certainly incorrect. Goethe on his mother's side had very talented
ancestors, and his father was extremely well gifted. The son of Goethe
was a drunkard, but we know that this unfortunate inheritance came from
his mother's side. The Darwin family was famous for two hundred years.
The sons of Hegel and Schelling were also able men. Many more instances
of that kind could be adduced; and whenever a genius or his posterity
goes to the wall, there are often external circumstances that cause it.
The Fielden who became famous as a Member of Parliament at the time of
the Chartist movement in England, was a relative, but not the father
of Sam Fielden. Sam Fielden's father was a very intelligent laborer,
who also took part in the Chartist movement, without, however, becoming
very prominent in it. By the bye, the descendants of the first named
Fielden are neither "lunatics, idiots, nor criminals," but wealthy
manufacturers. And now to Sam Fielden; no lunatic, idiot, or criminal
could make the speech which he made when asked why sentence of death
should not be pronounced against him, a speech concerning which Mr.
Grinnell, the prosecutor, said that "had it been made to the jury, they
would have acquitted him." Mr. Luther Laflin Mills, formerly States
Attorney, declared in my presence that it was a masterpiece. That
there was any criminal disposition in Sam nobody ever had any idea. He
was nearly forty years old when arrested, and his wealthy employers
considered him an honest man, and a harmless enthusiast of an amiable
nature. He had become entangled in the Anarchist prosecution by a
strange concatenation of circumstances.
Professor Lombroso's opinion concerning Fielden, formed by the study of
portraits, stands in a strange contrast to the estimate of character
made by the judge who tried and sentenced the anarchists. Three days
before the execution Judge Gary wrote the following letter to Governor
Oglesby:
Chicago, Ill., November 8, 1887.
To the Hon. Richard J. Oglesby, Governor of Illinois.
Sir: In the application of Samuel Fielden for a commutation of
his sentence, it is not necessary as to the case itself that I
should do more than refer to the decision of the Supreme Court
for a history of his crime.
Outside of what is there shown, there is in the nature and
private character of the man, a natural love of justice, an
impatience at all undeserved suffering, an impulsive temper;
and an intense love of and thirst for the applause of his
hearers made him an advocate of force as a heroic remedy for
the hardships that the poor endure. In his own private life he
was the honest, industrious, and peaceable laboring man.
In what he said in court before sentence he was respectful
and decorous. His language and conduct since have been
irreproachable. As there is no evidence that he knew of any
preparation to do the specific act of throwing the bomb that
killed Degan he does not understand even now that general
advice to large masses to do violence makes him responsible
for the violence done by reason of that advice, nor that
being joined by others in an effort to subvert law and order
by force makes him responsible for the acts of those others
tending to make that effort effectual.
In short, he was more a misguided enthusiast than a criminal
conscious of the horrible nature and effect of his teachings
and of his responsibility therefor. What shall be done in his
case is partly a question of humanity, and partly a question
of state policy, upon which it seems to me action on the part
of your excellency favorable to him is justifiable.
I attach this to a copy of his petition to your excellency and
refer to that for what he says of the change that has come
upon himself.
Respectfully Yours,
JOSEPH E. GARY.
Professor Lombroso wrote his article with the best intentions, I
fully recognise the fact; and certainly he was governed by the most
humane motives. But even conceding the correctness of his theory he
necessarily failed from the insufficiency of his materials.
One thing more, Anarchism is a collective term like Liberalism. People
understand by it many different and sometimes contradictory theories.
That part of it which is not in harmony with human progress will fail,
shall fail, and must fail, but that part of it which is good will live
in spite of all. The mistake, however, which has been made in our
special case will not again be made in America; and that also will be
for the general good.
Joliet Penitentiary.
M. SCHWAB.
THE PRINCIPLE OF WELFARE.
I.
If we wish to discuss ethical problems in a fruitful manner and form
just judgments of ethical theories, we must always bear in mind the
fact that there is not merely one single ethical problem, but many.
With the solution of one of these problems the solution of the others
is not necessarily given, and thinkers who have treated a single
problem have not, in dealing with that problem, always determined
their position with reference to the others. At all events, it will
be an especial and separate task to investigate the relation to each
other, the reciprocal dependence or independence, of the different
ethical problems. When we speak of _the_ ethical problem as an especial
philosophical problem, we must not forget that upon closer examination
it resolves itself into a number of different problems.
The reason of this tendency to regard the ethical problem as simple
and indivisible throughout, may be partly sought in the fact that
philosophical ethics did not develop until the positive religions had
lost their undisputed control over the minds of men. Religious ethics
is simple and indivisible by virtue of its principle. It is founded
on authority. Its _contents_ are the revealed commands of authority;
the _feeling_ which impels us _to pass ethical judgments_ is the fear
or reverence or love with which men are filled in the presence of
divine authority; the same motives impel man to follow in his conduct
the commands of the authority; and the principles of the education
of individuals and of the order of society are just as immediately
given by definite relation to this authority. It is upon the whole
the peculiarity of positive religions and the cause of their great
importance in the history of mankind that they grant man satisfaction
in a lump for _all_ his intellectual wants. The true believer has
concentrated in his belief his whole mental life; his belief is at once
the highest science, the highest virtue, the highest good, and the
highest æsthetics. Philosophical ethics has sought too long to retain
the simple unity which is peculiar to religious ethics. The mistakes
of the greatest philosophical ethicists may be in part traced to this
source. A criticism of Kant and Bentham would more fully illustrate
this. The fundamental error—one so often found in the science of the
past—is too great a love of simplicity.
I shall try, in the briefest possible manner, to give an outline of the
most important ethical problems.
Ethical judgments, judgments concerning good and bad, in their simplest
form are expressions of feeling, and never lose that character however
much influence clear and reasoned knowledge may acquire with respect to
them. An act or an institution that could awaken no feeling whatsoever
would never become the object of an ethical judgment, could never be
designated as good or bad. And the character of the judgment will be
dependent upon the character of the feeling that dictates the judgment.
From the point of view of pure egoism the judgment of the same act will
be wholly different from what it is when regarded, say, from a point
of view that is determined by motives of sympathy embracing a larger
or smaller circle of living beings. An ethical system, accordingly,
will acquire its character from the _motive principle of judgment_ upon
which it builds. This motive principle is the power that originally and
constantly again gives rise to ethical judgments.
If our motive principle is to operate with clearness and logical
consequence it must set up a definite standard. A _test principle of
judgment_ must be established that will furnish guidance in individual
cases by enabling us to infer consequences from it in instances where
simple, instinctive feeling fails. The natural course will be that the
test-principles will correspond directly with the motive principles at
their base. The relation between the two may, however, be more or less
simple. If we fix upon the feeling of sympathy as our basis, regarding
it as the main element of ethical feelings, it follows of itself that
the criterion we adopt must be the principle of general welfare,
that is the principle that all acts and institutions shall lead to
the greatest possible feeling of pleasure among living beings. This
principle merely defines with greater precision what is unconsciously
contained in the feeling of sympathy and in the instinct that springs
from this feeling. The same test-principle (as Bentham's "Deontology,"
for example, shows) may also be accepted as valid from the point of
view of pure egoism, only in this case the relation between the motive
principle and the test-principle is more indirect. We must in this case
endeavor to prove that the happiness of others is a necessary _means_
to our own happiness. Our own happiness is then the real end, but in
order to reach this end we must take a roundabout course, and ethics is
the presentation of the system of the courses thus taken. Kant arrives
in a different way again at establishing the happiness of others as an
end of ethics. It would be the business of a special investigation to
determine the extent to which this varying motivation of the principle
of test must influence the consequences derivable from it.
A third question is, By what motive shall an individual act be
determined? The _motive to action_ is not necessarily the same as
the motive that dictates judgment. The man who is animated with love
for his fellow-creatures has reason to rejoice that ambition and the
instinct of acquisition constitute grounds of action of so very general
a character; in that results become thereby possible which,—for such
is the unalterable character of human nature,—would otherwise remain
unaccomplished. A special investigation would have to point out whether
cases occur in which motive of action and motive of judgment must
coincide if the act is to be approved of, and whether there are not
motives to action which would rob the act of all ethical character.
Different from the problems already mentioned is the pedagogic problem:
How can the proper and necessary motives be developed in man? This
problem arises as well with respect to the motive principle of
judgment as with respect to the motive principle of action. It is
clear that between points of view that rest upon entirely different
psychological foundations, (the one, for example, starting from
egoism, the other from sympathy, and the third from pure reason,) the
discussion can be carried only to a certain point. The person who with
conscious logic makes himself the highest and only aim can never be
refuted from a point of view which regards every individual as a member
of society and of the race, and therefore not only as an end but also
as a means. If an understanding is to become possible, the emotional
foundation adopted (the motive spring of judgment) must be changed; but
the change is not effected by mere theoretical discussion: a practical
education is demanded in addition thereto which life does not afford
all individuals, although our inclination to make ourselves an absolute
centre is always obstructed by the tendency of society to subject us
all to a general order of things. There is an education of humanity
by history the same as there is an education of single individuals
in more limited spheres. This education demands its special points
of view, which are not always directly furnished by general ethical
principles. The same is true of the motive to action. For pedagogical
reasons it may be necessary to produce or to preserve motives that do
not satisfy the highest demand, because such motives are necessary
transitional stages to the highest motives. Thus, ambition and the
instinct of acquisition may be the means of attaining to true ethical
self-assertion. Reverence for authorities historically given can be
of extraordinary effectiveness in the development of character, since
only thereby are concentration or fixity of endeavor as well as the
power of joyful resignation acquired,—without our being able to see in
such reverence the highest ethical qualities. A ground-color in fact
must often be laid on before the final, required tint can be applied.
The law of the displacement of motives operates here which in ethical
estimation generally is of the utmost importance.
There must still be mentioned here finally the socio-political problem.
This problem has reference to that particular ordered arrangement of
society which is best adapted to a development in the direction of
ethical ideals. As the former problem leads inquiry out of the domain
of ethics into that of pedagogics, so this one leads us from ethics
into political economy and political science.
Although in the present discussion I intend to occupy myself only with
a single one of these problems, I have nevertheless mentioned them all
in order that the light that I shall attempt to throw upon the problem
I deal with may be seen in its proper setting. As will be observed from
what follows, the principle of welfare will be misunderstood if the
problem to whose solution it is adapted is confounded with any one of
the other ethical problems. The systematism of ethical science is still
so little advanced that it is necessary to draw out a general outline
before we pass on to any single feature. The value of systematism is
namely this, that we are immediately enabled to see the connection of
the single questions with one another as well as their distinctive
peculiarity. In ethics we are not yet so far advanced.
II.
1) If we accept the principle of welfare as our test or criterion in
judging of the value of actions and of institutions, these are then
good or bad according as in their effects (so far as we can trace them)
they produce a predominance of pleasurable feeling or a predominance of
painful feeling in a larger or smaller circle of sentient beings. Every
action may be compared to a stone thrown into the water. The motion
produced is propagated in large or in small circles; and the estimation
of its value depends upon whether it produces in the places it strikes
predominant pleasure or pain. Just as theoretical science explains
the single natural phenomenon by its connection with other natural
phenomena, so ethics tests the single feeling by its relation to other
feelings: the satisfaction of a person acting over the accomplishment
of the act is only then to be called justifiable or good when it does
not create a disturbance in the pleasurable feeling of other beings,
or when such a disturbance can be proved to be a necessary means of
a greater or more extended pleasurable feeling. This principle, as a
principle of test or valuation, corresponds directly with sympathy as
motive of judgment. The extent to which it is possible to accept this
from other points of view I cannot here investigate in detail.
The act of estimation, the testing, does not stop at the outer action
but goes down to the motives of the person acting, to the qualities
of his character, to the whole inner life from which the act has
sprung. This has its ground in the nature and significance of the
estimating judgment. Ethical judgments, in fact, are in their original
and simplest form spontaneous expressions of feeling. But the great
practical significance of such expressions of feeling lies in the fact
that they operate decisively upon the will (upon the individual will
and that of others) and produce motives of future action. Logically,
accordingly, they must be directed towards the point at which an
altering effect on the power that produces the act is possible, and
this point lies precisely in the inner life, in the character of
mind of the person acting. For this reason feelings and impulses,
disturbances and desires, are also judged of according to the tendency
which they have of producing acts and effects that will increase
pleasurable feeling or avoid unpleasurable feeling in more extended or
more limited circles.
Only by its effects do we know the power. We form by inferences our
conclusions as to what takes place in the mind of a man, his motives
and his capacity. Goodness or greatness that never expressed itself in
action could never become the object of ethical approbation; it would
not even exist in fact, but would rest upon a self-deception, upon
an illusion. At least some inner activity, a longing and endeavor in
the direction demanded by the ethical principle must manifest itself.
The individual in self-judgment must often take refuge in this inner
activity, and any deep-going, unpharisaical ethical estimation will
have to follow him there;[122] but just here do we have a beginning
of that which is demanded by the principle of welfare, except that in
consequence of individual circumstances its prosecution is impossible.
[122] Compare my article "The Law of Relativity in Ethics" in
the _International Journal of Ethics_, Vol. I. p. 37, et seqq.
Equally important as the principle that we can know the power only from
the effects is the other principle that the effect need not appear
at once. When good and great men are so often mistaken by their
contemporaries the fact is explained by the circumstance that only
a very wide-embracing glance can measure the significance of their
efforts and activity. Their goodness and greatness is founded in the
fact that their thought, their feeling, their will, comprehend far
more than their short-sighted and narrow-minded contemporaries see. A
long time may elapse before it is possible for them to be generally
understood, and for what they have done to be assimilated. It is
therefore by no means implied in the principle of welfare that people
are to direct their conduct so as to be in accord with impulses and
wants which men have at the moment. The principle of welfare demands
in very fact that we should not shrink from the battle with prejudice
and with inertia. The best thing, often, that we can do for others is
to make them feel that they stand on entirely too low a level in their
wishes and wants and do not make adequate demands generally. Thus,
to take a single instance, the great artist often treads a solitary
path ununderstood or even mistaken by the great mass. Yet in so doing
he follows, perhaps without being aware of it, the principle of
welfare,—if he rigorously observes the demands of art. He increases
the mental capital of the species, and gives it a power which later
on can operate in broad spheres. Only a short-sighted conception and
application of the principle of welfare stops with the need of the
moment and dismisses the consideration of the permanent conditions of
life and the permanent sources of new life and new activity.[123]
[123] This last argument is taken from my _Ethics_ (Danish
edition, p. 94, German edition, p. 110).
2) The principle of welfare simply furnishes a norm which may be laid
at the foundation of the testing of all classes of actions. But it by
no means demands, as has at times been supposed, that consideration
for welfare should also be the ground and motive for every act. We
have recourse to general principles only in order to be able to set
ourselves aright in cases in which direct judgment, instinctive feeling
cannot determine the question presented, that is in cases of doubt,
or when we have in view a systematic treatment of ethical questions.
The ethical feeling may operate quite involuntarily and without real
ratiocination, in that we can be moved directly by the act (whether
possible or real) as it appears to us, just as in our æsthetical
feeling we may without æsthetical reasoning be struck by the beauty
of a work of art or of a landscape. Or, we follow with confidence
the "unwritten laws" that are contained in custom, in tradition, and
generally in so-called "positive morality." And in agreement precisely
with the principle of welfare, is immediacy of this kind to be
recommended and maintained, so long as it does not lead to the neglect
of real problems and questions. It is the state of innocence out of
which no one dare be wrested unnecessarily. Abstract principles become
necessary aids when direct reliance fails; but frequently they can only
be applied to individual concrete cases by the employment of a great
number of complicated intermediary steps, and do not easily acquire a
practical influence upon the will. Indeed, the principle of welfare may
even demand quite different motives from ethical feeling or devotion to
the requirements of positive morality. It is in fact most beautiful and
best that a man should care for his wife and children because he loves
them and not because his ethical instinct requires it. Where conscious
duty has to be invoked in the innermost relations between man and man,
it is as a rule a sign of an unfortunate state of affairs. Perfect love
dispels not only fear but also duty.
In his "Ethics," at page 339, Wundt advances the following objection
to the principle of welfare: "It is conceivable that a person should
sacrifice himself for another; it is conceivable that a person should
yield up life and possessions for definite ideal ends, for his country,
for freedom, for religion, for science. But it has never come to pass,
and never will, that people shall renounce a thing solely to increase
the sum of happiness of the world." This objection overlooks the fact
that the principle of the valuation of an act that is regarded as good
need not be the motive to this act. The thought and feeling of the
person acting may stop very properly at country, freedom, or any other
ideal object, without the person's instituting any formal reflections
whatsoever with regard to the reasons of the value of the ideal ends
for which he sacrifices himself. But in systematic ethics or in
practical cases of doubt we inquire what value and importance love of
country, freedom, poetry, and science possess for human life. If, for
example, freedom were not a good for a people, the individual would do
wrong to sacrifice his life for it. It is never of course a question of
the abstract notion of welfare of and in itself, just as in a single
theoretical problem it is never a question of the abstract idea of
cause. But in ethics we lay down the principle of welfare and in the
theory of knowledge the principle of causality; endeavoring, thus, to
go back through analysis to the final assumptions of our practical and
theoretical intellectual activity.
3) It is no argument against the principle of welfare that pleasure
must be so often bought with pain. Pain is in that case only the
necessary transitional step, and the significance of the principle
of welfare is precisely the requirement it makes that the duty of
demonstration shall rest on those who maintain the necessity of such
an intermediary step. Any infliction of pain must be supplied with a
motive, whereas the feeling of pleasure in and of itself (that is if
its causes do not at the same time produce additional painful effects)
is justified. The principle of welfare simply says: Produce by thy
conduct as much pleasure and as little pain as is possible! The degree
to which it is possible to realise this demand, of this the principle
in and of itself says nothing. A principle is not subverted by the
difficulties of its application.
As experience teaches, there is a happiness that is not bought too
dearly with pain. Clara's song in Goethe's "Egmont":
"Himmelhoch jauchzend, _zum Tode betrübt_!"
has been cited in disproof of the principle of welfare. But let us hear
Clara to the end and note the last line of the song, in which she gives
the result of the entire train of her emotion. She says:
"_Glücklich_ allein ist die Seele die liebt!"
The phenomenon is this. There is a movement of the heart and mind,
a life of feeling, which are joined with a satisfaction so deep and
great that the powerful oscillation between pleasure and pain does
not destroy the total feeling of happiness, but strengthens it. Two
psychological factors co-operate here. The one is, that the pain
(the dis-pleasure or grief), unless it transcends a certain degree,
forms the background of the pleasurable feeling and is thereby able
to intensify the latter. In this very fact a sufficient motive lies
to choose conditions of this sort in preference to such as do not
stand so high in intensity but are nevertheless conditions of more
unmixed pleasure. The other factor is, that there can be an element
of attraction even in grief, simply because intense life, powerful
movement, and the straining of faculties that come with it, produce
of themselves satisfaction. All exertion of power which is not out of
proportion is connected with a feeling of pleasure. The feeling of
pleasure that accompanies grief and anxiety asserts itself in the fact
that we do not _wish_ to be transported out of it. An important element
here is also the organic process connected with every powerful state of
mind (the effect of the condition of the brain on the circulation of
the blood, on breathing, and on the organs of digestion), granting that
it is not the whole cause.
When Auguste Comte lost the woman who exerted so decisive an influence
on the direction of his mind in the last period of his life, he said
once in an outburst of sorrow evoked by her memory: "I owe it to thee
alone that I shall not leave this life without having known in a worthy
manner the best emotion of human nature.... Amid the severest pains
that this emotion can bring with it I have never ceased to feel that
the _true condition of happiness_ is, to have filled the heart—though
it be with pain, aye with bitterest pain."
Auguste Comte and Clara are accordingly quite in agreement, and the
ethics of welfare is in agreement with them both. If we desire to be
wholly secure against pain and anxiety, then we dare not love anything.
But what if love were the greatest happiness, even though it brought as
much sorrow again with it! With powerful action and great fulness of
life come also great costs, great contrasts, and great vibrations. Yet
who has said that the highest was to be had for little expenditure?
The feeling of pleasure is the only psychological criterion of health
and power of life. That which in all its immediate or remote effects in
all the creatures that it touches produces only pleasurable feeling,
cannot possibly be condemned. Welfare, therefore, in the sense of
permanent pleasurable feeling, is the final test-principle of action.
Pain is everywhere the sign of an incipient dissolution of life.[124]
This is exhibited in the simplest manner in the "physical" pain that
arises through the tearing of organic tissue. But it also holds true of
the "mental" pain that arises from anxiety, doubt, or repentance. It
points to a disharmony between the different forces and impulses of the
mind, a disharmony that can lead to the dissolution of consciousness.
If pain is a necessary intermediary step, the fact is partly founded
in the two psychological laws above mentioned, partly also in the
circumstance that it means the dissolution of something in us that
impedes a more free and more varied development of life. Childbirth
is accompanied with pain because the new life can only come into the
world at the cost of the old. Analogously the knowledge of truth is
often gained with pain because prejudices and illusions must first be
shattered. In the pain of repentance a lower self is dissolved in order
that a new and higher self may develop.
[124] Compare my _Psychology_ (Danish edition, pp. 315-318;
German edition, pp. 343-347).
4) A circumstance that has especially fostered the opposition to the
principle of welfare is undoubtedly the tendency to think exclusively,
in connection with the expression 'pleasurable feeling,' of the most
elementary sensual forms of pleasure. The latter are not excluded
by the principle of welfare; the principle, however, takes all the
aspects of human character into consideration, maintaining that
permanent pleasurable feeling is not to be established with certainty
if an essential aspect of this character is neglected. The defect
of elementary feelings of pleasure is that for the great part they
correspond to only momentary and limited relations.
A being whose feeling is of a purely elementary kind can maintain
itself as long as the simple conditions of life to which it is adapted
do not change. Thus some of the lowest animal forms like the infusoria
and rhizopods appear to have existed throughout infinitely long periods
of time in exactly their present condition. Here the adaptation to the
given conditions is as good as perfect. The same may be the case with
beings that at an earlier stage of their development have possessed
more developed organs and forms. Animals that live free in their youth,
afterwards however as parasites, lead a purely elementary life and
lose all the nerves and muscles that do not directly subserve this
form of existence. This is also true of man. Of the Fuegians, whose
wretched existence (wretched in our eyes) he portrays in vivid colors
in his "Journey Around the World," Darwin says: "There is no reason
for believing that the Fuegians are diminishing in number; we must
therefore assume that they enjoy a sufficient measure of happiness
(of whatever character this may be) to give life value in their eyes.
Nature, which makes habit an irresistible power and its effects
hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the climate and the products of
his wretched country." Primitive peoples of a higher type even (and not
only primitive peoples) afford examples of an adaptation to conditions
which excludes all motives to change and progress. It is dire necessity
that has brought man into the path of progress. Where such a compulsion
does not operate human emotional life is conditioned by a narrow sphere
of relations only and is therefore itself narrow and restricted.
Perhaps more complete, more unmixed satisfaction can be obtained
here than would be possible under more manifold and more complicated
circumstances. A small vessel may be fuller than a large one although
it holds less.[125]
[125] Fieri potest, ut vas aliquod minus majore plenius sit,
quamvis liquoris minus contineat. Cartesius, Epistola iv, Ad
principem Palatinam de sita beata.
It might perhaps be objected to the principle of welfare, that we
should really be obliged, in consistency with it, to make ourselves
all little vessels, and that agreeably to the principle an existence
limited to the primitive necessities of life and to purely elementary
feelings, would stand just as high as a life taken up with intellectual
labor and the activity of culture, or even higher, since an existence
of the latter kind could scarcely be accompanied with so unmixed and
secure a well-being, but would be united with trials and efforts
constantly renewed and with unrest ever recurring. If—as it might
be suggested—an existence like that of the Fuegians appears poor and
wretched to us, since they often suffer from scarcity and want, let us
take another example. Alexander von Humboldt came across a tribe in
South America that lived from banana trees,—trees so fruitful that
an acre of land planted with them would supply food for fifty human
beings. The trees require no real expenditure of labor; only the earth
about their roots must be broken with implements once or twice a year.
The consequence is that the tribe is stupid and uncivilised. But the
wants that it has are satisfied.
That which would make such a life unendurable for us, _the strong
desire for activity, development, and progress_, this desire does not
exist at such stages. It is,—a fact that must be remarked,—_itself a
consequence of development and progress_.
Whereas Lamarck assumed an inner, innate impulse to development in all
living creatures,[126] Darwin maintains, on the ground of experience,
that development is invariably introduced by the influence of external
causes. It was a difficulty to Lamarck how the very lowest forms of
life could continue their existence, why they had not long since
developed to higher stages. In Darwin's theory, which takes into
consideration the external conditions of development, there is no
difficulty on this point. A development that is favored _in no way_ by
external circumstances is simply impossible. As regards human beings,
the anthropologist Th. Waitz has clearly proved, that the impulse and
desire of development is itself a product of development. To this
effect he speaks in his treatise "The Indians of North America," page
69: "A people without intercourse and not in competition with other
peoples, a people which supplies its natural wants with relative
ease or only by overcoming long accustomed difficulties regarded as
inevitable, directly from its natural environment, and that feels
satisfied therewith and lives a happy life: from such a people it
is not to be expected that it will make any endeavors to civilise
itself. He that has what he needs and therefore feels satisfied in all
respects, will not work; people do not civilise themselves voluntarily
in following some noble instinct of the heart. Is it different in fact
in our modern society? Is not a long period of schooling and culture
previously necessary to instil in man an interest for work as work?
How many are there among the so-called learned and cultured that make
endeavors in behalf of the education of themselves and others without
they are required!"
[126] The theory of Lamarck is made the subject of an
interesting criticism by Herbert Spencer in his _Principles of
Biology_, Part iii, Chap. 3.
It is peculiar to the state of nature in contrast to the state of
civilisation, (in so far as a distinct contrast may be asserted,)
that in the former the impulse to change of manner of life and
thought must come from without, whereas in the latter an impulse to
progress operates which be it now powerful be it now feeble never
ceases entirely to operate. This difference is analogous to that that
prevails between inorganic and organic existence. It is the peculiar
character of an organism that the play of forces is preserved in it
with a certain independence of the effects of the moment and of its
immediate environment. So in civilised peoples an impulse is aroused to
change life in all directions, to differentiate, to shape it, and to
bring it to a point in every single direction. Spiritual antennæ are
grown which are in never ceasing movement. Through this a new species
of feeling also is possible, _a feeling that is determined not only by
the definite ends that are attained but which links itself with the
work, with the activity itself which is requisite to the acquisition
of these ends_. Man is thereby become more independent and more free,
and his mental life, especially his emotional life, has gained in depth
and intensity, it now being no longer determined merely by the external
world, but essentially by the forces that are awakened in the inner
world. Now ideal, and not merely elementary feelings act, and higher
demands are made in life.
What I wish to maintain here is that _the rise of the impulse to
development is in perfect accord with the principle of welfare_. That
stability of the "state of nature" which now appears to us wretched
now paradisian, is itself dependent on the stability of external
conditions. Absolute stability, however, is not found in nature. If
the immediate surroundings do not change, changes yet occur in other
localities of nature and among other creatures, and the struggle
for existence then either causes them to perish or to change in a
corresponding manner. The beings that have changed by adaptation will
obtain a decided advantage in the struggle for life over those that
have remained stationary. This is the fate of many primitive peoples,
or indeed civilised peoples, that have remained stationary or in a low
state of culture. Extinction awaits them when a higher civilisation
approaches.
What is true of peoples and races also holds good for individuals.
A perfect adaptation to limited circumstances always involves a
danger,—the danger that the individual when its conditions of life
are changed and its horizon is enlarged will lack the inner conditions
necessary to self-assertion. Childish _naïveté_, dreaming phantasy,
sensual enjoyment, have each their rights, but they easily lead to a
condition of somnambulism; security and happiness are always precarious
here, and on awakening the greatest helplessness may take their place.
Here, let us add, we leave entirely out of consideration the fact that
such a condition often exists only at the cost of other individuals.
Welfare, accordingly, cannot be conceived as a passive state of
things produced once for all and that is not itself in turn the point
of departure of new and progressive development. Welfare, in the
highest conception of it, must consist of a condition in which power
is gathered and rich possibilities gained for the future, and which
generates an impulse to frame new ends and to begin new endeavors. It
is a condition that is desirable in and of itself as well as one that
contains the germ of new desirable conditions,—a condition therefore
that is not only an end but also a means, that has value not only as
effect but also as cause. The feeling of pleasure is here directly
bound up with activity, work, development, the unfolding of forces
themselves, and not merely with the result that is obtained by the
employment of the forces. Where such feeling of pleasure is possible
there much suffering is endurable that at a lower stage would be the
sign of the dissolution of all life. Expectation and longing, privation
and disappointment will not be lacking; they will accompany with
definite rhythmical alternation the joyful advancement toward the aim
that man has set himself; but amid all oscillations the fundamental
direction and the fundamental activity will be asserted. We will not
work to live, we will not live to work; but _in_ work will we find life.
This is the ideal that the principle of welfare holds up to us when
thoroughly reasoned out. In how far it can be realised is a question
that can only be answered experimentally for the time and the
individual in question. It demands not only a change of the nature of
individuals but also of the relations of society. The essential thing
however is, that we here have a criterion by which we are able to test
actions and institutions. This criterion corresponds to a tendency
that leads throughout all organic nature, in that pleasure as a rule
means life and progress, pain, retrogression and death. The principle
of welfare asserts the right of life: every creature has the right to
exist, to develop, and to obtain its full satisfaction, unless greater
pain is thereby produced to itself or to others. The ethics that
builds upon the principle of welfare seeks accordingly to continue the
evolution of nature in a conscious and harmonious manner. It demands
that means be found which the unconscious development of nature have
not supplied, and it strives to mitigate or to exclude the unnecessary
pain which the struggle for existence brings with it. It embraces a
series of problems from compassionate alleviation and assistance up to
the highest social, intellectual, and æsthetical endeavors. It is the
business of special ethics to treat these questions in detail.
5) From the fact, however, that welfare, properly understood, consists
in activity and development, it does not follow that _vice versa_
activity and development are always joined with welfare or lead to
welfare. Because limitation of wants does not always lead to the aim
set, unlimited variety of wants is not necessarily the proper state.
Civilisation can assume forms and enter on paths that do not harmonise
with the principle of welfare. We find in history accordingly, at
times, distinct and decisive warnings against existing civilisations.
Thus it was in Greece on the part of Socrates, the Cynics, and the
Stoics, in the eighteenth century on the part of Rousseau, and in our
day on the part of Leo Tolstoï. The opposition of such great minds
should surely make us watchful.
I leave out of consideration here the question in how far that which we
call civilisation can be imparted to a people forthwith. The capacity
for civilisation has, it is true, been prematurely and overhastily
denied many primitive peoples.[127] But it is not therefore necessarily
a good thing for a people to give up the forms of life that it has
developed by its own fortunes and endeavors to allow itself to be
regulated in accordance with forms and ideals that have been developed
under entirely different circumstances. Thus directly, even the
best-founded and most perfect civilisation cannot be communicated.
Waitz who expressly maintains that no proof has been brought forward
of the Indian's incapacity for civilisation, praises nevertheless the
Indian chieftains who oppose the obtrusion of civilisation on their
people, for their love to their people and their just comprehension of
its true well-being.
[127] Compare my article in the _International Journal of
Ethics_, No. I. p. 60.
The reason why conflict can arise between civilisation and welfare lies
in the restiveness and restlessness of the aspirations of civilisation.
It is the same with it as with that spontaneous, involuntary impulse
to movement that leads to the use of forces and of the members merely
because sufficient energy is present, without their use being guided
by the consideration of a more valuable end, so that the results are
accidental. The effort that goes with civilisation may lead in part
to over-exertion, to an overstraining of forces; in part (in the case
of extreme differentiation) to a one-sided direction of effort; and
partly to isolation, to the fragmentary elimination of individual
activities. In the single individual certain faculties are fostered
(in the one intelligence, in the other physical power for work) at the
cost of other faculties; the harmony, the capacity of feeling oneself
as totality and unity is lacking. By such one-sidedness the individual
becomes of value only as a wheel in a great machine: he serves merely
as a means, not as an end. And such a one-sided individual development
is connected with a one-sided social development. The suppression of
certain features of the nature of the individual goes hand in hand
with the suppression of single estates and classes of society. If we
identify civilisation and ethics, without qualification, and regard
progress as a safer criterion than welfare, we should overlook the fact
that there exists also a _social question_. The social question is an
ethical question and at the same time a question of the correction of
civilisation,—both by means of the principle of welfare. Would it be
right that the products of material and ideal civilisation should only
fall to the share of a small minority, while all the rest should not be
able to participate therein? This would clash completely with the ideal
of society that flows from the principle of welfare. For the greatest
welfare is present when every single individual so develops himself
in an independent manner that just by this independent development of
his own he assists others to a similar development from their point
of view. Then does there exist _a harmonious society of independent
personalities_. The idea of such a society is the highest ethical idea
that flows from the principle of welfare. Every individual is then a
little world for himself and yet stands in the most intimate reciprocal
connection with the great world of which he is a part. The individual
serves the race and the race serves the individual. Every position of
isolation, every inequality in the distribution of possessions and of
employments must be founded in the demands of the various circumstances
and problems of life, and the faculties and impulses of each individual
shall be developed as fully and richly as is compatible with the
conditions of life of the whole race.
6) It follows from the considerations presented, that it is by no means
always easy to apply the principle of welfare in individual cases. The
particular relations of the affairs in question can be so complicated
that we are not able to take a broad survey of them and foresee the
results of our interference. We cannot deduce _a priori_ from the
principle of welfare any system of particular acts, any determinate
order of society, any civilisation. Its value (like that of the
principle of causality in the theoretical field) is to present and to
formulate problems, and to serve as a guide to their treatment. It is
regulative, not constructive. It presumes the immediate involuntary
life of the individual and of society, and its function does not begin
until the conscious discussion and treatment occurs of the value on the
one hand of that which has thus been developed, and on the other of
the manner in which the development shall be conducted in the future.
All ethics thus acquires an _historical_ character. We never—either in
our own individuality or in society—commence from the very beginning,
but are always obliged to start with a definite foundation and to work
our way further under the guidance of the principles and ideals that
spring from our nature.
III.
1) In the previous remarks I have essayed a discussion of the principle
of welfare which may perhaps make clearer what was not so distinct in
my former expositions ("Ethik," Chapters III and VII). The difficulty
always occurs in the enunciation of a principle, that a direct
demonstration of its validity cannot be given. Of so much greater
significance is it then if an indirect proof can be adduced by showing
that the very ones who contest it are themselves forced to employ it
and actually to employ it without being aware of it.
I maintain now that Dr. Paul Carus in his book "The Ethical Problem,"
in which he combats the principle of welfare, has not been able to
avoid giving such an indirect confirmation of the validity of this
principle. Before attempting to show this in detail I shall make a few
remarks concerning the criticism of my "Ethics" which Dr. Carus wrote
in the first number of _The Monist_, and which in an abbreviated form
is also embodied in the treatise above mentioned.
Dr. Carus thinks that I have practically surrendered the principle of
welfare when I define welfare to consist in activity. His words are:
"If welfare is to be interpreted as activity, work,
development; if this kind of active welfare is the greatest
good, whatever admixture of pain and whatever absence of
pleasurable feeling it may have; if the greatest amount of a
state of continuous pleasurable feeling is not welfare in an
ethical sense, what becomes of the utilitarian definition of
welfare as pleasurable feeling? If, however, welfare is 'the
state of a continuous pleasurable feeling,' how can we declare
that the life of a pessimistic philosopher is preferable to
that of a joyful fool?"
To this I answer, that _if_ it could be proved that increasing pain
followed necessarily on _all_ advancement of civilisation (without
this pain being compensated for, as Clara's philosophy demanded, by
new and proportionately greater feelings of pleasure), in that case
it would be impossible to combine civilisation and welfare. But only
a pessimistic dogmatism—which is just as current in the atmosphere
of to-day as optimistic dogmatism—could assert this. What experience
teaches us is this, that we find ourselves amid a development, in
a line of tendencies the final results of which we cannot foresee
but which hitherto have evoked at many points new forces and have
thereby opened new sources of satisfaction. Everything that arouses
our greatest and most permanent pleasurable feeling has arisen within
this development. This justifies our courage and our hope in behalf of
further progress, although conflict and pain will as we may foresee
not be wanting, and although the way leads through many deserts.
Experience alone can show how far we shall be able to get. I agree
with Dr. Carus that "this world of ours is not a world suited to the
taste of a pleasure-seeker," if we understand by pleasure passive
sensual enjoyment, an enjoyment which is not united with the rest and
nourishment with which not only an immediate pleasurable feeling is
connected but whereby power is also gathered for continued endeavor.
If so many pleasure-seekers go through life without having their eyes
opened to its true significance and purpose, this fact is precisely one
of the things that clash with the principle of welfare, for the latter
claims all faculties and powers, and demands that they that sleep be
awakened,—that is if they really possess useful faculties. For perhaps
the "joyful fool" cannot accomplish more than he does. Wherefore then
disturb him, if his pleasure harms neither himself nor others and if
his awakening will only lead to unrest and pain for himself and perhaps
also for others? I pointed out the fact in my "Ethics,"[128] that we
can determine by the principle of welfare alone in what cases we are to
destroy a state of equilibrium or shatter an illusion.
[128] Danish edition, p. 94. German edition, p. 109.
I have admitted the _possibility_ of a conflict between civilisation
and welfare. Wherever such a conflict arises, there, according to my
conception, appears an ethical problem, which must be determined by the
principle of welfare, since any order of things or any development that
brought with it permanent and everlasting pain would be in effect a
dissolution of life itself. Such pain, however, (as even pessimistic
philosophers are optimistic enough to hope,) would destroy the will
to live. If we live in spite of pain it is because there is always a
surplus of satisfaction.
I give the idea of welfare no arbitrary extension when I deny that
it should be limited to denote a passive condition produced once
for all time. For our nature is at no stage wholly complete; no one
condition can stand therefore as definitive. The future, and the new
horizons opened, will make new demands on our capacities and our will,
and in the testing of any state of things it must accordingly be a
necessary point of view to establish whether in addition to the direct
satisfaction which it probably affords it at the same time prepares the
capacities and the possibilities of a continued development answering
to the new relations. It may be necessary to choose some arduous
employment which later necessarily brings with it long continued rest
and inactivity. Darwin's struggle with his feeble health is a good
example. The man who from love of country or to save a fellow-being
risks his life, prefers the active satisfaction of a single moment
(the satisfaction, namely, which he feels beforehand at the thought of
saving his country or a human life) to the passive joys of years and
years. It was such a moment in which Faust saw himself living in mind
"Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volk"
and which thereby made life of value to him, which all the earthly
gratifications that the demon was able to obtain for him could not
accomplish. In the face of the pleasure that such a moment can produce
the thought of pain and death vanishes. Thus alone is self-sacrifice
psychologically intelligible.
2) While I cannot see that Dr. Carus has pointed out a contradiction
in my theory of welfare, I may further assert that he himself cannot
without a self-contradiction escape recognising the principle of
welfare. Dr. Carus indeed, in a certain sense, himself enunciates this
very principle. He says, in the preface to "The Ethical Problem," page
iii, "The aim of ethics is neither the welfare of self nor that of
other individuals, but of those interests that are superindividual."
The aim therefore is to be welfare, not however the welfare of
individuals but of "superindividual interests." This strange expression
is defined in certain subsequent passages of the book. Dr. Carus
speaks, namely, later on, of "that superindividual soul-life which
we call society."[129] It is admitted in this, that when we speak of
welfare we speak impliedly of soul-life. But how can we give to society
as such a soul-life that is different from the soul-life of the single
individuals that have their existence simultaneously and successively
in that society? This is merely a mythical and mystical personification
of society, which may have arisen in the comparison, in many respects
instructive, between society and an organism, which however can possess
at best a poetical, but no scientific, value. The idea of society, if
it is to be scientifically employed, must always be so applied that at
every point the definite group of individuals which it represents may
be established. The great importance of this idea consists in the fact
that it expresses the common and permanent interests of individuals
simultaneously and successively existing, in opposition to the
interests of single individuals, or of a smaller group, or of a limited
period of time. Ethical perception, (unless it starts from the point
of view of egoistical individualism,) must apply its test from the
point of view of society. It leads in this case to the consideration
of our own and others' actions not only with respect to our own
individual circumstances but _sub specie æterni_ so to speak, that is
with respect to their relation to the great whole of which not only
we, but also other human beings are parts. Along with the educative
power of authorities, it is due to the sympathy in virtue of which the
individual causes to re-echo in his own bosom the feelings of others,
that ethical ideals have been formed in the human mind. But as soon as
it is made impossible to transpose the idea of society into the idea
of individuals that live under certain definite conditions, this idea
contains no instruction for us in ethical respects. No ethical norms
can in this case be deduced from it. Emotional mysticism takes the
place of ethical thought and volition.
[129] Pages 33, 38, and 40.
Such a mysticism has of course its value. Powerful emotion leads
naturally to a state in which all definite ideas recede, the mind
becoming entirely occupied by emotional feeling. It will furthermore be
difficult to represent by any adequate conception the great multitude
of human characters on which our conduct in given circumstances can
acquire decisive influence. The expression 'society,' or 'race,'
characterises very well the unconcluded and the unsurveyable in so
many of the consequences of human methods of action and order of
life, and it will therefore not be possible to dispense with it. But
transposition into concrete conceptions must always be possible. A
welfare that at one or another stage is not the welfare of definite
individuals is a self-contradiction, and any act that at one period or
another does not lead to the welfare of definite individuals has no
value.
In Wundt's "Ethics," pages 429 to 431, the same line of thought is
found as this of Dr. Carus. Public well-being and progress, according
to Wundt, do not consist in the well-being of the greatest possible
number of individuals: for the individual is ephemeral! "However richly
blest and however perfect the individual existence may be, it is but a
drop in the ocean of life. What can individual happiness and individual
pain mean to the world?" I should say to this: Yes, it is true, the
ocean does not exist for the sake of the individual drops; but what is
an ocean that does not consist of drops? And is not the whole ocean
clear if every single drop is clear? And only then is it _wholly_ clear.
Just as there are people who cannot see the woods for the trees, so
there are also people who cannot see the trees for the woods. In
ethics this method of conception leads to the consideration of human
aspiration as the means of superhuman ends. Every ethics that seeks to
stand on a basis of experience and remain within the possibility of
progressive verification, must cling to the standpoint of "man with
men." It need not for this reason overlook the fact, that ethical
conduct, like all unfolding of power, is connected with the universal
world-process.
3) Dr. Carus also approaches the principle of welfare upon another,
less mystical path. He maintains, with great emphasis, that ethics must
be based on facts, on insight into the real, the actual, order of
nature. Our ideals—this is the opinion of Dr. Carus—arise through the
wants which the relations of reality awaken in us, and must be realised
by the means which the relations of reality supply.
"The new ethics is based upon facts and is applied to facts"
(p. 18).
"Man wants something, so he conceives the idea how good it
would be if he had it.... Only by studying facts will he be
enabled to realise his ideals" (pp. 19 and 20).
"If you wish to exist, obey reason. Reason teaches us how to
regulate our actions in conformity with the order of natural
laws. If we do regulate them in conformity with the order of
natural laws, they will stand; otherwise not. In the former
case they will be good, they will agree with the cosmical
conditions of existence; in the latter case they are bad, they
will not agree with the cosmical conditions of existence;
therefore they will necessarily produce disorder and evil"
(pp. 31, 32).
It appears to me clear from this, that the reason why we must regulate
our actions to conform with natural laws, must be the fact that
otherwise they cannot "stand," which is explained more in detail in
what follows, to mean that they are constituted to produce "disorder
and evil,"—which in its turn must be surely understood as meaning
that disorder is itself an evil. If disorder were no evil, and if no
further evils resulted from actions which are not "in conformity with
the order of natural laws," what foundation would Dr. Carus in that
case be able to give his ethics? I wholly agree with Dr. Carus that our
conduct if it is to be ethical must support itself upon as profound
a comprehension of the relations of reality as physical science,
psychology, and social science alone can furnish. But _this requirement
can only be made good through and by the principle of welfare_. It has
validity only for the person who wills that his conduct shall "stand"
and produce no evil, either in extended or in limited circles. If pain
and death were not evils, this requirement would have no validity.
To judge from his somewhat indefinite expressions one might suspect in
Dr. Carus here a votary of egoistic hedonism, were it not that a number
of other passages in his book exclude this suspicion.
However, it seems quite clear to me that his final criterion must
coincide with the principle of welfare. His ethics is an ethics of
expediency, in that his ultimate criterion is the influence of actions
on the life of mankind.
4) Dr. Carus justly emphasises the relation of ethics to our
world-conception at large. But this connection does not mean that
ethics can be derived by deduction from a philosophical system
previously given. Ethics is an independent discipline which starts
from its own peculiar assumptions (which cannot of course stand in
contradiction to other established assumptions), although it is obliged
to make much use of the results furnished by other sciences. Ethics
has an independent foundation in the laws of feeling and volitional
life, just as the theory of knowledge has its foundation in the laws
of sensations and perceptions. In conformity with the law of economy,
(which must prevail in science even though it should not prevail in
nature,) we must restrict the established postulates of the single
sciences to the least possible limit. If after doing this agreement
between the single sciences finally occurs, this result will be all the
more valuable.
According to Dr. Carus ethics is to be derived now from a philosophical
total world-conception, as according to his view ("The Ethical
Problem," p. 71) it originally arose through the influence of the
positive religions.[130] Very weighty objections can be made in my
opinion against this latter assumption. It is a fact that the lower
a religion stands the less ethical character it possesses, and
the very lowest religions it is probable possess no ethical value
whatever. The question then arises how religion gradually acquired
its ethical character. The ethical ideas which were perceived in the
nature of the deity must have had a natural origin, and this origin
can be sought only in the life of man with men. The ethical norms and
ideas developed themselves here spontaneously and have been just as
spontaneously projected or hypostatised as the attributes of divinity.
In the history of the religion of Greece we can see clearly exhibited
the development of gods as powers of nature to gods as the expression
of an ethical order of nature. Compare for instance, the Dodonæan
and the Homeric Zeus with the Zeus that appears in the ideal belief
of Æschylus. The experiences are made in human life that lead to the
formation of divine ideals. Gods grow better and more gentle according
as men themselves grow better and gentler. Religious conceptions are
idealised experiences. If religion is a factor in the development of
ethics it is because man conceives and represents his essential ideals
in a religious form. The movement proceeds therefore from experience
to experience; that which acts on nature is, as Shakespeare says,
always an art that has been produced by nature itself. How could man
understand the meaning of the ethical qualities attributed to his
deities if he were not acquainted to some extent with these qualities
through experience?
[130] Dr. Carus expresses himself differently in _The Open
Court_ (1890, p. 2549), where religion and ethics are called
twins; whereas in _The Ethical Problem_ the latter is the
daughter of the former.
That which distinguishes philosophical from theological ethics is
not the fact that the former is constructed on the basis of some
philosophical system and the latter upon ecclesiastical dogmatism, but
the fact that philosophical ethics brings out into full consciousness
the psychological basis upon which ethical life has actually always
more or less indirectly builded, and draws all the consequences
implied in this. In this it furnishes an independent contribution to a
philosophical system.
5) It seems to me to be perfectly justified, that the distinguished
men who lead the Ethical Societies keep these institutions as
independent as possible not only of all definite dogmatic tendency
of thought but also of all unnecessary philosophical hypotheses and
speculations. With respect to what concerns the first principles of
ethics itself, it is not necessary for the practical ethicist to occupy
any definite point of view, although it would be very fortunate if he
were acquainted with the discussion of these principles and could take
part in an independent manner in the same. He who proposes to teach
applied mathematics or employ it in practice need not begin with a
definite position with respect to the nature and origin of mathematical
principles. So also in ethics there is a complete group of ideas and
endeavors which are independent of the manner in which the first
principles are conceived. The essential thing for the Ethical Societies
is, (as Dr. Stanton Coit has said in his beautiful book "Die Ethische
Bewegung in der Religion,") agreement as to the methods of development
of character and as to the type of character to be developed.
Dr. Carus can have really nothing to object to in this method of
conception, inasmuch as it is his conviction that in the passage from
the supernatural to the natural establishment of ethics the "substance
of our morality" will not be changed. In an article in _The Open
Court_, at page 2575, he says: "The most important moral rules are
not to be altered.... Some of them will be altered as little as our
arithmetical table can be changed." In this passage less importance
for the _contents_ of ethics is attributed to the various points of
view than I should be obliged to assign. Yet all the sooner should Dr.
Carus really admit that the Ethical Societies have added to their other
services that of holding a proper course between the different dogmatic
and philosophical systems.
6) This last dispute it appears to me also testifies to the expediency
of distinguishing between the different ethical problems. By so doing
Dr. Carus would also have been more just in his position with regard to
utilitarianism. The latter has not arisen so much from the impulse to
supply a _motive_ for ethical conduct as from the impulse to acquire
an absolute criterion. It is true the powerful influence of Hobbes and
Locke brought it about that many of the later utilitarians embraced the
egoistic theory; but by their side marched another group of utilitarian
ethicists (among the earlier, Bacon, Cumberland, Shaftesbury, and
Hutcheson) who did not subscribe to this theory. So far as I know,
Hutcheson was the first with whom the formula occurs: "The greatest
happiness of the greatest number." These very historical facts show how
important it is in the treatment of ethical problems to apply the maxim
"Divide et impera!" I have therefore prefaced this my apology for the
principle of welfare by calling attention to the relative and mutual
independence of ethical problems.
HARALD HÖFFDING.
THE CRITERION OF ETHICS AN OBJECTIVE REALITY.
I. TWO DEFINITIONS OF GOOD.
While Mr. Herbert Spencer in his "Data of Ethics" may be considered as
the most persuasive and popular, Prof. Harald Höffding, it appears to
me, is the most scholarly and learned expounder of that ethical theory
which bases morality upon the principle of the greatest happiness
for the greatest number. _The Monist_ No. 1 contained (pp. 139-141)
a criticism of Professor Höffding's work on Ethics, and Professor
Höffding's article in this number is in part a further exposition of
his views, and in part an answer to the criticism of _The Monist_.
Professor Höffding proposes, as pointed out in the criticism of
_The Monist_, two criteria of ethics, (1) that which promotes the
life-totality, and (2) that which produces a continuous and permanent
state of pleasurable feelings. These two criteria happen to come in
conflict. John Stuart Mill calls attention to the fact that a well
fed pig is more satisfied than man and a jolly fool is happier than
Socrates. When Professor Höffding considers the state of man preferable
to that of a pig, while granting that the latter, and not the former,
enjoys a continuous state of pleasurable feelings, when he similarly
prefers the doleful disposition of a sombre philosopher to the empty
merriness of a happy fool, he does in my opinion unquestionably
surrender the second criterion in favor of the first.
Professor Höffding's present explanation of the subject does not
satisfy me. The main point of my criticism, it seems to me, has not
been answered, and the difficulty is not overcome. Professor Höffding
declares that the strong desire for activity, development, and progress
does not exist at all stages. It is itself a consequence of development
and progress (p. 537). This, it may be granted, explains why a
civilised society cannot help developing workers that plod and toil,
finding no satisfaction unless they plod and toil; but it does not
explain why (if after all the criterion of our ethical judgment remains
happiness or the continuous state of pleasurable feelings) their state
is preferable to that of indolent and happy savages.
Professor Höffding says:
"_If_ it could be proved that increasing pain followed
necessarily on all advancement of civilisation ... in that
case it would be impossible to combine civilisation and
welfare" (i. e. a continuous state of pleasurable feelings).
Well, _if_ that be so,—as Professor Höffding himself in the comparison
of man to a pig and of Socrates to a fool has actually conceded to be
true,—if we stand between the dilemma of civilisation and welfare, or
in other words if we have the choice only between a higher stage of
life and a happier state of existence, which is preferable? That which
Professor Höffding considers as preferable is his true criterion of
what he calls good. The other one holds only so long as it agrees with
his true and final criterion, so long as it does not come in conflict
with it.
Suppose we select as the final criterion of ethics not the growth and
development of the life-totality, but that of procuring to the greatest
number of men, as much as possible, a continuous state of pleasurable
feelings,—what will be the outcome of it? Can we suppose that, if
these two principles collide, we shall be able to stop growth? Can we
expect to overcome nature and to curtail natural evolution so as to
bring about a more favorable balance between our pleasures and pains?
If we do, we shall soon find out that we have reckoned without our host.
A conflict between civilisation and welfare, (i. e. between natural
evolution and our pleasurable feelings,) would not discontinue
civilisation as Professor Höffding supposes, it would rather produce a
change in what we have to consider as welfare. We _have to_ be pleased
with the development of our race according to the laws of nature, and
those who are displeased might just as well commit suicide at once,
for they will go to the wall, they will disappear from the stage of
life. Those alone will survive who are pleased with that which the laws
of nature demand.
Our pleasurable feelings are subjective, nature and the laws of
evolution are objective. The criterion of ethics is not subjective but
objective. The question is not what produces pleasurable feelings, but
what is the unalterable order of the world with which we have to be
pleased.
The question of ethics, in my mind, is not what we wish to do or what
we think we ought to do, but _what we must do_. Nature prescribes a
definite course. If we choose another one, we shall not reach our aim,
and if we reach it, it will be for a short time only.
The aim of nature is not the happiness of living beings, the aim
of nature, in the realm of organised life, is growth, development,
evolution. Pleasures and pains are phases in the household of life,
they are not life's aim. Experience shows that in reaching a higher
stage we acquire an additional sensibility for both, for new pleasures
and new pains. The pleasures of human existence in comparison with
those of animals have been as much intensified and increased as the
pains. The ratio has on the average remained about the same and it has
rarely risen in favor of pleasures. Rather the reverse takes place:
the higher man loses the taste of enjoying himself without losing the
sensitiveness of pain.
Ethics, as a science and from the standpoint of positivism, has to
inquire what according to the nature of things we must do. It has
to study facts and from facts it has to derive rules (the moral
prescripts) which will assist us in doing at once what we shall after
all _have to_ do. The criterion of ethics is not some standard which we
put up ourselves, the criterion of ethics is agreement with facts.
II. THE AUTHORITY OF MORAL COMMANDS.
Professor Höffding emphasises "the fact that there is not merely one
single ethical problem but many"—a fact which cannot be denied,
for there are, indeed, innumerable problems of an ethical nature.
However, we must bear in mind that all the ethical problems are closely
interconnected. The better we understand them, the more shall we
recognise that all together form one great system of problems, and that
one problem lies at the bottom of all. This one basic problem I have
called _the_ ethical problem.
The solution of the basic problem of ethics will not involve the ready
solution of all the rest, but we can be sure that it will throw light
upon any question that is of an ethical nature.
Professor Höffding recognises the importance of system in ethics. He
says:
"The systematism of ethical science is still so little
advanced that it is necessary to draw out a general outline
before we pass on to any single feature. The value of
systematism is namely this, that we are immediately enabled to
see the connection of the single questions with one another as
well as their distinctive peculiarity."
It appears almost unfair toward the present state of ethical science
when Professor Höffding adds:
"In ethics we are not yet so far advanced."
If we were not, we should do our best to advance so as to recognise the
unity of all ethical problems. We must first recognise _the_ ethical
problem, before we can with any hope of success approach the many,
which are dependent upon the one.
Which is the one basic problem of ethics?
We read in Matthew, xxi. 23:
"And when Jesus was come into the temple, the chief priests
and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching
and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who
gave thee this authority?"
This question is legitimate and all our ethical conceptions must
necessarily depend upon the answer which we accept as satisfactory.
The basic problem of ethics is the foundation of ethics, it is the
justification of the ethical prescripts, it is the discovery of the
authority upon which ethical rules are based. If there were no power
that enforces a certain line of conduct, ethics in my opinion would
have no right of existence; and if any one preaches certain commands,
he is bound to give satisfactory reasons why we must obey his commands.
Professor Höffding says that ethics "starts from its own assumptions"
(p. 111). Ethics should not start from any assumptions.
If we are to come to a mutual understanding we must drop all
subjectivism, we must not study ethics from special points of view,
from the principles or standards of any individual or group of
individuals. There is not the slightest use of a person making himself
any "highest and only aim" which, it may be true, "from his point of
view can never be refuted." So long as ethics starts from assumptions
or principles, it will be no science; for truly, as Professor Höffding
says in excuse of the inability to prove principles, "The difficulty
always occurs in the enunciation of a principle that a direct
demonstration of its validity cannot be given."
The requirement of ethics is to arrive at statements of fact. Let us
build upon facts and we shall stand upon solid ground.
Ethics in order to be scientific must be based upon the objective and
unalterable order of things, upon the ascertainable data of experience,
upon the laws of nature.
Professor Höffding says:
"Religious ethics is founded on authority. Its _contents_
are the revealed commands of authority; the _feeling_ which
impels us _to pass ethical judgments_ is the fear or reverence
or love with which men are filled in the presence of divine
authority."
Scientific ethics can in this respect not be different from religious
ethics, for it is also based upon authority. A scientific ethicist has
to proceed like any other naturalist; he must observe the course of
events and attempt to discover the laws in accordance with which the
events take place. These laws are no less unalterable than any other
natural laws, and we may appropriately call them the natural laws of
ethics. The moral commands of ethical teachers have been derived,
either instinctively or with a clear scientific insight, from the
natural laws of ethics. The authority of the natural laws of ethics
has been decked out by different religious teachers with more or less
mythological tinsel or wrapped in mystic darkness; for practical
purposes it remained to some limited extent the same and will to some
extent always remain the same, for we shall have to obey the moral law,
be it from fear, or reverence, or love.
The unity of all the ethical problems will be preserved, however
much they may be differentiated. Indeed Professor Höffding in his
enumeration sufficiently indicates their interconnection. He speaks
of (1) the motive principle of judgment, (2) the test-principle of
judgment, and (3) of the motive to action. Whatever difference he makes
between these three terms, it is obvious that whether and how far
judgments, tests, or motives are sound will depend upon their agreement
with the authority of the natural law of ethics. The pedagogic problem
is also connected with the ethical problem because upon our solution
of the latter will directly depend the aim and indirectly also the
method of education. Such complex motives as "ambition or the instinct
of acquisition" will become "the means of attaining to true ethical
self-assertion" in the degree proportional to the elements they contain
which will strengthen our efforts of setting us at one with the natural
law of ethics.
To sum up: The natural law of ethics has to be derived from facts like
all other natural laws. The natural law of ethics is the authority upon
which all moral commands are based, and agreement with the natural law
of ethics is the final criterion of ethics.
III. ETHICS AND WELFARE.
I have no objection to an ethics of welfare; on the contrary, I
consider every ethics as an ethics of welfare. My objection to
Professor Höffding's ethics is solely directed against his definition
of welfare as "a continuous state of pleasurable feelings." Welfare is
according to my terminology that state of things which is in accord
with the natural law of ethics, and it so happens that welfare must as
a rule not only be bought, but also constantly maintained with many
pains, troubles, anxieties, and sacrifices. It is true that upon the
whole there may be a surplus of happiness and of satisfaction, if not
of pleasures; but the surplus of happiness (important though it is)
does not constitute that which is morally good in welfare. Morally good
(the characteristic feature of the ethical idea of welfare) is that
which is in accord with the natural law of ethics.
If the term "utility" were defined by Utilitarians in the sense
in which I define welfare, I should also have no objection to
utilitarianism. The Utilitarians, however, define their theory as
"the Greatest Happiness Principle," and if "useful" is taken in its
ordinary sense as that which is profitable or advantageous, it makes of
utilitarianism an ethics of expediency.
IV. FEELINGS AND JUDGMENTS.
The fundamental difference between Professor Höffding and myself, and
as it seems to me his πρῶτον ψεῦδος, lies in his definition of ethical
judgments. He says:
"Ethical judgments, judgments concerning good and bad, in
their simplest form are expressions of feeling, and never
lose that character however much influence clear and reasoned
knowledge may acquire with respect to them."
I am very well aware of the fact that all thinking beings are first
feeling beings. Thought cannot develop in the absence of feeling.
Without feeling there is no thought; but thought is not feeling, and
feeling is not thought.[131] By thought I understand the operations
that take place among representative feelings, and the essential
feature of these feelings is not whether they are pleasurable or
painful, but that they are correct representations. Judgments are
perhaps the most important mental operations. There are logical
judgments, legal judgments, ethical judgments, etc. In none of them is
the feeling element of mental activity of any account. That which makes
of them judgments is the reasoning or the thought-activity. Whether a
judgment is correct or not does not depend upon the feeling that may be
associated with it, but it depends upon the truth of its several ideas
and the propriety of their connection.
[131] See the chapter "The Nature of Thought" in _The Soul of
Man_, p. 354.
A judgment, be it logical, juridical, ethical, or any other, is the
more liable to be wrong, the more we allow the feeling element to play
a part in it. Judgments swayed by strong feelings become biassed; they
can attain to the ideal of truth only by an entire elimination of
feeling.[132]
[132] Professor Höffding says: "The feeling of pleasure is the
only psychological criterion of health and power of life."
Every physician knows the insufficiency of this criterion.
Many consumptives declare that they feel perfectly well even a
few hours before their death.
Ethics in which the feeling element is the main spring of action, is
called sentimentalism. Sentimental ethics have no more right to exist
than a sentimental logic or a sentimental jurisprudence.
The philosophy of Clärchen in "Egmont" appears to be very strong
sentimentalism, and I do not believe that her demeanor can be set up
as an example for imitation. Her love happiness is an intoxication.
She vacillates between two extremes, now _himmelhoch jauchzend_ and
now _zum Tode betrübt_, and her life ends in insanity.
To consider ethical or any other judgments as feelings, and to explain
their nature accordingly, seems to me no better than to speak of
concepts as consisting of vowels and consonants, and to explain the
nature of conceptual thought from the sounds of the letters. We cannot
speak without uttering sounds, but the laws of speech or of grammar
have nothing to do with sound and cannot be explained in terms of
sound. When we think and judge, we are most assuredly feeling, but
the feeling is of no account, and whether the feeling is pleasurable,
or painful, or indifferent, has nothing to do whatever with the
correctness or the ethical value of judgments.
V. PLEASURE AND PAIN.
It is very strange that, so far as I am aware, no ethicist who bases
ethics upon the Happiness Principle has ever investigated the nature
of pleasure and pain. It is generally assumed that pleasure is an
indication of growth and pain of decay, but it has never been proved,
and after a careful consideration of this theory I have come to the
conclusion that it is based upon an error. Growth is rarely accompanied
with pleasure and decay is mostly painless.
Optimistic philosophers look upon pleasure as positive and pain as
negative, while the great pessimist Schopenhauer turns the tables and
says pleasure is negative and pain positive.
An impartial consideration of the subject will show that both pleasure
and pain are positive. Pain is felt whenever disturbances take place,
pleasure is felt whenever wants are satisfied, and unsatisfied wants
are perhaps the most prominent among the disturbances that produce
pain.[133]
[133] See the chapter "Pleasure and Pain" in _The Soul of
Man_, p. 338.
Professor Höffding says:
"I agree with Dr. Carus that "this world of ours is not
a world suited to the taste of a pleasure-seeker," if we
understand by pleasure passive sensual enjoyment, an enjoyment
which is not united with the rest and nourishment with which
not only an immediate pleasurable feeling is connected, but
whereby power is also gathered for continued endeavor."
When I say that this world of ours is not a world suited to the taste
of the pleasure-seeker, I do not restrict the meaning of pleasure to
"passive sensual enjoyment," but to all kinds of pleasure. There are
also intellectual and artistic voluptuaries who sacrifice anything,
even the performance of duty, to their pleasure, which I grant is far
superior to any kind of passive sensual enjoyment. The pursuit of
pleasure is not wrong in itself; but it is not ethical either. Ethics
in my opinion has nothing to do either with my own pleasures or with
the pleasures of anybody else. The object of ethics is the performance
of duty; and the main duty of man is the performance of that which he
needs must do according to the laws of nature, to let his soul grow and
expand, and to develop to ever higher and nobler aims.
VI. PLEASURABLE FEELINGS AS AN ETHICAL CRITERION.
I know of a French teacher who has an excellent French pronunciation
and speaks with perfect accuracy, but whenever he is asked to give
a rule which may serve as a guide and a help to correct grammer and
elocution, he says: "The chief rule in French is euphony."—"Exactly!
But the same rule holds good in a certain sense for all languages."—"O
no," he says, "the German is harsh and the English is tongue-breaking;
only in French is the supreme law euphony."—"Now for instance," we
venture to object, "you say _la harpe_ and not _l'arpe_; you pronounce
the _ai_ different in different words you say _j'ai_, but you say _il
fait_ and you have again a different pronunciation of the _ai_ in _nous
faisons_." He replies, "To pronounce _j'aî_, or as the Germans say
_chaî_ would be barbarous. To say _l'arpe_, instead of _la harpe_ is
simply ridiculous."—"The question is," we continued in our attempts
to understand him, "what is euphonious to the ear of an educated
Frenchman?"—"Well," he says, "the ear will tell you. That which jars
on the ear is wrong. To say _quat'_ instead of _quatre_, or _vot'_
instead of _votre_, is wrong, it is vulgar. Why? it jars on the ear."
This method of teaching French appears to me a good illustration of
our objection to the happiness principle of ethics. It is perfectly
true that instances of immorality jar on the feelings of ethically
trained minds. Why? They have become accustomed to them and look upon
them as barbarous. Ungrammatical expressions and such pronunciations
as do not agree with the spirit of a language are suppressed by those
who recognise them as incongruous elements. Mistakes jar on their ears
because they are incorrect, but they are not incorrect because they jar.
Oatmeal is a favorite dish among the Scotch. If you ask them why they
eat it, they will most likely tell you, because it has an agreeable
taste. But why do they like it? Because they have through generations
grown accustomed to a dish which is conducive to health. Most of the
dishes that are wholesome have an agreeable taste to a non-corrupted
tongue. But agreeable taste for that reason cannot be considered as
the supreme rule in selecting our menu. Agreeable taste is in cases of
sickness a very unreliable guide and it is no criterion for a wholesome
dinner. Surely the ethics of eating could not be based on agreeable
taste.
The pleasurable feeling that is perceived in the satisfaction of hunger
through appropriate food or in the satisfaction of any want, is not the
bedrock of fact to which we can dig down; it is in itself a product
of custom, of inherited habits, and other circumstances; and it can
the less be used as a criterion because it varies greatly with the
slightest change of its conditions.
Liberty is generally and rightly considered as a good, even though the
slave may have and very often actually has enjoyed more happiness than
the freed man. Stupidity is considered as an evil, although it inflicts
no direct pains and may be the source of innumerable pleasures insipid
in the view of others, but delightful to the jolly fool. Professor
Höffding quotes from Waitz that the Indian does not progress because
he "lives a happy life." Unhappiness is the cause of progress. We look
down upon the Fuegians and upon the indolent South American tribe
described by Humboldt. But have they not reached the aim of ethics, if
happiness be that aim? Professor Höffding says in explanation of their
condition:
"That which would make such a life unendurable for us, _the
strong desire for activity, development, and progress_, this
desire does not exist at such stages."
If that is so, our strong desire for activity should be denounced as
the source of evil. It would be ethical in that case, as some labor
unions and trusts actually propose, to stop, or at least, to impede
further progress. The attempt of the Jesuits in Paraguay, which to
some extent was an unequivocal success, to rule the people through a
spiritual dependence satisfying all their wants and keeping them in
perfect contentment, cannot be condemned from that principle of welfare
which defines welfare as a continuous state of pleasurable feelings.
I can see how a man can be induced to submit to a moment of pain in
order to escape more pain in the future, but I cannot see on what
ground one man can be requested to sacrifice himself to suffer pain
or to forego his pleasures in order that a dozen or a hundred men may
have a jolly time. It appears to me that a greater error has never been
pronounced than that of making "the greatest happiness of the greatest
number" the maxim of ethics.
For the same reason that prevents us from regarding the principle of
happiness as the aim of ethics or as its test and criterion, we cannot
consider self-humiliation, contrition, misery, and the abandonment of
gayety and merriness as moral or meritorious. Joy and grief are in
themselves as little wrong as they are virtuous. Any ethics the end
of which is a morose austerity, simply because it makes life dreary,
is at least as much mistaken as a philosophy which finds the purpose
of life in mere pleasure, be it ever so vain, simply because it is
pleasure. To pursue happiness or renounce it, either may sometimes be
moral and sometimes immoral. Again, to undergo pain and to inflict
pain on others, or to avoid pain, either may also be moral or immoral.
The criterion of ethics will not be found in the sphere of feelings.
Morality cannot be measured by and it cannot be expressed in pleasures
and pains.
VII. THE SUPERINDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY.
Professor Höffding criticises my view of "that superindividual
soul-life which we call society," as based upon a mystical
personification of society.
The superindividual motives of the human soul as I use the term, are
actual realities, they are no less actual and concrete than are the
image and the concept of a tree in my brain. I have sufficiently
explained their origin and natural growth ("Ethical Problem," pp.
34-44), and feel that Professor Höffding's charge rests upon a
misunderstanding. It appears to me that his term "sympathy," which
he regards as the main element of ethical feelings leading to the
adoption of the principle of general welfare, is much more liable to
be interpreted in a mystical way. At least Schopenhauer's idea of
sympathy (which he calls _Mitleid_) is undoubtedly a very mysterious
thing, and its existence is supposed to be a direct manifestation of
the metaphysical. I do not say that Professor Höffding uses the word
sympathy in the sense of Schopenhauer's idea of _Mitleid_, but I am
sure that if he attempts to explain its natural origin, he will (in
order to remain positive and scientific) have to go over the same
ground and arrive at the same conclusion as I did, although he may
express himself in different words.
The truth is that man's ideas consist in representations of things and
of relations without him, and these ideas are not the product of his
individual exertions alone, they are the product of social work and
of the common activity and intercourse of human society. This is true
of language as a whole and of every single word which we use. This is
true of all conceptual thought and most so of all ethical impulses.
In spite of all individualism and in spite of the truth that lies in
certain claims of individualism as to personal liberty and freedom of
self-determination, I maintain that there is no individual in the sense
of a separate ego-existence. That which makes of us human beings is the
product of social life. I call the ideas and the impulses naturally
developing in this way, superindividual, and if we could take them out
of the soul of a man, he would cease to be a man. What is man but an
incarnation of mankind! Social intercourse and common work produce the
superindividual ideas and impulses in man, and these superindividual
ideas and impulses in their action constitute the life of society.
This view is not "a mystical personification of society" under the
simile of an organism, but it is a description of certain facts in the
development of the human soul.
Society is not an aggregation of individuals, it is constituted by the
superindividual element in the souls of individual men. The number of
people in a society is for ethical purposes unessential. Professor
Höffding accordingly makes an unimportant feature prominent, when he
says:
"The idea of society, if it is to be scientifically employed,
must always be so applied that at every point the definite
group of individuals which it represents may be established."
If the greatest happiness of the greatest number among a definite group
of individuals constitutes the morality of an act, would not the man
who falls among thieves be under the moral obligation to renounce his
property because the robbers constitute the majority?
If we leave the superindividual element out of sight, we shall
naturally fall into the error of counting the individuals and deciding
right and wrong by majority votes. The pleasure of a majority however
does not constitute justice, and the greatest happiness of the greatest
number is no criterion of that which is to be considered as morally
good.
Society in the sense of a mere number of individuals will by and by
create but does not constitute morality; nor can the majority of a
society propose a criterion. The nature of moral goodness is not a
matter of number nor of size nor of quantity. It must be sought in the
quality of our ideas and motives. Moral are those ideas which tend to
build up the life-totality of our souls so as to engender more and more
of mankind in man, or still broader expressed, so as to keep man in
harmony with the whole cosmos—with God.
VIII. THE POLICY OF THE ETHICAL SOCIETIES.
Professor Höffding considers it perfectly justified that the leaders
of the ethical societies "keep these institutions as independent as
possible not only of all dogmatic tendency of thought but also of
all unnecessary philosophical hypotheses and speculations." So do
we, for we object to dogmas, to hypotheses, and mere speculations.
We consider the era of dogmatic religion as past, and trust in the
rise of a religion based on truth, i. e. a natural and cosmical
religion which stands on facts verifiable by science. Every religion,
be it ever so adulterated by superstitions which as a rule, the less
tenable they appear, are the more tenaciously defended as infallible
dogmas—contains in its world-conception at least the germ of becoming
a cosmical religion. The development of all religions aims at one and
the same goal, namely the recognition of the truth and the aspiration
to live accordingly. Those religions which remain faithful to this
spirit of the religious sentiment will survive; they will drop the
errors of dogmatic belief, they will free themselves of the narrowness
of sectarianism and develop the cosmic religion of truth—of that one
and sole truth which need not shun the light of criticism and which is
at one with science.
We do not object to the ethical societies that they have no dogmas
and that they do not identify themselves with a special philosophy;
we object solely to their proposition to preach ethics without having
a religion, or without basing ethics upon a conception of the world.
And why do we object? Simply because it is impossible to preach ethics
without basing it upon a definite view of the world, for ethics is
nothing more or less than the endeavor to act according to a certain
conception, to realise it in deeds. Can you realise in deeds a
conception without having any? Can you live the truth without knowing
the truth? You must at least have an instinctive inkling of what the
truth is.
Mr. Salter separates the domains of ethics and science. He does not
believe that ethics can be established on science, for he declares that
science deals with facts, i. e. that which is, while ethics deals with
ideals, i. e. that which ought to be. "We have to believe in ethics if
we believe in them at all," Mr. Salter says, "not because they have the
fact on their side but because of their own intrinsic attractiveness
and authority."[134] This reminds me of one of Goethe and Schiller's
Xenions in which the German poets criticise the one-sided positions of
enthusiasts (_Schwärmer_) and philistines:
[134] _What Can Ethics Do For Us_, p. 5. By W. M. Salter. C.
H. Kerr, Chicago, 1891.
Had you the power, enthusiasts, to grasp your ideals completely,
Certainly you would revere Nature. For that is her due.
Had you the power philistines, to grasp the total of Nature,
Surely your path would lead up to th' idea's domain.
Ideals have no value unless they agree with the objective world-order
which is ascertained through inquiry into the facts of nature. Ideals
whose ultimate justification is intrinsic attractiveness and whose
authority is professedly not founded on reality but on rapt visions of
transcendental beauty, must be characterised as pure subjectivism. They
are not ideals but dreams.
The ethical societies have as yet—so far as I am aware of—not given
a clear and definite definition of good. Professor Adler treats
this question with a certain slight. Concerning the facts of moral
obligation he believes in "a general agreement _among good men and
women_ everywhere." (The italics are ours.) _The Open Court_ (in No.
140) has challenged _the Ethical Societies_, saying that "we should
be very much obliged to the _Ethical Record_, if it would give us a
simple, plain, and unmistakable definition of what the leaders of the
ethical movement understand by good, i. e. morally good." But this
challenge remained unanswered.
It will appear that as soon as good is defined not in tautologies,[135]
but in definite and unmistakable terms, the conception of good will
be the expression of a world-conception. Is it possible to do an act
which is not expressive of an opinion? And if an act is not expressive
of a clear opinion, it is based upon an instinctive, an unclear, and
undefined opinion. When the ethical societies declare that they do
not intend to commit themselves to religious or philosophical views,
they establish an anarchy of ethical conviction. Religion, as we have
defined it, is man's inmost and holiest conviction, in accord with
which he regulates his conduct. The ethical societies implicitly
declare that we can regulate our conduct without having any conviction.
[135] It is obvious that such definitions as "good is that
which produces welfare" are meaningless, so long as we are not
told what it is that makes a certain state _well_ faring or
_well_ being.
Is not an ethical society without any definite convictions upon which
to base its ethics like a ship without a compass in foggy weather?
The attitude of the ethical societies in not committing themselves to
any religious or philosophical view is after all—and how can it be
otherwise?—a palpable self-delusion, for their whole policy bears
unmistakably a definite and characteristic stamp. The leaders of the
ethical societies will most likely repudiate my interpretation of their
position, because it appears to me that they are not clear themselves
concerning the philosophical basis upon which they stand and thus (as I
am fully aware) many contradictory features appear by the side of those
which I should consider as most significant.
IX. PROFESSOR ADLER'S POSITION.
Professor Adler is the founder of the Ethical Societies, he is their
leader, and however much Mr. Salter, Dr. Coit, Mr. Sheldon, and Mr.
Weston may disagree from him in minor matters, his views are decisive
in the management, and the policy of the whole movement depends on
him. Through his indefatigable zeal in the holy cause of ethics, his
unflinching courage in the defense of what he regards as right, his
energetic devotion to his ideals, and through the influence of his
powerful oratory he has made the ethical societies what they now
are. He determines their character and he is the soul of the whole
movement. Now it is true that Professor Adler has never presented us
with a systematic philosophy, but all his activity, his speeches, his
poems, and the plans of his enterprises represent a very definite
philosophical conception, which, to give it a name, may briefly be
called Kantian Agnosticism.
Professor Adler is an agnostic, although not after the pattern of
Spencer or Huxley. His agnosticism has been impressed upon his mind by
Kant.
I expect that Mr. Adler will repudiate the name of agnostic, and it is
quite indifferent with what name he may characterise his views. His
position remains the same, whatever name he may choose to call it, if
he chooses any; and he will choose none for he is too consistent an
agnostic to define his position by a name.
It devolves upon me to prove my assertion and I hope to be able to do
so.
Professor Adler looks upon ethics as something which lies outside the
pale of human knowledge. He says in one of his lectures:
"And now one point more of utmost importance. If there be an
existence corresponding to our highest idea, as we have said
there is, yet we know not what kind of existence that may
be ... why then should we speak of it at all, why should we
try to mention in words an existence which we cannot know? I
will answer why. Because it is necessary to remind mankind
constantly that _there is an existence which they do not
know_.... Because otherwise the sense of mystery will fade out
of human lives...."
Is "the sense of mystery" really a necessary element in human lives to
make men aware of the grandeur of the universe. Is there no holiness
in clearness of thought, and is ethics only sacred if it is surrounded
with the hazy halo of an unknowable transcendentalism?
If our moral ideal does not come by the special revelation of God, as
the dogmatic religions maintain, and if we cannot find it in nature, if
it is beyond the ken of human cognition, if it is unascertainable by
science, whence does it come? Professor Adler says:
"We must, indeed, be always on our guard, lest we confuse the
idea of the Perfect with notions of the good derived from
human experience. This has been the mistake of theology in
the past, the point wherein every theodicy has invariably
broken down. When we think of the Perfect we think of a
transcendental state of existence, when we think of the moral
law in its completeness we think of a transcendental law,
a law which can only be wholly fulfilled in the regions of
the Infinite, but which can never be fully realised within
the conditions of space and time. The formula of that law
when applied to human relations, yields the specific moral
commandments, but these commandments can never express the
full content, can never convey the far off spiritual meanings
of the supreme law itself. The specific commandments do,
indeed, partake of the nature of the transcendental law, they
are its effects. The light that shines through them comes from
beyond, but its beams are broken as they pass our terrestrial
medium, and the full light in all its glory we can never see."
In this passage I believe to recognise the influence of Kant's
transcendentalism. I differ from Professor Adler's conception of
Kantian transcendentalism, but that is of no account here. One point
only is of consequence. Professor Adler uses the word transcendental in
the sense of transcendent and thus he changes the ethics of pure reason
into mysticism. Professor Adler says:
"Though I can never be scientifically certain, I can be
_morally_ sure that the mystery of the universe is to be read
in terms of moral perfection."
I do not deny that moral instinct ripens quicker than scientific
comprehension. Why? Because in a time when science is not as yet so
far advanced as to understand the operations of the moral law, those
people who instinctively obey the rules that can be derived from the
moral law, will survive and all the rest will go to the wall. But
the fact that we can have a reliable moral guide in an instinctive
certainty which is generally called conscience, even before we attain
to scientific clearness, does not prove that science will be forever
excluded from the world of moral ideals.
Professor Adler's agnosticism found a very strong expression in a poem
which resembles in its tone and ideas the church hymns of the New
Jerusalem. The poem is very unequivocal on the point that moral action
is comparable to building an ideal city, the plan of which is unknown
to the builders. Professor Adler says:
"Have you heard the Golden City
Mentioned in the legends old?
Everlasting light shines o'er it,
Wondrous tales of it are told.
Only righteous men and women
Dwell within its gleaming wall;
Wrong is banished from its borders,
Justice reigns supreme o'er all.
Do you ask, Where is that City,
Where the perfect Right doth reign?
I must answer, I must tell you,
That you seek its site in vain.
You may roam o'er hill and valley,
You may pass o'er land and sea,
You may search the wide earth over,—
'T is a City yet to be!
We are builders of that City,—
All our joys and all our groans
Help to rear its shining ramparts;
All our lives are building-stones.
* * * * *
_What that plan may be we know not._[136]
How the seat of Justice high,
How the City of our vision
Will appear to mortal eye,—
That no mortal eye can picture,
That no mortal tongue can tell.
We can barely dream the glories
Of the Future's citadel."
[136] The italics are ours.
How great an importance is attributed to this song by the leaders of
the ethical movement may be learned from Mr. Salter's opinion of it.
Mr. Salter says in criticising Unitarianism:
"Not from Unitarianism, not from Christianity, has come the
song that best utters and almost chants this thought [of
an ideal fellowship]. It is from Felix Adler, upon whom, I
sometimes think, more than upon any other man of our day, the
mantle and prophetic spirit of Channing have fallen, and whose
words, I almost believe, are those which Jesus himself would
utter, should he come and put his solemn thought and passion
into the language of to-day."
Agnosticism is in our opinion no sound basis upon which to erect
ethics. The unknowable is like quicksand, it gives way under our
feet. The ethics of agnosticism must necessarily become mysticism.
The ethereal dreams of mysticists need no solid basis, they hover in
the air. Mr. Spencer who for some reason or other tried to escape
the consequences of his agnosticism in the ethical field, adopted
Utilitarianism, basing his moral maxims not upon the unknowable, as
consistency would require, but upon the principle of the greatest
happiness for the greatest number.
Professor Adler is not a Spencerian agnostic and here lies the strength
of his ethics. Although he does not attain to a clear and scientific
conception of the origin and natural growth of morality, he sounds
no uncertain voice with regard to the Happiness Principle. He has
on several occasions, like his great master Kant, uncompromisingly
rejected any Hedonism or Eudæmonism. Among all societies aspiring
to foster moral ideals, the societies for ethical culture are
distinguished for their seriousness and ardor; and there can be no
doubt about the cause: it is the spirit of Professor Adler's zeal not
to give way to a hedonistic conception of ethics.
X. THE UNITY OF THE ETHICAL PROBLEM.
We conclude. Although the ethical problem can and must be split up in
innumerable different problems, we should never lose sight of its unity.
Our age is a period of specialisation, of a division of labor and
of detail work. This is true. But the more will it be necessary
to survey the whole field and keep in mind the unity of which all
piecemeal efforts are but parts. As soon as we lose sight of the
unity in a certain system of problems, we are most liable to drop
into inconsistencies. This is true of all things, of every science in
particular, and of philosophy, the science of the sciences, also. It is
no less true of ethics. We cannot engage, with any hope of success, in
any of the diverse ethical questions unless we have first solved _the_
ethical problem.
EDITOR.
ON THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE.
A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GLASGOW, ON
JAN. 21, 1891.
It seems impossible to many people to look upon language as anything
but an instrument of thought. In one sense this is perfectly true. We
think by means of words, just as we see by means of eyes, and hear by
means of ears, and walk by means of legs. But could we walk without our
legs, or see without our eyes? We can walk with artificial legs, no
doubt, and so we can think and speak in foreign languages, and in every
kind of artificial sign-language. But as artificial legs presuppose
natural legs, foreign and artificial languages presuppose our own
natural language.
When we speak of instruments we mean generally such things as knives
with which we cut, or pens with which we write. They are instruments
which are useful, but they are not indispensable, and can be replaced
by other instruments. This does not, however, apply to eyes, ears,
or language, and in order to mark that distinction the former are
generally called instruments, the latter organs.
Now, if we call language the organ of thought, we, no doubt, admit
that we can distinguish between the _organon_, that which works, and
the _ergon_, i. e. the work which it performs. But it does by no
means follow that therefore the _ergon_ could ever exist without the
_organon_. We can easily distinguish between the act of spoken thought
and the organ of spoken thought, but it does by no means follow that
therefore the act of spoken thought could ever exist without the organ
of spoken thought.
It may seem unfair in this argument to call thought "spoken thought."
It looks like begging the whole question. But it really is not so. By
calling thought "spoken thought," we only supply a deficiency of our
modern languages. If we were Greeks, we should use the simple word
_Logos_, and instead of begging the question, we should show that our
proposition is, really self-evident, or, it may be, even tautological,
namely that _logos_ is impossible without _logos_.
Here we can see at once how intimately thought is connected with
language, how it is dependent on it, or, more correctly, how
inseparable the two really are. If, like the Greeks, we had a word
such as logos, we should probably never have doubted that what we call
speech and thought are but two sides of the same thing. And the same
lesson is taught us again and again, if only we are inclined to listen
to it.
Suppose we had no such word as _matter_, would not our whole system of
thought be different? Matter is not an object, perceived by our senses.
We may even go further and say that matter by itself never exists. This
or that matter exists, chemical substances, say, gold or silver, oxygen
or hydrogen, exist; but matter, which some philosophers look upon as
the most certain and concrete of all things, is simply an abstraction,
something that may be predicated of many things, but that is never
found by itself _in rerum naturâ_.
Some people define matter as what is ponderable and impenetrable, but
here again, nothing exists that is simply ponderable, or impenetrable.
It is always something else; it is iron, wood, stone, vapor, gas, but
never matter, _pur et simple_.
It is clear, therefore, that matter is made by us, and that without
some such word as matter, we could never have the faintest idea or
concept of matter. For how should we call it? On the other hand, it
is equally clear that we could not have the word matter, without the
concept of matter. For what would be the use of it? Now, what follows
from this apparent dilemma? If the concept cannot be prior to the
name and the name cannot be prior to the concept, they must needs be
simultaneous, or, more correctly, they must be the same thing under two
aspects.
From an historical point of view, that is, if we consider the genesis
of words and concepts, not in modern times, but during that period when
words and concepts were framed for the first time, we are bound to
admit that the word is really the _prius_. That period may be ever so
far distant, but it was nevertheless a very real and truly historical
period.
How did man arrive at such a word as matter? The word itself tells its
own story. It came to us from French, it came into French from Latin.
In Latin _materies_ or _materia_ still means wood and timber, though it
has also assumed the meaning of matter, like the Greek ὕλη, which means
both wood and matter. The process by which _materies_ came to mean
matter is clear. If _materies_ meant originally the wood out of which a
hut, a table, a chair, or a stick was made, it was naturally applied to
other substances also, such as stone, bricks, or metal when used in the
making of huts, tables, chairs, or sticks. In the same way we speak of
a pen, i. e. a quill, though we mean a steel pen.
When the original special meaning of wood thus disappeared, there
remained only the meaning of building material, material, and, at last,
of matter and substance. We say now, What is the matter? What does
it matter? but we little think of the solid beams out of which such
expressions were hewn and fashioned. In this sense, therefore, we may
say that historically the word _materies_ came first, meaning a beam,
and that gradually it shed its various attributes, one after the other,
till there remained nothing but its trunk, and that is what we now mean
by matter.
Here, therefore, we see the process of generalisation which is very
important, particularly in the later periods of language and thought.
But it is the greatest mistake to suppose that language, such as we
know it, what we might call historical language, always begins with
the particular and then proceeds to the general. Adam Smith was one of
the ablest defenders of the theory that the _Primum Cognitum_ and the
_Primum Appellatum_ must have been the particular. But all the facts of
language are dead against this theory. And yet, that theory has once
more been put forward by a philosopher who prides himself on nothing
so much as that his philosophy rests throughout on positive facts. I
do not blame a philosopher who is ignorant of the results obtained by
the Science of Language, so long as he abstains from touching on the
subject. But constantly to appeal to language, and yet to ignore what
has been achieved by comparative philologists, is unpardonable. No one
is a greater sinner in that respect than Mr. Herbert Spencer.
When speaking of the process by which the abstract idea of color was
formed he says:[137] 'The idea of each color had originally entire
concreteness given to it by an object possessing the color; as some
of the unmodified names, such as orange and violet, show us. The
dissociation of each color from the object specially associated with
it in thought at the outset, went on as fast as the color came to be
associated in thought with objects unlike the first, and unlike one
another. The idea of orange was conceived in the abstract more fully in
proportion as the various orange-colored objects remembered, cancelled
one another's diverse attributes, and left outstanding their common
attribute. So it is if we ascend a stage, and note how there arises the
abstract idea of color, apart from particular colors.'
[137] _Data of Ethics_, p. 124.
Now this is all untrue. Such names as orange and violet are some of the
latest names of color. They presuppose such late, nay exotic, concepts,
as _orange_ and _violet_. The question why an orange was called an
orange, and a violet a violet remains unasked and unanswered. In the
old names for _black_, _white_, _red_, _green_, and _blue_, there is
not a trace of ink, or snow, or blood, or sea, or sky. They are all
derived, so far as we can analyse them at all, from roots meaning to
shine, to grow, to beat black and blue, and not from oranges, roses, or
violets.
Again, what can be the meaning of such a sentence as:[138] 'Words
referring to quantity furnish cases of more marked dissociation of
abstract from concrete. Grouping various things as small in comparison
either with those of their kind or with those of other kinds; and
similarly grouping some objects as comparatively great, we get the
opposite abstract notions of smallness and greatness.' Does Mr. Spencer
really believe that we can call things small and great, that our
language can possess two adjectives expressive of these qualities,
and that yet at the same time we are without an abstract notion of
smallness and greatness? Mr. H. Spencer constantly calls on the
facts of language, to confirm his views, but his facts are hardly
ever correct. For instance: after having explained that, according
to his ideas, greater coherence among its component motions broadly
distinguishes the conduct we call moral from the conduct we call
immoral, he appeals to the word _dissolute_, when meaning immoral, as
proving this theory. But _dissolutus_ in Latin meant originally no
more than negligent, remiss. _Dissolutio_ meant languor, weakness,
effeminacy, and then only licentiousness and immorality. Language,
therefore, in no way confirms Mr. H. Spencer's speculations, still less
does experience, for no man is so coherent in his acts, so calculating,
so self-restrained, as the confirmed criminal; no one is often so
careless, so little shrewd, so easily duped as the thoroughly moral and
therefore trustful and confiding man.
[138] L. c., p. 125.
But to return to the history of the word for matter. The process
by which _materies_, wood, came to mean matter, is intelligible
enough, whether we call it generalisation, or abstraction. But how
came _materies_ to mean wood? That is the question which has to be
solved, and in solving it, we shall find that while in the second
period of thought-language the progress is from the particular to
the general, the progress in the first period is the reverse, namely
from the general to the particular. In the case of _materes_ this is
very clear. No one can doubt that in _materies_ the radical element
is _mâ_, the derivatives _ter_ and _ies_. The radical element _mâ_ is
found in Sanskrit _mâ-tram_, measure, _mâ-nam_, measuring, _mâ-na-s_,
a building; in Greek μέ-τρον, measure; in Latin _me-tare_, to measure.
We can hardly doubt that the oldest Aryan name for mother also, namely
_mâtar_, Greek μήτηρ, Latin _mater_, English _mother_, is derived from
that root, though it is doubtful in what sense. It may have meant
originally no more than maker or fashioner, and it is important to
observe that in the Veda the same word _mâtar_, occurs as a masculine
and means maker, and actually governs an accusative. But it may also
have meant arranger, controller, and mistress of all household affairs.
Whatever its original intension was, _mâtar_ soon became a mere name.
Its etymological keynote was no longer audible, and _mâtar_ meant
mother and all that was implied in that name when used by children and
others.
If we compare all the words which contain this _mâ_ as their common
element, we can see that it meant originally to put two or more things
together. This led to two applications. What we call measuring is
really putting two things together, one by the side of another, to see
how far they agree and how far they differ. Thus _mâ_ took the special
meaning of measuring, in such words as Greek μέτρον and Sanskrit
_mâtram_. But to put together could also be used in the sense of
joining, carpentering, building, and making, and this meaning we find
in such words as (Sanskrit) _mânas_, a building, _mâti_, he measures,
he makes, and likewise _materies_, what has been fashioned, what can
be used for building a hut, timber, wood, building material, then any
kind of material, and at last matter, substance in its most general
acceptation.
You can see here very clearly the twofold process in the formation
of words, first, from the general to the particular,—from measuring
to wood, and then from the particular to the general, from timber to
matter.
If you ask, what is this syllable _mâ_ which has the general meaning of
measuring and making, I can only answer, We know, and we do not know.
We know as a fact that it is the common element in a number of words,
which are differentiated by a number of derivative elements, called
suffixes, prefixes, and infixes, but which can all be shown to share
in common the general meaning of making and measuring. These common
elements have been called roots. The question whether these roots
ever existed by themselves, and whether any language could ever have
consisted of these roots, is a foolish question. For as soon as a root
occurs in a sentence, it is either a subject or a predicate, a noun or
a verb, and it has ceased to be a mere root. But on the other hand, it
is quite true that in certain languages, as, for instance, in Chinese
there is no formal difference between a root and a word—there are no
suffixes or prefixes. But the strict rules of the collocation of words
in every sentence make it quite clear whether a word is to be taken as
a substantive, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and all the rest.
By the same process by which we have reduced a number of words to the
root _mâ_, the whole dictionary of Sanskrit, and of English also, in
fact of all the Aryan and likewise of the Semitic languages, has been
reduced to a small number of roots. Given that small number of roots,
we undertake to account for the whole wealth of words in any language,
simply by means of derivation with suffixes and prefixes, and by means
of composition.
In all this we are dealing with fact, facts which are as well
ascertained as any facts in physical science.
Making allowance for a small margin of words which have as yet resisted
all attempts at etymological analysis, we can state that the vast
majority of words in Sanskrit has been reduced to about 800 roots. In
the progress of language whole families of words derived from some of
these roots become extinct while others continue prolific and take
their place. The consequence is that the number of roots in English has
dwindled down to 461, while the sum total of words has risen to about
250,000.
Every one of these roots has a general or conceptual meaning, such
as striking, pushing, rubbing, cutting, bearing, binding, measuring,
building, moving, going, falling, and all the rest.
It often happens, however, that two or more roots have the same or
nearly the same meaning, and this explains why, when we count the
fundamental concepts expressed by our 800 roots in Sanskrit, we find
that they amount to no more than 121.
I say again that in all this we are dealing with well ascertained facts.
The next step, however, leads us into the domain of theory. If we
are asked, how these roots came into existence, we may decline to
answer the question as outside the limits of science. A chemist would
probably do the same, if he were asked how the chemical elements came
into existence. In fact, the students of the Science of Language have
always taken their stand here and have treated roots as ultimate facts.
I ought to mention, however, two theories which, though they have long
been surrendered by students of the Science of Language still enjoy
a certain popularity, and commend themselves to many people by their
extreme simplicity and plausibility.
The first consists in ascribing the roots of all languages to a direct
communication from God. It is impossible to refute such an opinion;
all we can say is that such a communication, if we try to realise it
in imagination, would imply such a crude anthropomorphism that one
naturally shrinks from entering into details.
The second consists in looking upon roots as imitations of the
sounds of nature or as interjections. Here all we can say is that
the experiment has been tried again and again, and has failed. Every
language contains a number of such words which are imitations of the
sounds of nature or interjections. No one can doubt of the origin of
_bow wow_, a dog, or of _pooh-poohing_, in the sense of rejecting. But
the great stock of words, however, cannot be accounted for by this easy
process, and no serious scholar would think of resuscitating what many
years ago I described as the Bow-wow and Pooh-pooh theories.
But while the student of language seems to me to have a perfect right
to treat the roots of language as ultimate facts, it is difficult for
the philosopher not to look beyond. He cannot hope to do more than
to suggest an hypothesis, but if his hypothesis accounts for the few
facts he has to deal with, such an hypothesis is legitimate, though, no
doubt, it is very far from being an established truth.
The hypothesis which I suggested on the origin of roots, was suggested
to me by Professor Noiré's hypothesis as to the origin of concepts.
My late friend, Professor Noiré, was one of those who discovered
difficulties where no one else saw them. While most philosophers were
satisfied with the fact that man possessed the power of forming, not
only percepts, but concepts also, while no trace of conceptual thought
was found in animals, Noiré subjected this power of forming concepts
to a most minute psychological analysis, and thus was brought face to
face with the question, what was, from a psychogenetic point of view,
the real impulse to the formation of conceptual thought. Questions like
this, which to most people, seem perfectly superfluous, often mark the
real progress in the history of philosophy. Logicians see no difficulty
in explaining how, either by addition or subtraction, positively
or negatively, concepts are formed out of percepts. White, they
say, is either what snow, milk, and marble share in common, or what
remains if we drop from snow, milk, and marble all but their color.
The psychologist who looks upon the human mind as the result of an
evolution, whether in the individual or in the race, asks, not _how_,
but _why_ such concepts should have been formed. Now Professor Noiré
showed, as I thought, with great sagacity, that the first inevitable
concepts arose from man's consciousness of his own repeated acts; that
nowhere in nature could we find a similar primitive and irresistible
impulse to conceptual thought, but that if the beginning had once been
made, there was no longer any difficulty in accounting for the further
development of conceptual thought in all directions.
I call this no more than an hypothesis, or, if you like, a guess, and
I do not see how in the regions in which we find ourselves, we can
expect anything more than an hypothesis. But when one hypothesis, like
that of Noiré's, harmonises with another hypothesis, that was formed
quite independently, we cannot help seeing that the two lend each other
powerful mutual support.
Let us remember then that a most careful psychological analysis had
led Noiré to the conclusion that the germs of all conceptual thought
were to be found in the consciousness of our own repeated acts. And
let us place by the side of this, the well-ascertained fact that the
germs of all conceptual language, what we call the roots, express with
few exceptions the repeated acts of men. Is not the conclusion almost
inevitable that these two processes were in reality but two sides of
one and the same process in the evolution of human thought and human
language? Professor Noiré did not know of the linguistic fact, when
he arrived at his psychological conclusions. I did not know of his
psychological conclusions, when I arrived at my linguistic facts. But
when I saw that by different roads we had both arrived at exactly the
same point, I thought that this could not be by an accident.
There remained, however, one more question to be answered, and that
question again could be answered hypothetically only. How can we
account for the sounds of the roots, which we have recognised as the
germs of conceptual thought and conceptual language? Why should, for
instance, the concept of rubbing be expressed by MAR, and that of
tearing by DAR? Here again Noiré and others before him have pointed
to the well-known fact that men, when engaged in common acts, find a
relief in emitting their breath in more or less musical modulation. It
has therefore been supposed that our roots are the remnants of sounds
which accompanied these acts, and which, being used, not by one man
only, but by men acting in common, were therefore intelligible to the
whole community.
No one would dream of representing this theory of the origin of our
conceptual roots as a well-ascertained historical fact. It is and can
only be an hypothesis. But, as such, it fulfils all the requirements of
a working hypothesis. It explains all that has to be explained, and it
does not run counter to any facts, or any well established theories.
It explains the sounds of our roots, not as mere interjections, which
would be the signs of momentary feelings, and not, what we want,
the signs of our consciousness of a number of repeated acts as one
action. Our roots are, if we may venture to say so, conceptual, not
interjectional sounds. They are, in fact, exactly what, according to
Noiré's philosophical system, the primary elements of language ought to
be.
I do not say that this theory is the only possible theory of the origin
of roots, and therefore of language. Let a better theory be started,
and I shall be delighted to accept it. But don't let us try to revive
exploded theories, unless there are new facts to support them. I can
only give you my own experience. For many years I was satisfied to look
upon roots as ultimate facts. But when Professor Noiré showed that the
fundamental concepts of our thought must be concepts expressive of our
own acts, and when thereupon I went carefully through the list of our
Aryan roots and found that with few exceptions, every one of them, as a
matter of fact, expressed the ordinary acts of men in a simple state of
civilisation, I was driven to the conclusion that the primitive roots
of Aryan speech may owe their origin to the sounds which naturally
accompany many acts performed in common by members of a family, a clan,
or a village. This would vindicate once more the conviction which I
have always held that language was from the beginning conceptual, and
confirm the well-known statement of Locke, that 'the having of general
ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction between man and brutes,
and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means
attain to.'
Allow me in conclusion to say a few words on what I can hardly call
a criticism, but rather a misrepresentation, or, I ought perhaps
to say, a complete misapprehension of this theory of the origin of
roots which appeared in a book lately published by Professor Romanes,
"Mental Evolution in Man," as a continuation of an earlier work of his,
called "Mental Evolution in Animals." My learned friend, Professor
Romanes, labors to show that there is an unbroken mental evolution from
the lowest animal to the highest man. But he sees very clearly and
confesses very honestly that the chief difficulty in this evolution is
language and all that language implies. He tries very hard to remove
that barrier between beast and man. For that purpose he devotes a whole
chapter, the thirteenth, to a consideration of the roots of language,
and yet he says at the end of the chapter, "I wish in conclusion to
make it clear that the matter—that is the question whether roots
are imitations of sound or interjections—is not one which seriously
affects the theory of evolution."
If it were so, why should Professor Romanes have devoted a whole
chapter to it? But it is not my intention to argue this question with
Professor Romanes, but rather to show how difficult it is for any
one, not acquainted with the Science of Language, even to apprehend
the problems that have to be solved. Professor Romanes is, I believe,
a most eminent biologist, and the mantle of Darwin is said to have
fallen on his shoulders. Far be it from me to venture to criticise his
biological facts. But we see in his case how dangerous it is for a
man who can claim to speak with authority on his own special subject,
to venture to speak authoritatively on subjects not his own. Professor
Romanes has, no doubt, read several books on philology and philosophy,
but he is not sufficiently master of his subject to have the slightest
right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say
nothing of Hobbes, with an air of superiority. That is entirely out of
place. When he points out differences of opinion between philologists,
he does not even understand how they have arisen, and he ought to know
better than anybody else that mere difference of opinion between two
competent scholars does not prove that both are wrong and can never be
used to throw discredit on the whole science.
But as I said just now, I am not going to argue with Professor Romanes
because, as he says himself (p. 276), if I were right, his whole theory
would collapse. I hope this is not the case, but I feel sure that,
if it were, Professor Romanes would only rejoice at it. Anyhow why
introduce so much of the _meum_ and _tuum_ into these discussions? If
it could be proved that the Aryas came from Europe, then, no doubt,
the other theory that they came from Asia, would collapse. But among
serious students every such collapse would be greeted with gratitude,
and would be looked upon simply as a step in advance. We are all fellow
workers, we all care for one thing only, the discovery of truth. It is
in this spirit, and without a thought of any collapse, that I venture
to point out a number of clear mistakes which occur on almost every
page when Mr. Romanes touches linguistic questions, and which fully
account for his not perceiving the true character of the evidence
placed before us by the Science of Language.
On page 267 he says that I profess, as a result of more recent
researches, to have reduced the number of Sanskrit roots to 121.
I wish I had. But the number of roots in Sanskrit stands as yet at
about 800; the number 121, of which he speaks, is the number of
concepts expressed by these roots, many of them conveying the same, or
nearly the same idea. A root is one thing, a concept quite another. To
confuse the two is like confusing thought and expression.
I thought I had made it quite clear, that these 121 concepts, conveyed
by about 800 roots, are simply and solely the residue of a careful
analysis of Sanskrit, and of Sanskrit only. I took particular care to
make this clear. 'They constitute the stock in trade,' I said, 'with
which every thought that has ever passed through the mind of India, so
far as it is known to us in its literature, has been expressed.' What
can be clearer? Still Professor Romanes thinks it necessary to remark
that 'these concepts do not represent the ideation of primitive man!'
I never said they did. I never pretended to be acquainted with the
ideation of primitive man. All I maintained was that, making allowance
for obscure words, every thought, that of the lowest savage as well as
that of the most minute philosopher, can be expressed with these 800
roots, and traced back to these 121 concepts. I even hinted that the
number of these concepts might be considerably reduced. The question
is not whether forms of activity, such as _to yawn_, _to spew_,
_to vomit_, _to sweat_, were of vital importance to the needs of a
primitive community, but whether they were known and therefore named,
in the early vocabulary of India. If on the other hand some of these
concepts, such as _to cook_, _to roast_, _to measure_, _to dig_, _to
plat_, _to milk_, betoken an advanced condition of life, all we can say
is that they would probably not occur in the dictionary of primeval
savages, wherever such a being can be found, and that they do not
profess to be the first utterances of the _Homo alalus_, whoever that
may be.
Immediately after this, Professor Romanes dwells on what he calls
the interesting feature of all roots being verbs. This is simply
a contradiction in terms. In giving the meaning of roots scholars
generally employ the infinitive or the participle, to go, or going,
but they have stated again and again that a root ceases to be a root
as soon as it is used in a sentence, either as a subject or as a
predicate, either as a noun or a verb. All his arguments therefore
that archaic words, expressive of actions, would have stood a better
chance of surviving as roots than those which may have been expressive
of objects, are simply out of place. The question whether verbs came
first or nouns, may be argued _ad infinitum_, quite as much as the
question whether the egg came first or the chicken. Every sentence
requires a subject as well as a predicate. If Professor Romanes
approves of my saying that roots stood for any part of speech, just as
the monosyllabic expressions of children do, I can only say that if I
ever said so, I expressed myself incorrectly. A root never stands for
any part of speech, because as soon as it is a part of speech, it is no
longer a root.
After that, Professor Romanes returns once more to his statement that
the roots of Aryan speech are not the aboriginal elements of language,
as first spoken by man. Why deny what has never been asserted? I know
nothing of the language as first spoken by man. I say with Steinthal,
'Who was present when the first sound of language burst forth from the
breast of the first man, as yet dumb?' All that we, the students of
language, undertake to do is to take language as we find it, to analyse
it, and to reduce it to its simplest component elements. What we cannot
analyse, we leave alone. The utmost we venture to do is to suggest
an hypothesis as to the possible origin of these elements. Of the
_Homo alalus_, the speechless progenitor of _Homo sapiens_, with whom
Professor Romanes seems so intimately acquainted, students of human
speech naturally know nothing. Professor Romanes assures us (p. 211)
that the reducing of language to a certain small number of roots, and
the fact that all the roots of language are expressive of general and
generic ideas, yield no support whatever to the doctrine either, that
these roots were themselves the aboriginal elements of language, or, _a
fortiori_, that the aboriginal elements of language were expressive of
general ideas. He evidently does not see that we are speaking of two
quite different things. I am speaking of the facts of language, he is
speaking of the postulates of a biological theory which may be right or
wrong, but which certainly derives no support whatever from the Science
of Language. If, like Professor Romanes, we begin with the 'immense
presumption that there has been no interruption in the developmental
process in the course of psychological history,' the protest of
language counts for nothing; the very fact that no animal has ever
formed a language, is put aside simply as an unfortunate accident. But
to students to whom facts are facts, immense presumptions count for
nothing: on the contrary they are looked upon as the most dangerous
merchandise and most likely to lead to shipwreck and ruin.
Instead of closing with these facts, Professor Romanes tries to show
that those who try to explain them are not always consistent. That may
be so, and I should be sorry indeed if my latest views were not more
advanced and more correct than those which I expressed forty years ago.
But very often where Professor Romanes sees inconsistency, there is
none at all.
Speaking of roots in my "Science of Thought," I said: 'Although during
the time when the growth of language becomes historical and most
accessible, therefore, to our observation, the tendency certainly is
from the general to the special, I cannot resist the conviction that
before that time there was a pre-historic period during which language
followed an opposite direction. During that period, roots beginning
with special meanings, (though, of course, always general in character)
became more and more generalised, and it was only after reaching that
stage, that they branched off again into special channels.'
The observation which I recorded in these words, was simply this, that
a root meaning originally to yawn, may in time assume the meaning of
opening, while during a latter period, a root meaning to open, may come
to be used in the more special sense of yawning. Facts are there to
prove this. But whether a root expresses the act of yawning or opening,
it remains general and conceptual in either case, though the intension
of the concept may be smaller or larger. Where Professor Romanes sees
inconsistency, he only shows that he has not apprehended the drift of
my remarks.
When all the facts of real language are against him, Professor Romanes
betakes himself to baby-language. Here he is safe, and he knows quite
well, why I refuse to argue with him or any other philosopher either
in the nursery, or in the menagerie, either about Mamma and Papa, or
about 'Poor Polly.' But if all he wants is to prove the possibility
of onomatopœia, he could have found much ampler evidence in my own
laboratory, only with this restriction that, after we have analysed
these onomatopœic words which in some languages are far more numerous
than even Professor Romanes seems to be aware of, we are only on the
threshold of the real problem, namely how to deal with real language,
that is, with those conceptual words which _cannot_ be traced back to
natural sounds or interjections.
Professor Romanes appeals to philology in support of his theory, and,
to use a favorite phrase of his own, to philology let him go! It was
long considered an irrefragable proof in support of the onomatopœic
theory that _thunder_ was called _thunder_. People imagined they heard
the rumbling noise of the clouds echoed in the sound of thunder.
However, the word was taken to pieces by comparative philologists,
_thunder_ was found out to be closely connected with the Latin
_tonitru_ and the Sanskrit _tanyatu_, and there could be no doubt that
these words were all derived from the root TAN, to stretch, from which
the Greek τόνος, stretching, tension, and tone. Thunder, therefore,
was clearly shown to owe its origin to this root TAN, in which there
is very little trace of distant rumble. But what does Professor
Romanes do? He appeals in his distress to Archdeacon Farrar, who is
reported to have said that the word _thunder_, even if not originally
onomatopœic, became so from a feeling of the need that it should be!
Now, this fairly takes away one's breath, and I cannot believe that
Professor Romanes could have used this argument seriously. He begins
by maintaining that words are formed by imitation of natural sounds.
He quotes _thunder_ as a case in point. He is told by comparative
philologists that thunder is derived from a root TAN, to stretch. He
does not attempt to deny this, but he appeals to Archdeacon Farrar, who
says that the word became afterwards onomatopœic, from a feeling of the
need that it should be so. If that is not shirking the question, I do
not know what is. Suppose it were true that thunder had been supposed
to be an imitation of a rumbling noise by those who, like Professor
Romanes, are convinced that all words must be more or less onomatopœic.
What in all the world has that to do with the real origin of the word?
We want to know how the word thunder came to be, and we are told, if
it was not onomatopœic, it ought to have been so, nay that by certain
ignorant people it was supposed to be so. This goes beyond the limits
of what is allowed in any serious discussion.
But Professor Romanes attempts a still greater triumph in forensic
adroitness, when he suddenly turns round and declares himself
altogether convinced by the theory proposed by Noiré and myself, though
at the same time placing it on a level with the Bow-wow and Pooh-pooh
theories. Now the fact is, that both Noiré and myself have been most
anxious to show the fundamental difference between these two exploded
theories and our own. The theory which I, for clearness' sake, was
quite willing to call the _Yo-he-ho_ theory, is the very opposite of
what Noiré called the _Synergastic_ theory. Those who appeal to words
like _thunder_ as derived from the rumbling sound in the clouds,
without any conceptual root standing between our conceptual word
_thunder_ and these unconceptual noises, hold the Bow-wow theory. Those
who hold that _fiend_ is derived direct from the interjection _fie_,
without any conceptual root standing between the unconceptual _fie_ and
the conceptual word _fiend_, hold the Pooh-pooh theory. Those who would
derive _to heave_ and _to hoist_ from sounds like _Yo-he-ho_ would hold
what may be called the _Yo-he-ho_ theory. I have never denied that
there are some words in every language which may be so explained.
But what similarity is there between these theories and our own? We
begin with the fact that the great bulk of a language consists of
words, derived, according to the strictest rules, not from cries, but
from articulate roots. No one denies this. We follow this up with
a second fact, that nearly all these roots express acts of men. No
one denies that. We then propound an hypothesis that possibly the
phonetic elements of these roots may be the remnants of utterances
such as even now sailors make when rowing, soldiers when marching,
builders in pulling and lifting, and that as expressing originally
the consciousness of such repeated acts, performed in common, these
roots would fulfil what is wanted, they would express conceptual
thought, such as beating, cutting, rubbing, binding, and all the other
121 concepts from which, as a matter of fact, all the words that
fill our dictionaries have been derived. Those who cannot see the
difference between a man, or, for all that, between a mocking bird,
saying _Cuckoo_, and a whole community fixing on the sound of TAN, as
differentiated by various suffixes and prefixes, and expressing the
concept of stretching in such words as _tonos_, _tone_, _tonitru_,
_thunder_, _tanu_, _tenuis_, _thin_, should not meddle with the Science
of Language.
Observations, for instance, on the language of children, or on what I
call Nursery psychology, are very interesting and may be useful for
other purposes. But what have they to do with the problem of the origin
of language? The two problems, how a child learns to speak English, and
how language was elaborated for the first time, are as remote from each
other as the two poles. The one is perfectly clear, though it may vary
in different children. No child makes its language, it simply accepts
what has been made. What _we_ are concerned with is, how each word was
originally made, how the first impulse to speech was given, what were
the rough materials out of which words were shaped, how words assumed
different meanings by becoming specialised or generalised, or by being
used metaphorically—how, in the end, some words became purely formal,
and served as the grammatical articulations of human speech. What has
that to do with a child learning to say _Bread_ or _Milk_, or with a
parrot learning to say _Poor Polly_? We might as well try to study the
geological stratification of the earth from watching the layers of a
wedding-cake. I know quite well that every philosopher, when he becomes
a father thinks that he may discover the origin of language in his
nursery. The books which owe their origin to these paternal experiments
are endless. But they have thrown hardly one ray of pure light on the
dark problem of the origin and evolution of human speech. That problem,
if it can be solved at all, can only be solved by a careful analysis
of language, such as it exists in the immense varieties of spoken
languages all over the globe. This is the work which the Science of
Language has carried out for nearly a century, and which will occupy
the minds of many students and philosophers for centuries to come.
F. MAX MUELLER.
LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
I.
Some distinguished foreigners have called my attention to the _Manuals
of Moral and Civic Instruction_ which circulate in our schools,
thinking with reason that they mark perhaps the most important reform
in public teaching. There have been published in France a dozen or
more during the last ten years or so. The clerical party has thundered
against these little books: it had good reason for alarm, for they aim
at nothing less than to take the place of the catechism.
How do they replace it? What is their inferiority, or, what their
advantages? What is their principle, their disposition? This can be
sufficiently judged of by the five we have before us, signed by names
more or less known, those of PAUL BERT, PIERRE LALOI, CHARLES BIGOT,
MME. HENRY GRÉVILLE, and GABRIEL COMPAYRÉ.[139]
[139] Paul Bert, _L'Instruction civique à l'école_,
Picard-Bernheim, Pub.; Pierre Laloi, _La première année
d'instruction morale et civique_, Armand Colin, Pub.; Charles
Bigot, _Le petit Français_, Weill et Maurice, Pub.; Mme.
Henry Gréville, _Instruction morale et civique des jeunes
filles_, Weill et Maurice, Pub.; Gabriel Compayré, _Eléments
d'instruction morale et civique_, Paul Delaplane, Pub.
The manuals of MM. Paul Bert and Laloi, are models of style: the one in
familiar, easy dialogues; the other in simple and clear precepts, set
off and illustrated by pleasant stories. Lists of questions facilitate
the use of the book by the master. The divisions or chapters relate to
special subjects,—the military service, taxes, the fatherland, the
parliament, the law, the government, etc. So much as to the form; let
us look at the groundwork.
The catechism imparted general moral precepts which concerned the man,
and particular commands which concerned the Christian. Our manuals also
tend to form the man; but in the man, above all, the good Frenchman.
We find there glowing pages on the love of one's native land, and on
the beauty of one's country, which we must love. Far be it from me to
cast censure on this noble sentiment. Nevertheless, I do not think
exaggeration on that point is desirable, lest we should seek a cause
of patriotism even in the acknowledged superiority, from a gastronomic
point of view, of the hare of France over the hare of Germany! Our
writers, undoubtedly, have too much tact to lay themselves open to
this ridicule. It is very striking, though, that the notion of the
moral man considered as a Frenchman, German, Englishman, or Italian, is
narrower than that of the Christian man: this reversion into the folds
of nationality is a characteristic phenomenon of our old world in this
latter end of the century. If our encyclopædists had hit on the idea
of writing a laic catechism, the tone of it would have been different.
Our authors of to-day alas! have only too much excuse to wish to form
at first the _little Frenchman_, and to promote the reaction against a
cosmopolitanism which had become dangerous to our national existence.
They have done it, however, with sufficient caution, and without
detriment to justice.
I shall not say as much for M. Paul Bert, in relation to his manual
dedicated to the Revolution. Still here, undoubtedly, it is necessary
to make allowance for the political necessities of the present time.
But what a danger to sanctify at any cost the sanguinary epoch of our
democracy; what an error to date the French era from 1789, and to
make our children believe that our fathers should have had hardly the
sentiment of public virtue! The worst is not that their young souls
are thus embittered, but that their judgment on the facts of history
is falsified. We are here only too much inclined to disregard the
necessity of human evolution, and to imagine that it suffices to change
the label of the sack to improve the merchandise. M. Bigot and M.
Laloi, at least, have more wisdom, more prudence in this respect.
The ambition of the catechism, on another point, seems to go beyond
that of our manuals. It offered an explanation of the world, a complete
conception of human destiny, in a word, a doctrine which _returns into
itself_. This doctrine holds no longer, it is known nevertheless, and
it is necessary now to replace it. Unfortunately scientific morality
has not yet found its formula in a practical book, and the divergences
of views are confessed in our manuals, where the conception of a
fundamental ensemble almost entirely fails. It is sufficient to read
the tables of contents to convince oneself of this. The work of M.
Compayré, who addresses himself especially to the "middle and higher
grades," changes suddenly in Book III. entitled _La Nature humaine et
la morale_. What signifies the definition, that "morality is nothing
more than the ensemble of the laws that nature has engraved in your
soul before human legislators inscribed them in their codes"? What is
doing here the vain affirmation of the existence of God and of the
immortality of the soul, and this "let us contemplate and adore" which
sums it up? In the mouth of M. Compayré it is only a concession and an
avowal of infirmity. A frank spiritualist will resolutely establish
his moral conception on his belief; but nominal deism causes God to
play the rôle of an ignominious personage who has no longer a suitable
occupation on the scene.
After all is said, however, our manuals have the advantage over the
catechism in the clearness of their definitions (not all correct, it
is true) and in the immediate value of the instruction. For example,
M. Laloi gives information as to the placing out of money, reproduces
the formulas in use in the ordinary acts of life, etc. I should take
care not to blame, either this good practical sense, or this manner of
instructing the child according to his capacity to understand himself
and understand the world which surrounds him. In the modest articles of
our little class-books, is found summed up, definitively, the secular
experience of human societies, and this also has an aggregative value.
* * * * *
Numerous are the works written among us by distinguished authors to
introduce youthful minds into the various sciences. The _Bibliothèque
utile_ already includes several, and among them one of the best will
always be the book of ADOLPHE COSTE, _La Richesse et le Bonheur_,[140]
with which that library is about to enrich itself. M. Coste has
reproduced here, in order to express them in a simple form, the
doctrines expounded in his large works. But there is also contributed
something new, as to what he calls property, for example. The _Manuals_
of which I just spoke base all property on labor alone. Mme. Henry
Gréville defines it "a right, based on the difficulty that any one has
had in acquiring a thing." It would be proper to add—"and to save a
thing," in taking account of the more exact analysis made by M. Coste.
For if it is true that "consumable goods" are always due to labor in
some manner, it is no less true that "productive capital," can only
be acquired by putting a part of these goods outside of the current
consumption, that is to say by saving something of that which one
possesses. Saving is to-day the only regular source of accumulation of
wealth; it is one of the indispensable factors of property. The usual
definition sees only the other factor of wealth, labor, and opens thus
the road to the dangerous sophism of which the workmen make a weapon,
when they claim that they alone ought to possess, as they produce.
[140] Publisher of the _Bibliothèque utile_, F. Alcan.
Let us quote the passage. It is exact. "By his labor man takes
possession of the fruits, he enters into the enjoyment of his part
of the product: this is in some sort only a personal right which
disappears at once with consumption. But from the time that this man
saves something from consumption and establishes capital, he becomes a
proprietor, he acquires a social right. Fundamentally, property is the
public acknowledgment of the service rendered to the community by the
increase of the productive capital" (p. 25).
I will notice further, in the work of M. Coste, the difficulty that it
describes, and that greatly embarrasses economists, of reconciling the
value of labor, due to individual effort, with the value of exchange,
imposed by the general needs. As to the relations between Wealth and
Happiness, he judges them intimate enough: happiness resides chiefly,
according to him, in activity, which has for its principal forms the
acquisition of wealth and the productive employment of wealth. The
question would appear undoubtedly more complex, from the psychological
point of view. But we could very well content ourselves with this
notion, clear and sound, of an economical happiness.
One has always pleasure in reading M. Coste, because he has just ideas,
because he approaches questions of political economy as a naturalist
and studies the facts in their evolution. It is the best method for
understanding the subject. The deductive economists have never failed
to deceive us. I would wish in the public interest for numerous readers
of treatises of this kind.
* * * * *
Some day or other, the occasion will present itself for us to speak
somewhat fully of pedagogy. Certainly, if the passion of _magister_ was
ever exaggerated, it is in our day, and, through logic and principles,
it will become in time more difficult to make a little boy eat his
porridge than to govern an empire. In all that has been done, I see
some good, but much evil; I am afraid that little artificial prodigies
will in time be produced, and that we shall be given hot-house oranges
instead of fine fruit ripened in full sunshine. Books follow books,
and mistakes succeed mistakes. There is everywhere an embarrassment
of _talents_, scarcity of _characters_. Have the causes of it been
unravelled and the remedy discovered? In order to judge the results,
let us wait half a century!
M. EUGENE MAILLET, whose work—_L'Education, Elements de psychologie
de l'homme et de l'enfant appliquée à la pédagogie_—I have formally
to announce,[141] will readily excuse, I hope, this quarter of an
hour's bad humor. It is not from him that I take it, and his work gives
evidence of too much experience, too much study, that a high value
should not be placed on it. The present volume is only the first part
of it; "the second part will have for its object education itself,
considered at first in its idea, then in its various forms,—physical
education, education of the heart, education of the mind, education of
the will and of the character, finally in the general principles of
logic and morality which ought to dominate it and without which the
rules of a wisely graduated methodology or of a rational discipline
cannot be established."
[141] Belin frères, Publishers.
In these _Elements of Psychology_, M. Maillet shows himself acquainted
with new studies and methods. It is regrettable only that he does
not enter into them with sufficient freedom. He has not consented
to rid himself of the old terminology, he preserves the outlines
almost of spiritual psychology, and appears even to seek in the
affirmation of spiritualism the indispensable completion of a science
of education. His work will perhaps be better welcomed for it by the
university public; but we should have preferred, for our part, that
he had remained less "classic," while retaining his entire freedom of
criticism.
With this limitation we can recommend his work without mental
reservation; some portions of it are excellent, and many readers will
profit by consulting it. It is written with order, clearness, and good
sense.
* * * * *
Here now is a curiosity, the first number of the _Annales des sciences
psychiques, recueil d'observations et d'expériences_, appearing every
two months, founded under the patronage of M. Charles Richet, with M.
Dr. Dariex as editor.[142] This magazine will publish "Observations
relative to so-called occult facts, _telepathy_, _lucidity_,
_presentiment_, _objective apparitions_, etc." _Experiences_,—there
can hardly yet be any question of them except in appearance; M. Richet
so avows with good grace in a letter forming an introduction,—a very
curious letter, rich in excellent advice which will perhaps not be
sufficiently listened to, and with a declaration of principle which has
a chance of being far too much so.
[142] Felix Alcan, Publisher.
"We have the firm conviction," writes M. Richet, in effect, "that there
is, mixed up with the known and described forces, forces that we do not
know; that the simple, vulgar mechanical explanation will not suffice
to explain all that passes around us; in a word, that there are occult
psychic phenomena, and, if we say 'occult,' it is a word intended to
express simply what is unknown."
What is meant here by the word forces? We are told "for three hundred
years electricity was an unknown force." But it is always _occult_,
as _force_; and if science is become positive, it is because it
has neglected the vain entity, in order to see only a new group of
empirical data, a new series of facts, that it is more or less easy
to translate into unities of heat and of work. What then would forces
be subtracted from mechanics, if not occult forces, with "chimerical
functions"? The expression _vulgar mechanics_, does not suffice to
correct the sense of the phrase and rather aggravates it, in allowing
to be supposed that there exist two kinds of forces, one of which has
no _measure_. But the comparison, then, is not worth anything, and it
is not necessary to speak of electricity or chemical affinity in this
matter.
As to the "observations," of what value are such as are presented to
us? But little, after all, and many other facts will be necessary to
lead us to accept the non-fortuitous relation of certain hallucinations
with an objective event. Notwithstanding the wise reservations of
the editor, it is to be regretted that we find already in this first
number, under the title of _Une chambre hantée_, a real ghost story.
Story for story, I would prefer much to read the _Chambre bleu_ of
Mérimée; so also, I doubt not, would M. Richet.
This little censure is not meant in jest, which would be out of place.
There is always advantage in collecting _facts_, on condition that they
are chosen with care, and that haste is not made to interpret them. MM.
Richet and Dariex insist on this point with the greatest force. Curious
readers will not be wanting for these Annals, even among sceptics. It
has always been necessary to carry the lamp to cause the phantoms to
vanish.[143]
[143] Reference may be made to the first number of the _Revue
mensuelle de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie de Paris_, published by
the Professors at the _Librairie Alcan_. In this number will
be found a lecture by M. André Lefèvre, under this interesting
title: _Du Cri à la Parole_.
LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
II.
THE SCIENCE OF PEDAGOGICS IN GERMANY.
In view of the great care with which _The Monist_ cultivates
psychology, I may be permitted in my first letter, consistently I
judge, to speak of the most important application of this science—its
application namely to pedagogics.
Psychological pedagogics, in the true sense of the word, exists with
us in Germany only since the days of J. F. Herbart who abandoned the
ancient psychological theory of the faculties and discovered in ideas
the sole component elements of all psychical activity, derived feelings
and volitions from the interrelation and interoperation of ideas, thus
denied the absolute freedom which the possibility of formation of will,
or education, excludes, and upheld the determinability of the will by
the ideas.
Although Herbart himself applied his system of psychology
pedagogically, yet it bore in the life-time of its author only scanty
fruit in this direction. Psychological pedagogics was not developed
beyond its original generality and unprofitableness of character until
Professor STOY of Jena and especially Professor ZILLER of Leipsic took
up, with an energy that equalled their tact, the practical construction
of psychological pedagogics.
Pedagogics now exerted a reactive promotive influence, if not on
the further development of psychology, yet on its study. After the
psychological writings of Herbart, it was eminently the _Empirical
Psychology_[144] of M. W. DROBISCH, sustained in the Herbartian spirit
but written more in agreement with "scientific" (i. e. inductive)
methods, that supplied psychological pedagogists with nourishment.
The last-named work, which in many respects possesses value even
to-day, was received with especial favor, since it avoided happily the
metaphysical tendencies which Herbart rather assiduously employed.
A like excellence and a like favorable reception were the merit and
reward of the large work, later appearing, of LAZARUS: _Das Leben der
Seele in Monographien_. Subsequently, were effective two little books
by I. DRBAL and by LINDNER: _Lehrbuch der empirischen Psychologie_ and
_Handbuch der empirischen Psychologie_. Lindner's treatise has recently
appeared in an English translation, published by Heath of Boston, under
the title of "A Manual of Empirical Psychology as an Inductive Science.
A Text-book for High Schools and Colleges. By Dr. G. A. Lindner, of
Prague. Translated by Chas. de Garmo." The English edition of this
book received an unfavorable review in the London _Academy_ (Nov. 1,
1891); yet in one respect the criticism was in our opinion justified.
Too little use, namely, has been made of the results of experimental
psychology.
[144] Leipsic, 1842.
This is, moreover, not only true of Lindner's book but holds for all
the psychological books that have exerted any considerable influence
in pedagogical circles, is true in fact of the great _Lehrbuch der
Psychologie_ by VOLKMANN, the latest edition of which, prepared by
Cornelius, is not in this respect abreast of the position of the times.
Neglect in such a matter in the country of a Wundt appears striking
at first glance; yet it has its good reasons. The labors of the
school of Wundt were antagonistic to the Herbartian psychology and
the pedagogics founded thereon, to the extent that a goodly portion
of the old theory of the faculties has been re-introduced into those
labors. The English association-psychology could have counted on a much
more welcome reception. Happily, there has appeared within the last
few months a remarkably clear, and withal handy, volume which will
succeed in introducing into the pedagogical circles of Germany this
association-psychology. It bears the modest title of _Leitfaden der
physiologischen Psychologie_ (The Elements of Physiological Psychology,
Jena, Fischer, 1891), and consists of lectures delivered by PROF. DR.
ZIEHEN at the University of Jena. In many respects the book of Ziehen
is like the recent work of Dr. Paul Carus[145]: except that everything
of a speculative character is lacking in the former, of which from our
point of view we cannot approve.
[145] _The Soul of Man_, Chicago, 1891.
Now that I am speaking of pedagogics particularly, I will mention
still another work of Lindner, to whom I referred above, which is
the first of its kind in Germany. Its peculiarity appears from its
title: _Grundriss der Pädagogik als Wissenschaft, auf Grund der
Entwickelungslehre und der Sociologie neu aufgebaut_ (Outlines of
Pedagogics as a Science, Newly Constructed on the Basis of the Doctrine
of Evolution and of Sociology, Vienna, 1890). The endeavor of the
author of this work has been, to make fruitful within the domain of
the Herbartian system the principles of evolution and of the science
of sociology; and though he has not been successful in this respect as
regards all the details of educational methods, the book nevertheless
represents a good beginning.
CHRISTIAN UFER.
BOOK REVIEWS.
OUTLINES OF A CRITICAL THEORY OF ETHICS. By _John Dewey_. Ann Arbor:
Register Publishing Company. 1891.
The title of this very thoughtful book expresses well the author's
method of comparing opposite one-sided views with the aim of
discovering a more adequate theory. In carrying out this aim not only
is an analysis given of the main elements of the theory of ethics, but
the main methods and problems of contemporary ethics are considered
also. Professor Dewey rejects both Hedonism and Kantism. He rejects
Hedonism because pleasure fails as a standard of ethics, and he rejects
Kantism because it is a barren abstraction. Kant's "ought" does not
root in and does not flower from the "is." Professor Dewey says:
"Hedonism finds the end of conduct, or the desirable, wholly
determined by the various particular desires which a man happens to
have; Kantianism holds that to discover the end of conduct, we must
wholly exclude the desires. Hedonism holds that the rightness of
conduct is determined wholly by its consequences; Kantianism holds
that the consequences have nothing to do with the rightness of an
act, but that it is decided wholly by the motive of the act. From
this contrast we may anticipate both our criticism of the Kantian
theory and our conception of the true end of action. The fundamental
error of Hedonism and Kantianism is the same—the supposition that
desires are for pleasure only. Let it be recognised that desires are
for objects conceived as satisfying or developing the self, and that
pleasure is incidental to this fulfilment of capacities of self, and
we have the means of escaping the one-sidedness of Kantianism as well
as of Hedonism. We can see that the end is neither the procuring of
particular pleasures through the various desires, nor action from the
mere idea of abstract law in general, but that it is the satisfaction
of desires according to law" (pp. 82-83)
The author acknowledges his indebtedness to the writings of the late
Professor Green and others for the "backbone" of his theory, which he
states to be "the conception of the will as the expression of ideas,
and of social ideas; the notion of an objective ethical world realised
in institutions which afford moral ideals, theatre and impetus to the
individual; the notion of the moral life as growth in freedom, as the
individual finds and conforms to the law of his social placing." Among
the specific forms which the author calls particular attention to, as
giving "a flesh and blood of its own" to that backbone, are the idea
of desire as the ideal activity in contrast with actual possession;
the analysis of individuality into function including capacity and
environment, and the statement of an ethical postulate.
This postulate may be regarded as summing up the ethical theory as
presented by Professor Dewey. It is thus expressed: In the realisation
of individuality there is found also the needed realization of some
community of persons of which the individual is a member; and,
conversely, the agent who duly satisfies the community in which he
shares, by that same conduct satisfies himself. We have here postulated
a community of persons, and a good which realised by the will of one
is made public. In "this unity of individuals as respects the end
of action, this existence of a practical common good," we have what
is called "the moral order of the world." This view would seem to
satisfy the requirements of both Individualism and Socialism, but is
it consistent with the law of progress elsewhere insisted on by the
author? He affirms, as against the Hedonism of Spencer, that moral
ideals are always developing. Progress is itself the ideal, since
"permanence of _specific_ ideals means moral death." But this progress
must originate with the individual, who by the formation of the new
ideal ceases to be in perfect accord with the community, and will
continue to be in disaccord with it until the community has accepted
his ideal. A perfect realisation of individuality in the community
would be the "fixed millennium" which the author properly objects to,
and to escape which it is necessary, that the equilibration towards
which the individual, as well as the social, organism is ever tending
shall never be actually attained. Its attainment would mean stagnation
and death.
We have not space to say more of Professor Dewey's book than that it is
a very thoughtful work, most so in its critical parts, and will form an
excellent help for the student of ethics.
Ω.
AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. By _John S. Mackenzie_. New
York: Macmillan & Co. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 1890.
We have here, in an enlarged form, the substance of the Shaw Lectures
delivered by the author, at the University of Edinburg, in January,
1889. The work is professedly, not a systematic treatise on the
subject dealt with, but only a slight contribution to the discussion
of it; and it is said to be "not so much a book as an indication
of the lines on which a book might be written." The force of these
apparently deprecatory remarks depends entirely on the result attained.
If an introductory study is based on true principles it may be of
more general value than an elaborate work, because it will probably
present the conclusions of the latter in a simpler and less technical
form. This presupposes, however, a knowledge of previous inquiry,
and, therefore, the use of the term "Introduction" is somewhat of
a misnomer. Mr. Mackenzie remarks, indeed, that his inquiry may
be thought to belong to the end rather than to the beginning of
philosophic study.
The leading idea of Mr. Mackenzie's work is embodied in the sentence
just quoted. The value of social life depends on the ultimate end to
be attained, and the author sets himself to discover what is the true
aim of society. The existence of a society of human beings cannot
be accounted for without the conception of purpose, for to whatever
element of accident may be due the bringing of those human beings
into relation to each other, "the particular direction in which their
relations become developed is obviously due to certain aims by which
they are guided." The inquiry into the principles which determine the
nature of those aims, and as to the ideal to which such principles
lead, is what constitutes Social Philosophy. This falls within the
third of Hegel's chief divisions of philosophic study, the _Philosophy
of Spirit_, which is concerned with objects in so far as they are
themselves creations of thought; and the objects of Social Philosophy
may be described as the relations of men to each other, their relations
to the material world, and the development of individual character
in so far as that is affected by these relations. Before treating of
the aim which constitutes the social ideal, our author states the
conditions of the social problem, those of _difficulty_ on the one
hand, and of _hope_ on the other, and he finds that the general state
of society for a number of generations back has been one of "tumultuous
progress." There is a great improvement in the condition of nearly
all classes of people and "a very great brightening of our general
outlook." But life has become in many directions more chaotic and
uncertain. What is now wanted is "some principle which will enable
us to bring about a more perfect connection between the parts of our
society, to form new links and ties, so that men may no longer be
subject to the directions of iron laws over which they have no control.
We have to overcome individualism, on the one hand, and the power of
material conditions, on the other." To do this will be the chief step
towards the realisation of the social ideal, which is dependent on the
nature of society and on the nature of men.
The recognition of the fact that everything deepest in nature, and
especially in human nature is a product of growth has, says Mr.
Mackenzie, "passed over into popular thought, and become a part of
our intellectual atmosphere." Nature is thus regarded as _organic_,
by which our author means "a systematic unity, in which neither the
parts exist independently of the whole nor the whole independently of
its parts." This view is distinguished from that of Monadism, which
regards the world as a collection of mutually independent parts, and
of Monism, according to which Mr. Mackenzie declares the world is a
single system, in which the nature of every part is predetermined by
the whole. According to the organic view the world is a real unity,
though it is a unity which expresses itself through difference. It goes
without saying that there is no Monism of Mr. Mackenzie's description.
No Monist would ever deny that the unity of the world expresses itself
through difference.
Whether or not our author is right in rejecting what he describes as
the monistic view of nature, does not really affect the conclusion
as to the nature of Society. This he declares to be organic, and it
is shown that society possesses the three conditions which belong
essentially to the nature of an organic system; that is, the relations
of the parts which form the whole are _intrinsic_, changes in it take
place by an internal adaptation or growth, and its end forms an element
in its own nature. This conclusion would, indeed, seem to be required
by the fact that society consists of a number of individuals who are
themselves organic units. At the same time it might be objected that,
although many of the lower animals dwell together in societies, these
can hardly be regarded as organic. This consideration gives rise to
the thought that the organic nature of human society depends on the
conditions by which man is differentiated from other animals. In
treating of this point, Mr. Mackenzie shows that there are several
stages in the development of the "self," and he concludes that although
an animal is conscious of a self, yet that it is not conscious of "the
unity of its individual life, the connected system of its experiences
as a whole, in which each single experience has a definite place,"
being that which constitutes the highest development of self, and which
is the distinguishing self-consciousness of humanity.
This faculty of self-consciousness might be reduced to simpler
elements, but it is that by which, as Mr. Mackenzie shows, we are
enabled to understand the organic nature of human society. The
recognition of the fact that the universe is a systematic whole
constitutes an ideal, which, although consciously aimed at by few,
gives a progressive character to the general mind. Man is the only
creature that has an ideal, because he has been able to catch a glimpse
of a kind of consciousness of that which he has not attained, but which
he is bound to strive to attain. He begins with vague impressions
and animal impulses, "and his whole life is a struggle towards
clearness—clearness in the conceptions which he applies to things in
knowledge, clearness in the conception of ends of which he makes use
in conduct." The struggle between the immediate experience of what
is present in sense and "the 'still small voice' of the ideal, which
bids us have regard for the Universal," would be fruitless, however,
if the individual were alone. Society is necessary for the proper
development of the more ideal elements in human nature, as it provides
the rational environment required for a rational being. This leads to
a consideration of the ultimate end of society. In the course of the
discussion of this question the author deals with the different views
entertained as to the principles by which we are guided in conduct and
by which human progress is determined. He points out that what we seek
is some definitely ascertainable end, which we recognise as good, and
which is the happiness or well-being of persons. He rejects, however,
the Utilitarian theory, showing that pleasure cannot be the end of
conduct, and concludes that, if "we have any rational end at all, it
must consist in some kind of realisation of our nature as a whole"; of
knowledge, and will, and feeling, taken together. The true end is in
fact self-realisation, and this includes society, for we cannot suppose
that the ideal should be realised within our lives. It is conceivable
only "by our being able to see the world as a system of intelligent
beings who are mutually worlds for each other." The true nature of
man's end is thus necessarily a social one, and it includes everything
that belongs to the highest good. It embraces the realisation of
Reason, Order, and Beauty in the world; the realisation of Life; the
perfection of Knowledge and Wisdom, of Will and of Feeling.
We have given so full a summary of Mr. Mackenzie's argument that we
can add only a mere outline of what he considers "the form of social
union in which, under given conditions, the progress will be most rapid
and most secure towards that good which we must regard as the ultimate
end." The social ideal is said to depend on three chief elements of
well-being, Individual Culture, Subjugation of Nature, and Social
Organisation; which give rise to the one-sided ideals of Liberty,
Equality, and Aristocracy, not of birth but of talent. The Organic
ideal, which is that of Fraternity, is the true one, and it consists in
constant progress. This progress includes the three elements of human
well-being, personal development being the most important, as education
reacts on social life generally, by bringing new ideals of life as well
as a new sense of duty. In leaving Mr. Mackenzie's excellent work, we
may say that it deals in a clear and logical manner with the important
questions considered, and that it fully justifies the author's remark
that "Social Philosophy is a subject which at present will repay a
careful study."
Ω.
TWELVE LECTURES ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. By
_Ludwig Edinger_. Philadelphia and London: F. A. Davis, Publisher,
1890.
Dr. Edinger, of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, is one of the very
best authorities on the anatomy of the nervous system and the brain.
His twelve lectures contain a statement of our present knowledge of
the subject, to which the author has added considerably in several
not unimportant details. No one who is a student of the human brain
can do without Edinger's book, and we are glad that so soon after its
appearance in German it has been translated by competent men into
English.
κρς.
HYPNOTISM. By _Albert Moll_. New York: Scribner & Welford. 1890.
Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Company.
The present book is a translation from the second edition of the German
original. It reviews in 410 pages the main facts of Hypnotism. The
author begins with the history of Hypnotism (Chap. i); he then explains
the different hypnotic methods and stages of hypnotism (Chap. ii). The
symptoms of hypnotism (Chap. iii) are contrasted and compared with
cognate states (Chap. iv). Information is given concerning several
theories of hypnotism (Chap. v); all of them, however, are meagrely
sketched and the author does not arrive at a conclusion himself.
Simulation and its influences are briefly treated (Chap. vi). The
medical and legal aspects of hypnotism (Chap. vii and viii) are good
expositions of the matter, presented in lucid terms and impartially.
The last chapter, on Animal Magnetism, treats of a series of questions
which, as the author rightly remarks, refer to "phenomena which are
often mentioned in connection with hypnotism, although the connection
is rather historical than essential." In Mr. Moll's view they "are
the consequences of erroneously interpreted observations." The topics
here discussed are (1) animal magnetism, (2) telepathy, (3) supernormal
acts of somnambulism, (4) the experiments with the magnet, and (5) the
effects of the mere approach of drugs.
The author does not present new views of his subject, but he is
considerate in his statements, as well as scientific and clear. He is
not blind to the dangers of hypnotism, yet upon the whole he looks upon
it favorably, saying that "hypnotism and suggestion will outlive many
remedies whose praises fill the columns of medical journals at present."
κρς.
DER HYPNOTISMUS: SEINE PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGISCHE, MEDICINISCHE,
STRAFRECHTLICHE BEDEUTUNG UND SEINE HANDHABUNG. By Dr. _August
Forel_. Zweite umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. Stuttgart:
Verlag von Ferdinand Enke. 1891.
Prof. August Forel's pamphlet on hypnotism was, even in its first
edition, one of the best publications of its kind. The second edition
which now lies before us is enlarged and improved. The author has not
changed his views; he retains his old definitions, explaining hypnosis
as a state of abnormally increased suggestibility; but at the same
time he has added some chapters which present his position much more
accurately than he has ever done before. He rejects most positively the
fluidum theories; he opposes the views of Dr. Luys whose experiments
Dr. Forel repeated with his most sensitive somnambulists and obtained
negative results.
The position which Professor Forel takes is unequivocal Monism. He says
in his preface:
"A psychological introduction seemed to me indispensable, for it is
a daily discovery with me, how much the monistic foundation of the
doctrine of suggestion is misunderstood. Normal dream-life, the theory
of suggestion, and the relation of the latter to medicine and to
mental disorders generally, demanded substantial complements, and the
addition of a few new instances of therapeutic suggestion seemed to me
advantageous."
In agreement with this proposition he says in the first chapter of his
pamphlet:
"Hypnotism throws much light on the phenomenon we call consciousness,
and in a manner that substantially agrees with the monistic
world-conception. To understand hypnotism in other relations, we must
know what we have to understand by consciousness and its relation to
nervous activity....
"With dualists, who regard the soul as one thing and the body together
with all matter and all the forces of nature thereto appurtenant as
a totally different thing, the doctrine of the psychical faculties
follows of itself: herein the consciousness, the will, the mind, and
the rest must be regarded as separate departments of the soul....
"The monistic conception of the world aims to reduce all cosmic
phenomena to a single unity, and regards matter, force, and
consciousness ultimately as only forms of appearance of a same
primitive potency. Especially, however, it denies, that the soul is
anything else than forces of nature....
"Considered from the monistic point of view, consciousness by itself
is nothing; as Ribot ('The Diseases of Memory') correctly remarks
with Huxley and others, 'Consciousness is merely the accompaniment of
certain nervous processes; it is as incompetent to influence the latter
as the shadow is the steps of the wayfarer it follows.' It follows,
however, immediately from this, that the notions of consciousness and
subject, or subjectivism, are identical and undefinable. Consciousness
is merely the subjective form of appearance of nervous activity....
"Consequently, our human consciousness denotes only a summarised,
synthetical, subjective illumination Of the more powerful portion of
our cerebral activity....
"A very important phenomenon of consciousness takes place, further, in
the reviviscence of previous combinations of cerebral activity, that is
in the play of memory-images. We have here to deal with the connection
in time of the activity of the brain, that is with the relative
illumination of this activity by consciousness. Especially on this
field does hypnotism throw valuable light. The whole process of memory
is in itself completely independent of consciousness and exhibits
very interesting laws, for which I refer the reader to Ribot (l. c.).
We discover the laws of the memory in ourselves for the greater part
through the illumination by consciousness of the activity of the brain.
But it is not proper to oppose a conscious memory to the organic or
unconscious memory. There is but one memory, which consists _a_) in
the weakened preservation of the vibrations of every cerebral action
(nervous activity in general), _b_) in the powers of reviviscence, or,
better, power of re-invigoration of these actions, and often, _c_) in
the re-cognition, that is in the identification, of the re-invigorated
activity with the original one (localisation in time)....
"We all possess a second consciousness, the consciousness of dreams or
sleep, which, qualitatively, does not differ in essential respects from
the consciousness of the waking state....
"We may not, accordingly, place conscious and unconscious activity in
opposition to each other."
Dr. Forel discusses in other chapters of his pamphlet the relation
of nervous activity and nervous substance to the states of
consciousness (Chap. ii). He explains suggestion, compares sleep with
hypnosis, treats the symptoms of hypnosis, resistance of hypnotised
persons, auto-suggestions, the "suggestion à échéance," retroactive
hallucinations or suggested memory falsifications, the import and
nature of suggestions (Chap. iv). He then proceeds to investigate
diseased states of mind with reference to hypnotism, and maintains that
insane people are least suggestible (Chap. v). He gives some valuable
hints for suggestive or psycho-therapeutic treatment to hypnotisers
(Chap. vii), and presents cases of successful cures (Chap. viii). The
legal aspect is treated in Chap. x, the hypnotisation of animals in
Chap. xi. An interesting and indeed candid chapter is Forel's views on
quackery (Chap. ix); acknowledging the fact that at best one sixth only
of patients are cured by physicians, our author hopes that the full
recognition of the suggestion theory in therapeutics will contribute
not a little to the advancement of medical science and also to the
moral attitude of the profession.
κρς.
DER MODERNE MENSCH. Versuche über Lebensführung. By _B. Carneri_. Bonn:
Emil Strauss. 1891.
During a long and laborious life Mr. Carneri has been an indefatigable
champion of the monistic world-conception. With a keen eye he
recognised years ago the importance Of physiological investigations for
psychology, and he saw at once the moral import of the evolution theory
even at a time when most of its defenders denounced it as the immoral
law of nature. Carneri thus became the preacher of a new ethics; he
taught the morality of science and helped us out of the pessimism that
naturally followed a time when the old foundations had been overthrown
and the new ones had not as yet been built. The author is now at a very
advanced age and the present book contains his maturest and dearest
ideas. He is a man whose burden of life has been heavier than that the
average man has to bear. Physical weakness, since birth, long periods
of illness accompanied with almost incessant pain, later on periods of
recovery and transient happiness followed. He married and had children.
But new visitations came. He buried his wife, and also a little son at
the premature age of ten years.
These are some facts of the author's life not mentioned in any one
of his books; they are only hinted at in a line of the preface of
the present book, quoted below. But his readers should know these
facts, because they bring the author so much nearer to us. We learn to
understand him better and shall the more appreciate his genuine courage
in working out a noble conception of life and sound rules of moral
conduct.
The present book contains a number of articles on various subjects,
and the author has as he says in the preface "put into them his whole
heart." It differs from former publications of his. The latter are
as a rule scientific and objective, they are investigations into the
laws of life and of ethics. The present book is subjective; it shows
the aim and the path of the author's conduct of life. Carneri adds:
"And that I, visited with ills above the average measure, have found
life beautiful, and being in my seventieth year now, find it beautiful
still, speaks in favor of this path. It speaks also for a happy
individuality, but I hope that this will not detract from the truth
that the present book is not mere imagination but is taken from the
thrilling pulse of life."
Carneri is fully convinced that morality will find a better foundation
in the unitary nature of man than in the old conception Of his
double nature and in this sense he discusses the following topics,
Gratitude, Labor, Egotism, Justice, Versatility, Passion, the Ideal,
the Inevitable, the God-idea, Truthfulness, Morality, Love, Family,
Imagination, Continence, Honor, God-everywhere, Death, Tolerance,
Character, Art, and Humor. The whole tenor of the book is very
sympathetic and we might describe the author as one of the high priests
of the coming Religion of Science.
κρς.
UEBER DIE GRUNDLAGEN DER ERKENNTNIS IN DEN EXACTEN WISSENSCHAFTEN. By
_Paul du Bois-Reymond_. Nach einer hinterlassenen Handschrift. Mit
einem Bildnis des Verfassers. Tübingen: H. Laupp'sche Buchhandlung.
1890.
This little book of the late Prof. Paul du Bois-Reymond has been
prepared for print by Dr. Guido Hauck with the assistance of the
author's brother from a posthumous manuscript. The pamphlet contains in
popular form the final résumé of a thinker's life-work; complementing
and completing his investigations, and maturing mainly his favorite
ideas which he had presented to his students in a course of lectures on
gravitation during the winter '87-88 at the Technical High School of
Berlin, where he was Professor of Mathematics.
Prof. Paul du Bois-Reymond is not only as powerful and at the same time
as subtle a thinker as his more famous brother Emil du Bois-Reymond,
but he also agrees with the latter's philosophical attitude. Both are
agnostics and both represent an unusually profound and scientifically
elaborate agnosticism. They have become agnostics because they have
arrived at results which, to their mind, present an insolvable problem.
Prof. Paul du Bois-Reymond does not despair of a final solution of the
problem of life, which according to Emil du Bois-Reymond decidedly
belongs to "the seven world-riddles," but he considers gravitation as
incomprehensible. The purpose of all our attempts to explain phenomena
is to limit the incomprehensible to the smallest space possible and
to reduce it to the simplest expression (p. 13). Comprehension,
according to Paul du Bois-Reymond, can be attained by three methods,
(1) the empirical, (2) the mechanical, and (3) the meta-mechanical.
The empirical is inductive, the mechanical is deductive, and the
meta-mechanical attacks those problems which are at the bottom of all
our fundamental conceptions. The meta-mechanical tendency of science
is not satisfied with the results of the empirical and mechanical
investigations; it attempts to conquer all the difficulties or at least
to arrive at the limits of human comprehension. "Its province is to
comprehend matter, how matter can have effect on other matter, how
actio in distans can produce pressure or motion; it tries to understand
the great concepts of time and space and whatever profound problems may
now or during the further progress of science be proposed."
Having explained these preliminary views concerning the methods of
comprehension, the author discusses the following topics: Is the
Space-filling Substance Continuous or Atomistic? (Chap. iii).—Actio
in Distans (_Fernkraft_) (Chap. iv).—Several Syntheses (Chap.
v).—The Idealistic and the Empiristic World Conception (Chap.
vi).—Atomism and Actio in Distans with Reference to the Absolute
(Chap. vii).—Concerning World-Conceptions (Chap. viii). In the first
of these chapters (viz. in Chap. iii. of the book) the author presents
the difficulties which beset the theory of a continuous substance.
At first sight it appears most plausible to conceive of that which
fills space as something constant and uninterrupted, but continuity of
substance, our author declares, excludes a possible change of volume;
compressibility and expansibility, properties which we predicate of
any kind of substance, stand in a patent contradiction to a continuous
filling of space. Substance therefore cannot be continuous, it must
consist of a material which can be shifted, which is compressible, can
be mixed, is liable to chemical changes, and allows imponderabilia to
pass freely through; it is porous, or in other words it is permeated
by space free from substance. Prof. Paul du Bois-Reymond conceives
of substance as dust-like, viz. it consists of spatially distinct
corpuscles, and he thinks that there must be supposed to be different
kinds of dust. These dust-particles are in his synthesis the vehicles
of any actio in distans, their properties are energy and inertia. Actio
in distans, we are informed in the next chapter, cannot be explained
by constructing a world-synthesis either out of absolutely rigid
elements or out of absolutely elastic elements. Since we cannot derive
a construction of actio in distans from mechanical concepts, we are led
to the conclusion that we have reached here the limit of cognition.
Indeed, the incomprehensible in all forces is and remains the actio in
distans. All the hypotheses which try to explain the problem, will only
defer it by introducing some medium which is to be the vehicle of the
actio in distans, and the simplest method is after all to consider the
atom as this vehicle. "The far-effective atom, conceived as a centre
of activity, endowed with inertia, freely movable, is the simplest
mechanism that can be used as the basis of our synthesis, and we call
it briefly the far-effective (fernwirkende) atom" (p. 52).
It seems to us that Professor du Bois-Reymond has disposed of the idea
of a continuous substance too easily, and that he is at the same time
too easily satisfied with the shortcomings of his atomistic theory of a
dust-like substance. We grant most willingly that the idea of an actio
in distans is inconceivable, for an action can be effective only where
it takes place, it can have no effect in other and more distant places.
But action is never confined to a limited point: it always stretches
over a field of some size. Suppose an action _a_ takes place along the
line _b c_, can we speak of _b_ as being effective in _c_; or is it not
rather _a_, i. e. the whole process, which takes place in _b_ and in
_c_. The sun's mass exercises an effect upon the earth; and yet they
are about 80,000,000 miles distant. But let us use an instance which
can become a more direct object of our observation. We have a pair of
scales and put a weight on one of them. At once, simultaneously with
the sinking of the weighted scale, the other scale rises. Is this not
just as much an actio in distans as any other instance of gravity? In
fact our astronomers compare the gravitating celestial bodies quite
frequently to the action of a balance. It may be objected to this
comparison that we see the beam of the scales, while there is no beam
between the sun and the earth. If there is no beam, there must be a
connection of some kind. If the earth and the sun are two disconnected
bodies, we see no possibility for an explanation that the effects of
the sun's mass are felt upon the earth. Is not after all the hypothesis
of a continuous world-substance the easiest explanation of gravity?
It seems to me that it is the only possible way of explaining what is
commonly and perhaps awkwardly called actio in distans. The atomistic
philosophers are bound to have the world a composition of innumerable
particles of dust; they wish to construct the universe mechanically and
this view of things appears for certain purposes very well adapted. Yet
they cannot construct the world of isolated world-dust particles, they
must have some glue or cement to fasten their atoms into a single whole
that sticks together. Professor Du Bois-Reymond is consistent enough
to see the impossibility of this construction. The cement of which the
mortar of atomism consists is the inconceivable, unthinkable idea of an
actio in distans.
Let us try to look at things from the other side. Our world-conception
consists of the sum of all the divers things we are acquainted with;
but daily experience teaches, that the world is not a composition of
things or of atoms, the world is one inseparable whole, and the least
change in one part affects the whole universe. Some one said, if I
raise my finger the entire cosmos is shaken; and this we know is true,
although the vibrations are too insignificant to be noticed by our dull
senses. We speak of the earth and we speak of the sun, but in reality
there is neither an isolated sun on the one side nor an isolated earth
on the other, there is a whole and continuous world, one part of it is
called sun and another part is called earth. Every action of every part
of the world has its effects on all the other parts, and there is no
action taking place in the world which in this sense is not an actio in
distans. If we call the part played by the sun alone his action, then
there is certainly actio in distans, and actio in distans would be the
basis of the existence of the world as a cosmic whole. Yet we should
remember that the sun does not perform any action alone for itself. The
actions that take place in reality are relations among the inseparable
parts of the universe. The sphere of every action extends, closely
considered, over the whole world.
This view of things is not a construction of the world, it has not been
invented for making a philosophical synthesis, it is a description of
the world as we know it by experience. The description is imperfect
and it presents many difficulties which will have to be formulated in
problems. But we are confident that this descriptive method is the only
procedure that promises success and will produce results in the future.
Attempts to reconstruct a world-system from its analysed elements have
been made and, although we have not as yet reached a general consensus,
we must consider these attempts as being at least in part successful.
Suppose we call the simplest and most original state of substance ether
and consider matter as ether-whirls of a certain kind. The ether must
have a peculiar aggregate state of its own which in some respect is
like a fluid, for its parts are continuous as well as interchangeable.
An ether whirl, or an atom, being a condensation of ether, would
naturally produce a tension which stands in some proportion to the
condensed mass.
Let an india-rubber plate in a frame such as the designers use for
altering the size of a picture represent the normal relation among the
different parts of pure ether. Now put the finger-tips of both hands
upon the india-rubber and contract them so as to condense in both
places the india-rubber inside your finger-tips. Would not the tension
between both condensations be increased? and suppose the two condensed
spots were swimming freely in the india-rubber, they would in that
case attract each other in a similar way as masses of matter gravitate
toward each other.
This comparison is of course rude, but it may serve here as an
illustration of how we can conceive of actio in distans without
committing ourselves to the assumption that an action has its effects
in a place where it does not operate. We should not venture to speak
of the absolute rigidity or absolute elasticity of the world-substance
until the phenomena which urge us to form our views about ether have
been better classified and understood.
In the chapter on "Several Syntheses" the author discusses problems
without coming to any conclusion. The synthesis of organised life may
lead us to something which is quite as incomprehensible as actio in
distans and cannot be reduced to it (p. 70). The riddles grow before
our eyes, "above the fog of that which lies near us rises the imposing
problem of the soul and towering above all other things appears the
awful question of the consciousness of the ego." Prof. Du Bois-Reymond
does not attempt any solution and proposes no reconciliation between
the empirical and idealistic world-conceptions (which are contrasted
in Chapter vi). This lack of arriving at a definite solution leads
our author into mysticism, in which he indulges in the last chapters
to a greater extent than we are inclined to allow a man of science.
He speaks of a treble world in which we are shut up as if in a
treble cage, (1) the world of immediate apprehensions, (2) the world
of conceptions, and (3) the world of reality. The third world is
"extra-phenomenal," it is the physical beyond our ego included. But
"we are lacking the organ of reality" (p. 120) and "in the physical
beyond nothing is impossible" (p. 122). It is strange that Prof. Du
Bois-Reymond mentions Professor Kirchhoff's famous preface to his
mechanics, in which he replaces the word "explain" by "describe" (p.
13). He also mentions Professor Helmholtz's term that phenomena (i. e.
sensations) are symbols or signs of reality, _Zeichen der Wirklichkeit_
(p. 121). But he overlooks entirely that the world-conception derived
from these ideas can be developed in a positive world-conception
that can satisfactorily reconcile idealism with empiricism. As soon
as we know that cognition means description, we can dispense with
meta-mechanics and need not join in the disheartening cry of the
agnostic _ignorabimus_. The inscrutableness of reality, says our
author, is almost a matter of course. Happily we forget it constantly,
for the idea is one of the dreariest and the most weird (trostlosest
and unheimlichst).
The whole result is negative, for we can predicate of reality nothing
save that it is contained in a space and that there is motion taking
place in it. But of what kind this space and the time depending on the
motion are, and in what relation they stand to our conceptions of time
and space we can say nothing.
This is sad, but, adds Prof. Du Bois-Reymond, "world-pain is of no
avail and yet, the world is not so bad after all" (p. 124).
κρς.
TUISKO-LAND DER ARISCHEN STAEMME UND GOETTER-URHEIMAT. Erläuterungen
zum Sagenschatze der Veden, Edda, Ilias, und Odyssee. By Dr. _Ernst
Krause_. Mit 76 Abbildungen im Text und einer Karte. Glogau: Carl
Flemming. 1891.
Dr. Ernst Krause, better known by the nom de plume of "Carus Sterne,"
has of late made a special study of comparative mythology, and
many interesting articles of his have appeared in different German
periodicals, analysing and collating the myths of the Aryan nations
and investigating their material as to their probable origin. Dr.
Krause distinguishes between two kinds of myths, (1) those which might
and actually do originate in any place, and (2) those which could
originate only in a certain and limited locality. The former are most
interesting to the psychologist. We can expect that they will afford
us an important clue to the development of the human soul. The latter,
however, are valuable material to the historian and ethnologist, and
from their rich mines Dr. Krause quarries his main arguments to prove
the European origin of the Aryas. The course and the effects of the
sun vary so greatly in the south and in the north that it would have
been strange if the solar myths also did not vary. Now it is natural
that such a myth as that of Baldur's death, for instance, could only
originate in a northern climate, and if we find the same legend told
with slight modifications in the south, we must assume that it has been
transplanted there. The attempt has often been made to explain the
similarities between the Edda on the one hand and the Greek or Hindoo
legends on the other by the influence of the latter on the former; yet
we find that this theory is no longer tenable and we must grant, if not
to the Edda itself, certainly to the substance of the Edda traditions
a far greater antiquity than we ever could have anticipated. Let us
compare, for instance, the Baldur myth with the account of Herodotus in
"Klio" (Chaps. 34-45), and let us bear in mind that here we have not
to deal with history, but with legends, for Plutarch already observes,
the ancient historians had noticed that Solon died soon after Kroesos's
accession to the throne (563 B. C.); accordingly it was little probable
that he saw the Lydian King while at the height of his power. The
striking similarity of the two versions can be seen in eight points:
1. King Odin has two sons, of 1. King Kroesos has two sons of
whom the one is a model of whom the one excels by his
perfection, beloved by God and virtues all his companions,
men, while the other appears to while the other appears to be
be excluded from the succession unable to succeed his father
by the fact of his being blind. on the throne. He is deaf.
2. The Ases have evil dreams, 2. Kroesos dreams that a
indicating that some danger is pointed iron will kill his
threatening to Baldur. favorite son Atys.
3. Frigga takes an oath from 3. Kroesos removes all iron
all created things not to arms within reach of his son.
injure her son.
4. Baldur is married young, the 4. Atys is married young, his
name of his wife being Nanna. mother's name is Nana.
5. The Ases make a sport of 5. Atys goes a hunting, because
shooting at Baldur because no in this sport he need not fear
missile can hurt him. the tooth of the boar.
6. Baldur's own brother kills 6. A friend (who was a fratricide
him without intention. by accident) kills Atys
unintentionally.
7. Loki is accused of being 7. Not he who threw the fatal
guilty of the murder. missile is accused, but the God
who predicted Atys's fate in
the dream.
8. The innocent murderer is 8. The innocent murderer
slain. commits suicide.
We must consider it as an additional proof of the theory that the
southern version has been taken from northern sources when we find
incidental features which have sense only so long as they appear
connected with their original surroundings. The Ilias also contains
a modified version of the Baldur myth in the account of Patroclus's
death. Patroclus is the kind hero, obliging and friendly to all who
knew him, the brightest and purest figure of the whole poem. He falls
by the intrigues of a God. When Patroclus's body is burned the same
thing happens as with Baldur. Achilles lights the funeral pyre but it
will not burn, and as in the Edda a giant-woman is called in, so in the
Iliad, Iris is sent for in order to call Boreas and Zephyr who by the
promise of considerable sacrifices are induced to make the fire burn.
There is no reason here why the fire should not burn, but in the Edda
there is a very obvious reason, for all the elements had promised by
oath not to harm Baldur's body. The flames were not allowed to burn
him, the logs on which the funeral ship should roll into the waves
were not allowed to carry him down, and the waves were not allowed to
receive him.
Great interest attaches also to the similarities between the Baldur
myth and Christianity, and not long ago a Danish theologian has
attempted to show that the sagas of the Edda were imported into the
North by Christian monks, the world-tree Yggdrasil was said to be the
biblical tree of life, the same from which the wood of Christ's cross
had been taken, Loki was identified with Lucifer, the blind Höder
with Longinus, the Roman captain who thrust the lance into the side
of Christ, etc. It is a strange coincidence that Longinus was blind,
according to the Gospel of Nicodemus, which may have been written in
the eighth century. Longinus, it is told, acquired sight through the
blood of Jesus, thus interpreting the passage "they shall look at him
whom they pierced" in the sense as if Longinus had not been able to
look at Jesus before.
A Jewish libel against Christianity, _Toledoth Jeshu_, (reprinted
in Eisenmenger's "Entdecktes Judenthum") contains a very striking
similarity with the Baldur myth. It is told:
"When the wise had ordered Jesus, after he had been stoned, to be
hanged to the wood and the wood would not bear him but broke, his
disciples saw it and they wept and said: 'Lo the justice of our Lord
Jesus; no wood will bear him.' The disciples did not know that he had
extorted an oath from all the wood while he had still the name (viz.,
the mystical and miracle-working name of God) in his power, for he
knew his fate that he would be condemned to be hanged.... But when
Judas saw that no wood would bear him, he said to the wise: Consider
the shrewdness of his mind. He has taken oaths from all wood that it
should not bear him, but in my garden grows an enormous cabbage-stock.
I shall go and bring it; perhaps it will bear him. The wise said: Do as
you say. Then Judas went and brought the cabbage-stock, and they hanged
Jesus on it."
This account being older than 1278, it was supposed to have contributed
to form the Baldur myth of the Edda, but Müllenhoff refuted all the
attempts to attribute a recent origin to the Edda. The mistle does
not grow in Iceland, accordingly the main parts of the Baldur myth in
which the mistle plays so prominent a part must have existed before the
Icelanders left their Scandinavian homes.
Dr. Krause's investigations strongly tend to corroborate the new view
of placing the home of the Aryas in Europe.
By Aryas in the old sense of the name were understood those families
of nations which spoke the Aryan languages, viz., the Hindoo, the
Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Slaves, the Germans, and
the Celts, and some few smaller ones. These Aryas were formerly
considered as kin in blood and their home was sought somewhere in
Asia. Of late, however, many considerations tend to prove that these
Aryan nations were by no means one family; they are the product of
a mixture of several races among which one has forced its language
upon the others. If we call this race the Aryans proper we find that
they are represented most purely in the Teutonic nations, the Saxons,
Low Germans, and Scandinavians. These Aryans are a tall, blond, and
dolichocephalic race. They appear as the conquerors of India, the
masters of Persia, the Dorian immigrators of Greece, showing everywhere
the same attributes. It is natural that they were swallowed up again
by the dark brachycephalic races whom they had conquered, because the
latter were better adapted to the southern climate than their masters.
There are three long-headed races: (1) the blond long-heads or
Aryas, (2) the dark South European long-heads, and (3) the dark and
woolly-haired long-heads of Africa or the Negroes. There are also
several broad-headed races, among them the Ugro-Finnians, Turanians,
South European broad-heads are represented as the Savoyards. The
original Aryans (by A. de Quatrefages called the Cannstadt race) were
extremely long-headed, the proportion sinking below 75 : 100. This race,
so called after the discovery of graves in Cannstadt, shows a strong
similarity with, and must be considered as, an evolution from the
Neanderthal type. The eyebrows of the male Neanderthal type skulls
protrude (slightly reminding us of the Gorilla) making the smallness
of the forehead still more noticeable. The hind part of the head is
well developed. The bones are extremely strong, the skull is thick, and
the proportion of length to breadth averages in both, the Neanderthal
and Cannstadt types, 71·3. This race inhabited the banks of the Rhine
and Seine and has been called the Germanic type by Hölder, the Saxon
type by Englishmen, Cymrians by Broca, while Dr. Krause calls them
Aryans. The South European long-heads with dark hair are called by
A. de Quatrefages the Cro-Magnon type, named after a place in the
Vésère valley where as its first specimen a tall old man had been
discovered. The Cro-Magnon type varies greatly from the Cannstadt
type; the forehead is broad and high, and the cranium is also well
formed. The proportion of breadth to length is also dolichocephalic,
it averages 73·76. The orbits are broad but closely set, and the size
of the lower parts of the face from the middle downward is strongly
lessened in proportion to the higher parts, ending in a pointed and
protruding chin. This race lived in Greece, Southern Italy, France, and
Spain, and is found also in England, where its descendants even to-day
can be traced in some of the Silurian inhabitants of South Wales and
Ireland. Tacitus says that the Silurians have come from Spain, and even
to-day the people of Berkshire resemble greatly, as Boyd-Dawkins says,
the Basques of the Western Pyrenees, near Bagnères de Bogorre. Their
stature is sometimes small but not always, they are sometimes tall,
their gait is light, their nose narrow and long, sometimes approaching
Jewish features, their skin dark, their hair coarse, black, and usually
curled.
Long after the appearance of these long-heads arrived several varieties
of broad-heads, among them Mongoloid, Ugro-Finnish, and Turanian types.
Dr. Krause arrives at the following résumé, that the Cannstadt skull
represents the Germanic or better the Aryan type. "This race lived in
Middle Europe in the oldest times to which prehistoric investigation
descends and has not immigrated from Asia since the great ice-era. This
conclusion has been adopted by the most prominent anthropologists, in
France by Hamy, Topinard, Quatrefages, in England by Beddoe, Flower,
Thurnam, in Germany by Ecker, Lindenschmit, Hölder, Virchow, and
others."
Dr. Krause adds: "Virchow however takes in this question of the
characteristic features of the Aryan race a strange and isolated
position, in so far as he believes that from the beginning there had
been and are still broad-heads as well as long-heads among the Germanic
races." With respect to the conflict between Virchow and Dr. Krause,
we should prefer to call the old and original races by new names, as
Quatrefages did; we should speak of them as the Cannstadt type, the
Cro-Magnon type, etc. When we speak of Aryans, or Saxons, or Germanic
nations, we should know that they are no longer the pure Cannstadt
type, but a mixture, and this mixture has not even to-day become
sufficiently fixed to produce one uniform race. There are certain
features predominant in certain nations, and certainly the blond
long-heads are purest in the Teutonic nations; nevertheless, it is not
an uncommon occurrence that in one and the same family both types are
distinctly represented. Johannes Ranke on the strength of this fact has
no faith in the constancy of the skull and does not regard it as a fit
method of settling any race problem.
The Aryans, i. e. the tall, blond broad-heads of the Cannstadt type
are distinguished by strength and by power of will. They were hunters,
fishermen, sea-faring people, and warriors. They loved the sea,
they loved rivers and lakes. They appear repeatedly in history as
conquerors. The arts and industries, however, the use of metals, the
invention of pottery, do not seem to have originated among them.
It seems to us that Dr. Krause exhibits an excusable partiality for
the blond tall Aryas in comparison with the dark South-European
long-heads as well as the broad-heads. The Aryans were chiefly the
rulers, except in Palestine, where the tall blond Amorites had been
conquered by Semites. It appears that the conquest of a country by
the Aryas for instance in India, in Persia, in Greece, gave a start
to civilisation, as the Ostro-Goths restored peace and reawakened the
arts in Italy. But at the same time we notice that the Aryas were most
likely more savage than their broad-headed fellowmen. The present
Teutonic population represents so little the pure type of the old tall
long-heads that Professor Virchow refuses to recognise long-headedness
as a race symptom at all. We find long-heads and broad-heads in the
same family. Both long-headed parents may have broad-headed children
and _vice versa._ This need not prove the correctness of Professor
Virchow's position, but it may very well prove that the present
nations, the Teutonic race not excluded, are the product of a mixture.
As the most important feature of Aryan character Dr. Krause considers
their religion, and we are inclined to accept Dr. Krause's opinion as
thoroughly sound. The Aryan religion, he says, is the cult of light
in opposition to the southern cult of darkness. The original Semites
worshipped the earth, the moon, the night; the Aryan, worshipped
the sun, the sky, the day, the former bowed before womanhood and
sentimentality; the latter represented manhood and will-power. (The
Jews are not pure Semites, they show a constant proportion in the north
of a little over 14/100 and in the south of a little over 13/100 of
tall, blond long-heads. These blond Jews, are according to Virchow,
the Amorites with which the Israelites mixed after the conquest of
Palestine. The religion of the Jews also shows very strong Aryan
influences especially since their contact with the Persians.)
The Aryan religions as a rule begin the world with male motherless
Gods; while the Semitic religions begin with female mother-gods
without fathers. There is the giant Ymir or in Alfadur, here the
goddess Kybele, Isis, Rhea, or Demeter. This difference is founded on
a social difference which again depends upon climatic conditions. In
the south we find in the beginning a state of matriarchy. There was
no great difficulty in bringing up large families and the assistance
of the father was not needed. In consequence thereof the father was
and remained a stranger, an occasional visitor. There were no lasting
family ties between himself and the mother of his children, the sexual
relations remained free, and the right of heredity recognised the
mother only. How different was it in the north! Without their father a
family had to perish. The severe struggle for life created the family
and eventually the monogamic family, it made the men strong, active,
liberty-loving. There was undoubtedly much rudeness among the northern
nations; they were savages in many respects, but wherever they appeared
as conquerors they introduced their religion of light, activity, and
submission to moral laws. The conquered tribes contributed undoubtedly
many most valuable qualities to the mixture from which the future races
arose, qualities which the Aryans would perhaps never have been able to
evolve out of themselves alone. Nevertheless the Aryans gave character
to the nations, impressed upon them their speech, their thought, their
world-conception and their morality.
Dr. Krause's treatment of comparative mythology with reference to the
physical and geographical conditions under which myths originate, is
very suggestive, and we wish he had also taken into consideration the
parallelism of the northern Sun-myths with Christianity. Dr. Krause
mentions that the idea of immortality is an Aryan thought, he might
have added that the idea of a dying God who will again rise from the
dead can only have originated in the home of the Baldur myth.
Dr. Krause's work contains in 624 pages an almost inexhaustible store
of investigations. It is one of the most interesting books we have ever
seen. We mention here only the chapters on the Megalithian Monuments,
on Orion, on the northern animals of Apollo, on little Red Ridinghood,
on the Wagon in the Skies and Tom Thumb, on Helen and her northern
representatives, and on the history of the Odyssee. The book would be
more valuable to the reader if it possessed an index.
κρς.
DIE MATHEMATIK DIE FACKELTRAEGERIN EINER NEUEN ZEIT. By _C. Dillmann_.
Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1889.
The importance of this little book does not lie so much in the theories
as in the practical aims of the author. Oberstudienrath Dillmann is a
reformer in the system of higher education; he is not a mere theorist,
but a man of experience who has now been for years the principal of a
school like that which he advocates. Mr. Dillmann's idea is very simple
and obviously correct. He claims that the old so-called classical
method, where the teaching of dead languages is made the basis of
education, no longer meets the needs of our time; that there is however
another discipline, which for its universality and its fundamental
importance in every branch of knowledge should be made the corner-stone
of education, and that is mathematics. So he proposes to have our boys
educated in mathematical high schools.
We may insert here some information concerning Mr. Dillmann, which
is not found in his book but will throw light upon his plans and
theories. Mr. Dillmann is the son of a schoolmaster. He inherited
from his father the aspiration of acquiring a higher education and
having passed through the gymnasium he went to the university to
study theology. The study of theology is the only one in which a poor
youth finds support and material help from his fellowmen. Having
passed his examinations he was engaged for about seven years as a
vicar in the service of the church. He felt however the need of
completing his education in mathematics and the natural sciences. He
went again to the university (this time to the polytechnic school
at Stuttgart) and devoted himself with great zeal to his favorite
studies. Having passed his examinations in these branches he was
appointed professor of mathematics at the Stuttgart gymnasium. While
here engaged in preparing his pupils for the university, he became more
and more convinced that the whole plan of teaching then followed was
inadequate. Our youth receive much information about trifles which are
useless to them in after life, while the main things are treated with
indifference. He wrote a book "The demands of the Realistic Sciences
on Education," which excited general interest and called the attention
of Kultus-minister von Golther to his ideas. Herr von Golther founded
a new kind of a high school which besides giving good philological
instruction, Latin included, was to be devoted mainly to a thorough
mathematical education; and Professor Dillmann was appointed president
of the school, which first bore the name of "mathematical gymnasium."
The authorities soon considered it best to change the name into
Real-gymnasium. The school was started in 1867 as a mere trial and in
1871, when its success appeared to be assured, it became a permanent
institution. For 15 years it counts an average of from 800 to 900
pupils.
In spite of the confidence of the public, the new school had and
has still its hard times. The views now prevalent among the German
authorities are less favorable to great reformatory ideas than
ever. The restrictions put upon the Real-gymnasia have also hit Mr.
Dillmann's school, although his institution is different in plan from
the other Real-gymnasia, the latter being, as a rule, schools in which
the scholastic severity of the gymnasia is neglected without replacing
it by other systematic studies.
The present book has been written to explain and justify Mr. Dillmann's
methods, and we cannot but say that we heartily sympathise with his
aspirations. At the same time we express here the sincere hope that
another Dillmann might rise on American soil and institute a real
mathematical high school which will give a more solid foundation for
the education of scientists than our present educational systems can
give. We do not mean that the philological and historical studies
should be neglected in such a mathematical school. We trust that they
can be taught with less waste of energy than has been done in the past.
There is perhaps no need of preaching against Greek and Latin in our
American schools, because philology, it appears, is the most neglected
study on this side of the Atlantic and the ignorance in classics often
of highly educated scholars is sometimes astounding and would be
shocking to pedants of European philology. But I have not as yet been
able to discover that this ignorance concerning a few grammatical rules
of two dead languages has wrought great harm. At the same time I have
noticed that European savants in spite of their enormous philological
scholarship are sometimes grossly ignorant of the spirit that lived
in the so-called classic nations. They have translated Homer, have
analysed the Ionic and Aeolian and Dorian forms of Homeric speech,
but they have rarely read Homer and imbibed the beauties of Greek
poetry. Philological scholarship is dry and hard work, but the study of
historical evolution, to be nourished with the spirit of the past and
to see it develop into the spirit of modern times is rather recreation
than drudgery. We can keep the latter without plaguing our boys so much
as before with the former.
The present book contains as introduction an "open word" by the
author to his Excellency the Prussian Secretary of Education, Dr. von
Gossler, pointing out the error of his policy not to admit the pupils
of Real-gymnasia to the universities. The bulk of the book is devoted
to an explanation of the importance of mathematics in all the sciences.
Mr. Dillmann declares it is a mistake to believe that the objective
world is unknowable. Kant has torn the world in two halves and by
making space and time purely subjective, he created a gap between the
subject and the object, between mind and nature, a gap which, if Kant's
assumption be true, cannot be bridged. Kant's division of the world
however is wrong. Does not every thinking subject with his feelings and
concepts lie in the sphere of objectivity of other subjects? Time and
space are not purely subjective and the science of time and space is
destined to reconcile the conflicting parties, it will restore peace
and harmony again between mind and nature. Our world of conception is
in immediate contact and interconnection with the world of reality. All
intellectual activity is motion of our organ of thought. Sensations
are produced by motions of the objective world and these sensations
are gradually transformed into concepts. Words are the embodiment of
concepts. The phenomena of the outer world reappear in the symbolism
of language, and thus our intellectual activity can lead to a faithful
representation of nature. The world is cognisable, truth can be born in
us and we need not lose the self-confidence in our own abilities.
These theoretical explanations are of great interest, and we need
scarcely add that Mr. Dillmann's plan would still retain its value,
if they were proved to contain inaccuracies or errors. We look upon
it as the author's philosophical confession of faith, the main idea
of which is indubitably correct while many of its details are without
great consequence. We would express the main idea of Mr. Dillmann's
book in the following way: Formal thought is the basis of all knowledge
and a correct comprehension of the main formal sciences especially of
mathematics is the primary condition of a scientific education.
κρς.
GEISTESSTOERUNGEN IN DER SCHULE. Ein Vortrag nebst 13 Krankenbildern.
By _Christian Ufer_. Wiesbaden: J. F. Bergmann. 1891.
The subject-matter of this pamphlet was read as a lecture on November
9th, 1890, before the _Verein für wissenschaftliche Pädagogik_ at
Weissenfels. The author's aim is, to bring home to parents and teachers
the important idea, that the treatment of psychical disturbances
must be based on our best knowledge of psychology, and especially
of physiological psychology. A deeper insight into pathological
conditions, says Krafft-Ebing, will remove many mistakes and tyrannies
in our education. Teachers as a rule have to deal with healthy
children, but diseased conditions are sufficiently frequent to demand
of our teachers that they should learn how to treat them. The cases
with which the author illustrates his doctrines show that one of the
most common causes of psychic diseases in children must be sought in
the nervous disposition of their parents, their unequal treatment and
also their over-anxious ambition which produces excitement in the
child's mind without helping him to overcome the rather heavy demands
of German school-life.
κρς.
THE SOUL OF MAN. An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and
Experimental Psychology. By Dr. _Paul Carus_. Chicago: The Open
Court Publishing Co. 1891.
The Editor of _The Monist_ has collected and collated in this book the
results of the work done in the field of psychology and its auxiliary
sciences. The author's philosophical standpoint is characterised in
the first chapter where he contrasts feeling and motion. Feeling
is defined as the subjective aspect of certain processes which,
viewed objectively, appear as motions, and it is described as a
state of awareness. Feeling originates from the simpler elements of
subjectivity and becomes naturally representative, i. e. it acquires
meaning. Mind is an organised totality of meaning-endowed feelings.
The author reconciles from his standpoint idealism with realism. He
shows that "the fulfilment of mind is truth.... Mind expands in the
measure that it contains and reflects truth" (p. 46). The question
of telepathy is touched, yet telepathy has here a different meaning
from mystic thought-transference without any means of communication.
Every sensation is a "far feeling" in the literal sense of the word,
for "we do not feel our sense-organs but in and through our sense
organs objects outside of us are felt. In and through our eyes most
distant stars are seen.... What is the soul but a telepathic machine?"
(p. 44) In the chapters following are described the characteristic
features of organised life and its rise from non-organised life. The
physiological part of the book treats of the soul-life of plants, then
of animals, and gives by the aid of profuse illustrations an account
of the evolution of nervous systems up to man. The chapter on the seat
of consciousness proposes a new theory which will be of interest to
physiologists as well as psychologists.
The recapitulation of the present state of experimental psychology
presents the most telling facts of hypnotism, compares them with their
correspondent normal states of soul-life, and explains them from the
standpoint of the author. The conclusion of the book is devoted to the
ethical and religious application of this conception of psychology.
The practical importance of the new truths in the psychological field
is vigorously maintained, but at the same time it is shown that the
old conceptions psychological as well as religious are by no means
worthless. They contain great truths and cannot be discarded offhand.
In this sense are discussed among others the problems of Freewill and
Responsibility, of Immortality and of the God-idea.
PERIODICALS.
MIND. April, 1891. No. LXII.
CONTENTS:
FREE-WILL: AN ANALYSIS. By _Shadworth H. Hodgson_.
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. By _G. F. Stout_.
THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. By _Alexander F. Shand_.
ARNOLD GEULINCX AND HIS WORKS. By Professor _J. P. N. Land_.
DISCUSSION: 1) On Thought-Relations. By _Arthur Eastwood_. 2)
Notes on Volition. By _Professor A. Bain_. 3) On Psychology and
Metaphysic. By _J. S. Mackenzie_.
CRITICAL NOTICES: Morgan's "Animal Life and Intelligence";
Croll's "Philosophical Basis of Evolution"; Ladd's
"Introduction to Philosophy"; Stumpf's "Tonpsychologie, II."
Mr. Hodgson states that the kernel of the problem of Free-Will lies
in the question whether, as imagined by Compulsory Determinists, the
strongest motive has from the first governed the deliberation or
process of choosing, as it subsequently governs the action chosen, or
whether the victorious motive owes its superior strength to the act
or process of deliberation, which terminates in choice, as much as
to its own initial degree of strength. In favor of the latter view,
he states that choice involves deliberation, and such deliberation
involves a consciousness of incompatible or alternative desires, and
a comparison of their relative degrees of desirability. The act of
choice is the same in nature as the act of selective attention in
perception and thought, and is known by the sense of effort or tension
which gives it the character of an _act_, and the consciousness of
a decisive change in the relative desirabilities of the alternative
desires represented in the deliberation, which gives it the character
of an act of _choice_. All true volition is choice, whether the
desire, almost instantaneously adopted, is adopted because the will
is weak, or because it is strong. In the former case, the will is
mastered by a powerful motive; in the latter case, the motive which it
follows receives its strength from the will itself, in the character
of a deliberating agency. To the extent of the deliberation there is
freedom. Freedom in willing is merely the power to will. Volition is
the name for the whole action of which Freedom is the potential state,
and Choice or Resolve the completing act.
Mr. Stout's article is in continuation of that on "Apperception and
the Movement of Attention" in the last number of _Mind_. Intuitional
thinking is independent of language and other expressive signs.
Language is a way of attending indirectly to that which cannot be
attended to directly, and signs which fulfil such a function are
_expressive_ signs. An expressive sign must be carefully distinguished
from a _suggestive_ sign, which merely calls up a certain idea which
may then be attended to independently of it, and a _substitute_
sign, which is a means of _not_ thinking about the meaning which
it symbolises. The development of language is a development of
self-consciousness. A concept is an apperceptive system objectified
by means of an expressive sign. Expressive signs are the form, as
distinguished from the matter, of conceptual thought. The distinction
between formal and formless languages acts as a line of demarcation
between the language of natural signs and that of conventional
signs. Gesture-language may be described as formless. It is an
instrument of conceptual thinking, in which the natural signs are
either demonstrative or imitative. Onomatopœia is a phonetic gesture.
Conventional signs, being free from the necessary limitations of
natural signs, are capable of expressing adequately and accurately the
most specific and the most abstract concepts.
In his article on the "Nature of Consciousness," Mr. Shand seeks to
show that consciousness, when abstracted from the other acts combined
with it, is a unique judgment, and as an act of judging it is simple
and unanalysable. As a union of act and object, however, consciousness
is complex. The whole is a judgment which, besides its object, contains
also the difference between its act and its object. Here is shown
its contrast with the Transcendent Judgment, which merely judges its
object. But there is a fundamental unity between them. Each is a
judgment—an act concerned about an object different from its act, and,
as an act, each is a simple reality. Judgment, universally as an act,
is such a simple reality. Reality in consciousness means no more than
presentation, and the act of being conscious is the subject exercising
one of its functions. This mysterious something, the subject, cannot
be resolved into any association of presentations, nor into any one of
them, nor be derived by abstraction from them, so far at least as the
act of being conscious is concerned, which is a genuine function of the
subject.
Professor Land gives a sketch of the life and work of Arnold Geulincx,
the Flemish thinker of the seventeenth century known to students of
philosophy in connection with the doctrine of Occasionalism. The key
to Geulincx's view of philosophy is to be found in his statement that
the utterances of our own reason are far less regarded than the shows
of senses and fantasy; although they have their source in the bodily
life, which is radically foreign to the soul, and can only darken
the knowledge of our self and of its true interests. The dualism of
mind and body is for Geulincx a determined fact. Professor Land has
undertaken to prepare a complete edition of Geulincx's works, the
expenses of the publication of which will be defrayed from the balance
remaining over from the Spinoza Memorial fund.
In his discussion on "thought-relations," Mr. Eastwood states that
this puzzling expression is interwoven with the whole of Green's
writings, and requires to be thoroughly explained. The proof that the
Real is identical with the Thinkable was Green's great problem, and
to Hegel's inquiry what are the essential features of thought? he
replied: the constitution of relations. Green found, however, that
they are not fully adequate in themselves and he called to their
aid a spiritual principle or eternal subject. But the reference of
relations to the Eternal Mind as their subject is a reference to the
unknown, and therefore is, on grounds of strict reason, illegitimate.
Thought-relations are essentially finite, and are the connecting links
of the phenomenal world. In the evolution of thought the absolute is
nothing short of the whole, and especially, it is the whole _process of
transition_ from Being to the Idea. The more we try to externalise it
or to arrest its movement, by impressing it with the immutability of
thought-relations, the more it recedes from our grasp.
In his Notes on Volition, Professor Bain considers whether pain is to
be regarded as the sole motive in voluntary action, or whether the
motive is a growing pleasure or a diminishing pleasure, in concurrence
with some form of active exertion. Considerations arising from the
great differences among pleasures themselves leads him to reject the
view that the stimulus of the will is uneasiness pure and simple, and
that pleasure, as such, leads to quiescence and contentment. A taste of
pleasure constitutes an impetus to seek for more and may be accepted as
the normal situation of the human will. The graded scale of voluntary
action ranges from the lowest depths of pain, at which the motive power
is at its maximum, to the highest assignable or attainable modes of
pleasure, approaching which the motive power gradually dies away.
Mr. Mackenzie points out, in considering Mr. Alexander's criticisms
of his _Introduction to Social Philosophy_, the importance of
distinguishing, when dealing with the subject of organic development,
between the psychological and the metaphysical points of view, and
that he wrote entirely from the metaphysical point of view. (London:
Williams & Norgate.)
Ω.
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY.
CONTENTS: February, 1891. Vol. III. No. 4.
AUTOMATIC MUSCULAR MOVEMENTS AMONG THE INSANE; THEIR
PHYSIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE. By _C. P. Bancroft_.
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME. By _Herbert Nichols_.
ON THE RECOVERY OF STIMULATED GANGLION CELLS. By _C. F. Hodge_.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. The Nervous System—by _H. H.
Donaldson_; Psychiatry—by _William Noyes_—Experimental;
Miscellaneous.
CONTENTS: April, 1891. Vol. IV. No. 1.
ARITHMETICAL PRODIGIES. By _E. W. Scripture_.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME. By _Herbert Nichols_.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE: Cerebral Localisation. By _Henry H.
Donaldson_; Notes on Models of the Brain. By _H. H. Donaldson_;
A Laboratory Course in Physiological Psychology. By _E. C.
Sanford_; Contemporary Psychologists—Prof. Edward Zeller. By
_The Editor_.
It is pointed out by Dr. Bancroft that the close relationship between
automatic muscular movement and the inhibitory power renders a study
of the latter essential to a complete understanding of the subject of
automaticity in health and disease. The inhibitory power is intimately
associated with all the higher faculties, and as it must, in common
with them, seek expression through functional activity of the cerebral
cortex, functional or organic disturbance of this region should be
attended by disordered inhibition. In many cases of insanity that
portion of the brain that "originates the will impulse" is cut off by
reason of organic or functional disturbance, and consequently the areas
that lie nearer the centrifugal nerves are left to act independently
of will and inhibition. The development of mechanical attitudes among
the chronic insane is illustrated by a plate exhibiting two cases of
melancholia with stupor and two cases of chronic dementia.
The literature of the Psychology of Time is dealt with by Mr.
Nichols from the historical and the experimental standpoints. The
most striking feature of the whole time investigation is, that of
all the philosophers and psychologists who have touched upon the
problem, only two of the whole number, Condillac obscurely, and James
Mill definitely, have solved the mystery by _letting the sequences
themselves be the ultimate mystery_—by letting their process, as
process and of itself, show forth its own explanation. The results
of experimental investigations in time psychology are scarcely more
satisfactory. Most experimenters have confined themselves to the
determination of the Constant Error, Sensibility, and Weber's Law,
yet with difficulty, if at all, can the results of any two of such
determinations be harmonised. The majority of evidence is strongly
against the validity of Weber's Law; also against any fixed or constant
Periodicity. Later investigators look to physiological processes for
explanation of time-judgments, and particularly to rhythmic habits of
nerve centres.
Dr. Hodge's paper is a continuation of chapters which appeared in
the _American Journal of Psychology_ in May 1888 and May 1889. His
experiments on cats show that spinal ganglion cells do recover from
the effects of injuries by electrically stimulating the nerve going to
them, but that the recovery is a slow process.
An account is given by Dr. Scripture of the known Arithmetical
Prodigies. The opinion of Bidder was that "mental calculation depends
on two faculties of the mind in simultaneous operation—computing and
registering the result"! The power to do long calculations in the mind
without making a mistake is the most remarkable fact in regard to ready
reckoners; next the wonderful rapidity which some of them have shown.
All of them possessed a remarkable impressibility, and practised modes
by which arithmetical associations may be enormously shortened. Dr.
Scripture offers for consideration the points that the power of mental
calculation could be greatly developed under cultivation; that numbers
and their values may be learned before figures, just as a child learns
words and their meanings long before he can read; that it is best to
teach "calculation" by the _abacus_ before "ciphering."
Mr. Nichols records in his second article the result of a series
of experiments made by him at Clark University to investigate the
apparently contradictory results obtained by various experimenters
regarding the Constant Error of Time-judgments. The experiments
teach nothing of the cause of the Constant Error, but it is shown
that those individuals who make the largest constant error, make
the error most constantly in one direction, and are apt to make a
constantly increasing error throughout the series of experiments. Mr.
Nichols's final conclusion is that "the processes of our environment,
of our bodily organism, and of the sensations and images which
correspond thereto, are, in themselves a sufficient explanation of
time-psychology, and that time perception cannot be explained by any
single state or disparate sense, but alone be accounted for as a
_process_." (E. C. Sanford, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. April, 1891. Vol. I. No. 2.
CONTENTS:
SOCIAL EQUALITY. By _Leslie Stephen_.
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN ETHICAL CODES. By _Prof. C. H. Toy_.
THE RIGHT FINAL AIM OF LIFE. By _Prof. G. von Gizycki_.
THE MORAL PHILOSOPHER AND THE MORAL LIFE. By _Prof. William
James_.
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE ETHICS OF LAND-TENURE. By _Prof. Simon N.
Patten_.
MORAL TALES. By _Clara E. Collet_.
Mr. Leslie Stephen affirms that it is our duty to try to make men equal
by raising the grade of culture in all classes. The distribution of
classes would continue, but it would correspond purely to the telling
off of each man to the duties which he is best fitted to discharge. The
essential condition of all social improvement is that the individual
should be manly, self-respecting, doing his duty as well as getting
his pay. Nothing will do any permanent good which does not imply the
elevation of the individual in his standard of honesty, independence,
and good conduct.
One of the earliest studies of life, says Professor Toy, is that
which is known as the clan-constitution of society, during which two
important facts are exhibited, (1) ethical ideas are determined by
those of the community, and (2) the deity of the community is regarded
as a member of the clan. Both these characteristics have become
modified in the progress of civilisation. Moral rules and principles
have become clearer, broader, and higher, and society has come to be
an efficient moral guide and support. Religion has moved away from the
conception of the tribal god, and the conception has been formed of the
absolute dominion of natural law in the moral world. The end to which
human moral history points is a conscience absolutely independent and
yet absolutely dependent,—independent in that it refuses to recognise
any other authority than its own ideals, dependent in that it receives
its ideals from the life of man, which is the highest revelation of God.
According to Professor von Gizycki, the ultimate basis of all ethical
demonstration is the supreme standard of good and evil, the greatest
possible happiness of all mankind. Various objections urged against
this, as the final aim of life, are examined by Professor von Gizycki
and declared not to constitute a decisive case against it. As to the
desire to obtain peace of conscience he affirms that this can only
follow upon such action as is in conformity with the greatest possible
happiness of mankind. The Professor has modified his former position.
The injunction, "Seek peace of conscience in devoting thyself to the
welfare of mankind," which he had proposed in his "Moral Philosophy,"
implies an impracticable combination of two distinct final aims. Either
the one or the other must abdicate the supremacy to its rival. We must
invoke the aid of _ethical_ self-love in order to insure the victory
to the forces which make for good. But our ruling aim ought to be the
advancement of the universal happiness of mankind.
The main purpose of Professor James's paper is to show that there is
no such thing possible as an ethical philosophy dogmatically made
up in advance. Three questions in ethics must be kept apart—the
_psychological_, the _metaphysical_, and the _casuistic_. The
psychological question asks after the historical _origin_ of our
moral ideas and judgments; the metaphysical question asks the very
_meaning_ of the words good, ill, and obligation; the casuistic
question asks what is the _measure_ of the various goods and ills
which men recognise, so that the philosopher may settle the true order
of human obligation. As to the _psychological_ question,—relations
exist in our thought which do not merely repeat the couplings of
experience. Our ideals have certainly many sources. They are not all
explicable as signifying corporeal pleasures to be gained, and pains
to be escaped. As to the _metaphysical_ question,—goodness, badness,
and obligation must be _realised_ somewhere in order really to exist.
Without a claim actually made by some concrete person there can be no
obligation, but there is some obligation wherever there is a claim.
Claim and obligation are co-extensive terms. The words good, bad,
obligation, are objects of feeling and desire, which have no foothold
or anchorage in Being apart from the existence of actually living
minds. "The religion of humanity" affords a basis for ethics as well
as theism does. As to the _casuistic_ question—The best of the marks
and measures of goodness is the capacity to bring happiness, but in
seeking for an universal principle we find that the essence of good is
simply to _satisfy demand_. But the actual possible in this world is
vastly narrower than all that is demanded, and the guiding principle
for ethical philosophy must be simply to satisfy at all times _as many
demands as we can_. So far as the casuistic question goes, ethical
science is just like physical science, and must be ready to revise its
conclusions from day to day. Concrete ethics cannot be final because
they have to wait on metaphysics. The final conclusion is that the
stable and systematic moral universe for which the ethical philosopher
asks is fully possible only in a world where there is a divine thinker
with all-enveloping demands. If he now exist, then actualised in his
thought already must be that ethical philosophy which we seek after as
the pattern which our own must ever more approach.
Professor Patten treats of the economical data bearing on the facts
of land-tenure, and concludes that if no surplus land value goes to
the monopolies or to privileged classes, there is no ethical problem
involved. If some of the surplus goes in this way, then the ethical
problem is the same as if all of the produce of industry above a
minimum of wages went to increase the surplus. The growth of society
in wealth and numbers often makes the man without wealth and land
less productive, because he must use poorer land or less productive
instruments. The loss being due to social changes the workman is
entitled to compensation for which he should look to society, which
may choose the concrete form in which it shall be made. The expense
of doing this should be borne by those who have profited from the
prosperity of society.
In her interesting paper on Moral Tales, Mrs. Collet passes in review
certain books which, read in childhood, have left an indelible
impression on her mind. Chief among them are the "Sandford and Merton"
of Thomas Day, who was deeply impressed by the writings of Rousseau;
the stories of Maria Edgeworth, the most truly democratic of our moral
writers; and those of Dr. Aiken and his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, whose
writings although pervaded by a strong religious spirit, are very
striking for their unaggressive and yet open declaration of the right
to think independently in religion. Mrs. Collet gives her verdict, with
regard to the moral education of children, in favor of the voluntary
"consumption of moral tales." (Philadelphia: _International Journal of
Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut St.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.
CONTENTS: March, 1891. No. 183.
POURQUOI MOURONS-NOUS? By _J. Delbœuf_.
SUR UN CAS D'ABOULIE ET D'IDEES FIXES. By _Pierre Janet_.
L'ART ET LA LOGIQUE. (Fin.) By _G. Tarde_.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.
CONTENTS: April, 1891. No. 184.
QU'EST-CE QUE LA PHYSIOLOGIE GENERALE? By _Ch. Richet_.
LA PHILOSOPHIE DE BACON. By _Victor Brochard_.
SUR UN CAS D'ABOULIE ET D'IDEES FIXES (Fin.) By _Pierre Janet_.
POURQUOI MOURONS-NOUS? (Fin.) By _J. Delbœuf_.
NOTES ET DISCUSSIONS.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
SUR UN OLFACTOMETRE. By _Ch. Henry_.
M. Delbœuf's article is the complement to his studies on the origin
of death, and was inspired by the work of M. Maupas, _Recherches
expérimentales sur la multiplication des infusoires ciliés_, some of
the conclusions of which he thinks are not supported by observation
and emanate from the sophism, "that which has not been seen does not
exist." Nevertheless he accepts the opinion of M. Maupas, as against
M. Weismann, that the protozoa as well as the metazoa, are mortal
as individuals, although immortal in and by the species. M. Delbœuf
accounts for the change from fissiparity to sexuality by reference
to mathematical law applicable to the transformation of species,
according to which from the moment that a _constant_ cause begins to
make a type vary, in however small a degree, the variations will end by
victoriously disputing the position with it. The death of the ciliated
infusoria is then not due, as supposed by M. Maupas, to the effect of
a _senile_ alteration of their elements proceeding from an internal
cause,—which would render inexplicable the unaltered maintenance of
the species,—but the effect of a _disequilibration_ of their organism
due to a sort of mathematically fatal external physical constraint.
The two corpuscles in the union of which the conjugation of those
infusoria consists are regarded by M. Delbœuf as truly male and female,
and he affirms that before uniting they make a _choice_ of individuals
apt to rejuvenate. Intelligence is thus the indispensable factor of
the perpetuity of races. The answer to the double question, Why is
individual matter mortal and specific matter immortal, is reserved for
another number.
M. Janet's interesting study is of a subject, a young girl of 22, who,
as the title denotes, exhibits an almost total loss of the faculty
of will, partly through hereditary causes and partly consequent on a
serious attack Of typhoid fever. Marcelle has a singular difficulty of
movement, which extends to all the voluntary movements of the arms,
the legs, and even the tongue and the lips, and is due to a kind of
paralysis. She is, however, extremely suggestible, and very easily
hypnotised. By experiment M. Janet found that the difficulty of a
movement is in proportion to its novelty. The difficulty consisted
in forming the synthesis of ideas and images which constitutes the
commencement of the act, but its repetition is easy when the act has
been once done. Marcelle sometimes went into a demi-cataleptic state
during which she had a crisis of ideas, which she described as a
cloud passing. She complained that during the cloud her head spoke
constantly. This M. Janet explains by reference to the theory of M.
Séglas that there are several kinds of verbal hallucinations as of
language, that is hallucinations of hearing, of visual images, and of
tactile and muscular sensations attendant on speaking or writing, the
last named being the psychic hallucinations or the epigastric voices of
the insane. During the lucid intervals Marcelle performed the commands
given to her by her hallucinations while under the cloud, like a person
who while in a state of somnambulism receives a posthypnotic suggestion.
In this concluding article on "Art and Logic," M. Tarde, after
considering the characteristic differences between industry and art,
from the point of view of the desires of consumption and production
proper to them, deals with the distinctive characters of the work of
art considered in itself and the reason of its being. The attribute of
the work of art is to be interesting. Art is a game, but a serious and
profound game, like love, and it is born of leisure and pleasure. The
unity of the work of art consists simply in the coupling of a question
and an answer, a problem and a solution, a combat and a victory. Every
phrase, musical or spoken, is a wave which rises and descends, and in
every art whatever all is phrases and waves, and their combination is
itself a complex wave, a period. In the undulating mirror of art we
see again social life in action; since esthetics reflect the dynamic,
and not the static, social logic. M. Tarde criticises the theory of
Spencer that all the arts are derived from architecture, and shows that
the first art was speech and that from speech, spoken or written, all
art is derived. Narrative poetry, the epic poem, is the complex germ
of all artistic development; and as art began in narration, it ends in
the drama, because man is above all social. Art, or reflection of man,
borrows by turns its dominant inspiration from the passions of life or
the inspirations of society.
M. Richet sums up his description of General Physiology in the formula:
Life is a chemical function. His most important conclusions are that
the general laws of life are chemical laws, and respond to the chemical
conditions of hydratation, temperature, electricity and pressure; force
is condensed in living beings under the form of chemical energy, and
manifests itself outwardly, by movement, by electricity, by light, by
heat, or by thought. (We consider this juxtaposition of "electricity,
light, heat and thought" as extremely misleading, and so is the
definition of life as "a chemical function." It appears, then, that M.
Richet considers thought also a chemical process. That physiological
actions are processes which have their own conditions and are different
from chemical and physical processes, has been explained in _The
Monist_, No. 3. p. 413-414.) M. Richet continues: Living beings are
cellular aggregates, but in animals the nervous system forms a centre
of unity, from whence proceed motor excitations and where sensible
excitations terminate; cellules and beings are organised to live: they
are adapted to the ambient medium, and to all the causes of destruction
which can reach them. Thus their acts, although often automatic and
deprived of all intelligence, appear to us admirably intelligent; the
sensations and consciousness of intelligent beings are in agreement
with the needs of the organism, and tend to strengthen the automatic
mechanisms by means of which beings resist death, whether it be the
death of the individual or that of the species.
M. Brochard takes exception to M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire's opinion of
Bacon as a philosopher, and endorses the views expressed by M. Charles
Adam in his Memoir crowned by the Academy. Bacon not only saw what
scientific induction should be, but indicated with perfect precision
the conditions that it ought to fulfil. Added to the theory of method
is the theory of forms, which is the culminating point of Bacon's
philosophy. M. Adam shows that the word _form_ is used by Bacon to
express the true difference, or that by which a thing is defined; the
essence or the thing in its intimate constitution; and a law of pure
act, (_lex actus puri_). M. Brochard adopts M. Adam's explanation, that
by this law is to be understood a disposition in space, an arrangement
of material parts, in other terms, a mechanical or mathematical
relation—and he justifies M. Adam's assertion, and shows that Bacon
resembled Galileo and Descartes in divining that physics rested on
mathematics, and that the pure act was produced whenever certain
arrangements of material molecules are formed according to mechanical
conditions. Bacon superposes, in some sort, a philosophy of quality
on a philosophy of quantity, and achieves the passage from movement
to quality so embarrassing for every doctrine which gives a place to
mechanism.
M. Janet concludes his study of the curious case of aboulism presented
by Marcelle, giving details of her experiences under the influence of
hypnotism and suggestion, which greatly ameliorated her condition,
temporarily at least. The nature of her disease approaches much the
mental feebleness described elsewhere by M. Janet under the name
of "psychological disaggregation with contracting of the field of
consciousness," but differs from it in several particulars. It consists
essentially in a weakening of the faculty of synthesis which ought,
at every moment of life, to co-ordinate afresh our sensations and our
images. The study of this enfeeblement shows the importance of the
novelty of acts in connection with the will, the rôle of the will in
apparently the most simple perceptions, the necessity of voluntary
synthesis for originating habits and recollections, the connection
between doubt and defective perception, and the development of various
hallucinations.
Before answering the question why we die, M. Delbœuf considers the
origin of life. He makes a distinction between dead matter and living
matter. On this subject he has published a book entitled "_La matière
brute et la matière vivante_." He affirms that life in the universe
began with living, sensible atoms, endowed with will and liberty,
and having a knowledge of their own movement. This life gradually
concentrated itself in germs having the faculty of perpetuating
themselves. They remained naked and some of those germs still continue
composed almost entirely of reproductive, that is essentially living,
substance. The others have gradually become clothed with a body, a kind
of protective envelope. The life of this envelope is not inherent; it
has been communicated by the germs that it protects, and at the end
of a period of a greater or less duration it becomes useless, fades
and dies. Life is sustained by nutrition but the assimilating faculty
diminishes by degrees, until it ceases, and at last, the reparation of
our organs not being equal to their wear, they are not able to fulfil
their mission. The decay of living matter is due to the operation of
physical and chemical laws. Assimilation is at the base of life, and it
is exhibited in inorganic nature as well as in living beings. Living
bodies must have some permanent centres of assimilation around which
the nutritive elements group. The earliest of these centres was the
germ, in which is the supreme or immortal life, and which immortalises
that part of the nutriment which becomes incorporated with it.
Although the organs of nutrition deteriorate and die, the reproductive
organs remain eternally young, in power at least. Nutrition itself is
manifested either as alimentation, or as conjugation or fecundation,
and is a phenomenon analogous to copulation. M. Delbœuf then proceeds
to show the uniformity in the modes of propagation, and gives reasons
for believing, contrary to the views of Van Beneden, that the
cellule-egg, and not the spermatozoid, is hermaphrodite. The ovary is
the true depository of the immortal propagative substance. Woman is the
inexhaustible source of life. (Paris: Felix Alcan.)
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II.
No. 3.
CONTENTS:
ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER SPRACHE. By _Robert Sommer_.
ZUR THEORIE DES RAEUMLICHEN VORSTELLENS MIT RUECKSICHT AUF EINE
NACHBILDLOKALISATION. By _C. S. Cornelius_.
DIE SEELENFRAGE. By _J. Rehmke_.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
Professor Grashey, now of Munich, formerly of Würzburg, has published
in the _Archiv für Psychiatrie_ (Vol. XVI, p. 654 ff.) an interesting
case of a peculiar kind of aphasia. A man whose name is Voit, 32
years old, engaged for menial service in the brewing business,
received an injury on the head. He was treated at the psychiatric
clinic of Würzburg by Professor Grashey and dismissed as cured,
yet five years after the accident he was again submitted to the
professor's investigations and it was found that he was suffering from
"amnestic aphasia." He could not remember the name of anything for
a few seconds. Professor Grashey drew the following conclusion from
Voit's case: "There is an aphasia which is based neither upon the
functionary inability of certain centres nor upon the interruption
of commissural connections, but exclusively upon a diminution of the
sense-impressions, which causes a disturbance of apprehension and
association." Voit was unable to name any object shown him unless he
could spell it with the assistance of his hands, legs, or even his
tongue. By writing only could he find the names of objects. Dr. Sommer
objects to Professor Grashey's interpretation of the case and shows
convincingly from the symptoms, as represented in the _Archiv für
Psychiatrie_ by Grashey himself, that whenever Voit was prevented from
making writing gestures (which was done by holding his hands and legs
immovable and by ordering him to show his tongue so that he could not
employ it for writing on the roof of his mouth) he could never find the
name of any object. Accordingly it is no case of amnesia; Voit actually
has only one way left for finding words, that is by spelling them. Now
it is generally supposed, that we first see an object, and recognise it
at the centre of vision. The nervous irritation is thence transmitted
to the centre of language; the sight of a knife evokes in the centre of
speech the word knife and we suppose that the spoken or heard word will
in the centre of writing awaken the motor stimuli of spelling the word.
The present case proves that if this be the rule there are exceptions
to it and Dr. Sommer proposes the question, How can we explain the
case? It is strange that the man is not deprived of concepts; so long
as he is prevented from writing he is only deprived of naming things
or concepts. He never failed to recognise similar things as belonging
to the same class, but so long as he was tied at tongue and limb, he
could never find their common name. For instance a guitar and a trumpet
were shown him while he was bound, as it was called. When asked, Do
they belong together? he nodded emphatically. (He had to answer by
nods because he had to show his tongue.) When asked, Do you know their
names? he shook his head and could never find their names until he was
allowed to make writing gestures with either one of his limbs or his
tongue. In this way he recognised and classified things correctly,
but he never named them except by spelling the names. Such things or
pictures of things shown him were the following:
Guitar—trumpet—: musical instruments.
Gun—canon—: arms.
Sickle—watering-pot—: utensils.
Lantern—lamp—: lights.
Palace—barn—: buildings, etc.
Dr. Sommer says: "Suppose that those parts of the brain the loss of
which according to modern experiments and pathological observations
cause a loss of memory-pictures, are thought of as motor apparatuses,
the destruction of which has a similar effect as in the present case,
the binding which prevented Voit from spelling: in this case amnesia
might find an explanation without the crude materialistic assumption
that they are localised in the injured cells." Dr. Sommer only throws
out the hint without finding space to explain himself. Yet it appears
to us that whether amnesia is produced by the destruction of the
centres or of their supposed motor apparatuses that the one is not
less and not more crude materialism than the other. The problem it
appears has nothing to do with materialism, but with the mechanism
of the brain. The fibres of association seem to work in Voit's brain
in the opposite direction to what we should expect. The normal path
is apparently interrupted. The sight of an object does not evoke its
name. Yet are there not innumerable fibres of association which may
reach the desired end—in this case the pronunciation of the name—in
a roundabout way? There must be, for the facts prove it. One thing in
the case of Voit is patent. When Voit finds the names by writing them,
he apparently knows the written word, he cannot pronounce it, because
he does not know the spoken word, the centre of spoken words being the
seat of the injury. He has a concept of the thing, he could write it,
but he cannot pronounce it. The roundabout way leads through a province
not directly accessible to consciousness. The written word is not in
the same immediate contact with consciousness as the spoken word. That
this is so we know from actual and daily experience. Who has not tried
to assure himself of the correct spelling of a word by writing it down
and thus leaving the test to the unconscious memory of the motions of
our hand?
C. S. Cornelius discusses the theory of spatial conception with special
reference to a localisation of after-images. He takes the position
that we are in relation to the outer world through sensation only,
rejecting all assumptions of innate ideas, of a special space sense,
etc. "Sensation," he says, "is an intensive state. The conception of
space-relations can originate only by a multiplicity of sensations
which through the qualitative contrasts affect each other and arrange
themselves in a certain order beside each other. The vertical and
horizontal conception height and breadth, are easily explained, but
depth, the third dimension of space affords some difficulty." Th.
Lipps denies the existence of an apprehension of depth, yet Cornelius
maintains that it actually exists. He explains it in the same way as
the vertical and horizontal space-conceptions as originating from
muscle sensation.
It cannot be denied that upon the whole space-sense is the product and
the interpretation of motion experiences mainly due to the activity
of the muscles of the eye. But it appears that the conception of the
third dimension of sight is not due alone, as says Cornelius, to
muscle activity. The investigations of Wundt and of Mach, which are
not taken into consideration by Cornelius, prove that the perspective
and the distribution of light and shade are essential elements in
our perception of the third dimension in space. Our eyes have become
accustomed by the information received through other channels,
especially the sense of touch, to interpret perspective in combination
with certain shadings as depth so that _even the one-eyed_ man sees
things not as two dimensional pictures but as three dimensional
corporeal forms.
A subject of extraordinary interest is discussed by J. Rehmke, who
criticises O. Flügel's position and contrasts it with his own. O.
Flügel has published a book, entitled _Die Seelenfrage_, treating
the subject from the narrow standpoint of Herbart's school. It is
unnecessary to state that Herbart has great merits in the evolution
of our psychological views. He attempted to introduce mathematical
methods in order to define exactly the dynamics and statics of the
soul. Herbart failed, although he gave new impulses to psychological
investigations which have proved valuable in many ways. Many of his
disciples are now busy perpetuating his mistakes. Flügel is one among
them. Flügel emphasises the immateriality of the soul, but being like
his master an advocate of atomism he postulates soul atoms which are
mathematical points. "Atomism," Flügel declares, "must reject actio
in distans" because it is (1) inconceivable, (2) nonsensical and
contradictory, and (3) because force is an accidens of matter, matter
being the substance. The accidens can have no effects, it cannot
exist, where the substance is not. Flügel also lays much stress on
the disparity of feeling and motion, and of thought and motion. Soul
and body are to him two distinct things and their interaction is
explained through the contact of the point-like, immaterial soul atom
and the brain atoms. Rehmke points out that this view in spite of its
professed hostility toward materialism is extremely materialistic,
but the view which he proposes himself suffers from similar errors.
Flügel has preserved the unity and the immortality of the soul which is
an indestructible immaterial mathematical point, moving about in our
brain. Rehmke also preserves the unity and immortality of the soul: he
believes in a "subjectum," in an ego which is the essence having the
states of consciousness as attributes. The soul according to Rehmke is
not space-given, it is an immaterial something which has sensations. We
should accordingly make a distinction between the ego as the subject
and the ego as our bodily existence; moreover we should distinguish
between the state of consciousness and the object of consciousness.
Rehmke takes the word contents of consciousness in the sense of
signifying that which the "ego" possesses. The state of consciousness
is always the same, it has no evolution, no growth, no development.
The object of consciousness however constantly changes. The subject
of consciousness is the soul. The interconnection between soul and
body is not denied, but there can be no thought of a contact between
the immaterial and the material. The soul is, but it is not in space,
it is nowhere, and its co-operation with the body is described as "an
exemplary together"—an expression to which, we are sorry to say, we
cannot attach any meaning.
J. Rehmke objects also to the theory that feeling and motion, soul and
body, the spiritual and the material are two sides of one and the same
thing. If this two sides theory were correct, he says, the soul would
be an abstract and so would be the body. But, he adds, all abstracts
are immutable, unchangeable and the object of psychology is something
that is observed to possess evolution. Now it is true that some
abstracts represent immutable concepts; matter is such an abstract.
Matter is that which all matters have in common and the abstract matter
is everywhere the same; we cannot speak of the evolution of matter as
such. But other abstracts are not so rigid. Take for instance life.
Life is an abstract, but it would be a strange proposition to say that
there can be no evolution of life because life is an abstract, all
abstracts being unchangeable, immutable, invariable.
We cannot agree with Flügel, but J. Rehmke's psychological views are
still less acceptable. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L. Voss.)
κρς.
VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XV. Nos. 1
and 2.
CONTENTS:
DER SOGENANNTE NAIVE REALISMUS. By _R. Seydel_.
DAS PROBLEM DER AUSSENWELT. By _S. Hansen_.
EXPERIMENTELLE PATHO-PSYCHOLOGIE. (Erster Artikel.) By _M.
Dessoir_.
UEBER ANSCHAUUNG UND IHRE PSYCHISCHE VERARBEITUNG. By _B. Kerry_.
DER FOLGERUNGSCALCUL UND DIE INHALTSLOGIK. By _E. G. Husserl_.
EXPERIMENTELLE PATHO-PSYCHOLOGIE. (Zweiter Artikel.) By _M.
Dessoir_.
R. Seydel regards sight alone as space-sense and the other senses
as time-senses. This, he says, is the reason why there is no "naïve
realism" for any other sense but sight.
S. Hansen, taking our concepts and sensations as the data from which we
have to start, discusses the problem of the reality of the outer world.
He arrives at the conclusion, that "if there is a thing in itself, the
phenomenon is only one side of it, viz, that side which it reveals.
The thing in itself is the real world in which we live and of which we
speak in daily life, although we know it only through phenomena, i. e.
our concepts."
Max Dessoir presents a review of Experimental Patho-psychology as it
has developed in the last decades through the extraordinary attention
bestowed upon the phenomena of hypnotism and kindred subjects. He
discusses experimental patho-psychology with special reference to the
great problems of (1) consciousness, (2) the relation between feeling
and motion, (3) memory, and (4) personality. The two former points are
discussed in the first article, the two latter in the conclusion. Max
Dessoir emphasises in this essay again his theory of the double ego
which he proposed in his pamphlet, _Das Doppel-Ich_.
B. Kerry's article is the conclusion of a series of essays on intuition
(i. e. apprehension or sensation) and its psychical transformation.
The author distinguishes between subjective concepts and objective
concepts. If I think for instance of all the grapes that will grow
this year in Italy, I do not know in my subjective conception their
definite number. It is a definite number nevertheless. This concept is
the objective concept. He devotes much space to a discussion of the
rigidity of Kant's aprioristic judgment 7+5=12. The most important
point is ultimately _how_ this judgment possesses necessity. The author
observes that the theorems of arithmetic possess necessity while we
cannot attribute necessity to the results of calculation. Our faculty
of calculation, B. Kerry says, should be considered as aprioristic,
or more correctly, it is a complex of primitive faculties, and these
are: "our faculty to apprehend in some contents of our apprehension
something else which is designated afterwards as a concept derived
from that contents; that is our faculty of forming abstracts. Further
our faculty of comparison and at last our faculty of combining and
separating. These faculties are aprioristic in the psychological
sense of the word, which to-day is not recognised, in the sense of
being innate." The whole article is written in a heavy style and
in extra-Teutonic constructions with innumerable dashes containing
parenthetical sentences and other bewildering explanations. We have
after all not been able to discover how the judgment 7+5=12 possesses
necessity.
E. G. Husserl criticises the position of several modern logicians,
Boole, Venn, Peirce, and especially E. Schroeder, who published in the
_Göttinger Gelehrten Anzeigen_ an article on the Logical Calculus.
Husserl says that "the logic of the logical calculus is in a wretched
condition still. Its advocates have attained to clearness neither
concerning the limits of this discipline nor its relation to deductive
logic and to arithmetic. The logical considerations upon which the
technique is built, are as a rule of such a kind that they cannot
bear the most superficial criticism. And this calculus pretends to be
a thoroughly reformed and the truly exact logic. It is natural that
among the logicians the more scientific upon the whole keep aloof here.
However the logical foundation of arithmetic is just as weak, yet this
does not suffice to discard it. I believe that logical algebra in spite
of its limited practical applicability should not be underrated, and
that it should be of high interest to the logician for the sake of its
actual merits." In the struggle between the logic of circumference
and the logic of contents, Husserl maintains that a calculus of pure
deductions can be constructed upon the basis of operations which are
strictly without any contents. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)
Κ.
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 5 and 6.
CONTENTS:
WILHELM WUNDT'S "SYSTEM DER PHILOSOPHIE." By _Johannes Volkelt_.
DIE DAENISCHE PHILOSOPHIE DES LETZTEN JAHRZEHNTS. By _Knud Ipsen_.
RECENSIONEN.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE. By Prof. Dr. _F. Ascherson_.
Johannes Volkelt criticises in a long article Wundt's _System der
Philosophie_. We do not have the work under discussion at hand, but
judging simply from the quotations made in the present article, we can
confidently say that Volkelt has misunderstood Wundt's position. We
shall here confine ourselves to one point only which is of paramount
importance, and Johannes Volkelt fully appreciates its importance. This
point is the problem, "Can we have any objective knowledge at all?"
This is the way we should formulate the question. Volkelt, however,
asks whether the trans-subjective can successfully be made object of
our cognition. It is maintained that there is a trace of naïve Realism
left in Wundt, because his trans-subjectivism remains unproven, and
subject and object are treated as inseparably connected. Wundt says:
"As soon as we make the erroneous proposition that the object of our
perception is only a perception, we shall in vain try to get somehow
out from our subjective perception and to regain in some way the
lost object." This idea is objected to. Also the following passages
are quoted from Wundt: "Reality once destroyed cannot be restored
merely through pure thought," and "the theory of cognition has not
to create reality from elements that do not as yet contain it." We
agree perfectly with Wundt and have expressed similar ideas in the
article "The Origin of Mind," No. 1 of _The Monist_. Perception is a
relation between object and subject. It is an error of idealism to
consider the subject alone as given. The data of experience are states
of subject-object-ness. The idea of mere subjectivity is as much an
abstraction as the idea of things in themselves. Accordingly the term
"trans-subjective" is a misnomer. All perceptions being impressions
of objects and serving as symbols for their correspondent objects
contain an objective element. As soon as we disregard this truth, we
shut ourselves up in the hollow globe of pure ideality; objectivity
becomes an unwarrantable assumption and there is no way out of our own
subjectivism.
Knud Ipsen sketches the history of the Danish philosophy during the
last ten years. He mentions five philosophers, Höffding, Kroman,
Wilkens, Lehmann, and Starcke, among whom Höffding is by far the most
prominent. All the Danish philosophers have one feature in common.
Kroman made a distinction between philosophy and world-conception;
philosophy should make such propositions only as can be logically
proven, not otherwise than theories have to be proven in the
sciences. Yet a world-conception is the work mainly of our emotion
and imagination. Accordingly philosophy and world-conception are two
distinct things which have nothing in common. This position seems to
be generally accepted by the Danish philosophers, and as a natural
consequence Ipsen says, we can speak no more of "philosophy," but
only of philosophical disciplines. The unity of philosophy, its ideal
of system is lost. Metaphysics is dead in Denmark and the search
for the universal laws of existence is also given up. Philosophy has
ceased to be the science of the sciences and has become an aggregate
of scientific disciplines. On this point there is a tacit agreement
so that there is no "useless struggle about great and insolvable
problems," and since Höffding wrote on the relation between faith
and science, our Danish philosophers also shun all theological
interference. A division of labor has taken place so that psychology
has been treated by Höffding, Kroman, and Lehmann, Ethics by Höffding
and Starcke, Logic by Höffding and Kroman, Sociology by Wilkens and
Starcke, and Æsthetics by Wilkens.
Professor Höffding and Kroman in spite of their consensus in rejecting
the unity of philosophy represent a very strong contrast, which is
best characterised by their method of treating the law of causation.
Kroman rejects all the former evidences employed to prove the law of
cause and effect. Empiricism is wrong because it can at best show the
temporal succession of two phenomena, and apriorism is wrong because
_a priori_ knowledge lies in the subject alone and not in the object.
In causation, however, the objects play an important part, and we can
never know whether the objects will always conform to the subjective
and _a priori_ laws. Kroman's view of the subject is that the causal
law is the sole condition by which we can acquire any knowledge at
all, accordingly for the sake of self-preservation we _hope_ that this
condition will be fulfilled. The causal law accordingly is not only the
condition of all knowledge, it is also the postulate with which we have
to start.
Höffding attacks the problem in a different way. He asks first: "How do
we come at all to a reality supposed to be independent of the subject?"
and "What is the import of this reality?" Reality according to Höffding
is not yet given in sense-perception, we arrive at the idea of reality
not until our sense-perceptions are arranged in a coherent system. If
I see a picture at the wall, this may be an hallucination, but if my
sense of touch corroborates the perception of sight, I consider it as
a reality. Thus the idea of reality originates and this reality is
not distinguishable from a coherent and self-consistent dream. To the
dreamer his dream is reality. Now the question of causality is not
legitimate, whether things conform to the law of causation, for indeed
we know things only by their being causes or effects. The main function
of our consciousness is to recognise similarities and dissimilarities,
it searches for unity and this search is performed through the
application of the causal law. Höffding accordingly considers both
ideas, the causal nexus and reality, as being of the same value. His
causal law is more than a postulate, it is in part a result. Our
organ of cognition would die of atrophy if it were not constantly
nourished, and we should share the fate of Tantalus were we condemned
to investigate and always unable to discover.
Kroman looks upon the law of inertia as a special application of
the causal law. To him the conservation of matter and energy is an
hypothesis. Höffding looks upon the law of inertia as a material
principle. Where Kroman speaks of energy, Höffding speaks of corporeal
energy. (It may be that here the German translation _körperliche Kraft_
is at fault.) As a material principle the law of inertia is something
more than a mere corollary of the causal law, for in its present form
it has made science possible. The conservation of matter and energy is
conceived in an analogous manner, but considered as natural laws both
propositions possess a mere hypothetical value.
It appears to us that the law of cause and effect lies deeper still,
and there can be no doubt that the law of the conservation of matter
and energy is the same thing only formulated for different purposes.
Hume's merit was exceedingly great when he laid his finger on the sore
spot of philosophical thought, pointing out the prevailing confusion
about the law of causation. But when investigating the subject, he led
us on a wrong track. Cause and effect are not two objects following one
another, and not even two phenomena following one another. It is not
a synthesis of two events. It is on the contrary an analysis of one
event. Cause and effect is a change. In this change the same amount of
matter and energy is preserved, yet the form is altered. Hume broke
the process of cause and energy into pieces, he lost sight of their
interconnection and was astonished that one piece was not exactly the
same as the other. Hence his skepticism.
The law of cause and effect can be proved, except to him who would
obstinately refuse to acknowledge the law of identity that _A_=_A_.
There may be some one who thinks that something can come out of
nothing, or that something can suddenly disappear into nothing. If
there is, the weight of the argument rests with him, yet we shall not
listen to him until he presents an unequivocal case in which we can
observe a transition from being into not-being or _vice versa_. Until
then we consider the law of identity and also its practical application
and corollary, the conservation of matter and energy as unrefuted.
The law of cause and effect and its corollary the conservation
of matter and energy rest ultimately upon our recognition of the
_Gesetzmässigkeit_ of formal laws. He who acknowledges the correctness
of the statement "2×2=4" as universal and necessary, implicitly accepts
also the law of causation and of the conservation of matter and energy.
The law of the conservation of matter and energy contains no other
proposition than this that 2×2 will always be 2×2 or its product, i. e.
4; it will never be less, it will never be more.
The ultimate basis of the law of causation lies in the laws of form.
We may call causality and the law of inertia and the conservation of
matter and energy hypotheses, but in that case the meaning of the term
hypothesis would have to be changed, for if these laws are hypotheses,
the statement 2×2=4 would be just as much an hypothesis.
* * * * *
In psychology Kroman and Höffding are more antagonistic than in any
other subject. Both consider the soul as an _x_, but Kroman attributes
to this _x_, unity and the faculty of feeling, willing and thinking;
Höffding however looks upon feeling and motion as two sides of the
same unknown object. Kroman in spite of his formal opposition to
metaphysicism still believes in a subject underlying the acts of
consciousness. After all, the name only of metaphysicism seems to be
dead in Denmark, not metaphysicism itself. Höffding has shown how
Kroman's psychological theory has led him into a highly mythical
conception of the activity of the soul.
We may add that the proposition of non-interference with theological
views may be excellent in preserving peace, but we cannot help
considering this kind of peace as a mistaken policy. If there are
conflicts between theology and philosophy, they should be settled, for
there cannot be two contradictory truths, and it is wrong also to leave
errors alone simply for the sake of peace. Yet it is objected that
religion is a matter of the heart and philosophy a matter of the brain.
Certainly, but the heart should have its emotion regulated by the
brain. If our world-conception is the product mainly of our emotions
and of our imagination, it would be simply foolish to let the heart
build its world-conception just as it pleases without consulting the
head. Wherever philosophy and religion or our world-conception (the
latter considered as the product of our emotion) have nothing to say to
each other, wherever they are kept distinct, it will lead to confusion
in all the departments of our existence, it will put our philosophy,
our scientific thought, and our ethics out of joint. A rent will go
through the world of our life producing disharmony in every spot and
the end will be a dreary pessimism. Our emotions are not a separate
chamber of our being which should be kept private and unaffected by
scientific knowledge, our emotions are springs of action, and it is
of paramount importance to keep them in harmony with our knowledge of
facts. The policy of theological non-interference may do for some time,
but certainly not long. It is a mere armistice but no peace, and honest
war is better than a sham-truce which is an ill-concealed state of
intolerable hostility. (Heidelberg: G. Weiss.)
κρς.
VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII. Vol. II. No. 3. March, 1891.
CONTENTS:
SCHILLER'S DOCTRINE OF BEAUTY AND ÆSTHETICAL ENJOYMENT. By _P.
Kalenov_.
ON THE NATURE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. (Conclusion.) By _Prince C.
N. Trubetzkoi_.
IDEALS AND REALITY. By _B. V. A. Golzev_.
LETTERS ON COUNT L. N. TOLSTOI'S BOOK "OF LIFE." (Continuation.)
By _A. A. Kozlov_.
RELIGIOUS METAPHYSICS OF THE MOSLEM ORIENT. A Sketch. By _C.
Umanetz_.
THE MORALITY OF MENTALLY DISEASED PERSONS. Ethics Of Mental
Diseases. By _V. Tchij_.
CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1) Introduction to the history of
the new philosophy. Problems of history and of the history
of philosophy. The significance of ancient and mediæval
philosophy. By _N. Grote_.
2) The ideals of most recent Ethics. A review of W. Wundt's "Eine
Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens."
By _A. Bao_.
REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS.
BOOK REVIEWS. Russian and foreign books on Methodology, Logic,
Psychology, Psycho-pathology and Philosophy of history.
POLEMICS ON N. N. LANGE'S ARTICLE. By _E. Tchelpanov_.
APPENDIX: 1) Materials for the history of philosophy in Russia.
1855-1888. (Continuation.) _Y. Kohibovsky._ 2) Bibligraphical
Index. 3) Proceedings of The Psychological Society.
_Schiller's Doctrine of Beauty and Æsthetical Enjoyment._ The nations
of western Europe have been long familiar with Schiller's doctrine of
beauty and of æsthetical enjoyment; but one must agree with the writer,
that it is still a subject that has not outlived, probably never will
outlive, that unfading freshness and deep interest which it ever must
possess to all cultured and thinking minds. The writer, moreover, calls
attention to the fact, that as regards Russia, Schiller, although
well-known as a poet, is too little known as a philosopher.
_On the Nature of Consciousness._ Concluding his series of articles
on the nature of human consciousness with an internal analysis of
consciousness, the writer remarks, that without having recourse to the
testimony of hypnotic experiments or to the phenomenon of so-called
"mental suggestion," which so conspicuously demonstrates the reciprocal
compenetration of the individual sphere of consciousness, we find a
constant, normal, and substantial bond between that which constitutes
and conditions the whole accord or harmony of the spiritual life of
individual man; because, if from our individual consciousness this
vital bond is removed which unites us to other consciousnesses, to
the preceding as well as the following ones; if there is removed from
our individual consciousness the connection and partnership of all
succession, of all that is suggested and suggestible, it will lose
both form and contents, and be turned into nothing.... We know that
man is the heir of the work of previous races, of their organisation
and feeling. All human feelings,—the results of adaptation,—all the
instincts and appetites are precisely just as our organs, they are
our psycho-physical organisation. Feeling is the original basis of
individual consciousness; and thus, in consciousness itself, in our
feeling itself,—we are able to disclose several radical, universal
elements. We, unaccountably, attribute every reality to particular
feelings, and we cannot imagine that these peculiarities depend
exclusively upon our subjective individual feeling, on our own eyes
and ears. Light, warmth, hardness, sound, colors are naïvely conceived
within our consciousness, irrespective of the objective properties of
the things themselves. Usually we suppose that the sun shines, the sea
roars, flowers are fragrant simply through our personal presumption. We
do not understand that our own feelings experience certain sensations
in the presence of the given phenomena.... If we now conceive that
all sensation presupposes something that is sentient; it is clear
that feeling, as conditioning the perception of the material world,
cannot be merely subjective. Recognising the objective reality of the
material world, we presuppose anthropomorphically a general feeling.
The elements of which the external world consists correspond to
the fundamental aspects of sensation and to the elements of sense.
A sensual universe, in so far as we recognise its objectivity,
presupposes a universal sense, with which our own individual sensation
must be connected. In reference to the analysis of moral consciousness
the writer refers the reader to the works of Kant. If there is a
solidarity of myself with all things, then it is clear that I am bound
to live up to it. As in a general way I am conscious of the existence
and reality of other beings, so I likewise feel an ideal, moral
necessity of a common altruism, of a common and perfect love toward
all. This general love is distinguished from natural inclination,
and is contrary to it; this constitutes my bounden _duty_ in my
relation to all, and is a general ethical law. One cannot maintain
that man knew this law _a priori_, because he was moral before and he
knew it not. Still, it is less possible, that man knew this general
and unconditional verity _a posteriori_—that he knew good without
goodness, morals without morality. But, when man attains to a certain
degree of self-knowledge, when he has detached himself from the
omnipotent tyranny of prejudices, and of all traditional principles of
congenital morals, then he grows conscious of this law, and finds it in
himself. This law is not anything external to us, but it is deposited
within us. In just the same proportion as we recognise the law of
causality, we shall also recognise the moral law. _Reason_ itself
is compelled to arouse in us conscience,—theoretical consciousness
awakens ethical consciousness.
The law of causality is a formal law, that does not impart to us
any real cognition; it is, precisely, the form of our knowledge.
The ethical law, the law of the general solidarity of ethical aims,
does not presuppose this form without contents, but presupposes an
ideal content, the true essence of a common _general_ consciousness,
as something that unconditionally must be. Its sanction is not in
the formal agreement of individual beings, but in their being in a
necessary, ideal union.
Man is conscious of the fact that he cannot attain the ethical ideal
through himself only. He must seek for it in perfect love. Only a
perfect and all-comprehensive love can atone and justify man. But this
love is not a natural instinct of man, but a grace, independent of man,
which is acquired by faith. This faith itself is already a fact of
love, and by those who believe, it is conceived as a manifestation of
grace.
_Letters on Tolstoï's book "Of Life."_ The writer of these letters on
Count Tolstoï's book "Of Life" undertakes an analysis of the peculiar
philosophical truths and errors which it contains. He points out the
_method_ employed by Tolstoï and the causes of his contradictions and
errors. By so doing he hopes in conclusion to formulate the theory of
the philosophical system to which belongs the work itself.
The writer first calls his correspondent's attention to Tolstoï's
positive statement to the effect, that "the world is subordinated to
the law of reason—in the heavenly bodies, in animals and plants. This
law, without our own interference, prevails throughout all creation,
and within ourselves we know this law, and are obliged to fulfil the
same." Yet how does Count Tolstoï know that the whole world is subject
to the law of reason? By virtue of the principle of cognition that was
mooted in the writer's previous letter, we can know it with a degree of
certitude only concerning ourselves. Tolstoï himself maintains, that
"much less are we able to know anything about the external, material
world which is subject to the laws of space and time." In other words,
Tolstoï contradicts his own theory. As regards his other statement, his
estimate of "true and false life," the two can only be reconciled by
admitting certain other hypotheses that are manifestly contradictory to
constant human experience, such as the gratuitous hypothesis that men
who follow "the teaching of this world" and not that of wise men "do
not live," they "exist" only. Tolstoï's theory, expressing a definition
of life, would oblige us to turn our attention only to a few facts of
immediate consciousness, but to ignore many others that are not subject
to doubt. But, setting aside Tolstoï's peculiar theory of consciousness
and cognition, the writer turns to the problem of the Ego, as the
most important for the solution of the points involved in the present
discussion.
In reply to this letter the writer regrets that he himself, having but
little taste for deep philosophical discussion, finds it exceedingly
difficult to defend Count Tolstoï's views against attacks such as those
of Mr. Kozlov. Still, it seems to him that Mr. Kozlov in his whole
analysis of Tolstoï's book seeks to evade the main question; namely,
Can we call a human life a life so long as men tear each other to
pieces like wild beasts?
Tolstoï's critic in conclusion asks, what, precisely, ought to be
understood by life? In his reply, after investigating the nature of
the Ego, Mr. Kozlov concludes: Man, according to Tolstoï, is only a
collective term. It is no more than a name for groups of a few special
objects, in their arbitrary relation to a totality. These collective
objects are purely _entia rationis_, as the names forest, river,
army, crowd, etc. This collective subject is called man. Matter, in
Tolstoï's metaphysics, represents the only element, the reality and
substantiality of which is not subject to the least doubt. Matter
is uncreated and indestructible, it remains identical with itself,
constantly through motion combining itself into different aggregates
called bodies. In the formation of the living body, matter serves
as the basis, on which exist other subjects, that also constitute
man, by Tolstoï called "animal personalities." This subject, in its
functions and manifestations answers to that which is usually called
man, and with Tolstoï it has a doubtful substantiality. Thus, although
man is indefinitely continued, preserved through reproduction, and
constantly renewed in fresh specimens, still this subject might
disappear, be destroyed, for example, by a catastrophe happening to
the terrestrial globe. On the other hand, this subject arose in
time. At all events, all that is individual, existing in the separate
specimens of the human race, disappears, is destroyed at the physical
death of the individual, animal body. Consciousness belongs to this
animal personality; it exists in time, and is subject to the laws of
time. On the soil and foundation of this animal individuality there
arises a third existence that enters into the composition of man,
namely—reason or rational consciousness. This element displays the
character of substance in a much higher degree than animal personality.
Like matter it is uncreated, indestructible, and eternal. But eternity
of reason is distinguished from eternity of matter in this, that reason
is not subject to the laws of time and space, to which matter is
subject notwithstanding its eternity. Yet here we have an unavoidable
combination of two conceptions of eternity,—the one as endless time,
the other as absence of time, which means that the idea of time should
not be attributed to it at all. Reason, according to Tolstoï, is not
particular and individual, but purely universal and common. It does not
possess a detached or transcendental being. (Moscow, March, 1891.)
γλν.
TRANSCRIBER'S CORRECTIONS
page original text correction
12 in correllation with in correlation with
27 one hundred cubic millemetres one hundred cubic millimetres
41 by the maintainance of by the maintenance of
67 by the concept of of the _I_ by the concept of the _I_
82 often used as synomyms, often used as synonyms,
89 annointed with oil and soot, anointed with oil and soot,
133 and such mistatements as and such misstatements as
173 that of Arided (α Cycni), that of Arided (α Cygni),
208 in the seventeeth chapter in the seventeenth chapter
225 employd some decades ago employed some decades ago
265 dispute it acumen dispute its acumen
301 world-conception or are ligion world-conception or a religion
315 seats in both ears. seats in both ears."
425 border on imbecilty, border on imbecility,
467 ANALYSES ET COMTES RENDUS. ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
477 There trenscendentalists There transcendentalists
559 her life ends in insaniyt. her life ends in insanity.
566 the German poets critiicise the German poets criticise
574 an historial point of view an historical point of view
585 (Sankrit) _mânas_ (Sanskrit) _mânas_
590 Weil et Maurice, Pub. Weill et Maurice, Pub.
624 Nr. Nichols's final conclusion Mr. Nichols's final conclusion
631 affords some difficulty. affords some difficulty."
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891" ***
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