History of Modern Philosophy Part 22

a.s.sociationalism has been rea.s.serted by James Mill (1773-1836; a.n.a.lysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 1829), whose influence lives on in the work of his greater son. The latter, John Stuart Mill,[1] was born in London 1806, and was from 1823 to 1858 a secretary in the India House; after the death of his wife he lived (with the exception of two years of service as a Member of Parliament) at Avignon; his death occurred in 1873. Mill's System of Logic appeared in 1843, 9th ed., 1875; his Utilitarianism, 1863, new ed., 1871; An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, 1865, 5th ed., 1878; his notes to the new edition of his father's work, a.n.a.lysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 2d ed., 1878, also deserve notice. With the phenomenalism of Hume and the (somewhat corrected) a.s.sociational psychology of his father as a basis, Mill makes experience the sole source of knowledge, rejecting a priori and intuitive elements of every sort. Matter he defines as a "permanent possibility of sensation"; mind is resolved into "a series of feelings with a background of possibilities of feeling," even though the author is not unaware of the difficulty involved in the question how a series of feelings can be aware of itself as a series. Mathematical principles, like all others, have an experiential origin-the peculiar cert.i.tude ascribed to them by the Kantians is a fiction-and induction is the only fruitful method of scientific inquiry (even in mental science). The syllogism is itself a concealed induction.

[Footnote 1: Cf. on Mill. Taine, Le Positivisme Anglais, 1864 [English, by Haye]; the objections of Jevons (Contemporary Review, December, 1877 seq., reprinted in Pure Logic and other Minor Works, 1890; cf. Mind, vol. xvi. pp. 106-110) to Mill's doctrine of the inductive character of geometry, his treatment of the relation of resemblance, and his exposition of the four methods of experimental inquiry in their relation to the law of causation; and the finely conceived essay on utilitarianism, by C. Hebler, Philosophische Aufstze, 1869, pp. 35-66. [Also Mill's own Autobiography, 1873: Bain's John Stuart Mill, a Criticism, 1882; and T.H. Green, Lectures on the Logic, Works, vol. ii.-TR.]]

When I a.s.sert the major premise the inference proper is already made, and in the conclusion the comprehensive formula for a number of particular truths which was given in the premise is merely explicated, interpreted. Because universal judgments are for him merely brief expressions for aggregates of particular truths, Mill is able to say that all knowledge is generalization, and at the same time to argue that all inference is from particulars to particulars. Inference through a general proposition is not necessary, yet useful as a collateral security, inasmuch as the syllogistic forms enable us more easily to discover errors committed. The ground of induction, the uniformity of nature in reference both to the coexistence and the succession of phenomena, since it wholly depends on induction, is not unconditionally certain; but it may be accepted as very highly probable, until some instance of lawless action (in itself conceivable) shall have been actually proved. Like the law of causation, the principles of logic are also not a priori, but only the highest generalizations from all previous experience.

Mill's most brilliant achievement is his theory of experimental inquiry, for which he advances four methods: (1) The Method of Agreement: "If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circ.u.mstance in common, the circ.u.mstance in which alone all the instances agree is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon." (2) The Method of Difference: "If an instance in which the phenomenon under investigation occurs, and an instance in which it does not occur, have every circ.u.mstance in common save one, that one occurring only in the former; the circ.u.mstance in which alone the two instances differ, is the effect, or the cause, or an indispensable part of the cause, of the phenomenon," These two methods (the method of observation, and the method of artificial experiment) may also be employed in combination, and the Canon of the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference runs: "If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs have only one circ.u.mstance in common, while two or more instances in which it does not occur have nothing in common save the absence of that circ.u.mstance, the circ.u.mstance in which alone the two sets of instances differ is the effect, or the cause, or an indispensable part of the cause, of the phenomenon." (3) The Method of Residues: "Subduct from any phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the effect of certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedents." (4) The Method of Concomitant Variations: "Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or is connected with it through some fact of causation." When the phenomena are complex the deductive method must be called in to aid: from the inductively ascertained laws of the action of single causes this deduces the laws of their combined action; and, as a final step, the results of such ratiocination are verified by the proof of their agreement with empirical facts. To explain a phenomenon means to point out its cause; the explanation of a law is its reduction to other, more general laws. In all this, however, we remain within the sphere of phenomena; the essence of nature always eludes our knowledge.

In the chapter "Of Liberty and Necessity" (book vi. chap, ii.) Mill emphasizes the position that the necessity to which human actions are subject must not be conceived, as is commonly done, as irresistible compulsion, for it denotes nothing more than the uniform order of our actions and the possibility of predicting them. This does not destroy the element in the idea of freedom which is legitimate and practically valuable: we have the power to alter our character; it is formed by us as well as for us; the desire to mould it is one of the most influential circ.u.mstances in its formation. The principle of morality is the promotion of the happiness of all sentient beings. Mill differs from Bentham, however, from whom he derives the principle of utility, in several important particulars-by his recognition of qualitative as well as of quant.i.tative differences in pleasures, of the value of the ordinary rules of morality as intermediate principles, of the social feelings, and of the disinterested love of virtue. Opponents of the utilitarian theory have not been slow in availing themselves of the opportunities for attack thus afforded.[1] A third distinguished representative of the same general movement is Alexander Bain, the psychologist (born 1818; The Senses and the Intellect, 3d ed., 1868; The Emotions and the Will, 3d ed., 1875; Mental and Moral Science, 1868, 3d ed., 1872, part ii., 1872; Mind and Body, 3d ed., 1874).

[Footnote 1: On the relation of Bentham and Mill cf. Hoffding, p. 68: Sidgwick's Outlines, chap. iv. -- 16; and John Grote's Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, 1870, chap. i.]

The system projected by Herbert Spencer (born 1820), the major part of which has already appeared, falls into five parts: First Principles, 1862, 7th ed., 1889; Principles of Biology, 1864-67, 4th ed., 1888; Principles of Psychology, 1855, 5th ed., 1890; Principles of Sociology (vol. i. 1876, 3d ed., 1885; part iv. Ceremonial Inst.i.tutions, 1879, 3d ed., 1888, part v. Political Inst.i.tutions, 1882, 2d ed., 1885, part vi. Ecclesiastical Inst.i.tutions, 1885, 2d ed., 1886, together const.i.tuting vol. ii.); Principles of Ethics (part i. The Data of Ethics, 1879, 5th ed., 1888; parts ii. and iii. The Inductions of Ethics and The Ethics of Individual Life, const.i.tuting with part i. the first volume, 1892; part iv. Justice, 1891). A comprehensive exposition of the system has been given, with the authority of the author, by F.H. Collins in his Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy, 1889.[1] The treatise on Education, 1861, 23d ed., 1890, his sociological writings, and his various essays have also contributed essentially to Mr. Spencer's fame, both at home and abroad. The First Principles begin with the "Unknowable." Since human opinions, no matter how false they may seem, have sprung from actual experiences, and, when they find wide acceptance and are tenaciously adhered to, must have something in them which appeals to the minds of men, we must a.s.sume that every error contains a kernel of truth, however small it be. No one of opposing views is to be accepted as wholly true, and none rejected as entirely false. To discover the incontrovertible fact which lies at their basis, we must reject the various concrete elements in which they disagree, and find for the remainder the abstract expression which holds true throughout its divergent manifestations. No antagonism is older, wider, more profound, and more important than that between religion and science. Here too some most general truth, some ultimate fact must lie at the basis. The ultimate religious ideas are self-contradictory and untenable. No one of the possible hypotheses concerning the nature and origin of things-every religion may be defined as an a priori theory of the universe, the accompanying ethical code being a later growth-is logically defensible: whether the world is conceived atheistically as self-existent, or pantheistically as self-created, or theistically (fetichism, polytheism, or monotheism), as created by an external agency, we are everywhere confronted by unthinkable conclusions. The idea of a First Cause or of the absolute (as Mansel, following Hamilton, has proved in his Limits of Religious Thought) is full of contradictions. But however widely the creeds diverge, they show entire unanimity, from the grossest superst.i.tion up to the most developed theism, in the belief that the existence of the world is a mystery which ever presses for interpretation, though it can never be entirely explained. And in the progress of religion from crude fetichism to the developed theology of our time, the truth, at first but vaguely perceived, that there is an omnipresent Inscrutable which manifests itself in all phenomena, ever comes more clearly into view.

[Footnote 1: Cf. also Fiske's Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 2 vols., 1874. Numerous critiques and discussions of Spencer's views have been given in various journals and reviews; among more extended works reference may be made to Bowne, The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, 1874; Malcolm Guthrie, On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution, 1879, and the same author, On Mr. Spencer's Unification of Knowledge, 1882; and T.H. Green, on Spencer and Lewes, Works, vol. i.-TR.]

Science meets this ultimate religious truth with the conviction, grasped with increasing clearness as the development proceeds from Protagoras to Kant, that the reality hidden behind all phenomena must always remain unknown, that our knowledge can never be absolute. This principle maybe established inductively from the incomprehensibility of the ultimate scientific ideas, as well as deductively from the nature of intelligence, through an a.n.a.lysis of the product and the process of thought. (1) The ideas s.p.a.ce, time, matter, motion, and force, as also the first states of consciousness, and the thinking substance, the ego as the unity of subject and object, all represent realities whose nature and origin are entirely incomprehensible. (2) The subsumption of particular facts under more general facts leads ultimately to a most general, highest fact, which cannot be reduced to a more general one, and hence cannot be explained or comprehended. (3) All thought (as has been shown by Hamilton in his essay "On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned," and by his follower Mansel) is the establishment of relations, every thought involving relation, difference, and (as Spencer adds) likeness. Hence the absolute, the idea of which excludes every relation, is entirely beyond the reach of an intelligence which is concerned with relations alone, and which always consists in discrimination, limitation, and a.s.similation-it is trebly unthinkable. Therefore: Religion and Science agree in the supreme truth that the human understanding is capable of relative knowledge only or of a knowledge of the relative (Relativity). Nevertheless, according to Spencer, it is too much to conclude with the thinkers just mentioned, that the idea of the absolute is a mere expression for inconceivability, and its existence problematical. The nature of the absolute is unknowable, but not the existence of a basis for the relative and phenomenal. The considerations which speak in favor of the relativity of knowledge and its limitation to phenomena, argue also the existence of a non-relative, whose phenomenon the relative is; the idea of the relative and the phenomenal posits eo ipso the existence of the absolute as its correlative, which manifests itself in phenomena. We have at least an indefinite, though not a definite, consciousness of the Unknowable as the Unknown Cause, the Universal Power, and on this is founded our ineradicable belief in objective reality.

All knowledge is limited to the relative, and consists in increasing generalization: the apex of this pyramid is formed by philosophy. Common knowledge is un-unified knowledge; science is partially unified knowledge; philosophy, which combines the highest generalizations of the sciences into a supreme one, is completely unified knowledge. The data of philosophy are-besides an Unknowable Power-the existence of knowable likenesses and differences among its manifestations, and a resulting segregation of the manifestations into those of subject and object. Further, derivative data are s.p.a.ce (relations of coexistence), time (relations of irreversible sequence), matter (coexistent positions that offer resistance), motion (which involves s.p.a.ce, time, and matter), and force, the ultimate of ultimates, on which all others depend, and from our primordial experiences of which all the other modes of consciousness are derivable. Similarly the ultimate primary truth is the persistence of force, from which, besides the indestructibility of matter and the continuity of (actual or potential) motion, still further truths may be deduced: the persistence of relations among forces or the uniformity of law, the transformation and equivalence of (mental and social as well as of physical) forces, the law of the direction of motion (along the line of least resistance, or the line of greatest traction, or their resultant), and the unceasing rhythm of motion. Beyond these a.n.a.lytic truths, however, philosophy demands a law of universal synthesis. This must be the law of the continuous redistribution of matter and motion, for each single thing, and the whole universe as well, is involved in a (continuously repeated) double process of evolution and dissolution, the former consisting in the integration of matter[1] and the dissipation of motion, the latter in the absorption of motion and the disintegration of matter. The law of evolution, in its complete development, then runs: "Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter pa.s.ses from an indefinite, incoherent h.o.m.ogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." This is inductively supported by ill.u.s.trations from every region of nature and all departments of mental and social life; and, further, shown deducible from the ultimate principle of the persistence of force, through the mediation of several corollaries to it, viz., the instability of the h.o.m.ogeneous under the varied incidence of surrounding forces, the multiplication of effects by action and reaction, and segregation. Finally the principle of equilibration indicates the impa.s.sable limit at which evolution pa.s.ses over into dissolution, until the eternal round is again begun. If it may be said of Hegel himself, that he vainly endeavored to master the concrete fullness of reality with formal concepts, the criticism is applicable to Spencer in still greater measure. The barren schemata of concentration, pa.s.sage into heterogeneity, adaptation, etc., which are taken from natural science, and which are insufficient even in their own field, prove entirely impotent for the mastery of the complex and peculiar phenomena of spiritual life.

[Footnote 1: Organic growth is the concentration of elements before diffused; cf. the union of nomadic families into settled tribes.]

Armed with these principles, however, Mr. Spencer advances to the discussion of the several divisions of "Special Philosophy." Pa.s.sing over inorganic nature, he finds his task in the interpretation of the phenomena of life, mind, and society in terms of matter, motion, and force under the general evolution formula. This procedure, however, must not be understood as in any wise materialistic. Such an interpretation would be a misrepresentation, it is urged, for the strict relativity of the standpoint limits all conclusions to phenomena, and permits no inference concerning the nature of the "Unknowable." The Principles of Biology take up the phenomena of life. Life is defined as the "continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." No attempt is made to explain its origin, yet (in the words of Mr. Sully) it is clear that the lowest forms of life are regarded as continuous in their essential nature with sub-vital processes. The evolution of living organisms, from the lowest to the highest, with the development of all their parts and functions, results from the co-operation of various factors, external and internal, whose action is ultimately reducible to the universal law.

The field of psychology is intimately allied with biology, and yet istinguished from it. Mental life is a subdivision of life in general, and may be subsumed under the general definition; but while biological truths concern the connection between internal phenomena, with but tacit or occasional recognition of the environment, psychology has to do neither with the internal connection nor the external connection, but "the connection between these two connections." Psychology in its subjective aspect, again, is a field entirely sui generis. The substance of mind, conceived as the underlying substratum of mental states, is unknowable; but the character of those states of which mind, as we know it, is composed, is a legitimate subject of inquiry. If this be carefully investigated, it seems highly probable that the ultimate unit of consciousness is something "of the same order as that which we call a nervous shock." Mind is proximately composed of feelings and the relations between feelings; from these, revived, a.s.sociated, and integrated, the whole fabric of consciousness is built up. There is, then, no sharp distinction between the several phases of mind. If we trace its development objectively, in terms of the correspondence between inner and outer phenomena, we find a gradual progress from the less to the more complex, from the lower to the higher, without a break. Reflex action, instinct, memory, reason, are simply stages in the process. All is dependent on experience. Even the forms of knowledge, which are a priori to the individual, are the product of experience in the race, integrated and transmitted by heredity, and become organic in the nervous structure. In general the correspondence of inner and outer in which mental life consists is mediated by the nervous organism. The structure and functions of this condition consciousness and furnish the basis for the interpretation of mental evolution in terms of "evolution at large, regarded as a process of physical transformation." Nevertheless mental phenomena and bodily phenomena are not identical, consciousness is not motion. They are both phenomenal modes of the unknowable, disparate in themselves, and giving no indication of the ultimate nature of the absolute. Subjective a.n.a.lysis of human consciousness yields further proof of the unity of mental composition. All mental action is ultimately reducible to "the continuous differentiation and integration of states of consciousness." The criterion of truth is the inconceivability of the negation. Tried by this test, as by all others, realism is superior to idealism, though in that "transfigured" form which implies objective existence without implying the possibility of any further knowledge concerning it,-hence in a form entirely congruous with the conclusion reached by many other routes.

Sociology deals with super-organic evolution, which involves the co-ordinated actions of many individuals. To understand the social unit, we must study primitive man, especially the ideas which he forms of himself, of other beings, and of the surrounding world. The conception of a mind or other-self is gradually evolved through observation of natural phenomena which favor the notion of duality, especially the phenomena of sleep, dreams, swoons, and death. Belief in the influence of these doubles of the dead on the fortunes of the living leads to sorcery, prayer, and praise. Ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is the ultimate source of all forms of religion; to it can be traced even such aberrant developments as fetichism and idolatry, animal-, plant-, and nature-wors.h.i.+p. Thus the primitive man feels himself related not only to his living fellows, but to mult.i.tudes of supernatural beings about him. The fear of the living becomes the root of the political, and the fear of the dead the root of the religious, control. A society is an organic ent.i.ty. Though differing from an individual organism in many ways, it yet resembles it in the permanent relations among its component parts. The Domestic Relations, by which the maintenance of the species is now secured, have come from various earlier and less developed forms; the militant type of society is accompanied by a lower, the industrial type by a higher stage of this development. Ceremonial observance is the most primitive kind of government, and the kind from which the political and religious governments have differentiated. Political organization is necessary in order to co-operation for ends which benefit the society directly, and the individual only indirectly. The ultimate political force is the feeling of the community, including as its largest part ancestral feeling. Many facts combine to obscure this truth, but however much it may be obscured, public feeling remains the primal source of authority. The various forms and instruments of government have grown up through processes in harmony with the general law. The two ant.i.thetical types of society are the militant and the industrial-the former implies compulsory co-operation under more or less despotic rule, with governmental a.s.sumption of functions belonging to the individual and a minimizing of individual initiative; in the latter, government is reduced to a minimum and best conducted by representative agencies, public organizations are largely replaced by private organizations, the individual is freer and looks less to the state for protection and for aid. The fundamental conditions of the highest social development is the cessation of war. The ideas and sentiments at the basis of Ecclesiastical Inst.i.tutions have been naturally derived from the ghost-theory already described. The goal of religious development is the final rejection of all anthropomorphic conceptions of the First Cause, until the harmony of religion and science shall be reached in the veneration of the Unknowable. The remaining parts of Mr. Spencer's Sociology will treat of Professional Inst.i.tutions, Industrial Inst.i.tutions, Linguistic Progress, Intellectual, Moral, and Aesthetic Progress.

The subject matter of ethics is the conduct termed good or bad. Conduct is the adjustment of acts to ends. The evolution of conduct is marked by increasing perfection in the adjustment of acts to the furtherance of individual life, the life of offspring, and social life. The ascription of ethical character to the highly evolved conduct of man in relation to these ends implies the fundamental a.s.sumption, that "life is good or bad according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling." The ideal of moral science is rational deduction: a rational utilitarianism can be attained only by the recognition of the necessary laws-physical, biological, psychological, and sociological-which condition the results of actions; among these the biological laws have been largely neglected in the past, though they are of the utmost importance as furnis.h.i.+ng the link between life and happiness. The "psychological view," again, explains the origin of conscience. In the course of development man comes to recognize the superiority of the higher and more representative feelings as guides to action; this form of self-restraint, however, is characteristic of the non-moral restraints as well, of the political, social, and religious controls. From these the moral control proper has emerged-differing from them in that it refers to intrinsic instead of extrinsic effects-and the element of coerciveness in them, transferred, has generated the feeling of moral compulsion (which, however, "will diminish as fast as moralization increases").

Such a rational ethics, based on the laws which condition welfare rather than on a direct estimation of happiness, and premising the relativity of all pains and pleasures, escapes fundamental objections to the earlier hedonism (e.g., those to the hedonic calculus); and, combining the valuable elements in the divergent ethical theories, yields satisfactory principles for the decision of ethical problems. Egoism takes precedence of altruism; yet it is in turn dependent on this, and the two, on due consideration, are seen to be co-essential. Entirely divorced from the other, neither is legitimate, and a compromise is the only possibility; while in the future advancing evolution will bring the two into complete harmony. The goal of the whole process will be the ideal man in the ideal society, the scientific antic.i.p.ation of which, absolute ethics, promises guidance for the relative and imperfect ethics of the transition period.

Examination of the actual, not the professed, ideas and sentiments of men reveals wide variation in moral judgments. This is especially true of the "pro-ethical" consciousnesses of external authorities, coercions, and opinions-religious, political, and social-by which the ma.s.s of mankind are governed; and is broadly due to variation in social conditions. Where the need of external co-operation predominates the ethics of enmity develops; where internal, peaceful co-operation is the chief social need the ethics of amity results: and the evolution principle enables us to infer that, as among certain small tribes in the past, so in the great cultivated nations of the future, the life of amity will unqualifiedly prevail. The Ethics of Individual Life shows the application of moral judgments to all actions which affect individual welfare. The very fact that some deviations from normal life are now morally disapproved, implies the existence of both egoistic and altruistic sanctions for the moral approval of all acts which conduce to normal living and the disapproval of all minor deviations, though for the most part these have hitherto remained unconsidered. Doubtless, however, moral control must here be somewhat indefinite; and even scientific observation and a.n.a.lysis must leave the production of a perfectly regulated conduct to "the organic adjustment of const.i.tution to [social] conditions."

The Ethics of Social Life includes justice and beneficence. Human justice emerges from sub-human or animal justice, whose law (pa.s.sing over gratis benefits to offspring) is "that each individual shall receive the benefits and evils of its own nature and its consequent conduct." This is the law of human justice, also, but here it is more limited than before by the non-interference which gregariousness requires, and by the increasing need for the sacrifice of individuals for the good of the species. The egoistic sentiment of justice arises from resistance to interference with free action; the altruistic develops through sympathy under social conditions, these being maintained meanwhile by a "pro-altruistic" sentiment, into which dread of retaliation, of social reprobation, of legal punishment, and of divine vengeance enter as component parts. The idea of justice emerges gradually from the sentiment of justice: it has two elements, one brute or positive, with inequality as its ideal, one human or negative, the ideal of which is equality. In early times the former of these was unduly appreciated, as in later times the latter, the true conception includes both, the idea of equality being applied to the limits and the idea of inequality to the benefits of action. Thus the formula of justice becomes: "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man "-a law which finds its authority in the facts, that it is an a priori dictum of "consciousness after it has been subject to the discipline of prolonged social life," and that it is also deducible from the conditions of the maintenance of life at large and of social life. From this law follow various particular corollaries or rights, all of which coincide with ordinary ethical concepts and have legal enactments corresponding to them. Political rights so-called do not exist; government is simply a system of appliances for the maintenance of private rights. Both the nature of the state and its const.i.tution are variable: the militant type requires centralization and a coercive const.i.tution; the industrial type implies a wider distribution of political power, but requires a representation of interests rather than a representation of individuals. Government develops as a result of war, and its function of protection against internal aggression arises by differentiation from its primary function of external defense. These two, then, const.i.tute the essential duties of the state; when war ceases the first falls away, and its sole function becomes the maintenance of the conditions under which each individual may "gain the fullest life compatible with the fullest life of fellow-citizens." All beyond this, all interference with this life of the individual, whether by way of a.s.sistance, restraint, or education, proves in the end both unjust and impolitic. The remaining parts of the Ethics will treat of Negative and Positive Beneficence.

If J.S. Mill and Spencer (the latter of whom, moreover, had announced evolution as a world-law before the appearance of Darwin), move in a direction akin to positivism, the same is true, further, of G.H. Lewes (1817-78; History of Philosophy, 5th ed., 1880; Problems of Life and Mind, 1874 seq).

Turning to the discussion of particular disciplines, we may mention as prominent among English logicians,[1] besides Hamilton, Whewell, and Mill, Whately, Mansel, Thomson, De Morgan, Boole (An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, 1854); W.S. Jevons (The Principles of Science, 2d ed., 1877); Venn (Symbolic Logic, 1881; Empirical Logic, 1889), Bradley, and Bosanquet. Among more recent investigators in the field of psychology we may name Carpenter, Ferrier, Maudsley, Galton, Ward, and Sully (The Human Mind, 1892), and in the field of comparative psychology, Lubbock, Romanes (Mental Evolution in Animals, 1883; Mental Evolution in Man, 1889), and Morgan (Animal Life and Intelligence, 1891). Among ethical writers the following, besides Spencer and Green, hold a foremost place: H. Sidgwick (The Methods of Ethics, 4th ed., 1890), Leslie Stephen (The Science of Ethics, 1882), and James Martineau (Types of Ethical Theory, 3d ed., 1891). The quarterly review Mind (vols. i.-xvi. 1876-91, edited by G. Croom Robertson; new series from 1892, edited by G.F. Stout) has since its foundation played an important part in the development of English thought.

[Footnote 1: Cf. Nedich, Die Lehre von der Quantifikation des Pradikats in vol. iii. of Wundt's Philosophische Studien; L. Liard, Les Logiciens Anglais Contemporains, 1878; Al. Riehl in vol. i. of the Vierteljahrsschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 1877 [cf. also appendix A to the English translation of Ueberweg's Logic.-TR.].]

German idealism, for which S.T. Coleridge (died 1834) and Thomas Carlyle (died 1881) endeavored to secure an entrance into England, for a long time gained ground there but slowly. Later years, however, have brought increasing interest in German speculation, and much of recent thinking shows the influence of Kantian and Hegelian principles. As pioneer of this movement we may name J.H. Stirling (The Secret of Hegel, 1865); and as its most prominent representatives John Caird (An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, 1880), Edward Caird (The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, 1889; The Evolution of Religion, 1893), both in Glasgow, and T.H. Green (1836-82; professor at Oxford; Prolegomena to Ethics, 3d ed., 1887; Works, edited by Nettles.h.i.+p, 3 vols., 1885-88).[1] In opposition to the hereditary empiricism of English philosophy-which appears in Spencer and Lewes, as it did in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, though in somewhat altered form-Green maintains that all experience is const.i.tuted by intelligible relations. Knowledge, therefore, is possible only for a correlating self-consciousness; while nature, as a system of relations, is likewise dependent on a spiritual principle, of which it is the expression. Thus the central conception of Green's philosophy becomes, "that the universe is a single eternal activity or energy, of which it is the essence to be self-conscious, that is, to be itself and not itself in one" (Nettles.h.i.+p). To this universal consciousness we are related as manifestations or "communications" under the limitations of our physical organization. As such we are free, that is, self-determined, determined by nothing from without. The moral ideal is self-realization or perfection, the progressive reproduction of the divine self-consciousness. This is possible only in terms of a development of persons, for as a self-conscious personality the divine spirit can reproduce itself in persons alone; and, since "social life is to personality what language is to thought," the realization of the moral ideal implies life in common. The nearer determination of the ideal is to be sought in the manifestations of the eternal spirit as they have been given in the moral history of individuals and nations. This shows what has already been implied in the relation of morality to personality and society, that moral good must first of all be a common good, one in which the permanent well-being of self includes the well-being of others also. This is the germ of morality, the development of which yields, first, a gradual extension of the area of common good, and secondly, a fuller and more concrete determination of its content. Further representatives of this movement are W. Wallace, Adamson, Bradley; A. Seth is an ex-member.

[Footnote 1: Cf. on Green the Memoir by Nettles.h.i.+p in vol. iii. of the Works.]

The first and greatest of American philosophical thinkers was the Calvinistic theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-58; treatise on the Freedom of Will, 1754; Works, 10 vols., edited by Dwight, 1830). Edwards's deterministic doctrine found numerous adherents (among them his son, who bore his father's name, died 1801) as well as strenuous opponents (Tappan, Whedon, Hazard among later names), and essentially contributed to the development of philosophical thought in the United States. For a considerable period this crystallized for the most part around elements derived from British thinkers, especially from Locke and the Scottish School. In 1829 James Marsh called attention to German speculation [1] by his American edition of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, with an important introduction from his own hand. Later W.E. Channing (1780-1842), the head of the Unitarian movement, attracted many young and brilliant minds, the most noted of whom, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), became a leader among the New England transcendentalists. Metaphysical idealism has, perhaps, met with less resistance in America than in England. Kant and Hegel have been eagerly studied (G.S. Morris, died 1889; C.C. Everett; J. Watson in Canada; Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 1892; and others); and The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, edited by W.T. Harris, has since 1867 furnished a rallying point for idealistic interests. The influence of Lotze has also been considerable (B.P. Bowne in Boston). Sympathy with German speculation, however, has not destroyed the naturally close connection with the work of writers who use the English tongue. Thus Spencer's writings have had a wide currency, and his system numbers many disciples, though these are less numerous among students of philosophy by profession (John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 1874).

[Footnote 1: Cf. Porter, op. cit.]

In the latest decades the broadening of the national life, the increasing acquaintance with foreign thought, and the rapid development of university work have greatly enlarged and deepened the interest in philosophical pursuits. This is manifested most clearly in the field of psychology, including especially the "new" or "physiological" psychology, and the history of philosophy, though indications of pregnant thought in other departments, as ethics and the philosophy of religion, and even of independent construction, are not wanting. Among psychologists of the day we may mention G.S. Hall, editor of The American Journal of Psychology (1887 seq.), G.T. Ladd (Elements of Physiological Psychology, 1887), and William James (Principles of Psychology, 1890). The International Journal of Ethics (Philadelphia, 1890 seq.), edited by S. Burns Weston, is "devoted to the advancement of ethical knowledge and practice"; among the foreign members of its editorial committee are Jodl and Von Gizycki. The weekly journal of popular philosophy, The Open Court, published in Chicago, has for its object the reconciliation of religion and science; the quarterly, The Monist (1890 seq.), published by the same company under the direction of Paul Carus (The Soul of Man, 1891), the establishment of a monistic view of the world. Several journals, among them the Educational Review (1891 seq., edited by N.M. Butler), point to a growing interest in pedagogical inquiry. The American Philosophical Review (1892 seq., edited by J.G. Schurman, The Ethical Import of Darwinism, 1887) is a comprehensive exponent of American philosophic thought.

4. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Holland.

In Sweden an empirical period represented by Leopold (died 1829) and Th. Thorild (died 1808), and based upon Locke and Rousseau, was followed, after the introduction of Kant by D. Boethius, 1794, by a drift toward idealism. This was represented in an extreme form by B. Hoijer (died 1812), a contemporary and admirer of Fichte, who defended the right of philosophical construction, and more moderately by Christofer Jacob Bostrom (1797-1866), the most important systematic thinker of his country. As predecessors of Bostrom we may mention Biberg (died 1827), E.G. Geijer (died 1846), and S. Grubbe (died 1853), like him professors in Upsala, and of his pupils, S. Ribbing, known in Germany by his peculiar conception of the Platonic doctrine of ideas (German translation, 1863-64), the moralist Sahlin (1877), the historian, of Swedish philosophy[1] (1873 seq.) A. Nyblaeus of Lund, and H. Edfeldt of Upsala, the editor of Bostrom's works (1883).

[Footnote 1: Cf. Hoffding, Die Philosophie in Schweden in the Philosophische Monatshefte, vol. xv. 1879, p. 193 seq.]

Bostrom's philosophy is a system of self-activity and personalism which recalls Leibnitz and Krause. The absolute or being is characterized as a concrete, systematically articulated, self-conscious unity, which dwells with its entire content in each of its moments, and whose members both bear the character of the whole and are immanent in one another, standing in relations of organic inter-determination. The ant.i.thesis between unity and plurality is only apparent, present only for the divisive view of finite consciousness. G.o.d is infinite, fully determinate personality (for determination is not limitation), a system of self-dependent living beings, differing in degree, in which we, as to our true being, are eternally and unchangeably contained. Every being is a definite, eternal, and living thought of G.o.d; thinking beings with their states and activities alone exist; all that is real is spiritual, personal. Besides this true, suprasensible world of Ideas, which is elevated above s.p.a.ce, time, motion, change, and development, and which has not arisen by creation or a process of production, there exists for man, but only for him-man is formally perfect, it is true, but materially imperfect (since he represents the real from a limited standpoint)-a sensuous world of phenomena as the sphere of his activity. To this he himself belongs, and in it he is spontaneously to develop the suprasensible content which is eternally given him (i.e., his true nature), namely, to raise it from the merely potential condition of obscure presentiment to clear, conscious actuality. Freedom is the power to overcome our imperfection by means of our true nature, to realize our suprasensible capacities, to become for ourselves what we are in ourselves (in G.o.d). The ethics of Bostrom is distinguished from the Kantian ethics, to which it is related, chiefly by the fact that it seeks to bring sensibility into a more than merely negative relation to reason. Society is an eternal, and also a personal, Idea in G.o.d. The most perfect form of government is const.i.tutional monarchy; the ideal goal of history, the establishment of a system of states embracing all mankind.

J. Borelius of Lund is an Hegelian, but differs from the master in regard to the doctrine of the contradiction. The Hegelian philosophy has adherents in Norway also, as G.V. Lyng (died 1884; System of Fundamental Ideas), M.J. Monrad (Tendencies of Modern Thought, 1874, German translation, 1879), both professors in Christiania, and Monrad's pupil G. Kent (Hegel's Doctrine of the Nature of Experience, 1891).

The Danish philosophy of the nineteenth century has been described by Hoffding in the second volume of the Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 1888. He begins with the representatives of the speculative movement: Steffens (see above), Niels Treschow (1751-1833), Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851; Spirit in Nature, German translation, Munich, 1850-51), and Frederik Christian Sibbern (1785-1872). A change was brought about by the philosophers of religion Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) and Rasmus Nielsen (1809-84; Philosophy of Religion, 1869), who opposed speculative idealism with a strict dualism of knowledge and faith, and were in turn opposed by Georg Brandes (born 1842) and Hans Brochner (1820-75). Among younger investigators the Copenhagen professors, Harald Hoffding[1] (born 1843) and Kristian Kroman[2] (born 1846) stand in the first rank.

[Footnote 1: Hoffding: The Foundations of Human Ethics, 1876, German translation, 1880; Outlines of Psychology, 1882, English translation by Lowndes, 1891, from the German translation, 1887; Ethics, 1887, German translation by Bendixen, 1888.]

[Footnote 2: Kroman: Our Knowledge of Nature, German translation, 1883; A Brief Logic and Psychology, German translation by Bendixen, 1890.]

Land (Mind, vol. iii. 1878) and G. von Antal (1888) have written on philosophy in Holland. Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the field was occupied by an idealism based upon the ancients, in particular upon Plato: Franz Hemsterhuis (1721-90; Works, new ed., 1846-50), and the philologists Wyttenbach and Van Heusde. Then Cornelius Wilhelm Opzoomer[3] (1821-92; professor in Utrecht) brought in a new movement. Opzoomer favors empiricism. He starts from Mill and Comte, but goes beyond them in important points, and a.s.signs faith a field of its own beside knowledge. In opposition to apriorism he seeks to show that experience is capable of yielding universal and necessary truths; that s.p.a.ce, time, and causality are received along with the content of thought; that mathematics itself is based upon experience; and that the method of natural science, especially deduction, must be applied to the mental sciences. The philosophy of mind considers man as an individual being, in his connection with others, in relation to a higher being, and in his development; accordingly it divides into psychology (which includes logic, aesthetics, and ethology), sociology, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history. Central to Opzoomer's system is his doctrine of the five sources of knowledge: Sensation, the feeling of pleasure and pain, aesthetic, moral, and religious feeling. If we build on the foundation of the first three alone, we end in materialism; if we leave the last unused, we reach positivism; if we make religious feeling the sole judge of truth, mysticism is the outcome. The criteria of science are utility and progress. These are still wanting in the mental sciences, in which the often answered but never decided questions continually recur, because we have neither derived the principles chosen as the basis of the deduction from an exact knowledge of the phenomena nor tested the results by experience. The causes of this defective condition can only be removed by imitating the study of nature: we must learn that no conclusions can be reached except from facts, and that we are to strive after knowledge of phenomena and their laws alone. We have no right to a.s.sume an "essence" of things beside and in addition to phenomena, which reveals itself in them or hides behind them. Pupils of Opzoomer are his successor in his Utrecht chair, Van der Wyck, and Pierson. We may also mention J.P.N. Land, who has done good service in editing the works of Spinoza and of Geulincx, and the philosopher of religion Rauwenhoff (1888).

[Footnote 1: Opzoomer: The Method of Science, a Handbook of Logic, German translation by Schwindt, 1852; Religion, German translation by Mook, 1869.]

On the system of the Hungarian philosopher Cyrill Horvath (died 1884 at Pesth) see the essay by E. Nemes in the Zeitschrift fur Philosophie, vol. lx.x.xviii, 1886. Since 1889 a review, Problems of Philosophy and Psychology, has appeared at Moscow in Russian, under the direction of Professor N. von Grot.

CHAPTER XVI.

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY SINCE THE DEATH OF HEGEL.

With Hegel the glorious dynasty which, with a strong hand, had guided the fate of German philosophy since the conclusion of the preceding century disappears. From his death (1831) we may date the second period of post-Kantian philosophy,[1] which is markedly and unfavorably distinguished from the first by a decline in the power of speculative creation and by a division of effort. If previous to this the philosophical public, comprising all the cultured, had been eagerly occupied with problems in common, and had followed with unanimous interest the work of those who were laboring at them, during the last fifty years the interest of wider circles in philosophical questions has grown much less active; almost every thinker goes his own way, giving heed only to congenial voices; the inner connection of the schools has been broken down; the touch with thinkers of different views has been lost. The latest decades have been the first to bring a change for the better, in so far as new rallying points of philosophical interest have been created by the neo-Kantian movement, by the systems of Lotze and Von Hartmann, by the impulse toward the philosophy of nature proceeding from Darwinism, by energetic labors in the field of practical philosophy, and by new methods of investigation in psychology.

[Footnote 1: On philosophy since 1831 cf. vol. iii. of J.E. Erdmann's History; Ueberweg, Grundriss, part iii. ---- 37-49 (English translation, vol. ii. pp. 292-516); Lange, History of Materialism; B. Erdmann, Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in the Deutsche Rundschau, vols. xix., xx., 1879, June and July numbers; (A. Krohn,) Streifzuge durch die Philosophie der Gegenwart in the Zeitschrift fur Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vols. lx.x.xvii., lx.x.xix., 1885-86; (Burt, History of Modern Philosophy, 1892), also the third volume of Windelband's Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, when it appears.]

1. From the Division of the Hegelian School to the Materialistic Controversy.

A decade after the philosophy of Hegel had entered on its supremacy a division in the school was called forth by Strauss's Life of Jesus(1835). The differences were brought to light by the discussion of religious problems, in regard to which Hegel had not expressed himself with sufficient distinctness. The relation of knowledge and faith, as he had defined it, admitted of variant interpretations and deductions, and this in favor of Church doctrine as well as in opposition to it. Philosophy has the same content as religion, but in a different form, i.e., not in the form of representation, but in the form of the concept-it transforms dogma into speculative truth. The conservative Hegelians hold fast to the ident.i.ty of content in the two modes of cognition; the liberals, to the alteration in form, which, they a.s.sert, brings an alteration in content with it. According to Hegel the lower stage is "sublated" in the higher, i.e., conserved as well as negated. The orthodox members of the school emphasize the conservation of religious doctrines, their justification from the side of the philosopher; the progressists, their negation, their overcoming by the speculative concept. The general question, whether the ecclesiastical meaning of a dogma is retained or to be abandoned in its transformation into a philosopheme, divides into three special questions, the anthropological, the soteriogical, and the theological. These are: whether on Hegelian principles immortality is to be conceived as a continuance of individual existence on the art of particular spirits, or only as the eternity of the universal reason; whether by the G.o.d-man the person of Christ is to be understood, or, on the other hand, the human species, the Idea of Humanity; whether personality belongs to the G.o.dhead before the creation of the world, or whether it first attains to self-consciousness in human spirits, whether Hegel was a theist or a pantheist, whether he teaches the transcendence or the immanence of G.o.d. The Old Hegelians defend the orthodox interpretation; the Young Hegelians oppose it. The former, Goschel, Gabler, Hinrichs, Schaller (died 1868; History of the Philosophy of Nature since Bacon, 1841 seq.), J.E. Erdmann in Halle (1805-92; Body and Soul, 1837; Psychological Letters, 1851, 6th ed., 1882; Earnest Sport, 1871, 4th ed., 1890), form, according to Strauss's parliamentary comparison carried out by Michelet, the "right"; the latter, Strauss, Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, and A. Ruge, who, with Echtermeyer, edited the Hallesche, afterward Deutsche, Jahrbucher fur Wissenschaft und Kunst, 1838-42, the "left." Between them, and forming the "center," stand Karl Rosenkranz[1] in Konigsberg (1805-79), C.L. Michelet in Berlin (p. 16; Hegel, the Unrefuted World-philosopher, 1870; System of Philosophy, 1876 seq.), and the theologians Marheineke (a pupil of Daub at Heidelberg) and W. Vatke (Philosophy of Religion, edited by Preiss, 1888). Contrasted with these is the group of semi- or pseudo-Hegelians (p. 596), who declare themselves in accord with the theistic doctrines of the right, but admit that the left represents Hegel's own opinion, or at least the correct deductions from his position.

[Footnote 1: K. Rosenkranz: Psychology, 1837, 3d ed., 1863; Science of the Logical Idea, 1858; Studies, 1839 seq., New Studies, 1875 seq.; Aesthetics of the Ugly, 1853; several works on the history of poetry.]

The following should also be mentioned as Hegelians: the philosopher of history, Von Cieszkowski, the pedagogical writer, Thaulow (at Kiel, died 1883), the philosopher of religion and of law, A. La.s.son at Berlin, the aesthetic writers Hotho, Friedrich Theodor Vischer[1] (1807-87), and Max Schasler (Critical History of Aesthetics, 1872; Aesthetics, 1886), the historians of philosophy, Schwegler (died 1857; History of Greek Philosophy, 1859, 4th ed., 1886, edited by Karl Kostlin, whose Aesthetics appeared 1869), Eduard Zeller[2] of Berlin (born 1814), and Kuno Fischer (born 1824; 1856-72 professor at Jena, since then at Heidelberg; Logic and Metaphysics, 2d ed., 1865). While Weissenborn (died 1874) is influenced by Schleiermacher also, and Zeller and Fischer strive back toward Kant, Johannes Volkelt[3] in Wurzburg (born 1848), who started from Hegel and advanced through Schopenhauer and Hartmann, has of late years established an independent noetical position and has done good service by his energetic opposition to positivism (Das Denken als Hulfvorstellungs-Thatigkeit und als Aupa.s.sungsvorgang in the Zeitschrift fur Philosophic, vols. xcvi., xcvii., 1889-90).

[Footnote 1: Vischer: Aesthetics, 1846-58; Critical Excursions, 1844 seq.; several Hefte "Altes and Neues". The diary in the second part of the novel Auch Einer develops an original pantheistic view of the world.]

[Footnote 2: Zeller: The Philosophy of the Greeks in its Historical Development, 5 vols., 3d ed., vol. i. 5th ed. (English translation, 1868 seq.); three collections of Addresses and Essays, 1865, 1877, 1884.]

[Footnote 3: Volkelt: The Phantasy in Dreams, 1875; Kant's Theory of Knowledge, 1879; On the Possibility of Metaphysics, inaugural address at Basle, 1884; Experience and Thought, Critical Foundation of the Theory of Knowledge, 1886; Lectures Introductory to the Philosophy of the Present Time (delivered in Frankfort on the Main), 1892.]

The leaders of the Hegelian left require more detailed consideration. In David Friedrich Strauss[1] (1808-74, born and died at Ludwigsburg) the philosophy of religion becomes a historical criticism of the Bible and of dogmatics. The biblical narratives are, in great part, not history (this has been the common error alike of the super-naturalistic and of the rationalistic interpreters), but myths, that is, suprasensible facts presented in the form of history and in symbolic language. It is evident from the contradictions in the narratives and the impossibility of miracles that we are not here concerned with actual events. The myths possess (speculative, absolute) truth, but no (historical) reality. They are unintentional creations of the popular imagination; the spirit of the community speaks in the authors of the Gospels, using the historical factor (the life-history of Jesus) with mythical embellishments as an invest.i.ture for a supra-historical, eternal truth (the speculative Idea of incarnation). The G.o.d become man, in which the infinite and the finite, the divine nature and the human, are united, is the human race. The Idea of incarnation manifests itself in a mult.i.tude of examples which supplement one another, instead of pouring forth its whole fullness in a single one. The (real) Idea of the race is to be subst.i.tuted for a single individual as the subject of the predicates (resurrection, ascension, etc.) which the Church ascribes to Christ. The Son of G.o.d is Humanity.

[Footnote 1: Strauss: The Life of Jesus, 1835-36, 4th ed., 1840 [English translation by George Eliot, 2d. ed., 1893]; the same "for the German People," 1864 [English translation, 1865]; Christian Dogmatics, 1840-41; Voltaire, 1870; Collected Writings, 12 vols., edited by Zeller, 1876-78. On Strauss cf. Zeller, 1874 [English, 1874], and Hausrath, 1876-78.]

In his second princ.i.p.al work Strauss criticises the dogmas of Christianity as sharply as he had criticised the Gospel narrative in the first one. The historical development of these has of itself effected their destruction: the history of dogma is the objective criticism of dogma. Christianity and philosophy, theism and pantheism, dualism and immanence, are irreconcilable opposites. To be able to know we must cease to believe. Dogma is the product of the unphilosophical, uncultured consciousness; belief in revelation, only for those who have not yet risen to reason. In the transformation of religious representations into philosophical Ideas nothing specifically representative is left; the form of representation must be actually overcome. The Christian contraposition of the present world and that which is beyond is explained by the fact that the sensuo-rational spirit of man, so long as it does not philosophically know itself as the unity of the infinite and the finite, but only feels itself as finite, sensuo-empirical consciousness, projects the infinite, which it has in itself, as though this were something foreign, looks on it as something beyond the world. This separation of faith is entirely unphilosophical; it is the mission of the philosopher to reduce all that is beyond the world to the present. Thus for him immortality is not something to come, but the spirit's own power to rise above the finite to the Idea. And like future existence, so the transcendent G.o.d also disappears. The absolute is the universal unity of the world, which posits and sublates the individual as its modes. G.o.d is the being in all existence, the life in all that lives, the thought in all that think: he does not stand as an individual person beside and above other persons, but is the infinite which personifies itself and attains to consciousness in human spirits, and this from eternity; before there was a humanity of earth there were spirits on other stars, in whom G.o.d reflected himself.